To those who are awakening. What if consent is not only about who may touch us, but how we touch the world?
The conversation about consent is usually framed from an individualistic perspective: Who has consent to touch me? While this is true and important, perhaps we need to broaden our understanding. What if consent doesn’t begin with us?
We, as humans, have lost our way in terms of relationality. We’ve become consumed with consuming — prioritizing personal success over the health and wellbeing of our communities and one another. In our fear of not being recognized, we’ve become blinded. It isn’t entirely our fault; we’ve been conditioned through generations to chase comfort, and in doing so, we’ve lost our way.
Let’s explore three ideas:
- We think of consent individually, not relationally.
Wayfinding cannot happen by anxiously circling our own needs. We must widen our vantage point — expand our aperture, if you will. Consent is not only about who may touch us or enter our energetic space; it’s about the larger web of relationship and respect that connects all life.
- Our cultural conditioning has narrowed our view.
Consent, at its essence, is a communication system that has long been dismantled.
When we buy land, do we ask the land for permission to be there? Or do we assume that because we’ve paid for it, it now belongs to us?
The land has existed, in one form or another, for 4.5 billion years. Humans have been here perhaps 350,000. Consider that an 80–100-year human life, in the scale of time, is like the moment an eyelash falls to the earth — fleeting.
We might buy a house or a piece of property, but it isn’t ours. We’re merely borrowing it. The average rock on your property is 1.4 billion years old — it has more entitlement to the land than any of us do. Some trees live for a thousand years; in Sweden, a Norway Spruce’s root system has been alive for nearly 10,000.
- This loss of relationality extends beyond human relationships.
When we speak of consent, we must first explore the lack of consent we’ve shown to the natural world; the ways we’ve taken without asking, used without gratitude, and extracted without reciprocity.
Consent begins with our relationship to the Earth, with re-establishing dialogue with the true landlords: the ecosystems that sustain us, decompose our matter, and provide the water, air, and nourishment we need to live.
If we are to speak about consent, that is where we must begin. Consent is an ancient communication system between humans, nature, and — dare I say — spirit. We’ve forgotten how to ask permission from the world around us.
So…
We buy food, eat half of it, and discard the rest without considering the systems and resources that made it possible. This is not a guilt trip — it’s an invitation to awaken to what we’ve been unconscious of.
How can we talk about others touching us without consent when we haven’t taught our children what it means to ask for consent in everyday life?
Consent begins in the body, not as a rule, but as a rhythm. The same listening that lets us feel a “no” in our own body is the same sensitivity that lets us feel the pain of the Earth, the forest, or the sea. When we learn to listen to our own body’s truth, we remember how to listen to the body of the world.
How can any bodyworker, therapist or someone offering healing work listen deeply to the subtle responses of another’s nervous system if they’ve never been taught self-regulation, attunement, or how to feel their own sensations? Too often, I’ve experienced someone working hard on my body without realizing I needed softness and slowness instead.
Governments across the world act from privilege, prioritizing the comfort of their citizens over the uncomfortable truths that true change requires. To face how poorly we’ve treated the planet will be deeply unsettling, but necessary.
Consent asks for conversation, not control. It’s a dialogue between beings — human and more-than-human — that says, I am listening to you.
When we listen long enough, the Earth answers. The water answers. Even silence answers.
This is not a call to disengage from life or to turn away from caring for our families, friends, and communities. It is an invitation to curiosity, to wonder why we speak of consent only as what someone else does to me, rather than beginning with the places where we have forgotten to ask permission.
Consent could also be a form of awe — from being inspired by the sacredness of connection. And that inspiration can only arrive when we engage in the hard work: acknowledging our own shame around the misuse of power and learning to listen again.
Consent is where reverence begins.
It’s how we remember that nothing truly belongs to us — and that everything we touch is alive.
So perhaps consent has never really been about who may touch us, but how we touch the world — gently, humbly, in awe of all that breathes with us. Just a thought.
with love, Noelle