Points with Purpose

http://www.pointswithpurpose.com/

Check that out! Another artist using art for healing and awareness and that is always inspiring!

Domestic Violence Webcasts from State Dept

There are going to be two live webcasts by the State
Dept. on Dec. 1, on the subject of domestic violence. Here is the
info:

December 1, 2008 at 9:00am EST
Speakers: Sue Else, President, National Network to End Domestic
Violence and Ruth Bennett, Public Affairs Officer, International Women
\'s Issues Office, US Dept. of State
Topic: Taking Action to Combat Domestic Violence: Overcoming Obstacles

Next Broadcast
December 1, 2008 from 4:00pm EST to 5:30pm EST
Speakers: Jan Langbein, Senior Policy Advisor, Office on Violence
Against Women, US Dept. of Justice
Marylouise Kelley, Director of the Family Violence Prevention and
Services Program, US Dept. of Health & Human Services
Topic:
Taking Action to Combat Domestic Violence: A Coordinated Community
Response

the website for the webcast is http://www.cpcwebcast.com/state/

Assault Victim Turns Her Own Crisis Into a Cause

Courage to Heal - Nov 19th in Santa Cruz!

Healing Holly

Thank you for reading and contributing to the Survivor Manual. My work started and continues because of the people like you who support it. I meet heroes daily from all walks of life. What started out as a simple project of interviewing women who shared my name turned into a bond with thousands of people of all ages, races, and religions.

As I write another movie and work on my comedy show, I continue to speak around the country, consult other writers and filmmakers on their projects, and provide inspiration and avenues towards healing and awareness. I have just met another hero among you and I want to tell you about her and request your help, hope, and heart.

I started my comedy cooking show, Stirring Up Trouble, to have some balance in my life after years of working in the trauma world. I have been contacted by many of you asking for recipes and wanting to be a part of the show, one of whom is a girl named Holly. Holly emailed me, offering help on the new website. After checking out her online community for women, healing and feminist blogs, I could tell that she knew what she was doing, so I accepted her offer. She added those cute little buttons so that you can now forward the show to your friends on myspace, facebook, stumble it, digg it, or post it on delicious. Check out what she did at StirringUpTrouble.com.

Holly sent me an email telling me that the site was live and apologized for being out of communication for a bit. She said that she'd been sleeping an unusual amount and felt groggy. I, knowing some of her story of child sexual abuse, asked her if she was using sleep as a coping mechanism. Many times when things come up that we have a hard time facing, we will go to sleep, literally. I suggested that she write about that on her healing blog and I would put it on the Survivor Manual.

But the reasons for Holly's unusual sleep patterns go much deeper than coping. It turns out that Holly has Periodontal Disease, which is a gum disease that swells your gums up to the point where they become inflamed and hurt very badly. Periodontal Disease releases toxins through your gums that you swallow all the time. The reason Holly has begun sleeping so much is because these toxins are beginning to get worse and are making her nauseous. I looked up Periodontal Disease and found that if it is left untreated it can lead to a seizure or a heart attack. Recently Holly told me that she has been feeling electric-like surges throughout her face.

The reason I'm writing this is because this all began with child abuse. When Holly was a young child, not only was her mother selling her to men for sexual favors to be able to afford her drug addiction, but Holly's mother was also violent. She pushed Holly into the street one day when Holly was about 3. Holly fell, hit her face on a street curb, and all of her front teeth pushed into her gums. She had to get them surgically removed.

Holly's front teeth didn't grow back in until she was around 8 and when they did, they grew in extremely crooked and her mouth produced more teeth than would fit. To top it off, Holly's wisdom teeth are coming in. One of them is all the way grown in and another that is growing in now. Why am I telling you all of this? Because Holly is uninsured and cannot afford to get any of this fixed. She's been trying to take odds and ends jobs but the pain is keeping her from working as much as she could. Holly's father was paying child support plus the court costs and lawyer costs to try to get Holly and her younger sister away from their mother, so there was no money to get Holly's teeth fixed when she was young and they have continued to worsen. Holly has tried getting on welfare, free clinics, and sliding scale clinics, and every time they either don't have enough oral surgeons for all the help she needs or she makes too much or too little money.

I know what it's like to not have insurance and not be able to pay for health care. A few years ago I had such an intense asthma attack that I had to be rushed to the hospital. Because I was unable to breathe, I was rushed right into the emergency room. It was after I was put onto a breathing machine and stabilized that I was brought all the paperwork to sign. I began to cry when the nurse asked which insurance I had. Not only was I not insured but there was no way I was able to pay for a hospital bill. The nurse had seen my documentary and knew what I did and who I was. She was an angel in my life and erased any trace of me having been in the hospital and I never received a bill. She also provided me with some free inhalers before I left. I don't know what I would have done at the time if that nurse had not miraculously shown up.

I wouldn't tell you about Holly if she wasn't a warrior and a hero. She has done so much for Women's rights, helping other survivors heal, and setting up websites for amazing women - like myself! Just like people have helped me along the way, I am going to help Holly and I am asking for your help. I'm asking that all of us pitch in and get Holly's teeth fixed. If I could simply write a check and make her bills disappear I would. But I have not gotten rich by dedicating my life to helping others. I am rich in Spirit from knowing so many of you but the bank account has not caught up yet. So I set up a paypal email under givelove@angelashelton.com so we can all chip in. I realize that we're in a financial crisis and because of that we are all going to need to bond together as a community more and more in the future.

The gist of Holly's story is in an interview she did for her local newspaper in 2007 here : http://www.thetimes-tribune.com/articles/2007/01/08/top_local_stories/17682154.txt

If Holly doesn't get the Periodontal Disease taken care of, she could die from a seizure or a heart attack because of all of the toxins her mouth produces. If I had not had that angel for a nurse I would not have been able to breathe - literally. I care about this girl and I want to help her. Healing Holly is not going to solve all of the problems in the world but it will be one amazing story with a happy ending that I personally really want to see.

Please be one of Holly's angels! The many procedures she needs are going to be very expensive so any amount helps. If everyone who gets this gave a little something - we may save a life! I have been speaking to one of the top dentists in Beverly Hills but if there are any dental surgeons around the world, Holly will fly wherever she needs to in order to fix this painful problem. The donations are gifts and not tax write-offs. If you or someone you know is part of a non-profit willing to collect and donate the money as well, please help.

You can contact me directly at angela@angelashelton.com and put Healing Holly in the subject. Go to paypal.com and send money to givelove@angelashelton.com or use this button:

Parent With Presence

Parent With Presence: Simply Essential for School Success
By: Sarah Elise Stauffer (View Profile)

We all want our children to be successful in school. Children need to know that they are loved, safe, and sacred to us. There are many ways to demonstrate this to them. Words are one thing, but action is key. One simple way I want to discuss is volunteering your time in your child’s classroom.

Children spend their days at school, and we at home or at work. When we let them go into the world, we have to be absolutely committed to remaining a PRESCENCE in their lives even as we are physically apart.

When a parent makes the effort to come to school, and volunteer, even for half and hour in the classroom, you are giving your child the gift of your presence, by way of your time spent in his or her world. I must also stress the importance of Dads going in and helping out as well. My son lights up like a Christmas tree when my husband or me comes in to help out. He says,” I feel so…special, Mama. Just…. like, I can see you are always caring about me.“

That’s the truth, kids see that you are there with them, aiding the teacher, acquainting yourself with the staff, the other children, and their lives as they know it at school.

Many of us did not have present parents in any sense of the word. I come from an abusive family. I can vividly remember never having a parent come to school for anything. When I was in a school play in the second grade, I was so excited I could barely stand it. I was a doll, and my job was to sit on the stage for the whole play! I got to wear a special dress and special doll make up. When no one showed up, I felt such a deep sadness, and sense of invisibility. This is a mild example, but a poignant one nonetheless. I vowed years later that my children would never feel such feelings; stinging rejection and the humiliation of being stared at when your name is called and no parent stands up for you in the crowd. I know many of you have had similar experiences. If this is your legacy, it can stop with you.

A good compass for parenting with presence is getting as involved in your child’s classroom as much as you can. I understand parents work. As a stay at home mother, it has been a challenge for me at times to find child care for my youngest so that I can get to school. I have seen parents who come in once every two weeks on a lunch shift. Children talk about it all week and are overjoyed when their mom or dad comes in. What a gift!

One that we can give just by showing up. Isn’t that true for so much of life? Just show up. Showing up emotionally, not just physically.

Here are some simple and easy tips for fostering presence in your child’s life:*Make friends with the teacher, every year. Whether you talk on the phone, by email, or in person. Just talk. It’s all about communication. Some teachers are better at this than others. If you have a teacher who is not so hot in this area, voice your concerns calmly. If you are blessed with a teacher who is on the ball, be sure you thank her or him often.

*With my son, who is a second grader, I am co-room parent. I was sole room mother in kindergarten and chaperoned every field trip. This year I talk three or four days a week with my son’s teacher. If you wait until conference or progress report time, you may end up having a much bigger mess to clean up. Kids can fall behind in a flash. It’s all about being a maintainer, a sort of diligence cop. If your child is behind, it falls on you as much as your child, because it is our job as parents to set rules and boundaries and enforce them, they need us to be on their backs all the time. Resist as they might, that is to be expected and is even more reason to get in there and stay in the process with them. Some suggestions:

*Join the PTA, try to go to meetings. Your PTA needs you. You need the PTA. It’s a win-win.

*Go to as many school events as possible. We go to almost every one. This gives my son an extra dose of belonging in his school community.

*Offer to bring in extra supplies for the class. Yes, they always need supplies. It could be Kleenex or disinfectant. Small or large, it will be appreciated.

*Have an ongoing conversation with your child’s teacher about how your child is doing. Read the lesson plans if you can. Ask for handouts on exactly what they are learning. For example, for reading levels, most schools have certain levels your child needs to be at in order to be making adequate progress. Your library should have corresponding handouts with age appropriate books that aid in your child reading on the correct level. If they do not have this, ask them to provide them.

*Stress the importance of education, in general. Education is the key to the future. My son knows it is fundamental right and also a responsibility he must take very seriously.

~Let me preempt, you think you do not have the time? Prioritize. Make the time. Don’t talk about it, be about it. The laundry can wait. Start early, kindergarten, even preschool if your child is in one.

As a mother who makes an effort to be a present force in my child’s life at school, as well as home, I pop into class early. I help organize, along with the my co-room mother, Learning Experiences, Center Time, Book Fair, and the volunteer list. It’s sort of like being a detective. It’s a fun way to be in the know. I can see Dominic’s self esteem and sense of self value rise each and every time I reach into his life at school by being there. Yes, sometimes I am simply stapling their journals together for the week. I sit and staple and watch and listen. Every few minutes Dominic will look up and smile at me. The other kids do too, and I feel so blessed to be a source of presence for them. Other times I am working with groups, and at times I am assigned to some one on one time with a particular child. I have made an effort to know each child in his class beyond their names. Dominic loves this. In this way, you get to be a sort of Earth Mother to all of your child’s friends. The hugs and hi-fives I receive from his classmates when I come in makes my day!On the research side, in study after study, researchers discover how important it is for parents to be actively involved in their child's education. Here are some of the findings of major research into parental involvement:

When parents are involved in their children's education at home, they do better in school. And when parents are involved in school, children go farther in school — and the schools they go to are better.

The family makes critical contributions to student achievement from preschool through high school. A home environment that encourages learning is more important to student achievement than income, education level or cultural background.

Reading achievement is more dependent on learning activities in the home than is math or science.Reading aloud to children is the most important activity that parents can do to increase their child's chance of reading success.

Talking to children about books and stories read to them also supports reading achievement.When children and parents talk regularly about school, children perform better academically.

Three kinds of parental involvement at home are consistently associated with higher student achievement: actively organizing and monitoring a child's time, helping with homework and discussing school matters.

The earlier that parent involvement begins in a child's educational process, the more powerful the effects.

Positive results of parental involvement include improved student achievement, reduced absenteeism, improved behavior, and restored confidence among parents in their children's schooling.

Involvement in your child's education can mean:

Reading to your child

Checking homework every night.

Discussing your children's progress with teachers.

Voting in school board elections

Helping your school to set challenging academic standards

Limiting TV viewing on school nights

Becoming an advocate for better education in your community and state.　

We are witness to our children‘s lives. We need to band together as parents and be a strong, stable, encouraging presence in their school life. For me, it is really about being there in mind and body. This is parenting with presence.

Finding Butch

Inspired by Finding Angela Shelton, Ron Tebo is now Finding Butch!

Ron Tebo and his younger sister are survivors of sexual abuse (he was 6 and she was 4) and they have created Finding Butch so other survivors have a positive place to speak out and share their story.

Angela Shelton in Texas

Yay for Kathy and Jenn in Texas! That was a great event!

A

Help Pass Senate Bill 1738—The PROTECT Our Children Act

Help Pass Senate Bill 1738—The PROTECT Our Children Act Hundreds of thousands of children are victims of sexual abuse each year. Due to the sheer lack of resources, law enforcement is unable to follow up on the majority of leads they have.
The PROTECT Our Children Act will:
Authorize over $320 million over the next five years in desperately needed funding for law enforcement to investigate child exploitation. Mandate that child rescue be a top priority for law enforcement receiving federal funding. Allocate funds for high-tech computer software that can track down Internet predators. Act Now!Your U.S. senators will be voting on the bill soon, so it is crucial you contact them immediately.Go to http://www.senate.gov/ to find contact information for the senators in your state. Search for your senator by name or state by clicking on the arrow from either dropdown menu. Contact information is provided here. To send an e-mail, click on "Web Form" below his or her name, and e-mail your letter to make a difference!
Call Your SenatorsIf you choose to contact your senators by phone, be sure to tell them, "Vote yes on Senate Bill 1738—The PROTECT Our Children Act."
Write to Your SenatorsIf you choose to write a letter, fax, telegram or e-mail, you may use the following sample letter—and modify it how you see fit.
Dear Senator:
I know that you believe, like I do, that we must do everything possible to protect children from sexual predators. That is why I am asking for your help.
Last year alone, U.S. law enforcement identified over 300,000 criminals who were trafficking in movies and pictures of young children being raped and tortured. Experts say that one in every three of these criminals has local child victims. Child pornography trafficking over the Internet has given us a trail of evidence that leads straight to their doorsteps, but the vast majority of these children will never be rescued because investigators are overwhelmed, outnumbered and underfunded.
As your constituent, I urge you to do everything in your power to pass the PROTECT Our Children Act (S. 1738, Biden-Hatch). This bipartisan legislation passed the House 415-2, but it is now the victim of petty partisan politics.
Now that we know where these children are and how to protect them, there is no excuse for the Senate to fail to take action this session.
(Your name here)
Instructions for How to Copy and Paste the LetterTo copy and paste the letter into your senator's web form at http://www.senate.gov/, point your mouse arrow at the beginning of the text that you want to copy. Click your left mouse button and hold it down. While holding the left mouse button, drag your arrow to the end of the text that you want to copy. Release the button. The text should be highlighted. Place your mouse arrow over the highlighted text, click your right mouse button once and let go. A new menu should appear. Select Copy from the drop down menu. When you get to the message form field for your senator at http://www.senate.gov/, point your arrow at the beginning of the message field that you want to copy your text to and right click with your mouse. Click Paste from this menu. Submit your form and help our children!

Claiming Your Crown

I just went through the excruciating and exhilarating experience of becoming a Queen. For those who have followed my journey of recovery and healing, you have seen and heard me about the process of moving from self-hatred to self-love. I talk about the healing process at length in Finding Angela Shelton (that is required reading in more schools now!). But much like the peeling of an onion, there are always layers to move through when you continue to get better, stronger, and more resilient. I have been entrenched in the trauma world for over 7 years now and have heard thousands of stories of abuse and violence and watched many transformations from victim to warrior occur. By warrior I do not mean fighting for vengeance but rather being the whole human who stands for love, courage, and strength. I now know many warriors and am blessed to see more people shifting their lives into wholeness instead of falling back into victim-hood with repeated patterns.

I just went through another birthing process myself where I coveted and claimed my crown as Queen! Coming from someone who was a self-hater, that is one amazing transition! I have talked a lot about the process of changing the pathways in your brain from the negative thoughts to positive thoughts like replacing "I am worthless and stupid" with "I am a Goddess Warrior." It may sound far too simple and childish to simply catch and switch your thoughts but it works. I went from a self-mutilator to a Goddess and it was all due to changing my thought patterns.

At one of my springtime speaking engagements a woman told me that she thought that I was Queen and not just a Goddess. On stage I am always encouraging audiences to find new and powerful words to use to replace negative thought patterns. I had not thought about the term Queen for myself before though. So over the summer I processed that word and began to use it and guess what - I am a Queen. I claimed my crown. I moved past my fear of moving to new levels of courage and strength and I biked for 25 miles a day, learned to spin fire, became a climber, took up guitar, and produced an online cooking show to boot! At 35 years old I am in better shape than I have ever been in my life, I look and feel great, and those old negative self-hatred thoughts are so far away that they do not fit anywhere in my life now. The negative thoughts are unrecognizable just like the positive ones used to be when I was stuck in the old patterns.

For those of you who still have the bits of self-hatred lingering, I promise you that when you work on your thought patterns that it really does change your life. I never thought I would transform into the person I am today when I began this journey of Searching for and Finding Angela Shelton - but I am a living example that it works.

This fall I will be going into much more detail about Removing the Sword of Trauma and using it with Love. I'm excited to see many of you again and to watch more Kings and Queens emerge like Joe in the picture!


Contact events@angelashelton.com to book me in your area.

What Obama Means For the Fatherless

What Barack Obama Means to the Fatherless

By:

Sarah Elise Stauffer (View Profile)

A good survivor friend of mine and I were waxing on this and he asked me to write a little about it, so my dear lovely here you go.

(You are a wonderful man and father! Remember that!)

We took our kids to see Obama at a rally a couple of weeks ago. It was electric, amazing, and very powerful to do with our kids. We believe in teaching them to honor that they have a voice, to use that voice and affect change, to be opinionated, and not to be sheep.“To know what you prefer instead of humbly saying Amen to what the world tells you ought to prefer is to have kept your soul alive.”—Robert Louis Stevenson

Obama is sincere and eloquent, brilliant beyond an Ivy League level—he is emotionally intelligent. He is socially intelligent. And he alleviates my need for cynicism. I was raised by cynics. I threw that veil of shame—and many others—off years ago. I refuse to pass that to my kids. That will not be their legacy. Or mine. But I understand it and empathize with those feeling it. It is easier in some ways to remain cynical. It is safer than putting yourself out there, we think, because then we risk disappointment. Sometimes it means going against your own inherited family rules (It did in my case.), spoken or unspoken. My children have made me believe in life; they kind of pulled the rug out from under my very cynical nature. My hubby is the same—he went against his upbringing to become extremely positive, politically outspoken, and idealistic. Kids, they do the damndest things.

This country could use some hope. It’s as if some people are allergic to it. I understand. One thing he said that resonated deeply with me and especially with my survivor friends was that “Fathers in this country owe more to their kids—they need to stand up and be men and be a real father to their children.” He is using his personal pain as a fatherless child to affect social change. So important. I do not care if you are Republican, Independent, Libertarian, liberal, purple people eater, whattheheckever—this is a common universal need. Touting family values is one thing; valuing family another. Fathers need to be there for their offspring. Period. That your father was absent, abusive, nonexistent, or otherwise emotionally/physically not there must be faced. And felt.

This is of interest to all of us who either had abusive fathers, or nonabusive fathers. Every father needs to be more emotionally in tune and available to their kids. Fathers need to protect and provide, but they need to exhibit empathy and reverence toward and for their children. So many children, girls and boys, are growing up feeling a vague, uneasy sense of disconnectedness. They are acting out (criminal behavior, hurting others, etc.) or acting in (self destructive, my hubby and I both did this for years as teens) because of this: Just because you are a “father” and you bring home the proverbial bacon does not mean you are done. My husband is a fabulous example because he shows the boys it’s good and right to feel, how to conduct oneself as a man, to empathize with another’s struggle, to express their dreams and hopes, to be kind and sensitive to women, children, other men, humans all over, to think about animals, to honor the life force itself. In this rigidly patriarchal society, we have lost the sacrament of the sensitive male. Fathers showing their feelings, imagine that. Golly gee. To their sons, to their daughters. What a novel idea. It touches my life so much that Obama is verbalizing this reality; fathers are not fathers just because they provide. That’s a provider. Fathers are not fathers just because they made a baby; that’s a sperm donor. A child knows when a parent is giving them their energy—it’s an energy, a connection, a soul feeling. They know it. It is a soul nourishment.To all my survivor friends, I know this means something deeply profound to you as well. To anyone who has not directly experienced father issues, I know you can be proud of this as well.

Obama is challenging the status quo by saying this. He is calling out those fathers who are emotionally lazy and do not want to own up to their own feelings about fatherhood. Kids are growing up feeling fundamentally flawed inside because of their parents’ issues, issues that they project all over the child, who then absorbs the crap as their own.To me, that’s what Obama is about. Now, I am a proud Democrat, a very liberal one, although I do believe in the death penalty for child killers and rapists, but I say this as a woman, mother, wife, and daughter of two very inadequate, abandoning, abusive parents. I don’t care that Obama is more moderate than I might like—I don’t think he’ll be legalizing pot or confronting the failed drug war, putting nonviolent drug offenders in rehab instead of prison, for instance. Nor has any candidate gotten up there and said, “I plan to eradicate incest, because 1/3 girls and 1/5 boys are sexually abused in this country.” I’m still waiting on that.

BUT, that he is voicing this call for fathers to step up is why—among a zillion other reasons—Health care: we were personally affected by no health insurance when our first son was born. It was awful and everyone should enjoy a wonderful socialized health care system—it’s working beautifully for Australia, Europe, even Cuba); pro choice rights (it’s a decision that belongs to a woman; it is her body and that is that.); actually addressing sources of unwanted pregnancy and aiming to prevent it (fathers in the home loving their daughters would help this, too); sex education is the only realistic way to do this. Less warmongering, more diplomacy, ANY diplomacy at this point, more gun control (I don’t want kids getting their hands on guns; our country is number one for gun related death), just more control. You NRA folks just chill; for me, we need to screen people and keep guns out of the hands of kids like Dylan Klebold and prevent more Columbines). Shall I go on? I will proudly vote for him. Anyone who cannot find a reason to do the same I ask you to think about this, just this, the subject of fathers. It’s something I think we can all agree on. Namaste.