embrace y/our complexity: ask for and receive what I [you] need
This is last because it’s probably the hardest — it’s an all-in, fully-body embrace of y/our complexity.
Ask for what you need. Receive it.
I don’t mean like a genie grants our wishes, or a machine dispenses it.
I also don’t mean that you should expect to get just what you asked for either.
I mean we practice asking.
We practice receiving.
Not to get good at getting.
And not just when we’re full-on desperate, can’t do it alone because we don’t have a particular skillset or the necessary information. You’re never really doing it alone.
Every thing you used has a history, as does every thought you’ve held, and feeling you’ve felt. The cells, the stories, the meals you ate on the way, the love, the challenges, they all come from others who came before you, from others who were and who are around you, somewhere.
That distinction between doing it alone and having help is an artificial construct that focuses us hard and narrow on the math of mine vs yours.
Making it hard to see human being reality for what it is.
We practice asking and we practice receiving because it’s our nature.
We ARE interdependent.
Asking and receiving, listening and giving.
What else is there?
We can fight it (I hate asking for help and others will say that I, or you, or they do not deserve it) or deny it (that shit over there, that is not me, not mine, no — let them answer for it!), or feel like it just isn’t true, in our isolation, pain, fear, fear of losing what we have (and perhaps have had to fight for),
- a notion of hierarchy, a ranking of deserving, a system based on pay to play, or some kind of separate but equal scenario can seem like the truth.
But it isn’t.
It’s the math of mine vs yours. I’m not anti-numbers. I like math, and we will have to deal with it - with it - to get to the heart of this endeavor to embrace y/our complexity.
Pack up the math and bring it along. This is a picnic not a battlefield (though damage has been done); we picnic to better connect, to feel more, to understand more —not to get more, not to win. And not to lose. Though, I think embracing complexity will lead to a very different place than many of us have ever known. And probably, there will be some kinds of loss on the way to new ground with new math.
I need this conversation.
There, I said it. How about you?
Ask for and receive what I [you] need is the last in a series of four living room picnics, exploring y/our complexity. It’s based on the discussion of interdependence as a series of repeated motions (beginning on p.93 of Emergent Strategy by adrienne maree brown) that describes four iterative practices leading toward interdependence:
- Be seen.
- Be wrong.
- Accept my [your] inner multitudes.
- Ask for and receive what I [you] need.
You don’t have to have read Emergent Strategy in order to picnic, though I [as you may have noticed] highly recommend it. As always, there is nothing to prepare. It doesn’t matter if you attended the previous picnic. Come as you are, for what resonates for you. I’ll share the discussion prompts over the weekend.
What do you think? Is this sounding like your kind of conversation space?
Participating in a winter love study hall 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’d like more of an introduction to UNDERMININGnormal, you can stop by the courtyard; I wrote this for you.
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 gatherings.
UNDERMININGnormal is where deep-thinking, change-seeking women can find community, care and unhurried space for conversations we don’t usually get to have.
