If… I understand the situation correctly, it appears that my 67 year old parent outed me to my extended family because she’s mad at me for defriending her on facebook.
This is the sort of selfishness and childishness I’ve been dealing with all my life.
(The Acropolis ladies’ room, in Portland, but also a podcast, apparently?)
“Trump is a man living with integrity.”
Having integrity does not mean another person does what *we* or *I* think is “right.” It means living according to one’s own values. He knows what his values are and he is absolutely living them.
Food for thought from the witchy school teacher yesterday. Hopefully this idea makes us all think about what our values actually are, and whether we’re living them. We must, because they are sure living theirs!
I just woke up from a dream that was a full on depraved bacchanalian orgy at the house I grew up in. So many of you were there.
😳
So was the bottomless bag of kittens.
🙃
It was all fun and games until we ran out of mixers and beer.
The part that genuinely disturbed me? No one was using condoms. Guys, if I’m nice enough to invite you to a massive orgy, at least be safe.
🙄
😉
Uh.. just hit send on a “coming out” email to my family. I honestly think they’re going to be much more upset about the “not a Christian” part than the “likes women too” portion.
Either way, I’ve ended decades of biting my tongue and allowing them to believe their assumptions in order to not have conflict between us. It’s made me very sad for 25+ years to know my immediate family doesn’t even really know who I am. I can say that from this point on, only the people who know who I am and what I stand for, and still accept me, will have a place in my life.
I have been up most of the night trying to calm my mind, quiet my fears, collect my thoughts and find the words to voice what I’m feeling.
It occurs to me that I’ve lived a lot of my life taking advantage of the shelter that appearances have created for me. I could go anywhere in this country and be accepted based on how I present myself. The majority would not see me as something “other” than themselves. Unless and until I speak up, no one challenges my beliefs, because they assume my beliefs are their beliefs.
This ambiguity has been intentional, and while it’s partially due to liking my privacy, it’s also partially because I have benefited from it. I grew up in a very strict and religious family in a very backwards, conservative and religious part of the country. I learned at very early age that I was different from the people around me, and that being different wasn’t tolerated. I couldn’t erase who I am, but I did learn to how to hide in plain sight. At points in my life, this was a necessary survival mechanism. Now, it’s just cowardice.
I’m pretty vocal about my political and social views — enough to have become the black sheep in the family. I’ve heard multiple times this year that they “tolerate” my views. They see me as soft-hearted and misguided, and their tolerance for me is based on the perception that these are my ideals, not my life. For years, I have bitten my tongue, held back and let them make their assumptions. I’ve pretended this was to avoid conflicts and to maintain the flimsy bridge connecting me to the people who share my blood but not my values. It’s not a path I want to walk anymore. It’s better to walk alone than to share my time and energy with people who are not willing to accept my life.
Supporting Trump in this election meant supporting Trump’s views on women, minorities, the LGBTQ community, and people of different religious faiths. Half of the country has decided this is the leadership they want. This is the message they are comfortable sending to us and to the world.
This is personal for me in several ways.
As a woman, I’m tired of being made to feel like my gender is a liability in my professional, personal and public lives. I’ve felt enough conflict of my own regarding my gender. I don’t need help from a bunch of old white guys.
As a member of the LGBTQ community, I’m disgusted this country has chosen leaders who wish to revoke our rights. I don’t particularly want to ever get married, but if I change my mind, I should be able to marry the person I love, regardless of that person’s gender. And I feel for everyone who does want that life. I’m scared for those who already have built homes and families together and are left wondering what their future will hold.
As a person who is not Christian, I am dismayed by how strongly the beliefs of a portion of the country impact the entirety of the population in a nation supposedly founded on the principle of freedom of, and from, religion.
As a person with great empathy for the others who have suffered, and will suffer, more than I ever will, simply over the color of their skin or the origins of their heritage or the religion they were raised within, I am frightened by how emboldened the many bigots in this country have become.
I’ll be honest – my instinct is to find a way out of this country, but I know that’s a selfish approach. So, how do we fight in a way that makes a meaningful impact?
The anger I’m feeling over the election has been very clarifying about who and what I want in my life going forward. My current career and most of my family are not at all what I want in that.
How do I get back to that Berenstein reality? I’m not feeling this one very much.
Oh my god. I just felt a chill go down my spine as I realized that the last time they were in a World Series was when my dad died. He’d gone out to celebrate the Series being tied at 2-2 and never came back.
As soon as I had that thought, it almost felt like he was with me, and I’m so not okay with that.
So a family member (who has not yet learned to NOT bring up politics with me) actually said to me this morning, if God can use someone as “evil as Pilate” to work his will, then God can use Trump.
a) Pilate was kind of a patsy.
b) It’s been well researched that the whole “pardoning a prisoner for Passover” was not actually something that was done.
c) The whole backstory leading up to crucifixion was likely fabricated by The Church to spread anti-Seminitism by blaming the Jews, as a whole, for Jesus’s death. Not the Romans. You know, The Church.
d) The vast majority of the world’s population doesn’t believe this stuff anyway.
e) Why do Christians insist on making the rest of us part of their apocalyptic fantasies?
f) It’s probably because they think they’re going to fly into the sky anyway and leave us sinners to suffer the consequences of their actions. (To this I say “Get raptured” with a tone that conveys “Get fucked“).
g) Seriously, I hope they’re right. I can’t wait. I’m thinking– less traffic, more available housing,…
h) But in the mean time, thank you for your dedication to Christ-like behavior. He would be super stoked on your bigotry, sexism, blatant disregard for the poor and downtrodden, mocking of the disabled, and blind hatred of people with different religious beliefs. If you say you don’t believe in these things, maybe you should reconsider aligning yourself with the person who does.
i) “God” isn’t making this happen. You are.
As I do more and more energy work, it’s clear to me that pain is intimately connected with a sedentary lifestyle. I’m not saying that being very active means no pain, because I’m not even close to being there yet.
But I do know that when I work on moving energy in dark, impacted, or pinched areas, or when the gray “soot” leaves me, something in my body relaxes. Sometimes it’s deep inside my body, sometimes on the surface. The fascia resists and then suddenly glides, and tendon and ligament and muscle and vessels and nerves underneath all suddenly relax.
Being “active” is not sufficient. It needs to be something where you stretch every bit of your body in every way possible. No wonder yoga lifts the spirits as well as making your body feel better. Even just wiggling your spine, pelvis, hip joints, shoulder joints, ribs, neck around. I’m convinced that even just massaging your own armpits for a couple of minutes a day would immediately have an impact on pain, but also a gradual impact on general health.
I’m really happy to see that it can be done with the mind, or at least, with energy clearing. It’s not as efficient when used as an alternative to movement, versus a companion to movement, but that makes me really hopeful for those who have limited mobility.
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