102) From Shitty-ness to Well-ness: Part 2 - Stigmatization and the disempowerment of the struggling
When you find yourself struggling with mental illness, the “personal responsibility” mantra all-too-often reinforces the already-deeply-internalized sense that there is “something wrong with you”. Society’s stigmatization of those who struggle with mental health, coheres so seamlessly with that “inner critic” that it starts to seem accurate.
27) Gratitude Day 7: Breaking Your Vows
I am grateful for a Rumi poem. It’s the opening poem to the beautiful book, The Illuminated Rumi.
“Come, come, whoever you are! Wanderer, worshiper, lover of leaving. It doesn’t matter. Ours is not a caravan of despair. Come, even if you have broken your vows a thousand times. Come, yet again , come , come!”
I love this poem because it is like a flower. Flowers are beautiful. But they grow in the shit and death of the micro organismic world that we pretend we are different from. Without death and shit, no flowers.
3) Unicorns, migraines, and chiropractors
I don’t believe in unicorns. I’d like to though. I mean, wouldn’t you? A world of magic, in which reality isn’t just dead matter heading towards thermodynamic equilibrium, is something I yearn for deeply, and have ever since I was that 5 year old, sitting on her blankie, willing it to fly, or that 10 year old trying to use the Force to move something with her mind.
