regrounding love: shattering & remembering
i think wholeness is knowing the truth beyond appearances. the appearances are necessary for this journey the soul has chosen to take. it looks like wholeness has been shattered, but we can remember the pieces and bring them back with love.
i experience despair on this walk of my child being in a system that is at best confused and at worst cruel and heartless. as a way to counter what appear like impenetrable forces that seem so much bigger than life, i spoke truth to power for
seven years from my own personal vision of how that should look. it was powerful but very little has changed and so many of the young adults i’ve worked with have been sucked back into the system. i find ways to be with my despair that shift my direction out of the downward spiral that had me moving into paralysis.
i had a choice to stay in the overwhelm and the despair of what looked like reality or to go deeper into what fed me. i found a firmer grasp and deeper immersion so
that when i’m pummeled with the bad news or pain i can breathe through it. in that breath i go and touch the real reality that stabilizes me while my body goes through the tremor and shock of the news. i can’t prevent my body from going into shock but i can lead it out. i don’t have to stay there buried in the aftermath. i follow my breath, my breath takes me back to the land, i get immersed in the light of truth, and then i go back to the place that had shocked me and try to see it through love's eyes.
my body has become used to shock but it can’t just be there with it. my body has to release the intensity in some way. i need to pass through the dark night of the soul. if i get stuck there i get slammed and imprisoned there. this brush with death means i have to go back to the land. there i can hold that shock and not be buried and paralyzed. i can carry my shock to the land and offer it up in my inner and outer world. with the land, regrounding love flows and takes my breath away... back into connection with body and all life. where before i limited the opening because there was so much pain, with the land i open the door to deep wailing and pain. here i open to reach a place of love and ecstacy. there is a flood of tears, healing, clearing. where the pain has been
the tears rush in, releasing and cleansing the despair. in those moments i am filled with light and love, gratitude and joy, and the threat of paralysis is no more.
the times that i have the deepest opening to my mourning are in communion with nature. i am able to cry, reach into my pain, and break through into awe. it culminates into an experience where my whole body, mind, and soul, all my senses, join in the chorus of “oh my beloved, oh my beloved, oh my beloved,” and tears rush streaming down my face. in the photos maybe it looks like pain or agony, but it’s, ah, the body experiencing the passion of cosmic love.
my family has experienced devastating harm at the intersection of two
oppressions: institutional racism and institutional harm in psychiatry. the exclusion, ostracizing, labeling, illegal separation, detainment, and drugging used against our family has caused us extreme harm physically, mentally, and spiritually.
there has not been a truth and reconciliation in our community that would acknowledge and take responsibility for the impacts on our family. ideally, i would like there to be acknowledgement of harm and offering of support that would be continuous and thorough enough to contribute to our recovery and full reintegration into the community. for details on our story you can read the article: “from compliance to activism: a mother’s journey.”
our experience is not unusual. there are so many groups who have been marginalized who belong. solutions to our culture's problems must include the individuals and groups who have been marginalized or otherwise systemically harmed at the center of the decision-making table. some of these groups are: black, brown, native, immigrant, refugee, children, poor, lgbtq2ia+, disabled people, people who’ve been harmed in the mental health system, people who have been incarcerated, people who behave outside of what has been declared as "normal," houseless people, and people who are committed to changing the status quo. the experiences of diverse and marginalized individuals and groups must be welcomed as essential guidance in our community healing and cultural evolution.
seeking justice and safety for my family and others, i
experience and see institutional oppression. avenues for justice in human and constitutional rights have been turned against the people they’re meant to serve. government, courts, social services, law enforcement, prisons, and state hospitals all have the power to serve, but more often they break up families, debilitate, harm, contain, and even destroy life. justice has not been a cornerstone of our experience. one can be severely targeted by being silenced or receiving violence with little or no recourse. i voiced the harm i was seeing and, in response, received a false charge which was used to make all contact between mother and son a criminal act. i’ve had mothers i work with seek justice and in response receive false sexual allegations, illegal forced separation of families, loss of homes, and police brutality. seeking justice in cases of systemic oppression is dangerous.
the terror that i, as a mother, have felt when witnessing the destruction of my child is what brought me to this path. when i am overpowered by that terror it sends me into despair because those i love appear to be at the complete mercy of this oppressive violence. in terror and despair i cannot protect them. so i have had to make a choice. for me it is no longer just bringing truth to power. if i choose to walk gently toward my terror and despair i recognize an invitation to an opening. in that opening my terror and despair begin shape-shifting: i feel a rising energy and a clarity of focus which includes an invitation to me to find common ground and connection. this brings me hope for the future and a knowing that when we seek to find our shared humanity we can indeed be the change we wish to see in the world. my son's path was a wake-up call and has been my greatest spiritual teacher.
we can grow the village in which we connect with ourselves, each other, and nature. we can acknowledge that we are part of a global family. as we do, unhealthy society crumbles because it’s no longer being fed by our disconnect. we are being called to grow. in this vision what used to be experienced as personal crisis, social exclusion, and scapegoating we now embrace in community as our opportunity to grow our new world together.
some of the healing and empowering pathways i value deeply for this growth are mad in america, rethinking psychiatry, respite houses, the open dialogue model, restorative circles, intentional peer support, puget sound hearing voices, and icarus. i also know that the
collective wisdom of our shared humanity has birthed many other healing models.
we need to reclaim the village as our birthright and have sanctuaries to help each other heal. we need sensitive community members who recognize that the gifts we have labeled as ‘breaks’ in our loved ones must be supported as breakthroughs: openings that are showing the individual and our community where we are needing to heal and evolve. every breakdown can be a breakthrough if the community will hold it with curiosity and love. we honor and welcome the gifts that are coming through all of us, each and every one of us, to guide us into the future.
it’s important that those among us who are most impacted by systemic oppression are central to all of us finding a way forward: helping us in creating the conditions to support all needs mattering and being met as part of the whole. this can only be done through real collaboration and equal partnership with those who have been most impacted, at every stage, in a shared center of decision making.
how is it that i remember my wholeness when i am shattering? i pause. i breathe deeply. i slow down. i find my path to something that speaks of beauty to me. i let it hold me for longer and longer moments... until gratitude arises and floods my being. slowly, i experience myself remembering wholeness. this re-membering is burning off the yoke of oppression and disconnection, uniting me in community with others, and illuminating my world with love, peace, and joy.
our wholeness: an empathy and photography series honoring our diverse truths, tenderness, power.
regrounding love: shattering & remembering
cindi fisher: themomsmovement@gmail.com
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