Personal Empowerment | Tyra Garlington

My heart cried last week: Part two

Posted on October 23, 2018 by Tyra Garlington • 0 Comments

This is a continued conversation about sexual assault and why women don’t tell sooner, or ever. Last, week in part one I introduced the concept from my personal sexual abuse rear-view mirror. The words here are not meant to indict, but to shout comfort in the fact that none of us has to feel alone ever again. Our voices heal! Last week we talked about feelings of shame. Victims of sexual harassment and sexual assault in adulthood or sexual abuse in childhood tend to feel shame because as human beings, we want to believe that we have control over what happens to……
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My heart cried last week: Part One

Posted on October 16, 2018 by Tyra Garlington • 0 Comments

The intense angry sexual assault conversations knocked down the door to my secret pain. For all intent and purposes, I am well adjusted. I live in my worthiness, I believe my circumstances are not who I am. And, my abusers have long since died. However, on rare occasions, unpredicted triggers catch my breath in hushed fury. I ask the ghosts “How could you? How dare you? YOU were supposed to protect me.” Yet, I never told. “The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission reports receiving 12,000 allegations of sex-based harassment each year, with women accounting for about 83 percent of the complainants. That figure……
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The easy things aren’t always the right things.

Posted on October 9, 2018 by Tyra Garlington • 0 Comments

“When I was in elementary school my parents told me, it didn’t matter what I did when I grew up, so long as it made me happy. “Happiness is the whole point of life”, my father said. “But it doesn’t always come easy. Your mother loves to help people in need, so she became a psychiatric nurse. I love reading, writing, and poetry, so I became an English teacher. We both find happiness in the hard work we do each day.” A few years later when I was in junior high, my sixth-grade homeroom teacher put me in detention for……
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Are the “Man Code” and “self-compassion” enemies?

Posted on September 25, 2018 by Tyra Garlington • 0 Comments

I recently overheard a father telling his preteen son what it means to be a man. It prompted sharing the following blog. “At the age of ten a boy begins imitating a man. And he continues doing this for the rest of his life.” -Mark Twain Most guys get lessons on how to live by the “boy code” from an early age—in families, playgrounds, schools, churches and temples, and on the streets. Even very young boys learn to “keep a stiff upper lip,” “not show their feelings,” “act real tough,” “not act too nice,” and “be cool.” Since the surest……
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September is Suicide Prevention Month

Posted on September 18, 2018 by Tyra Garlington • 0 Comments

When a family member commits suicide, the entire family is plunged into confusion and grief. Life is instinctually valued by all of life’s creatures. Even a blade of grass of a flower fights for the privilege of life. When someone close to you voluntarily ends their life, your entire value system is thrown into question. Family members may also be consumed with guilt thinking they somehow should have seen the signs that led to the individual’s suicide. Consider My Best Friends Departure by © Carina Spencer I jumped, you caught me. I laughed, you joked. I was down, you picked me up.……
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Have you ever walked into a room called shame?

Posted on September 11, 2018 by Tyra Garlington • 0 Comments

The key that unlocks the room is shaped like a negative unexpected event or circumstance that makes us leave safe places in our lives. Shame is an existential feeling of unworthiness. Dr. Bryn Jessup says. “When people feel shame, they believe that they are ultimately an inadequate person or an unworthy person.”[1] Shame is one of the most powerful emotions that we feel. It can cause us to sever relationships, sink into depression, fuel addictions and eating disorders, and even lead to suicide. For me it was rape; years ago. Before that, shame was a term I had not associated……
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How do you spell neighbor?

Posted on September 4, 2018 by Tyra Garlington • 0 Comments

It seems most of us have forgotten. The 24/7 global news cycle upholds the fact that indeed we have. Bob Goff, bestselling author, suggest the following in his 2018 book, Everybody Always: “Each of us is surrounded every day by our neighbors. They’re ahead of us, behind us, on each side of us. They are every place we go. They are sacking groceries and attending city council meetings. They are holding cardboard signs on street corners and raking leaves next door. They play high school football and deliver the mail. They’re heroes and hookers and pastors and pilots. They live……
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Back to School: Dreaming of a Clean Slate

Posted on August 21, 2018 by Tyra Garlington • 0 Comments

I love that expression: “A clean slate.” Maybe, I’d think each new school year, maybe this year would be new. So new that it would make me anew. Or at least make a new story: Frantically gathering food for the day as I rushed to be in time for the bus, stuffing my paper-bag lunch into my backpack. By mid-day, the yogurt would break open and soak into my homework & textbooks. Maybe this would be the year the yogurt stopped breaking? Desperately wishing I’d started my homework earlier. Loathing and the self-loathing Sunday-night realization that I wasn’t prepared for Monday. Maybe this would be the year……
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Four Hard Truths About Today that Will Make You Stronger Tomorrow

Posted on August 14, 2018 by Tyra Garlington • 0 Comments

“Life keeps leading us on journeys we would never go on if it were up to us. Don’t be afraid. Have faith. Find the lessons. Trust the journey today. We are all beautiful human beings, just trying to find our way. Today and every day we seek to better understand the meaning of our lives. We long to discover our gifts and release them fully into the world, and we hope to find happiness, peace, and strength along the way. For some of us, the key to these desires rings loud and clear, driving what we do and how we……
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What was the last note you wrote to you?

Posted on August 7, 2018 by Tyra Garlington • 0 Comments

“You need to do hard things to be happy in life. The things most people avoid, such as those that make you uncomfortable, that are far easier to hide from, that others can’t do for you, that make you second-guess yourself and question how you’re going to find the strength to push forward. The hard things ultimately build you up and change your life. They make the difference between existing and living, between knowing the path and walking it, between a lifetime of empty promises and one filled with progress and fulfillment.” We distract ourselves. We procrastinate. We make excuses. ……
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