Navigating (In)Justice
What justice and injustice feels like in our body and how to navigate it.
I walked by a couple of people the other day who were talking about getting justice for a societal wrong.
When I think of the world justice, the image that pops into my head it that of courtroom dramas. Some of the better movies and shows narrate the nuances of law and society beyond the judgement of right and wrong; others are gruelling tales of long awaited vindication; some of my favourite ones are certain situations that changed the laws of a country.
But as I walked on, I started to feel dissatisfied. If the seat of justice in society is in the courtroom, then you would always have to wait for something unjust to take place, before justice could prevail. The system is mostly reactionary.
The universe is a generous place, and when I reached home and turned on my laptop, this quote flashed before me.
To me, nothing about the justice system has ever felt like love.
I never expected it to.
But, maybe that’s the problem.
When I sat with ‘what justice and injustice means and feels like to me’ in a deeper way, beyond the images of shows and movies, I got to feel it somatically, that is, in my body.
Somatic navigation is an amazing way to get out of the mind and find where in our body certain big world themes and the unconscious emotions they evoke within us, actually live.
What lives in our unconscious is important here, because it is often the root of our often felt surface emotions.
It is like getting to explore where in our body, hidden stresses, stories and emotions live. Where the world lives and where and how we carry it. This exploration is not of the mind, nor of our mental constructs, thoughts, biases and belief systems. It is distinct from the mind.
Once we know, through feeling what our personalized truths are, we can give love, attention, nourishment and release to that area of our body.
It’s one of the simplest and my favourite practices to get into truth of something within me. Not what my mind believes my truth to be, but my body’s truth.
Since (in)justice is such a complex and often enraging truth of our world, I’ve included somatic navigation guidance offering below.
When I went through this practice, I felt a great mix of emotions, especially in my belly, hips and heart: relief, vindication, panic, frustration, impatience, wanting to win, shame, confused, desperate, less than human.
When something bad happens and the bad characters seemingly get away with it, there is a great relief and even thrill when they finally get caught and are served a healthy slice of justice.
But is that what justice is? Being happy that someone is locked away or fined for a bad deed?
And if that is enough for certain crimes, what about themes of societal injustice, cracks in the system, and situations of deeply entrenched corruption that doesn’t come to surface easily? These things take years and they are not resolved when a few bad actors are locked away or fined.
So, I came to realize why this not enough for me.
Since it is a reactive system, the actual root of the issues remains unresolved.
Perhaps we expect our governments and police forces to solve those problems, but that does not seem to going well in any nation. Maybe there is ignorance, apathy and ineptitude in some cases, but for the most part, because they are not exactly built for the purpose of deepening peace, reconciliation and harmony in a society.
So where does that leave us?
Two questions kept coming up for me.
One: What are other ways to hold a system of justice, perhaps more in alignment with love?
Two: More importantly, is the expression of love enough to resolve criminality?
Holding the Circle
For that first question, I find a lot of wisdom and renewed faith in the principles of Restorative Justice.
Restorative Justice comes to popular culture from the First Nations People.
It is less about punishment for breaking a rule, and more about restoring equilibrium, trust and peace back into the community. From what I understand, they take a circular view that includes all stakeholders - the victim, the perpetrator, the families and support system of both, social workers, community workers, healers and a circle of elders to guide and facilitate.
The work of justice here is, at least in part, to ask the right questions and listen deeply to the nature of the problem and dissonance from all sides and then move together as a whole community unit, towards healing and reconciliation. Because if the root cause is not resolved, aired and understood compassionately, then the same violations will keep repeating.
This immensely powerful and wholistic approach to justice, is very different that what we are used to in the popular system. More reading on the subject can be found on Restorative Justice and on this article about two-eared listening.
But onto my second question: is the expression of love enough to resolve injustice?
Have you ever messed something up and impacted someone knowingly or unknowingly in a significant way?
I have.
Despite feeling shame, it took me a long time to come to a place where I could apologize face-to-face. Some of us have a hard time apologizing. Others apologize so much and so often that it means nothing at all.
So, while I truly respect this work of Restorative Justice, I cannot imagine what it would be like to sit in courageous vulnerability across from my victim, or my perpetrator for that matter, along with other members of the community, while we reach into raw and uncomfortable truths, without blame and shame, in order to reconcile what occurred and figure out how to heal and move forward.
This is where Holding the Circle is such a huge part of the work.
It is one thing to apologize. It is another thing to stand in our apology with true humility, our insecurities revealed in a place of healing and learning. The other person may not be in a place to forgive and if we have expectations, no accountability or an agenda, then the lack of sincerity will be felt by everyone.
On the other hand, the one who has been wronged, has to face their demon, quite literally. We may be consumed with rage, shame, revenge and yet, we have to come to a place where we can receive a sincere apology and let it be enough.
For the other people who participates in this circle - the families, the support systems and the circle of elders who guide these conversations - the stories, judgements, emotions and expectations have to be left outside the circle. We cannot make this about us and here we have the challenge of having to hold multiple truths with volumes of empathy, respect and love as we can.
Anyone who has had the honour of being in a Sacred Circle of Ceremony knows and has felt its integrity. Guided by love in its highest forms, the feeling of depth and height is palpable. Time often ceases to exist and there is great and powerful movement towards Harmony for each person present.
So maybe, this is love.
Tough love, but love none-the-less.
This love does not look like baking cupcakes together and sweet caresses in the night.
It looks like courage, at all costs.
It looks like having indescribable fear, trauma, shame, great discomfort and wanting to hide, and yet facing it, with our community and support system.
It looks like showing up, accountability, empathy and sincerity.
It looks like valuing truth and humanity, more than any procedure or rule and letting that be our individual, moral and collective guide.
This may make a lot of us question what Love actually is and feels like in our everyday life. Love of self, of others, of land and rivers, of God and Earth, of community and economy, of fife itself and all unique expressions of being.
If we are honest with ourselves, we may realize that we see and experience big and small injustices very often in our lives - far away from any courtroom. Sometimes we are the perpetrator, sometimes the victim, and other times we are the bystander or enabler.
This can bring up all sorts of feelings, blames and denials within us.
Those will not help.
What may help is integrating the true essence of justice within ourselves, so that we may walk in the world as beacons of Harmony.
This is why I wanted to offer a short guidance on somatic navigation along the theme of justice.
This is deep personal work, but I believe that now more than ever it is important. So that, as injustices come to light in our world, we have the constitution within ourselves to hold the circle that restores equilibrium, honesty and peace back into our lives and our communities.
If the offering below is not aligned with you today, then I leave you with these words (and video) that started me on this realization of Justice.
Never forget that justice is what love looks like in public.
Somatic Navigation Offering
If you are like me, feeling a sense of far-away dissatisfaction with justices and injustices in the world, then I invite you to first look within - at your own day, at your own life, at your own family and your own community.
This is deep personal work, but I believe that now more than ever it is important. So that, as injustices come to light in our world, we have a strong constitution within ourselves to hold the circle of justice that restores equilibrium, honesty and peace back into our lives and the community.
Ensure you are in a safe and undisturbed place where you feel grounded and at peace.
Pass a meditative eye on your life experiences, moments and circumstances where you are on some level a victim, a perpetrator, a bystander or enabler of unfairness to someone.
You can use somatic navigation to feel where and why this lives in your own physical body.
Start be breathing deeply and evenly, and consciously pulling your awareness from your thoughts and mind, down to your heart.
Breathe into you Heart and ask with a soft, kind and curious inner voice: What is my truth around Justice?
Breathe and allow your body to soften.
Soften your muscles, your hips, legs, belly, shoulders and neck.
Where in my body do I carry justice and injustice?
Let your body and your emotions respond.
You may see images in your mind. See them but exhale and let them pass.
Wherever there is an itch, a pain, a pulse, a sensation in your body, place your hands there and breathe the deepest breathes you have taken.
Exhale, emote, sigh, cry, release, yell in any way you need to.
Do this for as long as you need to.
Move your hands over different parts of your body and breathe there, as you need to.
This is your release.
Release and allow yourself to be nourished by the air in your lungs, the ground beneath you and everything you consider Sacred, Holy and Divine.
Breathe into you Heart, your diaphragm and into your belly.
Let yourself be held; feel yourself being held by the chair, the pillow, the ground, the Earth.
Stay here for as long as you need to.
You are supported. You are held, in the Highest Love in this moment.
And so it is. It Just Is.
Move gently when you feel restored and ready.
Don’t hve much knowledge or info on this topic. Where I am living now n d country to which I belong to, in my opinion either there’s love or there’s justice! They would not go hand in hand.