Mindfulness

Teaching elements of Critical Race Theory and Ethnic Studies is not teaching people to be hateful and prejudice against white people. People who think this have a deep ignorance on the topic or are buying into the panic being spread by people who benefit from the people not being able to think critically about systems.  Let me explain this by using my own story. I am white with a dominant ancestral roots in Europe and I am fairly confident that the Anderson branch were early Arkansas/Tennessee Scotch-Irish settlers pre-Civil War. What does this mean? I definitely had ancestors who fought on the Confederate side. Yet, when I talk to people about race or learn about the Civil War I do not feel like my identity is being attacked or that I should shoulder the shame of the past. I instead wanted to learn more. I wanted to know why Poor Whites in the South would back an institution that really did not benefit them as much as it did the planters. I wanted to know why people would allow ra...

  “We are what we repeatedly do. Greatness then, is not an act, but a habit” ―  Will Durant This quote was a mantra of sorts for me starting in 2018. I created many routines for myself and from those routines I was able to accomplish a lot personally and professionally. The pandemic has thrown a massive wrench into those habits and since then the feeling of being 'on track' has not existed. Routines, regardless if they are enjoyable, are a foundation of our mental health.  The best example of a routine that I had no idea mattered to me so much until the world stop was listening to music for my 30 minute commute to work. Missing my morning workout at the gym was a big thing that changed and my mind focused on that. Then I realized I was super grouchy in the mornings then it dawned on that I was missing that block of time where I would just listen to music to transition into or out of work. So I now make it a habit to listen to music on my stereo before work to get me pumpe...

My mind in the Spring of 2020 was too loud for me to handle. Fall of 2020 my life was too busy for my thoughts to be processed. Now, I think I have forgotten how to process. I just wanted to explain my lack of blog posts as of late.  Now that I am less busy and my mind has recovered slightly I plan to focus on three things: mindfulness, nutrition, and physical exercise.  Uncertainty is exhausting. Exhausting. Not just a tired exhaustion it is every type of exhaustion layered on top of one another. Your body hurts from the tension that you hold, your mind hurts from trying to figure out what might happen and how it might impact you, and you are emotionally exhausted because there is never an off moment. Part of me just wants decisions to made so I can react to it... negatively or positively. It is the uncertainty part of it that makes it hard to cope. This is what makes a pandemic different from any other crisis I've experienced. It is a roller coaster of uncertainty and progre...

I am going to admit something to the world that hopefully might help someone. I am currently suffering from some really bad anxiety. It comes in waves and mostly hits me around 8 o'clock, the time where I close out my day, and switch over to more quiet time activities.  Sometimes my thoughts are directed toward worry about my students, my friends, and my family. Sometimes my fear is directed towards myself as my brain tricks me into thinking I am sick when I am not. There are times that these thoughts have triggered panic attacks and then other times where I can feel my anxiety impact my body. In the form of muscle aches, headaches, racing heart, upset stomach, and a feeling of pressure in my chest. Sadly... some of these symptoms overlap with Covid-19 symptoms and then the anxiety increases even more.  I am currently trying to break this cycle and manage it since dealing with the biological impacts of stress or anxiety thoughts are not fun. Nor are they sustainable. ...

I have spoken on many occasions about being the youngest in my family who love to debate. Most of my life I sat there listening as I watched the adults and my older cousins provide evidence, commentary, questions and grapple with complex issues. I watched and took it in as I saw some people get frustrated and others enjoy the frustration they were causing. I also saw how even as the political conversation got heated it was quickly reconciled and no one, at least, seemed to take it all that personally. No one doubted the intentions and good will of the other despite having contrasting views on complex political issues. As I grew more confident I brought my own opinions to the table. Especially after 9/11 and the beginnings of the Iraq War. It impacted my generation and there were people I knew who were talking about joining the military. I became obsessed, because I was worried. I scoured sources and did research as I tried to figure out my own political identity. I found that I was ...

I think it is important to take the end of the year to reflect on the good, the triumphant, the difficult, and the failures. Years really do not mean anything if you think about how arbitrary it all is, but it is the only way to document history and even our own personal history to see our growth. Whether it was a good year, a bad year, or somewhere in between growth happened. You changed. I started this thing after reading a book about naming the chapter of our lives, because if you notice years do have themes and they are never the same. I wouldn't have known that if I didn't take the time at the end of the year to search for the right word. Here is my life so far.  1987-2001  CHILDHOOD 2001-2005  ADOLESCENCE  2005 the year of  DOUBT 2006 the year of  LOSS 2007 the year of the  HOPE 2008 the year of  ABANDON  2009 the year of  UNKNOWN 2010 the year of  RISK 2011 the year of  LEARNING  2012 the year of...

The need for control was a conversation piece with my friends and I over the weekend. My mind has been thinking about it more and more since then, because I was intrigued by the idea that I was given more percentage points for a need for control than my other friends. Most people perceive me as a rather even-keel individual who only has a handful of things she would die on the hill for. So it sparked a curiosity in me to explore it a little more.  I think, all of us, have a need for control out of pure survival. Even zen buddhism lies in the principal that we have mastered our emotions and regulated ourselves so much that we are able to overcome desire or need. This takes a level of self-control that is hard to accomplish let alone maintain. So we all have areas of healthy control and unhealthy control.  There are a few areas where the need to control tends to manifest.  Control OVER others  Control OVER themselves  Control OVER their environment....

The truth is that no matter how much we grow as human-beings we can easily get derailed by the reminders of our past vulnerabilities.  Restless Energy  I have written extensively about my experiences at school. The feeling of being judged by teachers, peers, and systems. Some of those judgements came from a toxic self-image perceiving others as judgmental  and some of it was legit judgement. These feelings led me to feel like I needed to prove something to the people around me. In my youth, this feeling was portrayed by a demeanor of wanting to seem like I was over-confident and did not care about the things that the people around me cared about. As a young adult, it manifested in obsessive perfectionism about grades. Even today as thirty-something sometimes I get a case of imposter syndrome. This irrational fear that I am pretending really well and eventually people are going to figure out that I am just a resource kid who really does not deserve the things that I h...

9/11 is one of the most transformative days in United States history. It changed our relationship with the world, shifted our relationship with globalization in general, put in motion two wars, created new terrorist networks, polarized political parties, laid down seeds of mistrust in Democracy, cleared the path for nationalism, and made us a fearful people. So as the years pass and the more we know about how this day impacted us the pomp and circumstance that surrounds the day seems false and forced. We put on our patriotic hat to pause for those who died that day only to go back to our polarized camps of distrusting and undermining one another mere hours later. So as much as I mourn for the death of almost 3,000 people that died there is so much more to this day than that. I mourn the men and women who gave their lives to fight in Afghanistan and Iraq. I mourn for the ones who came back who have yet to fully gain the benefits they deserve. I mourn for the soldiers who are still fig...

Introduction  Human beings are the masters of paradoxes. Our entire existence surrounds the most universal one of life and death. Other paradoxes that are apparent in history involve the issues of freedom vs. security,  unity vs. individuality, personal wealth vs. collective wealth, tradition vs. innovation, and there are so many others yet to be named. It is this pull that lives within humans that ask the question which side do I value more or how do I maintain a perfect balance of the two. Depending on the culture and the individual the answer to that question might look different. There is one paradox in particular that I have been thinking about lately. The paradox of kindness vs. honesty. This one bothers me to no end, because to me it is a paradox that exists due to toxic definitions of kindness and honesty. To be honest should be kind, and to be kind should be honest. So my plan is to examine both sides of these words to show how the toxic side forces a choice betwee...

This is really a reflection of some strange torn feelings that August has brought into my mind, but before I get to that I feel it is necessary to understand how I got to these reflections. So I will start with bullet-journaling. I contribute my success for weight loss and all around stronger mental health to keeping up with Bullet Journaling. This small part of my daily life carved time for reflection and organization.  Organization  Single place to put down training plans and to-do lists.  Single place to put down all my meetings, tasks, and events.  Provides a space to chunk out big tasks so that I am successful with the goals I set for myself.  The most important part of the Bullet Journal process though was the built-in reflection piece. Organization is great in that tasks get complete, I don't lose sight of the small things when stressed, and I make sure the important things get done first. Sometimes though tasks just become tasks. Part of the...

Authenticity is a word a that is both important and misunderstood. The word at its most base level simply means honest and original. Someone who lives their life in a completely honest and open manner would be someone who lives their life authentically. The idea of 'authentic' has become a public relations buzz word. This means we live in a world where even being authentic is a marketable trait, which muddies the water since if you are manufactured then by definition you are not authentic. But that doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things, because as long as you feel an authentic relatability about a politician or celebrity then everyone has done their job. Al Gore, for example, was often criticized for not seeming authentic since he seemed stiff. In never occurred to anyone, that his stiffness might be his authentic self and the weird creepy guy who tongued his wife on stage was someone who was trying to 'relate' to a group of people he had absolutely no idea...

Over the last two months I have been thinking about my spirit animal more and more lately. A spirit animal is simply an animal that you feel spiritually connected to on a deeper level. It goes beyond 'this is my favorite animal' or 'they are super cute.' Instead, your spirit animal gives you a feeling that you are somehow connected or you are drawn to them. Often times you will see your spirit animal in dreams or even stumble upon them in nature more times than you would reasonably think you would. This is a deep connection and almost feels like the same feeling you get when you learn something new about yourself, make a life-time connection with a significant other, or that feeling you get when you come home after a long trip. It's both comforting and can also be eerie depending on where you are psychologically. Now, being a secular-humanist it might seem strange that I am even entertaining the idea that spirit animals exist. True that I have doubts on supernatur...

Authenticity has been on my mind lately. Mostly because I think it is overused and under-practiced. I would say that the majority of humans are not actually authentic, even if we have yearning to be and often claim to be. In the name of living up to this topic, I must admit that I am still in the process of understanding what it means to be authentic and to be honest still struggle with some parts of it. Not saying that I am dishonest or that I am easily swayed by the opinions around me, but there is something that a truly authentic person does that I think only a few have mastered. I hope to master it though. I am going to continue this conversation by looking at the different parts of what it means to be authentic. Honesty -  Honesty is another concept that I find interesting. Many people wear the band of 'truth teller' when really they crush the light of others to make their light seem brighter. It depends on the why you are being 'honest' and if your 'hone...

Everyone has walls and defenses based on the experience they have had. We all come into this world open, but as time goes by we all start to create our own way of surviving that can be destructive if we allow it to be. Might help with the short term, but it creates more problems in the future. Manifests in something more and more unhealthy if left examined. I am working on examining those walls and seeing what walls are foundational and what walls are unnecessary. Sometimes your house feels crowded due to the fact that there are too many barriers. If you remove them then you open up your house and there is a better flow to it. It makes the house feel open and welcoming, sometimes even freeing with more light. So that is my current journey. Seeing what is necessary and what it is getting in my way when it comes to having a healthy relationship with my friends, my family, and the world. Makes me sound like I have a 'hotmess'. I'm not. Definitely not. But I have to admit t...

Watching the Women's World Cup is bringing all these emotions and memories that I have to confront. That I feel needs to be addressed. I honestly do not talk about it too much, but it is a big part of who I am and how I operate. Maybe even illuminates some of my shortcomings as well. Let me start with the macro and I will work my way to my smaller story inside the larger narrative. Which is...it took me awhile to see the power in being a female.  Women, ethnic minorities, or members of the LGBTQ community (or some combination of the three) do not fit the 'normal' power paradigms and therefore rarely feel like they can connect with the people they see on the big or small screen.  This dissatisfaction comes from one of three places:  Lack of diverse ethnicities, religions, and races in general. Meaning these groups are simply not being cast.  Lack of humanizing and giving proper complexity to the diverse natures of these ethnicities, religions, and races when t...

“Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything." - George Bernard Shaw  Change is everywhere in my life. Not that it was not there before, because it is apart of life and we change all the time. But currently everyone I love are going through moves, processing retirement, changing career focuses, ending monumental relationships, or reconnecting with themselves by focusing on health. Change is a scary word due to the fact that it requires some kind of loss and the requirement of taking on something new. I tend to focus on the change, but the conversations I had this week reminded me that change is the outside and transition is the mind. We cling to change without truly examining how our identities handle and transition to the change. "Change is situational. Transition, on the other hand, is psychological. It is not those events, but rather the inner reorientation or self-redefinition that you have to go through in ord...