The Six Parts of Love, Part Two

Commitment, otherwise known as, The Boogeyman

You could say I had commitment issues about writing this post, and you wouldn’t be wrong.

I didn’t know where to start—commitment is a word that scares the bejesus out of so many people, perhaps because a lot of folks conflate commitment with entrapment.

White supremacist capitalist imperialist patriarchy teaches all of us that commitment—co-creating relationships with other people, follow-through, clear communication—is a threat to the individual. And what our society loves most is propping up individualism at the expense of everything else, so it makes sense that so many people run at the first sign of commitment, or conflict, or inconvenience, or accountability.

In All About Love, bell hooks connects commitment to healthy self-esteem. Specifically, she ties it to Nathaniel Branden’s Six Pillars of Self-Esteem. Those six pillars are: living consciously, self-acceptance, self-responsibility, self-assertiveness, living purposefully, and personal integrity.

When I read the chapter on commitment and read how hooks wove it with self-esteem, I got scared. I would never have openly admitted that I’m scared of commitment, because I generally don’t think I am. In evaluating my self-esteem, I realized that I’m pretty solid in four of the pillars. Where I struggle is self-responsibility and self-assertiveness. I am responsible to a fault; I love accountability and growth. But I’m not good at prioritizing my safety over that of others, because I’m not good at asserting myself. Part of that is being socialized as a woman in our society, but a large part of it is trauma. The times I’ve had to assert myself, to set strong boundaries or ask to be treated more kindly, I’ve been met with abuse, neglect, and twice, the suicide of the people I had to assert myself to within weeks of the boundary-setting. Self-assertiveness has never been safe for me, and so I frequently have abdicated responsibility towards myself in favor of keeping the “peace”.

So if commitment actually means having to assert myself and prioritize my safety, I’m terrified of commitment. Abso-fucking-lutely scared out of my whole mind.

If commitment is tied to self-esteem, and commitment issues are the product of rugged individualism, then it becomes obvious that healthy self-esteem means easier connections to others, not more individualism. The solution, then, is pretty easy: suck it up and be vulnerable anyway. Lean in to community, not away from it. All those pillars of self-esteem make it less terrifying to co-create healthy relationships. Know thyself, or something.

Nothing demonstrates this aspect of love better than the people who were a part of the first in-person session of The bell hooks Book Club: All About Love. The group, comprised of six strangers, me, and two of my best friends, met every week for eight weeks. These folks showed up with curiosity, bravery, vulnerability, and kindness each and every week. In the beginning, people were shy and named their shyness. People were scared to be vulnerable, and named that fear.

Little by little, all of us demonstrated commitment to each other, and ourselves. The discord chat got more involved—everyone was sharing resources and commenting on what folx had shared. People became more vulnerable in session. We started acknowledging and supporting each other’s vulnerability. Then, people started spending time with each other out of session. Strangers became friends.

The last in-person session was Thursday the 8th. I sat down and told everyone, “I am feeling really avoidant. I thought about canceling tonight just because I don’t want it to end.” Everyone around me nodded.

And in an act of commitment, we all decided that it wouldn’t end in that room. That we’d stay in community with each other and plan regular times to get together and talk. At 7:30, we packed up and went to a nearby restaurant to get dinner and drinks, talk some more, and revel in the community that we built.

Shout out to all the in-person members (from bottom left circling around to bottom right): Nadiyah, Veronica, Jillian, Tish, Elena, Kai, Shaye, (and not pictured) Rumi,

Thank you for your care, commitment, respect, responsibility, knowledge, and trust. Thank you for doing the work with me. It has been a healing thing, building this community with all of you. <3