Frameworks and practices to help you navigate the stories you’re carrying, embody practices that help you feel present, and begin to move into action. Delivered to your inbox every Wednesday morning before you even wake up.
Take a moment and check in: The Wednesday 1-2-3
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Hey Reader, I’m writing this late Tuesday night – and I admit I don't have a ton of emotional capacity right now, so I'll keep this short. Following the election of Donald Trump in 2016, Sikh activist and lawyer Valerie Kaur took the stage at a church in Washington D.C. and said the following: What does the midwife tell us to do? Breathe. And then? Push. Because if we don’t push we will die. If we don’t push our nation will die. Tonight we will breathe. Tomorrow we will labor in love through love and your revolutionary love is the magic we will show our children. Whatever state you're in, wherever you are, I invite you to breathe. To cry. To scream if you need to. To bury your face in your palms and say the words your heart needs to let go of. If you need a practice, here's one I go to in times of fear and anxiety: It will soon be time to move into action – but not yet. Give yourself a day or two to just breathe and orient to the moment. Spend this time inhaling and exhaling, letting your shoulders drop, inviting your tears to fall, and remembering the soft animal of your body. (And if you're in need of community or more focused support in navigating this moment, check out the resources below.) Soon, we will all need to begin to push. ❓ Questions
🧰 Resources
🧩 Community Question
As always, whatever today is for you – and for all of us – I hope you are well enough. Well enough to keep going, to stay with the charge of this moment, and to remain connected, no matter how tentatively, to your sense of dignity, hope, justice, and community. Until next week, Find this edition of the The Wednesday 1-2-3 helpful? |
The Wednesday 1-2-3
Frameworks and practices to help you navigate the stories you’re carrying, embody practices that help you feel present, and begin to move into action. Delivered to your inbox every Wednesday morning before you even wake up.
Hey Reader, This week I wanted to share a short video from one of my favorite activists, Alok Vaid-Menon. You can watch the 40-ish second video here. (It’s an Instagram post, but should be accessible without an account.) The question they begin with, “who broke your heart?” is such a beautiful and frustrating question, in all its variations: Who showed you that playing small was necessary to survive? With whom was conflict so scary you learned to run from it? Who insisted you act in that...
If you're finding yourself overwhelmed, you aren’t alone. Of course there's the election results from last week, the uncertainty of our current circumstance; the crushing unease of it all. But even this isn’t happening within a vacuum. We still have to go to work, wash the dishes, give the doggos their medications, and call our moms or our children or others we love. Your overwhelm isn’t a personal failing or proof of your lack of resilience – it’s a feature built into our keep-on-producing...
Hey Reader, I'm still sending out some of my favorite editions of The Wednesday 1-2-3 while I'm taking October off from writing. A new, day-after-election edition will be coming next week! 😬 One of my favorite one-liners to go back to comes from asset-based community development: Questions are more important than answers. This week, I want to share a practice that invites you into becoming more acquainted with the questions you are already holding within you – whether you're aware of them or...