love over fear

There is a sweet liberatory air that comes with being able to hear ‘no’. Across the internet, people take on rejection challenges, committing to 100 days of opening themselves to hearing “no” enough times that they are able to hear it. Sometimes, they don’t hear no, because it never comes. Sometimes, the request is granted, and a person celebrates an outcome made possible by leaning on the audacious strength they have built up.

Yesterday, I turned off my comments on Instagram. I’ve spent years hemming and hawing about whether or not to leave the platform; I know it’s not good for my brain. I have known for a long time. In a journal from 2018, I wrote about how my online-oriented life was keeping me from being Prime Shalom. I wrote, like I had written over and over since the Double Digits Birthday Existential Crisis began at age nine, that I just wanted to be better. I wanted to be so much better than I was, and I didn’t even know what that better would look like.

It’s a curious holding pattern.

Last summer, I did some of the most excavatory inner work I’ve done to date. I got to know a number of the versions of me at rock bottom more intimately, learning each of their specific needs and desires and reasons for trying to drive the bus of my life.

I kiss the seven-year-old on the head and tell her she can do anything because she can. I let the eight-year-old make mistakes, and when compassion holds me through to the other side of the ketchup-stained walls of my brain, I tell the eight-year-old that eight is a very small number of years to be alive. I tell her that she can do anything, that I love her, that she will never be in trouble with me. I tell her how much I love being her adult, and how much I would like the keys to my Life Bus back. I make a joke about her not having a driver’s license, and probably not even wanting one, and we laugh together. She gives me the keys.

My continued interfacing with past versions grants me an experience of clarity like I’ve never had before. I start to feel “no” in my body. I start to understand who’s driving, and if it’s not Awesome Adult Shalom, I decide to learn what is making that version feel the need to take the wheel. I start to realize when I am trying to convince myself that my mind is uncertain; the more I feel all the way present, the harder it is to get myself to take the bait—I know and feel how my body decides.

Last week, I announced the launch of two courses: POCKET REALITIES and DO IT ANYWAY. The frenzy of creation is my favorite bad habit. I know I’m capable of bringing forth remarkable work frenetically and in a short window of time. I want to be first and I know I can be first, but I don’t always need to be first. All this, and I am my own adult so I must address my needs—such is the impending self-mastery lesson that is Saturn transiting the first house.

I take my heavy heart into a meditation, and ask the version of me who is on the other end of my life what to do. When she says that we need to teach each other, and we need to get over it, I feel YES. I come out of the meditation feeling jazzed as all heck, ready to Do The Thing. I look at the time and wonder if I have enough time to Do The Thing. I decide it doesn’t matter because The Thing needs to be Done and it has a chance of working if I do the work, and begin to Do The Thing after all. I rush, finish. I hit send, I post on Instagram, I call my best friend and thank the seven-hour time difference for not keeping us apart. I put away a box in my new house.

Soon, over the weekend, I feel NO.

I must say that I was very impressed with myself for not freaking out. I have benefitted entirely from flipping my default initiatory thought process to one of curiosity from one of judgement. I felt about the NO; where it sat and the other feelings around it in my body. I faced the flame and meditated, parsing through what was real (feelings), and what was true (facts).

I realize while outlined, that the shadow is the epitome of real, but not true. I realized how the pain of such denial rhymes with that of capitalist disbelief; the same pain human beings are subjected to as we witness the devastating effects of investing in what is real, while disregarding what is true.

In short, feeling upset and confused, I went to my Self and basically said, Girl, what the fuck.

The two messages were the same: we need to teach each other, and we need to get over it. The more I chew on the cud of self-reflection, the more I realize how big this moment is for me and the eight-year-old version who was Not Allowed to make mistakes. Here is a moment and mistake, and here is a choice: either integrate the self-trust and compassion I have been building and see what happens, or ignore the NO in my body and see what happens. I have done the latter many times; most times. I decided to try something new.

Well, I ask myself. What is this NO?
Well, I tell myself, it doesn’t feel ready.

When I ask myself why, I answer in all honesty: I launched the courses because I had hopes of answering my calling while raising money for my friends in Palestine and their families; Ahmed, Rena, and sweet princess Sham and her mom. I hoped to raise money for myself, too. I have to pay the $130 BGE bill for Plague House 2 (Rats and Roaches), after nine days of occupancy, no windows, and a space heater. I have to pay the water bill for Plague House 1 (Mold and a neighbor who had bought a silencer, told my roommate that she wanted to shoot me, and invited my roommate to join. Yes, to join the murder, I guess.) I hoped the offering would kickstart a miracle after realizing they could be ready.

When I zoom all the way out, I see that I have historically approached both capital R- and lowercase r- relationships with those same ambitions: hopefully, this r/Relationship in this shape will kickstart a miracle.

I have put my Self aside so many times in the hopes of, this could be a great love. Well, what if it is? The secret door is the timing and we never enter until we’ve fallen through. A great love for as long as it lasts. Forever as a fallacy. Grieving the truest gift when it can no longer be returned.

What if it looks different when you see through to the other side?
What if being wrong now is part of being right later?

What if it did kickstart a miracle, and what if it arrived in a shape I already had? And what if I had missed it; if I hadn’t been drawing inward through my practice?

I do have lectures and classes and lessons to offer. I know it’s not time for that yet. I know something else is brewing and that there is something bigger to build for and by the many. I know that despite my eloquence, it is not always easy to convey the Big Ideas and Ideals that I have long held for myself, my life, the planet, our species, and all the children that are all our responsibility. I know that to garner the kind of support for the kind of revolution that is afoot, I will need to put in the work to be much clearer. I know that the more succinctly I am able to get my message and gift across, the more direct or indirect change I can a be part of. I know my work is around education, the collective, building the house so they will come. I know I can’t rush anything divinely ordained. I know it will take the time it takes.

At the same time, Sham’s mom tells me there have been no donations in weeks. On my phone, Venmo reminds me of a payment request, and when the SoFi Bank call comes each day, I do not pick up.

I do, however, start to feel abundant even through material lack. I start to remember that I am a writer and that I have always been. I face myself on the other side of the blog I started in 2013; realize I prefer devotion to discipline, and promise to take her as seriously or silly as she asks. The teenager gives me back to the keys to the Writing Devotion bus.

In the United States, the point that future historians will call the start of the Second Civil War (or if you ask me: 2 Civil, 2 War) is marked by the bloodshed and bravery brewing in the bellies of Minneapolis and her people. What happens when we won’t back down?

When I ask my Self whether I’m ruining it—if I have bogused the whole thing and missed the boat to be the kind of contributor and ancestor I want to be—she tells me that I would be fine if I took my own advice. I know I can do hard things, including taking the medicine of error. Altogether, the messages are as follows:

1. WE NEED TO TEACH EACH OTHER
2. WE NEED TO GET OVER IT
3. I NEED TO TAKE MY OWN ADVICE ABOUT IT

To live a life of one’s preferred consequences, one must meet the conditions required for that life. This is the acting like it part of being a person. To live as the kind of ancestor I want to be, I must meet the conditions: I must be able to feel NO, trust myself, and then take action that reflects such.

I think there’s something about my familiarity with underworld journeys of the psyche that positions me here: as a person who is okay with being seen trying, and making mistakes, and getting it wrong. As a person who can get it wrong, I can face and receive myself with the same tenderness and compassion I would anyone else.

I tell myself:

I love you, and there is nothing you could do to make me not love you!
You are not in trouble and you will never be in trouble with me!
I love being your adult!
I love being a safe person for you to make mistakes with!
I love looking at the scary parts with you.
I love being able to know what is real, but not true.

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