What is the tone you set for who you are, the culture of safety on all levels for children, schools, neighborhoods, our world? What types of seeds do you plant when you walk in your day?

Do you recognize the leaf as a budding plant, a bully as terrified, a child watching for cultural norms of whether they are a tomato or jalapeno. Do you know how to cultivate that seed or the perpetrator who needs serious intervention so they don’t rape the soil. Do you know how to keep your garden safe without slithering in the soil to catch the wolves or ignoring the growls because your not sure how to protect yourself.

We rape the soil in the garden when we don’t put the right ingredients to replenish it, we rape our culture when we don’t teach ourselves to replenish the soul so we can grow into amazing adults. Which is a weed, which is a plant and don’t weeds replenishing the soil?

Do we have a rape culture or are we well fed with life skills, compassion and a proactive culture? Look closer and hear what you say when your son cries, watch what you teach the neighbor girl when she is being “selfish” with her toy, what color onesie did you buy for the boy?

Is this the prevention of a rotten culture or am I chasing parasites after they start devouring my potato buds? When we support the soil, fungus cannot grow and people will not be in so much pain that the only way they see to have control is to be in a counseling profession just waiting for the desperate to apply. Perhaps if we knew how to treat the fungus we would not defend someone with a strong track record of sexual abuse because we are afraid of the truth. Perhaps we would not pull the weeds and throw them away without seeing their worth.

What culture do you sow in your garden. Do you listen when someone expresses concern or do you want it to go away because you don’t have a remedy for it or it brings up your own trauma history and you don’t know how to treat yourself with that level of care.

Get a little uncomfortable and look at your gardening techniques so you can save the child from being preyed upon, look at the tone you set for boys to be tough, aggressive to be successful, dominant to be a man. Try it for a moment or a million to notice how you insist she hugs that person anyway, demand a why for her objections, shame her for wearing a cute bikini or him for liking pink.

Where do you think our damaged man culture comes from?

Girls don’t be angry, hell yea I’m angry, that we continue to support a culture that grows adult men who perpetrate and women who defend them!

Bury your head in the rutabaga, ignore the nature of our soil, the lack of life skills and lack of systems that authentically support our human experience. Shame yourself back into submission, OR fertilize our little plants with clean water, expressing all emotions for both genders, water the perennials with navigating tools for authentic kindness that feeds our roots.

Toss the girl power culture in the compost, this is a human culture. Equal pay because girls know how to negotiate, feelings so men experience more than anger and know that valuing women is not a weakness and being empowered is not bitchy.

This is not a bad man issue or a helpless woman issue, this is a culture issue.
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We are master gardeners! Let’s get our straw hats together and make a plan for harvesting an abundant culture!

Go to Voices Of Men to fertilized more ideas, http://voicesofmen.com, watch this video https://youtu.be/jVI1Xutc_Ws

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Whether you have slacked off your new year's resolution or not, now is a good time to introduce one word that can reshape 2017. The word is discipline. Wait! Before you run off screaming from sure defiance, let’s tilt it, just a bit.

Discipline, to be a disciple of the line. What line, whose line, my line? What does this line sound like, look like, dress like? What are the rules or parameters?

Very similar to boundaries, a disciple of the line is never about other people. We must identify the characteristics, needs and wants of your line before it can be used effectively. When you become intimate with this line, you will know where to draw it, when to move it and how to hold your line with integrity. I am a disciple of what I know is right for me, a disciple of being what that means.

We can’t tow a line if we don’t know what it is made of or how it is woven. If we have sloppy braiding skills, we can’t tow a damn thing. We must know who we are, what we want and what we need. This is what creates consistent strength in the line you tow in relationship, choices for you and your family, work decisions and community involvement.
You've got it, we are almost at the line.

This comes back to basics that can be elusive, mysterious, curious and often confusing. WHO AM I.  Followed by a willingness to be so freaking uncomfortable because we we may not know who we are. When we look closely in the dark we may discover that we have been following other lines of discipline that may not reflect our intended true self.  

Knowing what the line is comes from our original discovery of purpose, which is not supposed to be responding to what you want, what I think you want, what I think you think I want, what you think, I think, you think, I think you want, you need, I need, who I should be or you think I should be! These thoughts move so fast and so often we don’t even hear them. Our line has been about white noise! I have been a disciple of your line, their line, what line, who cares line, and what for? Who started this anyway?!

We seek out validation and approval from other people, a system, a group, or an echo of grandparent’s disapproval, every day. We want to be a part of and we want to find our place in this world. This is natural, this is normal.

The mastery of being a disciple is to step back for identification, to design or redesign the line we tow to reflect our authentic position in the world. The miracle is, when we do this, what we truly want and need, shows up and we feel deeply satisfied. All because we had the courage to get real about the line we tow.

There are two parts of exploration in 2017, 1) get clear about who you are 2) be honest about the line you are a disciple to and change it accordingly.

Am I honoring my line, flipping the line, moving the line, redesigning the line to match what I think, you think, I think, I should be. I am not here to morph my line to accommodate another person's line of discipleship. I am simply showing up in my own skin to be a disciple of who I am created to be. If my line was intended to be any different than it is, I would not be who I am.  
PS, if the line you tow is gilded with threads of shame and restriction, you will fail and will only reinforce a self-sacrificial martyr system.

​Renee Beese is a Teacher, Author & Speaker, her delivery is inspiring and always entertaining. ReneeBeese.com 920-651-0625

to the lies you heard and kept repeating...

Do you ever wake up in the middle of the night and here something so clear, see your life in such a perfect way that you just have to get up and write it down because you know if you don't you'll loose this clarity forever????

Well I do, and this is a good one!