Teaser: So this is the new year 2018. What do I expect to see in 2018. Well it was certain that 2017 was a doozy. But I don’t see much room for improvement unless a few things come together –
Today’s podcast looking forward into 2018
Today we will talk about:
Did self care help in 2017?
What things am I expecting to see in 2018?
How can we best prepare as Inclusive Activists in 2018?
Welcome back to the podcast! This podcast is going to be a bit of a departure, as these things are just my thoughts and opinions about what might happen in the coming year. We will look at 2018 through the lens of an Inclusive Activist.
As far as the podcast goes this is something a bit new. I am looking at some themes and ideas that came together in 2017 and last year I felt I was ahead of the curve in talking about the need for self care in 2017. This time I am not saying to abandon self care at all I am more looking at themes which may crystallize in the future or things I think we need to keep an eye on for 2018 – Please remember you can email me at inclusiveactivism@cox.net or leave me a voicemail at 860-576-9393. I would love to hear your thoughts!
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So checking in on my Activism:
My current activism is podcasting and rest honestly
Checking on my classes for Spring
Learning how to promote podcast
Self Care:
Lift X4 a week which has been excellent!
Have hit a form of cardio each day since dec 26th and I know its silly but dang I already feel a bit better!
And Meditated for 3X for at least 5 mins and will need to get another 15 to 20 min session in but I also wanted to get this posted for 2018 right in time!
Recommendation for Self Growth – Book by Tara Brach Radical Self Acceptance – this book is about really coming to terms with you. It is about how would your life change if you really truly were nonviolent with yourself – what would your life look like if you really accepted you just the way you are? According to Dr. Brach feeling of shame and unworthiness are the source of many problems we experience with our relationships, careers, creative endeavors, and most fundamentally our spiritual unfolding.
So on to the podcast for today! Looking forward into 2018.
First thing: How did this work in 2017?
This is my take on how 2017 and self-care affected me – how am I different and what difference did it make?
News intake – I decided to be careful with my news intake and I think it helped. I listened to PBS news hour because I felt it was fair and impartial – and its low budget couldn’t afford sensationalism and it would be decidedly more fact based.
I listened to NPR’s Up First – really great 7 min update on the world first thing!
And I watched Vice News on HBO – good stuff but it may be a bit more slanted to my world view.
Weight Lifting – was spectacular with a new lifting partner I gained more strength and pushed myself much better. The effort is this area has been worth the time and push, and though I did reinjure my shoulder I am much much better here!
Cardio – it was up and down honestly. I did do better than I ever had over the course of a full year. But I am only just getting back on track. Flag Football is by far my best cardio work – unexpectedly I also had to teach night classes which effected this a bit in an unexpected way. But for 2018 cardio is something we need to get back on top of
Meditation – this was transformative but its not something where I can say I honestly feel much different. But some of the reported differences are – a greater sense of calm and space between stimulus and response. I am calmer, my general disposition is more calm and laid back. I don’t get set off so easily. I handle stress better, I am more resilient in the face of trouble or stress. I am quicker to laugh. I am more loving, kind, and sweeter to those around me. I used to be prone to anger and would scare the dogs with yelling and now that really doesn’t happen.
Listening to Buddhist teaching as well as Podcast sermons from First Corinthian Baptist Church and Sojourn Grace Collective. This listening to Buddhist podcasts from Tara Brach is making me have a better sense of self-acceptance, is improving my sense of self-worth. I am not so dualistic in my thinking. It will be interesting to see how I teach nonviolence differently with a year of this under my belt. I am less controlling and look for the middle ground.
2017 while it was a very trying year – was also an opportunity to get better and it would appear
In 2018 I will read more and get on a set plan for cardio for me and for my partner.
Second: What are somethings I think will happen in 2018.
Wages wont really rise too much – I think the stock market will do well – but only if the bitcoin thing isn’t a bubble – if that is a bubble them all best are off or if we do get into a nuclear war with Korea. But the average American will still not see any major wage growth for the umpteenth million year in a row.
Democrats will still just be Anti-Trump rather than doing the hard work to figure out who they are and what they truly stand for. They also will read too much into the Roy Moore/Doug Jones in the wrong way. They will not see the importance – exactly how critical the black vote was in Alabama. They will sadly see this win as a reform against Trump will rather than really embrace the strong need to look into the needs of historically marginalized groups and will attempt to look into how to recourt the working class white vote.
Tech will continue to lead in diversity and inclusion issues. They have a hard sense of group think and there will still be very many missteps in this industry in that the value isn’t put on trying to understand many different problems in different ways – it is more on thinking the same way and worrying only about the efficiency of finishing the project with the singular vision – rather than try to troubleshoot along the way and think of something truly innovative.
There will be a scare of a recession. Things have been going too well for too long. Interest rates are still inordinately low. And there are some signs that the housing market is overvalued given who is buying the homes. Very if any millennials are making into the housing market which means everyone who is buying homes is looking to rent to millennials. This is a bubble too folks. Unless millennials have the support they need to really take the reins as the next big earning class we will suffer from some real systemic issues in that they are over burdened with higher education loans, and cannot afford to save up to enter the housing market. They are over burdened and no one is really speaking to this group outside of Bernie Sanders – and he need to groom an heir apparent – he is not the shot in the arm needed for young folks. I like his ideas, but if this is a movement he needs to groom a successor.
This will get difficult in the higher education sector but we won’t know it. 2018 represents a population spike for people leaving high school going to higher ed. So this year things will look great – which we will interpret as a sign of things to come rather than a nice year – with a need to tighten the belt again for the years to come.
Bitcoin will start to be taken seriously by large financial institutions – which is a huge threat to them. Look for a coordinated effort both policy wise as well as through their influence with republican legislators to curb the possibility of bitcoin.
There will be a major accident involving self-driving cars. This will hinder their movement into the economy but will not stop their eventual momentum.
More and more big companies will be sued for people feeling like diversity and inclusion in the workplace is a thing of the past due to its devaluation by the Trump presidency. This will happen throughout 2018 and it might not be until 2019 or 2020 until companies start to feel the effects systemically of not valuing the difference of their employees and will over focus on homogeneity and its sort term production bumps.
We will become more divided which leads me to my final prediction
Lastly – Our dividedness is our largest concern as the US.
Currently there has been reports of twitter accounts run by foreign operatives whose main goal is to push us deeper into our divides. If you are left leaning like me – the largest threat is I will be pulled further into my point of view by these folks whose main goal is to keep us at each others throat.
And it is easier than ever to never consider another point of view and why people think that way. For example I had heard that the biggest disconnect between those who have been outraged and disgusted by the President’s use of the terms “shitholes” to describe countries like Haiti and other African countries, as well as his use of words “grab them by the pussy”, can’t understand how those words are defensible.
But those who are defending them instead when they are talking tend to focus on the specific word “shithole” as a off hand term meaning less than desirable. They see the use of the word “pussy” as something men just talk about in the comfort of their own company. They defend the use of the words – but not their context in the sentence or the meaning contextually contained therein.
So while people on my side are stunned that anyone can defend the messages sent by the president are talking with people who are essentially saying its ok to use those words situationally. WHICH ISNT THE POINT! But the problem is folks on my side are not hearing defenders enough to say we understand the use of foul language from time to time. We don’t understand what they might be trying to tell us, and we argue about two very different things while never getting to the crux of either of our major issues. Those on the right don’t mind someone saying things in certain spaces to certain people. Those on the left can’t believe a President thinks people from entire countires are people from shitholes, or that someone thinks it is ok to grab women’s vagina’s.
See my issue isn’t with the words “shithole” or the use of the P word. Well I do have issues with those thoughts but that isn’t my major concern.
But moreso in a larger sense we are unwilling to really come to an understanding with those unlike ourselves.
Tell story of Sara Silverman:
Why was Silverman’s response so powerful?
Think about people you truly respect. Think about people you truly admire. Think about people you love to be around. They may not be rich. They may not be highly accomplished. They may not be household names.
Yet you love to be around them — and you would love to be more like them. What sets them apart from everyone else?
They give: generously, selflessly, and without expectation of return. They give because their happiness — and their success — comes, at least in part, from someone else’s happiness, and someone else’s success.
And they do so even when being generous is hard. Silverman didn’t have to respond kindly. Silverman didn’t have to respond compassionately. But she did, because she had the emotional intelligence to know there was a lot going on under the surface of the stranger’s anger.
Sometimes anger is a front for pain. Sometimes rudeness is a front for insecurity.
But kindness, genuine kindness, is never a front for anything.
Except caring.
See that is what the world need from us. And the only thing I can tell you for sure. Is 2018 is going to suck if we can’t get better at this.
And honestly it hasn’t started off great for me: We had to put Titties my dog down after she kept attacking our other dog without reason, and then bit me up so badly I was worried I couldn’t protect my family.
So not only was I injured, not only could both dogs not be together for the rest of their short shared time on this world, not only did my partner have to live basically at her parents with all this hurt in my family. But I also had to make arrangments to put down my little girl Titties, who I have had since 2010. Who saw me through a divorce, who lived with me in a 4 bedroom house all alone and was afraid I would be evicted. I lost her, I had to put her down here in my house. I had to take a dog that looked healthy that loved without limits and take her out of this world over the rainbow bridge and I will not get to see her again until I die.
STILL I refuse to cede 2018 to the worst year ever. My family is hurt, we are sad, and we are unbalanced but we are also at last calm and without anxiety.
And though I am also hurt, scarred physically, spiritually, and emotionally, – Though I am experiencing some PTSD feelings when I hear dogs growl I am not ready to cede the fact that we will never be a 4 legged stool again with two dogs in our home.
Because I am going to train the bad habits out of Tank, I am doing to socialize him around other dogs. And I can feel in my heart and in my soul another dog will come into our lives. It is going to take work and hope in who I know me, Tank and Michelle to be.
And that same hope I know I need to take into the world to help heal this divided nation. 2018 isn’t going to be a piece of cake without problems. But without our effort it isn’t going to get better – I need to get involved, uncomfortable and engaged or the world like my family will stay the same.
And I choose believe we are capable of so much more!
So in review major points of this podcast were:
- What was 2017 like and how did self care help
- 2018 Predictions
- Our biggest threat is our divideness.
SO if this made you think something, if you have a question or even more shocking a critique let me know. You can call me OR Text me at 860-576-9393
This space is a place to talk back ask me questions, hit me with scenarios of how to react to situations real time. Depending on how good your stuff is I will give it my “first take response” or if it’s good it might be a future podcast!
Also as always if you’re interested in booking me to bring the power of inclusive activism to your organization you can always do so at inclusiveactivism@cox.net or you can learn more about this organization at www.inclusiveactivism.com