The In-Between
A few things have changed since I last wrote about my upcoming return to work in February, to put it mildly. On the world stage, the global pandemic and social upheavals have turned our lives upside-down, leaving almost no one unaffected (albeit in drastically different ways). On the personal side, after an unexpected month off to end the school year, I returned to work at Queen’s a few weeks early to resume my role, this time working from home on my computer.
I’ve found the many disruptions and changes in life to be complex to make sense of, but definitely with lots of opportunities for insight. One change has been going from not working, to working – and I’ve seen how that has affected me quite vividly. From the outset I had a lot of gratitude to be able to be working at all when so many were out of work, and also so appreciative of the chance to contribute, help others, and be challenged after a month where my biggest challenge was boredom and isolation. But quickly the positives were tempered by feelings of overwhelm, with so much change to navigate in the remote workplace, getting up to speed with all the projects of those who report to me, and getting back into the groove of helping students during this time that is so challenging for so many. For the most part I’ve had a fairly steady progression of getting more grounded and feeling progressively in control of the workflow, although I’ve definitely had some setbacks.
Outside of work, life is obviously disrupted in a big way by the pandemic with our contact with other’s drastically limited by social distancing and other precautions. Part of me really misses the intimate interaction with friends and family (and even strangers I suppose), of having fun, playing games, music, sharing food, and hugs. But part of me also appreciates the forced opportunity to take the social side down a notch (not that I ever was SO social). So I’ve spent a lot more time reading, playing music alone, meditating, hiking, cooking, gardening, and of course lots of time hanging with my main bubble and life mates Carlyn and Joni. For the most part though, the pandemic for me has been mostly an inconvenience, and I have been lucky enough to feel safe most of the time – lucky to work from home, and not be on the front lines taking on risks like so many others are. I suppose it also contributes to my persistent levels of anxiety by taking it all up a notch just with all the social and economic uncertainty that is happening in our society as well.
And related to that, there have been so many significant events on the social side of things, it seems futile to even try to touch on them. With daily stories and events related to racism unfolding, it feels like the ground is shifting beneath our feet at a time when society was already destabilized by the pandemic, so many of our basic assumptions and patterns are being brought to light by protests, arrests, killings, and stories shared by people from equity seeking groups like people of colour, LGTBQ+, women, and more. I’ve been trying to get more informed by listening, reading, and reflecting on everything – reading books like White Fragility, and fiction like The Marrow Thieves, and Kindred in my book club, and having conversations with thoughtful people in my life.
In one sense, I feel sheltered from some of these currents sweeping our world. Living a life with privilege, having food, shelter, opportunity, education, relationships, and health. I’m deeply affected by hearing about the suffering of others during these challenging times, and struggle to know how to respond. As a white person of privilege, I’m overwhelmed by complex feelings and thoughts, a mix of guilt and confusion at having it relatively easy, of having benefited from my place in society at this time in history, from the oppression of others living and dead. Even trying to put this in to words is so tricky – I worry of saying the wrong thing, or offending someone unintentionally without being aware of all the ways my words could impact someone else.
When the Black Lives Matter movement was really heating up, there was an intense and polarized debate that took place online in, of all places, a birdwatching group on Facebook. People were sharing posts about black birders, and the struggles they have faced – and a strong backlash of people not wanting those “political” posts in their birding group – they wanted the right to be able to enjoy birding without having to think about issues of race. I found that so striking – because the posts they wanted to ignore were about people who had no choice but to think about issues of race when THEY were birding. And so as I went out and about, I became hyper aware of my privilege in being able to go birding, affording equipment, time in nature, and feeling safe – made even more so by the presence of camping homeless folks in Belle Park where we often birded.
As I’m reflecting now on all these recent events and constant changes, I’m seeing some emerging themes. On a grand scale with public health, the environment, the economy, and social forces like systemic racism, but also on a private scale as I navigate my own inner challenges of anxiety and depression – I see some parallels.
One is inter-connectivity – as much as we like to try and compartmentalize and split off parts of our experience and world, we are being reminded that we are all deeply connected. We can’t ignore things any longer – pandemics, environmental crises, and social upheavals all show this dramatically. And with this inter-connectivity is a responsibility. The pandemic requires each of us to take care of our own shit – we need to wear masks to protect OTHERS, not ourselves, and depend on others to do the same. Likewise, working through racist patterns in ourselves, and in society, requires each of us to work on ourselves, for the sake of others. So I try to become aware, of what is inside me, and what I’m doing unawares – seeing as White Privilege explained to me that racism is present in everyone, and we need to become aware to root it out in ourselves – much the way that germs and bacteria come with us everywhere, so we need to improve our personal hygiene. We’ve become conscious – and this consciousness can be crippling and terrifying at first – but with time we can develop new habits to take this into account.
On the inside, I see parts of myself as inconvenient, that I’d like to split off and hide from my awareness are also making themselves heard and demanding attention. Feelings of sadness, anger, and anxiety have always been a challenge for me. Having had a lot of space this past year with my leave, it’s been easier with time to process and space to feel my way through things. With the return to work, comes the challenge of trying to navigate my usual ups and downs, along with the constant demands and stress from counselling students and leading a team. And these feelings aren’t going away – as inconvenient as that is – they are getting louder again. Protesting. Rioting. Putting up a fight. And I try to put them away – and it works for a little while, but they come back again. So eventually I have to give up my illusion of being in control and being separated from them and just listen. Give them space, genuinely hear what they want, and sincerely respond – because I’m not separate. I AM them.
I’m reading a thought provoking book right now by James Hollis called Living Between Worlds – Finding Personal Resilience in Challenging Times. A major theme is from depth psychology – that says when we were younger we learned ways to survive in the face of challenges and trauma, and these stories helped us get to where we are now, but we are still limited by these stories. When issues bubble up to the surface in the form of pathology like anxiety or depression, they are an invitation to become aware of these stuck places, where we are still acting in old ways that aren’t serving us anymore. It’s a chance to address these splits in ourselves of ways we’ve clamped down to try and avoid old wounds, and to work towards wholeness. To work towards including these shut off parts of ourselves, and indeed this healing can be more than just removing a negative, it can be accessing the vitality that was being used in holding those stuck patterns in place. So our job is to access that, and give birth to what our soul is trying to express.
In my experience, when I finally turn to face a painful feeling, it is terribly uncomfortable. I’ve tried a million strategies to avoid it – ignoring it, working on it, exercising, journalling, therapy, drinking, shopping… you name it. But eventually I give up. I enter a phase of hopelessness where I can’t escape from it (which Pema Chodron writes about so well in When Things Fall Apart). And this hopelessness means I give up trying to NOT feel that way and I turn to face it and go IN. And as I soften, it does too. We both start getting less polarized. I’m less scared of it, and I start to see a tenderness within the pain and tightness that had built up to protect that wound or stuck energy. It starts to loosen, and lighten, and I become more free, and start filling up with energy again, and joy, and possibility and hope.
And again I’ll get hooked, and shut down, and close down from fear and trying to avoid discomfort and pain. And again I will eventually give up and open to it and listen and integrate it into my experience, growing lighter and stronger and freer each time.
In the same way I’ve been working at singing – where I notice constrictions in my body, my throat, my voice – from insecurities, efforting, trying to sound like someone else – but as I work through these to open up and loosen up, and practice – I become clearer. At first it’s embarrassing, to risk singing poorly, but if I am patient with myself and let myself be vulnerable, I can improve and find my own voice, singing with lightness and clarity and joy instead of insecurity.
As I’m writing this, I can’t help but think of the macro and the micro simultaneously. Working on ourselves, and working systemically I see many striking similarities. The discomfort, the constrictions, the avoidance, the initial pain and fear of going in to uncomfortable places – but also the promise of hope, of integration, healing, and potential being unleashed.
So what in the world is going on? As I try to navigate this new emerging world order, I’m continually re-writing the story in my mind to make sense of the changing landscape. At first it was apocalyptic – a disaster that kept getting worse. But now my story is starting to have tones of hope – that maybe this is what healing looks like. The messy, wound opening, cleaning up, and airing out that is so necessary to move on and regain a healthier way of living and interbeing.
This new story helps me in my own life, when shit feels like it is hitting the fan – to re-title that chapter to be about healing and progress instead of doom and failure. It helps me find strength, humility, and courage to face myself and the world, and continue the journey forward.
I often catch myself future dreaming – that soon things will be different and this or that problem will go away – then I will be comfortable and safe. That there is some kind of preferred future where there is no pain and discomfort. Clearly, that is not the case. I always seem to find myself in the in-between. In this place between the past and future where things aren’t quite clear, the world doesn’t quite seem settled, my feelings are complex and murky – and I can’t quite find my footing. The present is a messy place – but that mess is where life happens. A glorious mess indeed.
K. Miguel Hahn 