A conscious stream of thought: “We woke up to the worst news imaginable today”

We woke up to the worst news imaginable today. Being the lost opportunity for America’s first ever black female president - Kamala Harris. An incredible grief and burden has been present for many individuals around the world. I live in London, England and the grief in the air along the streets today was palpable. It was omnipresent where-ever you went. A grief, rage, and anger that is yet to leave our ethos and hearts of many. For myself a felt sense of shame, anger, frustration has been in my body ever since this morning when I first received word (via my mother) of the election results. My mothers text messages this morning were the following:

Message 1:

“Doctors will loose their medical licence if they assist women at risk. Morning after pills will be tracked on women taking them and will be illegal.”

Message 2:

“That’s just one issue….its fucking scary”

Message 3:

“I’m heart broken and devastated.”

My response to mother was two words:

“Me too.”

The Donald J. Trump and Vance administration is threat against trans rights, womens’ rights, and human rights. This presidency is centred around misogynistic, fascist, racist belief systems that uphold the steadfast intent to govern women and trans bodies. Through policies such as abortion bans. Bans created to protect “a child’s life”.

Criminalizing and banning abortions has nothing to do with a childs’ welfare. If it was really about a childs’ welfare we would be seeing an influx in government funding into child, at risk youth, and family services. Yet, we are not. Banning abortions has nothing to do with a childs’ welfare and everything to do with power and controlling women’s body on an institutional level.

A public and Television figure such as Donald J. Trump and other politicians have no expertise, training, or education in medicine therefore should not be developing policies around reproductive health care; medicine is outside of a politicians scope of practice. This is arguably a deeply troubling ethical dilemma and human rights violation. It is fundamentally unethical for politicians to be the primary voices in informing policy and legislation pertaining to reproductive rights. Abortion bans are not informed by medicine but informed by religious theology and the unconscious bias for upholding church and state order into modern day democracy.

Pro life isn’t pro life. It is pro tyranny, pro-fascism, and pro the suppression of women, BIPOC, trans, and others. It is pro merging church and state into the political sphere and allowing white, colonial, euro-centric beliefs to dictate law. Which is what this presidency is founded upon. The suppression of the other. Pro life is about justifying governing and policing women and trans’ bodies thru the unconscious and conscious beliefs and social practices to uphold elusive systems of oppression in the interest of maintaining a phallic hierarchal belief systems.

Pro life is about dismantling women’s body autonomy, innate power, and social positionality. It is about upholding the unconcious belief that women are a “second sex” (Simone Du Beauvoir, 1941) Pro life is about perpetuating the disembodiment of women. Pro life is about the social, political, and economic suppression and degradation of women. Pro-life is is not pro life it is about maintaining the pressence and assimilation of church and state.Pro life is about justifying the governing of womens and trans bodies. By policing bodies thru the unconscious and conscious beliefs systems and social practices that uphold elusive systems of societal oppression.

I am sorry for this emerging reality that many citizens of America have now been placed in. I’m sorry for many of you never consented to this, never agreed, and never voted for fascism. I hope you are al home safe surrounded by loved ones who understand your grief, loss, anger, and complex emotions. You may even feel numb. Today does not and or may not need to be a day of immediate action. I encourage all who needs to to tend to their mental health’s to do so with such deep love and care. May tomorrow be a day we can begin to rebuild, lean back into grass roots movements, and find solidarity in community. Today, I will be reading Simone Du Beauvoir, listening to women’s voices, and educating myself and leaning into the wisdom of the those who have been othered.

Today I choose hope while still tending to my own grief within. I feel this is a beautiful opportunity and time in existence to collectively ask ourselves how we can remember the power of our own individual voices in making ever lasting change. Today I choose hope. I will continue to hold the vision of a future where people are not murdered, killed, bombed, because of a global culture and ethos that has forgotten how to love. Again, I am sincerely sorry to all and those most effected by this reality that most of us did not consent too. I am not the one that should be apologizing, but I will because that’s the least women, trans folkx, BIPOC LGBTQ communities deserve. I apologize on behave of a system utterly failing American citizens, families, and people around the world.

To the people most effected by this: women and trans folkx of all ethnicities, race, sexual orientation, gender identity, and victims of rape. I am sorry for what has happened. I hope today can be a day of rest for all where there is deep community and individual self-care. Emote, yell, cry, write, move your body, make art to articulate this pain. My hope is that we can all remain in a place of deep sovereign hope for our collective future.

Our Biology is our Biography.

I’ve spent the past few weeks really getting to know my own bio-emotional archetypal structure. Being the way my emotions show up in my body and the way I hold myself. How depression, trauma, anxiety show up in my own posture and neuromuscular-skeletal system. Specifically looking at what was stagnant in my body and was needing a shift. Physically it can be quite obvious when someone is suffering. The general archetype for someone who is depressed may be turning inwards, rounding their back, (intuitively protecting themselves), bowing their heads to hinder themselves from the world.

Living in the close proximity of the DTES (downtown east side) it’s evident when you look at someones own posture the pain they are in and or have experienced. The amount of people I see hunched over, hands gripped, excessive tension throughout their muscular-skeletal system this are all signs of years of pent up emotions/stress/ and hyper-aroused nervous systems. Now I’m not saying holding these postures are necessarily “bad”. The body does not know morality nor should it. However, these postural holdings aren’t optimal for longevity of health and mobility. In essence “our biology is our biography” our bodies literally hold us, have endured every psychological event we have been through. The body tells our story.

Our bodies have bio-feedback loops throughout, such as afferent and efferent nerve fibres sending and receiving information too and from the brain, and informing the muscle tissue and membrane through out body, through movement we can change our own narratives. We can change the arriving information to the brain by changing our posture. We can tell the body we are safe and no longer needing protection by soothing the nervous system. Habitually we can become stagnant in our own postures. Creating movement, expansion, and bringing the body into different shapes challenges archetypal informed emotions. The next time you’re feeling an emotion or mental health fluctuation begin to notice what your body is doing. Notice the points of tension, what the spine is doing, the neck, shoulders, head, and challenge those positions by creating subtle movement. By rolling the shoulders back, elongating the spine throughout your day. It might create a different emotional response for you. One that may be lighter, and more optimal for your overall well-being. 

As when we are hunched over we are not breathing optimally, when we are not breathing this can cause disruption in homeostatic functioning. Reducing the amount of oxygen levels in the body, inducing fatigue, brain fog, and irregular moods via the HPA (hypothalamus pituitary adrenal) axis and its involvement in regulation of the neuroendocrine system. Breathing specifically works alongside our circulatory system by oxygenating the body via red blood cells.

One thing that is similar across the board is that as people all have our own unique neuromuscular-skeletal variation. Attuning to our own bodies nuances allows for greater insight into how we hold emotions. Changing our postures can change our emotional state by disrupting habitual postural holdings and their associated thought patterns. Changing our posture can change our respiration rate and oxygen intake. Our oxygen intake can change our mental state through providing more oxygen to visceral organs. When we experience pain, we feel it in our body. Thus, influences all of these interconnected systems. Our biology is our biography, and can be one avenue into further understanding our mental health and its relationship to physiological functions within the body.