Loyalty is trained in the body
In 2nd grade, I peed all over the floor while standing in front of everyone at the teacher’s desk, waiting to beg for a hall pass.
Flashback to the 1980s, solo desk work time in a concrete-block classroom in north Louisiana with the smell of the nearby paper mill. I’d already asked. The teacher said no, bathroom time was before recess, and I should have gone earlier. I’d have to wait until lunch break. I sat back down. Only to then get back up and stand in line at the teacher’s desk. Too late. A warm flood overcame my little body. Thankfully, at least, I was wearing one of the plaid parochial skirts so the teacher couldn’t exactly tell where it came from. Of course, I was too embarrassed to admit it was me. I offered to clean it up. Then I could finally go to the bathroom. I don’t know if she ever figured it out. Not my favorite teacher.
Institutions shape our schedules and outputs. But well before that (and in order to control those), they train our nervous systems and bodies. I can’t tell you how many times I hear (usually) less traumatic stories from folks of how they’ve also learned to override their bodies’ needs in order to not interrupt a meeting or class.
Time and time again, institutions and systems teach us: Safety comes from belonging. In order to belong, you’ll have to override your nervous system and body’s needs.
So when you consider deinstitutionalizing a bit, the body responds as if something essential is at risk.
I’ve noticed in conversations about loosening that grip, folks feel:
Physical response, like a tightness in the chest or shoulders, or maybe a pit in the stomach
Emotional swirls of anxiety and worries about money or legitimacy
Panic of ‘Who am I if not this?’
Need to double down, work harder, (unsubscribe from this newsletter because it feels too threatening)
I get it. These are all normal responses to the brain’s conditioning that tells you to reestablish loyalty at all costs, if you want to continue to belong and be safe.
But you don’t have to be loyal to these institutions to do your job, to make a positive impact.
You belong to something greater and deeper - to yourself, to all other Nature beings, to the cosmos, and whatever else you believe in and connect to.
And it’s critical to also name that, right now, in this country and many others, safety and questioning of belonging are dangerously amplified. This type of belonging is toxic; evil even, because I know of no other word in English that fits these times. Belonging for some means looking away from how others' bodies are being threatened and harmed - how your own body is in danger day-to-day.
We, as a society and as humans, have well lost our way. We hold both complicity and have also been manipulated and gaslit to degrees it’s hard for the brain to come to terms with, hence the protection of cognitive dissonance. We have to grieve this and face the complexity in order to do something new.
Yet I hold to the fact that each of you here reading this is caring and carrying what you can. The only way I know for us to hospice this old painful paradigm and doula into existence a new future is to reclaim belonging that is in right-relationships - with our bodies, each other, and Nature's bodies, all the more-than-human beings.
I know that feels like a lot. It is. And I believe in us. I want to offer a pause today. Just a few minutes pause into your own soft animal body.
An embodied practice: Reclaiming true loyalty in the body
Take a moment to notice where loyalty or belonging lives in your body. Maybe ask yourself: When I think about loyalty, where do I feel it? Or how do I know in my body that I belong fully to myself, and this big, beautiful Earth?
Place a hand on that part, maybe it’s your chest, your gut, your shoulders. For me, it’s always my heart that just breaks open.
Breathe slowly and name, silently or aloud:
This is where I feel loyalty in my body.
Breathe into that space a few times, then get curious.
To be truly loyal to my body right now, my body needs today…
To be loyal to my body in ways that honor all the other bodied beings in the world, one thing I want to offer is…
Then gently offer yourself this reminder:
I can reclaim my deep sense of belonging and choose life and love.
Notice if anything softens, even a fraction. That’s enough.
Be well, my friends. Be safe. Take care of yourself and each other. We’ve entered the Long Dark, and we will not give away our humanity, our souls, and our love for each other.
I’ll continue holding grief and love in my heart for all of us…