3 Tips to Stop Feeling Like a Doormat and Start Setting Healthy Boundaries
A friend of mine, Dr. Harold Bloomfield, wrote a wonderful book called Making Peace With Your Parents. In this book, he describes a type of person that he calls a “people pleaser.”
According to Dr. Bloomfield, a people pleaser is someone who will go out of their way to make sure that everyone else is happy, often to the detriment of their own happiness and fulfillment.
This can happen when the person doesn’t value themselves. Ultimately, people pleasers usually end up feeling like doormats.
If you think that deep down you have some people pleaser tendencies, know this: You’ve most likely been trained to be a people pleaser from the time you were very young. And here’s the good news: if you WERE trained to be a people pleaser, you can UN-TRAIN yourself too by knowing that you are Stronger Than Circumstances!
In fact, Shakespeare once wrote:
To thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.
What he means is: Take care of yourself first, and that way you’ll be in a position to take care of others.
Are you being true to yourself?
A few years ago, I had a client named Stacey, who was in her 40s at the time.
Stacey wanted to feel more fulfilled in her life and career. But deep down,
Stacey had an ongoing need to please others, and it was negatively impacting her whole life.
If someone else asked her to do something, especially her mother, Stacey didn’t know how to say,
“No, that’s not good for me,”
and feel okay about it.
If she didn’t please other people, she couldn’t feel good about herself.
Stacey’s mother had never approved of her and had been jealous of Stacey for a long time.
She withheld her love and approval, and the little girl inside Stacey desperately longed for her mommy’s approval.
So, no matter what her mother asked for or how much time it was going to take, even if Stacey had to miss a vacation, she felt she had to help her mom.
As Stacey and I started working together, she began to take a look at what was really happening in her life, and how all of her relationships were being affected by her desire to please other people, including the man she loved, who she’d been with for 20 years but couldn’t ever fully commit to him because she was so busy taking care of other people.
Using the steps below, I helped Stacey establish some new patterns over time so that she could actually say no when she meant no and say yes when she meant yes.
Establishing these patterns helped Stacey be true to the people she cared about because she was being true to herself. And you can, too!
How to Stop Being a People Pleaser
For three steps to stop being a people pleaser, feeling like a doormat and start living more authentically, keep reading.
Step 1. Pause before you say anything.
If someone asks you to do something and you have a longstanding people pleaser pattern, the voice in your head tends to sound something like,
“Say yes, say yes.”
If you say yes, you’ll get a momentary feeling of happiness, because you’ll be happy that the other person is happy.
But deep down, if it’s not making you happy, then your actions are driven by a need for instant gratification or acceptance, and there will be a cost to that.
So, the next time someone asks you to do something for them, take a moment. Take a breath. It’s perfectly okay to say,
“You know what, let me think about that and I’ll get back to you tomorrow.”
And then, think carefully about what it means to agree to doing what this person wants.
Does it conflict with something else that’s important to you?
Does the idea of saying yes to that request feed you or deplete you?
Does it conflict with your core values?
This step may be new for you, so know that it might take some practice to help others while also taking care of yourself.
Step 2. Know that it’s not only okay to say no, it can be essential to say no.
It may feel very uncomfortable to say no, but eventually, you’ll begin to realize how good it feels to be authentic, and how much more love and energy you can express when you’re not only good to others, but when you’re good to yourself, too.
Not to mention that you can still be kind when you say no. You can say,
“I would love to do that, but I’ve got other plans that are really important to me, so ask me again another time. Next time, I’d love to help you.”
Don’t say, “Let me see if I can reschedule it,” unless you really want to reschedule it.
Step 3. Let go of the guilt.
To help you more easily let go of any guilt you may feel when you say no to someone’s request, replace it with this thought:
I wouldn’t want anyone else to say yes to me when they didn’t really want to say yes. I can say yes when I mean yes. I can say no when I mean no. I can love and care about others, AND I can love and care about myself.
If you think about this deeply, I think that it’s going to be true for you. You don’t want someone to say yes to you just because they want to please you.
You want someone to say yes to you because they want to!
And guess what? Deep down, the people who care about you most likely want the same for you.
When you start being truly authentic about how you feel, everything becomes easier.
You find yourself more at ease, you have more peace of mind and you feel more creative.
And you begin to have this growing sense that life is really good, right where you are.
Let’s review the 3 steps to stop being a people pleaser
When someone requests something of you, first delay your response and check in with how you really feel about performing that request before you say yes or no.
Next, say no, or not now, when doing so feels right to you.
And lastly, let go of the guilt and replace it with,
“I wouldn’t want anybody else to say yes to me if they didn’t really want to, and so it’s okay for me to say yes, it’s okay for me to no, and it’s okay for me to care, not only about others, but also about myself.”
First of all, the forbidden truth has to be stated clearly and unequivocally: It is impossible for a male to become a female, or for a female to become a male. Period.
Virtually the entire human race recognized this obvious truth from the beginning of human life on earth until around 2013. That’s when the powerful LGBT lobby pressured and intimidated the notoriously weak-kneed American Psychiatric Association into de-pathologizing gender identity disorder in the fifth edition of its “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders” (so-called “DSM-5”), psychiatrists’ official “bible” for diagnosing mental illnesses.
Thus was transgenderism or transsexualism, until then a vexing mental disorder, suddenly declared to be perfectly normal, as virtually the entire “mainstream media” exuberantly reported at the time.
Except it’s not. “The science” regarding gender couldn’t be more clear and incontrovertible: Almost all of the 30-40 trillion cells in an adult male’s body are permanently encoded with XY – that means MALE – chromosomes. So changing one’s first name and pronouns, wearing women’s clothing, growing one’s hair long and taking estrogen – even having one’s private parts surgically mutilated – does not transform a man into a woman. Likewise, though a woman cuts her hair, has her breasts amputated and receives testosterone injections, she does not magically morph into a man.
Nevertheless, America is a free country, and if an adult decides to change his or her name, amputate body parts and claim to be the opposite gender, or a brand-new gender that never existed until a few months ago, he or she is probably not breaking any laws.
However, during the Biden era of rapidly metastasizing madness in every area of life, what once was a realm wherein a relatively few troubled adults made sad and often catastrophically irreversible personal choices to medically “transition” to a different gender, has morphed into a depraved and shockingly widespread campaign to indoctrinate, seduce, groom and flat-out recruit America’s children into the world of transgenderism.
Incredibly, countless LGBT activists, including many public school teachers, have taken to proselytizing this new transgender salvation to America’s children, resulting in untold numbers of school kids being led into lives of not just unending conflict, confusion, suffering and disability, but far too often – as multiple studies prove – suicide.
And yet, according to no fewer than 11 different research studies, 80% of children who are drawn into the “trans” lifestyle would have totally outgrown their youthful gender dysphoria by the time they emerged from adolescence, had they simply been left alone.
So, why are so many public-school teachers and others with access to America’s children intent on pushing them to identify as transgender?
One obvious factor, of course, is that in today’s increasingly godless, immoral and “postmodern” culture, there are simply lots of broken and deeply disturbed adults who are, right now, “teaching” America’s children. This is not speculation; they publicly advertise this reality on social media sites like Tumblr and TikTok, as the Twitter account “Libs of TikTok” amply documents.
Other factors include powerful LGBT nonprofits like the Human Rights Campaign, which raises tens of millions of dollars off promoting and championing the issue. Mega-corporations like Disney have profit motives intertwined with their radical support for the left’s entire “woke” agenda, however deranged. Liberal suburban parents who fear being labeled bigots, homophobes and transphobes more than death itself are easy recruitment prey for attending – with their children in tow – all manner of “pride parades,” “drag-queen story hours,” “kid-friendly” drag shows in gay bars, and other events featuring transgender activists.
Then there’s the leftist elite’s “1984”-ish obsession with compelling normal people to believe absurd things as a means of controlling their minds. As the history of totalitarianism demonstrates, it’s easier for would-be tyrants to rule a once-free people if, having been pressured to embrace absurdities (in “1984” it was “2+2=5”), they are degraded and intimidated into a more broken, conflicted, polarized and confused version of their former selves.
Furthermore – and critically – LGBT issues serve as the “sharp point of the spear” which the left uses to attack America’s foundational Judeo-Christian culture, which it loathes and fears. No other issue, not even abortion, serves so well as a direct attack on Christians and religious Jews as the LGBT agenda, which enthusiastically wars against the Bible’s clear moral standards.
No wonder the Biden administration, totally controlled by the radical left, is so deeply invested in transgender grooming and recruitment of the nation’s youth, with Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra fully supporting taxpayer-funded amputations of healthy body parts of these vulnerable children. Or as Becerra put it so ghoulishly, “We should help those have the life-affirming care that they need.”
But beyond all these factors, there are still deeper, more profound and truly mind-blowing core reasons for this sudden preoccupation, this rabid insistence on grooming America’s children – its most precious resource, the only hope for the nation’s future – to enter the ultra-dark world of transgenderism.
Why, after all, would children with absolutely typical youthful confusion and growing-up pains be deliberately channeled in such an utterly catastrophic direction?
Here’s a hint: Why do you suppose pedophiles are obsessed with sex with pre-pubescent children? There’s absolutely nothing sexually attractive about little children – quite the contrary. But the pleasure derived from sexually violating little children is not so much sexual, as it is the relief and satisfaction derived from corrupting and destroying their innocence. The experience of “putting out the light” of innocence in a child is cathartic, fulfilling and psychically and spiritually relieving to the abuser, who has already lost his or her own innocence.
(Psst: The FTC wants me to remind you that this website contains affiliate links. That means if you make a purchase from a link you click on, I might receive a small commission. This does not increase the price you’ll pay for that item nor does it decrease the awesomeness of the item. ~ Daisy)
“Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.” – Frank Herbert
The science fiction of today is the scientific fact of tomorrow. A good example is Jules Verne’sTwenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, predicting today’s nuclear-powered submarines. Another would be H. G. Wells sci-fi/horror piece, The Island of Dr. Moreau which examines a world filled with human-animal hybrids. So when we discuss the future of transhumanism, you need to keep this in mind. For though it may seem far-fetched today, it is where we are headed.
Editor’s Note: For the inevitable question, “what does this have to do with prepping?” we believe it’s important to understand potential trends and threats. Being taken totally by surprise when something unfolds doesn’t bode well for survival. ~ Daisy
Transhumanism is an awkward word that can have several meanings.
It’s not simply a scientific endeavor: it’s a philosophical bent with a completely different standard. It’s a philosophy that, if followed, abrogates virtually all traditional human societal customs and practices. The “trans” portion refers to the “transcendence,” or the “passing” of the stage of humanity we’re currently in – our form, our thinking, and our capabilities. A “leaving behind” of everything, in a nutshell, about us and ourselves. That is what transhumanism is about.
The process of achieving this transhumanistic state involves disciplines spread over many fields: robotics, genetics, nanotechnology, and AI (artificial intelligence), to name a few. Gene therapy and gene splicing are techniques used in the genetic recombinance of both individuals and successive generations.
We now have the capabilities to alter the very fabric of our makeup.
So, what is transhumanism, specifically?
Transhumanism is the “revision” of humanity and the fundamental transformation of the human race into something else. It’s the transformation of humanity into a “thing” that cannot be readily identified.
The transhumanists themselves term it as a “transcendence of humanity,” a rising of the human species “past” itself.
The transhumanist proponents want to cure disease, end hunger, and enable human beings to reach their maximum potential – physically and mentally – evolving into a “new” being by augmenting their bodies mechanically or biologically. It can also mean placing their consciousnesses into artificial, robotic bodies with the goal of potential immortality.
Those lofty ambitions, however, are out of step with the means they are pursuing in order to obtain them.
The reality is much more “base” in its ramifications.
Transhumanism is nothing more than a modified form of eugenics, albeit with a higher degree of “panache” and technology than the days of the Margaret Sanger camps and the sterilization squads.
Transhumanism is eugenics, and if it’s pursued in full, eventually, it will lead either to genocide or to the extinction of the human race.
Genetic manipulation is not off the table.
Scientists, doctors, lawyers, government officials, oligarchs – all of these number prominently among transhumanists. They want to “change the world” and “usher in a new phase in the evolution of mankind.” Through the use of genetic manipulation and selective breeding, they wish to change the human race. They want to give it characteristics found in the animal world, such as the speed of the cheetah, the strength of the gorilla, and the eyesight of the eagle, to name a few.
As we speak, human-animal “chimeras” are being cultured and grown in laboratories around the world. Michael Irving wrote a piece on 4/15/21 entitled “Human-monkey chimera embryos created in lab for first time.” Here’s part of it for you:
“Scientists have been experimenting with interspecies chimeras for decades, merging similar animals like mice and rats, and sheep and goats. …researchers from the Salk Institute and Kunming University of Science and Technology successfully created chimeras of humans and monkeys.”
I submit this for your consideration: for each lab we know of, such as this one, there is another lab that we don’t know of. That ratio, I’m sure, is a conservative estimate.
Another article was written on 5/19/21 by Nathaniel Scharping for Discovery Magazine, entitled “Why Scientists Have Been Creating Chimeras in the Lab for Decades.” All of this work by the scientists is (ostensibly) for medical research and pharmacological development. To its credit, the author brings up the moral and ethical issues regarding such manipulations between different animal species. Here’s a segment for you:
“For now, scientists don’t have the ability to create true human-animal chimeras, and only a limited ability to create chimeras of other species. Given the issues involved, it’s unclear how far research into the matter might progress, and how quickly.”
Those words are either naiveties or lies. I prefer to give the author credit and choose the former. The world turns a “blind eye” to these issues. For most people, such moral, spiritual, and ethical considerations don’t garner grants or put “hot pockets” on the plate at the end of the day. Utilitarianism and moneyed interests almost always win, driving moral and ethical considerations into a corner, where they silently expire.
What do you need to know about the proponents and opponents of transhumanism?
An excellent documentary that you may wish to pick up is entitled Inhuman: The Next and Final Phase of Man is Here, released in 2015 by SkyWatch TV. It contains a plethora of interviews with both camps, especially some of the transhumanists at the forefront of their movement. Tom Horn is the host of the documentary, and he presents the information in a manner that is informative and non-didactic, in a very comprehensive and objective manner.
Dr. James Hughes, a transhumanist and executive director for the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, had this to say for the film:
“Should we seek dialogue with paranoid Christian Fundamentalists…or should we seek more than dialogue…maybe even mock them?”
Not exactly an open, “egalitarian” stance, now, is it? The point I’m making is that these intellectuals are totalitarian Statists of another form. They see themselves as heralding in a new era – Utopia, a paradise – one that removes all of the negatives plaguing society, and potentially obtains immortality to boot.
A book to check out is this one by Steve Quayle, who has done a great deal of research on this topic.
They see anyone not embracing their crusade as being “in the way.”
More to share with you guys and gals. I’m one of those night owls who listens to “Coast To Coast” with George Noorybetween 11 pm and 3 am, and it delves into a tremendous variety of excellent guests and topics. On 5/18/22, one of the speakers was Dr. Hugo de Garis, a retired scientist, and the subject was on AI. Dr. de Garisdeveloped an artificial brain in the lab, as well as “evolvable hardware” to use in the modification of human beings.
He made a pronouncement that night that chilled me to the bone. Here it is:
“Our days of being the dominant species…is almost over.”
Dr. de Garis created cellular automata in the 1990s, the basic structure that formed the lab-created artificial brain. He went on to say how AI (artificial intelligence) will reach a point where it can modify itself on its own.
At that point, AI will be so mentally “superior” to us that it – they – will consider us as “insects” and get rid of us in the manner of a nuisance. This matched a similar statement by Dr. Stephen Hawking, the now-deceased physicist, who said that AI posed a significant danger to the entire human race.
(Do you know what it takes to evacuate an emergency site safely? Check out our free QUICKSTART Guide if you’re looking for the details.)
Regarding the evolution of AI, there’s a term to describe the “threshold point.”
Technological singularity is the point at which AI can “reproduce” on its own, forming “offspring” – super-intelligent AI’s. The transhumanist scientists argue that an AI-augmented human brain will be able to perform calculations more efficiently, without the negative, emotional flaws in human beings at present.
Dr. de Garis wrote a sci-fi book on the challenges about to be faced by humanity that puts forth what he believes is going to come to pass. Entitled The Artilect War: Cosmists vs. Terrans, it details the battles between AI-enhanced humans (the Cosmists) and an unenhanced (normative) humanity. A super-AI then inevitably rises, called Artilects, and the battle is joined in a world war to determine who rules the Earth.
Science fiction? For now, perhaps, but when a world-renowned scientist makes a statement (pertaining to his field, no less) that the human race’s control over the planet is almost at an end? It behooves us to listen. He translated that vision, that forecast, into a book that incorporated his life’s work in the field of AI. It’s possible, and we should take it as a warning.
The ones who will be enhanced, how, then, will they view the ones who are not? Either as “impediments,” or worse: as enemies. Where does “Big Daddy” fit into all of this? The rulers, “government,” if you must, is a driving force behind the funding and research, as well as the end results. Why?
The end results of transhumanism will leave the rulers in control of all of humanity – to a degree barely imaginable at present.
Why does the ruling class want transhumanism?
They enable the funding of projects and then buy the scientists. They don’t need the “consent of the governed.” Why would they? The masses don’t even understand it, and if they did, they would never consent to it.
That’s how “black” projects are germinated and how they reach their fruition.
This is how it works:
The rulers find something suitable for their aims (in this case, enhancement of human beings through biomechanical means)
They set up a grant for a private corporation to undertake research and contract with it to conduct said research – under supervision, naturally, by government agents or officers
The results are “shared” by the scientists/corporation with the government
The contract flips over indefinitely until the maximum amount has been derived from the program, and then the corporation disbands the department for the project
At the project’s end: Nondisclosure agreements, oaths, promises, and the usual paperwork is signed, and all participants are made aware of what will happen if the information is divulged.
This is whyit works:
The government contracts with a private corporation to do work on behalf of the government. Since it’s a private corporation, it shields them from disclosure and from having to reveal to the public all the details of funding, personnel, projects, etc.
Everything the corporate laboratory does? The government has a duplicate lab conducting the exact same experiments.
Should the “plug” need to be pulled? The experiment continues. Reason: they might hit a “snag” that the corporation and/or the scientists might not tolerate…such as the creation of a monstrous “entity” of some type or a disease that can’t normally be contained or controlled. The government sweeps out/sanitizes the corporation, shuts down the department, and stops the project while it continues the civilian scientists’ work where it left off.
The government uses plausible deniability to contain any leaks, mistakes, accidents, etc., and projects that might never be permitted to take place are indeed completed. The idiot Congress is completely bypassed, except for those few on the services committees who’ve been effectively enabled to live more lavishly than a rajah.
This model is used in practically every “government” service or institution. The postal service (Post Office) is a prime example: a private corporation, now. You can’t figure out (as a “citizen”) where the money is being spent. They’re authorized by the government, but as a civilian corporate entity, they don’t have the disclosure requirements.
The government uses this transhumanist technology.
DARPA(the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) is already beginning to rewrite the DNA of service members. Human gene modification is being studied for use in making “super-soldiers” that can communicate with the use of brain implants (a type of pseudo-telepathy). Research is being done on enhancing strength, endurance, agility, and reaction times on the battlefield.
Why? For warfare, of course. Of course, if these elected officials and their oligarch lackeys can live, say, for 300 years, that makes it even more attractive to them. Imagine people such as Hillary Clinton, or Biden, or McConnell – any of them being in office for 300 years. McCain and Reid came close, I think.
The point: if the brightest and the best will be enhanced, so will the worst of the lot – the ones in control.
Transhumanism will turn humanity into two classes:
An obedient, “superior” class of enhanced humans, or
A rebellious, disobedient, “inferior” class of “inferior” humans.
Transhumanism lies, hiding its true intentions: the total surveillance over, complete control of, and systematic depopulation – genocide – against humanity.
Is there a guesstimate on this transcendence?
Another “Coast To Coast” segment was on 4/27/22 with William Henry, a writer, and researcher of mythology and ancient history. He believes the Great Deception will occur when society is coerced into accepting/merging with AI. He mentioned the 20,000 satellites placed into orbit by Elon Musk and the Metaverse dictatorship created by Mark Zuckerberg of Google. Henry had this to say about the AI/transhumanist path:
“Since 2017, MIT [Massachusetts Institute of Technology] has said that algorithms are out of our control. We’re probably less than five years to finding out if we avert it, or if we go extinct.”
He was referring to humanity as a whole as going extinct, should AI ever gain control over mankind.
James Tunney is the guy you need to read.
He really covers everything in his book TechBondAge: Slavery of the Human Spirit, his fourth (and most recent) to address the menace posed by transhumanism. Here’s a piece for you:
“Now it seems that the nasty people are those who question the direction of our society, our loss of liberty, our submission to technology, and domination of the security, industrial, military, and pharmaceutical society…”
He discusses the “compression” of the society into constantly-surveilled, downtrodden humanity that is one step away from totalitarian, global rule. He doesn’t pull any punches, and neither should we.
With transhumanism man becomes dirt.
The transhumanists disregard the villainy that is being conducted in the name of man for the aggrandizement of man, above all things. The butchering and experimentation with the animals.
We bring upon ourselves the destruction we deserve, especially when we don’t learn from the lessons of the past. For humanity to “enhance” itself, it can only do so successfully if it conducts that enhancement internally.
“Transhumanism,” I believe, is better defined as a transformation into something that denies its own humanity.
You can read about all of these transhumanist guys and gals – Dr. Ray Kurzweil, the “father” of transhumanism, or Dr. Natasha Vita-More, or Dr. James Hughes…all learned doctors with impressive certifications and credentials. When they outline their goals and objectives, they mostly sound the same: grand ambitions and designs – but only for the faithful followers.
The rest of us fall somewhere between the gnats and pool algae in their eyes.
In the end, I believe it will end up creating a total dystopia.
A dystopia such as the movie Elysium, a world made of have’s and have not’s, who are subjected to the wills and whims of an elite group who are completely removed from the madding crowd, and from any and all restraints. If not, then I believe it will be akin to the Terminator series or the Matrix movies, where the AI will actively attempt to exterminate humanity.
Transhumanism will bring neither utopia nor immortality.
Even if it worked? Loading your consciousness into a robot for the next thousand years, etc., then to what end? The results of living a decent life and being good to others bring true rewards…in this lifetime and in the next one. In that regard, it’s better to live one good day filled with life’s treasures than to live a thousand years as a soulless automaton.
How long we live on this earth is not nearly as important as how we live our lives. I welcome your thoughts and input on all of this and bid you Good Day – and long life! J J out!
Imagine that someone tells you that you have a disorder called hemophilia. If you get a cut, he says, it won’t heal. It’ll just bleed and bleed.
You know that you don’t have a blood clotting disorder, but this guy is just so insistent. He tells you so many times that you start to believe it. You become deathly afraid to do anything, lest you cut yourself even a little. Worse, you wonder if maybe you’re already bleeding internally somewhere and you’re dying without even knowing it.
This is how your life ends, the guy tells you, and you’re so gaslighted at this point that you just lie down to give up the ghost.
It seems like a fantastical scenario, but it’s not so far off from a true story. The guy is Matthew Fray. His book is called This Is How Your Marriage Ends.
The things that destroy love and marriage often disguise themselves as unimportant. Many dangerous things neither appear nor feel dangerous as they’re happening. They’re not bombs and gunshots. They’re pinpricks. They’re paper cuts. And that is the danger. When we don’t recognize something as threatening, then we’re not on guard. These tiny wounds start to bleed, and the bleed-out is so gradual that many of us don’t recognize the threat until it’s too late to stop it.
He goes on to describe how his wife divorced him because he habitually left a glass on the kitchen counter. But not really because of that. The glass symbolized a deeper problem: “What I know for sure is that I had never connected putting a dish in the dishwasher with earning my wife’s respect.”
The lesson in Fray’s article shows in the many words of sentiment he uses. His wife “communicated pain and frustration.” “Something hurt,” she said. “None of this dish-by-the-sink business felt anything like being loved.”
There’s a lot of language about feelings. That’s understandable, given that marriages, good and bad, involve a lot of feelings. But putting feelings first in marriage can get in the way of understanding what marriage is, and misunderstanding marriage is a good way to run yours off the rails.
We can find detailed and beautiful explorations of the sacrament of matrimony in encyclicals like Arcanum Divinae and Casti Connubii and in the moving prayers of the nuptial Mass. But for our purposes, let us look to paragraph 9 of Humanae Vitae. “Married love,” as Pope Paul VI calls it, is fully human (by which he means freely chosen), total, exclusive, and fecund.
Notice what’s left out—there’s nothing about how marriage is supposed to feel. Married love has certain objective characteristics, regardless of whether it happens to “feel like” love in any given moment. Marriage is freely chosen one time, and thereafter it’s the continual living out of that permanent commitment, which doesn’t—which can’t—change with our feelings.
It may be feelings that get you into a marriage, but they can’t get you out.
This can be hard to hear. Things like mutual affection, kindness, and consideration may not be strictly necessary for marriage, but they tend to abound in good marriages. Yet even the good marriages have spouses who leave glasses on the counter. What are we supposed to do about that?
The answer is a sort of paradox.
We know that, in a mystical way, husband and wife become one flesh because we make a vow to each other. But in the process, we also remain two individuals, each making a vowto God. This vow helps us remember what marriage is, even when the feelings aren’t there to remind us.
And so, spouses who stay mindful of their vow to God, who prioritize the purpose of the sacrament (getting the other to heaven), won’t count, catalogue, and memorialize fights about a glass on a counter. Such a wife might take care of the glass joyfully . . . or wistfully. Such a husband might likewise reform himself to love what seems at first like his wife’s inconsiderate behavior. In a rightly ordered marriage under God—exclusive, permanent, fecund—such little things can’t become the stuff of “The Same Fight,” as Fray calls it, bleeding continuously until the divorce. Because when the focus is on loving God by loving each other, there’s no power struggle, no tit-for-tat scorekeeping, no acrimonious campaign to establish who’s right. There are just two people working single-mindedly on the same goal.
The good feelings will blossom from there. As Pius XI puts it, when Christian spouses have “the weakness of their wills strengthened by the internal grace of God” and “shape all their ways of thinking and of acting in conformity with that pure law of Christ,” they will “obtain true peace and happiness for themselves and their families” (Casti Connubii 2).
For all Fray’s gloom and doom, the subtitle of his book is A Hopeful Approach to Saving Relationships. But his diagnosis and prescription are both flawed. Acting as if marriages were hemophiliacs won’t save them. In healthy organisms, and even in most unhealthy ones, tiny cuts don’t just keep bleeding forever. Instead, they heal—whether we’re actively treating them or just letting our immune system do all the work.
In a marriage, the treatments we apply are our active efforts to become more like God—to foster patience, forgiveness, forbearance, humility, and unconditional support. And the immune system, humming away under our efforts, is God’s grace. The true hopeful approach to saving marriages is to cooperate with that grace, that it may abound, by keeping our two discrete vows to God and to spouse, intentionally, no matter what.
Do you want to know what it’s like to be the bravest man on television?
Perhaps the opening words of “A Tale of Two Cities” by Charles Dickens is appropriate.
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”
Take out the best of times, the age of wisdom, the epoch of belief, the season of light and the spring of hope and you have an idea what it’s like to be Tucker Carlson – the most courageous man on television.
What’s a day for him like? Check out a few of his recent press clippings:
Newsweek, July 25: Carlson calls pornography “dehumanizing” and “desensitizing” in an interview with an 18-year-old college student, warning young men that they would wind up “unhappy” if they spend their time having casual sex. Newsweek characterizes these opinions as “controversial.”
Washington Post, July 20: “For decades, Tucker Carlson has cultivated a very specific skill: proving he’s not wrong. This has taken various forms, including starting a blog and spending innumerable hours arguing on cable television. In recent years, he’s drifted away from having to defend his positions on his show; a New York Times analysis found that he’s decreasingly hosted guests who disagree with him, to the point of near-nonexistence.” Maybe people want to hear his distinct voice as the highest-rated one on Fox. Or maybe this was just another attempt to smear him as a “white nationalist” – a standard for any conservatives, even black and brown ones.
Boston Globe, July 18: “Defund Tucker Carlson and Fox News.”
Rolling Stone, July 19: “Murdoch Minion Tucker Carlson Is Worried About ‘Foreign-Born Billionaires.'”
Vanity Fair, July 7: “Tucker Carlson, Promoter of Racist ‘Replacement,’ Insists He’s Not a Racist.”
These are the types of stories that show up if you Google Tucker Carlson, along with the standard “bio” repeating nonsense and labeling like “right-wing” this-and-that.
It’s worse than anything I’ve ever seen – including the attacks on me until I took a break to have five strokes. (That’s what it takes to become yesterday’s news.)
But Tucker is far more popular than I ever was – and, judging from intolerant left, “the most dangerous man in America” after the late Rush Limbaugh and, perhaps, tied with former President Donald Trump.
He’s also, again, the most courageous man on television – barring none.
His motto? “‘Tucker Carlson Tonight’ is the sworn enemy of lying, pomposity, smugness and groupthink.”
It was a show like no other, awakening Americans to the ugly truth of commercial TV, which features a sad barrage of dealing the most dangerous, deadly – and legal – poisons ever concocted by man.
In 20 minutes he launched the broadside the nation needed to hear. The junkies are not just in alleys and streets. They are everywhere – in some of nicest homes you can find. And most of us are completely hooked.
It started with the history of the opioid crisis, which has taken the lives of some 200,000 Americans – a deadly drug that was pushed first by the major drug makers. No one has ever gone out of business or to jail.
Why don’t we see more of this truth on TV? Because the networks are selling you this stuff every day.
To present that kind of report takes a very brave man.
I would watch it in its entirety if you missed it. Make sure you send it to your loved ones and neighbors. It was that good.
In this report, WikkiTimes’ Beloved John reports that despite the well-publicized reports of several cases of killings and kidnappings and the displacement of thousands of villagers by bandits, the Kebbi State government still claims that banditry only operates from neighbouring States.
“I have to return home. There is no means of survival. Even this place is not safe. If I don’t, this building may collapse on me one day,” Salamatu Mohammed said, pointing to the deeply cracked wall of an uncompleted building that serves as a shelter for herself, her children, and her husband.
Salamatu is a 45-years-old woman from Sakaba village, who has seven children whom she looks after with her husband. Before her displacement, Salamatu tended to the fields and livestock, working as a farmer with her husband. This provided their primary daily income.
Now living as a displaced person in Dirin Daji, a community in Sakaba Local Government Area (LGA) in Kebbi state, Salamatu describes her new life as one filled with difficulty. Despite the violent attacks in her settlement, the mother is determined to return.
Salamatu, a mother of seven narrating her ordeal as an IDP
“This place is anything but comfortable. There’s no food, and the shelter puts our lives at more risk. My kids have been complaining about this place. They are tired and want to go back home, and so am I. I will leave this place in a week or two,” she explained.
Like Salamatu and her family, many IDPs in the south of Kebbi are struggling with the lack of basic life necessities like food, safe shelter, and sheltering materials. For this group, survival as an IDP is a struggle. A struggle many find unbearable. Hence they are compelled to return to their settlement, risking their safety.
The mother explained that she was preparing dinner that faithful evening in March when she suddenly heard gunshots. Immediately she ran with her children into the bush, where they all spent the night. The family decided to leave the settlement the next morning when the gunshot persisted.
Salamatu described her to Dirin-daji as hours of constant stress, fear, and panic.
Banditry displaces thousands in Kebbi
Armed banditry is a major security challenge in the northwest that has killed many and displaced thousands.
An estimate by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), puts the number of people who have fled bandit violence and remained displaced between 2011 – 2021 at about 200,000.
In Kebbi state, armed banditry is uprooting residents of several rural settlements from their homes. These communities are often located in Zuru emirate, one of the four emirates that make up the state. The others are Gwandu, Argungu and Yauri.
Over 10,000 people have been uprooted from their homes within three years, an investigation by PRNigeria revealed. WikkiTimes also learned that more than 2000 villagers had been displaced within the last four months.
But the problems they encounter are not limited to their displacement; there are also problems of shelter, hunger, and the absence of a source of livelihood. Many of the displaced do not receive organised assistance and are in desperate need of basic necessities.
Despite the continuous displacement of villagers in remote settlements, there is yet to be an official IDP camp. Those affected often settle in abandoned buildings and makeshift camps.
‘We must leave, we cannot survive here’
According to the Nigeria national policy on Internally displaced persons, the government must address the human suffering of internally displaced persons in all its forms wherever found.
It mandates the government to provide humanitarian assistance for displaced persons.
The state government is primarily responsible for providing humanitarian support to displaced indigenous.
It stipulates that the State government is responsible for the welfare of its indigenes while the federal government is concerned with the welfare of all Nigerian citizens.
The policy highlighted food and shelter among the essential needs that should be provided for IDPs. It also stipulates that iIn the course of controlling the impact of internal displacement, the policy dictates that affected persons must be treated with dignity.
However, the reality of IDPs in Kebbi contradicts that stipulated in the national policy for displaced persons.
A dilapidated classroom block turned camp by Mohammed and other displaced persons
For Mohammed, life in Sakaba IDP camp made his bandit-targeted settlement a dignified option for them.
In February, the 45-year-old first sought refuge in Dirin-daji after a group of heavily armed men invaded his settlement, shooting sporadically and killing everything in sight. Mohammed said he was lucky to have escaped the village unharmed with his family.
But the hunt for food, sheltering materials, and a means of livelihood forced him, his wife, and seven children back home two weeks after they arrived in Dirin-daji.
Having escaped with nothing but the clothes they had on, Mohammed’s family became vulnerable and unable to meet most of their basic needs.
Hence, he decided to return to his village with his family. This was for a short period as increased attacks on his community forced the family to flee.
Back again in Dirin-daji, the family faced another serious crisis. They were entirely out of food supplies. This time, they settled in an uncompleted building that Mohammed described as abandoned. The building has four rooms which were shared by four different families, no doors, no windows, and a deeply cracked wall.
Sitting on a wooden stool outside his shelter, Mohammed described how his family has been dealing with a difficult situation.
Every day, he leaves the house searching for people in need of manual labour. He renders whatever service is asked for in exchange for a merger amount.
“It is not a dignified life but we need to survive,” Mohammed acknowledged. “This is why I still wish to go back home. I have to return. There is no one to support us.
“We will go back and if they attack, we will come back here. When the bandits attack, we will leave and after a while, we will also return. We cannot survive here. This might be our destiny. This is what God has destined for us.”
IDP endangered in a makeshift shelter
The situation is not any different for IDPs in Danko Wasago local government. One Friday evening in March, one of the classrooms in government secondary school Ribah, inhabited by a displaced family, collapsed, although the family escaped uninjured.
Dindiri Zuna, the mother of 11 was having a super that Friday evening when suddenly, the wall of her shelter crumbled. Zuna had been sitting close to the wall.
Terrified by the incident, Zuna ran out of the building with slight bruises on her body.
The mother said she was overwhelmed by fear. And so did her children. They were horrified by the fall because they suspected that the building had fallen on Zuna.
The incident forced Zuna to reflect on her past. Had she been in her home in Likwakida, she would have had a quiet supper and a pleasant night.
But that home was lost to banditry in late February. It was one of many attacks in the community. Only this time, it was more intense, and it forced many residents out of their homes.
Now living in school, she wishes for nothing but to return home. Back at home, she had lived with sufficiency, and now, she has to rely on the goodwill of villagers in her new community to survive.
On some days, they fetch woods from the bush, sell them and use the money to feed, other times, they stay hungry because they have nothing to eat.
Safe shelter, relief material not provided
Galadima Yantacha has spent months in the Government Primary school Ribah. But he has yet to see government officials visit the camp to provide support and even promises one.
The 54-year-old said everyone residing in the camp has to fend for themselves as that is the only viable means of survival.
Having lost all his belongings in a violent attack in March, survival has been a major challenge.
Galadima decried the difficult situation, lack of essential materials and the wide variety of needs that were unavailable to him and many others in the camp.
“We all have to rely on support from random people. There’s no food and almost no way to source for it. We have not had any encounters with the government. Since I have been here, no government official has visited, not to talk of providing food items. It is a horrible situation,” he said.
The state authorities are aware of the thriving insecurity but are unwilling to provide adequate support, according to Fidelis Baba, the spokesperson of Zuru Emirate Development Society, a non-governmental organisation in Kebbi that supports victims of banditry in the state.
“ The living conditions in these places are terrible. The building is congested and the people are struggling to survive.
There’s no official centre for victims. This group of people do not have a place to stay, so they are mostly found in schools, mosques, churches, and abandoned buildings. The government is aware that there are people in need of accommodation, but nothing has been done to provide good shelter. There’s the need to do more. The government should prioritise humanitarian assistance and protection of the victims,” he said.
He stated that the human suffering of IDPs must be addressed in all its forms.
He emphasised the need to ensure that displaced persons are provided for with the primary objective of saving lives, supporting livelihoods, and reducing vulnerability.
Victims recount struggle for survival
Lawali Usman has lived as an IDP in Ribah, Sakaba council for only three months. However, he has tried resettling in his village multiple times without success. Every time he embarks on this risky endeavour, he is accompanied by his wife and seven children because he believes they would not survive in his absence.
Although the camp offers protection, the lack of support from the government as to the provision of shelter and other necessities, many IDPs living in Ribah prefer to return home.
For Usman, the lack of food, safe sheltering materials, sanitation, and safe sleeping space for his seven children is highly disturbing.
Although he has lost his properties, the 37-year-old still believes that reintegration into normal life cannot be achieved in the IDP camp where he is entirely dependent and has to live from hand to mouth.
Imada, another IDP in the community, also sought to resettle until he ran into the group of bandits occupying his hometown. Despite losing his properties in early 2022, Imada had determined to move back home and start over. But he was stopped by bandits, who harassed and sent him out of his village.
He was warned to leave Matari, his village, and never return. The IDP, who felt fortunate to be left unharmed, described himself as lost and confused.
“Few days after staying in Dirin- daji, I decided to relocate back home. I had assumed that the bandits would only loot the village and leave afterwards. But I met them there. They paraded the village with their ammunition. I was asked to leave and never return. They also ordered me to pass the information across to others,” he explained.
The government focused on resettlement of IDPs
When WikkiTimes contacted the chairman of the National Emergency Management Agency of Nigeria (NEMA) in the state, Sani Dodo, he refused to speak on the subject, stating he was too occupied to address the situation. Also, efforts to get the special Adviser on security to the governor, Garba Rabiu Kamba to respond to the story proved abortive as he did pick up calls or reply to the text message sent to him.
However, When contacted, the chairman of Danko Wasago local government, Aliyu Hassan Bena, said the state has no need for an IDP camp in the state.
Despite the increased violence and insecurity caused by frequent bandit attacks, Bena affirmed that the state government is dedicated to resetting the idps into their village and not creating a centralised camp in the state.
There’s no need for a centralised IDP camp in the state. Most displaced persons here return to their villages after a short while. This is because the government is focused on the resettlement of these people. Creating an IDP camp has a lot of crisis and that why the government is doing it best to ensure that victims can resettle into their communities,”
The chairman also claimed that most IDPs in the state are not indigenes of the state. According to him, the IDPs present from neighbouring states like Zamfara, although a Wikki Times investigation revealed otherwise.
He also noted that the government has been supportive by providing relief materials in the form of food, shelter, and healthcare.
“Most of the IDPs present are not from Kebbi. Rather, they are from Zamfara and they are here in Kebbi because of the safety the state provides.
“On several occasions, the government has provided food for victims. We also support the victims with food relief materials and health care. Most of them are supported and are in good condition,” he said
The absence of support exposes the victim to further exploitation — Expert
The deficiency of government support to mitigate the growing humanitarian crisis is an infringement of the right of the IDPs, according to Timothy Avele, a Nigerian security analyst.
He explained that when situations like this are allowed to thrive, IDPs who are already dealing with difficulty can be exploited by the terrorist group.
“Such a situation provides a breeding ground for mass recruitment of the locals by the terrorists either by fear or by force. It also infringes on their rights because the sole responsibility of the government is to provide security and safety to its citizens and failure means the government has failed.
“This now poses a serious threat not only to Kebbi state but to the entire country and beyond. When people are pushed to the wall then you can’t expect peace in any form because there’s an endurance limit.
“ The villagers are also prone to continuous illegal taxes by the terrorists, inhumane treatment but the gravest of all is the possible partnerships with the terrorists,” he said.
‘What goes around, comes around’ is a popular dictum. It has come full circle in Nigeria. The government in power in Nigeria appears clueless on how to halt the terrorist menace, one of the three major campaign promises of the All Progressives Congress party with President Muhammadu Buhari, a former army general.
In the run up to his election in 2O15, Buhari referred to the terrorists as “a band of terrorists that should be routed in 3 weeks”. As an army general, people believed in him. At the time, terrorism in Nigeria was contained with two states in the North eastern region of the country.
Seven years on, terrorism has spread to every state in Nigeria at a frightening dimension. Now, the Nigerian capital Abuja is the grip of the terrorists who have the temerity to announce it’s resolve to kidnap President Muhammadu Buhari.
In 2O21, a former Deputy Governor of Nigeria’s Central Bank, late Dr. Obadiah Mailafiya shocked the nation with the claim that the terrorists had spread to every part of Nigeria and set camps in forests to study every terrain and launch coordinated attacks in order to take over Nigeria and make the country an islamic state.
After that revelation, the government of President Buhari through its secret police agent harassed Dr. Mailafiya through endless summons for interrogation. It appears he leaked the secret plan by the terrorists.
Now, the Nigerian government is incapable meeting the challenge of the terrorists. The struck the Kuje Correctional Centre in Abuja and freed 64 terrorists awaiting trial. They successfully laid ambush for soldiers of the Brigade of Guards that is in charge of securing the Presidential Palace and killed 8 of them. The army claimed to have repelled them but the terrorists successfully escaped without the loss of anyone in their rank.
Nigeria is in the grip of terrorists. All schools in the nation’s capital Abuja have been ordered closed by government to avoid massive kidnap of students to use as human shield.
As it is, the Nigerian government is at the mercy of the terrorists. They negotiate the released of hostages with the government on their own terms.
As monkeypox—a disease that the CDC refuses to identify as a sexually transmitted disease, even though it is spread almost exclusively by men who have sex with men—continues to rage through the gay community, the complaints about “government inaction” have already begun. Claiming that the government has not done enough to keep the gay community “safe” from the disease that causes painful genital lesions—and is primarily spread through those lesions—New York Magazine has led the charge claiming that neither the City of New York nor the federal government has done enough. Demanding “more testing” and “more vaccines,” the gay community is calling on the federal government to do more to keep men who have sex with men “safe.”
It seems that keeping gay men safe may be more difficult than anyone anticipated. And it seems that even very young children may not be safe from contracting monkeypox from men who have sex with men. Recently, Rochelle Walensky, the Director of the CDC, reported that two young children have contracted monkeypox in the United States. Walensky added that both cases were traced to “household contact” with individuals in the “men-who-have-sex-with-men community.”
Gay activist James Krellenstein decried the “inaction” by the government to “protect the gay community during this outbreak,” claiming that the government’s lack of urgency is a “recipe for disaster that will lead to a mass transmission event.”
Interviewed while standing in line outside a government-supported sexual health clinic in Chelsea—where hundreds of gay men were waiting to be vaccinated against monkeypox—on the eve of the first Pride parade to have a full slate of programming since the Covid pandemic began, Krellenstein told a New York Magazine reporter that he was concerned that some of his friends might not be able to enjoy themselves during the last week of the Pride celebrations if they are worried about monkeypox.
Others agreed. “‘This is all because of Pride’ said Evan Ipock, gesturing at the people in line who, like him, were waiting for hours in the hopes of snagging a walk-in appointment. ‘People want to be able to feel safe having fun this weekend.’”
Most agree that much of the anxiety in the gay community has emerged from the lack of information about the disease, the symptoms, and how it is spread. But the fact that nearly all of the documented cases have emerged in the population of men who have sex with men seems to suggest that the disease has a behavioral component to it. Those who gathered at the Chelsea Sexual Health Clinic know that already—they just don’t want to acknowledge that they can easily avoid this disease by changing their behavior.
The connections to the gay community cannot be denied. But the CDC—once again—appeared to channel the AIDS mantra of the 1980s when Dr. John Brooks, a medical epidemiologist at the CDC’s division for AIDS prevention, suggested that we are all at risk—claiming that “anyone can catch the virus regardless of sexual orientation.” And although Brooks acknowledged that the CDC had planned to increase its public health messaging ahead of LGBTQ Pride Month, most in the gay community claim that it was too little, too late.
The CDC—and Dr. Anthony Fauci—have a long history of doing exactly this. As Randy Shilts’ 1987 book And the Band Play On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic points out, Fauci was a hero in his early days as an AIDS clinician at the National Institutes of Health Hospital. But, Shilts also devotes several pages of his book to what he saw as a recurring problem with Fauci: that the hero in the AIDS fight was also a political player who was willing to distort research data to try and shape policy in the ways he thought it needed to be shaped.
On May 5, 1983—contrary to all of the research data at the time—Dr. Fauci published an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association stating that AIDS was transmissible by “routine close contact.” Claiming that children could catch the deadly disease of AIDS from their families, Fauci wrote that if routine personal contact among family members in a household is enough to spread the illness, “then AIDS takes on an entirely new dimension.”
Fauci’s 1983 editorial opened the floodgates of fear of AIDS. According to Michael Fumento’s book The Myth of Heterosexual AIDS, “Fauci’s article moved AIDS from being ‘perceived as a gay disease to a ‘media event.’ Fumento’s review of media coverage via the computerized bibliographic news service Nexis revealed that during the second and third quarters of 1983, AIDS news coverage quadrupled to about 700 articles each quarter.
“And although reassurances were given to contradict Fauci’s felonious statements on the ‘casual contact’ contention, the idea that ‘anyone’ was vulnerable to contracting AIDS continued for quite a while.” As Fumento wrote, “what really appeals to editors is raising the specter that AIDS is about to break out of major risk groups…If previously healthy straights were getting a fatal disease for which there was no cure and the number of cases was doubling every seven or eight months or so, the story would be in the papers every day.”
According to Shilts, Fauci refused to take any responsibility for the panicked response. Instead, he blamed a “hysterical media for taking his comments ‘out of context.’”
After all, he had said only that the possibility of household transmission might raise all these scientific implications. The lay public did not understand the language of science, he pleaded. Science always dealt with hypotheticals; this did not mean he was saying that AIDS actually was spread through household contact. Moreover, the chief villain, he would accurately note, was the press office of the American Medical Association which had so shamefully sensationalized the journal article in an effort to draw attention to a journal that always found itself playing second fiddle to Science and the New England Journal of Medicine.
“No matter who was to blame, Fauci’s warnings about casual contact causing AIDS set in motion a wave of hysteria; it also set in motion a wave of government and private funding for research for a cure. The New York Times and USA Today ran Fauci’s flawed press release, as did most newspapers in the United States. Heterosexuals began to believe that they, too, were vulnerable. The media warned that heterosexuals ‘just like you and me,’ with no risk factors other than heterosexual intercourse, could spread AIDS. Claiming that, in 1986, the proportion of heterosexual transmission cases had doubled in one year from 2 percent to 4 percent of all cases, Fumento pointed out that the media neglected to ask the “hard questions” about the real data.
“Blaming the CDC for distorting the numbers of heterosexual cases, Fumento wrote: ‘nobody was seeing these additional cases, to be sure but they existed on paper, with the trail of paper leading right back to the doors of the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta.’
“What the media did not tell us about these percentages was that the CDC had included AIDS cases discovered among new arrivals to the United States from Africa and Haiti who were classified as ‘undetermined’ sexual orientation when they were diagnosed. The CDC later acknowledged that ‘it was probably an omission’ to fail to state that the undetermined were lumped in with the heterosexuals in compiling the data on new AIDS cases: ‘It should have been put in there, but if somebody called, we’d set them straight.’”
The CDC knows that monkeypox is primarily a disease that is currently contained within the households of the gay men’s community. The fact that the first doses of the monkeypox vaccine were only made available to men who have sex with men, “cis” and trans, and to those who have had multiple or anonymous partners in the previous two weeks tells everyone all they need to know. It is time that the CDC acknowledged that for the rest of us.
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