Politics – Carrie Kenner: Doula Trainer. Writing Coach. Sacred Feminine Guide. https://carriekenner.com Carrie Kenner helps people manifest their dreams as doulas, writers, or as the divine feminine. Fri, 13 Dec 2024 22:35:37 +0000 en hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.1 https://i0.wp.com/carriekenner.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/cropped-heart.png?fit=32%2C32&ssl=1 Politics – Carrie Kenner: Doula Trainer. Writing Coach. Sacred Feminine Guide. https://carriekenner.com 32 32 196118485 Teaching Hate is Child Abuse https://carriekenner.com/2024/07/29/child-abuse/ https://carriekenner.com/2024/07/29/child-abuse/#respond Mon, 29 Jul 2024 19:54:18 +0000 https://carriekenner.com/?p=2058

How Children Learn to Hate

Long before learning their ABCs, 1+1=2, and “Share your toys,” children learn how to be a human from the people around them. If we're not careful — or worse, if it's intentional — children also learn to hate. So let's call teaching hate what it is: child abuse.

A couple of months ago, I was writing a lot about how children learn — how we all learned as children to be in the world. (See my blog posts How We Learn and Families: The Training Ground for Small Humans.) 

We learn from our parents or our primary caregivers. We watch them closely, looking at their behaviors and words to figure out how to behave and what is right or correct.

We learn things like what foods are "normal," how people interact, and what is safe or not safe to do. 

We absorb all these things primarily by watching, and then over time, we are told things explicitly. We also learn implicitly by watching others around us. It’s a complex, layered process of learning, happening mainly in the first couple of years of life.

Some kids are fortunate to see and experience love and caring and learn really positive things, while others see and experience horrendous things and learn hardness and fear. Either way, it shapes their worldview.

It’s Unfair When Kids Have No Control

Whether good or bad, these experiences imprint on kids how to be in the world, and they don’t have control over it.

First of all, they don't have control over their environment and can’t choose what they see or experience.

They also don't have control over how to think about things because they don't have rational thinking ability yet.

They can't say, "Wait, I saw one thing and that disproves this other thing I saw." 

That kind of thinking isn't developed in the brain yet until they are teens. (And then it’s still pretty rudimentary!)

Children also are also at a huge disadvantage to making comparisons because they are unable to read nuance. While they are very watchful and see nuance, they don’t know how to interpret it.

So it’s important to understand that biologically and developmentally, children simply can’t process things the way adults do.

And even if they could make these discernments between what they are told and what they observe themselves, children are entirely dependent on others for care and are hard-wired to do whatever it takes to fit in, to not be ostracized, to belong.

Teaching Hate: The Unseen Child Abuse

Many forms of child abuse are obvious and unquestioned: Sexual assault, physical violence, emotional abuse where children are told they are stupid, bad, or worthless. 

Each of these violates the physical space, holistic development, and innocence of children. 

But there is another realm that is violated and rarely talked about: the pure hearts of children. 

Children come into the world pure. I've seen hundreds of babies come into the world, and there isn't a lick of hatred in their bodies. They may not like being cold, being outside the womb, or being poked and prodded, but they don’t hate anything. 

Babies react to discomfort purely from survival instincts, not from judgment or hate.

Their nervous system tells them if something hurts and they cry in response.

If they're feeling cold, their hard wiring says, "Being cold is not good for survival,” so...cry. 

When they need energy, their belly cramps and they want to eat.

Their crying make it look like they’re pissed off and angry, but there's no judgment involved.

It’s all just survival wiring.

But when they learn that broccoli is yucky and they haven't even tasted broccoli, they are being conditioned — brainwashed — by somebody around them.

The Difference Between Broccoli and Spiders

As they grow, children learn many behaviors and ideas. Learning to dislike broccoli is unfortunate, but not harmful. However, when they are taught to dislike or hate other people, animals, or even insects, it becomes deeply problematic.

Most people don’t hate spiders or bees because of personal experience; fear of insects is often passed down as a behavior or belief. But if everyone goes around killing every insect they see in ignorance (versus personal experience or knowledge), these critters who are essential to our planet’s survival get annihilated. Not good!

But let’s get back to my focus on hating people. 

When kids are taught to dislike, judge, or hate other people, cultures, countries, or religions, they have no defense against such horrid thinking. 

Any type of hatred or judgment against others — but especially racism because it’s so easy to target someone visually this way — is child abuse because it gets planted in the brain of a vulnerable child. 

They aren’t equipped to question what they are being told. 

They learn a type of thinking, it becomes part of their thought and behavior patterns, and they go out into the world and replicate that ideology and attitude.

Hatred gets normalized and we see it all around us.

The Difference Between Spiders and Mexico

Many people think it is perfectly fine to dislike people from another country. What??? Why would I hate someone who is otherwise just like me except for the continent they were born on (which, by the way, they had absolutely no choice in)? Should they grow up to hate their country because it’s not my country? Or should they grow up to hate me because of my great misfortune to be born in a country other than theirs?

Try this exercise to see how hate works in our hearts:

Take a few deep breaths and imagine this scenario: Someone see you. Your skin color is different from them. You speak a different language from them. You eat something different for breakfast than they do. And they hate you for it. 

Imagine what that hatred must feel like in their heart. Put yourself in their body for a moment but feel their feelings in your body.

How does their hatred feel in your heart when imagining it? Yucky, huh? Tight, painful, hard.

Now, feel in your body what it feels like to be hated (don’t think about it or how you’d respond to them, just FEEL what it’s like to be hated). Can you feel what their judgment does to your body? Do you feel safe? Is your brain affected? How is your heart?

Nobody wins when hate is involved. Not the hater or the hated.

Yet most people are taught that nationalism is just fine.

Kids Say the Darndest Things

Children repeat what they hear. It's how they learn to talk and — remember they have no filters —while this can sometimes be entertaining, it also shows how they can perpetuate harmful ideas without understanding them.

You know that expression, "Kids say the darndest things?"

Well, they do. They repeat what they hear, often out of context or with a mispronounced word that makes it adorable.

Sometimes what they’re repeating is not appropriate for their age but they don’t know that. 

And sometimes, what they’re repeating should have never been said in the first place.

I was parking at the local Costco a few months ago and saw a truck parked near the front of the store. Across the back of the truck was a banner that said “Fuck Biden.”

I imagined the freshly-minted 6-year-old reader sounding it out proudly for grandma. 

Or the confusion it instilled in an 8-year-old who heard enough news to wonder what on earth the President had done to cause such hatred.

Maybe a kid saw the driver of the truck and they looked just like their favorite uncle. “Hmmm, yeah, maybe I should think like him, too,” without having any more understanding of the statement.

But mostly I wondered who the fuck thought it was okay to put that on their truck and drive around in public with it, innocent children be damned? Child abuse.

(And in case you're wondering: If I saw a truck that said 'Fuck Trump" I'd think the same thing.)

Why Even Teens Lack Discernment

It’s true that much of human survival is based on detecting differences. It’s how our brain categorizes things to decide if they are safe, dangerous, or unknown based on past experience.

Our bodies are hard-wired to notice differences and pay attention to them.

But hating differences is something our minds conjured up. 

Children have the ability to see inconsistencies, but they will often keep it to themselves. Or the spunky kid will say, "Hey wait, I saw one person that looks like someone you told me to hate, and they were really nice, but you told me they're all mean.”

When kids get to the age where they can safely individuate from their parents, they still choose not to honor anything that goes against the values they’ve been taught. If they are well-conditioned and fearful, they are unlikely to say, "Wait a second, I'm seeing some flaws in your teaching."

Even teenagers are afraid to stand out or confront a parent because their survival is still heavily dependent on that parent and the desire to belong. Peer pressure at its worst.

Breaking the Cycle

Unfortunately, there’s nothing I can personally do to change all the hatred in the world. But I do know that if each individual becomes aware of this kind of abuse, and each family vows to end hate violence, it can be stopped.

If you work with families and children, consider how you can raise adults’ awareness of what they’re saying about others. Remind them that their children take their words as facts, and poisoning their minds with hatred is unfair and child abuse.

Of course, we first need to get hatred out of our hearts, language, and minds. We all have it because we’ve all learned it in our culture of othering. It will take some intentional practice to instead accept and be kind to people who are different from us (which is everyone). 

Be Mindful of Your Words

Don Miguel Ruiz, a Toltec teacher, said, "Be impeccable with your word" in his book The Four Agreements. That means to carefully curate what you speak to not cause harm to yourself or others. I attempt to do it everyday. I fail at it everyday. But my failed version is better than if I didn’t try at all.

We can all be more mindful of the things we say about others. And we can make sure our kids understand, as early as possible, that people say things that aren’t necessarily true. 

When it comes to people having different opinions from yours, it’s inevitable. My stance is that, as long as no one is being harmed by someone’s opinion (i.e. they don’t force it on others or instill it in defenseless children), they are entitled to it. However, when someone wants their ideas or opinions to be institutionalized — made the only legal or available option — or used to make people feel unsafe or less valued than others, then it becomes harmful. 

Then they are peddling oppression, which is cruel and dismissive of other people’s dignity and rights. Basically, hate. 

The Importance of Teaching Truth

We see the spread of hate so much in the world today with grown people spewing verbal attacks on people they don’t agree with, or book bans that prevent kids from learning all the history so they can see how hate played out in the past. 

What kind of example does this set for children to learn about other people’s ways of being instead of attacking them for it?

Why would anyone try to prevent learning about history when we know that if we don’t understand our history, we’re doomed to repeat it? 

Attacks and bans come from the same place: fear and moral weakness masquerading as power.

So does propagating hate.

If we poison children’s bodies with toxins, that is child abuse.

If we're poisoning their minds with hate, that is child abuse as well.

So let's do better. I hope you join me in that.

***

If you’d like help creating more mindfulness, love, and compassion in your home or work  schedule a free call to see how I can support you.

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]]> https://carriekenner.com/2024/07/29/child-abuse/feed/ 0 2058 Human and Business Systems: The Beauty and Brutality https://carriekenner.com/2024/07/09/human-business-systems/ https://carriekenner.com/2024/07/09/human-business-systems/#respond Tue, 09 Jul 2024 20:21:14 +0000 https://carriekenner.com/?p=2033

I love human and business systems.

I'm not super proud of this fact but it's my reality.

Systems are a collection of activities, procedures, and ways of doing things repeatedly that form a pattern that is predictable and makes things easier.

At least for some people.

This leads to why I'm not proud of the fact that I love systems. 

While systems can be helpful, they are also what create and maintain colonization, patriarchy, white supremacy, dominance, and oppression.

So today I'm talking about how to create compassionate human and business sytems.

But let’s back up to the beauty of human and business systems first...

I — like all human beings — like familiarity and predictability.

That’s because humans — even though we think we're the top dogs in the universe— are actually quite vulnerable.

We're vulnerable to threats to our wellbeing and our physical bodies, as well as our egos and our future (what we worry might happen to us).

Worry creates anxiety and that activates our nervous system into a stress response.

Our brains don’t like stress (neither do our bodies).

What our brains love is knowing what to expect.

They love knowing that they've seen this process before so they can assume the same thing that happened last time is going to happen again. 

That’s what systems do for us: provide predictability.

Systems also save us time. And I’m sure you've heard the adage time is money.

So humans tend to like systems for their familiarity, and time and money saving features. People in western cultures have been highly conditioned to rely on systems to be efficient, effective, and predictable.

You’re Already Loving Some Systems

If you have a few routines you do over and over, you’ve created a human system that probably makes your life easier or gets something done in a more efficient way.

If you have a set of tasks you do before you go to bed every night, that's a system.

If you have a certain thing that you eat for breakfast every morning, that's a system.

If there's a particular route that you take to work every day, that is a system.

If you create a monthly budget and set up all your bills on autopay, that is a financial system.

If you take your car to the Jiffy Wash every Friday and you have Joe clean it out every month, then you have a car care system.

Those things all help you maintain an order in your life. But that’s not why I like systems.

Systems Are a Gift to Your Nervous System

Let’s compare humans to animals for a moment...

Humans have a sense of time, ego (control), and safety. When those senses are threatened, our brains get freaked out because our hard-wired stress response gets overridden by our emotional and thought responses, creating havoc. 

Animals, on the other hand, only deal with safety. When their safety is threatened, they are well-equipped to respond to danger (they are much stronger and faster than humans, and they don’t think about it, they just react). And the next most important part?

Animals know how to discharge stress after a dangerous incident.

Humans? We store the aftermath in our bodies, causing further distress. 

So the more we can reduce stress, the better our nervous systems can function. That’s why systems are helpful.

Animals don't have systems. They are not time or ego-oriented, making them extremely inefficient.

Animals do one thing at a time. They do that one thing over and over. And while it’s a pattern (familiar), it’s also redundant. 

Have you ever watched a cat walk back and forth, back and forth along the windowsill, or a dog turn three times before lying down? Every time? Ugh, so inefficient!

Or have you ever watched an animal try to gather a bunch of their young ones? They pick up one and take it over there, and then the other ones disperse, and then they catch another one to take over to the first, but it’s already joined the others. They go back and forth at this until they finally get all the kiddos corralled.

Kids love animal behavior because kids aren’t programmed to be efficient yet. They do the same repetitive, inefficient stuff.

But adults watch animals and just shake their heads. 

So, while animals are very inefficient, they do pay attention to patterns.

They walk the same trail every day because it’s familiar, which makes it easier to identify anything different that could be of danger. That will set off their alarm system.

Most humans are taught to turn off their alarm systems and instead rely on calculated predictability.

Business Systems

In business, there are a number of different systems.

There's an operating system, which is a set of policies and procedures that guide how a business is run.

An operating system is powerful because it’s both effective and efficient, but also because it can be given to anybody to implement.

If I hire somebody new, I can show them the operating system and they can follow the procedures and do their job.

We also have marketing systems, which are methods we use over and over again to reach people we want to become our clients or buy more widgets.

Businesses have financial systems that track income and expenses, report profits, calculate taxes, and pay employees.

Then there are client management systems. These are the set of actions that drive a client through the process of working with you, from how they become a client to providing information, scheduling visits, concluding service, and gathering feedback.

Those are all examples of systems that you might see in a business you visit or set up for your own company.

Bigger Systems

We’ve looked at human and business systems. But there are bigger systems that are statewide, national, or worldwide. Systems like the World Bank — a financial system that guides how money is loaned around the world and how different countries interact with each other to improve the standard of living globally.

There are highway systems that consist of how roads are built, constructed, and used — from freeways to highways, country roads to city streets, arterials to neighborhood streets. Traffic rules guide people on how to use those roads safely.

Then we have things like the healthcare system — the network of hospitals, clinics, ancillary services, and insurance companies. In this system, all these different entities work together to deliver healthcare to people.

There are also systems within our own bodies. The cardiovascular system — a huge system of all the blood vessels, heart and lungs — gets oxygenated blood to all parts of the body.  

These are all big systems that are composed of multiple parts that are designed to make everything work well for everything that's involved.

The Center of a System

I believe that systems can be incredibly helpful as long as people understand what they're designed to do, who they help, and how they can harm as well.

Within every system, something is considered the most important in that system.

The World Bank, for example, is a financial system centered around loaning money from one country to another. The beneficiaries of this system are poorer countries, but raising the standard of living globally is what is most important.

The cardiovascular system is centered around the heart. All the other parts of the body benefit but without the heart, everything will die.

The highway and road system is centered around safety. Yes, the roads get people from point A to point B. But the most important part is that they are alive on arrival.

When you're aware of what is centered in a system you can decide how you want to participate in it. 

The Dark Side of Systems

You may have noticed systems that don’t actually benefit the people moving through them.

The U.S. healthcare system is centered around insurance companies. Ah, it should be people, shouldn’t it? But in the U.S., insurance companies are the gatekeepers to accessing and paying for care. All the other players — doctors, hospitals, patients — don’t want to be left holding the financial bag, so insurance remains centered. 

The U.S. political system is centered around maintaining a binary party system. It is supposed to ensure that every person has a vote and representation based on those votes, but individual votes get subsumed in an electoral system that is designed to divvy up regions to maintain party control.

Many systems are explicitly designed to favor — or oppress — certain people.  The judicial system, the penal system, and most financial (banking, taxing) systems are centered around maintaining wealth and power. They primarily benefit white people, and people with generational wealth or power. 

Some systems seem to defy nature, logic, and morality. Everyone knows they aren’t effective or efficient. In healthcare, for example, both the people running the system and the people being moved through it are not happy.

Yet, they persist. Why?

Many human and business systems were created to serve the interests of the people who created them (but don’t work in them). The people in power. They want to keep it that way.

How to Change a Business System from the Outside

I used to work in healthcare administration as an efficiency expert.

My job was to examine systems and see if they were working well and how they could be improved. I had to consider how the system was enacted by employees and the impact on patients.

Oftentimes, the staff wanted to do something that was easier for them but made a worse experience for the patient. I might notice it would be more efficient and cost-saving for the company, but at what cost? If we had to handle multiple complaints, or lost customers the overall savings wasn’t worth it.

My intimacy with systems means I am the customer from hell : )

I ask myself if the people I encounter in a system are part of the problem or just pawns in the process. Then I ask them. If they know they are pawns, I ask them to stop playing a part in something oppressive and do better. If they aren’t, I let them know what it’s like for me.

I have gone into many systems as a customer and said, “This is inefficient for you and it's also miserable for me. What can we do to fix it?”

Sometimes my suggestion is met with interest. I’m encouraged to talk to a manager or file a complaint. My heart drops when the response is, “There’s nothing I can do about it. It’s always been this way.” I know that person’s soul has been sucked right out of them. They don’t even want a way out anymore.

Become a vocal customer especially if you’re paying for that system (which you are as a taxpayer in government systems or as a customer in a private business).

Human Systems Don’t Change Themselves

Human and business systems can be changed; I know that because I used to change systems all the time.

You can change a system from the inside. Are you participating in a system that harms people? If you work in a place that uses systems that benefit some people over others or aren’t designed with the customer in mind at all, here’s how you can make changes:

  • Start by being mindful about how you are participating in a system that may be harming others. Check in with yourself and your co-workers to see if others agree with you.
  • Ask where the problem in a system arose. Was the system designed that way intentionally (to increase profit, disregard some groups of people, or cover liability) or were the designers unaware of its impact?
  • Apologize to every customer for the problems the system is causing. Let them know you want to make changes and encourage them to file complaints.
  • Don’t do what you are told to do if it doesn’t make any sense. Yes, you could get fired. You could also get promoted. Who knows?
  • Remember that systems were created by people and they can be changed by people. Bring this up in staff meetings and ask for support to make changes.

I offer this information to raise your awareness of the human and business systems in your life. 

You are part of a system. When one thing in a system changes, the entire system shifts. So when you make a change — which you can do! — you are creating systemic change. Go for it!

We can all create systems that work for us, and that work for everyone else in our communities so that we can have calm nervous systems. We can save time and money in our personal lives, and know what to expect to create more calm.

We have the power to influence positive change.

I hope this helps you live a more happy, fulfilled, and peaceful life.

***

If you’d like help creating new systems in your personal or business life  — or want coaching in how to improve systems where you work — schedule a free call to see how I can support you.

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