What a man, he was living his life and teaching his daughter to follow her dreams.
He was thrust into the limelight because of the violence unleashed upon his child.
His voice is LOUD… Girls, UNLEARN your obedience!
Don’t miss this TED Talk by Ziauddin Yousafzai, father of Malala.
Love & light,
Indrani
A new study from Population and Development Review finds that educated Indian women face a heightened risk of Intimate Partner Violence.
According to a Population Council Journal Article, Abigail Weitzman, a graduate student at New York University, found that compared to women with less education than their husbands, women with more education face 1.4 times the risk of IPV, 1.54 times the risk of frequent violence, and 1.36 times the risk of severe violence. She found a similar pattern for women who were better employed than their spouse. And women who were the sole breadwinners in their family faced 2.44 times the risk of frequent violence and 1.51 times the risk of severe violence as unemployed women whose husbands were employed.
“In global development efforts, there is a large emphasis on women’s employment and education. My research suggests that there can be a backlash, including violence, toward women who attain greater education or earnings than their husbands,” says Weitzman.
This article is available free of charge for a limited time at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.
Education and employment for women is so important for cultures and nations to thrive….but the result of a backlash of increased domestic violence is not acceptable. What can YOU do to help move us to a world free of such violence?
Our free Live a Brighter Life Empowerment Program for Living is a great place to start.
Love & light,
Team ILF
There is a reason why the first two sessions of the Live A Brighter Life Empowerment Program for Living teaches the importance and power behind setting boundaries and saying no.
Learning and implementing these two principles can and will change your life! And we are not the only ones who think so….check out this article from The Wall Street Journal to learns ways to say “No” more effectively.
If you would like to learn how to set boundaries and how to say “no”, please register for Live A Brighter Life to receive 6 session recordings…it’s absolutely free!
Love & light,
Team ILF
In this article, I share the stories of three women that I met during my last visit to India. These are three of the bravest women that I’ve ever met….
When one of us is abused, we are all abused.
Love & light,
Indrani
I am so honored to be shining a light on gender violence. Many thanks to the entire PSI Team and to Mom Bloggers for Social Good for featuring this article about our recent trip to India and helping to spread the light.
This is an amazing story and a great example of how one man, a school dropout, would stop at nothing to bring his idea of revolutionizing menstrual health for rural women in developing countries to fruition. An idea that would have a positive effect on women, their families, their health and their livelihood.
Desire is the key to motivation, but it’s determination and commitment to an unrelenting pursuit of your goal – a commitment to excellence – that will enable you to attain the success you seek. —Mario Andretti
Follow this link to read the article: http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26260978
Love & light,
Team ILF
Ever walk into a room and instantly notice that something smells? Stale smoke, mold, mildew. A habit like smoking lingers…so even if you are not the smoker and you are breathing the smoke second hand, you can be effected. The toxins stick.
Toxic people and situations stick to stuff.
Abuse not only affects the victim and those who may be witnesses but as a party several degrees removed, you still can sense the anger and fear. Perhaps it is a broken lamp, a noticeable bruise or wound, a torn piece of clothing, a broken window…the violence now affects you. You may feel scared, fearful, and angry at the perpetrator. You find yourself walking on egg shells in a play that has ended but the signs are still there. Now you have the toxins.
The toxins of verbal abuse resonate beyond the fight. A husband and wife argue. The wife saturated with the toxins of her husband’s venom then pushes those toxins out to her children. You are at the playground or school and you see the kids now fighting using the same words they heard at home, the name calling, the demeaning talk. Now those toxins from the original argument have affected those who are unaware of the verbal toxins of the home. Now they have affected innocent people outside of the original dumping ground.
We expose ourselves to third party toxins from events, habits, situations we never knew existed but we walk away changed and not for the good. Some of those toxins may even trigger dormant hurts from our past like shame, fear, and helplessness. We have to rely on our sixth sense, our intuition or our gut to remove ourselves from these poisons so that we do not suffer or get injured.
Have you ever been in a room where you could feel the tension and you know something just happened? Have you felt the shame as someone calls another worthless, and you take on that shame as if it was your own?
We need to listen to our intuition to save us from the ugly toxins that surround us. Do you have the courage to walk away in these situations?
When I was growing up in Trinidad, I used to hear older people telling younger people (mainly younger girls) that “they were too full of themselves.”
Often times that phrase was followed by a swift beating…a lesson that would serve to “put you back in your place.”
I accepted it as truth, that women should NOT be full of self. That being full of self was boasting and bragging and evil and only the Devil made one do that.
I have CHANGED my mind!
Today, I am FULL OF SELF!
It took a lot of hard work to kick the old beliefs to the curb and watch the bus run over them and kill them in front if my eyes.
I began to change my mind when I began to believe that my gifts and talents were worthy of being shown.
I decided to stop hiding my light under a basket.
Lights and skills and talents need to be placed on high to do the best good.
What good is knowing how to sing and only singing to oneself?
What good is knowing how to lead and never taking the reins as the leader?
In case you were waiting for someone to give you permission to be Full of Self… I’m giving it to you now.
Go forth and be Full of your BEST SELF!
Will people say that you are bragging? Maybe.
Will people say you should be less in their face? Maybe.
The bigger question is…
What will you say to the talents and gifts that have been patiently waiting in the shadows?
Will you ask them to be quiet for another year or two or ten?
What if you ONLY have a few years left?
The truth is this. None of us know how much time we have left so we MUST use all that we have to make this world a better place.
One of my favorite quotes is from Erma Bombeck.
“When I stand before God at the end of my days, I want to say, I have nothing left I used it all.”
I want this to be my utterance also.
I invite you to use all your gifts and talents, start TODAY!
Love and light,
Indrani
A few weeks ago in the NY Times, I read an article on how Olympians use imagery to practice their jumps, runs and plays.
One of the team psychologists, Nicole Dietling said, “In images, it is absolutely crucial that you don’t fail. You are training those muscles and if you train those muscles to fail that is not where you really want to be. So one of the things I will do is if they fail in the image, we stop, rewind and replay again and again and again.”
I think that we can use this technique for creating the quality of life we expect for ourselves. We cannot use imagery to change another’s behaviors but we can use imagery to change our own behaviors.
Let’s say for example, that you have a teenager that drives you batty. You have tried everything you know and still the two of you end up in screaming and shouting matches.
YOU can use imagery to change the behaviors you want to change in yourself.
If you wish to NOT be in a shouting match, you can use imagery to bring up a fight that recurs with your child and when you SEE yourself losing it, STOP and rewind to the beginning of the fight and imagine yourself using a different behavior.
The sports psychologists who teach imagery teach that the athletes must see, feel, smell, hear and taste the entire scenario. So an athlete will be able to conjure up the wind in their face, the taste of the air, the smells of the venue, etc.
Similarly, you can use imagery to see which areas of contention get to you the most with the teenager.
You can begin to change your reactions to the child and control where the conversation will go.
When I had teenagers, I hated that I would often fall into the very shouting match I so desperately wanted to avoid.
I wish I would have known about imagery back then.
I think as parents we need to use every tool we have at our disposal to teach our children how to be calm and controlled adults and when we lose it, we just teach them that we have a lot of learning to do.
Let’s try to utilize all the techniques that are proven so we can model great parenting for our children. After all, most of us want grand kids and do we want our children yelling at our grand kids the way we are yelling at them?
I hope this helps the next time you feel that you are losing it, but it will ONLY help if you practice using imagery when you are not in the midst of the crisis.
Love and light,
Indrani
I have been reading Clarissa Pinkola Estes’ Women Who Run with Wolves and I came upon these two words… Malignant Impulses.
I stopped dead in my tracks and tried to digest these two words that she so magically strung together.
The dictionary defines Malignant as “passionately and relentlessly malevolent” and “evil in nature, influence or effect.” Some other words that are similar to malignant are:
We really do know DEEP down that to have a malignancy in one’s life is a straight path to hell, then imminent death.
Impulse is defined as, “a force so communicated as to produce motion suddenly” and “a propensity or natural tendency OTHER than rational.”
If we speak English, we KNOW how powerful the stringing of Malignant is with Impulse.
We GET the meaning in our gut. We have a visceral understanding of these words.
It really does not matter what the dictionary says, we all know the energy of malignant. A malignant tumor is one that will kill you.
It screams aggression and it also screams that life as you know it will be forever changed.
We also know (if we are honest with ourselves) and understand impulses.
If you have children you have invested thousands of hours in helping them to control impulses…especially in the classroom.
If I had a penny for every time I tried to teach impulse control, I would have LOTS of money.
When we think of abuse we can see how malignant impulse can be applied and it makes sense.
People who use abuse can be called malignant beings. They infect others with their special brand of pain or cruelty.
They always have their reasons, like so and so did not do what was asked so they HAD to be taught a lesson, punished and beaten back into submission.
The impulse that the abuser feels to impose their view of the world on someone else is often so fierce that they will not stand for any other words for their request but YES.
Telling an abuser NO makes them crazy and their malignancy comes flying out of their soul.
Acid Attacks are one such example of malignant impulses.
I met a young woman in Delhi whose name is Laxmi. She was 15 when a 32 year old man asked her to marry him.
He was a malignant being. She said no and he threw acid in her face and disfigured her for life.
He DID NOT, however, kill her spirit.
She is now an activist working with a campaign to STOP ACID ATTACKS.
She is a special brand of hero. Underneath all of her burned skin…she shines as brightly as 10,000 suns.
We may not be able to stop malignant people from their malignant impulses but we may be able to use our intuition to stay away from such nasty beings.
If you think you are in danger of someone’s malignant impulses, PLEASE try to get help. Tell LOTS of people what you suspect. Do NOT allow people to talk you out of your intuitive knowing.
You must be vigilant for your own welfare.
In the USA, acid attacks take the form of gun violence and you must be hyper vigilant of your surroundings.
Be careful and be strong.
Love and light,
Indrani