Image description: A stick figure stands, hair on end, surrounded by a field of static electricity. Text reads: “Sometimes, I am a ball of staticky, chaotic, uncomfortable energy. It makes it hard to connect!” A second stick figure stands, with roots growing out of their feet, watery wiggles over their legs, torso, and arms, and leaves growing out of their hands and head. Text reads: “Sometimes, I am a plant (in my mind) and all teh static energy is gone, and I connect to the ground, and feeling myself growing and nurtured.” There is a small Tiffany Sostar logo in the bottom left and a tiffanysostar.com link in the bottom right.
Today’s #stickfiguresunday was inspired by the chat we had this morning in the Bridges and Boundaries: Social Self-Care course. We were talking about how social self-care, particularly the bridge-building side of social self-care (those actions that invite connection, or that reach out from us-as-individuals towards us-as-community-members), requires resources and favourable contexts. Anxiety, depression, inner narratives around rejection, lack of time, energy, or money – these all create barriers to connection and can contribute to our feelings of isolation, loneliness, and helplessness.
One of the barriers that we might run into is the feeling of being “bad” at connection. Incoherent, unfocused, frazzled, no-fun. The metaphor we generated during the discussion was feeling like our entire energy body was staticky – every part of us feeling the way your hair looks when you rub it with a balloon.
We imagined ways to manage this – to ground the staticky energy, or to find the metaphorical dryer sheet we could rub on ourselves to calm down the static. That’s an important step because when we’re staticky like this, not only are we uncomfortable, but we’re also conscious of the risk that we might shock other people if we try to connect. Yikes!!
For this Stick Figure Sunday, I realized that one of my own “dryer sheet” skills is thinking about myself as a plant. Grounded, growing, and full of life and deeply connected roots.
Can you relate to the feeling of being staticked up?
What do you use to help dissipate, calm, or ground that staticky energy?
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