What We've Learned about Reclaiming Power in Helplessness
Earlier this week, seven folks gathered with me for a healing circle called "Reclaiming Power in Helplessness." Our circle intended to build on a wisdom-share and meditation, named "Some Help with Helplessness," by Abdi Assadi, a NYC-based bodyworker-spiritual counselor whose insights I deeply respect, As I prepared for the circle I entered a long reflection about recent times, experiences of my own and others, and the learning that comes from it all.
Some of us can feel, on a cosmic level, dramatic shifts taking place for reasons that may never be entirely known to us. These shifts, from what I and others can tell, are heart and bone-splitting, and yet, I hope to believe, are tests and preparations toward our spiritual evolution.
This is to say that this psychic moment brings gaping vulnerabilities, which evaporate any residual delusions of any direct control or influence. Abdi describes this moment as "when the old ways no longer work and the new ways are yet to be revealed." During these last months, I've met this place of overwhelm where we can't navigate our way with familiar senses or directions, and here, we experience our mirrors of non-control--reflections of fears, anxieties, and doubts. Most of all, this experience of powerlessness can be incredibly intense, a debilitation that exhausts our inspiration, our confidence, our resolve, and our bodies. Simply: It.is.real.
Peering into my own recent experience with helplessness, and that of those whom I counsel as an energy healer, I'm reminded that majik doesn't promise a way out. Sometimes life is brutally unrelenting. Your spiritual practices or powers won't "fix" it because it is an experience happening on many physical/emotional/psychic/cosmic levels that is beyond your reach.
Instead, everydaymajik (my preferred majik-swagger), is our capacity to (as Abdi says) just "tolerate" it. In other words, our power comes from moments of "a felt sense of clarity, presence, and purpose" when we bear it. These are the flickers of recognition that the harshness taking hold is merely temporary--it may not get better forever but, at some point, we'll get a lil' relief.
I've taken away three lessons about the ways that I stay closer to my power in helplessness: the only way out is through, my inner-resources are always deeper than I expect, and trust in my resilience. I know better now than to resist life's flow, and when I ride the tide, I can find the exact right thing within myself or from the world when I focus in increments (the next hour or day) and really pay attention to what's what. My everydaymajik is seeing possibilities when none seem evident. And when I can more easily remember that I'm on the other side of past times in my life which felt like the most pain, my majik is at its height. My need to do this is basic but my power to patiently deal, with love freely available around me, carrying the extravagance of experience, assures me that I can nurture the scar tissue later.
So, earlier this week, in our shared Love-Practice, we not only offered wisdom amongst ourselves, we worked too. Our circle completed a spiritual "ally" creation exercise, which mirrored to us our inner-resources--or that everydaymajik that's accessible to us--when we search. Then, we closed with a guided drum meditation that helped us with resilience-building in a supportive space. It was heavy, and as the story is told, we managed it within ourselves, and with each other.
The helplessness that many of us are experiencing, whether in our lives our by extension the world, is a greater core cracking open. Ultimately I'm grateful to be challenged on this level, with the support of affirming families, communities, ancestors, and faces of Divine. Let's continue to really see each other in revolutionary spirit. May y'all stand brave in LovingPower always.
This post was originally posted on Conjure! Freedom Collective's blog.
***Richael holds drop-in Meditation Mondays every week at 6pm. Sign up for our events listserv to stay tuned about upcoming meditations!***
