This track includes ten minutes of meditation practice; if that feels like a lot to you, maybe start at the beginning!
Turn on the TV, get comfy, and play this track after you’ve watched the episode: Blood Under the Skin (Season Two, Episode Four).
The method of this sit is modeled after Shinzen Young’s “See, Hear, Feel,” so if you respond well to it, feel free to dig deeper on your own!
Mentioned in a footnote is a link to some quotes about Indigenous people from US Presidents and the way that Indigenous people have always had sharp critiques of colonial power.
P.S. If you’re curious, here you can find out why I started this project.
Recording Transcript (Meditation Begins at 4:08)
Welcome back, friend.
Let me start by saying that I think you are all very (makes sound: *click click*).
Sure I probably don’t know you personally, but insofar as a blanket affirmation from a relative stranger can be supportive, I’m happy to help! And more specifically, I *do* think it’s really cool that you’re taking the time to join in on this adventure of introspection and self-discovery.
Real talk: fearing what others think of you, being afraid of embarrassment and seeking approval are all very powerful forces. And forces that no amount of armor can protect you from.
There are a lot of social-scientific reasons for this. As little red-cheeked baby mammals, we are literally dependent on the care of others to survive. The only reason you’re alive and able to listen to (or read) me saying these words is because you, at one time or another, you adapted to please your caregivers well-enough for them to not abandon you entirely. Hopefully they gave you abundant space to express and explore yourself without fear of judgment, but for many of us, that wasn’t the case. Quite the contrary, a lot of people carry intense trauma from the ways they were not cared for, or were hardly cared for. I want to honor that, and as always, encourage you to respect your limits, in meditation and in life, as a result of whatever you’ve experienced.
Even beyond this most vulnerable phase of our life, we are still shaped by social needs. Being made fun of, being bullied, facing social exclusion; all of these suck really bad. It’s not as simple as “just getting over it.”
Having friends, fitting in, and forming at least some sense of belonging is pretty damn required for being a human person. “Caring what people think” is an extremely addictive, high intensity game designed for people everywhere.
And at the same time, it’s easy to get swept up in it, to care too much. When we allow our actions to be driven by the fear that we aren’t *click click,* we can pursue things we don’t actually want or need. What starts as a real solution to a real problem, say, putting on a thimble after getting a splinter, can start to spiral. Especially if we are being told that we are weak, that our thimble isn’t *real* armor, and people mock our soft vanilla strawberry skin (which, if I’m being honest, sounds like exactly the kind of skin I want).
It’s not as simple as the clichéd advice: “comparison is the thief of joy.”1 I mean, sure, if you find that you’re willfully comparing yourself to those around you in ways that are causing suffering, by all means, disengage if you can. But we can’t totally or easily disentangle ourselves from comparison.
Constant, targeted advertising and shitty-ass gender norms and social media algorithms designed to overstimulate the dopamine receptors in your brain are all pretty unavoidable realities we are dealing with. Like, for real, drop ball is very addicting.
Which is just my stupid way of pointing out that these are social-systemic problems at least as much as they are personal ones. We might be able to learn to say with confidence “I absolutely disagree” but it’s also true that people (or companies) shouldn’t follow us around shaming us.
Regrettably, for today, one of those is more in our control than the other. And we can’t strategically disconnect from caring about people’s shitty opinions until we recognize the ways they’re affecting us. But if you *can* manage to not care whether people think you’re dressed like a lady, I swear, you can bust through mountains. “Trust me dude, I’m smarter than everyone.”
So let’s spend some time getting clear about what’s happening in our world right now. Skadow!
By the way, this quote is widely attributed to Theodore Roosevelt, though the origins are a little unclear. But something the guy definitely did say is some capital F fucked shit about Indigenous people. No wonder the Haudenosaunee have referred to all Presidents as “Town Destroyers.”
