The difficulty of being the “woke” police

MUNROE - WARROR OR FOOL
It depends on your story.

Monroe Bergdorf. Bless her heart.

She’s been the topic of wild criticism of late, having offended an entire race of people. Some within that race are more open-minded to her criticism. Others, less so.

I can see her point. I can also see her critic’s points. Everyone has a story. Each is valid for the person holding it. So, how do we as a species, as a group of people, get along in the wake of all this story-making, much of which has to do with pointing fingers at what we dislike or disagree?

If everyone is telling stories and those stories are creating evidence confirming it, is it possible for us to all get on the same page? Is it possible for all white people to acknowledge their in-born privilege? Is it possible for all black people to acknowledge their victim mentality? Is it possible that you, or I, can tell a person he’s wrong, when the world is providing him evidence which confirms his stories?

For me, what matters is this: Are you happy in your personal life?

Whether you are trans, or cis, male or female, that question can be a guiding light for you. Answering that question doesn’t have to involve anyone else. For if you can find personal happiness, and tell stories from that place, your life will shape over time in favor of those stories. As that happens, people inconsistent with the happy stories you’re telling will fade out of your life and those who are “in tune” with your happy stories will fade into your life. It all begins with the stories you’re telling.

finger pointing hardly ever works
finger pointing hardly ever works

I worked several months with a person who defined himself as an activist, much like Munroe. The problem with being an activist is, it’s not a very happy life. This guy I worked with one-on-one was trying so hard to right the wrongs of society – in the areas of class warfare, wealth inequity, racism, sexism and more – all he could see when he looked out into society was a pandemic of problems, problems that, no matter how hard he tried, he acknowledged he was making very little progress in abating.

Ironically, he was making himself miserable! He was depressed, pessimistic. He had little hope for humanity. And, if matters for him weren’t bad enough, he was miserable over his eyesight which was increasingly failing on him. I find that situation ironic too: The more he focused on seeing all the negative in the world, the worse his eyesight seemed to be getting…

It’s one thing to want to make the world a better place. But you can’t do that telling stories about how wrong people are. Nor can you do that with your actions alone. All you do is make people defensive. You make them dig into their already negative stories, thus creating more of what you think must change. Not less.

Is there a place for activism? You bet. But there’s got to be a better way than throwing blame around claiming to have the high ground on woke.

 

If you’re not recognizing how many people support you, you’re not paying attention

Now more than everThere is ENORMOUS outpouring of support from all over the place indicating the tide has turned. More and more people are supporting you, transgender folks. If you’re still wallowing in negative stories, there’s no better time than now to start examining them.

Trans-loving men (you trans-attracted and transamorous ones), there’s no reason for you to remain in hiding. The women you love are increasingly being not only defended, but supported by larger members of society.

Even in the midst of turmoil under Trump, that turmoil has not silenced the support outpouring. It has done the exact opposite. Check it out:

All across America, people are fighting for your rights. In Texas, the dreaded bathroom bill collapsed again, due in part not only to families of transgender people, but, get this, republican legislative leaders. I’m not making this up. Meanwhile, this awesome camp for transgender youth is getting tons of media coverage as an early-stage refuge for these young pioneers. Here’s another doing the same thing.

Here’s a lawyer fighting for the community on his own.

And even Richard Simmons is getting in on the act in his own weird way.

You can choose where to put your focus. But where you choose to put it has a profound effect on your personal life. If I were you, I’d focus on all the good coming your way. Celebrate it, tell your friends about it, Facebook about it, and see how your life gets better.

How “evil” works in your favor

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White supremacist, terrorist and murderer James Alex Fields Jr. arrested for his deadly participation in violence in Virginia.

It’s just so freaking interesting how things are progressing in the United States right now. As we watch our highest office in the land usurped by a racist, emboldening white supremacists to come out of the shadows, I wouldn’t blame transgender people for feeling fearful and worried. Or people of color.

And yet, it is undeniable that tremendous good is resulting from all this.

Before we look at that, let’s look at some facts. First, we here at the network already shared (via our Facebook Program IN YOUR FACE) how Trump’s infamous tweet about banning transgender people from the military was really a brilliantly-played smokescreen he laid to mask the FBI raid of his campaign chief’s house in the pre-dawn hours. This raid happened at nearly the exact same time Trump turned to twitter. Interestingly, as we said and you probably know, the entire world focused on the tweets. Including the transgender community. Meanwhile, few media reported at the time about the FBI raid, which would have further eroded Trump’s credibility.

Were you among the bamboozled? We weren’t!

We had been saying all along that tweet was NOT about banning transgender people from the military. It’s NEVER about what it’s about.

Then, we saw how Secretary of Defense James Mattis came out in the news essentially saying there may be no transgender ban. In fact, the White House has yet to offer a policy on the issue. It may, it may not. If it does, Mattis will take the responsible action, which I read to mean he’s going to do the right thing, which is not what the president wants.

Next we saw massive violence erupt in Virginia prompted by white supremacists who showed up to protest the removal of a confederate statue. The president then made a series of speeches about the event that were breathtaking…and not in a good way.

On the heels of all that, not one, not two, but several US cities are acting to remove prominent confederate statues from parks and buildings, the leaders of these cities acknowledging they represent symbols of white supremacy and have no place in United States public places. Many of those cities are in Southern states!

Following all that, the heads of all branches of the US Military came out stridently against white supremacy. This is a direct contradiction of their commander-in-chief. THAT alone is remarkable in US history.

One has to wonder: What the heck is next?

Stories create reality. Stories are powerful. It doesn’t matter if your stories focus on what you don’t want, or what you do want, they will faithfully create either. We pointed out in that same IN YOUR FACE episode that Neo-nazis, skinheads, and other white supremacists have some of the most focused, powerful stories….. Their focus is on how terrible and subhuman people of color are. The want a white nation. But they don’t focus on that. They focus on how terrible people of color, gay people, jews, transgender people and other minorities are. They decry how everything and everyone is against white race. All the while they don’t realize their stories are faithfully delivering what they focus on: bringing them more people of color, more binary and trans people, more whites who fight for people of color and equality, more jews doing the same. More gay people. And now, the removal of their cultural symbols.

Yes, the things happening over the last few weeks…since Trump came into the White House actually, can be seen as a kind of evil. But the acts of “evil” are always focused on pushing against good. And whatever your stories push against, you get more of. So it’s inevitable that evil will produce good. That’s what we’re seeing in our nation today.

What does this mean for us trans-attracted men and transwomen? It means look around you: the world is showing you demonstration after demonstration of the power of stories. It’s also showing you that everything eventually serves good. The same can be said for your life: Your life is predisposed to you experiencing good. It is showing you that what you focus on you get. So you can experience the life you always wanted, the love you always wanted, anything you’ve wanted. But you have to tell stories that support what you want, not what you don’t want. Which means you have to focus on that which you’re wanting.

But even if you don’t focus on positive stories, you will, eventually, have all you’re wanting.  For many that may not happen in this lifetime. But it will happen.

Since the choice is yours, why wait?

I didn’t choose to be transgender/transamorous

IMG_1062Actually you did. So did I.

What? Did you think it was some random selection?

Well, I have news for you: Everything happening in this physical “reality” is being agreed upon and acted out in a massive cooperative venture. And that includes choices you make about you, what you look like, your gender and more. In the same way you create your reality through the stories you tell (the thoughts you think) you have created everything else about you.

Now, you may think you don’t like the choice you made to come into the world as you are, but actually, you’re celebrating the fact in the eternal now that is your home.

Yes, you are an eternal being. I know, you probably don’t have any reference for that statement. Or maybe you do, and you rail against it because the reference refers to some kind of religious dogma you’d rather not think about. That’s cool because I’m not sharing dogma here. I’m sharing something you can easily verify with a little effort and guidance (guidance because you have to know what to look for).

Consider the possibility that you are eternal. What if this life was just one of an infinite number you have lived, many of which you have lived, and are living simultaneously right now. If that is the case (and it is), then it seems you as an eternal being would tire of experiencing every freaking life experience as a woman or a man or whatever.

Look a that again: If you are eternal, continuously, raucously, enthusiastically experiencing lifetime after lifetime AND you have had infinite numbers of experiences in the past, doesn’t it make sense that you’d get tired of coming into the experience only as a man or a woman?

Oh, consider this: There are no genders in that eternal state that is you. In that state, the original state from which you spring, you are all “genders” (infinite potential). If you are eternal, you have access to the amazing variety (i.e. infinite) of ways you could express yourself in physical reality. Also, presuming you are eternal, that means everyone (and everything) else is too. Along with eternity comes mastery of awareness and knowledge. Since you are not some closed-off being, separate from other experiences of other beings, you have direct influence upon other beings’ experiences. So all that interoperability between you and other points of being-ness has an infinite potential to generate variety….variety that you crave as an eternal being.

(are you beginning to get this?)

℘”What if this life was just one of an infinite number you have lived, many of which you have lived, and are living simultaneously right now.” ℘

So here you are, at the point of yet another life. You’re excited, thrilled even for another plunge into this framework that freaking fascinates you. You’re wanting to have a new experience though, one that will add to the immenseness of you. You’re also wanting to positively influence those other beings with whom you are in contact with and will continue to be once you in-personate yourself.

So, you choose an experience on the frontier of life experience. One that will push the boundaries of life experience for you and for others “affiliated” with you. These others (your family members, friends, lovers and everyone else you may encounter) have agreed to this escapade of yours and promise to make the experience interesting. But they are bounded by the stories you tell, stories which create experience after experience in your coming day-to-day journey that will be your life.

So you come into the world with an express purpose: to experience joy, “growth”, to have fun in the process, and to explore the frontiers of what it means to be you. Not you the transperson or trans attracted person. But you the eternal being having a life experience as a transperson or a trans attracted person.

This may make no sense to you whatsoever. You may have no reference to understand what you’re reading.  Many folks aren’t ready to hear this. But as I wrote above and in previous posts, with a little effort and guidance all of this can be verified by you.

But whether you choose to verify it or not doesn’t really matter. Your stories are predetermining your life experience moment by moment. And if you’re telling stories of suffering, mayhem, bad relationships, joblessness and such, that is what is stacking up to be delivered in your day-to-day life experience.

And that is why we focus on the stories you tell.

Your circumstances match your stories

FullSizeRenderOk, in my last post I explained how most people’s life-experience-creation mechanism is operating on autopilot or default. Odds are good that you’re in the same boat: you don’t know much about stories and how they create your life experience. Heck, you may not even believe – let alone know – that you’re eternal or that you control your life experience.

Or maybe you do. I actually don’t now everyone who reads the stuff I write. But a LOT of people don’t. So the odds are, you’re among them.

And so you may be going through life ignorant that every time you complain about something you’re telling a story. And that story is creating circumstances which match your story. It doesn’t matter that it is something you don’t want. This is how the process works.

The good news is this mechanism comes with an indicator. We call it our emotions. Stories you tell that are not creating circumstances you want to experience cause you to feel negative emotion. Those that are leading to circumstances you’re wanting to experience cause you to feel positive emotion.

Now I want to explain what that means in terms of dating and getting what you want in that area and other areas of life experience.

If you’re telling the story that all men are chasers, it is not possible for you to meet men who aren’t.

If you’re telling yourself that your family disowned you and wants nothing to do with you, it is impossible for them to be anything other than what matches your story. In other words, they can’t change in the face of the story you’re telling about them. Yes, other people are part of your life experience and they, just like everything else in your life experience, is a result of your stories. That includes how they behave towards you.

I know, that sucks. But that’s what’s happening.

If you’re feeling shame, embarrassment, lack of confidence, insecurity, or fear as a trans person, you are telling extremely powerful negative stories, stories which are unconscious to you (you aren’t aware of them). But the feelings of shame, embarrassment, lack of confidence, insecurity, or fear you do feel are trying to alert you to them.

If you’re a trans attracted guy and feeling shame, embarrassment, lack of confidence, insecurity, or fear as a trans attracted person, you are telling extremely powerful negative stories, stories which are unconscious to you (you aren’t aware of them either). Others pick up on that shit. So they say things (like jokes and jabs) that further confirm your negative stories. They do things which indicate you are to remain feeling shame, embarrassment, lack of confidence, insecurity, or fear as a trans attracted person.

Those are just three examples of what is going on as you create your life experience as you go, and reap the benefits thereof.

So there is a purpose to suffering. What is it? It indicates the stories you’re telling are leading you to what you don’t want. Meanwhile, your life experience matches the stories you tell yourself. So there really are two indicators letting you know how you’re doing creating your reality: how you feel and what you’re getting in your life experience. If your life experience is sucky, you’re telling sucky stories.