Brick by brick
Tending to the collective nervous system
You know how sometimes you just have your head down laying bricks? And you’re not even really sure what structure is emerging, but you just keep laying the bricks, laying the bricks… You’re kind of following a pattern but it’s unclear to what end. That’s what I’ve been doing here. Following my intuition. Entertaining the questions that lovingly heckle me. Experimenting with things that feel true and soulful. Letting my sacred disenchantment guide me. Being guided by an intuitive pull.
I haven’t really had the perspective to see what it is I’m contributing to.
But I think I know now.
With each writing piece, each re-storying, each conversation I get to have with those around me…I’ve realised I’m tending to the collective nervous system. (By way of my own.)
All the ‘healths’ are bad and getting worse. Mental, emotional, physical…
Grief is being habitually repressed.
Relationships are crumbling in secret.
Parents are struggling with the weight of raising littles in a modern world.
We’re so accustomed to the cultural milieu we’re in, that we often don’t realise how the pressure, intensity and soullessness are keeping us all chronically dis-regulated. How it’s our environment and the atmosphere around us that are leaving us sick, both individually and collectively.
This is a rebellion, to be sure. Against the systems and beliefs we’re unconsciously upholding that aren’t serving us. Against all the things that have drawn us away from our humanity and our connection to all things.
It’s a rebellion. But not one of pitch forks and raised fists, (though I would welcome a catchy chant…) It’s a rebellion of garden beds and paintbrushes. Of shared meals and shared land. Of mirroring the ecosystem of the natural world. Of imagination and the kind of ideas that make people say, “There’s no way you’ll be able to…” or “That’s not how it’s done…” A rebellion of less. Of less. Of less.
It’s a mystical rebellion that draws us back to our wild souls. That sheds the onslaught of messaging about who and how we should be, and how our lives should look, and calls us deeper into ourselves - rather than layering to-do lists on top of our already frazzled minds.
This is a rebellion, but it’s also a descent…into the quiet depths of our inner ecosystem. This is why these pieces often centre around themes like creativity, health, relationships and parenting. These are the places I often hear narratives that encourage us to just keep adding more things to our lives in order to solve and enrich them. Struggling marriage? Impose a date night. Struggling artist? Hustle harder. Parenting worries? Buy this course, buy these gummies, read this book! Bodily troubles? Ice bath. Supplements. Beef tallow!
I want to know what healing the collective can look like outside of a materialist paradigm. It’s not more stuff that we need before we find that elusive wholeness we’re after. This model is only exacerbating our dis-regulation. As Johann Hari puts it, “We are being propagandized to live in a way that doesn’t meet our basic pyschological needs - so we are left with a permanent, puzzling sense of dissatisfaction.”1 What we need is a rewilding. To remember who we were and our intrinsic connections, before we were corralled by the convenience of the status quo and swept up in a manufactured, inhuman velocity.
This space is a movement toward trust in the design. Of the earth, ourselves, natural flow… (Rather than a desperate attempt to control all things with hustle, busyness and outsourcing our problem solving to clever marketing.)
A movement toward finding like minded people so we’re not doing this journey alone, being constantly jostled by the crowds still walking in the opposite direction.
It’s a movement toward healing the collective nervous system and our shared ecosystem, so that we’re all being fed and nurtured by the whole. A place of shame-shifting… of re-organising our thoughts to centre compassion, thougthfulness and grace, that we might allow ourselves some space to breathe.
Each of these pieces is laying a brick.
And what I’m building is becoming more clear.
A framework and a worldview that give us space and time to remember ourselves, and shed the voices that keep us feeling like we’re not doing enough. A framework and a worldview that value true and sustained rest, regenerative nothingness, wise procrastination, a deeper relationship to our creativity, a synergy with nature, and a gentle inner voice (I find this one incredibly difficult). I’m tending to the collective nervous system, and I’m certainly not the only one. I think we’re all awakening to the ways our bodies are letting us know that the environment we’ve created is unsustainable. We’re (almost) all being drawn into a realisation that all this hubbub is man made. And that there is so much more to this earthly experience.
If you have a brick to contribute to this space, I’d love to hear from you.
As an artist, culture builder, writer, creative or conversationalist.
As someone who lives counter-culturally in their pace, their problem solving or their priorities.
I’m keen to build relationships with people on similar wave lengths. And to expand this space to include more heart-centred, eco-minded, imaginative rebels.
It’s so good to have you here. Feel free to introduce yourself below!!!
x
Lysette
Illustration by Mel from Light and Colour Studio.
What mediums can she do?
All of them.
From, Lost Connections by Johann Hari. Pg 120.
Ahh yes I love this so much.. I have been grappling with how to build and sustain these bricks in our modern day society though. I've been doing so much of my own work in slowing down, rewilding, connecting with my own inner nature and that of the earth, but also acknowledge that I've only been able to do this because of a certain level of privilege. I'm not sure whether it's still my conditioning that is clinging onto needing "the system", but for many, being able to afford the time and space in order to take the time to live outside of the materialism and fast paced culture isn't an option.
For me, I feel I've been supported in my own journey because I've had good employment and leave benefits, as well being a single primary care giver of young children with government support available. This has meant I've been able to focus on reconnecting with myself and choosing how I live, without the pressure of having to go to work full time to pay for rent and put food on the table. I also know because of my skin colour, family and the opportunities I've been afforded for most of my life will mean I'm generally accepted and supported should I ever need help. I do fear that the choices I've made to be with myself and with my children (although I would never in a million years have chosen anything differently), may lead to challenges in the future when I no longer have that support.
And yes, we're absolutely set up to live in a way that doesn't meet our most basic psychological needs, but worry there are a lot of people still struggling with basic physiological needs that need to be addressed first, another shortfall of this current climate. Yes it's all manmade, but also for a lot of people, not participating in the hustle and grind or working within the system may present a very real threat of not having access to basic survival needs (although this is also potentially a limitation of the mind, and perhaps that means it's up to those of us who ARE able to focus more on reconnecting with our natures, to support and pave the way for others). Very thought provoking thank you :)