Connect All is a global initiative based on goodness and logic, “To address all that can be, for all life to have the most safety and hopeful possibilities.” Which is both necessary and doable.
To give some background to Connect All, I’ll start with a little bit about me. I cope with being neuro-atypical, and until recently, I didn’t understand how much that had impacted my life. That doesn’t tell you much about me or the why for Connect All, but simply gives a bit of context. Then as far as the why, in 2017, I began having some life experiences that led me to searching for answers – for myself, for someone I am attached to, and for every child and innocent. And while I am still searching for many answers, that led me to initiating Connect All and assembling its curriculum to accomplish the goal.
While the curriculum has three modules, I want to share an abbreviated synopsis of the foundation.
The Logic
I need the most safety and hopeful possibilities for myself and for who I am attached to. So how do I do that? I start with base logic.
Base logic tells me that anything unanalyzed means we proceed without knowing what is known, not known, nor the possibilities – illogically risking, experiencing, creating, or/and allowing injury, and not working towards what is hopefully possible as best we can.
Hence, for the most safety and hopeful possibilities, we need to analyze our entire existence, reanalyze as we learn more, and function from that reality.
And while there are many things I realize when I look at our entire existence, here are two very key points :
·how every moment matters
·how life is interconnected
Whether of our true free will or not, what we and others are doing, or not doing, every moment affects our and other life’s safety and possibilities.
Hence, every moment matters for me to be doing the best thing possible (how I do/try is in Five Through the Filter, which is after this section), and I need others to: Whatever extent possible have what they need – to decrease the risk of them being unintentionally dangerous to themselves or/and other life, and them be able to contribute their best to our world.
So why are we not already living this way?
It’s a lack of logic and connection.
Logic: To objectively think things completely through, considering all possibilities.
Internal Connection: Value who I am, know how I function, and stay self-aware.
If we analyze all we can address, from every form of violence to all the areas we need answers – the lack of logic and connection is either the cause of or/and the reason it’s not being addressed as it could be.
Hence, we need to do all we can to ensure we and others know why, how, and practice being as logical and connected as possible. These are teachable and measurable.
So for our goal, we start with this foundation to everything we need to address, then address:
·what can be directly
·synthesized commonalities beyond, then any nuances
Examples:
And simultaneously we need a daily framework to equip each person to/try to do our best. For that, let’s first add the next piece.
Let’s look at 3 primary categories:
·Injury (e.g.child abuse, all types of violence, lack)
·Environment-climate; Destroying our bodies and world
·Not prepared for possibilities
And as we address these three, we consider:
·Am I experiencing, allowing, or/and creating,
·To whatever degrees (0-100) areas are true for me,
·Whether of my true free will or not.
Now, taking everything up to this point, leads us to our self-care community framework, Five Through the Filter.
Five Through the Filter
Our self-care framework, that equips me to/try to do the best I can as an individual, and equips us as a community to achieve our global needs.
A measurable standard to hold ourselves and others accountable.
The Filter is my “decision making processor”, through which I take my Five daily actions:
Logic and connection as foundation:
·I use logic- objectively think things completely through, considering all possibilities;
·I’m internally connected – I value myself, understand how I function, and know how to stay self-aware.
The goal: Being logical-connective, every decision I make is for my goal, “What leads to the most safety and hopeful possibilities?”
Every Moment Matters: I must be aware of the value of the moment – the cost and possibilities to life (mine and other).
My Five daily actions include:
Take care of myself, and if applicable, those I’m responsible for: All that keeps me healthy and connected as possible – my logic, internal connection, and skills for external connection (knowing why and how to connect to other life); sleep; nutrition; hygiene; exercise; health care; relational needs; making sure I have income or/and resources to meet my needs; basic chores and maintenance.
Take care of my environment: I think sustainably, and healthy- for our bodies and the world. Some possibilities include: refuse, reduce, reuse, recycle, repair, repurpose, upcycle, rot (compost), create a new way for something to be made or done.
Do one thing to be prepared: I either add an item, take an action, or learn a skill.
Be informed and understand more: I need to be informed and understand my world the best I can. Learning and understanding takes time, so I strategically do a little each day.
Ask/help others become aware and involved to the need for a global logic-connection approach: Daily advocating or teaching someone else the Connect All approach, is where we create the global change we need.
Some Ethical Considerations.
Whether you have an ethical code for which these would apply, or you need these to advocate, here are three areas of ethical consideration.
General
Professionalism and Competence
Depending on code, specifics such as:
·Best interest of person work is being done with/for.
·Advocating for systems or/and social change.
·Trauma-informed support of coworkers.
·Self-Care: including minimizing/eliminating any injury we might already be experiencing and prevention of whatever is possible.
Baseline: To optimize ethical work, it is important to we do all we can to have awareness of and minimize ways in which we may be harming/contributing harm to ourselves or/and others; and all we can to have awareness of and increase ways we can do the best we can for ourselves and others.
Answering this question:
For individuals and fields: “How can we work with/for others, if we are allowing, and also in any preventable way(s) injuring and contributing to injuries?
To whatever degree(s), there is now the awareness.
·Individuals and fields – Should be advocating if they aren’t. If they are already advocating, should be advocating in the most logical way.
·Individuals and fields – Are internally and externally injuring and contributing to preventable injuries (e.g. environmental, not being aware of behavioral impacts.)
Example:
A young person you would work with/are already working with, finds out you could have done something to prevent their injuries and didn’t. They also learn you are in preventable ways injuring and contributing to injuries (e.g. environmentally, or not being educated about an issue).
And another now issue:
There is the question, “Why are individuals and fields allowing, injuring, and contributing injury?” ~ And the answer is the lack of, and need for, the logic-connection foundation.
The question also leads to another now issue: In this moment, “What are some suffering from, that ‘we’ don’t recognize yet?”
With the lack of logic-connection, possibilities of why we don’t recognize it yet include:
·The person is unaware it is an injury;
·They may not be able to speak for themselves and need someone else to see and intervene;
·They’re aware, but their society lacks logic-connection and they have no one to go to;
·We haven’t taken the time to analyze the possible impact of what we are doing;
·So on.
Don’t we want to be seeking to answer this, now?
And this question is vital. Think about it: In our known existence – What did it take for someone to say child abuse, rape, slavery, oppression, the list of atrocities, was wrong? Then how long did it take for enough people in a society to actually start to address it, to whatever extent? How recent, do we have laws, practices, policies, degrees of societal change (acknowledging they may not be right)?
Summary
Without the Connect All approach, short of discovering, or some answer suddenly appearing, from an unidentified or unknown source, I don’t know of any other way we can individually and as community do what needs to be done. So, for my two motivations (see bio), I have to, and am doing all I can, to get Connect All to people.
Gwendolyn Downing, LPC
Gwen (she/hers) wherever she resides, identifies as part of all. She is the initiator of the Connect All initiative for the most safety and hopeful possibilities. Her two motivations are: 1) I need the most safety and hopeful possibilities for myself, and the individual I am attached to. 2) I both want to positively and never negatively tell every child and innocent, “This is what I was doing the moment you needed me.” She was the former Manager of Hope and Resilience for the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services, former member of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network’s Steering Committee and Affiliate Advisory Group. She is recently co-author of the Oklahoma Domestic Violence, Sexual Assault, Stalking, and Trafficking hotline manual.All social media links are on the www.ConnectAll.online website. If you can financially partner, there is a donation link on the page, or you can text: ConnectAll to (202) 858-1233
