Recognizing & Overcoming My Own Prejudice

I do my best to not be prejudice and for the most part, I’ve done pretty well. Every now and then, like most things, my area of struggle shows its ugly head and after being disturbed by it I recognize it’s there and I can proceed to better myself.

Two things I’ve had a time and a half working on, or really I put off till I got a better understanding, were snobs and people with prejudice. Yeah, I was prejudice of prejudice people and I snubbed snobs. Even when I was a young quiet and shy person I’d let go of my inhibitions without even thinking about it when I came across a snob and I’d get in their face and tell them a thing or two. They just really irritated me.

A scene from Pitch Perfect 2.

Just like bullies, snobs and prejudice people have reasons for why they are that way. I’m not justifying or excusing them, it just helps if you can understand that there’s a “why”.

If you want me to tell you the why, sorry, there’s a lot of reasons that add up together that cause people to do, believe, and act out their negativity.

At first, learning that our memories are shit and that we have ideas in our heads that normally can’t be challenged wither they are true or not, and that those type of things are normal and not because a person is bad or made it so on purpose, made me very frustrated. But, the more I learn about how the human brain works the more tolerance I have for people in general.

It wasn’t just this normal in others that upset me, it was also that we have little to no control over much of it which included me as well.

I never liked not having control in my own head. When I was a kid I used to try to remember the bad things so I would stay in touch with reality. It seemed delusional to just remember the good things. But I didn’t know that good or bad, positive or negative, our brains change the memories over time. 

Accepting this fact wasn’t pleasant, but once I started accepting it I noticed I became more tolerant of snobs and even prejudice people. I’m not saying I agree with them and I certainly will still stand up for the victims, but I can do so now better since I am coming from a place of true humanity. I’ve taught my children that when they are bullied they need to recognize that the bully has problems, some could be very horrible problems of being abused themselves. But, at the same time, I still encouraged them to stand up for themselves and not let the bully affect them or others. The same can apply to the “intolerant”. 

Something else that’s made tolerance difficult for me is when it’s something I used to be. I’ve been brainwashed so I know how difficult it is to come out of it which sometimes gives me less hope for people then more hope. Still, it does me well to remember that as difficult as it is, I’m not the only one like me which means there are others who can come out of such circumstances and I’m to not give up and hide in a corner thinking there’s no hope for humanity. 

I still struggle with speaking out, it may not seem like it, but I do. I was not only originally quiet and shy, but I was also not allowed to speak my mind even when I wanted to or was told to. The reality was that I really wasn’t supposed to. Whenever I tried to expose my heart, if it made anyone uncomfortable or uneasy, I was put in my place and silenced. That or it was used as a tool to beat me back into my corner with.

Visual by: Nelly Wat

Although I’ve overcome this, I still have those “voices” in my head telling me I’ll be misunderstood, judged, and so forth. 

I have days I am quite bold and just put it out there. Sometimes I rush to put it out there cause I know if I wait a day or maybe even five minutes it will be difficult if not impossible for me to do. 

This is my choice to live as an open book. It’s not always what is natural for me. It’s what I’ve found to be my purpose, my way of helping others, my way of helping myself. 

Accepting that it’s not normal for everyone to feel the need to understand people has taken me a while to grasp. Not just grasp but also to accept. But getting this concept is important cause it helps me find patience for those who don’t automatically look into other peoples struggles so they can relate and empathize better. There are a lot of people like me, but, there are a lot not like me and it’s not a bad thing, it’s a natural thing. It’s not something those folks are doing or not doing with intention, it’s just the way they are programmed just like I am the way I am programmed. Not that we can’t make adjustments, but we have core programming that will always be a part of us wither good or not so good, wither we chose to improve or not. Yes, there may be exceptions, maybe. 

I just learned that this is a symbol of empathy! Pretty cool! 

I think I’ll likely always have some issues with it, but not so much as I’ve had in the past.

While people are not robots, we do have a lot of similarities with them wither we like it or not. 

Sorry, this ended a little rough. I got really wore out and tired. I’m posting it anyway cause I don’t want to just forget about it. 

Read Full Post »

About Dreams and my two recent interesting ones.

I’m a believer in dreams, both awake ones and sleeping ones. I believe it’s good to have both and they can in rich ones life.

I don’t always remember my sleeping dreams and when I do if I don’t write it down or talk about it right away I usually forget what it was I dreamed pretty quickly. I understand that if I would write them down as soon as I wake I would improve my dream memory, but, “NOBODY’S GOT TIME FOR DAT!”. Well, maybe I have time, I don’t know about you, but when I first wake up the last thing I wanna do is go hunting around for a pen and paper. I have in the past had a pen and paper near the bed but that doesn’t mean I can find it when I have just woken up and if I do find it I’m clumsy as all get out and usually bump it and it falls on the floor or behind the bed side table or something like that. So, I tell myself if I rethink the dream and go over it real good in my head I’ll remember it. Sadly that actually doesn’t work for me.

Dreams, while sleeping, are a great place to work things out though. They are a place where there is no time or laws like gravity and so on. So you can try what would normally be the impossible. When you have no limits you have more room for figuring things out. Even nightmares are great training places. I often tell people that if there is a scary creature in your dream chasing you, stop running, turn around and attempt to give the scary thing a big hug. I say attempt because the odds are you will never actually get to hug it, it will either suddenly go away or the dream will suddenly change. Laughing at something scary in the dream can also have the same effect. There is exceptions but that is the general thing that will happen. Now, when you’re awake and you are faced with something scary, actually hugging it may be a terrible and dangerous thing to do. But, the concept is still true. Hugging the scary in your dream is a metaphor, which is what most dreams are made of. I explained the concept of “running to the roar” to my daughter the other night. While still trying to get it she asked if that would actually work in real life with a real lion. I told her I didn’t know and hoped to never have to be in that situation. But the concept is still good for everyday experiences we do face.

(Pic from Inception)

In case you are unfamiliar with the concept of “running to the roar”, I’ll go over it real quick. They say… an old lion with rotten teeth and such will roar real loud to get the animals to run away. On the other side where the animals are running away to there’s waiting the rest of the younger lions ready to attack the on coming food. So, basically if the animals would actually run to where they hear the roar their chance of survival is actually grater.

(From Katie Perry’s Eye of the Tiger video. I know, it’s not a lion, but it’s the same idea. And a really cool pic!)

While we may not face an actual old lion or the scary monster from our dream we do face our own fears and difficulties on a regular basis. Our monster may be a bully at school, a mean boss, a test, a ladder, a spider and so on and so on.

When I was nineteen I decided it was time to conquer being shy. I had a fear of people and I also had a fear of handling money. I was working at Burger King at the time so I had the opportunity to face both monsters at the same time. I had become an expert at everything in the back of the restaurant so now it was time to push myself to the front. I told my boss I wanted to learn the register. I remember him replying, “are you sure?” So he put me on the register and started training me. For the most part it worked. I got over my fear of people and I wasn’t afraid to handle money any more. I’m not a mathematically inclined type person so I have never wanted to go into anything finance related to this day, but I was satisfied to not be intimidated by it. Although I got over my shyness and when I mention that I still have moments of shyness people think it’s funny, it’s true. I do have moments of shyness but I have learned and taught myself how to get past it when needed. For one, in the past I lost out on a lot of opportunities because of being shy which is one of the many reasons I set out to conquer it. So even now I still give myself pep talks in order to build the necessary courage. I do it in my head which is why most folks laugh when I mention my occasional shyness.

(Burger King at the Old Ferry Landing.)

I used to have horrible nightmares, most ended with night paralysis. Facing my sleep nightmares initially made me stronger inside as well. Sure, it’s not exactly the same. But when you really investigate a dream and why you had it you can learn a lot for when you’re awake.

A recent dream I had comes to mind. I dreamed I was visiting an old folks type home. There were several grown children of the old folks there taking care of their parents. Suddenly I became very sad, I was regretting not having any children. I realized that when I get old I wont have anyone to look after me and take care of me and love me like the folks I saw around me at the home. I was overwhelmed with grief. It was one of those dreams were the emotion feels so real that when you wake you have to tell yourself it was a dream and not reality. After getting that into my head I thought the dream was just odd. Then I started really thinking about what it could have meant. I believe the answer is actually obvious. I am thankful for my four children and I do not regret having them, but I will admit there are times I wonder what life would have been like if I had not had any kids. I always conclude that I would have regretted it cause I know myself and even on very difficult moments I know this is true. I believe the dream is just confirming the same thing.

I had another dream recently that I can’t quite figure out still. I dreamed my kids and I were taking a tour of a military facility. We stopped at this one desk and this man began giving us a safety warning. Hannah and I were listening but Kara was meandering away. I kept trying to get her attention because I felt it was important for her to hear what the man had to say. Finally she focused and listened but instead of the man repeating the warning he just went on about something else that wasn’t important. Now, I get this part of the dream, it totally adds up and relates to how I struggle with Kara sometimes. It’s the next part that I don’t get.

The next part of the dream Kyle, my eight year old, was dressed up as an old fashioned little Dutch girl. There were two ladies near by who thought he was just the cutest thing ever. One of them just couldn’t seem to help herself and picked him up to give him a tight squeeze. I knew he wouldn’t like this so I tried to get him back from her but she held on. He wasn’t complaining but I could tell he didn’t care for it.

Now that I am writing this down I am actually starting to get it. How funny! I’m thinking that lady may be a part of me. After all, Kyle is my youngest and he’s adorable when he’s not being a brat. His not really complaining makes sense too because so far he is trying to hold on to being part baby himself. It really is a struggle it seems for both of us.

Read Full Post »