accept that we are aging everyday

April of Acceptance Daily Idea: accept that we are aging everyday. 

Lots of people hate getting older. It makes us face our mortality. I had a classmate die at 11. My best friend died at 18. Another dear friend died at 18. I had students die at 12, 16, and 17. My Gram died at 92. 

Age and our mortality are not necessarily connected. You are going to age. Everyday. For your whole life. Embrace each day and spread ripples of kindness into the world. You'll feel happier for it. 

Enjoy whatever age you are! Your body might not do what it used to be able to do. Thank the parts of your body that allow you to do the things you love. 

Be kind,

To yourself too

xo

***NOTE: "acceptance" in the context of my writing is about the belief that all living things are entitled to respect, regardless of their actions and beliefs. "Acceptance" in this context is NOT about being silent, ignoring injustices and self and others, or expecting that we can say something is okay when it isn't. In this context I am referring to the idea that we cannot control what happens around us, we can only control how to respond to those things. 

*All images are property of Fox Tales Art

**All images are available for sale with profits going to www.sheenasplace.org 

Email foxtaleskira@gmail.com for inquiries (Purchasing directly by email, even if the piece is on etsy, saves both of us money and can involve a negotiation in size and in price)

Or browse some options at 

www.etsy.com/ca/shop/FoxTalesByKira 

Curmudgeons curmudge

April of Acceptance Daily Idea: accept that Curmudgeons curmudge.

(Editors Note: what is a Curmudgeon? It's a person who has a grouchy temperament. Like ... Oscar the Grouch. Or ... You know those two old guys in The Muppet Show? They sit in the balcony and are grouchy and insulting? Those are curmudgeons. "Curmudge" is not an actual word. Carry on.)

You cannot control the actions, reactions, emotions, or behaviour of anyone else. 

You cannot control how someone else behaves or how they treat you. 

You cannot change them. 

What you control is how much power you give to that person. A person you know to be grumpy, is going to be grumpy. Someone who has said mean things isn't going to suddenly stop saying mean things. 

A Curmudgeon will curmudge because that is their life. Not yours. Your responsibly is to decide if you want that in your life or not, and if so, how to protect yourself (and anyone who you are responsible for) from giving your own power away to that person. 

Let them grumble. You can't make them stop. You CAN choose when and how you engage. 

Another person's actions, emotions, words, and thoughts are about THEM. It is about their story. Their experience. Not yours. 

You can't change a Curmudgeon. You can only change how much of their crumudging you take on as your own. 

Be kind,

To yourself too

xo

***NOTE: "acceptance" in the context of my writing is about the belief that all living things are entitled to respect, regardless of their actions and beliefs. "Acceptance" in this context is NOT about being silent, ignoring injustices and self and others, or expecting that we can say something is okay when it isn't. In this context I am referring to the idea that we cannot control what happens around us, we can only control how to respond to those things. 

*All images are property of Fox Tales Art

**All images are available for sale with profits going to www.sheenasplace.org 

Email foxtaleskira@gmail.com for inquiries (Purchasing directly by email, even if the piece is on etsy, saves both of us money and can involve a negotiation in size and in price)

Or browse some options at 

www.etsy.com/ca/shop/FoxTalesByKira 

accept that you are wrong

April of Acceptance Daily Idea: accept that you are wrong. 

We can't always be right. We will make mistakes. Big, huge, enormous mistakes. Our job is to admit, accept, and learn from our mistakes. 

Humanity needs more acceptance of our mistakes and the mistakes of others. It is no more acceptable to berate an adult for misfiling paperwork than it is to berate a 2 year old for knocking over glass of juice. 

Neurologically, there is more activity in our brains when we make mistakes than when we get things right. Our best learning comes from making mistakes. 

Own it! 

Be kind,

To yourself too

xo

***NOTE: "acceptance" in the context of my writing is about the belief that all living things are entitled to respect, regardless of their actions and beliefs. "Acceptance" in this context is NOT about being silent, ignoring injustices and self and others, or expecting that we can say something is okay when it isn't. In this context I am referring to the idea that we cannot control what happens around us, we can only control how to respond to those things. 

*All images are property of Fox Tales Art

**All images are available for sale with profits going to www.sheenasplace.org 

Email foxtaleskira@gmail.com for inquiries (Purchasing directly by email, even if the piece is on etsy, saves both of us money and can involve a negotiation in size and in price)

Or browse some options at 

www.etsy.com/ca/shop/FoxTalesByKira 

accept that changes will always happen.

April of Acceptance Daily Idea: accept that changes will always happen. 

I. Hate. Change. 

Like ... a lot. 

Changes can be hard. I would rather be in a situation that might not be the most healthy, simply because change scares me. When I make big changes in my life, it is usually not by choice. 

We moved a month ago because the place we lived in was being sold. I actually love the new place. And I don't miss the things that I thought I would miss. But it still wasn't my choice. 

I can say this today because it's been made public ... my current position at work won't exist next year. So I have to change jobs. Again, not by choice. 

There are so many things in life beyond our control that cause changes - big and small. 

Life feels easier when it is predictable. And things get harder when the rug is pulled out from under you. 

Finding firm ground requires accepting that change is inevitable and that you have survived every single change throughout your entire life and you will survive this now. 

Be kind,

To yourself too

xo

***NOTE: "acceptance" in the context of my writing is about the belief that all living things are entitled to respect, regardless of their actions and beliefs. "Acceptance" in this context is NOT about being silent, ignoring injustices and self and others, or expecting that we can say something is okay when it isn't. In this context I am referring to the idea that we cannot control what happens around us, we can only control how to respond to those things. 

*All images are property of Fox Tales Art

**All images are available for sale with profits going to www.sheenasplace.org 

Email foxtaleskira@gmail.com for inquiries (Purchasing directly by email, even if the piece is on etsy, saves both of us money and can involve a negotiation in size and in price)

Or browse some options at 

www.etsy.com/ca/shop/FoxTalesByKira 

accept that your ideas of beauty are influenced by others.

April of Acceptance Daily Idea: accept that your ideas of beauty are influenced by others. 

We all have our opinions about what makes someone beautiful. And usually those opinions include believing that we are not those things. 

For those of you new to this blog, you probably don't know that I'm a neuroscience nerd. I like to look beyond societal influences and media influences to what is actually going on in the brain. 

Our brains have so much going on in there that neuroscientists are still discovering. I WAS going to go into the science of attraction and the science of beauty. But I decided that not everyone is interested in that the way that I am. 

Part of the process of attraction is built into our DNA, part of it has to do with the symmetry of our physical features, and part of it has to do with media images associated with messages of what beauty is, building neuropathways in your brain. 

Societal standards of beauty change. Constantly. 

So take a moment to think about what is currently beautiful and attractive and sexy. And ask yourself, will that be the same in 50 years? In 100 years? 

What you think is beautiful is influenced by media, your friends, your family, society, and your brain. What you think is NOT beautiful is influenced in the same way. 

Be kind,

To yourself too

xo

***NOTE: "acceptance" in the context of my writing is about the belief that all living things are entitled to respect, regardless of their actions and beliefs. "Acceptance" in this context is NOT about being silent, ignoring injustices and self and others, or expecting that we can say something is okay when it isn't. In this context I am referring to the idea that we cannot control what happens around us, we can only control how to respond to those things. 

*All images are property of Fox Tales Art by Kira McCarthy

**All images are available for sale with profits going to www.sheenasplace.org 

Email foxtaleskira@gmail.com for inquiries (Purchasing directly by email, even if the piece is on etsy, saves both of us money and can involve a negotiation in size and in price) or browse some options at 

www.etsy.com/ca/shop/FoxTalesByKira 

#bopo #bodypositive #mindfulness #selfcare #selfcompassion #notachoice #FoxTalesArtAprilOfAcceptance #acceptance #accepting,   #edawareness #edadvocate #ed #eatingdisorder #edrecovery #recovery #bopo #art #artist #torontoart #torontoartist #FoxTalesArt #sheenasplace #sheenasplacefundraising #lovingyourself

we all have limitations

April of Acceptance Daily Idea: we all have limitations. 

I don't like limitations. On myself. I like to think that I can just do all the things. Like ... all of them. 

The problem with me is that I actually DO have physical limitations but I often forget on days when my body feels reasonable. This weekend I did too much.

 Wayyyyy too much. 

Friday:

• took a group of special needs children to the museum and spent the day walking around it 
• Cleaned the apartment 
• Had bday dinner and stayed up later than usual 

Saturday:

• Had to walk with a cane all day 
• Went to our old house with many stupid things happening along the way making me an hour late
• Carried an air conditioner down a flight of stairs (pretended I didn't hurt so I could fool myself into not needing a cane)
• Supervised kids at a science fair for 4 hours (my kids won bronze!)

Sunday:

• tidied the apartment again
• Pre-cooked 2 meals 
• Long dog walk 
• Lunch with my mom
• Walked back from lunch 
• Swam laps in the pool
• Made dinner
• Cleaned up
• Made lunch for Monday 

Now it's Monday morning and I'm lying in bed wishing I could call in sick. Every single piece of me is aching. Some muscles are just a bit sore from things I did. Others are sore from exhaustion and being over worked. And then there's the symptoms that I forgot about because they weren't so bad the last 3 days. The bottoms of my feet are on fire, my neck feels like someone took a sledge hammer to it in the night, and my headache is pounding. 

I. Have. Limitations. 

And no, I don't WANT to accept them. 

Let's work on our limitations together today. Let's allow ourselves that the possibility exists that we cannot do all the things that we want to do. Let's acknowledge that we can do the best we can do, and think of one less thing TO do. 

What is one less things you can do today? One less thing that that won't change your entire day, and can help to practice accepting our limitations. 

I am going to allow myself to use my cane today. I am not going to pretend that I can walk without it. I am not going to suck it up and ignore the pain. 

What will you do differently today? 

Be kind,

To yourself to

xo

***NOTE: "acceptance" in the context of my writing is about the belief that all living things are entitled to respect, regardless of their actions and beliefs. "Acceptance" in this context is NOT about being silent, ignoring injustices and self and others, or expecting that we can say something is okay when it isn't. In this context I am referring to the idea that we cannot control what happens around us, we can only control how to respond to those things. 

*All images are property of Fox Tales Art

**All images are available for sale with profits going to www.sheenasplace.org 

Email foxtaleskira@gmail.com for inquiries (Purchasing directly by email, even if the piece is on etsy, saves both of us money and can involve a negotiation in size and in price)

Or browse some options at 

www.etsy.com/ca/shop/FoxTalesByKira 

#bopo #bodypositive #mindfulness #selfcare #selfcompassion #notachoice #FoxTalesArtAprilOfAcceptance #acceptance #accepting,   #edawareness #edadvocate #ed #eatingdisorder #edrecovery #recovery #bopo #art #artist #torontoart #torontoartist #FoxTalesArt #sheenasplace #sheenasplacefundraising #lovingyourself

allow yourself imperfections

April of Acceptance Daily Idea: allow yourself imperfections 

"You are imperfect, you are wired for struggle, but you are worthy of love and belonging." - Brené Brown

We are always going to have struggles. We are always going to be challenged. It's what we believe about ourselves that affects how we respond to the hard things in life. Our inner voices that tells us our worth. That tell us whether or not we belong. Whether or not we are deserving. Those voices are the ones who decide how we will feel about ourselves during the hard times. 

If we tell ourselves that we are unworthy, or that we can't handle it, or that we don't deserve care from ourselves or others, then we won't be able to handle it. 

If we tell ourselves that this is hard, that we have gone through hard stuff before and lived, that we are all imperfectly perfect, then surviving our tribulations becomes possible. 

That doesn't mean we can't cocoon for a few days, or cry, or yell, or throw tantrums! It means we can pick ourselves back up. 

"Because true belonging only happens when we present our authentic, imperfect selves to the world, our sense of belonging can never be greater than our level of self-acceptance." - Brené Brown

I always struggled to feel like I belonged. And I never understood why. Now I think it is because I was so unaccepting of my imperfections, that I was presenting a false self to the world. So people liked me because of who I pretended to be. That didn't ever feel like real friendship. 

Now, I am who I am, take me or leave me. I surround myself with people who know my imperfections. Notice I have not called them "flaws"? A flaw is something negative. Like a table with a wobbly leg. People aren't flawed. People are imperfectly perfect. We all have our things. And my people know my things and still love me, still want to be my friends. Not despite my imperfections, but because of them. Because it is what makes me who I am. 

"Imperfections are not inadequacies; they are reminders that we're all in this together." - Brené Brown

Be kind,

To yourself too

xo

***NOTE: "acceptance" in the context of my writing is about the belief that all living things are entitled to respect, regardless of their actions and beliefs. "Acceptance" in this context is NOT about being silent, ignoring injustices and self and others, or expecting that we can say something is okay when it isn't. In this context I am referring to the idea that we cannot control what happens around us, we can only control how to respond to those things. 

*All images are property of Fox Tales Art

**All images are available for sale with profits going to www.sheenasplace.org 

Email foxtaleskira@gmail.com for inquiries (Purchasing directly by email, even if the piece is on etsy, saves both of us money and can involve a negotiation in size and in price)

Or browse some options at 

www.etsy.com/ca/shop/FoxTalesByKira 

think of something you have not yet accepted

April of Acceptance Daily Idea: think of something you have not yet accepted. 

I've been thinking a lot about acceptance because I knew that in April, at the suggestion of the fantastic registrar at Sheena's place, that I wanted to write about acceptance this the month. 

***NOTE: "acceptance" in the context of my writing is about the belief that all living things are entitled to respect, regardless of their actions and beliefs. "Acceptance" in this context is NOT about being silent, ignoring injustices and self and others, or expecting that we can say something is okay when it isn't. In this context I am referring to the idea that we cannot control what happens around us, we can only control how to respond to those things. 

I have been thinking about how I started to learn about acceptance. 

Acceptance and tolerance are not the same thing. I know many people who tolerate things that they don't understand. Or tolerate things that are harmful to themselves or to others. That is about tolerating things that one disagrees with, without working on that understanding. 

I think that acceptance is far more important than tolerance. Acceptance means taking in all the ideas, taking in all the people, taking in all the things that matter to other people, taking in things that you disagree with, taking in things that you think are wrong; completely totally and utterly wrong! And accepting that those things exist. That they are not disappearing anytime soon. That we live in a world full of diversity and hate and love and violence and peace, and all we can do is learn to accept the things they are, and to do what we can to work towards the world that we want to see. 

Acceptance does NOT mean complicity. I accept that Donald Trump and his followers exist. That doesn't mean I will sit silently and not resist. I accept that Rodrigo Duterte is the president of The Philippines and that thousands of people being are being murdered without due process and without even a trial. That doesn't mean I will stand by and not join Amnesty International in fighting against him. I accept that there is so much racism, and hatred, and violence towards the indigenous people of Canada that is ignored and even perpetuated and tolerated by the government. And I accept that I will continually be an ally and work towards ENDING the violence, fighting the government to provide clean water to reserves, and to respond to the missing and murdered women. 

Acceptance means acknowledging deep down inside yourself that you are not, in fact, the Queen of the Universe (my life long goal), that you cannot change the world by yourself, that there are many things beyond your control, and that you can choose how to face those things. 

I learned a great deal about acceptance as a child, through my family, and through my school community. 

I also learned so much about acceptance through reading feminist theory. I started to read early feminist theorists when I was 14 years old and as I started I was in agreement with people like Germaine Greer and Betty Freidan. Over the next 10 years I read and read and read different feminist theorists. I began to explore what feminism means to me and what world I want to be part of and what world I want to create. I disagreed with many of the theorists that I read. Especially when I started to read some of the radical feminist theories. People like Camile Paglia and Andrea Dworkin and Katharine MacKinnon. Despite the fact that I could not bring myself to agree with what they were saying, I did accept that there are many different forms of feminism in the world. Learning to accept that there would be many disagreements, and that I could work towards fighting against what people were writing and saying and doing, I began to accept that there would always be people who disagreed with my politics. From grade 8 until I finished my Masters degree in 2001, I was influenced by so many incredible feminist theorists and their theories and ideas about women and men and gender and race and the world.

I will never forget being 17, when my mom took me to hear Gloria Steinem speak. And I had the opportunity to stand up at the microphone and thank her for making it possible for girls like me to stand up in front of a room full of people and say proudly "I am a feminist."

Accepting that people have beliefs that contradict mine, and accepting that I don't have to agree with them but that they can exist simultaneously with mine, has been a great gift in my life. 

If I had to choose something that I cannot accept, it would be my diagnosis of fibromyalgia.

Yesterday I had a wonderful birthday with a very low level of pain. We took our FANTASTIC class to the museum, and walked around for hours. There were moments where it was painful but it was pain that was manageable and bearable. 

I was able to go out for dinner, to have a dessert that was the most decadent thing you could ever imagine in your entire life. On the walk home my legs began to hurt. My neck and shoulders started to get sore. Within the next hour I was in agony. I cannot even begin to explain to you how much pain my legs were experiencing. It isn't muscle pain from the walking. The days I don't need my cane, I can walk quite far distances. It is a feeling of my legs being hollow, and achy, and that wiggling things are crawling around under my skin, biting my nerves, and trying to pull my legs right off of my body.

Accepting that this is a part of my life right now is a very difficult thing to do. Accepting that there is currently no cure is very depressing and defeating. And the less I accept the pain, the more pain I experience, because I am not just experiencing physical pain, I'm experiencing emotional suffering because of the pain. And because of the fact that I don't want to accept it. 

My goal for April is to work on acceptance of many things and to offer many ideas of ways to be acceptable my, of ways to accept the things in your life that just are, and suggest ideas to my readers. I hope that you will join me in this experimental adventure and that one small idea might spark something big in you that you can work on to change your own life.

Be kind, 

To yourself too

xo 

ps

I decided that it is important to me to list the writers that were influential on both learning about feminist theory, as well as accepting that I do not agree with many of the writers, that I do agree with some of the things that some people wrote, and that people inspired me in so many ways despite their contrary beliefs. 

Patricia Hill Collins

Andrea Dworkin

Angela Davis

Germaine Greer

Judith Butler

Ntozake Shange

Kate Millet

Dale Spender

BELL HOOKS WHO CONTINUES TO PUSH MY BRAIN!

Simone de Beauvoir

Zora Neale Hurston

Betty Friedan

Julia Kristeva 

Audre Lorde

Toni Morrison

Mary Wollstonecraft

GILL VALENTINE MY ACADEMIC CRUSH!!

Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick

Teresa de Lauretis

Elizabeth Grosz

Annamarie Jagose

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Mary Daly

Françoise, d'Eaubonne

Barbara Ehrenreich

Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Nancy Mandell, Lilian Faderman

Becki Ross

Alice Fulton

Emma Goldman

Lucy Parsons

Linda Alcoff

Camile Paglia

Yolanda Retter

Doreen Massey

Rosa Ainly

Gloria Steinem 

AND SO MANY MORE!! 

*All images are property of Fox Tales Art

**All images are available for sale with profits going to www.sheenasplace.org 

Email foxtaleskira@gmail.com for inquiries and browse some options at 

www.etsy.com/ca/shop/FoxTalesByKira 

(Purchasing directly by email, even if the piece is on etsy, saves both of us money and can involve a negotiation in size and in price.