Silly little guy time is an exercise in shifting your vantage point, in physically putting yourself in a different position to look at your environment. Stepping into the uncomfortable places of healing is triggering. Silly little guy time provides a half step into building that comfort and resilience in sitting with something new without the same emotional charge of processing trauma.

Anyone can be a silly little guy. It has nothing to do with gender. It is a state of mind.

I started calling it silly little guy time because almost inevitably when I would go outside to sit in the grass and examine my plants or watch the clouds, I would see some sort of bug or insect. An ant, a beetle, a worm, a slug, a ladybug, a gnat. And if it wasn’t a bug it was some sort of animal. A bird, a deer, a chipmunk, a squirrel, a bunny. One time I saw a stoat that had made its way into my garage!

And I always thought of them as silly little guys without a care in the world. They were just silly little guys who didn’t have to pay taxes or rent. Just silly little guys who didn’t have to worry about getting so overstimulated in the grocery store they’d cause a scene having a meltdown in public. Hell, they were such silly little guys they didn’t have to worry about the grocery store at all!

I wanted to embody that silly little guy-ness for a bit. During silly little guy time I don’t have to worry about money or capitalism or the climate crisis or what’s for dinner. I just get to exist and admire the beauty around me. And that is so fucking important when the other 99% of my time I definitely have to worry about money and capitalism and the climate crisis and what’s for dinner.

For a very long time sitting still and quieting my mind in meditation didn’t work for me. But silly little guy time did. I was able to slow down and connect with my breath without freaking out about how to breathe.

It opened up channels of creativity I hadn’t been able to access since before I studied graphic design.

It provided space to slow down and center myself so I could move through the heaviness of healing without getting swallowed up.

And in light of the upheaval caused by our current administration in the USA, it provides space to breathe and connect to the earth and myself and remind myself that small purposeful actions are more meaningful that trying to tackle everything all at once. Everything is connected and therefore one action in one area will affect the whole and if my actions are working to support myself and my community, then that energy will gain momentum and ripple out in positive ways.

Silly little guy time is one part of a larger philosophy of self-care, communal care, paying attention, learning from revolutionary teachers, and generally working to do my best to make a better tomorrow.