Are you a positive influence on the children around you?
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Playing Hide and Seek with Gender Based Violence in your world
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
Think Global…Act Local
When I think of this phrase I think it means to be an informed consumer.
- Am I buying products made by children in the slavery mills around the Globe?
- Am I consciously aware that what I do here in my country is negatively affecting the Amazon Rain Forest?
- Are the diamonds that I admire Blood Diamonds?
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.
- Do they feel emotionally safe?
- Are they worried about people flying off the handle?
- Are they afraid of anyone in particular?
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
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Have you turned your back on someone crying Wolf?
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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.
Suffering from depression? This might help…..
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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
Robin Williams….
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.
When the going got tough… I had to find a way to keep going
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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
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
Not seeing what has ALWAYS been there can be a true gift…
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My lesson from identical twins, 25 years in the making.
I have known a set of identical twins from the moment of their birth. We have shared hours and days and weeks together over the course of their 25 glorious years on earth. They are as close as my own children and I love and respect them as much as I do my own.
I have never been able to tell them apart. My daughter has ALWAYS been able to tell them apart. She, my daughter, would get so frustrated with me when I would keep asking her which was which.
She tried to point out all the small details of their faces, the shape of the eyes, the difference in the smiles, the profile differences and still, as hard as I tried to look to see, all the details evaded me.
I remained blind.
Then, a few weeks ago, I had the lovely chance to spend five glorious days with them.
The first day I was still blind….I could not see the differences. (I had actually given up many years ago, because I was sure I would never get it.)
Then, as clear as day, I woke up the second day and I saw it.
I cannot tell you what I saw. I just had a shift in perspective and RIGHT there, I said, “Are you Jackie?” (Name changed to protect the twins.)
She said YES!
I could not believe it.
I asked again a few hours after and again I nailed it.
The next day, I nailed it again.
I do not understand what shifted in my head, but something very significant did and I know that I will always be able to tell them apart.
I think that this paradigm shift is what needs to happen with women who accept abuse.
They must keep looking for ways to recognize that which they have been blinded. They may have been blinded by childhood abuse, or by acts of war, or some other horrible history.
They must be able to see through what they have accepted as fact.
Each woman is the ONLY one who can shift her perspectives.
Thousands of experts can point out the problems such as:
- No one has the right to hit you
- No one has the right to rape you
- No one has the right to control you
- No one has the right to blame you for their anger
I could go on and on…
It would not matter, because unless something shifts inside of each individual person, they would not be able to escape the abuse.
I will keep doing the work I do.
Indranis Light will keep putting up blogs, sending out recordings and teaching in shelters IN THE HOPE that some people somewhere will be able to make the shift and begin to see the SIGNIFICANCE of their individuality.
When the shift happens, when people see that THEY are worthy, NO ONE will be able to take it away and they will be able to change the relationship.
They will, like I did, say “Is that you?”
They will say, “Yes, it is me and I am worth MORE than putting up with abuse. I refuse to accept it another day longer.”
I will never give up on all the women out there who are looking for the little hints about their worth and I hope they tell me when they figure it out.
Please like our Facebook page.
Love & light,
Indrani
When the nasty “Know It All” person rears their ugly head, be very targeted in your response….
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Allow me to set the stage.
A couple weeks ago I buried my father.
I had the highest honor at the funeral to have delivered his eulogy.
It was, BY FAR, the most important speech I had ever and will ever make in my whole life.
I wrote and rewrote and edited and practiced and was generally very anxious about the whole day, but especially that I would do the greatest job I had ever done as a public speaker.
I wanted to rely on my memory but I choose to bring up the iPad and I stuck to the script because I was afraid I would lose my composure.
A dear friend had advised me that the eulogy should educate the congregation about the greatness of my father.
I spoke to my siblings and I spoke to his friends and to many young people that he had mentored and I composed my poetry on my Dad.
During the delivery, I spoke clearly, pausing to breathe and to allow the words to flutter like and angel’s wings over my family and dear friends who were in attendance.
I managed to get through almost 97% of it before my voice cracked and the tears began to flow.
Almost everyone came up or called up to tell me what a beautiful honoring I had done for my father.
Ok Dear Reader,
The stage has been set.
Fast forward to the actual night of the funeral. My siblings and children and nephews and mother are gathered in the humble living room in Trinidad and a friend of my mother comes to visit.
She walks in, loudly announcing that she has spent the whole day in church and has just offered up prayers for my mother.
THEN, she looks at me…
“Indrani,” she says loud and clear, “the eulogy was lovely BUT you should have said how devoted and loving your father was to your mother.”
The WHOLE room of people fell silent.
Everyone is now looking at ME, for my reaction.
Let me remind you Dear Reader, that the funeral would have been less than 8 hours prior and we were all still raw and in pain.
My sister, God bless her, sits upright from a slouched and relaxed position and says, “I MUST DISAGREE WITH YOU. You clearly did not hear the beginning when MY sister talked about their marriage of 62 years!”
The “nasty know it all” woman began to defend her position…she REALLY DID begin to defend her position!
If I wouldn’t have been so pissed I would have been laughing.
I then spoke up in a LOUD and VERY CLEAR VOICE.
And this is what I said….
“I have had many comments on the eulogy and everyone has said how lovely and honoring it was. I must tell YOU, you are the ONLY critic. I MUST give YOU a prize for the honor of being the sole critic.”
I then arose from the sofa, I walked to the dining room table and I picked up a piece of crumpled paper and I PRESENTED it to her.
I said, “THIS is your prize. Congratulations for criticizing the eulogy I spoke at my Dad’s funeral.”
Dear reader of this blog post, YOU should have seen the look on her face.
She could NOT believe that I was indeed defending myself against her attack.
She scampered out of my childhood home as fast as she could.
The lesson of this blog is this…
DO NOT allow nasty people to hijack your beautiful brain. Bring out the big response, stand on your sacred honor and let your brilliance fly.
Love and light,
Indrani
My Father, the Ninja…..
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When I hear the word Ninja, I think of a person who is stealthy, nimble and agile and uses the forces of his opponents to his advantage.
He only fights when necessary, and then too, only to defend himself or his family, or to right a terrible wrong.
My father is a Ninja.
He never let on to any of his three children how difficult it was to put food on the table. He never allowed us to suffer the stigma of “poverty” and always found ways to provide what we needed to succeed as students and young people. He encouraged all of our friends to visit, sleep over (often in drunken hazes when we were teenagers) and never once do I remember him lecturing or making us feel like losers for our immature behaviors.
He always led with love and followed with well placed stories with metaphorical lessons that somehow always made sense.
As my father lays in a sedated coma due to a severe stroke, we his children are left to remember the greatness of the Ninja skills he wielded so magnificently and we are left to wonder IF we managed to become the adults he always believed we could be and if we told him we loved him and showed it as much as we could.
I am so grateful that he never considered that his daughters be married off at young ages so that he would be relieved of our care.
He always stressed as much education as we were capable of and never wavered in his belief in our abilities to become fully functioning members of society.
I read about fathers and mothers who sell children into prostitution as a solution to bring money to the family. I cannot even imagine what my father would say to theses practices.
I read about parents dragging their girls out of school so that they can take care of the house and the younger siblings. I cannot even imagine what my Ninja father would say about that.
I cannot imagine lots of atrocities that I hear about fathers around the world. I am grateful that I had a DAD who would have given his last ounce of blood to keep his children safe and secure.
My father was a Ninja and as he sleeps in his coma, I can only hope that his dreams are of better times with me in Texas, where he loved to be.
He loved to go to the giant grocery stores and to buy what he wanted and came home to cook it for me and my children.
He loved driving my son to elementary school almost 25 miles away from home while I took care of a new baby.
He loved to go to Target and to be able to buy whatever his heart desired and it always desired very little.
If he had two pairs of pants, it was enough.
If he had four, he would say something like, “but I can only wear one pair at a time while I wash the other one.”
He was not a hoarder of material goods. He spent wisely and knew the value of a dollar.
My Ninja father taught me so very much and most of all he taught me the value of the relationship between Father and Daughter.
A bond that should never be taken lightly.
A bond that sets up the girl for a life of happiness or dread.
A bond that cements the way a girl feels about men.
My father, the Ninja, is my everything.
He is and will always be my hero.
Dad,
As you sleep know that I respect what you have taught me and I hope to continue to make you proud.
Love and light,
Indrani
Daughter of Ralph Augustine Nathu.