It is Time to ‘Dain’ Ourselves
A decade ago I became obsessed with the awareness that English does not have a word that is the opposite of ‘disdain.’ We can disdain, but we cannot ‘dain’.
Antonyms to disdain—such as ‘regard’ or 'respect'—fall short of the intensity of what is expressed through the word disdain with its gut-punch of contempt that invoke ways-of-being that pave the way for self- and other- annihilation.
If ‘dain’ were to exist—it would be distinct from 'love' in that it could convey an equivalent opposite potency to disdain: a force of deep care, fierce reverence, dedicated mutuality, and unconditional dignity.
Our time calls for daining—let's call it into being.
What happens when:
We dain ourselves? Healing beyond legacies of internalized self-contempt and control, we root in our intrinsic wholeness and live courageously?
We dain one another? Holding reverence for the gift of being alive, we dedicate ourselves to growing into who we may yet become together?
We dain our bodies? Experiencing awe for everything that goes 'right' with every heartbeat and every breath, we care for ourselves with ease and delight?
We dain our inner ecologies? Recognizing 'we' are organisms whose health depends on other organisms who call our bodies home, we actively tend to their needs as well as our own?
We dain our brains? Honoring that these astounding organs can make meaning from symbols—letters—composing a language (which I have been critiquing) on devices through which I have been able to send an idea from my brain to yours!
Why this matters?
Immersed in cultures of disdain, many of us have internalized a quality of self-contempt that make the very idea of engaging with our health painful, heavy, and daunting—driven by a sense of inadequacy, fear, control, and punishment.
That we may be here, living on the edge of what may yet become, we are called to 'dain' ourselves—to live such deep care, fierce reverence, dedicated mutuality, and unconditional dignity—from the inside-out.
Such a shift changes everything.
