At Lace on Race, we talk a lot–a lot–about capacity, agency, and volition.
This is an essay where we take a deep dive into these three elements for reliable and effective applied praxis.
The commentary was meant as an encouragement, but morphed (as so many of my encouragements tend to do) into an exhortation–that not only are we allowed to exercise the foundational bricks of mature action, but indeed, that it is a sacred responsibility to learn and apply these very things.
Capacity, agency, and volition are companions to ‘can’t vs. won’t’. Refusing to acknowledge we have these things, and utilizing afflictions, metaphorical and actual to downplay or even deny that we are indeed capable of being (or becoming) the people whom we say we want to be.
There are few obstacles that are truly insurmountable. In previous essays and commentaries, we have talked about how we may be forced to be more curious and or creative in working out, and then living out, virtues and skills which are crucial for sustained and effective praxis. I know that this has been true for me.
Some of the skills and attributes I do my best to consistently model do not come easily to me. Emotional regulation–’holding on to myself’– is something I only imperfectly live out; when I am in choice points or pain points (as I have frequently been since February) cleaving to this skill has been as necessary as it has sometimes been difficult.
Which makes this next skill–holding our own hands, also known as self soothing–crucial to becoming proficient in the above.
Because this: willful incompetence and intermittent proficiency are anathema to North Star living.
Embedded in this essay we will explore together, I talked about both my depression and the PTSD I endured in 2017, when my husband attempted suicide. I also talked about how these memories and activations could not–and did not–impact my praxis and commitment to North Star living.
Nor did what we have collected endured impacted our commitment to North Star. It simply cannot.
Our personal power must always be harnessed to our collective convictions and praxis. And I strongly believe that there are mustard seeds of capacity, volition, and agency in each of us.
We do not need permission to live these attributions out. Nor do we need approbation and praise or validation from the world.
As we name the things that keep us from full alignment, let us find ways to, yes, to sabotage and undermine our ambivalence, our passivity, and our perceived lack of agency. If we are to be subversive agents of durable change, this is as it must be.
Bruised Oranges Matter, Too
I shared this meme, and my commentary, on my personal page today:
So you won’t have to immediately click through to see my whole commentary, I will include it here below.
“Our stories may never get picked up by Lifetime or Oprah, but we still matter.
For some of us, what looks mediocre to the naked eye is actually a fecking amazing hero’s quest.
In the last 26 years, I have cared for a disabled husband, walking with him in his multiple suicide attempts, once in my front yard, as I staunched his bleeding and tried to wrest the sharp from his hand.
Through it all, I kept my low level job and lost almost no work to sick time.
I dealt with my own depression, infertility brought on by trauma, and Complex PTSD, sometimes with the help of counselors, sometimes without.
I sat on boards, was and am a vocal and (hopefully) effective activist, and managed to hold on to my property.
Two years ago, not a year after Bob’s last suicide attempt which still brings flashbacks every time I pass the place by the breezeway where the bloodstains stubbornly remain, I founded Lace on Race, which I hope has expanded and enriched the conversation about both justice and applied relational ethics.
Still. I have been wracked with insecurity and deep shame for not going to seminary or earning a doctorate. I have struggled with self worth, and my mission and call have suffered for it at times.
Who am I, this working class grunt, to think I have something, anything really, to say?
How dare I, considering my backstory?
And I am not alone.
How many voices are silenced? How many ideas squelched?
Those of us who struggle are worthy too.”
Just as I told my personal followers, I tell you this not in the spirit of pathos or of self indulgence. I have intentionally been, if not secretive or circumspect, certainly from a place of a sort of modesty, and definitely keeping in mind the fact that my story is intertwined with the story of my ex-husband, and, as such, is limited here by my singular perspective.
But I do think that it is important, vitally so as we enter this new year, that we talk about the issue of what it takes, what we think is required to become a person of purpose, congruence, authenticity, and as importantly, of effectiveness.
Most of us who are drawn to social justice work bring with us a deep sense of justice, of empathy, of compassion, and of service. These virtues are often somewhat feral, in the sense that they have been, for most of our lives, unfocused. Harnessing and leveraging these attributes in consistent service to what we say we believe is one of the reasons for Lace on Race; diffused empathy; impotent compassion; badly defined and inarticulate justice, and provisional and conditional service is how most of us have been taught to live out these values. Here, we confront and attempt to course correct that.
But there is another element that is rarely talked about in social justice circles.
That is the fact that those of us who feel these emotions listed above, however rudimentary or even unspoken and subconscious, but deeply and even painfully and overwhelmingly experienced, even as they drive us, are also sometimes, ofttimes, burdened with the shadow side of these emotions.
I am speaking , carefully, but with candor and determination, of academic, emotional, physical, or even spiritual limitations, what can be called Limps Along the Lumpy Crossings, that have hindered our journeys.
We have spoken of this before; how the weight of our individual buckets can derail our steps; both inward work, and outward praxis.
We have also spoken of the importance of three elements that must be in place to even begin to effect change that matters: Capacity, Volition, and Agency.
This is often a sticking point for us. There’s a lot going on, and we’ve seen people say as much through our last two years together.
We have spoken about how our buckets can slosh onto others. We have spoken less about how those buckets of insecurity, low self esteem and self worth, and untold pain can slosh onto ourselves, sabotaging us in overt and covert ways; sliming our very souls and hindering our footing.
We have heard people say they didn’t have the spoons, or even the smarts to do this work; that they lacked the Capacity to begin to think and process in new ways; that the material presented was too hard, that commenting was difficult because they couldn’t find the words.
I too have felt this, and often. I have so often felt, sometimes mid-sentence as I write, that I don’t have the credentials or the juice or even the right to write about things, about anything really. I have felt suppressed by my admittedly limited education; by my struggle to integrate sometimes dissonant and disparate things into a coherent commentary; by the reminder of my title at my desk job and my cube with no ceiling and no door; by my pedestrian life crammed with the tedium of daily life and the easily ignored musings of the mediocre suburban ex-hausfrau.
This is a renunciation of my convictions; it sounds humble, but really, not so much. This sort of self-deprecation is the Walmart knockoff of authentic modesty and self effacement. It’s arrogance masked. It’s a pass, or an attempted pass. If we say that every mind and hand and experience has value, and we do, then my lack of doors or of letters is not an excuse to step away; it’s an invitation to double down.
And it is not about what nowadays is called ‘lived experience’; that seemingly benign but mostly blunt and increasingly weaponized tool that is supposed to elevate the unwashed to the level of the academy or the press pool.
No. It is not just the raw material of lived experience, that then can be exploited by those who putatively take it upon them to both tell and spin the narratives (think of the controversy surrounding ‘American Dirt’) like mined minerals from Africa that turn into the guts of an iPhone, but the analysis and the connections that people glean outside of a classroom and outside of a press pass. It’s collective neural pathways that only activate when new perspectives are not just folded into the collective narrative, but are actually given authentic respect and primacy; not just the stories, but indeed the wholistic person who inhabits them. The academy has gotten it wrong. A lot. Particularly in areas of race. So has the journalistic tradition; particularly when it divorced itself from the people it covered so as to have a seat at the table of the elites–and even then, almost never in service to marginalized by race.
We, and you, and sort of importantly for the sake of Lace on Race–I, can make sense, sometimes entirely new sense, of available information, not despite supposed ‘deficits’, but precisely because of them.
So can you. The learned helplessness that is part of the Employee Handbook of Toxic Whiteness Fight Club, as well as its counterpart in the more marginalized, is something to be acknowledged and confronted head on. The society riddled with white supremacy wants and needs stasis; needs for us to feel unequipped and unqualified to question the tropes and schemas we have been given and with which we have been forced, coerced really, to swaddle ourselves. Wants us to stay immobile and silent and lulled like we were all covered with weighted blankets. Wants us to refrain from the use of our brains, talents, and gifts, despite and because of our supposed deficits, to question the assertions and conclusions we have been force fed, for the world and for the Other.
And also– the conclusions we have been force fed about ourselves. We are too anxious, too depressed, too lazy, too fragile, too flaky, too distracted to do anything but nebulously ‘care’. We are good for nothing more than Target runs and cut creases and complicated drink orders from Starbucks–drink orders that take up more of our synapses and ability to think than our supposed passions.
And those who are against authentic and sustainable change want it exactly this way.
Moving against limitations, both those imposed by the world, and those self imposed, is an act of resistance, of revolution. Saying that we are more than what we have been assigned makes us dangerous. Living out loud and with full throat and minds fully engaged is seditious.
Seditious, that is, to an order that would have us complacent and complicit.
Which means it is an act of heroism in our individual unremarkable skin suits, to fix our mouths to say a clear and audible No.
And to then pivot, hard, and say an equally unequivocal and piercing Yes.
So, then. Volition.
This is tricky. I can want something, but want something else more. Volition moves past yearning without skin in the game. It’s the clear yes that makes for relentless reliability.
In my life I have struggled with that very thing. I want to fit into the fake leather skirt, but I want Foster’s Freeze more. I want a trash free front field, but i want to binge watch Netflix more. Closer to the orange tree, I can say I want radical change, but I want entropy more, especially when on its face it serves me. I can want something, but sometimes it’s not about the wish; it’s more about the ranking. Sometimes, even, and ever so quietly, I want justice. But I want to stay wrapped in the weighted blanket of my afflictions more. Hear that. Can anyone relate to what I am saying here?
So. What ranks above a sustainable and reliable and relentless pursuit of racial justice for you?
Don’t say nothing. Name it. Or, rather name them. Because how many of us can truly say that arching our backs and extending upward beyond our clench in order to reach the highest oranges is something we consistently do?
Volition is what has to happen after the yes. Volition is what must be married, cleaved, to priorities; including the priority of preserving our self concept. I feel this when I remember myself as Lace the Fieldmouse, good for only nibbling, as opposed to Lace the Lion, ready to roar with conviction and choosing to use my teeth to get to the heart of it all.
Volition is hard for those of us with afflictions, which is to say all of us.
It is easy to say ‘I want to, but…’. Volition says, simply and with depth, ‘I will.’
We have seen this too.
And I want to be quick not to seem to minimize or deny real challenges. But here is where curiosity and creativeness can be engaged to make real and authentically change-making progress despite skill level, despite afflictions, despite limits.
Saying ‘I will’ first to the issue of racial justice, and then looking for ways to back that up will always be more effective than trying to look at what is required like some kind of Waze map where you are most concerned with looking for the first off ramp or rest stop. Giving it primacy in your life makes creativity and curiosity and congruence possible.
But first you must believe you can say a Yes that sticks. You must believe that your failures and your half measures and anything else that you feel is a disqualifer for this journey is moot.
This requires the most important element that melds the first two.
Agency.
Everything in your life, including your supposed failures and even the very things society has convinced you to believe to persuade you to tap out and sit on the folding chair in your street clothes while others stretch and sweat and move the ball forward, are actually distinct qualifiers.
Hear this deeply: there are people only you are qualified to reach. There are first downs only you are qualified to make. You don’t have to ask permission to Suit Up and Show Up and Stand Up.
Peter , my therapist/mentor/coach/all around kick ass in a leather chair and interesting socks, confronted me with that very thing when I was agonizing over LoR when I thought we might shut down. It was wrenching. Was I , this person so unqualified on paper, really the one to show another way? Who was I to create a mission and method and ethos from whole cloth? Shouldn’t I leave this to smarter people with more social capital and confidence? Peter said this: welp (ok, I added the welp):
He said, but those hordes of smarter savvier folks with more juice than you didn’t do it. Where are they? he asked as he looked around his office.
There’s just you, and you gotta go with what ya got. Only you had what was needed. The only person who pressed the submit button that started this whole thing was you.
That was his parting shot at 6:55. Then he stood up, and made sure I remembered my jacket, and that was that.
Feck. Only me. Only me.
Only I, this mashup of gifts and deficits and confidence and insecurity, could do this. And only you can fulfill the reason why you are here in the space my whole messy self created. Hold on to that. That’s a charge. And a distinct directive. And an affirmation. And, if you need it for now: permission.
My physical therapist, Christopher (another mensch), listened to me patiently last week. I had hoped, even though I have been sick for almost three months straight, that I had made more progress. He looked at me, and quietly reminded me not to forget my cane.
‘But I haven’t used that damn stupid cane in almost a year!!’ I said laughing. Christopher looked at me, laser sharp.
Listen to yourself, he said. And I did, and then I walked straight-backed and pain free (save for my glutes. large muscle work is killer) out into the Kearny Mesa night.
If you know what to look for, I still walk with a slight limp.
I still have unrelenting depression, sometimes deep and seemingly intractable level 20 depression. I still remember March 17 2017 and against my better judgement, still turn my head towards the fading blood on my concrete every time I walk towards my front door.
I am still anxious every time I am confronted with a blank page and my mind’s eye envisioning all of your faces trusting me to walk beside you with purpose and clarity.
But that head turn these days is less a swivel than a gentle nod. And I walk. And I type. My afflictions can make for a crowded dining room table indeed. But I still clear a space to write. The afflictions become my companions, not my nemeses. I belly up to the table and do what I am called to do; indeed, what only I can do. In service to what only you are made to do.
A scarred and burned table with a chipped bowl with all the oranges. Even, especially, the bruised ones.
The best kind of leader leads with a limp, I was once told…leads with their authentic selves. That’s one of the biggest reasons I was initially attracted to this space and have continued to be committed to walking here. Our leader leads with her authentic self. I’ve looked around at other places to learn and grow, places that yeah, have degrees and papers and accolades, but not the understanding that we all have wounds, and that in spite of those wounds, indeed because of those wounds we can push forward and push into this work. It’s here I’ve learned the danger of weaponising wounds instead of using them to heal. It’s here I’ve learned the importance of community and relationships to this work, and how the intra-personal impacts the interpersonal and my relationships and interactions with Black and Brown people. It’s here that I’ve learned how to stay in the car with people, especially while disagreeing with them, of hesed. Thank you for showing up and walking with and leading us, “scars and lesions and limp and all”. <font face=”inherit”>To answer Lace’s question about what ranks above this work, the fights I feel the most are the old foes of fatigue, loneliness, fear of conflict, and self-doubt. And at times it’s my family, figuring out how to balance my love for them with truth telling and calling out, calling in. I’m here to continue practicing and leaning in, growing up in those areas to say “I will instead of I want to, but” as Lace speaks to </font>here.
You describe how this community and its leader stands out from other racial justice spaces and its leaders perfectly. I, too appreciate the authenticity that Lace brings, which makes it easier to see “eye to eye”. I’ve learned so much from this space and it gives me hope, the more I learn, then I can internalize it and then it will play out in everything I do, which will make me a safer person towards Black and Brown people and I can even pass that on in my family line.
I, too, appreciate Lace’s authenticity and vulnerability. She inspires me to be the best version of myself, to live out who I say I want to be, to not allow my afflictions or the adversity I face to be a reason to say “I can’t,” but instead, “I will find a way, I will keep walking”. Lace has taught me through example how to stay in the car, how to be in right relationship. I am still learning and Growing In and Growing Up. I am grateful for the journey and for this community.
I recognize the humbleness which is actually masked arrogance. Sometimes it is part of a self-made self-help prescription, like the self-made lesson of “I’m learning how to let others speak up and have their voices heard” ranks above the sustainable, reliable, relentless work if I were to give my all to the work. I do relate to the ranking of wants and the easy, self-indulgent ones ranking higher. What ranks above a sustainable and reliable and relentless pursuit of racial justice for me? In a way I think almost everything I do is ranking about the pursuit of racial justice in some way because of the being harmful 12 ways before I get up in the morning perspective. But at the same time that answer is an easy out because it means not having to actually think of or own up to specific rankings. So to be more specific, one of the more ugly things is when I rank preservation of image over pursuit of racial justice, not speaking up because of not wanting people’s perspective of me to change even though speaking up is necessary. Avoidance of interaction, preservation of “peace” meaning not having to get into a discussion with others. Sleep, family… and sometimes stuff I would never see as being important to me or having worth to me like certain types internet videos that are just there to let a person zone out and avoid the things they claim have value to them.
There is comfort in the sitting back and letting others take the lead. I like how Lace points out in this that there are people that only we can reach. And in order to reach out even more efficiently, there is work that needs to be done in tending and practicing and getting it wrong sometimes and correcting. That takes showing up and breaking past that comfort of staying quiet. I know that all too well and I have even experienced witnessing another person being corrected and feeling superior, meanwhile, I didn’t add anything to the conversation. It’s easy to feel superior in that situation but ultimately the person who spoke up, even if they needed correction, especially if they were open to correction, is always a step closer to growth than I would be if I don’t say anything at all.
@deewcares I’ve been thinking lately about how when I don’t speak out, when I stay quiet for whatever reason I choose at the moment (‘not enough time to make a thoughtful comment’, ‘they aren’t open to feedback it’ll just become a fight’, ‘they’ll eat me alive and I don’t have the bandwidth for that today’ or whatever other thing I conjure, which sadly I can be quite good at), that every time I do that it’s like me giving a big thumbs up to whatever is happening or being said. To leave something unchallenged is to condone and say it’s ok. I need every ounce of practice I get here to help me be more reflexive.
Rebecca I’ve thought these same justifications you give here. This makes me think of the distinction between what I’m going to do vs who I’m going to be. I tend to give myself reasons to avoid saying something right then when I’m overly focused on what to say rather than who I’m going to be. When I reframe yo focus on who I’m going to be— someone who stands for justice and with BIPOC who endure so many injustices— then the reasons dissipate and I just say something, however clunky and un-massaged it may be. Like you say, it’s about not giving that thumbs up of approval by being silent.
Rebecca, I realize I go into ‘I give up’ mode. And I have an equation. If I try three times in three different ways to share my truth. I’m done. I gotta stop that. It doesn’t mitigate harm to black and brown people.
Thank you for sharing this. I know there are many in my world where I am the only one so if anything is going to get said it has to be me so I readily admit, I don’t always say it. I hope I say it more and more and more. But I don’t always say it.
I relate to the humbleness masked as arrogance too although I doubt it’s very masked in reality except in my mind. It feels like humbleness is tied to our self concept which Lace talked about in the post and in trying to live out my self concept, it’s easy to slide from this humbleness to silence or inaction as well.
Some of this made me very sad. However, a lot of it encouraged and inspired me.
I am not in the best condition physically and mentally, from current and/or long-standing issues. However, as this writing points out, using those things as an excuse means I will not do the necessary work on myself or on behalf of others who need me to do…whatever I can do to actually help others, not just throw money or write a note to our elected officials.
I do have to be very careful not to expose myself or my husband to the pandemic virus, but aside from that, I can do research, I can talk with friends and neighbors, I can listen to those who normally are rarely, if ever, heard.
In short, I need to focus on the “I can” side of the scales, not the “I can’t.” I will use my creativity to broaden the reach of our North Star.
We must change our “I can’ts” to ” I will’s”. It’s easy as white people to go down a path where we think other people that are making it happen somehow have something we don’t or aren’t going through the same types of afflictions we are. When in reality those who have showed up to do the work definitely experience afflictions and have worked hard to find solutions so that they can expand their capacity, volition and agency. It is so easy for me to get caught up in an “I can’t” mindset because of my personal struggles which make it challenging to show up but I need to remember that nothing I struggle with is especially unique to me and I am capable of finding solutions just as others have.
Exactly this, Dee. I’m definitely prone to putting others on pedestals, people who I can see are doing the work but whose challenges I don’t necessarily see because they don’t lead with them. (Because leading with them is a way to talk ourselves out of doing the work).
I’m thinking about how putting others on pedestals is another way to indulge my cants and give myself an out or an unnecessary break. If I’m not seeing others eye to eye, I’m holding myself apart from them in this false sense of humility. This is also a way I pick up and wield that white supremacist weapon of dehumanizing someone by assuming they must not have struggles like I do to be able to do this work well, when that’s not true at all.
This reply was modified 3 years, 2 months ago by Jessie Lee.
I actually found this essay when I first started getting to know Lace on Race, which was around winter of 2020. I was just searching around, trying to get to know this space better and I happen to come across this and I was truly moved. But what I find very interesting is that in my recent consults with Lace, so many of the themes we have been talking about are talked about in this essay and coming back to it and reading it through, I see that more clearly. I’m not sure why Lace chose to revisit this today but it feels like it is bringing so much together for me right now.
Capacity, Agency and Volition. I know that agency is where I am strongest and that my capacity needs work but I am on a path to increase my capacity. Volition is where I struggle the most. Through this essay, I am made more aware that I am not alone in this. I literally feel like I am walking around with a weighed blanket most days, it feels heavy and it slows me down in everything I do. It is not something that I consciously choose to think about having to do with my afflictions but I feel like I have some ideas of paths to release myself from this and time and time again I retreat back to comfort. One thing I do know is that I am determined to keep going, keep walking. Lace on Race is teaching me that I need to start from the underground to make sustainable changes. It honestly is frustrating though because I still feel like I am not getting the results that I want (now) and somedays I am even more tired because I am allowing myself to go through and face things either my own pain and trauma or the truth in racialized trauma and terrorism. This is part of the slow process.
I know that fear and comfort ranks above sustainable, relentless and reliable pursuit of racial justice for me. That is the underlining piece for me when I face my challenges head on. I fear real things like losing or creating conflict in relationships, doing it wrong and making things worse or becoming a target from white american nationalists but its also a subconscious fear of growth and what that would mean for me as a person. The other piece is just comfort, really the most dangerous and difficult one to move past. It is so easy to retreat to comfort, especially as a white person. I am socialized into avoiding discomfort and also with a sense of entitlement to comfort.
One of the things that speaks to me the most in this, is the reminder that “Most of us who are drawn to social justice work bring with us a deep sense of justice, of empathy, of compassion and of service” and that it can be difficult sometimes to harness those attributes into action and relentless reliability. It also acknowledges that there are afflictions and heavy challenges but that these cannot be the end point. Oh, and the reminder that only I can bring what I bring to the table.
I feel like there is more I can say in response to this post especially because I did, in fact, mention “Bruised Oranges Matter, Too” as my favorite LoR post, so really this is probably just an “introduction paragraph” to so much more I can say in response to this. One thing that keeps me going is having faith that the more I keep just doing the thing that feels so hard in the moment, eventually it wont be so hard. Not that I am looking for easy but I really do hope to become more efficient which will result in me becoming more relentlessly reliable, in service to the North Star.
Hi Dee! Happy to be walking with you here. I, too, struggle with loneliness as an affliction. I think that it can be particularly challenging sometimes, to discern the difference between feeling lonely and being alone. I know it is for me, and it’s something I’m working on. I think sometimes I have more capacity to handle things than I think I do. I’m not sure if that hard stuff truly gets easier, or if we just learn to accept it as part of the journey and our volition to face the hard stuff increases as we continue to look toward the NorthStar.
Dee, I can relate to a lot of what you said, as you apparently do with my response.
One thing I am learning from this post and others I have read on this Website, on the Facebook page, and from Lace directly, is that I need to focus on those who are mistreated and misrepresented in doing the work the North Star requires, rather than on myself. As I have been alone with my husband for at least most of the last 18+ months, I focused too much on myself. I am actively working not to do that.
I am not saying that you are in the same place I am in any way, and I am not going to ask you what is going on with you: you would have provided information if you had chosen to do so. Instead, please know that I am glad to be walking with you, and I will lend support as I am able to.
I think that we bruised oranges take in shaming societal messages that our imperfections mean we are not enough. Our sense of whether we are enough is deeper than whether we are “good” enough because it goes to the core of who we are. If we are a Clementine rather than a Navel orange, if we have bruises or blemishes, then we are told we have little to offer. We experience shame, we beat ourselves up for not having more credentials because, theoretically, those with twenty years of experience, professional certification, a shiny Doctorate, (and oh, don’t forget the most important part!) no visible brokenness or differences – should be the ones to do it all, right? But, in the long run, who is it really that has volition enough to push the submit button – is it the person with themost credentials, or the one with the bruises?
I could be way off here, but I tend to think that those with the most credentials, ininif they chooseinin – have the privilege and power to remain stagnant in high-paneled offices quietly “wanting” justice and fulfilling that wish through meetings and policies that make no effective change, with not as much impact to their lives. But the bruised oranges know adversity because they carry the cost of it; they know that we need to do better, so they are the ones to create visions to do new things in new ways. So even though theweight of change should be distributed more evenly, it is often the bruised oranges who fight hardest to make that change.
All of that being said, I can definitely relate to that feeling of not being qualified, being scared to take a leap, feeling that I’m a kitten being asked to wear a lion’s mane. Often, for me this comes from a place of shame, discomfort, or fear. I had not thought about how it could be masked arrogance, trying to find a way out of something that I have been called to do. Because, the essence of a calling is about who we are, not about what we have – so I wonder if we are called, not despite our limitations, but because of them. But I (and we) can learn to develop the capacity, agency, and volition to do this work, even with our bruises.
I also wanted to reflect on the animal analogy and weighted blankets. At my best, when I embrace my full capacity, agency, and volition, I am like a bird, flying freely, held up by my faith and my inner strength even if I don’t look strong on the outside, with wings ready to offer comfort and companionship. At my most fragile, I am like a kitten. Kittens like to provide comfort, but they also like to be held and comforted. Kittens like to curl up in a safe place and feel loved. When I’m having these “kitten” moments, I forget my own capacity of strength, and dwell on how alone I feel rather than finding that voice of volition inside of me that says “I will, even in the moments of loneliness and adversity, I will keep walking”. That kitten buries its nose under the weighted blanket of the affliction of loneliness (and other afflictions too), for a time. Recently I am undergoing a situation where some people who had assuredme that they would support me in tangible ways, have not been present due to their own afflictions. In this situation, Iadmit my kitten self has come forth, buried itself under that weighted blanket, and then re-emerged as a bird with shaky wings. I think one way that growing up looks like for me, in my life in general but also specifically in racial justice spaces, is (a) to not use my feelings of loneliness as an excuse to shrink beneath that weighted blanket; (b) to find my center, my voice of volition that says “I will keep walking” even when I do not have the tangible support I would desire. I must keep walking, because lives depend on it. I must keep walking, because I have something to offer. I am grateful for this community that holds me well, but has also taught me through example to do the same, and to walk steadfastly ⠕⠝⠲
Kelsi, I also become the kitten you describe all too easily and often. I am an empath, and while that means I have to be careful not to take in too much of others’ pain (I can become debilitated emotionally), it does not mean I can or should avoid that altogether, especially since I am a coach for people traumatized from emotional abuse (I am a survivor too). I also have been very lonely since the pandemic started; I get together with friends and others o.n social media, over the phone, and/or via Zoom or something similar.
That said, I am here for you. Let’s walk together!
I appreciate your vulnerability and personalization, Kelsi. I relate to the kitten and it’s got me thinking about what I can do as a kitten to keep walking instead of hiding when I’m feeling like a kitten, or as you commented on another post a while ago, looking for what I “can” do. Otherwise I spend a lot of energy on battling and beating myself up which is counter productive. Lace acknowledged in the post that instead of fighting with her afflictions, she brings them with her and that’s what I’m thinking of cause I won’t be a lion all the time but hopefully I can be a lion more of time as I keep walking.
You model courage with your vulnerability and commitment with your capacity, agency, and volition, Lace. The way you use your example to wrap us up with loving exhortation to do this work is something incredible. In a video once, Lace described agency as “… that you believe that you can or that you’ll take responsibility to become competent” and she identified agency in this post as the one that melds the other two (capacity & volition); it feels like the action and what we let our challenges get in the way of. The part about wanting to stay wrapped in a weighted blanket of afflictions speaks to the inaction that prevents agency. In the post Lace asked “What ranks above a sustainable and reliable and relentless pursuit of racial justice for you?” and as a white woman wrapped in privilege the answer is generally everything and especially anything that directly affects me. I have to choose everyday to prioritize this work and to uncenter myself.
When I think about bruised oranges in the context of this community, I think less of my unique and personal bruises and more of the massive discoloration that is my white supremacy. That too feels like an affliction, something that impacts my agency, capacity, and volition – or rather, my perceptions of those things. So today I am adding a new member to my circle of selves, who gather like a coven in a secluded redwood grove: the White Supremacy Me. They are as much a driver of my actions and behaviors as Depression Me, Problem-Solver Me, Intellectual Me. (These selves and others are the “Internal Family Systems” circle I have developed with my own wonderful therapist, Kristin.) Until today I have never thought to look for White Supremacy Me in the shadows around the circle made from fallen logs, to visualize how large and well-prepared they are for running the show that is my life. To invite them in and show them their place, take away their arsenal of tools and techniques, inform them that they can no longer operate without the supervision of my Self. My Self is the most mature “me” in the group; they continually mature, and aid the others to mature as well, bringing them forward from where they are stuck.
As for rank, there are moments when I will put something else ahead of my North Star work: it might be work for my family, my health, my obligations to another. There are definitely other principles in my life that are equivalent to our North Star, and I move within that set to maintain and nurture my unified ethos and praxis. I am not perfect by any means, but in striving for integrity I look to that primary tier for guidance and correction.
Sometimes, even, and ever so quietly, I want justice. But I want to stay wrapped in the weighted blanket of my afflictions more. Hear that. Can anyone relate to what I am saying here?
Of course I can relate. I say I want justice, and I do, but sometimes when the rubber meets the road and demands that I push myself to do more, I retreat into the weighted blanket of afflictions and wont’s masked as cant’s. And there’s the choice point: I can recognize this and take off the blanket, or I have to be honest with myself that I don’t actually want justice as much as I tell myself— and tell others— I do, that I want my weighted blanket more. Also that I want the flimsy license it gives me to watch Netflix while Black women carry the burden of working toward justice alone. Only when I lay that truth bare to myself do I activate that dissonance of misalignment between what I say I value and my actions, and only then will I change my actions to bring them into alignment with my stated values of justice and equity. Hiding that truth from myself is exactly what keeps white supremacy— both personal and systemic— alive and well. To the question of what I rank higher than justice: performance and self sufficiency at work is a big one. I think generally being seen as good at my different roles… good teacher, wife, daughter, friend, colleague, etc. This is definitely a clenchy question so I’m going to ponder it more and return to flesh out my answer more.
>>>There are few obstacles that are truly insurmountable. In previous essays and commentaries, we have talked about how we may be forced to be more curious and or creative in working out, and then living out, virtues and skills which are crucial for sustained and effective praxis. I know that this has been true for me. Some of the skills and attributes I do my best to consistently model do not come easily to me. >>>
This definitely resonates with me. My brain is built in a way that listening to people well can be exhausting, especially if it’s a new person or not someone I trust. For years, I struggled to understand why I was so bad at listening. It wasn’t until my kid had speech issues and I had to force myself to listen really, really well that I both understood that I could do it – and that it was so much harder for me than other people. Understanding the traits that we struggle with and thinking about how to cultivate them through real, difficult practice, is so important to praxis Not all of the skills that are needed for this are things that can just be intuited, but they can be learned.
>>>> diffused empathy; impotent compassion; badly defined and inarticulate justice, and provisional and conditional service is how most of us have been taught to live out these values.>>>
Our white supremacist society finds ways to feed that sense of compassion that are shallow and harmful. “Feel good” stories spark our sense of empathy and compassion while hiding the systemic problems underlying them. White saviorism makes white people feel good about “helping” without actually needing to sacrifice or listen to what people actually need. Providing just enough food for these values to seem satiated when it’s all contentless keeps us from embracing the real power for change of living out these values. Part of living out those values is rejecting those easy answers.
>>> So. What ranks above a sustainable and reliable and relentless pursuit of racial justice for you? >>>
Time with my family, at my job, in terms of time and energy commitment. But I do try to say yes over and over again and recommit whenever I find myself drifting off of that commitment.
>>>>But here is where curiosity and creativeness can be engaged to make real and authentically change-making progress despite skill level, despite afflictions, despite limits. >>>
This reminds me of the difference between excuses and accommodations when dealing with a child’s education who has a learning disability. Excuses discount and don’t respect someone’s potential ability – they say the person can never do the activity or skill because of the barriers. Accommodations figure out what the underlying problem is and help resolve or reduce the barriers so the person is able to do the activity. I think once we’re committed to that yes, there are accommodations we can make for ourselves to enable us to do it and show up over and over again. But we will never get there if we just make excuses.
Jessie Lee.
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