in-her-aspect

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I can't believe this needs to be said, but—suffering isn't good for you! It's stupid to rely on suffering to purify you, to build empathy, or to reach enlightenment.

In my experience, suffering mostly makes people myopic and self-interested. And this is, in a way, by design—the human body is built to slam on the brakes and put everything else on pause when you're in pain, to clamour for help until that pain is dealt with. It's your self-preservation instinct at work. It's good. But there's a reason drowning people tend to pull those around them down with them, panicky and thrashing. There's a reason you're supposed to only reach for them if you've had training, or if your feet are already planted on solid ground.

The people who appear to suffer gracefully, to learn something from the experience, to build empathy, to come out the other side stronger—mostly can do so because they already have a decent support system in place, and because they're already the kind of person who goes looking for opportunities to grow and heal and learn from others, who does that work themself. And so they would probably have built that wisdom another way. The pain isn't the active ingredient.

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Did I read that correctly…

PBS was the only news outlet that dared to call it what it is, namely a nazi salute and today PBS got defunded??

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I just wanted to shout out older trans people, who are stuck in situations where they are unable to come out. People often remember the young folks, but older trans people should be remembered too- disabled people who rely on transphobic carers, trans people in unaccepting countries, trans people with unaccepting jobs. Sending love!

^^^

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I love when supernatural trends and I see a bunch of panicked posts like ‘what happened now?’ or ‘why the hell is spn trending?!’

Relax kitten, this is standard procedure, just sit back and enjoy

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if we dont crack the worlds shell the hawk will tuah without being born

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A true friend is seen in times of need...

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merry christmas

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My top 10 Silly Songs with Larry from my childhood:

10. I Love My Lips: classic. Shaped how I see therapy. I know all the words, we sang it at summer camp.

9. Dance of the Cucumber: sexy, also a classic. If you could sing the Spanish part you were in hot demand for duets. My sister and I would sing gibberish, but it still counted.

8. The Pirates who Don't Do Anything: This one still makes me laugh. I can't believe this one only made #8, but here we are.

7. Song of the Cebu: This one kept me sane and also gave me a twisted sense of humor.

6. Larry's High Silk Hat: sophisticated, refined, references chocolate, novel--the only downside is that I never got all the lyrics down.

5. School House Polka: Gave me more useful information about English grammar than 10 years of homeschooling.

4. Endangered Love: If you don't love your SO the way Larry loved his secret TV obsession, you should reevaluate your relationship. Also, foreshadowed my own discovery of fanfic.

3. Monkey Silly Song: Learn this song. Sing it at random. Enjoy the utter confusion it causes in your friends and loved ones. Thank me later (You're welcome in advance).

2. Gated Community: is it the janky background sets? The lessons of kindness and sharing? The catchiness of the beat? I have no idea, but 11 year old me ranked this up there with The Phantom of the Opera.

1. Pizza Angel: this song has it all. Heartbreak? Yup. Romance? Kind of. Soaring vocals? Heck yeah. Concise storytelling? Of course. Floating pea cherub background singers? Clearly. Cannot recommend this song enough. Best part is that it doesn't matter what faith background or lack thereof you're from, this song is just about the simple love of a cucumber for his pizza angel.

Honorable mention-The Water Buffalo Song: I hate this song because it gets stuck in my head, but it's insane so I love it. Warning: the animation will give you nightmares.

(note: this is an abbreviated list, taken only from the Veggietales that came out in my early childhood that I was able to watch over the years, only from the "Silly Songs with Larry" bit. Out of the 30 or so that I've seen, these are my personal favorites.

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Ophelia - John Everett Millais / Family Tree - Ethel Cain

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He'll scream and try to wash it off of his fingers

But he'll never escape what he's made up of

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I've been doing some (literal and figurative) unpacking from my time spent in Christian "counseling", and in my pursuing of my old journals, I have been thinking a lot about my own thinking. I was paralyzed by guilt for over a decade. Almost every entry is a confused mess, pleading for G-d to "fix" me, searching my interactions for the sin I'd committed. Which,

1. Should have been a sign of my own OCD traits--obsessive thoughts, ritualized compulsive journalling anyone?

2. Is a huge red flag from the religion I was embroiled in. While it's clear my therapist was attempting to mitigate some of the messaging we received as clients in the sermons and devotionals we did, it was simply insufficient. The notes are filled with references to sin, and how sin produces all the symptoms I experienced. I mean, even my own emotional display was criticized as not being "correct". Once that was "fixed", they began discussing discharge.

3. Gives a lot of context for why I feel so conflicted over my own identity and sense of self. Not only do I contend with a dissociative disorder that causes my sense of self to be tenuous at best, but I have been criticized and policed for being my own self. Which, if you really want to use Christian/Jewish logic, is counterproductive if we're made in the image of G-d. If I, too, am a part of Their image, then that's ridiculous to try and "fix" that!

I think it's time I start asserting who I am, and reclaiming it as neither sinful nor righteous, but neutral; and address the lifelong guilt as not being tied to any sin or decision I've made, but as a reminder that I've been dealing with trauma for a while, and that can cause feelings of guilt.

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So turns out the normal and healthy level of guilt you should feel when doing things you enjoy is zero. It’s none. When I was an evangelical I felt guilty and worldly any time I was doing something for leisure or enjoying people’s company too much. I was taught that all my joy should come from Jesus and I should love god more than anything or anyone and that anything I spent more time doing than reading my Bible was an “idol.” I was taught that fun things were worldly and of the flesh, so even on a subconscious level I felt a constant guilt eating away at me at every moment. Turns out that’s not normal and you don’t have to live that way LOL you can enjoy things without feeling bad, and it’s healthy to do so.

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Hello fellow Tumblrers! Welcome to the blog!

This is a space where I will be tracking, publicly, the journey I am taking away from the Christianity I was given for the first 20+ years of my life. I spent time in liturgical, evangelical, charismatic, Pentecostal, and anabaptist circles, and am a former PK with a degree in theology. The straw that broke my faith was a series of encounters regarding my own mental health and the trauma I survived, where well-meaning Christians fumbled and ultimately damaged my ability to feel a sense of belonging in the very religion that once comforted me. Once the connection was severed, the deconstruction train left the metaphorical station and never returned.

This is not a blog if you would like to be affirmed in your faith. It is also not a place to come if you're likely to re-experience your own religious trauma. DNI if you are transphobic, anti LGBTQ, white supremacist, militantly pro-life, etc, or looking to start a fight.

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Nope, not just you!

Reblog if you come from a church background and you were made to feel shame about getting pleasure from literally anything ever. It can’t be just me.

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no because this scene of aziraphale basically having a full on emotional breakdown, thinking he’s a fallen angel is sooooo fucking relatable as someone raised evangelical. feeling like you’re going to burn in hell for doing something as simple as lying. I understand his anxiety and trauma perfectly and I need to hug him

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I spent several minutes yesterday crying about losing my faith, which is unusual only because I cried about it. I don't cry often, but the feeling of loss when you can no longer center your life around the deeper meaning you've been raised in is a raw, overwhelming feeling. It can feel like you don't know who you are. If you're in this boat too, just know you're not alone, and we'll learn to construct meaningfulness again.