Earlier this week, I was pretty convinced I was going to suffer the entire winter. It’s not even winter yet. i woke up in the middle of the night and barely could move my neck. i convinced myself somehow later that my feeling of shutdown and hopelessness was due to the change in time (which truly is a b*&h). Three days later, my neck was loose and i again felt like myself. i wrote down “stiff neck” in my book of stressors that take me into shutdown and again for the thousandth time remembered that, oh, this very specific thing had me shutdown. fast forward to yesterday.
i really wanted to be on this dance-activist-y community Zoom event, even though grief was in the title and I never do anything even mildly emotional on weekends. so i attended the event knowing i already felt discomfort in my belly about what could happen. perceiving this discomfort, i requested the facilitator to describe in-depth what was going to be happening before we proceeded.
even after my request, my stomach butterflies were still present so i hemmed and hawed for a few minutes until i decided i needed to leave. i then proceeded to comfort myself and applaud myself for leaving, even though in my mind there still was this subtle sense that “there’s something wrong with me” because i’m getting activated, uncomfortable and there is no real threat. hours later after all the connecting things – west african and connecting with parents and texting with friends and sitting in the sun, i realized that yet again, a boundary had been crossed. first, i didn’t really want to be there and i didn’t listen to that: it wasn’t my Saturday inspiring, lightness i always create.
secondly, i realized i did not have enough trust built over time in this group in order to dive into anything emotionally heavy at that moment and my body knew that. I realized again for the millionth time, there is nothing wrong with me and my reactions. there are only boundaries and needs that i currently require that have been crossed. we have been so conditioned by our mental health industry, by the blame-yourself-and-fix-yourself-with-this-product-or-program ideologies, by the diagnostics and labels, to believe that our reactions mean there is something wrong with us. and yet our reactions are simply pointing us towards what it is that we need and what we cannot accept.
how radical, how disruptive would it be for all of us to truly understand there is nothing wrong with us—that we just need to create the conditions under which our needs are met. thank you body, for the gift of these reactions, pointing me to what i need. and may i never have a stiff neck again. unlikely because i do have arthritis.