Safety
Earth Sanctuary Compassion
TW: Mentions of self-h*rm, s*icide, and addiction.
Clinical resources linked at the end of the post.
If you, or anyone you care about, are struggling with s*icide ideation or self-harm, please contact the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988.
What Does It Mean to Embody?
It was (and still is) my fortune to have learned from a professor (he/him) from Taiwan.
You know how someone can teach you something that just sticks? It says with you for years?
That’s what it was like learning from this person. It’s been over 10 years and I still hear this professors voice in my head.
A seed that was planted and has now bloomed into a mighty Oak in my very soul was a quote he told us one day in class.
I remember that he credited the original speaker, though I can’t remember who. Nor can I remember the context of the conversation.
But I remember the way he visualized this concept.
He held up two fingers with one hand and explained each digit: “This is what we say (pointing to one finger). And this is what we do (pointing to the other finger).”
He then slowly brought his two fingers together and stated: “Our goal is to live our lives in such a way that what we say and what do become the same thing.”
It was a major lightbulb moment for me. It just clicked. It was something I just couldn’t forget.
I remember how long my younger self sat with the profoundness of these words for weeks after this lesson.
It has taken over a decade for the meaning of these words to unfold in ways I could have never anticipated.
Core
What Does This Mean; to Be a Safe Person?
In Sprout, I outline how often I grow, distribute, cook, and/or eat food with those who have challenges maintaining sobriety.
Thus, it is my responsibility to stay in conversation with relevant experts in my community ( re: addiction treatment, mental health, trauma recovery, etc.).
I enjoy growing gardens, but after I received my first heirloom seeds, I discovered my passion is really in soil creation. (Soil teaches us to embody).
I want to experience the vibrant and rich soils present in the region prior to colonial settler occupation.
I want to know this soil produces nutritionally dense foods that rebuild the brain-gut axis for Native and Black communities.
To rebuild the brain after trauma so the mind can heal. So the Self can blossom.
So the Soul can thrive, here on Earth.
I’ve interacted with people who are working through severe brain injuries, cognitive functioning challenges, drug addictions, and PTSD from assault.
As I create Earth Sanctuary, an issue on the forefront of my mind regards the ethics of consent in my interactions with others.
How is consent and transparency maintained while rebuilding the brain via the brain-gut axis?
Clarity
Silence is a tool of fortification.
I build my Fortress of Solitude with clarity and precision.
Working with people in addiction, recovery, or oscillating between these states, I thought of the brain function as “lowered” or “compromised” due to substance (ab)use.
Don’t get me wrong: in the long run the impacts are self evident.
However; there is something to be said about the way the brain - mind system adapts and changes to suit the drive for addiction.
I understand the stereotypes of treatment centers / jails / prisons being a “revolving door” of people going out just to go right back in.
The feedback I get from MANY people dealing with loved ones working through addiction are:
“they can talk their way through the 12 steps..
they can talk their way through court…
they can convince everyone and their mama that they’ve changed..
but give it (a short amount of time) and they go right back.”
They know all the buzzwords, all the key points to hit, all of the phrases they needed to say to get us off their back and make us think they were doing something to get their addictions treated.
There can be obvious gaps in what is spoken, and the behaviors that are manifest. (Ex: saying they’ll get help but they don’t.)
There can also be perfect alignment with what is verbalized and what is manifested through the behaviors. (Ex. saying they’re perfectly fine with their addition and continuing on.)
Dealing with the mind can be FRUSTRATING. Especially when interfacing with a mind struggling with addiction.
I describe the mindscape as a shifting labyrinth because no one can truly keep up with, nor anticipate, the twists and turns the mind is capable of creating in a split fraction of a microsecond.
I want to note here that one doesn’t have to be struggling with addiction to be frustrating.
If you’ve ever deal with a habitual liar, then you’ve likely been frustrated with the complexity of the mind as a tool to stonewall or deflect.
Center
“The more thorough the investigation, the deeper the love.”
In my courses through NICABM, I came across a lesson that radically changed my perceptions on addiction and suicide.
This analogy helped me realize that we have many aspects / elements / faces that comprise each individuated us.
And this is absolutely ok. This is not inherently defective or wrong.
The goal is to create continuity between the facets of our whole Self.
Here is the analogy:
Imagine a house is set on fire. This is the Self in its state of suffering. Now imagine the Fire Chief shows up and starts to hose down the house with liquid.
Previously, in the mental health field, they would’ve considered the fire to represent “addiction”.
But what they’ve learned now is that addiction is actually the Fire Chief.
The Fire Chief shows up with its specific form of dousing agent be it gambling, sex, drugs, self-harm, pick your poison combo, etc. - and starts to douse the fire.
While it may abate the fire for a time, it’s never able to actually extinguish the flames.
The Fire Chief remains unsuccessful because there are un-integrated facets of the person, those parts of us that are hurting, who keep starting more fires in the house.
This is why addiction / recovery programs that focus only on “stop doing the [addiction]” rarely work in the long term.
Because they focus on addiction as the fire instead of respecting its position as the Fire Chief.
This Fire Chief is constantly urging us to find the un-integrated aspects that keep starting new fires.
There is no amount of begging, pleading, bargaining, threatening, or reasoning that can ultimately stop the Fire Chief from doing this job.
Why?
Because the Fire Chief knows something that we, as outsiders, don’t know: there is only one other figure that outranks the Fire Chief.
If the Fire Chief stops doing it’s job because the fire is just that far out of control, then the only one left to show up is the Grand Fire Marshal: Suicide.
And when the Grand Fire Marshal shows up, it will extinguish the fire permanently.
While it may seem counterintuitive at first, the lesson here is profound: it is addiction that is keeping the individual alive.
As community / family members who are in positions to help a loved one maintain their sobriety, our role is to see these exiled parts integrated back into a continuous whole.
Compassion
What does it mean to show up for another?
I have written before how NICABM has provided practices / insights into how our own nervous system can help another self-regulate.
This is our core best practice. All other tools and insights emanate from this core.
Additionally, working with a team of experts, in a variety of fields, can give our loved ones the opportunities they need to remain accountable to their sobriety journey.
From mental health, to psychiatry, to legal aid / counseling, to medical support, to spiritual / energetic support: there are people who want to teach the general public how to understand addiction and give us the tools for best practices.
I trust the National Institute for the Clinical Application of Behavioral Medicine as a resource.
With so many voices uniting in their efforts to alleviate the sufferings of addiction, I find myself focused less on re-inventing this wheel and more on embodying the practices of self-care and self-regulation.
My goal is to maintain my own nervous system such that the people within my proximity can pick up on these ques of safety.
This provides other nervous systems around me the opportunity to bring themselves back into regulation.
I have found there are limits to conveying logic and reason through words- especially when the brain-gut is compromised due to PTSD, ongoing chemical imbalances, and severe trauma.
But leaning into silence, grounding into my own sense of safety, working with my own nervous system as a tool to relay and receive information- these are the practices that allow me to circumvent the mind and engage the nervous system.
It is through the cultivation of my own self-regulation practices, day by day, that coalesce into a balanced state of safety.
We show up for one another to the extent that we show up for ourselves.
Treating Trauma with Compassion
Radical Self-Compassion - A Guided Meditation
Enhancing Trauma Therapy with Compassion
