Fascism is narcissism.
In times of rising delusion, confusion, fascism and deranged political narcissism, we HAVE to orient to wellbeing if we want to stay well in the midst & discover the third path.
Dear Sacerd Heart, it's rare anymore that I share about the details of my history of narcissistic abuse; including evangelical spiritual trauma and familial/relational trauma.
It feels like just yesterday it was the subject of all my tiktok videos, podcasts & weekly emails… all of which have tapered down, mostly because so has my nervous system.
Talking about it was always met with resonance, kindness and affirmation, but when I began doing somatic trauma resolution & what I now refer to as “shame alchemy,” I realized that my many years incessantly focusing on my abusers was orienting my life to that which harms me. IE: trying to understand them, reading books about abuse, interviewing people on my podcast, watching Tiktoks & diving deep into Reddit threads on narcissism.
In the trauma resolution world, this is called “defensive orienting.”
Defensive orienting happens when our bodies enter a vigilant, fear-based state that keeps us scanning our surroundings activated, hyper-aware, looking for and often finding threat… even when the threat is no longer present.
In order to heal my nervous system from the chronic shame that comes from being abused, being autistic & a lifetime of being gaslit about my reality, I devoted my life to discovering my personal Truth, which required a shift from defensive orienting to orienting to wellbeing.
This shift felt radical, and while it was not dangerous, it felt dangerous.
I knew if I wanted to actually heal my body down to the cellular level, I could no longer orient to that which had harmed me.
I could no longer let confusion keep me from what I knew to be true.
I could no longer loop & obsess over behaviors I couldn't understand.
I could no longer let my fear & trauma keep me from living my values.
To support myself through the melting of my defensive orienting, I chose these 3 mantras to be my guide:
Let it be easy
Guardian the Good
Live your Liberation.
This shift felt so radical because I feared if I oriented to what was well, I was not only ignoring the harm that happened, I was letting my guard down to allow it to keep happening.
In my practice, this is what I call a double bind. AKA: Damned if you do. Damned if you don't.
I had spent so much time looping in obsession, researching, trying to “fix” myself, outrun the pain by focusing incessantly on it with laser eyes.
I had no reference point for my body feeling safe or trustworthy. I had never known a soft body or a sense of ease.
I could not live liberation, because I had no internal sense of liberation. Liberation was a theoretical concept I loved, but it was not an embodied way of life.
I share all of this because fascism IS narcissistic abuse.
And while I don't use this term casually like I used to, or diagnose people who have harmed me, I know how important it is to name patterns of behavior to offer clarity. I am not diagnosing any individuals here, I am simply spotting patterns of behavior that appear in varying degrees inside systems.
Dominant culture (white supremacy, patriarchy, toxic greed, ableism, classism) all use the same tactics to ensure conformity: shame, gaslighting, overwhelm & confusion.
In a narcissistic culture, be it a relationship, family system, religious institution, a business, a cult, a political party or a governing body, homogeny is the goal.
You are not an autonomous individual in these systems. You are not celebrated for your uniqueness. You are not allowed to think or feel for yourself. You are not allowed to question.
Your difference will not be tolerated but will be called out & shamed in public (to create fear in the onlookers, warning them to stay in line).
Your discernment will be called crazy for naming what you see clearly.
Your empathy will be weaponized, making you weak and untrustworthy.
Your bigness, your muchness, your humanness must be tamed, made smaller, groomed and perfected.
And because your body is hardwired for survival, in environments like this, your threat responses will come online.
You might up-regulate:
orient to the danger
stay vigilant & researching
incessantly consuming news
staying in a constant state of vigilance
re-posting, arguing in comments, having heated convos with family
Or you may down-regulate
tune it out completely
enter a depression
acquiesce, mask, hide
fawn & assimilate to power/dominant culture
looping confused, unable to find what you really think, feel & know
And most of us toggle between the two: staying plugged in & looping until you crash out. This is that double-bind territory I mentioned before.
None of this is wrong. It's biological. It's normal. It's natural.
We need not shame what is protective. It's all a symptom of your body trying to find homeostasis.
What I know to be true is that these threat responses keep us in an all-or-nothing reality that is not taking in the whole picture. This is what trauma does to us. We become overwhelmed, moving from threat and cannot think clearly or take clear action, let alone take care of ourselves well from them.
And that is what the narcissistic system wants: to steal our life force & disconnect us from our True Self.
We stop feeling safe in our own bodies and become unable to listen to our internal guidance system, therefore outsourcing our power, sovereignty, truth and uniqueness in trade for a false sense of belonging and safety.
This is enmeshment at the deepest level. This is how all narcissistic systems work– from the micro to the macro.
And this is what I used to fear, but now know is true:
In times of rising delusion, confusion, fascism and deranged political narcissism, we HAVE to orient to wellbeing if we want to stay well in the midst & discover the third path.
How?
We reclaim our energetic and emotional sovereignty.
We reclaim our differences with the dignity we deserve, and grow our capacity to offer this to others.
We stay oriented to wellbeing, & do the life-saving work of shame-alchemy, so we can move from our Truth & fullest expression in the world.
We have to find somatic safety, so we can create the world we long to see.
Even if it scares us, it's more important than ever to let it be easy, guardian the goodness in our lives & live our liberation.
This is not a bypass, my friend. This is how we can resource ourselves, stay stable for the long-haul & see things clearly. In anchoring into this way of life, your living becomes the resistance.
Your life is resistance.
Your full, unique expression is resistance.
Your wellbeing is resistance.
Your capacity to relate to difference is resistance!
These ideals become possible when we can orient to wellbeing & anchor safety within.
Come May I'll be opening the doors to my year-long program, The Fortress, where I specifically teach folks how to find somatic safety through orienting to wellbeing, practicing shame alchemy & supporting them to bring forth their most True expression of Self.
If you resonate with this email, register your interest by clicking right here.
This, I sincerely believe, is the foundational work of living our liberation, and seeing it through from the micro to the macro.
May we create new worlds as we move from dignity,
-Madison
