Life on the Wild Web: Invoking something sacred

The chapel at Loyola Marymount, where I went to college. Even if I no longer identify as Catholic, walking into that space still evokes something visceral for me: something sacred, holy, connected.

A paraphrased version of one of the most important things I’ve learned in recovery goes something like this: If you are struggling to remain neutral toward something - finding that it brings up all kinds of emotions or stories - your relationship with that something could probably use some attention. For me, “attention” looks like journaling, mind mapping, talking it through with my therapist. 

I have been despairing a lot over social media recently; grappling with my ambivalence toward this universe that meets me on my screen. “Recently,” meaning something like two years - noticing big emotions when I enter the space; noticing anything but neutrality. I have felt the tug of wanting to be here, offering what I have, learning from other people; and a (usually) much stronger compulsion to run away, as fast as humanly possible, from this world that seems to perpetually strip us of our humanity.

So I did some mind mapping. Starting with one thought. Traveling along the inner workings of my mind. Arriving wherever I may. This one started with “Social Media on a Spectrum.” As in, the spectrum of my experience: hating and loving this place all at once. And in the thirty minutes or so that I was mind mapping, I explored my experience on different platforms; my positive and negative experiences, which were far more nuanced than I imagined, and thus ultimately just became “experiences.”

I remembered times on social media when I felt connected and empowered and whole. And times when I felt desperate and fearful and victimized. Which begs the question, why do I keep coming back? So I asked myself that, too.

What I landed on, eventually, is that I come here for connection. For conversation. For awe. I come here to encounter others, and to poke along the edges of my understanding of the world. I come here to grow. Which made me think of other places I have entered into with the explicit intention of growth. Of leaving better than I came. And the first place that came to mind was Church. I was surprised by this. But maybe I shouldn’t be: acknowledging that my memories of my experience in the Catholic Church, almost a decade ago, have lived somewhere near the front of my mind for a few months, waiting to be held and considered and understood.

So I sat with that a bit. What it looked like to enter into the sacred space of a Church, as a teenager. Sacred, described by Merriam-Webster, as: devoted exclusively to one service or use (as of a person or purpose). Sacred here, as in, devoted to the purpose of connection. Or growth. And more questions arrived: Like, how would my experience here (on social media) change, if I were to treat this place as sacred? If I were to be more intentional about my encounters? If I were to set boundaries about what I was, and was not, willing to engage in? If I were to choose to move more slowly, with more curiosity, and with a commitment to interrupting harm as it happened? Because that is what I am most scared of here: being bullied, being harmed. So what if I just committed to interrupting that when it happened, to protecting myself, to stop being a victim or a martyr? How would all of this shift?

I am choosing to continue to enter this space, because I think it is useful; because I think that real work can be done here and real connection can be fostered. But I know that I cannot continue moving as I have; with resentment and fear and ambivalence. I know that, if I want to be here in a sustainable way, I have to choose a different way of existing. I am learning that I cannot control how other people arrive in this space; just like I cannot control how anyone arrives in any other space that I call sacred - a chapel or a classroom. But I can control how I show up. I can control how I engage. And I can make this experience feel more sacred, more intentional, by shifting my energy as I enter the room.

I wrote recently about how I have a very tenuous relationship with affirmations. I'm sure I could spend hours with my therapist unraveling that relationship; but over the last few months, I have become acutely aware of how necessary it is for me to find ways to affirm myself. Merriam-Webster describes an affirmation (n) in this way: "a solemn  (i.e. serious) and often public declaration of the truth or existence of something." I'm learning that affirmations need not be flowery, or over the top, or even self-indulgent. Rather, when done in earnest, they can be an opportunity to take note of the facts, without embellishment in any direction. And to remind yourself of the foundation that you have stand on.

I think an affirmation is exactly what I need to mark this transition, to acknowledge a deeper knowing of myself and what I need in this space. So, I will end with just that: I have the capacity to recognize when there is room for me to grow, or when I have reached my limit. I have the capacity to cultivate a sacred space for myself, through ritual and intention and love. I have the capacity to connect with other people, even in the wildness of the internet. And I have the capacity to move more slowly and to lead with curiosity.