Erin Keeley and Associates, LLC

Have you done your research and reclaimed your own grandmothers’ history?

“In a patriarchy, women have two choices: to become sick or shrewd.” -Glennon Doyle.

How many of our female ancestors were forced to choose one or the other and then labeled as having a mental disorder? How many were institutionalized or drugged to bandaid the violence and ignorance at home: the larger more expensive problem?

Education is power. Time to create a third option for women (beyond just rejecting being a woman.)

I dream of a world where our culture is created to reflect the neurodiversity and physical diversity of being an XX & an XY human being… it will look nothing like our current world which has been almost entirely designed by XY brains.

I suspect that in the future we will look at a persons environment long before we label their psyche as “broken”.

Every woman has a hidden history and it’s the invisible ones that deserve our attention and respect.

Isn’t this the whole point of women’s history month? Not to celebrate the lucky famous ones: but to shine a light on those who silently have their lives for us to be here now.

It’s not that “she’s just too sensitive from her past traumas”… it’s that certain personality disorders prey on women who have psychological injuries making them susceptible to repeat abuse cycles both with partner(s) and courts (and in my experience, the kids schools and the uniformed therapists). keep speaking!!

I grew up with the latter and then was attracted to radical honesty after a false harmony marriage… living in an area that has slowly adopted the burning man value of “radical honesty” however, has been a total whoopsy slap in the face. Ya I’m certified in Authentic Relating… but do I promote and use it all the time? Hell no. Why? Because we are mammals, not robots. (And hell no do I believe robots are enlightened.)

The ART of exercising and beyond… omg he said art, not “work”!

I always wanted to be an artist, not a “fitness instructor” or worse, a “spiritual teacher”. I’m tired of “doing the work”… as a single mom, work is almost all that I do. Has it really gotten me anywhere? I don’t know. But I do know that art has. Writing my book and dancing and leaning to access my creative self has changed me. It’s taught me to add beauty to the parts of life that feel intolerable. I make art from life and this… is what makes life worth tasting for years to come.

GYROTONIC®️ is art embodied. And. It’s roots lie in yoga, science, dance, healing… I am pretty sure I was meant to end up here. The goddess embodied is not expressed through words or 108 postures or a strict rule book of alignment. All that is too small for her. Too much of a cage. And yet banks of a river are what allow a river to flow wild and free. If you’re a yogi and you haven’t tried Gyrotonic, well I dunno what else to say… it would be like never tasting fine wine but calling oneself a wine connoisseur. I despise hierarchies; but expertise and fine art is not what makes caste and hierarchy: Arrogance and ignorance does that.

If we throw the fine art and expertise out with caste mentality, we will have done all this work for naught. They are not mutually exclusive!

Yep. Finally someone said it.

Someday.

I was only diagnosed with ADHD a year ago. And no I don’t mean the thing that was talked about so much in the 80s… the brain that I have is not average and there’s nothing I can do to muscle or “positive think” my way out of it. Most women NEVER get diagnosed. And those women are highly prone to depression because we live in a culture that thinks that our brain style is “lazy, stupid, selfish, arrogant, irresponsible, careless, and just plain BAD”. None of that is true. But imagine what it’s like to start to figure that out at 45 yrs old. Imagine.

There’s so much more I want to say today but sigh, I am very far behind on the parts of life that keep us fed and housed and I must get on it…

But there will be more coming soon. Recovery from being beaten by culture, loved ones, especially partners and doctors and eventually myself… it’s a long journey and I think I’ve really only just begun.

If you think you are a woman who was never diagnosed with ADHD or giftedness (yes it’s real and yes it makes life harder so quit projecting arrogance where it doesn’t belong thank you), CHECK THESE OUT DO NOT PASS GO AND comment here if you like!!

I’m never going to stop taking a stand for XX v***a body neurodivergence. You have my commitment on that one! (And ADHD Women are really good at being overly attentive to the things they care about fyi!)

**k

When was it that my body switched from yearning for a break from the endless hours of baby holding… to a craving for a break from the hustle and bustle by holding a baby? Is it age? Or the grass is greener syndrome? Or was there a point of surrender sometime after becoming a mother?

I have no desire to go back to being agro in extreme sports and goal oriented all the time. None.

I also truly hated the social isolation of being a mother in Boulder: it was the worst kind of torture for me, especially because it usually came along with a lot of shaming for “getting to be a spoiled stay at home mom”.

The juxtaposition of being lonely, feeling guilty for being lonely, feeling guilty for not making money, feeling guilty that my career choices made less than child care cost… and yet knowing that if I could have erased the lonliness my choice to be a mom who raised her own child was absolutely a choice that was in full agency: one I do not regret… how much more I would have loved being a new mom and also been able to attune to my boy if only there had been a thing called “community” day in day out… but, I hate finishing sentences

I suppose at 46 I wish I could go back to 32 and speak up more about my social and emotional needs… and have been listened to. If that had happened… would it have made a difference? And then, Would the regret about not having more children be less? Would I be less of a cat baby lady now?

Would these moments with my kitties in my arms have been as sweet, though?

I wonder.

What I do know is this: No mother should ever be shamed for the hard choices she had to make due to living in a society that has very little understanding and value for emotional and physical intimacy.

And no mother should ever have to shut down the mammal intelligence part of herself in order to make a solid living;not now. Not then.

That mammal stuff? It should be “useful”. Until we learn this, I fear we will continue to destroy ourselves and each other.

That^. Ya maybe that’s the reason I’ve become such a cat lady at 46. 🤷🏻‍♀️