Nimue Brown's Blog, page 75

Willingness to hurt

It’s a bit of a romance novel cliche – the person who has been hurt and thinks they cannot open their heart or love again. In romance novels that tends to resolve, but in real life often it doesn’t. 

No one wants to suffer (well, aside from masochists but that’s another story). Some of us are perhaps too open to being hurt – family patterns can have us expecting love to be painful and thus not holding good boundaries. However, trying to protect yourself from pain can all too easily mean missing out on a lot of life.

To care is to be open to being hurt. Care invites empathy, and no one and nothing in this world will continue forever in some pristine, untroubled, healthy, happy state. To love someone is to be open to being hurt by whatever hurts them, at the very least. It means loving people, cats, trees etc even though you know that when they die it’s going to hurt unbearably. And yet you choose to bear it.

Sometimes the people you love will let you down. Maybe by accident. Maybe because their needs don’t align with yours. Maybe deliberately. If you aren’t prepared to risk some of that, you can’t have trust, or any kind of depth, or any scope for natural human error.

If you are determined to avoid hurt, you might not be willing to deal with the discomfort of having got something wrong. That shuts down opportunities to learn, and to improve things. It means as soon as something goes wrong, the entire relationship is in trouble. The more set you are on avoiding pain, the more likely it is that you are demanding impossible levels of perfection from everything and everyone around you. That in turn means you’re setting everyone up to fail because you won’t be perfect and neither will they. Pain avoidance becomes, perversely, something entirely likely to get you hurt.

Beyond our human relationships, we need to be willing to get hurt over what is happening with the climate crisis. If we try to insulate ourselves from that, we’re simply going to add to the problem. If we’re willing to be uncomfortable, we can change things. The more we push to try and stay comfortable, the more likely we are to destroy the very things we depend on for that comfort.

If we want what is good in our lives, then we have to be willing to care enough about it that we give it the power to hurt us.

Picking an honourable path

What do you do in face of laws that are abusive or cruel? What do you do when upholding one ethical thing conflicts with some other demand for compassion or protection? Most of the time, the good and ethical choice is fairly obvious. What do we do when nothing is simple?

Picking an honourable path is to a large extent something you have to figure out on your own. Doing that requires having a system of priorities. I would, for example, lie to keep someone alive because I think protecting life is more important than being honest. I might however decide that it is more important to be honest than to maintain a relationship that depends on me lying. 

There’s a lot of room for personal choice here. How we relate to laws is an interesting case in point for thinking about how our honour systems work. On what terms are we willing to break the law? What do we do when the laws themselves are not just? Laws are often made by people with power and may be in place to protect power and financial interests. How far is it honourable to go in order to tackle an unjust system? I’m not personally inclined towards violence, but I do think there are times when it is an appropriate response.

When faced with complicated situations, I’m interested in what would cause least harm and do most good. When those two things align it can be easy to make decisions even if the price-tag on a choice is still high. However, it often isn’t that clear cut because there’s usually an element of guesswork involved. I don’t know how everything is going to play out. I have to acknowledge my own biases and preferences. Like most people, I am inclined to value the good outcomes for people I care about over harm caused to people who mean nothing to me. It is harder to place a value on what would be good when I’m thinking about people I actively don’t like.

I’m not the sort of person who believes that the ends justify the means. I don’t believe in winning at any cost. I try not to see life as inherently competitive and I don’t believe that for some people to ‘win’ and have success other people must lose. 

Every now and then a situation comes along where it’s hard to see what to do for the best and I have no idea what the possible outcomes are. Which leads me to a question I struggle with – to what degree should I be willing to treat good outcomes for me as the least important thing? To what degree should I treat my own good outcomes as important? It’s not as though a good outcome for me is something that only impacts on me. Usually if I’m winning at something that benefits other people in all kinds of ways. There are people who will suffer if I suffer. 

Generally speaking I believe in behaving honestly and with compassion. However, none of us can see the future, we only guess at where our choices might take us. I’m increasingly interested by the way in which a person’s scope to act honourably depends on both their ability to understand the complexities of situations they are in, and their ability to predict outcomes. An apparently kind choice based on profound misunderstanding can cause a lot of harm. What scope do we have to make honourable choices if we don’t understand what’s happening and what the implications are? This in turn suggests that attempting to make sense of things might be a critically important moral choice, on which all scope for acting honourably must depend.

Navel Gazing and Druidry

I talk a lot about the idea of living a deliberate life and the way in which this calls for self awareness. Can we go too far with that? At what point might it become an issue?

Navel gazing can be defined as ‘self-indulgent or excessive contemplation of oneself or a single issue, at the expense of a wider view.’

If you feel that you’re doing this, then that’s something you are entitled to judge and are free to change. However, if the judgement is from someone else, it’s not so clear cut. If you’re looking inwards rather than dealing with issues or handling duties, then it might be fair to have other people call you out on it. If other people simply don’t like how much time you’re spending on looking inwards, that’s their issue, not yours.

Spirituality and philosophy require time spent looking inwards. Creative processes call for introspection. Building self awareness takes time, and the less you’ve done of that, the more you might need to do just to get things started. Investing time in knowing yourself and understanding yourself is time well spent. If you’re so involved that you fail to meet other needs of your own, and/or those of people depending on you, that’s a sign to scale back. You can go too far with this, and I’m aware of people who have damaged their mental health by spending too much time going inwards. 

How much is too much? All day, every day certainly is. An hour or two every day devoted to inner work certainly won’t do you any harm. Occasional deep dives – as with retreats, day long workshops and the like – are also fine. Trying to live inside yourself all the time doesn’t work. Who we are is very much about how we interact with the world. Retreating from the world to examine that is a good thing, retreating from the world as an ongoing choice robs you of too much of who you are.

I think the ideal is to get into a rhythm where you spend time being active in the world, and then spend some time reflecting on those experiences. Our bodies need time to rest, and taking time for reflection also supports physical health. We learn better when we take time to consolidate knowledge and experience. Our brains are calmer if we give ourselves time to process what’s happening to us.

It is well worth being alert to the kinds of spiritual approaches that push us inwards and encourage us to reject life. We are beings with bodies, and showing up as our bodily selves is really important. As a Pagan, I do not see the flesh as something to overcome. This body is who I am in the world, and I want to honour that. Introspection helps me think about how to show up as a whole person. I think about how I want to be in the world and how I want to engage as an embodied being. I listen to my body to try and work out what I need, and what’s good for me.

One of the questions I make a point of asking myself is where I am going with my thoughts. I’ve struggled a lot with anxiety, and I know how easy it can be to get locked into very inward processes fuelled by fear. I try to avoid relentlessly chewing on things I can’t change or even predict. I make a point of focusing my thoughts on things where that thinking might take me somewhere. Depression can make it all too easy to turn inwards in order to beat myself up, but I try to avoid that by deliberately thinking about what I can do to change things.

Introspection of itself can help us or harm us. As is often the way of it, the key thing is to be deliberate in how we use this as a tool.

Silliness and Animism

Those of you who have started following the blog more recently may not be aware of the work I have already out in the world, so every now and then I like to revisit what’s available.

Wherefore was my lockdown project, guided by suggestions from various of my friends, but chiefly Bob Fry (who appears as a character) and Robin Treefellow (who appears under a different name). Wherefore is set around my hometown of Stroud. It features many actual people, and a whole host of imaginary people, some of whom are based heavily on real people. It became a way for some of us to connect with each other and to have something to talk about – which helped a lot with lockdown and social isolation.

The stories come in bite sized pieces, and the whole thing is more of a soap opera than anything with a coherent story arc. It’s mostly silly, occasionally darker and more serious, and pushes the notion of were-entities far further than any sensible person might go. The stories exist as readings, and as ebooks (which you can have for free).

Series 1 starts here –

Series one as an ebook is over here, for free – https://ko-fi.com/s/2241a51430

Series 2 starts here –

Series 2 as an ebook – https://ko-fi.com/s/1eb07c4561

Series 3 starts here –

Series 3 as an ebook is over here – https://ko-fi.com/s/f0055708b7

It is an entirely silly project, but at the same time, some of my best expression of animism are in here, particularly when it comes to very small things such as oolites, and yeast.

Celandines

There are some plants that loom large for me in the wheel of the year. These are the ones whose timing is more predictable and seems relevant to me in terms of how I relate to the seasons.

Snowdrops are the first flowers I watch for, and celandines are the second. While crocuses and hellebores can show up in that time frame, and the first greenery starts to emerge, it’s the cheery nature of celandines that inclines me to pay particular attention to them.

Each year, the exact order of spring flowers emerging can vary – along with the elf caps, which tend to show up around now locally but overall have a much longer season. I try to be alert to how the year is unfolding specifically rather than working with generalised ideas about spring. There are always outliers and oddities – I’ve got a few elder trees putting out leaves already.

The climate crisis means that we will probably have increased unpredictability around how the seasons unfold. Plant species will adapt – or fail to adapt – in different ways. It feels important to me to be alert to what’s happening and to engage with it.

Druidry check in

One of the things I heartily recommend doing is to pause every now and then just to check in with where you are on your spiritual path. Are you doing enough to nourish your spirit? Have you let something slide that was important to you? Are you happy with what you’re doing, or do you need more, less, different…? 

It’s important to do this without being harsh on yourself. This isn’t about how good a Druid you are being, how diligent or anything else like that. If life hasn’t given you much space for Druidry, that’s simply a situation to acknowledge. If you’re feeling restless and need to change, that’s fine. If you’re comfortably doing the same things, that’s fine too. There are no wrong answers. The important bit is being self aware.

Where am I? Still mostly focused on nature as it manifests in my body, alongside issues of trying to heal and improve my strength. The bardic side of my life has taken a bit of a leap forwards, as you’ll know if you read my recent viola stories post. There’s definitely more to come on that score.

Much to my surprise, ritual is back in my life. I used to be interested in ritual primarily as a community activity. However, I’ve been exploring very small and intimate forms of ritual and magic, and this has become really important for me. It was wholly unexpected. I’ve found it really powerful and moving, and have every intention of devoting more time to this.

I’m very invested in what I’m doing in terms of community, performance and supporting others – those things are all very related to each other at the moment. 

Through the autumn I went through quite a deliberate process around re-enchantment. There’s a small book pertaining to that experience and I’ll get it out into the world at some point. At the moment I’m consolidating, letting a renewed sense of sacredness settle in me, and waiting to see what comes next. I’m working with my intuition a lot, of necessity, and I’m investing in the dreaming part of my life.

I know that this year is going to bring a lot of changes. I know what some of them are, but not all of them. I feel relaxed about this, and I welcome in the greater scope for adventures and creativity I know will be coming.

Herding your brain chemistry

At one level, we’re meaty containers full of chemical interactions. We’re electrical impulses expressed between cells. There’s a lot of room in there for things to go wrong, or to have not worked much in the first place. 

At another level, brains are a bit like landscapes in that they change depending on how we use them. The knowledge and skills we develop actually grow as physical brain structures. The paths we habitually follow through our own minds grow deeper and more established with use just as physical paths do. That’s great when you’re learning a tune and a nightmare when your brain runs down the abject terror track at the slightest provocation.

One of the bits of my brain that doesn’t really work, is the reward system – which is a dopamine issue. This shows up for me most obviously around computer games, where I am prone to all of the addiction aspects but I get no pay off. My inability to get reward-hits in the way most people do can leave me feeling hollowed out and exhausted. My guess is that as I use dopamine heavily for willpower, I don’t have much to spare for anything else.

There are workarounds, though. I am able to feel contentment, I can take pleasure in things, I can enjoy doing them and so forth. There are other emotions/chemicals I can engage that substitute in well, so long as I’m careful. I don’t get the quick fire reward feelings that most people enjoy when they play computer games. I don’t get those quick hits from social media likes, either. However, when people tell me they like something I’ve done, I can take a moment for that, and in a slower, less exciting way I get to feel good about it. I can feel things around making other people happy, I can feel gratitude for their responses, and on the whole this is enough.

It’s taken me years to figure this out. It helps that I enjoy reading scientific content on the functioning of the human brain. There was a really challenging module on the biological basis of behaviour back in my university days, and I’ve never really got over how exciting I find the whole area. Learning in order to better understand myself is a process I find fulfilling in a slow and gentle way. Being able to manage my own head better, and being able to run my own chemistry so that I get the best out of it, are projects that give me a great deal.

I’ve never been keen to explore adding chemicals to my body chemistry in the hopes of fixing myself, although I wholeheartedly support anyone who wants to go that route. I am profoundly interested in what I can do to better manage the chemistry I’ve got. Figuring out how to get me working better as the person I am and with the chemistry available to me, is an ongoing process. As I figure more out, I’m becoming increasingly confident that I can change things for myself. This isn’t about being positive enough to magically solve my issues, it’s about being pragmatic and making the best of what I have. I can be good enough to be comfortable, and that’s where I’m setting the bar at the moment.

Creativity for everyone

Money is not a measure of your creative worth. All of the creative industries are a mess anyway, so if you can’t make it pay, don’t take it personally. Creativity is inherently valuable.

Every single successful creative person out there (however you want to measure success) started out as an amateur. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with being an amateur.

Success is subjective. You can set the terms on which you measure your own success. If I do something and it works for someone else, that’s all I need to feel it was worthwhile. Doing something and liking how it turned out is success. Seeing improvement in your own work is success.

Creative culture isn’t just about the big names and the people at the top. You only get the extraordinary professionals when they have room to grow. Grass roots arts are vital. Spaces for people to learn, flourish and develop are vital. Being part of those spaces, and providing joy and entertainment to other people, is a really good thing to do, regardless of whether you get to be famous.

It’s also perfectly ok not to want to be a professional. It’s totally valid to do things because you enjoy them and they make you happy. You do not need to be good. You do not need to have anyone’s approval or permission to do the things that enrich your life.

Creativity and delight go together. We should be able to do the things that make us happy, to make our own things and to be able to enjoy the things that other people make. Focusing on joy in this way is good for mental health, good for building relationships and for making our lives better.

Focus on the people who enjoy and support what you do. If that’s just you, this is also entirely valid. Focus on the people whose creativity you enjoy and whose work inspires you. Everything is better when we lift and encourage each other.

Creativity is all about joy, and putting beauty into the world and creating interest. Anyone engaged with that on any terms is your ally, and worth taking interest in if you have the time. The people who show up to criticise while making nothing themselves are of no real consequence and do not deserve your time and energy.

What you can imagine is always going to be better than what you’re able to make. This is not a thing to worry about. When you create, you also learn and grow, and that remains true no matter how good you get. It is ok to be dissatisfied and you do not need to hate your work when you can see how to do it better.

You are needed. Whatever you’re doing, whatever you make and however that impacts on the world, you are needed. Even if you don’t share your creativity with anyone else, the way it changes you is also important. And I hope, if you aren’t sharing yet, that you get to a place of feeling able to do so.

Personal circumstances

Things in my personal life have been challenging in all sorts of ways lately. That’s been more visible on Facebook than here. However, as there was a suggestion in the comments that my husband and I are splitting up it felt appropriate to tackle that.

Tom and I have been married for twelve years at this point, and we’ve been co-creators for much longer. We got together thanks to a publishing house many years ago, and through interest in each other’s work became friends and started working together. Everything else flowed from there.

Long term relationships are bound to be complicated. People grow and change, their needs change, what they want changes. This is good, healthy and to be expected. It means that a committed long term relationship shifts and evolves and sometimes that can be bumpy. We’ve had more than our share of challenges, not least because both of us are dealing with trauma legacies and sometimes we have to fight through triggers and anxiety to communicate with each other. Sometimes we don’t do so well with that, but we’re still together and figuring things out.

What happened this week is that Tom made the bold decision to be more open about his mental health. This is an ongoing thing and not a new problem. I’m aware that having been open about my issues for years, we might look like a very unbalanced pair where he’s all strong and well and capable and I’m a gibbering wreck. In practice, we’re fairly well matched on that front, although of the two of us, I’m better at talking about it. We muddle along as best we can, try to look after each other and try to get on top of our issues.

Tom and I are very different in some critically important ways. We don’t have tidily aligned needs, for a start. Working out what it is that each of us needs and how best to deal with that is a work in progress. Our people-needs are very different, around how we both function socially, what kinds of relationships we thrive in and what kinds of interactions we need with other people. As a consequence we have some people in our lives we’re both heavily invested in and some people we interact with in much more individual ways. 

As it happens, this week found Tom in a situation and needing support and care. I’ve piled in to do what I can. Other people who are essential to Tom have also piled in. People who needed to know we are ok have been in touch and we’re talking more precisely with people who genuinely need to know what’s happening.

Love is a choice. Love is how we treat each other if we make that choice. Love is what we might choose to do together and how we might relate to each other in any of our relationships, human and not-human. Wherever possible, I will choose to act with love. Sometimes, when dealing with people who don’t operate on those terms, acting with love towards them is a choice that might hurt someone else. Sometimes you have to prioritise, and its been that way this week. Tom and I continue to choose to treat each other with love, as best we can. We’re both very glad of the people who bring love and support into our lives. We’re focusing on where the love is in our lives and the people we can build a future with.

Paying attention to each other

One of the things parenting taught me, is how important it is to think about what you reward. Children crave attention. If a child only gets attention when they have massive tantrums, then they have every reason to keep having massive tantrums. If you reward the behaviour you want to see, then you get a child who spends a fair amount of time doing the things you would prefer they do.

It’s much the same with adults. People who grew up being rewarded for acting out are likely to keep doing that. People who could only get attention by being destructive or harmful are likely to maintain those patterns.

We all impact on each other, we all have the power to encourage each other in any and all imaginable directions. 

It is fairly easy to try and become important and influential by being critical and putting people down. It’s easy to discourage people and rubbish their dreams and desires – you don’t need to know what you’re talking about even, to have a go at that. Obviously this is harmful for whoever is treated this way. The trouble for the person doing this, is that taking people down gives them very little. Hurting people won’t make them love or admire you, or respect your opinion. Usually what happens is people flee from that as soon as they can.

It’s very different when we choose to give our attention in more constructive ways. Positive feedback often calls for more thought, attention and understanding. You have to really engage to be able to tell someone why their art, or song, or story was good. To give meaningful positive feedback you have to invest in yourself, in your own knowledge and ability to appreciate things. That’s good all round, everyone wins. 

Making a deliberate choice to engage with the things you want to see, impacts on the people you deal with. Sometimes, the choice to be very bland and dull can do a great deal to reduce drama. By not rewarding a drama llama with attention, you give them less incentive to do that. For maximum effect, taking the time to reward them with attention for things that are good and helpful can give them a reason to change tack.

This may all sound a bit manipulative. However, it’s worth thinking about the ways in which we learn, how we are conditioned by experience. Some kinds of manipulation – as with gaslighting – are undertaken to crush people and take away their power. It is just as possible to apply similar tactics to making things better. I’ve known a few grand masters of this art, and it’s amazing what you can get done this way. People grow and flourish when they get attention for the good things they do. People heal, and become sure of themselves, they stretch and take risks.

We’re intensely social beings. We’re all to some degree affected by our social standing and our sense of how others see us. Most of us want attention and positive feedback. Really interesting things can happen when you step up to provide this deliberately. I can heartily recommend seeing the best in people and telling them about it in a way that encourages them to do more. Simply not responding much to unhealthy bids for attention can also get a lot done. Put the two together, and you can sometimes change the direction a person is going in. Most of us need incentives and reasons to try. Most of us do not grow and learn in face of knock downs, so I think it’s also important not to reward the people who deal in knock downs as a way of seeking attention.