The “ism’s and phobias”

The “ism’s and phobias”

Welcome to my first blog! I have never blogged before but in looking up how to blog, I keep coming across writing about what you find is your passion. My passion is in helping people understand how to help themselves. Helping people raise their awareness of themselves, of what their emotions are attempting to tell them. Helping others develop an understanding of the social constructs that exist in our world that create an environment of oppression for everyone.

Both Dr. Martin Luther King and Dr. Maya Angelou said, ‘no one can be free until we’re all free’. I feel like many of us have been put here at this time to help loosen the bondage of oppression, an unrelenting persecution slowly sipping the life out of this culture.

We can sit here and name the issues, the ism’s and phobia’s. What is an ism? The Oxford languages definition is “A distinctive doctrine, cause or theory. An oppressive and especially discriminatory attitude or belief” Oxford says a phobia is: “A persistent, excessive, unrealistic fear of an object, person, animal, activity or situation.” Both definitions contained a fear of something we’ve been told is true and should be believed and that belief is based in a fearful idea about ourselves, someone else or something else that is different, that we do not truly understand, therefore cannot accept.

I recommend reading Neal Donald Walsh’s Conversations with God about fear. False Evidence Appearing Real. There are two types of fear, what we we believe about ourselves and what we believe about our environment to include the people in our world. When we fear that’s all there is, reaction and avoidance. Fear helps to ensure our survival. What about that not real part? Well according to many religions, including Christianity, there is an afterlife. In other religions ,there is reincarnation, so, we go back to, it seems death may also be a part of the illusion of fear.

The body, however, is a real organism onto itself, the ego does not want to die, it values it’s mortality and will make sure you understand the importance of it’s existence. Unfortunately we tie our ego to belief systems that trigger our fear or fight or flight mechanisms. So when we do something to anger someone, we feel like we want to run away or freeze. We have been taught to tie our identity, worthiness, and sense of self into how others feel about us.

Those who are impacted by these learned and virulent fears cannot escape it’s grips within this culture. They show up if we leave our homes, and sometimes, they exist in our homes, inside of us. We call it internalized ism’s/phobia’s, in that we believe it. We believe the constructs about ourselves. We buy into, we’re too weak, ugly, will never amount to anything.

I am the epitome of ism’s, black, woman, large, gay, gender-fluid….just all kinds of stuff that doesn’t fit. Even my name, Africa. I think it was a way to make sure I understood the assignment. I love my name, I have grown to love it and other parts of myself I have been told to hate. As with many things in our lives, as we understand ourselves, we have a greater appreciation of what we have, who we are, and of why we are here.

We can manage the ongoing movement of change by learning to use our emotions to help us navigate the changes in our lives vs attempting to suppress them and begin feeling lost, uncertain, and doubtful about ourselves and the choices we are making day to day in our lives. The ism’s and the phobias do influence our choices

Fear, influences how we see the world, how to see ourselves, what we choose to put into our bodies, even the development of disease. But acknowledging the pain of isms is it’s own ism in itself. If we acknowledge the presence of fear then we must be weak, if we acknowledge that we are impacted by the daily cuts of ism’s means we’re not something, because if there was anything good about it, wouldn’t more people do it?

Clearly there is something bad about announcing the presence of oppression and it’s impact. I believe because it’s makes us feel bad. This kind of bad, shame, is difficult to shake and therefore is avoided at all costs to include denying reality itself. Brene’ Brown said, “We desperately don’t want to experience shame and we’re not willing to talk about it. Yet the only way to resolve it is to talk about it.”

Yes, we need to talk, to cry, to acknowledge the depth of hurt we have inflicted on each other and ourselves, why not talk about something that is actually going to help people finally feel a bit better about themselves and others. Welcome to my blog! I’m super grateful to have you here!

Dr. Africa

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