Joy

I'm not going to sit here and say things like, "Everything's gonna be alright," while the world is literally and figuratively burning because I think that's a lie. Everything is not alright and hasn't been alright for a long time. I think many of us know this, and our families have carried this trauma for generations. So many of us are fighting for a better, safer world, much like our ancestors were, and we're feeling the weight of it all like our ancestors did.

None of that means we can't have joy.

None of that means we shouldn't love our families and communities and continue celebrating and elevating our people.

There's still a lot of life to live.

I get it. It feels heavy. In these trying times, joy might even seem like a privilege. But joy is not a privilege - it's a right. You have the right to love life, your people, and all the positives and happiness triggers in your life.

It's not easy to find joy when the world seems dim, but we owe it to ourselves to seek out and embrace the things that bring us joy. We owe it to our families to model how there's still joy and wonder in this world to engage with. Unbridled joy is one of the many things that stop us from mentally, physically, and emotionally breaking under the weight of our oppressors. Joy is fuel to fight for the things you believe in and the people you love. Joy is protest. Joy is rest.

The possible future ahead of us could try to take many things from many of us. Please do everything you can not to let it take your sunshine.

Embrace joy.

I feel honored to participate in this year's One Minute for Mental Health campaign as part of Mental Health Awareness Month!

Anyone who knows me personally or follows my work knows how much mental health is a central part of my life. I feel fortunate to have the opportunity to share that message within this platform.

Thank you to Lizzie Schooler and Reggie Wideman for the opportunity to talk about something many of us grapple with and encounter daily: feeling like we have to say we're OK when we're far from it.

Please feel free to share your thoughts below. Let's talk about it!

On Cis Men, My Father, and Self-Regulation

As a cisgender man who has learned and continues to learn ways to self-regulate and practice mindfulness in a world that constantly attacks my intersectionality, let me say that I am EXHAUSTED with dealing with cisgender men who refuse to learn how to self-regulate and the apologists in their lives who coddle them and defend their toxicity. Where? At work, in the community, everywhere. I’m exhausted with this nonsense. And I’m exhausted because I’ve been dealing with this and fighting against how effortless it is to fall into this toxic and dangerous societally structured complacency my entire life in what feels like a losing battle.

I grew up with a father with no self-regulation skills who could not take in feedback or differing perspectives outside his own. He couldn’t take someone holding him accountable for his actions. He was not in touch with his feelings, emotions, or mental states, and we all suffered. My mother indulged him and defended his actions too many times, leaving my siblings and me to live in a home with a man who was constantly angry and lashing out at all of us at volume twenty over things as simple as taking out the trash. I left home at 16 because I was tired of dealing with his energy and constant threats of violence over every little thing. I’ve spent my entire adult life deprogramming myself so that I would not be a man like my father, only to find myself in a profession that gives me nothing but “opportunities” to protect and support people who have to work and live with men like my father.

And so many of y’all are like my father in how oblivious or uncaring you are about how harmful your unhealthiness is to those around you in all aspects of your life.

I’m tired of it, y’all. I'm tired of conversing with men who push back against the notion of being healthier and place the burden of their mental and emotional well-being on everyone else in their lives. I’m tired of cis men talking down to me or treating me like I’m “not man enough” because I lead with empathy and concern, even if I’m calling them in over their actions and impacts while they continue scaring everyone in their lives at least once a day. And I'm tired of how often these conversations and situations have white cis men at the center of the storm, placing themselves in the victim role while victimizing others.

We need legitimate accountability like yesterday for all cis men, melanin or none. And that accountability has to start with cis men holding themselves and other cis men accountable, followed by a dismantling of the codependence and ingrained toxicity of people who defend cis men's unwillingness to be more mentally and emotionally healthy as acceptable and “not a big deal” even when it puts them in danger.

Cis men: it is not OK to lash out at everyone and everything because you're having a "bad day" or had an interaction this morning that didn't stroke your ego or align with your narrow worldview of whose voice and opinions matter.

Cis men: it is not OK to escalate your voice and physical actions to threatening and possibly violent levels over any conversation or situation that doesn't go your way or leaves you feeling like you're being undervalued or your thoughts are disregarded. People have the right to disagree with you, not place you at the center of the universe, and expect you to be able to deal with not always getting your way or work to find some compromise. Do you know how many people and communities feel disregarded, undervalued, erased, and invisible and don't proceed to intimidate, scare, harm, or kill others? You need to get in touch with your emotional and mental centers just like everybody else.

Cis men: it is not OK for others to have to constantly share space with you, walking on eggshells because they feel that they have to be vigilant and tuned into trying to soothe and regulate you because you're unwilling to do this for yourself, and not burden others with your unwillingness to take care of your emotional and mental stability.

Cis men: you are not "victims of a changing world." If anything, you've been victimized by societal norms and familial systems from an archaic time that has bred you to believe that your behavior and unwillingness to regulate your anxiety, anger, and frustration in even the most mundane situations is somehow acceptably masculine and that being in touch with your mental and emotional health and well-being is considered the opposite. You've been victimized by the ingrained generational patriarchal belief that you don't have to change and that the evolving world should bend to your needs. But the victimhood in these matters ends there. It is up to you to learn and unlearn so that you can regulate, self-soothe, and not threaten others because cis men who don't have these skills threaten so many intersections and communities. At this point, the overwhelming number of cis men who have harmed or killed others because of the toxic societally accepted "norms" of masculinity is too astounding to ignore.

And if the cis man I'm describing is your husband, partner, father, son, or close friend? You owe it to them and yourself to stop defending their vitriol, hold them accountable, and unpack your codependence so you can be healthier too.

It doesn’t have to be this way today and cannot continue being this way in the future.

Little cis boys deserve better modeling and support around being mentally and emotionally healthier than their fathers, grandfathers, and uncles.

We all deserve this.

On Normalizing a New Normal

Normalize walking away from people and relationships that do not energize, elevate, comfort, or support you, your trauma, and your healing how you need them to.

Normalize walking away from people and relationships that let it be known, blatantly or subtly, that your focusing on your health and well-being is somehow an affront to their toxicity and how they want to use your shoulders to carry their trauma.

Normalize the understanding that blood may be thicker than water, but they are both liquids with the power to drown you, body and soul, and you deserve to remain undrowned.

Normalize that there is a thin line between codependence and helping and supporting those you love and that the line is so thin because, for many of us, it is a taut thread of generational and societal trauma that our families and friends are scared to tug on lest it unravels and leave us to face our traumas raw and unfiltered.

Normalize embodying that you are enough and deserve to rest, heal, and be surrounded by supportive people who care about you and your needs.

Normalize that all of the above-mentioned are not selfish thoughts.

Normalize a new normal.

We all deserve that.

Both And

Sometimes I have to remind myself that many of the people in the United States pushing for gun safety and banning Critical Race Theory while attacking trans and queer communities are people who have allowed their trauma and familial and community influences to hurt them on a deep level. And hurt people hurt people. I have to make sure I'm considering that hateful views and bigotry are ingrained and learned behaviors often fostered in people from a young age by their families and communities. I must be cognizant of the trauma we all carry and how that trauma manifests as malicious weapons, especially for those with power, privilege, and positionality. I must acknowledge how white supremacist ideologies and societal norms influence how people overtly and covertly wield hate.

But I never have to remind myself that none of the above are excuses or passes for people to be sh—-y, hateful, and harmful to others.

It's both and.

Yeah, hurt people tend to hurt others, especially when they have the power and opportunity to do so. But just because you're unwilling to confront and unpack your generational and societal trauma and familial influences doesn't mean you get to place the burden of your hurt on those your skewed beliefs deem appropriate to oppress.

I can hold out hope for your healing and still hold you accountable for the harm you cause. I can acknowledge your trauma and expect you to work on your sh— and improve.

I will simultaneously check you and ask somebody to pray for your soul.

It's both and.

Why?

Because even if you're a hate-filled human being, you're still human. You're still worthy of love and care, even if you think me and my people aren't. You're still worthy of healing and support, even if you think other communities aren't.

Even though you may hate my people and me, I don't hate you. Even though you hate people and communities who have done you no harm, I don’t hate you. Why? I'm practicing living in health and joy. Practicing hate to respond to the hatred of harmful people stuck in their trauma does nothing for anyone. No person who has lived in a cycle of trauma and hate has ever been joyful about life.

I ain’t got time for that. Life is short.

Real talk? I hope you get to that place at some point in your life where your hate and trauma aren't your driving forces for the sake of everyone your unresolved pain harms. I hope you get to the point where you can be accountable for your words and actions and acknowledge your pain and the pain you create.

In the meantime, I'mma ask one of my religious homies to pray for your soul while praying for me to have the serenity not to want to lay hands on you while you sport your MAGA hat and act like you’re disappointed in me because I checked yo’ ass and you thought I was "one of the good ones."

Hey, I’m human.

Both and.