Last weekend, I was away with friends on a very sweet camping trip. Yes, your desi diva/fresa mama was in the woods, and yes I did bring a matching set.
There’s nothing more relaxing than not knowing where your phone is, or what time it is. I wish I could tell you I was 100% unplugged and one with nature, meditating on the nature of time itself. But the truth is, even in the midst of a relaxing lie about in a hammock, I was jolted up by familiar nags–go check on what the kids are eating. Make sure you did your part cleaning the group campsite. That familiar compulsion to “behave”, contribute, or be a “good and attentive” parent.
Matching set not pictured
It’s an old feeling that my therapists (yes girl, I said therapists, the situation is dire), would call “anxiety”, or “people pleasing”. But if anxiety is the term for the individual than what is the term for the collective feeling of anxiety that has taken over American society? In case you haven’t noticed, we are anxious, and the Trump era hasn’t helped.
America is the most politically and economically stable country I have ever lived in, and yet, I have encountered more anxiety here than anywhere else.
Why is this? Why are we so wrought with anxiety when most Americans have grown up in a culture free of war, debilitating poverty, and military juntas? While individual traumas inform much of who we are, the collective experience determines the current we ride in, so what has made the American current so anxious?
When I think back to how and when my own anxiety started, I trace it back to those first few years after college–when the world was my supposed oyster and I was supposed to be able to explore my curiosities. But those messages of freedom and full self expression were at odds with my reality. I was a non-immigrant woman who needed visa sponsorship just to stay in the U.S. I needed more than a paycheck and a way to explore my curiosity, I needed a path to remain.
We live in a culture that demands compliance with systems but feeds us messages of freedom. “Be Yourself!”, but make sure you make over six figures so you can buy the things you need to free yourself. “Celebrate your culture”, but make sure your English is flawless.
For years I have struggled with the quest to be myself while complying with the rules that govern my community. On a recent trip home, my sister asked why the kids in my community don’t call me Auntie. In cultures of the global majority, children address adults with a special title, as a sign of respect. But in my white community, adults are called by their first names. To be honest, I didn’t even consider asking if I could be called Auntie, even though it’s a concept I cherish. And more importantly, I didn’t even realize that I was complying with the rules of a different culture and community.
That’s what is so insidious about compliance–we don’t even know we’re doing it. Because to many of us, compliance feels like safety.
Daily acts of compliance build up inside the body. To me, compliance feels like a rope tightening around my neck and ribs. And yet my body is absolutely convinced that if I let go, something bad is gonna happen. Because the opposite of compliance is rebellion. And if you’re an immigrant, a woman, a queer person, or anyone living inside a system you didn’t create, you believe that compliance keeps us safe.
Compliance is individual and systemic. It’s in our bodies and in our laws.
Perhaps we’re so anxious now because the veil between the truth and the stories of American freedom and democracy are lifted. And in that lifting, we realize that we’ve been in compliance with a system that hasn’t served us for far too long.
Freedom from compliance is a bodily practice, a discipline that is made up of movement and storytelling. Many of us have returned to ancient practices and ceremony to remember our selves. Freedom from compliance is also collective action. It includes showing up at rallies to protect immigrants who are being deported. It includes saying no to invitations that don’t feel right and yes to making calls to your senators.
There is no one path to freeing ourselves from compliance. I carry the traumas of the collective from the countries I have lived in and the ancestors that come before me. And even though “mine” are so very different “yours”, when we are in ceremony together and in connection with our highest selves, we find the truth of our individual beings and a path for the collective whole. And in that truth, we find freedom from compliance.
If this message resonates for you and you’d like to learn more about how I work with people towards individual and collective freedom from compliance
I’ve also opened two slots for storytellers working in any medium who want to get unstuck on their creative projects. If you’re interested, I’ll hold these slots open fro the next two weeks.
And if you feel the call to serve the collective from compliance with systems we didn't build, check out what you can do to stand with immigrants in New York. Because we are not separate from each other and the land is not separate from us.