The Complexities of Being Human + The Pit of Despair
{Supportive Aspects in Returning to Regulation}
Reach out to friends and community for support: This may be for moments of laughter or to come together to discuss our feelings of grief, fear, and/or despair and process through it. For instance, some friends and I are co-creating a healing ritual space for anytime anyone of us finds ourselves moving towards the “pit of despair.” Lets normalize both the giving and receiving support.
Explore ways we can choose the experience we’re having: Often we want to not be feeling what we’re feeling. The highs and the lows. We negate it, or judge it. Yet, the more we can “be with it,” and explore what it has to teach and remind us of, the more we can move through it.
Finding ways to allow for our grieving: Grieving is a normal part of the human experience and many of us have been told to have this be a time-bound limited experience. Explore and be creative with whatever ways you want to be in grieving. There are so many practitioners out there supporting this beautiful sacred work and offering structured ways to engage in grief processes or rituals held by folks in the community.
Building Somatic Self-Awareness: Check in somatically with your fears or worries and how you might offer reassurance or comfort. Start noticing what you’re feeling, the temperature, texture, heaviness or lightness, the variations, the sensations, moods, stories.
Normalize what you’re experiencing: The nervous system and brain science backs up how we seek safety in our nervous systems and we do our darn best to protect ourselves. Yes, we may have patterns that no longer serve us, and we may fall into similar patterns of burnout and override, and there’s sanity in the coping ways we’ve developed. If you are curious, there are a ton of therapists and practitioners who can teach more about nervous system regulation and somatic techniques.
Movement: Dance and move, even if it takes something to re-engage in a movement practice.
Earlier this week I found myself in low mood. I wasn’t quite in a pit of despair as I describe in the video, though feeling myself inching closer and closer. As others have been naming, “our political, social, cultural trends of violence, polarization, and unraveling of systems” are not new. Groups of people have been through them before—Indigenous, Black, Asian, Latin, and White communities. Like the poem by Martin Niemöller alludes to "First they came for the Socialists…,” there are individuals and groups already feeling the pulls and impacts of what’s taking place throughout the world. As when we find ourselves outside feeling unregulated or in low energy, may we seek the comfort of the resources within and outside of ourselves, and ways we can tend to ourselves and support our movement through the experience we’re having.
I will share resources I come across on groups and workshops to support nervous system regulation, resourcing, and healing throughout the election season. I recently saw a post by Dr. BlackDeer, an anti-colonial Indigiqueer scholar-activist from the Southern Cheyenne Nation, encouraging us to listen to indigenous futurists; I’ll share a link to resources as they becomes available.
In care, Sarah
Reach out via email Hello@sarahrimmel.com or schedule a consultation to receive support for you and/or your team. #teamcoaching #executivecoaching #diversityequityinclusion #somatics #healing #workplaceculture #organizationalculture #womensherstorymonth