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.

A Journey to Self Love

“I think the reward for conformity is that everyone likes you except yourself.”

― Rita Mae Brown

I finished building my own home at the end of October this year. It has been an amazing experience. This journey began in May of 2013 when  I held my breathe and applied to Habitat for Humanity to see if I qualified. I found out that I did, but I had a mistake on my credit that I had to clear up first. All the horror stories of fixing misinformed credit bureaus information were true. It took me until October of 2013 - six months - to make my credit accurate. During that time often I wanted to give up, but I had had a dream of owning my own house for over 15 years and I knew I couldn't give up on myself. So I stayed committed. I was accepted in my local program at the end of October almost exactly a year ago.

 Little did I know that it was going to get harder. Now I started my sweat equity hours, going to other people’s houses being built and learning how to build houses. All of my fears about making mistakes came up for me. Often I would ask the same questions over and over or do tasks with my heart pounding and perhaps my hands shaking. And I often did make mistakes but this amazing group of volunteers and staff who build all of the homes would teach and explain as many times as I needed until I found myself looking forward to going and learning new things. It was quite the shock to me that I was enjoying myself more than feeling awkward and  afraid. This is how I realized that the journey  to self-love I had begun years ago had taken another leap.

 I suppose for some self-love comes easy, but I think those people are few and far between I think the rest of us have to work toward it. I know I have. I thought I loved myself when I was younger. I floated through my childhood into college never really having to try very hard. Never realizing that I only did things half assed because indeed I was afraid, deeply afraid of failing. In order to really love ourselves we have to admit to ourselves that we have dreams and if we really allow ourselves to want/desire then we might fail. This can be too terrifying, it was for me for a long long time.

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. - Anais Nin

Around 9 years ago I read a book called Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg Phd. This was the beginning of some serious change brewing in my life.  I was reading the book as a conflict resolution manual (but have since learned it is so much more) I was mostly focused on trying to communicate with my children better. The first thing I remember being in awe about was the idea that “negative” feelings are related to having unmet need rather than personal failings and all people have these unmet needs This was an aha moment for me in that I had needs. I realized I had been living my life trying to not have needs. I was trying to meet everyone’s need all around me only to deplete myself of all reserves and be unable to give anymore. Often leading to feelings of resentment inside of me that the people around me were not more attentive to my needs. Even though truly I was training them to not care about my needs by how I took care of myself. When I finally realized my needs matter and even though the info was coming from outside of myself I had something I could work with. But as life often goes I got busy with the life of being a single parent with two young girls and little support so focusing on myself was hard.


 Time passed things changed. I had twin sons and many other things changed in my life. One of those things was I started to learn how to ask for my needs to be met. Slowly. I was able to attend a Nonviolent Communication workshop in my area. This was a truly EYE OPENING experience. I was in a room with 50-60 other people with all of us learning to think in a new way. Learning to view relationships and communication in a much different way than our society trains us.

 I continued on this journey immersing myself by attending workshops and reading as much free info as I could. I also found recordings of teleclasses I could listen to over and over and great videos on YouTube that I could learn from. I read Marshall’s book again as well as other books like Connecting Across Differences. Many things continued to change in my life. My relationships changed because I changed. I was stronger. I had something I could turn to that required no one else to help me when something was wrong. I could turn to my materials and find the need that was unmet. And even when there is no answer right now just knowing what my need is can relieve so much of the pain of it being unmet.

 I am learning to stop thinking that the problem was others around me or a failed part of my being and I started to connect with my feelings and my needs. This is an amazing feeling to move the focus from out there to inside myself. Self-Love has been and continues to be an amazing journey of self discovery in part by learning to embrace and love deeply my shadow side and equally embrace and learn to claim out loud my positive qualities. It means for me learning to ask out loud for things that will help me meet my needs rather than suffer in silence or make demands for others to meet my needs.

 I am learning to participate in the world in a more compassionate way for me and all of humanity. I am getting to know myself in deeper and deeper ways. I am becoming more and more consciously here in the moment. I am able to say no without feeling guilty more and more often. I may have further to go on this path of self-love but I have already traveled far and learned much.


  Oceana the SisterMoon is currently building her own energy efficient home, preparing to start her dream of living a sustainable, 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. You can also find her on Facebook.

Learning to Live a Life of Nonviolence

"People say walkin on water is a miracle, but to me walking peaceful on Earth is the real miracle" ~Thich Nhat Hanh

I am studying Miki Kashtan's Book Spinning Threads of Radical Aliveness. In the book she offers the Core Commitments.  I have been mediating on these for sometime in an effort to deepen my study I have been writing about what comes up for me with each of these commitments.  It is my longing to live in a more peaceful world and so I am working to change myself first. 

Core Commitment # 7 Loving No Matter What: even when my needs are seriously unmet, I want to keep my heart open. If I find myself becoming judgmental, angry, or otherwise triggered, I want to seek support in transforming my judgments and meeting others with love.

This is definitely a hard one.   I mean who can love everyone all the time.  It is so embedded in our cultural consciousness to judge each especially when someone is doing something that is in opposition to how we want to live. 

I so deeply desire to live in peace with other people and yet it is so often than people act in ways that trigger sadness in me.  Seeing people litter or not recycle, seeing people throwing food in the trash can that will go to a dump instead of composting so that it can become dirt or food that could be feeding people who don't have enough to eat. I feel so sad and have a deep deep longing for wise use of resources. 

Some days I think i have taken on more than taken on more than i am possibly accomplish. But then I remind myself of the other commitments and it is better to have to commitment and “Fail. Fail again. Fail better.” ~ Samuel Beckett than to give up before I start. 

Truthfully I have given up many many times but my heart calls me back or this world calls me to work at it again.  

And I am still finding the line between Loving No Matter What and not allowing people to use and abuse me. I thought when I was young if I would just give and give then the world would have to come through at some point and offer back what I was offering. Now that I am older and in my humble opinion wiser I have learned to step back and give what is comfortable to give and that I can love from a distance.  I do not have to live in the drama to be loving.  

Also while I like the above idea that love is anyway or in spite of. I have a feeling as I grow it will be because.....because this other personal is full human and I can see it. Because we are all perfectly imperfect. Because I see this other persons pain and sorrow. Because I see with my whole heart as I have learned to see myself with my whole heart and not through the eyes of others whose hearts were not open. 

So Namaste,  I bow to you and see the divine energy of existence in you as I learn to  bow to myself and see the divine energy of existence in myself. 



  ☾ 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. 

Re_Creating my Rituals for Radical Self Care..

“Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.”
~ Audre Lorde

I see self care as a radical act. Particularly for women. To move away from the care taker roll of taking care of everyone to slowing down often allowing things to be done in a less than perfect way by others is near impossible for many of us.

Yet taking care of myself is key to the life I want to live. Taking time to do yoga or eat healthy is next to impossible for some of us. And the further down on the ladder of socioeconomic priviledge we go the less resources we have available to us to do self care.

Finding ways to care for myself has been a struggle in my life. If I don't take care of myself I am more short with myself, my kids, and other people. This is why I am creating and recreating my rituals of self care. it is an one going practice not something I do once and forget.

Here are some ideas for doing self care that I use and will be accessible to many though honestly not all people. But if you have access to a computer to read this then you will probably be able to do most of this. I would love to hear from you about what you do for self care in the comments

• Yoga on youtube so many wonderful people have offered their time to post great videos
• Time in nature either go for a walk or even just take a chair and sit their listening to the sounds (I am lucky enough to be in Tennesssee and there is so much nature you almost can't get away from it.)
• Take a hot bath (bonus with epsom salt and candles)
• Practice some mindfulness or mediation again youtube will have many many resources. Here's a nice one
• listen/read to a favorite speaker/author, I really enjoy Pema Chodron, Tara Brach, and Miki Kashtan
• Take time to forgive yourself. You are not perfect you are human that comes with mistakes this is called self compassion.
• Eat the most nourishing foods you can afford, in my area kale has gotten really affordable and I have started to grow a garden
• Get a massage or trade with a friend 
• Take time to do what you love
• find or create a red tent near you
• drink nourishing herbal infusions 
• journal taking time to write down your feelings and needs

If we aren't taking better care of ourselves how can we take care of the world or change it?

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.