Hanging on by a thread
Care Message 02
Recently, during a group check-in, a friend said they felt like they were “hanging on by a thread”. This metaphor stuck with me, and this morning during a somatic practice with other feelers, we moved to a song that reminded me we do not have to hold all of this on our own. I heard the words of my friend as I cried, and I understood that the idea might be useful as a way to identify our capacity and longings, and provide us with some guidance on how to move during this time.
Not only is the current state of human life deeply unsettling on a collective level, but it seems that me and many of my sensitive friends (and all those acutely aware of the interconnectedness of intersecting crises) are putting out many fires on the personal plane as well. As I have written about before, our bodies, and our loved ones’ bodies, minds, and spirits, are all sounding the alarm. It is prime time for crisis. With so many of us barely holding on by a thread, it can be daunting, overwhelming and illicit trauma responses galore.
My go-to trauma response is freeze, which means I can have a hard time moving and connecting to my body, and in times of stress and overwhelm I lean on avoidance tendencies and like to numb out. So, lately I’ve been watching Love Island and eating obscene amounts of Girl Scout cookies. (Click here to find a list of trans scouts to buy cookies from online!!!)
The intensity of intersecting personal, political, existential and earth crises has many of us wondering about our capacity to be able to even survive day-to-day circumstances, much less move towards a better way of life on a collective scale. It all has me in the fetal position, mentally.
If you too, feel that you are hanging on by a thread right now, please know I am with you. And I truly want to know: what is the quality of that thread you are hanging on by? What does that thread mean to you? How is its strength keeping you going? That thread we are hanging on by actually has very important information for us.
What people, what words, what longings make up this thread? Does it have a color? Is it stretched taut and thin? Is it frayed? What does it mean to you to have this thread?
Sitting with my thread for a moment I noticed it feels filled with a kind of love and care for the world that I just can’t let go of… or maybe which will not let go of me. The thread still contains despair and grief, anger and sadness, but those qualities do not make it any weaker, it simply is a part.
Being stunned, being slow, being uncertain—none of this disconnects us from the rest of the threads we are all hanging on by. They simply are. We simply are. And together, our singular threads are enough.
I’ve been sharing this essay: “I am doing this without Hope.” with my beloveds because it speaks to the way that hope doesn’t always feel accessible, and how hope has been co-opted as a neoliberal tool for apathy and inaction; always putting change somewhere in a near, but wholly unimagined future, all while never really encouraging us to embody the change for ourselves, right now.
In the essay, Rose Ides writes:
“I do not stop loving (verb) the world because of despair or fear, so I do not see the practicality in participating in hope. Nor do I wish to fall for the lie that I need hope to treat this world and those in it the way they should be treated.”
To me this speaks to our capacity to care. Care is a different kind of hope. Care is an action that allows me to place dignity, power, and belonging at the center of my own healing and my offerings to the world.
Despite my thread-bare capacities right now, my thread is made up of care. I care deeply for us, not just me. I’ve realized that this is part of why I struggle so deeply in isolation, because my default is to center a vision much bigger than myself. I want to care for others, and this initiative also guides me to care for myself. My writing practice herein, on the surface may seem like an outward offering, but is actually a practice of being in the here and now, a practice of self-study and attuning; I feel, understand, and solidify my current needs and longings more through each word-channeling session.
Despite centering care in my life, I’ve also been wisely advised by my partner at times that I might need to care less. I got pretty high yesterday on half an edible sweet tart, and after moving at an actual snail’s pace in the self-checkout, then asking my partner to confirm am I moving slowly? and him staring and confirming completely yes. and then laughing uncontrollably at this, then just a bit later, feeling quite uncomfortable with the wide swing of emotions I experienced all in the span of a day, I realized that my care-scope is often too wide. While looking outward often fuels me, it also drains me. That is valuable information because it means that for me, a sustainable care practice is not static, it must be able to change, grow, recede, and undulate with possibility. Just as my body does in the span of a day, or the cycle of the moon.
My dear care buddies, please take your time to find your thread and let it hold you up right now. It is okay to not know the future. It is okay to be stalked by grief and frankly, traumatized. I want you to remember that each breath you take is a wild miracle. Your tears will cleanse and nourish you. Let them fall.
I am so grateful for my friend who spoke vulnerably about how she was just holding on by a thread, and allowed us to sit with her in that. I want us to show each other our threads. Neither good nor bad, but here all the same. I want us to de-stigmatize this feeling of only hanging on by a thread because we have lost too many who’ve cut the thread themselves after hiding the pain of hanging on for years, perhaps thinking that their single thread wasn’t enough.
If it is taking everything you’ve got right now—all the tools in your care basket and more that you don’t even have yet, just to get through a day—I am here with you. If you feel ashamed for that, wishing you had more capacity to do, to be, to care for others who are struggling and to change our collective circumstances, I am with you. You are enough as you are. Your capacity right now is just right. This singular thread you have is enough; in fact it might just have everything you need in it to lead the way.
Carefully, and with care,
Renee
thank you again for sharing with us 💛
it's interesting that this metaphor has stuck with you and what inspired this offering, because it's one that has stuck with me since voicing it. and as I've been visualizing what the thread has consisted of, a big part has been having people like you extending your support in the ways you've been able, including heart-centered reminders such as these.
"My writing practice herein, on the surface may seem like an outward offering, but is actually a practice of being in the here and now, a practice of self-study and attuning; I feel, understand, and solidify my current needs and longings more through each word-channeling session."
I'm re-reading and coming back to certain parts like ^ the passage above after journaling this morning and realizing I hadn't done so in over a month. though that isn't the kind of writing I share with others, it reminds me of the presence practice in general, in necessary expression, and part of the benefit in being able to go back and reflect on what's changing, static, etc.
"If you feel ashamed for that, wishing you had more capacity to do, to be, to care for others who are struggling and to change our collective circumstances, I am with you. You are enough as you are. Your capacity right now is just right. This singular thread you have is enough; in fact it might just have everything you need in it to lead the way."
I've also really been needing to hear this ^ more as someone who cares deeply about so much and still struggles with trying to not spread myself so thin. it reminds me of a line I'm sure you've heard before that goes something like "don't set yourself on fire to keep others warm". cus that's what it feels like when I'm ultimately neglecting myself in the process. of course, everything is always easier said than done, but it's a practice we take day by day.
I'm going to continue to sit with the metaphor and your words, and am grateful to have the opportunity to get to know more of you as time passes 💞
“Your tears will cleanse and nourish you. Let them fall.” thank you for the reminder to cry in this beautiful metaphor story. i tend to have a hard time getting past this barrier to be able to soak my sadness in💙