A collective one
‘How are you?’ The tone of his voice felt surprisingly open. As if his question was an invitation to wake up to my own wellbeing.
One nervous system meeting another. What a marvelous world it is.
And how gruel it can be. My senses can hardly believe the rich, textured experience of being alive. They can hardly believe the pain life inevitably also entails. Sometimes, they can hardly stay present with the unbearable lightness of being alive.
Our skin contains and covers up so many sensational stories. Our mouth has a hard time keeping up with the undercurrent of life, words escape our mouth as if they were chasing a long-lost essence. Catch life while you can! Our mind often goes mindless just to be fit enough to adapt to our ever-changing emotional landscape. We identify with our awake mind but truly, we are a sleeping animal and our dreams reflect the inner workings of our psyche.
‘How are you?’ is both a lovely invitation and a tricky question. A deep dive into potential – am I radically ‘me’? A potential including freeze, flee, fight, fawn, and faint responses. And then there is this baseline – you know, I am okay, I am here, you are asking me this question, and I am okay with it. And… there is this complete range of exhilarant states, the sheer joy of being here, the experience of raw awe, and boundaryless love for one another.
‘Good,’ we often say quickly. To avoid expressing the entanglement of thoughts, feelings, and sensations we experience. Is the other asking about the quality of my experience, right now? Who is this ‘you’ you are referring to?
Pondering these questions, philosophical-theoretical me feels quaveringly alive. But I am more than these conditioned, sometimes intriguing thoughts. The stream of consciousness we call ‘I’ also offers more than the conceptual creativity of philosophy.
Potential also includes honesty. Honesty about dominant feelings swimming around in the deep sea that are stomach area often is. Honesty is intimacy. Embodied intelligence will be our species challenge this century, I dare to say.
Honesty has been a beloved word to me, the last couple, and I imagine, upcoming months. I feel a deep longing to communicate honestly.
Communication honestly feels naked. Sometimes, even more naked than physically touching another person’s nervous system directly. It is worth the nerves. Intimacy is what makes life worth living on the scale most familiar to our senses.
Culturally, we often portrait intimacy in a rude manner. When there are feelings floating around, we tend to project stereotyped sentiment, whenever there is unfixable uncertainty, we often opt for mental loops, whenever we long for leadership, action-as-usual before calm understanding is demanded. Emotions are acted out more than ‘sensed’.
When I see our wonderful daughter, I feel our eco-systems deep need for honest, embodied communication. In her intense sensitivity, she directly manifests when and how those interacting with her are (not) present.
She looks at me and, through her responses, invites me to be there, to be myself, to stay present.
This is you; she tells me with her spontaneous hugs. On the border of our nervous system we meet – and it is there where we are both an individual and a collective ‘one’.