I’m operating under the premise that if you need to actually use these skills, you will gain guidance from professionals..which, to be clear, is not me!

The other premise I’m also operating under is that knowledge reduces fear. Fear can be paralyzing so with our fears in check, we can show up stronger for our loved ones. So although I am no professional, I can still expose you to some knowledge to reduce fear.

So let’s jump into learning how to care for one who is nearing the end of their Earthly journey.

Gait Belt

My sister showed us how to use this simple, yet befuddling device. It’s a belt that allows you to keep a firm grip on your older adult when they’re mobile so you can assist if they lose their balance.

While seemingly simple, I struggled to get this belt tight enough every time. My tip is to maybe practice on yourself first and remember to tighten the belt before you thread it through the final buckle because it has teeth that make it difficult to adjust. Again, there are YouTube instructional videos if you struggle like I did!

Chucks

I have more appreciation in my heart for chucks than I do the gait belt, but like the gait belt, I’d never heard of these before. Chucks are underpads that can protect the mattress from incontinence but are also very useful for repositioning someone who is bed bound.

Chucks have a lot of names (Chux/underpads/bed pads, etc.) and come in disposable and washable cloth ones. I’m talking here about the thick, washable cloth ones.

Using Chucks for Repositioning in bed

It is common for folk who are bed-bound to slip further and further towards the foot of the bed since the other end is often elevated. To keep them comfortable, we need to reposition them towards the head of the bed. While it is possible for one person to use Chucks to reposition an older adult, in my family we relied on two people for this task because none of us are spring chickens!

To begin with, multiple chucks can be spaced beneath a person; under their back and under their booty being highly useful. Before repositioning, if your loved one is cognizant, ask them to hug themselves with their arms in a tucked-in position. To minimize friction, roll both sides of the chuck and get a good grip before sliding the person up the bed. Huzzah, we did it!

Chucks can also be used to roll your loved one onto their side. This is necessary if you need to position a cushion under one side, a strategy that helps prevent bed sores.

Being able to roll your loved one onto their side is also necessary when performing a brief change. Once you use the chuck to roll them onto their side, you can continue to hold them up while letting the chuck return to the mattress. This will allow you to roll a clean brief and tuck it under them. After cleaning them and removing the used brief, you can roll them back onto their back and finish fastening the clean brief.

You might wonder ‘But what about my loved one’s dignity? They’ll be horrified to have me change their briefs!’

Yes, tell me about it.

My dad had a lot of pride and I wasn’t looking forward to causing him grief; but part of the dying process involves surrendering our Earthly attachments and this includes our pride.

I tried to prepare my dad for this by asking him what it was like taking care of me as a child. He retold the tale of how he’d call me a ‘pain in the neck’ when I’d frequently asked him to tie my shoes. He was smiling in recollection when I sprung the question on him, ‘Did you feel like I was a burden?’

He looked at me in shock and exclaimed ‘NO!’

I looked at him and said ‘Remember that when we’re taking care of you. You’ll never be a burden to us- in the same way your children were never a burden to you. It’s just what we do for one another when we love each other.’

He didn’t say anything to that, but sat there processing what I was foretelling.

So yeah, those are some highly useful skills needed when someone’s body is in decline. I’m leaving out wheelchair transfers because it is complex to describe and draw and I didn’t have much practice with it. Again, I refer you to the myriad of resources available.

Speaking of resources, according to Barbara Karnes, RN:

Dying is not a medical event, it is a social, communal experience.

The dying process certainly calls us together and challenges us to bring our strengths into play.

I noticed that near the end of my dad’s life, I would quietly peep in on him and leave him alone if his eyes were closed. My oldest brother however would bust in on my dad with a loud greeting and squeeze him with a hug and a kiss. My dad’s response to my brother’s greeting was always a big smile; so I started emulating my brother in this way and I’d get the same response.

We can become afraid to touch our dying one, but touch and affection is often what they crave the most. Get in there and lean in.

Also, unresolved issues between family members will certainly come to the surface! It is the final blessing given to us by the one who is dying - the opportunity to heal old wounds.

Finally, with all of this care flowing towards the dying one, how can we care for ourselves and one another?

Care for the Caregivers

When someone is dying, there is probably a primary caregiver; in our case, it was my mom. Day after day, month after month, she helped my dad get by. It was very taxing to be in that role.

Here are some things we did for our mom; ways to support the primary caregiver:

• Bring tasty food that they enjoy.

• Periodically get them out of the house and take them on a fun adventure.

• Encourage or help facilitate a date with their friends while you take over caregiving.

• Acts of nurturing: Share a cup of tea, a spa session, relaxing music or whatever they find nourishing.

• Towards the last month and a half, we set up an extra bed and took turns spending the night. Most of the awful things happened at night (falls, etc.)

• Eventually we hired a caregiver to be there for several hours each day. You can search under ‘Caregivers for seniors’ and there are a lot out there! My understanding is that an agency is the quickest way to get some help, but I don’t think you’ll have much say on who shows up and how consistently they’ll be the same person.

  We went with a platform instead (Ex: Care.com, CareLinx, etc.) which gives you access to their database of caregivers and from there you can reach out and interview candidates. This takes more work and time (weeks!) but can hopefully land you with the right person. (Tip: Move forward with your research on this before you reach desperation.)

Basically the goal is to help the caregiver refuel; so ruminate on what they find restorative and nourishing and help bring it into their life.

The very last topic I want to delve into is self-care. I consider this my specialty. I made sure to cry, eat well, give myself nature breaks, exercise breaks, talk to friends and journal but none of this was enough to spare me from the physiological misery that was waiting for me after my dad passed.

More on that in my next post.

Thanks for being here with me as I process this. I hope it is of some service.

Treat me to a chai

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The rock was: not wanting to push because of the pain.

The hard place was: labor would never end if the pushing stopped.

I think this is why there is an unmistakable look of pride [and exhaustion] on the face of women after giving birth. They’ve walked through the fire of their fears and made it through to the other side.

I’ve never been through the experience of child labor, but I have recently helped my dad through his labor of dying. In this journey, I also found myself stuck between a rock and a hard place; although it goes without saying my struggle on the sidelines was considerably less than for a person giving birth or one who is dying.

For me, the rock was my fear that if I participated as a caregiver for my dad, my inexperience would lead to him getting harmed. For example, my dad insisted he was capable of mobility when the evidence was stacking up against him. What if I couldn’t stop him from falling and getting injured?

The hard place was my fear that if he lost his mobility, I’d be changing his briefs for issues of toiletry. I’m not one to get awkward with nudity or excrement, but I certainly felt my dad would be embarrassed by my presence. I also just had zero know-how on how to navigate a brief change. How do you move an adult without hurting them or oneself?

So that was my rock and hard place that I found myself wedged between: mobility concerns and lack of mobility concerns…which all really boiled down to the fear that I’d do harm to my dad.

It turns out there is a lot of facing up to our fears even for those of us on the sidelines of these transformative life events.

My intention here is to offer some background information and resources to help lessen the fear for those of us who will be by the side of someone dying. What I am passing on to you, I learned from others.

As my ignorance gradually shed and my know-how increased, it resulted in my anxiety decreasing considerably.

Knowledge reduces fear.

The less we are consumed by fear, the stronger we can show up for our loved ones.

So here is the knowledge I have to offer with regard to caring for a loved one dying at home. My family’s circumstances are likely not the same circumstances you are in. Factors like the presence of disease, dementia, family dynamics, availability, trauma, finances and more will have varying impacts on the dying experience.

Nonetheless, I hope you may find something supportive here.

Before the Decline of an Older Adult

While some deaths are sudden, gradual death is just that - gradual. There are a few stages before the actual dying process that need a lot of attention and investing in. My family is fortunate that we have my sister, who is a BOSS and helped my parents in so many ways that I didn’t even think of. She put in copious amounts of time and energy- years in advance of my dad’s decline; and her investment made the transition much smoother. Here are some things that make sense for a trusted member to help with (if allowed) while your older adults are in good physical and cognitive health:

• Advanced Directives: This is a formal document that conveys the older adult’s wishes for health care if there is a time when not able to express it themself. (Ex: Will they want to receive life support?)

• Create a Legacy file of Finances, etc.:

  • Gather all contact info, account numbers, login and passwords for utilities, credit cards, bank accounts, wills, insurance policies and email addresses and store them in a home safe.

  • Assess finances and update the types of investments to ensure it suits the current needs.

• Consent to discuss information: Your older adult may need to give written consent that enables you to discuss matters with their doctor, bank, lawyer,etc.

• Teach about Fraud: Consider researching and teaching what the latest scams look and sound like and how to respond.

• Move to a new home (if needed): My mom pushed for this before the rest of us were ready for it and she was absolutely right. You do not want to be in the wrong house or worse, selling a house during the dying process. Assess whether an older person’s home is burdensome or not designed well for aging (has stairs, far from resources, too much maintenance, etc.) and make the change if needed.

• Celebrate your loved one: Have a party that includes their favorite people and activities that bring them joy. Eight years ago we had an 80th birthday party for my dad where he sang songs for the guests because performing music is what brought him joy.

• Commemorate their journey and achievements in a keepsake: Before my parents moved from their home, I hired a photographer to capture the beauty of my mom’s garden. I then used a service to print a beautiful book of the photos. For my dad, because he was a writer, I used Storyworth to email him questions that he answered over the year. I then added photos to his stories and printed these as his memoirs.

Approaching the Decline

• Help fulfill their dreams: What trips and experiences do they still want to have? Last year, my eldest brother took our dad to Mexico to see the pyramids and cenotes, (though I suspect the tequila was our dad’s favorite part).

• Create more opportunities to spend time together: I thought I was doing a pretty good job of this by talking to my dad in his room but it wasn’t until my dad’s mobility declined that I came up with some new ideas of local adventures- some that never happened because of his decline. Better to brainstorm those ideas sooner than later.

• Keep an eye on accounts looking for fraud.

• Assess if they are still a safe driver: If not, have the hard conversation about the loss of their license. If they lose this freedom, support them so they can maintain their lifestyle.

• Install safety devices: Adding ramps, grab bars to showers and toilets and other safety features to the home can be done preventatively rather than as a response to injury.

• Consider a Celebration of Life while they’re alive: My other brother made our ‘Oscars awards ceremony’ special by MC-ing with introductions and music transitions before each us shared our tribute to his legacy. Western culture has a habit of honoring people after they’ve passed…imagine if we honored folk when they were present.

Oh Dang, We’re Here — The Dying Process

According to Barbara Karnes, RN, the actual dying process begins within the two weeks prior to death.1 What I’ve described below also includes what is relevant in the months before death. You’ll know you’ve arrived at this point when enough health issues occur for a physician to determine the end is near and they will likely recommend hospice.

Hospice

Hospice is medical care for those who are expected by a physician to live 6 months or less. It is often paid at 100% by Medicare. Hospice is an absolute blessing, however it isn’t as omnipresent as many imagine it to be. A nurse showed up one hour a week and towards the very end, one hour a day. The rest of the 23 hours a day were left for us to care for my pops…and that was a significant challenge.

Hospice offers support in the form of a Chaplain and Nurses.

Chaplain

Chaplains offer emotional support. Ours held space for the venting of frustration, grief and confusion we were experiencing. She also introduced us to an incredibly useful resource in the form of little pamphlets written by Barbara Karnes, RN.

At first I poo-pooed the pamphlets thinking it was basic and not useful, but when I actually gave it a chance, I devoured it all in one night. Karnes clearly spells out the steps of the dying process, what to expect and how to support your loved one with regard to medication, food and more.

As an example: I wondered if complications could occur with morphine addiction at the end of life and the answer to that concern was in one of the pamphlets.

I cannot recommend the pamphlets by Barbara Karnes, RN, highly enough:

Nurses

The role of the nurse is to be the liaison between the family and the doctor. The nurse will assess the health of your dying one on each visit. Together with the doctor, they will assess what medications are appropriate. The nurse will dole out the medication for each day of the week into a pill organizer. A family member will need to give the daily pills and record it in a log.

Medication was something I felt a lot of anxiety about because of its dire consequences. It is actually quite simple since the nurse doles it out for each day and the information is on the pill bottle. We got this.

If you are lucky, your nurse will not just be a healer, but an educator. They need to show you how to be a caregiver since you will be there more often than them! Regardless, whether your nurse is a natural teacher or not, make sure they show you the specific strategies necessary for keeping your dying one comfortable:

• How to position them in bed to avoid sores

• How to use chucks to adjust them when they need to be scooched up in bed or have their brief changed

• How to use sponge-wands to keep the mouth clean and moist, etc.

• How to use a gait-belt to keep them from falling when walking

• How to transfer to and from a wheelchair

• How to transfer to and from a shower bench

In reality, those last three skills are likely needed before Hospice is actually called in. Who then will teach you these skills? My family was lucky that we had my sister as an Occupational Therapist to teach us, but there are also lots of instructional videos on YouTube.

Medical Equipment

While hospice provides a lot of major supplies needed, my sister found that there are existing Caring Closets that offer free supplies too. To find an organization near you, search online for free durable medical equipment. Of course Craigslist, Buy nothing groups and Facebook are other possible sources of equipment.

There are some smaller purchases that might make your life easier. For example, having enough towels and mattress protectors gives some wiggle room for when laundry needs to be done.

Lastly, the items below increase the joy factor of your loved one’s last months. Access to their favorite music, T.V. shows, online interests and memories all make life more pleasurable which is important when stuck in bed.

According to Karnes:2

The key to getting out of the body is to relax, so anything that helps relaxation is beneficial.

Everything described above is in service of helping your loved one be comfortable and relaxed. When relaxed, they can let go.

While reading this post doesn’t magically make a person capable of caretaking, I hope the exposure to this information will lessen your anxiety and see you through to the other side of your fears.

In my next post, I’m going to really test the limits of my drawing skills and try to convey some of the skills needed in caregiving because again-knowledge reduces fear.

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Yet here I am telling it, albeit a bit cryptically. Hopefully you can understand why.

It was spring break for us University students and we four friends decided to camp in the Redwoods of Northern California. After driving down, we found a spot on the beach and set up our tent.

How cool! I’ve never actually camped ON a beach before! What must it be like?

We were to find out.

We threw our sleeping bags into the tent and then readied ourselves for a magical trip courtesy of a friend from a different Kingdom.

These trips often lasted several hours. On a previous journey, my friend Ben had taught me to stuff my pockets with things like tissue and chapstick to care for my body’s needs during the trip- you know, a leaky nose and whatnot. So stuff my pockets I did, and then I took my medicine.

I could try and describe the wonders we experienced, but I suspect it would be as interesting as listening to someone tell you about their dream from last night. You just can’t convey in words, the dream landscape. So it is with this.

There was a point where it started snowing and that seemed pretty magical at the time, not yet comprehending the impact this would have on our sleeping arrangement.

On these types of journeys, I’ve been known to fly really high while my friend said he preferred to ‘keep one foot on the ground’.

There was a point where in my mind’s eye, I was floating skyward and looking down at the beach scene. Cars looked tiny and I couldn’t really see my body at all.

I heard a voice in my head: ‘What just happened?’

Another voice answered: ‘Rachel just died.’

I thought to myself, ‘Oh am I dead? Well this is fine up here!’

I pictured an ambulance coming to pick up my body and I thought about how other people would see it as a tragedy and not understand that I was content and that there wasn’t anything to truly grieve.

I did, however, foresee the suffering of my friends and family and felt bad about that.

Meanwhile back on Earth, my friends heard me mention being dead and they were now concerned and doing their best to bring me down from whatever crazy plane I was on.

That was also right about when we realized that our tent was filled with water and our sleeping bags were soaked. Surely my body was freezing, but to my free-floating mind I perceived no such thing.

My awareness pinged between the two worlds- the Earthly plane and the Ether…sometimes talking with my friends about wet sleeping bags and sometimes focused intently upon any other thing.

I put my hand in my pocket and felt something inside and pulled out the tissue I had put there at the start of the trip. I said aloud to myself ‘Why is there tissue in my pocket?’ Then I moved onto some other attraction.

My friend, however, in trying to bring me back down, grabbed onto this question and asked me ‘Why did you put tissue in your pocket?’

I said I didn’t know.

She moved her face into my vision and asked me again ‘Why did you put tissue in your pocket Rachel?’

I was tripping out on something and said I wasn’t sure.

She persisted, asking again with her eyes locked onto mine.

Mmmnn… I don’t know.

Finally, when she asked me a fourth or fifth time, I attended to the question (to get her to stop badgering me).

I stopped and thought about it. Why was there tissue in my pocket? I recalled that I put it there earlier.

But why?

Then I remembered, so I told her,

‘To take care of my body’.

And just like that I felt a swooping sensation of my soul slingshotting back into my body, like an elastic band returning to its original form. I also felt instantly warm, like a home with its tenant back to stoke the fire.

I think that I was likely at risk of hypothermia in my oblivious dreamstate and if I were to have died then, that would have been the cause.

Instead, we packed up, drove to a hotel and dried our belongings in the dryer.

My dad has such a firm grip on this Earthly plane; it is admirable to see him pursuing his interests to the very end. He would go days without eating or drinking and then come out of it and want to learn German on Duolingo! One day he would be gasping for air and the next he was badgering me to make sure he didn’t miss Jeopardy. (I called him YoYo Da for this up and down behavior.)

His strong, earthly grip did start to make me wonder if my dad had ever developed any relationship to the spiritual plane.

So for the first time, about two weeks ago, I told this story to my dad. I was trying to convey to him the notion that there may be a spiritual plane beyond this earthly one; that when we die, the mental, emotional and physical suffering that comes with having a body, is baggage that seems to get left behind with the body. Perhaps there is nothing to fear on the other side.

Barbara Karnes, a hospice RN and author, says that dying is labor:

At some point… we truly know within the core of our being that indeed we are dying. With that knowledge labor begins. I call this time labor because we are like a little chick trying to get out of a shell. The chick’s shell doesn’t just open and out pops the chick. It must work to free itself and that takes time. For us humans it takes one to three weeks to emerge from our physical shell.1

Four days ago, my dad completed his labor and became free of his shell.

Congratulations Da. I’m proud of you.

You lived large - now enjoy the freedom from human suffering.

I love you.

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For the last months of the school year, I prayed that he might make it to summer break so that I could both handle my ish at school, as well as be able to spend more time with my folks to support them.

My prayer was answered, but I admit that I did not feel grateful when just a week into break my mom called to tell me that my dad had stopped eating. She reasoned that a lack of calories would only make him more prone to falling and requested that I come over that night and sleep over.

I packed my bag for the next few days, trying to bring items of comfort, but forgetting some basic items like a hairbrush and socks - I was dazed and just didn’t feel ready for what was coming.

Just before leaving for my parents’ place, my mom called me and said ‘Your dad would like you to pick him up a hamburger and fries’.

Ok….wait, what?

I thought he wasn’t eating…and since when does he eat fast food?

But whatever cravings we have towards the end of our life, I hope we have folk around us that will honor our requests.

I picked up his cheeseburger and fries, but even though I’d already eaten, I got a burger for myself too.

I was thinking of a story Ram Dass told of his Indian guru, Maharajji Neem Karoli Baba who was known for his loving and enlightened ways. Being wise, he processed both the trials of human suffering as well as the joys of humanity with equanimity. Thus, the way the Maharajji behaved in this story surprised everyone.

In Ram Dass’ words:

Once in Bhumiadhar, where Maharajji was staying the night, we had all taken our evening meal and had retired at 10:30 p.m.

Around 1:00 a.m. Maharajji started yelling that he was very hungry and that he must have dal (lentils) and chapatis (flatbread).

I awoke and reminded him that he had already eaten. But he insisted that he must have dal and chapatis. Who can understand the ways of such a being.

So I woke the priest and he built a fire and prepared the food. It was ready about 2:00 a.m. and we watched Maharajji consume the food with great hunger. Then we all retired again.

At about 11:00 the next morning, a telegram arrived saying that one of Maharajji’s old devotees had died down on the plains (about 150 miles away) the previous night at 2:00 a.m. When the telegram was read to Maharajji he said, “You see, that’s why I needed chapatis and dal.” This aroused our curiosity, because we didn’t see at all. We pressed him but he would say nothing more.

Finally after two or three days of our persistence he said, “Don’t you see? He [the man who had died] had been wishing for chapatis and dal, and I didn’t want him to carry that desire on through death for it would affect a future birth.”1

My mom had warned me on the phone that my dad might be asking for the burger, but he probably wouldn’t eat it. ‘He’s all eyes, but no stomach’ she said.

This made me think of the story of Maharajji. My dad was having a craving but might not have the appetite to satisfy it!

The extra burger was for me to enjoy for my dad in case he couldn’t enjoy it himself.

I arrived around 9 p.m. and my mom was already asleep. I unwrapped our burgers. My dad asked for Sriracha on his fries and gobbled them up but hardly touched his burger.

I devoured mine in front of him, for him.

Just in case.

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This year was the total opposite of what I described a year ago - well, with regard to the students that is.

Instead of behaving like a black hole, my students exuded warmth, acceptance, enjoyment and celebration of…me! And I need that. I put a lot of energy into my community and it can quickly feel unbalanced if there isn’t reciprocation.

Allow me to show you my latest investments.

This is part of what it looked like when we celebrated our Secretaries, Admin, Librarian, Custodians and Tech Support Specialist. I coordinated this collection of appreciations from teachers to this group of hard-working colleagues.

Then it was time to celebrate my dad and let him know of our appreciation for his influence upon us. His name is Oscar, and so we hosted ‘The Oscars- Lifetime Achievement Award Ceremony’.

Here he is holding the awards he received for categories like ‘Best Humor’, ‘Best Protector’, ‘Jack of all Trades’ and more. We gave speeches and sang songs.

After this celebration, we were quickly approaching the end of the school year and we had some legendary teachers retiring. These folk were pillars in our school community and I really wanted them to know we recognized that.

Similar to the earlier posters in that they contained appreciations from staff, these were eleven posters designed to be hanging at the end of year party so folk could peruse them at their leisure.

Lastly, there were my students. There have been some hardships this year with my dad’s health declining and I am supremely grateful to my students for helping me feel loved and supported throughout this challenge. I shudder to think what it would’ve been like if I had been met with coldness instead of warmth.

To show my appreciation, I chose a sticker that served as a metaphor for each student. When giving them their sticker I told students what I appreciated about them.

So basically I’ve spent the last six weeks reflecting back to folk that I see them, value them and celebrate their contributions.

Some folk are really appreciative of these efforts, and some -less so.

Either way, I think it is good practice to let folk know their importance to us-you know…while they are alive.

It shouldn’t be a secret.

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There have been a lot of ups and downs lately. I’m going to focus on the ups today, because I’m so thankful that they exist.

I went to a Track meet this week to watch my students in all their athletic glory and cheer them on.

After a couple of hours of watching sprints, relays and long jumps, I was feeling hungry so decided to head home. On my way out however, a boy called out to me, ‘Ms.Hutson! Watch me on this one!’

I turned and saw him with a large group of sprinters cueing for their heat.

“When are you up?” I asked, thinking of the hunger in my belly.

He didn’t know. So I waited.

Although I am not qualified to diagnose, I’d say this kid is a poster child for male ADHD (Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder). Both his actions and speech are impulsive and it gets him in trouble on the regular. Particularly with girls. He likes to flirt but he often crosses their boundaries.

Once, after he made a particularly egregious remark that embarrassed a girl, I went OFF in a big way. I announced to the class that women and girls were not put on the planet for the pleasure of guys. We are put on the planet for the pursuit of our own dreams.

I really think we lose sight of this. Guys often get caught up in how much power their own desire is afforded… through the media’s male gaze. Somewhere in the process, both guys and gals start to believe that the feminine needs to orbit around the masculine.

Which is obviously total bullshit.

We can orbit around our own dreams instead.

When later unpacking this incident, the boy said he was upset with me for embarrassing him because the things that come out of his mouth already embarrass himself enough.

That is when I realized he is a victim of his own physiology. I don’t often push medical advice, but I encouraged him to ask his doctor about ADHD. The boy, however, is resistant to this idea and seems to think such a diagnosis is shameful.

Why would he think ADHD is shameful? I suppose it does have the word ‘disorder’ in it and that’s not something anyone aspires to. I was once told that Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder is erroneously named because it is from the point of view of how it inconveniences others and not named from the point of view of the person that has it. Someone with ADHD doesn’t have a deficit in their attention, they’re just not paying attention to what OTHERS want them to! And is it really a disorder? Or is it a condition that isn’t aligned with the majority?

But I digress; I don’t have enough expertise to wax further upon ADHD, but I’ve linked an article at the end that speaks to why ADHD should be revisited and renamed.1

Back to my student.

After the incident where I put him on blast, our Restorative Practices Coordinator had many conversations with him and also the girl and his guy friends who had snickered but also felt discomforted at the sexual remark their friend had made.

This adult response to his comment made a deep enough impression that the students were now taking more care with their words and responses.

Unfortunately for this boy, an even more egregious sexual comment that peers attribute to him saying at the start of the year, resurfaced and was being spread among the students.

These days, his peers have all taken a few steps away from him. The girls are pissed and the guys, who were all recently schooled by their coaches on how to disrupt sexist behaviors, don’t want to be associated with him.

He hasn’t been coming to school as much, and I suspect he is wrestling with shame.

Shame can be dangerous.

It can trigger our deepest fears - that there is something wrong with us- that we don’t belong- that we aren’t lovable as we are.

These fears are so scary that we might avoid looking them in the eye- and then a cycle of hiding from ourselves begins and may never end. If we are not confronting the truth, we’ll never make the adjustment to more effective behaviors.

Despite his mistakes, I do not want my student to downward spiral into self-loathing and cocoon himself in layers of shame.

Instead I want him to look his mistakes in the eye, feel the pain, feel compassion for himself and for the girl and identify how he’ll do better next time.

And so here he is, at the track meet.

He has no one to cheer him on.

There is no one in the stands for him, and he is isolated from his peers.

So I stayed an extra twenty minutes to watch him run.

The shot fires- and he is off.

I see him now on the other side of the track and he is ahead of the others.

I’m shouting his name and cheering him on.

He crosses the finish line and comes in first!

I’m happy that he has this win to lift him up.

He is now on the other side of the track so I decide I’ll congratulate him tomorrow and I start making my way to the car so I can get some dinner.

However, as I’m walking away, I start wondering if he wants me to share in his victory while it is freshly won. I debate with myself whether I’m feeling self-important to think I mean that much to him or if he really needs me.

I turn around to look at the track, walking backwards, and sure enough I see a little figure break away from the pack and start making its way towards where I am.

I recognize the neon shoes and I see the tousled hair. I can see in his step he is feeling happy, but I also see that he is walking alone and my heart cracks a little bit.

So I walk back down to the track and meet him and he smiles hugely and tells me he got first and I said, ‘I know, I saw you!’

He opens his arms a bit tentatively for a hug and I hug him.

He is lovable and he is loved.

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It takes place at my favorite Natural Grocers store. I like a store with ethics and they hold a pretty high standard for their products.

Their employees also seem to be held to a more unusual standard, and I don’t mean that as a bad thing. The folks that work there are more unique than what I find elsewhere. For starters, none of them seem to be in a hurry. As such, the line at the register can often reach four or five customers deep.

Most of the time when this happens, the employee at the register will call for backup. One time, over a year ago, the new register gal didn’t call for backup. She was either deeply focused on the customer in front of her or pretending she didn’t have a line with six customers waiting. Oftentimes, I use these circumstances as an opportunity to slow myself down, be here now and practice patience. But not always.

I’d once seen a customer successfully approach a floor worker asking for backup at the register when this happened, so I took it upon myself to do the same. I walked up to the bearded guy who works in produce and in my most humble voice, asked him if we could get backup at the register.

He kinda dropped his celery back in the box and said something along the lines that his work needed doing too, then grudgingly went to help at the register.

I was surprised at this response and none too impressed. After that interaction, I kept my distance from him. I didn’t feel like I was holding a grudge, but my brain had filed him as ‘grouchy produce-guy’.

Meanwhile, there are employees who, when we see one another, we both light up and banter ensues. I love how one’s hood is scattered with these folk whose names we may not know, but consistently brighten our days; the person at our favorite restaurant that takes our orders, the gas station clerk, the barista…

Recently I ruined my super expensive glasses AGAIN because I warped the anti-reflective coating AGAIN; this time by going into a sauna with glasses on.

So on this day, walking into my grocery store with my old glasses on, my lenses were covered in rain. I was being especially cautious with the lenses given recent events and so instead of wiping them on my shirt, I needed to dig in my purse for the little microfiber cloth.

By this point I was in produce-land, the territory of bearded, grouchy guy. I was looking for where to set my basket down and saw a flat spot on the mushroom paper bags.

As I was setting my basket down there, I did have a fleeting misgiving that maybe setting the basket there wasn’t sanitary. Nonetheless, the basket had landed and while I was wiping my lenses, bearded-produce-guy descended upon me and asked me not to place my basket there because the baskets are set on the floor and that contaminates the bags.

That is not an unreasonable ask.

I, myself, recognized the error in my action as I was setting my basket down.

Nonetheless, my response to him was instantaneous rage. I felt certain that he would not have approached me if I was a man - or likely anyone else- who’d made the same error. In my mind, he had been holding a grudge and was serving it back to me.

I started mumbling loudly about ‘hey look I’m using the CONTAMINATED mushroom bag for my mushrooms and now the problem is solved!’ I was being pissy.

I was so incensed, that after shopping, I went to the comment box and filled out a card describing the two, unfriendly incidents I’d had with bearded-produce-guy. When I finished, I was about to put the feedback card in the box when a woman approached me about how much she loved my pants.

She and I spent five minutes where I gave her all my hot spots for cool pants. I even let her peek at the back label on the pants I was wearing, which is an intimate interaction to have with a stranger.

By the time we were done, I told her that I had been about to submit a complaint but she had shifted my whole vibe to a more positive one. Instead, I folded the complaint card and shoved it in my pocket.

The last time I went to the store, a few weeks later, I saw my favorite employee. I admitted to him that I have beef with one of the other employees. When I described him as ‘bearded produce-guy’, my friend informed me that he had been let go!

I guess I wasn’t the only one impacted by his attitude.

I am SO GLAD that I didn’t submit that complaint card because I would certainly feel that I had cost him his job. I’m never really looking for folk to be fired, just taught to do better.

Or helped to be happier…through support.

I’m thankful for the lady who helped ME be happier that day.

Because of her, I’m a little bit lighter.

Karmic debt averted.

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When it was my brother’s turn however, he looked into the camera and said ‘Hi mama! Hi dada!’

This made my dad very happy to be included, hence, he often retold the story.

Only a year younger than my brother, I made a mental note to be sure to say hello to both parents when it was my turn to be filmed the following year.

My parents came from India in 1970 and put their roots down in the town of Corbett, Oregon in 1975- the year I was born.

Corbett is a small, rural town with a couple of blinking stop lights and at the time, only about 3 families of color- ours being one of them.

The first time I became aware that people saw me through the lens of race was in third grade when it was my turn to be filmed in the Library. Having learned what to do from my brother a year earlier, I was ready.

As she was moving down her list of students, the videographer asked which one of us was Rachel.

Before I could answer, a peer piped up saying ‘the black one!’

I froze. My eyes met the Librarian’s. She was black. I said I didn’t want to go. They asked me if I was sure.

I was sure.

They moved on.

There is no video footage of me saying hi to my mom or dad that day.

I was too busy collapsing into myself.

I hadn’t known that people looked at me by my skin color.

It was the day I realized that I was seen as other.

It was a day when some of my innocence was lost.

Growing up different, more episodes followed.

A boy asked me why I wear lipstick only on one lip. I didn’t wear any makeup at that age and told him so. Another peer, overhearing this, turned around in his seat and said ‘You’re wearing it right now!’

In eighth grade I got on the school bus when an elementary school student stared at me wide-eyed and announced ‘YOU’RE BROWN!’

This is what it was like in 1989 in a small town in Oregon.

None of these incidents embodied prejudice, just a lil ignorance. They’d never come across someone like me before. That’s no one’s fault.

Well maybe the media. Representation matters.

For the longest time, I equated being Indian with being a minority (ironic, I know).

In my youth, I approached every Asian with the friendly vibe akin to that of a golden retriever.

Hey are you Asian? I’m Asian too!

or

Namaste! What part of India are you from?

I was usually met with a frosty attitude that confused me. Most of them were offended to be approached by me on the basis of culture or race.

I was doing to them, what was done to me! I had assumed that they’d grown up anomalous like me, but eventually I figured out that most Asians didn’t grow up isolated from other Asians. Probably because they weren’t raised in a small, rural town as I was.

From the medley of these events, I slowly grew used to the role of cultural mediator. Like a representative, I developed into someone who helps the majority in better understanding the minority, without me taking offense.

I am often found surrounded by those different from me. For example, I’m more liberal in my political views but instead of living in liberal Portland, I live in the conservative suburb of Milwaukie. I have Republicans on all sides of me…and with the exception of one, we all get along. They’ve taken us four-wheeling and shooting guns while I explained the evidence for climate change, around the campfire.

It’s interesting the way our experiences shape us, like spiritual erosion, carving deep canyons into us and revealing our layers. In this layer, you can see where a catastrophic event occurred, and you can see how it served as a foundation for all that was to come later.

Thanks for being here and reading my stories. I feel grateful for your interest and support. <3

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My twenties passed by, then my thirties and still I had not found my mate.

Being single in one’s thirties is like a partner wasteland. It’s like biding time till the next wave of divorces come through.

I know, that’s awful…but still true.

As I approached my forties, I embraced the philosophy of doing more of what I love, but in a public setting. I figured if I was hiking or hunting mushrooms in a group then I was more likely to meet someone like-minded since we shared that common interest.

That is when I joined a marimba band.

As you might recall from a previous story, I love-love-love marimba music.

I finally decided to see if I could play it. Reaching out to a marimba teacher, she found me a spot in a band.

Now this is what I envisioned: Me playing a marimba show with the band and in the audience is my future partner.

He'd see me playing with authentic joy and think to himself ‘Who is that buxom babe with the beautiful energy?!’ Then he’d approach me and we’d build from there.

It turns out my band was a bit shy and we only played one gig a year, which was our recital.

A few years went by and no one approached me at these marimba shows.

So I turned to online dating.

The world of online dating is pretty cringy. I started collecting samples of terrible discourse the same way some folk keep rejection letters - something to scoff at later when one has finally succeeded.

With online dating, it is possible to treat people like a car one wants to buy and run folk through our mental checklist of attributes.

Instead, I learned the art of a blind date; I focused on helping my date feel seen, heard and appreciated. They are just folk like me, trying to find connection.

Around this time, I started having what I call ‘soulmate dreams’. I would wake up remembering the feeling of being wrapped up with someone I felt at total ease with. This sensation was incredibly illuminating for me. It went well beyond the mental checklist to a higher plane of belonging.

Waking up with this sensation of belonging in my body gave me a new sort of touchstone to navigate by. The mental checklist was still valid but a partner that ticked the boxes but whom I didn’t feel at ease with was not the one for me.

Soon after these soulmate dreams, I started chatting on the dating site with a guy named Adam.

He did not tick ALL the boxes! But I recognized the ease I felt with him as the same from my soulmate dreams.

After a year he moved in and we got a couple of kittens.

It wasn’t until a few years into our relationship and engaged, that I thought to ask him how he found me on the dating site. Generally you can type in interests to narrow down your search.

He said he typed in ‘accordion’ and zero ladies popped up.

So then he typed in ‘marimba’…

and there I was.

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‘Are your take-out containers paper…not plastic or styrofoam?’

‘Can I get it in a paper cup instead of plastic?’

‘I brought glass containers, can you put the food in these?’

‘No straws please.’

Once I was doing this routine in front of my other peeps and one of them was struck by the effectiveness of this approach but then he turned to another and asked ‘Should we be doing this too?’

I could tell he was inspired but I was confused why he sought the approval of others. Why not just decide for himself?

For me, the truth has a ring to it. Like a clear chime, and when I hear it, I obey it. I do not look to others to guide my choices. I do what I must do to live up to my own values.

I haven’t posted anything on Substack for a month because, besides grading, I’ve been working on developing an idea for the health of our Nation: The Big Beautiful Boycott.

I know. It’s a lot. Crash the economy? Boycott ALL major corporations instead of cherry-picking the ones to stop supporting? Put the onus on corporations to advocate for the rights of the people?

Yes.

The economy will recover. The corporations can act swiftly to advocate for our needs or they can be unresponsive. How will we live without these entities? I’m curious to find out how, in my own life.

After Thanksgiving, on Black Friday, there was a single day boycott designed to impact the economy as a signal that we control the market and that citizens weren’t happy with our current Administration. It was around then that I saw a post reminding us that the Montgomery Bus Boycott took place over 382 days. It got me thinking that single day boycotts might not be very effective. Especially when consumers plan to just buy the same stuff from the same companies on a different day. That’s not a boycott, that’s just holding your breath.

There have been some successes with boycotts however, the most recent being when 1.5 million customers dropped Disney (and another 2 million dropped Hulu). This boycott was in response to those providers caving under Trump’s FCC chair pressuring them to fire Jimmy Kimmel for having the audacity to make jokes at the expense of the President.

The right to free speech allows for the criticism of our leaders and in protecting this right through boycotting, Disney stock market value dropped by $4.99 billion.1 Disney did a turnabout and brought back Kimmel, allowing the American people to bear witness to their own power.

So I’ve been sharing this flyer amongst the various Indivisible groups across the Nation and while there has been some pushback and also a lot of likes, I keep getting asked the same question: Who is sponsoring this event?

To which I reply: It’s grassroots, baby.

I get it. Folk don’t want to invest or share about an event that is destined to be just a tiny drop in a bucket. Methinks however that it is like my friend that I described earlier- they first want the approval of others before joining in.

‘Someone tell me if I should do this.’

Have you ever watched the Dancing guy video where Derek Sivers points out that a true leader isn’t just the first one to come up with a good idea? In this video he points out that the other leader is the first follower who has the courage and good sense to recognize a good idea and act on it. The video is three minutes long and although a lil shaky, pretty entertaining. Please take a moment to watch it!

Are you back? Isn’t that amazing?

All I ask is that each individual considers for themselves the extent to which they would like to participate in the Big Beautiful Boycott. You want to do a slow rollout? Great. You want to do what you can, but maybe not all? Better than nothing!

Either way, be the spark to ignite the fire.

Our country needs it.

We can’t do another three years of this.

Thank you.

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Sometimes I would lie in bed and make myself cry thinking, “What if my dog died?” Then I worried that putting such dark thoughts out there might make it manifest. This is when I would engage in an elaborate visualization:

I imagined those dark thoughts were written on a page in a book of my mind and I’d tear that page out and crumple it up and then seal it in concrete. Lastly, I’d bury it deep in the ground.

The burying in concrete might’ve been overkill but there was no doubt that imagining tearing out a mind-page was immediately effective.

It felt like I never had the dark thought in the first place.

I don’t know where the instinct to perform this ritual came from, but not only was it highly efficient, it hinted at the nature of trauma and healing. The brain’s grasp of reality and what is considered harmful was something that could be reshaped, rehabilitated and released.

For many years now, I’ve led meditations in my classroom. I invite students to put their heads down or lay on the counters, close their eyes and unwind as I guide them through relaxation and introspective exploration.

Several years ago as students were coming out of a meditation, one of my students said ‘I didn’t see nothing but the back of my eyelids.’

I was shocked! I had no idea that we vary in our capacity to visualize in our mind’s eye.

Recently, around pandemic time, the image below was widely circulated as folk also grappled with the idea that some of us can visualize better than others.

Go ahead and close your eyes and visualize an apple.

With respect to the clarity and detail of the image, where on the scale below does your visualized image most align with?

I, personally, score a one, whereas individuals who score a five have a condition called aphantasia, which is the inability to form mental images.

[Consider telling me in the comments which number you visualize at..I’m very curious!]

So what can one do with this ability to visualize? So much.

Visualizing to release tension

I have twice been told by different massage therapists that they especially enjoy working on me because it feels like we’re working together to heal my body. While my husband says they’re just trying to earn a fat tip $$, it is true that I am not just passively laying there. Instead, with my inhale I imagine breathing in pink, warm light and sending it to the knotted tissue that they are working on. I visualize the muscle fibers gently loosening; unraveling any knots until the fibers are aligned. After all, if thoughts can make us tense, then thoughts can free us as well.

I recently used this visualization to rid myself of a knot in my jaw muscle. I pictured the muscle detached from its tendon so that I could repeatedly comb through it with my energetic fingers. Once combed through, I reconnect the fibers to the tendon.

The knot was there when I woke up and twenty minutes later it was gone before I even got out of bed. Of course if I don’t deal with the cause of the injury, like stress or clenching, the problem will return. Still, it was nice to be free of the pain.

This visualization has helped me avoid getting sick many times as well. If I can avoid throat strain, I can often deter the cold from setting in. Visualizing the throat muscles relaxing in the pink light will often do the trick.

Visualizing to release past traumas

The most powerful meditation I know was taught to me by my transformational growth guide, Adrianne Bell.

This meditation can help heal emotional wounds from the past- distant or recent. I find it shocking that the brain can be guided to let go of trauma as easily as this. Studies have shown however, that the same brain network that underlies memory is also that of imagining, making it less likely for your brain to differentiate between the two.1 We should definitely use this to our advantage.

Here are the steps of what Adrianne dubbed as the…

Rescue Mission Meditation

Find a quiet, private time and location where you won’t be disturbed.

a) Recall a moment in your life when you needed someone to protect you — but protection never came.

b) In the meditation you will go back to right before the negative event occurred. It is crucial that you do not let the negative event replay in your meditation. Instead, your older, wiser self (your current self) is going to step into the scene and remove your younger self from this location before anything happens. You will whisk your younger self away to a comforting location and take care of them. This is not about confronting others. This is a simple act of self-care.

c) In the visualization, the safe place you take them to can be anywhere; like a cabin, treehouse or a beach cabana. Once there, take the time to nurture that younger version of you. Ply them with comfort, be it hot chocolate, a snuggle, listening to them or whatever they need.

d) Bringing the meditation to a close might involve letting your younger self know you’ll keep working to be there for them. Open your eyes to hopefully a new lightness of being. Congratulations. You just protected yourself.

I recommend using this meditation on lighter wounds to begin with. I once used it after a colleague cut in front of me at the copy machine! For whatever reason, I was harping on the incident and this meditation helped me let it go. It basically rewires us.

As for deeper wounds, it’s important to practice caution when working with trauma. Having enough time, space and an available support person (counselor, guide, etc.) to help you process what is being unearthed is prudent. If you’re going to unpack the past, you need enough resources to ensure you can function afterwards…or enough freedom and support to go ahead and be non-functioning for a while.

If you have a memory that is limiting you or a relationship, consider a Rescue Mission meditation. You might even want to schedule some time for one on your calendar right now before rejoining the busy world.

Ripping out mind-pages, muscle relaxation and healing trauma are three areas I’ve found visualizing to be powerfully effective; it has its limits however and should not be used solely in lieu of proper therapy.

Before I had my fibroid embolization procedure, I spent the months leading up to it utilizing acupuncture, castor oil packs and visualizing. The following ultrasound showed negligible results. A tool can be powerful but we need to use the right tool for the right job.

Consider visualization as another tool in your toolkit.

But what about the 2-4% of the population that has aphantasia?2 How can they participate? Perhaps trying to put the visualization in writing or a drawing might be helpful for the one doing the scribing. While this article suggested listening to healing frequencies and meditating with mantras, the comments were full of many more ideas from folk with aphantasia.

Just a reminder to put your visualizing score in the comments!

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We approached a couple of girls on the playground. They were a year older than us.

Erin pitched it. I held up a Garfield drawing.

One of the girls agreed and handed over the change in exchange for my artwork.

She then held up my drawing, looked me in the eyes and smiled as she slowly ripped it in half.

I was fourteen the summer after eighth grade when I started my first real job as a busser at Multnomah Falls Lodge. Troy was the High School kid who washed the dishes in the back.

He gave me a tour of the work area. Troy pointed out the stack of dishes that he’d just cleaned and showed me the location by the cooks that I was to return them to.

Weeks went by with me learning the rhythm of my job. When I was sliding a tall stack of clean plates on the order-up counter, one of the cooks peered at me from the other side and said ‘You know that’s not your job. It’s the dishwasher’s.’

I was peeved.

I went to confront Troy about why he shirked his duty onto me. He shrugged and said he was teaching me a lesson about the way the world works.

Thanks Troy.

If ‘the way the world works’ means: Life is full of unkindness and folk will try to take advantage of you; does that lesson really need to be taught explicitly?Who hasn’t bumped up against it time and time again?

It certainly wasn’t lost on me as a child that every one of my sandcastles that I returned to was flattened with footprints over them.

And of course by now, we have all experienced real darkness, not just these lightweight examples from my youth.

When folk say ‘I’m going to play devil’s advocate’ I tell them the devil doesn’t need any more advocates.

There are already plenty of people in pain…

..and in our confusion, we hurt one another.

Troy wanted me to know the way the world works, but of course the way the world works is not just a storyline of unkindness, deceit and manipulation.

Consider that in the crowded lanes of traffic, everyone pulls over to let the ambulance pass.

Isn’t this our way of rooting for the patient, saying, ‘We want you to live!’?

Aren’t we projecting our love for our own family onto the lives of strangers?

Is that not beautiful, Troy? This is also how the world works.

I love this poem by Danusha Laméris which captures a less cynical view:

Small Kindnesses

I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk
down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs
to let you by.

Or how strangers still say “bless you”
when someone sneezes, a leftover
from the Bubonic plague. “Don’t die,” we are saying.

And sometimes, when you spill lemons
from your grocery bag, someone else will help you
pick them up.

Mostly, we don’t want to harm each other.
We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot,
and to say thank you to the person handing it. To smile
at them and for them to smile back.

For the waitress to call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder,
and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass.

We have so little of each other, now. So far from tribe and fire.

Only these brief moments of exchange.
What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these
fleeting temples we make together when we say,

“Here, have my seat,”

“Go ahead—you first,”

“I like your hat.”

During this Holy-day season, many of us will come together with our tribe and trigger the shit out of one another!

May we lean into faith - that our loved ones want the best for us.

May we lean into grace - take some breathes to move us from reactionary to responsive.

May we get curious - ask questions about where folk are coming from when they say and do the things that rub us the wrong way.

Wishing you all of this and more.

Thank you for spending 2025 with me.

See you in 2026.

-Rachel

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Several years ago, I noticed an interesting phenomenon. When I told moms how much I appreciated their child, I caught their face drop a bit in disappointment.

At first I dismissed it, but over the years I heard several moms mutter ‘I wish they were like that for me.’ Then I realized my praise was hurting these moms. To know their child was more kind to adults other than to the person who’d invested in them most, was disheartening and confusing to the mamas. Does this mean my child doesn’t like me?

When I became aware of the pain this interaction was inflicting, I started offering the moms some reassurance:

Teens will start reaching out to other adults. That is because the last person a kid wants to let down are their parents. They do not want to see the look of pain or disappointment on their loved ones face, so it’s a lower risk to start sharing with other adults -like educators.

Kids don’t love their teachers more than their parents. It’s not even close.

Once at Student-led Conferences, I was talking to a mom and her son. The son was a sweet and shy student who was both polite and studious. Clearly he had a lot going for him but I always perceived this nervous energy from him..like anxiousness to please. I had the feeling that maybe he thought love was contingent upon him being ‘good’ and following the rules. So of course I felt the need to shatter that notion.

I said to the student, ‘Hey, I just want you to know, you are valuable even if you do nothing with your life.’

His mom gasped.

I put my hand on her shoulder and continued to address him.

“And we’re afraid to tell you this because of course we want you to do something with your life..but I know you’re valuable no matter what because you were valuable when you were born..and you were just a little baby doing nothing at all!”

At this, the mom murmured, “That’s true.”

Our value doesn’t go up and down based on how well we’re doing. That would mean that every time we made a mistake, we’d be worth less.

How anxious life can feel when we dread making a mistake when what we really want is to feel good about ourselves and achieve our dreams.

I think we worry if we are gentle with ourselves, we might be setting the bar low.

This, I believe, is a myth.

Meeting myself with compassion and grace actually enables me to do more as a person because I'm not crippled with all those yuck feelings of

guilt

shame

doubt

embarrassment

self-loathing.

I know if I should stumble that I can count on me to be gentle with myself - a soft place to land. This enables me to take more risks and put myself out there more. That is why I am able to publicly post my most glorious and wretched moments here on Substack - if a reader judges me, I’ll still have my own back.

Apparently, not everyone prefers this soft and gentle approach.

I have a friend who likes the rough touch over the gentle. He finds the harshness as motivating. It works for him. Some students have also told me that they respond positively to having teachers and coaches taunt them with put downs about their incapability. It makes them want to prove their teacher wrong.

Interesting.

Maybe it just boils down to different strokes for different folks, but I’m not convinced both approaches are equally effective.

As for the parents that walk away from a Conference with me, I never really know what they are thinking.

I wait for the Principal to approach me and say they got an earful about me.

But it never comes.

Maybe it’s not just the kids walking away with something to chew on.

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So spoke Anne of Green Gables in the first book of the series by Lucy Montgomery. Every year I reread this series because it describes a beautiful, natural world and contains a strong grasp of human nature.

What motivated me to first read the books was my dad telling me that Anne reminded him of me. So of course, I was curious to learn how my dad perceived me.

I take it as a great compliment.

Alas, Anne and I have so much in common that I found myself in the same predicament as she - having accidentally dyed my hair green.

It started last week when students started coming into my room announcing they’d just watched old school video footage that contained scenes of a younger Ms.Hutson from several years ago.

Girls were telling me ‘You were so beautiful!’

And of course, I zoomed in on the word ‘were’.

As in, no longer.

The thing that irritates me is that because I don’t wrinkle easily, I actually look very similar to that younger me, but it’s my hair that ages me because it has gone very gray.

I started to find gray hairs at age 14 -the same age as my students.

I feared I’d be fully gray by the time I was in my twenties -but I didn’t.

Then I expected to go gray in my thirties, but again, I didn’t.

So by the time the gray took over in my forties, I felt pretty fortunate that I had been granted a couple extra decades of raven hair. Thus, with an attitude of gratitude and acceptance, I chose not to hide my gray.

I also see the act of not covering up my gray as an attempt to break the socialized notion that gray hair means old. After all, I wasn’t old at age 14 just because I had gray hair!

Alas, it’s an uphill battle to fight this idea and I often sigh wistfully knowing that I’d gain all the perks of being seen as younger, if I just colored my hair. Perks like not being dismissed as unhip, unsexy, burned out, not with it, etc.

While I do enjoy my silver locks, I occasionally have used henna on the roots. I honestly don’t even know if it made a difference but I guess the act itself made me feel like I was being proactive about my appearance.

This weekend, I woke up with the words ‘were beautiful’ echoing in my head and so I dug in my cupboard for henna.

I found two bottles. One had an expiration of 2020 on it and the other had an expiration of 2022 on it. It occurred to me that this could lead to a color mishap. It also occurred to me that I might tint my hair green like Anne of Green Gables.

These thoughts actually ran through my head and I used the expired henna anyway.

Also, since I was trying to use up all the old henna, I did my whole head and not just my roots.

It wasn’t until my hair was dry that I noticed that my silver hair was now the sickly green shade that happens when blondes get chlorine damage.

I was horrified.

I made things worse!

I ran to the screen door to tell my husband that I was off to the store to get more henna to cover this up!

But even as I turned to leave for the store, I recognized what was motivating me: concerns over what others thought of me. I also recognized this was exactly how I got into this predicament in the first place!

I found myself thinking of Anne. In the story, Anne turns her mirror away, vowing to never look at herself while her hair is still ugly.

In the next moment however, she turns her mirror towards herself again, stating that she’ll face the consequence of her vanity head-on as a sort of penance.

I never left for the store.

I’ll sit with the consequence of my vanity for a bit.

I went to school yesterday with green hair and all day boys and girls inquired about my sickly green tresses. I actually got several compliments too. ‘Mossy’ is the nicest description I’ve heard, given to me by my friend Dominique, who knows comparing me to an ent would improve my outlook on the situation.

When I explained to each of my classes why I haven’t covered up the green, I realized that this is going to serve as a great teachable moment that I’ll be able to reference all year: Can we sit with our mistakes instead of rushing to cover them up as if it never happened? The lesson will sink in deeper if we allow it to.

So often, we rush through discomfort, but hardship often has a message hidden within it.

The accidents and injuries we incur are often telling us to slow down and be here now.

Illness reminds us to rest and restore.

When ordeals come rolling over us, trial after trial, it is often teaching us to practice consistent self-care.

And episodes of embarrassment can often be whispering to have our own back.

But are we hearing these messages and learning the lesson when we rush through the discomfort?

This morning, my daily tarot card reading showed the Five of Pentacles and the message was: Reconnect with your inner worth, detaching it from external circumstances1.

By not rushing out to buy new hair coloring, I’m stepping off the societal hamster wheel that keeps me working to please others.

Instead I am reconnecting with my inner worth -which doesn’t change with my hair color.

The tarot card also offered this advice: Practice self-compassion; understanding that everyone faces periods of uncertainty and challenge.

That’s right. We’re in this together, all wonderfully imperfect and sometimes insecure.

No need to hide it.

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This has been true since I was young..and continues today.

In second or third grade, I had a crush on a boy named Eric. A lot of girls did. They would chase him at recess and try to catch him and kiss his hand. I only watched, sensing that such behavior was not deemed appropriate by my Indian parents.

After many days of watching however, I finally succumbed to my crush yearnings and joined the game and caught Eric and kissed his hand.

I only did this once, because when I got home from school, my mom greeted me by chiding me for chasing boys and kissing them.

How did she know?

Xavier was watching. He told his mom, who in turn called my mom.

Dang Xavier. Really?

Thus, my first exploration into romance was met with some shame.

Don’t chase boys and kiss them. Got it.

But I was still destined to be the one to ask the guy out to prom, so the message to not chase boys didn’t sink in very deep.

Some of my crushes are on old, science guys.

Sometimes they are cartoon dudes.

Certainly there are plenty to crush on in Lord of the Rings [Aragorn, Faramir..]

And of course I crush on real guys in real life.

One time a guy sent me an email containing these blissful sentiments, the likes of which I’d never experienced before:

I wanna see it when you get stoned on a clouded breezy desert afternoon.

I wanna see it when you find out what comets, stars, and moons are all about.

I want to see movies of your dreams.

Swoon.

I’d never been someone’s muse like this before and to inspire such lines that really, truly got me…I was now absolutely hooked on this guy.

Several months went by. I was working at a Thrift store and one of my coworkers was playing some music in the basement.

I stopped in my tracks. I heard those lines. I want to see movies of my dreams. I demanded ‘WHO IS THIS?!’ and he told me ‘Built to Spill’.

And that is when I realized that those lines were not inspired by me, nor penned for me…nor was it probably intended for me to think so. I was just unversed with this amazing band.

Afterwards, I went to many Built to Spill shows, but never heard them play my favorite song ‘Car’ which holds these lyrics. Before their upcoming show, I thought maybe I should make a sign requesting this song so I could hold it up in the audience and they’d see it and play it! But I never made the sign before I headed out.

I got there early so I could be close to the stage. I chatted with the merch guy and told him of my dilemma- that I’d never heard them play my favorite song ‘Car’. Now I wished I had made that sign. The merch guy tore out a page from his notebook and lent me a pen. I folded the paper and made a sign that said ‘Car’. I thought the care I put into the lettering would make it special but when I showed it to the merch guy, he was unimpressed. So I added ‘perhaps?’ to my sign to show a little humility and went to take my place by the stage.

Built to Spill played their set and now we were cheering for an encore. I could actually see their set list on the floor in front of me, including their encore songs and ‘Car’ was not on there. I took my sign and slipped it next to their set list. The band came out and I saw lead Doug Martsch see my sign on the floor and process it for a second. Then he pivoted to face the other guys behind him, murmured something and pointed to the sign and they all nodded.

AND THEN THEY PLAYED CAR !!!!!!!!!!!

Crushes are nothing to worry about. It’s just being good at seeing the beauty in people, characters and art. Just because you see someone’s beauty doesn’t mean you have to act on it.

But when it’s a song you have a crush on, sometimes acting on it hits all the right notes.

HERE is where you too can listen to ‘Car’.

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I have actively been trying to get a grip on my hopeful expectations after being told this year’s batch of 8th graders are the ‘Golden Year’ of lovelies. I don’t want to burden them with my expectations…my desperation for a positive year. They get to be whomever they need to be this year.

So while I bide my time, patiently allowing the relationships to develop naturally, here are some of my favorite conversations and moments from teaching 8th graders over the past 20 years…at least the ones that I can adequately describe.

Bathroom etiquette

I have given up trying to convince the younger generations that it’s not appropriate to have your phone out in a public bathroom. The exact moment I think I gave up is when I had this conversation in class:

Me: Let’s say you’re in the bathroom and you need to take what you know is going to be a noisy poop, but SOMEONE IS IN THERE FILMING A TIKTOK! You’re going to have to sit there and hold it in!

Cohen: Nah…That’s your time to SHINE!

Adipose tissue

Me: [Teaching about the body’s different types of tissues]

Jordan: I hate fat.

Me: Boobs are made of fat.

Jordan: I love fat.

Fashion sense

Isabel: Mr.Loza has the best taste in clothing.

Me: What does that look like?

Isabel: He never wears the same pair of shoes!

Antonio: That’s like the opposite of Mr.Dix. He’s like a cartoon character..like Fred Flintstone..you know how they always wear the same outfit? I can actually tell what day of the week it is by what shirt he is wearing.

If he’s wearing his pink shirt, it’s a Monday.

A Whole new world

Lyric: Why do you have a picture of Aladdin up there?

Me: Because I have a crush on him.

Students: [Appalled] Aren't you married? Isn’t he really young?!

[A couple weeks later]

Lyric: Some of us talked about it and we want to get you a body pillow with Aladdin printed on it. Then you can cuddle with Aladdin.

Me: You can just get me the pillow without him printed on it. I have a really good imagination.

Students: . . .

[A couple weeks later they bring in a pillow with Aladdin’s head printed on it.]

Students: Now you can lay your head on his chest! Now he can show you the world!

The Worst teachers

Last year we had a student that had told at least four of his teachers they were terrible at their job. On various occasions he’d let me know that I didn’t care about my students, that I yapped too much or just didn’t know how to teach.

He had just made such a remark when my colleague and friend, Mr.Dix (mentioned above), stepped into my room. Mr.Dix earned the OnPoint Educator of the Year award a few years ago for his outstanding contributions to our school. He was one of the teachers that this student said was terrible at his job.

Even though I knew better than to take this student’s criticism to heart, it always stung. Yet seeing Dix at my door at that moment suddenly made me realize how ludicrous it was to give any credence to this student’s critiques.

I said ‘Hey, this kid told you that you’re an awful teacher too, right? ….Didn’t you win Educator of the Year..like for the whole State?’

Dix didn’t miss a beat: ‘Why yes I did…’ and extrapolated further upon this point.

I then opened up the cupboard I was leaning against and pulled out two plastic Oscar awards and read what was inscribed upon them: ‘Best 8th grade Science Teacher’ and ‘Best 8th grade Teacher’.

Dix added ‘Oh yeah, that’s when the entire 8th grade class voted and they presented you with those!’

The student asked drily ‘And how long ago was that?’

‘Last year buddy.’

Though the student remained unconvinced, this exchange was very helpful in removing the sting and it’s given Dix and I something to chuckle about.

Welp, here’s to a new year full of stories and struggles and laughs!

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It was so nice to be amidst folk who share a love for Cyndi. I’ve been missing the feeling of commonality these past several years in our Dis-United States of America. I expected a mostly middle-aged crowd, so I was surprised to see that about half the crowd was rather young. The colors, tutus and 80’s flair were well represented.

Cyndi talked about art a lot. This helped me see beyond her trademark crazy hair and fashion - and helped me expand my teenage point of view to that of an adult. She isn’t just out to entertain, she is here to inspire.

And she did.

The morning after the show, I rewatched her old music videos and I realized that while Cyndi has a rockin’ bod and shows a lot of skin, she never seems to use sex as a commodity.

She does not seem to be trying to draw the male gaze.

Feminists don’t seem to agree on what sexual empowerment looks like. Some take the path of raunch aesthetics where women express their sexuality with the intention to embrace and take control over their own bodies and sexual identities.1 This is commonly seen in many artists’ overtly sexual lyrics and choreography.

Female empowerment is complex, so I won’t try to discredit one path over another. I do, however, tend to lean away from hypersexualization.

Growing up as a teen in the 80’s, I remember feeling real anxiety looking at the trending swimsuits at that time. How could I look like that? Especially when I didn’t want to look like that?

Hypersexualization is not an empowering experience for me because there is just so much more to me than what pertains to sex! What about intellect? Humor? Insight? Compassion? Our culture’s fixation on sex feels really shallow to me.

What do the current youth feel when confronted with their own set of cultural role-models? Empowerment? Insecurity? Confusion? Clarity?

We should ask them.

Cyndi didn’t really put pressure on us to manipulate the male gaze. She was modeling how to be unusual. How to be ourselves and show our true colors.2 I’m really thankful for having her as an influence in my life.

I’m writing about this as a follow up to my last post which talked about my first sexual experience. Many have told me their first experience was also pretty awful.

Wouldn’t it be nice if our first sexual experience wasn’t traumatizing? And yet, for so many it is. For this reason, I used to teach a short lesson to my students on sex.

My students felt like they had already learned in health class what I was about to teach them.

So I asked them ‘What do you think I’m about to say?’

They’d predict ‘You’re going to warn us about getting pregnant and getting STDs.’

So you can see that we’re good about teaching youth the physical risks of sex, but who is teaching them about the emotional risks?

We should be. We can’t fail another generation by being closed-mouthed on this topic.

The discussion around sex should involve:

• How to know when you’re ready (Ex: Being able to vocalize that you want to stop).

• Who to choose as a partner (Ex: Someone that you trust will keep your privacy, cares about consent, listens to your needs and can express their own).

• How sex can mean different things to people and it’s helpful to be honest about intentions and be on the same page as your partner with this.

• How to avoid being caught in unwanted and unsafe situations (Ex: Making a plan with your friends).

• The inherent power dynamic involved with sex and the burden that comes with both sets of anatomy. (Ex: Guys are often burdened with the expectation to know what they’re doing. In reality there should be consistent check-ins between both partners.)

• Forgiveness and healing can occur should we screw up.

What else?

I think asking youth to turn to one another and practice saying out loud ‘Actually, I changed my mind’ helps normalize speaking up as well as stores this verbiage somewhere in the brain.

One year, when marijuana was in heavy use amongst my 8th graders, I tried passing each of them a crayon like it was a joint and asked them to practice turning me down gracefully. Listening to an adult warning you of risks is one thing, but practicing the skill of using our words to advocate for ourselves is more empowering.

I’m sure the appropriate age to be having this conversation with youth, varies with each individual. I think age 13 or 14 is appropriate because teen sex is happening around them by that age.

Under one Principal, I was once asked to put my sex-talk on hold for three months until I got it cleared with the Assistant Superintendent (who ended up fully endorsing my talk). When I finally gave that year’s sex-talk, one of my girls sadly said ‘I wish you gave this talk three months ago’.

You know what that means.

She isn’t alive today. She ended up getting pregnant young and having a baby who died young. She struggled with her grief for months but ended up soon following her baby off this world. I don’t have all the details and I don’t mean to oversimplify a complex situation; but I can’t help but think that if her first sexual experience was healthier, it would’ve put her on a different path.

We need to have these conversations to prevent the trauma and to help heal the trauma. A good place to start the conversation is by sharing your own experiences and asking our teens some questions:

• How do our youth feel about themselves when they see sexualized celebrities?

• What kind of messaging are they receiving about how they should look and behave?

• What makes them feel good about themselves?

• What makes them feel bad about themselves?

• What percent of their peers do they think are engaging in smoking pot? Nicotine? Taking pills? Having sex?

• Do they feel pressured? To do what?

• Do they know they can count on you to support them without fear of them disappointing you?

• Do some roleplay where they have to use their words and actions to get themselves out of awkward situations.

  There is a share button below. Send it to those who have young folk of any gender so that the conversations can flow. And remember, our boys need this support too.

Thoughts on supporting our youth through the trials of life? Please share it in the comments.

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After writing those, I had a few days where I woke up feeling really good. Better than I’ve felt in awhile. I felt like I was speaking truth to some perpetuated bullshit in our community.

Maybe that’s why I’m going to take this further. Allow me to offer you some of my backstory on how I became someone who thinks she’s expert enough to offer support on becoming a good friend to oneself.

**Please be advised this shit is about to get deep & delve into uncomfortable topics. Here is the thing: Becoming a better friend to oneself involves healing, which involves tending to wounds, which involves dealing with uncomfortable shit. I can’t avoid it if I’m doing my job. All I can do is warn you about it so you can decide when you’d like to read this, if at all.**

I was twenty-one when I did my first introspective deep-dive.

At that time, I had just earned a D in Organic Chemistry which prevented me from finishing my last year of college as a Bio major. If I wanted to retake the class, I’d have to wait a full year for the Fall term to swing back around.

Now, being the child of Indian immigrants, I was raised very conservatively in some manners. As such, I had waited till my early twenties before having sex. Unfortunately, waiting that long did not ensure me a positive first experience. Like many first-timers, I had gotten myself into a situation that I didn’t know how to get out of. So instead of speaking up and saying

‘Actually I changed my mind, let’s spoon instead’,

I just went through with it.

Turns out, doing so was my deepest act of self-betrayal…

…and I was going to spend the next few months pretending that wasn’t true.

So I got depressed.

Because I couldn’t fully move forward with my degree, I dropped out of college for a term. I also quit my new job as a tech-support and lived off my savings.

Without work, school, a partner or kids, I was able to explore the dark side. MY dark side.

For days, I lay in bed agonizing over all the cringy things I’ve ever said and done…combing through recent years, back into my teens, all the way to childhood.

Days grew into weeks as I brought up all the fake ways I’d been in the world - like laughing at jokes I didn’t really get or pretending I was chewing gum when I wanted to feel cool in middle school (lol, I didn’t have real gum).

Weeks turned into months as I faced the meanest version of me - that time I pressed my friend to admit she wasn’t as smart as me.

I had some concept in my mind that if I faced all of this ick and came to terms with it, it would set me free.

That part was true.

I no longer walk around afraid someone might reflect back something that I don’t want to see in myself. I’ve already acknowledged it and made peace.

I also hypothesized if I continued on this downward spiral, that I’d come out on the other side of the upward spiral into some pure land of enlightenment.

I was wrong about that.

One day I was lying in bed as usual, curled up in a heap of despair, when I had a vision. Maybe it was an out-of-body experience because my point of view was hovering near the ceiling, looking down at myself. Instead of my flesh, what I saw was a skeleton of me curled in the exact position my body was currently in.

That is when I realized the downward spiral leads to death.

After all, I wasn’t eating much during those months and I was sort of wasting away. Apparently, while confronting our dark side is beneficial, there is such a thing as going too far.

In the instant I had the vision of my lil’ skeleton curled up like that, I stopped downward-spiraling and began to make my way back up.

It was a slog.

I didn’t know where the path to healing lay.

This was 1996 and the internet was still empty of resources. Podcasts didn’t exist. Oprah and Brené hadn’t come to our rescue yet and self-help wasn’t the $65 billion market it is today.1

So I began to sniff around the original wound, the one that sent me reeling down the spiral.

You would think that in all that facing my dark-side stuff that I’d have confronted the actual mistake I had made: sleeping with the wrong guy. But no, actually I was blaming him entirely.

Step one of healing is to admit the wound & experience the surrounding feelings.

When I finally faced the wound, I discovered my shame at putting my own needs aside. I hadn’t advocated for myself. I also realized I’d actually sent my inner child away that night to protect her from the awfulness of doing something that I didn’t want to do. A total break in my integrity, a breach of my self-trust - I didn’t want her to see that.

This was the wound that needed healing. But instead of facing it and tending to the wound, I spent three months avoiding it -ironically, avoiding it while facing every other dumb thing I’ve done, but avoiding it nonetheless.

This created an even deeper wound.

So the solution became clear. Let me tend to the wound..

..and meet myself without judgment and instead with gentle nurturing.

Step two of healing involves asking oneself with genuine care: What was going on for me when I made my ineffective decision?

A whisper of the truth came up: I was afraid that if I said ‘stop’ and he didn’t, then it would be rape…and I didn’t want to be raped. So I didn’t say ‘Stop, I changed my mind!’ Instead, I wanted him to read my mind..to pick up on signals of my discomfort. Which he did not (or ignored).

Oof.

Step three of healing: Meet oneself with empathy.

That felt like a really scary situation to be in..and I told myself how sorry I was to put myself in that position with someone I didn’t trust.

I cried a lot of tears and pleaded for my inner child to come back to me. If she was there, her guiding voice had gone quiet. I made a promise to her that I’d never cast her away again.. that she could have the passenger seat in this vehicle and that I’d always follow her guidance..because honestly, my girl has great instincts.

Step four of healing involves asking oneself: What would I do differently next time?

If you’ve ever had an experience incessantly hound you, nipping at your heels- I think it is because our brain doesn’t trust that we’ve learned the lesson yet. This step helps our brain let go of the event because we’ve identified a more effective path for future use.

What I would do differently is that I’d listen to my inner guidance and share the best of me with only those who’ve earned my trust.

It took several months to regain my self-trust and many more years to really solidify it. It involves taking one step at a time and in every step making sure it is in alignment with my values.

It involves listening to the subtle guidance within me:

• Did something make me tense up? Cringe? Hold my breath? Did my mood just drop a level?

• Or did something make me light up? Relax my shoulders? Deepen my breathing? Feel at ease?

• What am I feeling? What do I need? Do I have an intuition? Did I receive any other guidance from within?

I’ve kept my promise to my inner lil’ boo by listening to all of these guidance systems with most every step. When I mess up, I try and acknowledge it sooner than later so I can learn from it and forgive myself..which is the final step.

Step five of healing is to forgive oneself.

Earlier I said that making my poor choice where I didn’t advocate for my needs was my deepest act of self-betrayal, but I hope you noticed that it wasn’t making a poor choice that was the problem; it was the pretending, the ignoring, the dismissing of my own experience that was the deepest act of self-betrayal. For three months, I didn’t acknowledge my feelings of shame for the role I played in my own injury. Acknowledging my inner truth wasn’t when I suffered most, it’s when my suffering transformed into learning and healing began.

How can we love ourselves if we have parts that we refuse to acknowledge?

We’re allowed to screw up.

Being human is a bumbling experience and when we know better, we do better.

Once again, the steps that helped me heal:

1. Admit the wound & feel our feelings.

2. Ask: What was going on for me when I made the ineffective decision?

   [We can also ask: What was going on for the other person?]

3. Meet oneself with loving empathy.

4. Ask: What would I do differently?

5. Forgive myself and let it go.

If we can admit our ineffective behaviors sooner, we’ll suffer less…and while it’s an inevitable part of life, I’m all for less suffering.

The great spiritual irony is that leaning into our suffering is the way to suffer less.

Sidenote: I think there is a lot more to say on some of these topics and so I’ll likely do a follow-up post.

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On the first day of this summer break, I was re-watching a YouTube video I found in the memories. When it ended, I was too busy scooping through cat litter, so it cued and began playing a new video. Serendipitously, it was exactly what I was thirsting for.

The video showed a picture of Maya Angelou, and suddenly my bathroom was filled with her voice, steadily speaking her truth in the rhythmic cadence she is known for.

She was saying exactly what I wanted to hear.

Recall that I was stepping out of the loneliest school year in my career, where the students had shielded hearts. Alas, in the last two months, my colleagues also left me high and dry because I showed up strong for the 8th grade end of year events and some weren’t able to acknowledge my contributions.

But Maya was telling me exactly what I longed to hear:

People might not know your story but they feel

your strength. They feel your freedom and

sometimes they feel their own chains

tighten in comparison. That is not your

burden to carry. You didn't ask to be the

mirror, you simply learn to stand without

shrinking and that alone unsettles those

who haven't yet remembered how.

Oh my gosh, YES.

Finally some validation! And from someone so wise!

Hearing this is what stirred up the last few stories I’ve shared here.

The story of being isolated, ignored and targeted after being deemed the ‘more privileged’ one in the group of teachers of color.

They do not see you, they see what they

haven't healed, and in their rush to

protect themselves from their own wounds,

they wrap you in misunderstanding and

call it truth.

Or the tale of being targeted as the ‘weak link’ at the geology camp.

Your confidence,

even when quiet,

becomes a mirror to their insecurity.

Your independence,

even when soft and subtle,

becomes a threat to their need for validation

so they assign you roles you never auditioned for.

Thank you Maya!

This is what I suspected but could never find reference to in my spiritual books. Buddha, Jesus, Thich Nhat Hanh, Ram Dass, Pema Chodron, his Holiness the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu never talked about folk in this way. They’d keep urging me to center myself in compassion. But how nice to finally get some validation from Maya Angelou that these conflicts weren’t really about me.

It did seem odd however, for Maya to be pointing fingers like that when the other wise folk did not.

In fact, in reading some of her other works, she never really adopted this tone before.

. . .

That is when I started to question if Maya Angelou was the actual author of those comforting words. After all, the video didn’t show her speaking them. When I copied and pasted excerpts into the search bar, it wasn’t recognized.

Looking at the YouTube video for clues, there were no references as to where this speech came from..but under ‘How this content was made’ was the suspicious label ‘Altered or synthetic content’.

Oh damn. Did I just find reassurance and healing from a bot?!

I dug deeper and found that there is AI that impersonates Maya Angelou in both voice and writing. I even pasted the video’s text to the bot and asked if she wrote it. Maya-bot said she had not written it but praised it for its message.

I then informed the bot that the author was pretending to be her and then Maya-bot got dismayed.

So Maya-bot says that even if the sentiments of which I felt validated by weren’t written by her, what does it matter?

And yet it matters.

Why do the wise never point fingers?

I want to point fingers because I was the target of unkindness and I suffered because of it. I spent time considering that the problem lay with me, only to conclude that I think the ostracizing stems from within others.

For what reason would one seek to ostracize another?

For starters, I think it helps folk feel better about themselves.

‘The ultimate cause of ostracism is not to hurt the ostracized person but self-protection.’1

In two of the scenarios the folk were strangers, but at work the people ostracizing me are actually my friends and it only becomes a problem when I really turn on my A-game.

“..Cultures with strict norms, who discourage dissent, will sometimes outcast individuals who are high-performing and overly altruistic in action. They hypothesize such employees raise the bar too high, surpassing work production and creativity norms, and make some colleagues feel poorly about themselves for not being better stewards of others. To reestablish group membership, the high performer is pressured to play small or resign, perpetuating a stifling and sometimes toxic workplace culture.” (2)

Yeah, I can’t play small, but I’m sorry to say that resigning has been crossing my mind. Work is hard enough but is pretty awful when one doesn’t fit in. This is one of the shifts that occurred during my year off: I lost my place of belonging.

Speaking of belonging, I think the other reason why folk choose to ostracize others is that it creates a sense of belonging between those doing the isolating. If you’re not the outsider, it makes you an insider!

“..Research shows that ostracization is contagious. The fear of social exclusion is so salient, most bystanders will adopt the behavior of the aggressor, ensuring their “in-group” membership, as opposed to risking possible retaliation for questioning group norms. Once a target is identified for exclusion, mass mobbing may follow, intensifying the pain and scope of the ostracization.”2

American politics is one of the most obvious places to witness this. When I interact with strangers, sometimes they’ll drop a disparaging remark against Biden and wait to see how I respond. This is their way of assessing whether I’m part of their ‘in-group’. They want to bond through having a common enemy.

While I’m not sure if it is common for Liberals to politically bait folk like this, the reality is that all of the ostracizers in my stories are liberal folk, so this in-group behavior runs across the board.

In each of my cases, there was an aggressor as well as followers. From what I’ve surmised, I’d say each of the aggressors has something to prove and they use running down their target to make themselves look and feel better -a mentality of ‘I’ll be the brightest flame if I blow out the others’.

The followers are also seeking something; I’d guess safety and belonging. Alas, meeting their needs this way comes at the cost of their kindness, integrity and free thinking.

There are more effective coping mechanisms for both the aggressors and followers to use, ones that don’t result in damaging the community. My favorite of them all is to be on one’s own side. Become a soft place to land for oneself, so that making mistakes isn’t a high stakes loss. Take time to celebrate one’s own successes every day, even the mundane ones, so that our cup is full and not empty. This can look like journaling or running through our successes in our head before we fall asleep or before we get out of bed.

When we find belonging with ourselves, we don’t need to earn it by following others. When we find belonging with ourselves, we no longer need to bring others down to make ourselves look and feel good.

We already belong. We already feel good. We are enough.

For those on the receiving end of being cast out, Maya-bot left me with some parting wisdom. Quoting the real Maya Angelou:

You may write me down in history

With your bitter, twisted lies

You may trod me in the very dirt

But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Maya-bot urged me to rise above my judgments of those who treated me this way. I shall try. Even as I type this I can already sense a shift within me because after all, it’s not the hardest thing to see one another’s humanity and offer grace.

Note: The YouTube channel has since included a disclaimer acknowledging that it’s not an actual recording of Maya Angelou but is inspired by her. Maybe the Maya-bot gave them a piece of her mind! Or maybe it was me.3

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