Category: Health

Affordable Health Care Act 2010, Health

Why Complaining is Useless and Protest is Useful

Mona Alvarado Frazier
Injustice and Protest -quote by Elie Wiesel
Injustice and Protest -quote by Elie Wiesel, flickr.com cc

 

Life between the sheets (of paper) can be busy and distract especially in the post-election and pre-inauguration days.

Many people are frustrated and frightened with the PEOTUS rhetoric and impending changes. I know I am.

I haven’t written about my disappointment with the election except for a November post on hope and social activism. I don’t intend to re-hash why our president-elect is one scary person. You read Twitter and watch/read the news. You know.

The repeal of the Affordable Care Act will impact me and my family the most. I have a pre-existing condition and a kid under 26 years of age. I’ve witnessed what happened to people without insurance before the ACA came into existence; they lost everything and suffered significant health issues.

Complaining about the PEOTUS is futile. Hope and faith without action are fruitless.

My belief is if we want to make changes in our country we need to take peaceful action.

We need to get involved and go past the complaining.

 

 Do you want to know who you are? Don’t ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you. Thomas Jefferson

 

Actions don’t take a lot of time.

If you have two seconds, click and sign a petition. Retweet or post a positive message on change, healthcare, social justice or whatever issues are dear to your heart.

If you have one minute, dash off an email to your senator. Tell her/him to stand up for the issue.

If you have five minutes, call your senator. Google their name and you’ll get their phone number, email, and local office.

Writers, write about the issue. Tweeters, tweet about the issue. Facebooker’s post news on the issue. Use social media for social good.

To find out what writers can do, go over to Writers Resist #WriteOurDemocracy. They list events, author readings and will soon list writing prompts and opportunities for you to use the power of your pen to good influence.

Take a look at Maud Newton’s post on 2017 Resistance Actions: Week One for the specific actions she’s taking about issues.

Indivisible: A Practical Gude for Resisting the Trump Agenda is another site with resources for individuals and groups to utilize. This guide was written by former congressional staffers who reveal best practices for making Congress listen.

If you have a few hours you might attend one of the several protests around the country on January 21, 2017. A retiree was spurred to action after the election and organized the “Women’s March on Washington.”

These are only a few things on my mind as I head into the blogging year and I’m glad I wrote this off my chest.

Thanks for listening.

I’ll leave you with this quote from Dolores Huerta, a social justice activist:

“Every moment is an organizing opportunity, every person a potential activist, every minute a chance to change the world.”

See you next week.

 

 

 

 

Healing, Health, poetry, Self Care, tough times, Wisdom

What to Do When You Don’t Feel Safe

Mona Alvarado Frazier
Anne Lamott self care quote
Unplugging-Anne Lamott

This has been a frightening week, interspersed with personal trying periods, and a need to bury my head for a couple of hours at a time.

My daughter texted me after the tragedy in Nice, France.

iPhone text
Text One
iphone text
Text Two

 

I hated that she felt unsafe. I hated that I couldn’t stretch my arms across 1,000 miles and give her a hug, kiss her forehead. All I could offer her was to look for hope and to take a deep breath.

But I had to remember that feeling unsafe doesn’t mean that we are.

This was my reaction to feeling powerless, angry, and fearful.

I wanted to share the power of prayer with her, but she isn’t Christian or of any faith anymore. That in itself added to my sadness. But, also gave me the opportunity, later, to have a conversation with her about why I pray and how that helps me.

That night the news across all channels broadcast the tragedy. Soon there was another world event, the attempted coup in Turkey, and another, the sniper attack on police officers in Baton Rouge.

I had to keep the television off and stay off social media. My mind, spirit, and body were out of whack.

My attempts at ‘righting’ myself was to practice some self-care. I tried to find ways to relax and experience safety.

The garden beckoned. The Monarch caterpillars had decimated the milkweed leaving it a skeletal reminder of a once gorgeous fiery orange headed plant. Meanwhile, new butterflies showed off acrobatic skills over the remaining fronds of the second milkweed bush.

Butterfly acrobatics
Butterfly acrobatics

While watering the potted succulents I found that two blossomed with beautiful flowers. Being in the garden helped and somehow pushed me to go to the gym and exercise.

Flowering Christmas Cactus in July-Southern Calif.
Flowering Christmas Cactus in July-Southern Calif.

That evening I decided not to go out and sat in my backyard coloring. My sister gifted me with the adult coloring books a few months back. This may sound cheesy, but I felt a lot of pleasure wielding the colored pencils, so much that I had to go buy me a box of Crayola crayons, the giant 64 set box.

The next day, I read a mesmerizing book of poetry written by a man who had been a slave and put into the ‘service’ of a wealthy slave owner as a child of six years of age. Although his verses expose the cruelty of slavery, his poetry reflects the beauty he finds with his parents and his own world.

Book of poetry, cuban poet Juan Francisco Manzano
The Poet Slave of Cuba by Margarita Engle. Poetry of Juan Francisco Manzano.

Meditation via my cell phone is a life saver. I either go to Pandora and listen to Deepak Chopra or I go to the Oprah channel and listen to one of Chopra’s 21 days of meditations. (Many times they are free).

On Sunday, I attended church service where I’m a greeter a couple of times a month. As I passed out bulletins to numerous families, teenagers and the elderly, the smiles people gave after a “good morning, I hope you enjoy the service” enlivened me.

I wondered why I felt a new energy, and it dawned on me that although the people were heavily burdened, they were trying to live and do the best they could.

Over the weekend, I kept in close contact with my daughter and shared the photos above with her. I don’t know if this helped her but it sure helped me.

Do the best you can. Create your own safe space. Hugs.