This is my favorite family picture of us from this summer. We’re sweaty but everyone is looking at the camera! I realize I haven’t been posting here for a while. After taking a long break, I’m discovering that while I miss connecting with people here, I’m generally calmer and happier without as much social media in my life. So, I’m probably going to stay quiet most of the time but my love is constant. ❤️ Still, I wanted to give a little update because SO much has changed of late. The first is that I’ve fundamentally changed the way I work. I’m closing up all my current self-care programs and now teaching self-care to businesses and organizations. My big vision is that by creating individual self-care culture, organizations can create much richer community care. Maybe unsurprisingly, there’s a lot of demand for this kind of work right now! People are rethinking self-care in big ways and I’m finding a whole new receptivity to the self-care framework I’ve been learning and codifying for years. (Do you want to create a self-care culture at your workplace? Message me!) Also, Micah left his job to create his own federal policy consultancy! He’s focusing on psychedelic reform for healing and his big vision is that psychedelic therapy (which is about to explode in our culture I predict) is what we need to heal the fallout from the War on Drug. Big, exciting stuff! We’re still home all day with the kiddos (except we have a glorious babysitter who comes each afternoon ❤️). Our kids are happy, curious, and challenge us to no end. We’re following our bigger purpose, we’re staying with the tasks of the day, and we’re navigating all the moments of doubt that pop up along the way. We’re taking care of ourselves in such imperfect and important ways. I hope you are, too.❤️
If you know me at all, you know how much I distrust the modern medical industry. In a system where people’s illnesses are the profit, I’m highly suspicious that I could ever get well with most interventions. I don’t have a primary care doctor, always try herbal remedies instead of over-the-counter medicine, and of course, opted to birth both of my kids at home. ♥️ All of that said, I’m so deeply grateful to have gotten my first shot yesterday! Being vaccinated is a personal privilege and an act of service to my community. I’m all for it! ♥️ In our world right now, it can be very hard to find the middle path of avoiding harmful parts of a dysfunctional society while embracing the very helpful ones. But it is very possible to distrust the whole system while still doing our part to take care of each other. Please get vaccinated and share your reasons why with others!
Happy birthday to Rose! This girl is full of laughter and tears and everything that makes up life itself. I shared this last year in my birth story but when I was giving birth to her I had this incredible vision of Mother Mary. It was really profound! This divine love feeling has pervaded my first year of being Rose’s mother, along with healthy doses of overwhelm and frustration. I know we have our challenges ahead (the mother/daughter thing!), but it’s also meaningful to pause and just say HELL YEAH to making it through this first year of two kids. Thank you so much for all your love and support. On one level we’ve really had to do it alone this year as parents, but on another I feel very lifted up and loved by everyone. Happy birthday Rose, and big love to you all! 🌹 ♥️
I’ve been thinking so much about this post from @tara_mcmullin about how often small business owners sell out the tough but important work of care and maintenance in favor of creation and disruption. From the beginning of my business, I’ve been urged to farm out my customer relations to assistants because my time was more “valuable” starting new programs or attracting new clients. After some experimentation, I found this practice absolutely did not work for me and have made many conscious decisions to do this care work myself, even if it meant keeping my business smaller. Of course this has so many implications in motherhood, too! Over the years, I’ve made a few conscious decisions to spend more time at home with my kids, which is an absolute privilege due to my ability to work for my self and overall socioeconomic stability. This time with them is HARD work, but I also find it so rewarding. Honestly, the hardest part is feeling the disconnect between the value I feel in my caretaking work and the absolute negation of this value in our society. I can tell myself this intellectually but emotionally I can feel “less than” when I talk about the work I’m doing at home compared to some else’s “real” work in an office or when I feel that strange sense of having done “nothing” even though I’m exhausted at the end of the day. More and more, I see this devaluing of care as either the major cause or symptom of a dysfunctional society. Teachers and food service workers don’t make a living wage even though it’s never been more apparent the value and sacrifice of their work. Recognizing the disconnect between value and care in myself helps me stay motivated to advocate for others who don’t have my luxuries and privileges. I think this is such a big, important topic so I’d really love to hear your thoughts on this. How do you value care work for yourself? How can that inner value translate out into our world as true care for all?
Being a parent to two kids is really a lot! Especially as Rose has gotten more mobile, I’ve had to work harder to make sure she’s not destroying Jonah’s play creations or he’s not knocking her over when he spins around in our heavy antique office chair. Talk about having to stay in the present moment! Especially when Micah is upstairs working, I’d say the predominant feeling of this stage of motherhood is needing to pee. 😂 It’s just really hard to keep the focus on myself. Despite it all and maybe even because of it all, I feel more grounded and confident as a mother now than I did when it was just Jonah. I miss those sweet times of hanging out with him so much, but I realize how often I just tried to be his playmate. Mothering two means I have to be much more of a manager and a facilitator, and both of those roles are a much more natural fit for my talents. Things that have also helped: gating off a separate play space for Jonah, making sure I get alone time with each kiddo everyday, and having a very established schedule of breaks where I do simple yet decadent-feeling things just for me. Once again, routines for the self-care win! They help make sure everyone has the care they need and allow us to practice creativity within the restraints. The boring stuff is really essential in both motherhood and life. ♥️
🍲 As part of @printedmatter_artbookfairs 2021 Fair join me and @maninoush (selfcarefully designer/illustrator) and @dannylicht (author of Cooking as Though You Might Cook Again, @3holepress ) for conversation, cooking, and storytelling. 🍲
February 26, 5:00-6:00 pm EST Co-presented with @thickpress 🤍
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Learn how to make three beloved dishes (sweet potato! moudardara! rice and beans!). Share stories about cooking as comfort, cooking as care, and cooking as something to do each and every day, without perfectionism. (That doesn't mean there's no place for fancy cooking!) Wonder with others what cooking for yourself can teach you about your interconnected self.
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ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Gracy Obuchowicz, author of selfcarefully (@thickpress ) helps people transform their lives through the practice of authentic self-care.
Maria Habib, designer and illustrator of selfcarefully (@thickpress ) plays with language and expression via design, drawing, words, and nourishment.
Danny Licht, author of Cooking as Though you Might Cook Again (@3holepress ), lives in Los Angeles.
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RSVP for the event at tinyurl.com/CookingForYourself
Free!
👀Closed captions can be accessed by opening the following URL in a separate window during the event: /captioner
Rose turns one this Friday (I know, how did that happen so quickly?!), and to celebrate I want to make a few posts this week on what I’m learning about motherhood and life these days. I’ve found that even though raising children is incredibly important to the health of our world, we rarely speak about it honestly and directly. So I’ll try! Like for many of us, this year has been an intense one for me. Rose was born just as the pandemic started and all of my plans for a peaceful postpartum and eventual return to full time daycare for both kids had to change. Instead, I had to learn how to get through uncomfortable-feeling moments and the monotony of the days. I found that with two kids there were a lot more tears, so much more mess, and my pretty-sensitive nervous system almost always felt overwhelmed by all the activity and noise and always togetherness. But even the worst days would pass and after a while, I noticed I wasn’t checking the clock as often to see if we were any closer to nap time. I’ve learned to soften into the chaos and become more present to what is instead of what I want something to be. The result is that I’m a lot more okay with what’s happening, even if what’s happening is my own messy, anxious response to stress. I’ve come to realize how much we are conditioned to not adapt with stress in our culture. Instead, we numb, we fight, we turn our backs. Practicing self-care during this year of grit has shown me the beauty and honor of just being as fully as I can in ALL of this life stuff and finding ways to trust the process. Honestly, I find myself expecting that my kids be okay with the ups and downs of everything. (And so often they really are!) Somehow it feels much wiser that I figure out how to really do this for myself and trust that it will trickle down into all the right places. ♥️
First, just a little lifey update! I haven’t been much in this space lately because you know, quarantining with child takes some time and energy. Just after I got through the early-January slump, my husband Micah’s pretty-constant back pain amped up to excruciating. Long story short, he needs urgent surgery and is scheduled for next week. It’s scary in many ways but so is the possibility of him living with this level of pain forever. So we’re working with it and wishing fir everyone possible best outcome. I wish I could say that I’m holding up great with the stress, but honestly it’s a lot and I hit my energy limits most days. I’m having to rethink my self-care and find new ways to recharge that don’t take a lot of time. One of those is staying off screens and I have to say, the less time I spend on social media, the better I feel. But I also miss connecting here! Oh, the paradox of everything, especially right now. 🙃 Second, I have a new podcast out in the “Self-Care as Magic” series with the epic @rebathediva ! We talk about why sensual self-care is it’s own form of magic and Reba coaches me through some of my own blocks to pleasure. Powerful stuff! 🔥❤️These magical conversations have been some of the favorite of my life, no joke. I want to record more once life settles down so stay tuned. Until then, I really hope you can listen because you’ll learn so much self-care from Reba! The link is on my bio, please let me know if you have comments/questions and please take extra good care of yourself. ✨♥️✨
Last summer, an astrologer friend read my chart as it relates to my work. He told me that after a long period of regrouping (which I’ve had over the past couple years), my work would rise to great importance in February 2020. February 2020? All I knew was Rose would be born around then and I was planning to take time off. As the pandemic hit, we went into lockdown and the uprisings for justice happened, I started to have a glimmer of what he was predicting. You see, for a while now I’ve felt like I was getting ready for something. I’ve been studying, teaching, and gathering healing practices that actually worked for me and my clients. The self-care framework that’s emerged has helped me understand my capacity to care for myself and be of service to others in a whole new way. Now, as we’re in a moment when I think a lot of us are hungry to understand our lives and our purpose in a new way, it’s felt like a true gift to share this revolutionary power of self-care. What I’m describing here is visionary leadership. It’s about seeing ahead to what’s needed next and doubling down on your values so you also can chart the path for others. I’m so grateful for the passion-based work I get to do and I also won’t lie, it’s been challenging. I’ve had to wrestle with my demons of not feeling good enough, my fears of disappointing others, and get very clear on some damaging money shadows. There have been times I’ve felt like I was trying to steer a boat without a real rudder. And yet, engaging fully with this path and my purpose is how I’ve grown as a woman and a human being. It’s truly been profound. Now, as we need everyone who can to move into visionary leadership, I feel more passionate than ever about sharing self-care. I’ve found practicing authentic self-care is how you grow and that self-care helps with the hardest parts of growth. But I don’t think you can practice this kind of self-care alone. You need a community to cheer you on and hold you accountable. If you’re ready for an inspirational self-care community, The Beautiful Life Collective is open for new members until this Saturday (10/24). Click the link in my bio to learn more!
I’m so excited to announce that I’ve been featured on the Fuel Your Fire Podcast with the lovely Alicia Wood! @camp.fuel !
I’m on episode 6: “Self Improvement vs Self Care, What's The Difference?”
We talk about the essential difference between self-improvement and self-care. So often people can get the two confused but the difference is super important if you want your self-care to work.
This is a great episode to help you understand how to have self-compassion, the harmful effects of perfectionism and how changing habits can help.
Click >> @alicia.rose.wood and head to the link her bio to listen now! Enjoy and take extra good care of yourselves this week!
The amazing @rebathediva is hosting a free BIPOC-only Women’s Self-Care Support Circle this Saturday, October 17th from 5 to 6pm ET. From Reba: “This will be space for us to be our whole selves and build relationships with each other by creating a deep platonic intimacy and sharpening our abilities to hold space for each other and ourselves.” This is so important. Please sign up and share with your loved ones! https://mailchi.mp/9ef41042beb5/7f5juqgv3s
tl;dr: I’m hosting a free self-care fireside chat on 10/18. Sign up information in my bio! *** How are you doing right now? As I go through my days (which pretty much all feel the same except I watch more TV on weekend nights 🙃), I’m always thinking about how everyone else is going through their days. Are people really scared or feeling hope? Anxious or tapping into deep strength? Is self-care flowing or does it feel hard? I know we’re facing unprecedented challenges and murky unknowns and that can bring up all the feelings. I also know that self-care doesn’t solve any of the mess, but I do think it gives us the capacity to hold ourselves together enough to deal with our problems. But so often we’re confused about what self-care really means! For that, I’m hosting a free self-care fireside chat called “Revolutionary Practices of Beauty and Grace” on 10/18 at 4pm ET. I just want to share as much self-care wisdom as I can fit into an hour because I think it’s going to serve us all in what comes next. Please sign up (link in my bio) and share with your loved ones. (And yes, I’ll share the recording after in case you can’t be live.!) *** Sometimes we don’t know why we are practicing something, just that we must. I believe this is one of those times. I’m very excited to support your practice for whatever happens next.♥️
