Episode 12: HALT
Hi everyone, I hope you’re doing as well as you can be this week. Today, we’re looking at the acronym HALT through a poem. HALT stands for “hunger, anger, lonely, tired,” and it is often used as a method for checking in with yourself. For example, when you’re feeling activated or dysregulated, stop (halt) and ask yourself if one of these categories is suffering. The intention is to support folks in getting to the root of what they’re feeling, alleviating any urge to rely on substances to cope. Though this is a helpful framework, sometimes the boundaries we draw between hunger, anger, loneliness, and being tired either have deeper roots or are a bit blurry. They consistently overlay and can mean something different to each of our mind, body, and soul. Hunger, anger, loneliness, and being tired can also look different through time, such as throughout moments, hours, days, weeks, or years. This week’s poem seeks to explore this nuance, depth, and overlap.
I’ll share it with you now:
Hunger—the wrinkly ripple. Am I hungry?
Uncomfortable with a weakened body or mind
because I haven’t eaten? Or eaten enough? Why
haven’t I? Coupled with covetous craving for food,
tropical Hydrochloric acid, lipase, and pepsin scorch.
But what am I hungry for? Is it, in fact, food?
Am I hungry because I’m tired?
Anger—the rumbling roast. Am I angry?
Have I been provoked into aggression or hostility?
Frustrated, infuriated, or irritated?
Perhaps suspicious, or distant and withdrawn
and now, critical, with skepticism and sarcasm.
Wait. There’s insecurity and embarrassment. No. It’s rage.
Am I angry because I’m hungry?
Loneliness—the spreading smoke. Am I lonely?
In search of love that accosts resentment of
being violated—absent of hate but full of hurt,
threat, and devastation? Ah, perhaps this is
hunger when the soul starves—abandoned and isolated
in a catalogued, connected, and anchored world.
Am I lonely because I’m angry?
Tired—the endless expanse. Am I tired?
As earth, fire, water, and air (where I’ve diffused myself)
thickens, anarchic? Yes, I am bleary and soiled.
My bones know that we are all four elements—
tangled mycelia incapable of
disconnecting from each other.
Am I tired because I’m lonely?
It’s a carpet, you see. Where do my hunger, anger, loneliness, and tiredness live?
In my mind, body, and/or soul
hungering for earth’s food
while on fire with anger,
feeling lonely among water life,
yet tired of flying through empty
airspace crammed with interference.
How many circular couples, triads, or quads can we make
before we realize that check-ins and self-awareness
are complicated as categories. Because
“Such great questions cannot be answered
with the part of the mind that solves problems.
They need to be deeply felt and experienced long,
long before they can begin to be answered.”
Breathe the words in. What do they make you feel or think? How did they connect with your senses? What colours or symbols did you notice? What meaning did you draw? Metaphors? Interpretations? Clarity? Messages?
