disabled wisdom says

Lately I’ve noticed that able-bodied people are often terrified of pain.

It’s the same kind of fear as a fear of death and dying – an existential fear, an impossible fear, an organizing fear.

White fragility stems from this kind of fear. Men who perpetrate patriarchal violence and run from accountability face this same fear. The ableism that has contributed to multiple pandemic surges is this same fear. Its roots are buried in shame. 

Running away from pain doesn’t make it disappear; it just makes it loom ever bigger in the distance.

Disabled wisdom teaches that pain is inevitable. When you live in a body that knows pain – knows it intimately and fundamentally – you learn the shapes and shades and contours of it. You learn how to manage it, how to turn towards it, how to live from within it. There are different kinds of pain, and some are better than others.

And there is wisdom to be had from turning towards our pain. When conflict is a site of relational repair, we grow in intimacy and vulnerability. When we confront the shame of causing harm, we can make amends. When we turn towards the darkest parts of ourselves and our histories, we can dream of what comes instead. 

What comes after survival? What kind of thriving could we imagine?

Turning towards is a skill that can be learned, practiced, embodied. When we become fluent in our pain, we strip it of the power that fear and shame have embedded in it.

Let’s turn towards it, and thrive instead. 

🌱

I have just two more spots for 1:1 clients this fall – maybe one of them is calling your name? Equity coaching is a three-month container for the community leaders and the quiet on the sidelines – our men of color, our brown women, our white queers, our disabled caregivers. You want to interrogate your relationship to power and privilege, you want to hold it kindly against the oppression you’ve experienced — and you want someone to doula you through that tension. 

If you want to transform your relationship to pain, fear, and shame, equity coaching is for you. Learn more and set up a free inquiry call here.

Thank you, as always, for reading.