Waking up from being woke

Experiencing any change in consciousness or getting ‘woke’ is a potentially wonderful and life changing experience but can also be disorientating to say the least. For me, it was difficult to integrate - but no one tells you that part when you’re down a YouTube rabbit-hole at 3am trying to find out how to ‘awaken your kundalini’. The implications of it are far deeper than accepting ‘love and light’, becoming a warrior for all the injustice you perceive in the world, or the romanticised notion of being re-born as a self-actualised person like I initially thought. Yes, it certainly can be those things, but waking up is also opening yourself up to an ongoing process of unpacking yourself and examining all the ways in which you are inadequate, prejudiced, angry, self-righteous, ignorant to the needs of those who don’t look like you, complicit in injustice etc., before it’s an invitation to criticise the world. Yes, there are many injustices we need to address and much action needs to be taken because the world is a pretty fucked-up place - 2020 has certainly proved that if anyone was still having doubts. But I’ve realised that trying to fix the world can be used as an excuse to avoid fixing and facing your own issues, (which is what I did) or an excuse to feel validated in a pain that society’s broken systems has created or perpetuated, and resign all responsibility in the matter.

 ‘Wokeness’ is actually one hell of a drug. In my case, it was used to ease the discomfort caused by the realisation of my own shadow. It was a response to feelings of shock and shame for how unconsciously I was living for a period of time prior to ‘waking up’, and manifested unconsciously in this obsession with what is ‘right’ and how I could project that into the world. Well intentioned, yes. Misguided, even more. What I realised was actually wrong about my ‘wokeness’ was less about what I believed and more about how I approached those beliefs. This is where all the true value lies in engaging with any idea. It in the how and not necessarily in what it is. I mean, I know some atheists that live much more spiritual lives than those aunties that sit religiously in the first pew of church every Sunday, judging you. I realised that it didn’t matter how good my intentions were if my approach was making me rigid, judgmental or too transfixed on what I perceived to be ‘right’. The uncomfortable truth is that there’s actually a lot to be learned in concepts or people you believe are wrong if you allow yourself to listen, even if you do end up disagreeing. You can actually build a much strong case for yourself if you truly understand the opposing view. For an opinionated, stubborn person like myself, it was a hard pill to swallow, so I’ve had to redefine the balance between being convicted, and being open. It’s a tough balance to redress and something which is constantly shifting. I’ve decided it’s important to try to ask myself why I’m really engaging and determine if it’s coming from a place of ego, and if there’s actually space for learning on both ends before I use my energy. I needed to cut the shit, stop playing this superficial game of ‘captain save of hoe’ or trying to educate people as a distraction from dealing with my own issues. It’s not your job to educate if you haven’t faced yourself yet, and this process goes beyond reposting conspiracy theories, or shouting your opinion on Instagram stories in order to ‘spread awareness’. Education is important, but there are ways to go about it and much internal work to be done beyond it.

It also came with the realisation that - New Flash Faith: You cannot base your entire personality around your political/social/spiritual beliefs, because not only is that boring, lazy, and inauthentic, it also means you’re relinquishing personal autonomy by becoming an avatar for a group or ideology, which you are not. Yes, we all partly rely on these things for a sense of identity and I’m not saying that they’re not useful on some level; but I’m a sovereign-ass individual and I can’t make sound judgements or form my own opinions when I’m too closely identified with any ideology, no matter how righteous I perceive it to be. It prevents me from feeling free to change my mind because I have to reconstruct my identity each time I’m presented with new information. That’s extremely tiring because this is happening all the time, so naturally you can become too selective with what kind of information you have access to in order to protect your own sense of identity, and create an echo chamber for yourself to live in. There’s absolutely NO guarantee than on your quest for ‘wokeness’ you’re going to like what you find, and that’s something that newly ‘woke’ Faith was very ignorant to. The phrase ‘facts don’t care about your feelings’ springs to mind. Neither do they care about your personal truth.

The irony in my situation is that if I were to judge my past self by the moral standards of mainstream wokeness, I would be seen as unworthy or even a lost cause, yet here I am. This is why internalising your own negative experiences and allowing them to entirely dictate your approach to your beliefs will have you looking silly in a lot of cases - or at the very least will cloud your judgement. I think my experience of ‘wokeness’ is reflected on a collective level and creates the cancel culture we complain about & the constant state of outrage we live in. We’re actually just so outraged at ourselves for being ignorant and passive to injustice for so long, that we end up projecting our outrage onto everything and enjoy shaming people for not knowing things we actually only learned about 5-7 business days ago ourselves. Don’t get me wrong – I actually think that shame can actually be a productive emotion when used correctly, but it loses its efficacy when we exhaust it scouring the internet for non-PC tweets some influencer made 7 years ago in order to cancel them for 5 minutes. Outrage and shame is actually a legitimate stage of healing and growth that shouldn’t be ignored. Feeling them towards myself has driven me towards higher versions of myself, (and still does) but it also had to be met with love and understanding otherwise it quickly becomes unproductive and a breeding ground for self-hate, which only sends you further in destructive patterns of behaviour.

My participation in this collective outrage in the past was definitely linked to negative internalised feelings, a desperation to appear virtuous, and a genuine desire to be included in the conversation. Whenever operating from this place (even unconsciously), your actions will become performative, even when your intentions are genuine. Yeah, we definitely need to cancel some people and stop giving predators/narcissists/general morons a platform, but I’m gonna do that based off my own judgement and moral code moving forward. I like to think of this as a phase we’re going through that is very human despite being a little chaotic. This process is messy and the world is changing at a pace that we can’t really keep up at, so we may try and avoid doing the inner work like I did (and still do sometimes) because we don’t want to believe how truly complicit we are to the problems we see. We’d like to believe we’re individually good even though that’s just half the picture.

I really had to stop and ask myself who am I really outside of all these views, identity labels, and even my personality? What else is there left? It’s been rough deeping my own naivety, and stupid mistakes but clarity is forming after 2 years of thinking, cringing and reflecting - partly thanks to all the alone time I’ve had during the lockdown. I guess I’ve realised and accepted that I am far too expansive, complex, and full of contradiction to think that there’s only one version of truth. I embody all those things so my existence is proof to me of how many different truths can, (and do) exist alongside one another. I mean, there are multiple truths regarding who you are depending on who you ask, so I’m pretty sure the same applies to the world. I’m realising that integrating them and allowing them to co-exist is actually far more productive than trying to hide, silence or supress them. This is my major challenge right now and I’m not entirely sure how to do this after so many years of supressing parts of myself I felt were too inconsistent or opposing in the grander picture of ‘myself’

I’ll still hold strong opinions but I’m accepting of the idea that opposing views may also hold truth and I won’t be deluded into thinking that everyone that hold those positions are inherently bad or harmful. Everybody is a product of their implicit traits, upbringing and environment; even when they are a bigoted moron. It’s not an excuse for them, but rather should serve as reminder that in the grander scheme of things, people’s roles are different to yours and we are literally meant to clash and disagree with others in order to further our collective development because growth is triggered by contradiction and conflict. We’re responsible for upholding the standard that we want to see played out in the world.

I’m starting to understand that I value personal freedom and am primarily motivated by a desire to understand the world I live in. I guess that in itself it somewhat of a privilege because I have access to enough safety (on the whole) to allow me to be curious and not vengeful, even though I do find myself angry, sad, and exhausted by the challenges I have to face because of the way society is set up. I have to be willing to detach myself from my beliefs a bit more in order to be able to grow and live authentically (which ironically goes against my stubborn nature). I understand that this isn’t everyone’s path, and some people are on this Earth to fight wholeheartedly for a particular cause, and there’s value in that. But I have to be true to myself moving forward and play my own unique role here even if that means living with the discomfort derived from the understanding that there is no fixed ‘self’, that I can only ever be sure of what I don’t know, and that right and wrong is this strange illusion we have to play into on some level by virtue of living in this world.

There’s comfort in certainty but that just isn’t my reality for the most part; I can’t see the world in black and white even when I try to. This doesn’t in any way mean I am excused or can become apathetic towards injustice or violence; actually, the opposite. It’s just about defining and learning to honour my own sense of justice based on my own personal experiences moment to moment, regardless of what the court of public opinion validates as righteous…Wish me luck.