Steel Snowflakes

OK, this is a big one. And one I feel really strongly about.

Gender was easy once. If you had a penis and testicles, your gender was male. If you had a vagina and a uterus, your gender was female. If you were male, you wore blue things, and were good with tools, and provided for your family. If you were female, pink was your colour, you were good at cooking and cleaning and raising a family. But you were terribly reliant on males, obviously.

The rehab facility that I went to (twice) was very big on feelings.

Which, at the time, was very uncomfortable. At the start of every day, and at the beginning of every group therapy session, everyone was required to state out loud their first name, the reason they were there (for instance drugs, alcohol, depression, anxiety) and then how they were feeling in that moment.

For a long time, recovery treatments were conducted and overseen by people who weren’t formally trained, largely because addicts were shunned - and shamed - by the medical community, and therefore they sought out help from each other. This is basically how 12 Step programmes were born.

I love meditation.

It could have helped me a lot during times in my life before I was introduced to it.

One of the most interesting things about meditation, for me, is its uniqueness. There is no right or wrong way to meditate, no required duration, posture, location.

It is what it is to everyone who is doing it in that moment.

I kind of think that everyone should be in some sort of therapy. If for no other reason than we all need some sort of connection to at least another person that extends beyond the small talk, on-the-surface type interactions.

I certainly haven’t always thought that.

In this episode, I talk about the differences in how we were treated as children, how much we were disciplined, and what that discipline consisted of, and whether that still works, or is appropriate, today. I talk about smacking children, and the many reasons it doesn't work, including that IT DOESN'T WORK. How do you discipline your snowflakes?

This is Steel Snowflakes, a podcast about the differences in growing up today to when I grow up, or when my parents and grandparents did, how society has changed, how what we believe and hold dear has changed, and why our kids will be the best adults ever made. My name is Nick Bowditch. This podcast is broken down into episodes that are based on a certain theme that is or will be different for the younger generation and generations to come.