What happens when you lose sight of whose and whom you are…

When I begin to lose grip on the reality of my Self, when I feel disconnected in my mind/body/spirit, when I start to forget my relationship and interconnectedness with others/other beings/earth and sky, and when I lose sight of my purpose and place in the universe; what has happened in me throughout my life is I typically slide into depression, which at times has meant episodes of pretty major depression. I don’t love the word depression, kinda makes sense to me and kinda doesn’t. I have heard it described before though as a trance, which hits better for me. It has often been a trance of unworthiness, a trance of fear, of self-doubt and self-loathing, of negative thoughts and emotions, a trance of impossibility, immobility and of hopelessness. And as a result of living in this trance, I become inactive and dead to the things I want to be about in this life and the things I’m trying to pursue, which often perpetuates and keeps me in the darkness. And then I would usually try to soothe the pain and grief of being in this trance through addiction which also perpetuated the cycle and never helped either…go figure.

What are the guardrails that keep you centered…

Just so no ones worried about me, I have come to find healthy ways of navigating the darkness and kicked the alcohol/weed/nicotine and committed myself to sober living (still working on the more socially accepted addictions like over-consumption, sugar, screens, etc.). But I would say an important “guardrail” and realization for me (one that’s more applicable to the conversations I think we’re engaging in this group) has been a recognition that my fucked up mental and emotional health, I believe, is directly connected to being born and raised in this fucked up white supremacist, capitalist American empire. That might be a controversial take for some but for me it has been an important realization and in a weird way has allowed me to be more centered and hopeful. Let me break it down… for most of my younger years I didn’t believe or accept that I was dealing with any mental health issues. I didn’t think I had any major adverse experiences in my life and I was raised in a great, comfortable, loving home so being depressed didn’t make sense. Later on, I heard a lot about chemical imbalances and depression being something that’s mostly genetic, which may have provided some understanding but made it feel like you’re  stuck with a disease. And when I did finally become aware of the history of western civilization/colonization and the current un-human structures and hierarchy’s of this society, dealing with depression again didn’t make any sense to me as one who has fully benefited from these structures and sits nearest to the top of this societal hierarchy. I am a white straight male grew up comfortably middle class and quite honestly never experienced any major hardships in life I can think of (outside of getting depressed)…what the fuck ya sad for? It wasn’t until fairly recently that I began to recognize and accept the paradox, even though it was something I’d heard and come into contact with for some time. One of my favorite MC’s, Brother Ali, has some profound words that point to this paradox that I’m speaking on…one bar goes “try and separate a man from his soul, you only strengthen him and lose your own.” This paradox I’m talking about is that all though being born a white male in this society has brought me to the near peak of this social hierarchy and has given me mad privilege and authority, it also means that as a white male I am part of a lineage of human beings who forgot what it means to be a human being centuries ago. Being born a white male in America, and specifically in Minnesota – the land o lakes, people pleasing and passive aggressivism – also means that I’m probably among the most emotionally, psycho-soma-tically repressed and underdeveloped beings on the planet. I understand it may seem like I’m taking some broad brush strokes here and it may sound somewhat dramatic, but I’ve truly come to believe that we don’t have a mental health crisis in this society, I think we have a society crisis with our mental health. Individualism, materialism, aggressive competition, poverty, racism, sexism, massive social and wealth inequality, violence, disconnection from nature, destruction of species, plant life and the planet, attachment wounds/disorders, the list goes on. All of these things have been norms throughout the history of the west and continue to be norms in todays empire…but none of these things in my mind are fucking normal. Yet many of us, myself included, participate (and also benefit) in this society and feel disillusioned and overwhelmed in what we can do about it. So maybe getting stuck in a trance sometimes does make sense at times. And I guess what has helped keep me centered in all this is recognizing and remembering that none of this is normal, none of its human, but knowing this also means that change and healing is possible, necessary even. That there is a trail back to what it means to be human. I think it’s a narrow and costly path, but one that leads to wholeness and sanity. And I posses the intelligence, creativity, ability and courage to find a way back home in my self and a way back to kinship and connection with all my relations. What keeps me centered and helps me escape the trance is remembering that healing is possible.