a wild paradox

Content heads up: mentions of depression and present-day state violence

Over the past few weeks, I’ve experienced a rush of creative energy. I wake up with a desire to reflect, write, and imagine. Visions of potential projects keep popping up in my mind. I’m even reading the book, Asian American Herbalism, for fun. While it’s not unusual for me to feel inspired from time to time, this is the first time I have ever experienced a longer stretch (a consistent few weeks) like this. I am feeling alive and present in a way that feels new.

This time is also coinciding with the invasion of federal forces to Chicago, seeing constant footage of families being violently torn apart, militarized forces brutalizing protestors, and unidentified masked men with guns sitting outside of schools and daycares. The anger and grief are deep.

I have previously gone through some long seasons of overwhelming grief and sadness before. During those seasons, I tended to turn inward and isolate, and do what I could to just make it through. Joy and creativity felt impossible. All I could do was lie down, remind myself to eat every once in a while, and try to survive the heartbreak of it all.

Because that has been my previous experience, it now feels like a wild paradox to be where I am now - holding grief and hope, mourning and joy, breaking down and creating, all at the same time.

I am in this beautiful healing and liberation-centered cohort right now, called “Finding Our Way,” and this week we explored the wisdom of Audre Lorde. We read excerpts from various works and discussed how exploring these deep and scary parts of ourselves, and expressing that vulnerability is powerful. Suddenly, this wild paradox all made sense. She describes the ways that deep self-exploration, feeling our feelings, and being present with our pain is actually our source of power and creativity. Some of my fav quotes we talked about:

“I have found that battling despair does not mean closing my eyes to the enormity of the tasks of effecting change, nor ignoring the strength and the barbarity of the forces aligned against us. It means teaching, surviving and fighting with the most important resource I have, myself, and taking joy in that battle.”
(from The Cancer Journals)

“Where does our power lie and how do we school ourselves to use it in the service of what we believe?...

To search for power within myself means I must be willing to move through being afraid to whatever lies beyond. If I look at my most vulnerable places and acknowledge the pain I have felt, I can remove the source of that pain from my enemies’ arsenals. My history cannot be used to feather my enemies’ arrows then, and that lessens their power over me. Nothing I accept about myself can be used against me to diminish me. I am who I am, doing what I came to do, acting upon you like a drug or a chisel to remind you of your me-ness, as I discover you in myself.”
(from Eye to Eye: Black Women, Hatred, and Anger)

“Within these deep places, each one of us holds an incredible reserve of creativity and power, of unexamined and unrecorded emotion and feeling… As they become known to and accepted by us, our feelings and the honest exploration of them become sanctuaries and spawning grounds for the most radical and daring of ideas.”
(from Poetry is Not a Luxury)

Note: I highlyyy recommend you read/listen to more Audre Lorde. Her words are so rich that I sometimes sit with a brief quote for a long time. It’s okay (and good) to take things in slowly.

I realized that all the energy I have spent in years of unpacking trauma, grieving over things lost, feeling the emotional pain turned to physical pain, were never fruitless efforts. Audre Lorde reminds me that deeply connecting with pain/fear/chaos is scary and hard, AND it is always worth it. Because when we allow ourselves to feel, we are allowing our bodies to process and release. And doing so makes space for so much more possibility. In this way, we expand our capacity to not merely hold both, but to actually transmute the despair into something new.

Some gentle suggestions (for myself, and if it’s helpful, for you as well):

1. Find moments to be present with yourself - for me, this looks like listening to my “Mirrors” playlist of songs that take me inwards, while going for a walk and appreciating the flowers and trees
2. When the pain and grief comes up, instead of interrogating it, try just sitting with it - even for a few minutes. The more we practice this, the less scary it gets.
3. Let yourself find and revel in the smallest of joys - lean into the fullness that life has to offer you. Intentionally enjoy the sweetness of a strawberry, or feel the warmth of the sun on your face, or allow yourself to giggle at a silly thing.

Because you read this whole thing, I will also share a haiku I recently wrote that has served as a sort of personal mantra when shit is hard:

everyday i find
small, beautiful, and sacred
reasons to be here