So much of what we are told about self-care is to go for a walk, take a bath, talk to your friend, eat healthier food, take a vacation, etc. It’s always that you have to do something for yourself to feel better. You can belong to yourself again through activities. According to Dr. Pooja Lakshmin, author of Real Self-Care (Crystals, Cleanses, and Bubble Baths Not Included), "real self-care is not a thing to do, it’s a way to be...it’s about changing your internal reality - o

On Creative Care & Returning to Yourself Image courtesy of Unsplash In the last article, I wrote about elemental belonging - the relationship to the body, physical space we inhabit, and our individual possessions. And, by birth we are endowed with autonomy of conscience, thought, and emotion. We are creative beings that deserve and need to know our own hearts and minds. This is the domain of personal belonging. Particularly over the summer, I started paying closer attentio

Author's picture from a family trip to Costa Rica Each of us is a seed that needs love and care to grow and become our potentiality. Before we are executives, founders, or organizers, we are elements of nature. We are bodies. Elemental belonging is our ability to return to, find comfort in, and care for our actual bodies and the material stuff we carry alongside and abide in during our lives. It is our remembering and embodying that human beings are not apart from nature

Throughout my career I have had a fascination with the relationships between people in organizations. Not the kind that you might get in trouble for with HR. Rather, I’ve been curious about how individuals and teams work together (or don’t) to meet goals and make change. Most of my work and figuring out of this has been in the nonprofit sector. For nearly fifteen years I’ve prioritized relationality - aka the association of people (for the co-op heads reading this!)- in m

Organizational survival cannot rely on the personal privilege and marginalized statuses of their leaders and staff. Systemic Durability is the process of mapping your organization's true human capacity and aligning it with your values, principles, and strategic goals. If your mission relies on your staff over-functioning, you do not have a sustainable mission—you have an extractive one. The Shadow Budget is the invisible, uncompensated tax of emotional labor, conflict media