Systems that Oppress Us
and how we let them go
I’ve been having a lot of conversations lately with friends, collaborators and clients about being a person who exists in many different creative or professional realms. The hyphenated creative, the polymath — there are many of us whose work and identity doesn’t condense down into a singular title or vocation. Rather than celebrate this abundance (yes, abundance!) in ourselves, we often feel bad about it. In a world of doing more, this is an area where we often feel we should do and be less. We feel we should be more simplified, more legible, more consumable and easier to buy.
As this is something that comes up frequently, I have written about this in past newsletters, and it is something that we discuss in my creative mentorship sessions. Recently, I have been naming these kinds of thoughts (in my internal conversations) SYSTEMS THAT OPPRESS US. When thoughts like these come up for me, the internalized oppressive system proximity alarm goes off and I disengage and take a moment to appreciate my capacity for multiplicity and paradox as I keep trying, in all the ways that move me, to engage with the complexities of being / being in this world.
How do these thoughts show up for you? What is the voice that leads you back into appreciation for all that you are? Much of my work is about learning to hear those guiding voices, those gut lights more clearly. When your perimeter alarm goes off, how do you change direction?
The Drawing on the Senses exercises, posted every Monday, are on the Drawing on the Senses page.
You can read all about Drawing on the Senses on my website: