0:00:00 - Dr. Bird
I'm going to start with the question.
0:00:03 - Briar
Hello everyone, welcome. I am Briar Harvey. This is the Neurodiversity Media Network. Today we are talking about how to have hard conversations, and this one is particularly hard conversation. It's going to be hard in for the people who are in it, and it's going to be hard because today we're talking about accessibility. Someone once said to me that calling it accessibility was a misnomer because that made it seem optional. And I've, i've, i've sat with it And I'm not sure that's not optional, hi Briar.
0:01:09 - Dr. Bird
Hi, how are you today? I am wearing my merciless Indian savages Declaration of independence t-shirt. That's how I am today. I'm feeling feisty, so you caught me on it.
0:01:23 - Briar
I mean it's a pretty cool thing.
0:01:28 - Dr. Bird
I'm wearing so many of these several pounds of obsidian? No, no, this is actually no this is a labradorite.
0:01:39 - Briar
Oh wow, several pounds of labradorite like and and y'all. It's beautiful and I've worn stone necklaces. That's a lot of weight on the back of your through. For truth telling, today.
0:01:54 - Dr. Bird
That's correct. Um, i, i'm really happy to be having this conversation with you, uh, huh, i don't think I've ever publicly actually talked about accessibility before, and I'm excited about it because, um, because this is such a critical conversation for for me personally, for two reasons. The first one is that, um, when I was growing up, uh, my very best friend in the whole world two best friends Margaret, um, her mother became paralyzed, uh, from the waist down in 1981.
Rough time to be paralyzed, right Like it was right after my dad had committed suicide. So we were both six years old and here's Susan my other mother, basically, um who, uh, was paralyzed, and Margaret and I are still friends We've been friends for 46 years and, um, her mom just died this last year. Last year, in 2022, and, um, susan taught me. What Susan did with her paralysis was she started advocating for the ADA and she started the Americans with Disabilities Act. For those of you who are not in the know, she really taught me what it looks like to advocate. Um, she had us walking for Geraldine for our own when we were little kids, like, oh yeah, she was like, and I don't, i didn't realize until she died how much I had absorbed of Susan's voice and her teachings.
Um, i actually ended up marrying her son. He was my first, my first husband. Uh, was actually Margaret's brother. Um, that's another story for another day. So I was really, i mean like that piece having someone that important to me in a wheelchair teaching me these things about speaking about the Americans for Disabilities Act, paying attention to where there's ramps and where there's not ramps, like all of these things, was just what I did. That, combined with living with my husband, who many of you know is a two-time more veteran with PTSD who watching him grapple with that word disability was really complicated for him because he went through the process with the VA of getting disability benefits and the evaluation process the VA does to award those benefits is gross and ugly.
0:04:52 - Briar
I believe we have already spoken about the enforced poverty of disability in the United States and the ways in which it is humiliating and demoralizing to the people who have to have it. Yeah, what?
0:05:09 - Dr. Bird
what I find to be really fabulous about this conversation is that it is because of Susan and Jim that I have, when we, jim and I, have started building the vision for a place called the Mermaid's Garden, which is a retreat space, an aquaculture farm, a regenerative and sustainable space built on the retreat space is all going to be built using universal design, which, for those of you that don't know, goes beyond accessibility into expanding that into anybody, regardless of ability being able to use that space.
So in all, like a very simple example of this is, the labyrinth is going to be wheelchair and walker ready and also have bumpers so that people who use a cane for site can also use the labyrinth. It will also be able to use it in a multitude of different ways so that people with sensory stuff will also be able to use it. It's those little tiny things when you're creating a space where you think about not just accessibility like do I have the bars next to the toilet but where you really get into making sure that everybody can use those spaces fragrances, all that stuff.
0:06:39 - Briar
And it's in the language Universal. Design means everybody's included. It's universal, we all get to use it. Accessibility and accommodations can be seen as optional. My mom has been dead for 20 years and I still look at places for wheelchair ramps. It just became such a part of my processing.
0:07:13 - Dr. Bird
Yeah, i think it. You know, my gym was raised with very conservative grandparents and parents And one of the things that he grew up with was them complaining about the ADA, and he always said you're going to need that someday, right? Yeah, we're all going to need those curb cuts someday, right, we're all going to need these things someday. As I'm facing a double name replacement at the age of 49, we're all going to need these things someday, right? We all have to think about what this means and how we're going to engage with our worlds and our spaces. And this is interesting too, because some of my favorite advocates that work in the field of disability.
One of the things that we talk about a lot is you say words matter and language matters. Briar so much And I just appreciate it so much. One of the things we talk about is this you know, i'm just going to say it The progressives trying to make things feel better about language, and so this term differently abled And how problematic that is, because it actually takes the language out of the Americans with Disability Act and makes it difficult to enforce. And I'm wondering if you would run down this rabbit hole with me. When we say differently abled, we are literally cutting the knees out, and I'm using that intentionally and on purpose. We are cutting the knees out of the Americans with Disability Act and making it unenforceable. Do I say more about that?
0:09:20 - Briar
So how does one define difference? What makes someone different And if I'm going to go over here right now and look it up different, not the same as another or each other unlike in nature, form or quality. And that's important because that's not clearly definable.
Meanwhile, when I talk about my disability, my language means I am disabled in some way, and this is especially important for people who cannot advocate for themselves. When we talk about autism, in particular, as being differently abled, when we talk about neurodiversity and I recognize that that's a word I use fairly frequently What we're doing is diminishing the disability of people with higher needs, and I know people don't like that term either, but there are degrees of severity in the types of what's the word I'm looking for, the symptoms and the presentation Right. So I am autistic. I have two autistic children. One will need some accommodations for the rest of her life. One will likely need pretty comprehensive accommodations for the rest of his life because he doesn't speak And I don't think that's going to change. So if he cannot verbally advocate for himself, then it's important for us to be clear about his disability and the things that he needs to accommodate his disability. Yeah, that's it.
0:11:43 - Dr. Bird
And I think the thing that is so important about acknowledging that our language matters, particularly when we're talking about accessibility, is that it forces us into the discomfort and unease about our own ability And it helps us. I mean, i will not lie, i have had to get a cane to walk because my knees are shocked. I mean, they are bone on bones. I have bone spurs, i have cysts, i've got all sorts of stuff happening. I'm a mess And the thing that I needed a cane and I freaked out. And, breyer, and to all of you who are watching, i freaked out because of my own internalized judgment about what it means to have to use a cane. I mean, i freaked And I was all oh God, i hate that. I have to do more work. I was like I want to be evolved and I want to be this self-actualized, amazing healer, preacher person And I'm sitting here criticizing my own damn self because I can't fix my knee Right. Oh girl, it is coming home.
And it reminded me of a moment where Susan taught me one of the greatest lessons ever. I took our kids to the pediatrician and someone parked in the handicap spot And I had a very much righteous fury because I didn't see a placard, i didn't see anything on the car that indicated that they were handicapped, And I didn't see any of the stuff. And I thought I was doing right by having righteous fury publicly on Facebook about that thing. And Susan came on and she onto my face, to my page and she's like what about all the invisible disabilities? Missy and I was all oh that, right there, susan being willing to be like friend, pay attention, and me having to confront that discomfort. But I was doing the right thing, i was saying the right thing, but I'm entitled to my feelings. No, yeah, sure, you're entitled to your own feelings. And when you know better, when you hear better, do better, do better. And I never again I mean never- again, and it never ends.
0:14:17 - Briar
We're doing this constantly, forever, for the rest of our lives, even when we are ourselves disabled. My husband had to get his cane when he was in his late twenties. And let me tell you, a healthy American man.
0:14:40 - Dr. Bird
Oh yeah.
0:14:41 - Briar
Oh no.
0:14:45 - Dr. Bird
The best part, though, was Sean looking at me and my son looking at me and being like mom, and he put both his hands on my shoulders and he goes mom, you're always talking about how you want to be the wise old witchy, chrome, embrace the king, and I was like, oh right, in the gut, and that is the work. That is the work that you and I have been talking about in every single one of these conversations. That is the difficult, messy, hard, squishy, squirmy ugly truth. That's the discomfort, and that's what the invitation is to all of you throughout all of these conversations. This is not an all or nothing, zero sum game. The world of accessibility, of disabilities, of really thinking about our universality as an interwoven human web of life, implores us to step out of our comfort zone and have very complicated conversations about what it looks like to go beyond access, because, as you keep saying and it's so important access is optional, even though actually, according to the law, it isn't. But who's enforcing that law?
0:16:14 - Briar
Yeah, i mean, in the same way that I can think of men's country clubs, i can think of women's gyms, and technically that's not access either. I think that the issue becomes when We don't allow for Inaccessibility, we have no understanding what true accessibility is. Say more, i don't actually think there's anything wrong with Men's country clubs or women's gyms. In fact, i think those spaces should be cultivated and encouraged. I think that we should absolutely be encouraging more trans-only Spaces. We should be encouraging more one-person bathrooms, like, i don't think that this is a zero-sum game, and I think that we understand What access is When we can't Have it, because that's just how we are, as humans, look at you flipping that script.
0:17:27 - Dr. Bird
Look at you flipping that script. Whoa, you know this really. It calls to mind the idea of privacy right. One of the things about the Roe versus Wade decision that I kept I keep trying to educate people on, especially when I was doing reproductive justice work Is is that Roe was actually not an abortion decision?
0:17:56 - Briar
No, it was a right to privacy decision that has absolutely affected medical privacy and HIPAA laws.
0:18:07 - Dr. Bird
Well, yeah, i mean, it affected the ripple effect of Roe which, by the way, we are now seeing because it has been overturned, and they very specifically overturned the right to privacy In, like, if you read the the Dobbs decision, it's, it's very much an overturning of the right to privacy. What, what, what? what I'm realizing is you and I are just like in real time at this moment as we're having this conversation Is that and I knew this, i think I knew it underneath All of the decisions that we're seeing being made right now In the Supreme Court in particular, but also in in state and federal, in state legislatures particularly too is that This doesn't just if this disproportionately affects people in the disability community and They're right to have Care and privacy and In all of their lives, because we, we really do Still have a lot of problems with how we help people who are disabled. We, we don't think they have the right to privacy because they can't handle it right, that they're not capable of it.
0:19:28 - Briar
Correct the ways in which I have been Infantalized over the years, because I am bipolar and now add autistic to it.
0:19:39 - Dr. Bird
Just the ways people must yell at you.
0:19:41 - Briar
Oh yeah.
0:19:44 - Dr. Bird
Yeah, people do it with Jim too. When they find out he has PTSD, they like start screaming at him and I'm all It's not Hard of hearing while he is in one ear but like you know shooting guns and whatnot, but like I'm like he can hear you like There, but they're not raising their voice because he's hard of hearing. No, they found out he's got a disability, so they think they have to scream like It's like talk.
0:20:09 - Briar
We've decided that you have lesser Intelligence, and one of the ways in which I communicate to those with lesser of Intelligence is baby talk, yeah, or yelling Dismissive Condensation, oh, yes, i've seen it all.
0:20:28 - Dr. Bird
Yeah, yeah, like, yeah, mm-hmm, and, and, and what if we just started to acknowledge That right to privacy, which is no longer a right in this country? Aren't you excited? Where I go, right? What if we acknowledge that We're not all meant to be messy in the blender, that It's okay for us to be collectively, individuals in this collective, and That we're not meant to be all one person to everybody? I'm not everybody's cup of tea, right?
There was that really lovely meme going around a couple years ago about how I'd rather be someone's cup of whiskey than everybody's One person's cup of whiskey than everybody's cup of tea And I was like, oh, that's so me, but we. I think we also have to remember in this conversation about accessibility and Universality is that we actually are not meant to be all things to all people, and that is a really great disruptive of our internalized misogyny. I don't want everybody to love me or even like me. I don't, I don't want that. I just I want people. When I say that really hurt me, that was really harmful to me, to go Oh okay, i see that That's what I want. I want that as a woman of color, i want that as a native person, i want that as a woman, i want that as a queer, i want that as a bisexual person and I want people to also say I want that as a person with bony, bad knees. I want that.
I want those things And I want those things for my children and I want them for the grandchildren. For people to just this is the hard-come research. For people to just this is the hard conversation to go. Oh, i can see that I've caused you harm. I don't even need an apology.
0:22:39 - Briar
You know, i was just about to mention that fucking four-part apology bullshit, and And it's not that it's inherently flawed, it's that Sometimes an apology will never be enough and we don't. When we Process it as though behavior can be changed, we are negating the behavior that happens.
0:23:21 - Dr. Bird
Yeah, i've been thinking about this A lot in the last 24 hours And it's really relevant to what we're talking about today. So here's what I'm talking about today. Thank you so much for watching. Here's what I was thinking about. I was thinking about an incident that I will not get into in detail, but I experienced a very racist incident this week personally, and the term colonization was used a lot in the conversation And it struck me how clinical we've made colonizer colonizing a very clinical adjective, academic term, and just as I'm sitting here I'm thinking we do that with disability all the time.
It becomes a thing that is about others. It's the other ring. If we keep it clinical and academic, then we don't have to acknowledge the discomfort and the way it makes us feel yucky. We do it with colonization all the time, but what we don't realize is that genocide is still taking place constantly in this country, right, right, and how intertwined that is with the body politics of disability. And when we start to think about this universally, we start to realize that every single one of us is impacted by it and that it is not a clinical act in the term all the time And that reverberation. That's what's causing us all this disconnect and all this shit.
0:25:12 - Briar
But I'll tell you that if I can't speak about these things clinically, then I must both accept that I am in some way in fault and that I am a victim of this system. And those two things, especially the tension between them, is a very uncomfortable thing to sit with.
0:25:42 - Dr. Bird
Yeah, Yeah, mm, what are you? You know, there was this whole movement in the social work field when I was getting my PhD about. We need to stop talking about mere survival and talk about thriving, and I mean, i've talked about that a lot. Who's defining thriving?
0:26:17 - Briar
I think that's a question, isn't it? How does one define thriving?
0:26:24 - Dr. Bird
Right, because for me it means something different than it means for you, And I know for me it means something different for just the people in my household. For Gwen and Sean and Jim, thriving is different. For living your best life, Oh, you're living their best life, right? Like we even said about our dogs, but for potato, his amount of thriving is totally different than Dakota's level of thriving. Like even in our dogs, their needs are different, because potato's special I mean, he is a, he is potato, so like Y'all can just imagine.
a French bulldog named Potato has a certain stature level, But he's very potato-y. But we all have these Who's defining thriving. This is just really just occurring to me just now, but I love talking to you, by the way, because it just makes me go oh shit, We're doing this wrong. Is that yet another? Are we doing it wrong? Or did we just really full on buy-in to the patriarchal bullshit?
0:27:33 - Briar
Well, that's a good question, because I think when we look at thriving, what we're often doing is whitewashing trauma.
0:27:46 - Dr. Bird
Woo.
0:27:51 - Briar
I mean, how do I define thriving when I live in this fucking culture and mass? We've had some incidents in the past few days breaches of the office. I'm solo parenting this week, which always reminds me I am too.
0:28:24 - Dr. Bird
It's really joyful, isn't it? Yeah, it's such a good reminder. I find I value my partner much more when I'm Oh, so much more When he gets home tomorrow.
0:28:38 - Briar
I'm just gonna thank you, for It may not be perfect, it's not always what I want but damn, I can't do this alone.
0:28:50 - Dr. Bird
Yeah.
0:28:52 - Briar
I think that too is part of what thriving is, though It's the individual condition that separates us from actual community.
0:29:07 - Dr. Bird
I think it's that And I wonder like I have this personal vendetta against the term self-care, because I just feel like it's such a sexist, racist trope that nobody can ever live up to.
0:29:24 - Briar
Right, take a bath.
0:29:25 - Dr. Bird
Okay, I'm all cured now, because I think what we're craving is really soul care, like the literal care of our souls, and that doesn't get fixed with a good mani-pedi right.
No, exactly It's not Oh no unfortunately, i, really I. It just is occurring to me that even my own definition of thriving is based on someone else's definition, society's definition of what it looks like to thrive. This is so complicated, like the total. On one hand I just want to be like burn it down, just burn it, burn it down The whole thing, do over, start over, start over. But then part of me is like no, because there are some really amazing things about this world that we live in And maybe that's the human condition. Is this wrestling until we die of all of these things? Like, maybe that is truly our human condition That is why we are human-ing is to get in the mess about all this stuff and not avoid the mess of all of this stuff, because I have a lot more peace in my heart wrestling with these things, wondering about God and the universe and spirit and bodies, and then certainty, absolutely.
I'm way happier being very uncertain. I used to love certainty, but then I realized like it was killing me. It was killing my soul, it was killing my mental health, it was killing my body, like there's nothing, i'm not certain about anything. My teacher, my mentor, said to me, like about a month ago, there's nothing on this planet that needs to be controlled. And then she said and that's faith, and that's what you have to remember, missy. Faith requires you release the need to control.
0:31:48 - Briar
And, at the same time, you don't have to have an opinion either. Oh, what Are you sure? Yes, i'm sure.
0:31:57 - Dr. Bird
I mean, what would we do without our opinions? What's that quote? Opinions are like assholes Everybody has one.
0:32:05 - Briar
And they all smell. They all stink. I think, truly, for me, deciding that I didn't have to have an opinion about something was incredibly free, Like, oh, there's a thing that happened, especially political things. I'm like no, I no longer have any opinions about this thing. Opinions require that I be passionate about it, that I care, that I put emotional energy into it. Now I can just let it go. Oh, that happened.
0:32:48 - Dr. Bird
Yeah, how about that? Isn't that something?
0:32:54 - Briar
Our detachment to our own victimization is what allows us, i think, to actually understand the state of the world. And for you right now, this is hard, because you're in a situation where people are very attached to that, to their idea of what is right and what is wrong, and who is right and who is wrong.
0:33:29 - Dr. Bird
But there is no right or wrong.
0:33:31 - Briar
No.
0:33:34 - Dr. Bird
There's like this, series of events that happen And you know it's all information. Like we're gathering all this information, we learn what we want and what we don't want. We learn what hurts and what feels good for each one of us. But that doesn't make anybody wrong, because I feel like the way we perpetuate, the way we take away people's free will and choice, is to create the common enemy Right. It's to not allow us to think or be creative or use our imagination. I was actually. You know. There's that great quote from Albert Einstein the intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We've created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift. We are not meant to be separate from our natural connection to this earth and this plant and our bodies and ourselves and our souls, and the win in creating the need to feel better about disability, about people's color, about queer people, that need has taken away from our shared humanity.
0:35:11 - Briar
Well, because that's how we bring this all back around. You can't be accessible if you are deliberately othering.
0:35:18 - Dr. Bird
Yeah, yeah, and this is where I actually have a chapter in my book called God is not the fucking problem. Othering is the fucking problem. God is not the problem. The interpretation of God is the problem, particularly in service to maintaining white supremacy and genocidal structures. 100%. And it's the othering that is the problem. It is the forced othering of other people And I will say it is the use of language to make us feel better, particularly among the progressive people.
0:36:07 - Briar
Yeah, I think progressives just get away with it better because they're championing the underdog, But in fact their underdog is no more underdoggy than the persecuted Christian. And these are hard things for us to grapple with.
0:36:30 - Dr. Bird
Yeah, and this us versus them mentality is what keeps us in this perpetual cycle. And that is not. That is not that the I don't know what the fix is, but I'm I'm starting to sit here going what if we all just embrace the fact that we have no control, there's nothing to control And none of us have the answers? I mean, i don't have the answers. This is what I love about this whole series of conversations you and I have had to Ketter Brayer. I explore the answers And I think, well, maybe this could be the answer. I don't know if that'll work for all y'all, but you know, let's try it and see what happens. I think being a human being is like throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks. That's correct And what sticks for you And is not. What sticks for me, and that's okay, like. Like that diversity of thought, the diversity of opinion, the diversity of of, the diversity of the species, like. Isn't that what we're doing? It should be? I think so.
0:37:40 - Briar
It's certainly what we're doing here right now. I don't have to agree with everything that you say to hear you. I don't have to agree with everything that you say to be able to have a conversation with you. And God, I just think it would be so boring if we all agreed about everything all of the time.
0:38:12 - Dr. Bird
You know, i've really been thinking about this. I don't really even need you to understand everything. I want people to hear me and say I see you. In some ways I am you, because we are the universal human race of human beings, of humans being. I see you, i hear you. I don't understand you, and that's okay, because there are some people in the world I'm just never, ever going to understand, and that's okay.
0:38:56 - Briar
It also doesn't mean that we have to invite you deeper into community. If I don't understand you, then I'm probably not going to want to be in community with you, but that doesn't also mean that we're not here together. In the giant community of the world, i think that we spend too much time sorting and categorizing.
0:39:25 - Dr. Bird
Don't you think this goes back to that conversation we had about grief and loss and vulnerability too? I really wonder what would happen if, communally as a globe, we admitted that on Thursday, june 29th, at 11.42 am Pacific Standard Time, we're just all dealing with a big, gigantic global grief cycle, that the world is just not the way we thought it was going to be. I mean, we thought we were going to be living in floating cars like the Jetsons. Come on.
0:39:56 - Briar
What happened to my flying car? God damn it.
0:40:00 - Dr. Bird
You know what? It's the robot that does the vacuuming. Because, the last thing we have now does not work, as well, And we recently.
0:40:10 - Briar
I mean, George Jetson was apparently recently born. That was in the universal timeline. We have his date of birth. That actually happened last year, I think. But we've also eclipsed back to the future, part two. You know, hoverboards, flying cars, all of those things, the pizza grower machine I want a pizza grower machine And we still can't figure out how to move beyond accessibility Right, right.
0:40:49 - Dr. Bird
And we still can't figure out how to talk about race, and we still can't figure out how to talk about LGBTQ issues. Because, for most of this stuff, here's another thing that I've really been thinking about a lot, and because I've been thinking a lot about my mother and her generation I love you, mama. I know you're not going to watch this, so it's cool In her generation, she's 76 this year And I've been thinking a lot about the total unresolved grief. The last time we had a globalized grief cycle was World War II. And how did we do that? How did we handle that? Oh, we just sent everybody home, turned all the women into housewives and turned all the men into breadwinners around the world.
0:41:49 - Briar
And we didn't talk about it.
0:41:51 - Dr. Bird
And we didn't talk about it To the day he died. My grandpa didn't talk about his experiences in World War II, except for one time he did because I was doing a book report, right Like we did not talk about it. So our parents were raised that you do not talk about things, which is why we middle-aged people as we are, are so feral And you know they joke about it on TikTok that we were, like you know, letting ourselves into the house and we were large key kids and all the things. But like that was the avoidance of grief Which sits in our bones and in our blood and in our DNA. And then you add on disability And you add on racism And you add on homophobia And you add on transphobia And you add on all these things And you can start to see that what happened with COVID is that all of a sudden we were forced into the reckoning of the last time this happened.
0:42:56 - Briar
And we're still not talking about it.
0:42:58 - Dr. Bird
Nope.
0:43:02 - Briar
No, so it's just gotten progressively more violent And statistically, the numbers around that are absolutely indisputable. At this point in time I don't it's June 29th I've lost count of how many shootings there have been in the United States, mass or otherwise. We don't talk about it, we avoid it, and then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
0:43:36 - Dr. Bird
Well, and this really I really feel like we're not grieving the loss of our own autonomy in so many ways, right, Like if we're going to come together not to sing kumaya, but to come together to just meet each other as humans, we have to grieve the loss of this individualistic Pull yourself up by the bootstraps, the world is your oyster That whole thing, this whole capitalistic, white supremacist thing that has been perpetuated for 500 years. I think we're also grieving the loss of that autonomy, the myth that we've all bought into that World War II just accelerated here in the United States.
0:44:30 - Briar
And not just here, everywhere else too Right, everywhere else too.
0:44:33 - Dr. Bird
But like, like the American housewife, the iconic American housewife who sacrifices for her man, who sacrificed so much for us, that is still being perpetuated.
0:44:48 - Briar
We call them tradwives, now Trad wives Like traditional housewives, yes, and there is a lot of racism and misogyny And oh yeah, because these are women who are espousing these views. right, The call is coming from within the house here.
0:45:16 - Dr. Bird
Well, like if you want to each their own. That's not, i cannot. I tried, oh my gosh, i really tried. For years. My son thought that you didn't buy syrup in the grocery store because you could. You made it at home. He's like what do you mean? you buy syrup in the grocery store? I was like, oh, most people don't make syrup like I do, buddy. And he's like I don't understand, Right, i don't understand. I am not judging those women because I feel like if that is your fulfillment, like hell yeah, go for it. I don't. What worries me is that we're perpetuating a mythology that you have to buy into that to be whole and happy and and thorough and real, and that and that and thrive and thrive to thrive.
And that is not accessible either.
0:46:12 - Briar
No For most people, under most circumstances, especially with wages and wage stagnation. The other side of that is that there are lower class rungs. If we're still a family, sometimes being a stay at home is absolutely a necessity, because even if we have two wage earners, we can't afford childcare costs now.
0:46:46 - Dr. Bird
Right.
0:46:47 - Briar
So there's this polarity to being a traditional housewife that looks like a glossy magazine spread But in this country is most often held by women who cannot afford to be in the workforce Right And this goes all the way back to the beginning of our conversations, from the very beginning when you and I were first talking.
0:47:14 - Dr. Bird
Nuance, the use of language, thinking beyond accessibility, requires that we remember the nuance of all of our lives And that there, when we think that everybody again, who makes, who decides the definition of thriving? Because it's different for each one of us And it is predicated on class and race and gender and religion and safety and you know, all of those intersectional things that we really struggle with dealing with. I have to say I really have enjoyed these conversations. In this one It just it's pulled me so far out of the things that I normally think about It just in my work, this idea of thinking about openness when our our habit is to close and not walk into the unknown Because it's too scary, and I feel the fear and do it anyway.
Yeah, like not even feel the fear, address the fact that you may not be in fight or flight, and then do it. That, even if you have experienced that at one time or another, it might not be relevant to the moment right now, today.
0:49:01 - Briar
I don't know. For me, fear, especially, is a misnomer, because I am afraid all of the time, all of the time between autism and anxiety. There is absolutely nothing about my brain that tells me that I'm not going to be eaten by a tiger at any moment.
0:49:21 - Dr. Bird
Yep.
0:49:23 - Briar
And being able to sit with that and do something anyway, has taken me, oh, about 40 years to figure out. Yeah, yeah.
0:49:37 - Dr. Bird
Mm-hmm It, this lifetime, is it? it takes time. Uh-huh, it takes time. I think the fact that we are all just messing around with this right now, like we're really starting to think about this stuff Uh-huh, this is going to take time. It took us 500 years to get here. It's going to take a minute. Uh-huh.
0:50:17 - Briar
To undo the knots.
0:50:20 - Dr. Bird
Oh, and we're so impatient. Yeah, we're like Oh, i see that ball of yarn that's tangled up in the knots. You know what I'm just going to go in new ball of yarn. I think we're really being encouraged to continue messing about with the untieing of the knots. It's my. one of my most favorite prayers is the Mary and doer of knots prayer. Um well, i shall read it. I've altered it to adapt to my own thing, but anyway, it's. mother of fair love. We look to you, taken to your hands the ribbon of our lives, and see the love knots that keeps us bound to fear, anxiety and hopelessness. We beg you, mother, by your powerful intercession and long fingers of love and grace, undo the knots in our hearts and in our lives. Free us to love as Christ loves. Mary and doer of knots, pray for us.
0:51:18 - Briar
Spectacular Amen.
0:51:25 - Dr. Bird
I just mess with it and see what happens. I just think there's something about being in this mess. Uh huh, not knowing if we're ever going to get to the end of the untangling. Uh huh.
0:51:42 - Briar
Missy.
0:51:44 - Dr. Bird
Right.
0:51:45 - Briar
Thank you, thank you Really. I agree. This has been absolutely phenomenal to be able to sit here and have these conversations with you. I cannot wait to figure out what we're going to do next In the meantime. Y'all, this was the last episode, so there are four episodes in this series. The master class will be available soon. I'm working on something new with the master classes, where you have like the ability to have timed tracks and get into the little pieces first before you get into the big ones, and I just don't think that's going to happen here. I think your time track is come, sit with us for four hours, be in the discomfort and see what you learn.
0:52:44 - Dr. Bird
I like forward to hearing from people about what they hear.
0:52:46 - Briar
And we're doing fine. The acceptance of a master class doesn't really matter though. But we do it. Yeah, it's a little hard to do these other classes. I'm excited about it. Yeah, me too, very excited about it. Yeah, me too. And we will walk you through not just these four hours, but there's some additional resources and things for you to sit with and think on and work with, because that's the whole point.
0:53:22 - Dr. Bird
So good.
0:53:24 - Briar
All right, thank you.
Transcribed by https://podium.page
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