✨systems of resilience☁️
a path down to recentering, a path to find okay
systems of resilience
Hi sweet humans! ONE WHOLE YEAR OF THE FRIENDSHIP NEWSLETTER! 🎉
I had this whole other newsletter planned and then white nationalists did their white nationalist thing, and here we are. One thing that 2020 taught me was to be really good at shifting gears, and what to prioritize when shit BLOWS UP. How do we take care when so much needs to be taken care of?
Dismantling systems of oppression is a journey, and we need ALL OF US IN IT. So when the world does its dumpster fire thing, which it will continue to do into 2021 and years and years after. We are primed and ready to show up for what we need, our community needs.
So, how yah doin? Like seriously, how is it going? Are you tired? Are you unsure? Anxious? I am all of the above, I have been working on the systems that keep me centered, the things that help me feeling ok. So what I am off course, scrolling on my phone, or feeling hopeless or arguing with people in my head, I know how to return to myself. I know how to take care of myself. I able to do my job that contributes financially to local organizers doing their work (like camping in front of city hall for weeks to defund the police). Or I have the capacity to yell about things in my classes and help others take care so we all have the capacity to call in our racist friends and neighbors. I take care so you can take care and we can take care together.
I say these things as a reminder for both me and you. Because taking care is a practice we have to come back to daily, moment to moment. I say these things as a student of taking care. Dr Emily Bennett has some great words on burnout and overwhelm in political upheaval.
Something 2020 taught me was to be kind when things and plans change, or to be ok with not planning. Because I do not know what the world will look like in 6 weeks, or what my planned email will look like the next day. I want to carry this lesson of constant shifting and change into 2021. I spent some time filling out my Year Compass (got a BIT further than I did last year too, maybe I'll actually finish it this year!?) I thought reflecting on 2020 would be frivolous. But it was a sweet reminder that despite this year having big loss, I am okay. I spent a lot of time in the park with my friends, lotsssss of time sitting on my porch drinking coffee with Simon and my dog, and I quit my job and started my own business, taught my first movement teacher training, and tried my best to stay committed to myself and my mission on planet earth. I don't say this as a "silver lining", I don't really think I believe in silver linings, because when a cloud of grey shit comes rolling in - no amount of metallic can make that feel less shitty. But instead to hold space for both things. For the awful shit storm, and for the park hangs and lying in the grass (and now that winter is here, posting up in the goose shit covered gazebo in the park with your friends in your deck chairs and blankets). To know that lying in the grass is an act of resilience so I can also show up to the protest, or have the capacity to tell my family that that word isn't nice and that we can all do better, together.
You are everything. Everything is you. To be a human alive in the universe experiencing the ebb and flow of time. Wow. We are lucky. I love you.
Things to recenter ☁️
Move your body – Whitney Huston in the kitchen is good for this, a walk in the woods. I love love that teaching movement is part of my job, my BOSU cardio class on Tuesdays is like kitchen dancing but WITH me. 🎈
B O U N D A R I E S What depletes you? Place some boundaries around that baby and consume and communicate when you have the capacity.
INSPIRATION OH MY GOD! Read a beautiful book, look closely at mushrooms, listen to one good song and only do that, surround yourself with the stuff that inspires your mission on planet earth.
Do nothing.
I love you all, 💖
xx
phoebe
p.s
if you love the online friendship newsletter forward this to a friend who might like to subscribe or share an excerpt on social media and tag us/me/we @okayshoe xo WORD OF MOUTH WILL ALWAYS BE THE SWEETEST MOST SPECIAL WAY TO SHARE ART, LOVE, BEING OK, AND CREATION IN THE UNIVERSE!!! ✨