Hopeful Narratives

Thanks to each of you for pausing for a moment, putting down your struggle, taking a breath, and hearing that you are okay just as you are right now. Thanks to each of you who leaves behind the numbing blanket of denial to explore your individual history of abuse and trauma. Thank you for stepping… Read More

As we navigate life’s choices, we usually reach a decision by a combination of checking inside ourselves, researching options, asking others for advice, and flipping a coin. Sometimes none of that works and we find ourselves deadlocked, unable to settle on a resolution. An inner deadlock can be an intense battle, with constant internal arguments,… Read More

How do you respond when you make a mistake? Do you take it in stride? Crumple in shame? Panic? What we count as a mistake and how we respond depends on our current resources as well as how mistakes were treated as we grew up. Inexperience Children naturally make a lot of mistakes. As we… Read More

Ideally, as we grow up we learn to balance consideration for others with consideration for ourselves. We see the adults around us treating others and themselves with care. We experience being treated with care. We are directly taught to lift our attention from our immediate concerns to include the concerns of the people around us…. Read More

Content Note: Ableist language used as negative examples. As we walked along, my friend tripped over a raised bit of sidewalk. “Pick up your feet!” she scolded herself. I could imagine her four-year-old self being dragged by the hand as her mother scolded her in exactly those words a half-century earlier. Oppression by default We… Read More

Jacinta realized she was angry about not being heard. She said to her friend Reya, “I’m mad about our translation project. I still think this idiom isn’t quite right.” Reya said flatly, “I disagree.” Jacinta took a deep breath and tried again. “I really appreciate that you did this translation. Your technical Spanish is much… Read More

When we simultaneously feel that we “should” get a lot of paying work done and “should” do self-care and “should” maintain a clean home and “should” make the world a better place, we feel shame that we are failing in so many ways. We can reframe our thoughts by replacing “should” with “could.” “Should” makes… Read More

In her presentation for Write/Speak/Code 2016, Naomi Ceder describes how our narrative about a situation controls the options we have. When she was young, the narrative she saw about trans people was one of sickness, wrongness, and absence of hope. The only way to transition was to renounce contact with all current family and community…. Read More