Why can't poor people just be more creative

2 weeks ago,  I was talking with someone who wanted me to go to meeting for an organization in another town. I asked if we could have the meeting in a church on a Sunday so that I could use the child care that was available there for my twin 7 year olds. Her response was that she wished I would get more creative.
I told her I am very creative in living my life every single day.  Living my life is an act of creativity.
I didn't go into detail. I've been thinking about this a lot lately. In truth is not the first time she has talked to me about needing to be more creative in my life to make things happen.
I'm a little lost when I hear this. My first thoughts are that I use creativity to buy healthy food for my children, I used creativity to get into and utilize the Habitat for Humanity program so that I am now the owner of a home of 1000 square feet for my family of 5 to live in. I use creativity to live in a house with 2 teenagers and twins with only 1000 square.  It feels like I use creativity all day everyday. I live under the poverty line. I could go on and on about the specifics I use my creativity for but the truth is that I start to feel like I am working to prove my worth. And I have had to spend my life proving my worth to my family.

At what point are poor people allowed to be human?  How much do you need to know about me to know that I tried hard enough to be given a pass? If I tell you about trying to go to college as a single parent but having to quit because my children needed me ?  If I tell you about my children's abusive father who abused me and my children? How much do you need to know about that abuse? Do I explain how he tricked everyone in our lives that I was the one who was the problem? So that when I left him and didn't allow him to see my kids everyone tried to convince me I was doing the wrong thing. How I had no support to get away.  How I've been the only person trying to parent my children outside of abuse outside of punishment. How I have ptsd when I go into a school that the sights and sounds of the public school system cause me to react in my body with fight/flight/freeze.

If I tell you all of this but that I work and use creativity to seem normal and like everyone else as much as I am able. That all I've ever wanted was to be able to finish college and go to work and have a normal family. If I tell you I am not capable of living with a man because of what my abusive husband did to me and my children. That I was able to finally fall in love and felt like I was on my way to healing but that man died and left me raise our beautiful children alone.  I suppose I didn't have to do it all alone but because of the abuse I have lived through it makes it almost impossible for me to know how much is ok or not ok. I don't know how to tell who is safe and who is not.  I have learned I am an amazing woman with so much to offer in the world. I also have so much against me. I do not see a glass half empty or even a glass half full I just see a glass that will quench my thirst but that I have to figure out how to constantly fill up to also quench the thirst of my children daily.

Sisterhood Through Challenge: Negotiating Conflict & Compassionate Boundaries

"Beautiful Heart Rocks found and arranged by Artist Hannah Maxwell Rowell. Her artist page can be found here

  

“To be ourselves causes us to be exiled by many others, and yet to comply with what others want causes us to be exiled from ourselves.”

Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Some relationships are easy. People get along.  There seems to understanding from the start without struggle. Our need to matter is met and so is the other persons. It is just easy.   But what do we do when it is not easy? How to we find common ground when things are not so easy, when doubts are born of if the other sister cares about our needs?  

Our first reaction is to close our heart to these people or ourselves when things get hard.   Since childhood many of us have learned that our needs will not or cannot be met.  So we learn to stop asking, we learn to stop wanting.  I believe this is fear not strength. Finding it in ourselves to go on and continue with open heart is indeed the path to growth and acquired strength and vulnerability.

As a child I felt helpless a lot and in order to protect myself I became prickly. “Unexpressed fear looks like aggression” -Miki Kashtan.  I have a goal in my life and that is to stay open hearted to all people I am meeting and in contact with.  This is hard. Especially coming out of an abusive relationship or just learning to lovingly say “NO” in any relationship.  Many people myself included have abandonment fears. So saying no can be particularly scary.  I have spent a lot of time working on healing myself from relationships that were not meeting my needs.

Because of being raised in this society that teaches us to swallow our needs and try to make them as small as possible the first step in overcoming our urge to close our heart is to experience our needs fully and without apology. To many of us sisters can’t ask for our needs to be met without feeling guilty. Feelings of guilt when making a request to get our needs met will inhibit creativity in meeting all of our needs.  It can also lead to someone meeting our request without a heart full of joy which will not feel any better than if they were to say no.

How do we proceed when the tragic happens and someone you love and you aren't able communicate effectively. What do you do?

When we love someone very deeply and then things fall apart it can be heartbreaking.  I often have opposing feelings one is to seek safety, the other is wanting to comfort the other person. Depending on what the situation is will decide what action I  take. Sometimes when the person is seemingly very dangerous I will want to close my heart to them for fear of being hurt and at the same time closing my heart to them will also cause me pain. We are at our best when we are open hearted seeing the world the way we saw it as children and we are then at our most creative to finding a solution that will meet the most needs.

So when I am in a safe place perhaps with someone I trust I work on opening my heart.  When we first open our hearts to life it can be painful for sometimes we have kept it closed for so long.  I have found the most helpful techniques for healing to be  EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) and using Ho’oponopono for myself and any person with whom I desire a healing of our relationship. I imagine saying to them, and then myself and then to the two of us together. “I am sorry, Please forgive me, Thank you, I love you”

I have learned in my life that I must take steps to keep myself and my children safe from people who are currently dangerous but closing my heart is my choice and it becomes an opportunity for my own healing to take place and in healing my own heart I allow myself to fully love the other person no matter how they see me.

Oceana SisterMoon is currently living her dream of a sustainable life, raising chickens, and growing food with her 4 children. She seeks to help women unearth their power through sisterhood and healing through self-connection , interdependence, power in vulnerability, and authenticity. instagram pinterest

Finding Vulnerability

"I want to find, accept, and then stretch my limits so I can take bolder and bolder actions in the face of fear." -Miki Kashtan

I've been studying Nonviolent Communication for almost 3 years now

I first read the book of the same name by Marshall Rosenberg about 6 years ago. I thought it was enough like other types of communication styles that I had already studied that I could use it easily without having to study too much. 

Then I found myself in conflict with a dear friend. She was very frustrated with me and wanted me to understand something very important in the moment. I was afraid and didn't think I could listen well. I tried to be vulnerable but failed. We tried going to an NVC workshop together but I was too hurt and I think she was too.   It ended badly.   And while I am still in contact with her our friendship has suffered, our friends we had in common have enacted a distance.  Sadly, this was at a time in my life when I lost my life partner and needed their support very badly. I was left alone in my grief for not only my life partner but also my friends and support group.
  

This is when I decided that I would intensively study Nonviolent Communication for a year. I was lucky that I am near a city that held workshops regularly and began my journey. I reread the book and watched every video on youtube I could find. And attended 3 workshops in the next year.  I started to see change in my life. I continued to take workshops and found a book study group for my second year, and have continued finding information on blogs and in books and at workshops

I have lived in fear for most of my life. Fear of people, fear of life.  I wanted to be loved and cared about I wanted understanding but being terrified to the extreme really made it hard to interact with people.  I also felt angry and let's face it women are not allowed to be angry in our culture. Women are allowed to cry and be afraid, women are allowed to be depressed, women are to be helpless and victims but we are not supposed to get angry. Yet I was tired of moving between depressed and angry. Yet I am often to afraid to show people my feelings of vulnerability.  I am often shaking in terror and close to tears working to stay vulnerable when trying to tell people my authentic truth rather than pick up my defensiveness. However, I am learning to have courage. I am learning that for me courage is not the courage to fight or go to battle but to stand unprotected in my mistakes and imperfections.  To stand unprotected in my pain and hurt and needs for support and compassion.  To stand naked before people.  I have had some successes recently and I  have found by bringing in my vulnerability, others meet me with more vulnerability. I have yet to do this in a high stakes situation but I feel I am closer to being able to do this.  I hope the next time that some one is really angry at me I am able to think faster and know what to say. Whether it is right to offer up my own feels of fear and insecurity or to offer empathy.

I think this is one step we will take when we are ready to live in a world of peace. I think we often think that living in a world of peace means to live free of conflict. But maybe it really means to live in a world were we can all learn to be vulnerable with ourselves and with each other.  So everyday I make the effort to lay down my defenses and stand naked with all insecurities,  fears, and open wounds in front of myself and sometimes I am even brave enough to do it in front of others.  I hope to continue on this journey of gentle learning and laying down my weapons of words to find what is underneath.

Oceana SisterMoon is currently living her dream of a sustainable life, raising chickens, and growing food with her 4 children. She seeks to help women unearth their power through sisterhood and healing through self-connection , interdependence, power in vulnerability, and authenticity. instagram pinterest