Honor your body through resistance
Resistance is lifelong—it’s where we bear the fruit of it all!
I have a new book coming out in March of 2023 called Living Resistance: An Indigenous Vision for Seeking Wholeness Every Day, and each of these embodiments we’re learning about are featured in the pages of my book, and are practiced in the daily rhythms of my own life.
Resistance begs us to ask a question. What are we resisting? Who are we resisting? For the sake of this time, let’s say that we are resisting the status quo of hate we find all around us. We resist hate so that we can embrace love. We resist hate so that we can embrace care, kinship, and community.
As human beings, we are often conditioned to believe that we are supposed to live, breathe, grieve and heal on a linear timeline. It’s a falsehood that takes many of us most of our lives to figure out—we are cyclical beings. We need the four seasons to usher us into stages of life and death, work and rest. We need cycles to keep us moving, and resistance is a perfect place to understand this.
Resisting the status quo of hate in the world requires patience and practice. We are patient as we remember that all the world’s problems won’t be solved in our lifetime, and there is work to pass on to future generations, and we hold to practices that keep us tethered to good, sacred, authentic work.
So, here are 5 practices that keep me resisting, that keep me living authentically:
1. Honoring my body’s cycles and movement
2. Setting boundaries and managing stress
3. Setting goals with the seasons
4. Gardening
5. Reading good books
These are just 5 things I practice regularly in my life that keep me tethered to the work of holy resistance. I honor my body’s moon cycle and allow myself movement and rest when they are needed. This lesson has taken me a very long time to learn and I’m still learning. But to love my body well is to resist a society that tells me my body is only useful if it works nonstop and never rests.
I set boundaries in my work life and personal relationships and manage stress on a daily basis, including getting off of social media for long periods of time when necessary. I set goals with the seasons—why do we only give ourselves one time a year to set goals and then get angry at ourselves when we don’t keep them? Instead, consider re-calibrating your daily rhythms every three months as the seasons change. Give yourself an afternoon to ask what’s working and what isn’t, and go gently into the next few months to see what they can teach you.
Gardening connects me to the earth and reminds me of the joy of caring for another being in reciprocal relationship. And of course, reading good books is both for stress management and entertainment, and I can’t imagine my life without them!
An authentic life requires embodying resistance on some level—it may not be the same for everyone, but it is worth asking what resistance means for your life. Don’t be afraid of what you might find, but instead embrace your journey with curiosity and kindness and see where it leads you.
PRACTICE: What are five things that help you live authentically? That aid in your resistance to the status quo? And to things like hate and fear? Brainstorm, make a list, get curious. Practice.
Written by: Kaitlin Curtice
Kaitlin Curtice is an award-winning author, poet-storyteller, and public speaker. As an enrolled citizen of the Potawatomi nation, Kaitlin writes on the intersections of spirituality and identity and how that shifts throughout our lives.
Instagram: @kaitlincurtice
From this week’s guest series by Kaitlin Curtice "5 Embodiments for Authentic Living", with a subscription, in the App.
