Wtf is going on

Hi friend,

How are you? Like forreal forreal?

To be completely honest, I’ve tried to sit down and write this newsletter multiple times and have failed. I have so many different thoughts on any given day and trying to focus them into a single piece of writing is a skill that I’m working on reconnecting with. So thank you in advance for witnessing my process. We all gotta start somewhere lol.

In the midst of all of the New Year, New Me and vision board noise, I’ve found myself being hella confused about the state of the world and how to navigate it without losing my sanity entirely. It feels deeply suffocating and overwhelming to live in a society that is violently suppressing marginalized people on a daily basis and then trying to gaslight us into ignoring it so that we still have value to a capitalist system. Having to sit back and witness all of the tragedy happening in Palestine, Congo, and Sudan (just to start) and still be a functioning person feels impossible most days.

There are a few things that have given me comfort? or maybe more so a sense of agency over my experience over the past few weeks that I wanted to share with you in case they’re helpful.

The first is rewatching Andor. If you’re unfamiliar, Andor is a Star Wars show that came out last year and it speaks to the experience of living under an oppressive society and rebelling against it. The writer was truly in their bag and it is really cathartic to watch so I recommend it if you haven’t watched it already (even if you’re not super familiar with Star Wars lore).

One of my favorite quotes is from a character named Nemik, one of the rebels, who shares the following with titular character Cassian Andor:

When I first heard this line, it stopped me dead in my tracks because it perfectly spoke to this experience of living through “unprecedented event” after unprecedented event and thinking “it can’t get worse, right?” or “how am I supposed to hold space for this when I’m still processing the thing that just happened?” It’s exhausting because it’s supposed to be and as hard as it is, I think finding ways to really sit with what’s going on is the only thing that’s going to allow us to redirect our anger and heartbreak in the direction of change. Whether that’s through just sitting and venting with close friends, crying intentionally, or writing out a nonlinear email like this one lol. Experiencing and naming what we’re feeling is important so that we’re able to act on them in a way that aligns with our values.

The second thing that has helped me is Ho'oponopono, which is a practice that comes from Hawaii. It’s a really powerful mantra that reminds us of the importance of forgiveness and compassion for ourselves and each other and highlights our interdependence as a collective. When I first learned about it, I found it via YouTube videos that encouraged you to recite the mantra in reference to yourself multiple times which is definitely helpful. However, I kind of intuitively started repeating the mantra while I was learning about what’s happening in Gaza and it drastically shifted my capacity to be more present with the violence and grief that Palestinians are experiencing. It also felt like a more concrete and intentional energetic practice than just sending “thoughts and prayers.” If you’d like to give it a try, the mantra is “I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. I love you.” Maybe give yourself a few minutes to sit in a quiet place, take a few deep breaths, read some content related to current events, and repeat the mantra for as long as you need.

The last thing that has helped me is really spending time reflecting on what my role is in all of this and finding opportunities to start fulfilling my role in my daily life. It’s been pretty clear to me that my role is to be healer just based on my experiences as an empathetic and sensitive person and I’m really grateful for the opportunity to be an energy worker and provide spaces for people to heal in that literal sense. But I’ve also been thinking about ways to just be in service in my local community more. It can be easy to feel like you have to have all of the money in the world to be of service but we all have some amount of time and effort we can offer to start off with so doing something like volunteering once a week or month is way better than doing nothing. I’m still working on the specifics of it for myself but I think it’s always worth spending time to clarify what your soul’s mission is so you can find small and big ways to begin completing it.

To be completely clear, no matter what form it takes, my mission is to dismantle systemic oppression so that we can all be free to be ourselves. I also believe that we all have a unique set of gifts and perspective that we can use in service of that goal. It’s easier said than done, but who’s gon’ do it, if not us?

With that being said, thank you so much for reading this. I am sending so much love and peace your way and I welcome any thoughts or reflections if you want to write back. Let’s get free y’all.

With love,

Paula