2. The Healing Tools
Your Escape the Patriarchy Toolkit
Your Escape the Patriarchy Toolkit
Chapter 2 The Healing Tools
As gifted as Joe was with home projects, he couldn’t get anything done without the right tool for the job at hand.
And the reverse is true. Even in possession of the high-quality tools Joe selected, I couldn’t complete a single project without his assistance because a good tool is not enough. You need to know how to use it, and—in many instances—you need to practice the skill.
The scope of the world’s needs for repair can certainly appear too much for a single individual to handle. But as with my DIY home projects, a person armed with the right tools can learn to accomplish almost any job.
Your Basic Tools for DIY World Repair
Step 1: Care of the planet starts with personal self-care.
Respect for the body transcends the physical form and extends into the environment. So, begin by stepping out of the fray and into the calm.
Take only two things into this first step: yourself and your determination to do what needs to be done, no matter what.
Seek to block off at least 15 minutes or longer to be alone. I find it best to start my day with this “grounding” time, but you may prefer the middle or end of day. And of course, the time you select may depend on the activity you choose.
Here are some suggestions for things to do in your alone time:
Meditate
Journal
Walk or be in nature
Take a bath
Not exactly radical suggestions, I know. But do you do any of these or something similar daily? Regularly? At all?
If you don’t practice any alone time or self-reflection routinely, it may be uncomfortable and/or hard to shake the compulsion to check your phone or other device. But that passes and your alone time eventually becomes a welcome relief from being slave to every ding, ring, and chime you hear.
Once removed from outside distractions, it becomes much easier to think clearly and be more comfortable with your own thoughts. With some practice, you can even learn to detach from the emotional pull of negative or stress-filled thinking.
Step 2: Learn to Trust Your Intuition
Sometimes logic and deductive reasoning can be all you need, but often for big, important decisions (a move, career or lifestyle change, getting married or divorced), you’d be better served using your intuition to answer the questions of what serves your highest good.
Having spent a major part of my career in the fields of publishing and advertising, I worked with many individuals who used their creative talents for writing or art in their jobs as editors, copywriters, stylists, and art directors.
Not one of us grew up thinking that’s what we’d be when we were adults. As children, we saw ourselves as future authors, artists, and photographers. Later, we let logic, parents, advisors, and projected fear of starving propel us instead into fields where we could use our gifts and make a living. Very few of us even tried to pursue our original dreams.
Because my career spans over 45 years, I have a retrospective view of how those logic-based decisions worked out for us. I can truthfully say that as much as we were happy to at least be employed in a creative field, no one I worked with ever expressed preference for their job over having the freedom to simply create. In fact, many turned to their true passions once they reached retirement age, very often with regrets that they didn’t begin sooner.
If I’ve learned anything in this lifetime, it’s that if you seek change in yourself or the world, you can no longer relinquish your own authority to know what’s right. You must learn to trust your intuition in decision-making and your ability to know what best serves you and the world.
Whether these decisions are related to your health, community service, activism, or how you want to spend your final years, they are yours to make. And if you wish to experience true fulfillment in any one of those goals, you need to forge your own path, not follow the one someone else paved.
And it can be fun! I’ve discovered some interesting and enjoyable tools that help me “test” the ideas that come to me to see if they’re really guidance from within or the product of my highly imaginative mind.
Have you spent a good part of your life believing that feelings can’t be trusted? Or have you often leaned into “trusting your gut?”
Either way, continue reading to learn about some helpful, fun tools you can use to develop your intuition and make it a vital part of your decision-making process.
Continue to Chapter 3 Tool-Aids.
