The day after the 2017 Presidential inauguration, my 16 year old daughter came downstairs and asked me, “Is it true? Did they really get rid of the LGBT pages on the White House site?” Sadly, yes, it is true. I was amazed that she was puzzled by this happening. She continued asking me, “But who did that? How can they do that?” I let her know that the Republicans were in power now, and the new Presidential staff was more than legally allowed to remove any pages they wanted from the White House website. They want to make those in the LGBTQ+ community disappear. They want to restrict rights for those who are not heterosexual. They are going to try to repeal gay marriage. This is the way the next four years are going to be.

My daughter just sat there, looking dismayed. Her reaction made me realize on a deeper level what a privileged upbringing her life has been in terms of gay rights. She has grown up in a home where all people are seen as equal regardless of their sexual preferences, orientation or identity. Her grade school principal was an out lesbian who was partnered with one of the teachers at the school. Our nuclear family has friends and extended family members who are LGBTQ+. My daughter has been raised in a world where all of that is seen as so normal and acceptable it doesn’t even need comment. In her world, people are sexual beings, and any range of consensual sexual activity and identity is fine, most especially when it stems from love.

Yet back in the real world, members of the LGBTQ+ community still face daily discrimination. Not everyone is as accepting as our nuclear family. My daughter has never really known this except in the fact that gay marriage wasn’t legal until a few years ago. She doesn’t have the memories I have of being raised Catholic and being taught that homosexuality was a sin. She doesn’t remember the shock in a community when someone “came out.” She doesn’t realize the horrible stigma that HIV/AIDS initially had as a wrongly-perceived gay disease. She doesn’t understand the history of violence that was so prevalent and still continues in many places against those who are LGBTQ+.

I hate that my daughter’s innocence is being shattered, though I know she was privileged to be able to hold on to living in a utopia for as long as she did. Now, the issues of the LGBTQ+ community are personal to her. She is a proud ally. Her best friend is transgender. When my daughter’s friend announced his transition and his new name, she accepted him without question and knew her parents and siblings would, too. Now she is having to deal with the fact that the new order wants to make her best friend disappear, just like those webpages that were suddenly gone within hours of the inauguration. Yet she, like me and so many other allies, is not ok with that. They will not make those we love disappear just by removing a webpage. We will continue to fight to make all people visible and equal. In less than two years, she will be a registered voter, and she will be doing her part to make change happen in the mid-term elections as well.

​©2017 Elizabeth Galen, Ph.D., Green Heart Guidance, LLC

Like many in this nation, I’ve been using denial as a coping technique over the past two months. I’ve been trying to believe that somehow, miraculously, the shift in power we were dreading would not happen. I was hoping that it was all a bad dream or a horrible joke. It’s not, though. Our lives are about to change drastically.

The night of the election in November 2016, my 16 year old daughter came downstairs to the family room at about 10 pm from doing homework. Her twin and I were watching the returns come in with dismay. She had just received a text from her boyfriend about the ominous news. Her only words were, “Tell me it’s not true.” I had to tell her it was. She then asked, “Can we move to Canada?” Given that we have family there, it’s not too outrageous of a request.

My daughter’s reaction left me thinking. Her boyfriend is a darker skinned racial minority whose parents were immigrants to the US. Her best friend is transgender. Her mother is disabled. She is almost a woman. Her world is going to be drastically impacted by the changes that result from the election.

My life is also going to be impacted as well; the obvious is that I am a woman and I am disabled. Both of those groups have been declared targets of hatred in the new era, and I personally have already experienced it. I fully expect large parts of the Americans with Disabilities Act to be repealed because the ADA costs money to businesses in order to make them fully accessible, and in the new order, corporate money is far more important than those with disabilities.

There are other places where the new dawn is going to impact me. Without the Affordable Care Act, I am no longer insurable due to the past 14 years of health issues. I face insurance companies refusing to cover my medical bills because of my pre-existing conditions. Healthcare is going to be the most obvious place where I will feel the change.

Other places are less obvious at first glance, but they are real threats. I have never had an abortion in this life, and I hope I never have to. However, Roe v. Wade has ensured that abortion has always been an option in my lifetime. Now I am at a point in my life where I would have to terminate any pregnancy I might unintentionally conceive because of health issues, yet I expect Roe v. Wade to either be eliminated or heavily restricted in the coming year. If that is the case, I will have to limit my sexual partners to men who have had vasectomies or are otherwise sterile. I’m a little more than angry about (primarily older white men) deciding whom I can have sex with.

There are bigger fears, too. I spent the first part of my life living with a narcissist, and having a narcissistic man who uses gaslighting as one of his primary methods of communication in national power is triggering for me and for many others. Watching someone so ill-qualified and so mentally ill about to assume command of so many life-or-death decisions is truly terrifying, especially if one knows how fickle and dangerous narcissists can be.

I’ve spoken with my spirit guides, and they have assured me that the new Narcissist in Chief will not be pushing the big red button. However, they have also affirmed my fears that we are facing an ugly uphill battle in the near future. As a friend of mine phrased it, we are facing at a decision where we as a nation have to decide if we will be governed by fear or governed by love. As things stand now, we are heading toward being a nation governed by fear.

I choose not to live my life in that way, though. For me, the first question to any decision is always “What is the healthy decision?” That question is always accompanied by other similar supporting questions: “What will bring the most love into my life and the world?” “What will bring the most compassion to me, to others, and to humanity?” “What is the right thing to do even if it is the hardest?” I will continue to strive to hold those values dear even when the world around me is leaning in the opposite direction.

So for me, January 20th, 2017 is a day of mourning. I’m dressing in black, the traditional color of mourning in our culture. I’m letting myself grieve as hard as I need to, but I also am holding my heart in a place of love rather than a place of fear. While I can’t change the national or the global situation, I can keep working to enact change around me, helping those who aren’t accepted by others. I can keep working to get compassion enacted in our society on personal and legal levels.

The final words from “Memories” from the musical Cats have been echoing my head all day, prompting me to write this post. We are facing the new day, the new dawn, but we must hold tight to the memories that bring us hope and love.

Daylight
I must wait for the sunrise
I must think of a new life 
And I mustn't give in
When the dawn comes
Tonight will be a memory, too
And a new day will begin
​
©2017 Elizabeth Galen, Ph.D., Green Heart Guidance, LLC

Trigger Alert: This post is about sexual abuse. 

I have been sexually abused by at least three different men in this lifetime. This is unfortunately not unusual. I’ve seen statistics that suggest one in four women have been sexually abused, but I suspect the number is closer to one in two. Likewise, I’ve seen numbers ranging from one in five to one in eight men have been sexually abused. No matter what the actual statistics are, the number of victims is still way too high.

I was recently speaking with someone who has a very young daughter. He knows of my history of sexual abuse, and so as a concerned parent, he asked me how I thought we could prevent it from happening to our children. After a moment to think about it, my answer was one that I don’t like but which I think is ultimately true: We can’t. Sexual abuse is going to happen. We can do some small things to try to ward it off. We can teach our children not to abuse others in hopes of lessening rates for future generations. But like most traumas and tragedies, even with the best preparation for prevention, it will still happen.

So what can we do try to reduce the number of children who are sexually abused short of locking our children into padded cells? The biggest thing we can do is teach our children that their bodies are their own, and no one should touch their bodies without their consent. Then we need to respect what we teach them. That means ending corporal punishment. That means stopping the horrible social custom of making our children hug and kiss distant relatives and unknown adult friends whom they don’t know or care about. It means letting our children know that they are the ones who are in charge of their bodies and “no” is an appropriate response when someone wants to touch them in a way they don’t feel comfortable with.

There are books for helping talk to children about sexual abuse in ways that aren’t scary. One is called “Your Body Belongs to You” written by Cornelia Maude Spelman and illustrated by Teri Weidner. The book frames body safety in a positive manner. There are no scary strange men ready to jump out of white vans to abduct children. The problem with the book: The page that says “Some places on your body should never be touched by other people—except when you need help in the bathroom or getting dressed or when you go to the doctor.” Two of my abusers were medical doctors acting in their official capacity but greatly taking advantage of the situation. These were men I should have been able to trust, but they acted in unethical ways and violated my body. The third man who sexually abused me was a relative, one who was greatly trusted by my parents. We also need to teach our children that even those they should be able to trust will sometimes act inappropriately.

So how do we figure out whom we can trust? The biggest way is to learn how to follow your gut feelings. Listen to that voice inside you when it tells you no. That inner voice is something or someone trying to protect you. If you feel unsafe or uncomfortable with a situation, then don’t put your child into it and/or don’t put yourself into it. Furthermore, if your child tells you, “I don’t trust that person,” listen to them. Find out why your child doesn’t feel comfortable. If it’s an instinctive response, respect your child’s intuition. Children are often far more in tune with their intuition than adults because they haven’t learned to ignore it through society’s mandates. Teach your children to respect their gut feelings, too.

Another very important aspect of sexual trauma is that victims are often not believed. If your children ever tell you that someone has touched them inappropriately, believe them. Do not punish them for what has happened to them. They are children, and they did not know what was happening to them. They were unable to give consent. No older child or adult ever should be touching them inappropriately. Instead, once you have listened to their version of events, seek counseling for them and report the event to the proper authorities. Hiding sexual trauma only allows it to continue, and others will likely become victims to the same perpetrators.

One other way to help reduce sexual trauma (which is not a method all will find palpable) is through energetic work on our second chakras. I believe that many of those who are sexually abused as young children have been sexually abused in previous lives. They come into this life with already damaged second chakras, and that weakness energetically attracts those who will abuse them again. Healing any damage to our children’s second chakras and/or strengthening their second chakras will reduce sexual predators’ attraction to them. This work can be done with talented energy workers who have already healed any sexual trauma they might have endured. If they have not healed their own traumas, you don’t want to have them working on you or your children.

Sexual abuse is scary. It scars us deeply, even when it happens at a very young age. The damage it causes can become the roots for physical illness as it did in my case. Thus, it’s very important that sexual abuse of children be taken seriously so that it does not cause a lifetime of damage. Preventative education can help children stop sexual trauma from happening, but if they don’t know that what is happening is wrong, they won’t be able to stop it. Likewise, education can help victims learn to report what happened rather than living with a sense of shame that they caused the abuse to happen to them. While we can’t always prevent sexual abuse from happening, we can support victims appropriately and prevent perpetrators from acting again.

©2017 Elizabeth Galen, Ph.D., Green Heart Guidance, LLC