I’ve been meditating for 29 years. I remember reading that about people and thinking wow! What would that be like? I was sure that after meditating so long, people would be peaceful all the time. It turns out that’s mostly true! Meditation changes our mind.

“I have come to believe that behind the entire epidemic of chronic afflictions, mental and physical, that beset our current moment, something is amiss in our culture itself, generating both the rash of ailments we are suffering and crucially, the ideological blind spots that keep us ignorant of the connections that bind our health to our social-emotional lives. Chronic illness is not a glitch, it is a consequence of how we live.” Gabor Maté, MD

If we want a just world, we have to fight for it. We are not personally responsible for systemic racism, colonialism, the patriarchy, and oppression. No one person is responsible for this system. We are each responsible for understanding, grappling with the complexity, and taking action now. Seeing and speaking truth in community changes us. When we do, it changes the world.

I was raised to be racist. I was eleven and had just purchased We Shall Overcome, a songbook from the US Civil Rights movement. I brought it with me on a visit to my mom’s parents farm. I vaguely remember her discouraging me from bringing it. It would have been better if she had outright told me no, but then she would have had to tell me why.

“We step up and face the situation (clean pain), or we fold and shrink away. We either grow up or flee. We make an internal commitment to growing up.” Resmaa Menakem, My Grandmother’s Hands.

When people are in fight/ flight/ freeze, they don’t have reliable access to higher level brain development. Driven by competition, fear and survival, it’s “us against them”. We can know these are trauma responses, yet still have a hard time staying connected and not shutting down. We need clarity and to be strategic.

My meditation skills and yoga philosophy help to heal the layers of fear in the mind, breath and body. Fear for my safety became a huge issue for me the year after the assault and it was not just fear of another assault.

Don’t rush into forgiveness. It is natural to be angry at people who commit violent crimes. They have harmed you and temporarily stolen your health and peace of mind.

Some days people in the office act like we are in Junior High or Middle School. You know, back when the pre-frontal cortex wasn’t fully developed and our decision making was highly influenced by peers, the threat of social shaming, and what could stimulate the most adrenaline in the moment. It happens in families too. We carry our old roles and status into our adult life.

In April 2022, I facilitated a 5 day retreat for women and gender queer artists about sexual health and their relationship with their bodies. Although I have facilitated many retreats, it was my first time in a documentary. The director Amy Trefry and I strategized about how we might support the participants feeling emotionally safe enough to share while being filmed about such a personal topic. It turned out that we didn’t need to worry.

This part, that part. What parts am I afraid of or excited for? Myself at 3, 12, 18 and now. My body, health, and life circumstances. Thoughts about my body, health, and life circumstances. Feelings and sensations in my body when I think about it all. Whew! It’s complicated.

How can I not take it personally when it’s directed at me? People are making assumptions and judging me, often without actually knowing me. There are real life consequences for being judged. The fat person judged as lazy misses out on a job. The charmer gets upgraded to first class. It happens all the time.

Sometimes we feel left out. We’re shy, or the conversation moves on, or we’re with someone charismatic and fascinating and everyone wants to listen to them.

Kindness towards ourselves, and a willingness for reflection and letting in truth, help us make friends with our own mind. What makes being kind with ourselves difficult?

Perfectionism informs our ideas of how we should be. Pushing and shaming ourselves makes positive change harder. It is a relief to become aware of “shoulds” and release the pressure of impossible standards.

It is a generic kind of love if we don’t know the person. It doesn’t feel as personal to us when they don’t really know who we are.

I wonder if our unconscious mind interprets disconnection from ourselves (which we now know is due to trauma) as a lack of interest. We turn away from deeply knowing ourselves. We’re not consistently on our own side. We abandon ourselves. It feels very much like a lack of love!

What would you change if you were in charge of the world?

I would give everyone safe housing, food, and a well-regulated nervous system so we wouldn’t be ruled by our primitive brain and fight/ flight/ freeze survival strategies

Systemic oppression would disappear along with greed, objectification and exploitation

It is safe to get to know yourself and welcome your whole being into awareness. Hmm. Is this true in your experience? It can be!

We learn about trauma and what gets in the way of being on our own side. We explore gently caring for and nurturing ourselves. We’re healing the disconnection that comes from past hurt, and we’re discovering that in fact we can inquire into and welcome all of the sensations and energy in our body.

Our rights to freedom in our bodies are under attack. What do we do with our anger and outrage at continued injustice?

First we look at what all of these have in common: Roe v Wade, racism, gender pay inequality, the patriarchal rape culture, colonialism and Indigenous rights, environment crisis, and the unprecedented attacks on the rights and freedom of trans people.

“When a structure is broken, we are fools if we simply ignore the defect in favor of pretending that our democracy isn’t cracking at the seams. Our obligation is to understand where the problem is, find a solution, and make the broken whole again.”

Stacey Abrams, Our Time Is Now: Power, Purpose, and the Fight for a Fair America

Everyone these days knows about “the gays”. When I was a kid growing up in a small prairie town in western Canada, I had no idea. I didn’t know that a male friend who curled his hair and wore makeup was gay. I didn’t know what to make of the interest I had in kissing a girlfriend. Although there are limits to labels and real damage done by contempt and shaming, visibility at least lets us know about possibilities.

Something interesting happens when we work with arrested self protection. It doesn’t happen with everyone, but it can with those of us who felt unable to speak out and protect ourselves. We make excuses like “other kids had it worse”, “my parents couldn’t help it”, or we fall into core deficiency beliefs of feeling that it happened because we were bad. Children rely on their parents for protection and connection and for whatever reason, it didn’t happen. We work with arrested self protection from this starting place.