During Domestic Violence Awareness Month, it’s important for everyone – not only domestic violence survivors – to understand it’s not so easy for a person to extricate themselves from an abusive situation. The reasons women stay in abusive relationships are multifaceted, involving fear, financial dependence, concern for children, emotional manipulation, hope for change, social pressures, and lack of support. Understanding these reasons is essential for developing effective interventions and support systems to help women safely exit abusive situations.

What the American people need, and all people really, are leaders who aren’t afraid to look at their own shadows, folx who want to heal their inner child, and those who can freely admit they make mistakes, yes, but do the work so they don’t make the same mistake over and over again. It seems like getting to the top no matter the cost is the key to success rather than helping boost vulnerable citizens and create a country that can feel cohesive rather than split into varying levels of a dystopia.

Society heaps shame onto sex workers. People’s discomfort stems from ingrained and indoctrinated beliefs. They think sex works not a valid profession, which it is.. Daniels is an excellent example of that. She has worked in the sex industry for more than two decades as a performer, writer, and director. She’s a self-made woman that doesn’t bow down to shame or let society’s expectations of her put her in a box. She’s a badass who ultimately brought Trump to justice despite great personal risk.

All the back and forth is putting people into turmoil. The backtracking behavior of “loans will be forgiven, oh wait, no they won’t” is intermittent conditioning and causes emotional instability. Also known as intermittent reinforcement, intermittent conditioning is emotional manipulation and abuse. There are occasional and sudden displays of reward-giving instances (such as a loan being forgiven) that are then taken away.

We’re seeing the shadow side of the Catholic church, the side they want to hide but must be dealt with. Carl Jung popularized shadow work in the West and emphasized that we all have different parts of ourselves that have been exiled, that we try to repress or keep hidden. One of Jung’s most famous quotes is, “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”