We’re going to create a Connection Revolution community collage! I’m kind of ridiculously excited about this, I gotta say.

Watch me be adorable and dorky!

If you can’t see the video above, click here to watch it!

Oh, and also, Pace created a handy-dandy form for you to send us your collage words and pictures. It’s pretty! And you can participate by filling out the form even if you don’t watch my adorable and dorky video.

I suggest you give us your input now, because if you wait, you might forget, and I really want you to be a part of it. Really really.

Please join us in creating our first-ever communal art work! It’s going to be magnificent. I get shivers just imaging it!

In our Top 5 Posts from 2007 series, this post is #2! The message is as important and valid today as it was when we first published it in 2007, so we’re pulling it out, dusting it off, and giving it another moment in the sun. Enjoy!

Openness is awesome.

By openness, I mean sharing a lot of information about myself publicly. For instance, blogging openly about aspects of my life that many would consider private. Being out about all those wacky things I have the opportunity to be out about. That sort of thing. Here are the three big reasons I think openness is so awesome.

Being open can help others.

By sharing enough of myself that I feel like a real person to those who read me or know of me, I enter many people’s monkeyspheres. Just by living my life and sharing it openly, I become an example that it’s possible to be X (X = bi | poly | pagan | trans | B | interdependent) and be a real, living, breathing person with feelings and hopes and desires just like you.

And furthermore, that it’s possible to be all these things and live a happy life — a life that’s more like yours than you might expect. And if people do include me in their monkeyspheres, a whole lot of good can come of it. More understanding of what it means to be X, more compassion toward X’s as people rather than objectified freaks, more recognition that there are X’s living in harmony with others in this society, etc, etc, etc. In a word: connection.

Openness makes me invulnerable.

Openness makes me invulnerable to a whole lot of potentially hurtful things — various flavors of fear and shame. Just imagine how you would feel if some of your secret or private things were discovered. Betrayed? Violated? Hurt?

The degree to which one is open is the degree to which one is immune from these sorts of attacks. I don’t need to live in fear of people finding out any of my secrets, because I’ve already shared all of them publicly. And when I dig deep into my motivation for wanting to keep something hidden, it almost always bottoms out in fear or shame. I feel ashamed of being a certain way, I feel fear that others will shame me for being something unacceptable to them, I feel fear that others will think I’m crazy or unhealthy if they know the truth. I’ve made a sacred promise to not let fear rule my life, and shame is just another kind of fear.

So I refuse. I refuse to hide things out of shame or fear.

I’m lucky enough to be in a position where I don’t have any reasonable fears that are big enough to compromise on. For instance, if we feared that Dru was vulnerable to being taken away from us, we might compromise. If I feared that I might lose my job, we might compromise. But luckily, we’re not in those situations, so I choose to take full advantage of my opportunities to be open.

I think society’s current concept of privacy is deprecated.

Technology continues to develop, more and more people are trading more and more of their privacy for more and more convenience (e.g. using credit cards instead of cash), and more and more data is becoming more and more trackable. As Kate reminded me, this tide isn’t inexorable; it’s possible to fight against it. But it feels inexorable to me. I think that the way we think of privacy today will be outmoded and old-fashioned in just one generation.

The paradigm shift is already starting. Kids and teenagers today have vastly different concepts of privacy than their parents did. And when those kids become adults, not too long from now, their new attitude toward openness is going to become the norm. It’ll be easy to dig up personal information about almost anyone, and when that becomes the norm, many forms of privacy are going to stop being such a big deal.

People can finally stop being ashamed of huge portions of their lives, because when everyone starts openly sharing those parts of their lives, it becomes okay; it becomes socially acceptable to be all of who you are. I think that’s awesome and beautiful, and I want to be part of that. I want to ride the wave; I don’t want to be left behind as an old fogey clinging to the old paradigm.

I also think that there are scary political concerns — it’s important to make sure that this upcoming lack of privacy can be shared by all (e.g. Little Brother), rather than the powerful spying on the powerless (e.g. wiretapping, subpoenas to access harvested data). But I don’t want to get into that here.

Hooray for openness! (:

Without uterus, I am still woman.
Without ovaries, I am still woman.
Without breasts, I am still woman.

With short hair or long, I am still woman.
With pride, with fierceness, with bold strides, I am still woman.
With fire flashing in my eyes, I am woman.

Curvy, geeky, spiritual or cynical,
with child or without,
pleasant, angry, gentle or soft.

For woman is in my heart, in my song.
Woman is the breath I breathe, the way I move, the way I hold my lover close.
Woman is the steps I take, the path I tread.
Woman in my eyes, in my spirit, in my grace.
Woman is the way I hold myself, the way I nurture and love and connect.

I free myself from the chains of your definitions, and I free my sisters, too.

Woman is within.
Woman is self-defined.
Woman is.

I am woman.

…then use the force, Luke.

This is a guest post by my dear friend and cohort, Julica. It’s about making a difference – a subject so important, she and I are teaching a class on it!

Here are some important things that I think Really Important Change Makers do, things I want you to do to become an unstoppable, powerful agent of change in the world.

Are you ready? 



They are: Go for a walk. Take a nap. Doodle. Write in your journal. Dance. Knit.



I can hear you now: “There is real oppression and discrimination going on every day…and you want me to go for a walk? Take a nap?  Do something silly and creative?  Are you nuts?!”

And yet, what I’ve seen over and over with change agents, activists, and others who are able to profoundly impact the world for the better is that their approach to change is rooted in love and in joy. This depth of joy can only begin with taking care of our own needs first.



A Better Fuel for Change



The idea of taking care of your needs first can seem counter-intuitive to those of us who want to make a difference because we’re painfully aware of all the things in the world that need care and healing now. You might even argue that putting ourselves first and “looking out for Number 1″ were the attitudes that got us into this mess in the first place.

And it sure is a mess, isn’t it?



There’s plenty to be angry about, absolutely. I’m not suggesting you take a Pollyanna approach to life. But while anger burns hot, it also burns fast and burns you out.

It’s because there’s so much to do — so much to provoke our outrage — that we need to be sure we source our energies in something much deeper, something that renews us and our commitment to change: joy.  



Use the Force



Here’s the bottom line: when you are joyful, spiritually nourished, loving yourself, you can’t HELP but change everything you touch. Using joy and love to fuel change is like using the Force — instead of just your human strength to rely on, your efforts are buoyed by something much greater. Instead of pulling and pushing, you become a magnet for change.



Joy as a fuel for action is what I call a renewable, sustainable energy source. The more you use it, the stronger and brighter it becomes. It’s a much longer-lasting fuel, and it has the added benefit of being highly pleasant as you burn it.



Plugging into Joy

Tapping into your joy power begins, as everything must, with baby steps. Gandhi said: “What you do will seem insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.” Making sure you eat a good breakfast might seem ridiculously small to you at first, but the more you take excellent care of yourself in seemingly small ways, the more you have to give to the world in every way.

The process begins by cultivating a space of permission, and compassion, and self-nurturing. For example, you might want to write yourself a small note every morning, checking in and establishing what you most want to get out of the day. Or you might spend 10 minutes in quiet contemplation, to give yourself opportunity to listen to your body. Or maybe you want to set up a weekly date with yourself to do something fun and silly and creative for a couple of hours.

The more you let yourself play and do creative things, the more you strengthen the right side of your brain. This will lead to crazy, wild, paradigm-shifting ideas to change the world. And baby, we need them.  We need your crazy ideas.  We need to shift so many paradigms, it’s not even funny.  

The world desperately needs your creativity and curiosity and compassion.

But in order to grow, these qualities need regular doses of self-care and permission. The more you give yourself permission to be yourself, fully, the more you will show up in the world unstoppable and on fire.  And the world needs you, dahling, in all your blazing glory.  



So how about you take five minutes and close your eyes. Can you feel what your heart is asking for? It can be as tiny as wanting to take deep breaths, or as large as wanting to move across the country.

Just listen, notice, and feel free to share your discoveries in the comments below.

Julica Hermann is the Social Change & Life Coach. She’s been in the change-making business since 1994, when she first started facilitating diversity conversations at the University of Michigan. Since then, she’s become fierce about supporting social artists and rebels in upending the status quo. She does that through individual and group coaching, classes, and trainings. When she’s not coaching, you’ll find her reading sci-fi and fantasy books; playing with feather boas or making jewelry; nurturing her two wee world-changing daughters; and looking for peeps to go out dancing. And soon, she’ll be teaching a class called Permission to Make a Difference with our very own Kyeli!

In our Top 5 Posts from 2007 series, this post is #1! The message is as important and valid today as it was when we first published it in 2007, so we’re pulling it out, dusting it off, recording a very enthusiastic reading of it, and giving it another moment in the sun. We’re posting it today as an offering of hope in honor of the Transgender Day of Remembrance, which is next week.

I’m happy to be a girl. You know, most days I take it for granted, and that’s a damn shame. Because you know what, it’s a fucking miracle! It’s like something out of a fairy tale! And it’s real, totally real, right here, really happening.

There was a time when I would daydream about how nice it would be to be pretty. An unattainable fantasy, I thought at the time, just an idle daydream. WRONG! My dream has come true. I’m not just pretty, I’m beautiful! Holy living fuck! How is this even possible?! It’s amazing! It’s truly amazing.

Your body contains the blueprints for both a male version of you and a female version of you. With a change in one single hormone (or maybe two), your body would shift from one to the other. Not 100%; there would still be a couple of things that would require some external tweaking, but about 70% or 80%. Think about that. Think about the potential that your body contains. You contain both male and female, but you’re (probably) only expressing one of them. But the potential is inside you, locked away by hormonal balances.

We’re all just people. Men, women, boys, girls, intersex, transgender, cisgender, we’re all just people. If there’s one thing my transition has taught me, it’s that. Because I was male, and then I was female, but I was still the same person. We’re all just people.

For me, becoming female (or, more precisely, moving into the female gender role) was like a set of puzzle pieces all falling into place. There were a whole bunch of things that used to feel subtly wrong that suddenly started feeling right. Being able to talk in the restroom. Smiling at other women as we pass by. (Did you notice that men don’t do that?) Being able to talk about my emotions and being able to cry without social stigma. Hugging other women without awkwardness. Being able to casually touch another woman on the arm while we’re talking, and have it be taken as a gesture of friendship and connection rather than as something potentially creepy or off-putting. Being able to be nice, kind, and complimentary to others without being perceived as a sexual predator. There were all these things that I was never fully aware of until they all changed for me. And it felt really right.

It’s amazing to have been on both sides (and the middle!) of the gender fence. It’s really incredible to have seen all these gendered aspects of culture from multiple perspectives. Sometimes I feel like a double agent, like a gender spy. (: But I’m not out to take sides; I just want us all to understand each other. Because we’re all just people.

Being trans can be really tough. Transition is no cakewalk, that’s for sure. There’s oodles of social stigma, prejudice, hate, and other crappy crap. But that’s not the whole story. Being trans is also amazing. It’s an incredible, magickal journey across a line that most people don’t even know is possible to cross. I’m Pace, I’m proud to be trans, and I’m happy to be a girl. (:

I made you a video, because typing hurts me and I miss you.

Love,
Kyeli

The “paradox of abundance” is when you feel like something is less valuable simply because it’s easier to get or more common. This is related to two harmful myths of our culture.

Myth #1: Rarity = Value.

In some cases, it’s true that rarity can affect value, for instance of lots of people like gold because it’s pretty, but there just isn’t very much gold, then the value will go up due to its rarity. But many people might have said “the value is high because of its rarity,” and that is simply rubbish. The value is high because people think it’s pretty! Or useful! Or whatever! Just because something is rare does not automatically mean that it is valuable.

Imagine a world where we really did have enough for everyone. I would want to be happy in that world. Wouldn’t you?

Myth #2: Effort = Value.

There are a few cases where extra effort can increase the value of something, but most of the time, it’s just a harmful myth. For instance, people who work 60-hour weeks are usually valued more highly than people who work 40-hour weeks, even if the 40-hour-a-week people produce twice as many useful results.

Imagine that two of your friends each help others in various ways. Your first friend works really hard at it and puts a lot of effort into it, but your second friend does it effortlessly and almost accidentally. Society tells us to value the first friend’s accomplishments more because they worked harder for them. This is bullshit and incredibly insidious!

If people at large believe that effort equals value, then we’re not really being encouraged to grow, to learn, to help others, or to do useful things. We’re being encouraged to try hard. And often, what is encouraged is what ends up manifesting.

I prefer to live in a world where people are encouraged to grow, to learn, to help others, and to do useful things, because that’s the world in which those results are most likely to happen.

When most people think of power, they think of power-over. This is because that’s the only kind of power recognized by the control paradigm, and most of us are stuck in the control paradigm. But the truth is that power shared is power multiplied, just like love shared is love multiplied. The similarity of these two sayings is no coincidence. Just as power-over is rooted in fear, power-with is rooted in love. It all boils down to fear and love — just like everything does.

All power rooted in fear is false power. But not all power-over is rooted in fear. Mark Silver gives the excellent counterexample of rescuing a child from traffic. You’re exerting your power over her, forcing her, controlling her to get out of harm’s way, even if she struggles against you. What matters most is acting from love instead of fear.

Power-with is a form of dependence. It’s interdependence. But from the outside it can look a lot like codependence. Codependence is when you have an ego that is hurting and you direct that hurt inward. You ask others “Please have power over me and hurt me because I deserve to be hurt”. Interdependence is when you let go of your ego’s desire for control and let your walls down. You say to others “Here, I am sharing my power with you.” And if they turn out not to be trustworthy, you aren’t betrayed, you just made a poor choice — and you move on.

With great power comes great responsibility. It’s incredibly scary to realize how powerful you are. It’s quite a perspective shift to realize that you are fully capable of changing the world, but then instead choose to sit on the couch and play Mario 64.

When the control paradigm does fall apart, people are going to look for a new story to be in. Where are they going to look? They’ll look at people who are already living a different paradigm. They’ll look at people who are working together in cooperation, mutual respect, and love. They’ll look at us — all of us. By being ourselves, loudly and proudly, we can help a new paradigm take root so it will be ready to bloom when the old one comes crashing down.

There’s a harmful myth in our society. (Those of you who know me aren’t surprised to hear me say that.)

The myth tells us that we are flawed.

The myth tells us that we are not good enough.

The myth tells us that we must do something, we must achieve something, we must accomplish something to be good, to be worthy, to be loved.

Since this myth is part of the paradigm we live in (the control paradigm), it seeps insidiously into our society, slipping underneath conscious awareness, soaking into our schools, our parenting, our work, our religions.

What if you were worthy, just as you are right now?

What if you were enough at this very moment?

What if you were worthy of love, just by being yourself, without doing anything?

It’s true.

You are not flawed.

You are enough.

You are worthy of love.

Choose love over fear.

The Connection Revolution is about choosing connection over control, choosing love over fear.

The myth that we are flawed exists so we can be more easily controlled. If we need to do something to become worthy, then whoever holds the keys to that something — your priest, your boss, your parents — holds the keys to your soul.

Take back your soul.

Take back your soul today. Make a choice at this very moment.

All you have to do is choose to believe this:

Image by Alex Franzen, spiritual pirate