Womxn Warrior

Love has always been complicating for me. And it’s not Love really, it’s the meaning I assigned to it and what was conditioned to me.⁣
⁣
I always felt like Love was impossible and hard to have, maintain. I never understood the idea of “self-love” as it wasn’t modeled for me growing up.⁣
⁣
I realize now in my 30’s that Love being an action makes more sense and seems the most healthy, to run with.⁣
⁣
Most of us did not grow up with healthy attachment styles, or healthy ways of connecting/bonding from our parents or caregivers. I think some ways to heal this is by practicing self-love through setting boundaries, reparenting, meeting your own needs, and if you have a partner(s), honoring & speaking your partner(s) love language the best you can.⁣
⁣
If you learn that your partner(s) feels loved through words and communication, then try your best to talk to them through praise & words of affirmation. The part that this gets challenging is when folx have a hard time expressing themselves, so they have a hard time expressing emotions and feelings to their partner(s) who’s love language is words of affirmation.⁣
⁣
If we grew up around folx who taught us to suppress deny reject disown our feelings, or just who we are period, this can carry into adulthood and project in ways that are unhealthy and extremely painful.⁣
⁣
I find it interesting learning that folx that grew up with healthy attachment styles generally grow up to be able to speak all love languages and/or can be fluid in speaking any of them.⁣
⁣
From my desire to heal I learned that there is indeed a disparity of healthy attachment styles between white folx and BIPOC folx. That s**t is not fair.⁣
⁣
I think this topic is especially important for BIPOC folx whom are walking through life unaware of these patterns & traits that are a result of childhood wounds and conditioning… especially existing in a system of colonization, white supremacy & racial hierarchies, and capitalism.⁣
⁣
It is still possible to heal. It is still possible to impact our conditioning to shift towards healthy patterns & behaviors. And through this possibility, we can heal ourselves, in turn our parents, and in turn future generations.

Speaking up has not always been easy for me. What’s more challenging is navigating different cultural attitudes when it comes to “speaking up” like the U.S. and western world vs. Asia and the eastern world. It’s like you feel pulled in two different directions based off of how you were raised and what you eventually choose to do for yourself because of the ‘free thinking’ and ‘individualism’ you assimilate in the U.S.⁣
⁣
When I read Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde in 2011, it was a game changer for me. This was the first time that I saw the world of academia having terms and concepts describing my own experiences growing up in the U.S. Why did I feel such a profound connection to the stories and essays I read? Or even the music I listened to? I knew back then that even though I was not Black, I could relate to the experiences and realities that the Black community faced. It was the first time *somebody* finally validated my reality because they experienced it too—on more complex layers and different racial power dynamics—and the folx that validated this for me, were Black womxn.⁣
⁣
While I was born and raised within Los Angeles county, there’s something about first-generations and their experience growing up in an immigrant family in the U.S. that’s different than let’s say a second gen or third gen. It’s like you are an immigrant yourself—you share damn near the same experiences as your parents. The only difference is the layers of struggle that we face and learning the truth of the land that our parents chose to settle on—for me, this is the Tongva and Chumash tribes.⁣
⁣
My parents, mostly my mother—brought ‘collectivist’ attitudes & culture to me. Making the choice to immigrate to the U.S. and having me here—gave me ‘free thinking’ and ‘individualism’.⁣
⁣
I decided when I was a small child to speak up, communicate, and dismantle anything I felt was morally wrong.⁣
⁣
Shout out to Audre Lorde for her deep expressive honest raw words and art that continue to inspire me to this day in 2020.

Welcome! Womxn Warrior is a Los Angeles based independent blog that focuses on race, class, gender, sexuality, & culture education while centering healing work, accountability, and social responsibility. Womxn Warrior advocates and supports Black Lives Matter, anti-racism education, and companies/brands/individuals/families that seek to elevate conscious awareness surrounding issues pertaining to race, class, gender, sexuality, culture, and more.