Let People Love You: Community Care Knows No Boundaries

I’m no stranger to promoting self-care. On this blog, I’ve discussed how to Start Your Day on a Positive Note, Real Self-Care When Your Life Isn’t Paradise, Dealing with Long-Term Stress, and how to Make Over Your Life … Gradually. These posts address how minor and major actions can have a cumulative effect on how you can survive and thrive through hardship.

Self-care is a process, not a product.

When I haven’t discussed self-care, I’ve told you all to Create More Space for Kindness and Don’t Forget About the World Around You. In those posts, it was about creating more space to care for others and cultivate change in the world.

My past posts haven’t talked explicitly about community care—specifically community care for yourself.

In the Mashable article Self-care isn’t enough. We need community care to thrive., Heather Dockray states, “Unlike self-care, community care does not place the onus of compassion on a single individual … Community care involves more than one person. It can include two, three, or possibly hundreds of people. You can practice community care in your personal offline life or even in digital spaces.”

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Resisting the Attraction to Distraction

When I look at my life, I think it aesthetically looks pleasing. I’ve grown a robust network of kind and amazing friends and other loved ones. I have a job I like. My basic needs like food, shelter, and water are fulfilled. That is more than what I’ve had in the past. That is more than what others have. Like the picture of the sunrise and trees below, life has been a blur, but I’ve been doing my best to still appreciate what’s beautiful.

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Since I was diagnosed with breast cancer, I’ve had all types of flashbacks of my life, including challenges, accomplishments, goals, milestones, and a wide range of experiences from the beautiful to the ugly. If I was able to tackle all of those things, why should breast cancer be any different?

In conversations with different people, I have received advice to distract myself. I feel ambivalent about that tip.

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Why I’m a Fan of Minimalism But Not the Movement

I’m not a materialistic person. Since I was in high school, I have gravitated toward a career path in education that does not facilitate a life of luxury; therefore, I’ve had to be mindful of my expenses.

Do I have fun and buy nice things? Yes, on a budget. Do I believe in self-care? Sure. I’ll go on vacation; it might be in a hostel, cheap hotel, or friend’s home, but I’ll go on a trip. Do I believe in self-indulgence? Sometimes. However, because of the career path I’ve chosen, self-indulgence can happen only so often.

Due to my desire to be intentional with my spending, I follow social media accounts such as becoming minimalist to inspire me to live a life with more meaning and simplicity.

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Photo from Flickr

Being a minimalist is most challenging for me during the holidays because that is when sales are inescapable. After reading Reflections on Black Friday Shopping by Joshua Becker of becoming minimalist, I felt guilty about my Black Friday shopping spree. In this blog post, Becker argued that this day was a “celebration of unbridled consumerism.”

Then I stopped feeling guilty when I remembered a past conversation with my friend. She stated that shopping sprees are not bad as long as you plan for them in advance. Like anything else, consumer habits need to be judged within the proper context.

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What Informs Your Thoughts and Prayers?

Last Wednesday, student Nikolas Cruz shot and killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, in Parkland, Florida. Like many of you, I was saddened to hear about one more mass shooting. This case is especially grave since early news reports revealed that he had a history of violence, and it was so evident that his classmates used to joke that he would become a murderer one day. In fact, senior administrators and teachers at his school were warned about him. Still the shooting happened. Still many politicians and other people are offering thoughts and prayers to the victims.

The day after the shooting, I saw that several friends had posted the following photo on Facebook:

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My reaction to the photo was mixed. Why can’t we have thoughts and prayers as well as policy and change? While I respect that not everyone believes in thoughts and prayers, why do thoughts and prayers have to be framed as mutually exclusive from policy and change?

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The Untaught Lesson of Continuous, Enthusiastic Consent

A few weeks ago, I shared my initial reactions to the Babe article about the woman named “Grace” who went on a date with Aziz Ansari. The date progressed from one of sexual attraction to sexual consent to sexual misconduct. (To understand legal differences in sexual misconduct, sexual harassment, and sexual assault, check out this Vox article by Alexia Fernández Campbell.)

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Photo from Flickr

In the days following the Babe article’s release, people on social media spat out a range of opinions from saying Grace’s story strengthened the #MeToo Movement to claiming it weakened the cause. Some blamed Aziz, others blamed Grace, and another set of people held both of them accountable. The degree to which they were held responsible depended on whose posts you were reading.

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When Love Is Not Enough for Justice

It is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, and I am feeling all types of feelings about the world. Some of MLK’s most famous quotes are about love and justice, but I am thinking that love is not enough to advocate for justice.

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Photo from Flickr

Last night, I saw the Babe article about the woman who went on a date with Aziz Ansari that described how their night together evolved from sexual consent to sexual misconduct. (Since the allegations surfaced, Aziz responded with his own statement describing how his sexual activity with her was “completely consensual.”)

After reading the Babe article, I had separate text conversations with a couple girlfriends who were as disappointed as I was by the news. Even if this incident may not qualify as sexual assault for legal purposes, it sounds like there could have been stronger communication and more respect shown in their sexual encounter. Since #MeToo has become ubiquitous in American culture, we keep hearing how men in Hollywood, media, and other industries have been predators and creeps to women.

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Don’t Forget the World Around You

America has been mourning the deaths of nine victims in the shooting at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, SC, that happened on Wednesday night. By Thursday morning, the police’s manhunt for the alleged shooter came to an end when florist Debbie Mills spotted Dylann Roof in a car in Kings Mountain, NC, and reported her sighting to police. In the days since the shooting, federal authorities have been investigating the attack as a hate crime.

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Photo from Public Domain Archive

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