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rotationalsymmetry · 3 years

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Saw a post (serious? funny? that plausibly deniable ambiguous in between?) about men with significantly younger emerging-adult gf’s always being jerks and…

Not a fan of those posts.

Yes, there’s a correlation between guys willing to date much younger women and guys who are assholes.

But…you do also see AITA posts or relationship advice posts where the significantly younger woman is writing in and some people will just be all “I see your problem, your boyfriend is much older, huge red flag” without responding to anything else and it’s just… that’s anti-helpful.

People that age are figuring out how to make decisions for themselves. They’re figuring out which things that they've always been told aren’t actually reliable (see: “the way you job hunt is you pound the pavement and ask every conceivable employer if they’re hiring”) and which ones actually are, they’re at an age where it’s actually really important to start thinking for yourself and not just do what you’re told (or break the rules but in secret so you don’t get in trouble) and throwing on “well no wonder you’re having relationship problems, you broke a social rule that you had every reason to believe was arbitrary, and also I’m not going to explain the reasoning behind the rule I’m just going to assert that it exists.

There’s stigma against cross-age relationships and young women know this.

There’s also stigma against being queer, being polyamorous, being kinky, having herpes, smoking weed, and getting tattoos. Young adults are often in a process of rejecting stigmas that they think are bullshit. So if you present something in the same way as “ew kinky stuff” or “liking comics as an adult is so cringe”, a lot of young adults are going to react accordingly and (reasonably!) assume you’re full of shit.

(and also feel like they have to defend their boyfriends as “not like that”, because that’s how relationships and attachment and also female socialization work.)

(“being queer”: yeah some queer people are women who date men. I’m one of them, and was one of them when I was a young woman dating a much older man. Also, many cishet women have queer friends they feel protective of. Or otherwise picked up “gay is bad” from the culture but reject it.)

This is kind of like the thing I reblogged earlier today about how both heavy social drinking is more hazardous to your health than most people realize, and also if you do drink heavily maybe that’s worth it to you just it’s good to know the risks, right? There are predictable, known risks to young adults (actual adults, not using young adults as a different way of saying teenager here) dating older adults, especially young women dating older men, in terms of power imbalances and derailing your education/career and pregnancy risk (this is more the case for actual minors but even with adults sometimes insisting on bc is more intimidating with an older partner, and also sometimes the older partner is a rapist) and so on. And it’s good to get that info out there so that young adults know the risks and can make their own decisions. Just sending out what amounts to an “ew cringe” shit post or “yeah your problem is that your boyfriend is a decade older than you” doesn’t convey that information. It really, really doesn’t. (And it tends to come across kinda like “well, you went up to his room/were wearing a skimpy outfit/had a couple drinks, what did you expect?”)

You think you’re going after the older boyfriend. But who you’re actually hurting is the younger girlfriend.

Oh, also? Sometimes those relationships are fine. Sometimes the older guy isn‘t a jerk. Sometimes the wonky power and different life stage stuff is workable outable. Sometimes those are good relationships. Sometimes same age relationships are dysfunctional or abusive. (Probably occasionally a younger person is abusive to a significantly older person.) You can’t tell how healthy a relationship is by comparing ages. Give people actual red flags to work with.

like when I was 20 and one older woman I was friends with was all “oh, yeah, I was in a relationship kinda like that once, here’s how I knew when to get out.” She respected my agency, my ability to make that call for myself, and that was actually helpful.

#Age gap relationships #Rape mention #Abuse #Red flags #social stigma #substance use #In retrospect she may have been more worried about me than I picked up on at the time #But regardless it was about the best way she could have responded

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dwellordream · 3 years

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“In act ,4 scene 1, of The Tempest (first performed, so far as we know, in 1611 and first published in 1623), the elaborate masque that Prospero and Ariel present in order to show Ferdinand and Miranda "some vanity of [Prospero's] Art" and to celebrate the couple's betrothal suddenly dissolves; the dancing reapers and nymphs "heavily vanish" "to a strange, hollow, and confused noise." ' As the moment of festivity and hannony fractures in dissonance, the artful, magical spectacle, which draws on prestigious classical and courtly traditions, disappears: "Our revels now are ended," says Prospero (I. 148). The disruption occurs because Prospero "starts suddenly, and speaks" about Caliban, the "servant-monster," and his brewing plot. “I had forgot that foul conspiracy/Of the beast Caliban and his confederates/Against my life./The minute of their plot Is almost come.”(II. 139-.142)

At the moment in which Prospero basks in self-congratulation, Caliban's plot-the scheming subordinate's subplot-which Paul Brown has identified as "a kind of antimasque," interrupts Prospero's master plan, prompting him to ruminate on transience and mortality. Although Prospero knows about, and even stages and manipulates, Caliban's plot, at this moment we sense briefly possible narratives other than that of Prospero's mastery. According to Peter Hulme and Francis Barker, "the sub-plot provides the only real moment of drama when Prospero calls a sudden halt to the celebratory masque." This "real drama" results from our sense that Prospero is not completely in control and that the outcome is not wholly predictable.

As Hulme and Barker argue, this is the first moment in the play when it is possible to distinguish "between Prospero's play and The Tempest itself." In this instant, we can imagine a play in which Caliban is the protagonist governing the main plot, a play in which he is once again his own king. The disruption reveals the fragility not only of the masque and the celebration but also of Prospero's power. Caliban's disruptive intrusion is recognizably linked to the narrative of petty treason. Although Prospero rapidly recovers himself and consults with Ariel about how to curtail and punish Caliban's insubordination, Caliban's plot threatens to derail Prospero's elaborate schemes to regain his dukedom, marry off his daughter, and punish/educate his usurping brother. It threatens simultaneously the form and coherence of the play at its most gorgeous, most confident moment of aesthetic display.

Like the petty traitor and his betrayal, the threats to Prospero and his agenda, to the patriarchal social and political order these represent, and to the form of The Tempest come from inside Prospero's household, from the character introduced as "my slave" (1.2.311). Recent criticism connects The Tempest to various discourses of power in Renaissance culture. Focusing on Caliban's compelling narrative of how Prospero wooed then enslaved him and on how he was degraded from "mine own king" to "all the subjects that you have" (1.2.3+1- +s), critics demonstrate brilliantly the play's relationship to discourses of colonialism and the processes of exploration and exploitation in which they participate. In addition, Curt Breight articulates the relationship between The Tempest and discourses of treason. As he shows, the play includes two treason plots, one presented as a false accusation, the other as actual: Prospero accuses Ferdinand of being a traitor; Sebastian and Antonio plot to kill Alonso, king of Naples.

The play's prehistory, which generates its plot, centers on Antonio's usurpation of his brother's dukedom and attempt to eliminate him. From the perspective of recent critics, at the intersection of these discourses of power, Prospero, as sovereign and as imperialist, stands compromised by his power over others and the brutality with which he wields it. Yet the play also presents Prospero as compromised by his dependency on and vulnerability to those who serve him: first his brother, then his servants. Just as The Tempest participates in discourses of colonialism and treason, it is also in dialogue with discourses of petty treason. Since Caliban acts both as Prospero's only subject and as his domestic servant, his plot against Prospero is both high and petty treason.

The conflation of public and private, political and domestic, so evident in the legal construction of petty treason, particularly applies to the shrunken, enclosed world of The Tempest, in which Prospero's household is the commonwealth. He is master, father, and king, and his daughter and servants are his only subjects. Petty and high treason are so analogous in The Tempest that most readers and viewers have not distinguished between the two. Yet the relationship between Prospero and Caliban is first presented as a domestic one. When Prospero narrates his time on the island and his relationship to its original inhabitants in order to chastise Ariel and defer his request for freedom, he first identifies Caliban as the one ''whom now I keep in service" (1.2.288).

In this disciplinary narrative, Prospero characterizes himself as the good master by reminding Ariel what it was like to be tormented and imprisoned by a bad mistress, Sycorax. Ariel dearly has the ability to irritate his master by requesting liberty and provoking a monthly reminder of his history, but he is presented as the good servant, as opposed to Caliban: the ''villain" and "slave." Although he is presented as monstrous and dangerous, Caliban is also presented as invaluable; Prospero and Miranda depend on him. We cannot miss him./He does make our fire,/Fetch in our wood, and serves in offices/That profit us. (1.2.31+-16) Stephen Greenblatt shows how many explorers of the new world depicted themselves as dependent on the natives to supply them with food, as entrusting basic subsistence needs to those they did not trust. They thus placed themselves in a relation of fearful dependency on those they violently subjugated as their inferiors and slaves.

Greenblatt links this "determination to be nourished by the labor of others weaker, more vulnerable, than oneself' to a desire to distinguish one's self as a gentleman. By such means Europeans created a class hierarchy in the New World, a hierarchy in which virtually any European would be above the natives. Like Europeans exploring the New World, then, Prospero needs a native to show him "all the qualities o' th' isle"; he also needs a slave so that he can proclaim himself a master. Just as Prospero and Miranda cannot survive on the island without Caliban, Prospero cannot be a king without a subject, or a master without his servants. Such dependency motivates the fear of petty treason.

Since Prospero's mastery depends on Caliban's and Ariel's subordination and his bodily life depends on Caliban's exertions, he must use force, threat, and magical torments to secure the submission of the subordinates on whom he depends and with whom he is so intimate. The danger of such dependency and intimacy is represented through Caliban's attempt to rape Miranda. As Prospero reminds Caliban: “I lodg'd thee/In mine own cell, till thou didst seek to violate/The honor of my child" (1.2.3+9-SI). Only Caliban's attempt to rape Miranda convinces Prospero that Caliban, unlike most servants, cannot live in his house, cannot be a member of the family. As critics have noted, Prospero reminds Caliban of the rape and its relation to his "lodging" in order to construct Caliban as a bad servant, a betrayer of the household that has welcomed and included him, and therefore to sidestep Caliban's construction of Prospero as the betraying father/master and usurper of the island.

Thus, to protect his own interests and displace blame, Prospero counters Caliban's narrative of tyranny and usurpation (a narrative too much like Prospero's own account of his lost dukedom) with a narrative of attempted rape. Prospero also counters Caliban's claim that he is a victim with the charge that Caliban is a perpetrator and agent. Prospero holds Caliban accountable to the extent that this serves his own interests. In Prospero's view, Caliban is subhuman and monstrous, a ludicrous rival for rule. Yet Caliban is also responsible enough to work for Prospero and possesses enough agency to be held accountable and punished, first for the rape and later for the plot against his master. To manage the disturbing possibility that a Caliban could have legitimate claims to the kingship of his own island, a world "new" only to its invader, Prospero deploys the familiar, household discourse of master-servant relations.

Caliban's paradoxical position, which enables Prospero to manipulate his relation to Caliban and Caliban's accountability, is not particular to this amphibious inhabitant of an enchanted isle but corresponds, in part, to the status of the early modern household servant. As Michael MacDonald argues, "many households in early modern England harbored a Caliban, a 'servant-monster,' partly adult, partly child, partly domestic beast of burden." MacDonald's vivid evocation of domestic servants as both familiar and strange, as monstrous in their conflation of categories, points to the difficulty of locating servants within early modern social order and the anxiety this could cause.

Those critics of The Tempest who have acknowledged class conflict in the play have oversimplified it as dualistic. They have not recognized the significance of Prospcro's and Caliban's relationship as master and servant; nor do they address the complex, shifting relation of the roles of master and servant to social hierarchies. Brown, for instance, argues that the play defines the aristocracy against the masterless (Stephano, Trinculo, and Caliban) and that "the masterless therefore function to bind the rulers together in hegemony." Breight agrees that "Caliban's conspiracy appears to present a precis of Elizabethan fears regarding masterless men." Yet, as Brown acknowledges at some points but disregards at others, Caliban is not mastcrless.

Nor is the domestic hierarchy of master and servant quite the same as the social hierarchy of the aristocracy and the masterless (which elides the middle of the social order and the majority of the population) or the political hierarchy of governors and governed. Also, while the master-servant and kingsubject relationships are analogous, as the definition of petty treason articulates, and while both of these hierarchical relations are associated with class hierarchies, the connections are complex. Excepting the king, each of the inhabitants of the realm is a subject; that subjection embraces every social class. Like the category "subject" or "governed," "servant" incorporates many social and economic classes.

As a result, historians argue that "servants did not understand themselves, and were not understood by early modern society, to be part of a labouring class, youthful proletarians." Indeed, so many people, including aristocrats at court, spent some part of their life in service that it was considered a developmental phase more than a permanent social status. As Ann Kussmaul notes, "For most servants, it was a transitional occupation, specific to their transitional status between childhood and adulthood." Since most servants were youths, servants "constituted around 60 percent of the population aged fifteen to twenty-four" in early modem England.' Furthermore, by Peter Laslett's calculation, "a quarter, or a third, of all the families in the country contained servants in Stuart times."

Integral members of the households in which they lived and worked, servants obtained their social status from their masters. They were thus woven into hierarchies that governed social order in early modem England and into households and families. Servants were neither distinguishable nor separable as a social group; because of their intimate relationship with their employers, servants were confusing, even threatening, figures. The threat lay not in their stark opposition to their masters or their demonized otherness but in their very familiarity and their insinuation into all social groups and situations. Furthermore, the role of service as a developmental phase reveals the dependency and deference that permeated social relations throughout early modem England.

Dependent yet depended upon, familiar yet not wholly known or controlled, a class yet not one, servants blurred boundaries and confused categories. To the complex positioning of the domestic servant in early modem England, the characterization of Caliban adds the further complication of racial difference; Caliban seems to occupy the same "curious outsider-within stance" that Patricia Hill Collins describes as typical of African-American women domestic workers in white upper-class households. In The Tempest, as in the situations that Collins describes, this position enables the servant to see the master/employer demystified and vulnerable. The story of the insubordinate dependent, the petty traitor, is the story of the outsider-within as told from the perspective of the threatened master; it articulates the fear that the other and the enemy might be the person who makes your fire, prepares your food, and lodges in your own cell.

Pointing out that Ferdinand takes Caliban's place when Caliban is freed from log-toting to plot his rebellion, Breight argues that "in structural terms Prospero always needs a demonic 'other'." It is important that Prospero needs not an other as much as a servant, a servant who, while he may be demonic, is also domestic. One of the threats Caliban offers as a servant is that he is not "other" enough: He once lived with Prospero; he remembers happier days of being petted; he is a thing of darkness whom Prospero feels compelled to acknowledge as his own. Like the attempted rape that leads to Caliban's domestic exile and imprisonment, Caliban's plan to kill Prospero hinges on his role as the familiar, included member of the household as well as the estranged, monstrous "other."

Displaying his knowledge of Prospero's habits and vulnerabilities, Caliban suggests to his confederates that they deprive Prospero of his power by "seiz[ing] his books" and then kill him during his customary nap: "'Tis a custom with him/the afternoon to sleep./There thou mayst brain him" (p.87-89). Turning on the inside information that a servant would have, this plot constitutes a particularly intimate, domestic betrayal. Prospero commands magical forces, but his books and "brave utensils" arc vulnerable to seizure and destruction by one who knows their place and power. Caliban is so consistently characterized as a servant that he appears to internalize that characterization and to construe his actions as petty treason rather than as the reclamation of his own usurped kingdom.

…Brown argues that the comic treatment of the conspiracy in The Tempest serves to restore social, political, and aesthetic orders; the aristocrats' "collective laughter at the chastened revolting plebians" enables them to displace responsibility for their own failures onto "the ludicrous revolt of the masterless" and to celebrate their reclaimed authority. Addressing the social function of Renaissance dramatic forms more generally, critics such as Louis A. Montrose argue that Renaissance comedy performed social work by provoking and alleviating tensions. According to such arguments, with which I agree, a play like The Tempest represents Caliban and his fellow conspirators in order to trivialize and overmaster them; it grants them their own plot in order to subordinate it to a plot structure and a larger cultural narrative that diminish their significance and locate power and prestige elsewhere-in the master and his story.”

- Frances E. Dolan, “The Subordinate’s Plot: Petty Treason and the Forms of Domestic Rebellion.” in Dangerous Familiars: Representations of Domestic Crime in England, 1550 - 1700

#dangerous familiars #the tempest #shakespeare #cw: rape #colonialism #history #renaissance #jacobean #stuart #servants #slavery

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gascon-en-exil · 5 years

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There’s nothing wrong with your ethnicity bringing you to the faith, but if the faith becomes a mere accessory to you, or just another label you use for your identity, then you don’t truly believe.

Being French did not “bring me to” Catholicism, I was born into it like most people in Catholic cultures. That means Baptism a few weeks after birth and the other two Sacraments of Initiation at various points during childhood and/or early adolescence. Like most New Orleans Catholics for me this also meant 16 years in the Catholic educational system. Religions that people actively choose in adulthood have always seemed strange to me, not to mention obnoxious when their adherents try to convert me (Jehovah’s Witnesses are the worst, but Mormons aren’t much better and the mostly Baptist protesters we get down here every Carnival and Decadence waving their anti-Catholic placards are a special brand of unwelcome.). I wholly discourage the idea of converting anyone else - adults converts are some of the most suffocating people I’ve ever had the misfortune to share a pew with, as if they were trying to cram the twenty or so years they missed out on in growing up with the Church into that exact moment.

I am religious, but I am not spiritual. I experience no cognitive dissonance with this, and never have; France has been treating the Church as a political and cultural accessory practically since the founding of the kingdom, to be used when it would be helpful and discarded when it becomes a nuisance. This is why there are so many people in France and Québec who publicly identify as Catholic even though they are functionally atheists; public displays of devotion, much less genuine belief, offer no practical benefit to them. Louisiana doesn’t have this luxury with the cultural pressures of the Bible Belt always looking to force themselves in, so we are more performatively Catholic (and encourage the activity of more genuinely devout Catholic cultures, like the Spanish and Italians) than our countrymen elsewhere. One could say that Catholicism in particular lends itself to this kind of performative devotion, with its heavy emphasis on legalism, ritual and a strong visual presence that manifests in New Orleans as it does in no other US city - one of the ways in which this city more greatly resembles those of continental Europe. Protestants call this a flaw; I call it a perk, because thanks to them we may see that Christianity not infused with elements from various pagan traditions is quite possibly the dullest religion ever created. Dull and fragmented - Protestants fracture themselves into dozens of denominations that all look identical from the outside, and yet every Catholic culture has its own priorities, its distinct forms of worship, and its own relationship to the Church although we all attend Mass together and (however nominally) remain loyal to the Holy See.

It doesn’t matter that I don’t believe, because I don’t have to. I can ward off Protestants with a devotional Rosary or statues of my patron saints, derail their asinine attempts to “save” me into heresy by outlining the three-tiered Catholic afterlife that they don’t accept (and I don’t much care about either, but irrelevant), and envision lewd fantasies of clerical sex in my spare time, or to make Mass go faster if the celebrant is worth looking at twice. I’d briefly considered the priesthood during school, but I discarded the idea rather quickly. Not because of my lack of sincere belief - French literature offers numerous colorful examples of atheist Catholic clergymen - but because sneaking around to have sex in the seminary would have become very tedious very quickly. I’d already had enough of being around Irish and Italian boys crying after they masturbated by the time I finished high school, thank you very much. As with every other decision I’ve ever made in my life, belief had nothing to do with it; even so, I am still Catholic.

#Pointless rambling #Louisiana Francophones

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mountainsarecallingbabe · 5 years

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Dream Big or Go Home

She looked down at the lengthy resume in front of her and then up at me, confusion written all over her face. “So what exactly do you want to do?”

I looked down at my feet as they started to make circles in the carpet in this stranger’s basement. “Well, I want to start a blog and write about travel, people’s stories and environmental topics.”

“Uh huhhh”, she said, with a look on her face as if I had confirmed the sneaking suspicion within her that I had not a clue what I wanted to do with my life.

You see, there I was in this woman’s basement interviewing for a position as a dog walker despite my parents proposition that they could get me a high paying government job with great benefits. “A dog walking job is flexible and I’ll be able to work on my blog and develop a freelancing business,” I’d propose to my unconvinced parents. The average person might question why I would go out of my way to seek a job like dog walking when I could have a more stable job with a steady income?

This is a fair question considering that the majority of people’s life goals and ideas of success are to get a high paying job, to save for vacation once or twice a year, to meet the love of their life, to then get married and buy a house and to then have kids allthewhile saving for their retirement at the age of 65 *takes long breath*. However enticing this American Dream might look like to most, to me its always felt like a cage that I’ve been trying my hardest to escape ever since I started college.

I tried my hardest to do exert some level of freedom while living out the American Dream in corporate America. Earlier this year, I even thought I had what I wanted when I got a salaried job in the environmental field. My long distance boyfriend of three years was making a great living in PA and there I was was moving to the Philly area and would only be about an hour commute away from him. How could I have any complaints? After all this would be my first time having a job that provided me with a 401K, health insurance and other snazzy benefits. I moved to Pennsylvania (for the second time now in my life) despite having told anyone I ever met in the past several years I would NEVER move to PA again. Yet despite my better judgement I took the job, moved to the suburbs and threw all of my savings on an apartment with my dog.

Things were going great, on the surface that is. This is what was supposed to happen. New furniture, clothes, job, friends. Stability??? Now I will be happy. Any minute now...These are the things I tried to tell myself while an alarm center was going off in the pit of myself alerting me that all of this was wrong. My “rational” side would kick in when the alarm bells were going off inside me as if to whip me back into shape and would raise questions and concerns like, ‘Ok well if not this, then what?’ ‘How will you support yourself if not with a 9-5 job?’ ‘Where will you go and how will you live?’ ‘People sometimes have to work jobs they don’t like to have fun and do things they do like’. I wonder where all these thoughts come from...I’m going to help you out gentle reader: The mind of every single scared person in the world trying their hardest to adult right now, thats who!

Listen, these aren’t "wrong” questions but they were meant to silence my gut that was screaming ‘STOP! WE NEED TO SLOW DOWN!’ Its as though my life was put on 1.5x speed and I had no say in it. “This is how its meant to be, this is what’s suppose to happen”. Again and again I’d go in circles trying to convince myself.

In retrospect, it was only a matter of time then before one of the rungs on the ladder to success broke off and I’d fall flat on my ass. A month or two into my new life, my 3 year relationship ended. In essence, we wanted entirely different things. He wanted to live a simple life in his hometown with his friends and family with a normal salaried 9-5 and I wanted someone to travel the world with and be adventurous and daring together (this is simply one major aspect of why things ended of course). Could I say this was a surprise? Hell no. Again people, warnings, fire alarms, sirens where going off in my stomach the whole relationship. But I stuffed it deep down thinking I could make things work. I was afraid. Afraid of the unknown, of being alone and how I would face the world with my lack of courage.

I was met with a great surprise post breakup, in which my world became somewhat larger as I was no longer forcing a circle into a square peg and trying to be something other than myself. I allowed my gut to start playing more into my everyday desires, like stepping out of my comfort zone and spending more time meeting and getting to know others at work. I began to try new things like acting classes and improv, which I never would have had the courage to do before. The most amazing thing came from this breakup and it was the amazing community and friendships I gained at my workplace. The following months were filled with play and exploration for the first time in a long time in my social life. I felt a part of me open up that I honestly didn’t know existed and I gained immeasurable self confidence from that time. Yet there it was, the nagging sensation that while this was good, there was still more on the other side and that something still wasn’t right and that had largely to do with my job.

Maybe I’ll write about my job in an entirely separate blog post but to put it simply, it was not the right position or place for me and quite frankly I’m not sure that I fit into a corporate 9-5 atmosphere. I like to blaze my own trail and break the rules, which is pretty much the opposite of how things work in an office thick with spoken and unspoken rules.

Therefore, it was only a matter of time before this too became a ticking time bomb in its own respect.

“I’m so sorry to do this”, my boss said sheepishly as the HR manager said the words, “You’re terminated, effective immediately”. I found myself fired two days before I was to leave on a trip to visit a friend in the UK.

I was in so much shock that I shakily walked back to my desk with my computer and asked for a box to put my stuff into and walked out to my truck with the help of my concerned friends/coworkers.

It’s a terrible feeling to be fired as you can’t help but wonder what you did wrong or what you could have done differently so it wouldn’t have had to come down to this. But as my friends asked me “Are you ok?” I couldn’t help but say yes and smile as I drove my truck the twenty two minutes it took me to get home. A weight had been lifted off my shoulders.

My world was becoming larger.

Leaving to my trip to the UK was the perfect segue into a new chapter in my life in which after having been laid off I extended my trip to Denmark and Ireland to visit friends and explore. What I didn’t expect is that on the last leg of my trip I would feel more myself than I have ever felt in the past several years, if not ever. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had glimpses of this feeling for example while I was roadtripping out to New Mexico with my dog or traveling to Chiang Mai, Thailand on my own for the first time or when I roadtripped to Minnesota to stay with the Ojibwe people to do research. Its a feeling I’ve never quite been able to put my finger on.

There I was 3 weeks traveled and I had no desire to come back to the States because I felt something stirring inside me. Like an epiphany was about to happen but it hadn’t been given enough time to fully form.

The second I got home, almost like I was possessed, I walked over to my computer, opened Photobooth video (don’t laugh) and spoke for about an hour in my empty apartment about how I had just figured out what I wanted to do with my life. I needed to capture these thoughts as the words were pouring out of me effortlessly.

“I want to travel the world, share my love of nature with people, learn from different cultures and share their stories with people all over the world. There’s nothing more powerful than storytelling in helping to inspire change in ourselves and in the world around us and I want to contribute to that.”

So there it was. This would be my new path. No more slaving away at a 9-5 doing repetitive work with seemingly no autonomy. I would do whatever it took to pave my own path by becoming a blogger and following my crazy dream to travel and tell stories about nature and people.

Flash forward to the present moment three weeks after my return to the States followed by my word vomit of a video I find myself in my family’s house in DC after having moved out of my apartment outside of Philly. I’m struggling to keep that momentum and inspiration going. I’m working on developing a schedule to self educate on becoming a freelancer, blogger and subject expert. The thing is, however hard this may be, I know in my gut that THIS, this is right for me right now.

I’m writing this after having realized that my childhood stuffed animal, Ping Pong, was lost in the move. I KNOW this seems like a total derailment but bare with me. This might seem silly to most people but its been a huge part of my life.

Traveling is not foreign to me. I grew up moving every 1-3 years and therefore have had to get used to saying goodbye to people, places and things and its ultimately had a huge impact on my sense of home or place in this world. For example, I don’t know where home is for me and sometimes that is exciting and other times it sucks. There are a few things therefore that are very near and dear to me because in the wake of so many constant changes and ever changing life circumstances, something as childish as a stuffed animal has been at times the only constant for me for the past 20+ years. Every place I have ever traveled that bear has come with me. Losing this stuffed animal is truly the one thing that has tipped the emotional scale for me in what I feel like must be a de-shedding of my previous self and everything I’ve held onto my whole life.

While I can’t express how sad it makes me that I’ve lost this childhood keepsake, I know that the memories I’ve had with it and what it reminds me of while stay with me forever. What can’t be taken from you are your experiences and what truly matters then are the people you surround yourself with, the communities you embrace and let embrace you and the moments you take to stop and enjoy the little things in life.

This year has been, and continues to be a huge learning curve for me but has made me realize that we have to follow our gut and what we truly want and dream of.

I’m going take the path less chosen and devote my time and energy on figuring out to execute what I envision in this life because up until now I’ve been selling myself short. This is entirely due to crippling fear and anxiety of failure, judgement from others and fear of the unknown.

One last thing I want to say is that sometimes those closest to you and generally those around you will tell you to what you can and can’t do or should and shouldn’t do. Its not because they are don’t love you or want to see you succeed its purely because people like to speak from what they know. Its up to YOU to show yourself what you’re capable of and only up to you to push the limits on what you believe you can do. Never take no for an answer in this world and keep going even when it seems life is beating you down because there’s always a lesson in everything that’s thrown our way and while we can’t choose our circumstances we can choose how we react and respond to them.

I’m not a great writer but I’ll get better at it eventually and guess what? Whatever you want to do deep down, you’ll get better at too if you want it bad enough. It just takes practice. I hope this is inspiring or helps others and honestly I wrote this to inspire and help myself, so there.

What path will you take? What have you always wanted to do in life or try and have been to afraid to bite the bullet on? The world is your oyster and if you want it, go for it!

#myposts

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gcintheme-blog · 7 years

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42 Things “Male Feminists/Allies” Need to Work On

Too many men say they support women in the broad sense without addressing the sexist things they do almost every day. They expect women to praise them for doing the bare minimum like saying “I am a feminist” and sometimes even think this entitles them to special affection from women (eww). So guys, here are 42 myself and my sisters have personally noticed “feminist” men seriously need to address.

(To clarify, feminism isn’t for men. It it for the liberation of women. Certain aspects of this, like destroying certain certain gender roles, may benefit some men. But men are the oppressors as a class whereas women are the oppressed. Men: stop commandeering our movement.)

Don’t use sexist words. Bitch, cunt, slut, whore, twat, skank, dyke, pussy, sissy, tramp. These are all sexist words. And “I use this word to describe anyone who does X!” does not make it any less sexist. These words all have roots in demeaning women.

Call out your male friends when they use sexist language. Even if there aren’t any women around, using this language shows that they think, at least in some ways, women are lesser than they are and it’s acceptable to talk about us in a derogatory way. Call out friends who engage in rape culture.

Challenge sexism on the internet and social media.

Don’t use condescending terms like “honey” and “sweetie” to adults. This is infantilizing.

Be aware of other words that are often used to demean women such as bossy, ditzy, or nagging and don’t use them.

Don’t watch porn. Pornography sells women’s bodies as commodities and it is also virtually impossible to know whether the woman on the screen is trafficked or not. Even if she isn’t, women’s bodies are not for male consumption.

Don’t interrupt women.

Hold other men accountable for interrupting women. “Excuse me, she was speaking.”

Advocate for hiring and promoting women in your workplace.

Do not expect women to take on stereotypically women’s roles in the workforce that aren’t part of their job description, such as organizing for birthdays or taking meeting notes.

Don’t derail discussions about women’s issues. Organize your own discussions and movements for men’s issues. For example, do not derail discussions about FGM with “What about male circumcision?” You are more than welcome to organize a movement for stopping male circumcision. I think you will find most feminists will support you.

Accept “no” the first time. Do not try to change her mind or keep asking. Rejecting a man can be terrifying because sometimes men attack or even murder women for saying no. We really don’t know who might suddenly turn physically violent so don’t force us to say no more than once. The first time should be enough.

If consuming drugs or alcohol causes you to lose the ability to make good choices, become violent, or act poorly toward women (or anyone, really, including yourself), do not consume drugs or alcohol. Being drunk or high is not an excuse. If you are struggling with addiction, here is a list of addiction and substance abuse organizations.

Don’t expect the women you live with to do all the domestic labor. If you live there, you do your share of the chores unless there is some other agreement in place.

Divide childcare equally. If you father children, you are a parent too. You are not a hero for taking care of your own children.

Educate yourself and others on consent. Here is a very brief overview.

You are not entitled to sex. Nothing you do, say, or feel that you are entitles you to sex. Do not ever pressure someone to have sex with you or guilt someone for saying no.

Consent to sex with a condom is just that: consent to sex with a condom. Do not remove your condom. This is rape. Do not pressure someone to have sex without a condom once they have said they are uncomfortable with sex without a condom. It doesn’t matter if you don’t have one and you really want to have sex. It doesn’t matter if she takes birth control. You are not entitled to sex.

Do not suggest being a “nice guy” or self-identifying as a feminist/ally means women should flock to you. You are not entitled to sex.

Do not comment on women’s dating choices or suggest we are “wrong” for not dating you. You are not entitled to sex.

Don’t leer at or make sexual comments about women. Don’t bother women minding their own business.

Do not make inappropriate comments about women to other people. It is embarrassing and demeaning.

Don’t make comments on a woman’s body parts. Women don’t exist for your consumption.

Be aware of your space in public. For example, if there are several open seats on a train, don’t take the one next to a woman sitting alone if you don’t have to. If a woman is using a cash machine, stand back several steps until she finishes. We don’t know which men might be sexually abusive or violent so avoid putting us in a position to be afraid if you don’t have to. This also protects you because you won’t be suspected of doing something creepy if you aren’t near anyone to creep on.

Don’t expect women to do all the emotional labor in your relationships. Women are often exploited for our emotional labor. Hire a therapist if you need one and pay him or her for their time and expertise.

Don’t flirt at inappropriate times. When women are present to engage in something and share our ideas (for example at a political meeting) it can feel extremely belittling when men are more interested in flirting with us than hearing what we have to say.

Do not commandeer women’s spaces. We have these spaces to be safe from routine and often violent harassment from men. They are not for you. Do not force yourself into them.

Do not police how women talk about our bodies.

Do not explain things to women that we already know just to show how smart you think you are.

Do not ask or infer a woman is menstruating if she is irritated by something.

Do not blame women for male violence. Feminism is not the reason men assault other men. Men assault other men.

Do not blame women for cultural norms that you believe hurt men. Men set these norms. For example, women and feminism are not the reason men feel emasculated if they wear makeup to cover acne. Male supremacy set these norms and attacks men who do not follow them just as it attacks and oppresses women.

Do not deny male privilege. I’ve already done a post on five ways society disadvantages female infants and you can search for the thousands of ways male privilege exists. Boys and men are privileged from birth. Do not deny this or try to deny your own male privilege.

Do not pretend men acting stereotypically feminine negates male privilege. Feminine men are still men and though they might be subjected to male violence for being gender nonconforming, they still have male privilege that women will never have. Gender nonconforming men face problems for being gender nonconforming but they are still men.

Do not pretend calling oneself a woman negates male privilege.

Do not pretend men can be as or more oppressed than women by asserting they are women.

Do not spread false information about female biology. No, the vagina does not become looser if a woman has more sex partners. No, a vagina is not just a sleeve of skin for sex.

Do not advance the false notion that male and female brains are fundamentally different. They aren’t. This idea oppresses women by arguing that we are neurologically different from men and allows men to argue we are less intelligent/better geared toward certain jobs (usually domestic work)/naturally embody sexist stereotypes.

Do not use a definition of woman that implies adherence to feminine gender roles (which are patriarchal) or self-identification. Women are an oppressed class of people from birth because of our anatomy and reproductive roles. To use a definition of womanhood based on self-identification suggests that women can identify in and out of our positions as oppressed people, or that we brought this oppression on ourselves.

Do not tell women to “calm down” or “relax” when we are passionate about something.

Do not expect women to accept every “compliment” or “nice” gesture from men. We are allowed to turn down compliments or advances.

Listen to women when we speak.

#feminism #sexism #male feminists #allies #everyday sexism

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frasier-crane-style · 7 years

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Mon-El

I thought I’d make a list of random things the Supergirl writers could’ve explored here.

1. In most modern-day canon, it takes a long time for Superman’s powers to develop under a yellow sun. He starts off unusually strong, by his teens he’s developing actual superpowers, and from there he just gets stronger and stronger. Maybe they could milk some drama out of Mon developing these freakish abilities, Supergirl trying to train him in their use before he’s in a situation where losing control means he sends a truck through a building. Or maybe there’s an emergency and he needs to take in a dangerous dose of solar radiation to bring himself up to Superfamily level.

2. So imagine that you find out that the Earth has been destroyed, everyone you ever knew or loved is dead, and now you’re stuck on an alien world forever. You’d be pretty broken up about it, right? Probably even have PTSD. So wouldn’t it be interesting to see the same feelings that Kara has in the subtext suddenly be foregrounded in this guy?

3. Same as above, but now imagine the alien world you’re on is insisting that you risk your life in public service. Also, you’re not getting paid for this; you have to wear a disguise and get another job to earn money, while you do the life-risking gratis. (And as someone without even a high school education, at least on Earth, what job could Mon-El get? There’s no way he’s staying in as nice an apartment as Kara has if he’s driving a cab) Wouldn’t that strike you as absolutely insane? Especially if you’re actually working at a government agency, for all intents and purposes. Just Mon-El adopting a “fuck you, pay me” stance at the DEO would put him at dramatic loggerheads with the rest of the cast.

3a. Or where does he stay? With Kara? Jimmy? Winn? Alex? J’onn? At the DEO? It seems like any of those scenarios could lead to some interesting ‘roommates’ shenanigans. “Hey, could you pay your half of the rent?” “Hey, could you stop a train from derailing? Cuz I did. Get off my back.”

4. Clark was raised on Earth from infancy, so he considers himself a really weird human, while Kara was adopted as a child. Mon-El is a Daxamite who’s coming to Earth as an adult. So if we’re going to adopt this immigrant/refugee metaphor for aliens, he’s totally unassimilated. What if he says “fuck wearing jeans and pretending to be humans, I’m a Daxamite, deal with it”? What if there’s a traditional Daxamite hairstyle or tattooing or clothing he wears? It seems like the difference between a Muslim who goes around in a nice suit and a Muslim who wears a thobe and grows a neckbeard. Could bring up interesting questions of Kara being ‘ashamed’ of her heritage.

5. By a similar token, Mon-El having a public ID. Supergirl doesn’t get much use out of Kara’s secret, since pretty much her entire supporting cast (and a government agency??????) know she’s Supergirl. Having a guy who’s the opposite--”yeah, I just stopped a train, now I’m getting a burger”--could bring that back into play. Would Kara try to separate Mon-El from herself and her friends to keep anyone from making a connection, only interacting publicly with him as Supergirl? That could be especially interesting if they start to date. A whole ‘secret romance’ thing. Hey, maybe some of the journalists who Kara works with could be looking into Mon-El, resulting in an ironic situation where Kara has to hide her relationship from them or risk her secret ID being publicized. I don’t know, could give someone at CatCo something to do.

6. I don’t know about you, but one of the sticking points of Supergirl’s backstory is that she spends years trying to be normal (as a human?) and just letting her powers go to waste. It seems like that should come up when Mon-El is resistant to being a superhero. Does she regret all the time she spent interning at Catco and going to college when she could’ve been saving lives? Does she think Mon-El will regret it too? Maybe she’s resistant to him becoming a superhero because she thinks he needs time to process and adapt to life on Earth, the same way she did.

7. The big one: we’ve all seen Superman goes evil story where Superman or another Kryptonian tries to take over the world. ‘Superman goes self-interested’ is actually a somewhat fresh idea. Basic morals and enlightened self-interest would steer anyone reasonable away from world domination or knocking over banks (who wants the trouble of a fight with the military?). But to anyone with a lick of sense and a motivation to just live comfortably and enjoy themselves, there’s plenty of ways to monetize having superpowers. That actually seems like an antagonistic ‘challenge’ to Kara that she can’t just outpunch: Mon-El asking her why she wants to be Supergirl instead of just enjoying herself. Is it because she feels guilty about surviving Krypton? Does it make her feel good to help people? If, at the end of the day, she’s just doing this to feel good, then is she any better than him for trying to feel good in his own way?

I’m talking about an existential antagonist to Kara. We’ve seen Black Cat and Catwoman try to seduce Spider-Man and Batman to their way of thinking; surely the gender reverse can work. There could be a lot of conflict in both of them trying to bring each other around. Mon-El could act to put out a fire in the neighborhood, just because he’s not so sociopathic as to let people die to keep a Words With Friends game going, and Kara could say “see, there is good in you, you saved those people” and he could say “nah, I just did it so people would cheer for me, I’m really quite selfish.” Y’know, could be an interesting discussion on the true nature of heroism.

8. Maybe Daxamite culture could actually be different from American culture? It seems like both Kryptonians and Daxamites, on Supergirl, are just Americans with a bunch of fancy toys and the odd ritual when the writer feels like it. So, Space Canadians. Maybe instead, Mon-El could have actually real, dramatic differences from your average American? What if, just for instance, Daxamites had no concept of monogamy? If Kara dates him, is she right to not want him to have a quickie with a Starbucks barista while she has a cold, or is she wrong for imposing her cultural views on him? I mean, if we’re doing ‘aliens are refugees!’ and one of the big discussions on that is of whether refugees with differing cultures can assimilate into their host country, shouldn’t Mon-El actually have a culture that clashes with America to some extent? And no, doing a Planet of the Hats ‘snobs versus slobs’ thing with Krypton (note: in 2016?) doesn’t count.

#supergirl #mon-el

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contadorharrison · 7 years

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How I overcame screen addiction

A friend who knows that your blogger spends excessive amounts of time on computing devices, told me the other day that smart phones and tablets can be addictive to adults and to children it can affect childhood development.He says smart phones, tablets and laptops have made life easier for many, but health experts are now monitoring and trying to limit exposure from the age of two onwards.He elaborated how his younger brother’s screen addiction derailed his passion for a sports career. "At the point where it was worst, my young brother didn't realise how much it was controlling his life," he told your blogger. "Instead of sitting down and doing an hour or two of solid practice, it would be interspersed with checking his phone. It wasn't just with sport, it was with reading or anything. It's a massive addiction. "But young brother didn't notice it because it's also quite culturally acceptable to use phone all the time. It's expected."He said his brother would sometimes wake up in the night and check his phone.“He’d go to dinner, check it there, go out with mom and dad, check it there, go out with his friends, check it there," he added. "It was ridiculous. Young brother couldn't go anywhere without it." He says limiting the amount of time spent on social media made his young brother feel more connected to him, rest of family and friends. Screen time releases joyful chemicals in the brain. Spending large amounts of time on tablets, smartphones, laptops and applications like Instagram, Twitter and Facebook can change our brains over time according to a Psychologist friend working as a counsellor for both adults and school kids and has helped depressed adults and children shake their screen addiction. She told your blogger screen time stimulates happy chemicals in the brain and can leave users anxious and distracted. “Contador, it works similar to other addictions in that there is a reward pathway that dopamine sets up. If you're doing any activity that feels really good, you would want to do more of that activity and continue to have that good feeling," she told your blogger."I think it comes down to not just the device necessarily, but it's what people are doing with the device. "Similarly to someone with a gambling problem, it might not be the racecourse, but it's what you do at that racecourse. "The negatives can be the in-built addictive qualities that some of the apps have that get you to want to be in them all the time and make them really hard to put down.""It's not about being an adult or a child at two years of age being addicted to the media," she said. "I'd probably just say they're having a bit too much of it and we need to revert to a balance." She says while tablets, computers and mobile devices can be useful educational tools, some adults and children are overly relying on digital media.

"Some of the concerns can be with eyesight, fine motor skills and pencil grip and other skills such as posture, as children lean down to look at tablets," she said."The big issue though is the time it takes away from other play. It can displace other key skills. "If I'm engaging with digital media, playing games and reading digital books, it might mean that I'm not building with blocks or painting with real paints or running outside and playing." She says a combination of technology and tradition is the best approach for parents."These devices, tablets and mobile technologies have incredible benefits for parents and for children," she said. "For parents they can give you that five minutes of free time you just need. But for children they can also bring enormous educational benefits." Listening to my friend and psychologist, it was clear that technology has delivered us amazing gains with mobile devices, productivity apps and social media. But we also need to recognise that there’s a fine line between being a tech fan and having an unhealthy attachment to various devices. But how many people know if they are addicted to technology, especially mobile devices like my friend shared about his young brother? More than a decade ago, at the height of Blackberry devices, i learned that reaching for my mobile to check emails and messages first thing in the morning and getting out of bed was one of the most dangerous behaviours i had. I also used to check calls and messages while driving even though i knew it's illegal and dangerous but luckily i was never caught thanks to change of behaviour. That helped me avoid having my shoulder, arm, wrist, neck pain from long periods of being tensely hunched in the same position. I also stopped carrying my Blackberry with me to bed that eliminated insomnia from the inability to switch off from being connected. Despite being a reading addict and heavy user of computing devices for more than two decades, I have never used glasses since I’ve managed to escape dry, sore eyes caused by endless staring at screens. In addition headaches that affects many heavy users of computers, excessive sedentary behaviour, a leading cause of obesity hasn’t affected me thanks to exercising culture that I’ve inculcated since childhood.Over the years, I have worked hard to make i stay away from the device at least as many hours as i can per week. Mobile devices are great but they’re not the only thing in my life and thats why I use them a couple of times per month(s).Instead of smartphones or computers, I always prefer to read a book, a real paper one!, call me a dinosaur i don’t mind and exploring my music library. I always turn off devices well before bedtime and for more than a decade, I don’t ever put any devices on my bedside.As other people suffer with screen addition, technology be is friend, but I don’t let it be that poisonous partner who dictates my life. I can only hope that others can break the cycle of addiction like I’ve done for more than a decade.

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sumpix · 6 years

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Michael Caine: ‘What ruined the 60s was drugs’ | Discussion | The Guardian

Riverman Glimps_Holme 10 Mar 2018 20:23 36 37

From BTL

You seem to be seeing this article and the comments btl entirely from your own perspective. Like you, I knew plenty of people who temporarily screwed up in the '60s and '70s, but most of them recovered. Some died and some spent the rest of their lives as uncomprehending acid casualties or smackheads (and then, some of them, died). Many more became, if they were lucky, functional alcoholics, the largest group of 'addicts' in our society.

Many of these people I knew had nuclear family issues which predated - you might almost say predicted - their later turmoil. Given the cultural, political and societal changes going on in that period, it's no surprise to most of us who were there knew a lot of young adults whose confusion led them to abuse and self-harm. Given the enormous changes in employment and working conditions, as well as advances in higher education, a huge number of young people had, unlike any previous generation in living memory, the opportunity to live a working or educational life and a social life way beyond the dreams of their parents. Life for pre-millennials was affordable, but also, exploitable.

And that was the curse. All post-war youth 'movements' have been appropriated by the producers of mass consumerism and been fed back to them as product - product which, like Michael Caine's career, is a lie. Caine doesn't believe in any kind of working class solidarity or socio-political awareness that criticises the system that made them poor and working class before they were even born. He's a shooting star whose lucky escape from real life freed him from all everyday concerns.

And in his Hollywood bubble (he won't work with Woody Allen again - what a whistleblowing mensch Caine isn't! And he was a feminist before they were even invented it! Becausehe loved his mum!!!) he simply can't understand why working class people (nothing like the community he grew up in, but he wouldn't know that) aren't like the idealised little world of heavy-drinking, crazy-dancing HUGE names he was hanging out with in the days when he could get laid just by walking in the joint. The man's a limited, mannered, so-called actor who thinks that the parade of geriatric feelgoodish crap movies now being spewed out, and which coincidentally provide him with work (WORK?!) suggests there are fundamental changes going on.

But, how would he know? He doesn't live an ordinary life in the ordinary world the rest of us inhabit, he's a wealthy freak. Everything he pronounces about anything whatsoever should be examined very closely, using something my impeccably Cockney East End Gran used to call "Simple bleedin' common sense". The word hadn't been neologised when she was alive, but she knew bullshit when she heard it. One last point - "I know hundreds of people like him, derailed from the track they were on by drugs." Hundreds? Really? Bit of a Michael Caine, are you?

(via Michael Caine: ‘What ruined the 60s was drugs’ | Discussion | The Guardian)

#michael caine #sixties

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tigerlover16-uk · 8 years

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Do you think that Super has derailed Chichi's character a lot?

Meant to answer this a while ago, but I realize it slipped my mind. Whoops.

And to answer… well, not really. I mean okay, she seems to have regressed a bit in some ways, but not significantly except for maybe one aspect.

I notice a couple of fans complain about her attitude towards utterly refusing to let Goten train, and while yeah I can get why that would be annoying to people and it does seem a bit odd at first considering she’s the one who trained him, I think it makes sense when you really start to think about it.

Remember, Goku was dead when she had Goten. The world was without one of it’s greatest champions, and while Gohan was still around and really powerful, Chichi obviously knew that trouble would eventually find her family again one way or another. So it seems natural that while she had Gohan continue focusing on his studies, she’d want to make sure Goten was able to defend himself in case he found himself in trouble (Also because in Japanese culture it’s pretty common for parents to be a lot less strict with their second child when it comes to things like academics). She wasn’t counting on him going super saiyan, but she wanted him to be able to fight. After all, Goku wasn’t around to keep them all safe if Gohan couldn’t handle a threat himself.

Flash forward to after the Buu Saga and where we are at the start of Super. Goku’s back to stay, a lot stronger than ever. Gohan’s doing very well for himself with his education, eventually getting a job and is on his way to becoming a great scholar like she’d always wanted. Plus happily married. That there is definitive proof that her methods of focusing on her kids education over fighting work, and she would naturally want the same for Goten so he’d be well off as an adult. Especially when you remember the Son Family didn’t have a lot of money at the start of Super and Goku was finally having to work to support them (Something else Chichi clearly wanted him to do more of in the Buu Saga). And the world was at peace until Beerus showed up.

And on top of that, think of everything that happen in the Buu saga with Goten. The kid got beaten around a lot. Even after mastering fusion with Trunks, the kids ultimately proved incapable of beating Majin Buu. Even as super saiyan 3 Gotenks, they quickly lost to Super Buu and ended up getting absorbed. The whole world ended up getting destroyed in that Saga, Chichi had to put up with the grief of thinking Gohan had died at one point, then was killed herself via being turned into an egg and stomped on. And to find out both her kids ended up getting killed for real later on by Buu must have been horrifying for her. For as much as she and everyone else had tried training Goten to prepare him for a villain showing up, things kept going south and Goten ultimately proved unfit to save the day himself and with help. They all barely made it out of that mess in the end with their lives via the super spirit bomb.

Think of all the grief Chichi went through in that saga, then the joy she experienced when it was all over and Goku announced he was coming back so their family could all live together happily at last, which was all she’d ever wanted. With Goku around to keep the world and their family safe, Gohan being successful with his studies, and all those prior experiences weighing on her conscious with her main concern at this point simply being living a peaceful life together with her family… yeah, it makes perfect sense she doesn’t want Goten fighting or training anymore. Especially after Beerus clobbered Gotenks and the Z fighters with no effort and Goku had to literally become a God just to match him.

Chichi knows Goku’s always going to want to train and fight, and that it’s for the best he keeps getting stronger to keep everyone safe. So while she’ll try to find ways to get him to stick around if she can, ultimately she accepts Goku’s status as a fighter and gives him space to go off and train. As recent episodes demonstrate, the two have found ways to compromise so that Goku still provides for his family and spends time with them while still getting time off to pursue his own passions. And Gohan’s an adult, so she doesn’t have much authority over him anymore. But Goten’s still very much her charge and she’s the boss of the household, so given the circumstances and her being more concerned for Goten’s safety and future than anything… yeah, her attitude there makes sense. Maybe it’s a bit exaggerated when she starts ranting about how “There are no more villains” and such, but that’s more just her looking for excuses than anything. She obviously knows by now that’s not going to last, and there wasn’t any problems going on when she made that comment.

Keep in mind, we know that she’ll eventually get over this by the EoZ period, where she lets Goten compete in the World Martial Arts tournament, and doesn’t seem to have any issue with Pan competing. Especially since by that point Goten’s pretty much an adult himself and she’s not Pan’s primary authority figure. We kinda see a hint of this in episode 16 of Super, where after having a discussion with Videl about Pan’s future and whether she should be a fighter, Videl ends the conversation saying she’ll raise Pan however she sees fit and Chichi doesn’t really object in the end to the possibility Videl might let Pan be a fighter (Though that may just not have come up because Goku came Kool-Aid man-ing through the wall shortly afterwards when Bulma brought up Vegeta training with Whis).

So yeah, Chichi’s attitude towards not letting Goten fight and not wanting Pan to be a battle junkie like her Grandpa is kinda regression, but it’s natural development that fits the circumstances she’s been through and while I’d like to see her relax and let Goten get more involved in the action, considering Goten’s eventual character development is going to have to involve him deciding he’s not that interested in being a martial artist anyway and we’re getting closer to EoZ all the time, I don’t see this attitude as a problem right now. At least she has understandable reasons.

Other than that, I feel that there are definitely moments here or there where her character is exaggerated a bit for the sake of jokes… buuut, the anime of Z did that all the time too. Remember Kaio-ken Chichi in the Garlic Jr saga and Roshi joking Goku didn’t want to come straight home from Namek because he was scared of Chichi and her brandishing a sword at him? Super is more comedic and lighthearted than Z was, so of course we’re going to get some moments where certain character traits are played up like that. There’s really not a lot about Chichi in Super that feels like it goes too far or makes her completely unlikeable. At the very least, she hasn’t got any moments as jerkish as that one at the end of the Saiyan Saga where she stomps over Goku’s broken body and then refuses to pay him any attention because she blames him for Gohan getting hurt (Despite everything we saw to show that attitude is unfair).

Honestly I like Chichi in Super just fine. She gets some cute moments here or there and her antics get a chuckle or a laugh out of me now and again. If they have derailed her in the show, it hasn’t been by much or to the point that it’s annoying. We don’t need to worry about it very much.

#chichi #Dragon Ball Super #Dragon Ball #dragon ball z #goten #buu saga

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dharmasgift-blog · 6 years

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Working the Astrological Wheel

Typically people call on an astrologer when they want help with their income or relationships. Oftentimes the astrologer will look into a specific sector (house) in your chart to determine where and how to focus your energy and attention to achieve the desired outcome. They may look at second house transits and activity for income, and fifth and seventh house transits and activity for romance and relationships. This makes sense and can offer a certain level of success for individuals who are already living in alignment with their charts, for the most part. But the cold hard truth of the matter is, if you haven’t taken care of business in your first house of identity, nothing else in your chart is ever going to work properly. It doesn’t matter how much love and attention you shower on your income and relationship sectors, if you didn’t take care of business in the first house, your income and relationships are going to be a mess.

The second factor that can derail an individual is astrocartography. Each location on the planet has its own frequency and resonance. If you are living in a location that is in dissonance with your personal energy signature and resonance, everything can feel like a struggle and the only real option is to MOVE! This can be especially important if there are complicated interceptions within a chart. Even though we may have needed to be in a particular place and moment in time to get just the right frequency to slide into consciousness (to be born), oftentimes the place that was ideal for us at the time of our birth is not suitable for sustaining us over the long term. If we ignore this factor within our charts, we are not getting the full picture. We must do work the wheel in the proper order and in a place that supports us energetically.

The astrological wheel, of the Placidus House system, is designed for each house to build upon itself. The lower houses, one through six, need to be fully developed in childhood, in order to create a strong foundation for one’s adult life. So here’s the breakdown:

Identity – How you choose to present yourself to the world

Basic Survival Needs – This house is often associated with income. And it is literally the easiest way for you to make income, which in turn provides for your basic needs, shelter, food, water, etc. And yes! This can be developed in one’s childhood. In my opinion, Kindergarten should be devoted to developing the persona and the identity of the first house. First grade through high school is best used to learn the basics of the core subjects AND developing the skills that are in alignment with one’s income sector and building on those skills with each successive year. As one does this the persona and identity of the first house becomes more firmly rooted, developed and solidified.

Communication and interaction with your immediate environment – This house governs the core subjects studied in primary school as mentioned above. The people you share your childhood home with as in siblings. The short daily trips you make. And the back and forth exchange of ideas needed to establish yourself as a valuable contributor within your own community.

Your home – The environment and atmosphere you need in order to feel nurtured and supported.

Play – The activities, atmosphere, and environment you need in order to feel rested and rejuvenated. How you best re-charge your own batteries and facilitate the natural flow of creativity.

The daily grind – The daily activities and routines that you need to support you; body, mind, and soul.

Relationships – The partnerships, business and marital that support you best in this lifetime. What you naturally bring to the table and what you need from those partnerships. The environment you need to thrive in relationships.

Investments – What and how to invest in to create a stable, secure future for yourself. This can be investments in stocks, insurance, etc. or of a more spiritual nature as in investing in occult practices. This also can refer to inheritances. We typically choose to leave are fortunes to the people who invested the most time and energy into us while we were living. Therefore, inheritance is the result of our investments.

Expansion – This is what one needs to expand one’s awareness to one’s highest state of consciousness through higher education and foreign travel. Exposing oneself to foreign cultures and philosophies.

Career – This is the culmination of all the prior houses. This is where we find the type of career where we can be most effective and thrive.

Associations – This is typically referred to the house of friends and it does say something about the friends we choose. But the ultimate goal of this house is to connect with galactic consciousness. This is where we find the groups and associations that enable us to have the greatest impact on humanity. Again, it is the culmination of all the prior houses.

Spirit Realms – This house tells us how we can have the strongest and most powerful connection with the spirit realm. When we have honored all of the previous houses the culmination in this house results in the self-actualized human being. Once this occurs our energy becomes like a figure eight. We can dive down into the depths of the spirit realm and commune with the Divine gaining knowledge and insights that can be brought back to the surface and shared with humanity, then we draw from the collective, take what we learn and dive back down into the realms of spirit, birthing again something new to send out into the collective; and on and on for infinite.

The houses refer to a particular sector of your life. The zodiacal signs refer to the environment and atmosphere we need to focus on creating within each sector. The planets point to the actions we need to take and to the type of activity we need to engage there. Asteroids point to specialized skills and talents. Interceptions can show where we have psychic and latent skills that need to be unearthed and developed. Astrocartography sheds light on the places that provide us the most energetic support.

This is just one way of using the zodiacal chart. I call it the Dharma Chart because I feel it is the single most powerful tool in the achieving of “not holding” suffering. It is not to say that all of the other forms of astrology are not helpful and valuable. The zodiac is “like an onion, Donkey”. There are many, many layers and just as many ways to tap into its secrets. https://www.dharmasgift.com/

#astrology astrocartagraphy zodiac

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blackchurchpost · 6 years

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With "A Letter to My Brothers," Prophetess Beth Moore Will be Remembered in Church History With the Likes of Martin Luther King Jr., Billy Graham, Anne Graham-Lotz, and Other Church Leaders

I think I can speak for many of us when I say we are neither interested in reducing or seducing our brothers. —Beth Moore

Beth Moore came out of her prayer closet one day and wrote a document akin to Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter From A Birmingham Jail.” By the grace of God, she showed the courage of Billy Graham, the eloquence of Martin Luther King Jr., and the authority and fierceness of Anne Graham-Lotz.

I long for the day—have asked for the day—when we can sit in round table discussions to consider ways we might best serve and glorify Christ as the family of God, deeply committed to the authority of the Word of God and to the imitation of Christ. —Beth Moore

One of the reasons the letter is so great is because she was extremely careful not to do the whiny, pity-party thing that unfortunately is so common in some women. No, she stood flat-footed, if you will, and delivered with authority what the church needed to hear. Beth Moore, all of the pain you have endured has brought you “to such a time as this.”

Here is the document that will be read in church history books long after Beth Moore has left her death bed.

A Letter to My Brothers

Dear Brothers in Christ,

A few years ago I told my friend, Ed Stetzer, that, whenever he hears the news that I’m on my deathbed, he’s to elbow his way through my family members to interview me about what it’s been like to be a female leader in the conservative Evangelical world. He responded, “Why can’t we do it before then?”

“Because you know good and well what will happen,” I answered. “I’ll get fried like a chicken.” After recent events following on the heels of a harrowing eighteen months, I’ve decided fried chicken doesn’t sound so bad.

I have been a professing Evangelical for decades and, at least in my sliver of that world, a conservative one. I was a cradle role Southern Baptist by denomination with an interdenominational ministry. I walked the aisle to receive Christ as my Savior at 9 years old in an SBC church and exactly nine years later walked the aisle in another SBC church to surrender to a vocational calling. Being a woman called to leadership within and simultaneously beyond those walls was complicated to say the least but I worked within the system. After all, I had no personal aspirations to preach nor was it my aim to teach men. If men showed up in my class, I did not throw them out. I taught. But my unwavering passion was to teach and to serve women.

I lack adequate words for my gratitude to God for the pastors and male staff members in my local churches for six decades who have shown me such love, support, grace, respect, opportunity and often out right favor. They alongside key leaders at LifeWay and numerous brothers elsewhere have no place in a larger picture I’m about to paint for you. They have brought me joy and kept me from derailing into cynicism and chronic discouragement amid the more challenging dynamics.

As a woman leader in the conservative Evangelical world, I learned early to show constant pronounced deference – not just proper respect which I was glad to show – to male leaders and, when placed in situations to serve alongside them, to do so apologetically. I issued disclaimers ad nauseam. I wore flats instead of heels when I knew I’d be serving alongside a man of shorter stature so I wouldn’t be taller than he. I’ve ridden elevators in hotels packed with fellow leaders who were serving at the same event and not been spoken to and, even more awkwardly, in the same vehicles where I was never acknowledged. I’ve been in team meetings where I was either ignored or made fun of, the latter of which I was expected to understand was all in good fun. I am a laugher. I can take jokes and make jokes. I know good fun when I’m having it and I also know when I’m being dismissed and ridiculed. I was the elephant in the room with a skirt on. I’ve been talked down to by male seminary students and held my tongue when I wanted to say, “Brother, I was getting up before dawn to pray and to pore over the Scriptures when you were still in your pull ups.”

Some will inevitably argue that the disrespect was not over gender but over my lack of formal education but that, too, largely goes back to issues of gender. Where was a woman in my generation and denomination to get seminary training to actually teach the Scriptures? I hoped it would be an avenue for me and applied and was accepted to Southwestern Seminary in 1988. After a short time of making the trek across Houston while my kids were in school, of reading the environment and coming to the realization of what my opportunities would and would not be, I took a different route. I turned to doctrine classes and tutors, read stacks of books and did my best to learn how to use commentaries and other Bible research tools. My road was messy but it was the only reasonable avenue open to me.

Anyone out in the public eye gets pelted with criticism. It’s to be expected, especially in our social media culture, and those who can’t stand the heat need to get out of the kitchen. What is relevant to this discussion is that, several years ago when I got publically maligned for being a false teacher by a segment of hyper-fundamentalists based on snippets taken out of context and tied together, I inquired whether or not they’d researched any of my Bible studies to reach those conclusions over my doctrine, especially the studies in recent years. The answer was no. Why? They refused to study what a woman had taught. Meanwhile no few emails circulated calling pastors to disallow their women to do my “heretical” studies. Exhausting. God was and is and will always be faithful. He is sovereign and all is grace. He can put us out there and pull us back as He pleases. Ours is to keep our heads down and seek Him earnestly and serve Him humbly

I have accepted these kinds of challenges for all of these years because they were simply part of it and because opposition and difficulties are norms for servants of Christ. I’ve accepted them because I love Jesus with my whole heart and will serve Him to the death. God has worked all the challenges for good as He promises us He will and, even amid the frustrations and turmoil, I would not trade lives with a soul on earth. Even criticism, as much as we all hate it, is used by God to bring correction, endurance and humility and to curb our deadly addictions to the approval of man.

I accepted the peculiarities accompanying female leadership in a conservative Christian world because I chose to believe that, whether or not some of the actions and attitudes seemed godly to me, they were rooted in deep convictions based on passages from 1 Timothy 2 and 1 Corinthians 14.

Then early October 2016 surfaced attitudes among some key Christian leaders that smacked of misogyny, objectification and astonishing disesteem of women and it spread like wildfire. It was just the beginning. I came face to face with one of the most demoralizing realizations of my adult life: Scripture was not the reason for the colossal disregard and disrespect of women among many of these men. It was only the excuse. Sin was the reason. Ungodliness.

This is where I cry foul and not for my own sake. Most of my life is behind me. I do so for sake of my gender, for the sake of our sisters in Christ and for the sake of other female leaders who will be faced with similar challenges. I do so for the sake of my brothers because Christlikeness is at stake and many of you are in positions to foster Christlikeness in your sons and in the men under your influence. The dignity with which Christ treated women in the Gospels is fiercely beautiful and it was not conditional upon their understanding their place.

About a year ago I had an opportunity to meet a theologian I’d long respected. I’d read virtually every book he’d written. I’d looked so forward to getting to share a meal with him and talk theology. The instant I met him, he looked me up and down, smiled approvingly and said, “You are better looking than _________________________________.” He didn’t leave it blank. He filled it in with the name of another woman Bible teacher.

These examples may seem fairly benign in light of recent scandals of sexual abuse and assault coming to light but the attitudes are growing from the same dangerously malignant root. Many women have experienced horrific abuses within the power structures of our Christian world. Being any part of shaping misogynistic attitudes, whether or not they result in criminal behaviors, is sinful and harmful and produces terrible fruit. It also paints us continually as weak-willed women and seductresses. I think I can speak for many of us when I say we are neither interested in reducing or seducing our brothers.

The irony is that many of the men who will give consideration to my concerns do not possess a whit of the misogyny coming under the spotlight. For all the times you’ve spoken up on our behalf and for the compassion you’ve shown in response to “Me too,” please know you have won our love and gratitude and respect.

John Bisagno, my pastor for almost thirty years, regularly said these words: “I have most often seen that, when the people of God are presented with the facts, they do the right thing.” I was raised in ministry under his optimism and, despite many challenges, have not yet recovered from it. For this reason I write this letter with hope.

I’m asking for your increased awareness of some of the skewed attitudes many of your sisters encounter. Many churches quick to teach submission are often slow to point out that women were also among the followers of Christ (Luke 8), that the first recorded word out of His resurrected mouth was “woman” (John 20:15) and that same woman was the first evangelist. Many churches wholly devoted to teaching the household codes are slow to also point out the numerous women with whom the Apostle Paul served and for whom he possessed obvious esteem. We are fully capable of grappling with the tension the two spectrums create and we must if we’re truly devoted to the whole counsel of God’s Word.

Finally, I’m asking that you would simply have no tolerance for misogyny and dismissiveness toward women in your spheres of influence. I’m asking for your deliberate and clearly conveyed influence toward the imitation of Christ in His attitude and actions toward women. I’m also asking for forgiveness both from my sisters and my brothers. My acquiescence and silence made me complicit in perpetuating an atmosphere in which a damaging relational dynamic has flourished. I want to be a good sister to both genders. Every paragraph in this letter is toward that goal.

I am grateful for the privilege to be heard. I long for the day – have asked for the day – when we can sit in roundtable discussions to consider ways we might best serve and glorify Christ as the family of God, deeply committed to the authority of the Word of God and to the imitation of Christ. I am honored to call many of you friends and deeply thankful to you for your devotion to Christ. I see Him so often in many of you.

In His great name,

Beth

Because of some of the things Beth Moore brought out in her “A Letter to My Brothers,” the president and owner of the parent company of BCNN1, Daniel Whyte III, led by God, took the liberty to change the Apostle’s Creed and the Nicene Creed.

Baptist Preacher and Gospel Light Society President, Daniel Whyte III, Updates the Apostles’ Creed to Better Reflect Important Details of Jesus’ Resurrection

Daniel Whyte III, who happens to be a Baptist preacher, but who, for nearly thirty years, has read the Apostles’ Creed in family devotions with his wife and seven children, has taken the liberty to update it for the first time in hundreds of years.

According to the Lexham Bible Dictionary, “The Apostles’ Creed seems to represent some form of what the early church called the ‘rule of faith.’ The early Christians were guided by the ‘rule of faith,’ the Holy Spirit working in community and individuals, and the authoritative Scriptures. Before the ‘rule of faith’ was called such, there were general references to the teachings and traditions of the apostles. It is these core teachings that make up the Apostles’ Creed. Signs of these ‘core teachings’ are seen as early as the New Testament book of Hebrews, which speaks of a need for Christians to grasp and embrace the basic concepts of faith so that they can move into deeper parts of their Christian faith, while at the same time realizing how essential it is that they never depart from a core belief in the real and living Christ. The Apostles’ Creed represents a set of uncompromisable core beliefs for Christians. The Apostles’ Creed, like all creeds, functions like a filter for orthodoxy; it indicates what is and what is not ‘Christian.’ It is a public profession of belief in historic Christianity.”

Whyte made the change in the Apostles’ Creed because he believes the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus Christ should be included in the historic Christian affirmation. He states, “Perhaps the most important aspect of the post-Passion record are Jesus’ appearances to His followers. Obviously, Satan and the enemies of Christ did not want news to get out that Jesus had risen from the dead. As Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15:14, ‘If Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and our faith is also vain.’

“Thus, all of Jesus’ appearances after His resurrection are important, including His appearances to Mary Magdalene and the other women, His appearances to the disciples, and His appearance to over 500 brethren over the course of the 40 days following His resurrection. The record of these appearances in the Gospels and as recounted by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 are important because they are eyewitness proof that Jesus was indeed alive in bodily form after His crucifixion.”

Whyte goes on to say, “The resurrection is a vital part of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is the one thing that universally sets Christianity apart from all other religions. We follow a Savior, Master, and Teacher who is alive. We, and the world, need to be reminded of that. A statement describing Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances should be included in the Apostles’ Creed because it is a part of the Gospel message. If we’re going to name Pilate, let’s name Mary Magdalene, the other women, the disciples, and the over 500 brethren.”

He recommends that all parents have family devotions (which used to be called “family altar”) each day. For those who have little children, Whyte urges parents to teach their young ones about the faith using this ancient statement of Christian belief.

The updates to the creed are in red and underlined below:

The Apostles’ Creed

I believe in God, the Father Almighty, the Maker of Heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord:

Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried;

He descended into hell. The third day He arose again from the dead;

He was seen alive by Mary Magdalene and the other women, the disciples, and over 500 other brethren; He ascended into Heaven, and sitteth on the Right Hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Ghost; the holy church; the communion of saints; the forgiveness of sins; the resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting.

Amen.

– BCNN1 Editors

With “A Letter to My Brothers,” Prophetess Beth Moore Will be Remembered in Church History With the Likes of Martin Luther King Jr., Billy Graham, Anne Graham-Lotz, and Other Church Leaders was originally published on BCNN1 - Black Christian News Network

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trendingnewsb · 6 years

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How Being True to You Gets You Back on Track When You Feel Lost

You often hear people say, ‘be yourself’ or ‘be true to yourself’ or ‘just be you’. Many legendary quotes speak to this concept and it is one of the topics about which I’m most passionate.

I deeply believe (and have experienced this with hundreds of people) that if we are ‘true to ourselves’, we will experience greater success and more fulfillment with less stress and frustration along the way.

My primary goal as a coach and consultant, is to help people do just that — to live a life of greater happiness, fulfillment and success; to get them from where they are, to where they want to be by removing any obstacles along the way; and to help them take one step closer, towards health, towards balance, towards wholeness.

While there are many (awesome) books, courses, programs, and words of advice on living a life you love, I always come back to the conclusion that the fastest way to get there, is to be true to you and get back to who you are.

In this article, I will share with you the importance of being true to yourself to get back on track.

There is no place like home – your true self

In the movie “The Wizard of Oz”, Dorothy taps her ruby red slippers together and repeats “There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home, there’s no place like home…”

The same is true for each of us. There’s no place like home. There is a core in each of us where we thrive. This place or “state” is a reservoir from which we generate health and energy. And ultimately your body, your mind, your spirit all yearn to get back to this “home.”

Much of our stress, our angst, and our frustration is caused by being disconnected from, or out of alignment with the source of who we are.

Why people stop being true to themselves

From a young age, we are pulled off track from being true to ourselves by well-meaning family members, teachers, the education system, our communities and society.

Perhaps you were told to be quiet when you had much to say; or maybe your curiosity was crushed when your ‘whys’ were met with ‘because I said so’; or your creativity and free spirit were suffocated when you were forced to fit in and sit quietly in a traditional classroom setting.

There are hundreds of examples of this, and I’m sure you have your own.

In fact, we as a culture, as a society, as humanity, are derailed now, more than ever. We are thrown off by the multitude of challenges in our own lives, by what’s happening in our countries and the world. There are unrealistic expectations and demands coming from every direction.

We are pulled off track by our 24-hour, technology-fueled world. We are being pulled in different and sometimes even opposite directions, playing the many roles in our lives – employee, friend, parent, partner. All of these diverse roles have their own demands and expectations.

We read books about how we should do things, take courses on what we are supposed to do and try to model what we see others doing to improve ourselves or be the right influence on others. And depending on the day of the week, or time of the year, or the newest article or study……the advice is often different and conflicting!

What happen if you are not true to yourself

It’s no wonder there are such staggering statistics around stress, health and well-being, especially here in the U.S:

77% of Americans find themselves regularly experiencing physical and emotional symptoms of stress

Over 50% of adults have a chronic health issue including heart disease, stroke, chancer, type 2 diabetes, obesity and arthritis.

55% of people regularly take a prescription medicine.

Worldwide, the most recent Gallup poll showed that 85% of people worldwide hate their jobs.

Sadly, I could go on. But I won’t. Hopefully, you get the point I’m trying to make here.

For one reason or another, we are disconnected from our core self, we have slipped out of alignment with who we really are, and what we already know. And that friction, that pull is having widespread and significant consequences to us each individually, and the health of our communities, organizations and, honestly the world.

Let’s think of ‘being true to self’ as a magnet. Your core self is compelled to get back ‘home’, it is your ‘truing mechanism’. But life’s circumstances and crises may actually have a stronger and demanding pull. As you get pulled from your home base, it’s like a magnet being wrenched from its attachment.

What happens when you pull a magnet away? It gets shaky, it tries to get back. But if you let it, it will snap right back into place. Again, if you try to pull it away, it shakes again. Think of this shakiness as the magnet’s way of saying, “Please! I want to get back home. I need to get back home.”

The warning signs (that you ignore)

Now think of this for yourself. When you get separated from your core self, from being true to you, what do you experience? Do you get ‘shaky’ like the magnet?

This ‘disorientation” can manifest as:

Physical symptoms such as low energy, headaches, stomach issues, tense muscles, frequent colds and infections, rapid heartbeat, chest pain, you name it.

Emotional symptoms can include feelings of anger, frustration, being overwhelmed, loneliness and eventually depression or anxiety.

These ‘warning signs’ are your body’s way of saying, I want to get back home, I need to be there.

But most of the time, we ignore them. We keep pushing them down or forcing our way through. If we get a headache, we take some Advil; if we have high blood pressure, we get a prescription; if we feel depressed or anxious, we drink a bottle of wine, or take a tranquilizer.

But the reason those things are showing up, is to tell you something. Your body may be telling or even screaming at you that something is not working. What we really need to do is pause and identify the ‘why’ behind the symptoms we are experiencing. These often relate to us being off track from our true selves and what works best for us.

The unwanted consequence

What happens if you pull that magnet completely apart? What happens when you pull it so far away that it can’t find ‘home’ anymore?

It loses its sense of self. Like a compass that has lost its ‘true north’. You have no sense of direction, you are lost, confused and anxious.

Without this sense of ‘belonging’, you might experience feeling like you’re going off the rails, about to crash and burn. This is what’s happening to too many of us. We don’t even know where ‘home’ is anymore.

But you DO. Your core sense of self knows! It knows exactly where home is.

How to be true to you and get back on track

You might, at this point, be thinking this all sounds wonderful. But how do you get back on track? Some of you might even be wondering what being true to yourself even looks like any more.

Here are 11 ways to be true to you and get back on track again:

1. Identify what you need to thrive

One way to figure this out is to think about times in your life when you felt fantastic. On top of things, under control, in the ‘zone’.

Think about times in your life when you felt most happy, fulfilled and successful. Write them down.

Now, think about what was it about those times that made them so great? Was it the environment you were in? The people you were surrounded by? Something you were building or creating? Or maybe a feeling you had? Maybe you had a clear picture, a plan, a purpose or challenge?

2. Think about what makes you happy

Genuinely happy! What makes you feel joy? Laugh? What do you love to do? Are you doing that? Why not? How can you live more in touch with your passions or be doing more of the things that make you happy?

3. Pinpoint what makes you feel most like you

Think about when you feel most like yourself. What makes you feel connected, grounded and centered with who you are.

Is it time with friends and family? Meditation or Yoga? Being a complete badass, adventurous risktaker? Connecting with something deeper and more significant on a spiritual level? How can you get more of that in your life? What nourishes your soul at a deep level?

4. Know when you don’t feel like you

In order to get back on track, you have to know you’re off track in the first place. That’s why it’s just as important to know when you don’t feel like you.

How do you know when things aren’t working for you? Think about what pulls you out of stride? We talked before about physical and emotional symptoms that show up. What are those for you? What do you think, hear or feel?

Notice. Pay attention to these ‘early warning signals’ your mind and body are sending you.

5. Look at your core values

Do you know what’s most important to you? How can you reprioritize and put those things first? If one of your core values is family, how can you live that more? Maybe it’s health, what are you doing towards greater health?

6. Use your talents

What are the innate strengths or talents that you could be using more? Your inner genius? Are you amazing at solving problems, listening to friends or cooking healthy, wholesome food? Where can you use that talent, now?

7. Connect with your purpose

Some people are very clear about their purpose, others are still searching. I know this is a big one.

Even if you aren’t clear on what your purpose is, are you living each day with purpose? On purpose? With a clear intention? Or have you been pulled off track by distractions, expectations or life?

8. Focus on taking care of all of you

Get back to basics with healthy eating and living. Focus on your overall wellness. Take care of your body. Does that mean you need to exercise more? Sleep more? Mediate more often? Eat less?

I’m a big advocate of a healthy body. While I believe this piece is important, it’s also important to note that you could work days and years on your health, nutrition, hydration, etc. But if you don’t take a step back and look at the energetic pieces of you, you’re not going to make much progress.

9. Rediscover what you loved to do before things got so busy

Was it hiking outdoors? Being with friends? Sitting in the library reading a good book? Doing absolutely nothing at all?

10. Take a test

I know this might sound odd when you’re trying to find yourself. And yes, the answers are inside of you. However, I know that soul searching can be tough work. Sometimes, it helps to get a little jump start.

My favorite test to help you figure out what being true to you actually looks like — The Instinctive Drives (I.D.). It identifies what you need to be at your best. Check out the test here: The Instinctive Drives (I.D.)

It’s different to other tools I’ve tried because instead of focusing on personality or your behavior, it digs deep into the core, the innate part of you, and helps you understand what you need to thrive.

11. Let go

Let go of the expectations of others that aren’t serving you. Let go of the way you ‘should’ do things. Let go of who you are ‘trying’ to be and instead, try being you.

We try so hard to please, to meet expectations, to make others happy or to fit in. Much about being true to you is about what you let go of as much as what you hold on to.

I once read a quote that fits this sentiment perfectly:

Take your first step

As you might imagine, you don’t have to do all 11 of these to get back on track. Just one step in the right direction will start to lead you home.

How do you know which one to start with? Like the magnet, see which ones ‘attract’ you. Which one of these resonated most with you? If you’re not sure, read them again, and see which one(s) have that magnetic pull. Your core self knows which one of these is the next right thing to focus on for YOU.

The next step?

Take a step. One step to bring you closer to you. One step to get back on track. One step towards being true to yourself.

What is that step for you?

Featured photo credit: finda via finda.photo

The post How Being True to You Gets You Back on Track When You Feel Lost appeared first on Lifehack.

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newstfionline · 7 years

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Sober high: How ‘recovery schools’ help addicted students

John D. Tulenko, CS Monitor, April 1, 2017

BROCKTON, MASS.--Skinny and brimming with nervous energy, Matt Langley grew up with an outlook that was anything but upbeat. “I guess I was never comfortable in my own skin,” he says. “Everything that came out of my mouth, I would second-guess.”

Drugs relieved him of that burden. He started with marijuana, which he says a friend’s mother introduced him to at age 13. Over the next six years, more powerful substances followed: Ecstasy, acid. Then, he says, “A friend of mine asked if I’d like to try Xanax,” a prescription drug used to treat anxiety disorders that, when misused, can be highly addictive. That was in January 2016.

For the next six months, he took Xanax every day. “I’ve never experienced such euphoria,” he says. He crash-landed at a state-funded detox center, where he stayed for a month. When he came out, he says, “I knew I couldn’t stay sober by myself.”

Seeking help, he enrolled at Independence Academy in Brockton, Mass., where posters and signs covering the walls bear such messages as “My worst day sober is better than my best day high.”

Mr. Langley and the school’s 21 other students--many of whom, like Langley, abused drugs for years--face a daily struggle to stay clean.

Independence Academy is one of 33 so-called recovery schools in the United States, public high schools that serve students whose lives and educations have been derailed by drug abuse.

While national surveys indicate that adolescent drug use has fallen in recent years, some 1.3 million 12- to 17-year-olds still met the criteria for a substance use disorder in 2014. That includes 679,000 young people who struggled with alcohol problems and another 168,000 who misused pain relievers.

Providing early treatment for teens is considered critical. Studies find that 9 in 10 adults with addiction problems began their chemical dependency before age 18. In Massachusetts, unintentional overdoses of opioids alone claimed 1,465 lives statewide in 2016--up from 613 in 2011. Among the fatalities were 114 individuals under age 25.

Before the advent of recovery schools, parents had few options for dealing with a son or daughter who had a drug problem. They could seek private treatment, but gaining access to services isn’t easy. In many states, the wait to get an evaluation from an adolescent psychiatrist can take three to six months.

Then, when the treatment ends, the teens usually go back to their normal schools, where the temptation to start abusing drugs again can be strong. At recovery schools, they get reinforcement from students facing the same problems.

In Brockton--a once-prosperous town called “Shoe City” until the last of its footwear factories closed in 2009--drugs are plentiful. A tainted batch of heroin hit the streets in January 2016, causing 40 overdoses in just two days.

Most teenagers at Independence Academy struggle with alcohol and marijuana abuse. To be admitted, they must pledge to abstain from using and submit to random drug testing. Students are referred by residential drug-treatment programs, school districts, or parents desperate for help.

Once they’re in, the hope is that a culture of “positive peer pressure” will help teens stay sober. They also receive intensive counseling to find ways to stave off addictive urges and to address whatever got them using in the first place. Schools like Independence Academy have been called “sober high schools,” but while abstinence is the goal, the reality is more complex.

Like Langley, many students here come to Independence Academy after a stay in detox. Going back to their old school could hinder their progress.

“My friends are all proud of me,” Langley says, “but they’re all addicts and I can’t be around them or I’ll start using.”

Independence Academy opened its doors in 2012, and is now one of five such schools in the state funded and overseen by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health.

Brockton Mayor Bill Carpenter led the campaign to open the school here. He has direct experience with teenagers and addiction. “Twelve years ago, my son became addicted to heroin while he was a student at Brockton High School,” he says.

As a parent, Mr. Carpenter says he tried to do all the right things for his son. “We did 90-day residential programs followed by intensive outpatient [treatment], and then we’d get him back to school because I thought that’s what you’re supposed to do--get your 16-year-old back in school,” Carpenter says. “What I should have understood at the time--and didn’t--was that we were throwing him back into the fire.”

During the period right after treatment, when teenagers return to school and reconnect with friends, the risk of relapse runs high. Schools like Independence Academy offer an alternative.

“Instead of going back to your old group of friends, who are going to encourage you to go back to drug use, you’re now in a completely different environment of support,” Carpenter says. “You have other kids like yourself that are fighting some of the same struggles.”

Langley started at Independence last July and likes the small size: With just 22 students, it’s among the smallest high schools in the state. “I’ve made new friends here,” he says. “Probably the first new friends that I’ve made in years.”

The vibe is different, too. Independence Academy’s entryway is piled high with skateboards, scooters, and bikes. Students are encouraged to use them whenever they feel like it. “If I’m getting stressed out in math class, I can just say to the teacher, ‘I need to go out,’ “ Langley says. “I’ll grab a bike and ride for a little while, come in again, and get right back to math.”

While the academic program here leads toward a regular Massachusetts high school diploma, the teaching is often tailored to address individual areas of weakness. Most classes meet in a large central room that feels part art studio, part living room. Murals and paintings decorate the walls, while couches and comfy armchairs invite students to relax. The students often work independently, on laptops, with headphones plugged in. It’s a tranquil space that reflects the school’s philosophy.

“It’s similar to the way you’d approach trauma,” says teacher Shawn Kain. “Kids who are stressed out, kids who are anxious, are not going to retain new information.”

Teachers here say they spend about half their time just getting students caught up. Amber, who is 17 and whose last name is being withheld to protect her identity because she is a minor, started using marijuana in fifth grade. A couple of years later she discovered Xanax.

“I’d wake up in the morning, pop a bar of Xanax, smoke a couple blunts,” she says. “I’d do Xanies before school and I’d be half asleep in class and no one would say anything to me.”

Drug use, suspensions, and expulsions have put many students here far behind academically. While Massachusetts high schools adhere to the relatively tough Common Core academic standards, the priority at Independence Academy is on meeting students where they are. “The standard is what’s appropriate,” Mr. Kain says. “If you give students an expectation that stresses them out and it’s overwhelming, then they shut down.”

It’s hard to know how Massachusetts recovery high schools perform academically. While regular public high schools report graduation rates and scores on standardized tests, the same data aren’t widely available for recovery schools, because many are so small they fall below the threshold for reporting.

What’s more, for many students the stay at a recovery high school is short. The schools often serve as “soft-landing” zones, allowing students to slowly transition back to their regular high schools. At Massachusetts’ five recovery high schools, the average stay is six to seven months.

Some indication of academic results, however, can be found in a 2011 study by Thomas Kochanek for the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. Examining five years of data from two of the recovery schools in operation at that time, Dr. Kochanek found that 41 percent of students graduated, 41 percent transferred back to their home school or a GED program, and 13 percent transferred to a treatment facility or program or were incarcerated. The remaining 5 percent either were expelled or dropped out.

All recovery high schools face one potential problem--limited course offerings. “I don’t have AP classes, Russian literature, or robotics because we don’t have the critical numbers to staff those,” says Michael Durchslag, director at PEASE Academy (which stands for Peers Enjoying a Sober Education), a recovery high school in Minneapolis that currently enrolls 50 students.

Limited course offerings at PEASE cause some parents to hesitate to enroll their kids, fearing they will miss out. Mr. Durchslag seeks to reassure them. “I know that students who come here don’t give up a quality education,” he says. “I mean, I have a graduate who just finished up her third year of residency in medical school, so I don’t think it’s going to hold anyone back.”

At Independence Academy, Kain also isn’t terribly concerned about course offerings. While his school does have partnerships with other local high schools allowing students who are academically ready to take classes off-site, he believes that what most students need is more fundamental. “We are very good at customizing education and getting kids into a good school routine,” says Kain.

Most recovery high schools go to great lengths to prevent students from relapsing. At Independence, for example, a full-time clinical social worker, Karin Burke-Lewis, meets with each student two or three times a week for intensive recovery counseling. On the small conference table in her office, Ms. Burke-Lewis keeps a large red bucket plastered with a Boston Red Sox logo. Inside, it’s full of squishy, brightly colored stress balls. Students pop in all the time to dig through her collection, and Burke-Lewis, who’s good at getting them talking, has come to know them well.

“Many of these students come from really complex struggles--stress, abandonment, and abuse are common,” she says. “Before coming here, the way they’ve handled that was to pick up a substance.”

Working closely with each student, she designs a “relapse prevention plan” that involves helping students clarify and visualize their goals. “It could be graduating from high school, it could be sustaining employment, it could be ‘I want to not use for a month, consistently,’ “ Burke-Lewis says.

In addition to providing one-on-one help, Independence Academy seeks to create peer-to-peer support. Each Thursday afternoon students meet for a session of SMART Recovery, an abstinence-based curriculum that teaches them how to cope with urges and manage their thoughts and feelings.

On Fridays, the students gather with Burke-Lewis to make plans for the weekend. “We worry about long weekends and vacations the most,” she says. “And we worry because these kids will be making decisions about whether or not to pick up substances with lethal implications.”

Despite these and other efforts to keep students sober, relapses are frequent. “If I were to give you a percentage, maybe 40 percent to 50 percent come in after a weekend and have used,” Burke-Lewis says. She does not, however, see that as a sign that her school’s efforts are not working. “Recovery with this population is about stops and starts.”

Medical experts would agree. “I don’t think we can expect kids who’ve been severely addicted to drugs and alcohol to automatically become sober,” says Joseph Shrand, an adolescent psychiatrist and addiction specialist who serves on Independence Academy’s advisory board.

Dr. Shrand believes relapse should be treated not as a failure but as an opportunity to learn. “That’s where sober high schools can be really useful,” he says. “Some kids are going to relapse. How do you then use that as a way to help the kid not relapse a second time?”

Still, he’s quick to note that relapses should never be taken lightly. “The real problem with the one kid who is using over the weekend but can stop for the week is that [he or she] may trigger a kid who cannot stop,” he says.

Taron, a ninth-grader at Independence Academy, says he feels it when classmates start using again. “Some students aren’t serious about recovery,” Taron says. Tall, soft-spoken, and into motorcycles and music, Taron started smoking a lot of marijuana and spent several weeks in treatment. Since enrolling at Independence Academy, he’s been drug-free for seven months. “When we’re trying to have a recovery meeting and some kids aren’t taking it seriously, that gets on my nerves,” he says.

Are outcomes better for students attending recovery high schools? Dr. Finch is currently collecting and analyzing data on 293 teens who completed formal drug treatment, half of whom then went to a recovery school, the other half to a regular school. “Recovery high schools appear to have a positive effect on reducing alcohol and drug usage, relative to nonrecovery high schools,” Finch says of his preliminary findings.

In the case of some specific drugs, Finch says the effect was large. Six months after treatment, for instance, students at recovery schools had 17 fewer days of marijuana use compared with their peers at regular high schools.

The Massachusetts Department of Public Health’s 2011 study also found positive effects. On entering recovery schools, students reported using alcohol and marijuana--on average--one to two times per week. Upon exiting (graduation or returning to a regular high school), their reported average use had fallen to one to two times per month.

But if recovery schools are making a difference, too few students seem interested. State-run drug treatment centers in Massachusetts discharged more than 1,000 teenagers in 2016, according to Tom Lyons, director of communications for the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. Only 116 students were enrolled in the state’s five recovery high schools as of early December. The same dynamic is playing out across the country.

Independence Academy, with 22 students, has room for twice as many. To some, low enrollment has a simple explanation. “I think we have to do a better job of letting families know that this option is available,” Carpenter, Brockton’s mayor, says.

To Finch, the explanation has to do with changes in education. “There are more options these days,” he says. “In some states, parents can choose from virtual schools, charter schools, home-school, and they may be choosing those instead of recovery schools.”

Langley, meanwhile, is striving to overcome his addictive urges every day. “The thing about my disease is it’s a selfish disease,” he says. “You put anything in front of me--weed, coke, whatever--and I’ll do it. Once it’s in front of my face, everything just goes out the window.”

Langley has a few months left in the halls of Independence Academy to shore up his defenses: He graduates in the spring.

#recovery high schools #drug abuse #Independence Academy #Brockton #sober high schools

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How Being True to You Gets You Back on Track When You Feel Lost

In this article, I will share with you the importance of being true to yourself to get back on track.

There is no place like home – your true self

In the movie “The Wizard of Oz”, Dorothy taps her ruby red slippers together and repeats “There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home, there’s no place like home…”

Much of our stress, our angst, and our frustration is caused by being disconnected from, or out of alignment with the source of who we are.

Why people stop being true to themselves

From a young age, we are pulled off track from being true to ourselves by well-meaning family members, teachers, the education system, our communities and society.

There are hundreds of examples of this, and I’m sure you have your own.

What happen if you are not true to yourself

It’s no wonder there are such staggering statistics around stress, health and well-being, especially here in the U.S:

77% of Americans find themselves regularly experiencing physical and emotional symptoms of stress

Over 50% of adults have a chronic health issue including heart disease, stroke, chancer, type 2 diabetes, obesity and arthritis.

55% of people regularly take a prescription medicine.

Worldwide, the most recent Gallup poll showed that 85% of people worldwide hate their jobs.

Sadly, I could go on. But I won’t. Hopefully, you get the point I’m trying to make here.

The warning signs (that you ignore)

Now think of this for yourself. When you get separated from your core self, from being true to you, what do you experience? Do you get ‘shaky’ like the magnet?

This ‘disorientation” can manifest as:

Physical symptoms such as low energy, headaches, stomach issues, tense muscles, frequent colds and infections, rapid heartbeat, chest pain, you name it.

Emotional symptoms can include feelings of anger, frustration, being overwhelmed, loneliness and eventually depression or anxiety.

These ‘warning signs’ are your body’s way of saying, I want to get back home, I need to be there.

The unwanted consequence

What happens if you pull that magnet completely apart? What happens when you pull it so far away that it can’t find ‘home’ anymore?

It loses its sense of self. Like a compass that has lost its ‘true north’. You have no sense of direction, you are lost, confused and anxious.

But you DO. Your core sense of self knows! It knows exactly where home is.

How to be true to you and get back on track

You might, at this point, be thinking this all sounds wonderful. But how do you get back on track? Some of you might even be wondering what being true to yourself even looks like any more.

Here are 11 ways to be true to you and get back on track again:

1. Identify what you need to thrive

One way to figure this out is to think about times in your life when you felt fantastic. On top of things, under control, in the ‘zone’.

Think about times in your life when you felt most happy, fulfilled and successful. Write them down.

2. Think about what makes you happy

3. Pinpoint what makes you feel most like you

Think about when you feel most like yourself. What makes you feel connected, grounded and centered with who you are.

4. Know when you don’t feel like you

In order to get back on track, you have to know you’re off track in the first place. That’s why it’s just as important to know when you don’t feel like you.

Notice. Pay attention to these ‘early warning signals’ your mind and body are sending you.

5. Look at your core values

6. Use your talents

7. Connect with your purpose

Some people are very clear about their purpose, others are still searching. I know this is a big one.

Even if you aren’t clear on what your purpose is, are you living each day with purpose? On purpose? With a clear intention? Or have you been pulled off track by distractions, expectations or life?

8. Focus on taking care of all of you

Get back to basics with healthy eating and living. Focus on your overall wellness. Take care of your body. Does that mean you need to exercise more? Sleep more? Mediate more often? Eat less?

9. Rediscover what you loved to do before things got so busy

Was it hiking outdoors? Being with friends? Sitting in the library reading a good book? Doing absolutely nothing at all?

10. Take a test

11. Let go

Let go of the expectations of others that aren’t serving you. Let go of the way you ‘should’ do things. Let go of who you are ‘trying’ to be and instead, try being you.

We try so hard to please, to meet expectations, to make others happy or to fit in. Much about being true to you is about what you let go of as much as what you hold on to.

I once read a quote that fits this sentiment perfectly:

Take your first step

As you might imagine, you don’t have to do all 11 of these to get back on track. Just one step in the right direction will start to lead you home.

The next step?

Take a step. One step to bring you closer to you. One step to get back on track. One step towards being true to yourself.

What is that step for you?

Featured photo credit: finda via finda.photo

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