Staying centered for me is greatly helped by a trifecta of things that combat the anxiety of caring. The tension that can sometimes creep up on me when I want to see changes sooner than they want to come. When people or situations aren’t changing soon enough I feel the tension. Especially if I believe what needs to change is causing pain, harm or the perpetuation of injustice.

PHYSICAL:SPIRITUAL:SOCIAL

PHYSICAL: I find that putting my body through a morning routine gives me the best chance at sustaining my mental energy, clarity, peace and probably a cocktail of calming hormones to boot. Meditation, exercise, cold plunge, vitamins and coffee. If this drops off during a time of stress, then other things begin to de-optimize as well. The world suddenly becomes a more difficult place to maintain optimism in.

SOCIAL: You know those activist friends who just ‘get’ you? It is indescribably life-giving for me to connect with these precious ones over the issue that is troubling me. They ‘get’ me or at least they hear me out with a deep listen and offer of support. And this makes a noticeable difference to my nervous system right away. We do this for each other and over time it becomes like a safety net of support. We hold each other up.

SPIRITUAL: For me, this intellectual-spiritual part is huge. It begins more heady than feely. But it deeply effects the feely parts. Thinking on these larger issues like “Who am I? Why am I here? And why now? What is the world for? Who, what and where is God/Source/Spirit in all this?” matters. Really contemplating these and allowing myself to come to new conclusions over time helps me reconnect with myself and feel connected to the Divine as well. 

When I remember what I believe about who I am and why I came here this helps me stay centered. When I think of how much I’ve changed, this gives me hope that we live in an ever-changing and ever-evolving world where others can change too. In fact, we can’t not change, eventually. 

I’ll briefly summarize what has been calming to me recently. It begins with considering that perhaps before I was born here in this lifetime I was some form of soul-energy with God in God’s place or dimension of heavenly life forces. And at some point we decided that I would come to this place at this time for a purpose that would unfold as my life. The key is that I came not only for the easy parts, but for the whole range of feelings within this experience. 

In short, I have felt both better within the tension and more confidently propelled to act as I have accepted that in this world I will have, see and experience troubles. That trouble and tension are inevitably part of it. And it doesn’t even need to mean I have done something wrong. It just is. Yet I live here in physical form as a learner knowing that I came to experience both joy and pain, both flow and tension. So also, I bear witness to both justice and injustice. It is all here and I came to interact with all of it. Where I choose to focus my energy this time around is my choice. And I will feel better if I focus it on my Main Purpose. Recalibrating to this makes me feel calmed almost immediately. Then I trust that opportunities will come for me to do the next right inspired action toward positive change. 

I also come humbly acknowledging that it is possible that there may have been another time here where I was the oppressor, not yet ready to work on behalf of the oppressed. Considering this likelihood shakes me out of my smug slumber like a cold plunge and helps me seek to understand those around me with both humility and empathy. It does not mean that I excuse injustice. No, it gives me pause enough to be curious about what is going on in ‘the other’ to try and understand it. In understanding, I feel more empowered to help promote shalom more effectively in the situation.  

In my considering my choicefulness in coming here at this time, I have hope. I hope because I have a sense of power over who I become and the spirit in which I choose to live here. I believe that the world does not have to be perfect for me to be able to achieve peace within it. And I try to remember that I am a more effective leader as one centered and in peace. Though I cannot always maintain a peaceful escape from the tensions, I can lean on my practices and trust that rebalance will happen. So I hope as I move forward and rediscover my purpose and my place at this time. It helps me to feel both small in light of time and big in this place at this time. Both ok with being insignificant and yet significantly empowered within to do what is right now.   

My hope returns when I get enough energy going to determine not to give my power away to overwhelm or any condition. I get centered again and feel hope in the knowing of peace unconditionally now. In imagining what I can do about it all now, beginning in me. Of knowing that I can effect changes both within and around me now that will continue to unfold in good ways, laying tracks of positivity into my future.

As our brother Bayo Akomolafe shared: we are more bacteria than we are human. We have more bacterial cells than human cells. We are emergent and interconnected.

Science is suggesting what Indigenous peoples, witches and medicine men and women have known for centuries- that Earth is interconnected and alive, not separate but inclusive of us as a human animal species.

The water we drink is Ocean. Loch and River. It is blood and sweat and tears. It is Spirit and Life.

Our outbreath is the inbreath of trees and Forest.

In a less romantic but no less real or true sense, the toxins we put into our soil, air and water re-enter our own systems. The plastics we wear and use everyday are all part of and (try to) return to Earth.

And at the same time, we have co-constructed and constantly contribute to complex human-centric systems such as capitalism, colonialism and consumerism. We are complicit in our conflict with Earth, at war with ourselves. Even though we may not want to be. What a bind we are in. The myth of individualism allows us to deny this truth by letting us believe we can escape our complicity and wash away our guilt by recycling and buying green energy and planting wild flowers for bees. These are important actions but not if moral righteousness means we move further from more true reconciliation and the revolutionary, truly transformative action we need and deeply long for.

We are clogging our internal Rivers with toxins just as we are trying to clean up our external Rivers with community litter picks. This litter is then burned or buried or shipped overseas. Where it it out of sight and out of mind. In these out of sight out of mind places of our planet we are wounded and hurting. Places of neglect and abuse and exploitation. Where our human and more-than-human Brothers and Sisters are wounded and dying. Just as within our bodies, we are cutting off the parts of ourselves which are crying out for attention.

Reconciliation with Earth begins with me. It begins with my body. With reconnecting to the disassociated parts of myself, mind and this soft mammalian body. For me reconciliation with Earth began with my gut. For years I binged on sugar and salty foods and then compulsively exercised, a form of bulemia and body dysmorphia. My compulsive eating left me bloated and uncomfortable and probably in more pain than I was able to feel at the time. Somehow the human body can compartmentalise and numb on order to cope and survive. Incredible and necessary coping and survival mechanisms. Just as the human collective can turn its back on humans who are part of our collective human body. Just as part of Earth we disown and destroy ourselves. I am learning to reconnect with parts of my body and mind I was previously ashamed of. Parts that were painful or uncomfortable.

Through self-massage, herbal medicine, meditation and a mysterious more-than-human magic I am spiralling towards healing. And I have to hope and have faith that our human family are spiralling towards healing, health and wholeness as well.

Reconciliation to me means Solidarity. Solidarity to me means that those of us who are able to turn away from our collective pain turn back towards and face it, feel it, witness it and transform it if we can. And even when we can’t, which let’s face it is most of the time, we are still willing to witness our wounds and tend to them, be with those thorns we play a part in perpetuating.

I pray that we will walk together the path of peace and reconciliation, praying for a destination but experiencing the pain, discomforts and joys of the journey.

Image credit: River Don in Sheffield after floods in 2018, source Daily Mail https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5796715/amp/River-clogged-foul-smelling-sludge-rubbish-finally-cleared.html