In early January, we sat around the executive board meeting of our school’s Parents Association, reflecting on our experiences of winter break and holidays. We noted how many of us were exhausted from participating in the typical frenzy of making merry and making things beautiful for everyone else – our kids, our parents, our community. We struggled to get up the gumption to start planning for spring events; to feel refreshed and excited for a new year. Then one voice spoke of a different experience, one of peace and joy and presence. The difference? They stayed home. They opted out of the chaos that has become a majority culture norm.

 

Flash forward to mid-February and I sit here, editing a blog post I created pre-inaugeration, noticing that the details of the holidays feel distant but the lessons I was learning are needed now, more than ever.

 

I watch our Republic, and it’s checks and balances, being tested and provoked. I see the chaos and confusion created by the rapid dismantling of political structures. I recognize this tactic of distraction. I acknowledge the entertaining quality of Trump’s presidency – the drama! the intrigue! I hear the side effects of media consumption in sessions with my clients. I recognize the common theme of struggling to balance.  

 

Struggling to balance mental health and political engagement. 

Struggling to balance individual responsibilities and social justice. 

Struggling to balance parenting and personal needs. 

Struggling to balance needs of self and needs of other.

 

Oddly enough, the wisdom gained from an exploration of personal fatigue that predated our political transition is exactly the wisdom I turn to in this moment.

I am working to practice the skills I guide clients through every day so, here’s what I’ve got:

1. I’m learning through intentional selection of content
2. I’m listening to my body as it begs to slow down
3. I’m loosening my expectations of myself

 

The first part is getting unstuck. I do this through acknowledging the story I’m telling myself – the story about the limits of my influence or power; the story about my responsibility; the story about my education (or lack thereof!). I’m noticing that what derails me most is my reactions and recognizing that the easiest way to initiate change is to change how I respond. If the overwhelm is keeping me from initiating action that is aligned with my values and objectives then understanding the overwhelm, and soothing it, is where I must start.

 

As Esther Perel counsels her guest in responding to her mother, with whom she has a difficult relationship, on the podcast “Where Should We Begin”, “not tight and clenched and ready to fight in order to protect yourself to prevent her from entering when she’s seeping through; the purpose of this answer is the boundary, the buffer, the envelope around you”

 

I think about this – the idea of my response being an envelope around me – and it resonates a lot. I’m looking for comfort. I’m looking for nurturing. 

 

I notice the symptoms of my overwhelm, of my struggle for balance: I’m yelling at my kids more than I’d like. My partner is kinda on his own right now. I’m reading, I’m listening. I’m staying up too late and groggily rejoining the world earlier than my body wishes. 

 

I relate to Amy Adams’ character in “Nightbitch” who struggles so hard in the isolation of her identity as a SAHM (stay at home mom for those of you not in this phase of life) and feels her artist identity drowning as she cares for her child and keeps a household.  It’s only through connecting with her animalistic intuitions, often in the stillness of the night, that she finds the freedom and clarity of purpose to reclaim her life. I recognize this common struggle to achieve balance between the internal and external worlds and note her character’s success in stabilization through removing herself from the chaos; through tuning into the ancient wisdom of the wild.

 

This fits well with the rituals and routines recommended by Katherine May in her book “Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times”. Her journey begins when she and her husband both experience medical crises. She looks to the cultures of The North – those especially connected to the wisdom of ancestral rituals and routines – for guidance on how to survive in cold times, ones that are “neither soft nor easy”.  She takes from them the confidence to change her rhythm from that of the world around her – to pull her kiddo from public schools, to create community around new rituals, to celebrate the passage of time in smaller increments.

 

May gets there through being, through tolerating the discomfort of feeling her feelings and allowing them space in relation with her. She posits, “If happiness is a skill, then sadness is, too. Perhaps through all those years at school, or perhaps through other terrors, we are taught to ignore sadness, to stuff it down into our satchels and pretend it isn’t there. As adults, we often have to learn to hear the clarity of its call. That is wintering. It is the active acceptance of sadness. It is the practice of allowing ourselves to feel it as a need. It is the courage to stare down the worst parts of our experience and to commit to healing them the best we can. Wintering is a moment of intuition, our true needs felt keenly as a knife.”

 

“To hear the clarity of its call” – I can’t help but feel this line, the animalistic intuition of it, and to recognize how good kids are at this and how bad at it we adults are! When Esther asks her guest to identify a moment she’s proud of in parenting her son, the reply is something like when I’m able to just play with him and see him for who he is. Esther latches onto this and correctly identifies that this woman is speaking of going “into the wild”, “when I go to observe the animals in the wild and I bring my open curiosity and I don’t try to impose anything…I watch and I observe and I am enchanted by the intricate world I’m looking at.”

 

I draw this back to the stories we tell ourselves, to the limits of our control. The truth is, we can’t control our kids any more than we can control our parents or our bosses or our partners or our politicians. I don’t have the luxury of uprooting my life or the commitments I’ve made in this phase. I do have the power to reframe how I think of it and to intentionally cultivate the resources that will allow action in a moment of empowerment.

 

Grieving and mourning are necessary actions in radically accepting the limits of our personal power and control. Engaging in the emotional processing and nourishing our bodies and souls allows us the lightness of spirit and mind to act with intention.

 

 As Esther suggests – “Not: I’m taking care of my kid but: I’m going in the wild…. babies [don’t need to be controlled, they] need holding and soothing and interpreting of the world they live in”.

 

I guess the hidden truth is that we adults are no different. Carl Jung coined the term “inner child” which has become a mainstay in psychology and therapy practice. So I turn my nurturing skills to myself and observe what my inner child is doing. I allow myself to be petulant while shuffling to the coffee maker. I read a book instead of exercising. For my nighttime routine, I follow the routines I recommend to my clients, and enforce with my kids, by making myself a cup of tea, lighting a candle, and reflecting on the day with my partner instead of parking it in front of the TV. I feel guilty and sad that I’m missing my family at the skate park while I write this while also knowing that by prioritizing my needs for a creative outlet with work that inspires me and fuels my passion is important too. Then I can  re-engage with them with more energy and focused love.

 

I think the message I gift to me, which maybe resonates with you if you’ve read this far, is to trust that my body knows what it needs. That to continue the work of my parents in healing intergenerational trauma is a privilege. That everyone is doing the best they can and few people set out to hurt one another. That we all have the capacity to find common ground when we’re struck by the reality of the cold times. That we could all learn a lot from observing and reconnecting with the wild which “has existed long before you came along and has been knowing how to structure and regulate itself since forever”.