how are you? how do you know?
I got interested in this topic (of how do you know how you are?) initially off a meditation on mood tunnels by Jeff Warren (a meditation teacher I listen to on calm.com, who also offers weekly livestreamed, group meditations as part of the Do Nothing Project). I’m not new to thinking about how my mood colors my perception, sets the tone, possibly the boundaries of what’s possible when we get together. But I hadn’t looked at it in a while, and the notion of affective realism ,
where we confuse our own affect, own inner feelings with how things are in the outside world
—that was new for me: it got me wondering about the experiences, beliefs, emotions swirling inside me and what exactly happens when they meet up with what is .
How exactly am I making the assessment of: How am I?
How about you? Are you well-versed in how to read your inner landscape? Is it something you work on? Has it changed over the years?
These last couple of years in our respective pandemic-lands has jostled all kinds of subtle and strong ideas, assumptions, expectations, narratives, out of their dimly lit familiar places inside us.
Biases, fears, hopes, mental models, love, commitment, loss, anger, longing, grief…What if we gave them a little space to move around, be seen? Would anything change?
I’m curious about this, and invite you to picnic on it. We’ll slow things down to the speed of meaning and see what we see. I’ll send discussion prompts over the weekend and you’ll receive reminder emails with the Zoom login info from Luma once you register. There is nothing you need to do to prepare. Just, some of us like to know what to expect.
What do you think? Is this sounding like your kind of conversation space?
Participating in a living room picnic is a way to join the UNDERMININGnormal community.
It costs $7.00 to attend, and comes with a month of membership.
Members can participate in all UNDERMININGnormal gatherings and programs.
To attend: Just sign up here.
If you’ve never attended a living room picnic and feel like more of an introduction to UNDERMININGnormal and what picnics are like, you can stop by the courtyard; I wrote this for you. To skip to what is a living room picnic…
Got questions? I’d love to hear them!
If this is your kind of thing, or you’d like it to be, sign up to receive invitations to UNDERMININGnormal living room picnics.
UNDERMININGnormal is where deep-thinking, change-seeking women can find community, care and unhurried space for conversations we don’t usually get to have.
Image credit: This gate was painted by Paul Kostabi. You can view more of his work here. I recently discovered his work and “Can Can Man” is my favorite - so far!