Last week, Alis and I showed up on a computer screen together, as we have done so often these past four years, and bared our souls. But this time, we did it in a room full of other people. And these people joined with us in the soul-baring.
Alis told us about the year she spent knowing exactly what her body needed and doing nothing about it…until she gave up on the illusion of willpower alone and bought a walking pad. All our frameworks, all our self-awareness, and still: “Sometimes, just knowing what you’re supposed to do does not help you.”
And then there are the times when you just don’t know what to do. Val spoke about walking what she calls the “Revolution Caminho” in Boston this spring, training for a developmental walking retreat on the Portuguese Caminho she’s three weeks from leading, and the question underneath all of it: “do I fight for this country or do I leave it?” The dilemma wasn’t just the question. It was noticing how fast the instinct to run showed up. “This is not who I thought I would be.”
And then so many beautiful humans showed up in the chat with their own big questions and tightly woven knots…
what’s our responsibility in the face of profound human suffering, when we’re not sure any of it moves the needle?
how rare spaces like this one are, and how much is healed just by having one.
living with the strange guilt of reconciling a privileged, peaceful life against everything on fire elsewhere…and finding connection with the land.
Alis named the guilt of a beautiful, easy life too, and the discovery that the attunement to pain doesn’t cancel the attunement to beauty, it sharpens it. Everything seems to be in technicolor when we can feel and see and hold it all. The pain is excruciating. The joy is effervescent. It all feels incredibly alive and true at once.
And then Val evoked one of her (many) favorite concepts from her friend, Shakiyla Smith-Sengu—fierce love. It’s not the fairy-tale kind we read about in books or only imagine as something that we offer another. Val was pointing to the importance of loving yourself hardest exactly when you’re falling apart, because falling apart isn’t malfunction, it’s just being human at the crossroads of life and development.
And, yes, we named out loud the thing we foreshadowed when we scheduled this Substack Live. No one has their shit together. Not us, not the people who look like they do, not the ones sitting quietly in the chat wondering if they’re the only one unraveling. Someone has to go first in saying so. We thought it might as well be us.
This is what growth in community actually looks like, we think. Not pretending we have it all together when, on many days, we’re being held together by duct tape. Witnessing each other’s muck until, somehow, everyone sees a little more clearly.
You can watch the full video here:
Thank you for being in it with us…live, or in whatever hour you’re catching up. Thank you for sharing with us in the comments what comes up for you as you tune in. There’s already an alive conversation brewing. Join us. Your questions, your knots, your messiness…all welcome here.
In the struggle and so very grateful for the witness,
Val + Alis
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