Reflections on fear, vulnerability, and persistence.
Mid-March, I set up a spreadsheet to track my content and make these month-in-review posts easier to generate. Scrolling through March’s spreadsheet, I see “persistence” tagged in post after post.
In this post about how to respond when someone hits you square in your most vulnerable spots.
In this post about self-care when you’re totally overwhelmed.
In this blog post about self-care in post-secondary and professional environments.
In this post about celebrating small successes, and in this post about the drudgery of self-care.
In March, I was trying to survive.
In all these posts about persistence there is a stubborn refusal to give in to the exhaustion and hopelessness of the last (long) while. And there is a recognition that self-care is not always about getting to happy, or about thriving, or about living your best life. Sometimes self-care is just about living this life, despite the fact that you can’t even picture your “best life” at the moment. Sometimes self-care is just about persistence.
Persist.
Keep going.
Do what you need to do to get to tomorrow.
I felt a lot of hopelessness in March – some of the “plot twist” transitions that inspired me to start this work have gotten heavy. Stepparenting is so challenging. Trying to navigate the learning curve, and trying to also integrate my new parental identity (one that does not sit easily or comfortably within my previous narratives).
Our theme week for March was Fear and Vulnerability, inspired by the Ides of March and by my own mental state. I’ll be compiling those seven posts into a longer post later this week, but for now you can read up on them here:
Day 1: Let yourself love what you love. (Yikes!)
Day 2: Trust your gut. (Yiiiiikes!)
Day 3: Sometimes you really are as vulnerable as you feel. How to get through those moments of vulnerability and pain.
Day 4: Invisibility and hypervisibility, and how to hold onto the complex true stories of yourself.
Day 5: Let yourself fail.
Day 6: Recognizing how fear feels in your body, and knowing when fear is disguised as other emotions.
Day 7: Allowing yourself to feel and process fear even when you can’t move past it.
At the end of Fear and Vulnerability week, I did something that felt very vulnerable – I finally announced a seasonal theme (despite having developed themes for every season and totally failing to announce the Winter theme!)
∞ Sharpening the double-edged sword.” The second quarter, from the Spring Equinox to the Summer Solstice in June, will focus on the mental self, and the element of air. Inspiration for this campaign comes from the Tarot suit of swords, particularly the Queen of Swords, with her self-awareness, focus, and melancholy. Posts will explore narratives of mental health and neurodivergence, with a series of posts on cognitive traps and maladaptive thought patterns, and how to shift them. This campaign will also focus on healthier approaches to the “positive thinking” trap, and on skills that help us become aware of how our thoughts shape our interpretation of reality.
I’ve shared the first couple posts that fit directly into the theme, in this post about “double-edged sword” traits and accepting both sides, and in announcing the Spring online course (the first in a series of online courses that will follow the seasonal themes for the rest of this year).
If you would like to register for the Spring course – a 6-week course on the topic of expressive writing for mental self-care, at a cost of $60 with sliding scale available, send me an email!
Looking back over the posts for the month of March, I’m struck by how often I talked about persistence, and survival.
This time of year is often challenging – even though the new growth of full spring is on the horizon, we’re still slogging through the mud. Those of us in post-secondary settings (or with kids in school) are struggling with end of term. Papers are due, grades are coming in, everything seems to critical and so final and so urgent.
Many of us are still struggling with the sticky tentacles of seasonal affective disorder, and although the sun returning brings some relief, we’re tired.
And, this year more than most, we are continuing to watch the world dissolve into chaos.
It is overwhelming.
I see the impact of that in my self-care content, and in all the content that I started to write and never finished – the darker posts written on the darker days.
I hinted at some of the darkness and overwhelm in my own life in this post about taking up space. This continues to be a challenging theme in my own personal life, and although I am not really enjoying the challenge presented by constantly having my identity invalidated and erased, I am using it as an opportunity to expand my self-care repertoire and my understanding of how identity threat, and stereotype threat, influences the resources we have available for self-care.
This work is starting to show up in other spaces, and has informed my approach to the duoethnography I’m co-authoring with Mel Carroll, on the topic of non-binary identity formation and expression in relational contexts (both personal relationships – partnering, parenting, befriending – and professional relationships – service providers, colleagues, employers).
In April, starting this coming week, I will be launching Thinking Through Thursdays, a series of posts that focus on “healthier approaches to the ‘positive thinking’ trap, and on skills that help us become aware of our thoughts shape our interpretation of reality.” This series will run until the end of the season. If there’s a cognitive trap or bias that you’d really like to see on addressed on a Thursday, let me know (and give me a week’s notice). Patreon patron requests will be given priority.
I also shared a bunch of links in March. They’re rounded up below.
Resources for expanding your self-care repertoire, from this post about trying something new:
Keaira LaShae’s workout videos are fun and energizing (and a favourite of my best friend) and this video is multigenerational.
Resources on decolonizing yoga
Accessible fitness (this is less “how-to at home” and more “how-to as an instructor” but there is such a pervasive notion that fitness is about losing weight and is primarily for bodies that fit the norm – I like how this article challenges all of that
Writing prompts focused on healing
At home spa treatments to help with stress
The Awkward Activist on cooking and self-care
This excellent article on how the author is using self-care to survive while waiting to get into a therapy program. The advice is practical, achievable, and specific.
“But self-care is important – especially for those of us whose mental health isn’t 100%.
It’s basically just committing to look after yourself, treat yourself kindly, and make your wellbeing priority.
Self-care is not a substitute for professional help. But for now, it’s the best thing I can do.” – Ellen Scott
This post, titled “Despair is Not a Strategy: 15 principles of hope,” hit me hard in the feels the day I shared it.
“If you’re out there trying to change your neighborhood, community, city, country, or the world then this is for you. In moments when everything seems hopeless, read this to get your hope on.” – Abby Brockman
And this set of links, shared on Trans Day of Visibility, about self-care for trans and non-binary folks.
This post from the Audre Lorde Project includes further resources and a worksheet. This is not trans-specific, but is trans-inclusive.
Teen Vogue’s article is specifically for trans and non-binary students, but the tips are broadly applicable for non-students.
This list of four resources from Colorlines is excellent, and I included the Colorlines link rather than a link to each resource individually because Colorlines is, itself, such a valuable resource. Only one of the listed resources is trans-specific, but because trans people of colour face experience visibility in such a heightened and vulnerable way, each of these resources is worthwhile if that’s the intersection you’re standing at.
This post from Everyday Feminism is specifically about self-caring through dysphoria, which can be triggered hugely by in/visibility.
This is one person’s list of self-care tools as a non-binary trans person.
Onward, through April!
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