Self-Centred Newsletter – December 31 2023

Are we there yet?

In 2021, when the social media trend was to choose a word for the coming New Year (is that still a thing?) mine was ‘embody’.

2021 me had no idea.

I have always been astounded at the power of intention, of setting an idea/desire/concept/dream free into the universe and releasing attachment to an outcome (as best as this imperfect human is able).

So much wonderful has manifested in my life with a practice that I never really realized was a practice. It was just something I did.

I remember a past version of me as a cheerful warrior in high school in the 70’s, encouraging myself and my friends to embrace a PMI. That’s a positive mental attitude btw; a concept originally introduced in 1937 by Napoleon Hill in his book Think and Grow Rich – a book I’ve never read, a person I hadn’t heard of back then, but somehow that phrase seeped into my consciousness and sparked my imagination and optimism for creating something better, for myself, my loved ones, my world.

Perhaps it was written into my DNA by one of my genealogical ancestors before I was born. Who knows?

1970’s me had no idea.

In any case, when the troubles of living in a post-colonial late-stage capitalist world got to feel like too much for me and my capacity to bear, there was always something deep inside that called for a pause, for a retreat into myself and land in the stillness to try to imagine a better way.

When I practiced Nichiren Buddhism, the intention took the form of chanting for an hour a day each morning and evening for a couple of months. 

In a space of six weeks, three transformative events happened two weeks apart from each other and changed my life utterly and completely, and set me on the path out of crippling debt, isolation and toxic work environments.

The chanting was a form of intention that cleared out resistance and cleared a path for the universe to deliver the joy and abundance that I believe is the birthright of every living creature.

When my partner and I were forced to move from the house we were renting in a time of unaffordable housing prices (it’s only gotten worse since then) and my manager brain was working overtime to find a place to leave, I remember calling for a moratorium on the search, and creating a cozy bed retreat for us to dream and write our desires for the perfect home as a way of inviting it in.

And a few days later, I saw a real estate ad for a house in the hills north of us, in a town I’d never heard of, and whose kitchen had the word “Cucina” stenciled in large letters, and I knew we’d found our home before any of us had stepped foot in it.

Late in 2019, when I was burned out and exhausted from years of fighting the good fight as a union activist turned political staffer, I took my retreat. This time it didn’t feel so much intentional as unavoidable. I had been running on empty for too long, trying to pour from an empty cup, extracting every ounce of life and love towards the cause, like a good capitalist should. 

But there was somewhere deep inside of me that knew that the healing and transformation would come in the pause, as terrifying as it might be. This time the intention took the form of a pause.

When the Covid pandemic arrived a few months later and changed our lives, I remember feeling like I could deal because I’d been living in a sort of self-imposed shelter in place for months already. None of us expected it to last more than a few weeks. Right?

2019 me had no idea.

That retreat was an intention that created opportunities that would otherwise have been inaccessible to me because of geography, expense and time limitations. When the world moved online I was there.

So, in the true nature of both/and, a most terrible time was (and is, because despite what economists want us to believe, Covid is not over) also enriching and transformative.

An extended period of simultaneous expansion and contraction that now seems perpetual.

Birth is a death wish. (I wrote that to myself a few months ago and sent it in a post-dated email. Does everyone do that or is it just me?)

And I’ve heard Buddhists say that death is a birth wish.

Wishes are intentions.

Protests are intentions.

Intentions can take as many forms as our bodies can imagine.

I look back at the one-word intention for 2021 – Embody – and marvel at the time traveling me that planted a seed.

And as 2023 comes to a close, I know that seed has germinated and taken root, with the maturity of seasons still to come.

Have I arrived yet?

Once again, I have no idea. Maybe it’s because ideas are manifestations of our brains, and our brains are only a small part of the sum total of us as fully embodied humans. 

Maybe it’s time to change the question.

Because as cheesy as it may sound (as cheesy as a cheerful chant of PMI) the journey just might be the destination.

These words traveling from my laptop to your screen may be an intention of their own.

My wish for you and for all of us at the end of this calendar year, is for the days and weeks and years to move us all closer to peace, justice, joy, and community.

May it be so.

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Hello!

I’m Janine. My pronouns are she/her.

I am an anti-capitalist crone, post-trauma growth coach, and consensual copywriter.

I strive daily to identify and unlearn the voices of white heteronormative patriarchy that are insidiously planted in our brains from an early age – voices that, without critical inquiry, we often confuse as our own.

I dream of a return to the Commons and a world where all living beings have equal access to the necessities of life, including laughter, rest, creativity, and joy.

Even though I didn’t always have the words, this dream has been the undercurrent of all of my pursuits from an early age. 

I host the Caucus of Crones and Self-Centred in the Kin Keepers’ Haven, co-held online with my dear friend Trevia Woods.

I am available for 1:1 coaching sessions.

Drop a comment or check out my website if you’re interested in connecting.

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