Friday Dispatch: Sometimes Someone Teaches You Something
A story about assumptions, anger, internalized antisemitism, and becoming more of who you are
Friday greetings,
Like a sculptor with a chisel and a hunk of clay, some writing and some wisdom take longer than others to reveal themselves.
The piece I’m sharing today began as a very messy and raw 11s, which I read out loud with the gentle witness and feedback of my Tuesday Ebb & Flow group. From there, I spent time refining and revising, stripping away the parts I needed to write only for myself, and sorting out what I most wanted to say.
✨ Before we get to that, I want to make sure you know about the workshop I’m co-facilitating with the wonderful
this weekend! If you’re approaching the end of 2023 with your head spinning and your heart feeling tender, you are not alone. Please join us for 90 minutes of reflection and connection.Reflect & Replenish: An End of Year Journaling Circle
Date: Sunday, December 10
Time: 12:00 - 1:30pm ET
Cost: $50*
Register: www.skylarlibertyrose.com/events
To those who celebrate Hanukkah, may your home be filled with light.
Shabbat Shalom and love,
Jena
*Nobody will be turned away due to a lack of funds. If cost is prohibitive, please email me or skylar@skylarlibertyrose.com
Sometimes Someone Teaches You Something
First, let’s cut to the chase.
You are going to let some people down. No matter how you go about it. No matter what you say or don't say, do or don't do. Your time and energy are finite. Hardly an original observation, but one that you are confronting head-on in these last weeks before you turn 50.
And another thing: When someone gets your goat, there is probably some teaching there (and it may not be the one you think).
In the case I’m about to share, someone we’ll call “Someone” helped me see something related to owning my experience, gifts, and abilities, and how I can be of service in this world.
Earlier this fall, Someone (who is also Jewish) told me I was "trying to position myself as a Jewish leader" and that I was using the Hamas attack on October 7 to sell my services. I didn’t realize it right away, but Someone’s assumption/accusation was based on the timing of my announcement of a new website called Jewish Creative Practice.
After taking some time to sit with and witness my anger, I have finally been able to glean what it was teaching me.
On Friday night, October 6, which happened to be the last day of isolation after back-to-back Covid cases, I pored over photos from my 2019 Israel trip and made the final touches on a website that would be an online home to my Jewish work in the world.
One of the offerings on this site is called Jewish Co-Exploring Sessions, something that has grown organically out of work I've been doing for decades and crystallized, with this name and form, while I was sick and quarantining.
Early on the morning of Saturday, October 7, I was excited to share this new website and offering, which I did.
Shortly after that, I saw a massive headline in the New York Times: ISRAEL AT WAR. My stomach dropped and I asked Mani if they had seen the news. I edited my post to say the timing felt deeply poignant.
I had not yet registered the Hamas attack, not even a little bit. Over the following 48 hours, the horror of what had happened began to hit me.
When I read Someone’s comment on one of the pieces I wrote a few weeks later, I kind of lost my mind. Scratch the “kind of.” I lost it. Someone had never once commented on a single post of mine. Now they were coming out of the blue to tell me that I was being opportunistic and exploiting Jewish pain for personal profit and status.
Rattled, I went back and looked at my announcement again. I could see that the timing would have been gross, had it been intentional. But it wasn’t. I knew that, and they would have, too, had they asked a question before leaping to such a crass conclusion.
They also told me that as a diasporic Jew with White privilege, writing about my feelings was actively contributing to harm others are more likely than me to experience.
I’ve spent weeks sitting with and investigating the shame and silencing I experienced in this encounter, and some things are coming into clearer focus.
One of them is this: I am not trying to “position myself” as a Jewish leader. I am a Jewish leader.
I know there is nothing wrong with owning that. Quite the contrary. And yet, it is uncomfortable to state. Why might that be? Let me count the ways.
Imposter syndrome, my old friend.
Internalized antisemitism, i.e. a fear of being “too Jewish.” Yup, that’s real, and worthy of further examination. 1
A lifetime of conditioning not to take up too much room or overstep, perhaps an offshoot of the first two bullet points.
A false belief that humility and confidence are opposing forces, when in fact they are complementary ones.
Since I had Covid, I’ve also had some lingering physical, mental, and emotional symptoms. Add to this the war and perimenopause, and it can be hard to tease out what’s what. Thus, I’m recognizing a heightened need to:
Protect my energy & prioritize my physical and mental health in a way I wouldn't hesitate to encourage someone else to do.
Appreciate the people who keep being there, reaching out, and showing me their love (and reciprocate!).
Know it is not only ok but a sacred choice to hold space for other Jews who are hurting and searching for connection and community.
Let things change, in the “let go or be dragged” sense.
I FaceTimed with my old friend Nan on Sunday, someone I used to do sitting meditation with on Friday mornings in my home office in Burlington, so many years ago. She is doing a workshop with the poet David Whyte and had just read a poem she thought I might appreciate hearing. She was so right. (I think you’ll see why.)
Sometimes things need to die or fall away for the next layers of growth to emerge. This is the very nature of healing and regeneration, something our bodies and nature show us time and again.
Releasing old selves and becoming more of who we are can be scary and destabilizing. On the plus side, it is also how we step into our strengths, find out who our people are, and ultimately discover our solid footing.
It means being continuously, courageously honest with ourselves and others, and – sometimes, as David Whyte writes – stopping what we are doing and who we’re becoming while we’re doing it.
This process takes time, sometimes eons, and can also happen very, very quickly, leaving you feeling disoriented, maybe even startled, but also newly attuned to the callings of your soul.
Sometimes
by David Whyte
Sometimes
if you move carefully
through the forest,
breathing
like the ones
in the old stories,
who could cross
a shimmering bed of leaves
without a sound,
you come to a place
whose only task
is to trouble you
with tiny
but frightening requests,
conceived out of nowhere
but in this place
beginning to lead everywhere.
Requests to stop what
you are doing right now,
and
to stop what you
are becoming
while you do it,
questions
that can make
or unmake
a life,
questions
that have patiently
waited for you,
questions
that have no right
to go away.
Re. internalized antisemitism:
I’m reminded of something that came up on my Jewish Studio Project webinar this week: In our culture, we often “outsource” expertise to others instead of acknowledging the value of our own experience, intuition, and wisdom).
I’m also thinking here about my maternal grandparents, who converted to Christian Science but hid this fact from their extended (Jewish) families. This is one legacy I’m working to unravel and repair.
Thank you for this. It is so empowering. The wisdom and clarity that can come from a painful "teaching." Just what I needed today (and, it seems, everyday lately). Shabbat Shalom and Happy Hanukkah.