Chasing (choosing) the sun.
It's amazing what spring does to ones soul. With the snow (finally) melting away, the sun shining longer throughout the days and the birds singing louder on the newly budding trees, life all of a sudden just seems more hopeful. That is how I am feeling today.
But first, let me tell you how I got there.
Today I learned something new. It's a phenomenon called negativity bias, and we all have it. Since the beginning of humans actually. In a nutshell, negativity bias is "the psychological phenomenon by which humans have a greater recall of unpleasant memories compared with positive memories. People are much more biased to the avoidance of negative experiences and they tend to behave in ways that will help them avoid these events. With this, humans are much more likely to recall and therefore be influenced by the negative experiences of the past."
One of my family's favourite animated movies of the past year was The Croods and that family's mantra is a perfect illustration of negativity bias at work.
The main character, Eep, starts the movie narrating and sets the stage:
"My name is Eep. And this is my family, the Croods. If you weren't clued in already by the animal skins and sloping foreheads, we're cavemen. Most days we spend in our cave, in the dark. Night after night, day after day. Yep, home sweet home. When we did go out, we struggled to find food in a harsh and hostile world. And I struggled to survive my family. We were the last ones around. There used to be neighbors. Uh, the Gorts, smashed by a mammoth. The Horks, swallowed by a sand snake. The Erfs, mosquito bite. Throgs, common cold. And the Croods, that's us. The Croods made it, because of my dad. He was strong, and he followed the rules. The ones painted on the cave walls. Anything new is bad. Curiosity is bad. Going out at night is bad. Basically, anything fun is bad. Welcome to my world!"
Or very simply, as Thug, the dad, puts it, "Never NOT be afraid."
The problem with negativity bias and this kind of thinking is that the part of our brain that still tends to behave like that of a caveman (the amygdala or "primitive" brain) is wired to go negative and store all of that information for easy access. All our childhood (and adulthood) experiences, both experienced and seen are in there and as a result our brains are programmed to overestimate threats and underestimate opportunities and resources. This all served us very well, way back when food was scarce and the risk of getting eaten by a tiger or smashed by a mammoth were imminent. Nowadays though, this kind of thinking gets us into more trouble than we think. We are a world filled with anxiety, fear and unease. We are constantly being fed a steady diet of negativity, through the news, social media, TV shows and movies. It has gotten to the point that the positive things that happen in our daily lives can seem too small and insignificant when compared to all the terrible/awful/really bad things happening in our big world.
What's even worse than the negativity bias that makes us anxious and afraid of our big world is the smaller, and perhaps even more insidious negativity bias that affects us in our own minds. Some of you know this phenomenon as the bitch in the corner, others know it as the lizard brain, and some call it the little hater. It's that voice in our head that tells us we are not _______ enough. That voice that keeps us from doing or being our wholehearted selves, because of the fear, the doubt and the insecurity that it brings with it.
~~~~~
I started part two of the Brene Brown "Gifts of Imperfection" course this past week and ALL of the homework was centred around creativity and embracing ourselves as creative beings. We even had to print that on a piece of paper and place it where we can see it (and say it) everyday.
See...
And then we had to start to heal our creative wounds. The ones that we heard as kids, the ones that we inflict upon ourselves via our little haters or the ones that we internalize from the world and society around us.
I had some wounds left over from my childhood that I didn't realize still hurt ("You just don't have a dancer's body") and then there are the ones that I hear daily either from myself or that I perceive from others ("You are not the creative/play parent" and the ever present "You are not a writer, you are just a blogger.") Putting the bandages on those wounds seemed silly at first, but choosing the words to heal them was the real medicine.
And that is what it all comes down to in the end.
A choice.
Do I choose to believe the words that wound or the ones that heal? Do I choose to listen to the little haters in my mind or tell them to shut the hell up? Do I choose to live in fear, always with a certain threat level activated or do I choose to push past the fear and negativity and see the positive, no matter how small?
In The Croods, Eep and her family had to change the rules, they had to abandon their fears, reach for the sun and follow it until tomorrow. They had to evolve past the negativity bias in their brains and choose not only to live, but to live with intention. And if animated cavemen can do it, I think I can manage it too.
And that is why I am feeling hopeful today.
Because...
Every Moment is a Choice.
Retreat to the dark cave or reach for the sun?
N~
happy friday
My kids are at a sleep over at Auntie's house. We have late dinner reservations (seriously, it feels SO weird to be eating at 8:30 PM!) and although the weather says otherwise here on the Prairies, it is new Spring blog header day!
And it is Mr. Roger's birthday today and he said some pretty cool things in his day.
Have a fabulous weekend everyone!
n~
Why do we fall?
I live with superheroes. Seriously, I literally have superheroes all over my house.
A life-sized Captain America shield - check. Thor's Hammer - check. Collectors edition Superman and Spiderman figurines - check. Silver Surfer doing a drop-in off the top of my bed - check. And this is not even the tip of the superhero iceberg. There are toys, lego sets, books, anthologies, DVDs and boxes full of vintage comic books.
All of this is my husband's doing. He grew up reading comic books with his father and brother and learning life lessons from his heroes. He is now passing down that love and those lessons to our children and I have to admit, to me as well.
So, it came as no surprise to me that in thinking about vulnerability and doing some of the "homework" assignments for the Brene Brown Gifts of Imperfection course that I am doing, that one particular lesson from a superhero movie came to mind.
I have been taking a wee break from some of my social media sites this month and have had some time to really think about what effect social media has on me personally. Specifically, I have been staying off of Twitter and severely limiting my time on Facebook and Instagram. The effects of this tiny break have already been seen by my family and have given me some new perspective on how I interact and with whom on the internet.
There has been much written in the past few months about the toxicity of Twitter, especially within the circles of feminism. Michelle Goldberg's piece in The Nation on Feminism's Toxic Twitter Wars set of a veritable toxicity shit-storm across the interwebs and spawned yet another catchy, let's all be sarcastically and aggressively passive aggressive, hashtag called #whitefeministrants. Which, when you sit back and look, in my humble {and yes, white, feminist} opinion, does nothing more than add to the growing vat of toxic "talk" going back and forth. Many a post has been written in response to Goldberg's piece, but what Jessica Wakeman at the Frisky wrote struck me as the closest to the way I see things.
"The toxicity in online feminism contributes to the tuning out of the privileged folks who we all want to be listening. It’s a despairing twist after white feminists have shut out WOC feminist for so long, straight cis women have shut out trans and lesbian women for so long, and men have shut us all out for so long. The solidarity that I believe in is one where we make an effort, for our own betterment and each other’s. It’s one where we listen and learn and don’t jump to conclusions or interpretations of bad faith. It’s one where people who make a good faith effort — be they male or female, straight or gay, cis or trans, white or biracial or WOC — are given the benefit of the doubt. It’s a solidarity that is, above all, kind."
Kindness. There's a thought. What ever happened to that? Can it truly exist online?
~~~~~
The so-called "Mommy Wars" are waged silently and not so silently all over the place, with judgement canons shot daily from all camps. Gasps of "Oh, no she did not!" and "OMG, I would never" and "what the heck is she trying to prove" are heard/read/interpreted and internalized all over Facebook/Pinterest/Instagram and Twitter. Myths abound about doing it all, having it all and finding that mythical land called "Work-Life-Balance" and/or the peaceful island of "ME-time". Media images of being "mom enough" bomb us from every corner, while various labels of what kind of mom you are make it easy for new recruits to pick a side.
We make fun of celebrities choice of clothing, how much weight they gain during pregnancies and what they name their children. We jump all over a mom who writes a post reflecting her value system when teaching her sons about responsible Facebook use or crucify a woman for breastfeeding a three year old and judge her with ridiculous puritanical outrage while simultaneously 'liking' every naked-but-body-painted Swimsuit Illustrated image. And we @ and hashtag to death anyone who dares write something online (however well-researched it may be) that doesn't somehow address all of our collective experiences, cultures, identities and privilege or lack thereof. Our righteous indignation over the most minute of things becomes entangled with true outrage over really important issues, the result of which is a flattening of our response to people, a deadening of our compassion and a alarming foray away from empathy and kindness towards our fellow humans.
In other words, I can't help but feel like no one is allowed to fall anymore.
~~~~~
We have to fall. Like Thomas Wayne says, it's the only way we learn how to get back up. We teach this to our kids everyday. When they fall of their bikes, we teach them to brush themselves off, treat that little bit of road rash as a wicked cool battle wound and get back on their bikes. When they don't get something right the first time, we encourage them to try again. To figure out what went wrong and make the necessary changes to do it better. We teach them that anything worth doing takes practice and patience and perseverance and that in the end they will be rewarded for their efforts. We don't expect perfection from them and when they fall -- and they will fall -- we are there to help them up, to show them kindness and compassion and to encourage them to try again.
But if you are a grown up? Well, it seems the world has different expectations past a certain age.
Somehow as grown-ups we are expected to know it all. We are expected to know how to handle any and all people, situations and life events that come our way. We are constantly being told that "we should know better", but not allowed to make the mistakes that would enable us to learn those important lessons of knowing better. We are all human and we make mistakes. We mess up. We say the wrong thing. And sometimes we make the wrong choice. We simply can't know everything about everyone and every situation and so, we fall.
It is in this falling that we learn. We learn more about who we are, we learn more about the people, places and things in our world, and we learn how to get back up and try again, this time with our new knowledge to help guide us. In falling we recognize our own humanity and that we must be kind to ourselves, speak encouraging words to our inner 'kid who just fell off her bike', brush ourselves off, take a deep breath and get back up. And when we see someone else fall, we must resist the urge to point and pass judgement and announce to everyone around us just how bad a fall it was. We must instead, reach out a hand, help them up and recognize ourselves in that person and their fall. We have to let them know that they are not the only ones who fall and practice a level of compassion and kindness that we would want given to us in a similar situation.
In our overly-critical, hyper-sensitive, online world it's very easy to become afraid to fall for fear of the backlash and instant judgement that our connectedness enables. We are afraid to take a stand on something, because it may not be a popular one. Afraid to admit to doing something that breaks the illusion of perfection and put-togetheredness that we feel we must portray for the world. Afraid to call yourself a feminist because, while you believe in equality and the concept of feminism, you do not want to be lumped in with "that" group. Afraid to admit that you sleep with your kid most nights because that is the only way anyone gets any sleep, because that would make you one of those crazy hippy-dippy co-sleeping moms. This fear can be overwhelming for some and I fully admit that I have felt it more lately than at any other time on the internet and it's made me question what I 'put out there'. For the first time in a long time, I am afraid of being vulnerable (of falling) and that is not ME.
In the end, I have to tell myself that all falling really is, is admitting that I don't know it all, that I will always have more to learn in my lives and that it is OK to actually do that. That it is actually imperative for all of us to do that. And yes, sometimes when we fall, we'll get a bit beat up and a bit of road rash under our skin. Those are the battle wounds and scars that remind us of our falls, of how we got back up again and what we learned through it all.
Because really, where would the world be if Bruce Wayne never learned to pick himself up?
Natasha~
Selfie: An Official Word.
In honour of Selfie becoming the official word of the year according to the smarty-pants peeps over at Oxford Dictionaries, I give you 13 of my very own selfies.
The good, the bad, the 'what the hell was I thinking', and the 'yeah, that's right, I did just post that SELFIE all over the internet, future employers be damned'!
~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~
1. The 'Look I am at the hospital and they made we wear this ugly gown.' selfie.
2. The 'Trapped under a sleeping child.' selfie.
3. The 'Look how artistic I am, I caught myself in a ray of sunshine.' selfie.
4. The 'My kid is the handsomest EVER' selfie.
5. The 'Duckface' selfie. (I am so, so, sorry!)
6. The 'I don't really go to the gym, I swim instead and look like a dork in my swimcap.' selfie.
7. The 'make a funny face and stand sideways so you look slimmer' obligatory, bathroom selfie.
8. The Pet Selfie. (That took 15 takes!)
9. The 'Look at me, I got caught in a torrential rainstorm.' selfie.
10. The 'fresh out of the shower' selfie. What? Cleanliness and Godliness and all that....
11. The 'kissing my little mini-me' selfie.
12. A picture of a POLAROID selfie! (This shit is GOLD people!)
13. And finally, the 'its -30 degrees Celcius and this smile is actually frozen on my face' selfie.
LONG LIVE THE SELFIE!!
natasha~
For your viewing pleasure...
Here's the deal. I had this really deep, insightful post that I was working on earlier today... and then something shiny must have grabbed my attention, because I totally lost my train of thought and couldn't get it back on track to save my life or the post, which is now sitting in my ever growing draft folder. BUT...
I really, really wanted to publish something today and I have been watching videos on Youtube for the last 40 minutes. So now you get a list of what makes me cry, laugh, laugh some more and then drool. I won't blame you if you never want to come back again... but I do hope you will. Please tell me some of you 'get me'.
1. This one might make you cry. I did.
[youtube]http://youtu.be/TUM4Mb9rUTU[/youtube]
2. I know you've probably all seen "The Fox" video from Ylvis, but this one is my new fave!!
[youtube]http://youtu.be/PaEnaoydUUo[/youtube]
3. Best poop commercial EVER! Also, B tells me that they have some of this at his office and it totally works!
[youtube]http://youtu.be/ZKLnhuzh9uY#aid=P-6YCzt26Ik[/youtube]
4. Miley Cyrus released her new video last week and then this happened! I can't stop laughing!
[youtube]http://youtu.be/2XQGcMrq4bQ[/youtube]
5. Not a video, but you have to check out these shots of my TV boyfriend, Kit Harington. Makes me wish Winter would just get here already (sadly it won't until Spring 2014)!! Mama needs some SNOW!
Good night all!
natasha~
Dinos and darlings
I had a lovely, but long day. I just dragged my fully dressed and almost fully asleep butt out of my daughter's organic, all-natural, 2 inches of wool topper, ridiculously comfortable bed just so I can write something.
I barely have the strength for this, but a #summerblogchallenge is a summer blog CHALLENGE damn it!
We spent the first part of today exploring prehistoric times at our local, uber-cool, full-sized-mechanical-dinosaurs theme park/forest and the afternoon playing at my sister's acreage.
The kids roared and stomped and climbed and dug for fossils and hatched out of giant eggs, all while Lil' C schooled us with the details of his favourite dinosaurs. At my sister's place, they caught frogs and grasshoppers and made gobble-y noises at the not-so-baby-anymore turkey babies.
After a quick car-nap on the drive home, a change of clothes and a hastily made salad, we headed over to our old neighbours place for a BBQ. It was nice to sit and visit with our friends and watch the kids bounce and collide and take turns injuring each other in the trusty old backyard jumpy castle. No permanent damage was done and a wonderful time was had by all.
Sometimes it is helpful to see that other seemingly normal people have kids that are just as crazy as yours are and that you are not the only one dealing with tiny little shitheads darlings who are constantly testing their (and your) boundaries. I am POSITIVE our neighbours felt the same way!
Back home, the poor dog wondering where on earth everyone has been all day and now completely glued to my side, it was bath and bedtime for the darlings.
And alas, it is that time for me too!
Bonne nuit tout le monde et à demain.
Natasha~
P.S. I am a dolt. Last night's post was my Day 1 for the #summerblogchallenge although TODAY is the official first day of the challenge (I don't read instructions well). There are quite a few others joining in on the fun and I encourage you to check them all out as there is a little bit of something for everyone in our eclectic group of writers (Liam, Zita, Magz, Peter, Christine, April, Cliff, Hethr, and Karen).
P.P.S Also... The UPS man brought me my new booties!
P.P.P.S. This post is shit. I am sorry. Let's call it a poem and chalk it up to artistic license (or something like that)!
P.P.P.P.S. I did say that I was tired, right?
Happy Mother's Day. No, really....
Yes, here it is. The Mother's Day post.
Now before you roll your eyes and click over to some other link, just hold on....
I will not be bombarding you with sappy stories of motherhood and heavily filtered "candid" shots of me kissing my kid through a sheer curtain.
There will be no, "these are the lessons my mother taught me" huge revelations for you to get all teary about.
And I promise not to bore you with a ridiculous list of household chores I wish someone else would take care of for one day.
Nope, none of that here.
What you are going to get is a dose of reality. It may be only MY reality, but I am putting it out there because I am not completely convinced that I am alone in this.
Do you know what I really want for Mother's Day?
NOTHING.
Absolutely nothing.
And NO ONE.
That's right.
I want a full 24 hour coffee break from my job.
This job. Mothering. Being a mom. Mommy, mama, MOMMMMMEEEEEEEEeeeee!
I want a day off. And from this day forward, every year, from now until eternity , that is what I want Mother's Day to be.
This "job" is like no other job ever. You are "at the office" 24-7, 365 days a year (364 if I have anything to say about it). You are on call ALL THE TIME and have to be available for any and all emergencies, from the slightest "I dropped my bottle on the floor" to the more extreme, "This is the school calling, {insert kid name here} fell off the monkey bars and we think something is broken" or even, please let this never happen to me, "Hi Mom, it's me. Can you come and bail me out....". When you are a mom, you can't just pack up and go home and leave your work at the office. There is no logging off for the night or weekend. Your life is your work. And your work is your life.
So for this one day. This overly-commercialized, make-you-feel-guilty-for-not-thanking-your-mom-for-EVERYTHING-she-does, buy-her-some-kind-of-stinky-candle-or-another-tea-mug, day, I say NO THANK YOU.
I do not want any things. I don't want presents or flowers or candles or tea or jewelry or spa shit. Heck, I don't even want a card.
I just want to be left alone.
I want to sleep in a bit and then have a nice long shower and take as long as I damn well please to get ready for my day. And then I want to go out, by myself, for the rest of the day. I want to get a coffee at my favourite cafe. I want to go shopping at all my favourite boutiques. I want to take my dog for a long, leisurely stroll along the river valley, just the two of us. I want to go to my OTHER favourite cafe with my book and my laptop and read and write without a limit on how long I have before I need to get back to anyone. I want to eat a late lunch from a food truck and sit on a park bench while I watch people go about their day. I want to go to a yoga class and not feel rushed to either get there on time or leave to get to somewhere else to pick up someone up. I want to find a patio to sit on and have a few Grey Goose dirty martinis and a plate of nachos with extra guacamole. And then I want to go to a movie, OF MY CHOOSING, with a big bag of popcorn all to myself. I want to check into a boutique hotel and have a long bath and slip into a plush robe, curl up in the big poofy over-pillowed bed and watch all the TV I want.
So yes, for Mother's Day I want to be selfish. I want every hour of that day all to myself.
Because for every other hour of every other day, I can get all the cuddles I want from my kids. I can have as much time as I want playing in the backyard with them. I can get someone to clean my house and yes, I can even get an hour or two to myself (although they are usually at the grocery store). I don't need a special day on the calendar to ENJOY my family.
But for this day, this "Mother's" day, the day created on the calendar by some dude at Hallmark, what this mama really wants, is to ENJOY being with myself and by myself for the day.
A whole day.
ALL..... BY.... MYSELF......
Happy Mother's Day Everyone!
I hope you all get exactly what you want.
Mwauh,
Natasha~
P.S. I just couldn't resist, I love this cover, and I am pretty sure I rocked that hairstyle sometime in the late '80's....
[youtube]http://youtu.be/o22i_gqAf_o[/youtube]
{And actually Celine, I DO wanna be all by myself. At least for this one day...}