šGrieving Powerlessness š¤
šGrieving Powerlessness š¤
Feeling Feelings as Activism
As a pacifist, I have a lot of feelings about war. As a Capricorn, I have a lot of feelings about injustice.
CW - mention of genocide & war in the next paragraph, exploring themes of powerlessness in the post itself
With the beginning of Pisces season, Iāve been grieving big time. There are many layers to this grief - for my own Body still experiencing manifestations of trauma, for my friends & colleagues as front line workers still enduring daily abuse, for the idiocy of the convoy claiming oppression over simple health regulations, for the thousands of Indigenous children whose lives were extinguished in genocidal violence, for the impacts of transphobia and homophobia robbing people of their lives & sense of safety, for the land that has raised me being decimated because our ignorance does not view Her as Alive, for the unnecessary violence in Ukraine, Syria, Somalia, Yemen, Afghanistan, Myranmar, and for the continued disparity in every country touched by colonialism and Western ignorance.
All of these experiences of war have in common invasion. We invade the land to extract her oil, white colonialists invaded Indigenous lives through genocide, Ukraine, Somalia, Afghanistan, have all been invaded. The language of invasion implies non-consent and simultaneously triggers feelings of powerlessness. Powerlessness for trauma survivors is a psychic trap.
Experiences of powerlessness in our everyday life - whether it is a required report at work, the impact of the news or your dog getting off leash - pull on a thread of extreme pain beyond the situation itself. Last week, I was nauseous and while I was bowed before the toilet, I heard the same trauma narratives running through my head āI hate this, when will this stopā and the feelings of betrayal made more sense. I felt betrayed that my body was sick because it reminded me of every other time something was happening to my body that I didnāt like, that I didnāt consent to. Life happening outside of our control, as a trauma survivor, is our worst nightmare.
I find there are, in general, two main coping strategies in experiences of invasion & powerlessness. We either shut down and turn off the news altogether or doom scroll Twitter for hours because scrolling makes it feel like we are, in fact, doing SOMETHING. (Twitter activism can actually be helpful and this isnāt meant to disparage real change that can arise from social media) Itās just that both of those coping strategies can be expressions of a FREEZE trauma response.
If youāre interested in discovering your trauma response (and attachment style) take this quiz:
We are either pulling the covers over our eyes and waiting for it to be over or picking at a scab until we feel anything at all. Both freeze responses are variations of nervous system overwhelm that lead to dissociation.
While our Bodies are held captive in this Freeze trauma response, we are more vulnerable to us vs. them mentalities and control in general because our bodies are calibrated to find a sense of safety anywhere - even in illusion. When individual peoplesā nervous systems are frozen & dissociated, we coregulate together into disregulation (even through a screen) & when there is mass disregulation, there is a simultaneous grasp for relief, from whomever can peddle it.
A momentous influence on the beginning of the Second World War was the experiences of powerlessness from the Influenza pandemic & economic plummet that ravaged Europe post WWI. People subscribed to the easy answers given to complex questions by a charismatic chancellor because they desperately wanted to feel safe and superior.
When we experience a lack as humans, we naturally overcompensate. When whole populations experience a lack, danger is afoot. People will do literally anything to quell their existential fears and so systems of oppression create enemies by confirming worst fears (be afraid of āthemā who endanger your āfreedomsā) and offering a solution (conquer or be conquered).
CW - next three paragraphs discuss animal testing
There is a heart-wrenching study done in the 60s with dogs (itās so sad). They took one group of dogs and put them in a room with a floor that would set off mild electric shocks - within this first room was a lever that would shut off the shocks. The dogs learned very quickly how to pull the lever to end their suffering. The next group of dogs were also put in a room with a floor that would set off mild electric shocks and this room also had a lever - except this lever did nothing. The dogs learned just as quickly that their actions were meaningless and eventually just laid down to absorb the shocks.
As a follow-up to that study, they took the dogs from the second room and put them in the first room where the lever DID work to alleviate the shocks. These dogs, who learned their action didnāt matter, didnāt even try to pull the lever. Even though this lever worked! They didnāt try because their bodies were in a FREEZE trauma response, they had no energy or capacity left to be disappointed, to try and fail. So they simply laid down to absorb the shocks again.
What always struck me in this study is that the lever is not the only way to stop the shocks - there was a door in which the dogs entered the room. And I often wonder if there was a knob they could have learned to turn?
CW complete - safe to read on
Powerlessness & helplessness can actually stonewall action because as trauma survivors, our nervous systems drop into a FREEZE trauma response because any experience of danger (even through Twitter) pulls on the thread of traumatic invasion. Systems of oppression create an āall-or-nothingā view of activism and this is how systems infiltrate the revolution - they turn the lever off.
Compounding pre-existing feelings of powerlessness from the injustice itself, we are then plummeted into a secondary powerlessness response not knowing what to do. I would like to submit there is more to feel than to do.
(we can feel & do simultaneously too - here are some ways)
It is advantageous in times of fear to take time to grieve because grief recalibrates our nervous system.
Grief, is, in my opinion, underrated activism. Grief is a spiral that emanates from our own personal inner core reaching to everywhere around us. Grief that doesnāt make the suffering about you (crying white tears over atrocities racialized folks have been enduring for centuries) can be transformative. Grief is being fully present in the reality of suffering, not bypassing the pain. Grief is a sacred space of shared humanity and from being in grief together, we can mobilize into action. Grief is not passive - it is feeling it all. Leaning into grief, where there are no easy answers, requires softness. Sometimes (a lot of the time), it can feel very selfish to practice softness when the world is in such upheaval. How could I possibly sit in a bath when there is so much suffering here and around the world?
And also, I know of the transformation of nervous system regulation. Itās a delicate both-and, dialoguing from our Inner World to our Outer world. Leaning into softness amidst adversity, not in denial of the pain of reality but in communion with it, is not dismissive but transformative.
When you are afraid and feeling powerless, notice what certainty does exist in your world. May we not succumb to the shocks but find the door that led the us into the room in the first place. Yesterday I cried beneath the night sky because the stars have witnessed so much of humanityās self-inflicted suffering.
When you are afraid and powerless, find an anchor of control (I can feed my body in nourishing ways) because we always have an anchor - in our Selves, in our communities, in our shared humanity. When you are afraid and powerless, grieve. Grieve because grief is an emanation of love.
Cry when your Body needs to cry. Use your voice in ways that feel authentic and true. Feel all of the feelings that arise in you, all the feelings you can touch through another. Soften into grief, into love because regulated nervous systems can create change and find the door out of suffering.
Next week, weāll talk about the difficulties of facing change as a trauma survivor but until then - just grieve. {re}connect with ways your ancestors have grieved, discover where softness lays beside your grief.