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So, I’ve written another book! It’s called “Selfcarefully” and it’s a collaboration between @thickpress and @maninoush. This limited-edition risograph-printed book holds all the self-care wisdom I’ve gained over the years. The first essay is called “Self-care and f*cking it all up” because we want this book to start where other self-improvement books leave off. What happens when life gets in the way? How can we turn these self-care missteps into generative experiences and a more compassionate understanding of ourselves? This book will teach you to use self-care as a lens to analyze all things, from setting boundaries to eating lunch to talking about racism. We are still putting the book together - the process has been slow and fruitful - but I wanted to keep you updated. I’ll hopefully have something for you to hold in your hands in early 2019, and I’ll be sharing bits and pieces along the way. (Some of you may be wondering about my first book. Yes, I finished it a while back and no, I still haven’t figured out how to publish it + promote it while raising a toddler and running my self-care coaching programs. I’d love to hear any advice on publishing! I think the book’s message on cultivating leadership through self-care is more important than ever.) photo by @maninoush Oh what a time we are in! I go in and out of the intensity of my feelings. I’ll listen to the radio and be seething, then hopeless, and after I’ll do some work with my clients and feel full of promise about the world. It’s important to remember that both are true. The world can be hopeless and full of promise at the same time. (I think because exposing one system for its corruption leaves space for another paradigm to be born.) Still, it’s so intense to hold both as true, mourning one while I get excited about the other. Within the intensity, I’m feeling the need for grounding. For me this means extra consistency in my daily routines. I’m being careful about when I go to bed (Jonah usually decides when I wake up), and making sure I eat three meals a day. Cooking is also incredibly grounding for me. Right now, as we creep closer to fall, I’m making one-pot meals like soups and stews. I use fewer dishes and it also feels more nourishing. And I need all the nourishment I can get these days! I try not to give too much advice, but I do hope you all thinking how you can take extra good care of yourself right now. Tensions are very high, traumas are being relived and the one thing we do have control over is how we care for ourselves (which affects are capacity to care for others). Then we can show up, the best we can, to enact change and stay steady as we see how this cycle plays itself out. I’m so thrilled to announce here - on today of all days - that I’ve created a new program for women who desire a more socially-conscious self-care! The Beautiful Life Collective is my response to the compassion fatigue of these times. I believe that when we are taking darn good care of ourselves, we naturally have the energy and stamina to show up for all people. Mostly, I think we need support. We need to remember that we don’t have to do this alone (nor could we). We can create a more beautiful life for all if we join our collective forces and remember our inherent power. Interested? I’d love for you to join the community and conversation. Link in my bio. Registration closes 9/30! I spent yesterday chasing Jonah around our house while listening to the hearing on NPR. I listened all day long and felt my complete range of feelings - both devastated for and so proud of Dr. Ford (and all those who are sharing their stories right now and all those who are not), and then so appalled by Kavanaugh’s righteous indignation and the way the politicians used this experience of sexual trauma to further their own aims. It was a lot on so many levels. In facilitation training, I’ve heard that the best way to work with complexity in a group is to just keep naming the complexity. So I just kept saying that to myself yesterday: this is a lot. Because to me, this isn’t just a story of he said, she said. Rather, it’s a story of he said/she said which is being appropriated by our two-party political system as a way to manipulate and increase the divisiveness of our country. And the outcome of this particular political fight is a seat on the Supreme Court which has the ability ban legal abortions which would be a devastating impact of women’s well-being,(which has a huge impact on our collective well-being). Adding another layer, it’s important to say that Dr. Ford is a white woman which means in our society she is seen as in need of protection - and I think why she was not directly questioned by the Republicans - which I don’t think would have been the case if she were black. Again, this is all complex. Part of me wants to stick my head in the sand, but most of me knows that this is not the society I want to pass along to Jonah. As I chased him around the house, giggling and squealing, I knew that what I was hearing on the radio wasn’t how it has to be as we move forward. Rather, we can make a new world out of who we chose to listen to, what we are brave enough to believe and how this informs our actions in this world. Amazing salad and sipping broth from @teaism_dc, which I enjoyed with the inspiring @manishatare as we talked about the wonders and challenges of letting your intuition lead (interesting that apparently Jeff Bezos does the same?). I’ve had a mantra running through my head of late: I will not let parenting get in the way of my self-care. And then right after: I will not let self-care get in the way of my parenting. Then I try another: I will not let my concerns about our society get in the way of my growth as an entrepreneur. Right after: I will not let my growth as an entrepreneur get in the way of my concerns about society. To me, this means that I will not let my one area of my life compensate for my resistance to growth in another. If I have self-care blocks, I will work directly and gently with those. If I’m struggling in a relationship, I won’t hide myself in my career, and I won’t hide in a relationship when I am afraid to take action at work (Etc, etc, etc). If I let resistance win in one are of my life, all the other parts suffer because those other parts become compulsive. I’ve definitely gotten this way in my self-care before - rigid to the point where it felt unhealthy. This brings me back to the Buddhist slogan: the way we do anything is the way we do everything. If we are coming from fear, which is what resistance really is, all of my pursuits will feel narrow and ungrounded. If I’m coming from love - and I think we need ample amounts of love to take the risk of growth in any area of our lives - there’s an expansive, connected quality to everything I do. Of course, I don’t think we ever make the fear go away, but a firm commitment to moving through our personal blocks transforms our relationship with fear - not just for us but for the world around us. Want to know more about this kind of visionary leadership? Join my free webinar: “Turning Self-Care into Visionary Leadership” on 9/24 @ 3pm. Link in bio! What a week! We celebrated Jonah’s first birthday with a festive little luau and family coming to visit for the weekend. Predictably, the birthday boy burst into tears when we sang him happy birthday, and then recovered enough to enjoy his first big hit of processed sugar. All in all, I thought we celebrated fully, which is always a good feeling. And then everyone went home and we went back to daily life. After the ecstasy, the kale! (See third pic in series.) Learning to appreciate the mundane of life has been big for my self-care. Before, after a celebration with loved ones, it used to feel like a let down to go back to regular eating or going to bed early. I think that’s because I didn’t really enjoy nurturing myself -made me feel more alone to focus on myself. So I’d fill up my calendar so I didn’t have enough time to take care of myself. Now it’s different. I love a good party, but I also love that moment when everyone leaves and I can change my clothes and reflect on everything. I love washing a batch of kale and then figuring out how to make it into a simple dinner. Caring for myself has helped me to appreciate my own company, which in turn nurtures my relationships. It also helps me realize that I can intentionally create space for things that matter. This week, that meant phone banking for Ayanna Pressley (so excited about her win!) and creating a free webinar for how to turn your self-care into visionary leadership on September 24th (sign up link in bio). Little acts can add up, as long as we make space for them in life. This is self-care in action!
The vulnerability of parenting feels hardest to talk about. As I mentioned in a previous post, both my love and fear for Jonah is incredibly intense. I’m a person who likes to be in control. Ever wonder why I’ve always been so keen on running my own business? Yup, I like it to be a certain way. I can probably trace this back to my own childhood and needing this sense of control to feel safe in the world. Learning authentic self-care helped me to experience a different kind of safety - one rooted in kindness and surrender. Slowly, I’ve worked to let go of control and trust the flow of my own life. Having Jonah required the deepest layer of surrender yet. It’s asked me to live in the discomfort of my vulnerability (of both my fear and my gratitude). Over this past year, I’ve let go of so much of my ego-based striving and found that underneath my hustle were all these super tender parts of me that needed love. Loving the parts of me that I would rather hide helps me to love Jonah more fully (and vice versa!). It’s a hard, beautiful, transformative process (so very much inspired by the work of @brenebrown). What scares me most about our dominant culture is that we are terrified of our own vulnerability. We spend most of our time and energy so that we don’t have to touch these hurting places and I know this affects our relationships, our parenting, our own authenticity. To me, it’s revolutionary to become willing to feel it all and most definitely a signal of our strength. The more we can do it as individuals, the more we can honor that vulnerability in others, especially populations and communities that are more vulnerability than us (people of color, immigrant, LGTBQ, religious minority). This is how the inner work leads to the outer work. This is how we hand a calmer, kinder world down to the next generation. This guy! As part of the motherhood series I’m posting this week, I of course want to talk about partnership. Many of you already know this, but Micah and I were only dating for two months when we got accidentally pregnant. There would be so many situations where this would be no bueno, however it didn’t feel that way to either of us. We both had such a strong “yes” that we wanted to have this child and decided to just figure out the rest as we went along. As we move toward celebrating the two year anniversary of our first date next month, I’m going to say that we’ve done a decent job of figuring it out. I feel so lucky and grateful to have Micah as a partner and co-parent. This doesn’t mean things are perfect. We still have our fights and awkward moments and petty resentments. However, we also have nourishing routines/rituals, a very good sense of humor, and both are quite dedicated to our own personal development. Currently, I’m so proud that Micah just took a new job at Vera Institute for Justice where he is working to better our saddening criminal justice system in the USA. Each relationship is unique, but I do think our secret to having a thriving partnership is that we continue to encourage each other’s spiritual growth. It’s tough work to hold space for the hard parts of growth in someone you love. I want to fix it so those places don’t get triggered in me. Yet, by showing up, keeping faith, sacrificing myself, for Micah and our family, from time to time is how I grow too. Of everything we are giving Jonah, I think this lesson might be the most important: we need each other to grow, and in that growth, we all become more liberated. This is me, one year into motherhood. (Also, this is me after another fantastic haircut from @jeanjekal 💜). Yesterday I promised more on mama self-care and I want to start by saying this is just what works for me, based on my needs, proclivities and resources. Self-care is rarely one-size-fits all, and that’s both the beauty and the challenge of it! So for me, my self-care has evolved over these past 12 months. After giving birth, self-care meant rarely leaving my bed for two weeks and allowing others to take care of me even when I wanted to do it all myself. Later, self-care meant giving myself grace as I rockily adjusted back to working again, and making time for long baths while Jonah was at daycare when it all felt like too much. Now that I’ve found a pretty good rhythm for my work days (Jonah is home with me twice a week), my self-care consists of a lot of meal planning (three good meals a day is so grounding for me), and some creative multitasking to meet a few needs at once. I love talking to friends on the phone while strolling with Jonah and folding laundry while listening to a podcast (recently love “Unruffled” by Janet Landsbury - respectful parenting revolution!). Taking time with my partner Micah is also essential (more on this tomorrow). I’m also always working to let myself feel complex feelings, engage in difficult conversations, and show up for social justice in the ways I know how (and investing in education so I can learn how to show up more). All of this is quite a balance between myself and others, between joy and grief, between allowing and resisting. It’s a intricate dance, and although I always feel pretty challenged by the art of being a human, I’m very happy to be alive and caring for my people and helping envision the next stage of our world.