No matter how much confidence she exhibited while offering home remedies for infant constipation and baby food recipes, she struggled with uncertainty. The matriarchal totem is full of mamas making mistakes while making meaning. I’m grateful for their wisdom.
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What skills will we take into this unknown? If our kids will be growing up in a revolution, what do we need to teach them?
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It’s a paradox. Our connection will help soothe our anxious brains, but it can’t work if it can’t first see what is there. The first work of that connection is seeing the anxiety/rage/discomfort/whatever and letting it be there. It can’t be trying to suppress, fix, or avoid it. But once we have that acceptance of what is, that authentic connection in the midst of struggle, there’s enough solid ground for calm to take root. We have to risk the fast shallow breaths to get to the good deep ones.
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Help us paint our new office! Sunday, October 28 from 2:00-6:00, Friday, November 2 from noon- 8:00, and Saturday, November 3 from 11:00-6:00
Read moreBloomington Community Invited to Break Down Barriers with Dr. Maureen Walker and Daryl Davis Bloomington Center for Connection (BCC) is delighted to announce its first community events: Power Redefined: Disruptive Empathy as a Tool for Liberation Friday, August 10 7-9 p.m. and Conversations Reimagined: Relational Cultural Theory in Action Saturday, August 11, 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. Sponsored by Griffin Realty, both events are free and open to the public and take place the Monroe […]
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Relational-Cultural Theory (RCT) has been presented as an antidote to the divisiveness we face on a daily basis. Whether the dissonance is of polar opposite political views, or a struggle over the best route to a common goal, RCT can help create and nurture the relationships necessary to move forward. This post is part one in a series. Because RCT pushes against a model of competition and independence, it can be misunderstood as “just being […]
Read moreBloomington Center for Connection is thrilled to announce our first annual Relational-Cultural Invitation: Bridging Differences. Friday, August 10th, we welcome our keynote speaker, Maureen Walker. Maureen joins us from the Center for Relational Growth. Maureen’s work includes helping people bridge cultural differences such as race, religion, gender and other social status markers. Maureen’s past talks have included Transforming Community through Disruptive Empathy, Getting to the Truth about Race, It’s Not About Checking a Box: Confronting […]
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One of many things I love about my work is that I’m regularly challenged on ideas that I’ve held close for years. Sometimes this results in a recommitment to the foundational philosophy of Relational-Cultural Theory. Other times something we’ve used for years gets changed. A few months ago, we were consulting at a school and I mentioned Ross Greene‘s idea of assumption-free living, described in his new book, Raising Human Beings. “How does that work,” […]
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At the Bloomington Center for Connection, we apply the lens of Relational-Cultural Theory to all of our interventions, from community-building groups to family therapy. One intervention we use frequently is Collaborative and Proactive Solutions, or CPS. There are lots of packaged discipline programs for schools and parents, many of them with clever rewards charts, or even cringe-worthy consequences. The most commonly advised discipline technique is “time-out,” which is, at its most basic, a disconnection. Withdrawal […]
Read moreHey friends, it’s cold out there, but we’ve got a warm building and fun activities to help connect caregivers and kids. On Tuesday, join us for Claytime with Connie, and on Wednesday we have our Music time! Both are open to caregivers and their children, with Claytime being more appropriate for older preschoolers who are less likely to eat the clay. Come on in and warm up.
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