Nothing Changes If Nothing Changes

“Privilege is starting on the 3rd base. Ignorant privilege is thinking your there because you hit a triple. Malicious privilege is complaining that those starving outside the ballpark aren’t waiting patiently enough.” @glennondoyle

“In the most primitive parts of our brain, the “Unreal Other” persists, now working against our survival and ensnaring us in a regressive and toxic trance: It fuels institutionalized racism, classism, the oppression of refugees and other marginalized humans.” @tarabrach

It’s much easier to throw judgment out from a place of othering especially when we are in a state of trance based on our own fears and trauma. It’s much harder to disregard our outright or implicit bias when we are sitting in the space of mindfulness.

Why? It’s more difficult to dehumanize people when we feel and comprehend that outward aggression is actually coming from a place of vulnerability and pain.

When we behave in hurtful ways, it is because we are caught in some kind of painful trap.

Are their people around us who have been set up for failure by the system itself? Are their individuals or groups of individuals who have always had the weight of being “othered” on their shoulders since the day they were born?

If you were told something over and over...wouldn’t you at some point come to believe it as truth?

We all have our own stories and pains. It isn’t about intellectualizing, though I understand that feels safer to do, it’s about feeling into the pain of what it means to be a living creature on this earth with kindness.

“You and I are the same” is true in so many aspects, yet it isn’t the full story if we look at how differently people are treated based on gender, race, ethnicity, size, ability, sex, class, beauty standards, religious and political beliefs.

Your access to life, health, and safety might not be the same as mine though we still feel pain the same way.

This is an opportunity not to shame, but to awaken and transform. To get uncomfortable and understand that the work REQUIRES that discomfort in a supportive safe space.

Nothing changes if nothing changes. 💕