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How to relate, instead of dominate or manipulate
Where might you be manipulating instead of tending to?
Happy Sunday, Soothers. Most of us know that we live in a world that for the past several centuries has been created by colonization and domination. Where we have to begin the change of this, however, that we may not quite yet be aware of, is in ourselves.
The simple model of colonization is one of domination: one foreign entity comes in and through a variety of submission, exploitation, appropriation, manipulation, violence, dominates and subjugates the entity that was already indigenous to the area.
Where I think many of us don’t quite yet understand is that there’s a very good chance that most of us are working through a model of domination or colonization in our own lives, and to our own selves, to our own bodies and our own emotions. And of course we are. How could we have learned any other way, given it’s the air we breathe and the water we drink?
What do I mean by this? Most of us are taught that we are here to try to bend and force things to our will as a model for moving through life and getting the things we want (or we think we should want).
We should work through pain and exhaustion. Emotions are maaaaybe okay, but only in a certain looking way and in a certain time frame. Our body needs to be…