Nervous breakdowns, Nurdles and a Flash Sale

Hello {{first_name}},

I think there are more people having nervous breakdowns right now than we're aware of. They're easier to hide on Zoom. But of course most people wear a mask of "I'm OK" - and you know what, although I yearn for authenticity, it's probably better that way as I'm not sure we'd cope if everyone who was struggling admitted just how badly they're doing. I'm not so good at the mask thing. My husband nicknamed me "the compulsive disclosurist" some years ago - for my tendency to jump into intimate conversations, sometimes with complete strangers. Recently I've found starting a conversation with my belief we're all at some stage of nervous breakdown gets people talking! Even in the carpark at my kids' school...

This mail is actually about a SPECIAL OFFER - but I'm not very good at conventional marketing, so if you'd like to scroll to the bottom and see the special offer, please do, the rest of you who are even vaguely curious about my thoughts on nervous breakdowns, nurdles and systems collapse, please read on.

We are living in a crazy world right now. In 2020 events were radical, (I'm trying not to use the word "unprecedented" as apparently it's one of 2020's greatest cliches) but there was a sense we'd get through it and life would return to normal. With the growing realization that it may not, ever, return to normal, I think there is reason to feel destabilized. In fact, if you're not feeling overwhelmed, you're not paying enough attention. To manage my overwhelm, I headed to my new happy place today, Fishhoek beach, and was dismayed by the massive amounts of plastic washed up in a big storm recently all along the shore. A red suited team was picking up nurdles which is a good thing - yet I was disheartened to see they left anything that wasn't a nurdle!

It turns out someone is paying a team of maybe 20 people to pick up nurdles each week on this beach, while stepping over chip packets, plastic wrappers, plastic bottle tops, straws and lollipop sticks that are flowing and blowing directly into the ocean. I felt a wave of depression engulf me. The plastic situation is out of hand and I'm part of the problem. It feels insurmountable. I picked up 2 shopping bags full of stuff until I couldn't carry any more, yet I was still stepping over plastic, feeling guilty. At some point I realised I needed to get home and work and had to walk away. I wondered what beaches will look like 20 years from now. I watched dog walkers step over the plastic and judged them for not stooping down to pick up a single piece. But often I am that person too. How much should we take on?

The world is in a state on so many fronts, it is hard to know where our responsibility starts and ends to fix it. Pollution and environmental crises are just one issue contributing to the sense that the modern world is too much for us right now. There is a growing realisation by white people that we are all complicit in having built and supported a society built on white supremacy, or the illusion of white supremacy as I was instructed to refer to it recently. Then we also have to face, in every radio, TV or newspaper broadcast, or simply by looking out the window: widespread inequity, poverty and a growing economic collapse, corruption, greed and gender based violence. It's a lot to sort out.

How are you coping with it all?

I’m curious what you’re using to manage the barrage of issues facing us all individually as well as collectively. Overwork? Alcohol? Exercise? Meditation? Medication?

You are welcome to reply to this email with any thoughts you have. Please know I'll keep them confidential - as a lawyer, a coach and a minister-in-training, I take confidentiality seriously. If you're prepared to have a conversation about it, with other lawyers, let me know. I'm pondering a webinar discussion.

We are lawyering in the liminal. It’s my new favourite word to describe the weirdness of now, living in between “what was” and “what will be”.

If you would be keen for a free webinar discussion on these matters please indicate that with a quick reply to this email.

In 2014 I wrote an article called Outlaws and Outliers that was published in the groundbreaking Lawyers as Changemakers by J Kim Wright, my friend and colleague. It starts like this:

It’s a fascinating time or a terrifying time to be alive, or maybe both, depending on your worldview. We have front row seats, as a result of unprecedented technological acceleration, to watch the demise of all our major systems including the monetary system, education system, medical system, legal system and underneath it all, the ecological system. To gaze head-on at the magnitude of the systems collapse is overwhelming. We lack perspective situated as we are, in the middle of the storm. We also feel overwhelmed because we’re culturally indoctrinated, at least in the West, to see destruction as a bad thing.

It was written in 2014 but could have been written today. Only no one knew the demise would become even swifter. So here we are, even closer to systems collapse, in this liminal space. And it’s pretty terrifying.

The word liminal comes from the Latin word limens, which means "limit or threshold." Wikipedia defines it as:

“... the quality of ambiguity or disorientation that occurs in the middle stage of a rite of passage, when participants no longer hold their pre-ritual status but have not yet begun the transition to the status they will hold when the rite is complete. During a rite's liminal stage, participants "stand at the threshold"between their previous way of structuring their identity, time, or community, and a new way, which completing the rite establishes…

During liminal periods of all kinds, social hierarchies may be reversed or temporarily dissolved, continuity of tradition may become uncertain, and future outcomes once taken for granted may be thrown into doubt. The dissolution of order during liminality creates a fluid, malleable situation that enables new institutions and customs to become established.”

I keep thinking that our overwhelm can prevent us seeing this important bit: that what we have is a fluid, malleable situation that enables new institutions and customs to become established.

It is my hope that somehow during this chaos, we will collectively design and build new systems that better serve humanity's needs.

I want to be part of building a legal profession of awakening lawyers. Lawyers who are guided by their purpose and values. Lawyers who are leaders in a new cultural consciousness. Lawyers who guide clients mindfully and compassionately through conflict and assist people to have better relationships with one another, both personally and professionally.

If you'd like to read an interesting article on the collective nervous breakdowns so many are having right now, click HERE. 

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With love,