Love Note #5: When Things Upset Us...
Hello Beloveds,
This week I want to talk about when things are upsetting, activating
The nomination hearing for Ketanji Jackson Brown and the “slap” at the Oscars have both affected me in different ways.
As a Practitioner of myself, I know that anytime I feel in reactivity, there is something, often profound to uncover in my emotions or reactivity.
The Judge Brown hearing brought to the surface all the times I’ve felt like her:
Put on the spot
Highlighted
More great photos here:
Striking that balance between professional and being a human as people challenge my integrity because of their issues.
Inside of her nomination hearing, I felt my own wound of visibility.
In the “slap situation” – one of the things I was most activated by was something I read about Jada and how not only is she the one with the medical condition that she is working with in her life, she was the butt of a joke on a global stage and now also has to deal with repercussions of what happened.
Inside of this situation, I touched my own wound of feeling teased for my looks and pushing aside my experience for a more pressing need and experience of another.
I’m not saying that either Judge Brown or Jada Pinkett-Smith are feeling what I am feeling.
Instead, I’m suggesting that inside my thoughts and feelings about this situation or any situation that disturbs my peace – I find a wounding, my wounding, something that has caused me pain.
There’s an impulse to want to express that upset – we saw a lot of opinions. Or to rise above, move away from or by-pass the pain of a wounding - avoidance.
But I prefer the way Bayo Akomolafe talks about it…he says –
“Within the wound is where we make sanctuary.”
I create Sanctuary for the places inside me that are unhealed.
I don’t take that to mean that we set up permanent residence there, what some describe as being the ‘victim.’ I see it as the place where the alchemy of healing can occur.
If I can stay with myself and the places that hurt inside me, I can tend to them with love and attention.
We can do the work of un-learning and re-parenting, forgiveness, amends, bodywork, letting go, setting boundaries, being in community, therapy or reconciliation – whatever is needed.
We can then transmute what hurts and release the stored energy and let it form into something creative, unexpected in our lives.
I don’t mean to suggest this is a simple, I do mean to suggest that its possible.
THIS WEEK’S INVITATION: Observe Yourself
I wonder if there is something that is disturbing your peace today or this week.
This week, my invitation is to be in loving awareness of yourself. To notice, what disturbs your peace and lightly ask yourself…”what about this is within me is upset about this?”
The “within me” keeps the inquiry from blaming the situation or another. It also is a reserve of one of the deepest places of personal power – personal responsibility.
This week on my social media channels, I’ll share some ways I work with things that are bring loving awareness to the things that disturb me.
Let’s create sanctuary together.
Love heals us,
Angela
#seekvisibility