This ENH Must-Have List is all about keeping your lips happy, day or night, through the season of partying. These four items are in my vanity case and have been tested and proved reliable for daily care. They are my absolute top picks for a moist pucker that pops.
Almost any MAC Lipstick makes me happy because of their lush and vibrant palettes and their top-shelf quality. My rage of the moment, however, is MAC Bronze Shimmer Lipstick. I can’t get enough of it. I use it on top of other colors to soften, sparkle and highlight. When I wear it alone, Bronze Shimmer makes me feel like Rihanna on the cover of W. Yes, that good.
Next, I have recently discovered the ultimate lip stain from Kat Von D: Everlasting Liquid Lipstick. Everlasting contains vitamin E, goes on wet and adheres to your lips in a lush matt finish. As the name implies, Everlasting gives hours of long wear in bold hues, like wintry plum Exorcism and the ever pouty Damned. Kat Von D offers an eight-color sampler with a wonderful array of autumn shades. It’s a perfect stocking stuffer, too.
“Salsa Dance” by Kristine Moore for Living Artist Project
“Winter is coming.” Seriously! Moistening with Estee Lauder Lip Conditioner is a daily must for a dry winter mouth. One glide leaves lips lubed up and light. With no fragrance or color, silky and supple kiss-‘em-goodnight lips are all you get. Wear it alone, or under your favorites. Plus, one application of Estee Lauder Lip Conditioner lasts forever without the build up of some balms, which makes it an economical investment.
Last up, for the ultimate in quick repair, try Global Beauty Care Vitamin C Oil. The great price of this serum makes it essential for any medicine cabinet. Just a drop of Global Beauty Care serum heals cracked, wind- or sun-chafed lips, overnight. I even use it on my hands, face and arms, but that’s another list!
For whatever reason, it started in high school. I knew the answers to the teachers’ questions, but didn’t raise my hand to share them. When I was called on, I blurted the quickest response possible so as to avoid being the center of attention. This is when my fear of public speaking took root, the kind that made me suffer through classes all the way through graduate school, avoid certain social events, and ultimately, feel as if I was living below my potential.
It’s not uncommon to feel your palms sweat before a presentation or the rapid beating in your chest before delivering a speech. But throughout my young adult life, I often skipped out on the presentation or speech altogether just to avoid that uncomfortable feeling.
“Milcah and Syrah” by Christina Xu for Living Artist Project
The result was to feel bad anyway. Worse, even, because in addition to the anxiety, I now had a heaping dose of guilt and regret to pour on top—for missing out on knowledge and growth, overlooking opportunities to collaborate and share, and letting myself or others down. To this day, I often regret that I didn’t attend my MFA program graduation, denying my family—and myself—the chance to celebrate this milestone. (My parents still ask why they didn’t get to go to a ceremony.) And all because I couldn’t fathom reading from my thesis to an audience.
Years later, when it came time to go on tour for my first published novel, I had to remind myself of the way my particular anxiety feeds on itself, hurting me rather than protecting me. Because this time, I was determined to show up.
Those prone to listening more than speaking still have a lot to share. Writing has been my salvation, providing me with an outlet for that reflection. The Hour of Daydreamsrepresented seven years of writing and believing in my words, and I had to give it every chance to find success. This meant public speaking engagements, sometimes in front of more than 100 people. How did I tame my anxiety beast?
I didn’t. I had to accept that it was there and plow forward anyway. It’s all too easy to wait until you’re “ready” before taking a leap, large or small, but “ready” can be elusive, and one can wind up staying stationary for too long.
I don’t believe in changing for others’ sake. I believe in choosing the spaces where one is comfortable, where one thrives. Readings are not a requirement of being published. As much as my publisher encouraged my journey to becoming a public author, the desire to share the background, process, and inspiration behind my work ultimately came from me, not the press. That’s how I knew it to be genuine.
Before stepping to the podium, I knew there were things I could do to make the process easier. I opted to sign on for a small number of key appearances versus the quintessential 20-city tour. I came prepared for each of these events, practicing my excerpts aloud and reviewing the themes they cover. I cleared my schedule before a reading, making time to relax and breathe, to enter a space of mindfulness and quiet. I found little things to bring out the joy of the occasion, like wearing a new dress (always blue or purple to match the book cover), or planning a special dinner. Along with bookmarking the passages I’d read from, I tucked Kleenex into the pages of my novel, because nervousness makes my nose run. Through all of this, as many times as I felt nervous or afraid, I also felt excited and grateful, and came to realize how much these emotions are intertwined.
And even though my heart felt like it might explode before those readings, as the words came out, it calmed. I’ve found that like writing, sharing aloud brings out a whole new energy, opening up others to share of themselves in turn. Again and again, I’ve found renewed appreciation for friends, family, peers, and strangers with whom I share the love of literature and stories. One of my fears has been to make mistakes, and I’ve made many in this process. I try not to replay them too often afterward. I try to forgive and accept my limitations.
Speaking in front of a crowd is easier now, but still feels unnatural to me. Perhaps it always will. And that’s okay too.
“Dali’s Dahlia” by Musa Jaman for Living Artist Project
Renee Macalino Rutledge’s debut novel, The Hour of Daydreams, has been dubbed “essential reading” by Literary Mama, “one of 24 books to get excited for in 2017” by The Oregonian, and a “captivating story of love and loss unlike any other” by Foreword Reviews. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she works as a nonfiction book editor, writes the “That’s So Alameda Column” for Alameda Magazine, and regularly explores the tidepools and redwoods with her family.
Two years ago when Colin Kaepernick first took a knee during the National Anthem, there was a lot of disgust expressed by fans and opposers. Complaints ranged from bigots’ scathing label of “uppity negro” to the more benign statements such as, “There’s a time and place for everything,” meaning, “Not now.” These were nearly the same words that were used to try to quiet Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and delay the Civil Rights Movement. Today, the issue of protesting on an NFL field, for any reason, is a matter of national debate, and a very timely one, given the state of our democracy. Most of this dispute comes down to race—the artificial categories designed to separate people and create a thinly veiled caste system in our society. None of this is new. Humankind has always been engaged in this brutal struggle for power. Fortunately, history has shown that the challengers to tyrannical rule often win though they don’t often reap the rewards in their lifetimes.
The story of Colin Kaepernick is so profoundly similar to the biblical tale of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego that, for me, it is an inevitable comparison. In brief, King Nebuchadnezzar builds a huge golden idol and commands that when the music plays, everyone should fall prostrate before it and carry on with a spectacle. As with any self-adoring tyrant, the king imposes consequences for disobedience. He commands, “whoso falleth not down and worshippeth shall the same hour be cast into the midst of a burning fiery furnace” (Daniel 3:5-6). More concerning than the king’s edict is the response of his people: Like good Nazis, residents lined up to make sure none of the perverted rules were broken. Luckily, these concerned citizens reported Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego to the authorizes for not bending a knee at the appointed time, requiring the king to kick up the heat in the inferno, looking to make an example of the three men. (If this is beginning to sound familiar, you are paying attention.) Here’s where the miracle happens: Meshach, Shadrach and Abednego’s lives are saved though the lives of the soldiers who deliver them to their fate are not.
Okay, so maybe Kaepernick is not being thrown into a literal fire, but dismissing and preventing him from working in the NFL is equally severe punishment for kneeling when the authorities insist one stand. This is the strength of fear: It teaches other NFL players, and mere mortals, to comply or suffer a similar destiny. Kaepernick, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego had an unflinching conviction to stand apart for the sake of their beliefs. They did so even at the risk of great peril because the rules were unethical and wicked, and they made a conscientious choice to challenge the status quo.
This familiar rhetoric of oppression—appeals based on rewards, coercion and/or threats of violence are eerily similar to the current language of our president against Kaepernick and anyone else with a differing opinion. Essentially, Colin Kaepernick’s broken heart would not allow him to stand during the anthem. Wishing to protest gun violence against black men by leveraging his fame, visibility and power for the sake of others, Kaepernick silently bowed his head. His is a sacred endeavor worth our admiration and support, because what he does, he does for all of us. If sports leagues begin to fire black men for defiance, as the president and several other powerful figures suggest, we are witnessing a new form of discrimination and punitive blackballing; these are simply new methods of coercion and intimidation, designed to keep people from living with integrity and exercising their right to free speech. Were it not for Kaepernick’s courage, which was above all a deep compassionate wail against the extraordinary violence meted out to black men all over the country, we would simply go on, anesthetized to the plight of an entire segment of the population. Instead, the nation is discussing the issue every week, for hours.
“Mural 136a” by Will Schmitz for Living Artist Project
At last, more NFL athletes are beginning to speak up. They seem to be reacting more to the attempts of the president to silence non-violent, peaceful protest than to Kaepernick’s original stance for social justice. Nonetheless, their actions serve as a show of solidarity and support for freedom. They seem to say that they are protesting because they are free. This is the life breath of America: Liberty. Throughout history, individuals like Colin Kaepernick have stepped into the bright light of public scrutiny in order to bring about change. Kaepernick’s necessary anti-collusion lawsuit seeks to reform the NFL’s ability to stifle a player’s individual ability to thrive. This is important for numerous black men, who wish to participate freely in sports and other forms of civic engagement without experiencing monetary repercussions. Let’s not make the mistake of minimizing the situation. Kaepernick’s case is clearly as much a civil rights case as Plessy v. Fergusson, Roe v. Wade or numerous other important cases that have been heard in the past century.
Without key individuals stepping forward to demand justice, the courts have historically remained deaf to cases that have later had far-reaching beneficial consequences for future generations. That’s why Colin Kaepernick’s early and consistent non-violent protest to relentless police aggression and fatal force against black men is of vital importance to our future as an open democracy. Like any visionary, imagining a better world, the bravery employed by Colin Kaepernick in using his body on the front lines of transformation is critical to altering our current trajectory. Kaepernick is using his status, voice and position to further the cause of justice. The ripples of his actions we are only beginning to feel.
At some point, people start to think about their feet. This usually happens after not thinking about them at all for years. Let’s see just how easy it can be to alleviate foot pain by skipping it altogether. These three products are proven to provide foot contentment. Welcome to the first ENH Must-Have List. I’m doing this because I believe it’s always cool to take care of yourself. And if you’re like me, you appreciate time-tested quality products for your home, body and lifestyle. Get the latest products tested by real people, friends like me. Let’s get started with foot care since this foremost in my thoughts these days. Read on for some tested (by me) ways to keep your toes tingling for all the right reasons!
Grab a pair of these stunning sneakers if you want to fall in love with your shoes. This year’s new Ecco Soft 7 Sneakers is available in thirteen awesome colors. These shoes feel like a cloud of warm air hugging your feet. Ecco brought back that classic Keds second-grade flavor we loved when we were babies with these fine kicks, but added a grown-up sophisticated sensibility for professional women who want to pamper their feet and look fabulous, too. These shoes are good friends you’ll want to spend lots of time with. They feature comfy arch support and removable insoles in case you need more room or inserts. These are my absolutely favorite shoes. Get your pair at The Walking Store and keep some locals in business.
Of course, we don’t all wear sneakers to work. If you love your shoes, but not the insides, here’s a quick, affordable fix for most ladies. Adjust your regular shoes for all-day performance with Dr. Scholl’s Massaging Gel insoles. These inserts are an easy way to make almost any shoes feel like sneakers. Simply trim the inserts to fit most closed shoes and mules. They also have special designed insoles for use with high heels. Plus, the top layers of these insoles have a breathable fiber that keeps your feet fresh and dry. One draw back to these is that they are bulky, so your shoes may fit tighter with them in.
These days, almost everyone is trying to stay healthy. The right shoes for athlete activities are an imperative. Last up on my must-have list are my absolute favorite, cozy outdoor-activity favorites for light hiking, running and walking. Right on point, La Sportiva Bushida Trail-Running shoes are the best choice for people of any gender in need of comfortable style and lightweight endurance. These boldly designed shoes provide unbeatable wearing power. I know; I’ve owned three pairs. They wash in the machine and dry out quickly, which is pretty nice if you’re out on the trail, running through streams. Ankle stabilization and arch support were the main reasons I tried them a few years ago, and I have no regrets. They have a great low price for the quality and durability. Try a pair at REI. I wear my Sportivas around the city for basic athletics, stairs and in the mountains for backpacking. Love them!
Big tech companies should be among the first respondents to help save lives touched by disaster. Tune in to any news or media channel and you’ll be inundated by news of human suffering. There’s no shortage of people in need of help from both chronic and emergency situations including natural and unnatural disasters. It’s time for Big Tech to step up on the humanitarian aspects of their responsibilities since they possess massive potential to do real good through social-media services. Tech Companies have long profited from trending products and software and by making millionaires from user experiences. Up until now only a few, like Facebook Check-In feature in 2010, have done so purely for the benefit of its users. From wearable gear to self-tracking devices, the technology already exists. It just needs to be repurposed to add value during difficult times. The next disaster is just around the corner.
Here’s what’s at stake for ordinary people: So far, the Tubbs and Nuns fires have displaced hundreds of people. After multiple hurricanes devastated Puerto Rico’s citizens, few of the victims were able to communicate with family on the mainland or get clean water and food. The recent mass shooting in Las Vegas had people from all over the country looking for loved ones who were unreachable after the massacre made headlines. Plus, for a slightly more mundane social problem than the past few weeks of hurricanes, shootings and earthquakes, chronic homelessness and drug use bring their own arsenals of concern.
It’s time for technology-based businesses to concern themselves with how ordinary people—tech users, who purchase their products—fare in life when catastrophe strikes. The best part is that these transitions could be relatively easy for these companies who already collect tons of data on us. Here are the key problems in need of #tech solutions:
Homelessness/displacement exacerbated by disaster
Clean water and food shortages
Shelter: places to sleep and safely store possessions and valuables
Services and facilities for bathing and laundry
Safety alerts and information about the location and health status of loved ones
Big tech has the capacity to solve these problems quickly. What the world needs is some tweaking of these great tech products to make sure users and their communities benefit from their brand loyalty. As an added bonus for these tech companies, emergency features can make their products go-to resources integral to people’s lives. That’s a lot of stockholder returns over time, making these ideas worth the time and investment for social-media companies. It’s time for real, practical and fairly simple ways for the big companies and some smaller ones with big hearts and human-capital bandwidth to step up and help society deal with the fall out from inevitable calamity. The capacity for people to help each other without opening their wallets is, thus far, untapped.
Hope by Jason Reyes for Living Artist Project // IG: @heyjayrey
Airbnb is already set up to help subscribers find and use homes and other tourist services on demand. There’s room to link disaster victims with resources such as showers, laundry services and temporary camping spots or supplies. These features could be activated at all times or regionally triggered in response to specific emergency situations. As of Oct. 16thAirbnb sent out a notification that they’d allow hosts to invite guest for free in response to fires in Northern California. Kudos to Airbnb.
Twitter may have the capacity to identify users’ geographical location to determine if a person is a danger zone. They can provide data based on user activity to help respondents locate populated or isolated areas in need of special attention. Water and food deliveries could be targeted to those areas.
Fitbit knows how fast users are moving, and most likely, their location at any time the device is worn. These fitness bits have the capacity to report emergency situations to designated family members or authorities quickly. The potential for Fitbit to detect vital signs of its users and emit a signal that can be picked up by rescue workers during an emergency is great. Just as these awesome gadgets allow for networking for health reasons, why shouldn’t they alert designated people to things like whereabouts and health? Users would be more likely to keep devices charged and on hand if they knew it could help during an emergency.
Google has the ability to track all kinds of activity. I can’t help wondering whether Google can program their search engines to see when area is under duress from seismic activity or extreme heat and, thereby, provide an early warning to residents and save lives.
“Yin Yang” by Kristine Moore for Living Artist Project // KMooreart.com
We can have a better place to live because of technology. No one is better at finding solutions to marketing, network growth and pleasing the stockholders than today’s biggest tech companies. This concept is about employing those same tech resources to helping millions of users with simple modifications that could ensure survivors of disasters never feel abandoned by society. What’s next? I foresee a future where tech companies partner with non-profits and government organizations to provide fast, direct responses to critical questions of survival in the shortest amount of time. Since we’re not yet living on the moon, we can at least try to make the earth a more hospitable place for humankind.
One of the things that I enjoy about organized religions is the way religions honor the extraordinary magic of life through ritual. These ancient, universal customs transcend individual beliefs and encompass the basic human elements that forge all relationships. They say to participants,
You are the fabric of this existence.
You are integral to the workings of life.
Notably, the season of Rosh Hashanah is upon us. It is a time of inner renewal and atonement for Jews. On a spiritual level, observers rest and remove stagnant energy from their psyches. Essentially, it’s a time to reflect on the past year, find peace with your life and loved ones and seek forgiveness from those whom you may have wronged and to grant it in turn. Obviously, these are not required practices for a non-Jewish person; however, for me, the benefit of honoring the practice brings peace and light into the world outweighs my allegiance to my particular faith. Central to these upcoming High Holy Days is a compelling call to harmonize with the self and one’s extended community, and it is a practice, which I wholeheartedly embrace.
AJ‘s “Untitled” for Living Artist Project // IG/FB:@agesimagery
When I first celebrated Rosh Hashanah with my Jewish friends in New York during my twenties, I remember being caught up in the spectacle of the ritual of a festive meal, chanting, and the lighting of candles. Now Rosh Hashanah holds significance for me that I treasure beyond those sacred memories of being welcomed into the intimacy of a private celebration. Rosh Hashanah is a time for me to get right in my soul. This period is a gift to me, a time to ask forgiveness from the people I’ve wronged, a chance to reflect on my words, my intentions and impact on the people around me. It’s also an occasion to atone for the unintentional harm I may have caused another, for even in innocence we can sometimes offend. It’s a habit that leads to grace—it helps me to say I’m sorry more quickly or more easily the next time around. It’s an invitation to hear when someone is struggling to make right with me. Rosh Hashanah allows me to let go of the outcome, release my ego and do my part to leave a blessing behind. The process makes my steps lighter, my heart ever more capacious.
Because we can’t change the past, it’s crucial we take the time to be present for our loved ones and atone for mistakes in an expedient manner. The unexpected death of my sister has taught me this lesson. The effort to seek forgiveness is a calling that requires humbleness, compassion and introspection. It is work done with a sincere heart; it is an observance with profound implications for everyone around us. There’s more room in our lives for tender moments when we don’t insist on carrying grudges. We can give and get forgiveness.
I still celebrate the Western calendar New Year on January First but find that Rosh Hashanah enriches my life with its heartfelt redemptive and renewing capacity. I’ve invited this ritual into my life in order to grow and expand my ability to love and co-exist with people who may not see the world as I do, which in an increasingly diverse world is becoming ever more critical. As I struggle with the right words and conditions to ask for forgiveness, I look to role models whose compassion and tenderness provide a guiding light. One source of luminous guidance for me is a mentor in the Order of Interbeing, who sent a beautiful email to her extended community. As I read her message, the words sank into my heart and touched the wounded part of me. I breathed in her words, and I let go of my hurt. Afterward, I filled that space with a tender hug and a salty kiss from my nephew and inhaled the sweet scent of my niece’s clean hair as I sent her to school. This I want to hold tight. The rest I’m willing to let go.
“A walk through the woods with Wootan” by Jason Reyes for Living Artist Project // IG:@heyjayrey
It’s clear that we could all use some tenderness and gentleness in these times of disaster, strife, misunderstanding and tension. In the spirit of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, I share some of her words and intentions with you, my readers and extended community.
Let the healing begin with me. On this wonderful day, I offer you these words:
Hello Dear Ones!
During this month of September we honor the Jewish New Year and Day of Atonement, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. In the Plum Village Community there are several mindfulness retreats, both general mindfulness, and those with specific focus on engaged awareness practice for racial equity and inclusiveness, and for caring for the earth, our planet home. May we find these trainings to be of nourishing support.
Some of you I have not seen in awhile. Please accept my beneficial regret for any harm that my actions or inactions may have unintentionally caused. I ask your forgiveness with all my heart, and if I got it wrong before, I will do my best to get it right in the future.
I’m no prude, and yet, I have not written a single word about sex on this health and wellness blog. Last week a friend shared a powerful TedTalk by Peggy Orenstein called “What Young Women Believe about Their Own Sexual Pleasure,” which alerted me to my oversight. After I watched it, I thought that if women like me don’t talk about sex, then my nieces and nephews are doomed. It warrants examination, this omission. Somehow sex has become the dirtiest three-letter word in the English lexicon, but we can clean it up. Here’s why we need to apply ourselves to this task. The prevalent avoidance of discussing the topic of sex can be linked to numerous societal dysfunctions:
Sexual assault and rape
Blatant ignorance about our anatomies and procreative capacities
Vagina shaming and mutilation
Sexism
Misogyny
Phew, that’s a lot—too much if you really stop to think about it. These concerns impact everyone on the gender spectrum. If biological women can’t own their bodies and feminine identities, then those transgressive figures, who are adopting femininity will inherit those problems even as they seek the health and healing that that kind of transformation represents. It also means that men can’t be comfortable with women’s bodies, because we aren’t teaching men about the healthy boundaries we need to co-exist in a pluralistic society. The taboos against sex limit our understanding of our beautiful bodies.
The vagina is sacred and holy by design, housed and protected by vulva, legs and arms. Women are meant to open and bloom like flowers for our chosen beloved. And yet, too many women carry fear, where life and pleasure should prevail, judgment-free. Sex is meant to be a beautiful invitation, a dynamic and transcendent connection between consenting adults seeking mutual happiness. Let’s claim that right this century.
I think we can live up to the expectations of biology. Both men and women have pleasure buttons that can be activated by loving touch. Let’s aim for joy, pleasure and the power of reciprocity in the context of sexual intimacy. Let’s discuss this with our sons and daughters, so we don’t have to spend all our time repairing the damages of rape and sexual violations that surround too many sexual encounters. We can reclaim the sacred space of human dignity intended for sexual intimacy. Oh, and, can we say the V word, please? It’s really okay that boys have penises and girls have vaginas. That’s how God made us. This is a beautiful thing.
We can heal our society and ourselves by taking inventory of our sexual beliefs, examining them openly and moving forward bravely into a sexuality where women own their vaginas and men own their penises and each takes on the full privileges and responsibilities for what happens with and in them. That’s a revolution in which this Third-World Feminist is willing to enlist.
I went to a class called Taming Anxiety to deal with the residual feelings of being threatened, anxious, withdrawn. Fear still resonates at a very high frequency in my body. I am filled with debilitating self-judgments. I am searching for community. I have come to listen to my body and my emotions. I have come to follow my breath.
Goddess Morrigan by Luna A. Hosepians
Some years ago, ordinary nervousness grew into full-blown anxiety attacks: increased heart rate, tense muscles, cold sweat, nausea and the urge to scream gripped me every morning. My body provided clear reasons and visible signs, the type that even the doctor could not dismiss. I no longer wanted to leave the house.
“May I be free from suffering and the causes of suffering.”~The Four Divine Abodes
Sometimes people interpret symptoms of anxiety as a heart attack. I perceived it as insanity. I could not trust my body to stay dry after getting dressed. My perspiration was activated with proximity to school and the classroom. Where once my formerly steel resolve and confidence were paramount, encountering the violence of colleagues unnerved me completely. I was not only falling apart, I was imploding, feasting on my own nervous system. There was no peace to be found in or around me.
I would rather define self as the interiorization of community. And if you make that little move, then you’re going to feel very different about things. If the self were defined as the interiorization of community, then the boundaries between me and another would be much less sure.
~James Hillman
Through a Buddhist lens, the loss of balance has overwhelmed me. Using this frame, there is a connection between the mind, experiences and society. In this context, heart and mind are the same.
“May I be filled with loving kindness.” ~ The Four Divine Abodes
My falling apart was not gradual but exponential. Trembling became customary. For a time, I could not drive. My eyes averted from those of passersby. My hair thinned as I looked in the mirror. My beautiful complexion lost its shine, morphing into a waxy and irritated skin. I attempted to hide so that no one would see me dissolving. Isolation was the only safe place. The violence of my professional life eroded my joy.
The more recent manifestation of my anxiety is milder, habitual, unfounded.
Rev. Keiryu Liên Shutt gives us a Koan, a question repeated verbatim to a respondent, who answers each time. Rev. Liên insists that we ask it again and again. The Koan works. It leads me back to myself, to the limitations I have imposed on myself by following my thoughts out of the present moment. The Koan challenges the beliefs that I’ve held for some time, that I am responsible for my expulsion from the academy. I have constructed a narrative that serves to form my diseased state, and results in a burden I carry, alone, in silence.
I think we are indebted to history—and not just familial history, but cultural history, political history and economic history—for our understanding of ourselves.
~Gary Greenberg
How does my anxiety limit my happiness?
While I perform zazen, concentrating on my breath, I feel myself moving around inside my skin like a small animal in a burrow. Once in a while I will sniff the air at the opening to see if I am safe.
“May I accept myself just as I am.” ~ The Four Divine Abodes
After a time, the Koan makes me laugh. It is as funny as the absurd games I play on myself. It becomes clear to me: Anxiety has pushed me out from the unsafe world into a space I have cultivated with compassion and care. This new place is good for me though I am slow to adapt. The tools I need for my serenity are provided by my anxiety, a sounding board in my body, leading me to a world where I can breathe without hyperventilating, without erupting in stress-inducing illnesses.
“May I be peaceful and at ease.” ~The Four Divine Abodes
I only have to learn the signs and see the pattern to understand the hot burning is not healthy. My anxiety has liberated me from the bondage of suffering, given me the courage to confront my reality. I would never have willingly walked away from my livelihood. I was too fearful to face the consequences without a strong push.
The tools offered by psychiatry are intended to attack the symptoms of emotional suffering, not to promote emotional flourishing. Other emotions do not destroy equilibrium or the sense of well-being as soon as they arise, but in fact enhance it—so they would be called constructive.
~Daniel Goleman
How is my anxiety valuable to me?
It’s so easy to internalize dysfunction, to own and embody a condition that reduces our sense of self to ourselves and within our communities; it limits our ability to navigate in the world. We are less comfortable with looking at the external forces that play a role in our well-being or lack of it.
“May I have inner and outer safety.” ~The Four Divine Abodes
The myth of happiness is woven into the American consciousness. This ideal has not been designed for women and people of color, yet we allow the myth to enter our framework of self-identity and suffer for the shortcomings of that comparison. Until we learn to see ourselves as products of an oppressive society, individuals, who are ill equipped to bear the weight of these burdens, we must carry the imbalances that arise from the pervasive oppression under which we toil.
“May I hold my pain with mercy.” ~The Four Divine Abodes
There is a demand, an artificial one, that insists that we show up in society at 100% at all times. The sense that we cannot fluctuate from that norm is pervasive. With my students, a deep sense of failure was often articulated over an inability to master a technique that is only being tried for the first time. My answer was always that Doing one’s best on any given day is not the same as being perfect, operating at one hundred percent every day of our lives. That impossible goal is overdue for demystification. Aiming at that kind of perfection is not only impossible, it is also detrimental to our health and the health of our communities. It’s a myth that insists we show up as something other than our real selves. It is a myth that perpetuates anxiety, guilt and shame over our true selves rather than fostering a foundation of compassion wherein we can strive and grow into our evolving selves. It is a myth that breeds fear and isolation, components of anxiety.
“May I be undisturbed by the coming and goings of situations.”~ The Four Divine Abodes
The anxiety I feel is useful as a warning system, reminding me to stay in community—to seek it out if necessary. My anxiety pushes me to get help and to find the courage to move beyond the limits of my emotions and to examine the root causes of my dis-ease.
At the height of its grip on me, my anxiety was activated by the unhealthy racial climate at work, which was established over many years, designed to alienate me, and anyone who looks like me, consistently and strategically in overt and covert ways. The absence of friendliness and kindness took their toll on me. After ten years of absorbing toxicity from those in power, my body and my mind worked together to awaken me from my torpor. I could not ignore my anxiety if I meant to survive.
“May I hold my joys and sorrows with equanimity.” ~ The Four Divine Abodes
Ten years is long time to not belong. I had to get over the shame of not succeeding in an environment that never wanted me. Next, I named the climate that actively dehumanized me and treated me as inferior, made me feel out of place in the academy. I abandoned my systematic willingness to enter the war zone, crossing boundaries littered with landmines, peopled with hostile agents, looking for my happiness. I relearned compassion for myself and my oppressors.
“May your happiness increase and never leave you.” ~The Four Divine Abodes
Goddess Blodeuwedd by Luna A. Hosepians
I can see that during the entire episode, my anxiety guided me toward safety. My anxiety acted as a warning system, alerting me to the changes needed to ensure my well-being and happiness. I may not have caused my anxiety, but I am responsible for the state of my life. With this awareness, I’ve set new intentions to listen to my emotions with a heartmind toward Justice, Peace and Healing, and to foster the conditions under which I thrive. I don’t want to dwell in negative emotions, but I do need to investigate them and use them as catalysts to avoid self-harm, because I am fully aware that I am worthy of love and compassion. Three and half years ago, when I had my first anxiety attack, I never imagined I’d be on friendly terms with this emotion. Now I see anxiety as my friend and teacher.
The messages of Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., and Nelson Mandela remain relevant even in a world where ideological confrontations and invasive totalitarianism have been overcome. They are messages of hope, of faith in a society’s ability to overcome conflict through mutual understanding and watchful patience. To achieve this, we must rely on our belief in human rights, the violation of which—whoever the perpetrators may be—must provoke our indignation. We must never surrender these rights. ~Stéphane Hessel
I wonder whether it is enough for me to do my work, to write my story, to create my art. I can no longer take liberty for granted, if ever I had. I have the urgency to stay awake, and yet, I also feel a tremendous responsibility to foster peace in the world, in my heart, in my home. The more I am afraid of the future, the more I cling to my sense of purpose, the calling in my life and to caring for myself, and others, with compassion, serenity and love.
Elliott C. Nathan
It is easier to deal with the external manifestations of racism and sexism than it is to deal with the results of those distortions internalized within our consciousness of ourselves and one another.*
We must not permit our backs to be pressed against a wall, dogs to run us down like fugitives, or bars to close in around our hearts. If we are free, then no one can take that. And, we must believe that we are free—we have to know it. We have to own our freedom and live accordingly.
I say, keep your peace. Make room for your joy. Make sure that when the storm passes, your house is standing.
I believe I do not have to burn things to be part of a revolution —though I honor and recognize that those who must burn structures, effigies and ideals are necessary to the cycle of change.
I am writing about an anger so huge and implacable so corrosive, it must destroy what it most needs for its own solution, dissolution, resolution.*
I tend my garden, write like a mad woman, connect with my people, cry into my pillow, sculpt my ancestors, sand the teak table that has stood out in the blessed rain all this long winter. I do these things, and I watch, as Hessel prescribes, with a patience that is steeped in long-suffering and the alertness of a new season.
In our struggle for justice, peace and equity, we owe it to ourselves to nurture love, self-care and harmony. These are critical responsibilities for liberation workers.
We all have a part to play in how our world operates. The interconnectivity of our lives can no longer be ignored. Beloved, justice-loving President John F. Kennedy once said, “Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.” Now, more than ever, this question is pertinent in its application to service in this country, and also to the required work in our cities, families and extended communities. Perhaps we need to expand the definition of poison, broaden the scope to encompass of how actions that intend to harm one group inevitably undermines all of us, since we share the same ecosystems.
Cristiana Briscese
When Regan took office, he implemented all manner of racists policies as a backlash to the reforms of the 1970s—the product of much bloodshed and activism during the mass Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s—he wanted a return to the past, to once again disenfranchise black Americans, who were at last prospering with gainful employment, access to the ballot and a legislated end to centuries of legal discrimination. So the 80s became the decade for undoing the gains of previous decade, by first closing the factories that employed thousands of workers all over the country, but especially in the motor cities of the mid-west, where many blacks had migrated the century before. Other manufacturers shuttered plants as well, lining their pockets and resting their large heads on soft pillows in the great old US of A, while keeping their portly purses well out of reach of Uncle Sam. Combined that with the simultaneous economically devastating white flight from urban cities and the strategic divestment in the remaining communities, and America’s working class was dealt a mortal deathblow.
Just as many whites as blacks lost jobs to the factory closings. The lose of tax revenue from those who left the cities, dwindled, and then, those who could, packed their bags and left. But it seems that now the desolation of a targeted group of people has inexplicably, at long last, trickled down to the rural areas of Virginia and runs amok in the woods of Pennsylvania, where the toxic stream meanders through the land and fords the vast wildernesses where once stood the fabled factory of the well-paying job for the undereducated. And just like that, it becomes woefully apparent, that though poison will at first killed the intended undesirable fish in the immediate vicinity, it will, before long, also kill the frogs in distant ponds as it runs it course.
Take the clever example offered in the movie There will be Blood when oil tycoon Daniel Plainview, takes his straw and says to his nemesis, “I drink your milk,” he clarifies that the oil beneath the ground does not honor property boundaries; the milk, of course, is a metaphor for the oil in the earth, the same collective resource of all those who inhabit the land, sustenance that may as well be any resource from housing, to jobs, to healthy food, to lead-free water.
Your consent is unnecessary.
Similarly ironic, when decades of fracking leads to earthquakes in places like Oklahoma that had never before been susceptible to the shifting of tectonic plates, it give pause—to some. Or, when oil pipelines that have long mapped over Native lands like arteries outside an ailing body leak oil into formerly pristine waterways, we see that it’s only a matter of time before what we have done unto others gets done to us:
Pillage the forests; get land erosion and warmer climes.
Spray pesticides, and kill all the bees.
Undermine the livelihood of black American, and sow widespread unemployment.
We are all connected.
by Cristiana Briscese
No one can escape the poison once it seeps into the land, the water and the air. We have to clean it all up, or we all perish. We don’t get to choose who lives or who dies. We must be the stewards of the land, and not solely the environmental aspects of our shared geographies, but of the people, especially, and the plants and animals that are sustained or destroyed by our daily choices, and our insatiable hungers. We must invest in each other, with our hearts, and be willing to extend that love to our brothers and sisters—no matter what skin tone, regardless of papers, beliefs, notwithstanding.
It is our responsibility to seek these reconciliations—each one of us. When we have done these things, all will be well.
Here’s what’s at stake for ordinary people: So far, the Tubbs and Nuns fires have displaced hundreds of people. After multiple hurricanes devastated Puerto Rico’s citizens, few of the victims were able to communicate with family on the mainland or get clean water and food. The recent mass shooting in Las Vegas had people from all over the country looking for loved ones who were unreachable after the massacre made headlines. Plus, for a slightly more mundane social problem than the past few weeks of hurricanes, shootings and earthquakes, chronic homelessness and drug use bring their own arsenals of concern.
