Pavini Moray's Blog, page 5

How to hold on to your own humanity

When someone gets triggered, they often want to blame someone else for how they feel (points at self.)

Yes, I’m coming out as a blamer.

My first reaction is almost always to blame before investigating my feelings and how they belong to me. 

Glitter Joyride is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

In fact, my partner and I used to call my blame strategy my "heat seeking missile." 

Photo by Oo Jiflip on Unsplash

It would look for a target and send all the ill feelings that way. 

My somatic coach helped me understand the root of this strategy is loneliness. 

I feel so terrible and alone with these feelings that I want to throw them at someone else: "Here, you feel this, so I don't have to be alone in feeling it." 

The problem is, when you throw your feelings at someone, you dismiss their humanity. 

You forget that they are a living, breathing human with a nuanced emotional experience and needs of their own, including the need to feel dignity. 

There they are, having their own experience, and whammo!

They get slimed with an intense ball of someone else’s emotions.

This has likely happened to you: someone says or does something blamey out of the blue that throws you off center. 

They are taking out their feelings on you, trying to make it your fault that they feel like they do. 

They might want you to take on their feelings or take care of their feelings. 

Either way, you've got ooze dripping down your front where your heart used to be. 

Welcome to having your humanity erased. 

It is so painful when this happens.

It is the opposite of reciprocal, respectful relating. 

I'll give you an example. 

Back when I had my company, I hired someone, let's call them Sam, to do some work for the company. 

They worked for me a few hours each week for about six months. 

Sam did a good job. I liked their work. 

One day Sam quit, seemingly out of nowhere. 

They met with me and aggressively yelled at me about their inhumane working conditions and my despicable leadership. 

They went so far as to attack me personally and disparage my company and our offerings. 

The blame attack was jarring and unexpected. At that moment, I froze. 

I thought the thing to do was listen compassionately.

It's what I believed a good boss should do.

If I were in that situation now, I would do things differently. 

When it became clear that their rant was not just about their job but about attacking my personhood, I would cut them off. 

No one deserves to be verbally upbraided.

When I reflected on the feedback, some of what they said had validity: about 5-8% was objectively true.

I had made some mistakes.

But that means 92-95% of what they shared was their own projections. 

Their feedback was oversized compared to our relationship and the size of their job. 

They were projecting things on me, the company and our services that had no basis. 

As a result of that meeting, I felt destabilized for months.

I questioned my judgment and my decisions. 

I felt crippling shame about the things they had said. Were they right? 

I allowed their dismissal of my humanity to be exacerbated by the ways I dismissed my own humanity. 

Their vehemence and violent speech got under my skin, and I didn't know how to get it out. 

It took a long time to reclaim my humanity, to unblend with the shade and shame that was cast, and to remember my value, and the value of what we were up to. 

What I didn't understand was that Sam likely dismissed their own humanity, so it was easy to ignore mine. 

We see this when someone is canceled: a complete dismissal of their humanity, a deliberate forgetting that there can be a mix of parts, emotions, motivations, and behaviors. 

Cancelling says someone is terrible, all bad. 

Cancelling is modeled after the prison industrial complex. 

The court of public opinion is just as violent.

"Criminal, perpetrator, abuser”: these are big, heavy words, and yet they are used indiscriminately in common parlance in many communities I move in. 

One word to define the entirety of a person's existence?

I want us to all have more complexity than that.

After the experience with Sam, I realized the most painful part was how I could not maintain my own sense of self. 

How I crumbled at the edges and felt hatred about myself. 

Outsider communities can develop such rigid conditions for membership (unspoken) that members walk on eggshells, terrified of making a mistake and being exiled. 

After the experience with Sam, I made a commitment to myself. 

I promised to hold onto my own humanity, as well as the humanity of others. 

This practice has been life-changing. 

Later that year, I wrote a Code of Honour to remember who I am and what matters most. 

I read it most days. 

I live and let live. I am fully honest but don't initiate trouble.

I stay with it until clarity arrives. I name what is. 

I hold the boundary that protects my center and sanity: I say yes to life-giving practices, thoughts, situations, and people. I say no to life-blocking practices, thoughts, situations, and people. 

I greet the sacred world and accept grace as it is given. 

I am a soft and trusting heart and ever increase my capacity to give and receive love. 

I seek sparkle. I listen for guidance of the unseen. I walk in beauty. I smell the ephemeral & sublime.

I trust magick and that there is always more to be revealed, as I practice whole time.

I harm none with intention. 

I share power, speak clearly, and communicate with love: I believe in liberation for all and in our deep interweave.

I am present, connected, and creative. I live with the intention to be a kind and safe ancestor.

I love myself deeply and act from that love. 

I dance with all of it, turn towards, and then discern what is next. 

I only own myself, but all of me is mine. I am accountable in word, thought, and deed. 

When I receive difficult feedback, I can listen more easily because I will not join with the person's assessment but will consider what important information they are sharing and what they might need. 

It's not that I don't take it personally because that would be too good to be true.

We impact each other.

I want to be soft enough to be impactable and firm enough to have a firm enough center that if an ugly, unhinged attack comes my way, I can stay connected to my feelings, needs, and humanity. 

In practice, it means three things:

Listening

Discerning what's what: truth or projection/blame

Responding from a place that holds my humanity, dignity, and the other person's. I refuse to dismiss your humanity, because that practice helps me hold onto my own. 

There's also step 3 A: Talk incredibly sweetly to myself, gently enquiring what would be helpful and what I need. 

It means I share more vulnerably about my own experience, never allowing difficult conversations to be one-sided, or about just one person’s feelings.

I know I am not available for someone to take their feelings out on me, but we can build a bridge if they can show up with their feelings and space for mine. 

It was my willingness to let go of my own humanity, to believe I was bad, that fucked me up.

People project all kinds of things without being aware they are doing so.

You are under no obligation to absorb their projections. 

Holding onto your humanity feels like love, care, and dignity.

It means you affirm your worth and believe your own experience.

Holding onto another's humanity feels like remembering they are human beings with needs and wants, even though they behave poorly. 

To hold onto your humanity when it's under attack, it's best to remain in your body so you can notice the damage and tend to it quickly. 

Palden Gyatso was a Tibetan monk who was tortured and jailed by the Chinese for 33 years.

In his memoir "Fire under the Snow," he expresses compassion for the prison guards who tortured him.

How is this possible? 

He said,

'It is not that I was without hatred. Especially when I was being tortured by my guards, I had immense hatred against them because I was being hurt. But, as a religious person, after the event I could reflect on what had happened, and I could see that those who inflicted torture did so out of their own ignorance. As a religious person I have to sit back and ask myself, what is all this? Buddhist teachings say, don't let your calm be disturbed and do not respond to anger with anger.'

He held onto compassion for the guard's humanity and, in doing so, held onto his own. 

Amazing.

Others will dismiss your humanity. 

You do not need to join with them, either by dismissing your own, or dismissing theirs. 

You get to hold on to all of who you are, no matter what.

Glitter Joyride is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

How to connect by not doubling down!

“I love all the divine feminine energy here. It’s so important. They are trying to tear us apart, but we won’t be divided,” she leans in, her wispy voice disrupting the conversation I had been having with my friend.

We are sitting on the lawn at The Chicks concert.

We are enjoying snacks, waiting for the band to take the stage, when this white waify purple-haired woman sat down on the grass between us.

At first, she is on her phone, invading our personal space, but seems harmless.

But then she starts talking, all goddess this, womyn that, feminine feminine feminine.

Eye-gazing.

Lavender hair tossing.

She is trying to connect.

My friend and I rolled our eyes at each other and shook our damn heads.

Both non-binary, we are no strangers to hearing how incredible our “feminine energy” is.

Let me be clear.

I love women.

I am down with how people want to describe their experiences.

Usually, I pick my battles about gender.

I often ignore comments like these.

After all, I will never see the person again.

But this lady wouldn’t drop it.

Amping up, she went on and on about the glorious feminine moon, the goddess energy of the crowd, the field of the feminine emanating from us all.

Finally, I had had enough.

The moment I set a clear, kind boundary:

I turned toward her and said, “I’m not trying to bust your groove, but you are talking to two non-binary, trans people. The language about the “divine feminine” you are using doesn’t work for me. It is alienating and off-putting. You are gonna need to stop with that if you want to hang out with us.”

In my head, I’m putting my money on her not relenting. It seems, for a brief moment, that she will stop.

“Oh yes! I honor you so much!” she replies, chatting about the music for a minute.

Great, but my guard is up.

“But really, fighting the patriarchy takes ALL of us.”

Uh-oh.

And then.

“Okay, but you don’t understand. Your feminine energy is so beautiful! You are so powerful!”

And there it is, folks. The ole double-down.

Here’s what the Google has to say: “The phrase “double down” means to put forth the additional effort or risk in a situation or argument, even if you know the outcome will be a mistake or will be negative.”

At this point, my friend sees my disgust. They lean in, bless them, and bravely give Purple Hair Gender 101.

For five minutes of their precious life on Earth time, it’s all smash the gender binary, celebrate the glittering gender multiverse, and try to help this woman learn.

I admire their fortitude.

Their educational interlude gives me time to think about what I want from this situation.

I want it to stop.

I want to have a good night.

I want to be kind.

Until.

This bitch puts her hand on my arm! “I just want you to know I honor everything about you, your….”

I knock her hand off my arm.

“Don’t touch me,” I growl.

I mean.

When was the last time someone tried to manage me physically?

Now I’m mad.

Is she tripping? She might be.

I still have care for this human, misguided as she is.

I say, “Look, I know you want to connect, but I’m here for the concert, not to educate you. I asked you to stop, and you didn’t. We are done here.”

She tells me that because she honors me, she is going to leave.

“If you really honor me, here’s what you can do. After the concert, go home and get on Google. Research gender identity. Research non-binary. That’s how you can honor me,” is how I reply.

This is reasonable, considering all the shitty and mean things I could have said.

Here’s her parting shot: “I’m sorry for all the people who hurt you and made you the way you are.”

She runs, I mean RUNS, off, forgetting her wallet in the process.

I look at it lying there, unwilling to do anything with it.

But my friend is nicer than me and sprints after her to return it.

They return, laughing, “ Now she’s gonna think trans people are so evil.”

And she likely will.

Bullshit like this happens all the time to my black friends, transfeminine peeps, fat folks, disabled friends, and all the other folks existing at the edges of what is considered ‘normal.’

Something about this episode made me question the doubling down thing.

Like, why double down?

Since we are at The Chicks concert, it’s apropos to talk about their name.
Formerly known as The Dixie Chicks, their fans put pressure on them to drop Dixie from their name so their professed anti-racist values would be in alignment with the band name.

They chose not to double down on keeping the name, instead getting current and working toward racial justice.

They modeled what Purple Hair needed.

Why did she believe her intention to be understood was much more important than the impact I expressed to her?

More important than the boundary I set?

This is a meme, right? The doubling down?

What did that lady think was gonna happen if she kept insisting on my feminine energy after I set a boundary, saying how she honored me without listening to me and kept nonconsensually touching me?

Has anyone ever softened because you convinced them you were right?

or…

Have you ever been convinced by someone’s intentions that the impact you feel doesn’t matter?

I think about embodied strategies a lot.

Strategies are attempts to meet needs.

Doubling down is a strategy.

Doubling down feels like “But…!” in your body.

“But you don’t get what I’m saying!”

“But I didn’t mean it like that!”

“But if you really got it, you wouldn’t feel like that.

That lady wanted to belong with us.

For that to happen, she felt we had to understand her perspective.

It makes sense.

However, how she went about belonging didn’t work for us, and ultimately for her.

If she were my client, I would suggest implementing a new narrative and strategy for belonging.

I would tell her:

Stop and listen when someone gives you feedback that something in your behavior isn’t working.

In my dance community, we read our community agreements. Here are the relevant bits:

“If you receive feedback from another dancer that they were uncomfortable with something, here’s what to do:

Stop.

Listen.

Reflect back to them what you’ve heard.

Ask questions to make sure you understand the impact they are sharing with you.

If you get stuck, seek a supporter.

If someone offers you feedback, they give you the gift of believing in your capacity to learn. Take the opportunity.”

Seriously.

It doesn’t seem that difficult to me.

Sure, it’s hard to hear you unwittingly impacted someone, but it was an accident, right?

So why not just listen, and say something like, “Oh so sorry! I hear that language doesn’t work for you, so I’ll stop.”

That would have been the coolest thing, and then she could have hung out with us all night.

What is the necessary work that gets us all to the place of being able to hear the impact we inadvertently caused without taking it as a personal affront we must defend against?

If I hurt you, I want to know about it, so I can make it right.

That starts with listening and making sure I understand the impact.

Hurt happens in all relationships.

Repair from harm deepens all relationships.

Being the angry trans person isn’t my jam.

It’s no fun.

I often have so much spaciousness for people’s learning.

Case in point: A little while ago, I came out as non-binary to my 75-year-old silversmithing teacher.

It was the first time she met someone NB or encountered the concept.

I explained it to her, and then she got excited and hugged me, saying, “Happy Binary! Happy Binary! I love you!”

I knew exactly what she meant.

Now we are having conversations, and I’ve given her permission to ask all her questions.

This feels good to me.

I love this work.

She is so excited to learn and to understand and confront the limits of her understanding.

When she makes a mistake, she readily admits it, “Oh shoot, I messed up your pronoun again!” and we move on.

It’s just not a big deal.

Last thought: I wanna double down sometimes too.

Being misunderstood sucks.

The thing is, I didn’t misunderstand the purple lady.

I didn’t think she had bad intentions.

Her intentions of connection were clear.

I think the corrective here is to consider that the impact someone is sharing is the impact they experience.

You don’t know what that feels like to be them.

I am practicing listening to the impact I catalyze in others without defensiveness or trying to convince them of my rightness or good intentions.

Down with the double down, up with Connection!

Glitter Joyride is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

How to set a boundary while staying connected

Remember a little while ago when I published How to Have Self-Discipline Like a Motherfucker?

I received an email in response from a man who has followed my work for years. He wrote,

Sorry, I had to unsubscribe.

I believe in you and your work.

You are better than the email you just sent.

Life is harsh enough right now, without seeing 'motherfucker' pop up in my emails.

I am trying to raise my vibration in this life and 'MOTHERFUCKER!' tends to subdue that effort.

Adios.

While I don't know this man personally, I know an essential thing about him from his email. 

He doesn't know how to negotiate for his needs while staying in a relationship. 

Subscribe now

Sure, our relationship is not close, but my writing clearly matters to him, or he wouldn't have taken the time to write. 

When I received this email, I felt soft and a bit sad. 

What other possibilities existed besides ending the relationship? 

How else could he have gotten his needs met without breaking up with me?

For example, could he have written to me, telling me that the word “motherfucker” upset him and asking if I'd be willing to use a different word?

Or could he have written to me and given me the feedback that while he appreciates my work, he will not open emails with the word motherfucker in the title? 

Sometimes, it's easier to end the relationship than to negotiate for what you need. 

Setting a boundary and staying connected is a challenging skill. Photo by Nando García on Unsplash

I trained in Aikido a while back.

If you are unfamiliar with the practice, in Aikido, someone brings an attack, and you move with the energy of the attack to transform it into going in the direction you prefer.

Sometimes, that means 'introducing someone to the mat,' which is taking them down.

In Aikido, the aim is not to dominate.

You don't win by injuring your opponent.

When you take an opponent down, the instruction is to stay connected with them the entire way down.

Stay attuned to their body so you don't hurt them.

It's a physical and energetic practice: stay connected while asserting your right to body autonomy. 

Aikido taught me a lot about conflict.

It taught me how often I want to look away, pull away, not stay connected when in conflict.

How challenging it is for me to want to be connected with someone who has catalyzed pain. 

Catalyzed, not caused.

In this man's case, my word choice catalyzed feelings he did not wish to feel.

I deeply respect the choice to care for oneself and be clear about what you want to allow in.

Truth is, I'm not better than the word motherfucker.

I like it quite a bit, which will not work for him.

So perhaps the best thing to do is to end the relationship.

And, I also wish, for his sake, that he had had more options.

Staying in a relationship that isn't working or leaving are two options, a binary.

Binaries suck.

Because it's rarely all one thing or another.

I don't know, but I have to wonder if he had grief about leaving our writer/reader relationship.

If he wished I would magically intuit his need and write from that place.

If he feels sad about the breakup. 

Setting boundaries while staying connected is vulnerable.

It's an intimacy of trust: I'm leaning into my discomfort to say this relationship means enough to me that I'll tell you the truth about the thing that isn't working. 

To stay connected when I say "no" to something between us, I have to trust that you will receive it and honor it. 

It's doubtful that if he had asked me to not use the word motherfucker I would have complied.

Still, I can also dream of many possibilities to meet his need to feel safe and easeful and my need for autonomy and expression. 

It's always an interesting challenge in my work with couples: how are we going to come together to make sure the needs of the entire system get met?

Meeting everyone’s needs requires creativity.

Trust.

Willingness.

Those three ingredients make the difference between a relationship untangling knots or ending. 

I want us all to practice setting a boundary while staying connected.

After all, boundaries are there, so we CAN remain connected.

It's sad to me that they are not often received as such.

Boundaries are actually blessings we can receive.

When you say to a beloved there is something you must do to protect your own life, it can be received as a gift.

I accept it as such from that man who wrote to me.

He is protecting his energy, and allowing in what is best for him.

I wish I'd had the chance to determine what I wanted and needed in our relationship rather than having the decision made for me.

I wish we could stay connected, while setting and honoring boundaries that support us both.

Try it this week. Set a boundary, and stay connected.

How to survive the crush of the crowd

If ever you doubt you are loved, don't listen to the robin's breath singing outside your window.

Instead, go to a concert.

Two criteria:

It must be a beloved musician, so there will be a crowd.

Go with someone you’re fighting with.

Upon entering the space (don't arrive too early, or your feet will hurt and you won't make it), take your place.

For example, find a small space near the right wall.

Scootch in.

Notice the six-inch personal space bubble around you and your partner, your date, or your friend, which is radically different from the distance you usually prefer.

You are careful not to bump those around you.

They are careful not to bump you.

Everyone has their tiny space.

Let's say you've been in conflict with your date and are trying to work through it.

Let's assume this is your first outing together in several weeks, and it feels risky and vulnerable.

Let's know you feel tender, raw, and agitated from emotional processing.

That's when her voice scrapes your ears: white woman vocal fry.

'Hey-ah, you can't see-ah, maybe just try right there-ah," she directs her friend right into your personal space.

Too old for the bad behavior that is about to ensue, but young enough she still thinks she can get away with doing whatever she wants, trading the currency of ‘beauty.’

You know the verbal instructions are NOT for her friend's benefit but for yours. "Here I come, you better move over" is the unspoken bully subtext.

How do you know this?

Do your witchy powers tell you?

Or maybe you've been at enough shows with enough women using pretty girl privilege.

Or perhaps you used to try that shit yourself.

Scratch that. You would never. 

Why did she pick you?

You have theories about ageism, fatphobia, transphobia, but basically the answer is the same:

Bullies pick someone they think is weak.

After her friend wiggles into a minuscule crack, the speaker puts her body in the exact space yours is already occupying.

You have choices here, don't you?

Choose wisely because your survival depends on it.

Do the math, take your time, and show your work on your paper.  

One body plus one body equals not enough room in the same space.

One body must move.

Will it be yours?

Math: let’s use the golden mean.

Golden: you feel the bright shine of your warrior heart flare into the night.

Mean: fight this bitch.

Instead of stepping back, your solution is a half-step forward.

"Leaning into conflict" would be one way to name this.

But nothing happens.

Examine the quotient: more than just holding your ground is needed for fry-girl to notice she is impinging your freedom.   

Assess your opponent

You've got one hundred pounds on her.

She does yoga.

The crowd will catch you if you fall.

Multiply the damage.

Jiggle and shake, along with the music, into her personal space.

Ooh, she doesn't like it.

Make it known that you cannot be bullied.

Make it uncomfortable.

Until she turns to you and accuses you of putting your body in the same space as hers.

"I know what you're doing-ah,” she sizzles. “Have some respect-ah!"

What you know about respect would fill a small leather suitcase, a valise grip, a steamer trunk, and a cargo ship.

The golden mean calculator spits out the answer: “….

But before you can say it, your person flies into the space.

Crashes into her body.

Pushes her out of your space.

Later, you'll learn that she grappled.

Tried to wrap a leg hook.

But that move backfired.

She lost her balance.

Toppled into those in front of her.

Oops.

The people she knocked into turn on her, they’re pissed.

She has troubled her own waters.

But also, don't fuck with Gen X.

We literally invented mosh pits.

If a youngster starts shit with someone bigger and fiercer than them, well, fuck around and find out, I guess.

But here’s the important part of this story:

The person you've been fighting with is now fighting for you. 

You spend the rest of the concert wondering how to adjust to this new reality.

Someone in this world will fight on your behalf.

Even though they never have before.

Even though they might never again. 

You feel shaky, like the ground you’ve been walking on all these years is suddenly completely different.

When you talk with them later, they'll tell you how they saw it as an opportunity to protect you.

How they wanted to use their body to shield yours.

How seeing someone fuck with you triggered their power, their willingness to choose.

They chose you.

You are loved by them.

It's a new dawn once you've survived the crush. 

How to have self-discipline like a motherfucker

No one is born with self-discipline.

Not you, not me.

Anyone who acts like they just magically have self-discipline is lying.

That’s bullshit.

We all have to learn to have it.

Self-discipline is a practice I learned as an adult.

Self-discipline is showing up to write, not abandoning my dreams, making a plan, and creating a container.

Especially the part about having a plan and structure.

But how exactly did I learn it? Well, since you asked…

You know that feeling you get after really great sex, when you're luxuriating in your lover's sheets, exhausted and sweaty?

Peaceful even?

I am savoring the deliciousness of being human when A says it.

Six words that ruined that moment and annihilated my next two years, filling every spare moment with their weight and obligation:

"My ex didn't finish her dissertation."

It's seven words if you count the silent "either" at the end of the sentence, which hangs in the room like second-hand smoke.

I've just told A I'm struggling to write my doctoral work despite completing the research a year ago.

Let’s pretend that electronic data can gather dust.

In that case, my doctoral research is definitely in need of a swift wipe by a firm hand.

Too many obstacles are in my way:

a big learning curve with the software I'm supposed to use to analyze the data.

I do not know how to do quantitative analysis.

I must find hundreds of articles to read, process, integrate, and weave for the Lit Review.

Writing a doctoral dissertation is the biggest project I've ever undertaken, and I am woefully underequipped to tackle the process.

I'm stuck in overwhelm.

The clock is ticking, and it needs to be finished in a year and a half, and I am doing precisely zero to move it forward.

It's been like this for months.

I try my damndest not to ever think about it. 

Until that day, in his bed. 

I hate A’s ex.

She's been mean, rude, and condescending to me whenever our paths cross.

A failed academic, she now teaches math at a community college and calls it activism.

Tells me how much she appreciates cancel culture since some people just really need to be canceled.

I take "some people" to mean me. 

As I lay there, I am miles away from the pleasure and connection we'd just been experiencing…

(Who brings up their ex in bed with their current? Eww.)

I realize something about myself.

I may not know how to get this book done, but I sure as shit am going to find out.

I will be better than her.

I will not drop out.

I feel the steel inhabit my spine.

Resolve, that’s what this is called.

The next day, I post on social media: "Looking for recommendations for academic writing support."

A friend responds, "What about Elinor?" and so it begins.

Each week, for an entire year, I meet with a dissertation coach named Elinor.

She lives in Scotland and has a razor-sharp analysis of power, oppression, and super duper academic research skills.

At our first meeting, I cry.

She returns the next week with a plan: what I have to write each week for the next year to finish on time. 

We meet on Thursdays.

I send her what I've written that week, and we go over it together, tightening and strengthening.

If you've ever had a trainer at the gym who pushes your endurance relentlessly and sadistically, that's Ellie, minus the sadism. 

And so I do sit down to write the damn dissertation.

I spend hours each week reviewing my work and writing new work.

I spend hours finding articles and digesting them.

I attend a weeklong online boot camp to learn to use my data software.

I learn to code and analyze according to the criteria Elinor helps me set. 

There are moments I don't want to.

Moments I want to quit this stupid process. 

But then I remember A's ex and how she gave up on herself.

I am better than his ex.

I miss only one week of writing.

If you don't know, most dissertations consist of five chapters that are not written sequentially.

I'm writing Chapter 2, the dreaded Lit Review.

Everything I'm consuming and producing is about sexual trauma, sexual violence, rape, the impact of rape on individuals, families, and communities, the economic cost of sexual violation, stories of how rape is used as a tool of war, the rape of Nanking, how sexual abuse travels in families, etc. 

When we meet for our Thursday session, I can't stop crying.

Ellie hears what's happening and enforces a mandatory one-week freeze.

I must rest, she says.

The research is too impactful, and it's unhealthy for me to continue. 

After the break, I keep going, week after week. 

I am better than A’s ex.

The night I complete the first draft of my dissertation, it's 2 AM, 92 degrees Fahrenheit.

I'm sitting at a wobbly kid's desk in my friend's childhood room in England.

When I write the final sentence, I sit back in the too-small metal chair and just feel.

The household is quiet.

The city is nearly silent. 

But power thrums through me.

The feeling of completion.

The 400+ page draft still needed so much work.

There would be time for editing and multiple revisions.

But for now, my computer holds a complete first draft.

It's a moment of quiet victory and personal celebration. 

Since my dissertation, I've written five books, working on numbers six and seven.

While each is a monumental effort, a labor of love to birth into the world, compared to my dissertation, they seem more manageable.

Self-discipline is the most profound way I have ever practiced trusting myself.

Once I have completed something, it can never be taken away.

I will always know I stood by myself and fought for myself through hardship and tears.

The capacity to commit to a big project and complete it is not something I was born with.

It is a muscle that I trained and continue to train.

I practice self-discipline because I want to know what receiving love from myself feels like. 

Knowing I have self-discipline allows me to dream big dreams. The ones that wake me up in the night.

I want to write a smash hit.

I want writing to bring me a lot of money.

Not that you are asking, but I do have some self-discipline advice:

If you want big things, drink water.

Hydrate and flush with flow.

Drink deep and from the well of your own creativity.

Right now.

Go to the river right now, the one that flows through your heart all the damn time.

What are you too scared to admit wanting?

Admit it right now.

Say it. Name it. Write it down. Tell your person. Tell your animal.

Who are you going to be if you never let yourself do that thing?

I’ll tell you who: A’s ex.

And nobody wants to be that woman.

Self-discipline is the skill of completion.

It requires support. A plan. A container.

You don’t have to have self-discipline by yourself, contrary to public thought.

You get to have all the support you need to build your self-discipline.

Get a trainer. A coach. An accountability buddy.

FInish the thing you’ve been struggling to finish.

You’re gonna feel so much better.

Like a motherfucker.

My first offering for paid subscribers is “Get your Creative Project Unstuck” is happening later this month.

We’ll share, do some ritual work to get you support, and engage in a powerful somatic practice to get you back on track.

All weekly posts will remain free, but if you want to join the live offerings, please consider supporting my work with a paid subscription!

Want to play together?

After a long hiatus, I’m dreaming of live offerings that support your glitter, sparkle, delight, and pleasure in your life.

Which of the following sound wonderful?

How to (not) be the problem.

If you’re anything like me, I bet you were taught not to be the problem.

Do not raise a stink, do not question the teacher, follow the rules, and play nice with the other kids on the playground.

And if you are also like me, you had a stinker inside you, the part of you that wanted to carouse and gallivant, stomp in the puddles, the part that might push kids out of the way in the recess line.

Also, you had the 'wanna be good and get it right' part.

You likely still have both of these parts.

We saw the kids who gave up on being the good ones and embraced being "the problem."

Their mentality was, “If I can't find acceptance for my goodness, I'll find it for my badness.”

Not at a conscious level, of course.

Which were you?

Did you get labeled a good kid or a bad kid at school? In your family?

Did you embrace your troublemaker?

Several months ago, I was in an online poetry workshop where we were to give feedback to each other.

At the end of the first week, the teacher posted: A couple of students had contacted her, complaining about the tenor of the feedback they had received.

She said our feedback was too harsh, too exterminating, too stomping out the light for the tender.

Give feedback, but NOT LIKE THAT.

She clarified that the workshop was a supportive space, not a critique space.

(Honestly, I struggle to understand the nuance between critique given to enrich someone's work and supportive feedback. They seem the same to me. While often we examine the difference between intention and impact, the intention here actually matters: I truly want your work to be the best it can be.)

Her statement was given broadly, without naming names.

But because when I'd written my feedback, I'd questioned myself if I was being "supportive" enough or offering too much critique to someone I didn't know, so it was immediately clear she was talking about me.

Fuck.

I had stepped on someone's toes inadvertently.

I was "the problem."

To be complete in reporting the various parts who showed up, it's fair to say there was a part of me who wanted to be good and say, 'Hey, I think I misunderstood, so sorry, got it now.'

But because I had been told by the teacher I was the problem, I chose to become defensive.

It has been a minute (many) since a teacher had to talk to me about my behavior in class.

There were some defensive justifications I had:

I'm in a novel year-long intensive, and there, we are encouraged to give honest and helpful feedback.

We've been especially told to let our critique partners know where their work confuses us.

The honesty feels helpful and supportive. If you like my work, you want it to be better, not make me feel better about it. I need to hear the truth.

So what did I do, troublemaker that I am?

I wrote an angry poem I didn't post to the poetry class (because adult!)

(And because only part of me is an adult, and the other part is a retributive child, I posted the poem on Facebook and described the situation.)

(Painting myself in the best possible light, of course.)

(Some part of me wants to post the poem here to get some witness to how the pen is mightier than the sword, and I'm GOOD at that, but I will restrain myself.)

(Also, yay parentheses! Maybe I should write a "How to use Parantheses" essay next.)

A lot of intelligent people responded to my FB post.

But my favorite words came from my friend Allison.

She said,

"Being a NOT conflict-avoidant person I would ask the teacher if what they said was because of me. If they say no then keep giving honest constructive feedback. If the teacher says it was because of me then I would ask why did they give us conflicting instructions and which guidance is the real one to follow."

Well, obviously, we first need to talk about her phrase, "NOT conflict-avoidant person."

Mic drop, right?

As someone who grew up in the Midwest and now lives in the South, I’m like, “Can you be a non-conflict avoidant in this world??”

I mean, clearly there are non-conflict avoidant people and nations, because of so much conflict, fighting, and war.

However, I don't get the sense that what Allison means is that she goes looking for trouble, not from these words or from how I know her.

She is not aggressive or a troublemaker for no good reason.

The subtext I read into her comment is that she leans in when conflict naturally happens (like it always does.)

She doesn't go out of her way to avoid challenging situations.

All of this may sound strange, especially if you know I've long taught skills for better conflict, and I genuinely believe that conflict can be generative.

Learning that I consider myself conflict-avoidant might be surprising if you know me personally. (Or not, depending how well you know me and the number of fights we have not had.)

But a part of me fears the intensity and longs for ease and smooth seas.

That part will go a long way to avoid confronting and telling the hard truth before leaning in.

I'm curious where you are on the spectrum of conflict-not-avoiding and conflict-avoiding?

When Allison wrote that, I felt a piece click into place internally.

Hmm.

What if I wasn't conflict-avoidant and just asked my teacher?

(Oh yeah, there’s another part wanting to be known. This class was an online class, we never met on zoom, all via text, and I would likely never interact with these people IRL. That part was curious about just letting myself continue to be an asshole.

What if I kept giving feedback precisely as it felt right to me without considering the impact?

What if I trusted my integrity and trusted others to be adults who could tell me to STFU, delete my comments, or not even read them?

What if I didn't tiptoe around people's triggers but trusted my impulses and intuition?

Funny that that's my definition of 'asshole.'

As I read, it sounds straightforward and boundaried, with a distinction between caretaking (yuck, ptouey, spit it out) and caring (yum.)

But back to not being conflict-avoidant.

Following Allison's advice, I wrote to my teacher.

And because I know you love to be a little voyeuristic, and because I did a GOOD JOB not sharing my snarky response poem above, I will now reprint my message to my teacher in full.

"I saw your message about feedback. I'm curious: was my feedback problematic? If so, I'd like to know. Thanks! I'm happy to give only encouraging feedback since that's the ask.

Also, I wanted to let you know my needs as a student in this class. I need clear, actionable feedback in my process as a poet. Encouragement feels good, but it doesn't help me progress in my craft. Can you please help me get this need met?"

Well, that's clear.

It only took 45 or so minutes to scribble out that little gem. Revisions, revisions, revisions.

But I felt proud of this message. Did my finger hover above the send button a second too long, fearful?

I don't think I need to be that transparent with you. A queer needs some secrets.

Her response arrived within the hour.

"Vin, no one has mentioned your name in particular."

Fuck.

Well, the math of the time suck goes like this:

1 min to read my teacher’s comment

+

Less than 1 second to decide I'm the problem
+

15 minutes to fume angrily, getting more defensive

+

5 mins to scrawl the snarky poem

+

5 mins to write the FB post

+

8 hour to sleep on it without posting the poem to my class

+

15 mins to read the responses to the FB post

+

45 minutes to craft a two-paragraph email to my teacher

+

The entire rest of my life to:

be relieved I wasn't the problem

seek therapy for why I assumed I was the problem

regret not being the problem

Look, folks, I have a written commitment to myself not to retaliate and not start trouble but to stay with it until clarity arrives and speak the truth.

My self-trust is precious to me.

I've been making deposits into that bank account. I don't want to do anything to lose it.

To trust someone, I need to know how they will likely act under duress.

Will they get aggressive?

Act out?

Retaliate?

Will they communicate, even if poorly, their experience?

Will they try to get me to take responsibility for their trigger? Their feelings?

My adult-ass endeavor is to be the person who can handle feedback, lean into conflict, stay connected with myself even when triggered, and care for our relationship even when I'm angry.

Self-trust is a big deal.

Being able to go to bed without pressing send is essential.

Noting my own defensivenss and cultivating a part that can be both compassionate towards it, and gentle it away from toxic action matters.

We all feel those things, want to retaliate, have those aggressive thoughts.

At least part of us does.

And the only place we truly have agency is in what we do or do not.

You might be 'the problem.'

If so, no worries.

Turn inwards to what you need as such.

You might have never been the problem.

And if so, no worries.

As the 'problem,' turn inwards to see how you can share more of who you are, things someone else might label "problematic."

Isn’t the goal always freedom?

How to survive a sucker punch

Long after my divorce, I took a three-weekend-long full-force self-defense class and learned the term "parting shot."

A parting shot is the thing the bully says as they walk away, having just lost the fight.

It's designed to get you to reengage by insisting, contrary to all evidence, that they did not lose the battle.

(Hello, a certain ex-president.)

A sucker punch is a close cousin of the parting shot.

Also known as a cheap shot or a coward punch, a sucker punch, according to Wikipedia, is a punch thrown at a recipient while they are distracted, leaving no time to prepare or defend.

Usually, sucker punches are considered unethical.

In boxing, they are illegal.

Harry Houdini died from a sucker punch.

Someone is using tactics like the fact you are distracted to hit you in your vulnerability.

So when my then-husband says, "You're not doing your work," meaning I'm not working on healing my issues, even though I'm spending several hours in therapy each week, hours journaling and praying and writing every day trying to work through my reactivity, and even though he has precisely zero of any of the aforementioned hobbies, it qualifies as a sucker punch.

Being sucker-punched feels like a betrayal.

When someone hits you in your weak spot because they know it's your weak spot, well, fuck. It hurts bad.

Not only are you hit, but someone has targeted the exact place it will do the most damage.

When you start loving yourself, smoothing coconut lotion into your skin in the dark of the living room, grooving to Erykah Badu, and buying clothes that you feel sexy in, well, that can threaten a relationship built on co-dependency.

I don't "need" you to love me if I can love myself.

When I moved to San Francisco, I wanted to feel a certain way I saw people around me feeling: hip.

But not just hip, self-aware.

Confident.

Smooth and suave and attending to their beauty.

Before I moved to the Bay, a friend said, "You are going to move to San Francisco, start wearing all black, and turn gay."

She saw the truth way before I did.

But when you do that, a partner might not like it.

Might feel threatened, jealous, and hostile.

Might start using the sucker punch, as in, "You look like a slut," when you don the new boots it took so much courage to buy.

You're wearing them as you take yourself out on this Saturday afternoon movie date.

You are typically saddled with two little kids, so this date matters.

He doesn't call to apologize, so part of your fun is ruined, and your heart hurts even as you go to the film.

But you still forgive him when he seems self-reflective and hurt, “I thought you would wear those only for me.”

The boots you bought, with the money you earned.

As you come into yourself, he may throw a lot of sucker punches: "You? You're no artist."

As you remember yourself, you have to forget the opportunities for being hurt that live in your body.

If someone takes the shot, they do.

That's on them.

You learn to walk away in your boots.

You learn to surround yourself with people who don't retaliate.

And when you meet one who does, you exit, quickly.

Now, I expect the people I allow into my intimate circle to see my humanity: to see where I'm working, how hard I struggle to be skillful, to speak truth kindly, and to practice honesty and integrity.

I expect my beloveds to hold space for my learning, and I attempt to reciprocate that to them.

We are all always learning.

If anyone were to sucker punch me now, it would be the end of the relationship.

I love myself too much for that shit.

So, how do you cope when a beloved hurts you on purpose?

One shot.

Everybody gets a chance to mess up.

But wait.

Do I really believe that?

No.

Vette those you allow close, and if they ever hurt you on purpose, get the hell out.

You survive a sucker punch by learning to love yourself enough that those fuckers don't ever have access to your soft spots again.

Only those who earn your trust get your vulnerability.

You survive a sucker punch by growing up, developing healthy mistrust and boundaries.

You stop being a sucker.

How to Glow in the Dark

At 17, I contracted Mono and was in bed for a month.

When my queer boyfriend came to visit, along with my history and math textbooks, he pressed a cheap plastic, glow-in-the-dark Rosary into my hands, a remnant of his Catholic schoolboy years.

Years during which he learned the sinfulness of being queer.

He knew I'd love it: a wonderful addition to my thrift store collection of rosaries harvested from the cold fingers of dead old women.

Following Madonna's lead, I wore them as necklaces, enjoying the desanctification while simultaneously feeding my need for spirit, for meaning.

I hung it over a rung on my wrought iron bed, and it glowed gently through the long nights I couldn't sleep, dwelling in diseased darkness.

It was a comfort.

I learned to say the Our Mother prayer along the beads.

Something about items that glow in the dark is beloved.

Back then, if I had thought of it at all, I would have said things glow in the dark to capture a child's interest.

Many things have magical phosphorescence: plastic dinosaur bone kits, super balls from the gumball machine, skeleton pajamas, and stick-on stars for over a kid's bed.

My friend Steve wore a GITD bone around his neck throughout college, and he would never give it to me, no matter how many times I asked.

Years later, I realize why a rosary, a serious tool of prayer and practice, would be made to glow in the dark.

One reason is practical: so you can find it easily amidst your dresser junk during the long dark night of the soul.

But the second reason is more pertinent: so there is some light somewhere.

A line from a favorite Bukowski poem:

There is a light somewhere.

it may not be much light but

it beats the darkness.

At 17, I wasn't afraid of dying from the Mono.

But I was supremely terrified of dying from the big-hair band acid wash jean conservative monoculture of suburban Ohio.

That rosary glowed in the night: there was a light somewhere.

Later, an Indigenous teacher would ask me: In whose light do you walk?

I walk in the light of poetry, joyfulness, irreverence, reverence, and the Holy Mystery.

I walk in the ineffable light of not knowing.

I walk in the light of magick.

I raised my kids in San Francisco.

To grow up in the city is to grow up surrounded by homelessness on every corner.

We traveled through the Tenderloin every day on the way to school, a neighborhood imbued with trauma and poverty.

You learn to avoid stepping in human feces.

You learn to skirt bicycle theft and ring your steps around tent cities.

You become accustomed to junkies shooting up and sometimes od'ing.

I told my kids they must be careful to not demonize the symptoms of capitalism.

The people they see are among the most vulnerable and deserve compassion and protection.

But it's hard to be compassionate when a homeless person spits on your friend and calls them a racial slur.

When a methhead threatens you, or when you are twelve and your wallet gets pickpocketed on the bus.

It's hard to stay open-hearted to the dispossessed when sometimes they seem like the walking dead, trying to eat you in the dark of the night.

How do you walk in the light of compassion when horror and violence surround you?

You must learn to glow in the dark.

Intuition is what I think of when considering glowing in the dark.

To have the capacity to turn my attention to what is happening inside so that I may light my own path with my flaming.

So that my glimmerskuld lights the forest path as I creep through the dark, surrounded by shadowy things that rustle and snicker and hiss.

My truth burns away the fear and trauma that keeps me disconnected and separate.

You glow in the dark by lighting up from the inside.

How to be interviewed on a podcast

I'm hoping for audio only when I click the link.

Glitter Joyride is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Sure, I've put on a nice shirt and done my hair.

But does anybody watch podcasts anyway?

Plus people do their best thinking in private. Not onscreen.

I think of a podcast as a private journal space with myself.

The host is there, asking questions, but it's a time for me to think things through.

When the camera is off, I can look right out the window, as I'm doing now, writing with a black screen. 

But other times, it serves me to look at the glow of the sun hitting the green of the leaves, box elder, and blue sky peeping through. 

I've interviewed and been interviewed hundreds of times.

I enjoy this form of communication: the structure and the clear focus on who is in what role.

If I'm the interviewer, my focus is to listen, to listen beneath what someone is saying, and let my imagination be guided by what they share: letting images and connections happen as we glide toward the next time I will ask a question. 

Finding the right question is like poetry: naming a true thing that bubbles up from the depths.

However, in the role of interviewee, my job is different.

When Angela interviewed me yesterday, I had to try hard not to ask her questions in return. It's not my job.

The role of the interviewee comes with the expectation of surrender: someone else is driving.

Someone else is guiding the ride where they want to go.

They are steering, noticing, and highlighting salient information.

My job is to share deeply the flow of truth inside me and to allow their guidance and curation to shine. 

When Angela asked me to speak about power, children, and parents, I feel the wound’s pull.

Getting triggered publicly, yay.

To be a parent is to be forever in the dual role of not knowing a fucking thing and being the resident expert on everything.

I let my jaw soften, let the words there to be expressed come out, and tried to silence my inner critic who was listening with eyebrows raised. 

I am not a parenting expert, even as I've raised two humans to adulthood.

It was claw and scrape the whole way, with a few moments of grace thrown in for good measure.

I didn't mention any of that: what to do when you hate your child and when you are so far beyond your capacity that providing guidance is the furthest thing from your mind; attunement is not even possible.

Those kids are lucky if they're eating tonight.

Sometimes, it's cereal. 

No, those are not things to mention in a podcast about your book on power dynamics at work.

But every parent has these secrets, the moments of collapse when they just couldn't.

Tenderness.

Yesterday, in response to a question Angela asked, in my mind, I saw the river near my house rise and was reminded about how the day before, I had wanted to go there all day and hadn't permitted myself; there was too much to do.

How I'd felt shitty all day, and what would that day have been if I had allowed myself time earlier to go and witness flow, to see shine and mirror, and water and sky and the poetry of geology?

Water is the nervous system of our planet, and I could have leaned into my impulse for resourcing instead of my desire to get shit done.

I tell Angela those things.

She seems L.A. interested. 

You have no idea who is listening when you're being interviewed for a podcast.

I experience a vigilance: it's not just wanting to say the wrong thing in the moment; it's the recognition that, on some level, I am anchoring myself in this moment forever, like getting a tattoo.

A podcast is a timestamp of my thinking, a marker of the access I have to truth-speaking, of my current understandings and politics. 

People do not hear us the way we intend to be heard.

The lurking presence of fear shadows my words as I speak on a show: will anything I say now haunt me later, a ghost of my past self?

Will my words be misunderstood or deliberately misrepresented to take umbrage?

The best I can do to assuage these fears is to look out the window, close my eyes, and listen.

I say a prayer before any work that my work is in service to the healing of this Earth and is a blessing to all who encounter it.

Who am I to say what form that blessing takes? 

It feels like my get-out-of-jail-free card: If I pray, I can believe there is something helpful in what I convey. What I transmit.

Often, it doesn't feel like words are mine, coming from my brain.

Sometimes they do.

I feel the support of the unseen worlds as I write and speak: I feel the holy presence of clarity and healing come through, and I receive the blessings of that. 

To speak without a script or preparation is a radical act of self-trust: to know that you are accessing both you and something beyond you.

I do this for the sake of self-trust.

To believe I can share from the heart, in the moment, from my body's wisdom, what is.

I'm a big fan of radical honesty, being human and not fronting and trying to be all professional and experty.

When I listen to a podcast, I want to hear that this human speaking has struggled with what I'm struggling with and doesn't hide behind a white wall of protection. 

It's time to for us all to center our own humanity.

Glitter Joyride is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.