My body is my vessel

Written by Shift, a member of the Steering Group with Lived Experience. Shift is also a community reporter for Groundswell’s Listen Up! project and this article has also been published on its online Hub of health and homelessness insights.

Society’s current structure is the reason we have problems.  It doesn’t work for everyone, it generates inequality,  attacks our ecosystem and creates conditions for mental and physical health issues.  This piece explores my reflections on the education system and its purpose in society.  The piece also explores  the topics of identity,  self expression and inequality.  I reflect on the inter- connectedness of land, the ecosystem and people.  

The education system’s aim is to manufacture a type of person that will perform a duty to live in an apparent ‘modern world’ that is based on the growth of a set of institutions rooted in the transformation of the economy. 

This structure of society has been formed over time, and has shaped and influenced people’s identity. It has created barriers and restrictions for any other ways of living or ‘ways of being’.

The education system has the deliberate intention to encourage individuals to conform to a set of behaviours and lifestyle choices and trained to meet certain criteria which are deemed acceptable in the workplace. This then manifests and forms an individual’s identity.

As I try to fit into the school uniform, stripping me of all personality and the basic right of expression.
As I sit in my constriction, my soul is yearning to break free.
As a child you do not understand this feeling. With no teacher and no understanding and with a culture that is catered against your true self, what options do you really have?
It’s like you’re not recognised as already being a whole person. Your existence is monitored and moulded rather than opened and explored. 

You’re born into this world with an existing set of qualities, your energy holds a particular pattern.
What is experienced and understood as ‘outside’ reality and what is experienced and understood ‘within’ the consciousness of the child/person has very important implications for identity, having a purpose and the feeling of being ‘home’.

The initial formation of self in primary and secondary school has a lot to answer for.
I feel it would benefit everyone to rethink the way we teach children at the early stages of their development, reflecting on what subjects are taught and the way we teach social interaction. It is the starting point of mental health and it is vital for a healthy mind. As you discover your nature, you can remain open.
You’ll be surprised at how much a child already knows before they are moulded by education and meaning is given to their knowledge and actions.

Rather than having a plan for identity formed by other peoples opinion, how about having lessons on self awareness, learning who you are. Self-understanding, learning why you are here and self acceptance, learning to love yourself. Through these learnings you can see who you are based on free will choices of who you want to be, and I am not talking about your job role!
Where is the class that teaches you about the value of a person. An environment that is not competitive and instead is nurturing.
Teachings that open you into learning about different cultures and ways of being. To understand the emotions and what the true essence of being human really is.
The environment plays a massive role in connecting the individual to society and to the planet/ universe as a whole.

The education system acts as a tool to keep the cogs of society working so that the current system of ‘working life’ holds together.

This specific view of how one should live and conduct themselves has been spread all over the world. Control of people by the invention of money and the creation of boarders which acts to enclose the masses.
The society has been set up to please a small minority of the population rather than to embrace the collective consciousness of the people.  

You read about the history of colonial rule over foreign countries and how ‘one’ conquered. If you look, you can see 👀 that it was done here first in the UK right beneath our feet.
Taking over the common land by force and setting up enclosure and then bringing in different laws to punish the rights to live. Forcing people into the workhouses while scorned at and humiliated(1).
The population has suffered a deep conditioning of homelessness.

From this point of treatment, the person has no other option than to construct and maintain some form of survival mechanism in the mind to serve as a meaningful centre from which the individual can construct a ‘safe space’.
This so-called modern society is only a structure that has been put in place to control the population and maximise profit.  

As I sit in my work chair looking out the window, I feel I don’t know myself.
A heavy damping of my spirit encompasses my body and I sense a longing gap of emptiness.
Will this veil hide me from my true self forever.
Am I just a dependant variable whose value depends on that of another.
How has it become to be about money, making a profit. The earth supplies all the ingredients for a healthy life. How is it that now I need to ‘earn’ my way.

The earth provides for free and yet here I am watching others take what is not theirs and selling it back to me at a profits, polluting and destroying the very thing that produces it.
The current system of exploiting the earth’s natural resources to carry on this state of being is not sustainable. The arrogant mentality of thinking ‘I am more important’ strips away the very identity of life on earth. We share the ecosystem with all that creates it. The deliberate intention to lead us astray from the very basic make-up of what makes us.   

Must I succumb to this false consciousness that continues to be thrown back upon me. 

My body is my vessel and the land is OUR home.
Our right to walk freely and to bathe in the river.
The right to clean water and pesticide free food.
The right to respect each other and the natural order.
Our rights to the land have become basically non existent.

The enclosure of the land has led to the majority of people being robbed of access to the land, robbed of their homes and the natural resources which one relied on to survive.
The concept that some can be named ‘lord of the manner’ – what ‘man’ has the right to own any specific land which before belonged to all……
it’s unbelievable 😳🤒.

Nature should be accessible to the whole population. We have strayed far from mother earth. Mother Earth that keeps US healthy. We need to learn again to respect nature and all its inhabitants. Understand that it is the eco-system that allows for us to have all that exists, (and that includes the current technology and electric devices😀).
It is time to get back in touch with your being and respect each other fully.  

You can live simply, so others can simply live. Without this unhealthy craving for more that never makes you happy. 

Shift 💚

(1)- Reference, The book of Trespass by Nick Hayes. I would highly recommend reading this book for some information on the history of land and private property and a few examples of what I’m talking about in this article. Happy reading 📚 😊