Kay:
Hey there Questers, and welcome back! It’s Thursday, October 8th and this is Episode 199. We have an awesome Audre Lorde quote for you today and she says, “Nothing I accept about myself can be used against me to diminish me.”
Shi:
Audre was an American writer, a feminist, a poet, and a civil rights activist. She dedicated her life to confronting and addressing injustices including racism, sexism, classism, all the “isms” that there are. She was a real progressive, trailblazer, and pioneer. And this quote is so empowering and I just love it so much. “Nothing I accept about myself can be used against me to diminish me.” I think it’s like the definition of empowerment almost when you really get into it and I think it’s just a great one.
Kay:
Well, I think that this is what every single therapist wants from all of their patients right? To get down into the hardest parts of what make us human – AKA: the really hurtful parts – and to accept them. Now, acceptance doesn’t mean, like, “La la la I’m so happy that horrible things happened to me, or that I did that horrible thing.” But, acceptance means that you are at least at the very bare minimum taking accountability for whatever your part was in it, and then understanding that you can’t change the past so that you may move toward the future.
Shi:
I think that’s a really beautiful way to understand Kay, and I like bringing that aspect of it in. Because, when I first heard this quote, I was really thinking about what are those things that others could look at and say “that’s a weakness,” but then you accept that and then they can’t use it to diminish you. But, bringing in this dimension of accepting what has happened to you so that others can’t use it against you and diminish you – OR that you can’t use it against yourself and diminish yourself, is really interesting to bring in here. And, I think that in both cases it really is about seeing things from an objective place for yourself, which then allows you to define it in a way that is, as we said in the beginning, empowering.
Kay:
When I was a little kid I was a little bit on the chubbier side and I was very self-conscious of it around nine to 10 years old. My clothes started fitting a little bit tighter, and I was much taller than both the boys and the girls in my class. So, the combination of being taller and then also being bigger made me a little bit intimidating and I was very, very self-conscious about my body. And I remember so starkly one time I was on the bus and some boys jokingly called me Kay Kong and Kayzilla – referring to me as King Kong and Godzilla. And it hurt my heart so bad and was one of those things that just haunted me for years and years and years. And it really wasn’t until this last year that I kind of got into accepting my body for when she’s more bloated, AND for when she’s on the thinner side and very healthy. And looking back at those childhood wounds and accepting myself wholly and understanding that – if I had more self-acceptance around my body at that time – those wounds wouldn’t have hurt me nearly as deeply as they did. And, they certainly don’t hurt me when I think of them now.
Shi:
Well, it’s funny if you think about other kids who might be taller and bigger in the class who feel good about that. Or, who used that as a bullying mechanism, or who used that to become football stars. And so, especially in this day and age, how we define something differently or accept it in a different way can completely change the outcome of certain experiences. Being a social science student myself, and acutely knowing what nepotism is and knowing that it is really the act of giving a favor and positions to the people that you know, the people in your family, and the people that you have relationships with – you can’t help but then start to look around at every family business, pretty much every career, every workplace and see that this is happening everywhere, right? Who gets promoted? It’s the person who’s well liked by the leadership. Who is it that you think of immediately when you’ve got a new need or a contract? Oh, “I have a friend,” or, “so and so’s daughter.” Or this and that person that you know. It’s like you use your network and when we’re doing it responsibly right, we call it networking, we call it family owned business, and we call it legacy. But, if you look at it from this angle it’s basically nepotism. Nepotism just makes it the bad side of it. So, when I did my TED talk, my TEDx talk in 2015 I was speaking about family business, I was speaking about empowering and emboldening those members of our family and our community that we were friends with, and I knew that some people would look at that and call it nepotism. And so, I wanted to use that word in the title in order to not allow others to diminish me by saying that my actions and our family business was nepotism…Which is why the TEDx talk is called, “Nepotism Is My
American Dream.”
Kay:
Well, this is such a great lesson and a fantastic reminder as to how we can take the things that others might use against us and dance with it, right? Like Tony Robbins teaches us to dance with fear and that’s exactly what we do here – we find the things that may otherwise hurt us and we utilize it and we dance with it! And we charge forward instead. So often did we see people who were almost immune to bullying in high school and elementary school, be the people who, when someone would say, “Oh your face is weird.” They’d say, “Yep, I got a weird face.” Right? And, that acceptance was that dance that allowed them to turn whatever it was that was hurting them into something that happened within their favor. So, Shi, I’m hoping you’ll bring us home with this awesome quote!
Shi:
Audre Lorde says, “Nothing I accept about myself can be used against me to diminish me.”
Kay:
Alright gang, that means today’s quest is a #ThoughtfulThursday quest. We want you to reflect on this question: What personal attributes do you currently feel have the potential to diminish your power? What would it take for you to empower those parts of yourself? Are you ready?
Kay & Shi:
Let’s quest!