How to relax
This week’s question comes to us from Milly Schmidt:
How do I learn to relax?
I’ve been debating how to answer this question for the past week, and see-sawing between two different ways to tackle it. One is probably the helpful answer you’re hoping for, while the other one might be the reason why it’s so hard for us to achieve the goal, particularly at this moment in time. This morning, while riding my bike to work on a particularly hot day, it occurred to me that both answers spring from a common kernel.
We relax when we can trust the people around us.
Safety is inherent in relaxation, which is essentially our body and mind saying “I don’t need to stand watch right now.”
I could tell you that your inability to relax comes from something inside you that you can fix, and if we’re being honest that’s what I was initially planning to do. I was going to tell you that the inability to relax is related to our need for control, our distrust in others, our belief that no one can do something as well as we can. I was going to tell you that this is mostly ego-driven, even as it manifests itself as victimhood. (For example, the team lead that stays up all night “fixing” everyone’s work, and makes sure the whole team know it.) I was going to tell you that the way forward was to “let people fail” and then be pleasantly surprised when they didn’t. Which they mostly won’t. Because the people around you also relax when you learn to trust them. All this is true, and you should take it to heart. This is the helpful answer you are looking for. It is the answer for what to do when the problem comes from within. So there you have that.
We relax when we can trust the people around us.
However, that statement is both the poison and the cure. Because the circle of people we can trust is ever-shrinking.
Every day this week I’ve woken up to news of an expanding genocide, expanding war, expanding death. Along with headlines about how the people launching the bombs, and killing babies, are only defending themselves.
Every day this week I’ve woken up to news of friends living in Appalachia unable to return to their home. Along with photos of police defending a supermarket from people who need to eat.
Every day this week I’ve woken up to texts from candidates whose party leaders are active participants in a genocide telling me that my eight dollars are the only thing that can prevent the genocide they’re currently enabling to be taken over by someone else.
Every day this week I’ve woken up to posts and essays and comments from colleagues licking the boots of organizations that would cut them loose in a heartbeat if there was even a whiff of a hint that it would improve their stock price by a hundred-thousandth of a percent.
Every day this week I’ve gotten into arguments with friends about how we need to prop up the party committing the genocide otherwise I will be the reason the other party wins. Well, me and Chappell Roan.
We relax when we can trust the people around us.
Safety is inherent in relaxation, and the force of the gaslighting that we are currently experiencing is unsafe. It is toxic. Our bodies and minds cannot say “I don’t need to stand watch right now” because we very much need to stand watch.
So how do you learn to relax in all this?
Earlier this week I woke up feeling all of this. Feeling lost and honestly just drained of hope. Then I got an email. A design teacher at a community college was asking me if she could use my book in class. Just the PDF, community colleges don’t have a lot of money. I asked her how many students she had. Then I biked to work and mailed her a box of books. I’m not telling you this to brag or get flowers. Mailing books is easy. Took me five minutes. I’m telling you this because doing that small easy thing gave me enough hope and energy for the whole day. I’d done something. That teacher did more for me than I did for them.
So maybe my initial premise was wrong. We don’t relax when we can trust the people around us. Maybe we can relax when we prove ourselves worthy of trust. At least in the small things.
We can do the small things. We can live in small moments. We can find hope and love in the people around us. We can stand watch for them, and in turn, they will stand watch for us.
I need that to be true, so hard.
❓ Got a question? Ask it!
📖 Need a zine? Get it here. Also, if you are an educator especially at a community college, or a junior college, or at a HBCU, please don’t hesitate to reach out. I got boxes of these things.
📖 I’ve just started Ta-Nehisi Coates’ The Message. I’m already riveted. You should read it too.
☮️ RIP Kris Kristofferson, John Amos, Dikembe Mutombo, and Jack Colwell. You were here. You remain loved.
🍉 Please donate to the Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund