How do you relate to your struggles?

 

Is it hard for you to ask for help OR could this a product of individualism? 

Are you dealing with ‘body dysmorphia’ and unable to accept the body you’re in OR has diet culture been so engrained in this society and these messages profit off your hate on your body?

 

Is it just ‘depression’ OR have you been socialized to be and show up in a certain way that isn’t aligned with how you are doing?

 

Is the DEI agenda not working from the organization you're at OR has 'DEI' been taken over by white fragility and there isn't enough safety for you to call it out?

 

Is it that you are dealing with a creative block and perfectionist tendencies with your art OR are you stuck in an oppressive system where your creativity isn’t seen and has been extracted for profit/capitalist gain?

In therapy, I often question with folks the ways we relate and narrate our struggles:

 

where we have learned to take on the ways we carry burdens through guilt, shame, anxiety, fears and grief.

Here's a question for you (pulled from the book, The Pain We Carry: Healing from Complex PTSD for People of Color):

How much of your struggles are from personal burden and what percentage of this weight is coming from collective, cultural or family legacy burden?

The Floating Perspective, popularized by Guo Xi (郭熙), a Chinese painter from the Song dynasty, is the type of perspective commonly seen in historical Chinese art with sceneries where there is not a single view of a subject, but rather several shown at the same time, shifting from near to far vignettes.

I wanted to bring this creative way of relating our what we go through into art as therapy and I have an art prompt for you! This will be in our next blog post, so please stay tuned!

˚ ༘♡ ⋆｡˚

It's my (very Virgo) birthday in a few days and I've been feeling a mixture of not being able to catch up to this heavily socialized age, and amused by how I have been attempting to restore pieces of girlhood.

ੈ✩‧₊˚

When I entered the early years of my 20s, I related to my struggles very differently.

If I were to wear the lens of how I saw the world and myself from then, this would have been playing as a record in my head:

"I am unforgiving towards myself, coping with the fear of losing what is deemed as love and care through people pleasing.

When I struggle, I think that I am the burden. 

I have to get through this all on my own."

It's complicated because at the same time, I also know that my younger selves in my 10s and 20s have been very protective of me in the ways they knew how:
 

I made it a mission to save up financially in order to free myself from complex family dynamics (still navigating this). 

I always played the big, tough role as the eldest daughter taking care of my younger sibling.

I would always ask myself, “what else can I do” to help my loved ones, because I cared. So much.

I am so proud of how far I've come because today:

I'm in the era of doing one thing that ‘scares my family' (aka oppressive systems, culture, the authorities) everyday.

I'm in my sensitive, expansive and ‘not carrying the pain around with me’ era.

˚୨୧⋆｡˚ ⋆

I am coming out from a very individualist life and unlearning the harm from being socialized by oppressive systems under the guises of love and care. 

The wisdom of forgiving myself of shameful narratives I used to carry as my own burdens 

+ 

being in relation to my struggles in a compassionate, liberatory way have saved me and…

I found sanctuary through my community's witnessing of how far I've come. 

And I wish the same for you folks too.

Sending you Virgo energy + softness + forgiveness + love,

Linda

Since reading ‘Rest is Resistence’ by Tricia Hersey in the wintertime, this era has been an opening for new portals for Rest.

 I've been feeling the Abundance!

I’ve been unlearning that treading on the hamster wheel is not how I can continue keeping up, but a response I feel from internalized individualist, capitalist and patriarchal messages I’ve been taught all my life.

And when I compulsively convince myself that I can’t ask for help, that I have to fend for myself to soothe the anxiety around my mental health or business side of things… a big chunk of this burden comes from individualism and historical experiences of scarcity from my family lineage that I have often heard about and witnessed growing up…

When your body has been activated in this state for this long, you may begin to mistaken this as the norm. 

Abundance is pretty new for me, and it's the opposite of capitalism's agenda, so it is supposed to feel ‘different’ and ‘not like myself’.

Being able to recognize that ‘not being able to rest’ has its roots in internalized messages of cultural legacy burdens from racism, capitalism, ableism, materialism, individualism and other -isms has been so helpful.

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

One July night when I felt Abundance, I had to capture the moment. Here is what Abundance felt like that night:

”When Abundance is felt in my body, it’s the most satisfying, fulfilling sensation ever. Like the best nap I’ve ever taken. Or watching the prettiest sunset beaming through a landscape.

I feel myself put value and pride in the work I do, even when the workload seems invisible.

Abundance is noticing the space, expansion and openness to receive, being myself, not taking myself so seriously. 

Tempering my body to live a bit more courageously and authentically everyday.

I’m writing down these words immediately because I am still welcoming in Abundance from a culture struggling with scarcity.

I want to learn to embody Abundance.

I want to be Abundance.”

Here is the story of Ubuntu (credits to Abby who introduced this in our monthly peer group).

That’s what culture/community in Abundance can be like. 

And it exists already!

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

I appreciate each and every one of you who resonates with some of these experiences: having complex feelings around slowing down, trying hard to unlearn and smashing the encoded messages around scarcity, capitalism and all the other -isms.

Investing in Relational Justice for our sacred bodies and minds. 
Collective Abundance and Rest is what will sustain us and help us survive this climate.

Many of us struggle with adult friendships and relationships where we feel depleted when our needs are not met,

grieving when our friendships aren't balanced,

when the energy out isn't being reciprocated.

🌐 True needs challenge the status quo: of assigned conditional rules and requirements for so called “love and care”

Sometimes “love and care” may be disguised as a series of conditions. We may have been taught to meet other's needs first before we get to pursue what we want. Over time, the more we perceive the needs of others, the more we struggle with people pleasing behaviours. Needs will be perceived as a zone for emotional burnout, and uber confusing. ‘Needs’ from conditions are not rooted from a place of love, respect, solidarity and reciprocity.
 

🌀 People pleasing is giving "I don’t know how to meet my needs”

People pleasing tends to lead us to become disingenuous with ourselves and with others around us. It takes us away from the present moment by predicting what others’ needs are before we know what ours are.

🍄 Needs contain multitudes. They come from a radical, unfixed and abstract space. 
 

We have the right to feel, to transform, to express a range of self to meet mutual understanding of these needs.

🪴 Our needs are true expressions of our identity.

I notice my body slowly ease up whenever I nurture and actively find ways to meet my own needs.

🤚🏼 Refusal for ‘uncomfortable performances’

I hope you will practice taking a few moments every time you are about to reply to a friend to figure out what your needs are with this friendship!

Is it love, appreciation, respect, autonomy, nurturance community, intimacy, safety, security, commitment, consistency, mutual understanding, connection…?

💗 We need culture and companionship that truly loves us.

Just as much we train to predict, foresee, and have gotten really good reading into what other's needs are…

⏰ When you find out what your needs are, what are the things you will have room for?

By working on bracketing out assumptions and decentering how you will be perceived, you get to make space for authenticity, rooted in humanizing responses towards yourself and can then be reflected back to your relationships.

🌳 Needs are not individualized and all needs are equally important! 
 

Our needs are not in the shape of a triangle/hierarchy.

Did you know Maslow, the person who ‘coined’ the hierarchy of needs took Blackfoot first nation’s knowledge and teachings when he spent 6 weeks there in 1938, and shaped human needs to reflect that of white supremacist culture (into a triangle) where needs are individualized.
 

🧭 If we haven’t even began to decolonize our human needs, no wonder it would be difficult to understand and ‘actualize’ what our needs are! 

It makes sense why so many of us are looking desperately for spaces where we feel a sense of community and belonging. And we end up blaming ourselves and the city for being the problem. We haven’t found ways to take care of each other to reach reciprocity yet.

🪨 Staying in care of our needs fuels our demands of a better world. And helps us reclaim the rest/ease our bodies need to thrive in.

There is no need to rush or get to perfection. Unlearning needs is going to be a lifelong process. There will always be time, to reimagine the relationship with needs to reach self-actualization (in my own words, to understand oneself).

🛟 This practice is expansive and life-saving ♡ 

So please keep coming back to your human needs!