Despairing about the state of the world may feel rational, but these are irrational times

Everyone I’ve been talking to lately is moving through a sort of oscillation, wavering between intense hopelessness and sadness (personally or collectively) and a deep, unflappable knowing that everything is going to be ok.

It’s a jarring feeling, particularly if you get stuck in a worry cycle where the hopelessness starts to bend around everything in your world, taking their shape and covering their actual dimensions with an additional layer, like throwing a linen cover over a chair. We know there’s a piece of furniture under there that might support us, but we can’t even get a sense of it’s shape because it’s obscured so completely.

I’ve been considering that metaphor in relationship to hope and possibility lately, in particular the ways in which I’m throwing a sheet over things of my own volition, or otherwise accepting the sheet someone else has insisted on throwing over something I value.

Maybe part of finding hope and locating the possibility to move the needle in the directions we want is less about pushing against things and more about finding where we just need to pull that sheet back and let things breathe and show us the shape they already are. Maybe a lot of it is about assessing the shape of our reality and our desires (without trying to force either), then seeing how we can bring the two into grater congruence.

I find myself doing this in particular with spiraling thoughts. My thoughts famously can spiral in all kinds of directions, sometimes upwards or parallel (my preferences), but sometimes downwards, into an ever-greater tumult of worry and catastrophizing. 

Maybe it’s about money, clients, a date I went on, a friendship that feels out of touch, a new idea I want to share but struggle to articulate. Maybe it’s about my role as a somewhat visible person during challenging times and if I’m doing enough/doing things right. Maybe it’s about the geopolitical climate, the actual climate, or the economy. 

The point is, there are a lot of worry spirals that cause me and you to throw a sheet over the shape of our lives so we can’t see them for what they are.

I’ve talked in the past, and plan to talk more, about embodying elements of our desired futures so that we move in line with them, and I think that’s a good first step to bridging the gap and letting ourselves start to see where possibility exists.

If we’re moving from a place inherently rooted in possibility and treating the possibility as reality, life starts to line up in some pretty incredible ways. But part of the reason it does so is because we are more receptive to seeing what’s possible and then acting in ways that align with that.

Below, I share some more thoughts and visuals on possibility from a recent energy work session (anonymized and with permission, as always). This gives us some additional places to grip at our understanding of what’s possible (or release into it, depending how your feeling), and I think is especially useful here because it gives us both tangible, practical metaphors and ones that speak to the parts of ourselves that exist beyond words.

If you want me to do this kind of work for you each month, I offer energy work sessions for you that are monthly, happen automatically (as in, I block time out for it, you don’t even have to remember it’s happening), and give you the same voice notes and write ups I send for synchronous energy work sessions but for half the price. 

You can sign up for Body of Work here and I’ll do your first session this month. 

If you’re a paid subscriber, take an extra $20/month off: Just email me (julia@rootsandbranches.space) for that link!

The energetics of possibility, creativity, and defining the edges of our own (outer) space

Here, we’re thinking about several different layers of possibility, which can exist in different layers of our physical and energetic bodies and in our creative ecosystems, within our creative work itself (as in, specific projects or ideas), as well as where that work meets the world. And where our creativity exists outside what we normally call our creative work (like making a really good system for chore planning, or shopping for groceries, or making up songs while you cook in the kitchen or to sing to your cat).

We have so much possibility inside of us already, that we can work with it as a wellspring to help us find that in the outer world too. 

For us, possibility may connect with not just what you’re creating, but also with creativity in like the self that we’re creating, the way we move through the world: The cadence of that movement and that that itself is a creative process.