Claiming Each Other

I thought I was already really good at this. As evidenced by the fact that if anyone messes with anyone I love, my first impulse is to ask if we need to go confront them, essentially make them pay for their sins with uncomfortable accountability at the least.

I learned this from my mother, to feel for and defend others with our own rightgeous indignation, and I recognize this as deep love when others do this for me. But it has it’s limits. It doesn’t go much of anywhere. Everyone gets their nervous systems riled up to fight and then we feel justified with what we stirred up, but then this impulse to fight gets shoved down and we are more likely to revert to the tried and true avoidance. We just let those who have harmed us in some way drift, and likely they are doing this with us too.

What if we had more skills to call on when inevitable troubling relational dynamics emerged? That is the nature of the course I just completed the pilot program with, “Claiming Each Other; Somatic First Aid for Everyday Relationships” with Lorie Solis, my best friend and multi-credentialed educator and relator.

In this 12-week course, we took on a “case study”~ a person and dynamic that may be troubling for us, in that our needs or their needs were not getting met but we did not know how to rectify. I chose a dear friend who shows up for me in so many ways, except for times when my health has been precarious, and then they would quietly disappear after finding this out. It was so dramatic and hurtful that I had contemplated stopping being friends altogether, or my failed vow that I just would never talk about “body stuff” with them, which is nearly impossible when you have chronic illness.

The learning that ensued is nothing I could have ever predicted. I thought, as a somatic educator, that I would slowly expose them to practices and resources that I already knew. I thought by the end I might be receiving better relational care by crafting this dear person into who I needed them to be for me. Ha! There is a difference betwen “knowing” practices and actually practicing them.

For example, I have done ancestral practices before, and feel quite connected to them, but not to the land they (and thus me) are from. I had not clocked how the environment I am in now mimics those ancestral lands, and can be a thread to connect even deeper to land and my people. I had never thought to think of how cooking the dishes they made then can nourish the spiritual malnourishment I feel in the now. And before I knew it, me and my case study had the same interest. We began to research our ancestral food, leading to trying new dishes, leading to weekly menu making together, cooking our foods for one another, and supporting both my body recovery and their struggle as a single neurodivergent mom to plan and prepare nourishment. And then we were in a healthy cycle, instead of the lack and overwhelm loop we were often caught in before.

This is one example of how I was humbled by this course, in the best way possible. I had thought of myself as a fighter my whole life, nearly oblivious to my tendency to quickly drop into fawn when fight felt impossible or unwise. Rather than having the difficult conversation whenever it needed to be had, I would drop into a them or me mentality. As in, if I took the cue that what I was asking for was too much because this was a good person sitting infront of me who did not seem to be able to meet it, then my choices were either to self abandon my needs and fawn to keep my belonging, or fight for my needs until the relationship blew up or I had to choose my self worth over what I was reading as indifference.

Turns out we don’t have to choose between us or them. Me and my case study have now mapped our nervous systems together, so we have a shared language on where our systems are at and how to get to a more regulated state together in that accountability that comes with deep care. When we can’t show up for each other in the way we each would like, the impact is less personal. I can assess and feel into where my nervous system is at and what I need, and see what I am able to meet myself with the help of the natural world, other relations, ancestors and spirit. I can ask them where they are at, and now that we have a shared visual tool, I am less likely to get the rote overwhelm response of “I’m fine” while sensing the dissonance between this and what I can actually feel from them.

Claiming each other is a rare turn of phrase, even here in the states. But it is no coincidence that we are well familiar with it’s polar opposite of “canceling.” Why might that be? What cultural implications might that have? How do we do a thing we have no reference point for? That goes counter to our current culture of expendability and 30 second attention spans? Well as responsible relaters, we get more training of course. We shouldn’t be expected to know how to do this stuff. I teach and guide it for a living and was still missing my own blind spots and childhood mechanisms designed to keep me safe and belonging. These conditioned tendencies will certainly still arise, but my system feels more at ease and capable now with new tools on hand.

I am now scanning situations to see how I may show up differently and love more, rather than scanning for lack and how my needs are not being seen and met. This is leading to me feeling more loved and supported in general, less prickly and suspicious. And in the contentious year of 2025, anything that allows us to both regulate and show up for others who may have different lived experiences and viewpoints, is not small. In fact, it may be the absolute biggest step towards all we say we desire in connection.

The next round of Claiming Each Other begins online and in person in Portugal at the end of January. I will be assisting online and you will see me in that group. I receive no kickback of you joining, I just believe in what I experienced and think you may benefit too. If you are local to Michigan and learn better in person, consider attending the 2 hour workshop at Bloodroot Herb Shop on January 11th.