How We Show Up Matters.

How do we…do community? Vulnerability? Resilience? How do we show up in these hard times? Show up for each other? This is an honest question I am living into every day. How about you? Any wisdom to share? This is part of the dialogue I share with patients everyday, and it extends beyond the bounds of clinic. There’s one arena of life where these themes have been particularly alive and poignant recently.

This autumn marks 20 years since that I’ve been regularly sitting with circles of incarcerated men at Monroe Correctional Complex (MCC), introducing mindfulness, meditation, and facilitating dialogue about the challenges of…human-ing, and sharing practices & tools that help. I was invited in 2006, the request has continued, and so has my commitment to this aspect of my community and life. Currently, I spend every 1st and 3rd Tuesday out at Monroe with groups in three of the five facilities, with several day long meditation retreats each year.

 

Upon arrival at a recent Tuesday group, one of the men, a stalwart member for years who has done deep, personal transformation, informed us he is being shipped out to another prison. This involuntary movement is not due to infraction or behavior issues, rather it’s due to facility renovations. The week prior when informed of the move, he explained he had been filled with confusion and rage, particularly for the consequences it will have for contact with his family close by. Over some days, his experiences had…evolved…softened. He spoke about the move with more equanimity, some curiosity as to what lies ahead, and an understandable quaver of vulnerability. He was honest about all the facets.

I tend to remain pretty steady with the guys, not stoic, authentic and a level of vulnerability that feels appropriate to the context. During our second period of meditation that day however tears came and they just kept quietly flowing. My mind was a swirl: the transience of this human life, how little we control, the systems that impact people without regard, the recent surge in ICE abductions in the Seattle area, including one person abducted about 5 blocks from my home. News of the latter abduction occurred as I was in clinic, tending to patients, no ability to witness or extend support. There are always things happening, harms occurring, everyday while so many of us are doing our best to…human, to do our lives, going to work, buying groceries, caring for children and elders.

This has always been true. Some of us are more privileged and insulated from this reality than others, at least for this moment. All this was swirling until the meditation was over. For any of you who have ever thought, ‘I can’t meditate, my mind never stops’. Guess what? This is meditation. This is a part of the deal. All of the swirl included.

In the Monroe circle, we dropped into a check in, noting things that came up in the meditation and things up in peoples’ lives. I shared quite honestly, and vulnerably, of the swirl. By the end of the group, everyone had stepped forward into the field of vulnerability. Four different men in the circle spoke with tears at the edge of their eyes or streaming down their face. People spoke of family, of their history of harm to others, memories of human encounters of care and kindness. Toward the end, one person offered a phrase I’ve shared with the guys many times, gifted to me by a patient, ‘human-ing is hard.’ And then it kept ping-ponging around the circle, quiet nods all around every time it was spoken. ‘Yep. Human-ing is hard.’ Toward the very tail, a last round, people expressed gratitude for the safety of the group, the confidentiality and care of the circle, a space in which to be vulnerable. Several shared how the group supports them to feel human and to continue in their lives. At the evening group, a separate facility also at Monroe, hours after the experience above, a member on the cusp of release shared that the group was a part of what has taught him how he wants to be in the world; more compassionate, more kind.

I believe strongly that every single human is fundamentally seeking, and needing, to be held with tender, respectful regard. I see the most egregious expressions of greed, hatred and confusion in our world as the consequences of this need going unmet, for some people life long. And the snowball affect is war, efforts at authoritarian takeover, innumerable expressions of great harm in all directions. I have no delusions there’s a simple fix to war and fascism. However, I am very clear that in my spheres of influence, it is imperative for me to hold people in tender, respectful regard. And I have witnessed the impact moving outward into the world, as in the microcosm of circles at Monroe.

We can’t ever know the ripples of an action, a gesture, an exchange. In these raw and burning times of catastrophe and polarization, of corruption and scarcity, of fear and anxiety, it’s a daily, moment by moment inquiry. How I can show up for my neighbors, my family, my most beloved people, my communities? I invite you to live into these questions with me:

• How can we show up to express care in our spheres of influence? our communities?
• How you can we show up to influence the world in ways that foster belonging, safety in vulnerability, resilience, joy, and ease for each other?
• How can we reach, just one reach beyond our own needs and interests to deeply meet and benefit others?

Have a look at my previous newsletter for ideas about some everyday, un-heroic, and beautiful ways to care for each other. Start your own list. Talk about these with those you trust or strangers on the street.

As always, I welcome feedback about this writing. Please know my clinic door is open. This is a place of tending for the physical body, and all the ways that this burning world, and our feels about it, show up in our bodyminds.

with tender regard,

Zoe

Note: I write very periodically, and contrary to the gravitational flow, not a single word of this was penned by/with AI. In this particular writing, I’ve also deliberated and edited carefully to convey the intimacy and power of my experiences with people inside prison, while being attentive that these are their stories, their intimacies, their privacy. I have pared details to reflect this intention.

PS: please prepare, and make a plan to vote.