Friday reflection
Resist the pings!
Hello, mighty readers!
Today, I want to talk about pings. “Pings” are cultural messages about how our story is “supposed” to go. They are so seductive, these pings, and so sneaky, and it is hard work to remain vigilant and mindful of them — and yet, we must; our happiness, our freedom, and our capacity to express the truth of who we are, depend on it.
Resist the pings!* *Pings: Cultural messages about how your story is "supposed" to go | mightyforces.co
But before I say more, I want to share a quick announcement: I highly encourage you to attend a virtual that Solidarity Futures is hosting later in September, all about America After Affirmative Action:
I heard about the event from my new friend, the amazing Venu Gupta; stay tuned for highlights from a recent conversation I had with Venu about everything from our spirituality to LA Law, coming in the next week.
And now, on to this week’s reflection!
My profound thought for today is: OMG it’s September.
The summer’s over — well, not technically, but for all intents and purposes. And so the thoughts flood in:
Did I have enough fun?
Did I make enough Special Family Memories™️?
Did I lie in an open field gazing at the Milky Way?
Did I spend afternoons carefree at the swimming hole?
Did I laze around on the couch reading my novel and eating crackers by the sleeve?
I did not.
A calendar on a desk is open to the page labeled, "September"
And now September is upon us. It is officially Back to School season. Time to get my shit together! Why didn’t I finish unpacking all the boxes from our move? Why have I still not bought that little thing for the sink that holds the sponge so I don’t have to look at the sponge sitting on the slice of counter behind the sink? My daughter needs a haircut. I need long pants without holes in them. I have to Be Productive!
Sound familiar?
I know these mental soundtracks are not mine alone. We live in a new era where we beat ourselves up for not being relaxed enough, and then we beat ourselves up for not being productive enough.
We are walking Zen koans! The Nap Ministry is cool, capitalism is not, but making a lot of money as a woman is cool (#bosslady), and that means spending your time working (which you love), but then when guests drop in and your windows are filthy, you wonder how you became a 47-year-old high-functioning woman who can’t manage to keep her windows clean.
As always, evoking Ted Lasso helps. Well, in this case, evoking Walt Whitman by way of Ted Lasso (if you know, you know): “Be curious, not judgmental.”
"'Be curious, not judgmental.' - Walt Whitman" - Ted Lasso
For the last year or so I have practiced noticing the moments when I feel judgmental (of myself and others); and when I notice judgement, I invited myself to get curious about it.
Why am I judging myself so harshly right now?
Why am I applying so much pressure?
I have a theory, and it has to do with cultural scripts (because, of course it does) — and with pings.
In reality, September 1st is just a day, just as August 31st is just a day. A day made of moments in a stream days made of streams of moments. All that is real is in this moment. But we live in a culture filled with signposts (on Instagram, television, magazines, you name it) about what every single moment of our lives is supposed to feel like; what it’s supposed to mean.
For example, right now, every drugstore in America wants to convince me that this moment is about getting excited for Halloween. Why do they want to convince me of this? To sell candy and decorations, of course.
This is not a particularly harmful script, as scripts go! But when my online landscape is filled with ads depicting sharply dressed, freshly coiffed children trotting off to their first day of school (which of course I am prepared to capture in a carefully staged photo shoot complete with charming chalkboard accessory)… and when my child’s clothes are mostly paint-stained or a bit too small at season’s end, and her particular short hair style is well overgrown, I feel a ping that I am doing something wrong.
I ignore this ping, of course, because I see right through it, but then there are other pings (so many pings), and I start putting pressure on myself — “Resist the pings!” — and that’s just more pressure, on top of all the ping-pressure.
….When all I want is to be present in this moment, and then the next.
If you can relate — and I feel very confident that many of you can — then maybe we can help each other out. Maybe we can name the pings, in the comments thread here, as a way of defying them. And in doing so, maybe we can replace the scripts our culture tries to feed us with the ones we choose to create.
Because we get to be the authors of our lives. No one else.
Who’s with me?
You are a mighty force -
Amanda
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