the ancient technology of greeting “strangers”
I, like many people, have to continually bring my focus back to my self-care/wellness practice. I can be in a rhythm and feeling good and suddenly I look up and several days of skipping my practice, sleeping less, eating poorly seem to have just happened without me noticing. With all of the violence being done to our communities, institutions, organizations under this administration, those days can become weeks.
Our nervous systems and therefore our bodies are hijacked by news headlines, social media and one violation of human dignity after another. By design we are meant to live in constant stress, anxiety, fear, hopelessness. We are meant to despair and to disconnect from our bodies, our families, our communities, and to pour all of the energy of that stress, anxiety, depression, fear into the world.
We are indirectly asked to feed, to fuel, the despair and hopelessness seeded by this administration’s violence. In our bodies this violence requires we exist in our heightened sympathetic nervous system (fight, flight, freeze, appease), which means our heart rate increases, blood pressure increases, digestion slows, glucose is released. Long term existing in survival mode increases systemic inflammation, increases anxiety and depression, impacts metabolism, our musculoskeletal systems, our sleep, increases risk for diabetes, stroke, heart disease, and on and on. In our communities, this overwhelm restricts our collective care of others, limits capacity for kindness or compassion.
For many communities in this country, the current violence is not a new experience. For Black Americans, for indigenous peoples in these lands this violence is built into the very structure of this country and has been the experience here since its founding. There is wisdom in these communities to help guide us in the seemingly impossible task of being at home in our bodies with access to joy and connection, and holding the horror of what this country is now expressing. I cannot speak to indigenous wisdoms with any depth, but as someone who grew up in Oakland, I can speak to the power of greeting strangers. This can be a “good morning,” a “hello,” a “how are you doing?” but doesn’t have to be. It can be simply seeing and acknowledging the humanity of the person you are passing on the street.
As Oakland has lost more and more of the energy of its Black Southern culture, I have more experiences walking where people drop their heads, fix their eyes on their phones, stare glassy eyed ahead, are so consumed by the conversation with the person that is not there, that they don’t or don’t want to or are a afraid to see me. It feels bad. There are tinges of shame, sadness and other feelings that don’t fit neatly into words. It is a small, but definite heartbreak.
In the face of wars, economic collapse, this daily heartbreak may seem insignificant. It is not. It tears at the web of our connection to one another. We hurt each other. We break hearts and our hearts are broken. It finishes the job of the relentless current and historic violence.
So we may not be able to stop this administration’s damage in this moment, but if we greet one another, acknowledge the humanity of the people we come into contact with, listen with care and curiosity, express kindness and compassion, we strengthen our web of connection. We move into our parasympathetic nervous systems where we can balance physiologically and energetically, which is caring for ourselves. We move away from fear and isolation into connection, which is caring for our community. Calm, connected, and grounded we are best equipped to respond to the violent onslaught of this moment.
