Process, Uncategorized

Emotional Labour, Community Activism, Boundaries and The Rise of the Divine Feminine

IMG-4499This year it feels like I’ve taken a crash course in all of the above. I’m also feeling pretty proud of myself in the process.  For the first time in the history of my own community activism, I have refused to take on other peoples shit. True Story.

Emotional Labour is the work of me, The Life Doula. I create space, I hold space and I offer up time as if it is an infinite resource and utilising a lost healing magic that seems to have been long forgotten in the realms of 21st-century healing. You can’t hack everything. It is at the very moment we can become grateful for the ageing process, proud of the whispy grey hairs and that wisdom usually has to be earned.

The truth is that Emotional Labour is, for the most part, the work of women. The absorbing, the explaining, the understanding, the coaxing and sustaining of families and communities. It’s the care of the dying, the nurturing of children, the comforting of the ill and distressed and the perpetual maintenance of the household. It’s also the commitment to healing, healing ourselves to be of better service. Healing our selves to create better homes, stronger families and resilient communities and yet so little of this work are appreciated and honoured even though it is the very stuff of life.

These days as healers and let’s be honest here as women we now have to resolve to set boundaries for ourselves. We have to decide to take care of ourselves first, heal our selves first before we ever hope to have a deeper impact on the world at large, even though there is so much to heal. Too often now I have had the call to action. “Kimberley we need your help” and too often now I have learned that the help I have to offer is mistaken for something else. That somehow I can do the work for you. That by me showing up and listening to the problem at hand is a cure and that due to my caring nature I might be willing to solve the problem by taking on the role of community enabler. That I will be project manager, researcher, facilitator,  admin assistant,  fundraiser and counsellor. All for free of course.

The answer is I can and I won’t. The truth is my house isn’t in order. I expect too much from hurt people. The best remedy I have for this is, of course, is getting back to the drawing board and straight back into dharma. Chopping water and fetching wood, figuring out where the mix up happened and re-committing to healing myself first, loving myself best and serving reason from a cup that radiates joy.

The age of Aquarius is here. The divine feminine is on the rise and emotional mastery is calling to us. Nurturance is key and taking on the emotional labour of others is over. Nothing is disposable. The energy we put out into the world is the energy we get back. After all, it’s the circle of life.

Process, Uncategorized

Digital Drag

Well, this is a first. I’m writing from my phone as my computer has been taken over by the beach ball of doom. I’m wondering if it has any deeper significance. That maybe it’s time to stop or maybe it’s time to push through. Or even commit to digital filing in a profound spiritual way. Can we be essentialist about digital data too? My phone and computer seem to screaming out with overload. I wonder if this is a new dilemma for a new age digital dharma.

I wonder what tales of self-love and neglect my computer might tell me if it was fully sentient. Is that a question I can answer clearly? Increasingly I’m inclined to say no. Our psyches are spilling out all over the place, into google and all those other platforms. Can the hardware really be unaffected as we wonder how near into the future that robots will be the norm? How might they help one another? It makes me pleased my computer doesn’t have limbs or any of my other household appliances. Our minds seem to be morphing with tech and I wonder how long it will be before you are able to literally call your own car. What has all that got to do with Life Doulaing? Well, life is change and it’s our ability to adapt that ensures that we can thrive.

Already here in South Africa digital disparities seem to field the landscape of society as the world steps further and further away from the ideas of traditional work. Many people without digital access are already being excluded from the digital workspace, much the same way you can if you don’t have access to a car. In the business of global storytelling so much is being left unsaid. Then I laugh a little because I’ve made a proposition in my head. That somewhere out there in The Lost City of Khayelitsha that everybody’s up for telling the sad story. When human evolution forces the opposite to be true. We want to tell our best stories, show our best lives. Maybe not because we are frightened of judgement but maybe because we want to attract what we want. Clean clothes, running water. You’d be amazed at other people’s paradigms. It makes me consider all my internal landscapes and emotional environments again.

I’m curious to know how as humans of the digital age creating deeper interlocking patterns with tech how we might approach this ever-encroaching condition. These days the digital interface is so pervasive it’s hard for me now to really capture where community begins and ends. Where the boundaries of human relationships truly lie. What is the physical? Bringing a whole new meaning to what is the matter? Yup, it’s full on. I’m really interested to know if you are sharing the same questions.