Spiritual Solidarity | Rawthenticity & Revolution
Healing inside of Systems Change, and Systems Change inside of Healing.
This Tuesday marks my 5th Year anniversary of being a St. Louis'ian.
On one level, I can hardly believe it has been FIVE YEARS since I packed all my shit in a box truck and drove myself a third of the way across the U.S., alone.
On another level, I CAN FEEL AND REMEMBER EVERY SINGLE DAY. 🥴
I moved because I needed a fresh start, I needed to heal...
I needed to no longer live in the place and in the way that contributed to, and kept me stuck in my sickness.
I needed a place be quiet, and safely shed the skins that were no longer me, and grow into the new ways I needed to engage with life.
I ditched a decade-long business that I built from scratch with pure grit, skill, timing & the unconscious choice to abandon my wellbeing along the way.
I ended up confronted with a global pandemic, on my own, in a new city, that FORCED an acute, abrupt career change.
In solitude I greeted my own alcoholism, dissociation, escapism.
I befriended my depression, my panic attacks.
I made the choice to disengage with friends & social circles that didn't know how to “let me be” rawthentic me in my pain.
I opened the door to learn how to partner with my pain, to grow my experiential wisdom. ❤️🩹
I opened the door and walked out onto a spiritual path grounded in real life, accessible, relatable & sound tools.
I partnered with my future, as I befriended my feelings of isolation with the conscious choice to try new things, to put myself out there, to willingly feel the temporary discomfort of vulnerability.I chose the trust-fall into the unknown, to ground myself through the practices that were providing me with fresh perspective, abundance of breath & space in my body, new pathways cleared out at my feet, and that effervescent sensation of true knowing that there ARE others out there like me that KNOW there is another way of rawthentically going about life.
And what I can now say, 5 years later from the rock bottomest of all rock bottoms I've experienced (which were more than a few, lol), is that I wouldn't have been able to do any of that without 3 things:
My chosen family that unconditionally accepted my mess alongside my beauty. 💜
Mother, fucking, EARTH!!!! 🌎
And Theravada Buddhist meditation, grounded in RADICAL COMPASSION. ☸️
A few things come to the surface when I think about Collective Healing & Revolution:
We're not broken, we're hurting.
Old systems will NOT solve old problems.
We need each other.
So much of our current state of compounding crises is about the failure of surface-level bandaids atop generations old problems. Me and my "Systems Change Facilitator" brain have transformed into being the kind of #QUEERHEALER that I am because I'm dead ass dedicated to shifting the underlying conditions that hold systemic inequities (and ahem, your personal suffering) in place.
Or in other words far more eloquent than mine own:
I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I am changing the things I cannot accept.
-Angela Davis
Healing inside of Systems Change ♾️ Systems Change inside of Healing.
I want to use this Substack space to share about the journey of stepping into the role of Systems Change & Healing Justice Facilitator for St. Louis Queer Support & Healing. 🏳️🌈 And not only that, but from the perspective of #survivorledsupport. From the perspective of a queer healer, a Buddhist, a Witch, an anarchist & former sex worker. Someone not from academia, not from corporate America, not from clinical health, not from a moderate political perspective. Because everything I know so far about Systems Change is about proximity to impact. It’s about shifting the conditions themselves that keep systemic inequities in place.
If that job ain’t for someone like ol’ counter-culture, #nogodsnokingsnomasters me, lol, then we’re all fucked.
When people ask me what my job actually is, I think of this:
But really, what my job entails is a LOT of fucking research, a lot of organizing tools & resources, a lot of translating jargon, a lot of supporting folks as they do the hardest shit in the world, get through their own interpersonal nonsense and collaborate on building systems to work both INSIDE & OUTSIDE of the current systems in place.
To me, that sounds like ORGANIZED REVOLUTION.
So I’m gonna use this place to share from the liminal place of in-between it all. And I’m going to start with some reflections over my first month on the job. 👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻
🏳️🌈 I am joyfully reclaiming & embodying more parts of myself that had to take a backseat for a few years whilst moving through survival recovery, quiet healing out of the limelight and spiritual rest & prep for this more Whole version of myself to emerge.
🏳️🌈 I am feeling exactly in the thick of it, exactly where I am needed, showing up for orientation to a certification course in Collaborative Impact & Leadership from UMSL in full, battle vest queer regalia, Whole ass self on display, advocating for my accessibility needs & offering new examples to interject inclusion of paradoxical or even “radical” ideas into typical discourse.
🏳️🌈 My brain after the 1st week 👉🏻 🫠 so filled to the brim with overall ecosystem info, data & knowledge. My brain now 👉🏻 😌 grateful to my body & nervous system for having the practiced pathways back to grounding, space & ease, to essentially “defrag” my mental body with lots of laying in the grass, soaking up the sun, sci-fi books & NO talking & decision making.
🏳️🌈 I’m able to maintain more space in me for wise & skillful response rather than at default to perceived hasty initial reaction, nonprofit industrial complex hustle mentality & jargon-induced disembodiment. I do this through maintaining my weekly spiritual practice.
And, as a Healer, three ways I choose to show up to counter influencer capitalism, spiritual bypass & dissociative scarcity competition (aka colonialist fallout & intergenerational suffering): 👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻
🏳️🌈 I spend more time engaging in relational capacity building, deep listening & LESS talking than I do feeding urgency validation for the algorithm.
🏳️🌈 I challenge neoliberalism & white feminism, whenever & wherever I am able, including inside myself.
🏳️🌈 I take the time to cleanse myself of others folks’ projections, assumptions & bleeding-out emotional wounds.
That’s all I’ve got to share for today, but if you’re looking to learn about counter-oppressive healing from someone in the thick of it, stay tuned, stay subscribed and stay curious.
You can also check out my upcoming workshops, my weekly drop-in practice sessions, mentorship & if you’re in St. Louis, STL Queer Sangha, a monthly dharma & meditation group for all LGBTQIA+ folks & conspirators cultivating a path of Spiritual Solidarity, here’s how to find me. 👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻