The Zen master and author Thich Nhat Hanh, says, “If you know how to suffer, you suffer less.”
We can shift our beingness through radical care. We can do this by cultivating comfort. How we feel, including our internal state and our external sensations, is core to our overall sense of self. Cultivating interoception (ability to feel), is like having a life coach on hand to help navigate life’s sticky situations.
Radically caring for ourselves can dismantle systems of harm. It can help cultivate a world we most want to be a part of. When we are able to include our whole selves and move toward comfort, our inner landscape can shift from suffering to ease.
Our perception develops through movement. The brain and the body work as co-conspirators of perception. We can micro-empower our lives toward a state of comfort by holding nourishing care as our north star. Amber Gray Ph.D. says “Safety is a birthright for all but a privilege for the few.”
What can we do to aid our comfort?
What can we change, adjust, or improve at this moment? Do we need to untie our shoelaces, or adjust a pillow? Staying with micro moves and growing towards macro shifts creates an allyship of inner and outer empowerment. And if we can’t find our comfort, if we feel stuck or frozen, then we need to honor that. That is when we need to find respite and sanctuary.
We simply cannot wait for the right conditions. Systems of oppression assume power. True empowerment comes from within our feeling states. The only thing we have the power to do is change ourselves. What can we do under these imperfect conditions? Let go of expectation and step into the moment. Where can we bring movement to the right now?
Don’t get caught up in the imaginal idea of it all. Stay here, in the reality of what we have to work with. Find movement. Find your power, rooted in your body. Join others in the community and stand up to do the work and offer hope. This is the kind of incredible intention that spawns invention. This is how we move forward.
