Ooh, I haven’t done a book in a while! My darlings, this is a good one! If you find yourself jumpy and afraid, even though things are going well and you keep trying to tell yourself it let it go; if you are robustly chanting the Warrior Spirit Prayer of Awakening thus:
MAY ALL BEINGS BE GRANTED THE STRENGTH AND DETERMINATION AND WISDOM TO EXTINGUISH ANGER AND REJECT VIOLENCE AS A WAY
and still finding yourself supremely pissed off all of the time, do take a look at Karla McLaren’s fascinating and extremely sensible book about emotions. Thank you to my sweet friend Miel Rose for recommending it when I was trying to find a healthy way to work with grief!
“The socially accepted view is that there are good emotions and bad emotions,” she says. “These categories have a bit of interplay, but basically, good emotions are the ones that make us easy to be around, while bad emotions are the ones that shake things up.” Food for thought, right?
And, she says that strong emotions help provide “protection, deep cleansing, and strengthening of the psyche” as well as increasing “people’s ability to stay focused in their own bodies.” Trauma, our cultural training and so much more keep us away from our innate understandings about the purpose of emotions, but this book guides us in opening back up to our own human wisdom and offers a gentle, profound healing path.
Deep gratitude to Karla for this lovely book!
Every Friday, I showcase a queer femme goddess. I want to feature you! Write to me at thetotalfemme@gmail.com and let me shine a spotlight on your beautiful, unique, femme story! If you’ve written a femme story or poem or song, oh, please let me post it! New Femme Friday feature starting fall 2018: Books from which queer femmes can draw inspiration. What are your trusted sources of light and love? Please share!
At the Total Femme, my intention is to post three times a week: Meditations for Queer Femmes on Monday, Pingy-Dingy Wednesday on Wednesday and Femme Friday on Friday. Rather than play catch-up in a stressful fashion on those weeks when life prevents posting, I have decided to just move gaily forward: if I miss a Monday, the next post will be on Wednesday, and so on. Thank you, little bottle of antibiotics for inspiring me in this! (“…if it’s almost time for the next dose, skip the missed dose and continue your regular dosing schedule. Don’t take a double dose to make up for a missed one.”)
The Total Femme 