Yoga by Syd

Shame.
Boundariful prosocial shame?

The first time it was tackled in my training as a medical psychotherapist, I said I had none. Gently, I have grown on my journey coming in touch with my own.

There is prosocial shame: the type that gets us wearing pants in public 👖
There is destructive shame: the type that has had Canadians piously give money to the very people stealing children away from the families of the original people of this land.

Recently, I’ve been noticing co-dependent shame (and co-dependent anxiety for that matter): someone feels it, I am a minorty, it is implied “you can bear the (free) emotional labour of dealing with my shame”.

Boundaries are about defining the scope of the problem for yourself and keeping an intimate relationship with your gut feeling. That gut feeling of anger tells me everything I need to know about whether my boundary is getting crossed.

When I listen, it is easier to say, in the words so eloquently taught to my daughter from her daycare “no thank you, maybe tomorrow”… or never.

No is a complete sentence on it’s own.

Boundary-full prosocial shame seems to be the just milieu that serves me lately: has me engaged in the responsibilities I can perceive as effective to act on, while not taking on the emotional noise 💩 flung at me by those who notice I have eyes 👀. 🤣

has some niceties depicted here,
is my go to for shame navigation still.
📷 of a butterfyl pet we had for 3 weeks who couldnt fly due to a incomplete wing,
And a double rainbow 🌈 subtly among the clouds on my way back from my capstone week of my MPH in Waterloo. silverlinings in the 🌧️ rain of our times.
Also, Double Rainbow Guy never gets old: because why curtail amazement in our world? 🌈 🌈 💕

I am personally much more wary of unregulated economies of attention coopted by social media Leadership questionable core values, than I am about AI these days.

The fact of the matter is, as far as our brains go, we are cactuses in a swamp in terms of the ill fit of our 2-million year old neurobiology with the dopamine hit availability within social media.

I thought I’d share this gem of an insight by psychiatrist Dr Anna Lembke who I believe is truly onto something poweful in her book “Dopamine Nation”.
In it she discusses how the False Self is a self we construct in face of exorbitant external demands and stressors (eg see America Ferrera’s speech in “Barbie”), but can also lead to profound sense of emptiness, derealisation and depersonalization (the terrifying feeling of not feeling real).

“The antidote to the False self is the Authentic Self. Radical Honesty is a way to get there. It tethers us to our existence, and makes us feel real in the World. It also lessens the cognitive load required to maintain all those lies, freeing up energy to live more spontaneously in the moment.”
When were no longer working to present a False Self, we’re more open to our Selves and Others: “To permit a feeling of connection with the spontaneity of the Natural World and with [our] own inner nature.”
 
It is in our every unfurling experience of the real world Here & Now, that I think we have a unique and sacred gift.
On the eve of consciousness evolving with out synthetic intelligence, I thought it important to drop that into our collective consciousness, as a member of possibly the last human generation to develop in childhood without AI.

Happy spring,
6 months into running my psychotherapy practice (surprise), I’ve learned two basic things:
1. consumerism and commodification economy on a backdrop of colonialism makes us ill, we live in an economy of attention. You probably feel burnt out because the barrage of decision fatigue - since the day you were put into the daycare that is school - that if you got an A+ and had the trendiest shoes, you were destined to be worth something. To bad so sad for the other 99% rest of us. And a lot of us have been chasingthat dragon ever since. We’ll call this fixed mindset. And unfortunately to get the A+ it didn’t include skills like filing your taxes or get out of debt and start building wealth and take care of our heart. Things like the pandemic , BLM and Palestine hang over like a vague cloud that its maybe not working out for most of us to be well…
2. Our biggest weapon to prioritize our wellness (and life) is Intention. And we need Attention to set it. Attention is finite, and its stolen all the time by mostly people who’ve emotionally are running with what they’ve inherited what they have since they were about 3 years old. Intention, or consented choice about your time and energy, is a right but currently a privileged vibe based on what you were exposed to and safely allowed to think. Its political, historic, systemically linked. And surprise, it has less to do do with your inate universe-given quality but entirely to do with whether your caregiver (parents, teachers, municipal counsil members planning whether you’d get vegetables or a park nearby instead of an LCBO) were privileged with a safe enough place to acknowledge your heart and soul’s safety.

Ok, so, me journalling my ideas on IG aside, this depicted book above 👆🏽 is a great one for the idea of self-completion for what we desperately want and sift through the landfills of social media or anything social activity to find. Thank you

As my not so secret affair with the Ottawa Public Library continues continues its journey, there are definitely some more book highlights to come that I think having something of value for many many people.

Have a great tuesday 💕

For those with expertise to bring to our Federal Government: there is currently a public consultation window going on wherein our government wants to here from YOU about how to solve Black iniustice in Canada.

It is open until September 29th 2023 11:59pm.

Its the first link if you google “Canada Black justice”

Or go to the following url:

https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/cj-jp/cbjs-scjn/index.html

*Pain speak trigger warning*

This week I have heard the following facts that triggered deep pain:
Brampton Ontario has the most lucrative prison institution and 90% of its’ prisonner’s are Black.

I also heard that Guyana 🇬🇾 , my father’s home country, has been fooled out of wealth of pil found in their territory out of its’ corrupt leaders selling access to Exxon without a lick of this wealth going to the mass of Guyanese people currently living in Poverty on the land.

It triggered my sadness around what was said and done about the people of Haiti 🇭🇹(my mother’s country) by the international community, in comparison to the war in Ukraine. Its anti-Black systemic racism. It’s wrong. It’s sad. And there is no motivation for groups in provilege to subvert the injustice. Let’s be real. At 35, the only thing that surprises me is how people with privilege think they are first to outsmart any subversion or dismantling of an jnequitable capitalist imperialist system. Like I was not an intelligent Black physician or something…

Some comfort I find in models spearheaded in the US subverting the school to prison pipeline was Jim Sporleder’s work (I have not seen the documentary Paper Tigers yet, but heard the principle: replace punishment with the resources needed, support. A dream : therapy principles and financial literacy available to all bodies coming through our public education system 🌱

Don’t forget to let our government know your proposed solutions! 💥
Deadline September 29th 2023

⚠️ Psych Nerd Warning 🤓

What might the works of Dr Gabor Mate , Dr Nicole Lepera .holistic.psychologist and Dr Jon Kabat Zin .kabat.zinn have in common?

I am really resonating with Dr Laurence Heller and Brad Kammer’s Neuroaffective Relational Model lately.

I’ve become aware of the body’s own intelligence and language over the course of my pregnancy (again, i’m eating doritos watching TV while my body created a human…. It may know a thing or two)

As a fan of mind-body approaches and now stepping into psychotherapy, this is a pleasant read.

Also, coming from the Medicine field, trauma is a “new and odd” thing that I’ve been told “we don’t treat that here”…. Except, after the pandemic, its literally everywhere to some degree 🙃

I am curious to know, what other psychologists, psychotherapists, mental health and mind-body practitionners think?
👇🏽comment below 👇🏽

Sugar free and keto bakery?!
It’s here!

🧁 has got it down!

As a physician with pre-diabetes, I am hyperaware of the term “food is medicine” and was out of options for my sweet tooth for baked goods until…

Yesterday. I literally stepped into a dream!💗

They take online orders
Keytoyourheartbakery.com

And they have a physical location where you can grab goods on the spot!

475 Somerset St W, Ottawa 📍

Let’s show this healthy and exciting options some love! 💕

When you have less energy to uphold anything that you are not, you fall into who you are, landing in alignment with the laws of the Universe and together you co-create.

Gratefuly to have a friend give an opportunity for me to see myself!

This weekend begins a new chapter: first with ‘s retreat for Black femme frontline workers. By their grace, our intersectionality was seen and I was given a space to rest.

I have a little plant 🪴 from the Rooted workshop: a plant embodies a new contemplative relationship with myself 🌱

And yesterday, to be given an opportunity so share and sing from my soul at series…words cannot capture my gratitude and exalt…that’s why there is the cello 🎻

💗

Spoiler alert for Barbie
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So, full disclaimer, I don’t go to the movoes often anymore.

But the first thing that caught my attention for Barbie was an article on Psychology Today about the masculinity discussion piece that is Ken.

What I loved most about Barbie was

The grievance a mother undegoes when left with her side of memories of her child’s childhood. (So real! These best years of my life with Zara… she will not remember them!)

Ken and Barbie’s journey to finding they’re centered selves. And the space it gives to how BOTH men and women struggle with societal powrr in and out of relationship with each other!

And the artistry of the acting. I can’t get over it.
And slip in a bit of jazz dancing 😍

I was discussing with a friend recently relationship of cultural context with gender roles: i found myself irked at seeing this “guru” (online, I know: for goodness just keep scrolling and move on with your life), but to make a point: healthy relationships with one’s own emotions and close relationships with high attachment levels is ALSO contextual with societal privilege. Does the guru…whose cult following is cooking and cleaning for them … really have the same context as most households?

Excited to hear your perspective! (And I hold everyone accountable, online or not, to the same standards of if we were talking face to face, so mind your manners 👀).

The article:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/our-devices-our-selves/202307/what-the-movie-barbie-gets-right-about-male-psychology?amp

Some accounts on secure attachment and gens I find are gems lately:

Hi! 👋

Just a low-key curated list of high yield material explaining the mechanisms of HOW adverse childhood events affect the whole life of most people and that there SO MUCH HOPE for recovery. 🌱

https://youtu.be/95ovIJ3dsNk

https://youtu.be/ZdIQRxwT1I0

https://chronicillnesstraumastudies.com

It is difficult,
Writing about a Canadian problem that subjects families and babies to socioeconomic inequities and poor health outcomes,
While fighting the pandemic,
While the little one being sick and kept home from daycare while still having to pay.

And that is why I hold space for myself.

In a world that says: mama do the work, but do not say a word,

You bet your A I’mma speak some words before I’m done.

And live my best life while at it, too.