Pulling my head out of my ass with Grace
sometimes my head just gets stuck up there and it needs a little help getting out
Hello Beloved friends
I hope you all are treating yourselves with love and kindness
I love the concept of grace
I love it so much that I embrace the idea despite the intensely Christian affiliation that the word can hold.
I will never forget being like 9 years old, and a friend’s MOM was having like a peer-to-peer discussion with me about religion, basically saying that Hinduism and Buddhism lacked the concept of grace (lol trauma!!)
Such is life growing up in the South as a clearly non white person. People were very excited to save me.
My peers would occasionally make clumsy attempts to convert me or talk to me about hell (especially right after a stint of Vacation Bible School), but overall had some level of acceptance.
What I am still wrapping my mind around are the interactions I had with adults, often my friend’s or classmate’s parents. I will never forget those moments where adults became activated, perceived me as a threat, and felt justified in attacking me, sometimes through public acts of humiliation. In some moments, like when a parent chaperone asked me hostile questions during a Model UN conversation about different religions, I was eloquent and supported by other adults and peers. I was celebrated for my maturity and ability to verbalize nuance.
In other moments when the adults in the room really lost their shit and yelled at me in public spaces, I often felt angry and humiliated. The people who helped me process those moments would often pull me towards compassion for the adult in the situation. As a young person the injustice always made me angry, and it felt incredibly unfair that I as a young person was being asked to have compassion for someone with so much power over me.
As an adult looking back on the situation, I empathize with my younger self.
In the call for compassion, there is a dismissal of power dynamics, crossed boundaries, and my own feelings of unsafety.
Simultaneously, I see the power of compassion.
We have to have an understanding of others, it is crucial for our capacity and ability to have relationships and maintain harmony.
Ultimately, we are all humans and make mistakes, even if we hold power or are adults. There is no certification or job title that exempts us from the experience of being humans navigating a largely unknown future.
compassion is not an antidote to accountability, but a compliment
If I had to talk to my younger self in these moments as the person I am now, I would want to lead with validation before introducing the idea of power and responsibility. I would want to encourage and model to my younger self that we can be angry, feel hurt, and create boundaries to preserve our sense of personal safety, and we can have compassion for other parties.
Often, after we experience harm, we perceive others as threats, and their humanity fades.
They become super genius villains who have planned their predation on us.
I don’t want to deny that there are people who lie, manipulate, and devote their time and energy to deceiving others. That is a very scary situation, and when you realize that someone you trusted has lied to you to further their own agenda without consideration for your well being, it feels incredibly scary.
When we lose trust in someone, it is crucial that we take that seriously, and that we create the conditions in our lives to keep ourselves safe. When we ignore our lack of trust and safety, we create conditions for self harm and we erode trust in ourselves.
I work with people who have caused severe harm
the focus of our work is understanding how the harm happened and preventing future harm.
People have to be open to doing this work. They have to choose accountability, and be open to change.
Everyone I have worked with, including people who have caused severe harm, is human. Often, when I work with someone who has caused severe harm, I find myself working with someone who has been running for a long time. On the surface they are running from accountability, or from the person they owe money too, but the more layers I peel back the more I discover that they are running from their own truth.
The choice to stop running is a choice to ground in one’s truth and to trust one self to face the consequences of our actions. It is so possible with support, but when you are used to running, the idea of standing still feels unsafe.
If you are running something and would like support in finding your ground and standing in your truth, my books are open.
I am practicing self grace
My guys, the newsletter is two days late! And last week I didn’t even write a real newsletter!! And I wish I had a link ready I could pop onto this newsletter that could allow y’all to sign up for email notifications for my lives!!!
But my week has been jampacked with work and play, and I’m so glad this is reaching your inboxes at all!!!
done is better than perfect
we don’t have to be perfect beloveds. In fact, I believe the idea of perfection as it exists in our world is delusional and a by product of toxic capitalistic white supremacy. I see how ideas of perfection defeat us, prevent us from showing up at all.
I am committed to resisting the culture; thank you for your grace in my perfection! It is a one person team over here. Big Big thank you to all of you for reading, uplifting, and sharing my work, and extra special thank you to all my paid subscribers!!! You are truly the wind beneath my wings.
Catch me live every Monday and Friday!
You can watch my previous lives here.
This week I will be talking about the history of EMDR, what it actually is, and how to determine if it is the right healing modality for you! In the next couple of weeks I hope to open up a waitlist for interested clients.
EMDR has the incredible capacity to help the body and spirit metabolize trauma and allow us to process and integrate traumatic events. Trauma can impact our daily life. My hope is that I can offer this treatment to my community members and support us all moving forward.
I am celebrating histories of resistance
This week I was called to visit St. Helena’s island. This sacred land is where many native communities reside, and it is also home to the Gullah Geechee people. These are people who escaped slavery and created their own nation on the islands off the coast of South Carolina.
It was so powerful to be on these lands. While I was there I took time to reflect on Aaron Bushnell. I am moved by these words written by his friend, Levi
Aaron did not die in vain. He has already inspired so many to stand up for truth and justice. It breaks my heart that his life ended this way. I could never do what he did, and I don’t believe anyone should do what he did. But we’ll never get Aaron back. All we can do is hear the message he died to shine a spotlight on: the horrors of the genocide in Gaza, and the complicity we share as military members and taxpayers of a government deeply invested in violence.
Aaron is by no means the only United States military member who has felt complicit in the military’s violence, powerless to change anything, and stuck waiting until the end of a four- or six-year contract. There are thousands of military members similarly distraught, having thoughts of taking extreme actions to escape something that feels inescapable.
I think one of the most powerful things we can do is witness each others stories and allow ourselves to be transformed by them.
I am finding myself transformed deeply by Levi, by Aaron, and also by the tragic story of Nex Benedict.
I am heartbroken by this story, and it is a struggle for me to write about it, because the story is too familiar to my own life. Growing up, me and many of my friends experienced racist, transphobic, and homophobic harassment from our peers and teachers, often before we even had words for our identities.
Rest in power, Nex. I’m sorry we failed you.
I want to uplift the story of resistance, that is the life of Kwazi Nkrumah
Please enjoy this mini documentary I made to celebrate the life of this elder who was a life long activist. He was so generous with his energy in not just tending to the movement, but also mentoring youth.
May we be inspired to continue to stand up and take action!!!!!!!
May we honor the individuals who have given their lives in protest, and may their sacrifice contribute to a future of liberation and freedom.
It has become clear that the United States is deeply complicit in the genocide of Palestinian people. The performative air drops of food and aid are a poor cover for the unacknowledged truth.
The biggest need that we can contribute appears to be money. If you are able to donate to people on the ground in Palestine, Democratic Republic of Congo, or Sudan, I urge you to do so.
Reducing Connsumption is a powerful act of Resistance
the less we spend, the more we can give. As a Taurus, I am so tempted to spend my money on things I don’t need.
This weekend my brilliant friend, Sweet Olive Handmade , taught me how to make T-Shirt yarn this weekend
It was a trip down memory lane. My mom had given all our old T-shirts to my friend to make yarn with since most t-shirts donated to Goodwill end up as trash. I discovered some gems from my youth
I am excited that these shirts will have a second life. I hope to crochet a rug with these beautiful balls of fiber.
I love you all! Thank you for reading <3
as always please share!
