My friend and fellow comrade Emma shared with me a journal prompt they used recently, and one of those prompts were “How do I decide who’s trustworthy?” In a time where I’m building new relationships with folks I think are aligned with my values, that question resonated in a confronting way. It made me think about circles and communities of people I have invested in - poured myself into - and followed the storyline. Each one was complex with deep connection, beauty, and resonance while also being messy, chaotic, and hurtful/harmful.
I sat down with the question this morning, and here is an excerpt from my journal:
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I look inward first. Am I trustworthy? Am I rooted in truth, honesty, integrity? Do I trust myself? Is there space for myself to make mistakes?
So many people have betrayed me and my trust. Do I regret giving them a chance? No. I came in with softness and openness. But I will observe with discernment and hold to my boundaries. I will go forward to heal and love so that I can process that information with care and honesty.
Protecting myself from becoming hard and cynical is priority to me, because liberation always is rooted in true love and true hope.
Last night I had a horrible dream about my ex, who was toxic and abusive. I ask myself - do I regret taking a chance on them? No. I moved forward with the information that I had, and I was open to love. Was I taken advantage of and violated? Yes. Will I take what I’ve learned forward? Yes.
I think that so much of my life I was afraid to be naive or to be taken advantage of, but now that I’m a bit more experienced in life, I’m not so much afraid of that anymore. The onus is always on the person who manipulates or abuses. I’ve learned that you can do everything you can to be aware and be connected to yourself, and you can still be susceptible to harm.
Healing is teaching me that I can’t control it all. The hypervigilence is exhausting. It’s understandable, but it’s exhausting.
Back to my journal entry, seeing who is trustworthy is a mirror. The question is do I trust myself? Even when I make mistakes in judging people’s character, can I trust myself? It is easy to look back and see all the red flags. “I should have know when ____.” “When they did or said _____, I should have flagged it.” I go back, and usually try to see myself in a more compassionate way. Trying to give people grace within reason is something that I want to practice. The more interesting part is being able to see holes in my values through the process.
Questions I want to ponder on more is “When did I question myself?” or “How did my body respond?”
When I was dating and also talking to friends who were dating, I would say all the time to follow it through. We can guess and try to anticipate everything, but the truth is that we don’t know. The only thing we can do is to move forward with what we know and feel. So the person can for sure trick me or harm me, but without any evidence - it’s not fair towards myself to cut something off early (usually). For the most part, the best thing is to go until new information presents it’s self for things to be obvious. All that being said, I don’t apply that framework to white men and most white people. The conditioning of supremacy runs deep, and that’s the information I do know right off the bat.
Having had friend, partner, familial, and community betrayal/hurt, I feel like the common theme is that what matters is being able to see the systems that contribute to harm, see my part in it, and maintain a loving relationship with myself.
Liberation calls me to stay grounded in softness, and not confusing it with weakness. Softness is true courage. In the face of suffering and pure evil, softness to love and possibility is resistance. Softness is a f**k you to a world that wants to make me drown in apathy. Softness calls me to a kind of self love that returns me back to a fundamental human desire for deep connection and belonging.
I have more thoughts about a pivot about belonging in liberatory spaces - noting that for the future.
What does Liberatory Imagination spark in me today?
A love for self that goes deep - through generations of ancestors. A type of love that is quick to accept and laugh and hug. A type of love that preserves its softness. A type of love that can endure the darkest time because of it’s hope for what’s possible.
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