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You Don’t Have to be Miserable While Doing Important Work | adrienne maree brown

May 30, 2022

adrienne maree brown, a renowned author and writer-in-residence at the Emergent Strategy Ideation Institute, discusses how pleasure activism redefines personal fulfillment and joy in the face of trauma. She explores the power of saying yes, the balance between commitment and detachment, and the essential role of gratitude. With insights into mindful drug use and community connection, brown emphasizes that true happiness comes from shared experiences, challenging conventional views about work and personal worth.

01:14:20

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Episode guests

adrienne maree brown

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Episode notes

Intro

2min

Pleasure Activism: Joy in Justice

22min

Finding 'Enough': Mindfulness and Personal Growth

25min

Embracing the Power of No

7min

Navigating Self-Discovery and Responsible Drug Use

5min

Mindfulness and Intoxicants: A Journey to Authenticity

12min

Cultivating Community and Connection in a Digital Age

2min

Our culture has oddly conflicting views about pleasure.

In this episode, author adrienne maree brown explores the importance of pleasure and how it changes your experience of the world.

adrienne maree brown is the writer-in-residence at the Emergent Strategy Ideation Institute, and author of Grievers (the first novella in a trilogy on the Black Dawn imprint), Holding Change: The Way of Emergent Strategy Facilitation and Mediation, We Will Not Cancel Us and Other Dreams of Transformative Justice, Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good, Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds and the co-editor of Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction from Social Justice Movements and How to Get Stupid White Men Out of Office. She is the cohost of the How to Survive the End of the World, Octavia’s Parables and Emergent Strategy podcasts. adrienne is rooted in Detroit.

In this conversation we talked about:

What is pleasure activism
The role of sex and drugs
Why we should say yes more
How to be in touch with our sense of “enough”
The role of gratitude
The line between commitment and detachment
How she defines authentic happiness
Her self-description as “a recovering self-righteous organizer,” and why self-righteousness actually leads to powerlessness

Content Warning: Discussions of sex and drugs.

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/adrienne-maree-brown-458