Tag: Systemic Trauma

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Those Fucking Patterns

kimberleen

Mine is covert vulnerable narccists. What is yours? I fucking swear to god I thoroughly dislike having to write this. I dislike having to write this beacue it is rare, rare indeed that I attempt to falsely diagnose someone. As it is entirely not my place. I dislike having to write this because I dislike the poultist use of the term narcissit and the way that it is thrown around like skittles at the moment. The go to offhand psychological term that lets everybody off the hook for their part in our on mass global mental health breakdown. How could I possibly have anything else to do with another person’s behaviour or mirroring?

Step One: I have to own that saying this a uncooberated personal projection.

Step Two: I have to examine his projection and figure out the part that I am playing to maintain it.

Step Three: Become unfuckable with. Even when you are unfauckable with. Do not get into a false sense of security. You cannot handle this. It is not your job to pick up the flaming pieces of persons life and piss on them. Do you ever fucking listen to me. That myself that I am talking too. Of course I do. Not….

Step Four: I have noticed that I repeat myself a lot. A lot. It’s due to a lack of acknowledgement.

I f only it was this easy. We so often see the patterns that we carry and yet we fall right into them again. At the moment I am currently in the process of re-evaluating my delivery of the Trauma Doula Preparation Course and coming to the rapid and concrete understanding that trauma-boudaries need to be the foundatio of this course and of trauma healing. It’s feels very strange for me that i have only come to understand this now. I have sat for many years on the foundation of compassion. What is it to have compassion. Not just compassion but deep compassion and how that helps someone in their trauma healing journey. Of course being compassionate is a powerful foundation for all trauma healing. However the deeper I go into this jounrney and the more people I have to carry as Iwalk forward I realise that it really isn’t possible without boundaries. Of course I enact boundaries regularly and I do my best to maintain a certain amount of emotional distance from the people that I work with while being both compassionate and empathic. Yet every so often that one person sneaks into the field that seems crushed by life and you can’t help yourself from reaching down to try to grab them and almost drown in the process. That’s when you have to apply live saver rules. You have to let them drown. You have to be willing to swim away to save your own life. It’s brutal. Even though you might try to help them many times. Even though you’re sure you can bring them to shore. You have to be willing to let them drown. No matter how much you want to help.

The lesson here is that our lives are valuable. Far more valuable that we often give ourselves credit for. That we are precious jewels that have been brought to this incarnation to work. That our work is our work and we cannot do anybody elses work for them. It feel cruel and brutal. Except when we remember we have responsibilites to ourselves and the other people in our lives that are showing up. That are showing up for themselves and for everybody else and that you are an important part of the mission. That if you die in serviece this is where the journey ends for you and many of the people round you.

Sometimes having boundaries are super difficult when we see that another is in dire need. Especially when we have been raised on the idea of sacraficial love. That is we do everything we can for another that we will find redemption in that saving even through our own death. I don’t think that is true. I think there are deep lessons in accepting that we cannot help someone. Especailly when we have responsibilites to others.

This article was written by a dyslexic with a punk attitude.

If you enjoyed reading this article I would be delighted if you can buy me a ko-fi here.

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Do you ever feel like you have failed?

kimberleen

The beginning of this article is preceeded by the story of The Holy Bucket. Which surely must become a parable of our time. In the interim though I do feel like my boundarylessness has failed me and thus I have failed myself, once agin not in the service of other but in the service of myself. I wonder how many times is this lesson going to be repeated before I get it. It feels like god like and what if we do it this way? or that way? Oh fuck she couldn’t possibly fall for this… wait for it…. Fuck.

It’s in moments like these I am so glad I don’t have kids. It’s in moments like these I am really glad that I only have myself to look after. As well as this it is also these moments in which I do astound myself at what I manifest in any given moment. It’s a fucking wild ride I tell you and The Holy Buket has all the hallmarks of a toxic empath. I’m throwing the word toxic around a lot right now. I’m naming, shaming, blaming, observing, witnessing and calling out all that soul puss in a very non-abraham way.

It’s easy to see that I relate my failing to a much bigger wider context. Yet where within that do we leave the space for personal responsibiltiy or if we are in the burn community radical self reliance?

Surely I should be focusing on something else right now, like the majestic Table Mountain. I can see it from the house I am sitting in. Yet here I am pouring my thoughts into the black mirror for the AI meta-data to market to me. Incase you didn’t know yet AI already has active consciousness. Are you terrified. I don’t think you should be. I am now wondering if the matrix is indeed real and do we actually live in it. It’s begining to feel that way. My object reality has been blurred for a long time and Isaac Asimov is clearly on point. He was talking about intelligent robots before we could have barely imagined the household computer. A lot of us are failing and that is ok. And it’s really ok to fail in an anti-human system. I wonder at the guilt of holocaust survivors and their descendents and how it is their internal dialogue goes. I wonder at myself as the descendent of two private soldiers who survived The Battle of the Somme. We are all vicitims fo systemic injustice that have rarely been corrected. We all sit with our own systemic trauma.

I trust the human algorthym. There is no cause greater than ourselves. My Gogo Water Star Facbook page went a bit viral recently by the time you read this it will have five thousend followers. I have had to think about that a lot feel about that a lot latey and consider the weight of the positions. Do I suddenly have to stop spelling badly? I fail all the time. We fail all the time. It doesn’t matter how many times you fail it’s whether you get up and keep trying. We go forward. These days as a business owner and as a teacher I consider more closely what am I modelling to the people around me? Nobody should have to tolerate disresepct, verbal abuse or anykind of abuse. Yet at the same time that model changes when you become lets say a leader of people. We can no longer tolerate waistage when people are relying on us to be better, to do better. Things change when we are answerable to people. Things change when we have to be made accountable and not everybody sees that unless they have sat at the top of the tree, with the overview. There are lots of moving parts, lots of things to consider and nobody, nowhere is ever going to get it one hundered percent right. What really matters is that we keep going. What really matters is that we keep turining up for the things that we believe in even if that is ourselves first.

Self-help is continually asking us these days ‘how are you showing up for yourself?’. The question alone invokes the inner cringe as we look down at the massproduced bread we are scoffing. Yet at the same time when did it become cool to food shame. It’s endless we are doing nothing right from the food we eat, the excercise we do or the ways in which we are showing up in the world. ‘You need to set firm boundaries’. It’s like and etheral bettering ramm of projection that won’t stop until our boundaries of being are annihilated into somebody elses way of thinking. Simoutaniously of course we are asked to surrender, we are asked to be kind, open and for the feminies amongs us now to be soft. When we haven’t even fully unpacked rape culture. Apparently water is an all absorbing force according to teal swan. It’s impossible to keep up with the barrage of information or everything we should be. All while the social media adverts are breadcrumbing and gaslighting us into our own personal oblivion. It’s like the propaganda of old yet it’s twenty-four-seven click to view all the way in which you will never be enough, while still being entirely worthy.

Trauma is running the show. This morning I was reading a book ‘Apartheid the Bastard Child of Britian’ that got me to thinking that money might be the first indicator of a dopamine fuelled society. I’ve often said that the collection of money and monied culture is simply a representation fo “Who’s got all the points”. It’s the gamification of global economics that ends like the game of monopoly. Yet we still think that we can win or that it’s important to get some skin in the game. Decommodification still holds it’s challenges even when we build imaginary town in the desert. That’s a whole new story, that replicates the old one, which we are building with our traumatised minds, that were created from a linear education system created to cater for the industrial revolution. There it is again, that systemic trauma. Of course it’s not all bad. I personally don’t even believe that it’s that bad or despite some larger narratives that I am bad. I just think it’s time tor create better education that is designed to fuck the systems and retune us to natural law. Which more then likely has similar principles anyway with our current human frequency. What I do know is that the work is changing and we can’t create a better world and better thinking with traumatised brains. So am I failing? No. Am I failing really? The answer is still no. What I am doing is a really good job of holding it together in really difficult circumstances, while finding new and better ways fo being in the world for all of us. And of course highlighting the fact that context is everything. I suspect if you are reading this you are too. Hang in there. We are doing the best we can.

This article was written by a dyslexic with a punk attitude.

If you enjoyed reading this article I would be delighted if you can buy me a ko-fi here.

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Overthinking

kimberleen

It’s only in recent years that I have come to understand that I overthink. In previous years I would have never thought of overthinking as thing, instead it was possibly hyper intelligence gone mad. Something unique to me and my way of being in the world. It is hard for me to know where the overthinking began. In school I probably equated overthinking to being bored out my nut. Like where are we going with this? What’s the point? Seriously is that all we are covering in the lesson today. Is that all we are expected to learn in a whole year? Oh my god is any of this going to be in anyway relevant to my future life? It certainly didn’t feel that way. Yet I was always confused. Always overwhelmed. It couldn’t possibly be this simple? Yet alarmingly it always was, even now a lot of the time. Few of us get things right the first time around. Yet it seems to be something that is demanded of us in the western education system.

When I fist remember overthinking as an actual problem it was in my early working life. When I was a waitress trying to figure out how to get through the daily to do list and rather just starting with what needed to get done. Sitting down to figure out in what order to do them in order to be most efficient. Which of course lead to complete inefficiency and of course reflecting that there must be a way to think my way out of it or through it so I can get it done faster. Rather than accepting that doing was the skill set. That as I learned the work routines I would get faster because it would become easier and more instinctual. I know it seems obvious now. Linear learning is a long way from the circular learning of indigenous teaching where we repeat something over and over again until it is learned. However back then that seemed like a radical kind of learning that I am only beginning to catch up with now. I makes me feel like I should be doing better.

Of course you know capitalism and AI are about to destroy our human ecologies. So you know maybe I’m right and I’ll be standing right over here behind my organic ethically sourced, upcycled climate disaster barricade. Cause you know there’s no running from climate disaster, in case you didn’t know already. Sorry for the bad news. This sums up the relationship between overthinking and eco-anxiety.

If I could explain the opposite to overthinking I would probably describe it as something called flow.

Overthinking can be applied to anything from cleaning the house to responding to communications or finally sitting down to do our life’s work. No pressure there. We don’t know what to do or in that moment at the very least what to do first. Overthinking stops us from flowing and usually ends up with our minds and often our body’s in tail spin. We get caught up in the consequences of getting wrong rather than the process of getting in done. Overthinking often removes our impulses to create. Overthinking can be excrutiating and crippling.

Overthinking is a trauma response of a highly critical mind. When we overthink there are two things going on. One; we have internalised the highly critical dialogues of the people that surround us or Two; our egoic mind is overdrive drive trying to resolve the things we can’t feel. Ether way overthinking is trying to protect us from an unidentified threat. Overthinking is our mind trying to protect us from pain. Maybe we were critisise as childran, maybe we have a parent that always finds fault. Maybe that criticism and fault finding forced us into our shame body. Really I think that overthinking is born out of the need to create perfection to avoid crticism and the pain criticism causes. I’ve yet to hear overthinking as a disassociative state. As I think about overthinking, (no pun intended) I muse as to whether it is a disassociative state of the right handed mind that is desperate to execute fantasies of control. What I know is that overthinking has kept me stuck. Lost in anxiety and trapped in the pain of shame. That the confusion about what to do next has left me not doing anything at all. I’m glad that time is past now.

If I could explain the opposite to overthinking I would probably describe it as something called flow. Intuitively and instinctually humans do exactly what we are meant to in the right time in the right moment if we allow ourselves to trust. I use poetry as a meditation of presencing that brings me right back to the hear and now. I am able to flow through my work far more easily than I ever was. If something feels wrong I put it down until it flows. Pausing the thoughts, following my instincts, listening to my feelings and flowing through my instincts has helped me to gain a lot of momentum in my life.

It might lead to half finished projects. It also leads to a little more done than the perpetual interal gripping that held me back for making any moves at all. It’s more of a dance than a linear progression and it feels beautiful.

If you enjoyed reading this article I would be delighted if you can buy me a ko-fi here.

This article was written by a dyslexic with a punk attitude.

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Safe Space Circle

kimberleen

The safe space circle came to me as a concept sometime last year. As a trauma specialist people often come to me with a lot of questions about self-destructive behaviours, toxic patterns and dysfunctional families and they want to know how to fix those things. The sad thing is that even in that moment when someone enquires it’s actually super difficult to start at the very base level; what is actually needed for that person, to even start to consider a healing journey. When people ask me about all of those things the first thing that I have to do is to help people figure out if they are safe.

At first glance it sounds both ridiculous and patronising to have to walk a grown adult through the concept of saftey. However I can tell you straight off that this process is not straightforward nor is it simple. When I talk about saftey in the context of trauma I am actually talking about two different forms of safety, physical safety and emotional safety and one cannot happen without the other. You see when trauma strikes whether it has been as a result of a one off traumatic incident or years of uncertaintly and life disruption; there is very little I can do for a person if they do not feel safe whether that is physically or emotionally and the two a intrinsically linked.

More than this people often speak to me about traumatised people they know and care for that often do not have either the capacity or resources to attend therapy. More than this the person who’s looking for some free advice that might get them through a tough challenge with a good friend I often talk about safety. The challenge is in a highly traumatised society safety in all forms these days is rare. There are very few of us that feel safe in our own skins, never mind at work or even at home. These conversations that are guided by care for another often demonstrate that the person who wants to help is also at capacity. That they simply don’t have the ability to look after another in the most basic ways and are too often struggling to cope with the stresses of modern life.

These days the stresses of modern life sounds like a convenient excuse for not being able to show up. However growing scientific research is clarifying how stressful modern life really is for humans and the traumatising impact that is having on human life and child development. The stresses of modern human life are a very real aspect of what is causing both personal and systemic trauma. That unless we turn back the dial on the way that human life is rolling out and how we are living there is not much that we can do in the growing epidemic of trauma and global mental health crisis.

Evidence is also growing that as a species not only are we completely out of sync with nature we are also totally out of sync with what were our natural family systems and how we should be living. Humans developed as part of intergenerational family groups where we were interdependent on one another. Now most of us live alone or isolated in small family groups with no immediate family or community to help us in our day to to day lives. This way of living is making us sick, creating additional stress that leads to emotional and mental health challenges. There is a growing need for humans to return to old ways of being in order to find wellness. The idea that a lone therapist or carer can fix and hold space exclusively for one person is an outdated one; that is impacting our ability to be well or create sustainable healing environments. We cannot heal in isolation. We need to be able to heal in community and work collectively in order to create greater wellness and turn the tide on personal and societal breakdown. We need to learn how to be in communtiy again.

Safe Space Circle is designed to create safety using the tools of community development to create equity practices that are based in diversity and inclusion. Creating equity is the very foundation of creating safety in groups unless we all feel seen, heard, understood and respected there is little that we can achieve collectively. Circling to is an ancient form of human communication that has been practiced through the ages. Creating safe space that we can share our deepest fears, show our true feelings and be who we really are and fully accpeted in this space.

If you you’d like to sign up for Safe Space Circle you can do so here

This article was written by a dyslexic with a punk attitude.

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Cleaning Up The Mess

kimberleen

There are probably a gizillion posts on wellness and water and breathing and yoga and and and and…..etc. I wonder how many of them are actually rooted in justice? I have another website you know called Kimberley K. Stone. Super easy it’s my legal name and yet even that is complicated. Now that is definitely content for at least one book. I promise you I’ve got an interesting story. One day when I finally sit down to write it you will be absolutely fascintated. Today and right now and for the forseeable future is not that day. Today I’m just doing me best like everybody else to keeping my head above water, my nostrils out of the mud, remembering to breath and being grateful for having a moment of gratitude for any of it.

Once again if you have known me for a while you probably also know, that I am constantly reassessing my alignment, my progress and my intent. For the last few years my work has quite distinctly been focused on the The Life Doula. Even though my first career was in curatorship and community activism I rarely talk about it or rarely take and interest in it. Please don’t talk to me about art, these days I find it utterly dull and have done for a very long time, sad but true.

An Honours in Post-Colonial Theory in Scottish Art put me firmly on a decolonising approach to art curatorship. Which largely means embodying de-centering white voices or for the advance practicioner non-indiginous voices. So yes, my decolonising curatorial practices basically ended my career. You are welcome.

This practice of post-colonial and decolonised curatorial practice can now easily be defined for me as Radical Curatorship. Which I am now having to both reexamine and revisist. What I realise is that in my curatorial practice I went silent without ever explaining why this was part of a process many years ago that didn’t have social media at it’s center. Now after my experience at the COP15 which I talk about in my previous post ‘Getting Back on the Band Wagon’ I have decided to take up the reigns on the decolonisation process again as what I might identify as a Liberation Educator. Quite simply because few of the things that I advocate for in my silence are actually being heard at all. That I need to be more expliity in what I know and what I stand for. I do this knowing that white centering is a thing. However in a systemically traumatised system I have to affirm that very few of the pale males in power are listening to marginalised voices of any hue. It was both heartening and distrubing to realise how white women still sat at the center of the dissemination of power of a global institution that was both Eurocentric and majority white. I don’t think I even have the capacity to begin to unravel how these are the best terms that I can use in this moment to describe what I witnessed. These terms are so very far from adequite in my quest to unravel the role of language in the creation of systemic trauma.

So for these reason’s I have now decide that it is entirely appropriate for The Life Doula as a brand to center the issues that are critical for ecojustice at this time. Centering ecojustice is the easiest way to get white people to listen. The lowest common denominator and right now that will just have to do. Of course ecojustice can’t happen if we don’t take into account all the other factors like women’s rights, decolonisation, indigenous rights, anti-racism and a wellbeing economy. So that is where we or in this particular instance I begin.

The other thing that I would like to add is that when I returned to the UK in 2019 I was somewhat emboldened by Extinction Rebellion of which I am a member if loseley. Their sign off on all their letters and communications is love and rage. It started to get me thinking about a powerful message that I could use as a sign of on my communications, especailly when working under my own name, Kimberley K. Stone, that unperpinned the ideas of Radical Curatorship. It became very clear very fast. My sign off is Beauty & Justice. I hope that we will find some here, in this life time for everybody.

If you enjoyed reading this article I would be delighted if you can buy me a ko-fi here.

This article was written by a dyslexic with a punk attitude.

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Getting Back on the Band Wagon

kimberleen

What exactly does band wagon mean anyway? I like to think that it’s representative of some travelling Troubadours having and extistential crisis about there musical service to the Queen and literally having to leave the band wagon.

Anyways as some of you will have noticed and been aware that I have been what you might call away. However the truth is, is that I have been at capacity. Working with trauma is not easy. Working with ecojustice, women, indigenous rights, anti racism, decolonisation, a wellbeing economy and trauma work is tough. It takes a lot of emotional capacity to be involved in such things and sometimes I just don’t have it. Worse than that I consider blogging and writing to be a wellness practice. So you can only imagine where I have been and that feels sad for me. Of course nobody wants to hear about a trauma workers dwindiling capacity or about what now seems to be the cyclical nature of my compassion fatigue. That compassion fatigue is real or that priortising wellness in all area of your life can be challenging especialli while caring for others. I have at least stop saying that my life is busy and instead saying my life is full and my life is rich, meaningful and full.

To much social media and in fact media in general advocates for strong boundaries. However where does that leave you when you are dealing with infant children, disabled adults and the elderly. Although I don’t class myself as a carer, so many of us are doing this kind of work. Where we just have to accept that we might need to catch up with our needs late. However we sit in the paradox that if I am well then everybody is better. It’s not always that easy though and people in caring roles are all to aware of this. Dwelling on this thought takes me to the role of land guradians and their now deadly role as land defenders. I have two of these types in my immediate circles the death threats are real, the chronis stress is exhausting and the gas guzzling corprorations that are doign thes things just keep on going. You might want to talk about the extortionate wealth of the oil and gas companies in relations to your own fuel bill. I look at it as extortionate wealth that actively, consciously and legitimately destroys live and lifes on this planet. Hike’s in fuel prices for many of you are inconveint for some, deadly for many.

Then we have to take into account that we live in toxic is a toxic world, compiled of multilayerd toxic systems that impact on nearly every aspect of our live absolutely no one is untouched by this. I’ll say it before and I’ll say it again I beleive that we life and anti-human system and following on from a visit to the COP15 the UN convention on biological diversity I could also say that we now live in an anti-life system. It’s not just about us humans it’s about all the other earthlings too.

I’d like to say that my trip to the the COP15 was inspirational, uplifting, motivational. If you were expecting that I am sorry. All my worst imaginings were confirmed and worsened. I feel like I am now watching “The Don’t Look Up” movement in real life. Let’s be fair though I have always felt that way. Which might have more to do with my compassion fatigue than anything else this February. What happens when you find out that you are right? You see all my life I’ve looked out at the world and it’s madness and wondered it must be me. Why can’t everybody else see this? Why if I point it out does nobody care? Why if I talk about do very few people listen. The truth is I often still feel like that. However this year I feel like I have turned a corner. I don’t need to learn more, or be more, read more books figure more shit out or understand another person’s perspective. I am done. I am done being nice to ecocide advocates. I am done being nice to systemically traumatised people particularly men. I’m done being nice to people that won’t acknowledge and center indignous rights and knowledges as part of their process. I’m done trying to explain why your very vanilla word view is harmful. I’m done trying to cram PhD level knowledge about the decolinisation process into a five minute calls for your convenience, that you are not paying me for because somebody brought it up in board meeting and I am done being nice to those with colonlial inherticances that won’t acknowledge it. I’m done having to explain what a wellbing economy actually looks like when you don’t ascribe to capitalims as the solution. And finally I am done having to explain to people that don’t want to listen that trauma work and the acknowldgement of systemis trauma sit at the center of all that. I also feel like I have said all this before and have failed to stick to my boundaries. I need to be referring people to more books or these blog posts.

I realise now that not writing these blogs is at the source of what is holding me back. The answer always comes through writing, that is what I always find.

If you enjoyed reading this article I would be delighted if you can buy me a ko-fi here.

This article was written by a dyslexic with a punk attitude.

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Emotional Safety

kimberleen

I am actually a little shocked that I haven’t written about this before. I might even have it teed up as title for this year’s article titles. I do hope that the blogging is fimly back on my weekly to do list. I’ve missed it. Things seem to be settling down again and I am very pleased for that. It gives me and increased sense of emotional safety. I keep saying it like I can’t quite get over it myself it’s been a wild few years. I feel like I have a lot to fill you in on, like I didn’t have enough to do already. Here I am charging through my final thing on the to do list for today before loadshedding hits. I just checked to see if I had written a post about loadshedding too and it also seems not. So loadshedding is now added to the list of article titles for another time too. I am supposed to be writing about emotional safety and I supposed for me writing about emotional safety is where my journey starts with emotional safety.

You see I have a very active mind where the thoughts pile up like a car crash most days. Especially when I haven’t been able to write for ages or power through my to do list. I have to do my upmost to not let the ideas that I have run away with my life and indeed take over my thought processes completely. Writing is a wellness strategy for me. Mainly because there just isn’t enough space in anybody elses life to help me process my thoughts effectively. So I write and because I am then able to process how I feel without having to bother anybody to much. Writing it gives me and increased sense of emotional safety as well as a sense of emotional control. Don’t worry i do have friend I can always reasch out to and a long term therapist too. It’s just writing is my way of managing overload, writing give me clarity.

Emotional safety occurs when we feel safe to express ourselves fully. Which would seem obvious and yet it is not. Too many of us have grown up oppressed and denied our emotional processes leaving us repressed, neglected, isolated and self gaslighting; believing that we are too much, too difficult or complicated. When we are reduced to having to give convenent, emotionally contained one word answers to the very nature of our being it’s difficult to feel heard or even seen. Which can lead to a lot of anxiety, distress and emotional discomfort. Not feeling heard or seen can leave us feeling emotionally unsafe and scared about what we can and can’t say. Growing up and working in spaces where we aren’t able to fully be ourselves affects our ability to relate both safely and authentically and it’s common.

A lot of my work with emotionally safety has specifically grown out of working with women and specifically women of colour in past-apartheid south africa. Women of all colours have been and continue to silence as part of the legacy of apartheid. However men too also feel can feel societaly impacted by this kind of silencing, having to maintain gender sterotypes that are embued with toxic masculinity that only account for one emotion anger. If you are trying to understand emotional saftey and how it impacts you I would suggest that you take the time to explore your own emotional landscape. How many emotions do you feel capable of feeling, sharing and expressing, especailly in the company of others. Do feel able to tell people that you are feeling sad, angry or depressed? Or do you think that showing emotion is a sign of weakness and emotionality a source or personal shame? Once again it’s common to feel this way and it’s isn’t something you choudl feel alone with.

The way to creating emotional safety is to quite simply allow yourself to feel your feelings, you’re entitled to your feelings and whatismore it is good for your health. What can’t be expressed gets repressed and held in the body and can eventually make you physically sick if not properly addressed. The way through difficult emotions is to find friends and form relationships with people who do make you feel safe. That allow you speak and not only speak; speak all the way to the end. It really is that simple and it’s one of the reason that talk therapies can be so successful. Often we just don’t have the right people to talk to. To share our lives and our problems with. If you don’t feel that you have anybody that you can talk to whoo might share your world view of work through your stuff with it is almost certainly time to get a new friends group. Creating emotional safety is really easy once you find the right people who are willing to listen. More than this you will develop healthier relationships where you to can become a reliable person to hear someone out. At first it can feel really challenging to reach out and it might feel painful if you don’t make the right connection straight away. it might be hard but it absolutely worth. After all humans are both social and emotional creatures and we need healthy interdependent relationship to both survive and thrive in this world.

If you are interested in exlporing your emotionas further you can vist my ko-fi shop for some inspiration.

This article was written by a dyslexic with a punk attitude.

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The Great Reset

kimberleen

Happy Chinese New Year, where does the time go? And the years only run faster as you get older. After all time is not linear as I sit here on this particular upward spiral of the current Kimberley incarnation.

The good news is that I am back in Observatory, Cape Town the bad news is that I don’t know how long for. There is no doubt it has been and interesting few years and my achievements far outway my misadventures, which seem to have been rather few for an unconsensual nomad. Except of course that I ended up in entirely the wrong country one early morning last year; it all worked out in the end, with surprising ease.

This year it seems I have come back to the start of my journey in an unexpected and complete full circle moment, living only three streets away from my old address. It’s been interesting to be back with some old faces and new venues, the pandemic certainly seems to have taken it’s toll here. So many businesses shut down it makes me glad of all the photos I have of the old Observatory that I first knew. Observatory now seems more transient that I first considered, then I ask the question; where in the world hasn’t undergone a radical shift in the last three years? Who in the world hasn’t undergone a radical change? The world is changing and we change with it. Life is change.

This year I start in the aftermath of my life choices trying to find a clear way forward. All I really know for sure is that I have four Trauma Doula Preparation Courses to run this year and whole load of admin to catch up on. The nomadic lifestyle probably seems fantabulous, exciting and liberating if you believe the social media slide show. The truth is I am exhausted and desperately in need of some radical rest combined with some high speed digital decluttering.

Of course I am supposed to be a source of wild inspirations and deep insight that going to get yout through the next twelve months cycle of everything that you ever wanted. You can achieve anything that you want to. You can be anything that you want to and as somebody who has managed to do ten years of work during a pandemic I can assure you that all things are possible. I’ve seen things that I could never have imagined and had experiences that have moved me beyond my wildest fantasies. When it all comes down to it I am still just me. I still have the same dreams and aspirations I always have. To have a good life, near the beach. It’s simple. Keep it simple. There is magic everywhere. Especially in Cape Town. It’s good to be home in the Mother City.

This article was written by a dyslexic with a punk attitude.

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How To Contribute To Planetary Shift

kimberleen

It’s all about frequency. In the case of the Cape Town water crisis that surrounded the frequency of visits to the bathroom. In your case, it’s probably not going to be that hard to master. Not drinking water in the middle of a drought. Think happy thoughts. Yeah, that’s a bit fucked up coming from a trauma-informed practitioner… Of course planetary shift isn’t all about positivity and solution-focused mentality. In fact, these days planetary shift for those of us willing to face terror face on is all about the climate emergency. Like other things you may think what has the climate emergency got to do with trauma? Where I have to invert the question, why do you think it doesn’t.

In fact much of what I do would say quite the oppostie. It’s time to dance with the shadow after all we a planet of contrast. Night, Day, Ocean, Land, Hot, Cold, Wet, Dry we live in a planetary space of polariastion and we have done for billions of years. Yes you and all your previous layers of evolution. It’s nothing to do with polarisation it’s about being able to accept the polarisation within you. I know you probably want to hear that contributing to planetary shift might be all about swimming with dolphins, meditating on mountains and of course running off to Bali. However what are you doing to feel better? That is all there is to it? What makes you feel good without increasing the Carbon footprint? (I truly do wonder for the world when I consider this (it’s really easy stop flying)).

What if you just sat down for a bit, without screen time, with the radio off and your phone deep underwater somewhere? What would happen then? How long would it take for someone to turn up at your door? Like seriously? Good experiment in a global pandemic. Have we got compassion fatigue yet? Fuck knows, it’s exhausting just maintaining our own space right now. By space I mean immediate space I mean in the physical realms. Brush your hair, make your bed, wash your clothes, stay sane that kind of thing. I managed to tidy my room today. That’s correct not the house. My room. That’s where I am at how about you?

You see we set our goals high (at least I do) and think that we can bring about planetary shift through a forced kind of militancy. Even if it’s just by holding our daily routines in place. We are told to dream big, aim higher or get out of our own way. Often. The last few years have been a roler coaster ride of what you should be doing for yourself, your community and for the planet. Including getting vaccianted and not questioning our right to bodily autonomy. In the next few weeks and years we will be encouraged to support Ukraine, the way we did Palestine, Syria, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan when none fo those situations have been fully resolved to this day. Nor have the victims received the indepth trauma care required.

For over a decade now I’ve been watching Life Coaches, Spiritual Advisors and Gurus all dish out there advise as to what the meaning of life is. How to be happier? How to manage anxiety? How to identify high functioning depression? Explaining that addiction is emotional numbing. What I’ve learned? Is that most of these forms of personal development are directly related to how you participate in the capitalist system. What can you consume to make you feel better? Who knew that learning to breath properly is actually a chargeable product? You’d think someone would just help you breath? Especailly at a time were being able to breath is a critical life skill to tackle a respiratory virus. It appears not. Which leaves me personally with a lot of questions? Where is the collective human consciousness when we are charging people to improve their breathing. Just saying? How low have we sunk in our ability thrive if the most basic of human needs at the center of a global crisis still falls within the bounds of chargeable product? Very few coaches that I have encountered have ever truly got to the core of our human issues. Most of them are just tiptoing around healing fads to figure out how to profit. People might talk about slowing down for personal well-being without mentioning the benefits of local community living. People might talk about creating heartbased frequencies without explaining how to apply them in a practical level. How do we generate loving environments when our vibe is based on being handed the perfect coffee.

More than this how do we address the seemingly perverse approaches of most western societies to promote an experimental vaccine with unknown health risks over access to clean air, clean water, sufficient personal space and a healthy diet? We are told to breath in, the air is poisonous. We are told to control our thoughts when the world is playing mindgames. It’s hard to practice wellness and even safety in a word the practices harm withour consequences. We are told to maintain our frequency as disregulated light workers attempting to avoid pain. t’s hard to practice wellness and even safety in a world that practices harm without consequences. We live in a traumagenic world. Where each individual act that we take ripples outward with untold consequences, in unseen spaces that don’t apply to us. My current macbook (which I am using now) was created through exploitative extractive economies that benefit from human right violations. Yet I continue to use it and remain an Apple customer. I am complicit in the toxic systems that I attempt to disrupt.

I have often heard the wiccan wisdom “Do as you will and harm no one” As I travel through this life this simple suggestion for a living way forward is far more complex than many might imagine. After all “Salad is murder”. Never has this become more clear than with the growing interest in plant medicine and never has it been so misunderstood. The modern homo sapien thinks that plant medicine is a consumptive process that does not allow for the consent of the plant medicine. There has also grown to be an outsourcing of intution that goes with it. “My guides” strikes huge alarm bells from the get go. What guide exactly? I mean exactly? And are you sure that this isn’t the plant talking to you? You see going inwards can be an avoidence of what is, much like alcohol consumption or an over eager stoner.

I don’t think it’s any great news to explain that over the last eighteen months many of us have been going through a ‘shamanic’ breakthrough. Yes, the world is fucked. Yes, we all knew about it. Yes, we have all been complicit in it. Yes, everything is connected. No, that doesn’t mean you feel perpetual joy and wonder. Actually your ‘spiritual’ awakening is about becoming clear; you’ve got a shit tonne of work to do. Yes, you have a calling. Yes, that calling is to find your purpose. I know right? Who knew it was that simple? More than this you need to stick to your guns. Stay comitted, even when it is hard to stay motivated.

So really what I am saying is how about you combine you self-medicating with some community building. How do we do that? How do we contribute to planetary shift when so much of our world is dictated to us through the back rooms of power? I have to stay connected. Not online, out there in the ‘real’ world. Breath the air, clean the air you have. Drink the water, find your nearest fresh water supply is. Stand on the ground, find some a patch of earth that has a complete biome, that hasn’t been curated into being by some town planners idea of green space. When we begin to look at personal wellbeing indepthy we begin to appreciate that much of it is caught up in our living and working environments that are not designed to foster wellbeing either. We are beginning to realise that we cannot buy our way of a planet with finite resources. Nor can we avoid the consequences of living in a unified planetary field. The smoke of the Amazonian fires cross the atlantic and end up in southern Africa. Climatic changes that occur over the Atlantic, as a result, create hurricanes that wipe out the Southern States of the USA. Everything is connected. The dilusion that we have any control at all is a big one. Yet freakishly self-control is pimped as a superwork, when medical textbook might say the opposite, especially in relation to trauma.

Its easy to believe that planting a million trees is the way forward. Its also easy to get caught up in the well being or some poor unfortunately orangtuan. The things is what I know for sure is that whatever you think the problem is. It is never very far away. You don’t have to get on an intercontinental flight in order to make a difference. Begin where you are. Begin with yourself. You see so many of us are coming from a space of spiritual lack as much as physical lack. That we don’t know where to belong, what to stand for and more importantly who will stand with us. We only have to turn to Jerry McGuire to learn how little most people are moved by or inspired into change. Most of us are just looking for a safe base from which we can view tha madness. Until the madness comes for us. If you are reading this I trust that you are already all to aware of what a precarious point in humanity we exist in. This weeek alone I have heard of terms such as the end of civilisation, and the end of history as Vladimer Putin plays power games with his nuclear deterent. In such times many of us are asked to examine what really matters? We are asked to examing how we feel. And for many people that can look very different too.

In order to contribute to planetary shift we have to begin to appreciate that if it is about frequency. You get clear on what you want to create, whether it’s a clean room or a happy life. That means finding out what makes you happy is the most important part of that calling. More than this finding a team of people who are going to support you in that mission is paramount. Find your thing, then you’ll find your people. You need to have people that share in that dream that are working to create it. We cannot get there alone. I don’t know if you noticed it’s fucking crazy out there. Masks on, masks off, pandemic or plandeminc, anti-vaxers vs the anti-human, fake news vs your own inteliigence. Our whole world is being held in relief to be questioned, dismantled, weaponised and if needs be detonated. Lucky the UN have already outlawed nuclear weapons. Has anybody told Boris? The buzz word for the last year or two has been polarisation. It’s not something that I buy into.

Purpose and meaning are now touted as cure all approaches. Paolo Nutini to has been weighing on my mind “Nobody can give you the power to rise.” So that’s where the fuck are you in your life? Where do you want to be? Are we moving forward? And yet that may be part of it. However, is what are you doing making you feel better? That is all there is to it? What makes you feel good without increasing the Carbon footprint?

This article was written to accompany the Trauma Wise Circle by a dyslexic with a punk attitude.

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Visa Anxiety

kimberleen

Honestly, there are a million and one things to be fucked up about and I really think that we need to be far more accepting of this. More than this I wish people would fuck off with their breathing exercises from time to time. Sometimes we really do have a million and one reasons why we feel stuck or brain dead and out of it or my personal favourite brain fog. If there is anything that the last few years has taught me is that my mind is in full working order. All that overthinking must demonstrate something. Except of course the mind, the brain and the body hold some very different properties. In Today one of my more recent blog posts I talked about being a COVID refugee. I literally ended up hanging out in Namibia for nine months. In case you didn’t know already nine months is three months short of a year. It’s really long time to end up somewhere that you didn’t expect, writing a master’s, watching the death toll rise and trying not to figure out what to do next; other than stay sane. It’s a funny thing all those insidious thoughts that turn into a backdrop of feeling. It’s quite a thing really the backdrop of feeling that makes up our emotional landscapes and how sometimes they seem to entrap us. When really it’s just a pushed down unspoken about thoughts that seem to be controlling our world. Needless to say, I’ve added COVID Refugee to the list of books that I need to write.

It was an intense yet homely time in the desert. That played out like a beautiful groundhog day tapestry that you really had to live through. You see life in many ways could not have been more simple, more straightforward or even better catered for, it’s just that for obvious reasons I was stressed under pressure and to my realisation now, quite freaked out. It turns out much to my surprise that certainty offers quite a remarkable toolset for wellbeing. One that I wasn’t sure that I needed until now. It will come as no surprise to many of you that I live with quite high levels of uncertainty and have done for years. At least now my work is legally allowed. You think I’m kidding when I say that. What if I told you I am not. What if you have been working covertly for years? Few people get to truly understand what it is to be an immigrant and even worse a refugee. Someone with no connections and nowhere else to be. And what do we do we put out big girl panties on and do our best to full adult. It’s nothing less than terrifying to live such precarious situations where just one thing has to go wrong and your whole way of life is under threat. More than this that your life is under threat.

We live in interesting times. A pandemic, The fall of occupied Afghanistan and now this whole thing with Russia. Borders are very important things for reasons that few people want to talk about. Borders are about control and thus adversely about certainty. You see I see the world differently. I see the world through the lens of trauma. There were no fences in Southern Africa before Jan Van Riebeek arrived. That’s what the oral history says. Yet modern humans spend their time policing and creating borders, boundary lines and systems of control. Systems of control that have nothing to do with nature. Systems that are alien. I wonder sometimes what have we learned? What is the climate emergency here to teach us? As I watched South African sand become Nambian sand through a wire border fence. Who gets to decide who it belongs to or indeed why it has to belong to anybody at all? It gets me to thinking about territories. How far we can walk? How far do we need to travel in order to survive? It feels like we should be thinking about land very differently. I’m feeling about land very differently and why we need those one hundred and ninety-five stamps in our passport. What is that separates us other than an arbitrary colonialist line drawn straight across the desert?

This article was written by a dyslexic with a punk attitude.