Domesticated by the Dream of Domination

But not condemned to stay there.

The other day, I got frustrated.

Very frustrated.

Why?

No, it wasn’t politics. It wasn’t anger at the crazy world we live in.

It was because after telling my kids repeatedly to get their shoes on and head towards the car, I was still watching them both run barefoot through the yard. Well maybe them ignoring me ON TOP of my background stress about the world.

So I yelled. Loudly. With anger.

At my kids.

Then… my son calmly informed me that I was “working from the domination mindset,” and he’d really prefer if I could stop yelling at them and start working with them to help them get their shoes on instead of yelling.

He’s six.

You might be able to tell the conversation about Domination v Partnership goes on a lot in our house.

We use these terms because I don’t want to tell my kids that “men are evil” and “women should run things.” This simply isn’t true. It’s a dumbed-down, oversimplification. Just take a trip around Medium to see why this doesn’t work.

Mark Greene is a particularly eloquent writer on this topic from a man’s point of view. His post on why #MeToo is difficult for men are extremely insightful.

In our family, we talk about things like racism, sexism, ableism, and why our economy is failing us. We talk about climate science, and we talk about emotional intelligence. And we talk about it on a 6 year old level as much as possible. And on a 2 year old level when my little girl is in on these talks too.

I know people don’t want to talk about these things with their kids because they are worried that they’re dumping adult concerns on little brains that won’t be able to wrap their minds around it.

They’re concerned with trauma.

But I say, these are HUMAN concepts, and it’s never too early to involve their minds and hearts in the art of relating to one another, and living in the same world.

My kid calling me out on trying to convince them to get in the car by yelling is a PERFECT example of how well they understand what we talk about. Pretty well.

The concept of running things by scaring others with the potential for violence happens at all kinds of levels. It’s playing out today — election day on the international stage. It also happens when one of my kids tells the other that, “if you don’t give me back my toy, I’ll hit you!”

In no case is that ever acceptable. If I could send these nutty political pundits and talking heads to their rooms for a time out, and sit with them on a bed to help them understand where they took a wrong turn — I would.

Please note, that I support their right to be crazy if they need to. But I refuse to support their tendency to put their crazy over my head and drop it on me if I don’t agree with them. This is not a violation of their rights. It’s a protection of my own.

In Defense of Actualization, not in Actualization of Defense

When we feel that we have to defend ourselves from others, it’s a contraction. A pulling inward to stave off the extrinsic threat.

When that fear diminishes to the point where we can begin to extend outwards towards higher levels of human actualization, we expand, connect, and grow.

This isn’t a war between good and evil, it’s an ongoing struggle between the contraction and expansion of our society. And I want my kids to be prepared.

Am I too much of an idealist? Or am I working for the future?

Sometimes, it’s hard even for me to tell.

Yep.

You’ve probably guessed that we’re some of those hippie-ish white folks living in Southwest Austin. A combination of open minded liberal, and our-parents-support-us-a-lot privilege. We’re also into wildlife conservation, hunting, and permaculture.

I’m a pro-yoga, pro-hunting, anti-military-grade weapon, realist. We’re some of those moderate Texans you keep hearing about on the news.

This is not a judgment, or a justification. I just want to let you know my demographic. And how I don’t really fit into any of the neat little boxes the media uses to describe us.

And I wouldn’t call myself a staunch Democrat, by a long shot. Rather I am someone who is all for getting rid of the messed up hierarchy of personhood, as John Gorman puts it.

and yet…

Here I was, using the same tactics of anger, fear, and control to convince my children to put on their shoes and get in the car so that we could be somewhere on time.

What the hell.

Why?

And how could I begin to stop?

Being the Change We Wish to See in the World

We’ve all heard this. We can all quote it. We all know who said it originally.

So why was I not living by this philosophy, even as I felt I was working to make the rest of the world aspire to live by it?

It was kind of a shock. It shouldn’t have been. This piece by Anastasia Basil about the culture I grew up in is frighteningly accurate.

OMG the 80’s. In hindsight, I’m glad I wasn’t paying such close attention to things back them.

Perhaps my ignorance saved me some trauma?

Or maybe not.

I had always been a tomboy and an athlete. I was NOT a girly-girl, and I could put up with the sexism because I didn’t think it actually affected me.

Of all of the #metoo stories out there, I was SURE I didn’t have one.

I thought of myself as “one of the lucky ones” that didn’t suffer under the male-dominated culture.

I thought it was enough that my brief career as a high-school wrestler, multiple black belts, high IQ, and Harley Nightster seemed to protect me from being raped, assaulted, kidnapped, enslaved, or killed.

I thought my ownership of and skill with a DeWalt driver and drill made me immune to the ravages of the domination based patriarchy.

I didn’t understand the program of domestication, or cultural programming that I was being subjected to.

And just because I supposedly slid through the cracks and “escaped unscathed” didn’t mean that I was absolved of the work of improving the system for those who DIDN’T have my level of privilege.

I was wrong. Mea culpa.

I’ve since realized that FEMINISM IS FUCKING IMPORTANT.

There is no such thing as “being one of the lucky ones.”

What I now know is that when some of us suffer, all of us suffer.

Addressing My Own Inner Landscape

There is another phrase in our common lexicon that begins to make more sense to me now.

Peace Starts with Me

But what does that even mean? How do we find our inner peace? How do we even begin to look for it?

“Fake it til you make it,” I can tell you from my own experience, is a bandaid on a field amputation.

It might work for now at least, to take deep breaths and work to cultivate a happy attitude, even in the midst of a shit storm.

But chances are, you’re just repressing the things that make you miserable, under-nurtured, and highly likely to be a ticking time bomb. At least that has been my experience.

You know, the yelling!

Alternate reactions include hopelessness, fatigue, mild (or major) depression, disaster mind. It’s one of the things that makes us need to numb all of our feelings, just to escape from ourselves.

These things can seem minor, but oh — it’s not. It’s the root of all things. It’s also not a symptom that we should ignore.

Brené Brown does such an excellent job of explaining this via the TED stage.

Another brilliant light in this world, Pema Chödrön, gave me a great deal of insight on this in her lecture series Getting Unstuck.

We have so many creative ways to run away from ourselves.

But do we really understand the ultimate cost of such tactics? A life lived in the twilight of possibility is a life bound to give us regrets. At least that’s my take on it.

What I’ve realized is that it ISN’T actually my responsibility to make myself happy, all by myself.

Nope, I need help to get there.

And if you seek inner peace as a starting point, so do you.

How I decided to begin. I wanted to…

1. Know, with clarity and assurance, precisely what I want out of this life.
2. Learn to communicate this to the people who I love and share my home with.
3. Do my part to make sure I’m working towards my own fulfillment.
4. Simultaneously guide my loved ones’ efforts to nurture me, so they don’t feel like they were working really hard to make me happy, and failing. Hi honey! 😘
5. Rinsing and repeating this cycle towards ever greater degrees of sanity.

Am I there yet.

Nope.

What I’m realizing is that it takes time to reverse the programming of years. It takes practice to continuously listen to my own heart, and then translate that into effective communication with my partner.

And I’m grateful beyond belief to have a mindful, intelligent, kind, communicative, and partnership-oriented husband. I would not be nearly so close to being woke without him.

It takes me asking my husband, over and over, what he ACTUALLY wants to be nurtured.

It takes realizing that my permissiveness about things that secretly piss me off is dangerous. This leads to an explosive build up of pressure that nearly ALWAYS causes a fight between us after a while.

It takes me standing up for my right to get help with driving the kids around so that I get to work out regularly too.

It takes meal planning, weekend grocery shopping, and a plan to keep the house clean — even though it’s no fun to make this happen.

It takes me INSISTING on a family schedule, even though our freelance lifestyle means that schedule changes week to week.

It means that I’m not responsible for managing my husband’s feelings, but I am responsible for working with him to figure out the best ways to communicate around what I need, and what he needs to be happy.

Duh.

It feels harder in the moment. But it’s oh so much simpler in the long run, just to be really clear about what I want, and ask nicely for it.

Isn’t that what I thought I was teaching my kids?

So how do we make the leap from Domination, Violence, Chaos, and Yelling — to Loving Partnership & Mutuality in the near future?

Keep reading. Keep writing. Keep taking deep breaths, NOT to calm down the righteous anger and pain inside of you, but in order to learn to stay with it. Learn to calm the constant state of mental inflammation.

Voting might help too. I hope. Beto O'Rourke has given Texas a dose of hope & heart that I’ll forever be grateful for.

Being an example of grace and patience and kindness and connection in the world is not easy. By a long shot. But how much of a better teaching will it be to my children, my community, and my world if I can LIVE it and walk the walk, rather than just talking about it.

Hypocrisy is something we usually think about as something “the other side” does.

But when we can uncover it within and begin to work on changing it, it’s WAY more powerful.

I refuse to maintain the domestication I’ve received around the domination culture we live in. I know that y’all are turning down this option as well.

Elle Beau, Anne Kenny and Natalie Tulsiani, Mark Greene, John Gorman, Kris Gage, Wyatt Edward Gates, Zaron Burnett III, Sady Doyle, Anastasia Basil, Jesse Weaver, HeatherAsh Amara, Charles Eisenstein.

These are just a few of the writers that are challenging the status quo. They are firmly rejecting the idea that we cannot work together to make this world a better place right now.

Someday, maybe I can be one of them.

When I sat down to get really clear on what I truly want — that was right there near the top of the list.

For now, I’m just going to try not to be angry with myself for writing this blog instead of getting dinner on the table. My cold half chicken and I will just patiently wait for room temperature to arise. And I will seek to find my peace with leftovers.

Blessed Be y’all.