Today, we are immersing ourselves in the shallow emptiness we sometimes encounter when we define our worth by society's standards of beauty.

“The Wild Unknown Animal Spirit Deck and Guidebook” by Kim Krans gifted us this week with the wisdom and guidance of Starfish.

Little did I know when I began this creative venture that I was opening myself and my life to the lessons of each card. Literally, on the day I pulled Starfish and read its message about beauty, how we define ourselves and others, and how deeply we can fear what others think of us (distracting us from what really matters), I noticed the critical voice within me growing louder about the weight I have recently gained. That judgment didn't stop with me because it began to trickle into the thoughts I was having about my partner as well.

The past shadowy week has inspired today’s wild immersion. Journey well, darling.

From the Deck:

Starfish are known to be beautiful, alluring, and shallow.

What this stirred in me:

For much of my life, I have fought to maintain an appearance that aligns with the beauty standards I have internalized. Thinness. A fit body. A “Coke bottle” figure. Long hair. Long eyelashes. Full lips. It is an impossible standard to live up to. Looking back, I can see how those ideas were planted early through the messages I absorbed from family, media, and culture. I also recognize that many of these ideals are rooted in white, Eurocentric standards of beauty that continue to reinforce systems of white supremacy.

These messages have shaped how I view my worth. How I view others’ worth. Shaping the lens I look through. Determining who and how I interact, love, and view myself and everyone around me.

The amount of grief I have been moving through this past week in acknowledging and feeling the sorrow for the harm done to me and the shame and guilt for the harm I have done to others has felt endless.

Like a deep well I will be revisiting for the rest of my life.

What this card reassures me of, though, is that my worth has never lived on the surface. It lives in the depths. In my tenderness, my courage, my grief, my joy, my curiosity, my capacity to love.

There is depth within us all. There is depth within me. And I feel grateful each time life invites me beneath the surface, where the truest parts of myself are waiting to be remembered.

Wild Immersion

Reflection/Journal Prompts

1. Have you ever seen a starfish in the wild or even at an aquarium? What did you feel when you saw them? Were you drawn to them?

   1. I remember seeing a starfish when I went scuba diving in Australia. I felt delighted, in awe, and craved holding one and could not wait to tell people I had seen them in the wild!

2. What are ways you determine your worth? Is what you look like one way?

3. How can you deconstruct from harmful messaging about beauty and appearance and can you sense how this has limited you from appreciating the depth within yourself and others?

   

Stay wild!

And remember, you are so much more than what you look like.

I love you for who you are.

Jamie

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This week here at Wild Child we are journeying into the depths of darkness of death and rebirth.

“The Wild Unknown Animal Spirit Deck and Guidebook” by Kim Krans gifted us with the wisdom and guidance of Bat.

I pulled this card last Sunday, and I kid you not, Bat has been making their presence known ever since. I’ve been dreaming of Bat and have seen at least one flying above me nearly every morning during my sunrise walks. I’ve felt them alongside me all week, quietly guiding and supporting the creation I’m sharing with you today.

From the Deck:

Bats are known for darkness and the process of death and rebirth.

What this stirred in me:

Mostly, fear. I am both afraid of the dark and of those I love dying. I would not say I am afraid of dying myself, but more of what lives on the other side, or rather what does not. Bat also stirred within me a deep knowing that death and rebirth are significant and cyclical initiations.

Bat reminds me of the times in my life when parts of me, ways of being, or ways of thinking have needed to die. Times when I have been forced into darkness, and how it was only through the process of being in it and with it that I could emerge reborn, renewed, and more whole.

The most painful example of this thus far in my life was when I was getting clean and sober. That way of being, that way of living, and that way of coping quite literally had to die. It was one of the hardest and loneliest experiences of my life. I shed many tears and spent many days in what felt like a deep darkness.

There was no sudden release back into the light, but rather a gradual process, one that is still unfolding today, filled with endless micro deaths and rebirths.

Wild Immersion

Reflection/Journal Prompts

1. Were you ever told any wise tales or scary stories about bats? How did you feel about them as a child?

   1. My auntie one time told me when I was a kid that bats will swoop down at my head if I’m not careful, because they like hair! This made me feel afraid of bats for a very long time! ha!

2. Can you think of a time when you have had to go through an experience that felt like a death of who you once were and where you came out feeling as if you were a renewed version of yourself? How did that experience shape who you are today?

3. What are your feelings and thoughts about death? What emerges inside of you when you consider what yours may be like?

Stay wild!

I love you,

Jamie

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Here we are again, a newer version of ourselves, while simultaneously the truer— maybe more original version. As am I and as are you, always growing, returning, cyclically spiraling through time.

As of late, I have been pulled into a deep knowing that I am meant to begin creating from a more authentic version of myself. Not the me who started this publication or the one always trying to make other people like what I create.

No, this creative me is brave, bold, untamed, and daring.

She ventures into new terrain, foreign lands, and explores for a while. She embraces imperfection and laughs at her impeccable ability to take herself so damn seriously.

She takes off her shoes and digs her toes into the mud. She does not care about rain wetting her hair beyond repair or nipples poking through her shirts.

She laughs with all her might and weeps lakes into rivers.

She— is wild.

I believe we all have this part within us. This playful, child-like, curious, and wise energy within who remembers truths before systems, cages, oppression, and trauma.

And Wild Child is an invitation to support each of us in reconnecting with the wildest, truest, most real, and open-hearted parts of ourselves.

Each week, or more accurately, as often as I am in flow with my creativity, you will receive an email notification from “Wild Child Weekly”.

Inside, you may find a variety of wild invitations, but most regularly a spirit-animal inspired meditation (called Wild Immersion) and reflection questions intended to offer internal wisdom throughout your week. All meditations, stories, and reflections are created by me, Jamie.

Spirit animals are drawn each week during my morning spiritual practice from The Wild Unknown Animal Spirit Deck, created by Kim Krans.

My intention is to offer an experience, so it shall be uniquely yours.

Get as playful, nutty, rambunctious, and Wild as you would like Honey-bee!

This week’s spirit animal: Lizard
^{Inspired by the Wild Unknown Animal Spirit Deck by Kim Krans}

From the deck: _{Lizards are known for their imagination and creativity.}

What this stirred in me: _{The belief that there are infinite expressions of creativity and that the power of our imagination invites dreaming, possibility, and Spiritual connection. It is in and through our creativity and in Creation, that we belong.}

Wild Immersion

Reflection/Exploration/Journal Prompt Questions

1. When was the first time you spotted a lizard? Did you ever interact with them? What type of essence did you sense from them?

   1. ^{Side note: my sister and I used to catch lizards by stepping on their tails (did you know they still wiggle disconnected from their bodies? And yes, unfortunately, we accidentally killed a few from using this catch method. We did honor proper burials for them at least! Wee little Wild Things!}

2. Do you have permission to dream/imagine? If not, what/who do you think robbed you of that permission? If yes, how do you wish to honor this more for yourself?

3. When was the first time you can remember feeling true belonging? What types of feelings does belonging invite for you?

Stay Wild!

I love you,

Jamie

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especially when a body
feels so drained.

It shouldn’t be this hard
to slow down

when it is
everything you crave.

It shouldn’t be this hard
to find permission

to allow
one’s own being
just
to be.

Nearly laughable
at the idiocrasy

in just how hard
it truly is
indeed.

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I don’t quite know where to start. I recognize there is a lot to repair with you. The betrayal and abandonment history between us is deep. For that, an apology does not seem like enough.

I started despising you at such a young age, even prior to your first bleed. That summer, when he grabbed you and shook you from your exterior, defin…

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This swamp-like preserve is a mysterious ecosystem where both land and water offer a home to reptiles, mammals, and an abundance of plants and vegetation. A home to coun…

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breathe
blow the exhale
as whales do
releasing
that which no longer
is you

bloom
rooted deep in tilled soil
tended by the children
within you
becoming
flowers breaking through

Read more

What began as a conversation about addiction slowly unfolds into something deeper: a story about shame, survival, courage, and the quiet decision to keep choosing life differently.

I share how substances first entered my life as a teenager searching for belonging, how years of numbing pain slowly gave way to clarity, and how sobriety required not only personal commitment, but the willingness to let others see the parts of myself I once tried to hide.

This conversation isn’t a tidy redemption story. Instead, it’s an honest reflection on what it takes to change a life: the grief, the humility, the community, and the profound love required to stay.

With the support of those who held me along the way, I explore how sobriety created space to face trauma, rebuild trust with myself, and begin shaping a life rooted in honesty and presence.

At its heart, this episode is about something many of us know in different ways: the courage it takes to begin again.

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There is something about pain that immediately makes me want to escape, but I am not often registering it as escapism. And not just physical pain, emotional pain too.

My instinct is almost always the same: Push through. Figure it out. Fix it. Make it go away.

And if I can’t make it go away fast enough, then my mind starts scrambling for something else, something to distract, numb, or override the experience.

A solution.
A diagnosis.
A coping strategy.

Anything but simply being with it.

Lately, pain has been asking more of me.

Not in a philosophical sense, but in a very literal one.

First it showed up as an intense stomach pain while I was at work. The kind of pain that makes your whole body tense because you’re not sure if something is seriously wrong or if it will pass. My mind immediately went into overdrive.

What is this?
Is it my kidneys again?
Did I eat something bad?
Should I go to the hospital?

At the same time, another voice was whispering something much quieter.

Slow down.

But slowing down felt almost impossible.

There was embarrassment about being in pain at work. Shame about potentially inconveniencing someone else. Fear about what my body might be doing.

So instead of listening inward, I did what many of us do.

I went outward.

I started searching for answers.
Looking for reassurance.
Trying to solve the problem as quickly as possible.

Even though a small intuitive voice inside me was already offering guidance:
rest, wait, listen.

A few weeks later, pain came back again and this time in my back.

What started as a small tweak while lifting groceries turned into days of pain that seemed to follow me everywhere. Sitting hurt. Standing hurt. Twisting hurt. Even simple things like reaching for shampoo or getting up from the toilet suddenly became complicated.

And once again, my first instinct was to resist.

I told myself it wasn’t that bad.
I kept working.
I kept moving.
I kept pushing.

I even repotted plants and carried bags of soil up the stairs (who does that) despite the very obvious signals my body was sending.

It took almost two weeks before something shifted.

One afternoon I was moving in the bathroom when I felt that sharp twinge again, the one that meant I had moved in a way my body really did not like.

And for the first time, I paused long enough to ask a different question.

What if the pain is trying to help me?

This idea wasn’t mine originally. I had just watched an episode of a documentary where someone described pain as information, like the sensation you feel when your hand gets too close to a fire.

Pain isn’t punishment.

It’s communication.

So I tried something new.

Instead of fighting it, I started listening.

When a movement triggered pain, I stopped doing that movement. When my body felt tense, I slowed down. When the ache increased, I rested.

It sounds incredibly simple.

But for someone who has spent most of their life pushing through discomfort, it was actually very difficult. Because somewhere along the way, many of us learned that pain is something to override.

We work through it.
We ignore it.
We numb it.
We distract ourselves from it.

And in doing so, we often create even more suffering.

I can see this pattern not just in my body, but in so many areas of life.

When emotional pain shows up, we sometimes respond with anger, blame, or withdrawal.

When relational pain shows up, we project it onto the people closest to us.

When collective pain shows up—racism, injustice, inequality—many of us try to push past it rather than truly sit with what it’s asking us to see.

We keep moving.
We keep working.
We keep consuming.

Because stopping long enough to listen can feel overwhelming, but pain has a way of insisting.

The more we ignore it, the louder it often becomes.

And maybe that’s not cruelty.

Maybe that’s persistence.

Maybe pain is simply trying to get our attention.

Not to punish us, but to guide us somewhere different.

Toward rest.
Toward awareness.
Toward change.

I’m still learning how to do this and clearly, I still forget.

I still find myself reaching for distractions or trying to outthink what my body is already telling me.

But these past few weeks have given me a glimpse of something important: pain might not always be the enemy, sometimes it’s a teacher.

Sometimes it’s a signal that something inside us, or around us, needs care, attention, or repair.

And maybe part of learning how to be human is learning how to pause long enough to hear what it’s trying to say.

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There are some words that feel almost too big to hold.

Evil is one of them.

It’s a word that can shut a conversation down before it even begins. It can create boxes, such as: good people and bad people, the saved and the sinner, heaven and hell. And yet lately, it has been a word that keeps surfacing in conversations I’ve been having with people I deeply respect.

So instead of turning away from it, I decided to lean in.

In a recent episode of How to Human, I sat down with Molly Gorney and Anne Skriba to explore what evil even means to us now after years of life, faith, unlearning, addiction, healing, and reckoning with the world around us.

Not to arrive at a neat conclusion.

But to stay open to learning.

Because if there is one thing I’ve uncovered on this journey of sobriety, therapy, and trying to live with a little more honesty, it’s that most of the questions worth asking don’t have clean answers.

The Fear I Learned Early

Growing up Catholic, evil was something I was deeply afraid of.

Hell was vivid in my imagination. Fire, punishment, and eternal suffering were all imagined in my mind whenever I considered such an afterlife. I remember sitting in confession as a child, listing my sins and then praying afterward with a kind of desperation: Please don’t send me there.

Fear was the motivator.

Shame was the teacher.

And the message, whether it was explicitly said or simply absorbed, was that being human meant constantly being on the edge of doing something wrong.

I carried that for a long time, and it still sneaks back in occasionally, truthfully.

It made it hard to look at my mistakes with curiosity. Every wrong move felt like evidence that something was fundamentally flawed inside me.

It wasn’t until sobriety that I started learning a different way.

One where I could actually ask: Why did I do that?

Instead of immediately deciding that the answer was simply: Because I’m bad.

The Hard Truth About Harm

One of the ideas Anne shared during our conversation was something she learned through her own deconstruction journey.

Instead of focusing on the word sin, she began thinking about harm.

Are we causing harm?

That question shifts things.

Because harm is real. Harm is something we can see, feel, and repair.

And if we’re honest, every one of us has participated in harm at some point in our lives.

I certainly have.

When I was drinking, I wasn’t the version of myself I wanted to be. I was reactive. I projected my shame onto people around me. I hurt people I loved.

At the time, I felt almost like I was on autopilot, a zombie moving through my life.

Looking back, I don’t believe I was evil.

But I was causing harm.

And that distinction matters.

Because if we collapse those two things, if every harmful act means someone is evil, we leave no room for accountability, growth, or repair.

We leave no room for people to become different than they once were.

Can evil be something we can actually control or give permission to and turn away from as well?

The Shadow We All Carry

Another idea that surfaced in our conversation was the concept of the shadow—a term often used in Jungian psychology.

The shadow represents the parts of ourselves we’d rather not see.

The anger.
The selfishness.
The capacity to harm.

It’s uncomfortable to acknowledge that those things live in us.

But ignoring them doesn’t make them disappear.

If anything, pretending we’re incapable of harm might actually make it easier for harm to continue.

Because the moment we say, “That could never be me,” we stop looking.

We stop asking questions.

We stop being accountable.

And maybe the most unsettling realization is this: the same mirror that allows us to recognize darkness in others also reflects the possibility that we could embody it too.

That doesn’t mean we will.

But it means we have to stay awake.

Shame, Systems, and the Stories We Tell

Something else we wrestled with was language.

When we talk about injustice: racism, patriarchy, systems of power, there’s often a temptation to attach those harms to entire groups of people.

And sometimes that language comes from very real pain.

But I’ve also noticed something inside myself when I hear it.

Sometimes I feel defensive.

Sometimes I feel shame.

And when I follow that feeling inward, it often leads me somewhere important.

It leads me to moments where I did participate in harm.

Moments where I benefited from systems I didn’t question.

Moments where I looked away because it was easier than confronting something uncomfortable.

That discomfort can be a teacher, if we’re willing to sit with it.

But shame alone doesn’t create change.

As Molly said during our conversation:

Grace precedes transformation.

Not grace that excuses harm.

But grace that leaves space for someone to see it and choose differently.

The Question I’m Still Sitting With

One of the hardest things for me to accept is that growth rarely happens all at once.

People wake up at different times.

Some people are still moving through the same darkness we once lived in.

And that can feel deeply frustrating, especially when the harm being caused is real and ongoing.

But I keep coming back to something Anne said near the end of our conversation.

The real danger isn’t acknowledging the existence of evil.

The danger is losing our ability to see each other as human.

Because the moment we stop seeing humanity in one another, we close the door to accountability, repair, and change.

And without those things, harm only deepens.

Choosing Something Different

If there’s anything I’ve learned over the past few years, it’s that being human is a constant negotiation between light and shadow.

Between the harm we’re capable of. And the love we’re capable of too.

I don’t think evil gets the last word as mentioned in the conversation, but I do think it asks something of us.

It asks us to stay aware and to examine our choices.

To hold ourselves accountable without allowing shame to rule and to believe that transformation, both personal and collective, is still possible.

Even if it happens slowly.

Even if it happens one human at a time.

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Under your eyes
I can notice now,
the baggage of exhaustion
motherhood
has brought you.

Here in these photos,
I feel you.

Your tenderness
I can notice now,
in how you reach for me.
The gifts of presence
motherhood
has brought you.

Here in these photos,
I remember.

The delight of your smile.
The fear of your anger.
The calming of your to…

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For the first time on How to Human, we sit down as a trio: Anne Skriba (my partner, coach, biracial and adopted, faith-rooted truth-teller) and Arianne Stinson (wife, mother, athlete, leader, Minnesota-raised, Florida-seasoned, beautiful human).

We talk about what it means to be biracial in America.
What it means to be seen as black, regardless of how you identify.
What it means to grow up shielded from certain histories… and then slowly wake up to them.

We talk about systemic oppression, not as a buzzword, but as lived experience. Being pulled over in a new car and asked, “Is this yours?” Watching certain movies and feeling rage rise in your body. Feeling shame as a white person. Feeling exhaustion as a black one.

We talk about colorism. Code-switching. Church. Liberation theology. Basketball as common ground. The generational trauma no one taught us how to name. The compassion that somehow survives anyway.

And we wrestle with this:

How do we stay curious instead of defensive?
How do we raise children who see themselves reflected in dignity?
How do we hold rage and compassion at the same time?
How do we love well without bypassing truth?

This conversation is layered, imperfect, and deeply human.
No one speaks for everyone.
But everyone speaks honestly.

If you’ve ever wondered how to have better conversations about race…
If you’ve ever felt afraid to say the wrong thing…
If you’ve ever felt unseen…

This one is for you.

Let’s practice being human, together.

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Not performatively human. Not morally superior. Not spiritually bypassing.

Just… human.

After recording this week’s conversation, I kept circling something that didn’t make it into the recording. It’s less about what we said and more about what hummed underneath it:

How do we remain soft without becoming permissive? How do we remain accountable without becoming annihilated by shame? How do we unlearn without collapsing under the weight of what we’re seeing clearly?

Because clarity can feel brutal.

Sobriety taught me that.

When I removed the substances, I lost my favorite escape route from myself. I could no longer blame alcohol for the sharpness in my tone, or the ego in my “helping,” or the ways I needed to be admired more than I needed to be honest.

It is destabilizing to realize that the harm was not an accident. It was not the drink. It was not exhaustion.

It was me.

And that can invite a lot of shame, in which I then have had to unravel. A process I am still and will probably, on some level, always be working through.

I am learning that shame is seductive. It feels righteous. It feels like punishment, and punishment can masquerade as growth. But shame rarely transforms us. It freezes us in place.

Grief, though — grief moves.

Grief says: I see it now. Grief says: I did not know, and now I do. Grief says: This hurts because I care.

And caring is still alive.

That feels important.

Because I notice how quickly we divide the world into villains and the awakened. As if awareness is a fixed destination. As if I have not been the one asleep before.

There was a time when I thought my good intentions absolved me. A time when being “helpful” felt like enough. A time when being praised for my efforts quieted the deeper questions I did not want to ask.

Sobriety stripped that narrative.

It asked: Who are you when no one is clapping? Who are you when you cannot numb the discomfort? Who are you when the spotlight turns inward?

These are not comfortable questions.

And yet, they feel like an opening: an invitation, a space to center curiosity, an opportunity to soften.

In the recording, there is a thread about parenting — about raising children in a world that is finally (in some cases), painfully, surfacing truths many of us were never taught or encouraged to acknowledge. I keep thinking about how easy it is to react from fear when our children express discomfort. To rush to reassure. To correct. To tidy the conversation.

But what if discomfort is not something to extinguish? What if it is something to sit beside?

Discomfort is not danger.

For many of us, discomfort is the first honest experience of growth.

If the worst thing happening to me is that I feel ashamed, or exposed, or destabilized by what I’m learning, that is not oppression, that is awakening.

And awakening rarely feels elegant.

I am trying to practice a compassion that does not excuse harm, but also does not dehumanize the human causing it.

This is harder than it sounds.

Because when I am activated, I want clean lines. I want clarity. I want to be on the “right” side. I want distance between myself and the systems I am still entangled in.

But integrity is quieter than that.

Integrity asks me to notice where I still benefit. Where I still perform goodness. Where I still want to be seen as evolved.

It asks me to repair when I misstep. To apologize without defending. To listen longer than I speak (something I constantly struggle to practice).

And to remember that this is my first time being this version of me.

My first time being sober in this body at this age. My first time being aware in this political moment. My first time seeing certain truths clearly enough that I cannot unsee them.

Of course I will stumble.

The invitation is not perfection. It is participation.

Participation in my own evolution. Participation in collective repair. Participation in conversations that stretch me beyond the comfort of being “good.”

I do not believe we are meant to collapse under the weight of awareness. But I also do not believe we are meant to numb ourselves back to sleep.

There is a middle path.

It looks like humility. It looks like repair. It looks like staying present when I want to disappear. It looks like allowing grief to move through me instead of hardening into superiority. It looks like a lot of introspection, honesty, and work. Damnet.

Compassion without collapse.

Accountability without self-erasure and pity.

Staying human, even when it would be easier not to.

That is the practice I am inside of.

And maybe that is what it means to wake up.

Not to transcend our humanity. But to finally embody it.

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This winter, despite living in a place where cold only visits briefly, I felt frozen in my creativity. Not blocked exactly, but quiet. Listening more than speaking. Learning. Unlearning. Sitting with humility. Painting and poetry were the only languages that came easily, and even then, they felt like whispers I had to honor just for the sake of expression.

So much has been unfolding in the world, especially here in the United States, that language felt inadequate. Anything I might say seemed destined to fall short. And yet, this weekend, something shifted. I felt called to speak, not because I had clarity, but because I didn’t.

In many ways, it feels ironic that my podcast is called How to Human, because lately I’ve been asking myself if any of us actually know how to do that. In so many of the systems we participate in, the ways we relate to one another, the harm we normalize or deny—it often feels like we are failing each other, and ourselves.

Listening as a Form of Reckoning

Recently, I’ve been listening to conversations about sexual violence, power, and accountability—particularly in relation to the Epstein files. What struck me most wasn’t just the scale of the harm, but the endless retraumatization of survivors: the silencing, the invalidation, the lack of justice.

As a survivor of sexual violence myself, these stories landed in my body, not just my mind. They mirrored my own experiences in ways that were both painful and illuminating. Listening became its own form of meditation—one that stirred a fierce, embodied desire to use my voice, not to explain or fix, but to witness.

When survivors speak, we aren’t offering neat conclusions. We’re offering truth. And truth, even when uncomfortable, is an invitation.

Ripples of Harm

I often think about life in terms of ripples. A single drop in water sends waves far beyond its point of impact. What happens in the center often reflects what happens in the larger circles.

What we see enacted on women, people of color, people with disabilities, queer and trans individuals, this violence is rooted in fear, hierarchy, and control. And that same relationship shows up in how we treat the Earth. The lack of consent. The extraction. The belief that domination equals power.

I’ve had to confront the ways I’ve participated in these dynamics myself.

This includes my time as a young volunteer in Uganda, where I entered with good intentions and very little awareness of how deeply white saviorism, colonial thinking, and hierarchy were embedded in my role. I was 23. I thought I was helping. I didn’t yet understand how harm can exist even inside our desire to do good.

And during that time, I survived an attempted rape, an experience followed not by care, but by institutional invalidation, victim-blaming, and silence. Reporting did not bring relief. It brought more harm. More fear. More isolation.

The violence itself was traumatic. The aftermath, the denial, the bureaucracy, the abandonment—was devastating.

Trauma Does Not End When the Incident Does

Sexual violence rarely ends with the event. It continues through the systems that are supposed to protect us, but instead demand proof, compliance, and silence. It continues in the way survivors are asked to relive their trauma over and over again, often without support. It continues when justice is delayed, diluted, or denied altogether.

For many survivors, including myself, this ongoing harm shows up in the body as anxiety, hypervigilance, rage, grief, and dissociation. For a long time, I coped through numbing with substance use, through denial, through trying to outrun the truth of what I carried.

I share this because it is tragically common.

Power, Shame, and Accountability

One of the hardest truths I’ve had to face is that being human means being capable of harm.

I am not only a survivor in my story. I am also a participant in systems that harm others. I have benefited from privilege. I have sought validation through power. I have confused significance with worth. I have caused harm, sometimes knowingly, sometimes without awareness.

Facing this does not mean drowning in shame.

Shame keeps us stuck. Denial keeps us dangerous.

Accountability, on the other hand, invites humility. It asks us to look honestly at ourselves without collapsing into self-destruction, which is often easier said than done, but possible. It asks us to make amends where needed, to repair where we can, and to grieve what cannot be undone.

We are all villains in someone else’s story.

Owning that truth is part of staying human.

Grief as a Path Forward

What I long for, what I believe we desperately need, are spaces where grief is allowed in our day to day experiences. Communal grief. Survivor-centered grief. Permission that as adults grief is normal, crying is acceptable. Spaces where stories are held without being sensationalized, dismissed, or rushed toward resolution.

We don’t talk about sexual violence because it’s heavy. Because it makes people uncomfortable. Because it disrupts the illusion that the world is safe and fair.

But not talking about it doesn’t make it disappear.

It only ensures that harm continues in silence.

Justice, as we imagine it, may never come. And yet, choosing to listen, to believe, to bear witness, these are not meaningless acts.

They are how we resist erasure.

They are how we remain connected to our humanity.

Choosing to Stay Human

I don’t have answers.

I don’t know how justice is fully reached, or how harm is fully repaired. I don’t know how to reconcile the enormity of what has been done with the smallness of what any one person can do.

But I do know this:

Denial will keep us stuck.

Listening changes us.

Courage is contagious.

And choosing to stay human, especially when it hurts,matters.

To every survivor who has spoken, or who has stayed silent just to survive: I see you. I believe you. I am grateful for your courage.

May we continue to show up for one another. May we grieve together. May we choose differently, again and again.

Because we need each other.

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Where is it then
that can be deemed “right”
for this anger to live?

Can it live in the fire of their womb?
In the women
carrying the weight of all that the man will not,
in the burdens of his selfish urges,
or the denials of her pleas for safety or conse…

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“I learned that racism, like most systems of oppression, isn’t about bad people doing terrible things to people who are different from them but instead is a way of maintaining power for certain groups at the expense of others.” ― Alicia Garza, The Purpose of Power: How We Come Together When We Fall Apart

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Here are some things I am learning support me in getting through turmoil:

• Community, community, community! I am leaning in.

• Grieving and giving myself permission to be and feel exactly what I am or not, exactly when I am.

• Permitting myself to not go straight to doing and fixing. I am choosing to feel and …

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