Plural Positivity
Apr. 4th, 2019 08:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
emmengardHello all,
A lot has been happening lately. The Plural Positivity World Conference happened. It as amazing. We did a small talk on art and the importance of seeing yourself in the art that you engage with. It was abit of a whirlwind. We found out about it a little late and we have never recorded a video before, but we managed. :)
The conference put us in contact with a lot of amazing systems. We learned a lot, and had a lot of fun.
One interesting thing that happened was it got some of us talking and some of the wheels started turning, both during and after the conference. One amazing system we got to know is the Trashcan Collective.
The Trashcan Collective invented the terms "endogenic" and "traumagenic" five years ago. We personally have never been a fan of the term "traumagenic." To us it felt like it was throwing our trauma in our faces. It was never something we felt comfortable using to describe ourselves. We very quickly started calling ourselves an Adaptive System, but unfortunately, no one knew what we were talking about, except for our close system friends.
With our friends we often discussed potential replacement terms. We felt that as there were only two terms to describe the plural community, it seemed limited, especially when compared to the variety of plural experienced we were seeing. We even wondered if the fact that there were only two categories was reinforcing dichotomies and conflict. So, we came up with a few new descriptors for the types of system experiences we saw, terms that we thought could be a little more fluid and more immediately understandable for newer system: Adaptive, Created, Spontaneous and Mixed. We added Unknown later, as it seemed quiogenic was filling a needed gap in available terminology. We conceived of these terms as being compatible with one another and not as exclusive. They could overlap with one another, just as the experiences we saw in the community can and do overlap.
After the conference, Trashcan Collective started looking for alternatives to the term "traumagenic," and so we put our descriptors out there, and they really liked them, which was lovely to hear from others who are such fans of words and the importance they wield.
Shortly after explaining the terms to Trashcan Collective, they pointed out that the terms would work well with the interlocking ring symbol for plurality, with the center standing for mixed origin systems. We immediately started experimenting with our watercolors and this is what we came up with:
Symbolism of the colors:
Yellow: Unknown. We placed it at the top because that is where a lot of us start off, and some end up staying there, content to embrace their experience without being particular about the categories.
Green: Adaptive. We see green as a healing color and for us we feel like that is what is really central to the Adaptive experience: adapting to, overcoming and healing from trauma and adverse experiences.
Blue: Spontaneous. We just sort of felt like blue was a Spontaneous color...? I actually don't know why, but when we thought of the word Spontaneous we imagined a clear blue sky.
Red: Created.. honestly it was the left over color xD I'm sorry! Though in our system our most imaginative members like the colors red and pink, so to us it still made a sort of intuitive sense. Also red reminds us of a fiery Creative mind. They do call it the spark of creativity, perhaps that idea of the spark is what makes me think of red.
The middle with the mixing rainbow colors is for Mixed Systems. However, all the spots where different catagories overlap would also be Mixed.
The orientation of the colors is due to pragmatics of how colors mix, and our desire to have the the overall finished graphic be bright and vibrant, like a rainbow (we were trying to avoid making brown). Though, I suppose if you were an Adaptive system with some Created members, the mixed color would be brown.. OR one could identify as a Christmas System! I actually love red and green together. That is one of our favorite color combinations
[Random painter tip: to make a nice deep green, like the shadows on leaves, temper the green with a little red. Green can also temper red to make a darker burgundy shade.]
After finishing the graphic, we sort of want to be Cyan (Adaptive/Spontaneous, the blue-green color is so lovely!), but really we have no idea if our system predates our trauma or not. Some system members insist we were a we before trauma.. but memory at age three is really unreliable. All we really know is that we were significantly shaped by our need to adapt to trauma and adversity growing up, which makes us pretty solidly green (sort of a kelly green...). BUT since it is arguably unclear, we might actually be chartreuse (yellow green), which is another lovely color.
:)
Please forgive us nerdy painters for geeking out on color names and our general silliness. I hope you like the graphic and the terms. The terms are not to divide us. They are to bring us together. To celebrate our strengths, our similarities and even to celebrate our differences.. The terms are there to give our community the words they need to understand and describe their experiences so that we can all better understand one another and connect with each other across the entire plural spectrum (Oh snap! that's why it is a rainbow! Cause it is a spectrum! Ooooooohhhhh!!!!!)
The rainbow rings are one step beyond the original plural rings, they are to signify acceptance and support across the entire plural community. The terms we made are from that same place of love. They are just words, but words are powerful. We feel more powerful when we tell people we are an Adaptive System, because our strength is who we are. We chose the other terms with a similar goal in mind, to celebrate who we all are, to celebrate creativity, spontaneity, courage in the face of the unknown and our diversity of origins. We are stronger together. So lets have words that celebrate our various strengths.
Lastly, we wanted terms that for new systems are immediately understandable, and which they already fit into. Wouldn't it be so much nicer if newer systems were not pushed to find a category immediately upon discovering they were plural and entering the community. That was how it was for us personally. We didn't even know there were different types of systems and they wanted to make sure we were a certain kind. It was oppressive, and destabilizing.
Wouldn't it be nice if new systems were greeted gently and told not to worry, they were already a part of our symbol, a part of our flag, a part of our community, by default? Wouldn't it be nice if they were told that it is simply okay to not know, and if they change how they identified later it was okay too? Wouldn't it be nice to give them that moment to allow their own system, their own truth, to unfold to them in its own time? Furthermore, if a system decides that they are beyond those sort of identifiers, perhaps unknown or categorized would best suit them and what they are comfortable with long term. And that is okay too. The terms are meant to be descriptive, not prescriptive.
The rainbow rings and the terms aren't just for all of us who are already here in the community, its for those who have not yet discovered themselves, or even for those future community members who haven't yet been born. What kind of community do we want to welcome them to? I am hoping for a really loving and supportive one, because being different is hard enough on its own. Being plural, regardless of how you got here, is hard enough on its own. This is easier together. So lets do that. Lets stand together. Lets seek to support and understand and learn from each other.
Thank you for coming to our Ted Talk,
Ariadne (& Bran)
A lot has been happening lately. The Plural Positivity World Conference happened. It as amazing. We did a small talk on art and the importance of seeing yourself in the art that you engage with. It was abit of a whirlwind. We found out about it a little late and we have never recorded a video before, but we managed. :)
The conference put us in contact with a lot of amazing systems. We learned a lot, and had a lot of fun.
One interesting thing that happened was it got some of us talking and some of the wheels started turning, both during and after the conference. One amazing system we got to know is the Trashcan Collective.
The Trashcan Collective invented the terms "endogenic" and "traumagenic" five years ago. We personally have never been a fan of the term "traumagenic." To us it felt like it was throwing our trauma in our faces. It was never something we felt comfortable using to describe ourselves. We very quickly started calling ourselves an Adaptive System, but unfortunately, no one knew what we were talking about, except for our close system friends.
With our friends we often discussed potential replacement terms. We felt that as there were only two terms to describe the plural community, it seemed limited, especially when compared to the variety of plural experienced we were seeing. We even wondered if the fact that there were only two categories was reinforcing dichotomies and conflict. So, we came up with a few new descriptors for the types of system experiences we saw, terms that we thought could be a little more fluid and more immediately understandable for newer system: Adaptive, Created, Spontaneous and Mixed. We added Unknown later, as it seemed quiogenic was filling a needed gap in available terminology. We conceived of these terms as being compatible with one another and not as exclusive. They could overlap with one another, just as the experiences we saw in the community can and do overlap.
After the conference, Trashcan Collective started looking for alternatives to the term "traumagenic," and so we put our descriptors out there, and they really liked them, which was lovely to hear from others who are such fans of words and the importance they wield.
Shortly after explaining the terms to Trashcan Collective, they pointed out that the terms would work well with the interlocking ring symbol for plurality, with the center standing for mixed origin systems. We immediately started experimenting with our watercolors and this is what we came up with:
Symbolism of the colors:
Yellow: Unknown. We placed it at the top because that is where a lot of us start off, and some end up staying there, content to embrace their experience without being particular about the categories.
Green: Adaptive. We see green as a healing color and for us we feel like that is what is really central to the Adaptive experience: adapting to, overcoming and healing from trauma and adverse experiences.
Blue: Spontaneous. We just sort of felt like blue was a Spontaneous color...? I actually don't know why, but when we thought of the word Spontaneous we imagined a clear blue sky.
Red: Created.. honestly it was the left over color xD I'm sorry! Though in our system our most imaginative members like the colors red and pink, so to us it still made a sort of intuitive sense. Also red reminds us of a fiery Creative mind. They do call it the spark of creativity, perhaps that idea of the spark is what makes me think of red.
The middle with the mixing rainbow colors is for Mixed Systems. However, all the spots where different catagories overlap would also be Mixed.
The orientation of the colors is due to pragmatics of how colors mix, and our desire to have the the overall finished graphic be bright and vibrant, like a rainbow (we were trying to avoid making brown). Though, I suppose if you were an Adaptive system with some Created members, the mixed color would be brown.. OR one could identify as a Christmas System! I actually love red and green together. That is one of our favorite color combinations
[Random painter tip: to make a nice deep green, like the shadows on leaves, temper the green with a little red. Green can also temper red to make a darker burgundy shade.]
After finishing the graphic, we sort of want to be Cyan (Adaptive/Spontaneous, the blue-green color is so lovely!), but really we have no idea if our system predates our trauma or not. Some system members insist we were a we before trauma.. but memory at age three is really unreliable. All we really know is that we were significantly shaped by our need to adapt to trauma and adversity growing up, which makes us pretty solidly green (sort of a kelly green...). BUT since it is arguably unclear, we might actually be chartreuse (yellow green), which is another lovely color.
:)
Please forgive us nerdy painters for geeking out on color names and our general silliness. I hope you like the graphic and the terms. The terms are not to divide us. They are to bring us together. To celebrate our strengths, our similarities and even to celebrate our differences.. The terms are there to give our community the words they need to understand and describe their experiences so that we can all better understand one another and connect with each other across the entire plural spectrum (Oh snap! that's why it is a rainbow! Cause it is a spectrum! Ooooooohhhhh!!!!!)
The rainbow rings are one step beyond the original plural rings, they are to signify acceptance and support across the entire plural community. The terms we made are from that same place of love. They are just words, but words are powerful. We feel more powerful when we tell people we are an Adaptive System, because our strength is who we are. We chose the other terms with a similar goal in mind, to celebrate who we all are, to celebrate creativity, spontaneity, courage in the face of the unknown and our diversity of origins. We are stronger together. So lets have words that celebrate our various strengths.
Lastly, we wanted terms that for new systems are immediately understandable, and which they already fit into. Wouldn't it be so much nicer if newer systems were not pushed to find a category immediately upon discovering they were plural and entering the community. That was how it was for us personally. We didn't even know there were different types of systems and they wanted to make sure we were a certain kind. It was oppressive, and destabilizing.
Wouldn't it be nice if new systems were greeted gently and told not to worry, they were already a part of our symbol, a part of our flag, a part of our community, by default? Wouldn't it be nice if they were told that it is simply okay to not know, and if they change how they identified later it was okay too? Wouldn't it be nice to give them that moment to allow their own system, their own truth, to unfold to them in its own time? Furthermore, if a system decides that they are beyond those sort of identifiers, perhaps unknown or categorized would best suit them and what they are comfortable with long term. And that is okay too. The terms are meant to be descriptive, not prescriptive.
The rainbow rings and the terms aren't just for all of us who are already here in the community, its for those who have not yet discovered themselves, or even for those future community members who haven't yet been born. What kind of community do we want to welcome them to? I am hoping for a really loving and supportive one, because being different is hard enough on its own. Being plural, regardless of how you got here, is hard enough on its own. This is easier together. So lets do that. Lets stand together. Lets seek to support and understand and learn from each other.
Thank you for coming to our Ted Talk,
Ariadne (& Bran)
no subject
Date: 2019-04-08 01:01 am (UTC)i had a great md back in the mid 90s who urged me to accept myself and trust my own experience over the experience of hcps who didn't "believe in" multiplicity, and it really helped.
i think this terminology will help folks, too. ♥
no subject
Date: 2019-04-14 04:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-08-16 04:40 pm (UTC)Especially since a lot of different kinds of plurals were able to exist in relative harmony on Livejournal for something like a decade, from various mixed camps, and sure there were fights, but there wasn't this institutionalized, us-vs-them black-and-white RAGE about it that there seems to be now.
It's really weird to watch, coming from the previous community.
--Rogan
no subject
Date: 2022-06-23 07:31 pm (UTC)