Thankfully, she left before he killed her.
Thankfully, she isn’t letting Shame control her present and future.
Please share this article…it could truly save someone’s life.
Need help? In the U.S., call 1-800-799-SAFE (7233) for the National Domestic Violence Hotline.
Love & light,
Team ILF
When I think of this phrase I think it means to be an informed consumer.
Right?
Big thoughts.
I think I can make my buying power MAKE a difference.
I CAN make my money talk!
What IF….
The phrase “THINK Global…Act Local” could be applied to Domestic Violence and Intimate Partner Violence and Child Abuse?
What would that look like?
It might look like this…
You are watching TV on a normal day or night and you see a story of a VERY FAMOUS NFL player like Adrian Peterson being charged with Child Endangerment for beating his 4 year old son with a switch. You may or may not be appalled… Let’s say you ARE appalled.
What can YOU do?
Well you can begin to look at your own behaviors towards your kids or other people’s kids.
You can open a conversation with your kids … if you dare… and ask them what it’s like living in your home.
YOU must be brave and courageous and really listen.
LISTEN with your ears and your HEART. (Especially your heart.)
You MUST promise them immunity from YOU flying off the handle if you hear something that hurts your feelings.
If I would have had parents who had asked this question to me and if I trusted them, I would have said something like this:
“Well you are always beating us and yelling at us. If we cry then you beat us more to “really give us something to cry about.” You tell me that I never do anything right. I am always scared of you.”
IF I had parents who were brave enough to go there, I may have had a slim chance of a happier childhood.
YOU have the POWER to give your children a bigger chance of happiness.
If you ACT LOCAL, while observing the pitiful GLOBAL state of violence against women and girls you will be making a difference.
Don’t know where to start? Start with YOURSELF, your own boundaries and awareness of shame and building your shame resilience.
START TODAY.
START NOW.
Here is something to get you started…www.liveabrighterlife.eventbrite.com
If I can do it, you can do it.
Now, let’s say you were NOT appalled at someone beating their child in that way, you can still do something.
You can begin to wonder about your own abuse and ask yourself if your parents could have been more compassionate.
If you say they did the best they could with what they had, you would be right. However, YOU can do better with all the new information that you have about child rearing. You can seek out informed guidance on how to be a better parent.
Why? Because you owe it to those kids you brought into the world.
So however you slice this Domestic Violence pie, you can Think Global and still Act Local.
Love and light,
Indrani
When you read the video title “Ray Rice Inspired Makeup Tutorial” you probably get a chill down your spine.
How could a comedian make light of an incident as serious as this?
Well, give the video a watch because Megan MacKay pretty much nails it when she uses comedy to talk about this serious subject.
The strange part after watching this video is it sheds light on the possibility that as horrible as the video is and as horrible this act of domestic violence is, maybe there is a silver lining in all of this.
North America is talking about domestic violence on the news, on YouTube, on websites and social media like never before. This horrible video may be the spark that brings about more change and I am not sure how to feel about that.
What are your thoughts on the Ray Rice incident? Can we turn this video into a gift for all of the women experiencing domestic violence (or any kind of violence) in the world?
Love & light,
Jeremie Miller
ILF Team Member & Guest Blogger
The video footage is painfully hard to watch….but unfortunately, this is something that so many women deal with on a daily basis. The majority of it never even talked about…let alone caught on video.
Awareness is one of many steps toward diminishing Gender-Based Violence.
Please do not sweep this under the rug. Instances like this are a chance to raise awareness and open up conversations, a chance to teach our children, a chance to let other victims know that they are not alone and that help is near.
What emotions does this video bring up for you? How can we learn from this as a society? We would love for you to comment below.
Love & light,
Team ILF
This college student has vowed to carry a mattress to class every day until her alleged rapist leaves campus.
Emma Sulkowicz states, “The idea of me carrying a mattress sort of stuck in my head. I guess I decided to unpack why I was so fascinated with that idea. I was raped in my own dorm bed, so I think the idea of carrying the mattress represented, in my mind, carrying the weight of the memories that I have of that night and carrying the weight of how the school dismissed not only me but the other two women who reported against him, and the way the police harassed me when I reported my case.”
If we were on campus, we would help her carry the weight of that mattress.
Love & light,
Team ILF
There once was a shepherd boy who was bored as he sat on the hillside watching the village sheep. To amuse himself he took a great breath and sang out, “Wolf! Wolf! The Wolf is chasing the sheep!”
The villagers came running up the hill to help the boy drive the wolf away. But when they arrived at the top of the hill, they found no wolf. The boy laughed at the sight of their angry faces.
He does this a couple more times and as the story goes….
Later, he saw a REAL wolf prowling about his flock. Alarmed, he leaped to his feet and sang out as loudly as he could, “Wolf! Wolf!”
But the villagers thought he was trying to fool them again and so they didn’t come.
I remind you of this story, because in my own way I have cried wolf. Unlike the shepherd boy, however, I was not lying about the wolf.
The wolf in my life was depression. In my cry of wolf (which came out as cries of pain, tears, sadness) loved ones came for a while and I was heard but quickly dismissed because they could not see the wolf.
The wolf was always lurking. My cries took the forms of chronic stuttering, pacing, insomnia, weight-loss and these all compounded my tears and my pain. People could see signs of trouble but no one saw the wolf so they turned away.
Then the wolf, chewing on me, was devouring me and my life. I made the final cries that I wanted to die. “Help me! Can’t you see I want to die?” And yet the ones who I thought loved me the most were deaf to my pleas. Worse yet, those who heard me held me in contempt.
I never lied about the wolf in my life.
As the little shepherd boy cried out to get attention, yes I did too. The attention I needed was in the form of help.
If someone you know is crying out for attention, they may have the wolf known as depression in their life. Take time to look through the trees to see if they have wolves in the shadows and are in need of help.
Don’t turn away from a cry for help.
It is the loneliest feeling in the world when you reach out to those you love for help and they walk away.
“I feel that he’s earned a second chance.”
That’s what Steubenville High football coach Reno Saccoccia has to say about his decision to welcome convicted rapist Ma’lik Richmond back to his team. ~Elizabeth Beier
Please visit this link and let us know how you feel about this article.
How else should be be handled?
What are we teaching other young predators ?
Love & light,
Indrani
A dear friend, Keisha Gallegos compiled this list of strategies for dealing with depression and we want to share it with the world. Please share if you know someone struggling with depression. We hope it helps.
First of all, if you are not functioning well or if it takes an inordinate amount of energy to get even the smallest task accomplished- medication. Be evaluated by a psychiatrist. That’s their specialty.
If you don’t like the first one you see, go see a different one. The first medication you try may not work, I had to try several before I got one that worked well.
In my opinion, untreated depression is much worse than possible side affects from medication. Your body can’t heal when you are depressed. That should tell us how debilitating depression is physically.
Later when you are stabilized, you can consider how long staying on medication is right for you. Sometimes it’s for a few months, maybe a few years, possibly for the rest of your life.
Second, therapy.
Deal with the shit you have been repressing your entire life. Take it out, look at it, and feel your feelings. The fear of dealing with it is far worse than actually dealing with it, I promise you.
You don’t have to lay on a couch for 40 years contemplating your belly button- that’s ridiculous. Try a large and regular dose of self compassion.
When you are good and sick of your own story, possibly try coaching. Coaching works because it teaches you good mental health hygiene.
Learn what your triggers are. For me, I don’t watch the news- it’s a distorted view of the world- focusing on the negative and magnifying it to astronomical proportions. Our nervous systems are not made to handle the details of every single heinous atrocity committed on every corner of the globe.
I make sure I eat well and sleep enough. I don’t hang out with people that treat me badly or make me doubt my sanity- even if they are family.
I protect my energy like the queen guards the crown jewels and I infuse my life with positivity.
Put together a box where you put in a note of every single thing you remember that makes you happy. When you are depressed, you can’t remember what makes you feel better so have something readily available. Have a happy playlist. Learn to detach from painful thought patterns that create suffering. Practice random acts of kindness, read good news, cuddle with pets, go for a walk, spend time in the sunshine for vitamin D, make yourself go to gatherings where you feel loved.
Don’t retreat. Keep involving yourself in life.
Do things that feed your spirit.
Most of all, treat depression as the serious disorder that it is. Medicate it if you need to and don’t be ashamed of it. You are not weak or ungrateful.
I’ll never forget when I went on medication and I was doing some self shaming about “needing” it. I asked my sister what people did before anti-depressants, and she said, “They drank, Keisha. Take the meds.”
Guest post by Keisha Gallegos
It is amazing how profoundly touched I have been by the death of Robin Williams.
Yes, he was brilliant, funny and an amazing man who touched many….but he was a person just like you and me.
Beyond the sadness of his loss is a pain in my heart because I KNOW the desperation he felt as he stood in his depression on the precipice of life and death.
For those who have never stood on that ledge, the tragic concept to end ones life is horrible yet it seems so rational to those of us who have teetered on that cliff.
There is an overwhelming sense of hopelessness and the option of death appears to be a choice of true freedom.
It’s a decision of surrendering. We have put up a good fight, but now have no more fight in us to keep going.
It is a black or white option, torment or peace.
Unfortunately, millions of people in the world who suffer from depression understand too well what he may have felt in the final hours and moments of his life.
My heart aches today for those who loved him but also for the millions of souls who stand alone on the precipice each and every day.
Please, if you suffer from depression, know that there are options.
It sometimes can be hard to take even the smallest step towards help but even the small step can bring you closer to a better way of life.
#depressionawareness
PS: If someone you know or love struggles with depression, do not dismiss them. Listen, love and help.
I have been having some significant issues the past few weeks.
Most of the time I am able to stay in the moment and to stay out of negative thinking and self judgment. However, a few days ago, all my resolve fell apart and I had nothing left.
I could not crawl into a hole and hide. I could not run away from home. I could not stop caring for the people around me.
I had to find a way through a difficult 24-72 hour period.
So I chose to live by the positive psychology of PERMA.
P is for Positive Emotion
E is for Engagement
R is for Relationship
M is for Meaning and Purpose
A is for Achievement
If the details of each day put a little deposit into each of the buckets and you can look at the day and feel good and positive about what you accomplished then you are living with PERMA.
Here is an example:
Let’s say you are facing some significant personal issues and you have no energy to do anything for anyone but you want to do a little something for a few key people and you want to feel great about what you do.
Pick a person who needs a little help and do just a small thing, like maybe giving them some tea or a meal or just a call on the tele.
When you do this small thing you will get Positive Emotion from the deed.
You will be Engaged with the person you love.
You will be building the Relationship with that person.
You will have done something that gives Meaning and Purpose to your life.
You will have Achieved something with and for them.
Stacking up these bits of PERMA during a tough day will make you feel a lot better AND will flood your brain with Positive emotion.
It’s not always easy to find something that fills all the buckets, so just being able to fill 3 or 4 is a great start.
Love and light,
Indrani
