Category Archives: homepage

Self acceptance…and why it matters.

featured, homepage, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

selfacceptanceIn the book The Six Pillars of Self Esteem, Nathaniel Branden tells us that “self acceptance is more primitive than self esteem. It is a per rational, per oral act of self affirmation.”

I think in the caveman days it served to say to the tribe that we, too deserve to eat at the fire, to have a place in the cave for shelter and we have a place at the fire for community and camaraderie.

In modern times this means that girls have the right to eat the same healthy food as her brothers and father. She has the same rights for schooling and she has the right to expect and demand that she and her body be respected.

The women in our colleges have the right to NOT be raped. Parents of boys should expect that their favorite sons will be held up to face the music if they violate a women. (See this article about a horrific rape at UVA.)

“Self acceptance is my refusal to be in an adversarial relationship to myself.”

“An attitude of basic self-acceptance is what an effective psychotherapist strives to awaken in a person of even the lowest self esteem. This attitude can inspire an individual to face whatever he or she needs to encounter within without collapsing into self hatred, repudiating the value of his or her person, or relinquishing the will to live. It entails the declaration : “I choose to value myself, to treat myself with respect, to stand up for my right to exist.” This primary act of self affirmation is the base on which self esteem develops.”

When we cannot dig deep enough to uncover this basic self acceptance, we fall prey to what others want to say and do to our minds and our bodies.

We must, at all costs, find the strength to face ourselves and to declare: “This is the day that I stand for ME.”

Will you practice standing up for yourself in small ways?

Maybe at the grocery store, or at the doctors office or perhaps with the your child’s teacher.

If you practice in small places, the larger places will not seem so very dire.

 

Love and light,

 

Indrani


P.S. Read The Six Pillars of Self -Esteem by Nathaniel Branden. It is worth every minute of your time.

A lesson from our neighbors…..

featured, homepage, , , , , , , , ,
When we raise our voices in unison to support our competition it is the highest human connection.

Can we envision a day when everyone everywhere raises their voice to say,

“No More Violence against women! Ever!”

“No more abuse to children.”

I will continue to dream of this world.

No one told the Canadians to sing the US Anthem when the sound system broke. They JUST DID IT.

Please, let’s Just End Violence.

Let’s Be The Change.

Love & light,

Indrani

Can neuroscience help us with Domestic Violence?

featured, homepage, , , , , ,

neuroscienceAs events unfolded weeks ago with the Ray Rice video and then his being fired and indefinitely suspended from the NFL and THEN the social media message that his abused wife wrote, I wondered if neuroscience might be able to save us from this scourge of women seemingly unable to protect themselves from their abusers.

The video (here) clearly shows Janay Rice being knocked unconscious and Ray Rice dropping her body like a sack of rice outside the elevators. He does not bend down to check if she is dead, he does not cradle her in his arms to show remorse.

He does nothing to show us that this was a big mistake and he is so sorry.

Then Janay Rice sends out a social media blurb blaming the rest of the world.

WE are the ones to blame.
WE made her blameless husband lose his millions in salary and endorsements.
WE are at fault.

We may be asking ourselves where the disconnect is, but the sad truth is that is no disconnect.

Abused women VERY often protect the abuser and return to the den of abuse.

They have all kinds of reasons:

  • They still love him.
  • They have no where to go.
  • The children “need” a father.
  • No one will ever love them.
  • He didn’t really mean it.

It goes on and on.

I have heard law enforcement officers say they are sick and tired of being called to an altercation only to see the woman recant her charges and bail out the man she just had thrown in jail the night before.

This is why I am wondering if brain mapping and neuroscience can help us to find the answers.

Perhaps neuroscientists can hook up some abused women and see which areas of the brain lights up and try to explain to these women the flaw in their thinking.

I know, I am grasping at straws.

I am grasping at straws because here we HAVE the incident ON FILM and still Janay Rice is making excuses for the behavior of her then fiancé.

She actually married him AFTER this incident. She KNEW he was an abuser and still she chose to be his wife.

She could have gone public with therapy and they could have created a scenario where remorse and forgiveness played a big role.

They could have become ROLE models to the millions of couples who are in this situation.

She is not unique. She has made decisions that millions of abused women before her have made. She choose to try to erase the incident and to move on with life.

I do believe that she is doing the best she can. I do believe she loves him and KNOWS that he has goodness and decency. He is not a monster. He has chosen some monstrous behaviors.
She needs to understand how to do better and that’s where I am hoping that neuro scans can help.

Yep, me with the neuro scans again….because I just really need to believe that we can find a way to help women make healthier choices.

When pigs fly right?

I am hoping that we do not have to wait that long.

 

Love and light,

Indrani

Just fly the plane…..

featured, homepage, , , , , , ,

unnamedAt times I get tripped up by fear and worry.

I cannot move ahead, I am scared to do so.

A friend of mine said to me recently, “Kay, just fly the plane.”

I thought about those words, “just fly the plane.” I thought if a pilot worries and is in fear about how the plane stays in the air, they would never get off the ground.

They rely on their training, experience, trust in the equipment and instinct… they take off.

I need to get on with living life without obsessing, over-analyzing and worrying and just do it.

Can you drop the worry and fly the plane?

 

Love & light,
Kay Walten

 

Technology helping to break the silence for abused women….

featured, homepage, , , , , , , , ,

Quiet_WomanThe new iClik machine allows victims of abuse to report gender violence crimes without risking being seen going to the police.

This piece of technology is empowering more women to take the first step in ending the cycle of abuse and that is a step in the right direction!

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/03/india-abuse_n_6094678.html?utm_hp_ref=world&ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000010

 

Love & light,

Team ILF

Be careful what you ask for….you just might get it.

featured, homepage, News & Updates, , , , , ,

20100607-laura-berman-gratitude-journal-300x205I am writing this blog on the heels of just having left London.

I had been invited to speak at a United Way Roundtable conference.

My topic as noted in the agenda was: The Empowerment of Women and Girls

HOW does this happen to a woman who was abused as a child and young adult AND who comes from a devolving country which back then was called “third world?”

The answer is both simple and complicated.

The simple answer is “one tentative step at a time.”

The complicated answer is “it does not simply happen, it must be dreamed and planned and worked on and you must never take no for an answer.”

Then, of course, you will be intrigued and we will have a deeper conversation.

Every SINGLE time I accept and complete assignments such as this, I pinch myself to see if it’s really real!

Then I write lists of things that I am grateful for about the event.

I even remember to be grateful that I am grateful.

This event in London made me feel grateful for phases of my life that one usually forgets.

I remember the early abuse because it shows my unique qualification for speaking to an audience eager to more fully comprehend violence against women and girls.

I remember to thank my family for supporting my vision and mission.

This time, however, the post comments made me remember the graduate school years.The two years inside of my now 61 years that I usually gloss over.

“How,” asked one very accomplished Russian businessman, “did you get the audience to totally focus on you? On your words? How did you make us hang on your every word for 20 minutes? How did you make us laugh even as you are talking about violence and telling us firsthand horrific stories? Are you a professor? Can you teach me to speak like this?”

I smiled and told him that I used to teach speech a long time ago.

I had even forgotten that I used to teach speech.

I then realized that I had subconsciously brought all my talents to bear on those 20 minutes.

I spoke to that International audience (French and Russian and Spanish and Mexican and Bulgarian and Korean and Canadian and American and British and Irish) of CEOs and COOs and CMOs and Bankers and Managing Directors as if they were the last audience in the World!

I spoke to their hearts first, with a complying story, then their heads with relevant data and I closed with another compelling story.

I used my notes as a guide not as a script. I tried to remember to make eye contact with as many as I could engage and as I left the stage I continued to make eye contact because I was not done until the next speaker was introduced.

How you do anything is really how you do everything.

What care will you take with your next “small step” so you will be especially ready for a “bigger step?”

I always remind myself that there are no final steps, only another step along the path.

I will take this opportunity to remind you to use all your opportunities to hone your skill sets for the next slew of opportunities.

Then, when you ACE your challenge, you will be sure that it was all your hard work at all those unseen moments.

 

Go forth and conquer your challenges.

Love and light,
Indrani

Dead heading a rose bush… and the peace it brought.

featured, homepage

IMG_2490My father passed away a few months ago.

I miss his voice. I miss his laugh.

He was never one for deep philosophic advice. He was more the knee jerk reaction kind of a guy.

I never went to him for life changing advice but I could always count on his love and his fierce protection of me.

His upbringing was terrible. He was battered as a small child by his step-father and his mother because he was a child of illicit love.

His mere existence in everyone’s eyes was proof of infidelity by his then unwed mother.

He grew into a fine upstanding man who worked his fingers to the bone and who taught himself to be a master gardener. His teacher was my maternal grandfather.

My father would putter around his small and exquisite garden after his retirement and his meticulous care of orchids was visible to the whole neighborhood.

People from miles around would come to the gate to ask him questions about care and feeding of these rain forests wonders.

He was always generous with his knowledge and would most often give a “piece” of a plant for planting in the inquiring strangers garden. If he spoke to a person just one time, he referred to them as his friend. He never met a stranger. I get that ability from him.

He also taught me a thing or two about the garden, but mainly about roses.

When my kids were very small he would visit for months at a time and he would spend hours at the garden store buying every potion and tool his heart desired and he would use those potions and tools to make my garden the most beautiful on the street.

I did not appreciate it as much as I should have. I did not realize then, as a frazzled young wife and mother that his life would end and that his knowledge would be lost. This I regret.

What I do not regret, however, is the lessons on “dead heading the rose bushes” that he gave me.

He would take his oiled nippers and carefully cut off all the spent roses on the bush and he was so happy to do it. It drove him crazy to see dead roses hanging around.

He told me that the roots would be able to feed the rest of the bush in better ways. I believed.

I was always too busy to do this dead heading myself. Over the years my rose bushes looked like a forgotten garden in an expired fairy tale. Something a decrepit old witch might be proud of….nothing royal about them at all.

Last week, however, as I was doing a silent barefoot walking meditation on dew strewn grass I looked over at the rose bushes and saw all the dead heads. I was ashamed. If my father was still here, he would not have stood for this at all.

So I went inside, found an old rusty pair of nippers and began to dead head the bushes.

I felt energized.

I felt his presence.

I felt that he was proud of me.

I felt like a princess, his princess and I was making these bushes fit for a royal garden.

As I worked, I could hear his voice in my head say, “Dran, be careful you don’t step on the pickers.” He never called them thorns.

The memory made me smile.

I could hear his voice guiding my rusty nippers to get the one in the way back and as I reached over the height of the bush I could hear him say, ” Dran, be careful of the pickers.”

How can I use this aged lesson of dead heading and being careful of the pickers in my life beyond rose bushes?

I can think of a few things….

  • I can remove what no longer serves my life.
  • I can stop my life force from being drained by continuing to invest resources into things I no longer want.
  • I can allow the new buds to receive all my love and attention, as I allow the dead heads to fall away.
  • As for being careful of the pickers, this lesson is easier….I can stay away from toxic and harmful situations and people.

I offer these lessons to you as you begin to wander around your life garden. I encourage you to remove what no longer serves you and to be aware of the “pickers.”

 

Love and light,

Indrani

When you feel like screaming…..

featured, homepage, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

PencilHold a pencil lengthways between your teeth (in a pretend smiling way).

There is a very famous study with undergraduates who were given some tasks and some were asked to hold a pencil in their teeth (mimicking a smile). The task was not significant. The pencil holding was the significant part of the research.

It seems that those who held the pencil between their teeth had more positive feelings during the task, after the task and also days after the task.

The researchers concluded that a “fake” smile may have triggered the happy hormone and made the participants feel better.

This is also the theory behind Laughter Yoga. This school of yoga leads groups of people in laughter exercises and the results have been measurable and positive. The brain reacts to fake laughter just as readily as it does to real laughter.

So fake smiles and fake laughs are good for us!

How can we actually use this amazing piece of research?

I found a way this past week while mediating between an employee and an employer.

Both parties were in terrible deadlock over what the job description was, could have been  and will be moving forward.

The employer was an older woman who had a history of not being very tolerant.

The employee was the geriatric nurses aide that was hired to help make the older woman’s life a little easier.

Both women needed each other.
Both women were ALPHA women.
Both wanted to be “right”.
Both wanted ME to tell the other that the other was at fault.

The employee began the conversation citing past instances of when the older woman was “mean” or ” hateful” to other employees. I stopped her instantly and asked her why those things were her business.

She was a bit stunned. She thought I needed the history to make a fair determination.

I did not.

I told the employee that my focus was what SHE wanted from her life and how she chooses to address the things that concerned her.

I then asked her to hold a pencil in her mouth and she had to listen to me while I told her how the mediation would be conducted.

The older woman was at first very sure she would not hold the pencil.

Her reason was this, “This is a serious subject and I am a serious person.”

I said, “Yes this is serious but we do not have to have discussions with mean faces that are only reflecting disdain and anger.”

I finally got her to “fake” a smile.

I then began the mediation.

I must say, the results were marvelous.

The parties seemed to be able to listen more attentively because they were focussed on maintaining the smiles and the discussion did not fall into a “she said, she said.”

It was quite exhausting for me, as both of these women were really tough cookies. They were both used to running right over the people  in their lives. They were used to “winning” while others were to be the “losers.”

I was sure this needed to be a win/win.

Dear Reader,

Why would this lesson be necessary in a blog that deals with ways to handle abuse?

I actually think that we can teach this technique to small kids when they begin to bully others in their family. As mothers we can hold pencils between our teeth when we want to scream at our kids. We can show our children that while we are experiencing human emotions we do not have to give into negative and demeaning behaviors.

Please try this exercise the next time you are so angry you just want to scream.

Please do not use this technique to dismiss significant abuse. Significant abuse must be dealt with in different ways. You must seek guidance to handle significant abuse and get to safety for you and your children.

This technique is for the smaller aggravations in life that often trip you up.

 
Love and light,
Indrani