Dear Substack Community: I am sitting down with a cup of hot tea, and I encourage you to grab a nice, cozy beverage to enjoy while you read this post. I chose tea, because I’m trying to support my immune system and health by drinking more tea during these wintery months.
Fridays are a time for me to sit down and think about care and then write about the subject. I’ve been thinking about what my question is this year and I think it’s about flourishing. Are we flourishing? How might we flourish?
Friday Care Package
I have been noticing that there are a lot of feelings bubbling up, but not a lot of encouragement to process these feelings. I’m part of a poker text thread where everything is a joke, and I shared my feelings about how I don’t think it’s funny to normalize violence through jokes. I likely pissed off the guys who were in the group, but if I don’t say anything, who will?
We already live in a violent culture, and the ways in which people are socialized is also violent. When we will start to put care into everything we are doing?
Relationships move at the pace of trust.
So, today, on Friday, let’s honor the feelings we are harboring inside of us. Let’s do the necessary inner work to change ourselves, so we can change the world.
Nothing changes, if nothing changes. This includes us!
I know many of you have been watching the Executive Orders and watching our political theater. Get to know your community. Communities have a chance to practice democracy, and with a moral imagination, we can make a difference during these next four years. We are doing something right, if they are being this violent towards everyone.
I’m writing about care, because I think we need to nurture our visible and invisible ecologies. I want to plant seeds for another possible world. I’m learning that people are really stuck in their ways and don’t want change. I’ll never motivate those folks to make change, but there are people with a growth mindset who are evolving and have evolved over time who want to see the Beloved Community emerge. I’d like to be a part of that movement where we help heal our world and repair our land by placing care into everything we are doing.
Care Plan
Breathe and feel your feet on the ground.
Locate where your anger is in your body.
Work with the anger and the energy that is bubbling up inside of you.
Exhale and move the energy out.