Yesterday I watched a man be murdered by a police officer. His name is George Floyd and he shared a security job with the same man that killed him. It’s heartbreaking and infuriating to watch. I like to think that if I was there, I probably would have been shot as I would not have been able to stand by and watch someone be killed. I don’t know what I would have done if I was actually there, but right now I still feel the stress response, the hormones coursing through my body. And now I’m watching protestors punt tear gas back at the police in front of the very building where we were married in Fort Wayne, their pain seething out, but mostly white men doing the destruction.
Protesting is not my style. Anxiety is. So when I made a post on Facebook yesterday reminding people that they could put the phone down and still do important work in their own homes, I didn’t say that to dismiss our ability to advocate and use our voice. How we do that is going to be different for everyone. As someone who is obsessed with how well I parent and personal growth and our own consciousness work, I know that what I do is part of the antidote to what is happening right now.
Derek Chauvin didn’t become a heartless killer a year ago. George Floyd didn’t move to Minnesota to start a new life because of a single bad chapter in his life. Amy Klobuchar didn’t neglect her duties to prosecute police brutality by mistake. Who we are-until we do the work- happens during one pivotal time period in our lives: childhood. As parents we have THE MOST important job in the entire world: we create the future of humanity.
We impart our beliefs, our biases, our judgments, our wounds directly to our children. We either rip their spirits from their bodies through trauma or we mute them as much as we can with conditioning.
Therefore, whether you write the prosecuting attorney, the judge, the governor, whether you protest, whether you sign a petition or tell white women to be anti-racists on Facebook, the most important thing you will ALWAYS turn around and do the rest of the time is parent. And to be a damn good parent and fix this racist bullshit we’ve got to do our own personal growth work first + educate ourselves in our children’s developmental needs:
Clean up the crap beliefs we inherited from previous generations and let go of them.
Be fully present with our kids and allow them to be authentic.
Create space for all emotions and teach them healthy ways to channel that energy.
Teach kindness and empathy.
Understand their needs at every stage.
Learn how to be better communicators.
Take responsibility for our energy.
Get off the drama triangle and teach them to do the same.
Model healthy ways to resolve conflict.
Demonstrate how to regulate our nervous systems.
Hold healthy limits.
And just be fully present in their lives so that they don’t turn into adults who take out their inner child pain on other adults. So they don’t become attorneys who can’t decide what’s morally right or wrong. So they don’t go searching for ways to survive that put them in prison. So they don’t repeat history and seek power by putting others below them.
We can’t create a society without conflict, prejudice, and privilege until every child grows up in a home without it. The way you parent, the way you relate to other adults, the way you model love and respect IS THE WORK. We cannot continue to parent using the power-over model and not expect our white children to seek power and our black children to be afraid of it. If you aren’t confident at this moment that your child feels a strong and safe connection with you, then I strongly encourage you to step back from the news and get real present in your own home first. We cannot create change from this place of wearing blinders to what we create every time we punish or treat our children as less than us. And we also cannot create change when we’re too scared to put our own gifts to work in this world.
#1 – Parent Consciously
#2 – USE YOUR GIFTS.
Go become a politician, chief of police, the mayor, a community leader, an educator, an author, a coach, a mentor, a pastor, a youth leader, a marriage counselor, a guardian ad litem, a social worker, a teacher, an attorney, go BECOME, create, do!
Create change in your OWN home…
…then go create change in the world.
Read more about Parenting here. And to explore racism and white privilege, I recommend learning from April Dawn Harter, LCSW or Dr. Amanda Kemp.
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This is by far the most important article I have seen on Facebook over this past few days, and weeks.
Get out people, Parent, Grandparent, Mentor, Teach, Engage, don’t take it lightly. They really are the future. We can’t afford to get this wrong.