To Those I have Loved Before

My kids have a sign in their bathroom that reads “Stop trying to be like everyone else when you were born to be yourself”. It’s one of those cheap, predictable, mass produced signs that I bought at some stifling department store. It’s cheesy and its the kind of saying that makes most of us roll our eyes. Despite the cliché nature of it though, when we say it to our kids, we mean it.

Recently, the question “What does showing up look like” came up. It came up over a week ago, and I’ve been chewing on it and chewing on it, unable to deconstruct it. Right now, maybe more than ever, this question…this question I love.

We’re really in it now. I would prefer to be heard. I would prefer to not be referred to as selfish. I would prefer is as a people, we could do away with the contradictions. I would prefer to trust in my immune system. I would prefer to let my lifestyle choices lead me to health and survival. I would prefer to not be called ignorant. I would prefer to travel. I would prefer to not have it be a reality that I may never go back to my mother country.

But this isn’t a matter of preference is it? What I prefer, the way that I’ve lived for the past 25 years doesn’t matter here. What I feel in my heart, in my gut and in my soul is wrapped up in a package of ignorance and is founded on anti science. Here, hateful language is not only acceptable, but encouraged. In fact, it’s encouraged by the very people who were elected to united us and to lead us.

The delineation between where my body ends and yours begins is what individualizes us. The delineation in our uniqueness of thought, in our deeply help belief systems, in their differences and is what individualizes us, it’s what makes us beautiful.

Body sovereignty reflects where I end and you begin.

Candace Pert, PhD has demonstrated, in a lab, in experiments repeated by others, that our 37.2 trillion cells hold neuropeptide receptors which literally bind our emotional states. She brilliantly has shown us that our “physicality” is a manifestation of our emotional state. That our cells (all of them) express health based on the emotional states that they “bind”. Emotional anger, guilt, shame and fear beget their physical equivalent of sickness in each and every cell just as love, joy and inspiration lead to expansion and healing.

By being made to compromise one’s physical state (against one’s will), we’re invariably also being made to compromise our emotional and mental states.

To all of those I’ve loved before…please realize that if you love me, if we’re truly connected and we truly love each other, please don’t presume that asking me to (or making me) compromise my body is what’s best for me or best for you. Please don’t ask me or make me do this in exchange for travel, education, the right to earn a living and contribute to me community, the right to the very freedom I’ve always been so protective of. Please understand that by asking me to compromise my beliefs to this degree, you’re encroaching onto my very core. I understand and respect that you may not share the same feelings about your own “being” but it should be. To all of those we’ve loved before, please understand that if you love us, please understand what it is that you’re asking.

Our striking beauty as a people lies in how unmistakably different we all are from one another. I don’t believe that it’s anyone’s place pointedly decide that another person’s certainty and deep sense of primal trust in their own physical potential is “delinquent or wrong thinking”? A culture which has so intentionally fertilized the honoring of differences and which has cultivated an understanding of diversity, equity and inclusion should be open to identifying contradictions and incongruences. Call me naive, but I’m confused by the segregation and blatant discrimination being encouraged by the leaders meant to inspire us to become better people.

Please realize that my plan is to protect those around me by taking care of myself and of my kids as best as I possibly can…and pardon me for mentioning that my track record so far speaks for itself.

I uphold the love I feel for this life, I choose to be in awe of the beauty all around me, I open my heart to the flow of life and…and for these reasons, I will forever hold the line over Freedom, not Force.