Processing Moments of Stillness

Transcript:Hello, it's Tiffany. It is Saturday night. It's around 9:15 p. m. and I kind of want to try a new thing. So usually I write on Substack and then I basically read it aloud. But I'm going to try tonight to just speak out my stream of consciousness and then maybe annotate it back. I'm not sure.We'll see, but let's go. I want to talk about more about liberatory mania and what it feels like to really savor the moments of peace and the moments of joy that comes in between the higher energy, the actions, and the rage the chaos. Because today I kind of had that kind of day. This past week has been really Really high energy, quite activating full of focus, full of clarity, full of hysteric laughing so many in person things and meetings and things to organize.Yeah, it was a lot, but it, it kind of in the best way. And today I kind of felt the energy settle for a second. I cleaned my, I tidied up my, my apartment. I packed for something that's upcoming. I did laundry. I did do four trainings but it was pretty calm and I felt like the energy in my body kind of come down in a, in a grounding way and not in like a depressive way, which totally happens and I totally accept. And I just feel like in these moments, it's so important to, to really like not rush through it. And I know I just said that it's not depressive, but like, I can feel in my system and my body, this kind of anxiety, anxiety of being in this because, well, I don't know, I don't know why, but maybe let's try to talk loud of, about why that might be. I feel like part of it is. You know feeling more grounded and more like the energy being slower. I think it does scare me a little bit because Okay for a couple reasons number one I think that it scares me because I don't want to drop into a depressive state which I have a lot of times and I know I just stated also there's no shame.But I don't like it It's not where if it's not Yeah, where I really like to be in. I mean, nobody does. But I feel like much more comfortable in the high energy rage dysregulation in a way. And the second reason I think that it makes me anxious or a little uncomfortable when I'm kind of in this state is because I don't ever want to lose focus about the whole mission, which is for liberation for all.Yeah. And sometimes when I feel like I'm having like a normal human experience like, I'm afraid I'm like, gonna like fall into that kind of daze. The daze that is taught and conditioned from capitalism and white supremacy. That's taught from, yeah, empire. And. I think back in my life, like I've just lived in that daze for so long, and there's the moments of clarity and times where I really look back and I'm so proud, like, about standing in truth and healing and all these things. But right now, like in 2024. The clarity is so stunning. It's so, it's so crystal clear that I don't ever want to lose this kind of focus. And I feel like we're just starting. I mean, this work is in the making, you know, for hundreds and hundreds of years, but like right now where the movement is, it's, it's like a new season.And I'll say it again over and over again. Like what an honor. It is to be here right now. And as I've been witnessing and also showing up for encampments, I am filled with so much awe of where we're at and of the youth at the beginning of the year, one of my intentions was to seek out more opportunities to, to work with youth, and I didn't know what form it would take, it would take, but here we are. I'm so behind them. I'm so proud of them. I'm so inspired by them and I just can't wait to continue to support yeah, the youth right now college students and what an honor. Yeah. And anyways, back to kind of why I wanted to start this, this episode in sitting in these in between moments, like I, I'm trying to kind of process. And sit with what is coming up in my body and kind of acknowledge the anxiety around it, but also encourage myself to To sit sit with it and to not rush it.And that it's okay to to enjoy these moments of joy and the moments of stillness the the the moments of even like mundane lifeness Like It was really nice to kind of finish up laundry and to reorganize my closet and it was enjoyable to put up my AC and turn it on and have some relief from the heat. And just because I'm enjoying like these moments of normalness or mundaneness, like doesn't mean that I'm not focused on liberation. And I guess like, I'm kind of seeing like, this is so much about faith of like, Can I really have faith that every single little thing that I do alongside community and fellow comrades, it counts? I've written a lot about this but it's holding true or holding faith that how we do things and the small things that we do, it matters. And that's integrity. It's like even when people don't see it or hear it or witness it, like trusting that when I say that, Even in the pain, even in the rage, even in the, in the bigness the doing, things like rest and things like peace play, laughter and connection are really important. And like in, in thinking about how do we sustain this together, it's leading into those moments. And as I'm saying this, like I'm challenging myself to not only say it and know it, But to really integrate it into my body and my lived experience because I mean we all know it's easy to It's easy to talk.It's really hard to practice Yeah, so those are my nighttime thoughts. I took out some ice cream for myself tonight. It's kind of softening up i'm gonna do some dishes tonight and i'm gonna try to go to bed early - Who knows I might go crazy and go to bed early .And for my ending question, what is sparking my liberatory imagination?Hmm. I think like the word savory, savoring is resonating with me. Liberatory imagination sparks in me, the space and the time and the community where savoring and being in awe is just abundant. Like, where our, our world is not just, like, it's not pressing down on us, and that there's freedom to explore, and it's, and so much space to go slow, and there's just no rush. Yeah, and I feel like where we're going, the speed of things, time is just totally different, and I cannot wait to experience that. And I also. Yeah, like liberatory imagination is bringing pieces and moments of what we're building here right now. And all right, that's it for tonight. Get full access to LIBERATORY IMAGINATION at tiffanywongart.substack.com/subscribe