Tag Archives: self love

Playing Hide and Seek with Gender Based Violence in your world

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It struck me today that one of the first steps we all must take in the fight against gender based violence is to start actively paying attention and noticing gender based violence.

How we each do this will be different, but for me, since starting my work at ILF, it means filtering the world through a new lens and quietly asking myself “was that gender based violence?” or “is there a message here about gender based violence?”

When someone like TMZ decides to post a video that is an extreme and obvious case of gender based violence (as in the Ray Rice situation) it is easy for everyone to say “well yes, that was a case of gender based violence, we need to do something about it.”

But what about all of the non-obvious, non-in-your-face examples?

  • What about the two kids that I always see playing in the local playground, sometimes with their 2 year old sister. Why do they NEVER want to be at home?
  • What about the gym teacher at the local high school who constantly smirks at his male students when one of the more well-endowed girls jogs by in class?
  • What about the sad little girl who went to the day home next door to my house that nobody noticed until the caregiver’s husband went to jail last year for molesting her?

If we are observing the world like everyone else all of these may slip below our radar.

But, if we start actively watching for gender based violence (and I am not saying this is easy, so take care of yourself) the number of incidents starts to become more and more clear, and it is only then we start to realize how important the commitment to ending gender based violence really is.

So, what was it that struck me today and brought this realization into the light?

The song Face Down by Red Jumpsuit Apparatus. This song has been out since 2007 and is tied as the longest-running song on the Modern Rock Tracks chart at 52 weeks. I have heard it countless times and thought nothing about it other than “great song, I like it”.

Today I watched the music video, with my new found GBV filter, and, wow, was I missing the point:

Link: http://youtu.be/6Ux6SlOE9Qk

 

Share your ideas about making gender based violence more obvious to the world in the comments below.

 

Love & light,

 

Jeremie Miller

ILF Team Member & Guest Blogger

Have you turned your back on someone crying Wolf?

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-BlackWolf--4There 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.

LABL 006: Being Present – Be Physically and Emotionally Present

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Welcome to Episode #6 of the Live a Brighter Life Podcast!

In this episode of the Live a Brighter Life Podcast Indrani and Andrea discuss being present. Specifically you will:

  • Reflect on all that you have learned
  • Determine your easiest path to living a brighter life
  • Reflect on your experiences over the course of the workshops
  • Assess your own shift in self-perception
  • Write a letter of self gratitude

Podcast Recording

[powerpress]

Suffering from depression? This might help…..

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depression_quoteA 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

When the going got tough… I had to find a way to keep going

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cheerful-happy-woman-enjoying-nature-beautiful-sky-balloonsI 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

These five elements are what make life sweet.

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

I love me, I love me not, I love me….how to know if you love yourself.

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A few weeks ago I got some bad news. Something that I was looking forward to for more than ONE year got cancelled and just sort of fell apart. I did not receive any real reason.

I FELL apart.

I had to “phone a friend” and I gave myself permission to cry my eyes out.

She held space for me and I let it pour. I had not let myself fall apart like that for years.

After the wave of emotion crested and crashed, I felt better… except that ANGER began to swirl.

The previous pain was replaced by INTENSE rage and I wanted to call the offender all sorts of names and hurl insults … then I saved myself by going to sleep. The good news was that I was able to find sleep and peace whereas before I would have stewed all night and woke up even more angry.

But this time, I woke up refreshed and I took to the streets for my daily walk.

I walked almost 6 miles and I felt great.

I also had some really great conversations with myself on the walk.

There were two wolves in my head, one was righteously mean and the other sweetly compassionate.

Every time the mean wolf would speak, it would list the “ways” I SHOULD act. If I did not act in those ways, the wolf told me that I was a wimp and a push over and so on and so forth!

The other wolf would wait for the first wolf to stop speaking and just whisper something like
“you know that this person is not nasty, you know the person is one of the kindest you know…”

Then the mean wolf would jump back in…

And so it went.

I began to get very confused. What to do? Who to believe?

Then I had a thought!

“Indrani,” I said to myself, “what KIND of person are you? What if this was the last decision you will ever make about this person? Who do YOU want to be like, the mean wolf or the compassionate wolf?”

And just like that I knew what to do.

If you know me, dear reader, you KNOW I choose wolf number TWO, the wolf of Compassion. That is the wolf I choose to feed. I fed it with great thoughts about the person, great memories about the person and I said a silent prayer for the person to be well and safe and happy.

When I got home, I decided on the proper course of action for me. I decided to do the activities by myself. I decided that the decisions of another had to do with them, not me. If I wanted to go somewhere or do something, it was my business.

At my ripe age of 60, I really have NO time for waiting for another to fulfill my desires.

I have no time for regret.

So I offer this lesson to you.

When you are disappointed, as you sometimes will be, don’t allow your pain and your self righteous wolf lead down the path of nasty and revenge.

Try to feed the Wolf of Compassion and free your self from the “expectations” of what others should do for you.

Make YOUR decisions for your happiness.

Decide to be compassionate to yourself, as you offer compassion to the other.

Hope this helps…

 

Love and light,

Indrani

Words from a SURVIVOR….

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My DEAR friend Emily Anne Webber and I just had a great conversation about how abused people feel. We recorded it and there was so much goodness that I wanted to share the recording with YOU!

She has learned how to LAUGH and BE HAPPY.

YOU CAN TOO.

Give it a listen and please pass along to anyone who could benefit from these words:

Love & light,

Indrani

 

 

emilyselfgrowthEmily and I will be doing a summer call series called ASK THE SURVIVOR. You can send in questions about abuse, surviving abuse, living with an abuser, etc and she will answer. She has so much to share.

Stay tuned for more information on our Ask the Survivor Summer Series!

For more information on Emily, please visit here.

Transactional or relational…what kind of relationship do you want?

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downloadA while ago, while listening to Barack Obama, I heard him describe a relationship (not with Michelle) as one that was solidly transactional and polite.

He knew and understood exactly what kind of relationship that was. The way I understood it was that when things were discussed he did not say things like ” that FEELS great, or that MAKES me HAPPY.”

Emotions were OUT of this equation and both parties understood that.

To put the transactional relationship out into the light, think Pretty Women. It started out as a transaction and then she wants a relationship. It took him a while but eventually the arrangement changed.

I have read that successful pimps prey on young women and start off with the lure of a relationship, then when the young girls think they have a real boyfriend…..the pimps beat them, rape them and turn the arrangement into the transaction it was always meant to be.

I have been thinking about marriage and have been wondering if perhaps the high rates of divorce might be due to the fact that we do not know the difference between transaction and relation based relationships.

A wife who complains that her husband is always at work, travels too much and is never available is complaining that the relationship is suffering. The man may be very confused as he is providing a house and cars and lifestyle and does not understand what she wants from him. He is seeing the transactional side of the arrangement.

How can people on two different sides move towards the center?

I think a good place to start is with shared filling in the blanks of “What’s missing here?”

If the wife says her piece and says that time with husband is missing and intimacy and friendship it is a start.

If the husband says nothing is missing and he is happy at work and just wants to be the provider, there is an insight into the size of the divide.

I knew of a couple who went on vacation once, and while he played golf everyday she drank and sat by the pool.

She did NOT want to spend more time with him and HE was happy with that arrangement. They saw each other the same amount of time while on vacation as they did at home.

The only difference is that they slept in a hotel room.

This transactional vacation worked for them, he bought the vacation package and she used it.

We don’t get to complain about the type of arrangement we have if we are not courageous enough to open it up and ask questions.
If you are in a relationship that feels like it needs to be changed, ask “What’s missing for me here?”

Journal about this question as many times as you need to. Look at your answers.

Make a list of the things that are missing.

Then begin to see what YOU can provide for yourself.

This may not be the answer you want, but when you can provide the elements of life you want for yourself than you can begin to fill in the other elements with your partner.

Love and light,
Indrani

You have permission to be FULL OF SELF….

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images via changeyourenergyWhen 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

Some suitcases look just like yours….

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please check luggage carefully…and some lives look just like what you thought you wanted. Open carefully and give back when necessary.

Recently, on a domestic trip, I grabbed the wrong suitcase from the luggage carousel and went to my hotel room.
The suitcase looked exactly like mine until I gave a closer look.

When I tried to open it, I saw that a zip tie had been used to secure the zippers.
Odd, I thought, but I just called down to Guest Services and they sent someone with a pair of scissors.

When the hotel staff member arrived he offered to also cut off the luggage tag and I told him, “Sure, go ahead.” How nice of him.

So now, I did not have the tag to check the name on the suitcase.

I laid the suitcase on the floor and then saw the “heavy” tag which, again, I thought was odd….I did not think it was that heavy. Perhaps I am just really strong!

Then I saw that the outer lining that protected the zipper was torn but I knew that my lining was perfect when I left home.

I opened the suitcase, MY suitcase, and WHOA……
A man’s belt and men’s shoes.
I slammed the suitcase SHUT and immediately called the airline.
I admitted my error, jumped into a taxi and WHEW, my suitcase was patiently waiting and I made the exchange.

The only question I asked was this, “Was the owner of this bag coming home? Did he at least get to go to a home stocked with lots of extra clothes?” She said, “Yes, this is home for him.” The airline person DID NOT even ask for my ID! It was clear to her from the whole story that the suitcase was indeed mine!

How can I turn this into a life lesson?

It took a night’s sleep for the lesson to form. Here goes!
Suppose that the suitcase represented a LIFE that I knowingly signed up for.
So let’s suppose marriage and being a married woman was the lot that was chosen.
How would I know IF the type of marriage (suitcase) was the kind that I signed up for?
I would have to live with the marriage for a while and see how it suited my values and desires.
I would do my best and be my best and respect my husband as I would hope he would respect me.

Suppose that I began to see signs of “Umm, this seems ODD.”
Much like the few times I thought ODD when I further inspected the luggage that was not mine.
I might begin to see that the “fabric” of my soul was being torn and ripped; much like the lining of the bag that I noticed was torn.
I might say, “Whoa, I came into this union whole and complete with good values and morals but now I see things that I did not see before.”
Perhaps, my spouse begins to cheat and get drunk and come home being belligerent. Perhaps, I keep making excuses and deny what I am seeing….a sign that things need to be addressed.

Next, I might be told that “women in this family do not __________.” This could be anything from talking to people outside the family or having to wear certain clothing, to not even showing your face when visitors arrive at your home.

I may continue to think… ODD, this is not the kind of restricted life for which I entered into legal contract!
Like the zip tie that I saw on the zippers that I did not put there, I may have again, not paid in depth attention to the first signs of a shrinking and bound life.

How about the “Heavy” sticker that I saw on the suitcase that was not mine? I may not realize that my feelings of self worth seem to be gone and my heart is heavy with grief. I may again, decide to ignore the signs that things are not what I want for my life.

Until, I take the time to actually OPEN the marriage and LOOK inside, I may NOT realize that what I am seeing is NOT what I want to have in my life.

Clarissa Pinkola Estes in “Women Who Run with Wolves” tells us that women who must break from a life that is not what they envisioned must “be able to see and STAND what they see.”

Able to See and Stand what you see!

What a powerful thought.

As far as the suitcase goes, I saw and I clearly understood that IT was not mine and I returned it.

In an abusive marriage, the woman MUST be able to open up her eyes and SEE very clearly that THIS ABUSE is NOT what she had agreed to and that she has been fooled.

Can she STAND to see the truth to save herself?

Please do not think that I am equating an abusive marriage with as simple a thing as a suitcase, I am not. I am only trying to tell you a story that would open up a few new windows in your soul, should you have to make a hard decision about your marriage or any relationship.

Clarissa Pinkola Estes also tells us that a woman MUST be able to answer a few questions and be ok with the responses.
One of these questions is, “What do I know deep in my ovarios that I wished I did not know?”
She refers to ovarios as the mythological part of the women that carries deep wisdom, where the seeds of knowledge are stored.

Life is not as easy as returning a suitcase that belongs to someone else.
It does not have to be as horrific as living with an abuser or predator either.
The choice is that of the one being abused.
The abused MUST be able to stand what she is seeing and make plans to save her life.
The abuser is NOT the one with the internal power.
The ABUSED has the internal power and she has to be willing to look into the darkness and see what only SHE can see.

Be brave and be strong and ASK for help.
Love and light,
Indrani