🧵 How are you taking back your power?
Hey friends!
Today is a discussion thread and I’m opening up comments to everyone! I miss having the comments free and open, like back in the day when greencard-holders could protest peacefully in this country without fear of being disappeared.
As I write my memoir, I’m reflecting on the stories we tell ourselves. I don’t know about you, but my mood, health, and relationships shift based on my shifting self-narratives. My narrative can swing from feeling trapped and victimized to taking back agency and turning lemons into lemonade.
The past few months have seen tremendous upheaval. It’s overwhelming. As a teacher and mom of neurodivergent kiddos, COVID plus massive cuts to education have been a rollercoastering house of horrors. Throw in perimenopause, adolescent kids, and suddenly homeschooling my daughter, and the story I tell myself is often one in which I am trapped in small boat in a gale force storm.
It’s easy it is to fall into a negative mindset, so I’ve decided to reclaim my power by planning protests, building community, and advocating for education. I’m helping organize this protest, and will be speaking about education and how my daughter will lose rights and protections if the DOE is dismantled.
While I’m unsure of the overall effectiveness of protests, they offer catharsis, foster community, and inspire hope. It's empowering to take action rather than feel like a victim.
Meanwhile I continue serving on the board of Mudrooms, organizing monthly shows where folks from the community share stories, creating connections and community.
In fact, there’s a show tonight! Come out if you’re in Juneau! All proceeds go to a local nonprofit.
So, how are you taking back your power? How are you writing your own story and developing agency now?
Sound off in the comments!
Love,
Summer 💖
Taking action is one way to reclaim power. But power is also about our being--literally, our energy-consciousness. Those stories you know on your conscious mind, Summer, arise out of stories you tell yourself about yourself at the emotional (subsconscious) level of your being. Taking back power is also about bringing those subconscious stories to your conscious mind, examining them, deciding to make new decisions, and releasing the self-judgments on which we base those self-stories. Then we reclaim our power, which is a part of our energy-consciousness that self-judgment rips from us and holds away from us so we can't use it. That's why we feel powerless in the first place. All of us are missing parts of our energy-consciousness. It like that stupid Airborne commercial showing a man freaking out because he suddenly sees holes in his immune system. There are gaps in our being--and thus our power--and only we can fill them. But we always have help.
Yikes! My heart goes out to you, Summer, and other parents these days with children at home… It was hard enough 20-25 years ago when my little ones were growing up. 💔😳
The writings of Carlos Castaneda taught me years ago that a Warrior acts for the sake of acting, knowing that the consequences are beyond us. So we ACT. I, too, wonder if it does any good. But we sleep better at night and have more peace knowing we’ve done what we can. And they see us! Even if it doesn’t change policy they know the people are opposed to them, and no government or organization can be sustained when its people are against it. Thank you for your inspiring words! ✌️💪🏾💥