Photo credit: Stephen Leonardi
As a current graduate student, (again), I focus on learning how to help clients free themselves from internalized oppression. Oppression can come in many forms, depending on who we are. We live in an ableist, racist, gender binary, heteronormative, ages, sexist, classist, etc. society. There are familial, religious, social, political, intrapersonal, and other forms of oppression. The list goes on, and it’s possible that none of us perfectly fit in the box of someone free of oppression.
The mere pressure of capitalistic corporatism that is degrading the Earth, and erasing the livelihood of humanity, is oppressive enough.
That’s a fairly depressing introduction to my contrary point here: PLEASE DO give yourself the permission to think differently and from the lens of possibility. Helen Keller once said: “Hope sees the invisible, feels the intangible, and achieves the impossible.”
What she refers to as “hope” is what I refer to as permission to imagine possible. The more we imagine with our entire body and being, the more we tap into that quantum Law of Attraction. (I encourage researching the law this if it’s new to you.)
In my own life, my full-time job, which is really an overtime job (50 hours a week), slowly degraded my health over the past couple of years. Because of my gratitude for being able to work, and for other benefits my job provided, I’ve had a hard time seeing my employment as toxic. It’s a privilege to have been employed through the pandemic. I feel it in my body though that my gratitude to be able to make a living has prevented me from clearly seeing and feeling how harmful my job is to me.
What to do when you are surrounded by toxic structure? And, what to do when that structure is the “hand that feeds”..? Step 1: If possible, give yourself a literal break. Step 2: Use the effect of the break to imagine a different future, even if “unrealistic”.
I had occasional breaks this summer, and there were a few 24-hour periods where my job didn’t enter my mind at all. (I do worry and think about it 7 days a week, and yes, sometimes in the middle of the night as well. It’s a very stressful position. Money-oriented customer service has not been a soothing position during the pandemic.)
Those 24 hours oases left an imprint on me.
I’m realizing how important it is to recognize and honor the value of at least beginning to think, in concrete terms, my liberation plan. My central nervous system calms down, the tension in my forehead eases, my body feels lighter, my heart opens, and the list goes on.
I have no clear answers for myself yet, and heaven knows I’m expected at the office early Monday morning. But I’m creating more and more space in my own imagination to set myself free.
In the quantum field, this is where all of creation begins. I invite you to join me, as I gently discipline myself to arrive there and stay there as long as possible.
What are you in need of setting yourself free from? Please email or post a comment.
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