Against Hypernormalization
What we're studying, practicing, and offering
We had just wrapped our final session of our Pluriversal Practice Seminar last Friday when I stumbled across this description of hypernormalization in The Guardian:
“[H]ypernormalization describes life in a society where two main things are happening.
The first is people seeing that governing systems and institutions are broken. And the second is that, for reasons including a lack of effective leadership and an inability to imagine how to disrupt the status quo, people carry on with their lives as normal despite systemic dysfunction – give or take a heavy load of fear, dread, denial and dissociation.”
I instantly related to the dissonance, as well as the double seeing that so many of us are engaged in these days. Our seminar on pluriversal practice had just concluded with a session on sensing and trusting the “lines of flight” out of the “one-world” while also maintaining awareness of the reality of the one-world’s pull and its ability to (re)capture us.
“People don’t shut down because they don’t feel anything…They shut down because they feel too much.”
The veils are lifting. More and more folks seem to be aware of the dystopian levels of dysfunction we are caught in. And yet, sometimes, we may struggle with an overwhelming sense of fear or powerlessness, and uncertainty about if or how to respond.
I’m interested in how we practice not only being with the both/and +, insofar as a means of building complexity-capacity, but also how we learn to recognize the spaciousness and awareness that enables us to behold the both/and+. It is in that space that we can sense room to act. And not just respond to a world “out there”, but to sense our creative, powerful, co-agency, and also our inherent vulnerability.
“When we feel powerless in the face of bigger problems, we “turn to the only thing that we do have the power over, to try and change for the better”…meaning, typically, ourselves. Anxiety and fear can trap us, leading us to spend more time trying to feel better in small, personal ways, like entertainment and self-care, and less time on activism and community engagement.”
I’m also curious how we can continue turning towards one another in these times, to trust and invest in community when we feel over it, or checked out. Curious, also, how are sense of “we” might continue to stretch, deepen, and shape shift in the coming days, weeks, and months ahead.
These are the seeds of practice and direction we are planting at Courage and The Arrow. We’re glad you’re with us and hope to keep practicing together.
-brooke.
What We're Reading
Selling Social Justice:Why the Rich Love Antiracism by Jennifer C. Pan
“A must-read for anyone concerned with the limits of a nominally left politics in the US that has forsaken the pursuit of solidarity around interests and concerns that working people share broadly. It is a cautionary tale about how corporate and nonprofit sector influences have contributed to shaping our views of social justice and how to achieve it—with the effect of strengthening the reactionary right. Jennifer C. Pan’s book is beautifully written, meticulously researched, and very intelligently argued.” —Adolph Reed Jr., author of The South: Jim Crow and Its Afterlives
Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune, 2052–2072 by M. E. O’Brien and Eman Abdelhadi
“Every socialist needs to read this book. Every abolitionist, every Marxist, every anarchist, every revolutionary needs to read this book. Every person who has ever wondered how the world will function after the final retirement of the market, the commodity form, money, wages, rent, coercive gender roles, prisons, police, class, nation states, borders, profit, and in general the dominating power of any humans over any others.”—Spectre Journal
The Essential Dōgen: Writings of the Great Zen Master
To start from the self and try to understand all things is delusion. To let the self be awakened by all things is enlightenment.” — Dōgen.
What We’re Practicing
In this conversation from our latest Pluriversal Practice Seminar, I talk with our Co-Director, Maha El-Sheikh, about how we can continue to break out of the capture of the one world and embrace deeper relationality and creativity.
We’re dropping a series of supportive practices from our series in the RelationSHIFT channel for our subscribers!
What We’re Offering
July 11-12: 10th Annual Summer Intensive
ONLINE (with a Saturday evening party in Brooklyn!) | Register
June 29 and July 20: The Rosewood Sessions
Live conversations and community dinners between local organizers and activists at our community house | Save your seat!
September 21: Climate Retreat
A day-long resourcing retreat for environmental justice and climate advocates, activists, and funders designed to nurture and (re)inspire. Live in Brooklyn during NYC Climate Week | Join us
Coaching and 1:1 Support
Looking for support deepening your spiritual practice? Or your capacity for care and connection?
Eager for more support "holding your seat" as a facilitator? Or looking for a collaborator to help you navigate some relational facilitation challenges in your community or organization? Learn more!
Fall Programming
Stay tuned for an announcement on our fall RISE for Relational Facilitators and Succulence Integration programs, as well as updates on forthcoming issues of The Arrow Journal, including new calls for submissions!