Include everything
toxic positivity and multitudinous truth
The Learning in Public paperback launched yesterday! Buy a paperback for someone you think might love or hate it and tell them to be in touch. And thank you to each and every one of you who read the book, spread the word about it, gave me feedback, and continue to do the generational work of making our public schools sites of joy and justice everyday. If you’re in the Bay Area, I’m doing a real live in-store book reading in Napa, September 12th. Come thru after you sip some wine somewhere beautiful!
I went to my first in-person yoga class since the pandemic started last Saturday and it was a real sweaty, joy. I loved it all—the cubbies, the props, the humidity, the teacher’s little jokes, the funny noises that came out of strangers’ bodies across the room, the one inflexible guy who could barely begin to straighten his legs in downward dog, the woman with abs-of-steel, the perfect form, and the perfect outfit. I lay in shavasana and, as I usually do, beat myself up for not being more mindful at the most important moment of the practice. I guess even a pandemic hasn’t taught me how to be present-on-command.
I also kept returning to a phrase the teacher had said through out our 1.5 hours together: include everything.
He was referencing our bodies—to notice the stretch in our quads, the strain in our backs, sure, but also our pinkie toes and our eyebrows. Notice your body, but not just in parts; notice the whole, even and especially, the most overlooked parts.
What this does, of course, is diffuses your attention such that you remember that even one human body can contain a wild array of sensations all at once. Sure, your hip is sore, but did you notice that your ankle is sturdy and brave? Yes, you are very good at tree pose, but you are also shit at bridge pose. Include everything. If you do that, you can’t be attached to either your terribleness or your transcendence. You are weak and strong, thriving and failing, frustrated and thrilled—all in a singular body.
It occurred to me that this is also 90% of what my therapy sessions are about, too. Yes, I am grieving my parents’ aging and the impact it’s having on their quality of life and there is still a tremendous amount of sweetness and pleasure and joy when I’ve with them. Yes, I love my kids beyond anything I ever could have imagined possible and there are moments when I feel so irritated with them that I could scream (and/or do). Yes, my boo and I have the sweetest love story there ever was which just keeps surprising us and we gridlock on certain issues over and over again. Yes, I love living in close, interdependent community and it can be really frustrating to collaborate with people with such hugely different styles and priorities. Yes, I have a career that earns me good money and feels like a true reflection of my gifts and values and I do wonder what else is out there for me that I haven’t had time, permission, access to create. Include everything.
Why is it that I—a 42-year-old, thoroughly therapized woman with lots of great friends who are emotional geniuses—still have to be reminded that multiple things can be true at once? Multiple feelings (even in the same heart). Multiple interpretations (even in the same brain). And all at the same time!
One possibility: I’m a dualistic Capricorn, Enneagram 2 who feels comforted by pinning down a story and being in control? (I feel like Enneagram 7s/people with ADHD/my mom are way better at instinctually flowing along a spectrum than me.)
Another: I am unpracticed in acknowledging the depth of my sadness and anger (yes, very White and, at least in the latter case, very female). Sometimes I worry that I think I’m dipping my toe into a pond and I’ll really be flung down a black hole of unexpressed darkness. My therapist assures me that you don’t have to feel it all, all at once, that you can titrate feeling the hard stuff. I’m still figuring that out.
Another related possibility: I’ve been socialized to look on the bright side, especially in public. The term “toxic positivity” has been on a steady rise over the past few years. I feel like it’s slowly replacing what we used to refer to as being Pollyanna: “a person characterized by irrepressible optimism and a tendency to find good in everything.” Call it what you will, it makes perfect sense that it’s become de rigueur in a moment when people are being forced to reckon with so much—our legacy of slavery, climate change, the immoral wealth gap…the list goes on and on.
I will defend investigating and soberly spreading the word about solutions til my last dying day; I believe it holds those in power more forcefully accountable because it shows what is possible. But, I also know that only focusing on solutions is basic and cruel.
This is why we do “peaks and pits” at the dinner table instead of asking the most frequently used dumb question through out human history: “How was your day at school today?” Sometimes a day feels great. Sometimes a day feels terrible. Sometimes it feels that way in one hour inside a 1st grade classroom in which you don’t get your most coveted job—line leader—but also discover that gender is fluid. Eureka!
Some of us, of course, are better at holding the multitudinous nature of life—in our hearts, in our brains, in our telling of our own stories. Some of us—maybe me—default to binaries, especially the brightest ones. I find the ones who tend to be good at acknowledging all the grays are those who have lived a lot of life, the women with smile lines around their eyes and a slight limp, the guys with deep, hard-earned belly laughs and no fancy job title to speak of. Everything sort of included itself for them, so they’re under no delusion otherwise. That’s where I’m headed, slowly but surely, one creaky yoga pose at a time.
Are you one of those “it’s all true all at once” people or do you have to be reminded like yours truly?
Perfect. Thank you
As Kate Bowler says...Life is so beautiful, life is so hard. Two truths, all at once.
This beautiful piece arrived, for me, on the most perfect day to receive its wisdom. This kind of perspective-shifting (or, more accurately, “clicking into place”) is the reason I read and write. Very grateful for the release from feeling I have to choose one worldview and stick to it. It can all be true—horror and beauty, devastation and hope. I am a solutions-minded person too, and I often have to remind myself to sit with the problem and not jump over it to the glorious day when it’s growth-oriented purpose has revealed itself and been implemented. That’s the harder part, especially when it is others’ pain, especially especially my kids’ (and the pain of the world they are inheriting.) thank you for this.