Conflict Decoded Podcast

Would you love a dedicated practice of proactively setting clear goals, priorities, and commitments to yourself? If so, I wrote this for you. Most of my clients don’t have a practice like this when they first come to me. Many spend their days putting out fires and reacting to the next request/demand that comes their way. Others are in the habit of prioritizing other peoples’ needs while rarely checking in with themselves about their own. And yet other clients come to me feeling called to make a big change in their lives—either in terms of contributing more to their communities or taking better care of themselves—but they have yet to set specific benchmarks for how they’ll make their callings a reality. Without a regular practice of setting and keeping clear commitments to themselves, most people end up feeling like they’re letting themselves or other people down. At the heart of radical discernment is the practice and skill of making choices—in other words, right-sized commitments—that honor our needs. And with that in mind, I want to offer you five principles today to help you set clear, right-sized goals and commitments to yourself. To do that, I’ll share with you my version of the SMART goal acronym. Here’s how I use it: Specific Monthly(ish) Actionable Realistic Trustworthy Let’s explore each of these now. One: Specific. Here are some pointers for setting specific goals: Be as precise as possible. Instead of saying “Go to bed on time” or “Don’t stay up late,” a specific goal sounds like “Be in bed reading a book by 9:30pm every weeknight for the next two weeks and turn off the lights by 10pm.” Ask: Would this be clear to my future self? If your goal is specific, when your future self looks at it in the future, they should be able to know precisely and immediately what you meant when you set it. Catch yourself using tentative language like I guess I will… or I’ll try… or I’ll see…, ask, What am I actually able and willing to commit to?If you find yourself using language like this, edit your commitment until you can honestly say I will… or I commit to doing my best to… (fill in the blank). Decide when you aim to complete your goal, and write it down. If your goal is to engage in an ongoing practice, be realistic about how frequently you’ll practice and how long you commit to practicing for. For example, rather than committing to practicing every single day, committing to practicing daily(ish) or five out of seven days of the week can make sticking with a practice more doable. And rather than committing to doing the practice indefinitely, commit to a defined period of time like two weeks. Then, at the end of this time, check in and decide whether you’d like to continue the commitment. Two: Monthly(ish). Over the years, many clients who struggle with goal-setting have told me that they want to start a practice of choosing goals every morning. However, I’ve found that this practice often backfires. When clients set goals every morning, as opposed to goals that cover a longer time-span, they often experience decision fatigue and have a harder time discerning how to respond when interruptions inevitably arise mid-day. Likewise, some clients come to me with a longer-term vision but no shorter-term goals to help them implement it. Without shorter-term benchmarks, people often struggle to create concrete change and feel frustrated with their lack of progress. In contrast, I’ve found that monthly(ish) goals are the most helpful-sized stepping stones between what we can accomplish today and what we long to achieve in the long-term. The month(ish) is a forgiving, flexible, and yet practically useful-sized chunk of time for deciding what I can realistically say yes to and what I just do not have the capacity to get done. The precise timeline for your monthly(ish) goals may change each month, depending on what you’re working on. For example, my current monthly(ish) goals are seven weeks-long, covering the timespan between the year-end holiday break and my son’s February vacation. Three: Actionable. Actionable means within your control. For example, rather than committing to having a conversation with someone—which is not within your control because the other person could refuse to speak with you—it is actionable to commit to asking the other person to talk and reflecting on what you want to say beforehand. Four: Realistic. I’ll be honest and say that even after a decade-plus of teaching “time management” and even longer practicing what I preach, I still sometimes struggle to estimate how long things will take. And yet, I’ve also learned that the key to setting realistic goals is learning to choose. While it is true that time is bendy in ways that my mind can barely fathom, it is also true that there are twenty-four hours in each day and seven days in the week. From this latter vantage point, the basic math of “time management” is simple: The time our tasks require must be equal to or less than the time we are able to dedicate to them. If our goals are bigger than the time we have, we risk burning out, discouraging ourselves, ruminating about what we have yet to accomplish, and feeling stressed out, stretched thin, and sped up. Time management is grief work. If I commit to doing something every Sunday, that means I must let go of what I might have otherwise done during this time. And yet, when we learn to consciously choose what we’ll say yes to and no to, we become more likely to set goals that match the time we have. It becomes easier to trust ourselves, experience a sense of flow, and get the most important stuff done. One of my favorite quotes is love is 90% pacing (from my friend, Natan Cohen). Loving ourselves means honoring the pace at which we have the capacity to move at any given moment and right-sizing our commitments accordingly. Five: Trustworthy. For many of us, the pattern of not making or honoring commitments to ourselves stems from childhood. If the people who we should have been able to rely on when we were little broke our trust or didn’t show up for us consistently, it can be hard to trust ourselves or consistently show up for ourselves now. To finally cultivate self-trust, we must learn to take our commitments to ourselves just as seriously as our commitments to others. So, from now on, I invite you to imagine that you’re committing to the little one within you who longs for a grown-up (you!) they can trust. And ask yourself—What commitment will I make to my little one? Creating right-sized commitments to ourselves is a both-and move: We must not overcommit and set ourselves up for disappointment, and we must stretch ourselves and commit to showing up for ourselves well. If you hesitate to commit to yourself out of fear of letting yourself down, please remember that we humans build trust through repair. If you discover that you’ve aimed too high and cannot follow through with a commitment to yourself, try to notice this as soon as possible. Then, acknowledge the part of yourself that feels disappointed and have a conversation with yourself and your calendar about where you’re at, what you need, and how you’ll recalibrate your commitments. This ongoing conversation is the key to cultivating self-trust. May you discover trust in yourself and excitement in your commitments.

A client of mine recently discovered that she’s pregnant and shared this question with me this week: “I really hope that everything is safe and sound with my pregnancy. I’m trying my best to stay positive, but I have moments of anxiety. I am wondering how to feel my fears while not being consumed by them and how to remain positive while not getting sucked into worst case ‘what-if’ scenarios. Suggestions?” Now, you might not be pregnant with a new baby (though, congratulations if you are!), but if you’re like most of my clients, you’re working hard to bring something you care deeply about into the world. This might be a new policy, a new program, a new relationship, a new business, or something else. Whatever it is, you’re apt to have fears. So how do you acknowledge your fears without getting sucked into them? Here are four practices that I shared with my client: 1. Remember that Worry is the work of pregnancy. Fifteen years ago, shortly after my son, Kai, was born, I became a childbirth mentor and birth doula, and one of my favorite quotes from that time was from Pam England, creator of Birthing From Within, who writes: Worry is the work of pregnancy. In other words, you are normal. If there’s something you care deeply about, something you long for, something you’re working hard to bring into the world, and you have a lot at stake, the odds of success are uncertain and the outcomes are not completely within your control— Of course, you will feel worried at times. My most recent source of worry is related to my son, Kai. He’s a sophomore in high school, thinking about colleges, and I want him to have a future in which he’s content and contributing. He’s doing really great, but his future is largely out of my hands, and so occasionally, I worry. Now, when friends tell me that of course he’ll be fine and that I should not worry, it honestly doesn’t feel very helpful. But when they acknowledge that it makes complete sense that I would worry a bit, I feel heard, and my nervous system settles. Until recently, most self-help teachers taught that stress was bad for us and that we needed to get rid of it. But as Stanford health psychologist Kelly McGonigal teaches, stress is simply what we feel when something we love is at risk. While chronic stress can be harmful, momentary stress and worry are a normal part of reaching toward what we love. 2. Write down your worries. Now, one factor that makes a huge difference in how we relate to our stress are the stories we tell ourselves. And while we may not be able to completely eliminate our fears, we can shift how we relate to them. A key practice for turning down the volume on our stories—including the “worst case, what if scenarios” my client mentioned—is to write them down. Journaling helps us do what developmental psychologist Robert Kegan called the subject-object shift. When we're subject to our thoughts, we're so close to them that we assume they're true and don't notice or question them. Before we write our stories down, they float around in our heads, clouding our perception, and it’s as though we’re seeing life through their cloudy lens. But when we get our stories out of our heads and onto the paper, we can look at them rather than looking through them. We shift our stories from implicit to explicit, from too-close-up-to-see to distant-enough-to-choose-our-response, from feeling like our thoughts are happening to us to accessing a sense of agency. Just the very act of journaling can soothe our nervous systems. After fifteen years of engaging with many of the practices I teach, when I feel worried, I still often need to get out my journal and write down my thoughts to soothe my concerns and choose my next steps. 3. Imagine yourself coping. Most pregnant parents have something that they hope and pray will not happen during their pregnancy, birth, or postpartum experience. These “worst-case what if” worries can be like tiger kittens in the backgrounds of their minds, but if parents ignore their concerns, they can grow into full-grown tigers that create significant stress by the time their birthing day comes around. However, if they turn and face their kitten fears early on, they can tame their worries and grow their self-trust. The same goes for any concern, even those that us not-pregnant people may experience. With this in mind, back when I used to teach childbirth classes, I’d guide my clients through a visualization practice called the Tigers Exercise. I’d invite my clients to choose a worry to work with and then guide them to imagine that their concern was unfolding in real life and to notice how they felt and what they were thinking. Then, I’d invite them to let this image go and imagine the same exact scenario, only this time, they were coping. I invited my clients to imagine that they were coping, to notice what they felt and what they were telling themselves when they were coping, and to draw an image of this scene. The power of the invitation to imagine ourselves coping often surprised me. Sometimes, my clients’ dreaded experiences did indeed come to pass in real-life, and as their birth doula, I got to witness the resilience they’d cultivated as they brought their whole selves and strength to their experience. So, with this in mind, if you have a worst-case scenario fear, I encourage you to imagine this worst-case scenario, and to imagine that You are coping. Notice what you know to be true about yourself and about the world when you are coping. 4. Rather than trying to “remain positive,” track glimmers. In her book, Bittersweet, Susan Cain writes about the melancholic direction that she calls the ‘bittersweet’—“a tendency to states of longing, poignancy, and sorrow; an acute awareness of passing time; and a curiously piercing joy at the beauty of the world. The bittersweet is also about the recognition that light and dark, birth and death—bitter and sweet—are forever paired. ‘Days of honey, days of onion,” as an Arabic proverb puts it.’” Like the most beautiful piece of music, there is nothing I know of that is more bittersweet than parenting. And, to create a life we long for, we must tune into our longing, and sometimes, that hurts. And so, I cannot teach you to “remain positive.” At least, after nearly sixteen years of parenting, and four-plus decades of living, I have yet to find a way. But I have found that it is possible to cultivate a default state of satisfaction and even delight. Snd one of the most potent practices I know for doing this is tracking glimmers. Coined by social worker Deborah Dana, glimmers are cues that prompt feelings of satisfaction, wellbeing, and other pleasant feelings that indicate our needs are met. They’re quick sparks of the feelings we want to feel, moments that nourish our energy or move us closer to what we long for. Tracking glimmers is the practice of getting curious and searching glimmers as if we were a huntress, detective, or search and rescue team. We can acknowledge our worries and acknowledge our delight. And, the more we practice tracking glimmers, the more we can shift our default state toward a sense of nourishment and delight, even while we honor the parts of ourselves who feel scared. Back when I used to teach childbirth classes, I started every class by telling my clients: My goal today is twofold—I aim to offer you tools to help you have the birth you want, while also helping you remember that you are loved and loveable, no matter what birth you have. I wish the same for you. May you receive all the support that you need to rise to the challenges you face. And, may you know that you are truly enough, no matter what happens. As always, if you have any questions or comments, I welcome you to share them with me at katherine@callingsandcourage.com.

This week, a client in my mentorship program who’s leading the development of a brand-new community center, shared that while things are going really well, she’s also noticing a lot of uncomfortable feelings coming up in response to the work. She wrote: “Things are good, and I have waves of self-doubt and fear that make me anxious - Like, how can I possibly actually do this? Often it comes in the form of a negative self-comparison to an imaginary other person who would be doing all this better. What practice could I engage in to keep me out of comparison mode?” In today’s episode, I offer six practices to soothe the inner voice of comparison. If you sometimes hear a voice of comparison, self-doubt, and fear arise as you reach toward your goals, this is for you.   CLICK HERE TO READ THE SHOWNOTES This week, a client in my mentorship program who’s leading the development of a brand-new community center, shared that while things are going really well, with more and more organizations getting involved, she’s also noticing a lot of uncomfortable feelings coming up in response to the work. I’ll share with you what she wrote to me, and I invite you to see if it sounds familiar: She wrote: “Things are good, and I have waves of self-doubt and fear that make me anxious – Like, how can I possibly actually do this? Often it comes in the form of a negative self-comparison to an imaginary other person who would be doing all this better. I’m wondering what practice I could engage in to keep me out of comparison mode, especially as more people get involved and I anticipate an increase in self-doubt/judgment coming up for me if I don’t pay attention?” Now, in case you, too, hear voices of comparison, self-doubt, and fear arise as you reach toward your big goals, I want to share with you what I told my client and offer you six practices to soothe your inner voice of comparison. Let’s dive in. 1. Instead of trying to stay out of comparison mode, expect that your brain will automatically compare, especially when you’re facing a new challenge. In her book, Atlas of the Heart, Brené Brown writes that research demonstrates that our human brains are physiologically designed to compare, but we have a choice about how we respond to the comparisons that arise. Brown writes: “The bad news is that our hardwiring makes us default to comparison—it seems to happen to us rather than be our choice. The good news is that we get to choose how we’re going to let it affect us.” 2. Give your inner voice of comparison a name. When a part of ourselves is struggling, it can be as though we’re looking through a mask without realizing the mask is there. But when we give names to the struggling parts of ourselves, it’s like we take our masks off and can come into a conversation with them. With that in mind, I invite you to give the part of yourself that compares or doubts or judges you a name. Make sure to choose a name the part would want to call itself, a name that is free from judgment. I call the comparing part of myself the Monitor, which is a name that I learned from Emily and Amelia Nagoski’s book, Burnout. They write: “The Monitor is the brain mechanism that manages the gap between where we are and where we are going… Technically, it’s called the ‘discrepancy-reducing/-increasing feedback loop’ and ‘criterion velocity,’ but people fall asleep immediately when we say that, so we just call it the Monitor… The Monitor knows (1) what your goal is; (2) how much effort you’re investing in that goal; and (3) how much progress you’re making. It keeps a running tally of your effort-to-progress ratio, and it has a strong opinion about what that ratio should be…[1]” So perhaps you’d also like to call your inner voice of comparison the Monitor. Or maybe, like Don Miguel Ruiz does in his book, the The Four Agreements, you’ll call this part the Judge. RuPaul calls hers the Inner Saboteur. Anne Lamott calls hers the itty-bitty-shitty committee. My son, Kai, calls his the Troll. If you don’t find a name that resonates completely, go for good enough. You can always choose a name now and change it later. Once you name this part, do your best to refer to it in third person, using its name. For example, rather than saying,  “I’m so hard on myself,” say “My Judge is being really hard on me.” Or, rather than saying, “I’m worried I’m not going fast enough,” you might say, “My Monitor is worried I’m not moving fast enough.” Talking about our parts in the third person can feel awkward at first. But when we give our struggling parts names, it can become easier to gain space from them and witness when they pop up. 3. Practice noticing as soon as this part pops up. Once you have a name for your inner voice of comparison, get curious and ask yourself: What does this part feel like in my body? What physical sensations and emotions do I notice when I begin to compare? What does this voice sound like in my head? What thoughts or stories does the comparing part tell? The more awareness you can bring to the feelings and thoughts related to self-comparison, the quicker you can notice when they arise. And the sooner you can notice the feelings and thoughts arise, the sooner you can pause the comparing. 4. Once you notice this part pop up, welcome it. Now, this step may feel a bit counterintuitive. My client’s question was—How do I stay out of comparison mode—not How do I embrace it? However, most people find that when they try to avoid a part of themselves, it screams even louder to be heard. And when they turn toward the parts of themselves that are struggling, often these parts feel heard and can settle. So, rather than trying to silence any part of yourself, see if you can turn toward it, welcome it through the eyes of a competent, compassionate witness and say hello, perhaps gently placing a hand on your heart, belly, face, or wherever you feel it in your body. You may also imagine bringing in a competent protector beside you in your mind’s eye, a capable and warm-hearted being that you can count on to love and champion you. You may imagine a person from your family line, someone who nurtured you earlier in your life, a character from a story, movie, or book, a deity, someone famous such as an author or musician or a movement leader, or an animal, tree, or other being from the more than human realm. If it feels too challenging to witness this part of yourself on your own or if paying attention to it turns up the volume of self-judgment, this is a sign that you may be touching a past trauma. I encourage you to seek support from a trusted, trauma-informed therapist or support person. 5. With this welcoming perspective, get curious about what the comparing part wants you to know. Grab your journal, and ask it: What are you trying to tell me? What do you need? What does this situation need? Is there something that might be helpful for me to do here? Write down everything this part says. If the comparing part shares a next step that you think would be helpful for you to take, ask yourself when you’ll take it. If you’re able to prioritize this step, put it on your to-do list. And if you’re unable to prioritize this step in the next month or so, put the step on your Later List, so that you can return to it when you are able. 6. Track self-appreciation. Self-appreciation is a powerful antidote to self-comparison. Self-appreciation is not conceit. Self-appreciation is the skill of giving thanks for who we get to be in this life. So, from now on, I challenge you to track glimmers of self-appreciation. You might: Notice things you appreciate about yourself throughout your days and take a moment to feel the sense of pride in your body. When someone offers you a compliment, say, thank you. Keep emails expressing gratitude in a folder and/or a “Done List” of the goals you’ve accomplished. When we practice appreciating ourselves, it becomes easier to recognize our areas for improvement without the painful jolt of self-judgment and enjoy the path toward reaching our vision. I’d love to hear how this lands with you. Feel free to send me an email at katherine@callingsandcourage.com and let me know! In the meantime, I’m wishing you a soft landing pad inside yourself so you can know you are safe and supported, even as you reach for scary new heights. [1] Amelia and Emily Nagoski. Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle. New York, NY: Random House, 2020.

What most people call time management or setting boundaries, I call the work of crossing through little gates. Gates are moments where we say no to one thing in order to say yes to something else. Gates don’t always take the shape of doors, however. Sometimes, they look like thresholds, portals, crossroads, moments of truth, healing crises, or emergencies. When I’m approaching a big gate, I sometimes imagine myself walking through a landscape. My gates have looked like mountain cliffs, raging rivers, neverending deserts, grassy fields, and windy roads. Beside each gate lives a gatekeeper. In the old stories, gatekeepers appear as mystical beings—three-headed dogs, dragons, and wise teachers. In reality, the gatekeeper lives within us. The gatekeeper tells us that to pass, we must pay a price—say no to a request, invest money, end a relationship, turn off our phone, or close the door on an opportunity. Despite the modern-day trope that we should never give up, sometimes, we are called to let go of a project that is no longer alive or close a chapter that’s no longer ours to write. Despite Christianity’s insistence that anything less than til death do us part is a failure, even callings are not always forever. In addition to the action we must take to cross through a gate, at each gate, we must also always let go of something internal as well—old stories, behaviors, identities and ways of being that no longer serve us and that hold us back from becoming who we’re called to be now. This doesn’t mean getting rid of any part of ourselves or becoming a better person. It means including and transcending everything we’ve been until now, becoming more fully ourselves than we’ve ever been before. When we let go of what no longer serves us to step toward what’s calling us, we begin to embody a new person—a person who shares their ideas, a person who takes care of themself, a person who leads, a person who pauses, a person who says no, a person who says yes. We live life at the little gates. Although the big gates captivate our attention—changing jobs, starting an organization, completing a project, going to school, launching a campaign, taking on a new leadership role, having a baby, moving home, undergoing a health procedure—they come only once in a while. Most great distances are traversed not with one big leap but with many small steps. We live life at the little gates—small choice points such as deciding whether to go to bed, reduce expenses, dedicate time to a morning practice, have a difficult conversation, speak up at a meeting, sign up for a class, call a legislator, attend a protest, look for a mentor, ask for help, ask someone on a date, say no to a request, or take some other step forward. It’s at the little gates that we choose our boundaries and decide where we’ll dedicate our time. And, choosing is often painful. In a world with so much injustice and unmet need, it can hurt to say no, especially when we care deeply about the state of the world or work in a caring profession and are saying no to real-life people with real-life needs. Having to constantly choose between safeguarding our own mental and emotional wellbeing or sacrificing ourselves to care for our communities is an impossibly shitty task. Of course, there are plenty of practices for mitigating the shittiness and overwhelming ourselves less. But no practice will ameliorate the fact that in late-stage capitalism, most of us must make money to meet our needs and are expected to meet our needs as single people or nuclear families, despite the fact that we’re physiologically designed to thrive in larger groups and communities. And no practice will erase the fact that our choices can feel so small when the world’s problems are so big. Time management is grief work. Although most self-help teachers talk about saying no as if we were only letting go of obligations that drain us and things we’d rather not do, more often, I’ve found that we have to say no to things we wish we could say yes to. It can hurt to face the reality that there will always be more that we wish we could do than time in which to do it. It can hurt to say no to others, and it can hurt to say no to ourselves. Of course it can be cozier to succumb to the belief that just over the horizon, we’ll find more time or that we’ll finally find peace when we finish the current project. It can be easier to slip into a Victim relationship with time, blaming time itself for not being enough, rather than doing the difficult work of choosing priorities and communicating boundaries. And, when we’re exhausted, overwhelmed, bombarded with more demands than we could possibly fit into one lifetime, of course we want more time. But no matter how much we wish it weren’t so, saying no is inescapable. As much as we might wish we could just wave a magic wand and poof! get more time, none of us mortals have the power to find time as if it were hiding under the couch cushions or make time as if it were an assembly line product. Our time on this beautiful planet is finite. We are all going to die, and we all have to choose how we will live our lives. So, when you find yourself at a gate, uncertain about what to prioritize, I invite you to ask yourself the following questions: What matters most to me now? What values will I choose to center now? What needs will I choose to prioritize? What will I give up to align my life with my values and honor my needs? Then, choose consciously. If your choices are not great ones, please don’t try to convince yourself to look on the bright side. It’s not your fault if none of your choices are good ones. And, also, we reclaim our power when we choose to choose consciously. Every moment is a choice. Every single moment of our lives, whether we’re aware of it or not, we’re choosing to say yes to one thing and no to countless others. We may not be able to live our values or meet our needs perfectly. We will probably need to make sacrifices. We can react to life unconsciously, allowing the next email or request to dictate our actions. Or, we can stop fighting reality, turn and face our gates, and decide where we will devote our time, attention, and lives, over and over again. If we choose to disregard our needs at the little gates, we’re apt to go off track and have far more work to do to turn our ships around when we arrive at a big gate. When we choose to honor our needs at the little gates, we are more likely to experience smoother sailing through the big ones. Each time we do our best to honor our needs, we reclaim our agency, align our lives with our values, and grow our power for impact and joy. May you find freedom at the gates and grace for yourself as you learn to let go.

Sometimes along the journey through life, we come to a place where it feels like we’re pounding on a locked door. Maybe we come really close to getting our dream job, but they hire someone else. Or our partner leaves us unexpectedly. Or we pour our hearts into a campaign and lose. The time I most felt like I was standing at a locked gate, unable to open it, were the long years we spent applying for my son’s dad’s visa. We were married, had a child, made the best argument possible to prove our hardship, gathered every possible document, hired a lawyer (an enormous privilege), and spent countless hours preparing our application. And yet, the final decision lay in the hands of an anonymous administrator using arbitrary criteria over two thousand miles away. The first time we applied, we were denied. The second time, they told us we needed more documentation. It took us over six years to finally win the green card. Many people do not have it so good. During that time, I took refuge in an image of myself navigating the twists and turns of a high-walled unicursal labyrinth, with one path into the center and one path out. Of course I was disoriented, unable to see more than a few feet ahead, uncertain of how far we’d come. All those years, I could not choose our outcome. My only choice was to do my best. Sometimes, all the gates we wished were open to us are closed—we keep getting rejected from potential jobs, relationships, or opportunities we wish we had—and the best we can do is keep putting one foot in front of the other in the hopes that we’ll find a new door or path we have not yet imagined. As Rebecca Solnit writes, “Hope is not a door, but a sense that there might be a door at some point, some way out of the problems of the present moment even before that way is found or followed.” So, as you journey, please be kind to yourself. Do not try to convince your disappointment or frustration to go away. Countless travelers have felt the same way you do now. Remember that sometimes, we need to lay down and rest a while, sheltered by the labyrinth walls. The Spanish word for wait—esperar—is the same word for hope. There can be power in waiting, knowing that if we keep showing up, unexpected gifts may emerge. And, when you feel ready to get curious and face the chasm between where you are now and where you long to be, I invite you to ask yourself the following questions: When in my past have I faced locked gates but made it to the other side? What helped me then? What gifts might be presenting themselves to me now, even though most of me might really not want them? What do I love so much that I’m willing to keep assuming responsibility for it? What possibility am I willing to take a stand for, even though there are no guarantees and the odds may not be in my favor? What does the part of me that knows what to do even when I don’t know what to do want me to know now? What itsy-bitsy, teensy-tiny step might I take in the direction of my longings? Then, choose one step toward honoring your needs. Your next step might be making popcorn, wrapping yourself up in a warm blanket, and watching a movie. It might be giving yourself a hug, taking deep breaths, or drinking a glass of water. It might be setting new goals, making a phone call, or clicking send on that email. Whatever your next step may be, please know that I’m rooting you on. It is an honor to be by your side.

When facing a big decision or life transition, have you ever heard a voice in your head saying any of the following?: What if you’re not ready? What if you regret your decision? What if you have no time left for anything else? What if it wrecks your relationship(s)? What if you burn bridges? What if you never find something as good as what you have now? What if things turn out shitty like they’ve always been? What if your calling isn’t a calling after all but just an old habit speaking? What if you're just repeating your parents' mistakes? What if you really shouldn’t give all this up? What if you lose your job, have no way to pay the bills, and become homeless? What if you die? What if there’s backlash? What if nobody likes your ideas? What if people hate you for it? What if no one even cares? What if it’s just a waste of time? What if none of this matters? What if you give it your all and still, you fail? What if there’s something more important you should be doing? Are you really sure this is a good idea? Isn’t there another way forward? If you’ve heard yourself asking any of these questions, you’re not alone. So have I. In most great stories, after the traveler hears their call and before they embark on their journey, they pass through a phase that mythologist Joseph Campbell named the Refusal of the Call.[1] During the Refusal of the Call, community members, specters, and voices in the traveler’s own mind confront them with fears of unexplored lands and dangerous creatures that live outside the village walls. Although our callings promise something valuable to those who dare proceed, the journey is risky and without guarantee. None of us can predict with certainty whether we’ll reach our destination or survive the journey. We never know when we may encounter a landslide, rabid animal, or sudden sandstorm. And so, in this phase,  we encounter a Voice of Doubt. An inner Voice of Doubt is the part of ourselves that cries Yeah but… and What if…? in an attempt to keep us safe.[2] An outer Voice of Doubt is a person we care about who does not understand our calling and tries to convince us not to go. The greater the risk and the more we care, the louder the what ifs. Doubt, anxiety, and all other flavors of fear are universal experiences—our body’s normal, physiological response to risk and the unknown. They’re signs we’re on the edge of something new. Doubt itself is not the problem. What keeps us stuck in the face of doubt and fear are the ways we react to doubt and fear. Here Are Some Ways That People Commonly React to Doubt Get curious about whether you see yourself in this list: Charging forward without proper discernment. Rather than giving the Voice of Doubt a chance to share its concerns, the traveler pummels past the quiet whispers that say something might not be right and dives headfirst without taking a good look at the obstacles ahead or considering strategies that might better meet their needs. They invest lots of time and energy before they’re confronted with the downsides of the path they’ve chosen. Avoiding the Call. The would-be traveler occupies themselves with distractions, attempts to resuscitate projects and relationships that are no longer alive, and expends lots of energy avoiding their call.But the call does not desist. As much as the traveler tries to push their doubt into the shadows, it bounces back, often as floating anxieties, confusion, and reactions they later regret. They suffer from what Joseph Campbell called a dull case of the call unanswered.[3] Worrying, and worrying about worrying. Most of us have been raised with the myth that the only thing to fear is fear itself and that we should somehow get rid of our fear. And so, when the Voice of Doubt spins in worry about what might happen, another part tries to convince them to stop worrying, saying their fears are irrational, and they shouldn’t be so afraid.But trying to silence doubt often makes it clamor even louder to be heard. Ruminating about what happened in the past or dissecting all the reasons they might be afraid, rather than getting curious about what might be possible, imagining the future they long for, or taking forward action. Blaming others for why they’re afraid or why things are so hard, rather than getting curious about what might be within their power now. So, what works to soothe the Voice of Doubt? The important thing to remember is that—like any resistant person or part of ourselves—Voices of Doubt are trying to meet a need. Sometimes, Voices of Doubt have important perspectives that we may not have considered yet. They may ask important questions or point toward information we still need to gather or steps that would benefit us. Other times, Voices of Doubt simply need acknowledgment, and listening with care can soothe the doubt and make it easier to move forward. So, when we’re facing a big decision and uncertain about what to do next, our task is to pause, turn toward our inner Voice of Doubt with warmth and curiosity, and listen carefully to what it wants to tell us. Likewise, if you trust someone who is currently an Outer Voice of Doubt for you to have your best interest at heart, it can help to listen to their concerns. Sometimes, when we listen to them with care, people who originally doubt us become our fiercest allies. And even when they don’t come around, having a heart-to-heart can help maintain a relationship while pursuing a new calling and can shed light on potential obstacles we hadn’t considered fully. A practice that I’ve found helpful for shining light on an inner Voice of Doubt’s concerns while seeing the bigger picture is a Cost-Benefit Analysis. If you’re facing a big decision, I invite you to experiment with this now. Cost-Benefit Analysis 1. Get out your journal and create a Cost/Benefit Grid, like this: Potential Short-Term & Long-Term Costs (ie. Worst Case Scenarios) Potential Short-Term & Long-Term Benefits (i.e. Best Case Scenarios) Option One Option Two   2. Fill in Option One and Option Two. These may be two different paths you’re considering, or Option One might be proceeding with a path and Option Two might be not taking with that path. 3. With warmth and kindness, turn toward your Voice of Doubt and ask it these questions. Fill in the corresponding blanks in the grid with what arises. What costs are you afraid I might have to pay if I take this path? What needs are you afraid I won’t meet? What are the worst case scenarios you see? Keep asking “anything else?” and filling in the grid with the answers that arise. 4. Ask the part of you who longs to take the path you’re considering: What benefits of taking your preferred path do you see? What costs might I have to pay if I don’t take this path? What is the best case scenario? What needs are you longing to meet? Keep asking “anything else?” and filling in the grid with the answers that arise. 5. See if any other parts of you have opinions about the potential costs and benefits of their path. If so, fill in the grid accordingly. Continue filling in the grid until you feel complete. After listening with care to a Voice of Doubt and taking a close look at the costs and benefits, at a certain point, it will be time to choose your path forward. It will be time to ask yourself: What will I give up to align my life with my values and move toward my vision? It will be time to choose what you’ll say yes to and what you’ll say no to. Here are a few more things to keep in mind when you find yourself in the Refusal of the Call: One: Sometimes, we are called to refuse the call. Sometimes, courage looks like making a great big change. Other times, courage looks like saying not yet and refusing the call. Sometimes, we must prioritize another call first, meet other needs first, prepare to say yes in the future, or cross through several little gates before we’re ready to cross through a big one. Sometimes, our preparation is brief. Other times, preparation feels like its own great journey. If you’re not yet ready to commit to a path, I challenge you to get curious about what tiny steps you might take to prepare to move forward. Two: You may need to say, I love you, and no. Sometimes, you will know deep down that it’s time to cross the threshold, even though part of you is still scared. If you try to convince the scared part of yourself to stop resisting, it can feel like you’re in a power struggle with a small child. The good news is, it’s not necessary to convince any part of ourselves to feel or think differently than it does. As I sometimes tell my son, Kai, We don’t always have to want to do something. We can choose to show up for ourselves or the collective because it’s what our values say to do. We can take back the wheel of our lives, and our Voice of Doubt can come along for the ride, even though it feels scared or wishes we weren’t going. So if you decide to cross through a gate—as big as handing in your resignation or as small as putting your phone on airplane mode—and part of you resists, I invite you to imagine that you are reparenting yourself—offering the younger part of yourself the loving limits you may have missed out on as a little one. Of course, when we set limits for little ones, they don’t always like it. They might even throw a tantrum. But as an adult who loves them, we can turn toward the resistant part of ourselves with fierce compassion, as if it were a small, tantruming child, and say: I love you, and no. Thank you for trying so hard to meet my needs. And I am in charge now. You don’t have to like the choices I’m making. And you don’t have to change what you feel or think. I’m taking back the wheel now.

On Valentine’s Day 2013, at a small community center in New Hampshire, I attended a workshop with Dr. Lewis Mehl-Madrona, Lakota-Cherokee shaman and narrative psychiatrist. The workshop began with a talking circle in which each of the forty or so participants shared a personal story about love. At the beginning of the day, I was excited. I’d read all of Dr. Mehl-Madrona’s books, and I was eager to learn everything I could. But as the time passed, I got bored. There were no limits to how long people could talk, and by lunchtime, we were only part way through. At lunch, I vented my frustrations to my journal. I imagine I wrote something like, Why is everyone taking so long? People should have time limits! We’re supposed to be learning something here! I returned to the second half of the circle, which meandered along like the first. Then, after the circle completed, Dr. Mehl-Madrona invited a participant to work with him one-on-one, with everyone else witnessing. He instructed her to tell him about a break-up that still felt emotionally raw but to only share the bare bones—the observable data, the facts that she was aware had actually happened. Dr. Mehl-Madrona told us that our stories are like meat that covers the bare bones of what’s happening, that can make the facts harder to see and generate confusion, distress, and disconnection. Each time the participant started telling a story—judging something that she or her ex had done—Dr. Mehl-Madrona paused her and invited her to label it story. As I listened to Dr. Mehl-Madrona guide my fellow participant to distinguish her stories from the bare bones, I realized that I’d been telling myself a story—steeped in white supremacy cultural narratives about how teaching should happen—that judged Dr. Mehl-Madrona’s circle-centered approach and held me back from perceiving the hidden lessons the other circle participants shared. We are the stories we tell ourselves. In his book, Remapping Your Mind, Dr. Mehl-Madrona writes that the closest equivalent to the English word self in the Lakota language is the word nagi, meaning the swarm of all the stories that make us who we are.[1] Each of us is viewing ourselves, the people we interact with, our circumstances, and the world around us through channels of perception that contain all the stories we’ve gathered about who we are, what is possible, and how the world works. Faced with infinitely complex challenges, frustratingly incomplete information, and a universe that is far too vast to perceive it in its entirety, we humans rely on stories—theories, opinions, interpretations, assumptions, beliefs, and so forth—to fill in the gaps and make sense of it all. We tell stories to connect, learn, grow, heal, and answer the question why. We humans need stories like we need food. But not all stories serve us well. Like debris on a car windshield that accumulates over decades, many of our stories make it difficult to see ourselves, our people, our situations, and our paths forward clearly. We mistake our filtered views for reality itself and don’t realize that we’re looking through a lens in the first place. Our stories can either support us to honor our needs or hold us back. For example, if we think there’s something wrong with me for taking so much time to reach my vision, we’re less likely to keep going; if we believe crossing the gap between where I am and where I long to be requires time, patience, and support, the journey can become easier. We get to choose the stories we tell ourselves. At that New Hampshire workshop, Dr. Mehl-Madrona taught us that, although many people believe that we have to get rid of our stories to liberate ourselves from them, the truth is that we don’t have to convince any part of ourselves to change its mind. If we try to convince the storytelling part of ourselves that it’s wrong, it may cling even tighter to its beliefs. In A Liberated Mind, Dr. Steven C. Hayes—creator of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)—shares study after study that demonstrate that trying to erase our limiting beliefs is a futile endeavor. Hayes writes: “There is no delete button in the human nervous system. There is nothing in all of psychology called unlearning.”[2] Our beliefs are neurological patterns, and once a pattern is established in our brains, it’s hard to get rid of. In fact, if you try to not think about something, you’ll discover it’s impossible. Try it: Don’t think about an elephant. Don’t think about a peanut butter sandwich. As Dr. Mehl-Madrona taught us, a far more effective strategy for releasing the grip of old stories is to bring awareness to the stories we’re telling ourselves and separate our stories from what is actually happening—the bare bones. When we witness our stories and the bare bones, we gain the observational distance needed to get curious about whether our old stories serve us, and if not, to choose a story that serves us more. Part of ourselves can even believe an old story while the rest of us chooses a new action. It’s what we do that matters. Each time we choose a new action, we strengthen the neurological patterns associated with our new action. With repeated practice, our new action becomes habitual, the old story loses its power, and we embody the new story. With that in mind, I share with you the Bare Bones Practice. Grab your journal, get as comfortable as possible, and here we go: The Bare Bones Practice One: Do your best to embody a compassionate witness perspective. Throughout this practice, aim to have two parts of yourself present—a loving yet gently-detached observer and a part who’s activated and sharing its stories. See your story-telling part through the eyes of the compassionate witness, turning toward yourself with warmth and genuine curiosity. If you notice that you start becoming more emotionally activated or more convinced that your stories are true, please try to shift back to a compassionate witness perspective. If you cannot do this at this time, pause the practice, do whatever helps you feel more settled in your body. If you choose, you can return to this practice at another time. Two: Choose a recent situation to work with in which you felt emotionally activated. Choose a moment that’s not deeply shaming but that you feel kind of embarrassed to talk about—aim for about a 3 on a scale on which 0 is not at all activated and 10 is extremely activated. Write down a few words to name the situation. Three: Open your journal so that you have blank sheets on both sides, and write Bare Bones on the top of the left page and Stories on the top of the right page. Four: Write the Bare Bones on the left page. To help yourself find the bare bones, you might ask yourself these questions: 1. What did you actually observe? What did you do or say? What did other people do or say? Bear in mind that our memories are fallible. You might be convinced that someone said something while they’re convinced they did not. Unless you made an audio recording or wrote down what was said, you cannot prove who’s correct. In this case, the bare bones might sound like, “I think I remember so-and-so saying xyz. They say they did not say that.” 2. What sensations or emotions did you feel in your body? Physical sensations and emotions are bare bones. False feelings like unloved, abandoned, or disrespected are stories—interpretations or assessments of people’s actions. You can refer to the Body Sensations List and Emotions Wheels from Chapter 18 for support naming your sensations and emotions. 3. What do you need? Our needs, such as the ones you’ll find in the Needs List in Chapter 1, are bare bones. So are wants or preferred strategies, as long as we take responsibility to name them as what we want. There’s a fine line here. The thought that someone else should or needs to do something is a story. For example, I need you to support me or I need you to listen to me are stories. In contrast, acknowledgement that we want someone to do something, like—I want my partner to take more initiative with the kids or I wish my boss would ask me more questions about my work—are bare bones. Five: Write the Stories on the right page. As soon as a part of you starts telling a story, write down what it says on the Stories page. Listen with gentle curiosity, allow this part to vent, and write down all the stories without filtering, editing, or arguing. One sign you’re really capturing your story is that you might worry what other people would think if they read what you wrote. You can tear up the paper or even burn it when you’re done. Again, look out for false feelings such as “I feel unheard or taken for granted or betrayed.” You can look at the false feelings list in the Body Sensations list to identify other false feeling stories you might be telling. If you hear part of yourself start telling a story and another part reacting with  “I don’t actually believe that,” or two voices in your head arguing about what’s true, keep in mind that these thoughts are probably coming from different parts of yourself. Write it all down, even if the stories conflict with each other. To help bring your stories to light, you may ask yourself: Who’s talking? If various parts are piping up, it can help to name each one to distinguish them from each other. For example, you might name the active parts your Judge or People Pleaser or Voice of Doubt. What is this part telling me that this situation means? About myself? About other people? About the world? What is this part assuming is true about this situation? Here are some examples of stories you might be telling yourself, along with what the bare bones might actually be: Story: They must not be interested in me. I’ll never find a partner. I should just stop trying. Bare Bones: I long for companionship.

I invite you to imagine that you are a great big bus driving through life and that all the passengers are different parts of yourself. The part who wants everyone else to like you, the part who just wants to be left alone, the part who is excited about your big goals, the part who just wants to do nothing, and so many other subpersonalities with their own desires and beliefs about the world. Sometimes, you’re driving along the path through life, aligning with your values, reaching your goals, navigating the twists and turns smoothly. And, other times, you arrive at a crossroads and the passengers on your bus argue about how to proceed. Do you go left? Right? Turn around? Take a sideroad? Maybe the parts mediate their disagreement well and choose their next move easily. Or, maybe they start battling it out, trying to yank the steering wheel in different directions, going back and forth about what to do next rather than making forward movement. Or perhaps, you decide to move forward, but then a part of you slams on the brakes, drains all your gas, hijacks the bus, or careens off the road. As one client wrote: “I kept making promises to myself that tomorrow, I’d do things differently. But then I broke those promises and let myself down again. I didn’t understand why I was acting like my own worst enemy.” So why such stuckness? Why such simultaneously conflicting feelings? Because stuckness is an attempt to meet a need. Because different parts of us have different opinions about which needs we should prioritize and which strategies best meet your needs. I’ll explain: Needs are the universal motivating qualities behind everything we do; needs are why we do what we do. In contrast, strategies are the actions we take to meet our needs; strategies are what we do. Everything that you and I do, from waking to sleeping—even the most harmful actions—is a strategy, an attempt to meet a need. To understand this better, it can help to go back to the beginning, to the day we were born. We Come to Identify with Our Strategies You and I came into this world with lots of needs but no strategies to meet them on our own. And so, from the moment we were born, we started learning all sorts of strategies to meet our needs. We quickly learned that some strategies earned us frowns and rejection, while others strategies earned us smiles and praise. We practiced some strategies over and over until they became habits, and over time, we started identifying with some habits, saying things like: I’m the type of person who… or This is just how I am or I always… or It’s just in my nature to… or I was born this way… To be able to compassionately witness our habitual strategies and cultivate a choiceful relationship with them, it can help to imagine that they are subpersonalities or distinct parts of ourselves. I first learned to call these parts strategy children.[1] Here are some examples of parts that I see often in clients and fellow changemakers: The Achiever: A part that learned to meet our needs by accomplishing big goals and derives its sense of self-worth from our accomplishments. The People Pleaser: A part that learned to meet our needs for safety and stability by prioritizing others’ needs over our own. The Rebel: A part that learned to meet our need for self-respect by going against authority figures and disagreeing with everything they say. The Judge: The part who judges or criticizes ourselves. In the The Four Agreements, Don Miguel Ruiz calls this part the Judge. RuPaul calls this part her Inner Saboteur. Anne Lamott calls hers the itty-bitty-shitty committee. My son, Kai, calls his the Troll. The Victim: The part that blames others for why things are the way they are and abdicates responsibility for choosing a response that honors their needs. In The Four Agreements, Don Miguel Ruiz calls this part the Victim. Other names my clients have used include Griper, Slider, and the Voice of Blame. The Parentified One: This part often develops in people who had to parent ourselves, our sibling(s) or our parent(s) or who find ourselves taking on the responsibilities of our boss or even our boss’s boss. Stuckness is an attempt to meet a need. When a part of ourselves grabs the wheel, steers in a direction that the rest of us would rather not go, or tries to slam on the brakes, that’s because it’s doing its best to meet a need. It fears that, if it relinquishes its strategy, your needs won’t be met and you would be hurt. It’s trying to keep you safe. For example, the strategy of ignoring our bodies might be an attempt to meet needs of ease, relief, or safety. The strategy of focusing on everyone else’s needs but our own might be an attempt to meet needs of belonging, protection, or purpose. Likewise, if you feel conflicted about which way to turn in your life—like if you’re trying to decide whether or not to leave a workplace or relationship, two or more parts are probably prioritizing different needs and are disagreeing about which strategy to use to meet them. For instance, one part may decide to apply to graduate school but another part fears what you’ll have to sacrifice to go back to school and tries to slow down the process. Or you may decide to set a boundary with someone who hasn’t treated you well but another part fears losing a sense of belonging and says you’re being selfish. The more high stakes the situation, the louder the parts will clamor for their preferred strategies. Remember: Every single thing that every single person and part of ourselves does is an attempt to meet a need. Most of our strategies meet most of our needs most of the time, but things can go off course when parts of ourselves grab the wheel and react habitually in ways that serve our current situation less than well. For example, the last time I took the StrengthsFinder assessment, it told me that my number one strength was Achiever. I don’t want to get rid of my inner Achiever. I couldn’t have written this if I had! But if I’m not careful, my Achiever will grab the wheel and keep working when I need to rest. It’s great for my Achiever to come out at 9am. It’s not so great at 9pm. So what to do when a part of ourselves grabs the wheel, using a strategy that serves the moment less than well? How do we take back the wheel and choose a strategy that meets our needs better? First, what not to do: Do not try to silence yourself. When most people feel stuck, they try to convince, cajole, criticize, or discipline (i.e. control through force) the part that’s acting up. Or they avoid their inner experience and passively wait to get unstuck. But neither strategy typically works well. Of course we want to avoid pain and get unstuck, but when we try to fix or silence a struggling part of ourselves, this part can wind up feeling even more unheard, alone, and scared. Until we listen with genuine curiosity to what the struggling part needs and hear the message it is trying to convey, it’s unlikely to relinquish its effort to meet our needs. It’s apt to cry even louder to be heard. When we refrain from striving to fix ourselves and instead turn toward our struggling parts with warmth and welcome, we are far more likely to soothe our nervous systems, choose strategies that actually meet our needs, and cultivate the resilience we need to stay engaged for the long haul. To be whole, we need each part of ourselves, and every part of ourselves has gifts to offer, even if we don’t see them yet. Just like a tuba in a big brass band, each part has an important role to play. If it takes over, we can get a headache, and we may not want each instrument to play at the same time. But we can make space for our wholeness over the course of a week, a month, a lifetime. Our work is to learn how to consciously choose when to invite each out to play. One practice that can help create the observational distance we need to consciously and lovingly choose our response to activated parts and challenging situations is to name the active parts of ourselves. Practice: Naming the Active Part(s) of Yourself If you feel emotionally activated, confused about your next steps, or stuck not taking action, I invite you to get curious about which parts of you are active and play with giving them names. When we’re unaware that a part of us is active, it’s like looking through a mask without realizing the mask is there. When we give our parts names, it’s like we take our masks off and can come into a choiceful conversation with them. Naming multiple parts can also help us distinguish them from each other and make it easier to mediate between them. Here are some suggestions for trying on names: You might name the sensation or emotion you feel. For example, the emotional part or the scared part or the constriction or the sadness or the infuriated part. You may choose a name that reflects a behavior.Some names my clients have chosen are Idawanna (as in “I don’t want to”), the Rabbit Hole Child, the Chaotic One, and Defender. You might simply call this part your inner child or your little. You might also refer to yourself with your first name. Make sure to choose a name the part would want to call itself, a name that is free from judgment. To do that, warmly turn toward the struggling part(s) of yourself and ask them—What would you like me to call you? If you don’t find names that resonate completely, go for good enough. You can choose a name now and change it later. The point is not to classify your parts permanently; they will likely transform as you work with them. The point is to relate to them with awareness and choice. Once you name a part, do your best to use the part’s name. For example, rather than saying,  “I’m so hard on myself,” say My Judge is being really hard on me. Or, rather than saying, “I’m afraid to let people down,” you might say,

Imagine that you’re an antelope. You're grazing on the savanna, minding your own business, when suddenly, out of the shadows, bounds a lion straight toward you. You can’t fight the lion, so you leap into action, running as fast as you can. You run, run, run, and miraculously, you escape. Then, once the lion is gone, you do something that most mammals do after surviving a threat—You shake. As the antelope, escaping the lion is key to surviving, of course. But shaking after you escape is surprisingly important for your survival, too. That’s because, as Emily and Amelia Nagoski explain in their book, Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle, stress and stressors are distinct phenomena that require distinct solutions.[1] Here’s what that means: Stress vs. Stressors Stressors are any stimuli we perceive as a threat. For the antelope, the stressor is the lion. On the other hand, stress is our body’s response to a perceived threat—a cascade of neurochemicals and hormones that our bodies release to prompt us to find safety. As the antelope, you feel stress when the lion starts chasing you. Stress is not inherently bad for us; stress is what happens in our bodies when we perceive that someone or something we care about is at risk. However, stress can wreak havoc when it accumulates in our bodies. As the antelope, even though you escaped the lion, you still need to process the stress by shaking it out of your system. How to Release Your Stress Cultures across time and place have known that we need to shake, cry, laugh, dance, and move our bodies to discharge stress. Unfortunately, modern-day dominant culture, rooted in Puritanism and Calvinist Christianity, disdains physical expressions of emotion. As a result, many of us learn early on that others will reject us if we tremble, yawn, laugh too loud, or express too much emotion. But no matter our social conditioning, in addition to dealing with our stressors, we need to deal with our stress, including the stress of heartbreaking, infuriating, or stressful situations that we witness others experiencing, whether through direct care work, policy work, hearing the news, or witnessing our loved ones struggle If we don't fully discharge our stress, it can stay in our bodies long after we've dealt with the stressors, making it harder to sleep, focus our attention, and access the energy we need to keep going. The stress can build up until it becomes compassion fatigue or burnout. The good news is that because stress and stressors are distinct…  …it is possible to release at least some of our stress even if we don’t have the power to get rid of our stressors. In Burnout, the Nagoskis write that the single most efficient strategy for completing the stress cycle is (drum roll, please)—moving our bodies. They write: “Physical activity—literally any movement of your body—is your first line of attack in the battle against burnout.” Why Physical Movement? Because we’re mammals. We need to speak our body’s mammalian language. If we were faced with a lion, we would… run! If we’re faced with a challenging boss, we need to… run!   Of course, you don’t necessarily need to run away from your boss. You just need to run in addition to dealing with your boss. And, no, you do not need to run, per se. As someone who hated gym class, I am not about to run. What works for me is doing yoga, walking in nature, or hula hooping to reggaeton or ‘90s dance music. You might bounce on a rebounder, punch a kickboxing bag, go for a bike ride, jump rope, take an online exercise class, or crank up the Motown at the end of your day and dance. Somatic Practice If you struggle to integrate exercise into your life, all is not lost. Small micro-movements such as swinging your arms, tapping your face, clenching your muscles and releasing them, taking a long exhale, or circling your ankles can be surprisingly effective for discharging stress and settling the nervous system. These practices are often referred to as somatic practices, soma being a Greek word that means the body, mind, heart, and soul in their wholeness. Because these practices can be far easier to learn with visual and auditory guidance, I’ve created a  free online video portal called Somatic Practices for Social Change. I encourage you to experiment with the practices there and find out which ones soothe and settle you. Once you find a practice you like, experiment with anchoring it to a regular part of your day. For example, you might practice when you wake up, go to sleep, go to the bathroom, wash the dishes, or get into your car. Or you might place a sticky note somewhere you’ll see it frequently with words reminding you such as Practice or Move or Breathe. Then, when you’re facing a challenging decision or feeling activated, do your best to devote a moment to at least one settling practice before choosing your next steps. The more you engage with practices you find settling in the everyday moments, the easier it will probably become to remember to practice when you’re emotionally activated. As Resmaa Menakem, somatic abolitionist and author of My Grandmother’s Hands writes: “Few skills are more essential than the ability to settle your body. If you can settle your body, you are more likely to be calm, alert, and fully present, no matter what is going on around you…   Gather together a large group of unsettled bodies—or assemble a group of bodies and then unsettle them—and you get a mob or a riot.   But bring a large group of settled bodies together and you have a potential movement—and a potential force for tremendous good in the world.”[2] Think of these micro-movements like multivitamins or flossing your teeth. They can take some effort to integrate into your daily routine, but once you do, they can dramatically improve your wellbeing. Here’s a link to my free Somatic Practices for Social Change video portal. I hope you’ll check it out and enjoy. May you find many fun ways to release your stress and nourish your energy.   [1] Amelia & Emily Nagoski. Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle. (New York, NY: Random House, 2020.) [2] Resmaa Menakem, My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies. (Las Vegas: Central Recovery Press, 2017.)

I invite you to pick up an imaginary rubber band. Hook one end of the rubber band around your right forefinger and the other around your right thumb, with your palm facing away from you. Your forefinger represents the world and the life that you long for. Your thumb represents your current reality. Imagine pulling the rubber band between your forefinger and thumb and feeling the tension.[1] I call this inevitable chasm between where we are right now and where we long to be the Gap of Longing. This gap can become a Gap of Despair or a Gap of Hope. Let’s explore the Gap of Hope first. The Gap of Hope Hope is different from optimism.[2] Whereas optimism expects that our actions will probably bring a positive outcome and everything will probably turn out alright, hope faces reality. Hope knows there are no guarantees and that in many cases, the odds are not in our favor. And yet, in the face of devastation and peril, hope is the willingness to take a stand for what we love—whether that’s ourselves, our people, or the planet. In the words of writer and activist, Rebecca Solnit, hope says: “Anything could happen, and whether we act or not has everything to do with it.” When I speak of despair and hope, I speak of them not as emotions but as stances or postures from which action can spring forth.[3] As abolitionist organizer Mariame Kaba writes, “‘Hope is a discipline.’ [1] I first learned this rubber band model from Peter Senge’s 2006 book, The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of the Learning Organization. He calls this the creative tension model. [2] Rebecca Solnit. Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities. (Haymarket Books, Chicago, IL: March 16, 2016.) [3] Meriame Kaba. https://theintercept.com/2021/03/17/intercepted-mariame-kaba-abolitionist-organizing/