Thinking with |
Thinking with |
After walking down the eighty-eight steps from the road to the beach wryly named 1000 Steps Beach, I looked around and was keenly aware of a deep and internal recognition of this place I had never been before. It was a simultaneously strange and comforting feeling.
I've heard about Bonaire my whole life as it was home to my parents and three older siblings for six years in the 1960s. There are many family stories of life on this paradise island in the Netherland Antilles. "The Caribbean" was an everyday word in my childhood, and a place that the other five members of my immediate family were intimately acquainted with, and yet it was no more real for me than a make-believe land in my favorite fairytale in terms of my experiential knowledge of this magical world. Until last week that is. Our parents are now both deceased, and it's been 55 years since my family lived in Kralendijk, Bonaire. My three siblings have never returned together to their childhood home, and when they decided to finally make it happen after years of contemplating the possibility, I wanted to tag along. After all, what do younger siblings do best if not tag along behind the "big kids"? After arriving on the island we drove to the northern end where the infamous 1000 Step Beach is. The small hand-painted rock on the side of the road that indicated we were indeed at the right place was tricky to spot, but between my brother's memory, the assortment of vehicles parked alongside the road overlooking the beach, and the bright though fading yellow rock with "1000 steps" in view, it was apparent this was the place. It was surreal to finally be here - in this place I had only heard about in oft-repeated stories and shared memories. These were tales I had heard throughout my childhood, but which, for the first 48 years of my life, had no visual place to land in my experience other than in my imagination. After all, this was the place where my father, seeking shade from the relentless sun, spent an afternoon under a scrubby little tree where all of him but his feet managed to escape the rays that scorched his feet turning them a bright and painful red. It was also the place where my brother was "lost" as he played happily and alone in the ocean out of view of my parents. After some time of searching in vain for him, dad began to conclude that the inevitable and unthinkable must have occurred. Yet, here I was, walking down those "1000 steps" with the ocean in view and the multitudinous coral beneath my feet, and it felt oddly familiar to me. In part, it felt familiar because of all those many stories I've heard through the years, but it was also recognizable to me because in my childhood my mother had on display a large wooden mixing bowl filled with shells and coral from Bonaire. I regularly played with the various shells, feeling their differing textures, shapes, and sizes and "listening" to the sound of the ocean in the large conch shell that was among her collection. As I walked on that beach and swam in the ocean last Tuesday, I saw in their native context the shells and coral rocks that were part of my own childhood in ways I could not appreciate until that moment. It was a moving moment of "belonging" and "connection" to this particular family and this unique history that was both not mine and very much mine. Isn't life like that? The juxtaposition of the places where we feel both part of and apart from the larger story of humanity is fundamental to our experience as humans. We may or may not be aware of the tension inherent in the paradoxes that confront us on a daily basis, but they are no less present for our lack of awareness. Much later that same day I was wandering through the streets by myself and taking pictures of tropical flowers that struck me as beautiful and reminded me of my mother, an avid gardener who regularly said that her favorite flower was whichever one she was looking at in any given moment. I recognized and could identify many of the plants I saw including this hibiscus and bougainvillea, and once again I realized that my mother carried Bonaire as a part of her in ways I did not know as a child and could not have understood until now. I never considered that her love of these particular plants, which are not native to the hills of East Tennessee, was probably due in large part to the years she spent living in a tropical paradise and the connections she made with the flora of that special place she called home as she and dad were raising their own three young children. Although there were many moments during my hours on Bonaire that made an impression on me, perhaps the greatest gift I received from this sibling trip was a deeper, richer, and more felt experience of belonging and connection to this place and by extension this family thanks to my mom's subtle but very impactful ways of bringing bits of Bonaire into my childhood in ways that made it recognizable to me all these years later without ever having been before. Thanks, Mom, for sharing with me the gift of belonging to this larger family story in ways I could not have imagined. Thanks, Dad, for making this trip possible by your careful management of your finances through the years and the money that enabled us all to go on your dime. I'm grateful today that I can see, feel, and experience with more depth this part of my family history, and I am growing in my lived sense of connection as a result.
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I was introduced to this Rebecca Spalding song by Maggie Wheeler in a workshop several years ago and the minute I heard it I was in tears. The lyrical line, "before you throw the stones of judgment" transported me to the religious world of my past where judgment was often preached against while simultaneously being levied on everybody and everything "not like us." It was a strange dichotomy and one I have been unpacking continuously at ever-deepening levels since leaving the church.
I realized recently that shame cannot exist without judgment. If there is no one judging me for my decisions, thoughts, behaviors, or perspectives then I won't feel shame. The more judgment I experience the more shame I will feel, even if that judgment eventually comes from myself as I internalize the voices of judgment and shame that have resounded loudly in my ears for a lifetime. About the same time that I learned this song I was also introduced to the idea that anything a person does, says, thinks, or feels is a direct response to their lived experiences. Or as Shakespeare put it in his tragedy, Hamlet, and a friend has on her outgoing voicemail message, "There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so." Although not at all a popular view from within the fundamental Christian world of my past, today I understand the wisdom of this truth. We are all products of the cumulative effect of the inputs, perspectives, cultural norms, family stories, and opportunities we've had in our lives. As children we are taught to judge and be judged, and the harsher the world in which we are imprinted, the harsher our judgment of ourselves and others and the louder our sense of shame at not measuring up to the harsh judgments we feel. I have been struggling for years to reconcile seemingly irreconcilable pieces of my life and I have sensed judgment consistently from all sides. The only thing that has effectively minimized my sense of judgment and shame has been doing the tough personal digging to understand the roots of my shame and judgment and make peace with my story as a human among humans. As a participant in a 12-step program for children of dysfunctional systems (and who among us doesn't qualify to some degree or another for that program?!), the solution that we read at each meeting and attempt to learn to practice regularly is "to become your own loving parent." A year ago I had a dear friend and wise elder remind me that my job was to love, understand, and comfort myself. As an adult, my spiritual work is to show up for myself with the love, understanding, and comfort that I longed for as a child but didn't receive in the ways I needed it. THIS is a human experience. None of us had perfect childhoods. We all have hurts and patterns of relating that are more harmful than helpful. I don't believe that there's a single person on the planet who hasn't experienced judgment and shame to some degree or another, and as I understand my own story better I am far less judgmental of myself and others. I am learning to recognize and hold myself in my places of pain rather than to hope that someone else will ease my discomfort. I am understanding that the miles I've walked have been in shoes unique to ME - partly what I came wired with and partly the experiences I've had away, but uniquely my experiences nonetheless. The results of those experiences are part of our shared humanity. I can love and understand others to the degree I grow to love and understand myself. My healing journey is far from over, but I'm grateful for the ways I see and feel progress along the way. How are you holding your heart as you heal? Here we are at the end of 2023 and on the cusp of a brand-new year with all the usual turning of the year rituals...gathering, celebrating, reflecting, resolving, setting intentions, selecting a word-of-the-year, and considering what we want to let go of and what we want to call in. Despite the fact that time is a human construct and there are not clear and clean lines in the passage of our days as the calendar might lead us to believe, there is still much value in these rituals of acknowledging the change of seasons as winter encourages rest and reflection in preparation for a spring of planting and new growth.
This year I'm considering the concept that "Every experience is compostable." What if even the toughest of years are ones that can go on the compost pile of life and eventually contribute to the rich, fertile soil in which new life and growth can flourish? Maybe not this spring, but some day. There's a common image that has been circulating in recent New Year's of the old year in a sack of stinky garbage and headed to the dump. I confess that there have been recent years when I've been tempted to see the previous 12 months as mostly trash. When I do this, however, I buy into the belief that somehow it's my fault and if only I could have been better or done better then somehow the pile of trash would be less large and less stinky. This year I'm realizing anew that I'm simply not that powerful. I'm not always as responsible as I think I am for the tough things that come my way. Sometimes shit happens and there are many factors that contribute to the tough seasons, but by and large, it's not my fault. Tough seasons are indicators that I'm a human being...or that I'm quite literally being human. I make mistakes; people I love make mistakes; random strangers I don't even know make mistakes. Those mistakes have real life consequences and those mistakes always make sense from within the larger context of my life experiences, brain chemistry, family background, cultural conditioning, and internal wiring. What if I could see all my mistakes as stepping stones to more of the growth, freedom, understanding, and depth of character that I long for? Maybe my experiences can be put on the compost pile of my life and, when raked together with time, understanding, forgiveness, self-compassion, and distance, I'll discover the fertile soil that has been being developed in my heart along the way. I am grateful to look back at previous years and experiences that I once viewed as a waste of time and full bags of trash to be carried to the landfill and recognize them today as the scraps that have been cooked down by the sun of time, winds of patience, and rain of my tears into a rich loam that is ready for planting. Sure, there's still a pile of compost that's waiting to be turned, but today I see a few heaps of beautiful dirt from my life that are ripe for new seeds of hope, life, and growth in 2024. How about you? How have your challenging life experiences been composted into the beginnings of a new and beautiful garden that you couldn't have imagined? And if you're in a season now that feels dark and cold and you can't imagine anything desirable coming from it, be gentle and patient as you wait in the dark and cold. And know that you're not alone. Often, when I tell people that I facilitate Singing Circles, I am asked if it is like Kirtan. Until a couple of months ago, I said I didn't really know since I had never experienced Kirtan. I have had the opportunity to attend several Kirtan events in the past several months and have mostly enjoyed my experiences. There were times when my discomfort with not really knowing what was happening was challenging, but as I've learned to do with discomfort, I stayed put, breathed deeply, and found myself dropping more and more into myself and the communal experience as I did. Upon arriving at Kirtan, I was warmly welcomed and offered a card with printed words, and then we've jumped into chanting with the use of at least a harmonium to assist the voices. In every case Kirtan has been led in a call-and-response style with the caller singing a line and the participants echoing it throughout each chant. I've also learned that the syllables used in Sanskrit are all connected to the chakra system in our bodies and therefore are uniquely designed to tap into different aspects of our bodies and psyche in ways that are intentional and effective whether or not we know the meaning of what we are chanting. Kirtan has been a nice space to drop into a very different type of vocal meditation and I am grateful for my experiences with it, and I intend to make it a regular part of my own vocal practice. I can also now give a better answer to the question, "Is Singing Circle like Kirtan?" I encourage anyone wanting more vocal experience to try both. You'll find what works for you, and the process of using and expanding your voice will bring unexpected and delightful gifts along the way! This is the third time I've written this only to have it disappear in an unsaved abyss of my laptop's elusive Neverland. An irony that is not lost on me after a lifetime of attempting to speak my truth and repeatedly receiving messages that what I have to say is unimportant in the world. I have for years experienced the shame, fear, disgust, judgment, and ridicule of others in my efforts to say what I want and need to say for my own understanding and healing.
The silencing of my voice has happened in three primary places: My Family of Origin, the Church, and my Marriage. My learned silence began in my family when I was a very small child. I was a LOUDLY talkative, insatiably curious, enthusiastically gregarious, wildly active, deeply thoughtful, and extremely outgoing child. I now understand that in addition to these characteristics, I also had ADHD, although it has only been in the past two years that I have come to understand and accept that as part of my truth about myself. As a person who verbally processes as a way to know and understand my experiences, I talked incessantly as a child while my active brain attempted to deal with all the stimulation that was part of life in my body. Understandably, I was a lot for my parents, ages 45 and 48 when I was born, to handle. My father responded by disappearing into himself, his work, and the television and simply being present physically and absent emotionally, verbally, and relationally. I'm told, that as a child, my father didn't talk until he was 6 years old himself, a delayed progression he seemed to never really overcome as he navigated the world of relationships and connection with others with as little significant conversation as possible. My mother, on the other hand, was confident, self-assured, and firm leaning toward harsh in her communication as an English professor and studious sort. As my mother was 45 when I was born, she was determined to be sure I felt loved and wanted and regularly told me how wonderful I was. She did not know how to give me tools to allow my verbal processing self to flourish, so when she was exhausted or shocked by my never-ending chatter, she said so in ways that were shaming. Comments like, "Naomi's never had a thought she hasn't said out loud" were common occurrences in my childhood. I remember in middle school and high school sitting on the kitchen counter as mom made dinner and telling her all about my day. She mostly patiently listened, but when her patience wore thin as it inevitably did at times, she would make a shaming comment to indicate it was time for me to move on to some other activity. When I wasn't talking I was moving. Playing basketball, riding my bike, hitting a tennis ball against the brick wall of my childhood home, and running or walking were all regular physical outlets for my active brain and body. I recognize that I absorbed a lot of Shame for having a busy brain whose primary outlet was to have lots to say about my world, experiences, thoughts, and observations. Of course, I did not recognize this as Shame, but I did learn that I could be LOUDLY happy, pleasant, and even talkative in ways that most often gained for me the approval of my mother, but anytime I expressed fear, pain, or anger I was immediately corrected and overtly shamed for feeling those unpleasant and consequently unwelcome feelings. So, as a little girl I learned to shut down my feelings of fear, pain, and anger and share only the welcome aspects of my life - my joy, enthusiasm, gratitude, and love. Those other feelings were neatly and summarily tucked away as I navigated my active brain, expressive self, and larger-than-life presence in the world with happiness and contentment. My family, and particularly my mother, benefitted immensely from my silence about the harder aspects of my life as my siblings were all young adults, navigating the world in new marriages, having their children, and relying on my mom as the matriarch of our family for emotional support and through their own challenges. I adapted to keep things peaceful and "positive" in my little nuclear family of me, my mom, and my dad. Thanks for being here and reading. I'd love it even more if you engaged in some way. Feel free to comment or email me if this resonates with you. Consider reflecting on these questions: Where have you experienced the Silencing of Fear and Shame?Who has benefitted from your Silence? In what areas have you been LOUD in your words or actions even while still suppressing what you really needed to say? Where have you progressed toward freeing your own voice and speaking your truth? Recently I've been thinking about emotional intelligence, empathy, and how we evolve as humans. Just as crossword and sudoku puzzles, reading, and in-depth study of a topic we want to learn more about exercises our mental and intellectual capacity and regular physical exercise trains our body and our physical muscles toward health, I've learned in my meandering way that with regular exercise I can train my emotional self to develop a greater sense of wellbeing and connection.
Our emotional quotient (EQ) has been defined as "the ability to understand, use, and manage your own emotions in positive ways to relieve stress, communicate effectively, empathize with others, overcome challenges and defuse conflict."* Empathy is one such muscle that I get to exercise as I grow my capacity for emotional connection. One of the first places I intentionally began training my empathy muscle was with my husband. As we have together faced more of the truth of who we are as people and what is challenging in our relationship, I have been naturally fearful and confused. As we evolve, it's often not clear what the reality of our personal growth might mean for our marriage. I consistently know that I love him and that at his core he has always been the person I fell in love with and married. I know his story; I see the places of his pain and hurt; I share in aspects of his heart that long for healing even as I face similar places in myself. The deeper awareness and capacity to hold space for the pain of his story alongside my own as we have created an "our story" has allowed me to cultivate compassion and increase my empathy, first for him and eventually for myself. Developing empathy for others has, at times, come easier than extending empathy to myself. I tend to hold myself to a pretty high standard and can judge myself mercilessly for not having made more progress or being further along than I am on some imaginary timeline I create for myself. I can also explain away the pain I experience along the way by rationalizing, justifying, and excusing the behavior of others that have contributed to my own pain. Seeing my experiences clearly and knowing my own story more deeply is part of my process. Cultivating empathy for myself and continuing to strengthen my empathy muscle is a practice that I lean in to daily. The first step in cultivating empathy both for myself and others is recognizing where my Judge shows up by learning to hear the language my self-critic effortlessly employs. The internal comments about what I "should" do or where and why I am not "better, faster, higher, stronger" in any area of life are places that I have come to recognize my Judge hiding with a relentless critique. As my awareness increases I have a choice to gently identify my "Camouflaged Critic," as I've christened her, and to kindly replace the messages of doubt, criticism, disdain, anger, self-pity, and regret with support, encouragement, understanding, compassion, and love. Sometimes I even ask myself "what would you say to a friend in this situation?" In this way I exercise the muscle of empathy to overcome my challenges by holding myself gently along the way. As I get to know myself and my own story better I am more easily able to hold space for and even celebrate my growth because I see and understand more clearly where I have been. I remind myself that I'm perfectly on the path and that everything is as it should be. These challenges that I face personally, in my marriage, and in my family are where my healing, growth, and evolution can happen, and I am better able to determine my next steps when I feel supported and loved through the process than when I am berated and belittled...especially when that critical voice is my own. Where and how does your Judge show up in your life? What is the language and tone of your own self-talk and what do you want it to be? How can you choose to give yourself and those you love the gift of empathy today? Source: *https://www.helpguide.org/articles/mental-health/emotional-intelligence-eq.htm As I continue to deconstruct and decondition my automatic responses and ways of being in the world, I recognize how little emotional safety I had as a child...and how difficult it is still for me to engage with emotionally unsafe situations. I am also increasingly aware of places I tend to re-create emotionally unsafe circumstances for myself and those around me, and the many ways I want to continue growing in this area.
Of course, this all begs the question: What is emotional safety in the first place? How can we cultivate more of it? Emotional safety is about being supported to know and to share our true feelings in any given moment and to be heard, validated, and accepted...wherever we are, without being: a) shamed for having our feelings, b) told how we can feel differently, or c) given simplistic solutions to the complex situations that comprise life as a human. When someone shares their story with you, what is your response? Do you listen without interruption? Are you aware of your own feelings as you listen? Do you know how to name and validate your feelings and support the other person in doing the same? Are you eager to share your opinion or convince someone of how they "should" or "shouldn't" feel about their experiences or what they "should" or "shouldn't" do in order to live as you would live? Does your own discomfort require that you leave the feeling space altogether and go to a "logical" response that is argumentative, case-building, self-righteous, or judgmental? Do you find yourself falling into scripted responses that don't support the person who has bravely and vulnerably shared their life with you? These questions are ones that I have come to consider for myself when I am listening to others who for whatever reason choose to share their experiences and their feelings with me. All of us can increase our capacity for emotional intelligence, and as we do, not only do we become more whole people ourselves but we are also exponentially more available to create emotional safety for those we love. I recently read The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson. There is much that could be said about this insightful and moving book, but in thinking about emotional safety, this line on the back cover that struck from a review by The New Yorker pretty well sums it up: "What Wilkerson urges, finally, isn't argument at all; it's compassion. Hush, and listen." Where would you like to grow your compassion today? What does it feel like for you to receive the gift of emotional safety in conversations? Welcome, President Biden and Madam Vice-President Harris!
Along with my children I cheered with awe and wonder today as Kamala Harris was sworn in as Vice-President of the United States of America, and I both exhaled and wept as President Joe Biden made his first speech as President of these United States...after so much that has been painfully challenging over the past 4 years. My children saw history in the making today and we talked about it's significance. They can't appreciate it as I do, but at least they heard their mother acknowledge what a momentous occasion it was to have a South Asian/African-American WOMAN take the oath of office for the 2nd highest position in this country. It seems that I have spent much of my adult life unpacking, rearranging, discarding, and replacing those unexamined ideas that were central to my formative years. The role of politics and my relationship with it is an area in which I feel woefully behind. As a child and young adult I do not remember hearing anyone talk about politics in any way other than to promote the evangelical agenda of using the political arena as a way to gain power for those values that were deemed vital by the religious world I was a part of. Between Jerry Falwell Sr. with his Moral Majority and James Dobson with his "Focus on the Family" organization (both highly influential in the conservative evangelical world in which I was raised) it seemed as if the purpose of political action was to maintain "traditional family values," oppose the Equal Rights Amendment, prohibit abortion, and support Christian prayer in schools. It is difficult to articulate the many ways these ideas were reinforced from the pulpit by self-aggrandizing preachers who took upon themselves the responsibility of telling their congregants how to think, vote, and behave. Although it took me years to get enough distance to begin to reject the simplistic, binary perspective required to hold such a system together, I am still shaking my head in disbelief at how affected I am by that system. I have seldom been a part of robust, diverse, and thoughtful political conversations and consequently I have never been terribly interested in politics. There's much about political science, government, and economics that I still don't understand and I recognize that I will forever be filling in so many gaps in my knowledge of these areas. I do know, however, that I grew up on the wrong side of history; the perspective of the world I grew up in is nearly 180 degrees removed from my current perspective on so many issues. Today I see the separation of church and state as a fundamentally vital aspect of our governance and I regularly cringe at the ways the lines are blurred and a Christian view of God is invoked to approve unquestioningly a myriad of beliefs and behaviors within the political arena; I support Equal Rights for ALL people regardless of their gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, religious belief, ability, age, or socio-economic status; and my beliefs about the value of human life includes comprehensive sex education that informs people of all ages how to care for and protect their sexual health and well-being while providing a broad range of choices and compassionate emotional and physical care for those who face difficult decisions of all kinds along the way. Watching the inauguration today highlighted for me just how much I value kindness, decency, respect, truth, and compassion. After four long years of not ever wanting to see our 45th President speak because he was often angry, hateful, unkind, and pushing a self-serving agenda that felt both inhuman and reminiscent of my childhood, watching and listening to President Biden today was both a ray of sunshine and a breath of fresh air. His face was gentle, his words inspiring, his manner dignified, his tone solid, and his deportment fitting of the executive branch. In a word, Joe Biden was Presidential, a quality that has long been missing in the highest leader of this land. There is not magic wand that will right all that is distressing in our nation today; there is certainly much work to do as we re-envision the world we want for ourselves and our children and as we recommit ourselves to doing the internal work required to continue becoming people of strength and character, and yet, with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris at the helm, I am hopeful that, in today's words of Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman, we can "put our differences aside...lay down our arms so we can reach out our arms to one another...seek harm to none and harmony for all...." May we indeed be "a country that is bruised but whole, benevolent but bold, fierce and free...for there is always light, if only we're brave enough to see it. If only we're brave enough to be it." Several years ago during a guided meditation I was asked to take an aspect of my life that I saw as challenging and reimagine it as an asset rather than a deficiency. The first thing that came to mind then was the gap I feel regularly between the conservative religious world of my past and the far more liberal, areligious and nonreligious friends I've acquired over the past 15 years. I constantly felt squeezed between these two worlds as I saw in both spaces characteristics that I loved and appreciated and those that I found to be contrary to my own evolving values and perspective. In the midst of my onerous effort to find my own niche between these two disparate viewpoints that seemed to have an increasingly high and thick wall between them, I envisioned myself dancing on top of this wide wall. I was able to see and understand the forceful shouting taking place on both sides, and yet I saw goodness, beauty and truth in both perspectives amidst the dynamic and at times vicious yelling that both seemed capable of engaging in, especially when talking about "The Other."
Recently in an anti-racism workshop my desire to be a bridge in the midst of so much polarizing language was triggered and I found myself once again in a more middle-leaning space than the people around me. The specific comment made was about propaganda in The South during the Civil War, and while there was most certainly propaganda around the Civil War, according to this War History Online article, there was propaganda was used in both The South and The North during the Civil War for noble intentions such as patriotism, protecting the land of their birth, self-sacrifice, doing one's duty, fighting for fair trade tariffs and import/export laws, and the right to self-determination. Of course, there was propaganda that was far more sinister in its motivation - The North depicted the cruelty and abhorrent treatment of slaves while The South spread revolting propaganda that focused on miscegenation and the supposed unfitness of African American men to serve in the army. To be clear, I am 100% in favor of Southern States taking ownership of past wrongs and making appropriate reparations to all African-American residents today; something like a carte-blanche tax break, free education for life, and/or public acknowledgment of acts of racially motivated acts of violence would go a long way toward showing good faith and attempting to right the wrongs of the past. I am equally in favor of the United States as a whole taking ownership of the repugnant treatment of Native People and the ways that our forefathers abused, mistreated, and otherwise dehumanized Native Americans and devalued their cultures, customs, and livelihood. We are all poorer today as a result of these misguided and abusive engagements, and we all have much to repair as we go forward toward creating the world in which we want to live. Right alongside these thoughts is also the reality that I am a daughter of The South - the good, the bad, and the ugly. I am willing and able to look into the history, hold the conflicting perspectives, and do my own deeply personal work at deconstructing my experience as a white, Southern female. This is not easy work; this is painful work that touches on my identity as a Southerner and yet, much of that identity is rooted in concepts and ideology that are fraught with painfully dehumanizing consequences to fellow humxns. I want to learn, grow, and do my part to facilitate the change I want to see in the world. And that change always begins with looking at myself and the resistance I sense inside myself to the necessary work of change. Thinking through all of this has led me to consider how I can judge behaviors of the past while not attacking the humanity of the people who perpetrated the behavior. From my vantage point today was that behavior highly problematic? Absolutely! Were the people engaging in those behaviors evil people? Probably not. Is all of it far more complex than any simplistic and reductionistic lens will ever reveal? Most certainly. This led me to consider: how do I deal with my own past failings? Though very much a work in process, it is my goal to hold myself gently when considering my past (and present) shortcomings. I regularly harm myself and those I love best...not because I'm a malicious person but because I am a product of the thoughts, values, perspectives, and experiences I've had so far in my life. No matter how much progress I make toward becoming conscious and aware of how my behavior impacts myself and others, I still do harm that I deeply regret and wish I could avoid. I choose to practice self-compassion and kindness when I recognize in new ways how my actions have harmed others. I have done things that I would neither care to repeat or even endorse today:
What is the balance between accountability and restitution at an institutional level while speaking and acting in love at the personal level? How can I demonstrate Love today? If you're from The North and want to understand aspects of Southern culture, let's talk. If you're from The South and can't comprehend why people who live in other parts of the country think and feel as they do about The South, let's talk. I don't have any answers per se, but I am convinced that clear communication, an intention to understand, a willingness to face one's self, and a heart turned toward Love can go a long way toward building bridges and repairing relationships of all kinds...including the one with yourself. All that's necessary is people willing to do the work. Are you willing? I've always loved to sing! As a child the majority of my singing was done congregationally in church and my family almost never had any music playing, so nearly all of the vocal music I was exposed to as a child was church music; as a teenager there were many messages around the evils of worldly music so to survive my very narrow environment, I stuck with "Christian" music where the lyrics and even the music, beat, and instrumentation were approved by the church. It wasn't until I was in college that I began to broaden my horizons and tentatively wade into other genres, and even then, simply listening to music had less appeal to me than singing along in groups via choirs, congregational hymns, or the occasional family sing-along at Christmas.
When I was introduced to Singing Circle as a style of singing in a group simply for the joy of delighting in song together, I was immediately hooked! THIS was something that resonated with me for a variety of reasons, and after 7 years of going deeper in discovering my own voice in new ways via singing circles, I recognize that sharing music I love is a place of vulnerability for me for several reasons:
If you're intrigued by the idea of singing but feel tentative about your own voice, Singing Circle is the perfect place for you to begin playing with sounds and using your voice in brand new ways! Perhaps, like so many people I've talked with, you received some very unhelpful messages about your voice as child that stick with you loudly today anytime you begin to sing? Maybe you, like most of us, don't enjoy hearing yourself sing and therefore assume that others won't want to hear you either? It could be that you've so internalized these harmful messages that you never even notice the childlike urge to sing loudly and with joy whenever you want? Or it may be that you love to sing and long for more opportunities to be part of a community that sings together? Whatever your internal dialogue about singing or your desires related to finding, using, and enjoying your own voice, I assure you that you are not alone, and there is a place for you to sing with others in ways that inspire your own delight, discovery, and maybe even some dilemmas to confront and work through along the way. I'd love to support you in finding your voice and growing your confidence to sing and speak your truth in ways that feel good and bring healing to various parts of you that have too long been silenced. Your voice matters and both you and the world will benefit from you bravely stepping into new ways of knowing and sharing your truth with others! |
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