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nyxi-pixie · 2 years ago

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double byler are so funny (this is actually not funny at all they make me sad) bc both pairs have relationships in which theyre very dependent on each other for emotional comfort so when theyre apart their relationships suffer pretty badly

both jancy and byler have been shown to have a bond based at least partially on shared trauma. w jancy murray even goes as far as to say its like the main reason they shld get together which. hmm. but yk more to my point. and byler constantly have heart to hearts because theyre each others emotional rock and this probably goes back further than UD shit bc wills been TraumaMan for his whole life (and feels mike is the only one who he can be emotionally vulnerable with without being babied or treated like hes weak-s2 kinda suggests mikes been there for him in Will Byers Trauma Times TM before). thanks lonnie😒😒

its v obvious w mike and jonathan actually bc neither of them seem to talk to anyone else about their issues. like will leaves and mike immediately devolves into isolating himself and straight up depression because clearly theres some family issues which prevent him from opening up abt his feelings (he hugs karen like 3 times in the whole show but he Never talks to her abt shit. despite her attempts to get him to open up that one time w her queer coded as fuck lil speech. anyway repressed lil emo mike only ever opens up with will. so no will=no talking abt emotions=unhealthy michael.)

and jonathan turns to weed (and argyle omg theyre bfs so true) because he wont turn to his family for support bc hes unhealthily selfless and doesnt want to burden them with his issues (likely due to the parentification. oh boy someone help him) but he and nancy understand each other bc theyve been through the same shit (which also means they dont feel like they burden each other bc like. u cant burden someone if theyre already sharing the weight yk?) but seperation=losing that support so their relationship, which relies so heavily on that mutual understanding, suffers.

nancy and will are doing a little better individually. because guess what: they have HOBBIES.(jon also does but he seems to have abandoned it. rip his i wanna take a pic era. and mike has d&d but in the between time between oh no wills gone and oh yay eddie my beloved, hes doing shit. and even w d&d his grades are still affected by his mental place and his rooms super messy so like. doing better but still not great.)

we see that wills super into art (which is known to be therapeutic so double woo points) again after doing it less in s3. and he seems to be specifically using it to deal w his sad gay feelings (channelling shit like the introspective king he is 🤩). also hes got people other than mike to offer emotional support. even with jonathan not available, he can still talk to joyce (st character with positive relationship w a parent❗holy shit how rare❗❗). also its will. if hes in his feels hes just gonna vibe with it. 'oh misery my best friend lets hang out for a bit 😍😍' (prolly bc jonathan put his whole jonussy into making sure will was okay w having emotions. as a part of his mission to spite lonnie. SLAY KING) compared to the wheelers who are like 'um what the fuck is an emotion ive never felt one i swear. wdym u saw me crying yesterday🤨?? no u literally didnt that was my evil twin😒.'

anyway that brings me to nancy. who. yk shes doing Okay. the second anyone brings up jon shes about to commit crimes against them so yk not totally good but coping. bc she kinda just full body throws herself at that school newspaper stuff so she has a distraction and its working okay. until her new friend-w-glasses-destined-to-die- horrifically, dies horrifically.

but then she has emotional support through surrounding herself w people who Get It. (woooo robins around and nancy feels comfortable for once!!!!) i mean shes also almost reverting to steve bc nancys trauma response is just 'i can only ever be emotionally vulnerable with romantic partners bc i havent had a friend since s1 and my family dont know shit abt the monster dimension (plus ted is actually just a cardboard cutout with a robotic voice box that blurts out 1 of 10 phrases on a timer). apart from mike. but idk hes busy crying over his bf and we can never open up to each other in a genuine way bc repression is the Wheeler Way To Slay' but yk shes at least partially coping.

but their relationships basically get totally fucked bc oh no if we cant have heart to hearts in physical proximity we are going to Die. also communication without magical telepathy through eye contact??? whos she??? (esp w byler. u cant have effective coded conversations over the phone. and theyve got all their other reasons for not talking: will doesnt wanna reach out first and have mike brush him off bc oh dear the 3x03 fight really fucked with him didnt it. and mikes desperately trying to call but for fuck sake how is their phone always busy. and he wont use letters bc idk hes too gay for that he keeps signing them w 'love mike. ps im in love w u in case u didnt get that😍😍😍')

and jancy. oof. jons like 'i have to appease literally everyone in my life apart from myself and i cant do that bc yay nancy means boo family and yay family means boo nancy so now i think i will have a crisis bc if im honest with her she will Hate me. yes i am so rational' and nancys like 'wtf is going on does he hate me or smthn. i am also totally rational' and they wont talk abt it bc theyre scared of pissing each other off. (and have no example of healthy relationships to follow)

basically. double byler are codependent in a way that isnt Necessarily unhealthy - in fact when around each other, they seem to do better Because of that reliance on each other. it allows them to be emotionally vulnerable in a way that they cant be w anyone else (even will who has like the most supportive family ever <3 still feels most comfortable being open w mike as evidenced by his talk w jon in s2).

BUT. seperation fucks over their relationships and their individual mental health. and thats where the unhealthy aspect comes in. bc over reliance on one person is gonna Fuck Shit Up. (it wouldnt be so bad if they still communicated regularly thru letters and phone calls but yk self hatred is a bitch and theyre all very insecure.)

#talking about codependency again bc when am i not #idk i just think its interesting how similar jancy and byler are #i mean it makes sense obviously. bc sets of siblings will have the same problems. but still #i love analysing these mentally unwell bitches #anyway people dismiss codependency as unhealthy all the time and i dont think thats fair bc like #shout out to my bitches whove had codependent (online) friendships based almost entirely on oh we have the same mental bs dont we #bc like. its not Healthy but that mutual understanding is unparralleled and it does make u feel better #the other half of people romanticise codependency which also not good bc like. it isnt a healthy way to live. as evidenced by s4 #but i just think its neat #jancy #byler #im sorry this is so long and doesnt make that much sense but i have a lot of feelings #nyxi shut up about codependent relationships challenge #byler analysis

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fullhalalalchemist · 4 years ago

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okay well i’m going to talk about it!!

so obamitsu are a t4t couple and you wouldn’t really know it bc they’re passing but then they stand up and you see the size difference (she’s 6′0 and he’s 5′1) and their outfits and youre like hmmm something very queer going on here. also i think it is very vital i clarify that while mitsuri is bordering on internet gamer egirl looks she is in fact mostly a prep and iguro is her goth boyfriend. but he also has a lot of insecurities when it comes to his looks bc even tho mitsuri was able to transition at a very young age, iguro went through the same canon childhood trauma by basically being raised in a female cult and then after escaping he transitioned in his late teens.

anyway she’s a social media influencer but mostly one of those cute e-girl makeup youtubers with a side of vlogging and obanai works in a hospital as a medical technologist with his chemistry degree. he’s working on getting his masters rn (he only has 1 year left) but his job and mitsuri’s are solid enough with enough income that they really aren’t worried about the money at all. theyre also both tiktokers but it’s funny because they are on completely different sides of it and she’s verified but he got a little famous over the big alt love that went on last summer. anyway he doesn’t like to be on camera at ALL so like people dont know they are together. misturi’s fans know she has a bf but they dont know much about him. i’ll talk about this part later.

ANYWAY! iguro proposes to mitsuri and they get married and then mitsuri is on her tiktok going ‘my boyfriend, i mean...my HUSBAND :DDDDD!!!!!!!!’ and her fans are like OMGGGGG and iguro, who never really shows his face but people think he wears a mask for aesthetic reasons does eye crinkles when he’s like ‘guess who has a wife now’ and his followers are like NO WAY!!! but no one connects 1+1. anyway at some point a little after that she accidentally gets him preggers and they both panic about it. they end up deciding to keep the baby but dont mention it at all on any social media anyway cuz they dont wanna deal with how mitsuri doesnt “look pregnant” cuz neither are out anyway other than to their friends & family. anyway iguro ends up taking a medical leave and the baby’s born and everythings fine. mitsuri ends up telling her followers she’s going to take a break due to a small family emergency she’ll tell them about later.

and so now u have this alt trans married couple taking care of a cute baby girl and the baby is sooo cute and tiny and iguro’s heart goes all gooey when he looks at her and mitsuri is like 🥺 im a parent...wowie....i made that...and they end up (play)fighting over what to dress her in bc iguro likes to sew so he sews her all these black lacey dresses and shirts and mitsuri is like pastels!! frills!!! sparkles!!! and in the morning at like 6 am theyre both sleeping in the same queen sized bed with their bby girl between them except she’s still a baby and active at weird hours so they wake up often with her sleeping on iguro’s face or with her feet in mitsuri’s face and all kinds of silly positions

and also at some point theyre both like ‘look at my baby!!’ on their individual tiktoks and people finally connect the dots cuz theyre like...is this the same baby...omg and they talked about getting married at the same time...OMG WE FOUND OUT WHO THE OTHER PERSON WAS IN THE RELATIONSHIP!!! and it’s just silly and fun and cute

#obamitsu #kny #mitsuoba #mitsuri x obanai #kanroji x iguro #obamitsu au #kny au

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ask-the-party-god · 3 years ago

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Jade, as a woman of science, do animals exhibit similar LGBT+ identities like humans do?

do they exhibit behaviors that diverge from our societys traditional concepts of gender, sexuality, etc? abso-fucking-lutely! same-sex pairings, polyamory that is NOT based around conceptions of 'alpha males having harems', gender-changes and other various hormonal changes, you can find almost anything in the animal kingdom

do they exhibit identities, now that is a harder to answer question! because, animals can be extremely smart, but more abstract concepts, of self, of identity, are difficult to talk about when it comes to a lot of the animal kingdom... like, consider the idea of a dog that is, as is humanly understood, trans- how would such a thing manifest? being trans is inherently rooted in cultural conceptions and biases- you are born and assigned a gender, raised in a way that conflicts with who you are, but a dog doesnt have a cultural concept of masculine and feminine, a dog doesnt have a society telling them they must be like THIS, and even if we humans impose traditional gender standards upon animals with accessories and clothing and ways of referring to them, this is not really a thing the dog is going to internalize and understand as conflicting with its identity! so its like... what DOES it mean to be trans, or gay, without the inherent culture that strictly assigns what is right and what is wrong and what is one way or another?

animals can and will change genders! they can and will form bonds and relationships with other animals of the same gender! in the wild, specially- again i need to cite how the 'alpha male' phenomenon is largely observed in captivity-, all of these things that asshats tell us are 'unnatural' in some way, happen! but, they happen, because they are a part of nature, because theyre things animals can do, and they do NOT have the societal biases we do... you cannot apply the same measure of queerness to the animal kingdom, because without human culture, theres just different behaviors that animals naturally exhibit in different circumstances, or that particular individuals exhibit! you know what im saying?

of course, it IS a good thing these behaviors are observable and exist, because it does reinforce our points that, hey! these are assholes saying its unnatural! the notion that is 'unnatural' doesnt come from the fact its 'weird' for living beings to do it, it comes from the way society has come to ostrascize us for not adhering to a set of rules which, by all intents and purposes, is also extremely recent and obviously biased! but beyond that and being happy in finding personal connection in, say, two gay penguins, i dont think those two penguins understand they are gay in any human sense! they are just, themselves, and forming bonds, detached of what it humanly means to be gay :B

#party god #ask #queer #queerness #lgbt #lgbt+#lgbtqia #lgbtqia+

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vampireqrow-moved · 4 years ago

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um its my birthday so wait until 12:01am pst to block me if u hate this post 🥰🥰

long story short the pansexual label is redudant and actively harmful (its far from the worst problem bisexuals face but it is one issue) and i dont hate anyone who identifies as pan because A) those ppl are bi like me and B) i used to identify as pan myself.

if thats enough for you to block me and make a callout post for me then i cant stop you but pretty please either read this whole thing or just wait a few minutes for my bday to end 🥰🥰

anyways im kicking off this point with some personal experiences bc i love to talk to myself. i got introduced to the pan label at maybe 10ish years old, and started identifying with it pretty much right away. i heard about it before bisexual and it was pitched as attraction to all genders and of course trans people. i was of course a trans ally! i had trans friends! i was trans also but hadnt figured it out yet! the way i had heard of it, there was no bisexual, there was no need for bisexual, and identifying differently was excluding trans people, which I was certainly against. being bisexual was trans exclusionary and why would i exclude trans people? the 'hearts not parts' slogan was thriving around this time and i genuinely said it and meant it.

as i started to become more online, mostly through roleplaying websites and tumblr here, i started hearing of bisexuality. it was supposedly an older term, so older people still used it, but it was common knowledge that pansexual was the better, inclusive label and younger people should adopt the new inclusive language instead of the old and transphobic words like bisexual. /s

and then bi and pan solidarity was all the rage! pansexual wasnt erasing bisexuality, why did anyone ever think that? bi and pan were two separate and complete identities that were valid and had to be respected or youre a mean exclusionist. and an asexual person, hearing people labelled exclusionist always meant they were excluding people from the lgbta community who rightfully belonged, denying peoples lived experiences, and generally telling people theyre wrong about their sexuality because theyre too young. and all of those things were bad and had hurt me, so it would be ridiculous to change labels and support "pan exclusionists" because they were just as bad as ace and aro exclusionists, and they were all the same people. or so it seemed to me at that time.

then, 'hearts not parts' began getting called out for blatant transphobic by insinuating that pansexual was the only identity that loved people for their "hearts" and personalities instead of those gross gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and even straights who only saw people for their "parts". (STRAIGHT PEOPLE ARE NOT OPPRESSED. I AM MERELY POINTING OUT THAT PANSEXUALITY WAS SHOWN AS ABOVE ALL OTHERS.) many pan people, including myself, began to denounce the slogan and insist pansexuality wasnt transphobic, there had just been a coincidence that a transphobic slogan was everywhere and a huge part of people's explantions of and associations with pansexuality. hint: it wasnt a coincidence.

from my perspective, this is when i began to see people discussing dropping the word pansexual. that seemed to be a huge step from getting rid off a transphobic slogan, and these people were just meanies who hated microlabels. and i like microlabels! as a genderfluid person, and someone who has friends who use specific aro and acespec labels, ive seen how people can use them to name specific experiences while still acknowleging their presence underneath umbrella terms like aromantic, asexual, nonbinary, lgbta, and for some people, queer.

pansexuals dont do that. they dont label pansexuality as a specific set of experiences under the bisexual umbrella, they see themselves as a separate identity, and even if they started to, the history of biphobia and transphobic undeniably linked to the existence of pansexuality in enough to stop being worth using. but i digress. pansexualitys shiny new definition that many people cling to is that pansexual is attraction to all genders. bisexual is two or more genders.

which. frankly? doesnt make any sense. my guess is that its supposed to be inclusive of nonbinary genders and those a part of cultures who historically have not had a binary gender system in the first place. i cannot speak for the latter group, but as a nonbinary person, its not inclusive. anyone can be attracted to nonbinary people. literally anyone. theres no way to know if everyone you meet is nonbinary or not. whether or not a nonbinary person reciprocates those feelings and is interested in pursuing a relationship is completely up to the individual, regardless of the sexualities of the people involved.

bottom line is that you cant number the amounts of genders someone can be attracted to, thus rendering those definitions pointless. people can be attracted to all kinds of people regardless of gender, even if they are gay, a lesbian, or straight. all people can date thousands of nonbinary genders if all people involved are interested and comfortable with it. numbering the genders you can be attracted to diminishes the post of nonbinary, as it is not a third gender, it simply any experience not fitting within the western concept of the gender binary (if the person so chooses to identify as such. if you cant tell already, the nonbinary experience is varied between every single nonbinary person.) important to note also that no widely accepted bisexual text defines bisexual as attracted to exclusively two genders or even the "two or more genders". i know this is used a lot but please read the bisexual manifesto. its free online i promise.

some people also claim pansexuals experience "genderblind" attraction while bisexuals feel differently attracted to different genders. this is very nitpicky for whats supposed to be two unconnected idenities, but thats only part of the problem. this definition is also not in any widely accepted bisexual texts, and bisexuality has never excluded those who experience genderblind attraction. i am in fact a bi person who experiences genderblind attraction. this does not mean i am not bisexual. it simply means i experience bisexuality differently than other bisexuals, and thats wonderful! no broad communities like bisexuality are expected to all share the same experience. we are all so different and its amazing were able to come together under the bisexual flag.

last definition, or justification i should say, is that yes these definitions are redundant and theyre the same sexuality, but people prefer different labels and thats okay. i agree in principle. people can define themselves as many things like homosexuals or gays or lesbians or queers or even other reclaimed slurs, while still not labelling themselves under the most "common" or "accurate" labels.

but pansexuality isnt the same as bisexuality, which may sound silly but hear me out. it has been continually used as a way to further divide bisexuals, who are already subject to large amounts of lgbta discrimination. "pansexuality was started by trans people who were upset with transphobia within the bisexual community! it cant be transphobic OR biphobic!" except of course that it can and it is. to say that trans people cant be transphobic is absurd. transmedicalism is right there, but thats not what im getting at. all minorities can have internal and sometimes external biases against people who are the same minority as them.

pansexuality was started as a way to be trans inclusive at the expense of labelling bisexuality as transphobic when its not. transphobia is everywhere, and bisexuals are not exempt. instead of working on the transphobia within the community, the creators of pansexuality decided to remove themselves from it to create a better and less tainted word and community, and the fact that pansexuality is intended to replace bisexuality or leave it for the transphobes goes to show a few things. pansexuality and bisexuality are inherently linked because the pan label is in response to the bi label. due to its origins, it is inherently competing with bisexuality and it cant be "reclaimed" from its biphobic roots. pansexuality is not a whole, separate, and valid label. its a biphobic response to issues within the bisexual community.

to top off this post, heres something a full grown adult once said to me. in person. she was my roommate. "i feel like im pan because im attracted to trans people. trans women, trans men, i could definitely date them. but not nonbinary people because thats gross and weird." she saw pan as trans inclusive and defined herself that way as opposed to bi which is shitty!

also a little extra tidbit about my experiences identifying as pan. i saw myself as better than every bi person. all of them. even my trans and bi friends. whenever they brought up being bisexual i would think to myself "why dont you identify as pansexual? its better and shows people you support trans people." because i was made to believe bisexuality didnt and was therefore inferior. thats the mindset that emerged from my time in the pansexual community. i am so sorry to all of my bisexual friends even if they never noticed. i love you all and hope you have a great day. this also goes to any bisexuals or people who identify as bi in anyway, such as biromantic or simply bi. love you all.

ummm yeah heres some extra reading i found helpful and relevant. here and here. also noooo dont disagree with me and unfollow me im so sexy 🥴🥴🥴

#if u have follow up questions ill probably answer them 2morrow #if u ask something just be nice its my birthday 🙄🙄#anyways time to tag this lol !#pansexuality #biphobia #transphobia #q slur #long post #my post #ask to tag maybe??

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finn-shitposts · 3 years ago

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Just a random l*ki rant so i get the annoyance out my head dont rb lmao

Obviously this post isnt about every loki stan i just keep seeing posts that piss me off so i had to yell. This is a bit generalized but know its probably not aimed at you, its at a small but loud minority of frustrating marvel stans

You know im over it, im done lookin for memes and gifs to rb after each episode cos everyones arguing so much sksksk

Like a solid chunk is alligator memes and pretty gifsets which is nicr but theres just so much twitter flavoured arguing and like opinion based arguements cloaked as morality that i jsut. H.

For me, id be just as happy seeing loki find recognition and self love through sylvie and learn that hes capable of change from mobius then remain platonic them both as Id be seeing him date either or both of them (ot3 usually solves all problems for me). I just enjoy the way the interpersonal bonds are written between them all no matter the flavour of it yknow sksksk?

But people online are calling it disgusting to even ship sylvie and loki for either "heteronormativity cos bisexual ppl that come out on screen should date ppl of the same gender or theyre not really bi after all" (as a bi man. This is just utter bullshit im too tired to get into it) or "i interpret them as siblings so if you ship them youre automaitcally into incest" and im sat here w past trauma regarding that like. Hm. Really bad take just an awful take guys. Like i get that most relationships or bonds are forced into het romances 90% on tv and its frustrating when all you want is a friendship or a siblinf type relationship but like you can express that without sending death threats to the actors and yelling at casual watchers who kinda like the ship. Plus yall gotta stop playing the 'its more moral to ship mobius and loki, cos theyre not siblings' bitch neither are loki and sylvie theyre the same person, not related and also clearly distinct individuals only with similar experienves. You can dislike somethinf and just say you dislike it you dont have to assign a moral righteousness to it.

Also i shipped loki and mobius before i did sylvie and loki, and i love them equally but like. Do you ever get the thing where when you were younger and had gay ships that were massively popular in fandom and it was super fun but then like 4 years later when you actually come out as queer youre like huh, the fanon surrounding that ship was mostly made by straight 15yr old girls that found mlm hot and its not Great. Cos i just get annoyed reading deep analysis posts like "when sylvie is mentioned loki doesnt react he clearly doesnt like her much but when mobius is mentioned here are all his micro reactions and the meanings of it that prove that theyre in love" and like. I get reading into subtext and i get wanting canon gay ships, I mean i fucking put up w supernatural skskksks but this is bordering more on the vibes of like when ppl ship idk like idols/rpf and read way too much into every glance and find any way to dismiss and explain away the actual person theyre dating irl? Or like when you read fanfics where someone clearly hates a female character just cos she gets in the way of their fave gay ship and you just have to sigh like guys. Please.

All this being said, i ship lokius i love mr dilf owen wilson i just get frustrated that people have to shit on one character or relationship to uplift their faves, pls can we not all just get along and be civil i beg this isnt twitter act normal. What am i saying these are marvel stans ,.

Anyway from now im just gonna enjoy loki on my own and sit with my personal thoughts and headcanons without checking tumblr cos yall are acting like twitter and its unbearable, i dont need that in my life. Like I thought itd be fun cos tumblr is usually all about selfcest and poly ships and whatnot but yall are just spewing bad takes lmao

Ill be memeless but ill be much happier not getting pissed off at every third post on the tag, im just gonna ship loki/mobius/sylvie in my own corner and avoid the internet on wednesdays, ✌️

#god if you read all that im so sorry for you sjsksjjs.#i just had to get it out cos it was causing me brainrot to keep thinking about it smsksm #not even tagging this #just uh #dont rb #fandom wank

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alwaysxyou · 5 years ago

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Just curious, so what's your take on why they haven't come out yet? I know many ppl say it's management, others say they're scared of backlash because of their careers etc. What's your take? I used to think it's management, but that way way back when they were still in 1D.. Don't really see management still having this much control over them today!

partially, it is absolutely management and the situation they've been in for years, even beyond 1d time. there’s no doubt that there has been a continuation into solo eras - for example look at louis’ stunts that are still going on. louis is still tied to syco - the same label as one direction. so there are absolutely still things out of their control, outside of them having full 100% total control - we don’t know how much has been lifted at this point.

but i think it’s also important to remember what a big deal coming out is, especially for people in their position. i dont think they give a single fuck about what the media or backlash would be. i mean look if it ended their careers they could live lavishly off 1d royalties for the rest of their lives. and regardless, they have one of the most dedicated fan bases who will love them no matter what - the backlash has no affect imo. but for a lot of queer people, much less people who have had to be in the closet for so long, it’s a really personal thing coming out. i dont think it’s about backlash but about losing a portion of the privacy element. they’re both incredibly private people, and coming out is letting people into a very sacred, important part of their lives that for all intents and purposes, has been just theirs. and they have every right to want to protect something so special and important. do i think they want to come out eventually? probably yeah. but i think protecting themselves, protecting and nurturing their relationship and just...being able to be themselves is more important. so i think if they choose to come out, they’ll do so when they are able to combine all the elements - comfort sharing that portion of their lives, comfort that it will only positively affect their relationship and lives, and comfort that theyre in the right place and time to do (personally and career wise)

also i think it’s important to remember that coming out is not the end all be all for a lot of lgbtq people. it’s different for every individual person. for me, coming out doesn’t have as large of a factor as things like happiness, safety, and my relationship. if my partner and i are continuing to grow together, continuing to love, continuing to seek happiness and kindness both together and individually, then nothing else matters. it doesn’t matter to me if everyone i encounter in life knows im queer. but my life and values do. the important people know, and that’s enough

#hs #lt #hl #anon #asks

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karmanticmoved · 5 years ago

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1-85 uwu

j esus okay

1. describe yourself.

uh,, emotional ig, dumbass, quiet, exhausted all of the time, v queer, healthy mix of feminine and masculine, insecure, and not tha t great tbh. kinda a pussy ass b itch

2. if you could go anywhere for a week all expenses paid where would it be?

idrk. maybe somewhere like a hella nice beach in another country, maybe somewhere in europe. i like travelling but i hate the travel to get there and have no money so i havent put thought into it. maybe hawaii or somewhere like that.

3. do you have siblings?

the one thats still alive is my half brother

4. what is your favorite constellation, why?

orion maybe bc i don't know a lot but i can see that one from my bedroom window even in the city n idk. its comforting. or scorpius cause i'm a scorpio

5. favorite color.

yellow, pink, or blue.

6. what kind of music do you listen to?

almost anything. whatever catches my interest.

7. favorite flower. (you can name as many as you want cause flowers are awesome)

forgot what i said last time but those

yellow carnations i think?

8. if you could do magic, what is the first spell you would learn?

maybe smth to put myself to sleep immediately bc f uCk

9. favorite childhood memory.

my summer camp memories are pretty great. also memories of my dad and i going fishing are good.

10. have you ever been cheated on?

i mean in theory i couldve been bc online relationships but no. n im polyam and have identified as such for a majority of my relationships so no.

11. if you could describe your perfect room, what would it be?

big but not too big, yknow? like big enough that it can be filled and have room to walk around and lay on the ground or whatever but not Empty. and a pretty big bed to stretch out on, n a closet in the room. multiple windows w blackout curtains so theres light but it can be blocked out. n fluffy rugs or carpeting but preferably rugs in case smth spills so we can get it out of at least Remove the rug. and probably a cat tree thing in corner for dipper. n a computer desk and actual lights that light up the whole room. but probably,, fairy lights too bc full lights too bright. and i kinda want a pink room but blue or yellow work also. a nd pride flags on the walls + posters and various other stuff bc plain walls are boring. and tons n tons of b ooks too.

12. favorite animal.

river otter

13. what was the last photo you took of?

cat

14. do you believe in soul mates?

i'm not sure. i do kinda think there are people who you will like. really really click with and who become so important in your life that they're like. apart of u yknow? but i don't think that anyone as an individual needs to keep those people in their life forever. they arent destined to stay with them, and they shouldnt force that relationship (platonic, familial, romantic, or whatever) even if they were close for years and years. screw destiny. youll have people you care about, and sometimes you have to break that bond to save yourself, and thats okay. there will be other people who can and will be just as important. that got kinda off topic skbsks. i don't think theres really like Destiny soulmates. but there could be like. soulmates in the sense of for however long we're together, we're soul bonded. even if its not forever. does that even make se nse skbsns

15. do you hang toilet paper over or under?

over is the one thats socially acceptable right

16. your go to place to eat & your favorite thing to get there.

idk theres a place near a movie theater closeish to my house and its a nice little cafe and i dont eat there bc i dont eat much in general but i get their bubble tea and i love. raspberry bubble tea w rose popping bubbles. its comfort drink.

17. do you believe everything happens for a reason?

no. sometimes shit happens for no reason, and its bullshit, but you can't reverse it, so you gotta figure out how to move on from it.

18. guilty pressures?

im assuming thats meant to be pleasures

umm,, idrk. i don't know what exactly i like that would count as a guilty pleasure so,,

19. favorite mythical creature, why?

merpeople are s o cool i fuckin. love funky aquatic pals hell yeah. maybe im just Water babey but. they're rad. dragons are also hella cool bc like dragons???? theyre scaly and prett y and can breathe fire or have wings and kill u?? also like selkies bc again. water. but i used to hear a lot of stories abt them and theyre so nea t

20. something most people don’t know about you.

i have the potential to be a huge asshole and also kinda Wish to fuckin murder someone sometimes but. i act nice most of the time anyway.

not murder murder but i can get angr y enough that i just wanna Stab smth

21. where did you grow up, what was it like?

grew up kinda near the edge of the city, still in it but not like the main city area. in western washington. it was kinda rly boring, i used to spend a lot more time outside or just by myself playing with leaves or toys or whatever. when i had friends i played make believe w them even when outside of school. so yeah. boring id say.

22. do you believe aliens exist?

sure.

23. what was your last google search?

other than names for some actors n stuff, i was looking up various star wars things

24. what did your last relationship teach you?

the one that like. ended? i guess thatd be. be careful with your own feelings and try to figure them out before jumping into anything, and also don't try to force smth that in reality isnt really working.

25. would you relocate for love?

honestly yeah

26. do you hold grudges or forgive easy?

both. it just depends on how badly i or someone i care about was hurt by it. more likely to hold a grudge if a friend was hurt by someone d eep enough to leave a lasting impact or if they don't get a genuine apology i will be 🔫🔫. or if the person keeps hurting them. even if that person is also my friend.

27. favorite book.

favorite graphic novel is bloom by kevin panetta

favorite books in general are autoboyography, more happy than not, and what if its us. all gay. i know. its okay. im a kinnie.

28. do you consider yourself an extrovert or introvert?

introvert by far

29. have you ever kept a journal, do you now?

i tried once. i probably will have to once i go see a therapist, or at least one for my Bad Thoughts

30. top 5 favorite movies.

in no particular order

little shop of horrors, love simon, coco, it (2017 and 1990), and shazam! ig? maybe others but i definitely Forgot all the shit ive watched

31. do you believe that everything happens for a reason?

32. what is your greatest fear?

definitely gotta be all of the people i love hating me and abandoning me or secretly hating me and then leaving me without saying anything. and the worst part is im always afraid its gonna happen babeyy

33. favorite alcoholic beverage.

im baby

34. most embarrassing thing you’ve done.

im embarrassed by my own existence. i don't remember the Most embarrassing thing

35. do you believe in ghosts?

not until i have proof that i can actually trust and believe in

36. what is the best and worst part of your personality?

idk ig im nice. but im also. very easily set off on certain emotions especially the bad ones which sucks like especially jealousy bc i dont wanna!! feel jealous!! tho i think that ties into my greatest fear bc my brain immediately tells me im useless to everyone and they hate me. but. sometimes i get jealous and then feel bad for that and then hate myself for all of it. bc my friends deserve to hang out w other people and care about other people im just fucking stupid babey !!

37. should you split the dinner bill?

i rly don't get why you wouldnt tbh like if u both wanna be there u should both pay. but if one person gonna pay it should be the person that asked.

38. are you a good liar?

most of the time. when it comes to my mental health i can either lie great or im literally breaking down in front of the person so

39. what keeps you up at night?

depressing thoughts. anxiety about everything. wishing i could cuddle and fall asleep w jay. sometimes i just cant sleep bc im too restless.

40. would you rather go without your phone or music?

music. i need my phone to text my friends and i Need my friends

41. do you believe in god?

what god would let the world get to the point its at. what god would allow people to do such fucked up shit.

no. i don't.

42. how do you relax when frustrated?

cry, take a nap, take a shower, listen to music, cuddle dipper

43. what’s something that offends you?

when people go "oh yeah i support gay rights but im still gonna eat at chick fil a bc its good" like i get so fucking. pissed off by that. youre not gonna fucking s ta rv e without their goddamn chicken. i know a bi person who goes there and says its okay bc they dont Directly Give Their money to Specifically anti gay organisations but im just. ugh. fucking pissed bc there are other places to get food just avoid the one place for fucks sake. their food is good it doesnt matter. its like saying yeah pewdiepie is a bad person and nazi and a racist asshole but his videos r funni haha so im gonna watch him anyway

44. favorite food

i hate myself whenever i eat food

45. if you were on a 10 hour flight and could sit and talk to any person the entire time, who would it be?

@destinedformuchmore or @pinaplelee

46. when do you feel the most confident?

never? but ig i feel confident when working on tech construction during theater tech. as long as i know what im doing.

47. what do you do in your free time?

sleep. draw. cry. play video games. talk to my friends.

48. is there anyone who has completely lost your respect

matpat did for being a dick abt neopronouns and making a transphobic joke and only apologizing when a cis person told him to. not when hundreds of trans people did. and also other jokes that are inherently offensive to various groups. a n d for making extremely not Child friendly jokes in his videos which are very much targeted towards kids. say what you will about the target audience, there are a lot of children who watch them. please stop making creepy nsfw jokes if you won't even swear, sir.

49. have you ever broken someone’s heart?

i guess so yeah. but she also broke mine first.

50. did/do you play sports in school?

i did. i don't anymore bc highschool sports are bullshit but. basketball, ultimate, and soccer.

51. when are you happiest?

talkin 2 jay prolly

52. coffee or tea?

tea

53. what is one possession you own you wouldn’t want to live without?

my binder. or my stuffed cat puppet thing ive had since i was 7

54. what is the first thing you notice about a person?

their general emotions, mostly. like if theyre in a good mood or if theyre bored or distracted or whatever. or if they seem interested in actually talking to me

55. what is your favorite season, why?

fall. my birthday, the atmosphere is nice, it's pretty, its hoodie weather.

56. what makes you laugh?

stupid little comments or jokes my friends make tend to make me laugh a lot harder than i should but jabdn

57. are you a clean or messy person?

a mix. i Cannot have some things messy or i will ksjqkd. Die but i don't make my bed too often bc its ha rd when its against 3 walls.

58. what is important for a successful relationship?

communication communication communicati

talk about ur goddamn problems n keep talking to each other.

59. what was your upcoming like?

if thats supposed to be upbringing

idk, very relaxed. pretty easygoing and kinda boring.

60. favorite holiday?

any holiday in december rly. i don't celebrate a Lot but the atmosphere and others celebrating is nice to see. i kinda wish my parents did more to embrace the jewish part in our family blike. whatever. christmas is fun.

61. what is the first thing you’d do if you won the lottery?

give half of it to my parents. and then probably use it for plane ticket

62. what’s the best pizza topping combination?

hawaiian pizza. pinapple n canadian bacon ty

63. favorite outdoor activity.

frisbee

64. how are you? honestly.

not great. i want highschool to end.

65. would you rather go camping in the woods or stay at a beach resort?

idk. camping is fun but if i get to stay at the resort for free i would rly love 2 stay at a resort tbh ive never done that

66. what is the most beautiful thing in nature?

waterfalls. or rivers or just. water in nature. and very green forests. aNd snow.

67. favorite type of candy?

none

68. if your life was a book, what would be the title?

i can and will do arson, an autobiography

69. what movie quotes do you use of a regular bases?

i quote john mulaney and whatever my obsessions are pretty regularly

70. what was cool when you were young but not cool now?

silly bandz. pokemon cards. these weird unicorn figures i collected

71. what’s the craziest conversation you have ever eves dropped on?

im mostly the one having the weird conversations

72. what’s the most interesting documentary you’ve ever watched?

i watched one about dogs and cats and their evolution which was lit

73. what’s the worst hairstyle you’ve had?

when i let the lady just go fuckin ham on my hair bc i was watching spirit that horse movie and didnt wanna stop so it was. rly bad bangs and hella short in back but not the sides

74. what do you like to cook?

whatever im hungry for. i don't have the energy to cook a lot

75. what’s the coolest animal you’ve seen in the wild?

really pretty tropical fish

76. what’s the funniest tv show you’ve ever seen?

idk. i rly like schitts creek its pretty amusing

77. do you usually follow your heart or your head?

heart at first but my head if things get bad

78. what is your favorite quote?

"i have a splitting headache and i think i'm dying. how are you?"

or a character just saying "try harder" when another failed to do smth.

this is supposed to be deep or whatever but im in a Mood

79. what’s the weirdest crush you have ever had?

once had a crush on a character in a minecraft parody lmao

80. what’s your love language?

sending shit that makes me think of them. n just. making tons of stuff for them both online and irl like bracelets.

81. do you ever feel alone?

oh yeah. all the time. im not but it feels like i am which sucks

82. ever been bullied?

yeah

83. are you usually early or late?

late bc of my parents rip

84. what kind of art do you enjoy most?

drawing, or writing. also theater.

85. what do you wish you knew more about?

i just wish i could remember everything ive learned more about. i know a lot i just forget all.

id like to know more about forensics tho

#asks #long post #friends

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chocolate-brownies · 6 years ago

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In the weeks leading up to the third annual Women’s March this weekend, I got to speak to ten of the leading women in the mindfulness movement and find out what’s on their minds.

This is by no means an exhaustive list of the women leaders in the mindfulness space—there are many more amazing women leaders, and we’ll be profiling as many of them as we can over the next year. These ten women were chosen based on recommendations from their peers. They come from across the country and across the movement, they’re engaged in research, teaching, writing, and speaking about mindfulness both at home and around the world.

These women bring the diversity of their experiences in the world at large and in the mindfulness movement to bear in their work, and in these conversations. Despite their differences, many echoed similar themes: kindness is necessary, trust yourself, find your community, meet yourself with warmth. It feels like good advice for this weekend—and well beyond.

1) Keep listening and find your community

Mirabai Bush

Mirabai Bush has watched the mindfulness world change gradually over her almost-fifty years as a leader in the field. She’s a long-time activist, co-founder of the Center for Contemplative Mind and Society, a key contributor to Google’s Search Inside Yourself Program, author of many books including Compassion in Action, Working with Mindfulness, and more.

From her earliest days as a young meditation student in India, encountering monasteries full of men, and all-male meditation teachers, to her experience as a woman in business, asked by men who’d stop by her trade show booth if she could get them a coffee while they talked shop with her male business partner, to her experiences as a young mother, and now as a grandmother.

“Let us just say that many of the barriers to women leading a really fulfilled life and making the best contribution they can in all areas of life, they’re there for women teaching mindfulness, too. Patriarchy is really deeply embedded in our culture. Things are changing, but it sure was difficult in the beginning.”

“We can’t do it alone. We really need each other. Our lives are busy and full, yet we’re still struggling with the individualism that’s promoted through capitalism.”

Bush thinks back to those early days as a student of male teachers and notes, “we didn’t see any models of how you brought a female awareness into how you’d do these practices.” Such an awareness is crucial, of course, “in order to bring these teachings into everyday life.” For Bush, the change came when she had children. “For me that was my biggest growth—being pregnant and then being a young mother. There was nothing like it for keeping you in the moment, without judgment, in a loving way. And being a mindful grandmother is so cool, really knowing how to listen, and tuning in to those little open minds.”

There’s something to those intergenerational female relationships, Bush believes. We have to look for ways to be women in community. “We can’t do it alone. We really need each other. Our lives are busy and full, yet we’re still struggling with the individualism that’s promoted through capitalism. There aren’t as many structures for us to even find community.” Bush adds, sometimes all it takes to make a profound change in your sense of community is one good friend “with whom you can talk about what you’re learning and what you’re struggling with.”

2) Love your imperfect self

Kristin Neff

Kristin Neff has been thinking a lot about traditional gender roles, and how they can block self-compassion. Neff is a professor of human development and culture at the University of Texas and the world’s foremost research expert on self-compassion. Men think self-compassion is about being soft and nurturing, and that it’s something that will “undermine your strength,” says Neff. “For women, we have a little less self-compassion than men do.” Women think self-compassion is about being selfish. “Women are always supposed to focus on others, be kind to others, take care of others, and it just feels selfish to do it for ourselves.”

So these days, Neff is thinking more in terms of balance. “In some ways masculine and feminine don’t really mean that much, they’re constructs. But there’s something they point to—the nurturing, the tenderness, the openness.” That’s the feminine side. “The protection, mama bear energy, fierce compassion.” That’s the masculine side. “Everyone needs both,” says Neff.

“Women are not really allowed to be fierce, we’re not allowed to be so active, and men are not allowed to be tender and warm with themselves. So the next phase of my work will be about how to help people integrate.”

The next phase of Neff’s work is focussed on integration. “Women are not really allowed to be fierce, we’re not allowed to be so active, and men are not allowed to be tender and warm with themselves. So the next phase of my work will be about how to help people integrate.” It feels to her like urgent work these days.

Part of the challenge is shifting the capitalist narrative of “perfection” that keeps people from loving their imperfect selves. “Self-compassion is such a perfect alternative to self-esteem. You don’t have to feel special, you don’t have to feel better than other people, you don’t have to get it right, you just have to be a flawed human being like everyone else. It’s just a more stable source of self-worth and a more stable way of coping with difficulty.”

3) Unbrainwash yourself

Helen Weng

For Helen Weng, her work as a neuroscientist, her lived experience as the child of Taiwanese immigrants, and her mindfulness practice are inseparable. Weng has spent the last 7 years investigating the neurobiological mechanisms of mindfulness meditation. What she’s observed as a racialized person in mindfulness circles has made her want to do things differently—and help to change the conversation for other minorities who meditate.

Weng learned how to use her own mindfulness practice to navigate the dynamics she observed in academia. “Every time I have to assert my own voice, the white people around me are very surprised, there’s a lot of resistance, or they make assumptions that my work is owed to them. I had to learn how to keep my presence of mind when someone is arguing with me in front of a big group just to establish social dominance.” Weng also made it part of her practice to be more vocal more often, so that others who were racialized wouldn’t feel so isolated. “It’s easy to internalize for minorities that there’s something wrong with them. I thought I couldn’t trust my own voice because people were always arguing against me.”

And Weng acknowledges her own privilege and its accompanying fragility, in her work as a clinical psychologist with transgender clients. “Gender norms are so deeply socialized,” she says, I had to do my own personal work around some issues, and used compassion and mindfulness to help me. It was uncomfortable. Realizing where you have privilege and breaking down your ego, it can feel uncomfortable and dysregulating. It’s not the job of minorities to help you navigate your fragility. Often the minority person will say things to help the majority person feel better, to ease their fragility. That dynamic is even more harming.”

Weng’s personal mindfulness practice allowed her to approach the issue of fragility in a couple of ways. One, she names and describes fragility, for those who may be unsure about the term. “When I feel my own fragility getting activated I feel like I’m going to throw up, and like I’m falling down. When you connect it to what it feels like, people get it and recognize it for themselves.” She says when people don’t recognize that what they’re feeling is their fragility, their impulse is to reset the power dynamic. “I’m the one in charge, is what the ego is saying—usually not consciously—I’m uncomfortable because I’m supposed to be in charge, so I’m going to reset the power dynamic.”

“Trust your body and psyche more and more and that’s how you’ll gain your power. It’s a process of un-brainwashing yourself.”

Weng’s other approach is to bring minority and marginalized communities into her research projects. She says not only are scientists largely homogenously white men, so are their study participants. Weng approached the East Bay Meditation Center in Oakland, CA, which offers mindfulness practices to people of color, queer people, people with disabilities and more. They collaborated on designing studies that are culturally sensitive to people from different groups. “Once you make procedures more sensitive for diverse people it actually makes it more sensitive for everyone,” Weng says. “So I’ll use these procedures as my baseline now.”

Weng knows her diversity initiatives are good not only for the communities they serve, but also for herself. “If you actually embrace the fragility and discomfort, it enriches everything. My work is enriched, and I’m enriched as a person. There’s so much more spaciousness and openness and connection at the end.”

Finally, Weng says, she’s learned to make mindfulness practices her own. “It’s trial and error to find what works for you, but listen deeply to your body to see what gives you more vitality and makes you more connected to yourself and others, and feel free to adapt or change anything. I love music, so I listen to music while I’m more present with myself. Some would tell me that’s not meditation, but they’re wrong. Trust your body and psyche more and more and that’s how you’ll gain your power. It’s a process of un-brainwashing yourself.”

4) To be alive as a human being is to have inherited much

Rhonda Magee

For Rhonda Magee, practicing law and practicing mindfulness go hand in hand. “Lawyers have to struggle with ethical questions of right and wrong,” she notes. “Lawyers are called in when there are high stakes—somebody is threatened with loss of freedom or the right to be in this country, custody over children. Lawyers are called in when those who call are suffering.”

“If we can engage mindfulness, we can manage stress and support ourselves in the practical aspects of what we’re trying to do while also deepening our capacity to serve in ways that minimize the harm we do along the way.”

For Magee, that understanding of harm includes her own experience “as a woman of color in a society and a world that wasn’t necessarily created for a person like me to thrive.” She talks about the surplus suffering “that comes with the way our different identities and our embodiments in the world are met with preconceptions and stereotypes,” and the opportunity she has to meet that suffering with mindfulness.

“Through my life, I’ve had the opportunity to become more aware of the subtle ways identity may be showing up—what is the rightful place of a woman, or a black person in a group?—by seeing how we’re all caught up in making meaning and perceiving each other through lenses shaped by a culture that has made all these identities relevant to us.”

“There are particular ways that we know something about suffering, that has an extra dimension tied to the way we’re met in the world as women.”

Mindfulness is the balm for what Magee calls “that extra layer of suffering, wounding and harm that we may be experiencing or causing others.” And she feels fortunate to have the opportunity to support others in exploring that. “Bringing mindfulness to our social identities and the challenges we face simply because of the way we’re packaged has been healing for me. Bringing mindfulness to bear on these aspects of our experiences in the world is a very rich path, a door into mindfulness as robust and rich as any other doorway.”

It’s a door Magee believes more women should walk through. “There are particular ways that we know something about suffering, that has an extra dimension tied to the way we’re met in the world as women. Knowing the great richness that comes with vulnerability and living compassionately, understanding empathy and the joy that can come from connection, means that we have a lot to offer the mindfulness movement.”

Magee speaks from the experience of a 51-year-old cis-gendered racialized black woman in America—and that informs what she is able to offer. “I really just believe that if we’re willing to look at our own experiences carefully, we have unlimited capacity to help transform the world. So we should be encouraged to be our beautiful unique selves and know that our voices are incredibly needed in the world at this time.”

5) Trust your own experience

Willoughby Britton

Willoughby Britton sees a lot of parallels between the world of mindfulness and the women’s movement. As a clinical psychologist and research scientist at Brown University Medical School, Britton has been studying the effects of mindfulness on mood and anxiety and is one of the few researchers looking into the potential negative psychological effects of meditation.

Her first inkling that her personal experiences might be marginalized by the larger mindfulness community came when her own meditation efforts, and those of many she knew, “did not conform to the dominant narrative of stability, clarity and calm. We all figured we just needed to try harder,” she says. “When I was working at in patient hospital during my residency, there were two meditators who became psychotic while on a retreat. Thinking that two in one year was a lot, I asked some meditation teachers if they had ever seen such meditation-related difficulties before and most reluctantly admitted that they had.”

Enter the first parallel. “What I discovered through the “Varieties of Contemplative Experience” research study, was that the mindfulness movement has a lot of parallels with the women’s movement where the dominant narrative was not only omitting but also—through repetition—actively silencing other, less desirable narratives.”

The mindfulness movement has a lot of parallels with the women’s movement where the dominant narrative was not only omitting but also—through repetition—actively silencing other, less desirable narratives.”

Throughout her career, as a neuroscientist, and in meditation, Britton has observed the power dynamics that influence systems, organizations, and society. “Part of my practice and research is to watch how these dynamics play out in the mindfulness world. The examples are numerous: the tendency to dismiss my own experience and yield to authority figures; the tendency to speak or act in ways that will be socially rewarded, such as reporting only the positive meditation effects or narratives, while omitting the negative ones. I can see in myself how easy it is to perpetuate unhealthy power dynamics and how vigilant and committed I have to be to counteract those default tendencies.”

That commitment, Britton believes, is what will bring progress. “Women and other marginalized groups have learned that positive change depends on giving voice to previously silenced narratives, so that a fuller, more accurate picture of reality, history—or meditation practice—can have an equal seat at the table.” So Britton prioritizes representing and documenting marginalized voices and alternative narratives in her research.

At the same time, Britton’s keenly aware of the dangers of confirmation bias. “My mindfulness practice has taught me how easy it is to deceive myself and to reinforce what I already think, so I have to keep asking: What am I missing? What are my potential blind spots? Who could help point out what I am overlooking?”

Still, she returns to a simple—though not necessarily easy—ethos: “Trust your own experience, speak your truth, find allies.”

6) #whogets2bewell

Angela Rose Black

For Angela Rose Black, PhD, founder and CEO of Mindfulness for the People, mindfulness presented itself as a matter of life and death. As a child in Indianapolis, she spent time at Flanner House, a multipurpose center that offered services to kids, seniors, and more. There, Black met Frances Malone, who was the director of Flanner House’s child development center.

“Among many things, she prioritized reminding us to pay attention to our surroundings; to walk and sit with dignity; to savor our food as we nourished our bodies. I don’t think she called it ‘mindfulness’ but rather emphasized ‘awareness’ as critical to our survival as Black children in a racist society,” Black says.

As Black moved through an academic career in which she studied health disparities, with research focused on black women’s health and stress, she herself suffered from stress and sought relief in meditation and mindfulness. There too, however, she found stressors. “My very existence in a given mindfulness space is oftentimes disruptive. Opening my mouth to ask ‘who gets to be well’ is resonant for some and triggering for others. The very breath we are invited to focus on is valued in some bodies while not in others.” For Black, navigating the mostly white world of mindfulness means that “on a daily basis I am building my capacity to be with my own suffering, the suffering of racial injustice in our own backyards, while disrupting these same injustices.” And that, she says, “is an emotional, physical, and energetic workout!”

“My very existence in a given mindfulness space is oftentimes disruptive. Opening my mouth to ask ‘who gets to be well’ is resonant for some and triggering for others. The very breath we are invited to focus on is valued in some bodies while not in others.”

Black was compelled to work for change—to truly disrupt the racial injustice she saw in the mindfulness world. “Honestly, my fatigue with people of color being under-considered and undervalued in all things mindfulness research, teaching, and practice—despite our deep historical roots of engaging in mindful practices—propelled me to unapologetically create Mindfulness for the People.”

Mindfulness for the People offers a variety of courses, including mind-body training for People of Color in search of compassionate ways to address Racial Battle Fatigue, and for White people to recognize and respond to White Fragility with compassion.

While the material Mindfulness for the People teaches may be challenging to some, Black’s parting words are simple. “To women of color reading this: I see you. To white women reading this: do you see us?”

7) Un-hijack your nervous system

Susan Kaiser Greenland

Susan Kaiser Greenland found her way to mindfulness through the panicked haze of a family health crisis. She became obsessed by the idea the food her family was eating was poisoning them, and as she was frantically pitching anything in their tiny New York City kitchen that contained sugar. Her husband intervened and suggested she learn to meditate. Will it solve the health crisis, she eagerly asked. “He said, ‘no, it’s for you. You’re driving me crazy.’”

A high-powered lawyer for a national television network, co-founder of the Inner Kids Foundation, author of multiple books on mindfulness, and a mother of two, Kaiser Greenland recognizes that mindfulness has been a lifeline for her. “I truly believe mindfulness-based self-regulation strategies are crucial at all ages, to give people the bandwidth to have open minds so they can learn and listen,” she says. She’s motivated by the change she’s seen mindfulness bring to people’s lives. “Once people recognize their nervous systems are getting overly burdened and they can dial that back, the worldview piece comes into place.”

“The situation we’re in now keeps me up at night. No one’s talking to each other, they’re talking past each other, hand-wringing and finger-pointing. Everyone’s nervous system is jacked up, everything they do jacks it up further.”

But, she believes, there’s still plenty of work to be done on the listening and learning front. “The situation we’re in now keeps me up at night. No one’s talking to each other, they’re talking past each other, hand-wringing and finger-pointing. Everyone’s nervous system is jacked up, everything they do jacks it up further.”

She recognizes that in her own past, even with the benefit of her mindfulness practice. “The generation of women who were coming up through the corporate world when I was there, in order to get where we were going, you had to take on a lot of male characteristics. I used to come home like the terminator,” she recalls. “I know mindfulness has helped me soften that edge and be more confident, but that was a price of trying to break through to certain jobs that just weren’t open to women at the time��you had to develop a male way to navigate.” Now, Kaiser Greenland knows “there’s a different way to navigate, kinder, more compassionate, more effective—and women have an easier time getting that than men.”

8) Be clear on what you want and find allies

Amishi Jha

Amishi Jha knew she needed help when her toddler looked up at her during storytime and asked what a “Womp” was. Jha had read this same book to her son dozens of times, and had been truly looking forward to spending this time with him. “What is he talking about?” she remembers thinking, realizing she didn’t have a clue—though she’d been reading about Womps for several pages, and had over successive nights. She was in her second year as an assistant professor, her husband was starting grad school, and she’d lost the feeling in her teeth from grinding them so ferociously. “I was at the point of quitting. I needed to do something that felt more manageable to me.”

To Jha’s surprise, meditation turned out to the answer. She’d been raised by Hindu parents who both meditated daily. But Jha was a scientist. “A rational person. I do things that are evidence-based,” she remembers thinking. She happened to hear Richard Davidson talk at the University of Pennsylvania. “He showed these brain images, one a brain induced into a negative mood, and one a brain induced into a positive mood. I asked him how do you get that negative brain to look positive, and he said mediation.” Jha was shocked, but she wanted that positive brain, so she bought Jack Kornfield’s Meditation for Beginners, and within a few weeks had noticed a difference in herself—and also found a new area of research for her neuroscience lab. “I got really interested in how we can offer these practices to other people who have extremely demanding high-stress jobs, medical and nursing professionals, active duty military personnel and spouses.”

“Hearing about meditation from a western-trained Indian scientist really got those women empowered to say ‘I can have this practice available to me day-to-day while managing my kids, my family, my profession.”

Jha’s work on the science of mindfulness took her to India to present her research at the Mind and Life Institute. While there, she was able to visit the town where she’d been born, where excited relatives quickly organized a public talk for her at a local studio. The room was full—mainly of young, professional women with families. But during the Q&A session, a man stood up and asked: “Why are you coming here, as a westerner, to tell us about these practices that we developed in this country? We’ve had meditation retreats in the mountains forever.” This was a question Jha had been dreading. But then a woman spoke up.

“One of the women in the room raised her hand and said ‘yes, but we’re working moms, and we want to know how to do this every day. We can’t go away to a hilltop meditation retreat!’” For Jha, it was a full-circle moment. “Hearing about meditation from a western-trained Indian scientist really got those women empowered to say ‘I can have this practice available to me day-to-day while managing my kids, my family, my profession.’”

For Jha, what empowers her is supporting—and being supported by—other women. “Be clear on what you want to achieve, and find allies,” she says. “That sense of being supported and acknowledged and valued is so important.”

9) Make America kind again

Shelly Tygielski

Shelly Tygielski has been working hard to bring more men—especially young men and boys—into the mindfulness movement, where most of her colleagues are women. “On the one hand that’s lovely, because it’s a safe space, and we have the ability to have this collective experience and to discuss things that are sometimes challenging or difficult to discuss when there are men in the room.” On the other hand, Tygielski, who launched America Meditates workshops in cities across the country, and also staged the first mass meditation at a sporting event, with Miami Heat Nation Meditation, knows that if real change is going to come, it’s going to happen when more of us are rowing in the same direction—and that has to include men and boys.

She thinks back to her twenty years in the corporate world, where she ended her career as president of a company with 2,400 employees. “I was usually the only woman in the room. and being mindful or being emotional is seen as a weakness, instead of a strength. So, for me, bringing the conversation into the boardrooms, into congress, into politics, around our dining room tables with the men in our lives, is crucial if we want to create this paradigm shift to make the world a kinder place.”

“Activism burnout is a real thing, compassion fatigue is a very real thing, secondary trauma is a very real thing, and I think that as women, in general, we’re raised to be really great caretakers, but we’re horrible self-caretakers.”

To that end, she’ll be taking her sixteen-year-old son and some of his friends with her to the Women’s March in Washington this weekend, and she hopes more men show up. “I want men to support women, not just by saying, ‘oh honey you should go,’ but actually by physically being there and being just as equally outraged by what’s happening and what’s going on in our political system today. Until all women are equal, with equal pay, equal access to rights, to healthcare, to speak up, no man is equal. There’s got to be that authenticity, and that authenticity means having to show up.”

And to the women who have been showing up, Tygielski has this to say: “Activism burnout is a real thing, compassion fatigue is a very real thing, secondary trauma is a very real thing, and I think that as women, in general, we’re raised to be really great caretakers, but we’re horrible self-caretakers.” Tygielski sees strength in numbers—and advocates a move from self-care to communities of care. And, she says, mindfulness is at the core of that. “Movements are about sustainability and about being able to create consistency in being able to show up. To really show up, not just show up to a meeting and your mind is somewhere else, but be able to show up fully, as the best version of yourself. Mindfulness has really helped me create that sustainability and center myself so that I could show up for the things I feel are larger than myself, and also make a much bigger impact.”

10) Believe yourself

Sharon Salzberg

For Sharon Salzberg, world-renowned meditation teacher, bestselling author of Real Happiness and nine other books, it all comes down to advice her teacher gave her in Calcutta, India, in 1974. “‘You really understand suffering, that’s why you should teach,” Dipa Ma told Salzberg, then a young adult with every intention of living in India forever, and remaining a life-long student. “I had a very tumultuous difficult childhood,” Salzberg says, “and that was the first time I ever thought about it as a potential credential for anything.”

Salzberg began as a reluctant teacher of mediation, and soon founded, along with Jack Kornfield and Joseph Goldstein, the Insight Meditation Society. Back then, she remembers, the main concern was understanding emptiness. But during a sojourn to Burma (now Myanmar) in the mid-eighties she was introduced to loving-kindness practices. The practices resonated hard with Salzberg, and she brought what she had learned back to the US, eventually writing a book called Lovingkindness. It was not met with open-arms in the meditation world.

“People said loving-kindness wasn’t an insight technique. They said, ‘it’s just a feel-good practice.’ But I had had a very powerful transformative experience with loving-kindness practice, so I just kept on teaching it.”

“It was a rough go,” she says. “Mindfulness was gaining popularity, scholarly research was beginning.” But loving-kindness was ahead of its time. “People said loving-kindness wasn’t an insight technique. They said, ‘it’s just a feel-good practice.’ But I had had a very powerful transformative experience with loving-kindness practice, so I just kept on teaching it.”

She discovered that a practice some of her peers wrote off as “just” a feel-good practice actually resonated hard with others, as well. “It’s very gratifying now that the pendulum has swung the other way,” she says, “that people are realizing compassion is the thing that was missing from mindfulness.”

She credits the kind words of her teacher, all those years ago in India, for helping her maintain her loving-kindess practice when others viewed it as frivolous. “Dipa Ma said to me: ‘You can do anything you want to do, it’s just you thinking you can’t do it that will stop you.’”

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