Feminist Fridays: "Ted"

Regulations Against Abortion Providers

"I can't wait to tell my friends. They don't have a rock this big."

#tbt A couple weeks ago, I conquered Carmel.

Do Better: What Adults Can Learn From Kids

Cultural Myths Perpetuated By the Media

• Wealth is earned and legit
• People of Color are more likely to be criminals
• Bootstraps and equality of opportunity
• Interracial relationships are beautiful, but People of Color who seek someone within their cultural group (not white) as a partner, they are racist
• Integration requires assimilation

Media Freedom in Palestine

Hurt People Hurt People

Just in case that grammar is tripping you up, the essence of this idea is that people who have been hurt often go on to hurt others.  In some ways, it's statistics.  People who grow up in homes with abuse are more likely to be part of an abusive home as an adult.  People who grow up in violence are more likely to become violent.

In some ways, it kind of boils down to a sentiment that my mother expressed when I was younger (and maybe yours did, too) about how the mean kids were only mean because they felt bad about themselves.

I don't believe people are mean for no reason.  There are very few people whose brain chemistries are so severe that no matter the health of their environments, they will become violent or cruel.  Most of us, while we may have some genetics involved, learn our behaviors from those around us.  Some of us repeat behaviors we see and others of us may behave in opposite ways.  Some people want to be just like their mother and some people want to be nothing like their mother, right?

None of us happen in a vacuum.  When I behave in ways I later regret, it's always rooted in something.  In fact, most of the people whom history lifts up (or down?) as horrible people thought they were doing something good or participating in a necessary evil that would ultimately create a better world.

I often tell people that I like difficult personalities.  It's true.  I have noticed, in life, that the folks that many people find abrasive, rude, or perhaps just "super weird," are people I quite enjoy.  I think this is because these people tend to have deep, interesting stories.  They have survived things, seen things, and deal with a well of feelings (though not always well).  Maybe you have one of "those friends" that not everyone gets, but that holds a tender spot in your heart.

Today I'm grateful for the ways that I am kind.  I'm grateful for the people who contributed to the better parts of me and will try to forgive myself for the ways I am not perfect.  There are reasons.  Those reasons don't excuse me, but they challenge me to understand them and rise above them-- to break whatever cycles are not worth repeating.  I'm grateful for the "difficult personalities" that allow me to practice this forgiveness and empathy, to better understand how we form, grow, and love.  May I always try to remember that nothing is created or destroyed-- when someone hurts others, that hurt has come from somewhere and they have not yet been able to transform it.

Let's break cycles that should not be repeated and transform our own hurts into ways we can understand others and offer healing, love, and transformation.

It's how we create the world.

Reinventing Society

God Thought 4

Anything you don't understand can be used against you.

A Question for Shifting Perspective

I know I'm not the only person in the world who struggles with feelings of guilt.

My local family is Irish Catholic, and while I was not raised in the RCC tradition, I feel the religious traditions of my family have been very influential, although not directly.

Guilt is a huge motivator in the ways my family thinks of things.  I manage to feel guilty about things that are silly for very long periods of time.

For instance, I still regularly think about a moment in time in which I got mad at my friend for coloring most of a coloring book I left at her home.  I feel bad about it because she felt like she was making a gift for me, whereas I felt like she was using up my toy without my permission.  As the story perhaps suggests, this happened a long time ago.  I was probably about 7 years old.  I'm 33 and I still think about it at least once a week.

There are things like this in my life.  I hold grudges against myself that I can't seem to let go of, even though the more rational, forgiving parts of my brain and spirit know I am being silly.  It doesn't seem to change the ways I feel about myself.  

I think I even developed (thanks to crap boyfriends and some upbringing stuff) a tendency to smash down feelings of pride or desire and beat myself up about them.  Like, when I start to think something good about myself, my brains says, "No, stop!  This is the way to arrogance or disappointment!  You are crap!"  

This often leads me to feel like I don't deserve good things.  It is a way I learned to cope with people who treated me poorly.  A helpless feeling of loving someone who treats you poorly can make us feel like we deserve that treatment.  If this person treats me poorly, it's because I deserve it.  I start to feel like I don't deserve happiness and happiness starts to make me feel uncomfortable.  It almost feels unsafe.

Life is weird, right?

Sometimes I feel guilty about my blessings.  I don't know how to accept success because I spent a lot of time telling myself I wasn't worthy of good things.  When good things come along, I sometimes push them away because they don't feel safe to me.  

All of this is to reference something I lost.  It was an OWN (Oprah Winfrey) thing, but I can't recall who she was talking to.  The question I learned to ask myself is:

"Instead of feeling guilty, can I feel grateful?"

It's a way of orienting myself toward more truth.  It's a way of discerning whether my soul actually feels like I don't deserve something or whether it's a behavior I've learned through abuse.  

Breaking these cycles in myself will hopefully help me raise children who don't get trapped in them.

Systems

I think sometimes I prioritize efficiency in a way that makes me personally inefficient, in some ways.

I have a desire to systematize that can interfere with expedient solutions at times.

But I am also pretty dang good at creating processes.

God Thought 3

Gratitude is stillness.

Thoughts

I think I am in touch with certain ways of knowing that not everyone is... a mystical way of knowing... a sort of spiritual intuition or acumen that not everyone is able to perceive acutely.  It feels important to share the truths I find when listening to this "voice," and from the study it leads me to engage.

The ways I do that are my ministry.

What does that mean?

God Thought 2

Live authentically into the world in ways that can be dangerous and courageous.  Give and demand respect.  We are all sparks of God in this world.

God Thought 1

Create hope at home.
Spread it wide.

Do the gospel at home.
Tell it wide.

Love God at home.
Understand God widely.