What's with today, today?
Maybe, everything is going to be alright.
I play Three Little Birds for my kids every night before they go to bed. I'm trying to reassure them. I'm trying to comfort them, for all their hurt feelings and unmet needs and skinned knees. I'm trying to foster the right attitude that will empower them to take on this chaotic world I'm handing them.
In the meantime, I'm grappling with big questions.
How do I exist in THIS time and place?
What is my position in this world?
How will I contribute to the structures of society and the development of mankind?
These are important questions because I'm raising little people and they have to be carefully taught.
One of the first steps in my journey toward some semblance of an answer is to assess and inventory.
What are the problems we need to tackle? What and where are the big, medium, and little rocks that pile together to form a village?
Where do I stand amongst the rubble? What is my social location? What power, property, or prestige can I harness to build it back up?
What will be the state of the future? In any case, how are we trending, since I can't purport to predict the future.
Inflation, housing costs, gas, milk, the temperature, wealth inequality - all rising.
Pummeled with barrier after barrier throughout a pandemic.
Unemployment, mental and physical health crises, LGBTQIA rights, bodily autonomy, and privacy are all in crisis. We're traumatized by harsh change, loss, violence, fear, and all the lies told in all avenues of media. We're asking the biggest questions about the fundamental states of our existence, and we are under threat.
And, since our lives have been one crisis after another, our bodies live in a perpetual state of alarm - fight, flight, or freeze. Our very body chemistry is literally affected by the cortisol release response to stress, and it changes our genetic expression. This expression becomes a part of our children and leads to generational trauma.
We must heal amidst the trauma. If there's a metamorphosis happening, then why not embrace it? Let us crawl into our cocoons and contemplate the new perspective this change and challenge brings. Let us allow the suffering to encourage introspection and seek to acknowledge that pain. It is with tending and attention that we can heal ourselves, breathe, and begin again.
Begin anew.
I'd love to hear your thoughts and the questions you're grappling with. Happy to talk about it with you on my new subreddit - https://www.reddit.com/r/alicehelps/
Go ahead, ask Alice.
