Transitions
Apr. 5th, 2025 08:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
flamingswordI think it is maybe time for me to let go of the feelings-naming exercise, and to start writing into the Shadow work section of this year.
What things do you notice trigger your body to tense up?
It used to be when I felt misunderstood, and now it’s just when someone deliberately wants to avoid the truth of me but still wants things from me. Like, ohoho buddy, that’s not how any of this works. So I guess it’s still when people are wrong about me - but are also likely to hurt me, “punish” me for breaking the mold of their expectations / social norms. And I get tense when there’s unfairness, too.
I am currently thinking about the difference between wanting to do nice things for people and trade generosities and be fair, but realizing that how I approach worthiness, fairness, and gift economies are so deeply weird to other people that I can’t really even figure out how to solve the interpersonal dilemma I’m having where someone gifted me some handspun yarn, and now I want to do something nice for her and our mutual people, but am not allowed to - and it bothers me. Like, I get that she spins yarn like I knit, mostly for stimming purposes. In some ways it can be considered me doing her the favor of taking off her hands the byproduct of her stimming, much the same way that I feel grateful forot_atma taking the knitted fractal cowl off my hands. But if they wanted to buy me a tasty food or something for that, I would let them and neither option, reciprocity or none, would feel weird to me? But I would not tell them, “I have done a nice thing that you benefitted from, and you are not allowed to do anything in return” … not even pay it forward to our mutual community? Which is also weird and feels stifling?
I think that might be the crux of it, really: my dispute is not that the gifting economy doesn’t require reciprocity, it’s that reciprocity and all its antecedents are verboten in this case. I want to be free to do things that I think are fair.
And now that means possibly confronting someone I’m having a miscommunication with about that forbidden-ness and asking her to explain. It’s weird to me that I was gifted multiple cakes of lovely hand-spun yarn and I now have to feel awkward bc we’re not emotionally close enough to have a discussion about the metacommunication? What is that even.
In other news, today I went to a #HandsOff political protest/rally for economic justice. It was loud, hot, and still pretty rad. Gotta figure out how to protest in heat for later this summer.
What things do you notice trigger your body to tense up?
It used to be when I felt misunderstood, and now it’s just when someone deliberately wants to avoid the truth of me but still wants things from me. Like, ohoho buddy, that’s not how any of this works. So I guess it’s still when people are wrong about me - but are also likely to hurt me, “punish” me for breaking the mold of their expectations / social norms. And I get tense when there’s unfairness, too.
I am currently thinking about the difference between wanting to do nice things for people and trade generosities and be fair, but realizing that how I approach worthiness, fairness, and gift economies are so deeply weird to other people that I can’t really even figure out how to solve the interpersonal dilemma I’m having where someone gifted me some handspun yarn, and now I want to do something nice for her and our mutual people, but am not allowed to - and it bothers me. Like, I get that she spins yarn like I knit, mostly for stimming purposes. In some ways it can be considered me doing her the favor of taking off her hands the byproduct of her stimming, much the same way that I feel grateful for
ot_atma taking the knitted fractal cowl off my hands. But if they wanted to buy me a tasty food or something for that, I would let them and neither option, reciprocity or none, would feel weird to me? But I would not tell them, “I have done a nice thing that you benefitted from, and you are not allowed to do anything in return” … not even pay it forward to our mutual community? Which is also weird and feels stifling? I think that might be the crux of it, really: my dispute is not that the gifting economy doesn’t require reciprocity, it’s that reciprocity and all its antecedents are verboten in this case. I want to be free to do things that I think are fair.
And now that means possibly confronting someone I’m having a miscommunication with about that forbidden-ness and asking her to explain. It’s weird to me that I was gifted multiple cakes of lovely hand-spun yarn and I now have to feel awkward bc we’re not emotionally close enough to have a discussion about the metacommunication? What is that even.
In other news, today I went to a #HandsOff political protest/rally for economic justice. It was loud, hot, and still pretty rad. Gotta figure out how to protest in heat for later this summer.
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Date: 2025-04-06 02:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-04-06 03:01 pm (UTC)