Make Your Damn Bed Julie Merica

Yesterday I rambled on about power structures and today I want to clarify some of those thoughts. 
Primarily when it comes to the definition of Power. 
When a concept is this abstract it carries a different meaning for different individuals - based on our experiences and situations. There are so many words that carry different meanings for people: power, democracy, equality - but the more we can discuss the different meanings and narrow down our definitions, the easier it is to communicate effectively, act effectively, and create change effectively. 
Luckily the commons library had plenty of valuable information to share and that’s where I stumbled upon: Srilatha Batliwala, All About Power: Understanding Social Power and Power Structures, where she acknowledges the nuance of understanding power in it’s many forms while also recognizing that we have to understand it fully to really achieve any kind of social change - regardless of our specific areas of work. 
Srilatha begins with this: “As activists, we are concerned about the injustice, inequality, marginalization, exclusion, discrimination, stigma, and violence that we see around us. But do we always recognize that power is at the heart of each of these, and at the heart of every social problem? Do we realize that injustice and inequality of every kind is actually an expression of power or a symptom of power structures? The fact is that power lies at the heart of human relationships and of how societies are organized. So when activists try to change people’s lives, or tackle the injustices they face, we are actually trying to change power equations.”
RESOURCE: https://creaworld.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/All-About-Power.pdf 
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The opinions expressed by Julie Merica and Make Your Damn Bed Podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. Make Your Damn Bed podcast is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.

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Empowerment starts as a personal experience, then grows to our close relationships, and eventually becomes the collective. Today, we dig into the concept of power as discussed in Jo Rowland's 1997 work: Empowerment Examined.
THE COMMONS: https://commonslibrary.org/wp-content/uploads/How-to-Make-a-Difference-5-Stepes-to-be-an-Effective-Change-Maker-2022_Commons-Library.pdf
VIDEO RESOURCES FROM THE COMMONS: https://commonslibrary.org/9-videos-from-key-thinkers-on-how-to-change-the-world/
JO ROWLANDS EMPOWERMENT EXAMINED: https://pages.uoregon.edu/aweiss/Intl640/Rowlands%20Empowerment%20Examined.pdf
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The opinions expressed by Julie Merica and Make Your Damn Bed Podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. Make Your Damn Bed podcast is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.

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If we become curious about ourselves, we'll start to realize what parts of our identity are really ours vs. what we think other's expect from us.
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The opinions expressed by Julie Merica and Make Your Damn Bed Podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. Make Your Damn Bed podcast is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.

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just getting back from a trip and a delayed flight means a re-release of a classic.
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The opinions expressed by Julie Merica and Make Your Damn Bed Podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. Make Your Damn Bed podcast is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.

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Humans are animals and I can’t tell you how hard it is for me to remember that fact. This is why it feels like, every time I am reminded of that fact - that we are all just big dumb animals - there’s a part of me that is humbled but there is a bigger part of me that is relieved because it feels like my failings are less of a personal attack and more of a common symptom of what happens in the life of a human animal. 
One thing in particular I feel VERY conscious of my humanness in is when it comes to my struggles with restlessness and wanting - because there are billion dollar corporations manipulating our animal instincts to make us feel that way. 
The best shoppers are the restless, wanting shoppers + I spend every day resisting my urges to go buy a little trinket or tasty treat or new business venture for myself. Every time I see a targeted ad, I curse out that company’s marketing budget because it’s really violently targeted to what I want and they’re only getting more specific. My phone literally knows what I want before I do - often and that’s not only scary for privacy reasons, it’s also super fucking manipulative. 
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It’s not about giving someone the world, it’s about making them feel like they are an important part of yours. Which means, it’s hard to do properly. It’s a ton of cognitive load to pay attention to, remember what, and constantly hunt for things with a perfect discernment. It’s really easy to fuck it up, and that’s okay too. I think,, fucks ups are easy to overlook if your intention is genuinely pure, and probably why we should be a little more socially conscious of the things people give to us. 

I do also find it powerful to recognize that if you focus too much on the reaction, you’re losing sight of the purpose of gift giving altogether. You wanna give them something nice, not force them to smile. 
Most people are just happy you thought of them at all, don’t overthink it if it’s becoming stressful, just lean into your first instincts, or do what I do, ask around and get some ideas for fan favorites, and again, so many people are just happy to get a gift, it doesn’t matter if it’s prolonged eye contact. That’s how attention starved so many of us are. 
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The opinions expressed by Julie Merica and Make Your Damn Bed Podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. Make Your Damn Bed podcast is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.

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