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Beating a Dead Elephant in the Room, or Closing thoughts on 2018

January 6, 2019 By Bean Leave a Comment



Forgive me for my title. On one hand I feel as if there is nothing more that could be said about any of these things that’s going to matter, and on one hand I feel the weight of lingering solutions to the problems we all (still) aren’t talking enough about.before this moon cycle ends, with the New Moon January 6th,  I would like to send 2018 a final farewell with a list of 18 things I would like to banish from the world.


I invite you to add a comment with your own contributions of things you’d like to banish!

  1. Waiting passively.
    We all keep watching Washington like it’s the only thing that can fix all of the problems. And it’s not. The government CANNOT fix all our problems. If we are lucky, they will do a couple of good things that make a lasting positive difference for anyone who isn’t already rich and white. I certainly am happy and hopeful about the diverse group of women and men who took their seats in the House on Friday, but we can’t all just sit back now and wait for things in our country to improve.

    If we keep waiting for the legislators to come in and fix everything (including some things on this very list), we will die waiting.
    As we keep ourselves uninformed and ignorant and easily manipulated by only listening to Them, They will continue to step on us….
  2. Self-Doubt, Self-Deprecation, Self-Loathing. Especially done by women.

    Please stop saying those bad things about yourself! Please listen to the things you say about yourself, and do everything you can to stop saying them. You are not stupid. You are not ugly. You are beautiful. You are learning the lessons you need to be learning. You are exactly where you are supposed to be. You cannot achieve perfection and no one is expecting you to. Please, just stop talking bad about yourself. In public, online, especially in front of children…even in private, just stop. You deserve better than that. (Try talking to yourself the way you talk to your best friend!)

  3. Saying “I’m sorry” and all the other ways We make our Self feel small or unworthy.Just pay attention in a day to how many times you hear women (and children) say “I’m sorry” when they’ve done absolutely nothing wrong.I’m sorry, but can I get some help?
    I’m sorry, can you please speak up?
    I’m sorry, I have other plans.
    I’m sorry, I’m just not interested in explaining to you why I’m too busy and/or not interested in going out with you.

    Can we all please stop apologizing for our very existence? Why are we apologizing for our needs?If you are just trying to get someone’s attention, let’s bring back saying things like, “hello” and/or “excuse me.”

    I read something about this a couple years ago which said to replace the I’m sorry with a thank you; Instead of “I’m sorry I’m late”, say, “Thank you for waiting for me.” It’s a pretty subtle thing, but it might just be what it takes to make you not feel like a burden on others.

    There are times when apologies are absolutely necessary, but being human/being imperfect/having opinions/having a bladder…. Are not any of them.

  4. Food deserts.
  5. Men who fear the #MeToo movement.
  6. Racism.
    I don’t know how to say this in a way that people will listen, but here’s one more attempt: We, as a species, look for similarities in EVERYTHING. We give human traits to dogs and elephants and flowers and…even electrical outlets smile back at us. Yet, white people as a race fail to see the similarities between themselves and People of Color.Just think about that. We find similarities in EVERYTHING….why would we naturally choose to “other” other people? Other human beings who DO have everything in common with us? Here’s a hint: it was manufactured because the people in power were afraid of an uprising, so they made enemies of white and black people. Systems have been put in place every since, and around the world, to maintain power.
  7. Over consumption of meat.
    If you didn’t personally hunt it or raise it or know the person who did, I don’t think you should be eating it. I say this as someone whose father raises delicious Colorado beef (email me if you’d be interesting in buying some!) so I understand I am in a complete position of privilege and bias when I say this, but truly, that factor is the main reason that I even still eat meat. I know the animals my father raises are well treated, well fed, and well respected in their life and death, and any time that I or anyone else eats meat, I want it to be under those circumstances.
  8. White-Supremacy
    And all of the ways White People hide behind their whiteness and white saviorism and …….White Women who call themselves allies but do not raise up the voices of women of color, indigenous women, Muslim women. Women who call themselves feminists but who aren’t working on dismantling their own overt and innate racism and biases……People who hide Confederate flags in their closets, or wear them proudly on their cars…..People who make excuses for Brett Kavanaugh and are pissed at Kaepernick……
  9. Shaming others.

  10. White people blaming their problems on immigrants.

  11. Complaining about whatever in your life isn’t making you happy instead of doing something about it.
    We all have choices to make each and every day. Staying at the job you hate, staying in the town you despise, spending time with people who don’t bring you joy, etc. etc., each of those are a choice every single day. You have agency. You have authorship. You are in control (unless you are under 18 and living at home–in that case, wait it out, and be sure to breathe, and exercise, and eat right, and floss your teeth while you are waiting–your life is going to become completely yours soon, if you choose to make it so. It will be worth it!)  Enough with resolutions and getting down on ourselves and giving up and thinking this is just the way it is. Every day you make so many choices to do this…or that. Making one choice on Jan 6th doesn’t mean that you have to make that choice for another 359 days before you can do it differently. We have agency each and every day. We have authorship. We are the writers of our own stories.I also know that I am saying this as a privileged white person. As I write that, I think, would a single mom, a person of color, have the same agency to quit the job that she hates, that is making her unhappy? Not without getting something else first, no doubt. I know we don’t all have the same problems and that all of our problems won’t have the same solutions, but all I’m trying to say here is that if something is not right in your life, don’t just accept it. Do something about it. For more, see #1.
  12. Ignorance.
    WE THE PEOPLE have a responsibility to do better. Be better ancestors. Read more books written by and about people not like you. Support each other, stop competing with each other. And stop. living. in. your. own. damn. bubble.
  13. School shootings.

  14. Migraines and all chronic pain.

  15. Careless waste.
    Fireworks. Plastic bags. Glass jars. Wrapping paper. All the food we throw away. Wastes of time. Something I just discovered called LOL dolls. Do you know how much plastic wrap one of those things uses?We have agency in creating the world we want. We can all do a very simple thing to prevent companies from making things like this anymore….stop buying them!!!
  16. Obsession with profit over People:
    I’ll just carry on from the above: I am so tired of the profit-seeking, capitalistic, greedy-ass Americans. Upon learning that milk is not good for adults and that many of us are intolerant to dairy/lactose, something that causes inflammation and is linked to chronic pain (arthritis and IBS to name a couple), instead of these greedy, corporation owners just saying, –OK, we had a good run. Let’s take our insanely high gross earnings and invest in something else. –Maybe something healthy? -Sure, Bob,  let’s invest in something healthy and then doing that, they say, -Oh shit. We better learn how to sell an idea to the population that milk IS good for them, or better yet, let’s keep mass producing milk and mistreating cattle to keep extracting the gross amounts of milk we harvest every year and chemically treat the milk (you know, I have a friend in the chemicals business) so that it really isn’t natural any more, and tell people that IT is good for them!And that’s not the worst part—people believe it. It’s like they choose to believe it. (See #11) It’s easier to just keep spending the money on the crap and spending more money on medicine or simpler yet just to be content in our discomfort that instead of making something else for breakfast, like maybe some vegetables and protein, we continue eating overly processed grains shaped into squares with Their fake ass dairy-free milk. What is wrong with us???
  17. Big pharma over natural health remedies.

  18. Supporting the top-earning corporations.

    Ok, so my relationship with money has changed a lot in the last year. May this year be the year that yours does, too.

    People buy so much shit they don’t need (AKA lactose-free milk) and support companies whose values we don’t really believe in, (AKA companies that test on animals, or companies that, I don’t know….hire rapists as their CEOs, wherever you draw the line…) and then sit around and complain about what our world has come to.WE the PEOPLE allow, and at times encourage, this terrible stuff to happen. We MUST make smarter choices with how we spend our money when we must spend it. We must vote with our money, and make smart choices as consumers. More than anything, Money speaks, and though we all have different amounts of it, and therefore some have more power than others, we do all take a stance each and every time we spend money on something.When we go to Target or Walmart when we need a new spatula instead of to the 2nd hand store, we are telling the producers that want them to keep making new plastic products.When we throw away Tupperware every 6 months because we microwave too much in it and the plastic gets all nasty…we are telling the producers that want them to keep making new plastic products. We are telling Mother Nature that we don’t care about polluting her. Abusing her.

    When we make a decision for our company to allow animal testing because we want the additional profits by selling in China, or when we know that a company does that and we still buy their products because “it’s our favorite,” we are taking a stance, voting, condoning, encouraging these bad behaviors that are ruining our planet.

    Mother Nature is a Source of Life, not a resource. People are one of her gifts. Please, in 2019 let us all work on banishing the ills of society that we had to witness through 2018.


I could carry on and on about each of these things, but…I feel like I’m beating a dead elephant in the room, so I will just leave you with this:

WE the PEOPLE must do better. And here’s the good news….we CAN do better!

If you’d like to talk more about any of these “to be banished” items, or want to add your own to the list, just comment below!

Filed Under: News Tagged With: banish, learning, overcoming challenges, support

To my Hive of Strong Women Everywhere

October 23, 2018 By Bean Leave a Comment

This post is dedicated to all domestic violence survivors: Abuse doesn’t have to leave a bruise. Also, you are stronger than you know.

https://www.thehotline.org/

Domestic Violence Hotline #
1-800-799-7233

Dear sisters, friends, friends’ sisters, sister’s friends. Dear mothers, lovers, teachers, dreamers, leaders: 

Today, I call out to you for your collective strength. You are all my hive, without whom I could not be where I am today.

I would give away all of my money, all of my possessions, everything, if it would guarantee that all people after me, every single woman and man, would have an equal say. I would honestly give my life for that. Millions of people already have given their lives, yet without resulting in the ideal We promise: Liberty and justice for all….Land of the free. Still, we do not honor our word; Consider this my first public taking of the knee.

There are people around the U.S. right now being denied from voting. Democracy is dying. We are not doing this properly. Come on, US! In some countries, everyone must vote; in Brazil if a person doesn’t vote, (they may abstain only by appearing on election day and reporting it on their ballot) they endure a small fine and are ineligible for government employment.

Yet here, in a country founded by THE PEOPLE for THE PEOPLE, voter suppression is a very real and systemic problem. I would give my life if it meant putting a stop to that problem once and for all. For Native Americans, for Black people and People of Color, for elderly people, for criminals, everyone should have ease of access to the polls.

I know I cannot fix this problem alone, and nor can it be fixed before this upcoming election. Nothing is immediate. This is why I’m reaching out. I can’t fix this, nor any of the other problems, alone. But I can activate, empower, and encourage other women to raise themselves up out of the shadows so that together we may reclaim our space, and bring up this nation. (But only if all women do this together. White, Black, Indigenous, all Women of Color, we Women must do it together. White Women: we’ve GOT to do better at supporting non-white women.)

I need you, sisters. I need you all. I will give it everything I have.

Right now, my plate is full with many amazing learning opportunities and giving endeavors. I am investing my time in mastering these learnings so that I may be a better ally, advocate, and ancestor.

If you are able to, please invest in me. Send me a note of encouragement. Invite me over for a meal or tea. Come out on your day off and volunteer with me. Refer me to your friends and neighbors to hire me for English tutoring or babysitting or dog-sitting jobs so I may continue to have some flexible income. Make an online donation to my gofundme page. OR simply send me a good thought. I’m sending you one, right now.

To all the strong women before me, with me, and after me: Thank you. I love you.

#whyIkneel #votersuppression #vote #votethemout #womensupportingwomen

Filed Under: News, Teaching Tagged With: encourage, growing, happiness, intention, learning, sisters, support, teaching, women

Growing Pains Ahead

August 18, 2018 By Bean 2 Comments

I didn’t know when I set off on this Tour of Hope, self-defense for Native women mission that it had to start with my-self. Here I am one month on the path, and facing some of the biggest challenges of my life. I’m here to tell you that changing your life can be done AND growing pains should be expected!

Despite the anticipated benefits to myself and Mother Earth, it is truly difficult to change so much so fast. Some people might not recommend doing all I have in just one month’s time, but I say, there is no time like the present! In my new routine, I have felt discomfort, doubt, pain and fear: fear of failure, fear of “more different than I’m ready for,” and fear of the judgment that can come from others.

Nevertheless, I am moving ahead with my personal transformation, and I invite you all to be a part of the conversation–just comment below with any tips, questions, or any dang thing that pops into your head! I’d love to talk to you!

In my last post I announced that I would only eat: local, organic, and unpackaged foods, with the exception of eating food that would otherwise go to waste. Well, the parents went on vacation and left a fridge full of leftovers, so I mostly lived on that for the week, and you all know my weakness for fine cuisine, so when I went out with friends one night I couldn’t help but order some tasty things (which didn’t strictly meet those 3 criterion, but they made me happy). I will continue to try my best, and I will certainly continue to make “mistakes.” The point is not to be perfect, just to be better.

Once it was time to restock, seeing that Z and I are both living on a tight budget, we checked out the local dumpster scene! 

One morning, we gathered 17 pounds of free food: apples, melons, peppers, and organic whey protein (had “expired” a few days before–still totally fine to eat), about 20 individually packaged.

This all came from two dumpsters in the neighborhood (most dumpsters we met were locked.)

Z returned each morning for the rest of the week and found empty or locked dumpsters until yesterday, when she came home with probably 40 pounds of produce. Melons, bananas, summer squash, onions, broccoli, peaches, grapes, tomatoes (organic!), potatoes, lemons, mangos, pineapples…oh my gosh! It was a real cornucopia!

So that, along with a few local, organic and unpackaged pantry items, will feed us nicely this weekend and into the week. I made applesauce, we’ve had some fine salads, Lin made banana bread, and Z is making soup as I type! Amazing, right!?

I’m not saying everyone should go out and dig in the local dumpsters for free food, but….well, why not!? Ha!

Other than that, I have been doing a decent job of biking, though many of the free fitness classes we’re taking are too far away to bike to yet, so we’ve still been using the car. I have been to three boxing classes, my first Qigong class, and kickboxing and a mixed martial arts class will start on Tuesday. At the first of the month I completed my first 3-day fast, and I’ve been spending a lot of time outdoors, mediating, reading, walking, etc.

We rinse all produce in a baking soda bath and a vinegar bath and give them a good scrub.

These changes have made me super sensitive. I have had some strange physiological symptoms like cramps and headaches, and I am highly emotional right now. I am on a spiritual journey, for sure, and am so happy and grateful that I get to spend this time really taking care of myself right now, in order to be better prepared to take care of others when the time is right.

Filed Under: Food, Health, News, Self-Love Tagged With: challenges, eating, food, growing, happiness, learning, overcoming challenges

Learning the Gears

August 9, 2018 By Bean Leave a Comment

They say about riding bikes, you never forget, but what if you’re 31 and never really learned in the first place? And what if the bike has 24 gears?! Eek!

It’s one thing to pedal up and down mostly straight, flat roads, but we’re not in Weldona anymore. Navigating 24 gears in San Diego county is a whole different animal. But, this is the Tour of Hope, after all, so let’s remain hopeful!

I will start by saying Z is way stronger than I am. She’s been running and exercising regularly for most of her adult life. Me? My exercise comes in the form of need-inspired walking, sporadic stationary biking (no shifting required), the occasional strength circuit, periodic bouts of yoga, and isolated incidents of bedroom calisthenics. My quads and hammies are not up for all this pedaling, but they’re getting there!

We’re making rookie mistakes, for sure, as we cruise up and down the hills in La Mesa. Accidentally going up hill in high gear, not shifting down soon enough before the hill, skipping gears when we don’t mean to. Still trying to figure out the trick in timing to take that sweet momentum off the hill up the next one while being in the best gear….not quite there yet.

So far, an 8-mile round trip is the longest ride we’ve done, and it truly filled us with hope. I took my time on the hills, was patient with myself, and never had to walk the bike, so that’s a success! It’s still a long way to go before we head out to a powwow 140 miles away next month, but we’re going to make it.

Despite the unforeseen plot twist, we are still planning to attend the upcoming powwows around San Diego and LA. We will volunteer at these traditional events to gain a better understanding of each community and seek input from the elders and other community leaders about how our program can help meet their needs. This will be invaluable experience to inform our program development.

Additionally, I begin my own self-defense training tomorrow! Z is already a trained instructor, but I will be investing my time in learning combination martial arts, defense-based kickboxing, and whatever else I can fit into my schedule next to the bike training.  

Something else we are working on is finding a piece of land for a workshop space. Or rather a person who owns land they’d like an office and garden on. We will build a small, sustainable, office/living space from reclaimed materials, complete with a rainwater filtration system and garden and compost system, if they like, which we will build, maintain, and leave the landowner with once we no longer need it…we just need someone in San Diego with the right space and the interest and willingness to let us work there for no exchange of money. Please let my know if you are or know of such a person.

So, I’m super hopeful about that, and look forward to building a tiny office in the near future!

It turns out that starting your own non-profit/service-based program is a lot like learning to ride a bike!

Filed Under: News, Teaching Tagged With: biking, growing, happiness, intention, learning, self-defense, support

About Being Honest with Myself

September 3, 2016 By Bean 4 Comments

cropped-119H.jpgI moved here to gain perspective, but I honestly didn’t think I was going to gain so much so fast, and I certainly didn’t think that the perspective I would first gain would be about myself. It seems sort of obvious now, especially given that my big move fell within the same year as my divorce. Hindsight is a funny thing. No matter how much we know, or think we know, we always look back and see things differently. And no matter what we expect to happen in life, it’s rarely even the case that things do happen that way. I can hear my sister now, calling me cryptic, so let me get to what I’ve learned so far in my 45 days in Brazil.

 

young-blonde-walking-towards-union-square-in-san-francisco-picjumbo-comI’ve learned that I’m not very good at being cool. Like, with men. I’ve learned that I’m a little emotionally and communicatively behind when it comes to adult relationships. Now, I’m not in a relationship, but I did meet someone special several months before my move. I felt sad but mature when we agreed to not get too involved or attempt some long distance thing, knowing that many miles and a lot of time was going to come between us. Yet, this man touched my heart in a way it’s never been touched, and although I said I could, I wasn’t able to be the cool, laid back woman who just let things go on as life directed.

 

I’ve learned that I’m crippled and stifled in my skills at being laid-back. I was in too tense environments and around too many bad relationships, including my own, for too much of my life to just be chill naturally. But I want to be able to chill out more, and my class of 9th graders I think are helping me do this! I’m really glad that I’ve become aware of my “uncoolness” so I can learn how to chill out before I ever think about settling down (again).

 

So, for example, like NOT email this person I’m giving space to to tell him how much I miss him, then say “I really am living here in the present moment, I just wanted you to know I’m thinking about you” Nope, I’m not going to do that…..again. :-/ I wanted to be able to just be here and not think about him. I wanted that to be true, but I was also sad and lonely and longing for something he got me to believe in again, and I felt more comfortable in that non-reality than I did in my present one.

IMG_1713

I SOOOOO clearly wasn’t living in my present. I WAS learning a new city, and a new job, and meeting new people, and focusing on my health, but I wasn’t even close to being present. Even though I wanted to come on this adventure–Hell, it’s one of the only (big) decisions I’ve truly made on my own in my entire adult life–I wasn’t fully ready for it. Then again, are we ever really ready for anything?

 

So, I wanted to BE here, but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t scared. And it isn’t even until now that I can look back on it and go, OH, I was scared. I was in culture shock. I was having a harder time that I let myself admit. So, I did what I always do when times get hard: I fled. I couldn’t flee from my physical environment, so I fled emotionally. I fled from the present moment, my here-and-now mentality.

 

I think that usually when people emotionally flee they fall back into the warmth of a past moment, a beautiful memory, but I fled to a future longing, to an amazingly peaceful future I dream of having with someone. I burrowed myself into the still-smoldering golden ember of my heart that this someone lit on fire. I absconded into the future of my mind, a place I hope to be one day with someone special, to avoid the challenges of the here and now. But now that I’ve taken the time to think about it, and have let the sadness settle, I know that I was being a little (a lot?!) uncool, and that the timing isn’t right, and that I just need to focus on here and now.

IMG_1773

I’ve learned that I need to focus on me and become the best version of myself if I ever want that amazingly peaceful future I dream of to become a reality, and I know that actions speak louder than words, so…..I’m off to work on me. From this day forward I commit to being the best me I can be. I commit to being the best teacher I’ve ever been, creating the most honest artwork and writing I’ve ever created, and loving myself more than I have ever loved anyone. I am going to work day in and day out to become the coolest woman I can be. And in doing so I hope to continue growing my perspective of our world through this amazing place I get to call home for a couple of years.

Filed Under: Self-Love, Travel Tagged With: cool, emotions, focus, homesick, learning, moving, present, ready, sadness, space

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Jillian. Jill. Jilly. Jilly Bean. Bean. It helped that I was all legs and full of energy. String Bean, Bouncing Bean. I liked keeping secrets but I loved to spill the beans. Bean Carries On is my garden. A place to cultivate thoughts about the things I care about. I’m a daughter, a sister, an aunt, a teacher, a gardener, a reader, an artist, a cook, and an empath.

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Jillian. Jill. Jilly. Jilly Bean. Bean. And like a seed in soil, "Bean" stuck. Bean Carries On is my garden. A place to cultivate thoughts about the things I care about. I’m a daughter, a sister, an aunt, a teacher, a gardener, a reader, an artist, a cook, and an empath. I want this to be a place where we can learn together, so please leave comments and if there's anything you want to know, please ask!

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