Exposing Ableism While Putting on Your Pants Sitting Down
Energy Conservation for Humans, Part 1
I love energy conservation. A lot.
Asking clients, What if you tried that sitting down? Helping folks say “No” to superfluous activities that aren’t life-giving. Inviting people to find the most luxurious (and absorbent) bathrobe possible and say goodbye to towel-drying. I love it all!
However, talking about saving energy and doing things differently (which I do a LOT as an occupational therapist) can be met with discomfort and even reluctance. For a while, this really confused me. I’m thinking, Life is hard enough already - why not make it easier??
To me, energy conservation is about autonomy and being able to make choices. Redistributing and reclaiming resources so you can do the things that matter most to you. Or so you can at least survive this really tough hour, day, or week.
What I have realized over the years is that these conversations challenge some pretty fundamental, often implicit beliefs, including ones about:
The way things should be done
The relationship between productivity and worth
The value and purpose of bodies
In her memoir Sitting Pretty: The View from My Ordinary Resilient Disabled Body, which I strongly recommend reading if you are a human, Rebekah Taussig writes:
“Ableism pushes assumptions like: Some bodies/ minds/ modes are inherently and always preferable to others. […] The worth of a body is measured by its capacity for work and/or the longevity of life it’s able to sustain. Bodies are products; scars, breaks, and changes in function make that product less valuable.”
Taussig incisively points out how these problematic, often-unquestioned assumptions radically impact lived human experiences:
“They’ve turned us into work machines who regularly abuse our bodies to demonstrate our value — sleep less, work harder, always! They’ve made us ashamed to ask for help, to take medication, to use mobility aids. They stifle our capacity to imagine other ways of being in the world. In order to be okay, we must always strive to be the ideal human: young, smooth, tight, fit, radiant, spry, boundless, unstoppable, independent.”
So, maybe energy conservation is simply the act of sitting down instead of standing up to put on your pants. And maybe it is something more complex: An exposure of how ableism impacts our daily lives. An act of resistance against a culture that normalizes exhaustion and idealizes bodies that seem to have fewer needs. A call to freedom in choosing what is right and good for you.
REFLECTION QUESTIONS for you:
What is coming up for you in reading this? What thoughts, feelings and questions do you have?
How does (or could) energy conservation help you create more space and ease in your very-human life?
