Last week, many of us awoke to yet another white domestic terrorism massacre that this time, targeted the Asian American and Pacific Islander communities.
My heart is with all of you who feel unsafe right now.
I continue to do my own social justice work to unlearn my own racism, including in my local community, so these terrorist acts and white supremacy become less frequent in our lifetime.
For those of you new here, by racism I mean my own unconscious biases and actively being anti-racist to dismantle white supremacy systems and structures, not bigotry, which I naively used to think racism was.
And now we grieve. And show up to support your communities.
And then this morning, we awoke to another gun massacre in Boulder, Colorado (at the time of this writing, details are still emerging). I have many clients who live in Colorado and I’m thinking of all of you.
If gun safety feels like an issue you’d like to get involved with, I interviewed Shannon Watts, Moms Demand Action founder five years ago on Insatiable. In this interview, she provides information about this highly effective organization and great ways to get involved in sensible gun safety measures. I have been involved with them since that interview and can say from experience they make it very easy to make a difference.
There’s no real way to transition to this week’s content, except we certainly need better mental health support for the world we are living in…
My client Serena Ryder just released her new album, The Art of Falling Apart, about her mental health journey.
Click image to watch my IG Live with Serena
My top three take-aways from this IG Live:
1. Going off anxiety and depression medication too fast can backfire. We live in a culture of extremes. And most of us haven’t read the side-effects of medication withdraw to understand how gently we have to wean.I had a hard crash like Serena when I tried to go off my anti-depressants to quickly. Remember: moderation is the new radical.
2. Giving up alcohol radically transformed Serena’s mental health. And then she had to deal with her original vice, food (we discuss our work together). What helped her with both relationships was realizing she was giving her power away. There’s so much power and self-discovery when we mine the gold in our feelings. It’s not just that we don’t over drink or overeat, we actually get in touch with what we need and want so we can go after what we want most for our lives.
3. Mental health is about the climate, not the weather. This is a metaphor I shared with Serena about our emotions. We discuss why this is so important to understand in tracking our progress of “are we getting better?” when we never arrive at “perfect” mental health.
This Thursday’s Ask Me Anything IG Live is with Kate Jesuele at 3 pm EST time. We’ll discuss a recent study that showed pregnant women who exercise reduce their children’s risk for diabetes and other metabolic issues. This is not a call for Mothers to do one more thing (massive eye roll), but a call to center Mothers and community to create a culture that supports life.
Be well,
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