Healing The Feminist Movement

Feminism doesn’t need :yelling as much as it needs nourishment, healing, and soulfulness

:boldness as much as it needs safety, security, and sanity

:rebellion as much as it needs a simple release from dogma and a movement toward an equal and high level of responsibility, respect, and concern for the well-being of all.

photo by Mia Enns

I have compassion for those who violently lash out, speaking ‘change’ and effecting backlash. I have love for those who have been hurt, and act in ways society cannot understand, because of that deep hurt they do not yet truly acknowledge. Women and men need safe spaces to speak to their hurt and pain, to feel it, to notice its true effect on our lives and relationships, and to accept it. We all need safe space to heal from the raw wounds of living with others who have been harmed, who then harm others because they know how to, and also do not know how to tolerate their emotions.

I encourage you, today, to seek safe space for yourself. This can be wherever You feel safe and nourished. Do you have a space among friends or on your own? Within your family or a nourishing community? Do you know of a public space that brings you out of your thoughts and into complete presence in the present moment?

If all of this seems too much for you, or even if it doesn’t, I invite you to listen to some of these:
http://www.tarabrach.com/audioarchives-guided-meditations.html

One per day could heal a soul. One per day could radically heal the feminist movement, one person at a time.

This is what I’m feeling good about today.

~M

Tranquil Space Foundation

This sort of thing is exactly what I began this blog to promote and support:

http://www.tranquilspacefoundation.org/

The Tranquil Space Foundation “expands opportunities for girls and women to develop their inner voice through yoga, creativity, and leadership activities.”

E-mail: info@tranquilspacefoundation.org
Twitter: @tsfound
YouTube: youtube.com/tsfound
Facebook: facebook.com/tranquilspacefoundation

Let’s support and promote this organization! I want to hear how you choose to support TSF: will you ‘like’ their facebook page? add them on Twitter and retweet their twitter posts? Will you post their youtube videos to your facebook or email them to your friends? Will you tell the people in your life who know teen girls about the workshops for girls in grades 9-12?

Thank you so much!!! Your voice matters!!

Where Have You Been??

Where have I been, you ask?

Well, I’ve been focusing my attention on my spirituality and on learning to love myself. I’m finding that the best way to change the world, as well as my perception of it, is to focus on the positive things. It would seem that I had been doing that all along through writing this blog, wouldn’t it? And yet, while my original goal was to promote good things women are doing and positive things being done for women, I ended up mired in so much negativity; negative things being done to women and by women. I could not continue to focus on those issues and be happy and true to myself. I became angry and found it difficult not to lash out at those around me. I was constantly on the defensive. That’s not a side of myself that I wish to encourage.

Rather, I am nourishing the loving side. The past few months have seen much growth as a person and individual. If you follow my spiritual blog: 
http://goddesslightning.wordpress.com/
you may see that I am still thinking and still writing. I still promote the best possible actions and thoughts regarding women. Personally I have had to take a strong stance on making it my top priority to heal my body and spirit. I believe that this healing is possible for all of us, and I encourage you to seek a path of healing for yourself. If the first way you choose does not benefit you, try another. Keep trying to heal and eventually you will.

A commitment to love is all that is required by most great movements. I’m turning more of my attention and energy toward healing the Earth in every possible way (water, air, living beings, picking up trash). The rest of my energy is spent making art, and building confidence. (hmm, the part I wrote next apparently didn’t post. Sorry, email-followers!)

So I may continue to post here occasionally, and I may re-blog posts from my spiritual blog, if they pertain to positivity about women.

Keep spreading positive energy and tolerance!

Natural Woman

Katie Stelmanis is a female musician creating incredible feminist music. How is it feminist? Her lyrics expand the range of themes female music artists typically discuss within songs. On ‘Believe Me’, she asserts herself (listen to it!), and the video for ‘Natural Woman’ expands on the original song in such a beautiful way, not only for transgendered individuals, but for anyone whose gender is boundary-defying.

I found out about Katie’s music because of an article I was reading* which decried the sexism and anti-female attitudes now being found within the industrial music scene. The article spoke positively of Katie’s work, however, saying that maybe there is an underground saving grace for industrial music (fitting, considering the underground nature industrial music once embodied). I would classify her work as ‘awesome’, for it is in the ‘awesome’ music genre. As for ‘industrial’, I’m not so sure that classification fits, but I’ll let you decide for yourself whether you like it. Believe me, I do:

As for violent industrial music, I am #notbuyingit and I mean that. Literally. I’m trashing old stuff and not buying new. I will not wear an old t-shirt for a band who spreads violent messages because that is free advertising for them, for violence.

I’m feeling good about standing against violent messages, and feeling Awesome about women expressing our human interests through music.

*(no link provided, due to the violent and sexual imagery included with the article.

Impact

You may notice I’m changing some things here at Feeling Good About Feminism. You have a part to play in these changes, by answering a few simple questions.

What can I do to make this blog easier to use?

What would you like to see happen for women’s rights and freedoms in 2013?

Please answer below, and respond to the poll! Thanks so much.

I’m feeling good about change for the best.

Feeling Good About Feminism’s 2012 in review

Thank you to all who viewed my blog, left comments, pressed the ‘like’ button, shared, and otherwise supported my blog. And a HUGE thank you to everyone who supports and promotes equality for women in all respects.

WordPress.com created a report of 2012′s blog activity for Feeling Good About Feminism:

Here’s an excerpt:

600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 3,100 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 5 years to get that many views.

Click here to see the complete report.

To follow on Twitter, I’m still @joyoffeminism

And I am truly looking forward to the positive energy of 2013!

Many blessings! I’m feeling good about my blog.

Love, and Strength

This may be the third post I’ve written in one day (I love the scheduling feature on WordPress…) on the topic of ‘love’. I read this article by Jeff Jarvis, featuring Amanda Palmer, and it got me thinking about writing this post. Yes, this very one you’re reading!

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about love and the reality of it, and how to pass it on effectively. Many of us know that to keep something, one must give it away. It’s like teaching; you learn what you don’t know by attempting to teach a student, and you also learn what you do know, and remember it more clearly for recalling and practicing it. The same works with love; the more we practice it, the stronger the love we have in us becomes.

Love does not mean allowing ourselves to be trampled. After all,

“When you love someone, you treat them well” -Tippi Hedren

This relates to feeling good about feminism because supporting and promoting women’s rights has nothing to do with hating men, and naturally has nothing to do with allowing women to be treated poorly. There’s something for everyone to feel good about! Men can be loved, and women can be treated well, all with successful accomplishment of equal rights, opportunities, and freedoms for women.

Love means standing up for ourselves in the face of injustice, with compassion and understanding while explaining to those who do not yet understand our position, for one day we do want them to be our allies and must by necessity treat them well today.

Like attracts like, so show love and respect to those whom you wish to have love and respect from.

I’m feeling good about love, and strength.