Including – but not limited to – sexual and romantic relationships

Dear University of Virginia,

Read my blog, and then you'll see why I want to join your Center to study youth relationships with peers and adults. Relationships matter. A lot. To me. And yeah, I do all this sex ed stuff, but really that's all about relationships, too. Seriously. You can check out my bad-ass academic articles and all but still, read the blog. Connection, empathy, #feelings, love, community. I'm in.

With hope and an open heart,

Miriam R. Arbeit, PhD

I emailed the above letter to my best friend, and went back to writing a formal academic cover letter. My formal writing often flows better if I simultaneously have a document open in which I can say exactly what I need to say, on my own terms. Eventually, I crafted this:

My work thus far has illustrated the barriers to connection that adolescents face at multiple levels of the developmental system, including in their self-conceptions, in their sexual or romantic relationships, in their family and peer relationships, in the ways in which they are treated within youth-serving institutions (e.g., schools, health care), and in the messages they receive from their cultural context. My next steps involve deepening my study of empathy and diversity within youth-adult and peer relationships and across in-school and out-of-school-time settings. For example, I want to examine how the developmental process involved in building empathy may or may not be related to other aspects of emotional and relational skill-building. I also want to examine how youth and adults can form authentic and respectful connections across social and structural differences, such as gender, race, and language. I believe that these steps will support my future plans to do curriculum and program development with school-based and out-of-school time programs to promote youth thriving and facilitate safe, supportive, and fulfilling relationships including but not limited to sexual and romantic relationships.

Huge shout-out to my amazing colleague-friends who gave me job app edits. It still takes a village, even – or especially – at age 30.

And now I get to study that village!

I will be a postdoctoral research fellow at Youth-Nex, the UVa Center to Promote Effective Youth Development, directed by Patrick Tolan. I’m working with Nancy Deutschand Amanda Kibler on the study of youth development through interpersonal relationships (hence the above rant). There are two main projects, and a bonus pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Amanda Kibler’s project that I’ll be working on is Languages Across Borders: Building Positive Cross-Linguistic and Cross-Cultural Networks in High School. It is aimed at promoting positive development for youth who are English Language Learners through strengthening their school-based relationships with peers. Nancy Deutsch’s project that I’ll be working on is the Study of Important Youth-Adult Relationships. It examines youth experiences within relationships with important non-parental adults. Obviously if you want to talk more about either of these projects, just let me know!

And oh, the pot of gold at the end of this already gorgeous academic rainbow. Nancy Deutsch is collaborating with Futures without Violence and the Harvard Law School Gender Violence Program on a comprehensive training curriculum for institutions of higher education to reduce and address sexual violence on campus. So like, yes. That’s what I’m trying to do. This is the work I want to be doing in the world. Dare I repeat: Connection, empathy, #feelings, love, community. I'm in. My heart is exploding with hope.

I now have a job and an apartment in a place I’ve never actually been. But I hear it’s beautiful.

I’m moving next month. On my own… don’t worry, I’ll be asking for lots of help. It’s taken several villages to get me this far, and I may be physically leaving those particular villages for the time being, but I’m a big fan of Facetime, and I’ve got lots of plans for finding new villages down in Virginia. Did I mention that I’m already on an email chain with the other postdocs at UVa’s Curry School of Education? A warm, welcoming email chain. I’m so excited. I’m going to miss New York, for real, and also I’m so excited.

Charlottesville, Virginia. Come visit!

Patriarchy in progressive Judaism/ In the middle of a shame experience

As they sign their Jewish marriage covenant, I feel the various threads of emotion start to twist and tangle again.

You’re in the middle of a shame experience, I gently remind myself.

I breathe deeply and feel the knot unfurl. It is a subtle shame – not enough to impede my enjoyment of the wedding, but just enough to seep into my thoughts. Thoughts telling me I’m tainted, that I shouldn’t get too close to the happy couple, that they don’t want to be associated with me. Telling me to make myself smaller.

You’re in the middle of a shame experience, I repeat. This may be harder than expected.

---

I had expected to be completely divorced by now. Done. Finished with the entire process. It’s been over two years since our court date in Cambridge, which was super sad and also relatively smooth and followed by getting food together at the Cambridgeside Galleria. When the civil divorce was finalized four months later, we started seeking a ghet, a Jewish divorce document.

They feel sorta parallel – the civil process and the ghet. You submit your paperwork, then you go in front of a court, then you get some letter confirming that the divorce has occurred and you are now considered independent entities. Except in Judaism, it’s super gendered.

---

I want to talk about patriarchy, and I want to talk about shame. I want to explore these topics to better understand the psychological experience caused by systems of oppression in general, and to illustrate the specifics of how patriarchal oppression continues to impact me as a so-called “progressive” Jew today. I believe that as a Jewish community, we need to do better to address and eradicate patriarchy from our systems and rituals. This belief comes from my principles as a queerfeministJew. And it also comes from my own need, out of the depth of my own experience… as a response to my own shame.

Charlie Glickman talks about shame as an experience of disconnection that tells us how we’re doing by our community’s standards of behavior. Sometimes shame can be really helpful, when we’ve done something that betrays our values and we need to work to reconnect. But when something’s off in the social system, shame is often part of the problem.

I experienced a lot of shame throughout the divorce process. I felt shame as I watched myself hurt someone I love. I felt shame about having made a personaland publiccommitment that I did not keep. I pulled back from the Jewish community that we had been involved in together – I didn’t know how to show my face.

I had also faced a lot of patriarchy throughout the wedding process. I felt it when I went dress shopping, I felt it when I tried to talk through the details with my partner, and I felt it especiallyin the Jewish ritual we were working to reimagine.

---

I’m no Jewish legal scholar, but let me explain what I think happened:

I walk in with the person who had been my husband. A kind rabbi smiles and shakes our hands. We meet the two men asked to serve as witnesses for us. Very generous of them. They shake our hands with reserve and sympathy. We sit down in an overheated room, and I’m uncomfortable and thirsty.

This will only take twenty minutes, I assure myself. Then it will be over, I’ll drink water, and we’ll get lunch. I’m excited to see if Inna’s Kitchen is open, and to get time to catch up with Matt, my ex.

The rabbi gives us an outline of the ritual. Matthad made the official request for the ghet(the divorce document) to be drafted and delivered to me. The witnesses were there to confirm the delivery. Mattwas there because, no matter the legal meaning of the ritual, this was really about both of us. And like, for “closure,” maybe?

Maybe, but it doesn’t work. There is an error in the paperwork. Someone confused something about our Hebrew names and the ghet in the rabbi’s hands is not valid. It will not do the trick. This is not done.

That’s when I start to really feel it… if we’d moved through the ritual smoothly, would I have felt it in the same way? I’m not sure. But there I was, sitting in a room with four men: a rabbi, two witness, and the person who had been my husband. And they were frustrated. But I was the one most impacted.

---

I don’t feel ashamed of the tears. I don’t feel ashamed of needing a few minutes to take off my sweater and get water and use the restroom. I don’t feel ashamed of asking questions.

I feel ashamed because I feel subordinate, dependent, and powerless. I feel ashamed because at the most fundamental level, my status in the community is on the line. Because of the patriarchy. Because the function of the ghet is for a man to release a woman from marriage, as delivered by a rabbi, with two men witnessing. Back to the days of gender binary hetero patriarchy power system. (Back to the days of Pooh?)

We were both raised in affiliation with the Conservative Jewish movement, we got married within that movement, and we were trying to divorce accordingly. And the patriarchy only got thicker as we went along. Something about wanting to make sure the ghet would have as good a chance as possible of being honored by Orthodox communities should anyone ever care. The rabbi starts saying that we do it that way so that if I have a child and my child wants to be Orthodox then an Orthodox rabbi would respect the ghet as somehow a legitimate divorce that then allowed me to be legitimately remarried and have so-called “legitimate” children. It’s a long hypothetical dystopian fantasy in which this divorce remains a shadow that can call into question everything yet to happen in my life. I will continue to be suspect and this ghet will be the thing that will satisfy people that I am okay, that my actions are okay, that I can love again and build a family in acceptable, “legitimate,” ways.

Shame. Tangled, twisted knots of shame.

And this was very clearly directed towards me, not towards Matt.

Because patriarchy.

---

It was a female rabbi who had prepared the document actually – but she lives elsewhere, and the rabbi trying to deliver it is male. So that’s a quirk in the ever-quirky system of Conservative Judaism. The witnesses were to be men, but the rabbi could be any Conservative rabbi? The (male) rabbi explains it as a sort of wink to the Orthodox movement, just in case, to try to make the document as “acceptable” as possible. I keep asking questions until the rabbi stops and says: I think this is interesting, but you probably want to get on with your day. 

To him it's interesting. How to be a progressive rabbi in a patriarchal religion. An intellectually and probably morally satisfying mission. But see, it’s not just intellectual for me. Shame is social feeling. I want to be a “legitimate” community member. I want all my functioning and rights – I shouldn’t have to give that up just to avoid this experience of patriarchy.

It’s not only about injustice – that makes it into something that is intellectual, theoretical, something we can all be “against” together. We are all against disempowering women. Especially the “we” of progressive Jewish community. We’re committed, in concept.

It’s not only about microaggressions – the men were sweet to me even though they didn't know what to do with my tears. They expressed a mix of “pleasure to meet you” and “sorry we meet on this occasion,” and then, after it didn’t work, they uttered hope for something to come of the process. They were trying, in concept.

What it was really about for me, that day, was the psychological experience of being in that room and being subordinate, dependent, and powerless. My status in the community was in question, and – and this centuries old system of power persisted through these men in the room who considered themselves my equals in every other way and yet were participating in, defending, upholding, honoring that system of power. As was I, in my own way.

---

Shame is a social emotion about not feeling part of a community. Not because I’m being shunned or feel disliked – but because I can tell that I’m not being cared for. My needs aren’t being met. I feel ashamed that my community would desert me so – leave me so subordinate and alone. Even when I actually get the ghet, that's a psychological experience that I will hold with me. It’s the psychological toll of systems of power and oppression that we know we are “against” but – but are still here. I can't reject it on my own; I would be even more isolated. I can only ask questions and accept the tears and seek help. And that is all compounded when the room is full of men, and the men respond to me with intellectual attention, as I keep hearing the rabbi say: I think this is interesting, but you probably want to get on with your day. 

No, rabbi. I want to get on with my life. 

So you're trying to figure me out?

I am a divorced pansexual queer femme trauma survivor.

I am a smart successful sensitive spiritual progressive Jew.
I am a caring compassionate anti-racist White feminist.

I am layers of nightmare and daydream and full, raw presence.

I am hope and hurt and growth.

I am sweet caresses and confusion.

I am too much.

I am not enough.

I am busy.

I am deeply connected and loving and open.

I am alone and coping and yearning.

I am vulnerable.

I am incredibly strong.
I am not here to play games.

“You’ve done everything right up to this point"

The most dominant image I have is me sitting on my couch staring at the ceiling. But really I was luckier than that – it was a beautiful fall, and I spent a lot of time lying in the grass soaking in the sun. In the park down the street… on the field across from the gym… on the hill by my office… resting my concussed brain, trying to cope.

I was coping not only with the concussion, but also with the effect of the concussion on my basic emotion regulation abilities. It was like there’d been a buffer zone around my feelings that had dissolved, dissipated. Hard feelings turned to panic much more easily, with a dangerous intensity. And panicking could only make things worse: spiking my heart rate, sending me down a steep dark spiral, and only aggravating the injury further.

So I had to ground myself. I had to. Feeling the grass underneath each limb, waves of guilt and shame and fear threatening to flood my system for uninterrupted hours in which I was supposed to be recuperating so I could get back to the very limited amount of work time my brain could take. Fear, shame, guilt. Fear, shame, guilt. Regret.

I have done everything right up to this point.

That’s how I would anchor myself.

I am alive, loved, and enrolled (as in, enrolled in grad school, even if I didn’t know when or how I would be able to finish). I have done everything right up to this point.

I would focus on those words, repeating them over and over and over again, for weeks and weeks.

---

Of course, it wasn’t true. I mean, it was true that I was alive, loved, and enrolled. But it wasn’t true that I’d done everything right. How could it be? That’s not a thing.

I said it to myself so much that it became a habit – telling myself I’d done everything right because at least I’d gotten to that point, still in the game, with people in my corner. But those good things can be true even if I haven’t done everything right. And I haven’t. I didn’t do everything right in concussion recovery; I didn’t do everything right in grad school (shh don’t tell!); and I certainly haven’t done everything right by the people who have so valiantly loved me.

Sometimes I’ve messed up and hurt only myself. Sometimes I’ve messed up and really hurt people I care about. Sometimes I’ve messed up in ways that hurt marginalized folks around me and perpetuate the very systems of oppression I’m committed to dismantling.

---

I want to hold these truths. I need a way to be here and to feel them and then to do the repair I can do in/for myself, in/for my relationships, and in/for my communities. Can I tolerate the reality that I have not done everything right, without getting stuck in spirals of regret or shame or self-flagellation?

The first step is feeling the feelings. And then comes speaking back, but not to negate or deny what I’m upset about having done. Not to claim rightness or say it’s okay when it’s not. What can I say instead to speak directly to/with those feelings? I’m gonna play with some ideas here, and I’d love to hear feedback and reflections from you, too!

To regret, I could say: This is how things have happened. I did what I could at the time. This is the only way it’s happened, and this is what I get to live with now.

To shame, I could say: I care about my impact. I want to understand and address the impact I’ve had. Having a negative impact doesn’t negate everything about me. Everything else is still true, too, and I can be complicated.

To self-flagellation, I could say:Actually what I need is the opposite. What I need is self-care. To do better in the world, I need to do better for myself. The more okay I am, more aware of my own feelings and holding more of my own stuff, the more responsibly I’ll behave towards other people and the more I’ll be able to do for/with other people.

Perhaps these thoughts can help me ground myself in the presentand future, and engage with the pain and complexity of the past. By paying attention instead of turning away, maybe I will find an opportunity to do repair work, and maybe I can expand my capacity to do differently next time.

---

I am alive, loved, and employed. I’ve done a lot right up to this point. But not everything. I’ve messed up in some significant ways.

I did the best I could. I care about my impact. The more I take care of myself, the more I’ll be able to address what I can of what I’ve done, and to do better moving forward.

I hope?

Hopes and Dreams for 2016

1. Stop saying I “just” moved to NYC
2. Cook – like, roasted vegetables and soups
3. More reading and writing
4. More music and dance and prayer and poetry
5. Host another dinner party
6. Go back to not checking email and Facebook on Saturdays
7. Read/listen/talk more about the impact of white supremacy and structural racism on the work I do and how I do it
8. Read/listen/talk more about the impact of gentrification and what it means for me to be living where I live
9. Further systematize my financial contributions to bolster the work of the people most impacted by local and global systems of oppression
10. Stop getting annoyed when people send me vague text messages… avoid over-interpreting
11. Open my heart to other humans
12. Feel as much as possible

Escort İstanbul

Kız arkadaşımdan ayrıldığım bir gün bunalımdayken escort bayanlar ile görüşmeye karar verdim ve arama motorlarının yardımı ile eskort ilan sitelerine ulaştım birbirinden tatlı ve farklı eskort kızlarını gördüğümde başta seçim yapmakta çok zorlandım ancak içlerinden bir kaç tanesini beğendim ve iletişim numaralarından aradım.
İstanbulda oturduğum için aramalarımı istanbul escort üzerinde yoğunlaştırdım şanslıydım ki bir çok eskort bayan gördüm ve istediğim özelliklere çok yakın bir es kız ile tanıştım tabi çok eskort deneyimim olmadığı için başta utanıp sıkıldım ama ten teması güleryüz ve muhteşem güzellik karşısında bende zamanla döktürdüm.

İstanbul escort bayan ilgisi ve merağı olupta bu zamana kadar hiç bir eskort kız ile yakınlaşmamış olan beylere tavsiyem korkulacak bişey yok hayat escort kızlar ile güzel olacaktır.

İstanbul Escort Kızlar

Escort kızların en büyük özellikleri hemen hemen hepsinin cana yakın ve güzel olmalarıdır bir eskort bayan ile çok keyif dolu anlar yaşayabilir onunla birlikte güzel şeyler paylaşabilirsiniz, escort kızlar genelde 21-30 yaş arası bayanlardır.

Türkiye'nin nüfusu bakımından en kalabalık şehiri olan İstanbulda pek çok escort bayan bulunmaktadır, bu escort bayanlar ile görüşmek ve tanışmak oldukça kolay ve keyif veren bişeydir.


İstanbulda tabiki pek çok ilçe bulunmaktadır, o yüzden escort aramalarınızı ilçe bazlı çok daha rahat yapabilirsiniz örnek olarak acıbadem escort araması yaparsanız direk acıbadem eskort kızları ile tanışırsınız.

Bunun yanı sıra yabancı escort arayışlarınızdada sihirli kelimeleri kullanacabilirsiniz gene bir örnekle süslemek gerekirse istanbul rus escort yazarak en güzel rus eskort bayanlara ulaşabilirsiniz.
Bunun gibi pek çok örnek verebiliriz.