Hacking the System
I was hacked this week, the day after the 2024 US Election. Facebook, Instagram, all of it…it is the third time that this has happened this year and I have since developed a process for managing this criminal act. The first time I was hacked, it looked like this:
Realize your socials are hacked
File an appeal digitally because there are no actual humans left at social media places that you can contact ever. Like, ever.
Frantically text people you love to see if they have received any weird Bitcoin coaching requests from your accounts
Feel betrayed and pissed and vindictive
Look up your hackers (this is a fascinating practice because there are no repercussions for this criminal activity for them so you just see where they live and their email addresses)
Wait for the appeal
Change your socials habits because you cannot access them while under appeal
Actually live freely without social media and realize how toxic they can be
Get your access back from the computer robots at Facebook, Instagram…
Resume your bad habits and beat yourself up a little about it
This time, on the day after the 2024 US election results when I realized I was hacked, my process looked like this:
Realize your socials are hacked
File an appeal
Frantically text people to see if they have received any weird Bitcoin coaching requests from your accounts
Change your socials habits because you cannot access them while under appeal and you are so grateful you cannot access social media because the election gutted your heart right out of your body and you are grieving and in a FIGHT state where at first you yelled at your older kid to stop ignoring you when you asked him to clean the snow off his car early for school, and then you cried at work and then had to cancel all your night classes because you are not in the place to mother your students right now and all you can do is watch Shrinking on AppleTV, make peanut butter oat balls and relish in your ceremonial coffee-making ritual each morning since you have given up all alcohol and there is no substance anyway that could take away your rage so you fuel it with caffeine and NY TIMES opinion pieces until you get in hot water later that evening and let your dear one rub your head, and then you receive a phonecall from QUANITA ROBERSON and your oldest friend and Kenpo Karate master teacher, Ritu Nanos, and you sit your bitch-ass down, breathe slowly, and listen to them and let yourself be in your actual nervous system state which is FREEZE, knowing too much about somatics and knowing you will have to pass through FIGHT to get back to your normal wave of sympathetic and parasympatheic arousal, but you are okay with that because you work actively to create and be in community and this is what it is going to take to use the medicine in this election wound to heal our actual hearts.
EES Yogis, going straight to love is a spiritual bypass for me.
I have to feel my rage and let it move through this stubborn and powerful body of mine. Then I have to freeze, grieve, and lose all capacity to hold space for others and just move very slowly and check out and disembody for a bit of time, and slowly thaw my way back home.
ALL OF THIS IS LOVE.
ALL OF IT.
If I skip over my anger and my deep grief, it would be a LIE–and I deserve better than to let that shit get stuck in my body. Maybe I am less evolved. Maybe I just value process over product. I don’t know, but I want to let you know that you get to process your emotions IN AND THROUGH AND OUT of the body, and that you instinctually already know how to do it. I hope your yoga practice can be a partner in your processing this week and in the coming months and years, and I hope your community can be that too.
Speaking of community, we are overbooked(!) for Village Vinyasa this week, but we have some COOL new offerings coming:
Winter Solstice YIN YOGA and GUIDED BREATHWORK JOURNEY on Saturday, December 21st, 3-6pm guided by our very own Village Yogini, Kristin Haber and some yin yoga with Kelly.
GUTS EMBODIED WRITING launches on NEW YEAR’S DAY with a 10am-3pm daylong retreat of vinyasa yoga, hot water soaking, winter walk and writing into the most unbelievable year of our lives.
Save these dates and we’ll have sign-ups SOON on the website.