Responsibility

[The Stage is on Fire] is a page-turner in which, much like life, there are no easy answers and yet each step of the journey yields insight and hope. This work of heart must not be missed!

Melanie Faith

Creative Writing Teacher, Essayist & Poet.

Katie Steedly’s first-person piece [The Unspeakable Gift] is a riveting retelling of her participation in a National Institutes of Health study that aided her quest to come to grips with her life of living with a rare genetic disorder. Her writing is superb.

The Society of Professional Journalists

In recognition of receiving the Dateline Award for the Washingtonian Magazine essay, The Unspeakable Gift.

I thank you … It is the authenticity of your “class notes”; and it is the delicacy and skill with which you present the nuances of classroom life and the actuality of your students’ and fellow teachers’ lives.

Maxine Greene

Philosopher and Education Scholar

Enter your email here to receive Weekly Wide-Awake

back

I felt angry toward my friend. I told my wrath. My wrath did end. I felt angry toward my foe. I told him not. My wrath did grow.

– William Blake

I generally agree that the most healthy way to handle conflict is talk through it. Most of the time, people invested in a mutually loving relationship can work things out. I firmly believe in the power of letting go, setting free, turning the other cheek, forgiving 7 x 70. That being said, it is hard as hell. I have few thoughts about being bigger, going high when they go low, and taking the moral high ground.

Being cut off in a relationship hurts.

There have been a few times in my life when people have cut me off. Stopped talking with me. Told me off and walked away. Ghosted me in a slow bleed death by 1,000 cuts way. It has felt awful each time it has happened. I am speaking about break ups of romantic relationships, friendships that abruptly end, and getting fired from a job – all of it. I am speaking about rejection. I am speaking about shame. I am speaking about fear. I am speaking about instances where engagement and common ground seem 1 million miles away. Those instances where voicing anger, and having that anger ease, feels impossible. Those instances where even having f*** you money does not lessen the sting. Letting go at those times is the work of spiritual warriors.

Depression is anger turned inward.

I get depressed when I am angry. I get sad and nothing works. I can’t talk. I can’t write. I eat. I eat some more. I drink. I drink some more. This cycle continues until I address what is tearing me up. The older I get the more I can recognize where I am, stop feeding the beast. and get to a better place. It requires a level of honesty with myself and others that comes from that place of hard won compassion and fierce love. Creating something breaks the cycle. Getting my steps in breaks the cycle. Caring for something breaks the cycle.

Resentment is like swallowing poison and expecting the other person to die.

This quote is attributed to several people (Nelson Mandela and Carrie Fisher, to name a few). I love it because it touches on the flat out awful pain involved in carrying anger. It also touches on the power we have to refuse to swallow the poison. It touches on the need to look inward for relief and peace. That seems to make sense to me. We are in control. We have responsibility.

https://kitt.global/march-8-responsibility-mark-nepo-the-book-of-awakening/