I just recently read a book that may have changed my life. Untamed, by Glennon Doyle, is an incredible call to the wild roots of your inner self. It says that we all have the right, or moreover, the OBLIGATION to take up space in the world, and to live our one life according to our intuition and our Knowing. She talks about how we become caged by the status quo and the expectations of others – through the media, institutions, culture, family. I read it as a call to action. I am a part of those institutions, and I have a voice. How can I use it to help free others from their cages, or better yet, encourage children to stay wild and Knowing rather than breaking them and forcing them into the cages we’ve traditionally used to control people?
“Selfless women make for an efficient society, but not a beautiful, true, or just one. When women lose themselves, the world loses its way. We do not need more selfless women. What we need right now is more women who have detoxed themselves so completely from the world’s expectations that they are full of nothing but themselves. What we need are women who are full of themselves. A woman who is full of herself knows and trusts herself enough to say and do what must be done. She lets the rest burn.”
Glennon Doyle, in Untamed
She talks about burning the ‘memos’ of society – those that tell us how to be a ‘good’ mother, wife, Christian, citizen, etc. And I realized that as a mother, teacher, friend, I am helping write those memos. I have a choice to make about what I write in the memos I pass on. I can write status quo memos, or I can write wild memos, from the depths of my own Knowing.
I think that’s what this whole blog is about, though I started it before I read this book. I am tired of the old memos. They just don’t feel right. I was talking with a friend yesterday, who wondered about why I would think anyone wants to listen to my opinions. She didn’t ask it rudely, or to question my right to speak, only to understand my confidence in starting a blog. I thought about it, in relation to my reading, and I realized that I don’t need confidence that others want to hear my opinion. I have the right, perhaps the obligation, to say what I believe to be right, whether others want to hear it or not. It reminds me of a quote we have hanging on the school wall,
“What is right is not always popular and what is popular is not always right.”
– Albert Einstein
What I have found to be true is the opposite – what is right is OFTEN not popular. Or rather, the status quo (popular) is often not right, and there seem to be many people who FEEL the not-rightness of it, but are uninclined to fight the status quo. But what if we all started listening to that inner voice that says, “This just doesn’t feel right”? What if we found out we weren’t alone in our discontent, our belief that there must be a better way? What if we changed things so that they DID feel right? What if we started trusting that little voice, individually and then collectively? What if we could make things better? I’ve decided to start rewriting the memos.
Coincidentally, I happened to also see a sorting activity for kindergarten, just after reading Untamed. It occurred to me that maybe we teach kids racism, in part, by our insistence on finding differences between things. And it got me thinking about words and how we use words to make the various cages that keep people from their inner Knowing. I wonder if I can change the memos by changing the words I use, and in doing so, invite others into the conversation about words and how we use them.
I started with the idea of sorting – one of the very first concepts taught in school. We carefully teach children to separate sets of items into different groups. To be fair, we work at teaching them that there are many ways to sort – by colour, size, shape, etc, but I think we sometimes emphasize the difference more than the sameness. What if instead of ‘sorting’, we ‘included’? What if instead of differences, we looked for similarities? To be sure, some teachers do this already, but textbooks often ask children to ‘find the odd one out’. “Which one is different?” What if we stopped asking that and instead focused on asking, “How are these the same?” “Where are the commonalities?” I wonder if it would make inclusion more natural and exclusion less so…
Those in the neurodiverse community are also interested in words. We talk about changing
- stubborn to determined/persistent
- emotional to caring/sensitive
- bossy to leader
- impatient to passionate
- shy to reflective
- clingy to affectionate
- dreamy to creative
- nosey to curious
- defiant to principled/having strong beliefs
We know that there is power in words, and that children live up to our expectations. How we describe them matters, both in how others see them and in how they see themselves. We are advocating changes in these labels both at home and at school.
But what if we changed those words more widely? Instead of calling politicians ‘assholes’, what if we recognized that they are hurt? Scared? Principled? Triggered by past traumas? Overwhelmed? What if we required civility in political discourse? What positive changes might we see trickling down to playgrounds and dinner tables?
What if we taught children on playgrounds and around dinner tables about triggers and trauma and labeled the emotions we see in politicians and celebrities? Would our children grow up to be more civilized adults and leaders?
This summer, I participated in an anti-racism discussion group. One of the topics we discussed was words. We talked about unwittingly using racist words, not knowing they were racist. “Gypped, grandfathered, and peanut gallery” were some that came up that category. We also talked about appropriate words for changing the conversation around racism, like ‘white supremacy’ vs other terms. What struck me most about that part of the conversation was the need to use words that fit the setting. For me, it’s not about which words are most accurate so much as which words are most effective. If my purpose is to express truth and validate the experience of marginalized groups, then white supremacy is a good choice. If jarring people into acknowledgement is my goal, then white supremacy is a good choice, assuming my audience is ready. But if I’m speaking to someone who is not yet ready to make that jump, then ‘white supremacy’ brings with it baggage that serves to distance my listener instead of encouraging them to become part of the conversation, or to take responsibility for the problem. They conjure up images of Nazis and the KKK and say, “That has nothing to do with me.” With these listeners, ‘white normative’, or ‘white superiority’ might be more effective in moving the dialogue forward.
Likewise, in talking about rape and sexual predators, I think we do a disservice by talking about monsters and reprehensible behaviour. I’m not saying there isn’t truth in those words, but that they make the conversation less accessible. As long as rapists are monsters, then I don’t have to believe that my sons are capable of such a thing. We don’t have to believe that the nice boy down the street could commit this act. We make it hard for women and girls to report their experience with men and boys they like or love. As long as rape is an irredeemable act, then perpetrators can’t take responsibility for their mistakes and learn to do better.
If we change the conversation, we change the power dynamic. We don’t make the conversation more true, but we make it more effective. If we talk truthfully about why rape is committed, then we give boys the tools to control their own impulses. If we talk truthfully about how rape impacts victims, then we give girls the voice to speak out and get help. I want my boys to know they are absolutely capable of rape so that they learn not to. I want girls to know that nice boys make bad choices so that they have a voice to say no and to call their partners on their power trips. We need to decide whether we want retribution after the fact or prevention beforehand. And that’s a whole other blog post. Right now, I’m just interested in words. I want to find words that communicate on a level that help make the world more just, more safe, and more kind.
This morning, at virtual church, these words were read as part of communion: “This is my body, broken for you…” and it made me think differently today. Never fond of the idea of eating someone’s body, communion has never been a highly meaningful part of services for me. But today, with the topic of words floating around in my head, mixing with quotes from the Untamed book, this took on a new meaning. These words are meant to bring comfort and solace – that God gave himself up to be with us, he DIED for us. That is the strength of His love.
What an incredible message of selfless love. What an inspiration to the rest of us to give up ourselves for others, to be selfless, broken for the common good. But what if those are words from the old memo? What if the best forms of love don’t require broken-ness? What if the best we can do in the world is to come to it WHOLE, not to die a thousand small deaths to please our families, our friends, our church, and our community? What if the new memo said, “This is my body, dancing for you, protesting for you, speaking for you, and LIVING for you?”
What if instead of being selfless, or without a sense of self, we found our inner selves and let them speak real words, words full of truth, and love, and life? In the words of Glennon Doyle,
“Let’s conjure up, from the depths of our souls:
The truest, most beautiful lives we can imagine.
The truest, most beautiful families we can fathom.
The truest, most beautiful world we can hope for.
Let’s put it all on paper.
Let’s look at what we have written and decide that these are not pipe dreams; these are our marching orders. These are blueprints for our lives, our families, and the world.”
What do you see? What do you imagine? What are your marching orders? How can we use these blueprints to make the world a better place?
Out of the Well 