Hi friend,
The world is extra rough this week. An ongoing global pandemic that's chewing through marginalized and vulnerable people. Schoolchildren being gunned down here in the U.S. (again). Rights being taken away.
My autistic focus on justice is just pinging all over the place right now. (Here's a
thread about how that works from an ADHD standpoint, which is very similar.)
It's hard for me to see injustice. I want to fight it. And when I can't, it's extra hard.
I also saw someone say recently that the mental fatigue and brain fog many of us are feeling lately can be the expression of an accumulation of grief, and oh, so I feel that (pun only somewhat intended).
I'm giving myself as much ease, grace, patience and rest as I possibly can right now. Can you do the same for you?
(Also, we've released the remaining Exhale Retreat tickets to the public, and there are only two spots left, so
grab yours now if you're considering going.)
Now on to this week's thought:
Growing up, I absorbed plenty of cultural messages about women and women's voices (literal and metaphorical).
Women are always chattering. Women never shut up. Women love to gossip. Women talk, talk, talk.
That was long before I knew anything about misogyny, or how the same emotional and relationship labor that women are expected to perform is also looked down on when we do it (by…talking).
But like everyone else in our culture, I internalized those messages. And when I saw the length of the brand-new Embodiment For the Rest of Us podcast episode on which I was a guest, I almost wrote a charmingly self-deprecating email about gosh, I know this is long, I just love to talk, I never shut up, hahaha please don't hate me.
And you know what? The urge that tells us to minimize and apologize for our own voices is trash. This episode is long because it's full of good and important discussion.
Here's an excerpt of our conversation:
"L: I’m preparing to reopen my calendar for the first time in, in two years for client photography sessions. And it’s been such a fantastic time for me to think what served me two years ago in working with clients does that still serve me both from a both from a peer, like, business process standpoint and, and, and thinking of all the things that I want to revamp. Like I want to, you know, redo my client guide and things like that.
But, but also I’m physically a little different than I was two years ago and making sure that I built in the self care and the space that I need. Umm, I’m struggling with a little bit of back pain right now because middle age [laughs] So, so, when I plan a session, I need to either take my folding stool or make sure that I’m going to have, you know, a chair so I can sit down if I need to. Just so making those choices as well, you know.
And, and thinking, what serves me, what serves me today? What’s going to serve me in six months? And making sure that I build that into my life and into my processes and also going to the freaking physical therapist and doing my freaking exercises so I can not have back pain.
[L and C laugh]
C: Yeah, absolutely.
J: Mmm.
L: You know which is a process, a set of choices that I’m making right now, and I don’t always make the choice to do those exercises, but then my body says you made that choice, right? Yeah, OK.
C: Here we are.
L: Here we are.
C: It’s a conversation I’ve been having with my oldest son, like, this is not a punishment, but this is what the consequences are of blank [laughs]
It’s not a bad thing, we’re not judging, but here’s a consequence and you just have to decide it’s harm reduction. Is it worth it to do blank knowing that blank will be the result. Sometimes it is and sometimes it isn’t.
L: Yeah. Exactly, exactly and it’s, and it’s OK for us to make those choices.
C and J: Yeah. Mmm.
L: You know, if, if I, umm, I had a migraine the other day and I was, like, I’m not getting down on the floor and getting out my, getting out my physical therapy stretches. Stretching, making my hamstrings unhappy when I have a headache, and, and so the consequence of that was that I hurt more the next day, and that was OK. Because I made that choice.
J: Mmm.
L: Umm, feeling, rather than feeling guilty about, Oh no, I’m so bad, I didn’t do my exercises and now I hurt and it’s because I’m a bad person, because we do.
We internalize those things as judgments of ourselves because we have that [desire for] perfection, and like Jenn was saying, you know, purity culture, and diet culture, and, and, and authoritarian power and privilege structures.
They all say that we need to meet these impossible standards, and that if we don’t, it’s because we’re bad or our bodies are bad or our brains are bad. For those of us who are neurodivergent, you know [we're taught] our brains are bad, and none of those things are true.
We’re just, we’re all part of the spectrum of humanity and we cannot by definition, umm, you know, be bad people just for having a human body with needs or a brain with needs, you know? It’s just, it’s just as valid as, you know, my needs are just as valid as Jenn’s or Chavonne’s, or you, the listener, or, I don’t know, the president or, you know, or, or a supermodel, like none of that.
None of our bodies are more valid in their existence than any other."
