When defeat feels big enough to swallow me whole

A reflection on what it means to continue to show up for liberation

“How do you continue to do this work"?

“I wish I was more like you, I feel hopeless.”

“I don’t know how you do it.”

Over the last few years and especially in the last few months people have continuously asked me these questions or said these things to me. It has made me realize that there is this perception that I am somehow immune or exempt from feeling hopelessness, burn out, limited capacity and sometimes even lost.

In my journaling and sitting with this realization came another….. this perception that people have is on me. Not in a “it’s all my fault” way, but in a “I clearly have not been transparent about what the lows look like”.

In my reflection on this I came to the conclusion that the driving force behind my lack of transparency is this idea that no one wants to hear me complain, or the pressure that I feel to constantly be leading and lighting pathways. (I try to tell y’all that the decolonization of our minds and socialization literally never ends, it’s always just a matter of peeling back additional layers of that socialization onion. For more on this larger concept you can watch my TEDx Talk “Architect of Possibility”. )

So in that spirit, I’ve decided to share fully, vulnerably, and transparently.

Maybe this only resonates with one person. Maybe only one single person finds this helpful. If that’s the case then this time and energy to share so openly is worth it!

Before I dive in deeper I want to pause and be clear - the reason I am sharing this is because I do have a responsibility to my community, to those that look to me for any level of guidance when it comes to their liberation work to be totally honest about the reality of the “struggle” that we all experience, and yes, even me. Maybe I’ve made it look “easy”, and that’s cool I guess, but it’s not because it’s not hard, it’s only because I have a lot of tools and I practice my own “Cycle of Sustainable Liberation”.

Now back to the juicy stuff! Queue Monica’s “Don’t take it personal” (If you don’t get that reference - here you go lol).

Honestly, some days I ask myself “what’s the point?”. I ask myself if I should even keep going, if anyone is listening, if it’s helping at all!!

Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever feel like my cup is full again…is my battery ever going to get back to 100%.

I wonder if I’ll ever have a year where I won’t have to walk away from a friendship, no matter how close or important, because a social issue has become part of the popular zeitgeist and their stance on it reveals that they have crossed a line in my liberatory cement. (I say line in the cement because sand is mutable, it can move and change. For me, my lines are clear and I stand then toes down on what I believe- there is no moving them, not even by a hair!).

I wonder if I’ll ever build such a strong discernment lens that I’ll be able to spot those that are cosplaying liberation when in reality they are still quietly and willingly following the path of their privilege so that I don’t even enter into community with them.

Some days, more days than I let on, I’m not sure I have the capacity to continue doing this work. I question myself, my tools, my resources, hell….even the cycle of sustainable liberation because the dark just seems to swallow the light.

Many of you who have been following me for some time have heard me compare systems and ideologies of oppression (aka the fabric of our society) to a narcissist...it will gaslight you all the way up and down, yes, all of us, yes even me! No one is exempt. This is bigger than the fact that all systems of domination seek to exhaust us. This is bigger than the internet trolls. This is bigger than hateful messages and death threats, or weathering or any of the other socio-cultural phenomena that you hear me talking about.

This is the reality of existing as a whole person, just Weeze, on a human level, committed to liberation, mine and everyone else’s, in this society. This is the reality of existing in my body with all of my imperfections, all my identities, all of my diagnoses.

There are days that I’m like “Yo, I’m shutting it all down and going back to working in the classroom or strength and conditioning or something” (I’ve done a lot of things in my short 39 yeas). Sometimes, I actually really truly deeply seriously wish I would let myself do that. I wish that I wasn’t wired the way I was, so committed to liberation and integrity. I wish I could unsee or unlearn sometimes, because as we’ve heard a billion times “where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise” - Thomas Gray. I wish I wasn’t so clear on my lines in the cement.

That is, however, not my reality- that would be fighting my own nature. So then, how do I do it if the truth is that it all feels so much bigger than me some days and I just want to give up?

I have built a practice. I have acquired tools. I have honored all of the liberatory educators, intellectuals and guides that have come before who speak loudly about the need to honor your own humanity alongside everyone else’s. I challenge the parts of me that have been socialized to put everyone ahead of myself. I repattern the parts of me that was socialized to believe that martyrdom and self-sacrifice are the only ways (this is actually rooted in the ideology of saviorism which is a cornerstone of white absolvance, but that’s a detour for another time). To put it simply, I fully embody all parts of liberation ethos and practice and I am constantly putting in the work.

I have built a life, a schedule and a support system rooted in rest, resourcing, reconnecting, rejoicing, resetting and ultimately returning home to myself before I continue resisting. And then I remember that all of that is ALSO part of my revolutionary resistance. That it doesn’t always look like the Big Fight.

I also share (apparently not with y’all if I’m only just writing this now) so that we can make THIS conversation part of the popular zeitgeist as well. We need to start having conversations about what it means to have to show up and show out for social media, or clients/work, our families, the movement and even ourselves when we have nothing left in the tank or our anxiety/other neurospiciness is skyrocketing in the midst of a conflict…while you are trying to hold space for others or maintain your and others safety.

We need to start pushing back on narratives of strength, resilience, fortitude etc- narratives that strip us of our humanity. Narratives that force us to continue to hide behind the mask that society requires us to create in the name of being “okay”. We need to let people fall apart, not be okay, express a FULL array of emotions, react to the things that are happening to them, to cry, to be angry, to be joyous, to be disruptive in their own laughter or be still and silent. We need to do this without judging or questioning a person’s process or reaction and instead just witness each other and ask “what can I do to support you right now?’”.

We need to normalize having days where you might want to change careers entirely. Where no matter how much hope you have, you just want to walk away and be at peace, where you prioritize your mental health. Days where we can say “I know I have commitments today but the way my spirit feels, I need to go unplug, sit outside, be in nature and stillness. I gotta go touch grass” and not have anyone weaponize any parts of their own expectations or belief systems against you! We need to protect each other and ourselves. We need to just let each other BE.

We need to normalize full humans being fully human. Period!

I say that we need to normalize these things because THESE are the things that bring me back to the work, they fill my battery back up. These are the things that I have worked very hard to find for myself and then create when I couldn’t find them, not just for me but for my community as well.

We need to normalize all of these things because this is what will recharge us as liberatory oriented people in a world built on oppression and hell bent on extinguishing the fire of liberation.

We need to normalize these things until our goal of reimagining and building this world into a liberatory one is accomplished, so that they don’t even need to be a need!

So on those days when defeat feels big enough to swallow me whole, I tap into all of that. I remember that this is my purpose, I have the tools, resources, skills and self awareness to come home to myself, to protect my peace, to ground back into myself so that I can get back into the work and lean back into whatever step in the cycle of sustainable liberation I was at so I can get up tomorrow and keep moving the needle of liberation forward, as a fully whole human version of myself!!!

I love you all, because you ARE and that is all you have to be!

Yours in transparency,

Weeze