Photo by Joey Huang on Unsplash
Moment of Mind
What do you do when you’re in a storm? You get wet.
You feel the rain (or wind, or sleet, or snow, or heat)
You look for shelter and supports.
These past few months have been a particularly emotionally stormy time over here. Some of you may have noticed that the weekly emails…weren’t. Thank you for your patience.
As the news brings seemingly increasingly dire headlines about mass shootings, loss of rights, wars, climate disasters bookended with unexpected upswing events such as rights maintained, deep space galaxy pics, companies giving money directly to people who are houseless, new music shared, connecting with friends, and even the simplicity of shared awe on a forest bathing walk…
I haven’t known what to say. So there was a lot more quiet.
A lot more feeling into the sensations toggled with resisting the experiences…. and then having them again. Including appreciation, presence, joy and laughter mixed in with the grief, hurt, anxiety and anger.
Honestly no words could really help a mind when it just wants to run from all of the feelings and wants to KNOW. Because knowing feels like a semblance of control. The mind loves that control illusion. As a researcher I can tell you this system clings to information like a security blanket. While information is useful for decision making, it’s not a source of control. No amount of information erases pain, loss, or can stop change from happening.
Change is what life is.
Perhaps like many of you, I turned to people who share some of their lives on public platforms. Some offered poetry that reminds us of how change has both brutality and love in it; some bring reminders of finding the hidden gold beneath emotions including rage, grief and the challenge of listening to people with different beliefs; and some just reminded me of presence.
Creating the illusion of a controlling self is one way the brain creates a consistent model of the external world. This likely helps the body’s needs get met when we are small and don’t yet have as much skills or capacity built. Since change is constant…it’s part of survival to anticipate reliably where food is, where shelter is, what causes illness, who can be counted on, and how to get this body to move around, etc. It makes sense that the brain would create a self concept as a tool for orienting the body in relation to people and place. The brain, animated by life, moves the body – while it creates the self idea as an overlay. This idea of you does not create the motion. The core you does that, not the representation of you. Motion and self-dom are co-created at the same time via the brain – by life intelligence. Each choice “you” make is shaped by everything that came before – nature and nurture together.
The sticky bit is when the brain links all that un/predictability to the idea of you at the same time it creates beliefs. Each learned belief is intertwined with the self concept (which is also a belief that the self concept is separate from life rather than made of it). You existed, moved, learned, and explored the world before the brain created this concept avatar. The brain works to keep the sense of the identity concept as static as possible so it generates predictions after the fact and narrates “I did that!” or “this is a threat to me” or “they are out to get me” or “I’m failing” – all of these layers reinforce a “me” odea linked with beliefs about you, the world and people. All behavior emerges out of conditioned beliefs by a system animated by life.
And this has set me on my heels when I read the news. Shootings coming from conditioning. Racism, oppression….coming from conditioning. Voting coming from conditioning. Entire institutions built around an idea of control. Webs of beliefs all protecting transitory identities.
What protective defenses are still running in me? I’m watching patterns and seeing them emerge.
One of my favorite organizers creates memes that seem to mirror all the feelings. I particularly loved one where a person was sitting on the beach and kept getting washed over with wave upon wave. They didn’t get up, they just sat there, being tumbled.
So yeah, that’s what’s been happening over here.
When the Buffalo, NY shooting in the grocery store (the only one that community had after a legacy of racist planning policies) was followed shortly by the shooting in Uvalde it felt like I was walking around with an iceberg in my chest.
Then when the news came of the Supreme Court unravelling legal infrastructure on multiple levels…. combined with a personal situation that brought out a trauma response – the body turtled.
The turtling wasn’t permanent. Activity emerged including donations (for example here, pick one here, here, and here), signing a ballot measure for gun safety, putting on rain coat attire (e.g. nervous system supports like therapy), and generally taking care of this system. My coach invited us to do the ‘no brainer’ supports – the absolute fundamentals like drinking water. So I started swimming again and going outside more.
What are your no brainer supports?
And also unturtling included visioning, reimagining – the mind is a genius at creating. Everyone’s brain is creative. It’s the power of thought. From fear projections, to the self-concept identity, to visions of what is possible. All fueled by the living intelligence we are and the conditioning we absorb together.
The mind turned up the question, “how could this become a time of radical shifts, of changes that empower people beyond what any of us have seen before?”. This wasn’t an escape (I realize it could seem that way) – it was more like setting an intention.
I invite you to find your metaphorical raincoat, feel the rain, seek shelter, and whether you’re turtled or starting to move again, notice what comes to mind with that question of what’s possible. As a dear colleague said: mystery, confusion and curiosity.
Sending support and love,
Tia
P.S. I support you if this email is a mismatch from where you are – you can always unsubscribe, it’s okay, I promise.
Love for Your Inner Science Activist Nerd
Instead of a book or science article this week I thought I’d do a mini primer on what I’m understanding about recent Supreme Court trends. Skip it if you’re toasty from too much info.
For outside-the-US readers, the Supreme Court here references the US Constitution (one of the only countries on the planet that rarely revises its governance document despite it being hundreds of years old) to determine if laws from the Executive branch (the President) or the Legislative branches (Congress) violate it. The Supreme Court examines court cases that also affect state laws (each state has its own constitution). It recently decided: that a person with a uterus no longer has the right to privacy (14th amendment) where medical procedures are concerned (e.g. abortion, also contraception, having fertility treatments, or even who you choose to marry), that when you are arrested police can’t be sued if they don’t tell you your miranda rights (right to an attorney, right to not say anything self incriminating, etc – 5th amendment), that government does not have to be separated from religion (1st amendment which is part of the reason the US was established to begin with), that our federal environmental agency can’t use all of its tools to address climate change (major decisions doctrine, EPA authority on pollution), that states can’t enforce some types of gun control (2nd amendment, did you know the US has 4.3% of the world’s population and more than half of the world’s tallied resident-owned guns – this too is conditioning from a history of enslaving people in my opinion)… ..and this new court is not done yet. In other words, the Supreme Court has just pulled the tablecloth out from the US legal dinner table. They believe that what they are doing is right and that the judges who established these precedents for the last 50+ years were wrong. They also want the state governments where they live to limit first amendment rights by preventing people from protesting outside their houses.
What does any of this have to do with mindfulness? It’s a good question. Several people these past two months told me to “use mindfulness” when I shared feeling anxious. I found this startling, amusing, and not surprising. It wasn’t personal, they didn’t doubt my capacity to support this system through anxiety, or my knowledge of mindfulness….they believe that 1) it’s possible to control feelings (which are temporary experiences), 2) that the self identity is the one that does the controlling, 3) “bad” feelings should be avoided, and 4) mindfulness is a tool of control.
Behavior emerges out of whatever is believed at the time. The brain builds beliefs throughout life based on creating associations between getting the body’s needs met (or not) and circumstances (internal and external sensory inputs). Everyone is always doing what makes sense to them based on the beliefs they absorbed. If beliefs don’t change…nothing else does. In my experience, beliefs change through inquiry, particularly in shared group learning, and awareness. Mindfulness is a core foundation to change, because when unconscious patterns emerge in awareness they can shift.
One of my favorite readings recently was about moving beyond the “doomers” because doomerism leads down a path of disengagement. And really, how so much of life is about motion…a form of engagement, even when there’s turtling happening.
Stay engaged folks, the doomers don’t know either!
Get Your Park Groove On
I had the opportunity to do a litter pick up party with Parkour Visions recently in Peninsula Park and was in awe at the ongoing native habitats they’ve been working on. So many happy pollinators!
This is a more “play and smell the flowers” park rather than the typical hike in the woods style I share here. There’s an outdoor pool, tennis and basketball courts, a splashpad, a playground, soccer and softball fields, a rose garden, and many trees to name a few. People get married here. There’s ample neighborhood parking, and a community center. Most of it is flat with ADA accessible paths.
Upcoming Events & New Offers
The fall October Forest as Nourishment workshop is open and accepting registrations!
There’s a discount of $50 off going through the end of September.
If you have been wanting to slow down, explore integrating mindfulness into your outdoor time, and share your nature connection experiences with others, this may be the workshop for you.
This takes place over 3 Sundays in a row. In the first one we’ll go on a forest bathing walk together, then practice learning and co-creating sensory invitations on our second walk. We’ll plan how the group wants to contribute to collective guided walk for the third Sunday. After our shared process we’ll reflect together. I’ll keep sharing about the workshop in future newsletters.
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