Step Six: Prepping to Purge

Sep 8

Things are never as chaotic as they look, y’all — for realz!

Step six: Were entirely ready to have Higher Power remove/relieve these defects.

The ones hanging on to some delusion of perfection won’t o’ made it through step four. Forget about step five. Somebody said “an un examined life is not worth living. I ain’t gonna shame nobody to death, but my life done got so much richer since I started tallying that shot up on the daily. It’s hard to tell somebody some bullshit about they self when that person is going over every thing they done day by day.

Before recovery, somebody try and tell me what they thought (I’m in awe how many muh fugguhs can read minds) I meant when I said or did the thing I actually said or did. That shit would send me in a shame spiral. Since I didn’t bother to know an’ understand myself, I accepted what any dumb ass would try to drop on me. Now, when beyotches be like “You this!” I’m like “I know, right?” or if it’s bullshit, I’m like “I got a ton o’ shit ain’t right, and that ain’t one of the them.

My shit is my shit for a reason. Little Pink came up, like we all do, in a world that is full of surprises. I learned how to respond in the best way I could with the tools I had. Now I’m Notorious, I don’t need to defend myself using them played out tools. I have a whole network of support, including a kick ass Higher Power. Now, I wanna live in a way that fits my values, my dreams and in ways that level up the joy in my life.

That’s getting ready. I go over my own list and look at what fears, resentments, shame and guilt was driving my life. I decide if I want things to be different, that’s not easy. That’s going back over shit that stings. When I boil it down I can see it’s the same thing over and over. Maybe a handful of different things—making other people responsible for my shit; lack o’ boundaries; jumping into shit before I know what’s up.

The step doesn’t ask me to change a mah fugging thing. It just say, see what ain’t working no more and decide it’s time for that shit to go.

Pink Flowers

Pink Flowers is a Black trans artist, peacemaker, educator, and pleasure activist whose work lives at the intersection of embodiment, governance, and cultural transformation. Trained in Theater of the Oppressed, Art of Hosting, and Navajo-informed Peacemaking practices, Pink designs spaces where conflict can be addressed, power can be examined, and joy can be reclaimed.

Her artistic and pedagogical practice draws from African trickster cosmology, Brazilian Joker traditions, shamanic ritual, and cooperative economics. She is the founder of the award-winning Falconworks Theater Company (2005–2021), which used popular theater to build civic capacity and participatory leadership in historically marginalized communities.

Pink served for over five years as a trained Peacemaker in the Red Hook Community Justice Center in Brooklyn, facilitating restorative processes within the New York City court system. From 2015–2018, she worked in cooperative business development with the Center for Family Life, supporting worker-owned enterprises in immigrant communities.

She currently serves as Director of Education and Training for the Inter-Cooperative Council in Ann Arbor, where she leads leadership development and conflict engagement initiatives. Her work has been presented nationally and internationally, including at the Stretch Festival in Berlin and the Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed Conference.

Across ritual, performance, mediation, and institutional design, Pink’s work asks a central question:

What becomes possible when we refuse shame and choose conscious power instead?

Step Six: Prepping to Purge

Step Seven: “What Shortcomings?”

Step Five: Spilling the Tea