If your work involves caring for others, you know how easy it is to become overwhelmed by the needs around you. Each week, I share stories and practices on building the capacity, relationships, and habits to sustain care over the long haul.
It is not too late – but we must become embodied commitments now: The Wednesday 1-2-3
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Hey Reader, In the conversations I've had with friends the last couple days, there has been one prevailing and overwhelming theme: This week has been emotionally brutal for many of us. I'll just pause and speak from my experience here: since watching the attempted assassination of former President Trump, I've felt myself in a space of sadness, frustration, and – more than anything else – anxiety. It feels like a heaviness and a dread in my chest that just won’t let me go. And given my background both as a history teacher and as an activist, the likely political consequences of this event, the recent immunity ruling from the Supreme Court, the fervor and excitement of those at the Republican Convention, and witnessing what feels like absolute directionlessness from the Democratic Party…I’m deep-in-my-body scared. Recognizing that discomfort inside me, I've been asking myself what I am prepared to do in the coming days and weeks and months ahead. (Which I wrote more about here.) If you are feeling something similar, I invite you to sit with and move with the following invitation from Isabel Wilkerson, author of Caste: The Origins of our Discontents: We in the developed world are like homeowners who inherited a house on a piece of land that is beautiful on the outside, but whose soil is unstable loam and rock, heaving and contracting over generations, cracks patched but the deeper ruptures waved away for decades, centuries even. Many people may rightly say, “I had nothing to do with how this all started. I have nothing to do with the sins of the past. My ancestors never attacked indigenous people, never owned slaves.” And, yes. Not one of us was here when this house was built. Our immediate ancestors may have had nothing to do with it, but here we are, the current occupants of a property with stress cracks and bowed walls and fissures built into the foundation. We are the heirs to whatever is right or wrong with it. We did not erect the uneven pillars or joists, but they are ours to deal with now. And any further deterioration is, in fact, on our hands. In the days ahead, I invite you to become an embodied commitment to resistance, justice, and healing in your community. The resources below have a few good places to start. ❓ Questions
🧰 ResourcesNote: The book below by Resmaa Menakem is, I believe, one of the most important books any of us can read in this moment. It is filled with tangible, tactical guidance on how to temper our bodies and understand the road ahead.
👉 Recommended Next ReadWith love and care and tension-filled hope, but hope nonetheless, |
Gentle Change
If your work involves caring for others, you know how easy it is to become overwhelmed by the needs around you. Each week, I share stories and practices on building the capacity, relationships, and habits to sustain care over the long haul.