Refusing disposability

Repatterning what love means

Hi y’all. Lots of robust pieces are in progress, writing themselves in my ever-exploding Evernote to make their way here soon. Today I have a brief note of some themes circling in my awareness lately.

I’ll actually be back again sooner than later to share a more in-depth post as I prepare to launch my course, Cultivating Culture, for a fourth time this fall. In the meantime, please do check out this treasured offering. I’m beyond honored to bring it forward again, and I would love to share it with you!

A testimonial from last fall:

“I feel that, as Joy Harjo puts it, the ‘post-colonial jitters’ have simmered down a bit within me. I felt so many things come up to be released, healed, and held throughout this experience. I feel a deeper connection to my ancestors, grace and accountability held hand in hand for my family, and a richer groundedness of self. I feel more connected to the life and World that I wish to exist in and create communally, and that I am a loved and important part of that World. I am looking more to chosen ancestors as well, people who I see living radiantly and shamelessly, who remind me that creating the World I wish to be a part of starts with showing up authentically and loving the places that I have held shame within myself." 

- Robin

Space is limited for intimacy and a few spots have already been claimed so reach out soon with interest.

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once upon a time at ocean beach

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The measure of my love has always been a function of my obsession with honesty in service of a higher calling. I love you so I’m going to be upfront with you. I love you so I’m going to be direct. I love you so I’m not going to protect you from the discomfort of confrontation. I love you so we can step into a space of accountability. If I didn’t love you, I would back out quietly, gradually widen the gap between us, slowly stop responding, fade the connection to black.

An old therapist once told me that in difficult relationships sometimes the best way to be is “boring, neutral, and superficial.” I’m incapable of implementing that advice. In fact, I resent it.

On the surface, it can feel like a more difficult trail to tread – to willingly step into a space of tension where I am unwilling to be complacent, and yet I wish this way of being wasn’t so controversial. I wish it was celebrated. Amidst cultural conditioning that asks us, demands us, to “let it go”, to “move on”, to “keep it to ourselves” we find ourselves trapped in the lowest common denominator behaviors like relational laziness or conflict avoidance that can quickly devolve into deep harm.

We say that’s the easier road, but only because we’ve long been deprived relational containers that acknowledge complexity as sacred, conflict as necessary, disagreement as vital when it is held and tended to in a way that leads to growth. We are extraordinarily diverse. In thought, in perception, in preference, in background, in lived experience, in identity… I don’t want homogeneity. I want to fertilize the spaces of difference between us, build temples there, adorn them with devoted attention. I don’t want to suture and sanitize them. I want it to feel less difficult to navigate our collision points. I want to lift into a higher commitment that we not treat one another as disposable. To see one another not only as investments, but as integral to the transformation of the collective into greater connectivity and coherence.

We have all been shaped and molded by generations of wayward thinking and not one of us alone is responsible for the cruelty in all that has influenced us. That abusive pattern you see in your sibling started in your great grandfather. That toxic behavior you see in your aunt started in your great, great, great grandmother. All of it an outcome of struggling to survive. Some of us can’t see what we carry. In fact, in the most challenging moments of calling a beloved person in to a more honest reflection of their behavior, I’ve consistently encountered someone shocked to truly sit with the implications of their actions. When I have been invited into those spaces, I too have been humbled by stomach churning revelation.

Wow, thank you for loving me enough to shine light into that gap in my awareness. Thank you for loving me enough to trust that I could receive how that felt to you. Thank you for loving me enough to see something more expansive, more possible than I can even allow for myself by operating in these wounded ways. I want better for myself too.

It takes bravery to remain undefended about how you are perceived and to take from that reflection whatever serves your continued evolution. It takes courage to cultivate ecosystems where relationships are a commitment to one another’s spiritual growth. It takes a profound dedication to loving ourselves enough to know that this kind of reflective care is what we all deserve.

What does refusing disposability mean to you?

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Sensitivity and receptivity are forces of tremendous potency that require

both solitude and relational sparks

to form the alchemy for our most vibrant expressions to come forward.

There is an unspeakable preciousness to taking generous time to cultivate the exquisite and singular artistry that is your own sacred organic rhythm,

the one that makes you most you.

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Thank you for bringing your heart here. Please help widen the circle, by sharing this piece with someone in your life.

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