courage – Soul Reflection

Kingsblood Royal

I don’t even remember how I chose books from my father’s shelf when I had just a few hours to pick things from his house in memory of him, but as I slowly read through the pile nearly ten years later, I know I was guided by angels because each read is so rich and important.

This is fiction, and I rarely post about those, but it is a work of such beautiful intensity and on such an important subject that I wish the whole world could get the chance to read it.

Set towards the end of the Second World War in the the northern states of America it explores racism, segregation and morality. The Northern States legally don’t have segregation and technically discrimination shouldn’t be allowed, so compared to the southern states, still deep in segregation, the white populace feel proudly generous and liberal in their hearts. That is until one of their own, a genteel, middle class white man discovers one of his ancestors was not only an exciting, pioneering adventurer but also black.

In those days, any trace of blood in a person’s heritage, no matter how far back, labelled you a person of colour. So here we have the story of how this chap processes this information in himself, this incredibly beautiful and humbling inner journey he makes to feel proud of his ancestor, his people and his blood; how he takes steps to educate himself on his own prejudices and listens to the local black community to hear their own stories. The array and complexities of characters means we meet opinions and viewpoints from every angle, really highlighting the humanness of a thousand opinions even within one cause of personal freedom. Added to this we face the backlash from his friends, family and community when they discover his ancestry, for which he refuses to hide, and see the ignorance and cruelty that comes from an indoctrination of prejudice.

The protagonist is an absolute hero, despite numerous opportunities to hide this history, that no one could ever guess at, he stands tall and proud even at the point of lynching.

Kingsblood Royal was an important novel that positively influenced the start of the Civil Rights Movement and I can see why. I feel far better educated on the vast threads that weave through our society that form the crucial layers for understanding racism and its impacts. And what I feel more deeply, is how the trauma of these times reverberates now, causing sensitivity and triggers that can seem over compensatory relative to our current society but hit ancestral wound after ancestral wound.

I cannot imagine living in that era, which was still in living memory for some, when black people were treated as less than human. It hearts my heart to place myself in that society, from all the angles and perspectives we see in this book, and wonder how I would have behaved with whatever upbringing I might have had. I hope, whichever side, whichever culture, I would have had the courage to stand with humanity and love but I can see how easy it was to think the wrong thing was right in the ignorance of middle class society and in the righteousness of painful discrimination. There is no simple black or white here, excuse the awkward pun, but the fundamentals are, and always will be, compassion, humanity and understanding.

An outstanding read.

First published on social media on 5th March 2023

WWIII

The idea of a World War III was always a vague spectre in my consciousness. I grew up knowing that another global war would most likely mean the end of the world, nuclear battles, horror and unfathomable imagery.

Of course the world has moved on and control is no longer necessary by physical force but by psychological manipulation.

We are here right now, in the midst of WWIII.

This is a global battle of power. Minds are being won and lost at the hands of those with excessive power, ego and sociopathic ideology. More ingenious than ever, they are able to use the general populace, their foot soldiers, to form the lines of conflict, to rage and batter and beat each other with words and condemnation. All this within our own communities, on our own doorstep.

Who needs a red button? Who needs to destroy with nuclear power when we have finally realised our own individual power can be harnessed collectively for a far more efficient effect, with less environmental collateral damage.

Who needs real soldiers on the street when we can create such fear and loathing that we all police our neighbours into conforming to the new rules? For our safety.

Who needs a battlefield when the verbal bullets fly around social media, taking out the goodies and the resistance through censorship, despair and shame?

This is the final war between dark and light. Between love and hate. Between fear and faith. Truth and Lies.

It’s time to choose your side. To stand up for love, faith, truth, and light or swirl in the midst of the darkness and have your liberty, autonomy and vitally sucked out of you.

Yes the words we are hearing can be scary and yes the truth can hurt. Have courage. Step up into your noble self.

Remember our ancestors from all of our personal cultures who raised their weapons and faced their enemies head on with pride, honour and integrity. Raise your beacon of light and ride into our new future together, where love and truth always prevail.

Our Achilles

Yesterday, I watched the podcast between Russell Brand and Brene Brown and loved it, of course.

Totally my thing, discussions on vulnerability and spirituality, boundaries of steel and the state of our global society. Meaningful, heartfelt, humourous and enlightening.

I was nodding happily along to it all right up until the last five minutes when Russell asked Brene’s advice on parenting. And then I was thrown.

I was thrown, not only because Brene’s advice was so contrary to my own views (and that is totally ok btw, this is not a judgement conversation) but because her philosophy to parenting seemed so opposed to the rest of her OWN philosophy.

Let me extrapolate, my understanding of her work on vulnerability and shame can also be looked at through the lens of control. Vulnerability being the release of control and shame protection being all about control. And yet here I was hearing Brene recommend what she called ‘choice parenting’ or Choice Theory. The principle of which is to give the children a choice to make… the basic premise being to continue with their ‘unacceptable’ behaviour and face a consequence OR stop.

Again, I want to hold this discussion without judgement but as a musing of ideas.

I frequently use choice with my kids but with certain differences. Occasionally I use it because something is non negotiable usually to do with physical or emotional safety. More often than not I use it to get my own way, for example ‘please close your mouth whilst your eating or I will have to take away your ice cream’. This is control.

I know it, I recognise it and I really really try not to do it because ultimately I am inflicting my utterly subjective values on someone else. Another important element to this principle is age appropriateness and development, what age are children able to understand and rationalise choice? When I heard Brene discuss constructive choice offers with wayward teens, there may still be background (and necessary?) control but I get that it can create immediate mediation and lead to thoughtful discussions. However when suggesting offering a choice to a tantrum-ing 2/3 year old – calm down or we leave the restaurant, I baulk. That is not a choice a small person can make fairly nor is it in anyway modelling vulnerability.

With the very best of intentions, work and graft, I moderate my feelings to be thoughtful and kind but when I get utterly overwhelmed by life’s happenings they sometime go awry. Sometimes I lose my temper, sometimes I’m just a bit grouchy and snappy. I have ‘a choice’ in how I express these yet frequently my thinking choice is retrospective, it comes after the event (I blame my Italian ancestry and Scorpio birth alignment – I maybe just a touch fiery at times!). When my feelings overwhelm me, I make a point of reflecting on them, being vulnerable about their root cause and making amends. Because I’m human and flawed and that’s ok.

Now if I, as a fully qualified and fairly reasonable adult, have moments of overwhelm, what can we expect of our little ones? Sure they may need to be taken out of a restaurant for a cuddle and calm down, to help them re centre and restore their spirit, but isn’t the ‘choice’ of removing them permanently, as a consequence of being totally vulnerable, not only punishing and shaming but also almost impossible for them to process?!?

Do you feel the contradiction like I do?

But this isn’t about making Brene wrong because she and I are both making parenting choices from our very best intentions despite our differences. It’s about our Achilles Heel.

It about the fact that we all have one; we can be so utterly clever and kind and wise and human and also make choices that contradict ourselves, are incongruent, flawed and bizarre.

I didn’t come away from this podcast thinking less of Brene (although I did yearn to speak to Russell about my perspective too!), I actually came away thinking more of her. She became more relatable and more real to me and absolutely more attainable as a vision for myself.

I don’t have any academic qualifications (zip, nada, none) so I am easily cowed to believe that I have nothing to validate my viewpoint or opinion, despite instinctively feeling that actually I have some cool things to share.

Watching the podcast yesterday reminded me that it’s not about the degrees and letters after the name but simply about the conversation, Achilles and all.

So let’s keep talking…

The Voice of Reason

In a recent discussion with a therapist it was suggested that I was, at times, too reasonable(!). Not only that, but by being too reasonable I was actually hurting myself.

My husband raised his eyebrows when I told him this, clearly he did not agree!

But I have been sitting with it; churning it over in my mind and of course as a result I have had the most unreasonable couple of weeks I could ever have imagined.

Everyone and everything has felt desperately unreasonable.

One days notice from a teacher at school that the cake ingredients rules have changed as I prepare for my child’s birthday. Unreasonable.

Car insurers wanting me to provide information that they know better than me. Unreasonable.

My child wetting the bed twice in one night. Unreasonable.

My babysitter cancelling a two month standing booking less than a week before. Unreasonable.

The resident permit zone being arbitrarily changed so that our property is no longer granted a permit. Un-bloody-reasonable.

And then there’s the bigger stuff…

the school mum throwing her unmet needs in my face
my husband having a ‘moment’ and wondering if I’m really the right one (yes that happened!)
my mother refusing to take any accountability for her behaviour

These are the bigger life hurdles when someone else’s choices can feel so utterly and desperately unreasonable and yet I am very good at making them reasonable. I am very good at looking behind the gauze and finding the reasons, the pain, the whys and the because; and understanding why everyone’s behaviour or choices are the way they are.

A good skill? Compassionate? Able to hold the bigger picture?

I need to segue a moment… when my friend Kim was dying, we talked about the emotional trauma that may have contributed to her illness. Kim was utterly reasonable. She always found a way to walk on a higher plain, she didn’t want to stoop to the level of those who had wounded her so deeply. And that is so honourable and so ‘right’, right? Except that all that justifiable anger and pain stayed inside and perhaps it is what killed her…

So I have sat with my flair of fire, this rage of witnessing the unreasonable and I have held it in conflict with my desire to be so thoughtful and measured and kind.

And then I exploded.

My husband lit the touch paper and I vomited out my rage at all the holding I do for everyone else’s ‘unreasonable’ choices.

And he held me there.

He held me there when I poured out my anger, my grief and my own unreasonable demands.

And he listened, and he heard me. And for the very first time, I felt safe.

It is the hardest thing in the world to hold someone in their pain, just hold them, not fix them, not wrong them, not right them or join them. But just to listen and be with that flow of emotions. And I love him more than ever for being courageous enough to do so.

Because sometimes the emotionally healthy thing to be is utterly unreasonable.

I needed that exorcism as part of my own healing and now I am calm again and able to bear the weight of all of life’s reasons….

Radiant Glory

I am struggling with the continued dialogue around the toxic masculine predator. Whilst I agree that consent needs to be clear (though hopefully without killing every last vestige of romance and spontaneity), I believe there is a place for female accountability too.

I have stood as a disempowered woman who has said ‘No’, provided the body language of discomfort and rigidity and not been heard or respected. I have had a man’s hand at my throat for not fulfilling his needs; I have said ‘no more’ to the boyfriend I was leaving but he still took more; I have walked away from too many situations feeling unclean, unhappy and abused. And I have had a part to play in that dynamic occurring.

Yes there are the rare but horrifying psychopaths whose terror we would have no control over, but so many of the ‘me too’ stories are women asking for men to define the scenario, to be respectful, healthy, wholesome no matter what they are confronted with. We are again giving away our power by asking them to be solely responsible for holding women safely.

We are asking for men to be brought up to respect women, to do things differently, but why aren’t we asking for women to make this change too? In every relationship dynamic, we can never expect our opposite to make the change, we have to create the change for ourselves and perhaps they might follow our shining example!

Why have we been meeting film directors in their hotel rooms, instead of insisting on a space we are comfortable with? Why do we choose to drink away our inhibitions at frat parties? Why did I stay in the room when I ended a relationship, after I had said ‘no’ to one more time? Why did I not get up at leave, why did I not set my boundaries clearly, why did I not honour and respect myself enough to do what I needed to keep me safe?

We are asking men to respect us, but do we respect ourselves? When do we say ‘No’ with clarity, strength and follow through. I’m not talking about the ‘life in danger’ scenarios, I’m talking about the every day abuses that I hear women happy to rage about but refuse to take accountability for. Yes men have their work to do, but so do women. Should a man take advantage of a inebriated woman, absolutely not. Should a women be inebriated in a circle of people she is not safe with? Are we treating ourselves with respect as we stumble and slur? Are we treating ourselves with respect when we stay with a misogynist boss for the sake of our career? I can hear the thousands of excuses being hurled at me as I write this, the shunning of blame straight back to the men, the justifications for staying when your body was screaming to leave, the fears. I hear them all, I acknowledge them all, I honour them all AND still there is space to take back our power for ourselves, not from men but from the ether where we left it. We don’t need to lord over the masculine, we simply need to claim back the feminine in all its powerful and radiant glory.

Robert Moore lectured to the effect that the uninitiated man becomes an unwise aggressor and the uninitiated woman a victim.

Initiation (the supported process of shifting the psyche from child to adult) helped me find my strength, my clarity, my respect and my ‘No’. Not since my initiation have I encountered these myriad dynamics of abuse that I previously encountered daily, because my energy and perspective has shifted so significantly. It is in my power to deign to let myself become victim or instead to hold compassion for those who act out their wounds and place my boundaries firmly between us.

I will endeavour to raise my son to be a man of self respect and my daughter to be a woman of self respect. I know that if I achieve these aims, they will mirror that respect out into the world through their actions, words and deeds. That is also the choice I make for myself.

I stand in my power and say and act ‘No’ when I need. That is enough.

Like for Like

When I was a teenager, my mother and I would get into vitriolic arguments, on a not infrequent basis, and I remember very clearly reaching a place where I said to myself ‘I will not let her see how much she hurts me’. I quickly learned how to respond to pain with a cold, hard exterior.

She was no longer able to see the effects of her words and actions on my soul, as much as they still wounded me internally. I felt more protected, safe and in control when my shutters came down and I could bat away the slights.

I needed to do that then, I didn’t have any other tools and it was a question of emotional survival. But during the recent weeks of upheaval in my relationship, I have realised how ingrained that technique is in my psyche and how disconnecting and triggering it has been to my partner.

As my awareness on this grows, I’ve noticed how many people hold similar traits, how natural our defensive hard stances are in response to perceived attack. I observe how the current representation of feminism seems to echo this too. Our societal responses are cold, hard and super boundaried.

And I get it, I haven’t been cold and hard to my partner because he’s an innocent bystander, we have created a dynamic between us that ping-pongs back and forth between our defence mechanisms. It is understandable that we have wanted to protect ourselves, sometimes from real threat, more often from projected theories, but it has not helped us to grow, to learn and discover our heartfelt truths.

In these past weeks when I’ve been unable to even pretend to protect my raw feelings, when my heart has been cracked open, I have also been seen and witnessed with restorative love and gentleness. As my defences fell, so it allowed the whole structure of defences between us to crumble and for total vulnerability, total truth, to be revealed and explored.

The mirror of our souls is a tenant of my belief, that like reflects like, but that is easily forgotten when it feels so natural to create protection from harm. If my walls are up, I may be safe but I am also disconnected, so it becomes a choice to risk the pain, risk the vulnerability, in order to have the chance for a more magnificent life than one that is simply safe.

Our Natural State

My husband and I are in the very midst of ironing out some of the bumps and grooves that appear in any long term relationship. To add to the fun, we are both in our early forties and hitting that developmental stage (yes, adults have them too!) aka ‘ the midlife crisis’ where all of our childhood wounds pop up with varying stages of intensity, to be faced and dealt with. To top it off, we are just through the very very early years of parenting, which is just one big fog, and now that the kids are at school there is space to face the shit.

It sucks. It’s hard. And mostly it is bloody painful. I think I have cried more in the last 3 weeks than I have in the last 10 years. And with this ironing, unpicking, rebuilding and connecting there have been some sweet and tender times, a second honeymoon of sensitivity and kindness. But mostly it hurts, just like any wounds do. We are digging out the detritus that has been left in over the years, the bits causing sores and infections, cleaning them out and suturing them up.

So whilst I have swung between grief, rage, love, hope, fear and happiness like some sort of rollercoaster on hyper drive, my grounding has been the understanding that our natural state is love.

This is the state we come into the world, pure love.

So when my own or someone else’s behaviour, actions or words appear unloving or hurtful, my faith in humanity and our core state, helps me to understand that these come from a wounding that needs to heal. That our natural state of love is our instinctive place to wish to return to and our intentions are drawn from there. It is so easy to hear and be the worst of things, to use anger and coldness as a crutch for survival, but true connection, true living can only come from love; no matter how much it might hurt to get there.

Red Faced

Continue reading “Red Faced”

Values

I was recently challenged to ‘contribute’ more to my family through the means of bringing in income. It was directed at me with the implication that all I do is live off my husband and swan about.

Naturally, I felt hurt and insulted.

I work hard. Most days the only time I get to sit down between 6.30am and 8pm is in the car to and from the school run and at supper; my mind is constantly flitting from one ‘to do’ item to the next and wondering how many I can multitask simultaneously. Oh and yes about once a week I will meet a friend for a coffee or a catch up, my rest time, because my job is all-day-and-all-night-every-single-day, so a coffee break every now and then is just basic essential care.

Many articles have crossed checked the monetary value of a SAHM (Stay at Home Mum) and have discovered that to replicate their input into the household would require a vast outlay of money on separate personnel. But I don’t want to compare my job to gold coins, I want to shift the perspective to our core values, money is certainly a necessary commodity but it is not the ultimate need.

In relationships we discuss whether or not we have similar values, rarely does this simply mean how much finance each partner will contribute. More often than not these values include honesty, respect, communication, parenting choices and family relationships. Do the values marry? If so, these are signs of potentially strong and life-long relationships.

For me, wholesome values are not just in partnered relationships but across the board in friendships, work peers, community connections and of course within our parent/child dynamics.

So when my ‘value’ as a SAHM was narrowed into the crude description as to whether or not I brought home gold coins, I felt a deep grief for all that I provide to my family, for all the non-material value that is unacknowledged and underappreciated across our societal norms. I felt that grief ripple out to all those individuals who offer their voluntary acts of service to our community to care for the young, old, infirm, environment and animals, who are whitewashed into the background because they don’t bring gold bullion back home. How distorted have our societal values become when my job, to shape, nurture and guide our future generations, is dismissed as luxurious and frivolous?

For me, I hugely value the consistency and security my children receive to help their confidence flourish out into the world; to enable them to stretch their bungee ropes to distant discoveries and bounce right back again when they need. I know that my choice to stay at home is solely built on nurturing their human potential.

That potential is not about shaping them into the best lawyers or doctors, but to help them know their own happiness now and in their future, to help them have the courage to stand up for truth and honour, love and respect. And all that is a multi-levelled task; it covers presence, diet, response time, emotional well being, sleep, health & friendships.

My daughter recently described her future to me, when she would leave school, what her career would be, how many children she would have, the usual musings of the young and fearless! But what I heard in amongst her description what that she would take a career break to have children; she has chosen a career that she can step out of and return to when she wishes because she values what me being at home means to her and she wants to offer that back to her children too. It has been important to her, it has been of value.

There is a wonderful analogy in Heidi’s Children where the grandfather is on his deathbed and asks little Marta to go to the high pastures and pick him fresh strawberries. She does as he bids but, with the encouragement of her friends, instead of returning straight home, she sells them in the town and brings home money which she is told will bring her grandfather greater happiness. The grandfather is furious, for he had been looking forward to the succulent, refreshing strawberries all day, and he demands Marta bite the coin to see if it brings the same satisfaction.

This…

This is where our values are mistaken at times, there is no monetary replacement for nourishment, kindness and love and the most glorious thing about these is that they are absolutely free.

So next time someone challenges me to bring greater value to my family, I might just remind them that I gift strawberries not gold.

Initiation

I was listening to a lecture by Robert Moore the other day and heard him describe what happens to our children when they are not supported through to adulthood with the appropriate initiation.

An appropriate initiation meaning a rite of passage supported by the elders of the community that delivers the teenager into their authentic strength, their self belief and their burgeoning knowing.

Robert Moore described how men without initiation have a tendencey to lack the wisdom to handle their natural aggression; it has not been tempered or guided with the knowledge of the elders. This is a big topic of conversation on social media and the world stage right now. Men and their aggression. I’ll come back to that…

He then went on to say that women without initiation have a tendencey to fall into the space of victim; they are not empowered in their self belief and inner strength. Bingo!

Aggressive Men / Victim Women…. is that not the constant narrative on twitter/facebook/instagram etc at the moment. The topic du jour.

Except that we are looking at it face on, rather than behind the scenes. I have heard very few voices who actually understand where this dynamic is coming from, reaching back to our ancestry and forward to our knowledge of psychology to bring forth this vital information.

Our society is failing our children by not supporting, creating and delivering this aspect of transition, from child to adult. We can continue to spend the days verbalising on social media or we can take action and begin to change the world with a true and meaningful understanding of how to achieve that.

Healthy initiation (and university style trauma is definitely not that!) is a critical piece of the puzzle of healing.

***

I personally know of three global organisations that help to create that process of initiation for men & woman, no matter what age:

The ManKind Project

Woman Within International

Women in Power