About

“Everyone’s a critic,” the theatre saying goes…and (nearly) everyone has a critic’s voice droning on in their mind, sowing self-doubt, shame, paralysis….

For me, in setting up LIVEdammit, the criticism began with the very mission.

“Who are you to be a voice for this message?” the inner critic sneered. “You’re hardly the poster child for fulfilled and joyful living. And let’s face it, resisting your own inner demons, even the temptation to self-destruction, is nothing like, say, standing down rubber bullets in the defense of water, or facing the risk of disappearance, or….”

It’s taken me a long time to get past that critical voice. How could I equate “imaginary” torments with the physical threats being heroically faced every day, around the world?

When I’m facing bone-level questions like these, I go out to the woods for clarity, for insights that seem to arise from the earth under my feet. As I sat on a black granite boulder under a tree, with a brisk wind in my face and snowdrops nodding out of last year’s leaves, the answers arose…

The destroying force – the force of anti-life – is the same. The force of inner shame, self-doubt, self-sabotage, is every bit as effective at forestalling one person’s purpose, preventing their effective action, as bullets are in stopping another’s. Death by choice is every bit as final as death by school shooter or lynch mob or poverty and malnutrition or poisoned air or water.

There is no imaginary pain. Pain is pain. The only difference is whether, and how, the destroying force lies outside ourselves, or whether it has entered in, whether through our energetic sensitivities, our ancestral baggage, our choices and habits, our brain chemistry, or the cells of our bodies.

The force of anti-life is the same. The only difference is how we respond: whether we are blinded and deceived and seduced – whether we are paralyzed and surrender, enraged and lash out – or whether we recognize the energy of the destroyer and resist, reaching out or digging deep for life and light.

The struggle against anti-life is the same – whether you are saving Earth and the beings of Earth by working for democracy or environmental protection or human rights, whether you serve the cause of healing others in mind or body, or whether you are working to save your own mind and body from the inner destroyer.

The enemy is the same. The fight is the same. The goal is the same.

Choose Life.

So What Is LIVEdammit?

A place to be recognized in your struggles by others who “get it”.

A place to be affirmed: You/I/We are not alone in the struggle.

A place to be empowered by others’ stories as you affirm the value of your life and all you hold dear. Again. And Again.

A place to be inspired as you move through pain into compassion and strength.

This site is a vote against despair and terror, uncertainty, grief and outrage at the headlines of the day.

It is a vote for the possibility of facing, recognizing, and consciously deflecting the force(s) that would destroy us, until we can move forward, toward the Light. Not once, but again and again.

Is it Divine protection – the inner voice of our Higher Self – the soul’s predilection for healing – the wise animal drive for survival – who knows? We make the choice for Life against the many faces of the destroyer, inward and outward. Whether in our minds or our bodies, our households, our streets, or our world, we say Enough, and do what is needed to choose life.

IMPORTANT: This site does not provide real-time, qualified mental health care or spiritual guidance.  It is intended as a resource hub and nurturing community of humans sharing our ways of remaining human – conscious, thinking and feeling – in an increasingly inhumane society.

For a variety of mental health support resources, please see Resources.

See our full disclaimer HERE.