[listen to me read this over on Substack] “The revolution will NOT be psychologized.The revolution will be alchemized.The revolution will be ancestoralized.The revolution will be an offering.The revolution will be a flood of grace.The revolution will be ritualized.The revolution will be poeticized.” — From The Emerald podcast episode “The Revolution Will Not Be Psychologized” by Joshua Michael Schrei When we are born, we have both the fire of the opal and the watery coolness of oceans within...
6 days ago • 3 min read
Question from a reader: My mother has been a hurtful presence in my life for as long as I can remember. I am going to my home country soon and need to decide if I will visit her. If she was a reasonable distance from where I will be, I would go, but she is in a city that is a day-trip each way by train or driving. At least seven hours each way. I’m trying to decide if a 45-minute visit (which is probably all she'd want) is worth the 14+ hours of travel, when we have other family and friends...
9 days ago • 2 min read
The other day I packed up six relatively new, gently used bras and sent them off to The Bra Recyclers, an organization that provides bras and underwear to women and girls in transitional programs and shelters who lack belongings and safety. When I purchased them this past fall I had no idea that come March 3, I'd no longer have breasts. While I don't miss wearing them, I had a pang when I put those bras in that box. They were really pretty. They, and others like them, were a part of my...
22 days ago • 1 min read
Healing your mother wound does not necessarily mean healing the relationship you have with your mother, it's about healing the relationship you have with yourself, as a result of the relationship you had with your mother. @byermeas If your mother doesn't love you, that's not your failure, it's hers. You didn't fail to get her love, she failed to love you. bell hooks teaches us that abuse and love are mutually exclusive...they can't coexist. Your mother might believe she loves you, she may say...
29 days ago • 1 min read
I had a conversation with someone who said she felt the need to figure out what happened in her past that made her want to overeat. In looking through old journals she noted that she had written things like, “I don’t understand why I eat when I’m not hungry” and “I must want to be fat so I can be unattractive because something horrible must have happened to me as a child.“ She said she had been prompted by therapists, self help books, and the media, to look for something she said "simply...
about 1 month ago • 1 min read
Being intentional with the way you relate to yourself re-forms your understanding how you deserve to be treated. You can influence how you feel about who you are without controlling who you are. Connection is more powerful than control. It takes more creativity and time, but it is also deeper and lasts much longer. What would connection to (versus control of) yourself look like? Are you willing to be creative and take the time to connect to yourself? You do not need to be perfect. But you can...
about 1 month ago • 1 min read
Being chronically* resentful/offended/hurt by her behavior isn’t required for you to establish boundaries. Or limit contact. Or even to stop talking to her altogether. You can simply decide her behavior doesn’t work for you** *The key word here is “chronically.” Obviously, all feelings are valid and all feelings point us in the direction of our needs, preferences, desires, etc., so don’t demonize these emotions, but if you’re tired of feeling that way…just know you don’t have to feel that way...
about 2 months ago • 1 min read
It's been three weeks and two days since my double mastectomy (thank you for all the good wishes...I am doing great!). The TL;DR is that I had non-invasive DCIS (ductal carcinoma in situ) in my right breast. After a lumpectomy to remove it at the end of October (and a plan to have radiation and to take an estrogen blocker, which I really, really didn't to do), my right breast became so severely deformed that there was no real choice but to remove it. After a consultation with a breast cancer...
about 2 months ago • 1 min read
[Pre S. I know I initially said that today would be the last day to register for Shame School but I know many, myself included, are participating in the economic boycott, so tomorrow, Saturday, March 1 will be the last day to register.] I am my mother's savage daughter,the one who runs barefoot cursing sharp stones.I am my mother's savage daughter,I will not cut my hair, I will not lower my voice. ~~~ I smiled big and made a plan when I saw this meme because I have some Welsh blood running...
3 months ago • 1 min read