Playing For Liberation: Some Ways I Manage Overwhelm
I created this for an Instagram & LinkedIn post a few weeks ago:
This is how I often feel: I want to pay attention to what is happening in our world—particularly in this moment of Trump-driven events, executive orders, and entitlements—but they come too quickly, there's too many of them, they blur and overlap and overwhelm. This happens when I learn about the Guantanamo-bound deportation of a local man accused of being part of the very gang he fled from, when I hear my trans friend is signing up for a firearm training class, when I find out that an anti-oppression gig with a state department I was slated to work for cancelled altogether, when my sister’s arts organization veers away from much needed NEA grants because of new constraining (threatening) rules, when I watch a movie of Israeli bulldozers raking the home of a West Bank family who stands by incredulous, crumpled with outrage, watching.
I often wake mid-sleep in a state of disregulation. Unsettled, anxious, heartbroken, grief-stricken. Scared. And pouty: I want to stamp my feet and yell "but I didn't want it to turn out this way!". We all have stories. They land on our bodies, leak into our psyches, dampen our vitality. As Naomi Klein said earlier this week, “We’re are all carrying around deep disappointments.”
Big feelings are healthy. They’re also unwieldy space hogs, and they’re not going away anytime soon. So here are two things I've found to help me sustain myself through this moment that's longer than a moment:
Reflect on My Positionality: I'm a homeowner, my bills are on auto-pay, I have health insurance and I'm healthy, I have education/saleable skills/a professional network, I'm not providing caretaking to my kids (anymore) or my parents (yet), I have a U.S. passport, I have a strong social community. My intersectional vulnerabilities—being Jewish, female, having a hidden physical disability—don't threaten life and limb. Reflecting on all this helps. I realize that no matter how disregulated or scared I am, I'm going to be okay. Not only okay, but importantly in a really good position to fight, disrupt, subvert. I leave the reflection feeling fortified, not flattened.
Play, Play, Play: I take play very seriously and I do it everywhere. There's the play I experience by myself, when I lose myself landing the ball of my foot on the flattest rocks on a trail, when I try the warmer purple then the colder purple then back to the warmer purple in a hat I'm knitting, when I listen to a podcast while fingering my way through a pile of puzzle pieces. I'm transported, distracted, kind of lost in that singular focus that happens in meditation or from psychedelics.
Then there's the play I do with others. Literal play like games around the dining room table or a snowshoe outing with a friend; and the more nuanced play of coming together as community. This can be a communal project, a joint performance, or a collective workshop, circle, or focused gathering. There's something palpably and tangibly different playing in community than playing alone. It comes from the energetics of collective pursuit, the surprises and delights of humanity, what in my years as a qigong teacher we’d refer to as Group Qi. Witnessing is powerful, and can turn into with-nessing. I am not others, yet I'm so much the same, and this shocks me into vitality every time. It's stabilizing in a time of continued unstability, grounding in a time of ongoing uprootedness. The certainty of our humanness is a balm, a scaffolding, a dependable promise.
Last year, my ever-inspiring mentor/coach and friend Leticia Nieto and I offered a workshop focused on settling ourselves and regulating our nervous systems through play. We're offering it again this year, but with an eye on this particular moment: Playing for Liberation: Practices to Warm Up & Root Down as We Work Toward Collective Liberation. Our goal isn’t to regulate: there's no settling right now. We're here to access our vitality and warm ourselves into availability, so we can show up alongside our grief and rage through the moments we face.
We’ve set it up so when you buy a ticket, you’ll get a guest code for free access for as many friends and colleagues as you want to invite. We do this work best together. Bring your people.
January 2025 Back to Notebook Home
I’m available to facilitate race-based caucuses or affinity groups, white leadership groups, or multi-identity working sessions. Reach out.