I have some wonderful role models for doing this - most recently the wonderful Dan Rather.
If you haven't already, I highly recommend following his posts on Facebook for some very insightful and courageous writing.
The whole carnival of madness we see in daily reports of who Trump has chosen for cabinet posts can be extremely anxiety-provoking. I watched my sister, usually stoic and unflappable, quietly insist that a dinner table conversation not veer onto that topic because it sends her to such a difficult place. It was hard to see someone I consider a real "rock" tear up with such genuine distress. I imagine this is happening for many of us.
This sh*tshow reminds me of a conversation I had with a trailblazer on the nutrition front, Dr. Michael Klaper, when I first started eating vegan and also wanted to cut sugar, oil and salt from my diet. One of the things I started noticing, I told him, were TV advertisements where some big company was promoting a drug to combat indigestion with visuals of obese people loading plates up with fried meats at party. That's supposed to be normal, I complained, while everyone tells me I'm extreme to not eat added fat.
"It's a real Fellini movie out there," he said gently, with a smile. (For those who may not be cinephiles, Federico Fellini specialized in films depicting wild fantasies. Not anything like reality, in other words. And the fantasies were baroque and highly indulgent ones. With clowns.)
The message I got from this was that there may not be a lot I can do to convince a big pharmaceutical company not to advertise this way, but I don't have to agree that it makes sense or is right. It was his way of saying that just because it's a slick production and on my television doesn't make it true.
In the movie (again, movies!) The Matrix, the protagonist Neo is offered the choice of staying in "the matrix" (of manufactured reality) by taking the blue pill or leaving it and experiencing the sometimes-painful but true reality by taking the red pill.
For those of us who have chosen the red pill, this is the time to stay true to it, as painful as that might be. It doesn't mean we have to force ourselves to talk about all this painful crap at every dinner table gathering. It just means we have to do whatever's needed to remind ourselves of what is true and stand by it.
If you are outraged by the shenanigans and gas-lighting of the pustule-elect, I would encourage you also to apply that fury for truth to parts of your own life. I'd love for environmental activists to make the connection, for example, to the truth about what we eat and how we treat animals. And take the big red pill about that. It's something dramatic we can all do as consumers and citizens of the planet and yet, for many, it's a cognitive dissonance they are willing to continue.
If you have an inclination to explore eating in way that promotes health of self and planet, there are many good resources out there:
Go to it!
In the movie (again, movies!) The Matrix, the protagonist Neo is offered the choice of staying in "the matrix" (of manufactured reality) by taking the blue pill or leaving it and experiencing the sometimes-painful but true reality by taking the red pill.
For those of us who have chosen the red pill, this is the time to stay true to it, as painful as that might be. It doesn't mean we have to force ourselves to talk about all this painful crap at every dinner table gathering. It just means we have to do whatever's needed to remind ourselves of what is true and stand by it.
If you are outraged by the shenanigans and gas-lighting of the pustule-elect, I would encourage you also to apply that fury for truth to parts of your own life. I'd love for environmental activists to make the connection, for example, to the truth about what we eat and how we treat animals. And take the big red pill about that. It's something dramatic we can all do as consumers and citizens of the planet and yet, for many, it's a cognitive dissonance they are willing to continue.
If you have an inclination to explore eating in way that promotes health of self and planet, there are many good resources out there:
Go to it!
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