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In this episode, Dani gives an update on what's been going on in their Life and reflects on their recent actions.
For links & recommendations, see full episode notes.
Dani is honest and refreshing in her takes on the world and society. Listen as she explains how she’s come to understand the world through kindness, both towards ourselves and everything else.
Podcast Intro:
[0:00] Hello friends! Welcome to Understanding Kindness, a podcast hosted by me, Dani! I’m someone who approaches life by learning from everyone around me, and I’ve decided to write it all down and talk about it here with you. I’ve learned that in order to create change in this world, we need to understand ourselves and the world around us, all while infusing kindness into everything we do. If I can do it, you can do it, and we can do it together. Welcome to Understanding Kindness.
Editor Dani:
[0:30] Hey there! Editor Dani popping in to say that the audio is even worse on this episode than the previous episode. I’m sorry about that. There’s, you know, some moving going on. The recording situation isn’t the best. I apologize. I hope that the content makes it worth it. Thank you for bearing with me. Enjoy the episode.
Episode Intro:
[0:56] Hi, it’s me, Dani. Nice to be talking with you again. I’d like to do some self-reflection today and talk about what’s been going on in my Life lately. I’m wondering if this will come across like a journal entry; that’ll be interesting to see. I’m completely taking a detour from my plan from the previous episode. Perhaps I will continue it one day, perhaps not. That’s what you get with this show: mostly consistent and sometimes chaotic. There’s really not much else to say about it; let’s just get into the episode.
Native Segment:
[1:28] Alrighty, we’re into our Native segment for today and I’ll be talking about another episode of the It’s Going Down podcast titled, “Cuban Anarchists On Context And Importance Of The Recent Wave Of Protests”. In the episode, the host interviews two Cuban anarchists about the spontaneous protests that occurred on the island this past Summer. They discuss the make-up and origins of the demonstrations, highlighting the working-class and siting poor government response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
[1:56] The majority of the protests were carried out by the poorest classes in cuba, and ultimately born out of a classist system of oppression. These uprisings are historic for Cubans, as protests like these have not occurred on the island for decades. The government has repressed voices and spread disinformation to ensure that demonstrations like these do not take place. However, with these spontaneous marches, the internet took interest and demonstrations spread throughout the nation.
[2:24] The cuban government is skilled in their oppressive tactics, though, and ended up shutting the internet down to reduce the visibility and impact of the marches. This quickly dispersed action around the demonstrations and allowed the government to take back control in these spaces. The spreading of disinformation about the protests also added a confusion element and furthered the dispersal of the protests.
[2:45] I’d like for us to take a look at these uprisings and learn from them. When I heard about them and the tactics that the cuban government used to suppress them, I couldn’t help but think that these are the same ways the US is silencing marginalized voices and that the US could very well learn more tactics from the cuban government in their effectiveness. We need to see that imperialist governments will use whatever tactics they have at their disposal to shut down revolutions…because of course they will! and we need to learn from the movements before us to overcome them.
[3:16] We need to support those on the ground of other revolutions to show solidarity and share information. IGD gives resources to help support mutual aid programs and the cuban anarachists on the frontlines, which I’ll link in the episode notes. Take a listen to the episode yourself to hear how these revolutionaries are fighting the imperialist cuban government at every turn. The episode will be linked in the show notes.
Shout-Outs:
[3:42] YooooooOOooOoOo! It’s Patron time! Thank you, kindly, my lovely Patrons. Please enjoy the episode.
If you’d like to support the show, visit patreon for monthly donations or paypal for one-time and recurring donations. They’ll be links for both in the episode notes.
Main Topic:
[4:00] So I’ve done some reflecting lately and I want to talk about it here on the podcast because it has a lot to do with the podcast. I think I’ve got to start with what’s been going on in my Life first though. I ‘m really excited for this episode now because it does already kind of feel like a journal entry. Anyway, let’s go back to the end of this past Gregorian year, 2021.
[4:23] In mid-November I started a new job at a restaurant. I had been working there for about a month when I started training someone new named Mozel. They were very cool and we pretty much talked the entire weekend as it was very slow in the restaurant. If you’re paying attention you may notice that this is around mid-December now. I was planning on staying with my Family for the holidays the following week. Jorge ended up contracting COVID though, and I spent that time caring for him while he fought off the virus. It ended up knocking him on his ass for a few days, but he got over it relatively quickly; and I was able to avoid it entirely.
[4:59] By the end of that week, we had decided to break up and I moved out. During this time I was getting to know Mozel more and more. I needed a friend and ze was there for me. I developed a crush rather quickly and we began hanging out more often. If you’re still keeping up we’re at the last week of the year. Mozel and I decided to spend New Year’s Eve together at their apartment and essentially have been together since. We were both very into each other and just went with our hearts and decided to start a romantic relationship.
[5:30] I was in no way planning on starting another relationship so soon after my previous one had ended. My plan was to move back in with my mom and not really think about relationships until I needed to. There were a couple of things that I did know I wanted in whatever relationship I ended up in next: it would definitely need to be a queer relationship and they’d have to have similar politics to mine. I have done a lot of learning and growing over the past 3 years and I needed a partner who would do the same with me. Enter Mozel.
[6:02] It still seems serendipitous. I’ve never experienced many of these feelings before and I am incredibly grateful that I was able to follow my heart and not be in my head so much. I wouldn’t say I was unlike myself in any way, I was actually very much myself, more myself than I’d been in over a decade. As Mozel is also non-binary and had been out and living that NB Life for a bit, I felt incredibly safe to also be my non-binary Self. Immediately I felt safe being who I am around Mozel and that had a lot to do with how quickly things developed between us.
[6:37] I didn’t even realize how much of myself I was hiding, how much I was trying to be who I thought others wanted me to be. Meeting a completely new Person and being my unapologetic Self around them allowed me to let go of that image of who I thought I should be in my head. It helped a lot that we met at the workplace that is a safe space for Queer and Trans People so I was already more myself there than at other places; and that was the Person Mozel met so we were off to a great start already.
[7:04] It was evident from our initial conversations that Mozel also loved spending their Life learning and growing, so that was extremely attractive to me. They had and were learning and growing in ways that were similar to me and we shared the same politics. I was enamored as I hadn’t met anyone in the real world who believed the same things I did and was living their Life to try to change society as I was. It really was bound to take off from there.
[7:30] So, probably needless to say, I’ve done much more learning and growing over the past two months or so than I have even in the past six months. Partly because I’m learning so much from Mozel about things I did not know, and also because I’m in a new relationship with someone completely new to me and we’re learning about each other a lot. Many of my flaws are being highlighted. I’m learning how to communicate better and more and I’m learning how much I’m capable of. I’ve grown as a Person so much and I can’t wait to keep growing more with Mozel.
[8:03] They’ve been helping me a lot with my communication. Ze unapologetically calls out my bullshit and allows me the opportunities to change. Perhaps some may have seen this next part coming; I did not. As I mentioned in episode 43, I had been trying to avoid saying “I’m sorry”. In my mind, completely striking this phrase from my vocabulary was the way to go and the solution to all societal problems because I wanted to do better instead of absolving myself from ever having to do better by simply saying two words. I had been practicing this in my everyday Life, even and especially with my partner. Instead of saying “I’m sorry” when I had hurt them, I would listen to what they were telling me about how my behavior or actions had affected them, tell them how I intended to do better, and then try to do better. Mozel kindly pointed out after a few instances of me not actually apologizing for what I’d done that this felt very invalidating.
[9:01] That was my last intention. In Dani’s head, doing better was the thing that would make it so I didn’t perpetuate the harm that I was causing. The rest of society, including Mozel, needed an actual apology; more of an acknowledgement that I had done harm and felt badly for it. I hadn’t come up with any term to replace “I’m sorry” with so I was just jumping right to the do better part. This obviously wasn’t working and Mozel showed me that. And it was as I was writing the last episode that I realized what I had been doing.
[9:33] In the last episode, I talked about binary thinking and how it blinds us from the reality that everything is nuanced and deserves thoughtful consideration. We don’t want to just jump to a conclusion based on either this or that. This is also called black-and-white thinking. Can you see how I employed this type of thinking in this example of saying “I’m sorry”? I had convinced myself that saying sorry had no business anywhere in my conversations because I could just do better, instead of absolving myself from any responsibility to do better by simply apologizing. I had decided that saying sorry was never okay and I would completely strike it from my vocabulary. This does not have to be the case.
[10:14] People need apologies. We need each other to acknowledge the harm we’ve caused to one another. Saying you’re sorry does not mean that you will not pursue action to do better in the future. Yes, it definitely can and we can see this happen many times throughout history, but that does not mean we must perpetuate that ideology in our own Lives. We can apologize and make it intentional with how we’ll change in the future. Mozel helped shed light on how my actions, or lack there of, were making People feel, and I am forever grateful for zir for that.
[10:47] So, in turn with saying “I’m sorry”, I’ve also re-examined my use of the word please. I feel similarly about this word and use it on occasion. Mozel pointed out that everyone around me in society had agreed on these niceties and to completely forgo them, without replacement, came off as weird and, I’m assuming, rude. Of course these have never been my intentions. I hadn’t tried this tactic out in real Life until I met Mozel so I wasn’t aware of how People would perceive these social divergences. Thankfully, they are there to present a mirror to my actions and allow me the opportunities to change.
[11:24] Thinking about it now, it seems incredibly obvious to me that I could both say sorry and do better. It’s insidious, really, when you think about how ingratiated this type of thinking is in our minds. I honestly had no idea that I was thinking in a binary matter. In my mind, I had been trying to change a societal norm that I had deduced as harmful and decided that it was all or nothing. There is so much nuance in apologies; I had forgotten that there is nuance in everything. Once again I am grateful for Mozel for being my mirror and reminding me of this.
Conclusion:
[11:59] It’s funny how sometimes all we’ve got to do is take our own advice. Learning and growing isn’t linear and we’ve got to make mistakes if we’re going to change. It’s helpful to have someone around who can show you and tell you how your behaviors affect others. We can also pay attention to how others react when we’re out in the Wild trying new things. How do our actions make others feel? This question usually allows us to look at more nuance before jumping to binary conclusions.
[12:27] Sure, there are situations where saying “please” or “I’m sorry” would be an automatic response. I guess I’m saying that we can just take the time to slow down before doing or saying something to examine if that automated response will actually suffice in a particular situation. It’s a combination of binary thinking and a trained automatic response that doesn’t allow for nuance and that plays into the speed is key idiom.
[12:51] I will say this once again: slowing down is revolutionary. In a society that teaches us to move quickly through our thoughts without really thinking about them, taking the time to slow the thought process down and think through our words and actions allows us to move through the world in a kinder, more understanding way. When we take the time to think through our thoughts and actions, even and especially the ones that occurred in the past, we can analyze them to determine how we can move about in the future to cause less harm.
[13:22] This reflection is necessary in Life and if we want to have sustainable, kind, understanding relationships with People. Sometimes we’ve got a lot going on in our Lives and it’s difficult to take the time to slow down or reflect. It’s worth the effort to try to remember to do these things as often as possible so we can continually learn and grow, and having someone by your side to help you do that can make all the difference.
Recommendations:
[13:48] It’s recommendation time! Okay, so for today we’ve got an It’s Going Down episode called, “Cuban Anarchists On Context And Importance Of The Recent Wave Of Protests”. Learn about the cuban uprisings this past Summer, the government tactics to disperse them, and anarachists’ response to the government’s attempted silencing. I’ll link it up in the show notes.
Plugs:
[14:10] If you enjoyed this episode, help support the podcast! All this content is free and I’d love to make it my job one day, so if you’re financially able join our patreon or send a one-time or recurring donation through paypal! You can also share an episode with family or friends, and give UK a kind rating and review!
Check out UnderstandingKindness.com for all episodes, transcripts, and blog posts. And why not take a listen to my other podcast, Better When Awkward, co-hosted by my childhood best friend Jasmine!
Get in touch with me by emailing UnderstandingKindness@protonmail.com, or through social media. You can find all links in the episode notes.
For now, be kind, be compassionate, be understanding, and question everything. I’ll be here. Thank you for listening to this episode of Understanding Kindness. [End transcript]