I love art.

I wish I could draw and write every day — and earn a living doing it. And, in that tension, I am also very privileged to do the organizing work I do day to day. I remind myself, we can hold multiple truths. I can love my job and wish my schedule had more freedom to do the other things I love.

The challenge with my job-job, as I affectionately call it, is that by the end of the day I am so tired. We have so many Zoom meetings where we are sharing ideas, coaching, and strategizing; but then there is the work that needs to be done.

I am an introvert. I get my energy in the time away from people, no matter how much I enjoy and love people.

So, the day extends beyond a traditional work day in order to get all the things done. For example, at the time of this writing, I took a break after the last meeting to make dinner because it was dinner time. That means, I was working from 9am through 5:30pm. I “took a break to make dinner,” and then went back to the work computer to finish only some of the tasks on my daily list I wasn’t able to get to during all the meetings.

But, what about me? What about the fun I want to have? So, after I got as much work done in a 10+ hour day, I pulled out the personal computer to have fun creating. Again, at the time of this writing, to allow that free unfettered creative thinking space, time moved passed a reasonable bedtime into the wee hours (after midnight).

So, I sit in this tension of wanting to create, from the heart, and feeling like I can only do it if things get sacrificed. And, what got sacrificed when drafting this was sleep. Sleep restores the body and the mind. The ability to create. So, the question begs, who gets to create without interrupted time?

These past few months, I’ve found myself wandering through the museum. In the most recent wandering, the husband and I examined the David Hockney exhibit that the Art Museum has on full display.

A wealthy, local capitalist is sharing his collection for museum goers, and it’s extensive. Prints — done by hand and by iPad, spanning decades.

I first heard of Hockney through Ted Lasso where the character, Rebecca, was callously throwing away a $2 million print because it belonged to her ex, Rupert. There is a tidy homage to Hockney, where at the end of the show she acquires a different piece. Art as healing.

This British artist, Hockney, was able to make it. He’s still alive! And, what it looks like — knowing these pieces — his work can sell for millions now, and he was on the forefront of iPad creation… he gets to play in his art now.

And, I’d be remiss if I didn’t admit that I am jealous.

In that jealousy sprouts curiosity — who gets to create for their living and who doesn’t?

This reflection brings back the most memorable woman artist I studied in school: Mary Cassatt, who created art in the late 1800s. She painted mostly women and children. In my survey class, she was only given a nod of appreciation to the art she created. Art that absolutely rivaled the artists of her time in talent, composition, and technique. I get curious, why was Cassatt the only woman painter we looked at? Additionally, where were the artists of different ethnicities? We were so focused on Euro-centric people.

I also get curious about the women authors who had male pen names so they could get published, like Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte.

And, I get curious about artists like Van Gogh who were so talented but, “before their time”.

Who gets published? Recognized? Shown? And who doesn’t?

In this reflection, I also think of the book I can’t finish — Deep Work by Cal Newport. Modern authors, authors of 150-200 years ago. Artists now, and artists of centuries past. Who are we propping up, and who never gets their work shown?

In Deep Work, Newport argues that if you could just focus long enough on a task, you could accomplish great things.

I would love uninterrupted time. I would love the time to let my brain refresh. I would love the time to amble along on a painting or a sketch or a written piece. But, I solely operate in interrupted time.

Newport’s assertion that uninterrupted time, deep work, is the only way to accomplish great work pisses me off because clearly he comes from privilege. He framed uninterrupted time as a personal virtue rather than a structural advantage — the kind of structural advantage scaffolded by domestic labor, economic stability, and often the unpaid work of women.

Productivity culture often mistakes insulation for discipline. The gift of uninterrupted time is treated as gospel without acknowledging the structures that make it work. And, the coach who recommended it had the same challenge.

And, it pissed me off. They buried the lede. They used manipulation as a tool to shame people for not having it all — you just didn’t focus enough.

And, a little of that gets brought up when I see how much work Hockney was able to create and get paid for it.

My time is spent doing domestic labor, it is fragmented by caregiving, it has been fraught with financial instability, and my mental space is occupied by survival and pockets of rest. Which makes it really hard to just create.

Between Newport and Hockney, it seems they both had a precious resource at their disposal: uninterrupted time. Cassat’s imagery is enmeshed in caregiving. So, she wove her observations with her art.

Regardless, uninterrupted time is a privilege. And, we have to name it.

Also, let’s not bury the lede. Uninterrupted time is not randomly distributed. It follows power. And power in this country has been structured by racism and sexism from the beginning. This is why we studied Euro-centric artists, for example, in my art history classes.

Understanding who gets uninterrupted time and who does not is essential if we want to change the terms of the social contract we were born into. When we see the racist and sexist roots, we can’t ignore them. We have a responsibility to name them and dismantle them.

We live in a system that equates worth with productivity. It rations creative oxygen. It treats art as a luxury unless it is monetized — and only a few people can monetize their art. It moralizes hustle, which makes rest elusive.

The social contract we live in right now says you trade your hours for survival. And, it’s hard to create when there are so few hours left.

Here’s the thing — we can admire the beauty that Hockney and van Gogh recreated. But admiring the ability of Hockney to create really interesting works and get paid without acknowledging the system that lets him do that is an incomplete observation of our world.

So, I get curious — what would it look like to distribute time in a way that everyone who wanted creative flows had access to it in the way they wanted? What supports would our world have to have that was so natural we never questioned it? So that every mother, father, sister, brother, auntie, uncle, everyone in between — no matter how abled they are or their children — anyone who wanted to create — just could.

I believe we could all create when we wanted if systems of support were in place that centered care work. With care at the center, child care would be freely available and ruled by family choice. Health care would be a given because we’d focus on taking care of the young, the old, and those who need extra care, whereby everyone in between would also get what they need. When we create the world we want, rooted in care, guaranteed income and basic standards of living (not being houseless!) would be the norm. And as such, public art would be a norm we could all enjoy.

Essentially, I believe we would be much more balanced and in tune with ourselves, the people around us, and the world around us.

And, that, that is the world I want to usher in.

P.S. I’ve been in love with the em dash (—) since the early 2000s when MS Word routinely corrected my dash (-) to an em dash (—). Because I’m old. Also, when this publishes, it will be my birthday. Happy birthday me, here’s to writing creatively.

Reflections From Nearly 20 Years Ago

I was sitting on the couch, frozen, immobile. I was in school, finishing my bachelor’s. That was my track. I was finally going to finish. But at that moment I was sick.

Morning sickness.

I had been sick for a week, and then I found out I was pregnant.

It took me what felt like so long to get the degree program that fit my goals, my passion, my mission, and now I was going to have a baby.

My cradle Catholic upbringing had me quite programmed to believe that having an abortion was a sin, so there was no way I was going to commit that sin. (Choice is for other people, not for me — because on some level I still struggle with accepting abortion as healthcare.)

I am in a relationship. I was then, and I still am. But it isn’t a great one. Sure, we are companionable, but we don’t see eye to eye on a lot of core things.

What the actual fuck did I get myself into?

I wasn’t done with school. I had no idea of resources to help me. I worked 20 hours per week at $12 per hour.

I knew to sign up for Medicaid (Oregon Health Plan). I was told to go to a specific location because they were kind there (the location didn’t actually matter). So, we got healthcare, but that was it at the moment.

Later, money and jobs shifted after the baby was born, and we qualified for other safety net services, but one thing we never figured out was child care.

Suddenly, we were reliant on each other to support this family we created together, but never planned.

That’s how my son’s life started. Almost 19 years ago.

In that moment, on the couch, I had flashbacks to what my mother must have gone through. At that moment, I was 28; she was 21 when it happened to her.

She was in a relationship that never should have been — and she got pregnant with me.

The cycles repeated because the systems didn’t change.

I cannot underscore how much I love my son and am glad he is alive. I cannot underscore the privilege I feel to be able to interact with the people in my life and live my life the best way I know how.

But our social contract is designed to prevent people without generational wealth from living their best lives the way they know how.

Our Social Contract

I refuse to accept that my suffering — that my mother’s suffering — was necessary or noble. I understand now that our suffering is part of the social contract we were born into that keeps us exhausted and isolated to the point that we don’t want to fight.

So, I get curious: what would have happened to my mother if she had choice?

Where would I be if I had choice?

Where would we be if wraparound services were the norm? We choose to have these babies, but what would have happened if we were compensated for the care work we did for those children (me, my son) and by extension the families (husbands) we supported? What would have happened if all of our housing, child care, healthcare were … just figured out?

What would have happened if it wasn’t manufactured chaos?

And, that’s exactly what we have today. Manufactured chaos.

This is chaos as a governance strategy.

This is scarcity used as control.

Our Current Moment

On this New Year’s Eve, as the day came to a close on the East Coast, there are reports that this administration will be freezing all childcare subsidy money come Monday, January 5 because of a lie used as justification.

An inflammatory piece, targeting one childcare center in Minnesota, led to childcare subsidy freezes in Minnesota and a few hours later for the whole nation.

THE WHOLE NATION.

According to the government’s records, in 2021 (the most recent year available), more than 11 million children qualified for child care subsidy. But, less than 2 million actually received the subsidy. Eighty-five percent of those who qualified never got the support they needed.^⁠1

Now, no one will.

Child care infrastructure is autonomy for women.

Reproductive health is autonomy for women.

Cruelty is the point.

We are at a choice point, again. Empire is showing us exactly who they are. They are going after fraud that won’t pay out, when instead we could tax billionaires and audit them. They are going after the least among us because we are the most tired — and they assume we will be the least likely to fight back.

If we are alone, we won’t fight back.

But, when we come together — when we organize. When we recognize we deserve a different path, when we choose to stand in our power and make them tremble with our ferocity — only then will we begin to forge an economy and a world rooted in care, rooted in women’s autonomy.

We deserve a care economy. When we are cared for, we have autonomy. When our core foundations are cared for, we can move toward our purpose.

Our purpose — not the billionaire class’s control mechanism.

When we stand in our power, in our boundaries, and hold clearly to that which we deserve — a new social contract that honors each of us for the dignity and respect we deserve — they cannot stop us.

When we center women’s autonomy, all others will have a chance to rise.

So, on this New Year’s Eve, let us come together and recenter our beliefs that we deserve a new social contract, and let the news of today be the fuel to our fire to burn it all down — we rise anyway.

Saturday started with some scrolling of the Book of Face. And a friend shared that our current president is removing the “free park” visit from Martin Luther King Jr. Day and instead replacing it with his birthday1.^⁠

What the actual ….?

I was so shocked. I remember when people fought to get Martin Luther King, Jr. Day as a holiday. It was the late 1990s, and the university I attended threatened to dismiss it as a holiday if people didn’t do a service act, how it was sold at the time. Over the years, there has been growing respect for this day. And of course our current president would set us back — but I still didn’t believe it at first.

So, I started searching the news to verify this racist atrocity, and instead, I found that Trump plans to bring back the Monroe Doctrine2.^⁠

What the what?!

Instead of a passive act of racist disrespect, what I found was a policy direction that once again risks codifying genocide, erasure, and permission for more violence and atrocities.

This isn’t new. And I believe this is part of “Patriarchy’s Last Stand.”

Do you remember the Monroe Doctrine? I didn’t — I was remembering “Manifest Destiny.” Let’s take a walk through the history we weren’t taught to question, shall we?

In the 1400s, the Catholic Church established the “Doctrine of Discovery,” which gave Europeans religious permission to conquer non-Christian lands.

I remember learning about the Inquisition and the search for the Holy Grail — always wondering, “Why?” How is this part of Jesus’s teaching to turn the other cheek and love your neighbor as yourself? I remember thinking, “I don’t understand what’s happening here?”

Of course, I didn’t understand. When you’re inside a gaslit story, everything feels natural even when it’s not. People then — and people now — were taught to believe that claiming power over others was their sacred duty, as if domination itself had been blessed. It was manipulation dressed up as divine purpose.

This is a problem.

Next, in the early 1800s, we get the Monroe Doctrine, which just as Trump is claiming to do now (and he’s done this already by wanting to lay claim to Canada and Greenland and setting ships up in the Caribbean), the Monroe Doctrine claimed the entire Western Hemisphere as a U.S. “sphere of influence” — a sanitized way of saying control.

Later, in the mid-1800s, we get Manifest Destiny (I really thought that was the 1300s, so writing on this was a good history lesson for me, too). Manifest Destiny said it was our divine destiny to expand across the rest of the continent.

And, of course, there is our Imperialistic era from the 1890s to today. I remember studying this in history class related to Teddy Roosevelt. And, I also remember all these history lessons where no one else reacted. No one reacted with shock or horror about what was happening. We all took it in stride. “Oh, of course that’s what we would do…” because the culture was already baked into our beings. A part of us already believed it. This logic — that domination is permissible, even natural — is now baked into our social contract.

From the Doctrine of Discovery to the Monroe Doctrine to Manifest Destiny to our never-ending Imperial rule — Patriarchy’s Last Stand is trying to make explicit policy things like hatred, dominance, and hierarchy. And, this is our choice point. Do we accept or organize against for what we really want?

My thinking on this path began years ago, after I read Mysteries of the Dark Moon^⁠3 by Demetra George. George has so many gems and connections of how our world is showing up based on the larger lunation cycles. The audiobook is good, and the print copy is worth every penny paid because of the charts and graphs. This is my takeaway — Christianity emerged within the last 40,000-year larger lunation cycle, within the most recent 5,000 years. The last 5,000-ish years (the book was written in 1992), we have been in the “dark moon phase” of this larger 40,000-year lunation cycle. And, the last 3,000 years are overlayed with the “World Age” informed by processional motion. We are leaving the Age of Pisces (which corresponds with the dark moon phase, Christianity, and the death of goddess culture) and entering the Age of Aquarius (which corresponds with a rebirth of goddess culture and more).

We are witnessing in celestial time the rebirth of goddess culture and the death of patriarchy. And, patriarchy is not giving up without a fight. So, we see a lot of mess and terror. We see this division of us vs them. Maybe you were in a small town, like I was, where rivalries with nearby schools were an indoctrination and part of the social culture. Even rituals like that perpetuate the us vs them mentality. Hazing — where only cool kids or older kids can be in “the commons” reinforces pecking orders and hierarchy. These all normalize and shape our belief in insiders vs outsiders or who is a “real American” vs an invader, or civilization vs chaos — who is worthy vs unworthy, who is a savior or who is a threat. These patterns normalize our inability to see the gaslighting, the manipulation, and the baked-in cruelty.

Binary thinking is a tool of the patriarchy. Living in either/or, binary thinking fuels centuries of continuous war, naming war as patriotic, profitable, and inevitable. It builds our identities, keeps us distracted, and is highly addictive.

I was raised in the 80s and 90s, in the era where children were seen and not heard. I was raised with, “You’re gonna cry? Well, I’ll give you something to cry about.” I was raised with spankings, fear, and control. And, it came from all over — parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, media, teachers, etc. While I believe my parents, for example, leaned more towards understanding and less aversive methods than previous generations, it was still a normal tool used. We are continuing harm while trying to end it.

I see this now that we have a dog. Every Humane Society and both the American and International SPCA teach that “Positive Reinforcement Behavior Training” (PRBT) is the ethical and effective path. Anything lending to aversive (control, harm, etc) tactics only brings stress and fear to the animal. So if you use PRBT, you will get the end result of the behavior you are looking for with a much less stressed animal. So, why wouldn’t you want to do that?

Because we want results now. And, “Do what I say because I’m the adult” is still embedded in our DNA. And, in Patriarchy’s Last Stand, the desire for control will continue to come up.

We have a choice. Leading with fear is a choice. Leading with love and kindness is a choice. Seeing and naming what is going on or succumbing to it with no action — these are all choices.

Several years ago, I had the opportunity to attend a sustainability conference where Winona LaDuke4^⁠ was the keynote speaker. She talked to us about a choice point for our world — continue endless development, pollution, and extraction of resources on this “path of concrete”, or we choose a world of sustainability and regeneration, a “path of green”. This path choice point aligns with how patriarchy is breaking, ending, and we are entering into a new era. But we have choices to make along the way on the kind of fabric we want this new area to be built upon. The more intentional we can make these choices in leaning into values we want to continue, the better off this next era will be.

Things that are waning from the Age of Pisces include hierarchy, martyrdom, and savior-ism. Things that are rising through the Age of Aquarius include collective consciousness, decentralization, innovation, and shared responsibility. Regardless of what the stars say is leaving and coming in, we also have to make an intentional choice to bring in what we want our world to become. We have to be active in ushering in the world we want.

I want our world to lean into care, mutual aid, personal freedom and choice, bodily autonomy, open borders, just to name a few. That means I need to take an active role to describe and help implement these values — choosing action in some way. Wishing for these things to happen and burying my head in the sand will not bring these things to fruition.

It is clear to me that the path of concrete will lead to the collapse of our world. The path of green is one of reciprocity and regeneration. It weaves in other ideas of making sure we learn from past generations and think well beyond our own to make thoughtful, careful plans as we move forward. The path of green means we are choosing deliberately to usher in a new world as Patriarchy dies.

We started with the Monroe Doctrine — a redeclaration of “western expansion.” Trump is now laying the groundwork to claim three continents. The only way to do this is with force, manipulation, and other cruel methods. This is not how I’m raising my kid to be. Not how my mother raised me, nor my grandmother, her. He’s the president of our nation — and if we don’t want that behavior to continue, we must act. We don’t have a choice in deciding to act or not; we must.

But how we act is another story.

Power is the ability to act. As an organizer, I lean into the definition that power is organized people and organized money.

This new Monroe Doctrine leans into worth being defined as white, male, wealthy, and a form of Christianity. It centers worthiness on who can be a citizen and lifts up only heteronormativity. These hierarchies all determine who deserves safety, care, rest, and belonging.

I believe everyone has the right to care, rest, safety, community, and democratic participation. I believe everyone has the right to clean air, water, and clean soil. I believe we all deserve to live on a livable planet. I believe we all have a right to a future beyond extraction. Not just a few “sacred few” who are identified differently depending on who’s in charge. We have to name what is happening, because, like a good therapist knows, it is much harder to treat the thing if you don’t name it.

By naming what is happening, we break isolation, shame, and this authoritarian spell-craft. I am naming what is happening and the world I would rather usher in. And, I am inviting you to name it and act on the world you want, too.

It can’t be said enough: we have to act. We have to choose our lane. Not everyone has to be on the front lines, but doing something to actively usher in a world that is centered around care and rest — we all must take part in that. Here’s a short list of some things you can do:

1. Write about what is happening and tell your story

2. Call or email your elected officials and other decision makers

3. Show up at protests and direct actions

4. Serve as a notary or document support for undocumented people

5. Show up as a court accompaniment

6. Provide childcare for organizers and leaders

7. Cook meals for mutual aid

8. Host or join a study group and political education circle

9. Monitor policy or translate it for other languages

10. Redistribute wealth through fundraising

11. Create art and media that tell the truth

12. Build spiritual resilience

13. Support mental health, grief, and other emotional endurance work

Everyone has a lane. And everyone must act. No lane is too small. And, you can choose a big lane, step back, choose a smaller lane, and walk in and out of the lanes as your world shifts.

So, what’s next?

Engage with me — in this space or on social media. (Remember, only paid subscribers can comment (it’s one way I protect this space)). Meet with people in your area. Reader, I want everyone one of you to find a power-building organization in your area. Work with them. Let’s continue learning together. Participate in “Know Your Rights” trainings, refresh your understanding of civics, and read Black women authors who’ve worked on civil rights for years.

A really important thing to anchor in on is that we are not powerless. We have power when we act together. And this next cycle? It depends on the path we choose, together.

A small group of friends, we have an encrypted chat to share information to keep our community safe. I was doing my morning scan — open the email, open messages, open social media, open the encrypted chat. My friend shared this article from This Week in Worcester. The report says Trump’s DHS is planning to raid churches over the holidays.

What the actual fuck? Did I read that right?

Before I share anything, I try to vet what I’m reading. So, I went back to the weekly with a more critical lens.

Full disclosure, this article doesn’t pass all my criteria for stopping fake news. Sources weren’t named (some asked NOT to be), there was nothing linking back to see where these briefings came from, and another criticism was that this news outlet doesn’t have a history of investigative journalism. Even with these gaps, the fear it tapped into is real — because this pattern is real.

So, my critique is nuanced. We live in a time when “reputable” news sources aren’t talking about what’s happening at the community level (eroding of community and local news has a part to play here). We live in a time where people are routinely ignored. And, here’s the part that stops me in my tracks. That encrypted chat? This morning (as of this writing), a few days after this article was posted, that friend has a close family friend who was kidnapped by ICE. She and her community are in survival mode.

Our communities are under threat, and we need to amplify our voices. My friend and those close to her are utterly exhausted from being terrorized and living in fear. This friend is like family to me. I posted that article because the word had to get out there.

So, I shared it. Everywhere. I posted it on Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram. The former three platforms averaged a few hundred views. But something wild happened on Instagram. The post went viral. As of this writing, it has over 70k views, thousands of likes, hundreds of comments, and hundreds of new followers. For me, this wasn’t entertainment. This is serious business when my family is being terrorized.

Solidarity is not a matter of altruism. Solidarity comes from the inability to tolerate the affront to our own integrity of passive or active collaboration in the oppression of others, and from the deep recognition of our most expansive self-interest. From the recognition that, like it or not, our liberation is bound up with that of every other being on the planet, and that politically, spiritually, in our heart of hearts we know anything else is unaffordable.

~ Aurora Levins Morales

But people chiming in, watching, commenting in thoughtful and engaged ways - this is confirmation that you, that people are paying attention, and you are craving clarity. If you commented something hateful, your comment was deleted. I curate my space for community safety.

As the comments came in, three themes rose to the surface.

• What can we do?

• How hasn’t he been stopped?

• How is this possible in America?

To answer these questions, we need to start with the foundation.

So, let’s do the last part first. This is possible in America because it has always been possible in America. This so-called land of the free is rooted in racism and sexism. Racism, sexism, and classism prop up our world, and we try to make friends with it instead of breaking up with it. Every time we turn a blind eye to injustice, we let justice go. Every time we say something hateful about a group that looks different than us, we perpetuate racism and sexism. Every time we refuse to pay attention to the news or busy ourselves with our “work”, we let this disgusting, festering system continue. This is possible in America because we were built this fucking way.

Let’s do the middle part next. He hasn’t been stopped because there is not enough political will. In my comment replies, I have been saying there is no political will. I’m saying ‘no political will’ because without enough, it might as well be none. There would be political will if we had more organized people. We would have more organized people if we worked on talking to people we care about shared values.

We haven’t done our work.

Which brings me to the first question, “What can we do?” First, we need to recognize there is something to do, and we need to claim responsibility. Second, get clear on what you want. This means understanding our values. Third, we have to talk to people.

Here’s what I mean by political will, and how we build it. I have been trained in the organizing school of thought that power is the ability to act, and power is organized people or organized money. Think about the ultra-wealthy, the billionaires (some now trillionaires). What have they been able to organize because they just wanted to recently? Prevent unions from organizing? Build rocket ships to space? Infiltrate the government with president-appointed agencies, hack IRS servers, and more? They have organized money.

But we, we can have organized people. We have our neighbors, our friends, our church members, and our family. But we don’t just have them because they are there. That’s not organized. Even if you have a shared industry, we cannot assume we are organized and aligned with shared values.

Here’s where people get stuck — they actually get stuck on having the conversation. So, let’s try to break it down. Getting organized begins with a conversation. Before you have the conversation, you must work on getting clear on what you want. The next step to being organized is to figure out what people you want to be with you, who are your organized people? You find them through conversation. So, who do you want to have a conversation with, where you can understand their values and find out if you really have shared values? In one of my videos, I used the example that I value all people having access to safe, stable housing. If you shared that value, and we talked about it, that’s one step toward getting organized.

The fourth step in getting organized is to align with a power-building organization. Leaning into “organized people”, that’s what the power-building organization does. Not only do they secure organized money to work on the values you share, but they also have paid staff to hyper-focus on building the people power. A real power-building organization should have a few key features:

• A 501c3

• A political team and an organizing team

• The organizing team is actively talking to the community and having community members be their primary volunteers

• Offer actions and training for you to complete and do

• Share their strategies and wins over time

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but it should point you in the right direction. If the thing you care about is that babies have diapers and all the organization does is give diapers to the babies, then that’s direct service. If the organization teaches you how to get or deal with diapers, that’s self-help and education. If the organization talks to decision makers about making diapers easier to acquire, that’s advocacy. If you wonder why you are spinning your wheels in advocacy, it’s probably because you don’t have enough people power. All these lanes have a purpose, but if you don’t have people behind any of these things, you’re making change a heckuvalot harder. The organizing, the power-building organization, brings the people part connected with the strategy.

We are not trained to think of the people part. And, for some reason, that’s hard. When we think of what we need, we go to immediate needs, and we don’t dig into making systemic change. And to get the systemic change, you need a lot of people to be able to make that change.

So, we have been stuck in these hamster wheels for a very long time. The system, as it exists, wants to continue to exist this way, so there are tools in place to keep us mollified into quiet. We work work work. Then we numb out when we get home. We are tired. And we are literally working ourselves to death.

Now, we need to talk about the hardest part. There is a group that is affected the least: white people.

Neurotypical white men don’t get pulled over because of their skin color or the way they talk. Neurotypical white men get a lot of passes and freebies, but they generally chalk it up to they did good work. But if the tables were turned to a Black person or Brown person, those folks would find themselves pulled over, arrested, and passed over for jobs. Or, shot.

Then, there is white women. White women are adjacent to the “power” white men have and are in a position to protect that power. So, they tend to shy away from putting their bodies on the line to protect other people in deference to their own comfort.

So, I wasn’t surprised when a comment showed up accusing me of not doing anything. Whether I have done a thing or not isn’t the point. The point is white people at large bury their heads in the sand while our Black and Brown brothers and sisters continue to suffer from this racist, sexist world we live in. Whether it’s the white person who doesn’t want to confront his own ingrained racism or someone who measures their own safety as more important than our Brown sisters, whose family is actively being terrorized by ICE right now.

We have a responsibility to each other. We must embrace that our liberations are tied to one another. If we do not understand or fail to accept that fact, we will continue to hamster wheel into despair, and I would rather hamster wheel into hope.

So the question begs, are you mad enough to act?

Did you hop on the socials, and my Instagram post made you mad? Well, GREAT. NOW you have the invitation to DO something.

Here’s where you turn your anger into action. Get clear on your values. Make a list of 20 people you want to have a conversation with. Don’t know how to have that conversation? Come talk to me, and I will walk you through. The most important part is to be centered in listening, not judging, and trying to figure out what that person cares about. Then, find the power-building organization in your area — and sign up to volunteer. Reach out to their organizing director and say, “I want to be involved.” And, the organizing director should put their staff in charge of your region on task to reach out to YOU to have that conversation about YOUR values. The fact remains, being a keyboard warrior won’t save us. We must reach out to our communities.

To keep in the hamster wheel of hope, we have to remember that joy is an intentional strategy. We are allowed to rest, but we are not allowed to give up. Maybe painting rocks is a thing that brings you joy; incorporate that more regularly into your weeks and months. As we do this work, we have to stay in the hamster wheel of hope.

We are living in a threshold moment, as evidenced by the wild views on my IG post. We are ready to be awake and not let these injustices pass us by. So, if you are here because of that viral IG post, welcome. Let’s educate ourselves together. Let us heal together And, let us act together. Because truly, together we are better, and that is how we will build the world we deserve.

Hi. It’s me again.

The Michelle who got caught up in life and didn’t have weeks of content plugged in — even though I have so many ideas. (51 unpublished ones, actually.)

So, what happened?

I took a work trip to Chicago, where we knocked on doors to canvas for a Guaranteed Income program. In our post-COVID world, Chicago had two GI programs, but the ARPA funds dried up. 8,000 people benefited from this program, and over 409,000 people applied. The community has the need. And, the community has the resources to make this program work. We just need to make sure decision makers know. The most important part of this program? It was a form of reparations^⁠1.

It must have been late-night scrolling when I saw a headline: a company was ordered to pay New Jersey millions for environmental contamination2. That’s reparations, too.

So, our socially acceptable form of reparations is for anything other than Black people harmed by systemic racism.

Did you read my footnote? We’ve never had true reparations for the sins of enslaving people, for the labor stolen, for the systems of racism that still flourish despite our collective claims that “we’re past all that.”

Most people just want a fighting chance. Instead of funding that future, we glamorize billionaires. We act like we’re a few hustle steps away from that life (being our own billionaires) — while quietly living a paycheck away from needing help ourselves.

So, all that was happening and swirling through my mind.

Then… my kid arrived. (That was a fun reunion… he didn’t even see me, so I attack-hugged him like he does to me. My colleague was awed by our sweet exchange. It took him a few seconds to realize it was me, and he bear-hugged me back.)

The next day, we had lunch downtown Chicago with my colleague. Then we took the train to Michigan.

And then I got sick.

And, it hit fast.

The sore throat was bad — worse than usual, like strep-level sore. A day later, I tested positive for COVID. This was my second time ever testing positive for COVID. This round started in my throat, felt different in my body, but still slowed everything down. The fatigue is real. And, the way we treat illness in this world does a disservice to everyone.

So many of our habits are rooted in Hustle Culture, aka Capitalism, aka Patriarchy.

And, we keep propping up these systems of Patriarchy (because it’s what’s always been done), and we wonder why things don’t change.

If we had a system set up where it was okay to rest for the allergy sore throat, maybe we could have stopped other illnesses from being passed on?

My sister and brother-in-law took care of me — with semi-isolation, masking, and lots of grace. We extended our stay by a week. We didn’t get to visit lakes or see many friends, but we did get meaningful family time.

A week later than initially planned, we flew home.

And now, for the first time ever, it’s just my son and me in this house for 10 days. The Husband is off on his own visit.

The silence that comes when a body you’ve grown used to is gone is so interesting.

The day after we left Michigan, my sister noticed the quiet we left behind. The Husband notes the quiet every time the kid is gone or I travel. And, this time, now that the kid and I are back in our routine, there is a deafening silence about the time the Husband should return from work.

The silence is deafening.

The things we get used to that tell us stories are a story in and of themselves.

So yes, I got behind on my writing.

And, the 51 ideas are still here, now rearranged. I’m easing back into rhythm. Hoping to stock up on a few pieces so next time life calls me away, there’s a softer landing.

I’m grateful you’re here — for the stories, the pauses, and the collective dreaming of a world where we dismantle what doesn’t serve and build what does.

With love and rhythm,

Michelle

⸻

P.S.

Did you hear the Rose Garden is being demolished for a 650 sq ft golden ballroom?3

Who builds a ballroom when he should be terming out in three years? Yeah. We’ve got work to do.

Are you in?

Stories. That’s how we are built — down to our bones and our systems. We have a 7-day week because of Biblical stories. Businesses are closed on Sundays because God said to rest.

As a cradle Catholic, I have a deep appreciation for our rituals and patterns.

Until they don’t work for us.

So, here’s the thing — If our systems are built on stories, then changing the story is how we change the system.

Changing the Story, Changing the System

I’m going to say it. “I hate hustle culture.” I hate having to rush through spring to get to summer to get to fall to rush into the Christmas season. This story is rooted in so many things, but it’s a story. “I love working in flow and rhythm and giving spaciousness for the thinking work.” That’s an aspirational story — one I want to live into.

So, I get curious, what story do I need to both tell myself and live by to make that a reality? A reality for myself, and a reality for those around me? Because this story of spaciousness is an antidote to hustle culture. So, what story do we need to collectively tell to get over hustle culture?

We operate on other stories, too. We operate on this idea that the USA is made up of the Self-Made Man — rugged individualism. We are told stories of entrepreneurs and that they made it, no matter their circumstances, by their bootstraps, lacing them up one boot at a time, and they succeeded. This is also akin to when people say, “[Beyoncé or Oprah] has the same 24 hours a day that you do, what’s your excuse?” (My excuse? I don’t have a personal chef, housekeeper, or nanny.) Stories that say mothers must sacrifice everything and play the martyr (but maybe not complain about it). Linked to that is the story that women care for everything — all the things — but heaven forbid we change anything. We are told stories that rest is laziness (see a theme with my issue with Hustle Culture). So if you burn out, you must have won some prize.

These stories? They don’t just live out in the ether; we internalize them. I internalize them. While I rest, I feel guilty!!!

Understanding Story

In my organizing work, we work on telling our stories all the time. This is a cornerstone to our job because most of the time, decision-makers are not representative of the people who are directly impacted, adversely, by our system. I primarily work on childcare issues. And there are few early childhood educators in any elected office, yet these decision-makers continue to make rules affecting the lives of early childhood educators. Likewise, there are few parents of young children in elected office. And they are making rules for the families who need these systems. Elected officials without young children don’t know what’s going on in the lives of families who have young children. So, we work on telling their and our stories. We work on speaking story to power.

When we tell our stories, we interrupt the dominant narrative (bootstraps, for example). When we organize and bring more and more people together, we really interrupt that narrative. We claim power every time we come together and say, “I am a mother,” or “I am a caregiver.”

While finishing my degree, I took a series of two classes, framed around “Speaking Truth to Power.” It was one of my favorite classes, where we looked at stories through the urban lens and then spoke about the importance of speaking truth to power or speaking story to power. The sustainability courses were run through the College of Urban Planning, so these classes were all part of the Community Development focus. I mention this because then, I didn’t know I would later become a Community Organizer, where we talk about disrupting power every day, and it all starts with telling our story.

In the Speak Truth to Power series, one class looked at movies. In that class, I reflected on 11 movies that all had threads of relationship, resource management, and how collective action can disrupt power. This is the work I engage in right now: collective action to disrupt power.

I’ve noticed a pattern in how repetition keeps a story alive. For example, when something happens, it gets told more than once. It is told to the generation experiencing it, then it’s passed down through oral stories or written in letters, newspapers, or books. And, each time someone chooses to tell the story, it gets refreshed. Even when we are choosing to tell stories through art: film and books — we are choosing to offer an arc, a story ready for public consumption. And the story lives on.

We took these story classes with the belief and reminder that we are storytelling people. The first stories, the first people, all told stories about creation, myth, and belief. They were orators who passed down stories around campfires or dinner tables. They passed on the stories and traditions of yesterday so the next generation could pass on those same traditions, myths, and beliefs.

Likewise, our current system is a story that we pass on, and passing it on helps reinforce it.

Some of the stories we continually tell, as stated above, include stories that demonstrate that we can pick ourselves up by our bootstraps, and that we don’t need anyone. (Rugged individualism and bootstrap success). We tell stories that mothers have it all figured out, and they are naturally suited to care, so why would they complain about their role? (Mothers as martyrs and women as caretakers, but ‘lo and behold, not changemakers). We tell stories that idle hands are the devil’s playthings, which tells us that we shouldn’t rest. (So, rest becomes laziness, and burnout can be a badge of honor.)

We have internalized these stories, and we pass them onto our children!

Here’s the thing — we know we are a storytelling people, and the science backs it up.

The Science of Story and Change

Neuroscience shows that stories don’t just entertain — they literally rewire the brain. Character-driven narratives generate empathy by triggering oxytocin1,^⁠ by syncing the speaker and the listener’s brainwaves through neural coupling2,^⁠ and activating multisensory brain regions that reinforce memory and meaning3.^⁠

Let that land for a minute. We know we are a storytelling people, and there is wicked science that demonstrates it through fMRI data points. We literally connect and reconnect when we tell stories. Meaning, telling stories in community is a cornerstone of how we change stories.

While taking these classes and others on Sustainability, I was introduced to Robert Putnam’s work in Bowling Alone and the follow-up, Better Together. Both books underscore the importance of doing things in community — showing that active participation in shared life strengthens our health, trust, and longevity (Putnam, Bowling Alone, pp. 326–335). Better Together highlights how rituals like storytelling, singing, and gathering are essential tools for rebuilding social bonds. One case study reflects how “conversations and storytelling became part of the glue that held diverse communities together and gave people a sense of common purpose” (Putnam & Feldstein, Better Together, p. 261). Shared storytelling, then, becomes a kind of cultural re-patterning — it rewires the social body in the same way trauma does, but in reverse.

So, we can build new stories, together, in community. We can use those stories to heal past trauma. We can heal by telling our stories — and build the world we really want, together.

In organizing, we use Marshall Ganz’s framework of “Story of Self, Story of Us, Story of Now.” We teach people to locate themselves in their story — not as isolated individuals, but as people shaped by the systems around them, and still capable of shaping what comes next. We dig deep when we do this. We ask people to think back — where were they in relation to their family, their community, their church, other parts of their growing up?

We look at the values that shaped us, the values that told us a story of how life ought to be or not ought to be, and how we’d rather it be. These stories usually frame someone’s purpose/why/self-interest in this world. And getting really clear on the story of why you want change is a cornerstone to making the change a person’s own.

Additionally, this aligns deeply with my “Third Way” philosophy — where we resist binaries like shame or silence, powerlessness or performance. The Third Way says we don’t have to choose between authenticity and belonging, rest and impact. Story becomes the bridge — a way to bring our whole selves forward without erasing our complexity.

When I tell my truth, and you stay to hear it? We both become more free.

Practicing Story as Power

In my coaching work and group containers, storytelling isn’t just a warm-up activity — it’s the heart of the work. Whether in my developing circles for business or connecting your story to activism, we practice telling the truth of our lives not as confession or content, but as an act of power. We tell our stories to practice our collective system rewiring.

I don’t mean that metaphorically.

When a woman says aloud, “I was never lazy — I was exhausted,” the system takes pause. When a caregiver says, “I deserve to be supported, not shamed,” we interrupt generations of inherited silence. When someone names the disconnect between who they were told to be and who they actually are — and is witnessed in that truth — we restore something sacred.

In my (developing) circles, we will move from personal story to public action. We will start by asking: What stories was I raised on? Which ones still live in me? Which ones need to be composted, and which are ready to grow? Then we work to make them visible, to put them into words, and to connect them to the systems we want to shift. Because story is not just about healing — it’s how we make culture. It’s how we build power.

We don’t just “find our voice.” We practice voice. We practice pattern change. We practice public transformation.

The systems don’t get to write your story for you.

They never did.

And, we are working together because we are not just healing as individuals. We are rewriting the collective script.

I’m building spaces where women can do this together — to reclaim their voice and rewire the world.

If this resonates, stay tuned. I’ll be sharing more soon about The Ember Circle, a nine-month storytelling journey for changemakers who are ready to speak their truth, reshape their power, and take aligned action.

Or reply and share: What story are you ready to rewrite?

Let’s stop passing down stories that burn us out, silence our truths, and tell us we’re too much or not enough.

Let’s tell new ones — with clarity, with courage, and in community.

Because when we change the story, we change the system.

A Post Script

I intend to post every Monday. But, I was delayed in finishing this as I was packing for a trip to the Midwest, where, for work, we are canvassing in coalition. In this canvassing, we are literally inviting people to step into their story and rewrite how the world ought to work. We are literally looking for people ready for change and ready to act in that collective story reshaping, so communities can really get what they deserve: a thriving life full of dignity.

The time when my son was in 1^st and 2^nd grade has forced the focus I want to take in this world - learning how to say “No” and choosing what’s really aligned for each of us. I was working full time, keeping the house as well as I could, part-time, and making sure my son got to all the activities that were ripe for his development, part-time.

A day in the life of my life 12 years ago looked like this. I woke up tired, dragged the kid out of bed, negotiated breakfast, and prayed there were clean clothes. I fought to get him to school while managing my own rising anxiety. I worked all day with the clock ticking because it was soccer night, which meant I had to leave early, endure traffic, and participate in more negotiation because the kid doesn’t want to go. He cries, I guide. And when we get there? He refused to participate, and somehow I still managed to smile. We get home after 7, hungry and worn down, wondering how this became normal.

I’m exhausted just trying to remember these events.

And I wasn’t alone. Versions of this story play out again and again in households like mine. I made these choices because I felt stuck. I had to work to contribute to the family and pay back my student loans. Did I mention I wasn’t even working in a field I had studied directly for? But this was on the heels of the 2008–2010 recession, and I took the only job that said, “Will you work for us?” On my salary alone, covering housing and tuition wouldn’t have been possible — being in a two-income household made it work. So we were just getting by, paycheck to paycheck, in a dual-income household with one kid.

So many of us tell ourselves, “If only we planned better… I could just get it together…”

Seriously?

The schedule we lived by was impossible.

I later found out the boss at the time was asking other employees, not me, why I was always leaving early. So, in the midst of trying to stay in control, keep it all together, I got another clue to the stressful work environment I was in.

During this time, my husband worked nights — which meant he needed to sleep during the day and was gone most evenings. The logistics of that schedule left me holding most of the parenting responsibilities, even though we were a two-parent household. I love my son deeply, and I’ve always been committed to supporting him in this world. And still, I often found myself wondering: what would it have looked like if the care work had been truly shared?

We live in a patriarchal world shaped by late-stage capitalism — and it shows up in our homes as much as it does in our policies. The invisible labor that keeps households running too often goes unseen, especially when traditional gender roles are still quietly at play. As Zawn over at Liberated Motherhood says, “If he wanted to, he would.” But I was — and still am — in it, and I didn’t see a clear way out. The job I had was the one that said yes when I needed it most, and while I kept scanning for what might come next, nothing workable showed up. To cover tuition and bills, I needed full-time hours — and there was no obvious part-time option that could have met that need.

So I felt stuck.

12 years ago, I was feeling the burnout. I was and am a full-time mother. I took care of the house. And, I worked full-time. I had no immediate support network that I could turn to. I internalized this as a “me” problem. I couldn’t figure this out.

But there are so many people who feel the same way. If so many of us feel the same way, it ceases to be a “me” problem. When we all feel the same exhaustion, lack of choice, and more — it’s a systemic problem. We have a choice, though. When we notice these feelings, whether we recognize they are part of a system or not, we have a choice to bring in our own agency. Burnout is a sign that something is wrong, and what we do with it is what matters. We can even employ our agency to recognize that we are in burnout and we don’t like it, even if we don’t have an immediate solution.

Let’s ground ourselves — remember that capitalism requires endless growth. But, at the same time, it’s rooted in scarcity. That dualism in and of itself is exhausting. Patriarchy demands so much emotional labor of women, especially mothers. White supremacy is an extractive system that rewards dominance, which depletes care.

These forces are all connected — they shape our time, our energy, and even how we relate to care.

We need to get to the third way, and that gets complicated when even our systems of care are co-opted. Genuine community care and mutual aid are rooted in interdependence and dignity. And, still, many charity models replicate the same power dynamics they should be disrupting. They enforce rules, judgment, and even dependency. Care in this way is conditional, or it’s filtered through control. Which really means — it’s not care at all, it’s control with a smile.

We are faced with the false binary: either hustle or collapse. Either succeed or disengage. I wrote about the Third Way last week. This is a space where we recognize that extreme isn’t the answer. We must build new systems, new rhythms, and new ways of being.

There is so much happening right now. I keep getting caught in the false question of, “How do I fix this myself?” But, what happened if I/we reframed it to, “What am I being asked to carry that’s not mine?”

We must reclaim rhythm. We must reclaim rest. We must reclaim collective pauses. We absolutely must reclaim setting boundaries.

(If you need a tool, I’m relaunching both my moon circles and my moon deck. You can get on their respective waitlists (moon circles/moon deck)).

Let’s take a bit of solace that burnout is evidence that we are alive. And, we are alive in a system that asks too much, and it gives us too little. So, you are not broken. You are responding appropriately to structural harm.

We don’t have to build a house there. We can build another way.

All it takes is (1) recognizing we can and (2) saying no to that which we don’t need to carry. Then, we slowly build the third way, but we do it, together.

It’s the 4th of July

I have fond memories of celebrating the 4^th of July. I love this idea of freedom that our country was founded on. Some of my favorite memories are with family and a glorious fireworks display that created oohs and aahs. But, as I got older, and I learned the more nuanced pieces of our nation’s history, I often wonder, “Who was that freedom really for and who is it for now?” My friends who are women, like me, have just over 100 years of being able to vote. My Black and Brown friends have less than 100 years since they could vote. So, who is this celebration really for?

Working-class people have always been on the back burner of our recent history. From feudalism to now, working-class people are the ones who literally make things work while other people profit off of our ideas and our labor. And, we are pitted against each other to keep us from uniting. Ultra greedy rich people have always found ways to keep the cookies for themselves while we fight for the crumbs^⁠1. They divide us by shaming education. They divide us by class. They divide us because our skin color is different or where we were born wasn’t right.

Our stories of freedom

We are told a story of religious freedom, that people came here because they wanted to pray how they wanted to pray without being persecuted for it. What ensued was years of murder and genocide against the Native people who lived on this land. Later, as more people came, and crops needed tending too, to keep the capital at the top, the method of using enslaved people thrived. To get that technique to be morally justified, the elite wove stories about how light-skinned people were good and dark skinned people were bad. They used the bible to support their claims that the enslaved people were less than human.

I think about my young self in various classes in middle and high school, reading about these histories — I didn’t even get a “woke history^⁠2” lesson — and I could never understand how people could just accept this. And, we still do today. We pause our critical thinking, somehow agree that one human might be less human than another, and we use that justification to make it okay for our evil deeds.

Who is really free then?

No one! Not the person who suffers from the persecution, and not the person who executes it.

Our most cherished ideals have always been conditional, weaponized, or denied altogether.

Celebration on Pause

So, this Fourth of July, I am pausing any celebration. This is my celebration. This piece asks you to claim your critical thinking and really consider who is free in this so-called land of the great.

I’m pausing my celebration, as my celebration, because when I started writing this, the terrible, no good, brutal bill had passed the Senate. Now, as I finish formulating my words, it has passed the house. We have taken one further step into a nation where governance means catering to the ultra-greedy and wealthy while letting normal, working-class people suffer.

What’s happening

Did you read my piece on framing how motherhood is being weaponized as a tool of fascism? I was so angry about yet another injustice this administration pushed through several weeks ago that I had to go down the rabbit trail of pattern seeking. You can download that here.

While I was in Las Vegas, for work, I learned about our president’s typical play — to buy things cheap and broken to make his fortune. While standing in the hot Vegas afternoon sun, a man shared with us that our current president wrote about this play — buying the thing at rock bottom prices — years ago in his 1987 book, Art of the Deal^⁠3. (Look, I haven’t read the book, and I don’t intend to.) This man explained that the best thing to do was to buy something super cheap and decrepit, because property values always rise.

This is what feels like is happening right now. Our country, the USA, is being gutted. We are being worn down. We are being worn down to the cheap, decrepit thing. So, who can swoop in and do what? My dystopian fears are on high alert.

As such, I cannot celebrate in a traditional fashion this 4^th of July. We are one year shy of our 250-year celebration. And this year, we will usher in more suffering for the poor and working class. They built a concentration camp in the Florida Everglades in eight days!!!^⁠4 We can’t house people, but we can enprison them by bringing in more state violence, more dehumanization, and expanding the carceral system.

I pray to the gods I believe in that this really is the tantrum of the patriarchy in this late stage capitlistic shit show. Meaning, it’s their final shot before we right this ship.

If you are of the camp that things aren’t that bad, I get curious — what makes you think so? I get curious — what would things have to look like, then, to be really bad?

Abortion is banned in 13 states^⁠5. I’m not going to qualify the horrors of medical necessity because abortion is healthcare, and we need to hear that on repeat.

Voter suppression continues^⁠6, whether by trying to remove people from the voter rolls or make it harder for people to vote, it’s happening in real time.

Public television and radio are being defunded^⁠7. Access to news that is relatively unbiased is a crucial piece to living in a world where democracy can thrive. When people lose access (free) to news, they lose access to what’s happening, hearing varied viewpoints, and the ability to be an informed electorate.

But that’s probably what the current administration wants. If no one is questioning the terrible things happening, there is no one to resist when he turns it into the cheap, decrepit thing, ripe for takeover.

When people found out about the big, terrible bill, they were opposed.

And yet it passed.

Despite calls to Congress, despite, despite, despite.

Who’s at risk and why this is happening

I know many people who rely on Medicare and programs in Medicaid. I have used Medicaid — that’s how I birthed my son. We needed SNAP for the first 2 years of our son’s life. I rely on NPR for free access to news reporting. It’s never behind a paywall. I changed my name when I got married to unify our family.

Everything about my life is at risk because the people in charge only care about making more money. They do not care about normal, work-class people. They do not care about poor people. They do not care about people coming here to try to make a better life for themselves.

I’m sorry I haven’t been bolder in sharing my story, how we have literally survived because governance cared that we could eat, have shelter, and have healthcare.

I did not tell this story well. We did not talk about the things that matter to us.

So, we let this happen. And, we’ve let it happen for generations. From everyone who didn’t speak up when we had enslaved people, through the Civil Rights movement, to now — we let this happen.

We let this happen every time we refused to talk about our values, what is important to us, politics, and everything in between. We let this happen when we forgot the definition of terms like socialism and fascism. We let this happen when we minimize the impact because it’s the “lesser of two evils”. We let this happen when the busy-ness of life gets in the way of our participating in decisions by going to meetings, reading articles, or just talking to each other. When the busy-ness of life gets in the way, and we can’t attend meetings. It’s easier to fight over crumbs when the greedy few have already stolen the cookies — and we’ve been taught to blame each other, not the bakers.

But we can come together, now. Let every new thing this administration does be a wake-up call for us to center on what’s important to us.

Our path forward

Let every moment, every sunrise and sunset, and the clean air we have left to breathe be a reminder that we deserve a good life and so do our neighbors, no matter what they look like or where they called home before they came here. Our children, and their children, deserve a life where they can pursue their own bit of happiness, as long as it doesn’t infringe on the rights of another. We can build this together. We can resist together. We can heal together. We can care for each other, together.

We need to decide. And, I pray we choose to do that today, on this 249^th anniversary of our country saying, “No kings.”

If you haven’t yet, download my free guide on how authoritarian regimes weaponize motherhood. This can be your tool for conversation starters this week.

Weaponizing Motherhood - How it happens

A note on astrology

If you’re looking for cosmic confirmation that this moment demands attention… look no further.

Mercury entered its shadow on June 30^th. So we are entering the time of redoing communication, and the trickster god is at play. We are in Cancer Sun season — which has themes of feeling and family. Our moon has entered the Waxing Crescent phase, which has themes of preparing. Uranus is in Taurus for the next few years, and it has themes of equalizing property and disrupting stability. Neptune is in Aries through 2039, and it has themes that all men are created equal, but also reminds us that wars don’t necessarily make anyone free or equal.

When my son was in elementary school, the dualistic tension of our world really screamed at me. He must have been in either first or second grade. It was in the fall, likely November to December. Left to my own rhythm — with no job, no family obligations — I naturally run on a 6-to-8-week rolling schedule. And, this is even more important when managing family calendars. I live by my calendar, and I have since I was born.

Now, when my son was in school, it seemed like we’d be told to show up to this once-in-a-lifetime thing with less than a week’s notice. Such as the Holiday Concert, where all the grades perform songs they’ve been practicing for weeks. At the same time, my job at a local non-profit was trying to end the year. And that meant financial reports, year-end reports, and parties — so many parties. We hosted events to honor our volunteers and high-end donors, including the annual galas to raise necessary funds for the organization. And then we attended more parties to honor the same people.

A saving grace with my husband not pursuing white collar work is that we didn’t have obligations he was told to meet.

All of these things were happening in the time of year when we have the least daylight. (Remember my Wheel of the Year?) This is the time of year when things hibernate - trees and other plants go dormant, and some animals literally go to sleep. And, here we are rushing, as a culture, between all the activities when our energy is depleted in the name of what? In the name of honoring tradition. (Queue Fiddler on the Roof^⁠1.)

This is a prime example of our conditioning, where we are trained to think in terms of either/or, this or that. We are either hustling (doing all the things) or burning out (without reflecting that it’s because we are doing all the things!). This binary thinking isn’t just limiting, it’s also a tool of oppression. Maybe this is where the phrase, “You’re either damned if you do or damned if you don’t,” comes from.

But I get curious. What if we didn’t have to do things like that? What if there were another way to live?

What if there were a Third Way?

The Third Way is not the middle of the binary — it’s the sacred refusal to stay within a false choice. The Third Way isn’t being nice or even kind. It’s absolutely not a compromise to go along to get along.

The Third Way is a way of thinking that integrates the complex world we live in. Sometimes deadlines are due (let’s reflect on that later) when the world wants to rest. So, how do we honor the “both and?” The Third Way considers that, “and maybe we do that this time, but when we build our schedules for next time, we really evaluate the energy flows and natural rhythms around us to build our cycles.” We honor collective care — so that the people doing the work can truly rest and be at their best when they do it. The Third Way roots in consent, in cycles, and in wholeness. And by doing this, we will disrupt systems of extraction. We will lay down 2.

The Third Way is a radical invitation to do things differently now. Because we must create the foundations now. There is a prophecy from the Indigenous people of the Americas that we are faced with two paths: one of concrete and one of green3. The path of concrete is ultimately one of destruction. The path of green is full of rejuvenation, growth, and really thinking with seven generations.

The Third Way is a path of reverence and resistance — grounded in cycles, collective care, and the magic of enough.

Our radical invitation asks us to examine the spaces we occupy: as employee/boss, parent, friend, volunteer, and more. In these roles, in these spaces, how is it run? Do you have a “do as I say” culture, or do you truly seek input from the ground up? Do you honor the rhythms set forth in your organization and in nature, or do you just do what the person or group you are serving says to do with little to no examination of burnout?

Do you participate in circles where the focus is on ritual and rhythm, but they don’t actually hold people accountable? Or do you find yourself in places where they try to “do all the right things,” like have DEI in place or are selective in who’s on the board, but real change is elusive because the change wasn’t actually built with directly impacted people? These are all forms of performance in our dualistic world that are begging to step into the Third Way.

Stepping into the Third Way means we stop hiding. Stepping into the Third Way means we stop dominating or thinking we need to be loud first.

Stepping into the Third Way means we can be centered, sometimes, and we are also checking to make sure all voices are heard. Stepping into the Third Way means we have our agency and our community responsibility. Stepping into the Third Way recognizes you matter, and so do we.

We are still living in systems that are shaped by control, ever-growing consolidation in monopolies, and ever more extraction. We have examples of companies that are changing how we do business, such as Patagonia, Bob’s Red Mill, or Altar PDX. These organizations embody transparency, source sustainability, and show up with mutual care. What might this look like if more companies behaved this way? The Third Way requires that we build foundations exemplified in companies like those listed if we are going to see the path of green.

It really does take all of us, together, to make the world we deserve. It takes all of us being brave to have conversations about values, what’s important to us, and really rethinking business as usual. Ask yourself:

• What would it look like if your business or workplace truly honored natural rhythms?

• What would it look like if leadership really flowed from the ground up?

In parenting, we have this idea that you are either an authoritarian parent or a permissive parent. (You’ll do it because I said so! OR Go ahead, darling, whatever you want.) Talk to any early childhood educator, and they will tell you children need routines and love. Neither authoritarianism nor permissiveness is rooted in what children actually need. We can give children choices and keep them rooted to boundaries, and that actions have consequences. When we root in this new way of parenting, we give ourselves a large tool in healing generational trauma — the hurt and pain can literally stop with us. And, that’s a powerful “yes, and.”

The Third Way will show up in everyday life, too. In activism and organizing, we can reject collapse or outrage posting. We can lean into being strategic and holding relational resistance. In our shopping and consumption, we can reject fast fashion while also rejecting moral purity in purchasing. We can lean into small, meaningful shifts, like supporting hyper-local women seamstresses who source sustainable fabrics. When we call out harm, we can lean into being rooted in disruption and dialogue instead of not saying anything at all or defaulting to shaming. We have choice. We can choose the “yes, and,” the Third Way.

I have noticed binary thinking rises when things are hard, like now with this clear rise of fascism, with economic strain, and with every cultural backlash that happens. But here’s the thing: authoritarianism depends on false choices. Either/or is false thinking. The Third Way, however, is not neutral, because we are making choices rooted in action and compassion. The Third Way can be revolutionary. The Third Way offers discernment, it invites creativity, and it roots us in relational resilience.

To make change, often, we need to go inward. So, my parting words to you today will be a reflection. Talk this out with a friend, write in your journal. Whatever you do, I want you to consider:

• Where have you felt caught between two bad choices?

• Where are you already choosing a Third Way?

• What helps you stay rooted in complexity?

And, remember, we must figure out our shared values if we are going to collectively step into the Third Way. So, tell me what values you are carrying into your own Third Way. Take my Values Survey, now, because we must figure out our shared values as a key to stepping into the Third Way.

Take the Values Survey

This ends our June reflections. In July, we’ll dig more into what it means to work or build a business with the Third Way in mind, how we work with our families, and how we show up in life. This is the regenerative lens, I believe, we must carry forward. Be sure to share this with another if you want to build our community together.

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Finally, let’s take a breath together. My favorite is a 4-4-8 count (breathe in for four counts, hold for four counts, let go for eight counts). And keep these words with you:

There is always another way.
     May we have the courage to imagine it.
          May we have the clarity to name it.
               May we have the community to live it.

I have a scan of social media that I do too many times in a given day. It was one of those moments, and I opened Threads to see post after post by various Black creators talking about a plantation fire in Louisiana. I started writing this post a week before my son’s weeklong graduation festivities. A week of celebrating, and a week when grandparents came to celebrate. This was a week when we could see clearly what gets passed down from generation to generation, and the cost we incur when we lie about it.

So, here’s what happened. On May 16, 2025, the Nottoway Plantation, the “largest surviving antebellum mansion^⁠1 in the South,” caught on fire. That fire initially subsided, then reignited — and the second blaze raged. The newspaper articles^⁠2 I found mourned the loss of the wedding venue. Excuse me, what? I started to understand what the Black creators were talking about because the media was mourning the loss of history. But whose history? And, how was that history made?

Any living plantation is a monument to slavery, and nothing else. If you have a wedding in a place where so much generational harm was caused, you are celebrating on the graves of ancestors, and that is the highest form of cruelty, bigotry, and a morally corrupt way of existing in the world. Consider Native Americans who mourn when white people desecrate their graves for development. This is similar. Taimani Emerald, artist, named, “They called it elegant. They called it Southern charm. But what it was — was a graveyard.”^⁠3 So, really, as named by Nika Redmond, “What’s collapsing isn’t just a building. It’s a myth, the myth that pain can be polished, that blood can be scrubbed clean and repackaged as heritage.”^⁠4

We cannot do this anymore. We must speak the truth. The truth is, any plantation is a graveyard made in some of the most horrific ways. Kahil Greene named, “No one hosts weddings at Auschitz,”^⁠5 because it’s fucking gross. So many lives lost for a cruel, disgusting agenda. It should be so clear to anyone paying attention how little the U.S. has done to remediate its sins of the past.^⁠ Conversations about reparations are never taken seriously and wind up circling the drain of abstract numbers. No number is enough when we consider the harm our country has done for generations and continues to do to Black and Brown people.^⁠6 And, as this Times article notes, “After the Civil War, four million people were liberated, but without a dollar to their names.”^⁠7

So, I’m curious, why is Black suffering seen as something that can be dressed up, sold, and celebrated?

I wrote recently about how budgets are moral documents.^⁠8 And our actions here also show clearly where we lack any moral high ground.

Bill Bigelow was a history teacher here in Portland, Oregon, in the 1990s. A former beau had him as a teacher, and this beau explained a dramatic lesson. On the first day of class, Bigelow would seize a young woman’s purse. He’d begin rifling through it, examining all the contents, and then he’d claim the thing for himself. The students may have cried outrage, but he’d land with something like, “What’s the matter? I discovered it.” Herein lies how Columbus “discovered” the Americas (by bringing disease and genocide). Columbus was a thief and a murderer. He wasn’t a hero. Bigelow introduced students to an important lesson: why we must teach history aggressively — not by sugarcoating things, but with clarity and feeling. The Nottoway Plantation has never apologized to the people it harmed — the descendants, the ancestors. The fire serves as something the refusal to apologize could ever be — the fire was a rupture, a refusal to lie any longer.

The Nottoway Plantation should never have been a wedding venue. It should have been an altar asking for forgiveness for the sins of the past and making active steps towards atonement. Lacking that, nature has taken its course. In this image, “Wildest Dreams” by Taimani Emerald, you can see ancestors rejoicing as the plantation burns. That it caught on fire twice feels like “A long-overdue exhale.” (see Footnote 3)

Quoting Taimani Emerald, again, “May we build altars, not attractions. May we teach truth, not tradition.” (see Footnote 3)

We are at a reckoning in our world. We can continue to honor the tortured past, where monuments to terror have been normalized. Or, we can pave a new way. It would benefit all of us to consider what lies we have told ourselves in the name of politeness or heritage. What lies have you told? I’m also curious, what does a reckoning really look like in our homes, our schools, and our rituals? I think it means we get really clear on the values of humanity - that every person deserves access to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That we stop qualifying people by whether they are legal or not, or some other gross form of showing papers. I believe a reckoning involves stepping radically into the values of compassion and honor, and atoning for the sins of our past.

As I finish this, graduation has come and gone. We’ve even started pre-orientation at his new school, a Catholic University down the road from our house. And, this university has declared, multiple times, its inclusion — even when popes do not. I want my son to inherit truth and core values, not illusion. I want his generation to build a world where no one hosts a wedding on a grave.

Share this post with someone who’s still clinging to nostalgia instead of truth. May we all open our eyes together, and make a path for a better world for our children and their children.

I started watching The Gilded Age. I’m a few episodes into the first season. And by episode two, it was clear that part of the story focuses on the Robber Barons of that era. Do you remember learning about Robber Barons in your history class? They were the industrialists who amassed wealth through exploitative practices. They abused labor, created monopolies, and manipulated public policy.

Robber Barons haven’t gone away. We just call them by another name, “Tech Bros.” These are today’s Robber Barons — exemplified by the likes of Jeff Bezos and his union-busting practices. Or Mark Zuckerberg and his manipulation of his platform to boost profits. Or Elon Musk and his close ties with the government to support his business.

These men dominate the markets and extract wealth — but because it’s under the guise of innovation, we turn a blind eye.

What values are these systems built on? Who do they benefit? Who do they harm?

I became curious about the differences between our current, dominant model and a new way. I have been referring to a “third way” for a little bit, and I will continue to do so. In this instance, a third way is a Regenerative Business Model. What is most interesting is that several businesses are already operating differently. We just need more businesses to be brave and step into the third way because the dominant model still centers hierarchy, control, and extraction.

In fact, recently, my community had a clear example of the top-down model at a local coffee shop. Employees had displayed Pride flags, which were removed by the owner, citing his stance of neutrality. What would have happened if the business had been powered from the ground up and had flat leadership? What would have happened if values were agreed upon by all employees, so that as new employees are onboarded, new values could be added to the culture? What could have happened if neutrality had been rejected and inclusivity had been incorporated? If that had happened, I wouldn’t be boycotting a beloved coffee shop.^⁠1

There are too many examples in which business is top-down, controlling, and extractive. Even in our modern and so-called progressive era, the habits of the Robber Barons hold steady.

I believe we need to think of things differently. I believe we should look to nature as our guide. Think of perennial and annual flowers and plants. Annual plants have a singular season, they have a short purpose, and perhaps they provide seeds so their legacy will live on. Perennial plants regenerate year after year, but even they have a season — it may be a few years, or it may be several hundred — but they too have cycles where they are born and die, or their remains are composted into something new. If we anchor on the cycles of a plant, we can overlay how it grows in the spring, blooms in the summer, is harvested in the fall, and grows dormant in the winter. What if we built our businesses like this, like an ecosystem, instead of like an empire that needs to be trumped up for endless growth? What would happen to the individuals working at those companies?

I’m not the only one saying this, thank goodness. Scrolling on the Socials, Marianne Williamson just named this same thinking of a third way — she grounds her work in radical love, and the cornerstone of what she talks about is people’s basic needs being met. But basic needs extend beyond food and shelter and include healthcare, childcare, and education.^⁠2

In the business world, a sample of companies that are doing things differently includes Patagonia, Seventh Generation, Allbirds, and Dr. Bronner’s. Each company utilizes some form of the following:

• Registering as a B Corp^⁠3

• Focusing on sustainability, such as carbon tracking and climate commitment

• Grounding in employee ownership

• Capping executive pay and supporting non-profits

One of my favorite local businesses is Altar PDX. This locally owned and operated shop, run by two women seamstresses, makes many of the clothes featured in the shop, made to order. They focus on sustainable fabric — and they partner with like-minded businesses across the United States.

Here’s the thing: while public commitments and accountability to the public are important parts of being a sustainable business, it isn’t the only thing. Here are some questions to ask of yourself or a business you are following:

• Do they pay a living wage? (Consider the 50, 30, 20 formula^⁠4)

• Does the organization support and honor rest? Even with generous leave policies, is rest built into the culture — so people can take their leave, guilt-free?

• How are decisions made? Is there any collaboration included?

• Are there practices in place to work actively against hierarchy (top-down models) and white supremacy culture?

• Does the organization invite and make space for continuous reflection, such as on the legacy they are continuing or rewriting?

The bottom line is we need to act. And, we need to act together, now. If you don’t know where to start, the very first step is figuring out what’s important to you. I’ve tried to outline that in my values survey, which you can take here. Another thing you can do is to reflect (journal, talk to someone?) on what you are building in business. I would love to hear some examples from you on what you are doing differently. Paid subscribers can comment. If you’re getting this by email, email me back.

What are your values?

I truly do believe we are better together. And by doing business differently — together — we will usher in a world that is regenerative and worth passing down to future generations.

Summer Solstice is here. Midsummer’s night. (Shakespeare reference intended.) I live in the Pacific Northwest, and where we sit on this planet, the sun sets close to 9pm. I grew up in Michigan, so it is close to 9:30pm or 10pm this time of year. The days are long. And, it feels like we can accomplish anything. It’s warmer. Afternoon naps can be the best thing. With these long days and warm evenings, we are invited to pause and to reflect.

So, what is happening right now with the sun and the planets? Solstice happens twice per year. This marks the occasion when the peak of daylight arrives, or the light begins to recede. It can feel like the light just got here - midsummer after all - and now the seasons carry on. As such, this is a great time to pause, to reflect, and to breathe. I love referencing the wheel of the year here.

The Time of Light begins with Beltaine, May 1^st. The Summer Solstice is in the middle of the Time of Light (midsummer), directly opposite Yule, the Winter Solstice. We may feel disconnected from this rhythm of halfway because our patriarchal, capitalistic culture rushes through the seasons. School just got out, how can it be the middle of summer? This is where our culture clashes with nature’s rhythms. The school year, about 9 months out of the year, begins just after the Time of Harvest and ends just into the Time of Light. We think we have a long break before the next “productive cycle”, and it’s really only about 8 weeks. And, nature is being productive this whole time, blooming. Our rest periods are asynchronous to nature. Meaning, we are productive all the time, but we have our biggest rest when nature is most productive. And, we rest the least when nature hibernates.

We have an obsession with maximizing everything, eking out productivity like trying to get blood out of a turnip. This is a great time to reflect on when we pause. When do we take breaks to honor the flow of nature’s rhythms? Nature blooms and dies, or composts. Bears hibernate in the winter. We’ve been productive during the rest periods; now we’ve time for fun and sun, and we’re still managing to maintain productivity. I get curious - what happens to you if you don’t have to be on all of the time?

I began to notice this when my son was in elementary school, and I noticed it around Thanksgiving. The nights were very short, and we had a long list of weekly events to attend. Likewise, in the summer, school is out, and no city I know of has childcare infrastructure for families. Meaning - there aren’t enough summer programs for families. Children used to be occupied during the day with school; now, families have to piece together support for their children while they work in the summer months.

Then there are all the swim lessons and sports for our children, and when do we go to the beach? In the name of relaxation, we continue to pile on all these extra activities.

My son asked me the other day, “When do you take breaks?” It’s a legit question, and I didn’t have an answer for him. Research tells us we are more productive if we split up work, take breaks, and rest, and yet, how many of us actually do this?^⁠1 Even when we are in movement work, where we should theoretically know better!

This last season of light, I have been reflecting on things I am missing - lazy water time in off hours. Granted, this season has been unique, as our son graduated from high school, coinciding with a major work event (did you hear about a Day Without Child Care?). So, we had a lot to plan. And, in all that planning, all I’m craving is rest - lazy beach days, soaking up the beautiful light, reading, and playing in water.

So, I invite you to consider a few things. What are you noticing? Have you had time to pause? What is the light exposing for you?

The light is diminishing. This is a lesson for us. Soon, the colors around us will change from bright lime greens and vibrant pale blue skies to honing a more amber tone as we enter the Time of Harvest. We will have visual reminders every day to show us that nothing lasts forever, as crops are harvested and leaves fall off trees.

Nature grows, then dies. So, why do we hustle all the time, insisting that we are always on? There is a time for growth, and there is a time for death (rest). Nature has a plan for it. We could plan for it, too. But, we currently don’t, as we are stuck on the hamster wheel of late-stage capitalism. This is our invitation to write the story we want to tell. Let’s get off the hamster wheel and really consider what we are planting and harvesting.

As we move towards the Time of Harvest, consider what you are growing. Is it ripe yet? Are there things that are ready to let go, like how the leaves will soon fall off the trees? To introduce the third way, we must reconcile the idea that growth can occur at different speeds during different seasons - it doesn’t have to be constant, and it doesn’t have to be explosive. And, we must make intentional time for rest, where sometimes work just doesn’t get done, especially if there is only one person to do it.

Since we are at midsummer, let’s take a look around us at what is blooming, like the petunia basket my husband got me for Mother’s Day. This basket requires regular watering, access to sunlight, and pruning of dead blossoms to continue blooming. As you look around, write about it, ask yourself: what’s blooming in your life? What needs nurturing? What needs pruning? Where do you need to rest? What light can you honor and carry forward as the natural light diminishes? A great way to honor the seasons is simply to go outside.

Seasons remind us that nothing lasts forever. Seasons remind us that there is always something to look forward to. So, on this Summer Solstice, let us rejoice in the long, bright days we have had. Let us be intentional about welcoming in the dark.

Take my survey on values. This is a great way for us to root in the things that are important to us, so we can bring in a shared third way together.

What are your value roots?

My friend said to me, “Michelle,” in her authoritative tone, “language is fluid.” I paused. We had been discussing a word, maybe it was regardless vs irregardless, and she simply named how things evolve, and even language evolves like we do.^⁠1 And, that got me thinking about Maya Angelou, who, among many things, said, “When you know better, do better.” The way we say things matters. And, it evolves. When I was in high school, in the 90s, we talked about “transsexual” people, now we say things like “transgender” and “genderfluid”, and we’ve added things into our introductions, like, “What pronouns do you use?” We have evolved to meet the needs of now. We have evolved to be more open, addressing oppression and striving to use language more accurately. We have evolved from interrupting oppression to being actively anti-racist, and that is important, and it matters.

We talked a lot about labels in my senior year sociology class. For instance, what happens when a child is labeled a “bad kid”? Suddenly, you stop looking for other patterns and just chalk up behaviors to the “bad kid.” It becomes, in this instance, a self-perpetuating loop where the kid doesn’t get the benefit of the doubt. Labels frame what is possible - or how we limit ourselves. When we look at a person or a group and label them “lazy” or “criminals”, we limit our hope for what is possible. We fail to see people as individuals with choices and opportunities. And, it’s important to interrupt when people label groups through their biases. So, we interrupt it. I’ve been coached to say things like, “Ouch,” in the moment, as a quick way to stop the bigotry from continuing. Interrupting oppression was taught to me by a local non-profit through our community hotline work. They learned it from other groups and movement spaces. The disruption offered reflection and opened space for crucial conversations. But, it didn’t always point to the next phase - in part because, in this instance, we were on a hotline call.

I presume, dear reader, that you have been taught modern history. In modern history, we learn that women fought for the right to vote and secured it in 1920. But Black people’s and other minorities’ rights weren’t granted until 1965. If you are a white male or white woman, and you cannot see that rights have been tiered, hard fought, and barely granted within my lifetime, you are choosing to bury your head in the sand. This is systemic racism at play. The Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965. It immediately had to be defended and expanded. And, if you fail to acknowledge that, then you are choosing to uphold the systemic racism that brought us here. You, then, are a part of the problem. And, I need you to step into a life of being actively anti-racist.

I need you to choose to wake up. I need you to engage in your critical thinking and lead with your humanity, where we believe that all people, no matter what they look like, where they were born, or where they call home now, deserve a life of their own making. This means we must actively check our thoughts. This means we actively say sorry when we say the wrong name, or make an assumption about what people are because of what we think their ethnicity is. This means we actively invite people who look like us to deepen their own anti-racist and anti-black sentiments so we can really make room for a world where everyone has the chance to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Because here’s the thing - all people deserve to live their best life. Because our social contract has said for too many years that one group has rights over another, based on perceived looks, we have a duty to be actively anti-racist.

Every day.

We all have unconscious biases^⁠2 that are programmed into our being, and we need to unwind those actively. We have too many people in our world who like to blame the “other.” It shows up when George Floyd is murdered, among so many others. It shows up as the hate and vitriol that come when folks stand up and protest. The need to be actively anti-racist shows up when administrations think DEI doesn’t need to exist anymore. And, it absolutely exists when we see a concrete rise of fascism.

This is not a drill, and silence is not neutrality.

When we are silent, we side with the oppressor. That is not okay. It is essential that you and I are crystal clear about the just world we want to usher in and actively work towards bringing it into being, now.

Being actively anti-racist is a daily, hourly practice. So, what does it mean? Let’s be clear, being actively anti-racist is not a gold star you win. So, please drop the savior complex. This is a way of being because all people deserve dignity, and when people cling to sound bites and assumptions, we erase the dignity of those directly impacted by this racist social contract. Even I need to actively engage my “Director” (my prefrontal cortex, aka my executive functioning part of my brain) to be reviewing my thoughts, to be measuring my words, to ensure I truly do think before I speak.

Being anti-racist, being anti-oppression, extends to being anti-sexist, to being anti-fatphobia, anti-ablesism, etc.

Gosh, are you thinking how exhausting this mental load is?

Well, dear, I think that’s your privilege speaking. Because if you had an ounce of the exhaustion our Black and Brown brothers and sisters have had, you would seriously check that thought.

Being actively anti-racist means you believe that all people deserve dignity for being human. It means you come with the responsibility that says, “I will not rely on news clips and 30-second sound bites,” to decide on someone. Being actively anti-racist means centering your values on justice, equity, and safety.

Being actively anti-racist means we are intentional about how we show up in our workplaces, parenting, communities, and activism.

When you are in the workplace, how do you discern applications in hiring?

• Have you taken measurements of what your team looks like across a variety of demographics?

• Have you measured who you fire?

• Have you checked for any disparities?

• Have you considered the emotional labor it takes for different types of people in your workplace to thrive?

When my son was in early elementary school, we sent him to summer school at the local Baptist church. The church was made up predominantly of Black people. One day, my son told me that he felt the other children were being favored, and it seemed that this perspective applied to more than just summer school. I tried to explain to my young child, in words he might understand, that this isn’t the case in the rest of the world. But, this is one example of where I tried to teach my son about the social contract and how it unfairly measures some people over others. I tried to name bias, I work every day naming consent, and I always encourage critical thinking. Because these are the tools that will help unwind the programming we’ve all been subjected to.

This post has taken longer to write than I thought it would. I wanted to post last week, and alas, I’m finishing it one day after the “No Kings”^⁠3 protests around the nation. (One report I read said over 12.1 million people showed up, triggering that crucial 3.5% of people to make a profound difference.4)^⁠ Protests, much like the Day Without Child Care I worked on with my team, are a way to measure if we have enough power. With 3.5% turning out, we might have enough power to right this fascist ship. But, it will take more than protests. We need to build relationships with one another and our decision-makers. We need better policies in place and acted upon. And, we must repair the harms that have been done. We must hold each other and decision makers accountable. And, we must hold each other centered in love and truth.

If you do a web search for principles of leading an active anti-racist life, you will get a lot of tips. Here are mine, right now - four core practices.

1. Self-Reflection & Education

Read books by people with direct experience. James Baldwin, Audre Lorde, and belle hooks, are just three authors that come to mind in this moment. Remember to activate your Director and reflect on your thoughts. We are deprogramming ourselves. Consider that racism, as we know it, dates back to the 1600s. You can also consider that this level of othering we are experiencing dates back thousands of years. So we have 500 to thousands of years of programming that have been passed down from generation to generation. That takes work. So, read. Listen to stories from directly impacted people, Black and Brown people. Actively engage in unlearning. Show up with curiosity, and listen.

2. Amplifying Marginalized Voices

This means sharing the resources you encounter. This means intentionally visiting places run by Black and Brown people. This means compensating people for their work.

3. Advocacy & Allyship

We have to organize. A piece of organizing, bringing more people into the things we want to change, is working on the policies that affect our everyday lives. So that means aligning with organizations that are working on active change. This means working to support policies that will unwind the harms we have done as a society. This is how we amplify our collective voices: by standing shoulder to shoulder, together.

4. Creating Inclusive Spaces

This means we create safe and inclusive spaces on our Zoom calls - for fun and at work. This means in our homes. This means in our meetings. This means, in our movements. Some Black friends told me they didn’t feel safe coming to my home if they visited my city, because they know my husband is racist. Will my home even be safe for them? That is hard. And, that’s the reality we are also in. If someone comes to my home and makes a racist comment (or starts to), I will interrupt it. It’s the least I can do to say, “That’s not okay, and we don’t do that here.”

So, where does this leave us? We need to remember that language is fluid. Like the way we parent and lead. Being “correct” isn’t it - perfectionism is a tool of the patriarchy to keep us frozen - this is about being committed to doing good work.

Back to what Maya Angelou said, “When you know better, do better.” We can temperature check our own progress by pausing to reflect, “How am I different today than I was 5 years ago?” And then name the differences. Think about the actions you can take to be clear in your values and show up with dignity and respect.

And, as always - take my survey! It’s a simple but meaningful step toward naming our collective values.

What are YOUR values?

I didn’t get enough content built up, though I have several drafts in various stages of progress. For the last week, we’ve been hosting family — during the day in our home, though they had hotels nearby — as we celebrated a major rite of passage: our only child’s high school graduation.

It’s been full. Beautiful, exhausting, emotional, and full.

Between preparing our house, juggling work, traveling, and being fully present for this milestone moment, I didn’t carve out the time I needed to finish writing. I know you understand — and I also know that part of living out the values I write about means modeling rest, imperfection, and rhythm.

So here’s a small note in the meantime: I’m still writing. A full post is coming soon — hopefully Wednesday or Thursday — and I’m excited to share what’s emerging. (Spoiler: the regularly scheduled June 9 piece is shaping up to be worth the wait.)

Thank you for being here. Thank you for making space for real life in real time.

Enjoy some snapshots from the event.

In five days, my son will graduate from high school.

As I sit in the mix of pride and grief, I’m reflecting not just on who he’s becoming, but on the world he’s about to enter. A world that still, in 2025, pays women less. A world where caregiving is still dismissed as “women’s work.” A world where sexism is so normalized it often goes unnoticed — unless you’re the one living it. And, even then, it’s hard to peel back the layers and see clearly, “Oh my, that was sexist.”

We didn’t plan to become parents when we did, but from the beginning, my husband and I committed to raising our son with intention — providing a safe and stable home for our son. I’ve always been a feminist. My awakening started in middle school, when I first felt the weight of how my body was perceived, when I learned how policy shaped poverty, and when I began to see how gender showed up in every corner of life.

True story: I walked into sixth-grade social studies to complete a makeup test from when I was sick, and a boy yelled, “Wow! Look at those oranges referring to my developing breasts. I think the teacher scolded the student, but I don’t remember.

Now, as the mother of a white, middle-class, cisgender, straight-presenting boy headed into engineering — a male-dominated field — I carry questions. Have I prepared him well enough? What has he internalized without realizing it? And how can I continue to show up as both his mother and a woman working to change the systems that will shape him?

The World I’m Sending Him Into:

I’ve tried to prepare him for partnership. I’ve told him his future relationships must be built on mutual respect and shared responsibility. That 50/50 isn’t a slogan — it’s a practice. But at home, he still sees me doing more of the invisible labor. He sees me noticing who needs what. He sees me stretched thin.

At school, most of his teachers have been women. Brilliant, compassionate, capable women. And yet, in so many subtle ways, the world still tells him teaching is women’s work. That care is less valuable than command. And that some voices deserve more airtime than others.

We’ve had conversations about consent and about interrupting bias. We’ve talked about how “if it’s not a hell yes, it’s a hell no” applies to all kinds of decisions, but especially to sex. But there’s more to say. Like, who gets heard in the room? Who gets interrupted — and who never does. I’ve asked both my son and my husband to notice how often they interrupt me. They’ve gotten more aware, but awareness isn’t the end goal.

Change is.

What I Tried to Teach Him

I’ve tried to raise my son with a clear sense of values: equality, consent, emotional honesty, and care. We’ve had long talks about justice — about racism, gender, and how power shows up in daily life. Sometimes these conversations land. Other times, they bounce off like a rock skipping across the surface. That’s parenting — a mix of planting seeds and waiting to see what grows.

We’ve talked about gendered expectations, especially when they show up in relationships. I’ve told him that being a good partner isn’t about being a “provider” — it’s about being present. That folding laundry or making dinner isn’t a favor — it’s part of being a team. I say all the time, “It takes everyone in the household to make the household work.” He’s seen me name my needs, apologize when I get it wrong, and hold boundaries with love. He’s also seen the contradictions: the invisible labor I still carry, the ways I over-function, the moments I go silent to keep the peace. He’s seen me, imperfect and trying — and I hope that’s the most powerful lesson of all.

The Work Is Ours Too: Naming and Undoing Adult Patterns

We often discuss preparing kids for the world, but we don’t talk enough about preparing the world for our kids. The systems they enter, such as school, work, and public life, are shaped by patterns we either reinforce or interrupt.

In the workplace, sexism often hides behind professionalism. It looks like women being interrupted or having their ideas ignored, until a man repeats them. It looks like being asked to take notes, plan the birthday party, or smile more. It looks like leaders who are promoted for domination, not collaboration. I’ve lived that. I’ve had to advocate just to be seen, especially when I was leaving work to parent or refusing to perform constant availability.

In our movements, we often replicate the very hierarchies we’re trying to dismantle. Women, especially Black, Brown, queer, and disabled women, carry the emotional labor, the logistics, the relational glue that keeps things going. And too often, that labor is invisible, undervalued, or dismissed as “soft skills.”

And then there’s the work inside ourselves. The internalized stories about needing to be perfect, to prove ourselves, to earn rest. The ways we hesitate to name sexism because we don’t want to seem “too much” — too sensitive, too angry, too feminist. But those silences accumulate. They cost us something. And they cost the next generation, too.

Conclusion: What We Send Forward

Graduation is more than a ceremony. It’s a threshold. My son will walk across that stage — and into a world that’s both beautiful and broken. He’ll carry what we’ve taught him and what he’s absorbed despite us. He’ll make his own choices. But I want him to know this: the world doesn’t have to stay the way it is.

We don’t just send our kids into the world: we shape the world they’re stepping into. That’s why I keep writing. That’s why I keep organizing. That’s why I keep having the hard conversations, even when I don’t have the perfect words. Because love isn’t just about raising good kids, it’s about building a just world.

Let’s do both.

👉🏽 What values are you passing on — and how are you living them out in your work, home, or community?

Take the Balance Shared Value Survey

It’s been a heckuva news cycle—again.

I just came off a staff retreat in Atlanta, where we grounded ourselves in a truth that feels more urgent by the day: we are no longer doing business as usual. We were agitated to consider that part of our work now means (1) defending what remains of our democratic systems, (2) defeating the rise of authoritarianism and fascism, and (3) simultaneously creating the new world we want to live in - what I’m calling the Third Way.

And then, while we were still processing that, Trump and the Republican-dominated House passed the “One Big, Beautiful Bill” by a single vote.

Even if the news cycle moves on before we can catch our breath, this moment deserves reflection.

I’ve been reading Letters from an American by Heather Cox Richardson, and I’m grateful for how clearly she named what’s actually in this bill. It may come dressed up with headers like “Thrifty Food Plan” or “Investment in Rural America,” but once you get past the doublespeak, here’s what it really does:

• Slashes $715 billion from healthcare (mostly Medicaid)

• Cuts $300 billion from SNAP, impacting children, seniors, and disabled adults

• Triggers $500 billion in Medicare cuts

• Pours billions into ICE and border militarization

• And funds massive, permanent tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy

Former Portland Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty once said, “Budgets are moral documents.” This one? It fails the test. It betrays working Americans and bolsters an oligarchy that feeds off public harm.

My husband likes to remind me, when I say, “It’s capitalism,” that really, it’s crony capitalism. For a long time, I thought he made that phrase up—turns out, it’s real. The term describes what happens when businesses cozy up to government in mutually beneficial ways (think of all those contracts one particular electric car company keeps winning—and the deregulation that follows).

This budget doesn’t represent a new moral failure - it’s the same old logic repackaged - the same logic used by enslavers and segregationists who stoked fear and racism to maintain elite power.

To reframe through Richardson’s lens:

• White fear becomes political leverage

• Mass detention becomes a profit model

• Rule of law becomes optional for the powerful

Basically: what’s old is new again. Only now, there’s cryptocurrency and fewer masks.

But fear-mongering isn’t helpful—and I don’t want this post to tip you into despair. If you’re feeling anxious, overwhelmed, or panicked, take a breath with me. (Try a 4-4-8 breath: inhale for 4, hold for 4, release for 8. It helps. And, it’s called pranayama.)

We have to be rooted in clarity. We have to name what’s happening. And we have to call truth to power.

So let this be an invitation, not to spiral, but to stay grounded and responsive:

• Contact your reps (especially in the Senate)

• Support local organizations (like Family Forward Oregon)

• Stay informed—but don’t doomscroll

• Keep building community, joy, and resistance

I believe in collective care. I believe in shared power and radical hope. And I believe we deserve a government that serves people, not profit, not corporations, and not an elite few.

So I’m going to keep showing up, even when it hurts, especially when it hurts.

And I hope you’ll show up with me.

Tell me how you’re holding this moment. Paid subscribers can comment.

🌀 And don’t forget: Tell me what you value. The more of us who name our values together, the closer we are to reshaping our social contract—and imagining a Third Way forward.

Share your values of the third way

Also, for whimsy, check out Elle Cordova’s look at this alliteration.

Levi was nine months old. It was Thanksgiving — or Friendsgiving, in our case. We were laughing, and I noticed Levi observing. Then he did something. He wasn’t quite speaking yet, but our friends laughed. So, he did it again. And then he laughed — that gorgeous, tinkling-bell kind of laugh that lights up a night sky.

That is joy.

And today, I look around. I observe a criminal rising fascist threat - which means people’s choice, lives, and well-being are all at stake. And, the question begs, is there even time for joy? As I write this, the House just passed a “Big Beautiful Bill” that promises to gut the social safety net poor people rely on. So, it’s a “Big Beautiful Bill” for very rich people, ensuring they will hoard even more wealth. People will die when they don’t get the food and care they deserve. The urgency of our times is very real. This urgency is hard. And, this barrage of terrible, no good things keeps us feeling disempowered, and certainly without joy.

Our culture treats joy like a reward you must earn after suffering enough. Hustle culture teaches us that productivity is a virtue, and rest is indulgence. Joy? Only allowed when the work is done — and by then, we’re too depleted to enjoy it. These messages trace back to the values embedded by early White Anglo-Saxon Protestant settlers — the same values that fused hard work with moral worth and deferred happiness to the afterlife. It’s a worldview that tells us joy is frivolous, pleasure is sinful, and rest is weakness.

So, how can we use joy radically? We can use joy radically as a tool to interrupt systems of control. When I sold books door-to-door, we were taught to schedule joy into our day — to interrupt the grind intentionally. Dance breaks, silly inside jokes, little acts of delight. Those small disruptions made the long, hard days bearable — and reminded us that we were more than what we sold. When we interrupt our day-to-day doldrums with joy, we get the work done, but we also center our humanity. We center connection to each other and the world around us. We center pleasure.

Centering joy is especially important for women, mothers, and other people targeted by structural harm. When we center joy in this way, we are taking revolutionary acts. Group dance breaks, for example, teach people that we can work together, but it looks utterly ridiculous to the very serious among us. As long as we are committed to the reason why we are here (people are literally dying), we can bring joy in AND be serious.

One way of looking at it - when we center joy, we are saying, “I am still here. I am still whole. And, I am still worth it.”

Joy isn’t just personal — it’s political.

It’s political because rest and joy were systematically denied to enslaved people, particularly to laborers and women who were expected to serve others—specifically, Black women. Black joy, queer joy, disabled joy, and mothering joy are all political because society tells us that we must suffer in silence. For instance, mothers don’t complain because at least they have a roof over their heads. Therefore, we must lean into collective joy. Together, we build resilience through music, protests, celebration, and community rituals. Protests should weave all of these elements together. (I talk about this lightly in my guide to how fascism weaponizes motherhood.)

I described one example of how I make space for joy when I sold books door to door. That simple idea of taking a 2-minute dance break in the middle of the day, no matter where you are, inspires me in a lot of other ways. Other ways include telling irrelevant jokes to laugh, or making time for art (I do a version of bullet journaling where I literally draw the day every day in brushstrokes, which brings me joy). I also do art with a group of friends every Monday evening. That’s it, we create. I find joy in creation, so these are outlets I seek out. But you need to find what works for you. Maybe it’s a walk in nature (which we know is so restorative), maybe it’s singing or listening to a song. Maybe it’s aligning your baths with the moon cycles. Maybe it’s keeping your loved ones close (with consent and choice). Maybe it’s saying no to something that’s draining you. (Remember, no is a complete sentence.)

It is a struggle to allow joy in when we are doing big things, like organizing people around life and death - literally. In my work, so many of the family child care providers have a story where their retirement plan is death - this is literally life and death. And, I engage in emotional labor when I hold their pain. This is heavy work. And, it’s hard to make space to feel good when there is so much suffering. But we must. (One of my favorite sketches of Jesus is of him laughing.) Joy must coexist with grief. It should never be either/or. At my grandparents’ funerals — and at my sister’s — we told old stories and shared terrible, wonderful inside jokes. We wept. And we laughed. That mixture of grief and joy was holy.

Where is joy showing up for you? Even if it’s just a flicker — can you make more room for it? What’s one small thing that brings you joy? What would it look like to prioritize that today? Choosing joy is not weakness, especially among the heavy things we are doing. It actually demonstrates a lot of courage and strength to be able to say, “I need a break. I will do the other thing, and right now, I need joy.”

Remember, we were made for these times, even when it feels heavy and big and unweilding. We can do this. And, we can do this together.

Joy is a value of mine. And, I still want to know more about your values, especially what brings you joy. Take my survey, and join the conversation of our collective values.

🌿 Tell me what you value.

I’m gathering reflections from this community about what matters most — especially the things that bring you joy.

👉 Take the short survey here

Fascism is a word we’ve been hearing a lot lately—and not without reason. From book bans to anti-trans laws to calls for a national abortion ban, the authoritarian creep is no longer subtle. It’s strategic. It’s coordinated. And if we want to resist it effectively, we need to understand its origins.

Let’s get grounded—in the facts and in our stories.

Growing Up in the Reagan Era: The Personal Is Political

I was born in 1978. When I was five years old—1983—my dad left. My mom was suddenly raising me and my siblings on her own. Like so many women in that era, she had to rely on the social safety net just to survive.

But this was also the height of the Reagan era.

And while my mom was navigating food stamps, housing support, and trying to keep our family afloat, Ronald Reagan was actively making that safety net harder to access. He framed poverty as a moral failure, not a structural issue. He gave us the mythical “welfare queen” and slashed support systems that kept families like mine from falling apart.

And I didn’t know any of that then.

All I knew was that Reagan seemed “nice.” When I got my Presidential Fitness certificate in 4th grade, I was so proud that the President of the United States signed it.

This is the dissonance so many of us live in: we grow up inside systems that impact our lives long before we understand how. The political becomes personal, but not always immediately. Sometimes the realization doesn’t come until much later.

My Awakening: High School in the Clinton/Gingrich Era

By the time I was in high school (1992–1996), the political landscape was heating up. Bill Clinton was president, and Newt Gingrich was leading a Republican resurgence. I remember how the news treated it like a war—“liberals vs conservatives,” “Clinton vs Gingrich.”

This was my first real sense of party politics. I began to understand that Democrats were supposed to be more aligned with working-class interests, even though they were, by then, moving away from that. Republicans seemed business-oriented, more concerned with markets than people. But again, I was just a teenager. I was watching patterns start, not yet understanding their long-term consequences.

What Is Fascism?

According to Oxford Languages:

fascism | ˈfaˌSHizəm |

noun

An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization.

• Extremely authoritarian, intolerant, or oppressive ideas or behavior.

• Very intolerant or domineering views or practices in a particular area.

The word has Italian roots—fascio, meaning bundle, from Roman symbols of unity and power. From the beginning, fascism has meant strength through control. Obedience over dissent. A single story told loud and often.

Key features include:

• Glorification of a single ethnic or national group

• A demagogic leader demanding loyalty

• Suppression of dissent and the press

• Nostalgia for a mythic past

• Control over reproductive rights and social norms

From Mussolini to MAGA

Fascism isn’t new. We’ve seen it before:

• Mussolini’s Italy (1922–43)

• Hitler’s Germany (1933–45)

• Franco’s Spain (1939–75)

Each relied on national mythologies, militarized masculinity, and authoritarian suppression. Each fed off fear.

Fascism & Weaponizing Motherhood

The U.S. Right’s Long Game

The Heritage Foundation

Founded in 1973, the Heritage Foundation has been shaping right-wing policy for decades. Their 1981 Mandate for Leadership set the agenda for Reagan’s presidency. Later, they supported Newt Gingrich’s 1994 Contract with America, and today they are behind Project 2025—a chilling authoritarian playbook.

Source: Heritage Foundation1

The 1994 Political Shift

I remember this. Democrats had won it all in 1992, but by 1994, Republicans took back the House. Gingrich’s aggressive messaging (backed by Heritage) defined the national conversation. And Clinton, far from being a progressive hero, leaned into welfare reform, criminalization, and trade deals that gutted labor.

This is when my awareness began to crystallize. I could feel the shift. But like most of us, I didn’t yet know what it meant.

Becoming a Mother During the Tea Party Era

When the Tea Party began to rise in 2009–2010, my son was just two years old. My husband and I don’t see eye to eye on politics, so I couldn’t even enjoy the historic moment of having our first Black president. I stopped listening to NPR because I didn’t want to hear the vitriol coming from my partner’s direction.

We were in survival mode—caring for a child with health challenges, facing my own health issues, just trying to do life. And while we were doing that, the far right was growing stronger. Fear-based, corporate-funded, and organized.

This is how fascism creeps in—not with jackboots, but with talking points and voter suppression bills and narratives designed to keep people divided and exhausted.

From Tea Party to Trump

Trump didn’t invent anything. He channeled decades of Republican strategy:

• Discredit journalism

• Stoke white grievance

• Blame immigrants

• Promise to “restore order”

The Tea Party had primed the base. Heritage had supplied the ideas. Clinton-era neoliberalism had abandoned working-class people. The conditions were ripe.

Sources:

• Britannica – Tea Party2

• Jacobin3

• In These Times4

A Woo-Woo Theory (That Tracks)

I’ll leave you with a bigger frame. According to astrologer and scholar Demetra George:

• We’re leaving the Age of Pisces (hierarchy, religion, empire)

• Entering the Age of Aquarius (rebellion, innovation, collective power)

• We’re still in the Dark Moon phase—the death rattle of patriarchy

I believe this: fascism is patriarchy’s last gasp. A desperate attempt to hold onto control as the world shifts.

Source:

George, Demetra. Mysteries of the Dark Moon. HarperCollins, 1992.5

So What Do We Do?

We name it.

We trace its roots.

We build new systems of care and collaboration.

We tell better stories—grounded in truth, community, and justice.

Tell Me What You Value

I’m collecting feedback for future work on messaging, organizing, and collaborative leadership.

👉 Take the 3-minute Values Survey here

Further Reading

• Jason Stanley, How Fascism Works6

• Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny7

• Thomas Frank, Listen, Liberal8

• Demetra George, Mysteries of the Dark Moon9

• Project 2025 – Wikipedia10

Read more:

I say it to my son sometimes in jest, but more often than not, it slips out when I’m tired or at my limit: “Because I said so.”

It’s a phrase I inherited. My mother said it to me. My stepfather, too. I’m sure my grandparents said it to their children. I’ve even heard it in professional settings, though there, it sounds more like, “We’ve always done it this way.” These phrases don’t hold logic or care; they are about power, obedience, and shutting down the conversation.

From the beginning of my parenting journey, I questioned those methods. “Because I said so” never motivated my son. Like me, he needs to understand the why. Sometimes the reason is solid. Sometimes it invites negotiation. That dance of explanation, compromise, and boundary-setting in relationships has become central to how I parent.

This includes harder things, too—like my early use of spanking. I didn’t do it often, but when I did, it was because I felt I had run out of options. He was little. I needed the behavior to stop. I didn’t know better, and I was at my wits’ end.

We talked about this recently. I told him I had my own reckoning and came to understand it was wrong. Like Maya Angelou said, “When you know better, do better.” I apologized to him. Not just for the act, but for what it represented — using power over rather than building power with. More than anything, I hope he knows I’m not trying to be a perfect parent. I’m trying to be a human parent. A parent who learns, apologizes, and tries again—a parent who’s raising her child to be better than she was.

When we learn new tools, we’re invited to use them. And that often includes repair. Parenting for growth — both my own and my son’s — means holding love as the through line. It means showing up in challenging conversations. It means building a relationship grounded in justice, mutual respect, and emotional safety.

We live in a culture that prioritizes obedience over critical thinking. It trains us to be pleasers, to fear failure, to hide our mistakes. Obedience disconnects us from our own intuition, boundaries, and ethics. We hear it in the language of soldiers who say, “I was just doing my job,” even when that job causes harm. Obedience culture prepares us to submit, not to think.

Yes, you can get short-term compliance. When I spanked my son, he stopped the behavior. But how much mistrust did I sow? How many systems are built on that same logic, controlling behavior instead of cultivating character? I observed the same dynamic when we transitioned my son from a play-based preschool to a private Catholic school. He went from exploration to “sit down, sit still, be quiet.” I watched the light dim in his eyes.

If we want brave, creative, emotionally literate people in the world, we can’t raise them with authoritarian tools. If we want a different kind of future, we need a different kind of parenting.

My son is now 18, and I feel like I’m still figuring this out. But many years ago, it became clear to me, through reading, reflection, and conversations with trusted peers, that I wanted to be the kind of parent my son could always talk to. I wanted him to know he is loved without condition. That we can face hard things together. That emotional literacy is a tool for life.

This value paid off during a major crisis in his late elementary years. Our foundation of trust held us. Even now, I work to center consent in our relationship. I’m not perfect, but I’m committed. We try to co-create boundaries. Recently, while I was traveling for work, he told me he was starting to dread our evening phone calls. It was the end of senior year, and his stress was high. Later, I asked, “As your mom, part of my job is to hold you accountable. How else would you like me to do that?” He didn’t have a clear answer, but the question itself mattered. It lets us renegotiate the container of our relationship. That’s parenting beyond obedience.

This practice includes modeling accountability. I tell him out loud, “I was wrong to spank. I want to do better.” I try not to impose punitive consequences. I focus on real-world feedback. I try to see him as a full person, whose brain is still growing, who’s doing the best he can with what he has. I hold him accountable, but I try not to use shame or fear to do it.

And I do all of this because I believe parenting is part of how we shift the world. How we parent shapes how we relate to power. Do we use power over? Or do we practice power with?

Power over — the kind baked into patriarchy, white supremacy, authoritarian religion — is what breeds disconnection and distrust. It’s what says, “Because I said so.” But power with? That’s the third way. It’s the space where we can build something different.

I want my son to know how to negotiate with a boss, to advocate for what he needs, to say, “That’s too much — how can we renegotiate?” I want him to stand in his power with confidence, not fear. I want him to offer that same freedom to others. That’s the kind of man I hope he becomes. That’s the kind of culture I want to ripple outward.

Because when we raise children with accountability and confidence — without fear — we are seeding a future that values freedom, trust, and relationship. That’s how we reimagine liberation.

I hated being told what to do as a kid. Maybe that’s why I’ve chosen this path. Have you noticed how control shows up in your life — in your parenting, in your relationships, at work? Have you tried shifting from control to connection?

Being rooted in our values is what keeps us anchored in challenging moments. If this resonates with you, I’d love to hear what you value.

🗳️ Tell me what you value

And after you take my survey, consider: What are you passing down to your children’s children? What do you want to stop?

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Collaborative leadership is the future. Or rather—it has to be. Looking around, we know that our top-down world isn’t serving us. Forests are burning. People are unhoused. Health care is unaffordable. Egg prices are outrageous. We live in a culture of crisis, and our institutions are struggling to respond. To move toward a human-centered world, we need human-centered leadership. That means leadership grounded in trust, collaboration, and shared power. That means decentralization.

Nick Hernandez of 360 Leadership describes the death of top-down leadership like this: “It kills curiosity and ownership. It’s outdated. It pushes employees to leave. Most importantly, it doesn’t work.”1 We live in a world where technologies evolve overnight, where production cycles shift rapidly, where pandemics change everything. In that world, we need leadership that values curiosity, that empowers decision-making, and that builds real trust. Top-down leadership creates layers of hierarchy that delay decisions, breed mistrust, and foster conflict and drama. I can’t help but wonder—how much of our inability to create a shared vision stems from this structure of constant permission-seeking? If leadership were collaborative, we could decide together.

From childhood, we’re taught that “father knows best.” It’s embedded in our culture: patriarchal religion has “the Father.” Workplaces have CEOs or Presidents—faces of the organization and supposed holders of the master plan. But how often do they get it wrong? And more importantly—can any leader function without the people doing the actual work?

I’ve never worked in an organization that could operate without its frontline staff. Answering phones. Managing projects. Maintaining systems. Most CEOs I’ve worked with could articulate a big vision, but there’s no way they could manage day-to-day logistics. So why do we tolerate systems where the people farthest from the work hold the most power?

Carnegie once suggested the healthiest pay ratio was 13:1—that a CEO shouldn’t make more than 13 times the salary of the lowest-paid worker. Today, in the U.S., it’s common for CEOs to earn 500 times that of a minimum wage employee. This is a recipe for burnout, disconnection, and systemic failure.

Let’s be clear: collaborative leadership doesn’t mean no leadership. Someone—or a group—can and should hold a vision. But it also means power is shared. It means decisions are made with, not for, the people doing the work. To me, collaborative leadership makes space for more trust (thank you, Stephen Covey), more belief that we each bring brilliance to our roles, and the dismantling of oppressive systems. It allows us to create workplaces that are more equitable and sustainable, and environments where true belonging can emerge.

One place I’ve wrestled with these ideas personally is parenting. I was raised by authoritative parents, and their tools were passed down through generations. But I found that the parenting models I wanted didn’t arrive in a neat package—I had to build them myself. I’ve used tools I later abandoned. I’ve learned through reflection, not just rules. I once told my son I used to spank him — and I apologized for it. We had a real conversation about my motivations and why I changed my methods. Spanking wasn’t leading to the long-term goals I wanted: that he understands consent; that he shows kindness; that he speaks truth and seeks justice; that he trusts me enough to come to me when life gets hard.

Spanking demanded obedience. But I wanted integrity, not compliance. So, I stopped. We tried something else. Parenting—like leadership—isn’t about perfection. It’s about showing up, course-correcting, and choosing relationship over control.

I see this same dynamic in volunteer management. You cannot lead volunteers with punitive demands. You lead by invitation. As a community organizer and coach, I don’t assign tasks. I hold up a mirror. I help people see how their choices connect to their values—and whether their actions move us toward our shared goals. That’s leadership rooted in trust, not punishment. And we can bring this same model into the workplace.

Too often, punitive responses are the fallback. They’re easy. Like spanking when your kid doesn’t listen—it’s immediate, but it doesn’t build what we truly want. It takes strength to assume good intent. It takes courage to lead with care. It takes time to build shared understanding. But the return is priceless.

Collaborative leadership takes time. Time to hold the meetings. Time to account for different learning styles. Time to honor the multiple ways we see the world. But that time isn’t wasted—it’s the foundation for trust, ownership, and brilliance. Science shows that when people work in their zone of genius, they’re happier and more productive.2 Less hierarchy creates more space for real accountability and shared leadership. We’re not saying “no structure”—but we are saying it’s time to build structures that serve us, not control us.

So, what would it look like if your workplace actually trusted you to lead? What if parenting meant co-creating boundaries instead of enforcing them? What if movements and businesses grew from collective wisdom, not individual burnout?

I believe we can get there. Not just because it’s morally right—but because it works better. The old ways are crumbling. The new ones are being built. The question is: will we take an active role in building something different? Or will we passively let the same system rise again in a new disguise?

We have a choice. Let’s make it together.

⸻

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Take my short survey and help shape what we build next.