The Meltdown
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To Change The World We Must Focus on The Change and Not The World\\xa0
I had a conversation today with a woman I have become friends with on instagram. She sent me some claps over a Marianne Williamson post I put up about her running for President.
I really like this Instagram woman. She posts lovely, honest things, and she is generous and authentic in her messages to me. Being that she is African American I thought she may want to know that\\xa0Reparations\\xa0are a part of Marianne\\u2019s platform. She did not know and was very surprised. It\\u2019s not for me to get into the details of that conversation because it was private. I will say that I think it\\u2019s about\\xa0 time, and that for the\\xa0US to pay reparations to Japan and not to its own citizens is just some next-level bull.
The point I want to discuss here is how our conversation relates to the mental, spiritual and emotional exhaustion we all feel in any given moment when we look beyond just managing our own day to day lives toward getting involved in changing the world.
What is it that makes someone believe they can change the world? What type of upbringing makes a Nelson Mandela, a Ruth Bader Ginsburg or a Marianne Williamson? Whatever type it is, I\\u2019m pretty sure I didn\\u2019t have it\\u2026 who am I to think I can change things enough in \\u2018Hollywood\\u2019 so women will still be considered viable after 40, or even to stop hair care companies from pimping toxic chemicals that seep into our skin month after month so we can pretend we are cheating death, and remaining our perky, f*ckable selves? I want to change all of that, but it feels too big for me.
My Instagram friend said she is not going to get involved in the process of the democratic nomination, or maybe even the Presidency until it\\u2019s time to vote because she doesn\\u2019t have the energy. Which I translated to mean that her heart is fucking broken and she\\u2019s not ready to date again. I get it, except I\\u2019m worried that the country needs all the card carrying democrats it can get to vote in the democratic nomination so they are invested in the person they are going to throw up against the unconscious crew that are currently in office.
I am Canadian, it is easier for me to yell and scream because, while the betrayal exists for me, it does not cut as deeply because this is not my country. We have problems of our own\\u200a\\u2014\\u200awe just happen to be on the pendulum as it is swinging left, but it\\u2019ll go back\\u200a\\u2014\\u200aso we are not immune to this disease of unconconscious capitalism.
But, still, I get it. I have been on a pendulum swinging myself. Spending more and more time in the house because this part Wolverine part skunk look is something to behold, and I don\\u2019t always have the energy to stand tall with it.
I told her I will speak on her behalf until she feels ready because in this moment I feel tall.
That was at about 6PM.
It\\u2019s now 10:30 PM and I just had an Instagram melt down because I had to go out and pick up my food from across the street and face the world with my skunk streaks, and no Valentine\\u2019s date, and a make-up-less-face (I wore lipstick, obviously).
I\\u2019m tired just thinking about it.
It was exhausting, not because anyone gave a shit, but because I did. I was walking out like a googlie-eyed monster hissing and waving my claws at people lest they look at me funny, or worse, look right through me. Someone did and bumped into me. It was tragic.
The interesting part of aging is that the world does not care that I am becoming invisible. They are not even the ones trying to shove me in the box. It is me doing all the shoving and all the judging.
I feel like a dog that has been trained to stand next to a pole with a chain, and now, even though the chain is off, I\\u2019m still standing next to that pole. Sitting in my own excrement waiting for my master to come and rub my belly.
My Mom always used to tell me when I\\u2019m on the verge of a meltdown to H.A.L.T.\\u200a\\u2014\\u200acheck if I am Hungry, Angry, Lonely, or Tired. If I am any of those things I should not try to make any decisions, (or post on social media). At 10:30 PM\\xa0I was ALL of those things\\xa0so I felt like it was a great decision to indulge the little monsters and cry away on my cell phone in bad lighting.
My friend (one I\\u2019ve met face to face) called me shortly after my double posts. When I saw him calling I picked it up and said \\u201cI\\u2019m Ok.\\u201d
He started to laugh. We both laughed for a bit, and then I explained to him why I am doing this on social media. He didn\\u2019t ask, but I needed to explain it to myself because I was having some post post regret.
So here\\u2019s what I told him:
Social media is a snake eating its own tail. It has us all in a Pavlovian cycle of responding when the bell rings, each time it rings we are fed a like, a heart, a message, some love. Once we receive that like, heart, message, love, we try to re-create the thing we received the like, heart, message, love for in the first place. The problem is\\u200a\\u2014\\u200athat is impossible.
Yesterday, I looked at my Instagram \\u2018insights\\u2019 I NEVER do this. I did it because I am planning to release a podcast along with these articles and experimented with running an ad to see how that works as I plan to use ads to get the message out to potential listeners. I have had a significant (600%) increase in my instagram activity since I started going gray (after I lost the first 200 followers\\u200a\\u2014\\u200athose who have stayed are more engaged). Who cares. Well, apparently I do because I started posting pretty pictures of myself again. Which should be ok, but it caused a flare up in my ego.
Like an addict who had one shot of gin and now needs to drink a whole bottle.
What I explained to my thoughtful, concerned friend is that social media has heightened, and blown my relationship with my own image waaaaay out of proportion. It has literally trained me to take half-naked, edited and filtered photos of myself to the point where I am no longer clear as to what I actually look like\\u200a\\u2014\\u200athe same way Pavlov trained dogs to salivate at the sound of a bell.
That is why I am using social media to have my meltdowns. It is literally the Cure and the Cause of my Blues (there is a killer song by\\xa0Fish Go Deep\\xa0by that name BTW check it out). If I post my blues, and my weeping in bad lighting on the very space that rewards me only for glamour shots I am telling Pavlov to shove his bell up his ass and biting the hand that feeds me.
Of course the next phase of the cycle is to receive all the likes, hearts, messages and love BECAUSE of my blues, and then we get to start again\\u200a\\u2014\\u200athe blues become the new half naked photo.
But I can\\u2019t help but hope that by being conscious of this snake eating its tail\\xa0loop\\xa0that I will somehow be able to break free from it.
I don\\u2019t think it\\u2019s about me not using social media because the videos, and stories and photos other women have shared helped me to make this decision to perform this radical act of self love that is growing out my gray hair. I do think it is imperative that I break this cycle of addictive behaviour in myself. My addiction to external validation and drama.
Which brings me back to my Instagram friend.
I understand where she is coming from. She\\u2019s tired. We\\u2019re all tired.
When I think about the world, and what an uphill climb\\xa0this\\xa0is\\u200a\\u2014\\u200athis being my having the audacity to age in the entertainment industry and not try to hide it,\\xa0and\\xa0expect to still be afforded the opportunity to make my living doing what I have spent years of dedicated study and tens of thousands of dollars doing\\u200a\\u2014\\u200ait feels like a mountain range surrounded by a moat full of alligators, a barbed wire fence, hungry mountain lions and an easily penetrable border-wall that I can fly over in a plane\\u2026(at least one thing can be overcome).
Now, I don\\u2019t believe that focusing on the change means we can\\xa0ignore\\xa0the world. It is important to be informed. We have been asleep for too long, and that is why the f*ckety-f*cks are having their way with us at the moment, but we\\xa0will\\xa0make change happen, just like millions of men and women throughout the course of history have stood up in the face of oppression, and faced their own role in that oppression and taken responsibility for their roles in that oppression\\u200a\\u2014\\u200aand even made reparations for their roles in that oppression,\\xa0no,I do not think we ignore the world.
But there is a point when, if I stare at that world for too long, and if I do it unconsciously, it starts to mesmerize, and to tell me what it is,\\xa0and what it will always be,\\xa0and when the entertainment world tells me what it is\\u200a\\u2014\\u200ayou won\\u2019t work as an actor, you\\u2019ll look ten years older, you\\u2019ll be invisible etc., I start to believe it because I am at the effect of the world instead of affecting it. I am only focusing on THE WORLD.
So\\u200a\\u2014\\u200ait is at that point that I must switch my perspective and focus on the CHANGE. Preferably pre-meltdown, but hey, no one here is an enlightened master (as Marianne often says).
It is not going to help me or anyone else if I run around accusing the world of ignoring me. Of seeking out all of the insidious behaviours of those in the entertainment industry and beyond and trying to call them all out on them.
What\\xa0will\\xa0help me is to hold space for those people who are facing their own fears about aging and know that I too suffer from the same disease. I am just on the road to recovery, and they haven\\u2019t yet decided to walk through the fire.
Who can blame them? They\\u2019re tired.
I\\u2019m tired too, but I know that on the other side of this fire is peace. I know it because I\\u2019ve walked through other fires, and each time it gets easier and even funnier because I have a little more humility.
I think it may be a long road, but I\\u2019m willing to walk it, because I believe I can change my experience of the world by taking ownership of my perspective of it.
I said that to my phone-call friend tonight too. I have two choices\\u200a\\u2014\\u200awalk through the fire\\u200a\\u2014\\u200aface my face, and everything else, as it ages, or stuff myself with my addiction to the belief I have some control over what is inevitably going to happen in my life (aging, death, taxes). Like I can stave off aging if I just keep dying my hair. I can\\u2019t choose the unconscious path unless I cover it with alcohol or drugs, or sex, or botox, or Instagram\\u2026wait, what?
It would be\\xa0soooo nice though\\xa0to be unconscious, but we no longer have the luxury of that given the current state of the world. So I\\u2019ve chosen to walk through the fire. I\\u2019ve chosen it for myself as an act of love. And I know that love will spread because my choice will inspire the other men and women to face their faces, and love their hair, and that it will be a little bit easier for them because\\xa0love spreads faster than fire.
To answer my earlier question about how someone becomes a world changer I have to come back to Marianne (hero-worship much?)\\u2026
Twice today Marianne Williamson\\u2019s paragraph from her book\\xa0A Return to Love\\xa0(life changer guys, seriously, read it or\\xa0listen to it free here) has been mentioned to me so I will quote it here for you:
(goes to find link\\u2026)
\\u2014\\u200a\\u2014\\u200a\\u2014 funny, as I was looking for the \\u2018who am I to be brilliant\\u2019 quote, I found this other quote from the book instead:\\xa0\\u201cIt takes courage\\u2026to endure the sharp pains of self discovery rather than choose to take the dull pain of unconsciousness that would last the rest of our lives.\\u201d
Courage. I have that.
So do you for reading this post. So does my instagram friend because she sent me the claps. So does my phone friend because he called me at midnight (it takes balls to call y\\u2019all). Every time you do something that makes you uncomfortable you make that courage-muscle stronger. Everytime I post unflattering images of myself I make that courage-muscle stronger. And someday I\\u2019m going to be so strong that not even Instagram can affect my sense of self, and I will be so strong that I can lift others simply by holding space for them to shine their light onto the room, and to see them for their beautiful, authentic selves,\\xa0the way I want to be seen. That\\u2019s the person I aspire to be: A world-changer.
Because Courage\\xa0eradicates\\xa0tired.
That\\u2019s the change.
Be the change.
Much Love.
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