Youthful Life: X

“Taking care is one way to show your love. Another way is letting people take good care of you when you need it.” Mr. Fred Rogers There's a difference between feeling like we know people and the actual knowing of them. Oftentimes we mistake the former for the latter. People we have encountered who seem to share themselves with us so freely. We know all this information about them, but that necessarily mean we know them. What makes the knowing real is getting the emotions, the feelings, the experience of living through all those moments. It may cost us something to share our stories but it definitely requires a labor to give the truth of what an experience meant to us. We have to be able to distinguish between knowing and knowing with depth. Maybe we feel connected to people quickly because we are living in a time of strong disconnection. Maybe people have been deprived of substantive connection. Maybe we're not used to people being genuine in their vulnerability with us.  Rad...

"The benefits and possibilities that are created created by being personally accountable are countless." Jay Fiset Accountability is truth actualized. Calls for unity without amends are inauthentic means of gaslighting, silencing, and minimizing harm. We cannot and should not move forward on any scale without the necessary recognition of all that has transpired. It's dangerous for all involved. Those that have caused harm continue aloof as to how they have caused harm for others and will continue to do so, or never take the opportunity to hold themselves accountable to responsibly own their "stuff." For those that are most directly impacted it's a questioning of sanity to even wonder if all that was experienced, felt, etc. was even real. It's a gutting discarding of truth in favor of prioritizing false comfort. People have to be uncomfortable. Harm has been caused. Pain has been given out. Violence in its forms has been perpetrated.  There's no real...

 “You can’t calm the storm, so stop trying. What you can do is calm yourself. The storm will pass.” – Timber Hawkeye Life can be overwhelming at times. There always seems to be so many things going on at once. Managing it all just gets to be too much, and there we are paralyzed into nothingness. Everything seems to pile up and we get stuck in task debt that we struggle to get out of. There doesn't seem to be respite or reprieve just more work, more things to know, more things to do, and more people to maintain relationships with. It's the knowing that can be so debilitating. It's seeing it all and being privy to the knowledge that we're supposed to do it all, and in a speedy manner. When we've fallen behind, missed something, or suddenly have a lot we can get weighed down. We drown. We flail. We scream underwater. We gasp for air. We just want to stop swimming if only for a little while. What happened to floating peacefully. What happened to soaring above the water?...

" Trust yourself. You’ve survived a lot, and you’ll survive whatever is coming." Robert Tew Knowing ourselves is one of the great mysteries of life. There is always and always more to uncover about who we are and who we believe ourselves to be. The reconciliation of those two makes for a challenge of lifelong proportions. As we have new experiences all of our past, our processing of said past, and the progress we have made since come together to inform our present selves. I have spent much of my adult life bracing for impact. I am just waiting in perpetual flinch for something to happen. I am wincing for a pain that I know inevitably will come. It's odd to live such a bright life with the conditioning that darkness is almost always just over the horizon. Call it pessimistic but I call it pragmatic. There have been so many moments of joy that were interrupted by heaviness that directly called me to attention.  One text message, a phone call, a tweet, and on, and on. Wheth...

" The world needs a sense of worth, and it will achieve it only by its people feeling that they are worthwhile." "Try your best to make goodness attractive. That's one of the toughest assignments you'll ever be given." Fred Rogers Truth, above all else . I am reminded more and more how often people look to us to set the tone of our conversations. It is only when we "lead" by example that people can do the same. All it takes is us being brave for one moment so the people we're looking to connect with can be empowered to also release their truths. Often what we really want to say is just below the surface, and all of us are well aware of it but hesitate long enough for the moment to pass. The thing is there's not just one moment for us to speak with candor. Those moments can be infinite if we choose them to be. We don't necessarily have to wait for the right time; we can make our own. Hell, we can even tee-up our "big...

" You haven’t healed, I can tell from how cruel you are.” Warsan Shire We're all carrying things with us. Some of things we're carrying visibly weigh on us while others are cloaked but remain heavy nonetheless. The thing about heaviness is that we have the potential to transform it. Oftentimes we get caught up in believing that the hardships we carry will be part of us for our entireties. In reality, we can shift the weight, redistribute it, or even better lighten the load. I don't think we ever really unload all that has stayed with us but I do believe that we can compact it, extract its essence, and convert it into something more manageable or even useful. What a powerful sentiment. There's hope in that.  If we don't have to hold all this heaviness forever that can mean a great deal for us. That means that how we feel, what we're holding, and how we're carrying it will not always be this way. Things aren't hopeless. While some things may...

"Empathy is simply listening, holding space, withholding judgment, emotionally connecting, and communicating that incredibly healing message of you’re not alone.” Brene Brown I saw a tweet the other day that stopped me in my tracks and made my jaw drop. How could someone so succinctly summarize this seemingly convoluted concept I had rattling around in my head. She said, "Americans are really good at acute compassion, but pretty bad at chronic empathy. We without questions, haul strangers out a raging flood, give blood, give shelter. But we are lousy at legislating safe, sustainable communities, at eldercare, at accessible streets and buildings. It is the long-term work that makes the disasters less damaging. But we don't want to give to the needy, we want to save the endangered. We don't like being care workers, we want to be heroes. The world does not need more heroes.  We need more care." Sigrid Joy Ellis We struggle with sustained care. We want to ...

"It is not length of life, but depth of life." Ralph Waldo Emerson Death is a natural part of life but that doesn't make it any easier to handle. Death has been part of the human life cycle for millennia, and it's still the worst thing that people can experience. Death comes for all of us, and we can feel its inevitable aftermath as devastating. What is there to say about death besides that nothing and no one prepares us for the despair it leaves us with. It is so beyond the scope of our understanding that we malfunction just trying to wrap our heads around what it means. How can someone we love die? How can they be gone forever? How can I never speak to them, hear from them, or touch them ever again? For the rest of our lives? That can't be real. How can someone who has been part of all my days be absent from them for the rest of my days? It's not fair. It doesn't make sense. It's unbelievable. It is beyond belief. Things beyond belief do not ...