Tag: women

close up photo of woman with her hands tied with rope
Addiction, bullying, grief, Law of Attraction, Love, Mental Health

Trauma… the badge of honor

Katrina Russell

When did trauma become the cool thing? Now don’t get me wrong, I understand that people have trauma, but trauma is a horrible thing. Trauma is not something that you want wish upon your worst enemy. Most people have had some sort of trauma in their life and it’s all relative. I was in a pretty bad custody battle as a child. I lived in a car with my mom. My parents had a tug-o-war over me in the streets. I was kidnapped by my mom and brought to live in a church commune…. you know… a cult. These things can be pretty traumatic, but they all ended. Eventually these things stopped, and my dad got total custody and only allowed my mom to visit when he was around.

I had an older brother… on occasion he liked to kick the crap out of me. On occasion we played fanciful games together and had a great time. When we got to our teen years he fought with everyone a lot and ended up moving out at 17. I was 14. I remember having the guidance counselor at school try to talk to me about it. How was it affecting me? What could she do to help? That was easy, I was sad. I missed him, but there was nothing to be done until he came back. It was a little over a year before we heard from him again. I remember answering the phone when he called and being overwhelmed with emotions.

I dated jerk guys and nice guys. I had friendships fall apart and new one’s spring out of nowhere. I was unemployed, underemployed and worked too many jobs to count. My best friend became an alcoholic and I had to help her ex take care of their kids I lost my Grams and got married and divorced… and this was all in my 20s. (well, divorced in my early 30s)

By my mid-30s I felt like I was getting my s**t together. I was dating a great guy. We were talking about starting a family. I had a great job in an industry that I loved…. what could go wrong? Well, everything. By the end of my 30s I had found out that my mom, who I hadn’t heard from in years, was dead. I had my baby boy, whom I love more than anything in the multiverse, but his father had relapsed into a spiraling drug induced state… and when I was 39, I woke up one morning to find my father had died in his sleep. Eight months later his longtime girlfriend died as well… on my birthday, and a little over a month later, 2 days before Christmas, on my nephew’s birthday… I watched my dog get hit by a car. Since then, I went through a long custody battle of my own with my son’s father that culminated in him losing his battle with that said addiction… thankfully it was a few years later.

Why am I telling you all of this? Well, I got my son a therapist. Losing his Papa and then the on again off again of his Da who finally died he was having some behavioral issues in school and a good healthy case of separation anxiety whenever he left my side. I call it healthy, because that’s what it was. It was his way of working out the things that he needed to work through.

I remember talking to his therapist about everything and her saying something along the lines of, “You’ve been through a lot, but unlike other people they aren’t things that you do that cause the problems. It’s things that just happen to you”. And she was right. The school councilor back in the day wanted to know how to help me. But there was nothing that could be done. My pain hadn’t come from anything that I did. It came from something that happened to me. My parents dying. My son’s father dying. Problems with exes, these were all the results of other people’s actions. Some people would find that disheartening. Some people would look at their trauma and their “victim status” as a reflection if not an identity of themselves. They would feel as if the world was against them and hold onto that trauma like an award that was given to them to prove how special they were.

I don’t see trauma in that way. I certainly don’t see bad things that happen to me as a reflection of me at all. I didn’t cause my parents to divorce, or my brother to leave, or my son’s father to do drugs, or my parents to die. These are things that other people have done that affect me but does in no way embody me. I am who I am despite all of these things happening around me and to me. I am who I am because of all of the things that happen around me and to me. It doesn’t do anyone any good to create a persona of trauma and hold onto it so tightly that it drowns you.

Trauma happens to everyone. I have been through my share, but it is nothing compared to what others have been though and its way more than some can imagine. Letting it dictate my life only lets the trauma and those perpetrating that trauma on you win. I’m not saying it’s easy to let it go. I’m saying its necessary if you want to move forward with your life. Somewhere along the line in our society it because desirable to be damaged. To prove that you have it worse than others. It gives you an excuse to not try, not do, not be…. everything that you can be because someone else broke you.

Bad things happened to you. I’m sorry. I truly am. But unless you want to live the rest of your life miserable and giving your power over to those that hurt you then you need to stand up and take your power back. You need to forgive those who caused you pain… and let go of what’s been drowning you.

Love, Mental Health

Really, they want to cancel Dolly now?

Katrina Russell

So, apparently people are angry at Dolly Parton. Yup, that’s a thing now. Dolly Parton. Loved, andidolized.. charity giving.. women empowering.. free loving Dolly Parton. They are mad at her because she made a commercial for the Superbowl encouraging people to follow their dreams.

This is what the woke culture has become. People are angry with Miss 9-5, because she is encouraging people to create their own businesses doing something that they love. People are angry with the women who has fought back against sexual harassment literally longer than I’ve even known what it was. People are angry with Dolly Parton because she is encouraging the patriarchy.. of.. wait for it… working.

Yes, encouraging people to work is supporting the rich man’s patriarchy. Encouraging people to strike out on their own, and yes.. work, work, work is degrading somehow. I don’t know about you, but I was taught that I could accomplish anything that I want.. it I WORK FOR IT. That is literally the American Dream. The dream is not that if I whine for it enough people who have earned it should give it to me.. that’s not what makes life worth living. That’s not what gives people purpose.

This has become an ongoing phenomenon. I have noticed. People are becoming more and more nihilistic. People are losing their reasons for being in an ill attempt to prove their intelligence and their wokeness. They won’t be the sheep to follow what society has deemed to be the building blocks of a good life. What does millions of years of evolution know that they haven’t figured out in their lifetime,

We have become a society of “marriage is a trap to tie you down”, “working hard is a trick to keeping making money for rich people”, “Consumerism is evil”… “So, let’s swipe right, hook up with random people, yell at corporations that they are stealing from me because I buy all their crap, but don’t actually have any money to pay for it and have nothing of purpose to call my own.. and need an access of anti-depressents to help”

Seriously. If you were to ask anyone over the age of 60 what they love about their lives it would be their family. If you were to ask them what they were grateful for it would be their ability to work for and support their family.. that’s it. That’s what makes life worth living. Now some people have passions. They love creating art, or growing/caring for plants, making music. When you ask them what they are grateful for and they would say that are grateful that they were able to make a career in something that they love… and all of it, from the marriage, to the kids, to the job. to the passion, to the career.. all of this takes work.

If you were to ask anyone over the age of 60 what they regret you’ll hear things like, not having a family, not taking a certain vacation, not following the dreams they had for their passion.. all of which requires work. If anyone tells you that work is just for rich men… they are the ones holding you back and trying to keep success in the hands of rich men.

Love, Mental Health, parenting

When did wanting love and family become taboo?

Katrina Russell

Hey, remember when being a mom was like a thing women did? Like, when people asked, “what do you do?” and they responded, “I’m a mom” and that was cool. That was enough.. why did that change?

Now, I’m not saying that women shouldn’t work. I think that if you have a passion for something you should go right out and work for everything that you desire. I’m also not saying that if you need the money that working is a bad thing. You have to feed yourself and your family and that is important… but when did it become shameful for a woman to be a mom. Like, a stay at home, take care of your family mom?

From the beginning of time moms have been a thing. In fact without moms there would be no more people. Being a parent and raising new people is the most important thing that there is. Making sure that these new little humans don’t turn out to be serial killers or wastes of space is very important. My father used to say that the most important job in parenting is creating independent people. But that takes a lot of work.

Childcare is a huge industry. Mostly run by women. The service industry is also huge and also mostly employs women. House cleaning companies mostly employ women.. these are all industries that have skyrocketed in the last few decades because women entered the work force.

Now again, I’m not saying that women shouldn’t work, or that all women should be mothers. If a woman decides that motherhood is not for her, by all means.. good on you.. if you decide that you do want to be a mother but you don’t want to give up a career that you love, that’s great too. But how many women out there LOVE their jobs. How many people out there LOVE their jobs. Most people can’t wait till the end of the day or the end of the week. I don’t know why having a job became the goal.. like it’s so prestigious to spend most of your waking hours doing something you hate just so that you can pay someone else to take care of your kids and clean your house.. because guess what? That’s their job.. you pay someone to do the things that you are shamed for doing for free, because it’s not real work. How is this good?

People complain all the time that the cost of living is so expensive. Well, this is because the market follows the money. When most families were one income families the market reflected that. Add a whole knew income and suddenly everything doubles in price. So you’re literally working to buy things that everyone could afford to buy before we all pushed to work jobs that we hate.

Again, I’m not saying that the Women’s Lib movement was bad. I believe women have the right to do and be anything that they want. Which includes being a mother and a wife. We always hear that on our death beds we never regret the deals we didn’t make but the family time that we missed. That we don’t look back fondly at the hours at our desks, but the moments snuggling with out loved ones. Our family and the people that we love are our reason for living… so why should a little girl be shamed for wanting to grow up and get married and have babies? Isn’t that what most of us want? When did wanting love and family become taboo?

Love

If you can’t handle me at my worst…

Katrina Russell

There has been an odd trend going about on social media for a while, especially among women that I have found very strange. There’s memes everywhere that spout the same insanity about, “If you can’t handle me at my worst, you don’t deserve me at my best” and “If you don’t check on me when I’m down, don’t come around when I’m good” as if people are supposed to have a constant line into your innermost world.

Now I’m not talking about someone that you’re romantically involved with, because yes, they are supposed to have a line in on your world. I’m talking about your average friend. I’m am in my mid 40s. I have been to a few different schools in my day. I have worked at about a dozen different jobs. I have had many different social circles and cliques in my life. I have people that I have known since i was 3 and people that I spent my entire 20s with.. I can’t possibly check in on everyone ALL THE TIME.

Thankfully, with social media today we have the ability to reach out to those who have meant something in our lives. Though it seems unlikely, considering how much I write on here, I’m actually a fairly private person. When my son’s father and I were having problems I never posted about them. Even some of our closest friends who we grew up with had no idea. They didn’t KNOW that they were supposed to be asking us about our personal problems. They had their own lives to worry about. They couldn’t possibly be constantly checking up on mine and everyone else’s that they had always known.

When my son’s father finally died, and I posted it on social media my notifications exploded. People who had no idea that he had a problem. People that had no idea that his problem had gotten so bad. People that just loved me and wanted me to know that they were thinking about me. I appreciated that. I had reached out just by making a post and people had responded with tenderness and heart. They truly felt for me. Same when my father died. They reached out and let me know that they were there for me if I needed them, but let’s be honest. I just wanted to be left alone.

I didn’t begrudge people who “should have known” I was having problems. I didn’t hold it against those that didn’t come to my house to really be there for me instead of just offering platitudes. I understood that as bad as they felt for me, they still had work, and their families, and their relationships and I couldn’t expect them all to drop everything for me. I know how I feel when I hear about something happening to someone that I care about. How I still think about my friends who have lost people, or are sick, or going through what ever they are going through. Sometimes I send them a little message to let them know I’m thinking about them. Sometimes I wonder if it’ll hurt more to bring things up. Sometimes I think about it and then life happens and I get side tracked. Not because I don’t love them, but because it’s life.

I can only assume that people who post these kinds of memes don’t really understand human relations. The “you don’t deserve me at my best” is even worse. I’ve known some people at their worst.. and they are the worst. Why on Earth would someone feel that they have every right to be horrible human beings and treat other’s badly, but if the person they’re treating badly doesn’t like it then they’re the problem. The quote should be, “If you can’t handle me at my worst, I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t want me at my best either”.

People somewhere along the line have stopped taking personal responsibility for themselves. Anything they do isn’t their fault. You are now responsible for fixing their lives and their problems and reading their minds to know when it is time to fix their lives and their problems. If you don’t like it or anything that they do then you’re the problem because it’s your job to fix them… umm, no. Grow up. Live your life. Be responsible for yourself. By all means, ask for help if you need it, but don’t blame other’s for your short comings. You’re the only one that can break your life and you’re the only one that can make your life.

Love, parenting

Crazy Mother’s Day in Lockdown

Katrina Russell

As everyone knows, last Sunday was Mother’s Day. The day that mom gets to get pampered. She gets breakfast in bed, and flowers, and candy, and taken out to dinner and little handmade cards from the little people she created and carried in her own body and has given up every second of her life to since.

HAHAHA! Most of us get half eaten toast that we have to clean up after. And we love it. We love that our kids even kind of acknowledge that we deserve something for all the things we do for them.

A couple weeks before Mother’s Day I started seeing posts in my feed about “Remember dad’s the schools aren’t going to be helping your children make cards this year. It’s all on you”. I thought it quite amusing that the internet understood that most dad’s have no idea that the holiday is coming, never mind that they may have to do something about it.

My son’s father, unfortunately, is no longer with us. It’s just me and my son.. we are our own little team. I bought myself a little mother’s day present. His school has a collaboration with Artsonia.com to have all of their artwork published onto the site and we can order products with their actual artwork printed on it. I bought myself a couple pieces of jewelry, and I bought his grandmother, his father’s mother, a little wooden plaque.

I thought that would be the end of my Mother’s Day celebration… until the day came and my son asked one of my friends to take him to Target. They put on their masks and walked the isles. He didn’t really know what kind of books I read, or what sized clothes I wore so he he bought me snacks. He bought me Ghiradelli Chocolates, fruit and cupcake. He also bought me the most beautiful garden flower decoration. I was so shocked and proud by his choices.. even though he did eat all the cupcakes himself and told me how much more I like fruit anyway.. he is 7 after all.

For our celebration, knowing we couldn’t go anywhere, we ordered in takeout and watched The Indiana Jones series. It was actually quite nice to just sit and snuggle on the couch. For a Mother’s Day in quarantine.. it was probably one of the best ones I’ve ever had.

Love, parenting

I don’t want to be smart!

Katrina Russell

“I don’t want to be smart!”

My six year old son yelled this at me last night, and it confused me. He is a smart little boy. He always has been. He loved playing math games as a toddler and reading books is one of his favorite hobbies. Now that he is in first grade his whole mindset has changed. He doesn’t want to be smart.

I didn’t understand. This was something that he was always proud of. He would so something we would consider brilliant.. just normal kid stuff, but we’re his family so everything he did was brilliant and we would commend him on being “so smart”. When he started kindergarten he was having a lot of trouble sitting down and doing his work. It was understandable. He was a 5 year old boy. Sitting was not his specialty.

Now that he is in first grade I talked to him about how this was the year that actual grades started and how his work was important. He always loved coming to work with me so I told him that it was “job” to go to school and do his work. I let him know that he was a smart little boy so if he just did the work his grades would be just fine and he didn’t have to worry about that.. just do the work. I wasn’t trying to put the emphasis on the grades. I was trying to help him understand that it was his “trying” that mattered.

Two weeks before he started first grade his father died. Because of this my sweet little boy has a lot of anger and anxiety. This is completely normal.. but very disruptive. We have decided to turn off all electronics in the house because of this. I only use my phone and computer when he is at school.. or for “important” things (like doctor’s appointments, checking in with teachers or activities.. etc.) This has been an extremely emotional time and we are both looking for as much quality time together, even if it’s just snuggling on the couch reading books, as we can.

At school he has been having some outbursts. He has been boycotting his classwork, and even a test. He has been getting into fights with kids who are “being mean to him”. I know these kids.. they’re not being mean, but he is on high alert because of his high stress and everything is upsetting him.

About a week ago he asked if he could home school. I asked him if he understood what that meant. He said, “yeah.. then I could just stay home all day with you”. I explained that he would still have to do all of the work, but that he wouldn’t have any of his friends there to play with at all.. and that.. if I am honest, I am not the most patient at teaching things like maths… I don’t even understand half his homework already. He agreed home school was not for us.

He had a few good days after that conversation and I was hoping that we had turned a corner. Then yesterday he was held back in the classroom at the end of the day so the guidance councilor could speak with me.  She told me that he had thrown papers at a friend and his teacher.. squealed.. and hid under his desk. I brought him home and asked him about what had transpired.. there was some story about the other kid throwing it first.. it not being his fault.. the usual. He told me that he tried to do his breathing but he was just so mad.

Then he told me, “I wish I wasn’t smart”. I was completely taken aback. I had no idea what he was talking about. He said that he was so tired and so angry all the time. That he didn’t want to do any of his work because of it. That if he wasn’t smart that no one would care if he did his work or not and they would just leave him alone.

I’m not going to lie.. that confused me. I couldn’t see where he got this or why he felt this way. I knew that I had said that he just had to do his work and because he was smart the grades would follow.. but that didn’t mean that he didn’t have to do the work if he wasn’t smart.. but then I thought about my own childhood. My brother was always “the smart one”.  He was in all the extra special classed for “smart” kids, and I always had anything better to do than my homework. So I didn’t, and my dad wasn’t great at checking on me. When the teachers would say to me, “you’re so smart if you just do the work….” I would shut down. I’m not smart. My brother is smart.. you’re just projecting. I didn’t want to be smart.. because I didn’t want to do the work.

We always get the threat from our parents that someday we are going to have kids “just like you”, and then we do. And then we say the same things to our kids that was said to us. So from now on, I’m not going to tell my son how smart he is.. I’m going to tell him how proud I am for his effort. Because let’s be honest.. ability is nothing without fortitude. My son is smart, but he doesn’t know everything. Two weeks before school started he lost his father and his whole understanding of life was changed. I can’t expect him to comprehend everything, but I can encourage him to try.

 

Addiction, Law of Attraction, Love, parenting

Is true love actually possible?

Katrina Russell

I had an interesting conversation today with a woman who I have been getting to know. She is currently married, though not very happily, and she said that she doesn’t think she knows anyone who is truly happily married. She said that she is not even sure that true love exists or that any man is capable of truly loving her. This was not said as a self esteem problem. This was not doubting her worth. It was doubting the capability of the man.

I found this especially interesting because I have been in a few relationships over my life, though I am single now, and I know that 3 of them have loved me completely. I know that there is no doubt in my mind that their love was real. The first 2 were mostly timing and growing. We were in our 20s when we got together and though the love and relationships were nice, as we got older we just grew apart.

The last was my son’s father. We loved each other fiercely and unconditionally. There was no doubt in my mind about that. Now, that did not mean that we had to stay together. In fact we loved each other and our son so much that we eventually realized that being apart was the best option. He was an addict. He had demons that he just couldn’t get away from, and eventually they killed him. But I loved him, and he loved me completely.

We were constantly off and on depending on his sobriety. This was very confusing and disruptive to our son. Eventually I had to just put an end to it. Not because I didn’t love him, and not because he didn’t love me.. but because we both loved our son.

I think that the problem with finding “true love” is that people want the fairytale, but no one lives “happily ever after”. There are always problems, and there are always lulls, and people are always taken for granted as time goes on. None of that has to do with love.. I used to say that love is not a feeling.. it is a verb. Love is an action that we have to do everyday. I am a huge Doctor Who fan, and in an episode he states that “Love is a promise” and I feel that too.

When we were first thinking about and discussing having a family Neil and I talked about a lot of things. We were planning on getting married.. we were just saving up. I wanted a HUGE affair.. I never got it. He relapsed and my father died and after a while a wedding wasn’t all that important. But my FAMILY was. That’s what we had decided when we chose to have our son. We are now family. We will love each other forever. There was no leaving. Again.. that does not mean that we had to stay romantically linked or even live in the same house. When it became dangerous I had to tell him to leave.. but it did mean that I was always his first phone call and he was always mine.

I recently remembered a time, about 6 months after my father had passed and Neil was out of rehab and things were getting good again. I had spent most of that time in yoga pants and a messy bun. On this particular day I put on real people clothes.. just jeans, but it was something. I let my hair down AND BRUSHED IT. I even put on a little makeup. I didn’t think much of it. I was just having a day that I could breath again. I walked into the dining room not thinking about it and I heard him audibly gasp. I actually took his breath away. He was even a little embarrassed by it, but he just said, “you look beautiful”. I remember how that made me feel. After months of grieving my father and over a year of heartache over Neil’s relapse I had been in quite a depression.. and there he was. Telling me how beautiful I look.. telling me that I actually take his breath away.

This man had seen me at my worst. He saw our son being sliced out of me “Aliens” style.. and I was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. He loved me.. and I him… and nothing bad that ever happened between us ever changed that.

After he died I had some conversations with his mother and some of his friends. They told me how through all of our ups and downs that he never said a bad thing about me. That he always talked about how amazing I was. How strong I was. What a great mom I am. He loved me.. emotionally.. and in his words and actions everyday. Even on his worst days.. he kept his promise.

Love is not a cure all. Love is not how it ends.. True love.. is family.. it’s forever. It’s calling them on their shit.. and telling them when you’re proud.. it’s taking the call when they overdosed and crashed their car. It’s cleaning up their sick father’s poop… it’s knowing.. that no matter what has happened between you, and no matter where anyone lives.. that person always wants what’s best for you and always has your back.

Politics

Women’s Soccer and Fair Wages

Katrina Russell

I am a working woman. I am a single mother. I am an empowerment coach. I believe in equality of opportunity. I don’t understand what women are calling “fair” anymore. The US Women’s team won the world cup again. That is fabulous. I admit I am not a sports fan, but I can appreciate that they clearly worked really hard and did their job to win. I can give them credit where credit is due.

I believe that everyone should be acknowledged for their good works. I believe that everyone should be admired for stepping up and continuing to excel at whatever it is that they choose to do. I give all of the players on all of the teams recognition for fighting hard whether they win or lose.. they did their best and kept at it. I believe that more people should do that.

But as I said. I am a single working mom. I have a little boy, and of course he is the most amazing little boy to ever walk the Earth. No one could tell me otherwise. My little boy wants many things. My little boy deserves many things.. but, I’m a single working mom. My bills get tight. My expenses pile up. I only have so much, in the matter of money, that I can give to him. No matter how wonderful he is. No matter how much he helps around the house. No matter how good his grades are. No matter how much he tries I can’t buy him everything that he wants. I just can’t afford it.

Now that doesn’t mean that I don’t take his hard work into consideration. I know lots of people who pay their children for grades. I know kids that are making $10 or even $100 or more per A. I can’t afford that. He could get like 20 As in a term. I told my son that if he tries really hard and the effort is shown in his report card he can get $2 per A and $1 per B. Now that’s not a lot of money. That’s not going to get him the new Nintendo Switch that he so desperately NEEDS TO HAVE.. but $40 at this stage is a lot to me.

Now.. you’re probably asking what this has to do with professional sport.. well, everything. According to Mike Oznian, a writer for Forbes, the 2015 Women’s World Cup “brought in almost $73 million, of which the players got 13%. The 2010 men’s World Cup in South Africa made almost $4 billion, of which 9% went to the players.” And last year, the men’s World Cup in Russia generated more than $6 billion in revenue; the participating teams shared about $400 million. That is less than 7 percent of overall revenue. Meanwhile, the 2019 Women’s World Cup made somewhere in the region of $131 million, doling out $30 million, well more than 20 percent of collected revenue, to the participating teams. So here’s the thing.. The women are making more than the men… percentage wise.. and the women can’t possibly be paid $400 million when they only brought in $131 million.. it’s just math.

Now I hope things change. I really do. I hope now that the women are winning that more people will start watching. That more merch will be sold. That advertising sales will skyrocket.. and I hope that winning will help, but sometimes it doesn’t. Daniel Day Lewis has won 3 Oscars… and at last check Ryan Reynolds has won 0.. now.. don’t get me wrong, I love Deadpool as much as the next girl, but he doesn’t get paid the big bucks for winning awards. He makes his money by selling out theaters. The more money one brings in the more they receive.. and until Women’s Soccer generates more than $400 million they’re never going to make that much.  And then .. will they choose to take the lesser percentage?

bullying, Politics

The Little Mermaid is Black

Katrina Russell

That’s it.. it’s a fact. Halle Baily (Not Halle Berry as some angry online opponents have thought) has been cast in the new “The Little Mermaid” movie. Apparently this is sacrilege. I had no idea that the fate of the world was to be determined by the color of a fictional mermaid’s skin.

Now for those of you who are not aware, The Little Mermaid is based on the Hans Christian Anderson tale in which a young mermaid falls in love with a handsome prince. She, as in the Disney tale, gives up her voice to the sea witch.. as well as her tongue, that’s left out, and given legs that can dance as no one has ever danced before. The catch, as there’s always a catch, is that she will feel piercing stabbing in her legs and her feet will bleed pretty much all the time. Not as adorable as the dinglehopper angle, but there it is.

As in the Disney version the mermaid’s only choice for remaining human and not dying is getting her beloved prince to marry her… ahhh.. happily ever after… only he doesn’t, and she dies. Yup.. that’s the story of the little mermaid.. or it was, until it was remade for film. Actually that particular story has been remade by different studios quite a few times.

In the original story the woman that the prince does end up marrying was being educated at “The Temple”. Given that there is no mention of specific area, there’s a probably chance that the Prince in question and the area involved was Hebrew.. and possibly the Middle East toward the Mediterranean Sea. In later adaptations she was blonde, which makes sense given Anderson was Danish and there is a heavy blonde population there.

Then Disney came out with their feisty red head. That was fun. I was a teenager at the time, but I remember being happy that it wasn’t another blonde, and to be quite honest the red was quite striking against the green and blue back drop of the ocean scenes. I read somewhere that’s why they chose to do it. Either way it worked, and people loved it.

Now there’s a new adaptation. This one is played by a young black girl and happens to be by the same studio who made the animated version that did so well.. and people are OUT OF THEIR MINDS! A lot of people are saying that it’s not a race thing but that the Little Mermaid just has to be a ginger.. because she was last time.. in that one other Disney movie. Funny.. I remember watching “Into the Woods”, another Disney adaptation of a collection of fairy tales and Anna Kendrick was cast as Cinderella… now I don’t know about you, but in my childhood Cinderella was ALWAYS blonde, and Miss Anna is definitely not blonde, nor does she play one on TV. There were no protests and bloggers and online rally cries to Made Cinderella Blonde Again. It was fine.. it was a remake, and the directors were free to cast whomever they chose. Even Disney.

What really surprises me is how many people want to blame children for the outrage. I have seen many people expressing that little ones will be confused by the change. That kids couldn’t possibly understand why they character looks so different this time. Well, I asked my 6 year old what he thought about a “brown” girl playing the part.. his response was, “ok”… that’s it. No clarification needed.. just ok.

Catwoman-KittNo one cared when Laurence Fishburne played Perry White in Man of Steel 2013, or when Eartha Kitt played Catwomen in Batman 1966, or Idris Elba played Heimdel in Thor 2011.. I mean maybe comic book geeks are just not that strict on continuity or cannon.. (sarcasm for those who don’t know any comic book geeks).. or maybe they understand that actors are to be judged not by the color of their skin.. but the content of their character. At any rate… it’s a movie people. Get over it.

Law of Attraction, parenting

Creating your own life

Katrina Russell

I have spent the last decade plus reading, watching, and learning as much as I can about the nature of reality as explained by everyone from Priests, Physicists, Psychologists and Self Help Gurus. I find all of them have a certain amount of credence, and to be honest most of them sat pretty close to the same thing. Reality is what you make it.

I am Catholic. To me this means that I believe in the idea behind the Bible.. I understand that the Bible was written by humans and that humans have the uncanny ability to put their own spin on everything, but when I speak with the clergy of my church or read the Bible myself I find a pattern repeating throughout. God helps those who help them self, Jesus is said to be quoted, “Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.”.

Physicists have discovered with Quantum Theory that nothing happens in the real world without first being observed by consciousness. That our own observations and thoughts change the way the Quantum world plays out.

Psychologists have long said that we are all to take responsibility for our own actions and that the best way to do that is to understand our own feeling and how our thoughts control those feelings. The “chemical imbalance” often blamed for the plethora of mental illness are actually sparked in part by the words we feed to our consciousness everyday. If we are constantly telling ourselves that we are useless, depressed, and our lives suck.. our brains will produce less and less serotonin and/or dopamine and that’s exactly how we will feel. If we tell ourselves we are strong, and think about all of the wonderful things in our lives that we are grateful for then we will create more and more of those “happy” chemicals and we can change the way we actually feel about life.

Self Help Gurus have said pretty much all of this under the category of living in the “Now”, the Law of Attraction, Mindfulness… or whatever catchy name we all choose to identify with.

The reason why I find this information so incredibly interesting and incredibly infuriating is that it’s true, and most people choose not to believe it. When people come to me for help they want there to be an outside influence that can change their life. They want their problems to be someone or something else’s fault. When I explain to them that their life is an accumulation of their life choices and that to change it they just have to change the way they look at life and start making better choices people actually get mad at me.

It amazes me that people would actually choose to be a victim because that way it’s not their fault than to choose to be the hero in their own story. I know that for me I will always choose to be the driver in my own life. I know that things “happen to me”. I know that my life has not been perfect and I’ve had situations arise that weren’t my fault… but I was 100% responsible for how I handled them. If I messed up.. then I am 100% capable of fixing it. I will take that over victim-hood any day.