Satisfaction and Joy? Yes, Even Now.
I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling a need to brainwash myself with hope and wisdom right now.
Between the rainy weather, darker days, and our charged sociopolitical landscape, I feel like I’ve been struck by a giant wave of grief and terror. Slammed facedown onto the shore. Disoriented and confused, I wipe the sand from my eyes, searching for the horizon. Reaching out for a strong hand to hold. Listening for a comforting voice.
This week, I found the hope and wisdom I needed in adrienne maree brown speaking on the podcast On Being. The entire episode is worth a deep listen, but one section stood out to me:
Photograph of adrienne maree brown by Anjali Pinto
Toni Cade Bambara said we have to make the ‘revolution irresistible’…we are trying to create a future in which we can actually survive.
And we want to make it feel good, smell good, taste good; we want to make sure that everyone feels like they could belong in it; we want to make everyone feel like their needs could be met in there.
And we know that we can’t get there through punishment.
…There’s a pleasure from being present, truly present, where you’re like, I’m with the people I want to be with. I’m doing what I want to do. It only comes from being really present.
And capitalism has us socialized to think we constantly have to be looking elsewhere for it, so we’re running around, not satisfied, not satisfiable, no sense of what that would be like.
And in our justice movements, that’s not a good look, because if we have no idea what it feels like to be satisfied, we won’t know when we win.
So I’m always like, we need to be satisfiable. We need to know what that feels like. And one of the fastest ways to know what that feels like is to be satisfied in the body.
After listening to adrienne maree brown, I realize I’m doing life differently than I was eight years ago, when I followed every news blast and every outrage, joined every local protest (often with my baby son in tow), and kept myself in a state of urgency and overwhelm because I thought it was a prerequisite for showing how much I cared.
A near-constant state of hyperarousal in my nervous system eventually led to chronic and severe health issues that lasted for years and forced me to completely disengage from all the social and political action I held dear.
Now, I follow the news cycle very loosely, and sometimes not at all. I learn what I need to learn, preferably from another human rather than a screen. I am focused on my immediate community and the pleasure and meaning I find in making connections with the people around me.
I’m exploring what it feels like to be satisfied in my body, especially when the contagion of outrage and fear is all around us.
Currently, that looks like getting outside as soon as the sun makes the briefest appearance on these dark days. It looks like dancing to Afrobeat music and learning new choreography in the mornings. Dancing to Jon Batiste while cooking. Taking many, many baths. And watching a lot of Queer Eye.
Image of Jon Batiste by Metalocus Music Project
These things have called to me because I have slowed down enough to notice the calling. I practice slowing down every day, sometimes just in my movements, sometimes through a somatic check-in, and sometimes through a deliberate rest practice.
I have discovered the truth of adrienne maree brown’s observation that if we don’t give ourselves time and space to know what it feels like to be satisfied, to be at ease or to feel joy, we don’t even realize when we’re missing it.
We keep chasing and looking for something outside of ourselves to fix us or make us feel different or distracted.
The takeaway, in these times of crisis and change, is that we don’t have to wait for the world to be different, for conflict to end, in order to find satisfaction.
We can’t wait. We owe it to ourselves and others to find it whenever we can, no matter what is happening out there.
Insisting on our right to satisfaction and joy, especially when the world feels chaotic, is what makes the fight worth it. If we can’t remember what it’s like to feel satisfied or joyful, why fight at all?
If you are wanting to stop looking elsewhere, to stop running around, and to explore what it might feel like to be present, to be satisfied, to even be joyful, I invite you to join me for my next few rest sessions.
Community Rest Session at Leaven
Wednesday, Nov. 20 from 7:00-8:30 pm
Last session of Autumn series (may resume in December)
Sunday, Nov. 24 from 6:30-8:00 pm
Sunday, Dec. 1 from 6:30-8:00 pm
As always, please contact me with any questions, suggestions, or ideas.
I hope to connect with you soon!
When we rest together, we heal and we thrive,
Stacy