Rambles and Doodles

In this minisode, Melinda rambles through her own ritual of journal selection, how she picks her colors, and the reason she treats her journals like a piece of art and an extension of herself. With three quick (ish) tips, Melinda reminds us that building a habit and making meaning of our own actions allows us to create a full bodied experience when we are reflecting. Happy Journaling! Melinda's Favorites for Journaling: The splurge: Top Drawer Ring Notebook Plain Paper The I am writing so much that I need good, cheap journals: Muji Recycled Paper The classic and easy to find: Moleskine Cahier Journals 3 Pack Download this printable at no cost to get started with creating your own journaling ritual! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/melinda-barbosa/message

Melinda opens with a story of losing her luggage on an impromptu trip to Montgomery, Alabama to see the Legacy Museum from Enslavement to Mass Incarceration. Melinda describes the experience of visiting the museum (she suggests taking multiple days to slowly engage with the concept) and what that brought up for her about borderlands. She connects the impact of enslavement to her ancestors in Cape Verde and what that means as a white passing person. She discusses the intentional creation of hierarchy in Cape Verde. She names that she sits at the intersection of oppressed and oppressors. Melinda then shares where she got the concept of borderlands - from a poem “To Live in the Borderlands” by Gloria Anzaldua. Melinda explores this idea of mixed identity and what it means to sit on the borders, rather than pick a side. Liberation exists on the borderlands. Melinda returns to the history of Cape Verde and how the intentional creation of hierarchy including a mixed race impacts culture and identity. She asks how borders can be apart of our liberation and our understanding of how oppression is designed. Melinda connects back to her physical appearance as a place of respite and a battle ground for race and gender. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/melinda-barbosa/message

Recorded the day after the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, Melinda tells the story of the person who taught her how to breathe and returns to her breath to face the full truth of who we are as a society, and the courage it will take for us to face the violence and lack of care we give to human life. Melinda invites us to welcome our sadness as a teacher and a reminder that when horrific incidents happen, we have to be weary of how much we compartmentalize our lives, and the way it may be desensitizing us from the atrocities we are experiencing everyday. Doodle: Set a timer and free write following the prompt: I am sad today because... Visit Rambles and Doodles for more information. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/melinda-barbosa/message

Melinda tells a story of grief in her family and the deep healing it brings. She then defines trauma and names its impact on bodies and brains. Trauma gets us stuck, in our brains, bodies, relationships, and development. She connects this expectation of resilience and white knuckling to young people's state of being now, in this time of ongoing trauma. Melinda explores her own “high pain tolerance” as a disconnection from the body, borne of physical abuse and fatness, and how the power of her brain is praised. She shares her practice noticing tension, even in moments of safeness. Melinda asks what is beyond relaxation and questions the cost of dissociation. She talks about her recent experience of returning to an amusement park, but this time for her first FULL experience. Bravery sometimes means the body did it, but the brain did not. Melinda explores healing as the ability to feel joy wholeheartedly. The Doodle: Go on a play date with yourself. Do something fun and enjoyable where you have to use your body the best of your ability. Before the play date, write down the physical sensations you can feel. Do a full body scan of yourself. Noting everything as if you were a doctor. Then after your play date, write how your body feels. Play date ideas: Go to a live performance of music, even if it's not a genre you love (keep yourself safe). Dance and hum as you can. Workout if that is something you find enjoyable. Make some art. Get your favorite art materials, a blank piece of paper, set a timer and make something for 20 minutes. Go to a playground and swing on the swings. Go down the slide if you are physically able to. What did you love doing as a child/young person? Return to that activity even if you know you're not nearly as good at it now than you were as a child. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/melinda-barbosa/message

Melinda opens season two with a breath. She then introduces this week's topic of healing - of healing intergenerational trauma. She tells a story going back generations of family, connection, and trauma. Melinda considers what has been passed down in her family and how we think about what we want to keep or what we want leave behind. Melinda asks us to think about healing in a world where trauma is something that happens to us and a result of oppressive systems. Melinda's mother was a breaker of patterns - changing how relationships are defined and the expectations of holding everyone's humanity. Melinda names how even people perpetuating harm can still be breaking cycles. Melinda asks where are we be called to heal ourselves. Next Melinda talks about what healing actually is and how liberation feels clearer. She expands our definition of healing to include how we related to and hold other people. Melinda was invited into a space to be a healer and shares how this experience helped her further understand what people expect from healing and what it actually is. She is curious about how healing is loving others and yourself fully. Melinda invites us to think about healing as really about being in relationship and journaling as something beyond self discovery. More to come on relationships and journaling this season! Doodle: what is one thing you wish you could tell your child self about what was happening around you? --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/melinda-barbosa/message

Episode Summary: This is Rambles & Doodles, the research and development podcast about reflection, journaling, and self discovery. Melinda is back with Season 2 and ready for many more rambles and new journal prompts. Journal Prompt: Write a love letter to yourself. Start with writing to your body, then to your mind, and then to your heart. Follow @melinda.barbosa on Instagram for more prompts, updates and more! Created, Hosted and Edited: by Melinda Barbosa Produced by: Marlees West(IG @_marlees) --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/melinda-barbosa/message

This is Rambles & Doodles, the research and development podcast about reflection, journaling, and self discovery. In this episode we are talking about emotional labor and this is why we're so damn tired? Melinda recalls a moment three years ago in conversation about meetings, racial identity work, and how we show up in these spaces. Melinda named that she knows she is fired up in those spaces. The person who knew Melinda well said “Oh you come off as measured”. This moment led Melinda to grieve the loss of not being experienced in alignment with how you feel. In this episode, we think about when we do emotional labor, what is the cost, who has to do it, and what would happen if we stopped? Journal Prompt: What is an early memory you have of being expected to hide your feelings for the “greater good”? What would you tell yourself now about your feelings? What would you have needed for others to make space for your feelings?  Follow @melinda.barbosa  on Instagram for more prompts, updates and more! Created, Hosted and Edited: by Melinda Barbosa Produced by: Marlees West(IG @_marlees) --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/melinda-barbosa/message

This is Rambles & Doodles, the research and development podcast about reflection, journaling, and self discovery. In each minisode, Melinda will lead you through journaling prompt, minus the Ramble. These are a series of her favorites, intended to build the reflection muscle within us all. Intention Setting: This prompt is about starting your day with a roadmap about where you want it to go. By setting an intention, we open up our sense of awareness. Finish these phrases: "I want to feel more..." and "I want to experience more..." Follow @melinda.barbosa on Instagram for more prompts, updates and more! Created, Hosted and Edited: by Melinda Barbosa Produced by: Marlees West(IG @_marlees) --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/melinda-barbosa/message

Episode Summary: This is Rambles & Doodles, the research and development podcast about reflection, journaling, and self discovery. In this episode, we talk about the loving self, what does it take to love ourselves, others, and create a sense of belonging. We explore what it means to have a love ethic. Journal Prompt: Grab your journal! Where's your favorite pen? Here is your prompt: Where and when have you experienced love that liberates you? That made you feel freer? That all complexities of yourself could show up? How do you extend a sense of belonging to others? Show Notes: bell books (All About Love: New Visions), Representative Joe Neguse, Maya Angelou, Dr. Cornel West, John A. Powell Follow @melinda.barbosa for more prompts, updates and more! Created, Hosted and Edited by Melinda Barbosa Produced by: Marlees West(IG @_marlees) --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/melinda-barbosa/message

This is Rambles & Doodles, the research and development podcast about reflection, journaling, and self discovery. In each minisode, Melinda will lead you through journaling prompt, minus the Ramble. These are a series of her favorites, intended to build the reflection muscle within us all. The Relationship to Journaling Prompt: This prompt is a deeper dive. We all have a relationship to journaling. Melinda's own relationship started when her father found something she wrote and judged her for it. The fear born of that experience is part of her relationship to journaling. Set your timer for 15 minutes and answer what is your relationship to journaling, to writing, to reflecting, adn to writing about your inner self? Dig deep! Follow @melinda.barbosa for more prompts, updates and more! Created, Hosted and Edited: by Melinda Barbosa Produced by: Marlees West(IG @_marlees) --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/melinda-barbosa/message

Episode Summary:  This is Rambles & Doodles, the research and development podcast about reflection, journaling, and self discovery. This week Melinda explores our relationship to urgency and what it takes to slow down. This week:  Melinda's computer threw her into urgency with a low storage notification and leading to the deletion of this week's episode. It was deleted and gone. Melinda chose not to panic - she told a friend and honestly shared her disappointment with others. Through meditation, she acknowledged that urgency led to losing this podcast. Where do we learn Urgency? Melinda comes from a family of rush, of both familial and cultural urgency. Society has an attachment to doing things quickly. Hourly wages are built on time, rather than quality. In school, if you don't learn on the schedule you miss out on the learning. Because of this we don't learn at our own pace. We have built an internal reward system based on urgency. But when the time belongs to us, how can we pay attention to ourselves? Pleasure & Joy: Urgency is a response, it's the need to move fast. It comes from external pressures. Melinda is in a place of still trying to understand what is joy and what is pleasure for her, she hasn't fully arrived. The way urgency lives within her, she is seeking is how what she wants and looks for can be slowly sought. Journal Prompt:Time for a doodle! In this free write, set a timer for five minutes for each prompt. Write and take notice of how you are feeling after you write. Collect data for yourself - notice, no need to solve problems. What is your relationship to speed and urgency? What is your relationship to rest and slowing down? Take note in a feelings box of how you feel writing this. Journal Tip: Free write - a lesson from Melinda's writing coach and the Posse Foundation. A free write can help your thoughts emerge. Show Notes:  Mexe Mexe, by Bana (song) Follow @melinda.barbosa for more prompts, updates and more! Created, Hosted and Edited: by Melinda Barbosa Produced by: Marlees West(IG @_marlees) of The Sticky Thoughts Podcast (IG @theStickyThoughtsPodcast) --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/melinda-barbosa/message

Episode Summary: This is Rambles & Doodles, the research and development podcast about reflection, journaling, and self discovery. In each minisode, Melinda will lead you through  journaling prompt, minus the Ramble. These are a series of her favorites, intended to build the reflection muscle within us all. I return to these prompts over and over again. Some will be easy ones for you to sink your pen into, others will stretch you and you might need need some breathing room after you've completed the prompt. The “I am” Prompt: Set a timer for 5 to 8 minutes. Write 20 I am statements. If your confidence is low, write 20 affirmative I am statements. If you are ready to dig a little deeper, just write 20 I am statements and let it be whatever it is.  Post reflection: Did you get to all 20? What themes emerge? Take notice of your body.  Sending love to you and your journal!  --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/melinda-barbosa/message

This is Rambles & Doodles, the research and development podcast about reflection, journaling, and self discovery. This week, Melinda asks “what is gaslighting and is it happening to me?”. Starting with storytime, Melinda shares that she is a crier and has been since life began (so middle school because that's when life starts).  At the kitchen table: Melinda tells the story of receiving basketball feedback from her older brother on her crying - he knew they needed to figure it out. It was okay to cry if she could also play! He suggested she try doodling. Crying wasn't the problem - she needed to be in it and signal to other people she was okay. This week: We are talking about gaslighting and the protective factors that fight against it. In a cafe in Dallas, Melinda read an article on gaslighting from Turn This World Inside Out by Nora Samaran. Realizing she hadn't fully grasped the definition, she returned to the article during the pandemic. Gaslighting: When someone you trust denies your perception - it is intimacy because trust is thinking that person has your best interests at heart. Being a woman, the daughter of an immigrant, and an American, you have to believe this country is fair. You have to trust: everything you need you can get if you're good enough. If you are logical enough, and have enough facts, you can be right. Power & oppression: Gaslighting is a mechanism for power and oppression. To deny someone's reality is to tell them what they feel and sense isn't real. As women, we don't need to be stronger, we need someone to believe us. We are socialized to be more in tune with our feelings (and we learn this by necessity). Questioning the systems of oppression sparks gaslighting in the white men who benefit from the system. Capitalism, white supremacy, and patriarchy are fueled by the lies we believe that uphold them. Doing the Work: Melinda explores how the messages we received from the world about how to do the work of anti-racism  in the wake of racial uprisings in June 2020 led her to question how she knew the work needed to be done - in community, connection, and deep conversation. Being gaslit (gaslighted? gassed?) led to her getting quiet. Intent and IMPACT:  Part of our ability to nurture comes from our ability to weigh intent more heavily than impact. Gaslighting is gaslighting based on the impact, not the intent because it de-centers the survivor. Part of why grasping gaslighting was challenging for Melinda because she was taught to deny that she could ever be denied. Tears on the Court:  Melinda reframes tears as a signal, she is whole and she is here. Journal Prompt: What is something you know to be true that you have allowed to be denied? Who has broken your trust? What are the practices you need to put into your life to allow you to trust yourself? What protective factors allow you to trust who you are? What practices protect you from the forces of oppression that want to stop you from questioning them? Journal Tip: Doodling as a way to ground yourself. Show Notes: Keep up with Melinda on Instagram @melinda.barbosa  Turn this world Inside Out: The Emergence of Nurturance Culture by Nora Samaran,  Zentangles  --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/melinda-barbosa/message

Episode Summary: This is Rambles & Doodles, the research and development podcast about reflection, journaling, and self discovery. Melinda tells a story about Mr. T and shooting free throws. She then asks: What are the living conditions I need to grow? How does that live in my body? Through Sonya Renee Taylor's text “The Body Is Not An Apology”, she explores the “your body is not good enough” message that fat bodies and other marginalized bodies receive and how that creates distance between ourselves and our bodies. Paying attention to her body led her to realize she needed to shift Sleep, Food, & People to take care of her body the way she would someone else. Food - focus not on changing her body but on taking care of it. Sleep - accepting natural sleep patterns, embracing naps, not thinking of herself as a good or bad sleeper. People - it is easy to prioritize helping others and help heal them to make our relationship better. Instead, she started to think about how the people around her made her feel in her body. This week's journaling prompt: In the center, draw yourself or an image of yourself. Write all the things you need - professional, physical, emotional all of them. On the outside, write all the conditions you need to grow in a lush, full, glorious way. Set your timer for 10 minutes. Check in with your body. How does it feel? Journal Tip: Use what you love - choose materials that make you happy! Syllabus for the week: Enneagram test , The Body Is Not An Apology Follow @melinda.barbosa for more prompts, updates and more! Created, Hosted and Edited: by Melinda Barbosa Produced by: Marlees West(IG @_marlees) of The Sticky Thoughts Podcast (IG @theStickyThoughtsPodcast) --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/melinda-barbosa/message

Welcome to Rambles and Doodles, a research and development podcast about reflection, journaling, and self discovery. Melinda is a Youth Worker, Facilitator and believer of all things magic who has spent over 20 years wandering through life with her journal and a deep curiosity about all things human. In this weekly podcast, Melinda will ramble about a question she has been exploring through the texts she has been reading and consuming. Then, for listeners, she will guide you through a journal prompt. In the introductory episode, Melinda shares her story about losing her confidence and developing a fear of talking in public spaces and how she hopes this podcast can help her understand what happened in the past two years that made her feel this way. Speaking with vulnerability and honesty, this episode sets the stage for a 4 week journaling series to prepare us for a deeper dive into self-reflection. This week's journaling prompt: Write a kind and compassionate letter to a person, place, or thing you need release to make space for your self-reflection. Follow @melinda.barbosa for more prompts, updates and more! Created, Hosted and Edited by Melinda Barbosa Produced by: Marlees West(IG @_marlees) of The Sticky Thoughts Podcast (IG @theStickyThoughtsPodcast) --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/melinda-barbosa/message