If I am only for myself, what am I?

​Many times during my teaching/learning career I have thought about my time teaching at University. I have considered ways that my teaching back then could have been improved, if only I had certain skills or additional knowledge.

One thing in my reflections that has stuck out for me, is my lack of embodied understanding back then that the intellect is intertwined and connected to the body. When the body is screaming danger, most minds are not learning.

I wish as a teacher I had invited my students more into their bodies when we were learning. I wish I had invited myself, felt comfortable enough to say “let’s take a moment and be with what is here in the room and in our bodies. Let’s take a pause to notice and re-orient." How much more we could have learned if only I knew then what I so passionately experience now!

But I didn’t have those skills in full form back then. As a facilitator and educator for 30+ years, the values of learning and growing into a more elegant convener, space holder, and educator have been my guiding lights. I will never arrive in these skills and that brings me comfort.

All that to say, take care of yourself when reading this newsletter…I invite you to do that with every newsletter, but I am acutely aware that I will not satisfy everyone with my writing while our world stands on a razor’s edge. I do not think it is possible to write something that can be satisfying in this moment. So that is not my goal. 

My goal is to not gloss over what is happening in the world. This newsletter has repeatedly been a place that asks us (you and me) to not turn away from aspects of life that are uncomfortable and challenging. But also don’t plow through your feelings, sensations, and need for a break. All things so important right now. 

I want to clearly acknowledge that I am not writing from a war zone. I have the privilege to read and discuss the events from afar. And I am a Jew. Something I have written about repeatedly in this space, so I hope that doesn’t come as a surprise to you. But it of course, like always, gives me bias and perspective that is unique to me (because as it requires repeating - Jews, Palestinians, Israelis, Muslims, Christians are not monoliths). We all have biases and perspectives which impact how we think, move, and take action. My hope for myself and our world is theses biases and perspectives become more conscious, so we can make different choices when the opportunity warrants a new way. 

This newsletter will not be adequate nor comprehensive. It is more philosophical than political or sociological. I strongly advise you to keep learning, as I myself continue to learn. 

Before the Middle East grabbed my attention, a dear friend, colleague, and mentor died. I was in the middle of an intense grief to be pulled into another intense grief. But life doesn’t slow down or stop because of this. So instead of writing a newsletter about all I have learned from my dear friend Shari, I am writing this instead (though I can see Shari’s wisdom all over it). 

People grow and evolve. As a writer I am very aware of this. What I write remains static, but I do not. And the world does not. And that is also part of my hesitancy to write. I am not static. I am an evolving being. 

I do not preference my client work on gender, race, religion, sexual orientation, neurotype, relationship structure, political affiliation, etc. This isn’t to say I am for everyone. I am most definitely not.

But beyond my political beliefs/actions and worldview - there is additional way that I hold to be sacred. And that is the way of the human. This isn’t a “I don’t see race” comment…this is I see a person and context/social structures/identity/community AND I see the sacred, whole human before me. Frankly, is there any other way?

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Often what I think is missing in our understanding of being human is our ability to repair. We will f^ck up…a thousand times. To try and live a perfect life is an impossible task. But what so many of us forget when we are trying to be perfect, is that we can always reach out to repair if we messed up. And we will mess up (with each other, with the land, with the animals). 

In addition to a lack of repair, many of us were raised with binary thinking, only two options to choose from. Self or collective, right or wrong, good or bad, healthy or unhealthy. Right now for me, binary thinking is the path to more and more conflict (with ourselves and others) and less of a path to repairing harm.

And just to be clear, repair does not mean forget, and sometimes repair does not mean reconciliation (repair is not immune from the binary). 

Because we were educated in binary thinking, we lost our skills as a culture to collectively hold complexity. We can hold multiple feelings at once. We can grieve for ourselves and grieve for another. We can hold the conflict, contradictions, and tensions that come with living. No one lives a life free from contradiction. And holding those for ourselves and others is where we can connect.

This is where I write from - our shared humanity. Everyone has the right for safety and self determination. Everyone has the right to live free of discrimination and oppression. Every child deserves a war free home. Every human deserves water, heat, medical supplies, and shelter. And every human deserves to be seen as a human - no matter what they have done or not done, where they live, and what faith they hold. 

Humans need certain things to grow. We need particular elements to thrive and inhabit the lives each one of us wants, and none of us live in a vacuum.  

People, especially those who have been marginalized, hunger for deep regard. You hunger for someone to believe your experience and witness and partner with you in your emotions without minimizing them or pushing them away, and being a committed ally. Humans need witnessing, curiosity, spaciousness, and an acceptance of the complexity that is our being-ness. 

Regard for humans is to me one of the most important qualities to cultivate. A deep regard for the person sitting across from me both literally and figuratively. I firmly believe that everyone on this planet is worthy of regard. And regard means the right to live free from harm - from individuals and from governments. People’s deserve to live without war and without harm. People deserve to be valued. No child deserves to live in terror and fear for their lives. 

Beyond the Middle East there have been reports of violence against Muslim, Palestinians, Israelis, and Jews around the world. I firmly believe that all oppressions are connected and no one is free (not even those with privilege) if others are oppressed. It sounds incredibly simple and yet it is totally complex when you move out of theory into the spaces of bodies. 

We cannot seek safety for self by seeking harm for others. I seek safety for myself and invite others into that safety. Safety is not a finite resource, but is infinite when we all care for another as ourselves.

Love your neighbor as yourself - but how many of us love ourselves in our totality?

We scream and criticize ourselves internally, we hold ourselves up to impossible standards. We shun the uncomfortable, the emotions that challenge and destabilize us, we shun the desires we think others can not understand, we shun our impulses to be our true selves because society has told us the “right” way to be. And this shunning of ourselves directly relates to shunning another. The personal and the community are deeply intertwined. 

Stating one is afraid is seen as a moral failing and a weakness. But I am left to wonder if those in charge admitted their fears more, would we be standing on a where we are now in the world?

What would happen instead of acts of violence against another we said I was taught to fear you and I no longer want to act from that fear, how would our world be different? If we admitted we feared the other and moved closer to understand the person, culture, nation, might we move closer to seeing our shared humanity? What if we admitted I am afraid I will be wiped from the earth, and so I build walls, would that open a space to change anything? And what if we spoke, I was taught to hate you and that too stems from fear, would we move closer to ending the battlefield?

Amongst all sound bites and headlines, the overwhelming cry from all sides - is we are human. We want peace. We want freedom from harm. We want a home. We want to stop having thousands of dead to mourn, generation after generation. STOP. Stop dehumanizing. Stop killing. Stop moving from fear, hatred, and contempt. But to stop moving from these states, we must first recognize we have them and we need each other to do this. 

Now more than ever, we culturally need spaces that welcome our vulnerability. Where we can honestly say we are afraid and not have our fear be taken as a morally failing. Where we can share our experiences, our learning, and our unlearning. We need spaces where we can be honest with ourselves, beyond the societal norms of politeness, correctness, and the judgements of others.

Please find the people, community, spaces that honor your vulnerability as a crucial part of your humanity. Yes take action, yes speak with others, yes to creating a world filled with regard for all. And yes to a world where each one of us can be held in our full humanity. 

In humility and learning, 
Valerie