Few of us are able to truly disregard the impact of these Epstein files, no matter how many wars are started to distract us.

Last week I saw the list of those smeared with the ick of horrors in the Epstein Files expanded to the coaching industry, including the guru Deepak Chopra and it has begun a conversation in this community that has been jarring – at best.

I have added some people to my reading list as I have realized the lack of accountability in those I follow now (and the silence. The silence. THE SILENCE). If you know me, I cannot stand silence in the face of injustice.

I began to add those who are seeking more transparency and accountability, like Lissa Rankin, MD on sub stack.

Dr Rankin has included her own stories about these thought leaders and spiritual leaders we have all been learning from – Louise Hay, Joe Dispenza, and others who have a long history of mistreating others at best, and straight abuse of victims when they thought they were in a healing place – it feels like a level of betrayal that is just unfathomable.

I wish it was unfathomable.
But it’s not.
It’s actually very familiar.

Like betrayal by a priest - there are layers to the betrayal.

It’s a blow that hits a few times in precise ways.

“Good people” who are offering services to victims and lure people into a so-called “safe space” just so they become prey - again.

Or they insist on s3xual favors for access and success. Or they are somehow just as corrupt at the system they say they want to elevate beyond.

Some faced no accountability for these choices before they died, and the gall to say they are spiritual and evolutionary leaders is beyond distressing to me. My perspective of many of these people has changed drastically and my heart is tender from this reckoning.

I have not read the files, and I do not plan to read them myself. I know the information that is necessary will make it to me when needed, and I can find trustworthy sources to unravel it if I feel I need to know more, but I really do not want to know more.

I suspect so much already, I don’t think I want to see the confirmation of what I can intuit.

I watched on social media as the shock and horror as those who delve into these files realize that the elites of this world have a certain taste for youth and have made all women who are not “small, skinny, and smooth” unappealing.

“They shaped everything in our world,” someone commented online, “They were in charge of everything.”

It gave me chills because it’s true.

I’m Gen X.

I can’t forget heroin chic, Kate Moss, and how the only curvy girls were in Victoria’s Secret catalogs – to find out now it was to draw girls into these stories for these adult men to prey on.

Bath and Body works connection to it is so gross: preying on young girls so they were always around and… I can’t even finish the damned sentence.

Kate Moss for Calvin Klein in the 1990s.

My energy has been heavy and sad considering this, but that comment online was echoing in my head.

“They shaped everything in our world.”

The next day the tv decided to put something on by itself and chose the Little House on the Prairie channel (Did you know that was a real thing?) and the tv was muted.

When I noticed it was on, I recognized Shannen Dougherty as a little girl – Shannen who died last year because she couldn’t afford healthcare, and wasn’t able to treat her cancer. A hero of mine, lost in such a horribly disempowering and sad way - such a juxtaposition to the hero I had made her in my mind.

I have loved Shannen Dougherty for as long as I can remember. Her surly demeanor was everything I felt but was never permitted to show when I was growing up.

I delighted in her anger and contentious responses to what others wanted from her. She was the original version of “f#ck off” to those who asked her to smile more and I was mesmerized by her.

The cast of *Little House on the Prairie* the final season - women are all under 40 playing all ages of women, men are all significantly older, and it wasn’t considered weird that there was not a wrinkled woman in sight. Michael Landon was a good guy, though, as far as we know.

My heart broke a little bit more as I watched her as a child in this tv show about life in the west – and without the volume - I saw young girls, children, and young women play the roles of everyone from ages 7-45 – a few older women in the background but not credited or even included in the pictures I found online – and scene after scene after scene of old men and young girls.

Where were the wrinkled women?

Where were the women my age who would have asked why these old men were with these children and young girls all the time?

I took in this show, with Shannen’s face beaming up at this old relic of a man while she seeks his approval and thought to myself, “was she EVER safe? A day in her damned life?”

A scene from Little House

I hate how normal I thought this was until last month.

Now, I don’t mean to say that anything happened untoward in these places, on these shows. I am not saying that at all.

I’m just noticing how it appears now, after the Epstein Files have burned off my rose colored glasses, and I see things in a new light.

Now that I’m the middle-aged woman, I understand the invisibility we feel and I have to say that I think the bigger heartbreak is the loss of safety of the children when middle aged (i.e., strong) women are not present to ensure children remain safe.

I saw not one “middle aged” woman on Little House who would have fought those old geezers and said, “get your 70 year old mitts off of that young child.”

And I thought of how Shannen then moved to Wilfred Brimley’s world as his granddaughter in Our House, and again - the age gap is real - but her mom is an appropriate age, at least. But the images still paint a picture of a certain era, don’t they?

Again - nothing here is about any in appropriate relationships that I am aware of on Our House. This is about my reflecting on how I’m seeing these images differently now.

Shannen and crew on the set of *Our House* with Wilfred Brimley. Another of Hollywood’s good guys, thankfully.

My world was very regimented and this had access even to me.

When I realized how it touched everything?

I cried.

I cried for all of us.

I cried that this was so normal that Little House of the Prairie was part of what made me not think twice about that 50 year age gap between the women and the men on the show.

I cried for the lack of safety, the lack of resonance, the lack of community we all had.

All of us.

I cried for the child actors who were (and are) subjected to corrupt powerbrokers who controlled, abused, and manipulated their way to success.

I cried for the lack of value of our children that we would allow this to happen – EVERYWHERE.

It’s everywhere.

It is simply everywhere.

The depravity of r@pe.

It is everywhere.

No place is safe from this behavior by men.

You know I was raised Catholic, and no longer claim the church.

THIS IS WHY I LEFT.

I know the heartbreak of abuse from power it shouldn’t be able to corrupt.

I know the devastation of thinking you could trust certain structures, ethos, or people, and finding you were wrong.

I know how heartbreaking this is – I’ve known it for as long as I can remember, honestly.

This betrayal of safety is real, ongoing, and perpetual for many.

You are not alone in your heartbreak, in your grief about this truth.

There are many who are contending right now as we realize what we have not been able to see, willing to see, or wanting to see.

Some will reject it even now as some kind of distraction.
Many will flee or freeze on the topic of action.
They will claim it is too overwhelming to digest.

I am not one who is ignoring it.
I believe we must see it to heal it, to tend it and repair it.

So now?
Mostly, I am heartbroken.

And I am allowing that broken heartedness to be in grief.

I am heartbroken for the women and the children and those who were mistreated, abused, or gave their lives because of this derelict behavior – and for all of us – who are contending with the result of this – whether we recognized it or not – I am heartbroken for us.

I am heartbroken for many of us who felt we were unworthy when it was really the abusive folx among us distracting us. Who were trying to convince us we weren’t strong enough to resist them, to stop them, or to hold them accountable.

I am heartbbroken it continued for so long.
I am heartbroken it continues to go on still.

I am forever changed by this heartbreak.

I can’t unsee it – in fact, it’s so intense right now I’m having a “they’re EVERYWHERE, can’t you see them, too?” kind of emotional response right now.

Between Epstein, the church, and Netflix’s documentary “Quiet on the Set” about Nickelodeon’s grooming child stars and additional stories about a dialogue coach named Brian Peck from Nick who went to prison for child abuse and then found a job after doing time at Disney(?!?!?!) I am side eyeing EVERYTHING “made for children” right now. All of them are questionable in my eyes. There has been no retribution for this, this has been widely ignored for too long.

Are you not entertained?

We made documentaries out of it for entertainment, not asking for accountability.

Netflix and not the court system?

Oh my. Oh dear.

We are charged with protecting the children.

This happened before our eyes to Hannah Montana and friends – we should have anticipated these files if we were actually paying attention to what has been happening around us as they sexualize our children in tv shows for children.

This same structure tells women we look old, and WE(???) should try harder to please these “men” who desire women who appear as though they are children.

FOOH, with that right now, folx.

I’m leaning into my inner crone HARD right now, my friends.

The Crone

…as played by Grace Zabriskie in Charmed - starring Shannen for Seasons 1-3 - *this was not one of those first three seasons, but it’s kind of funny anyway.*

I am not just sad.

I also have rage.

I want to see accountability.

General Response: See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.
(Another easter egg if you’re a charmed fan and remember the Crone episode - these monkeys were also part of that episode). lol.

BUT WE HAVE A HUGE FILE OF EVIL AND WE KNOW IT’S TRUE.

And what DO I see out here in these internet streets?

Especially from men and people in positions of power?

CRICKETS.

Where is the call for accountability?

Why are so many folx silent about these horrors?

I don’t know, but I want you to know that I think this is disgusting and I hope there are severe consequences for all those who are involved.

These horrors continue because of our silence – silence is agreeing with the established standard. The silence of people is deafening right now.

We must understand that Silence on Injustice is the same as Siding with Injustice.

This is not easy.

Friends who are feeling like things are heavy in your world right now, I send you extra love.

This is a heavy season of reckoning with our past to help us move into the future. I hope you take extra care of yourself, tend lovingly, rest often, and laugh much as we go forward.

Reminder: Joy is an act of rebellion in chaos.

One of my great joys is coffee right now. I love me some coffee.

What should we do now?

Men who are feeling you do not know how to engage – try to do more listening and supporting, uplifting women’s voices, and considering your own contributions to this outcome.

Too many men are acting like this is news to them, and guys: a lot of you are lying to yourselves and us when you do that.‍ ‍Time to man up on this and recognize your role in this stuffs.

You know you looked away a LOT.

ALL OF YOU have looked away at things.

Not all internet memes are insightful, but this one comes close.

Accountability requires us all to be honest, transparent, and remorseful. To apologize and move forward, and men have work to do to help us make progress.

Not because you have a daughter or a sister or a mom.

Because all women are people and we deserve to be treated as such, period.

We have trust to build among each other, we have wounds that need tending, we have huge healing that we need to do together to welcome in something better for us all.

I do not dwell on desolate ground, and neither should you.

But sometimes we have to contend with ugly, even when it’s on desolate ground.

I understand we can tear up the dirt, curate it in the sh!t, and find ourselves with robust crops after some tending and time.

I’m in if you are.

xo,

Jax

Together, we can change the world. — Jax IShappy to see you here!

The Files & Our World: Epstein Impacts Coaches & Spiritual Leadership, too.