Under the bridge
When you combine a voice like sweet honey and words that, without fail, reach deep, deep into your soul, you get the incomparable, spoken word poet, Shane Koyczan. His latest release is heart-stirring, beautiful, haunting and so utterly true. Especially for those of us who live parts of our lives online.
Here it is. "Trolls" by Shane Koyczan...
[youtube width="650" height="400"]http://youtu.be/670if6Etx0o[/youtube]
In Shane's words and on the power of our words:
“It's sad to think that we live in a world where so many are careless with their words, or still do not realize that the things they say have weight. Hiding behind invented identities doesn't free anyone to behave inhumanly... any more than wearing a mask grants someone the right to impose physical abuse on another. I've received thousands of letters asking me to address this issue, and have been very reluctant to speak up because I didn't want to draw the attention to myself. I then remembered being in school, and the pattern of silence that gave others quiet permission to continue torturing myself and others. We live in a society that asks us to keep quiet... to allow the world to spin unimpeded. Our silence is a commercial for a peace that will never be achieved unless we do speak up... unless we stand in the way of fear and hate showing others that there is a path that leads away from tyranny. We choose who we allow into our lives... we can choose who to evict.”
To find out more about Shane and when he may be performing in a city near you, check out his website!
n~
Standing on the edge
Does anyone else feel like we are at the point in human history where revolution just seems inevitable? Where the systems and constructs that we've so carefully crafted to have order in our world and our societies just don't seem to be cutting it anymore. How much more can we take of the tired rhetoric of "this is the way the world works" and "this is simply the way it has always been" and all the other variations on the status quo? Are we not supposed to evolve as a species? As a society? Please don't hate me internet, but as the boys in Nickelback are saying these days, "We're standing on the edge of a revolution."
~~~~~~~~~~
The shooting of Michael Brown was a tipping point. It has brought the ugly truth of racism in North America right to the front lines of our news feeds, Twitter streams and viral, live-streaming world. It showed us what happens when we question the system. It showed us the levels at which authoritarian governments will go to maintain "the peace"and what happens when you step out of line. How they will try to control the narrative of events and the status-quo of a world where everyone needs to know their place in it.
I've had a few conversations over the past month with people who have said to "wait for all the facts" and "let the courts and those in charge figure this out" and THEN, I can make an "informed" decision about what happened. For me, and for many others too, this line of thinking falls apart when it's the very people in charge who are the ones that are working within a system that fails to recognize it's own ingrained biases. What this says to me, is "Let us figure this out, and then we'll TELL you what to think" and I, for one, am just not down with that.
"What do we want? We want change.
How we gonna get there? Revolution."
~~~~~~~~~~
Anita Sarkeesian was forced to leave her own house last week because of threats made against her and her family on social media. What terrible thing did she do to bring on this level of abuse you ask? She released the most recent of her series of videos on "Tropes vs Women in Video Games." and by pointing out and discussing the way that the rape, maiming and murder of women is uniquely used as background narrative or character development in video games, she was subsequently threatened by members of the gaming community with all of these very things. I am not sure how much more her point needs to be hammered into someone's head when the very thing she is criticizing about video games, ie, violence against women, plays out in real life. That certain individuals (men) believe that this level of violence against women is just a NORMAL part of video games and somehow integral to the gaming experience is a problem people. A BIG one. Sarkeesian says that when these games are critiqued for their levels of violence against women it further perpetuates these beliefs and frames the "misogyny and sexual exploitation as an everlasting fact of life and as something inescapable and unchangeable." It is NOT and we do NOT have to accept these narratives "as some kind of necessary cultural background for our media stories."
"What do we want? We want change.
How we gonna get there? Revolution."
~~~~~~~~~~
Now on the "Ladies Master List of Things NOT to do to Avoid Being Violated" you can include taking racy photos of yourself with your smart phone. Add that to, don't get drunk, don't wear short skirts/low cut tops, don't walk alone in a dark back alley/parkade, and don't ever, EVER, leave your drink unattended - unless you have your special nail polish on that is - and it's just becoming a bit (read: A LOT) ridiculous. The level to which rape culture/victim-blaming is alive and well in our world is so insidious that it takes a couple of minutes (days) for people to register that the rape-drug detecting nail polish is actually NOT a great idea/invention or that saying, "Well, in this digital age, people (ei: WOMEN) should know better than to put naked pictures of themselves on their phones." is tantamount to saying that the VICTIMS of this CRIME are somehow partially to blame for said CRIME. In case I am not making myself clear, all of those pictures circulating on the internet are not a LEAK, and this is not a celebrity SCANDAL. This was a planned and deliberate crime, perpetrated by pathetic individuals who violated personal property, STOLE personal images and distributed them to the world for consumption at will. And EVERY SINGLE PERSON who downloaded them and got a nice good look at them is equally at fault for continuing to violate the privacy and personhood of these women. Take a stand people! Tell your friends that Googling the pictures is wrong. Tell Perez Hilton that he is a major ass creep for posting them. Unfriend /Unfollow anyone on FB or Twitter sharing them and let them know WHY. If you need some more info to convince them, Deb Rox at Blogher says it all right here: "We can start by calling this "leak" by its real name: sexual harassment via theft and publication."
"What do we want? We want change.
How we gonna get there? Revolution."
~~~~~~~~~~
I watched a documentary the other night called "L Word Mississipi: Hate the Sin" about the lives of lesbians living in the deep south, deeply Christian bible belt of America. It was a tough film to watch as these women tried to navigate living their lives and loving their partners surrounded by family members who openly told them they were going to burn in hell, strangers comparing them to child molesters and living lives denying their true selves for the sake of the church. I cried as I watched these women struggle with coming out to their deeply religious parents and the especially difficult story of the one woman who was "reformed" and trying to reform her gay son. At one point, my husband came in the room and asked me why I was watching such a depressing show? I was crying too much to answer him, but here is why. Because I wanted to bear witness to these women's lives, to their pain and struggle. And while that pain is not mine, I felt a profound allyship with these women. I felt loss when one woman's family left all of her childhood belongings on the doorstep of her house, as if to say, you no longer exist in our lives. If God is Love, then why can't Love be Godly? In all it's forms? Hating the sin is simply HATE folks. And that just has to stop.
"What do we want? We want change.
How we gonna get there? Revolution."
~~~~~~~~~~
The thing is, revolution is never pretty. It's not quiet. It is not NOT angry. It is not always orderly and it doesn't happen with all parties coming to the table for a "civilized" conversation and leaving happy. Revolution is by it's very definition an overthrowing of a social order in favour of a new system. Revolutions are emotional, they are fuelled by passion and anger and that stuck in your craw feeling that enough is finally, and absolutely ENOUGH! It takes strength to not back down. To not retreat to the way things have always been and just live out a mediocre existence in a world full of overt or not so overt oppression. You've got to get in some people's faces and keep doing it over and over and over and over again. Revolution happens when someone takes a stand, plants themselves there and refuses to sit down. And then someone else joins them. And then another person. And another. And another. And, well, you get the point right?
I do believe that in a lot of ways our world is indeed on the edge of a revolution. The question is, are we willing to step off that edge?
n~
Nickelback just released the new video for Edge of a Revolution yesterday.
You are welcome/I am sorry.
the list
I've been quiet here lately. But not in my head. In my head it is loud and full. The words and thoughts are bouncing back and forth and I am getting to the point where I can write/type them again.
In the mean time, please watch this. Because Jay Smooth is my Youtube boyfriend and because he speaks TRUTH in ways that I just can't get enough of. (You could just go subscribe to his channel too and see more of what I am talking about).
But seriously folks. Watch, Share, Repeat.
[youtube]http://youtu.be/MlNUIIyDA_w[/youtube]
Be back soon...
n~
A challenge and change and channelling my anxiety.
Ask me to drink 3 litres of water a day and I'll make it to maybe day four. Ask me to wake up one hour earlier than usual to meditate/workout/write and realistically I'll do it a few times and then be back to hitting the snooze button until small people insist that I wake up to feed them.
But...
Challenge me {for the third year in a row} to write a blog post a day for a month for the 2014 Summer Blog Challenge, and BAM! I am in. Again.
To be honest, I need a kick in the pants to get my writing mojo back. It has been lost for a while now as we were dealing with other life altering events this summer.
Daily blogging definitely is a challenge. And with school starting in a couple of weeks and the regular and some new {our first year with an IPP} challenges that this will bring to my life, will likely make it even more so.
So why do I do this then?
That is a very good question.
Because it is tradition now. Because I like to prove to myself that I can do it. And because every now and then, amongst the silly, last minute, "oh crap, I need to get a post out today" drivel that yes, I fully admit, you will get, sometimes a shot of brilliance will shine through. I'll have an epiphany and some divine power will guide my hand and I'll bang out something fan-freaking-tastic.
Today I spent most of the day cleaning the house and clearing it of the debris of life that has been collecting in unaddressed piles since June. The bags of all of my son's school work that his teacher lovingly packed up for us, the mail that has been sitting on my desk unopened along with all the unfiled bills and papers, the toys and books that have accumulated in all the tiny spaces that they can find to play together just like before. We tackled it all today ,and while it may not have seemed like it for everyone around here (read: there was much whining about when we would be doooooonnnnne), for me, it was a mixture of purging and nesting and wiping the slate clean to ready ourselves for the next chapter in our lives.
I am the most prepared that I have ever been for back to school this year. A couple of new outfits each and all the school supplies have been bought sorted and are ready to go. Every year, the beginning of the school year is like walking into a bit of an unknown (we don't get to find out who the kid's teachers are until that first day), but this year it feels even more so. Most people know that C was very sick and in the hospital, but few know the full extend of his illness or about his stroke/brain injury. He has expressed his concern to his therapists and to me about going back to school and having people ask him all about what happened and what he will say to them and he now has a list of answers that they came up with together and wrote down. I think I may have to follow suit as I am realizing that I too am feeling quite anxious about this as well. And when I get anxious about events or situations that are outside of my realm of control, I re-organize. I control my immediate environment and make it orderly and pretty.
Seriously people, my closet and my office have never looked better.
All ready to welcome back both me and my mojo!
So.... Here we go!
Subscribe to my RSS feed, sign up to get my posts delivered directly in your email every day (see box over there on your right), or find me on Facebook or Instagram (and maybe Twitter too, although my presence there has been sporadic lately - more on that in another post) because you never know which one of these posts is going to be the brilliant one!
XO,
n~
P.S. There are quite a few bloggers from all walks of life participating in the #SummerBlogChallenge. On social media we usually hashtag it as such or #SBC2014 or just #SBC. I'll have the full list of participants for you tomorrow if you'd like to check out some of their writing as well.
Feminist Fare Friday: Edition #28
Today's post is not really that feminist in nature, but nonetheless, every piece here has touched me immensely this week. This very hard, very difficult, very sad, very frustrating, very angry week. I have cried, I have cry-laughed, I have felt bubbles of rage in my belly and I have been tired, so, so very tired. Yes, this week was a doozy, and we are all still here, despite it all... Because of it all? Either way, here we go...
{Trigger warning bells on all of it! Suicide, depression, racism, sexism.}
~~~~~~~~~~
Robin Williams
1951-2014
Not very often do I hear of a celebrity death and immediately fall on my bed in a puddle of tears, but that is exactly what happened on Monday when I heard the news of Robin Williams' passing. This man, this funny, funny man, whose work has peppered my life with so many memories, was gone. Suffering from depression (and in the early stages of Parkinson's Disease), he took his own life and left this world. I don't want to comment on why he did it, how he did it, why he needed more help with his depression, or anything of the sort. He is gone and the world mourns and we start talking about depression again and this post from Logan Fisher at A Muddled Mother, was probably one of the most powerful things I read that day...
~~~~~
Last Saturday, another tragedy occurred in America. An 18-year-old, unarmed black man was shot dead by a police officer in the town of Ferguson, Missouri. His name was Michael Brown. His life cut short for no other apparent reason than the fact that he was a black man, walking on the street with his friends. What happened next seemed like something from a movie of a war-torn village in the Middle East, but it was not. The following post from Greg Howard outlines so much of what has been happening not only in Ferguson this week, but across the country, where it really does seem that...
The impact of all of this is being felt the world over and by people whom I care about and respect very, very, deeply. Please read their words, examine how this is affecting you too, and if it isn't, ask yourself why that is?
Karen Walrond at Chookooloonks is very Affected by all of this. And Vicki Reich at VillageQ, who is from Kansas City, gives us some cultural context for what is happening in Ferguson and amplifies the voices that need to be heard right now.
And finally, one of the most powerful things I read this week comes from a Canadian writer. Sarah Bessey lays it all out in black and white and left me raw with emotion after I read her post, In which I have a few things to tell you about #Ferguson.
In all of this, I only have one more thing to say. Silence is not an option. Sit with the uncomfortableness of these hard conversations and issues of race and justice and oppression, and really listen, and then stand up. Stand with the people of #Ferguson and those across America fighting for justice and more often than they should be, for their very lives.
~~~~~
Social media is how we communicate. This is the truth of our time. BUT... within these constructs, these massive platforms of code and algorithms and formulas and insidious marketing campaigns, how do we make it work for us. How do we "buck the system", especially when the system is constantly changing, not to suit our needs, but those of the people who make boatloads of money off of us. BUT, but, Facebook is FREE, right? Well yes, it is free, as in, you do not have to pay a fee to use the site, but you do pay with something far more valuable than money these days... you pay with your "LIKES". In the span of a week two people wrote about two similar yet completely opposite experiments they conducted with their Facebook usage. Mat Honan from Wired decided to LIKE everything he saw on his Facebook feed for 48 hours and Elan Morgan from Schmutzie.com decided to NOT like anything on her Facebook feed for two weeks. The results of these two experiments are somewhat fascinating.
And for the record, I too have sworn off the "LIKE" button myself to see if and how it changes my Facebook experience.
~~~~~
I have posted things from Robot Hugs before, and this comic strip ranks up there as one of my all time faves. It's the kind of thing you should keep bookmarked on your phone so you can pull it up at a moment's notice, whenever someone starts going off about how "they just don't see all this sexual harassment you ladies are talking about".
One of the challenging things about talking to men about violence, harassment, and sexism against women and femmetype folk is that it so often seems invisible.
Dude: I certainly never see it! Are you sure you’re not just being sensitive?
~~~~~
OK, I know that was a lot to take in. Just breathe.
Take some time for you this weekend.
Know that no matter what, love wins, compassion is hard (but worth it) and we are all in this together.
XO,
n~
For future reference.
If you are a regular reader of my blog, you know that I do a weekly round-up of what I like to call "Feminsit Fare" on Fridays. I post interesting and thought provoking articles I have read, videos I have seen, and information I think you will like or that will further our conversations about feminism and motherhood and life. Today, I am collecting posts together in this space for another reason. These pieces are about feminism, misogyny, terrorism, murder, derailing important conversations, and hashtag activism. I have been sharing most of these posts on my Facebook pages and if you haven't figured it out already, they are pieces that have been written or recorded in response to the murderous attack planned and executed by Elliot Rodger in the Isla Vista community in Santa Barbara, California.
And I am saving them all here, because here is the hard truth...
We will need to refer to them again in the future.
Violence against women is a systematic problem in our world and until and unless a MUCH larger majority of us are willing to DRASTICALLY change that system, this violence will continue. I hate to write this, but there are other Elliot Rodgers out there, just like Elliot Rodger was another George Sodini and George Sodini was another Marc Lepine. Young men growing up in a world of toxic masculinity believing that they are entitled to their prize - a hot woman to have sex with. And denied this prize, they resort to violence to "prove themselves" to the world or to exhort a kind of retribution for being slighted.
Today in a separate Twitter conversation with another young man on the topic of breastfeeding in public, I was called a "relentless feminist". I am 100% sure he meant it as an insult. I did not take it as one.
Because I AM relentless in this. I will never stop trying to change this system. I will never be quiet in the face of oppression and misogyny and violence against women and women's rights. I will amplify the voices of my peers, female and male, who are speaking larger truths that we all need to really listen to and I will keep a chronicle of them all here...
For future reference.
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Jessica Valenti writing for The Guardian about how yes, misogyny does indeed kill.
Jenni Chui writing at Mommy Nani Booboo about the #YESALLWOMEN hashtag.
Chuck Wendig writing at terribleminds that while it is of course, not all men, it still if far too many.
Harris O'Malley writing at Paging Dr. Nerdlove about the price of toxic masculinity.
Laci Green's video about this culture of angry, entitled men is quite powerful and worth a watch.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPFcspwbrq8&feature=share&list=PLTXiNEUzXWKTfNYKThSk-kmJdf7AJRP5K[/youtube]
Phil Plate writing at Slate discussing how and why derailing this potentially system-changing conversation occurs and how unhelpful it is.
Lindsay Beyerstein writing at Duly Noted about why Elliot Rodger is in fact a terrorist fighting a War on Women.
(updated on May 29, 2014)
Jeopardy Champion Arthur Chu writing at The Daily Beast discussing the "script" that most nerdy boys grow up with.
Madeleine Davies at Jezebel writing about being not an angry feminist, but a furious one.
(updated, June 1, 2014)
Melissa McEwan at Shakesville writing about "the geek guys Elliot Rodgers think pieces" and how they are still getting it wrong.
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I know more will be written about this in the days to come and I will continue to add to this list. If you have read something that you think needs to be here please post the link in the comments.
Relentlessly,
natasha~
Go to blogging conference. Make a list.
I am tired.
Not like, "Oh, the kids didn't sleep well and I may have stayed up too late to watch whatever I had on the PVR" tired. I am 'OH MY GOD, I spent 72 hours with 600 of the most wicked people on the internet this past weekend" tired!
THAT my friends, is exhausting, but in the most amazing way possible.
I am still processing my weekend at the Mom 2.0 Summit in Atlanta, but I did want to write down some of my top moments of the conference. Here they are, in no particular order and so I too don't forget how awesome a weekend it was...
1. Arriving at the hotel and seeing so many beautiful and familiar (Canadian) faces made it feel not so scary being a newbie amongst the 600 attendees at Mom 2.0. Thank you Annie, Elan, Shannon, Jennifer, and Connie for providing me with a that sense of "home" away from home.
2. I REALLY had to pee towards the end of the first keynote session on Friday morning. I was packing up my bag and about to sneak out when Derreck Kayongo took the stage. And then I couldn't move. Maybe it was the bright pink flower he was wearing on his jacket lapel, maybe it was his beautiful Ugandan accent, or it could have been the energy with which he bounded onto the stage. Whatever it was, I was not going anywhere. Watch this and you'll understand why. A simple thing. A bar of soap. And idea. This is the power of story and of being a change maker in our world!
[youtube]http://youtu.be/sauWSDPBV3g[/youtube]
3. This weekend, I got schooled. We ALL got schooled. I learned the true meaning of 'leaning in' and found myself doing just that. As Kelly Wickham, aka Mocha Momma, read her post "Calling out my sisters", there I was physically leaning forward to truly hear her words. Leaning in to the discomfort that is a conversation about race, about real solidarity and about truly, publicly being there for each other when things get rough. (Please read her post and lean in to this with me.)
4. And then, this one time at Mom 2.0 Summit, I sat down with Heather Armstrong (yes, THAT Heather Dooce Armstrong) for 10 minutes, told her how much I love what she does and how she writes and tells stories and asked her for her advice about how to keep doing just that while the landscape of the blogging world shifts - or as she said, "is completely destroyed" - beneath our feet. It was a good chat. (So good that I did not get any photographic evidence of our time together. Total rookie fangirl mistake.)
5. Mint Julips from the Minted folks. Let me just say this: bourbon is the devil's drink and therefore I can not be held responsible for whatever I said/did after drinking it!
6. Shoe shopping and dinner and thought-provoking and brilliant conversations about blogging and feminism and life. With Annie @PhDinParenting, Shannon @Shasherslife, and Jennifer @HartGalla.
7. Trying to be in two places at the same time on Saturday morning for two amazing sessions. While this in fact did not quite work out, I did find Elizabeth Jayne Lui of FlourishinProgress.com in one of them and for that alone, it may have been all worth the frantic running around the conference centre at the hotel. She is by far the tiniest, and quite possibly one of the funniest bloggers I met this weekend.
8. Front row keenering (totally a word) at the rest of the sessions on Saturday. So much change-maker/writing/story-tellng/hot-topics/sexy beasts blogging goodness!
The panelists (from L to R).
The #sexybeasts are: @laflowers, @schmutzie, @bostonmamas @titaniajordon @justicefergie
The #changemakers are: @mamanongrata @ElenaSonnino @postpartumprog @HeatherBarmore and @morraam (not pictured)
9. When Karen @chookooloonks Walrund, totally Kanye'd Jenny @thebloggess Lawson at The Iris Awards ceremony.
10. And then, 10 minutes later when I stood less than 12 inches from Jenny at the back of the theatre while holding another woman's very adorable baby, I managed to spit out the words, "This is the baby that pooped during your acceptance speech." Cause, you know, WORDS is what I do y'all! #facepalm
11. This photo. And this woman. Outfits totally not planned, I swear. Damn we look good!
12. Having only ONE degree of separation from Amy Poehler because of meeting the amazing Meredith Walker of @smrtgirls!
13. The panels. The painted bellies. The party. The people. MY People! I found them, we talked, we danced, we knew each other before we had even met, and then when we did meet, it was good. It was very, very, good.
Selfies from top to bottom with:
@lifewithroozle, @phdinparenting and @dresdenplaid, @schmutzie, @DebontheRocks and @farrahbrannif.
Bonus #14: Having the best conference roomie = She who takes #365feministselfie shots with a lovely butt bomb from yours truly!
{photo credit: Annie @phdinparenting}
Now, I really do need to catch up on some more sleep.
Goodnight lovelies,
natasha~
Thoughts on a plane.
I woke this morning with little legs intertwined with mine and wispy fine hair tickling my nose. I don't remember what time she came over, but L snuck into our bed once again last night. Not that I really mind though. After all these years of some form of bed-sharing, it has somehow become the norm for us to all figure out how we fit together and sleep.
We are like a little four person jigsaw puzzle and somehow we manage to fit all the pieces together on our queen-sized bed. No small feat, let me tell you! L’s internal alarm clock woke us all up at 6:44 AM as she slid out of the bed and declared to everyone her need to pee.
.....
I joined a yoga class last week. My friend Mandy has a beautiful little studio in her equally beautiful house and has been teaching yoga and meditation for over 15 years. She is the kind of person in whose company you can't help but feel a sense of calm and serenity.
All of this week, amongst the preparation and angst of me going away for four days to MOM 2.0 Summit, all I could think about was going to yoga with Mandy again. Class was this morning and it was a glorious and much needed hour of practice! And I am not just saying that because she gives all of us a neck massage as we lay in our final savasana. I had rushed into the studio after dropping of the kids at school with a raging storm of pre-travel and pre-conference anxiety nestled in my solar plexus and what I can only describe as angry moths (as opposed to butterflies) in my tummy. I set my intention for my practice of 'calming the storm within' and for the next hour I breathed and moved my way to a place of calm waters, glorious sunshine and openness of mind, body and spirit.
Mandy spoke of the Hindu Goddess Shiva, who is known as the destroyer. How destruction is not always a negative thing and that it is often necessary in life in order to clear away the old and make room for new things to flourish. It reminded me of the forest fire video that the kids and I watch at the museum that shows the time-lapsed regrowth of the forest after the devastation and destruction of the fire. There is beauty in this process and it takes looking at it from a little bit of a different angle to see this and to know that the fire had to happen for the life of the forest to be sustained. I started thinking about all of the things/feelings/ways of thinking that we hold on to in our own lives, for whatever reason (safety, habit, tradition), that no longer serve us. Perhaps it is time to let Shiva in to do her thing, so that we can make room for and create the right nurturing environment for new things to take root.
.....
Airports make me nervous. Granted more often than not it is more of an excited nervous, but still it is there. I get anxious about getting there on time, I am worried that I forgot to pack something, I worry about losing my boarding pass and saying goodbye and "please dear God be on the other end" to my checked luggage. I remind myself about a dozen times to go to the bathroom before getting on the plane - because, hello - men and airplane bathrooms - Duh! I start to relax a bit after I've passed through security, which, by the way, is always a special full body pat-down treat when one had metal implants.
The first leg of my trip this weekend is to the Twin Citiies. One of the things I also do when flying is play the "I wonder where they are going" game about all of the other travellers on my flight. I am on a small plane, an E170-CP, that is full to capacity and if I were to hazard a guess, I'd say 75% of the passengers are men who look like they are travelling for work - briefcases, laptops and androids abound. I mention this because I am sitting in the window seat surrounded on all three sides by said business men. Once we were up in the air, I tried to recline my seat and the man behind me got a bit agnry about it and gave me a big, "JESUS, lady"! It seems my comfort was infringing upon his very important newspaper reading. I apologized and brought my seat back upright and then noticed two things that I was doing. One, I was physically making myself smaller, trying not to take up to much space from the 'important' people around me, and two, I had to consciously STOP the self-talk that started in my head about me being "just" the silly little housewife going away to her silly little blogging conference.
That was the moment I pulled out my laptop and started writing. All of the men and women on this plane are doing important things in their lives, of this I have no doubt. And not one of them is without his or her own fears or worries or insecurities (even though some may not be as kind as others).
All of these thoughts have led me to want to set an intention for my time at the Mom 2.014 Summit this weekend and this is it:
I intend to see beyond myself and to recognize the connections we all have to each other. The needs we all have to be seen, to be valued and to know that whatever we choose to "do" for a living, or for a life, is important, is worthwhile and is done as uniquely as we all are ourselves.
.....
Let the conferencing, connecting and celebrating begin!
natasha~