Celebration as a tool for integration
My first time after many years making Valentine’s Day cards with my nieces.
I have been feeling myself and others hitting yet another pandemic wall one that has me waking up to the thought “another day where I can't (fill in the blank), another day in exile. Can I keep doing this? What do I do here?”.
What do you wake up to?
Thankfully, the curious and wise one in me is well developed. It reminds me to keep my phone in a separate room so that it's not the first point of contact in my day (I listen MOST of the time - hehe).
The lover in me keeps a small batch of $2.99 flowers from my neighbor Linda's store next to my bedside table.
My wise one gets me to reach over and touch the petals to remember the beauty of the earth, to come back into my body. Sometimes I find myself singing as I do this.
My root becomes activated, drawing me out of bed to tend to my vessel - brush my teeth, start up a pot of tea, take my vitamins, make my favorite smoothie, gently begin to stretch and wake up. I move slow - it reminds me that, as an empath and empathic leader, I have spent most of my life with and in touch with everyone but myself.
What initially felt like exile then begins to soften and I remember the last 12 months has been one of the most intimate and beautiful journey's I have had with myself, my most beloved ones, the earth and my work. I am feeling that as we will one day begin to touch and connect in person, I will be able to show up to life with a texture of beauty, joy, intimacy and potency that I had once dreamt of, but never thought possible for “someone like me" (that's a story for another time!).
As I sit with clients and create content for the Dancing with Darkness E-course, I'm seeing the most effective prescription for the unique flavor of collective weariness we are currently facing is celebration.
“When I don't celebrate it shows up as stuckness in my life and work.”
Not my words - a brilliant realization from a beloved leader I have the privilege of guiding. It was so perfectly timed, and reflective of the natural laws that govern the flow of energy as leaders, especially empathic leaders.
When we don't take time to celebrate ourselves in the context of a culture that is fixated on “what's next” - we stifle our natural ability to keep our energy flowing and resilient.
By celebrate I mean sincere pausing to honor, acknowledge and witness how far we've come. An act of love for ourselves and others.
Celebration, like the expression of grief or anger, is an integration tool.
As much as we are meant to process and integrate difficulty in our lives, so too are we meant to pause in order to integrate all the ways we have grown. A build up of unacknowledged growth has parallel effects as unprocessed shadows.
I feel especially called to share this message with you, dear one, as I am seeing and feeling our collective patience and resilience with the events of the last 12 months wanning.
There are so many threads feeding our collective wanning, yet I can feel that the particular flavor of weariness we are facing is deeply connected to the absence of honoring what we have already weathered.
As much as we continue to face uncertain wearying conditions, we are also prevailing, deepening, evolving - have you/we given authentic consistent recognition of this truth? My earth body is reminding me that celebration is like harvest, when we revel in the fruits of our labor. I’m also seeing the harvest season shows up not only in our annual cycle, but also in our weekly and monthly cycles. We are able to dance with weariness by nurturing our natural integration systems of harvesting, loving and releasing into our lives.
There's no doubt we will continue to have to problem solve our way through more complexity and crisis in 2021, sometimes in rapid succession -
but make no mistake - there is space and imperative for pause and pleasure.
I often hear folks say - “I don't feel the grief or like celebrating” along with the collective illusion that we don't have time for these processes. Build a system for it anyways - and be gentle when it doesn't happen. As leaders we have all internalized systems that bypass our bodies and natural impulses in favor of “productive action”. We will have to build structures of pause, and exhibit consistent devotion to them over a long period of time, to sensitize our systems to the natural pull of our internal integration systems.
I love also that this download is coming as Black History month comes to a “close”. May we not close this chapter, may we let the celebration of Black life - past, present, global, local - continue and become embedded into our natural systems of celebration.
PROMPTS TO INVITE CELEBRATION
Here are the prompts I've been sharing with clients this month to help ease the flavor of weariness we are currently facing. Try them on and make it your own.
What is ONE/TWO things you thought were impossible in the last 12 months that became possible?
Share the prompt and your responses with trusted people in your pod,or with the earth. Have a covid safe, “making the impossible possible” party.
Get yourself some flowers, foraged, or bought.
Or something else that engages the senses and brings beauty into your home.
What rituals have allowed you to make the impossible possible the last 12 months? Take a moment to recognize them.
As my client expressed their stuckness in the absence of celebration, they also acknowledged the deep investment they've made to cultivating their internal resilience in our work together. Over our covid-safe phone session we could both feel, across space and time, the indelible presence of grace, compassion and power they've developed as a result of their investment, even in the face of this challenging year. As a witness to their ever strengthening, life-giving power, I have seen them learn to choose pause that holds space for their love, grief and everything in between over and over again in this process - even when it felt nearly impossible, counter-intuitive, “ineffective”, or “irresponsible” to their role as a leader and activist.
Their story is a formidable node in a larger web of empathic leaders at Brownswell, courageously choosing pause, each in their own way, to find power that continues to stand, celebrate, grieve, and strengthen in stormy times. May their example invite celebration, love and pleasure back into our hearts and leadership.
In celebration,
Kirin
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Thank you, from my heart to yours.
If you need support embodying powerful internal resilience and sustaining your energy as a leader or organization, even in crisis, check out my e-course here, or reach out for a session.
