Kind, Tired, and Taking Up Space:

Discovering Self-Compassion Through Ahimsa

We're going to start with ahimsa, which is an ancient concept. It means nonviolence.

I've been thinking a lot about how, for me, my mental health shifted when I started practicing ahimsa towards myself. I was always praying for peace and love for others but then to myself would just be like “you suck, you're worthless, and so on.” Then you know 10 years in I was in a yoga teacher training for yoga therapy and she started teaching about ahimsa.

I was stunned. I was also in pain. My neck and shoulders were all fucked up. I stopped doing endless downward dogs and just observed. I was present with myself and the insanity in my head.

I was like, “fuck, there's a lot of pain in here.” And just started practicing seeing myself through the lens of love and kindness. The same love and kindness I was praying for others.

This is the beginning of a short conversation with my dear friend Gillian.

In this episodes we mention a few organizations to follow.

Here they are:

• KIND- Kids In Need of Defense

• The Florence Project provides free legal services, social
  services, and advocacy to immigrants facing detention
  and potential deportation. Your tax-deductible
  donation makes this work possible.

You can hear more about what is happening to these children on this episode of We Can Do Hard Things.

Here are the bullet points about what is happening to Undocumented Children

• Because there is no public defender system for immigration removal proceedings people have to defend themselves and that includes children who can be as young as 2 years old

• Non profits who are defending these children for free legal services and have had federal funding since the Bush administration are losing funds and the protections they had in place are being dismantled and terminated as part of the unaccompanied children program

• We are seeing children sitting alone at court tables without anybody by their side this is bigger than any one of us bigger than any one organization

In this episode they share one main place to go to protect children in our country.

PROTECT THE CHILREN is was founded the 25th of March 1992 because the founder learned that someone in her family was sexually abused by a perpetrator who was an upstanding member of the community. He was not prosecuted. Dr. Claire Reeves is the founder of Mothers Against Sexual Abuse, MASA. As a journalist she was going to write a book and she put advertisements in newspapers to find victims of incest and child sexual abuse. It was completely astounding the huge numbers of calls and letters that she received from east to west in Canada; and then again in California. She realized that this was a national and international epidemic and these victims had no one to tell their story.

Please share these recourses with others so we can spread the word on people doing good in this world and organizations who give a damn.

I also mentioned

Shannon Watts

in this episode and her new book, Fired Up. We are both looking forward to diving into that book soon!

Love Always,

Danielle Mallett