Caring for Your Self Amid Protests
BeFriending Your UnDeserving Part
My nervous system wants to be able to trust me. It wants to feel safe and grounded. My nervous system relies on gravity and hydration. My nervous system is in love -- passionately -- with the idea that if I could just do one thing at a time I would feel so good!
But I also have a part (my ADHD part) that wants everything all at once as much as possible. This part is afraid I'm missing out. I try to be extra kind and compassionate with this part.
Living in our world today, I'm conscious of how I spend my time, where my focus goes, and what I'm doing to cope. People have been asking about this, and I want to respond as a person with a healing nervous system, a neurodivergent person who has lived with cPTSD, Anxiety and Depression. I want to make sure I can manage well. So I'll share what I'm doing right now that helps.
But before all that, I want to address a Part that many of us struggle with, the Part that says, but focusing on myself is so selfish! I don't have time. I don't dare make time. I don't deserve... Etc.
We all know about putting our own oxygen mask on first, and yet it isn't second nature to some of us. We are often belittled and attacked for putting ourselves before others. By ourselves! So I want to call this out as the ingrained protests of the patriarchy in action, the misogyny in our midst, and the internalized oppression in our minds! You’re not alone. So many of us struggle with the same voice saying the same awful things.
First become aware that you are not your thoughts. This is a Part of you, not all of you. That on its own is a step toward un-blending from the Part. Un-blending means becoming aware of the voice and the feelings it carries as a Part but not all of you. Un-blending means you ask the Part to give you some space, to step back, to un-blend, so that you can get to know it.
Oh no! I don’t want to get to know that terrible/mean/awful Part! Well, the reality is there are no bad Parts. Parts all want what is best for you at heart, but they carry burdens, and these burdens can be hard to bear. So maybe Other Parts of you don’t like this part that constantly puts others first. Maybe Parts feel threatened and upset when this Part shows up. That's normal.
Please ask those parts to step aside, until you can get to Self. Self (and you can check this) feels curious about your Part that says you don’t deserve to focus on you and your own care. If you can bring Self and its Curiosity to your UnDeserving Part, you can get to know it. You can find out why it does this difficult job. You can understand what it's afraid would happen if it didn't do this work.
But even if you don't get through all the steps toward building a trusting relationship with this Part on your own, just knowing it's not all of you can be freeing. Your UnDeserving Part might carry cultural burdens, family burdens, maybe even legacy burdens from a history of your ancestors having to put others first ahead of their own needs. This can help you understand how embedded these Parts can be and give you the patience to begin the work of witnessing, retrieving and unburdening this Part to free it from the need to act this way.
While you are building trust with your Parts, try to treat your nervous system with more intentional care. While the world feels as if it's getting louder every day, try some quiet time! Wear earplugs or noise cancelling headphones for part of your day. Try some soothing background music while you work. Get out in nature at least once a day and breathe in the green or the changing leaves or the smell of rain on the wet earth as the seasons change. Crunch some fallen leaves.
I don’t feel obligated to keep up with the daily socials, the news, the genocide or the election. I can only bring my attention to these things when I have the bandwidth to manage my stress levels. And when I do pay attention, I do so intentionally without doom-scrolling. So give yourself permission to take a break from your socials. Get to bed earlier. Take a bubble bath! Read, journal, check in with yourself and your parts. They would all love to hear from you!
Come to Brave Space and make something with friends! Book a private coaching session to unburden your Parts!
artwork by Scott Sherman at ScottShermanStudio on instagram
Writing Prompt:
BEGINNINGS - Are you the kind of writer who starts in the middle? How do you begin? Where do you begin? Where did you begin last time? Where do you want to begin now? Paula Vogel did an exercise with a group of writers asking us all to consider writing about Barak Obama. She asked us each to say where (in his life-story) we would start our story about him. Every single writer chose a different entry point. Where you begin is about you and the story you want to tell.
If you are aware of the end, find its opposite and begin there. Look at the beginning of a project you're working on and compare it to the end. How can they intensify each other? What is shared? What is emphasized? How do they play off each other? Theme, content, setting, word-choice, character?
If you haven't come to the ending yet, what are the mysteries of the beginning that might lead you to the ending? List all the possible paths. A beginning is a way in. Are you inviting the reader or audience into the world of this piece? With what enticements?
Defamiliarization is the art of making a familiar thing strange and therefore new. See Viktor Shklovsky and his film theory. A great example of defamiliarization is how Dick and Jane is used in Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye to show us how this children's grammar teaches an oppressive dominant whiteness. What do you want to make new in the story you are telling? What do you want people to pay attention to? How can you strange it?
Beginnings must begin, so I often destroy the pristine page so that I won't have to worry about beginning badly. A mark down the page, a bit of scribble, even some randomly typed letters onto the empty screen help me begin because it is the first moment that is the most difficult for me. Once I'm in the world of the story, I am fine to move about inside it. What are your strategies for beginning (even if you are in the middle)? Do you leave yourself instructions for the next day as a way to begin?
Jump in. Begin at the beginning, that's what Alice says. Make something mean what you want it to mean. Re-load an object with a new idea or create your own meaning from whatever you need. Grab our attention with something treated differently from the norm. You don’t need to explain anything. Only put us in the middle of someone in a place trying to do something, and you have begun.
Amazing people doing amazing things:
10/17 7pm Donna Minkowitz will read from her new book, DONNAVILLE, at the Bureau of General Studies – Queer Division 208 W. 13th St. NYC.
10/17 & 10/18 Lauren Holmes’ winning new play, ZEUS 4 will be read at LaGuardia Performing Arts Center, NYC directed by Aneesha Kudtarkar. Tickets here.
Thru 10/20 Beth Lincks’s play Blood of the Lamb runs at 59E59 NYC.
10/20 3pm ET Online Film Salon from Voices from the Holy Land to inform people about what’s actually happening in the Occupied Lands of Palestine.
10/22, 23 & 27 Cristina Rose Ashby conceived of and directs Poe's Children with original music by Thomas Burns Scully, a devised exploration of grief and poetry at the Frigid Festival, NYC
10/28 630pm - 830pm ET in person in NYC and live-streaming, Shoshanna Gleich will present a song and a film at Tibet House
Thru 11/3: Urban Stages presents People of the Book by Yussef El-Guindi.
Strange Horizons has published a poem of mine this week, NOSE (KNOWS). And I also have a poem, “The Stocked Pond” in Last Stanza Anthology #18.
Opportunities:
Due 12/15/24 The Orchard Project is accepting submissions for:
The Orchard Project Performance Lab (link), for development of work intended to be performed in front of a live or virtual audience.
The Orchard Project Greenhouse Program (link), for collaborators generating new works and collaborations in a multitude of forms;
The Orchard Project Episodic Lab (link), for writers working on the advancement of original TV scripts;
The Orchard Project Audio Lab (link), for early development of scripts and ideas in the audio storytelling form.
Due 12/17/24 NYFA grant deadline for Playwriting/Screenwriting, Photography, Choreography and other disciplines for New York creatives.
Jenna Lourenco is looking for Autistic Theatre People for a study Examining Environmental & Cultural Challenges to Autistic Accessibility in Theatre Workspaces" through the end of October 2024 at this link!
Due by October 31st Edward F. Albee Foundation Residency 2025 now completely ADA accessible is open to all creative people (writers and visual artists of all media) at this link!
Due by November 1st, Premiere Stages at Kean Festival send them your work!
The Playwrights Center in Minneapolis offers the following programs to apply to:
-Core Writer Program - open to any committed professional playwright, deadline in January 2025
-Jerome Fellowship - for any early career playwright interested in spending two years in Minnesota, deadline in November 2024
-Many Voices Fellowship - for any early career BIPOC playwright interested in spending two years in Minnesota, deadline in December 2024
-McKnight National Residency and Commission - open to established playwrights outside of Minnesota, deadline in December 2024
-McKnight Fellowship in Playwriting - open to mid-career Minnesota-based playwrights, deadline in January 2025
-Many Voices Mentorship - open to beginning BIPOC playwrights based in Minnesota, deadline in December 2024
-Core Apprentice - open to playwrights in or recently graduated from undergrad and graduate programs, deadline in February 2025.
Brave Space Schedule:
10/18 Friday 12pm ET Brave Space
10/20 - 10/25 I will be out of town for a coaching training with IACT at AANE.org
10/27 Sunday 6pm ET Brave Space for All Humans
10/28 Monday 12pm ET Brave Space
10/29 Tuesday 12pm ET Brave Space w/wkshp
Tuesday 7pm ET Advanced Brave Group Coaching
10/30 Wednesday 12pm ET Brave Space
10/31 Thursday 11am ET Advanced Brave Group Coaching
11/01 Friday 12pm ET Brave Space
Friday 3pm ET Brave Sharing Salon
11/03 Sunday 6pm ET All Human Brave Space
11/04 Monday 12pm ET Brave Space
11/05 Tuesday 12pm ET Brave Space w/wkshp
Tuesday 7pm ET Advanced Brave Group Coaching
11/06 Wednesday 12pm ET Brave Space
11/07 Thursday 11am ET Advanced Brave Group Coaching
11/08 Friday 12pm ET Brave Space
11/10 Sunday 6pm ET All Human Brave Space
Sunday 730pm ET All Human Brave Sharing Salon
11/11 Monday 12pm ET Brave Space
11/12 Tuesday 12pm ET Brave Space w/wkshp
Tuesday 7pm ET Advanced Brave Group Coaching
11/13 Wednesday 7pm ET AANYC Craft Club on Discord
11/14 Thursday 10am ET Advanced Brave Group Coaching
Thursday 12pm ET Brave Space
11/15 Friday 12pm ET Brave Space
11/17 Sunday 6pm ET Brave Space for All Humans
Each week Tuesdays includes fast feedback for up to 1 page (@250 words) of writing or you can bring in a craft issue/ask for help with your project.
Each month there are 2 Sharing Salons: Second Sundays (730pm ET) and Final Fridays (3pm ET) for sharing up to 10 minutes of work (up to 1500 words).
Thanks for this excellent advice, Emma.
Brava Emma, brave work in a brave space!