Tag Archives: gender based violence

Brighter Life Bit #2: What is your definition of a personal boundary?

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ILF_Wtagline_Logo copyYou can listen to the original teaching at 10 minutes and 55 seconds of the Class 1 recording. You can download the audio from iTunes here or from the ILF website here.)

Indrani has an incredible definition for personal boundaries:

“Guidelines, rules, or limits created by a person for herself that are reasonable, safe, and permissible ways for other people to treat her, as well as how she will respond when someone steps outside those limits”

Using this new definition of a personal boundary write out some of the physical, mental, and spiritual boundaries that you have created (and are enforcing) in your life.

Now, write out some physical, mental, and spiritual boundaries that you have NOT created in your life that may be causing problems for you and your relationships.

We would love it if you shared your responses below so we can all learn from each other’s responses.

Female Avatars – Helping teach about gender equality?

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Untitled“Why are you playing as a girl?”

“I’m not, it is just a boy with long hair.”

“Oh, ok. Can I watch?”

This conversation between me and my son seems innocent enough, and, a few months ago, before starting to work with Indrani’s Light Foundation, it probably would have remained in my brain filed away as “not a big deal.”

But, through my work with the Live a Brighter Life training, corresponding with the ILF Team, and the research I have done for articles and blog posts, this was no longer a casual comment by my son. It worried me.

Why at the age of seven was he cautious when he thought my character’s avatar was a girl, but excited to watch me play when he discovered I was playing the game as a boy?

My mind quickly returned to another conversation we had also had about Tamora Pierce’s “Song of the Lioness Quartet”, a series of books we were thinking of reading, until my son found out the protagonist was a girl.

This was now the start of a pattern and it worried me even more.

So, I did the only thing I could think of to, hopefully, change my son’s view and start some conversation:

I deleted my character and made a new one, this time a female character.

It didn’t take long for my son to notice. The next time he came to the basement while I was playing the game we had another conversation.

“Where’s your other character?”

“I got rid of him and made this one.”

“Is that a GIRL?”

“Yes it is a girl”

“Why are you playing as a girl?”

“Because I think she is way cooler than my first character. She is a warrior and uses this big sword and charges into the bad guys to fight”

Long pause.

“Can I watch?”

 

Will my playing a female, instead of male, character make a huge difference in how my son perceives gender roles and stereotypes? I have no idea. But I figure it can’t hurt and we are at least talking about it now and can continue to talk about it when he watches me play.

Equally important, this video game and conversation has me realizing areas in my life where I am modeling behavior that is supporting gender stereotypes and inequality and I need to change that.

Asasha Veil, my female character, is at least one step in the right direction.

 

Does making a small change like this help? What seemingly small changes could you make to help model gender equality? I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

 

Love & light,

Jeremie Miller

Brighter Life Bit #1: Focusing on the positives

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ILF_Wtagline_Logo copyThe Live a Brighter Life curriculum is filled with so much rich content, Team ILF decided it would be a great idea to start sharing smaller, digestible, “bits” of the curriculum with all of you.

Let’s get started right now with a little activity from the first LABL class. You can listen to Indrani teaching this exercise by downloading or listening to the LABL Class One recording and fast forwarding to the 10 minute and 55 second mark. You can download the audio from iTunes here or from the ILF website here.

Take a moment right now and do the following:

  1. Write your name, date, and time on a piece of paper, in a word document, or in a journal.
  2. Write three positive adjectives that describe you in this moment.
  3. Pick a time of day.
  4. For the next seven days (or longer, of course) at the time you picked, return to your paper, document, or journal, and write the three positive adjectives that describe you.
  5. At the end of the seven days (or end of each week if you continue doing this) review your adjectives for the week, then write. Write whatever comes up for you after reading those adjectives.

We tend to focus on the negatives in our life and beat ourselves up far too much. This exercise helps stop our “internal abuser” and start to focus on our positive traits.

Now, share the first three positive adjectives you wrote down and any thoughts on this exercise in the comments section here. We would love to read your responses!

LABL 010: Hope and the Importance of Maybe

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ILF_Wtagline_Logo copyWelcome to Episode #10 of the Live a Brighter Life Podcast!

In this episode of the Live a Brighter Life Podcast Indrani interviews Mark Silver. You will learn:

  • The importance of taking time to give your best answer
  • How to create something healthy out of dysfunction
  • The importance of both hope and despair
  • Why going from “no” to “yes” feels impossible
  • Why going from “no” to “maybe” is the first step

You can find out more about Mark Silver at www.heartofbusiness.com

Podcast Recording

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She Let Go…..

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A beautiful poem by Rev. Safire Rose

 

She Let Go

 

She let go. Without a thought or a word, she let go.
She let go of fear. She let go of the judgments. 
She let go of the confluence of opinions swarming around her head.
She let go of the committee of indecision within her.
She let go of all the ‘right’ reasons. Wholly and completely, 
without hesitation or worry, she just let go.
She didn’t ask anyone for advice. She didn’t read a 
book on how to let go… She didn’t search the scriptures.
She just let go.
She let go of all of the memories that held her back. 
She let go of all of the anxiety that kept her from moving forward. 
She let go of the planning and all of the calculations about how to do it just right.
She didn’t promise to let go. 
She didn’t journal about it. 
She didn’t write the projected date in her day-timer.
She made no public announcement and put no ad in the paper. 
She didn’t check the weather report or read her daily horoscope. 
She just let go.
She didn’t analyse whether she should let go. 
She didn’t call her friends to discuss the matter. 
She didn’t do a five-step Spiritual Mind Treatment. 
She didn’t call the prayer line. 
She didn’t utter one word. She just let go.
No one was around when it happened. 
There was no applause or congratulations. 
No one thanked her or praised her. 
No one noticed a thing. 
Like a leaf falling from a tree, she just let go.
There was no effort. There was no struggle. 
It wasn’t good and it wasn’t bad. 
It was what it was, and it is just that.
In the space of letting go, she let it all be. 
A small smile came over her face. 
A light breeze blew through her.
And the sun and the moon shone forevermore.

 

Love & light,

 

Team ILF

Self acceptance…and why it matters.

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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…..

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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?

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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

LABL 009: Your Difference is Your Beauty

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Welcome to Episode #9 of the Live a Brighter Life Podcast!

In this episode of the Live a Brighter Life Podcast Indrani interviews Karen Walrond. You will learn:

  • why you should enhance what you love, not hide what you hate
  • how to start seeing the beauty of being different
  • how Indrani’s daughter’s basketball career ended (listen just for this story if nothing else!)
  • how to look through your own eyes and not your abuser’s eyes
  • how seeing your own beauty takes away the power of your abuser

You can find out more about Karen Walrond at www.chookooloonks.com

Podcast Recording

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