Shahida Arabi Avatar

Shahida Arabi

800 Quotes
Bestselling Author. Content Writer for Thought Catalog. Quotes about empowerment, healing, victory.
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800 quotes curated by Shahida Arabi:

“I know you forget to examine the reflection of your own privilege
Or you may be afraid of the truth
But I'm not afraid to be honest
I'm not afraid to be nasty
Yeah I'm nasty like the struggle of women still beating equality into the world,
because our rights have been beaten out of us for too long.
And our fight will continue to embody our nastiness.”
— Nina Donovan, #NastyWoman by Nina Mariah(Live at State of the Word)
Tagged: Entitlement, white privilege, Nina Donovan, POC Poetry, Nasty Women, Reverse Discourse
“my english is broken.
on purpose.
you
have to try harder to understand
me.
breaking this language
you so love
is my pleasure.
in your arrogance
you presume that i want your
skinny language.
that my mouth is building
a room for
it
in the back of my throat.
it is not.

--i have seven different words for love. you have only one. that makes a lot of sense”
— Nayyirah Waheed, salt.
Tagged: Language, POC Poetry, Women of Color Writers, Linguistic Complexity, Your Skinny Language
“'no' might make them angry,
but
it will make you free.

- if no one has ever told you, your freedom is more important than their anger”
— Nayyirah Waheed, salt.
Tagged: boundaries, Saying No, Stop People-Pleasing, POC Poetry, Freedom, Their Anger Can Wait, human rights, Poetry, Quote of the Moment
“Memoir and personal narrative are demeaned or considered to be navel-gazing. I have a theory that, for people of color or others who have been cut out of the master narrative, just telling your personal survival tale, your story, is civic engagement. It is a kind of political performance and is really crucial in that storytelling is how we connect with people and change. It’s how we collect and add to and complicate the master narrative.”
— Faith Adiele, VISIBLE: Women Writers of Color: Faith Adiele
Tagged: Women Writers of Color, Women Of Color, Marginalized Writers, Memoir, Personal Narratives, Master Narratives, Counternarratives, The Art of Storytelling, The Value In Storytelling, Civic Engagement, The Personal Is Political
“We’re in the midst of a reckoning. It’s what toxic masculinity’s own medicine tastes like. And people should allow the consequences to unfold, regardless of how it affects those they consider to be friends.”
— Amber Tamblyn, Opinion | Amber Tamblyn: I’m Not Ready for the Redemption of Men
Tagged: toxic masculinity, The Redemption of Men, Rape Culture, Sexual Assault, The Reckoning, Revolution Is Coming, Victim Stories, Rape, Men Who Abuse Their Power, No More Enablers
“Why do we need to talk about the redemption of men when we are right in the middle of the salvation of women? Not even the middle, but the very beginning? Why are we obligated to care about salvaging male careers when we have just begun to tell the stories that have plagued us for lifetimes? It seems some men like a revolution only when it’s their kind of war.”
— Amber Tamblyn, Opinion | Amber Tamblyn: I’m Not Ready for the Redemption of Men
Tagged: The Redemption of Men, Toxic Men In Power, toxic masculinity, Rape Culture, The Reckoning, The Revolution Is Coming, Female Empowerment, The Empowerment of Women, Sexual Assault, Rape, Victim Shaming, accountability
“But now she was different. Now she was happy with herself, her life, and she didn’t think of companionship in terms of convenience - she thought of it in terms of who she wanted to share her life with. She realized companionship was not something you should crave because you’re scared of being lonely, but something that depends on the person you’re calling your companion. She realized it was only the idea of him she loved.”
— Nicole Tarkoff, She’s Happy Now, He’s Still The Same Piece Of Shit
Tagged: Empowering, Breakups, Leaving Toxic Relationships, Healing, Closure, Confronting An Ex, Ex-Boyfriends, New Boyfriends, Quote of the Moment
“The drive to complete and heal trauma is as powerful and tenacious as the symptoms it creates. The urge to resolve trauma through re-enactment can be severe and compulsive. We are inextricably drawn into situations that replicate the original trauma in both obvious and nonobvious ways…Re-enactments may be acted out in intimate relationships, work situations…adults, on a larger developmental scale, will re-enact traumas in our daily lives.”
— Peter A. Levine, Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma
Tagged: Trauma Reenactment, Trauma, Trauma Repetition, Trauma Reenactment, Healing Trauma, Subconscious Belief Systems, The Drive To Repeat The Trauma
“Many abused children cling to the hope that growing up will bring escape and freedom. But the personality formed in the environment of coercive control is not well adapted to adult life. The survivor is left with fundamental problems in basic trust, autonomy, and initiative. She approaches the task of early adulthood―establishing independence and intimacy―burdened by major impairments in self-care, in cognition and in memory, in identity, and in the capacity to form stable relationships. She is still a prisoner of childhood; attempting to create a new life, she re-encounters the trauma.”
— Judith Herman, Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence--From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror
Tagged: Trauma and Recovery, Domestic Violence, Childhood Abuse, Childhood Trauma, Self-Care, Effects of Trauma, Trauma Reenactment, Trauma Repetition, Repetition Compulsion
“You may have internalized early in your life that your needs were not as important as others’ needs were. Lack of empathy from a parent or caretaker, neglect, blame, criticism, failure to accept you as you are and appreciate your qualities and other such experiences have shaped your belief that others’ needs should come before your own.”
— Nina W. Brown, Children of the Self-Absorbed: A Grown-Up's Guide to Getting Over Narcissistic Parents
Tagged: Narcissistic Parents, Lack of Empathy, Empathy, Childhood Emotional Neglect, Childhood Trauma, Childhood Abuse, Children of Narcissistic Fathers, Children of Narcissistic Mothers, Children of Narcissistic Parents, Children of The Self-Absorbed