November 2020

Owning My Superpower

Leave a Comment / Courage, Personal Growth / By / November 14, 2020

It took me some time to realize that I am a force and that owning that quality is empowering, not vanity. That my superpower is empathy, the depth of my ability to feel. Everything. I live life fully, outloud and, for the most part, without editing, as most anyone who knows me can attest to. I care about people’s feelings but don’t let what they think define my decisions because I align myself with my inner truth and move from there, a space where authenticity thrives, leaving no room for faking anything. That ability makes me relatable, attractive, someone that others are drawn to. I think it’s because there is freedom in being one’s true self and there’s something enviable about it when we see it in others. We live in a society where it’s an act of rebellion to feel comfortable in one’s own skin, and seeking validation from outside sources, instead of our intuition is the unhealthy norm.  

Once I finally acknowledged the reality of who I am it was a game changer. Women especially are so hesitant to do that and because we withhold, we deprive the world of our purpose and our very unique and necessary voice. For too many of us, we spend so much time hiding, pretending, trying to protect an image that isn’t attainable or even ours. We were born and bred on standing aside, accepting labels, being politely quiet, respecting people that never deserved it, giving everyone else what they needed first. That leaves very little room for allowing our truth to emerge, and when it does, we spend unnecessary time apologizing for taking up space in the world. It’s what we’ve been taught. 

When we are comfortable in our own skin, when we know our strengths and weaknesses and when we OWN that, we risk being misread, misunderstood, sounding too self assured or haughty. We also run a greater, more beautiful risk. One of giving another person permission to discover who they are. Our confidence can inspire confidence in someone else, especially a woman who has been taught to be submissive or self deprecating. It’s time to turn that negative shit into something we can use.

Seriously, I now allow myself to feel what I feel and it took awhile for me to get really secure with that, to see it as favorable and not a flaw, because it lends itself to my humanness and that’s what reaches people. I have been told by other women, and men, of course, that I cry easily, or I’m loud, or I share my opinions too freely. Yes. Yes, I do. I notice everything. That used to make me uncomfortable, because I thought I was too much. But no longer. I know the extraordinary work I’ve done to be this person and I love it here. So, thank you for pointing that out because it was during those moments of looking at myself with complete vulnerability that I became totally at ease with me! 

I claim this now with pride…I cry when something touches my heart, when I’m afraid or tired and when I feel a loss. Or when I drink too much wine. I laugh with my whole body, loud and inappropriately, over anything I find amusing. I ache with compassion for those less fortunate, struggling, being oppressed. I talk incessantly about those things that matter to me, about differences or conflicts, circumstances that make me self aware, anything that changes my outlook on life. I am passionate, loud, pain-filled, inclusive, loyal, respectful, opinionated, fair, joyful, sassy, loving and fiercely honest. The contrast is part of the magic of me. I will always choose feeling over not feeling. Because it’s real. 

Perhaps it stems from growing up in an environment where feeling was neither safe, nor permitted, and only happiness was tolerated, no matter the pain being inflicted. In the ongoing work I did to heal, the most important was reconnecting with my own emotions surrounding my feelings, and their validity, which allowed me the clarity to see exactly who I was. After peeling back excruciating layers I came to realize that it is within the essence of ALL of me that my depth of character has developed, that I exist in every nuance. I’m so grateful for that!

Our emotions reveal us and the coping techniques we develop because of them create our life skills, which in turn, informs how we show up in the world. I worked with a diverse group of abuse survivors who never acquired the adeptness to recognize their own emotions and therefore found themselves lost in either going numb to every experience, or over-emoting. I came to understand the absolute liberation in learning to recognize who I was from the inside out, with every conflicting feeling, and be totally accepting of that. It fostered balance. I still struggle sometimes with being able to identify what I’m feeling right away, but I have learned to honor where I am, pay attention to what is happening throughout my whole body and listen to what it’s telling me, without judgement. My mind body connection has been the gateway for me to see those qualities I have been given, how they have become my contributions and mostly how they help me interact with others. 

Girl, I’m here to tell you that if you’re not already, it’s time to make some noise, be obnoxious in your truth telling and take up space!! No more shying away from your own tremendousness! It’s time to uncover who you are and make that work for you! My superpower isn’t tangible, but it is palpable. Yours might be disguised as some sort of blemish you want to get rid of, but between the insights people offer you and the knowing you feel in your gut, there is a beautiful truth waiting to unfold. However you get there, it deserves to be celebrated. It is not arrogance to know yourself. It is your calling and your birthright! 

The Soulless Among Us Are Not Stronger

6 Comments / Coping, Courage / By / November 5, 2020

A nation holds its breath. 

Exhausted from the culmination of struggle, divisiveness and rage that has imploded and seared through our humanity over the last four years, we have waited for this moment of truth, our birthright to vote our conscience. 

While it is too soon to celebrate or lose hope, we will forever live with the haunting, inevitable knowledge that, no matter the outcome, the deep and irreparable fissures in our society have been exposed. That the foundation of greed, racism, hate, sexism and misogyny are not only more prevalent than we imagined, but embraced with fervor by a huge portion of our population, and that in itself is heart wrenching. We live and wander among the demons that are not afraid to show their fire while spewing their contempt. Under our current administration, we have felt the deep burning void of a soul, listened to the morally vacant rants, cringed at the hate filled proclamations, and most tragic, have come to realize that the people who voted this man into power see him for exactly who he is and choose to keep him there. 

I had so wanted so badly to believe that it was ignorance instead of compliance, but I woke up to my own disillusionment, unable to ignore the mounting evidence before me. The absolute devastation of seeing the fabric of what we are really made of, is at the very least a recognition I had hoped was a mirage. However, the reality sits squarely in front of me, as the layers have peeled away to reveal the dark, broken, insidious underbelly of our society. This election should have been a landslide but instead it stands as a reminder of who some of us really are. This is my America, and I didn’t even realize how deeply I was mourning it until now. 

This country that we have long touted as being the greatest in the world has been diminished and because now we have seen it out in the open, we can never look at it through the same lens. So again we look to the future, turn our outrage to action, our heartbreak to evolution. For those of us with a deep moral thread and a yearning for decency, our work is now beginning anew because our eyes can never be unopened to all the damage there is to repair.

Still, through the disappointment I have felt in mankind recently, in the deepest recesses of my soul there is patriotism flowing through me, a burning desire to help reshape and rekindle the Land of the Free, the nation I call home for not only myself, but my posterity. I made an unspoken promise to my children when I brought them into the world that they would have a safe haven here, filled with opportunities in a democracy that could thrive on equality and fairness. I knew there were fractures, centuries of leadership by a bigoted-wealthy-straight-gray-haired-white-man-patriarchy and a continual uphill battle for human rights, yet I believed we could work for progress, use our voices and our courage for rectitude. I never imagined that it would burn down around us in such a short amount of time and with such evil exuberance. That is the single thing that tears at me, and so many others, fueling my resolve. I cannot leave an empty shell of a country for my daughters and grandsons. 

Perhaps there is beauty in this awakening, in the knowing that we can only see what needs to be done through the stark contrast and adversity of inequity and the dismantling of a republic we’ve taken for granted. Our mission is laid before us, offering us reflection, propelling us forward to demand equity and a fair society for all. It is now and has always been the responsibility of the people to speak up for growth and evolution, to exact justice where there is none, to ask of ourselves to do better because we can. The frightening, fundamental truth about this is not that Trump has turned our America into this self-deceptive, xenophobic, narcissistic autocracy, but that this is the America people are inviting and asking for more of. They’re content here. All he had to do was yell, stomp his feet, wave a flag and they came running in droves. 

At least now we know what we’re fighting against, which serves to illuminate what we are fighting for. There is power in knowledge, along with great peace and comfort. 

We are not done yet.

The soulless among us are not stronger, just louder. Not more powerful, just more persistent. There have always been haters gathering sheep like a Pied Piper, but they lead astray with self serving cowardice and we do not. I believe that hope is a broader shield than hate, and action a stronger sword than fear. I believe that at the core of who we are as a people there truly does exist goodness, kindness and purity. I see it all the time. As disillusioned as I am, I will continue to walk in anticipation and faith that our humanity is alive and well, that our voices can be used for good and that nothing will ever take that away from us.