By Tracie Guy-Decker

This past winter and early spring, I was struggling. I felt as though I was being pulled in a thousand directions. Though I wanted to show up for everything and everyone, I found myself fully present for nothing and no one. 

My not-fully-present manifested as exhaustion. Not like a “I really need to sleep” kind of exhaustion, more of a “my soul needs a lie-down” kind of exhaustion. 

And then in the midst of the existential tiredness, I witnessed struggles around me: Black and brown folks continuing to labor under lethal effects of white supremacy that have menaced their families for generations; trans and non-binary kids and their parents facing persecution and prosecution for seeking life-saving treatment; Indigenous women, girls, and two-spirit people facing an ongoing epidemic of violence and death; and most recently, ordinary citizens in Ukraine fighting for their lives and their way of life, (even as I recognize that Black and brown refugees in similar situations around the world receive less help and significantly less sympathy from Americans who look like me). 

I saw those struggles and recognized my problems as those of affluence and abundance. 

But that perspective-taking only made my soul more tired; heavier and slower. Molasses where it once was water.  

I was annoyed with myself for being so stuck, for not being able to follow April’s wisdom and thought-leadership that insists–and whose life proves–that we can honor our feelings, process them, and move through toward joy, even especially when we are pursuing justice. 

I was annoyed with myself that I didn’t seem to “snap out of it,” even though I was doing the things. You know the things I mean: exercise and meditation, gratitude and prayer, rest and creativity. 

I began to fear that I would feel that way forever, that it was my new normal. 

Then one day on a long walk with the dog (one of the things…) I noticed some crocuses blooming. They brought to mind some recent learning about positive psychology and Martin Seligman’s assertion that the goal of human existence is what he calls “flourishing.” 

When I think about flourishing, I think of flowers blooming, like those crocuses: open and beautiful and sharing their gifts with the world. 

But as we walked and I saw all of the various life stages that make up spring, I realized that those blooming flowers are only one small slice of the organism’s life cycle. I mean, when it comes down to it, the flowering stage is much shorter than the non-flowering stages of life. 

In fact, if the crocus bloomed in the dead of winter, instead of staying safely in its bulb under the earth, the opposite of flourishing would happen. If it were to bloom out of season, the plant would be injured and potentially die.

I had been thinking of flourishing as a state that I “should” be able to reach and then just stay there. As if “flourishing” were akin to a “you must be this tall to ride” sign, and once you’re tall enough, it lasts for always. But that’s not it at all. The crocus follows its kishkes. It blooms when it’s time and it contracts down into its safe bulb when it’s time. 

I never judge a bulb harshly for not being a flower, but is the bulb flourishing? Maybe? I don’t know if it’s flourishing. But I know it isn’t despairing that the current state of things is permanent. And it isn’t berating itself for not being a flower. 

That’s just it, isn’t it? The bulb is a flower. And the flower is a bulb. They’re the same plant in different contexts, different circumstances. Whether or not the bulb–in an undisturbed spot in nurturing soil with sufficient water and nutrients–could be described as flourishing, it holds the potential for flourishing within itself. It holds hope and promise within itself, regardless of how cold its bed or how many inches of snow weigh it down. 

When I was struggling under the weight of existential exhaustion, I was not a blooming crocus. I was hunkered down beneath the world’s weight, scrabbling for enough energy, support, and mental and emotional spaciousness to move toward the light again. All the things (the meditation and exercise, etc.) are my soil and water and nutrients. 

Remarkably (and yet predictably), when I worked to stop mourning what felt like a loss of bloom and endeavored to embrace and celebrate bulb-ness, my soul began to unfurl, but slowly, slowly. I had been trying to rush the process. I wanted to bypass the bulb phase, and I exhausted myself in the effort. What I had failed to see then, and am working to foreground now, is that the power and promise of future flourishing always lives inside me. The task is not to change, but to heal; not to stop feeling emotions, but to name them so that I can feel them, face them, and move through them.

Both April and I saw in our friends, colleagues, and clients signs of the existential exhaustion I experienced in the past several months. As we got to talking about ways to make the process of naming, feeling, and healing more effortless and more available, the idea for Grounded & Growing began to take shape. As we worked to articulate a series of steps, mindsets, and tools, the S.H.E.M.A. Process emerged organically. The synergy of the acronym and what we were working to articulate felt alive with meaning and purpose. We knew it was beshert, meant to be. Drawing the title from my bulb metaphor, the syllabus for Grounded & Growing almost wrote itself, even as we continue to see new and nuanced ways the initials resonate with one another and with the physical, spiritual, emotional, and intellectual modes of processing we’re endeavoring to integrate.

Grounded & Growing is a 6-week Intensive for cultivating a trauma-informed, Jewish social justice practice. The inaugural cohort kicked off with a pre-course session on May 3, 2022. The first of six sessions will take place on Tuesday, May 17.