I am reading a book right now by Jason Drees titled Doing the Impossible. I would describe this book as an exploration of the frames of awareness, mindset and personal action in which we live our lives.
He is helping me to see that what my life brings forth has a lot to do with whether my frame of awareness is aligned with my goals in life.
I heard the front doorbell ring recently and began to move toward it knowing that we had some work being done on the house. As I approached I could see that the manager of the work was standing in the door talking to Lydia and my son who was here visiting. As I approached, he turned and rechanneled everything to me. Later, Lydia told me that she had answered the door, and he started telling her what he needed. Then, our son appeared, and he turned and began talking to him as if Lydia were no longer there. When I arrived, he clearly made me the focus of the conversation.
I get vaguely uncomfortable when I hear someone critiquing “white male privilege.” I don’t aim to live as a white man who is privileged and empowered above all others. But, I live in a space (state, country, world) where those doing business with us will talk to “the woman” if they have to, prefer to talk to any male who walks up (he didn’t even know who my son was); and is relieved to deal with “the man of the house” over all others. If skin tone is part of the choice, the white man holds rank. In a microcosmic view, that’s white, male privilege. Being uncomfortable with the critique is an important sign that my frame of awareness is misaligned. It’s not enough to know that I don’t personally support privilege for white males. There’s much more at stake than my personal feelings.
As we explore the gifts of justice and equity this month, they may challenge us with uncomfortable feelings. We can resist when those feelings arise, or we can accept the uncomfortable feelings as an invitation to reframe our awareness. We can begin to imagine and create spaces where justice and equity exist for all beings. Uncomfortable feelings challenge us. We can resist, or we can review, reflect and reframe.
~Bob Patrick
AWESOME reflection, Bob! It’s so hard when this work gets “real”–by which I mean when it moves out of our heads and into our hearts and bodies. Especially for those of us who are placed in one or more groups with privilege, we can relish *learning* about the systems that make these false hierarchies; we can sense the potential for liberation when we can SEE what’s actually going on. But that’s not enough to make the liberation happen. There’s just no change without discomfort–but goodness gracious, my discomfort is nothing compared to the pain of those most impacted by these systems. So I’m trying to reframe that “discomfort” into a sign of aliveness and growth–and most of all, of shared humanity! El pueblo unido jamás será vencido!
I can connect with this scenario being a solo woman on her own. I tend to frame myself as if I were male; eye to eye, confident, keep it simple, Get down to business, no sugar coating, etc. This is absurd but the social norms have been set. I love the 3R recipe , Review, Reflect , Reframe, so long as the underprivileged don’t have to do all the work !