It all feels like a charade sometimes, doesn’t it?

The pretending we do collectively about how we are fine and things are fine and yep yep, work’s going great, you know, things have been a bit stressful with the kids and house projects and Jesus Christ inflation is killing me, we got the bug that’s been going around but thankfully it only lasted for a couple of days, and oh yeah the family’s doing good, yep yep just chugging along.

I never ever want to chug along ever again.

The other day my therapist asked me what activities or practices I could implement each day to ease some of my stress.

Before I could answer, I burst into tears.

“Tell me what you’re thinking and feeling”, she said.

So much overwhelm and resistance.

I am no stranger to practices you could lump under self-care.
I have been a fiercely dedicated practitioner for nearly two decades.

Meditation? Check. Yoga? Check. Breath-work? Mantra? Kundalini? Check. Check. Check. Running, cycling, weights, cold plunges, detoxes, fasting, saunas, baths, green juices, fiber supplements…check, yep, all those.

I know what to fucking do. But I don’t want to do it.

“Why?”

Because I still find myself wrestling with an internal monologue that mimics the stories I have been told my entire life about hard work, laziness, responsibility, and worth.

Because in our economically dogmatic society, doing less equates to being less.

Because it feels like somehow, in the midst of unparalleled political instability, climate catastrophes, and global human suffering…collective denial is on the rise and I don’t have a yoga posture to help with that.

And mostly, because the world feels so fucked up right now that slowing down or focusing on myself seems selfish and shitty and wrong (even though I know it’s not)

“Everyone who is paying attention and has half a heart is having a hard time right now,” she replied.

I’m sure that’s probably true.

For a while now it’s felt like tension has been the only thing holding me together. I’ve been jokingly telling people that my muscle definition is actually just from constantly clenching my body.

HAHA! What a funny silly little world filled with stress and greed and agony! Isn’t that so funny! Wait, why aren’t you laughing?

Ok fine, it’s not funny. But if we aren’t laughing then what are we doing?

That’s really what I’ve been trying to get to the bottom of: how do I not fall into a deep pit of despair given our current world? A world that looks a lot different than we had all hoped it would just five years ago.

While we were baking sourdough and vision-boarding our future communes, businesses were modifying systems to adapt to a future with a limited human workforce. Instead of emerging from our post-Covid bubbles to the more intentional, balanced, and slower pace of life we had imagined, we were aggressively thrust back into a somehow-more-frenetic atmosphere, marked by unprecedented corporate greed. And just like that, a new era of capitalism began.

Capitalism is and has always been defined by continual growth, wealth accumulation and resource commodification. The few with the most are reliant on both labor and finite resources in order to build, maintain, operate and grow. OUR ENTIRE WORLD orients around a system whose very framework degrades the value of human lives and ceaselessly extracts from a planet we all depend on to survive.

But you can’t have unchecked, continual growth on a finite planet. Nature will always course correct in order to maintain homeostasis.

The wide-spread diseases, global conflicts, and climate disasters that are becoming more frequent are the inheritance from our toxic lineage: Domination. Corruption. Greed. Colonialism. Capitalism. Patriarchy.

We have mistakenly seen the boundaries and limitations of nature as obstacles to overcome and conditions to control, instead of what they truly are: a framework for how to sustainably and peacefully coexist.

The systems we create will never free us because freedom cannot be manufactured. We are born free but then sold a lie about where that freedom comes from. Our time, our labor, our resources, our privacy, our attention, our thoughts, our desires…all anesthetized and controlled via rules and expectations and social norms and corporal punishment and manipulation.

We are all victims to the same oppressive forces, indoctrinated to exalt our institutions and to believe that proximity to wealth and privilege can protect us (it cannot).

We are unhappy, tired, stressed out, and overwhelmed. We keep trying to feel better but nothing is working; like there’s a missing piece to the puzzle, some hidden key that unlocks the shackles of our misery, something we do or not do that keeps us stuck.

But maybe this chronic dissatisfaction is not because we don’t have the right mindset or motivation or tools in place. Maybe it’s not because we don’t have the right answer.

Maybe it’s because we are not asking the right questions. 

And maybe, instead of continuing to do more and repeat tired narratives, we can get curious instead…

“How is this system designed to prevent me from living the life that I want? How can I reclaim my freedom in the midst of this broken system? How can I eradicate the disempowering lies about money and success and work that have been sold to me as truths? How can my life be a living testament to my values instead? How can my relationship to myself and my community become an act of radical love and defiance? How can I strengthen my nervous system so that I do not get hooked by the 24-hour trauma porn playing out in the news? How can I contribute my time, energy & resources to help free others as well?”

When the overwhelm and existential dread come knocking…I think this is a good place to start.