Tending Your Life: Recent Episodes
Christy Tending
Tending Your Life is a podcast from Christy Tending—that’s me!—I’m an activist, self-care mentor, writer, artist, and mama. In this podcast, we’ll explore the spiritual and political practice of being human. Expect deep inquiry into activism, spirituality, nature, creativity, and relationships. Tending Your Life is designed to evolve our legacies, individually and collectively. This is where self-care and devotional service meet—and become friends. Together, we’ll embrace our whole, messy, beautiful selves—as we work toward this wish: May we all be free.
Being convenient is a priority for many people, and it is ingrained in our culture and our society. It impacts the way we show up in our work and with our families. I recently held a workshop titled "How to be Inconvenient" and several people shared that they gasped at the topic. How did being inconvenient get to be so controversial?
Being "convenient" means our self-care is happening at another person's convenience. This means we're not doing anything in a way that doesn't upset anyone else, doesn't upset the balance of power or the equilibrium of a given situation and we avoid doing things that have an impact anyone else. What happens is that self care becomes something we do in secret. We know it happens, but we make the effort to do it in a way that doesn't requires anyone to rearrange their schedules or be upset, or be "inconvenienced."
Convenience, and especially being seen as convenient to other people, is often an unseen hurdle to self care. And, discovering that many people feel so strongly motivated (often at a subconscious level) to maintaining convenience that it becomes a hurdle to self care was a big learning moment for me. Why? Because I personally do not feel strongly about being convenient to other people. And in fact, my being inconvenient, I see as a way of teaching the people around me that I do not exist simply to serve them.
And, so in this episode, I'm talking about this, and how to be inconvenient and why it matters for your self care and personal boundaries.
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One of the best ways to support the show is to leave a rating and review. It's the best way to spread the word and help more people find the podcast. Leave your review on iTunes, send me an email (to christy@christytending.com) letting me know you did it, and I'll send you a free gift worth $20!
I've been following Marlee Grace's Work for quite awhile, and when I was thinking about pioneers—people who are doing this a step away from, or even against, the mainstream, I thought about Marlee. I knew I wanted to bring her on the show to talk about creativity, stepping away from the socials, creating community, her books (Getting to Center and How to Not Always Be Working, especially).
I loved this conversation so much, and it was an honor to have Marlee Grace on the show.
Marlee Grace is a dancer and writer whose work focuses on the self, devotion, ritual, creativity, and art making. Her practice is rooted in improvisation as a compositional form that takes shape in movement videos, books, quilting, online courses, and hosting artists. Grace’s Instagram dance project Personal Practice has been featured in the New York Times, Dance Magazine, Vanity Fair, The Huffington Post, and more.
Marlee’s most recent book is Getting to Center: Pathways to Finding Yourself Within the Great Unknown. She also recently self-published a book of advice based on her radio show, Friendship Village.
Connect with Marlee Grace * Marlee Grace's Website
Links and resources for this episode * Marlee's books on Bookshop.org * Christy's favorite resources * Free Workbook: You're Allowed to Want Things
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One of the best ways to support the show is to leave a rating and review. It's the best way to spread the word and help more people find the podcast. Leave your review on iTunes, send me an email (to christy@christytending.com) letting me know you did it, and I'll send you a free gift worth $20!
One of the best things about doing this work for as long as I have is the ability to see patterns over a long period of time. What are people struggling with? What are those tendencies that pop up again and again? And how can I fashion solutions that address those issues that don't seem to disappear?
In this week's episode, I'm talking about sustainable self-care.
One of the things I've noticed over the last few years is that people tend to take the same approach that got them into burnout, overwhelm, etc.—and apply it to their approach to self-care.
For example, if you overwork in your professional life, you're likely to try to overwork or do too much in your self-care. If you're a people-pleaser, you approach self-care so that it never inconveniences anyone and makes sure that you only do self-care that works for others.
While this might feel okay for a while, ultimately, it doesn't address the real issues of why you need self-care in the first place and how to create it in a sustainable way that actually resources you..
Links and resources for this episode * Free Video Workshop: How to Be Inconvenient * Free Workbook: You're Allowed to Want Things * My Bookshop.org shelves for more books and resources
Homework: creating sustainable self-care Ask yourself: what is the root of your need for self-care? What is the root cause, and how can you envision a root solution based on your unique needs, wants, desires, and way that you show up in the world?
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Welcome to Season 5 of Tending Your Life.
This season, I'm pleased to partner with Hyde Organic Yoga Apparel to uplift this slow, sustainable brand and bring you a discount on what I think are the most fabulous yoga clothes on the planet to get in on this awesomeness, click the link and enter Christy10 at checkout.
And if you're brand new here, this is a podcast that lives at the intersection of our political and spiritual lives and aims to help listeners redefine self-care and make a deeper impact in their unique way, wherever in the world, they find themselves. We talk about leadership.
Self-care creativity, sustainability. Sobriety mental health, social justice, mindfulness parenting, and so much more. Plus you'll enjoy interviews with luminaries and friends who are revolutionizing the way we think about joy, grief, love, dreams, boundaries, adventure, and life.
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In today's episode, I'm here to give a little State of Things update and to talk about my biggest a-ha moment so far in this unexpected and highly usual moment in which we find ourselves. In the midst of this shelter-in-place/COVID-19 pandemic moment, what do we do about self-care, let alone all of those difficult emotions and feelings that come along with this moment of deep uncertainty?
In this episode, I'm proposing something that is both compassionate, yet counter-intuitive. This is about sitting with our discomfort instead of trying to self-care it away.
Read all of the episode notes on Christy's blog.
- Links and resources for this episode
- The Art of Self-AdvocacySubscribe & Rate the Show On iTunes
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We all know that perfectionism is the enemy of liberation.
Which means that imperfection is our ally in liberation. Which is awesome!
In this episode, I'm talking about embracing imperfection and the awesome impact that imperfection might have on our lives. Once we set down perfectionism, what could we choose instead? What are the things that we're able to access in the context of imperfection that perfectionism could never give us?
What I want you to take away from this is, is really that we do not live in a binary of perfection and imperfection. (We're never going to reach that perfection! It's not an option!) If we're never ever going to get to perfection, then we become free of its hold on us.
It means that we all exist somewhere on this spectrum of imperfection. Finding our place on that spectrum is pretty amazing.
Links and resources for this episode * Episode: Perfectionism is the Enemy of Liberation. * Episode: Sitting with Discomfort. * The When I Grow Up Coach: Michelle Ward. * Free Self-Care Course. * My Favorite Self-Care Resources.
My teachers on sobriety * Rolf Gates * Holly Whitaker * Elena Brower * Laura McKowen
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What is it like to put yourself out there, and how do you feel when you're considering doing something new?
I've noticed a pattern for people when they start to put themselves out there. I've noticed people talk about self confidence first, and we talk about developing self confidence, in a vacuum as though it happens on its own.
What happens is we wait for that self-confidence or the perfect timing, or a certain threshold of expertise or that perfect moment. We wait for these things first, before we decide to speak or own our expertise, or create an experiment, or decide to make an impact, or tell our story ,or show up, or put ourselves out there.
We're waiting for confidence first.
And we have decided that confidence shows up a somehow on its own, and when it does that that will be the right moment to start putting ourselves out there.
Spoiler alert: It doesn't quite work this way.
Read the full show notes here.
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One of the best ways to support the show is to leave a rating and review. It's the best way to spread the word and help more people find the podcast. Leave your review on iTunes, send me an email (to christy@christytending.com) letting me know you did it, and I'll send you a free gift worth $20!
When I first got into the "self-care" game many years ago, Jen Louden was one of the first names I heard. In this conversation, we talk about her book, "Why Bother?"; plus how to find your bother and get your bother on. We also talk about creative process, climate activism, and what it looks like to show up imperfectly and in process.
We talk about learning as we go, daring to start imperfectly, and how creativity and imagination can fuel positive solutions for the planet.
I loved this conversation so much, and it was an honor to have Jen on the show.
Jennifer Louden is a personal growth pioneer who helped launch the concept of self-care with her 1992 bestselling debut book The Woman’s Comfort Book. She is the author of six additional books, including The Woman’s Retreat Book, The Life Organizer, and her newest release, Why Bother? She appeared on a number of television and radio shows and podcasts—including The Oprah Winfrey Show. As an entrepreneur and educator, Jennifer has offered women’s retreats for over 25 years. She lives in Boulder County, Colorado.
Connect with Jen Louden * Jen's Website * Jen on Instagram
Links and resources for this episode * Jen's books on Bookshop.org * Christy's favorite resources * Free Workbook: You're Allowed to Want Things
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One of the best ways to support the show is to leave a rating and review. It's the best way to spread the word and help more people find the podcast. Leave your review on iTunes, send me an email (to christy@christytending.com) letting me know you did it, and I'll send you a free gift worth $20!
Recently, I've been thinking about boundaries. I mean, I'm always thinking about boundaries. But specifically, I've been thinking about the way that we create and honor our boundaries in our online and digital spaces. It occurs to me that while we all know intellectually that we need good boundaries for ourselves, they can be hard to create and even harder to maintain.
And in the online world, this is doubly true. For two reasons:
First of all, it's endless. The emails keep coming, and the algorithms of social media are designed to keep us glued to the app as long as possible. And second, we are taught that we should aim to always be available, share as vulnerably as possible, and give it all away for free.
In this episode, I get nitty-gritty about how I decide what to share, what I definitely don't share, and how I honor my boundaries and protect my privacy online.
- Sign up for the free workshop: How to Be Inconvenient!
Links and resources for this episode * Electronic Frontier Foundation
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adrienne is a facilitator and author, a writer, a pleasure activist, and a movement leader. I look to her for inspiration in my activist practice, and in how I relate to other people. In this episode, we talk about pleasure, activism, trust and visionary writers.
See the show notes on the website.
Connect with adrienne * Website * Instagram
A couple of years ago, I wrote one of my most popular newsletters ever. I think it remains my most replied-to email of all time. In it, I talked about my depression—and what I wanted you to know.
Earlier this year, I wanted to update the list—and was so proud to have it published on The Mighty. Whether you have depression or love someone who does, this episode is full of good reminders. I hope that it feels useful for you.
See the show notes on the website.
Links and resources for this episode * You can read the original article here.
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Elena Brower is one of my long-time yoga teachers, one of the first people who got me thinking about the kind of mom I wanted to be, and one of the first people I texted when I decided to get sober two years ago. At this, my two-year sober anniversary, I'm taking things full circle by welcoming Elena to the podcast so that we can talk parenting, sobriety, creative process, and more.
About Elena: Mama, teacher, bestselling author and Double Diamond leader with doTERRA, Elena has taught yoga and meditation since 1999. Her first book, Art of Attention, has been translated into seven languages, and her second, Practice You, is a bestseller. Her Essential Mentorship is beloved for bringing analog creativity to online coursework, and her third book, Being You, was released in early 2021. Her spoken word poems can be found on Above & Beyond's Flow State albums. Listen to her renowned Practice You Podcast atpracticeyou.com, and practice with Elena on Glo.com.
See the show notes on the website.
Connect with Elena * Website * Instagram
Links and resources for this episode * The Ritual of Recovery spoken word * Kim Krans and The Wild Unknown * Podcast episode on Urgency * Elena's podcast * Elena's website * Elena's Instagram
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Sarah Von Bargen is one of my favorite people on the Internet. Everything she does comes from a place of true integrity and helpfulness. She tells the truth about even the most awkward subjects with warmth and wit. And I cannot wait for you to hear our conversation.
Sarah Von Bargen is a writer, coach, and educator who helps people spend their time, money, and energy on purpose.
See the show notes on the website.
Connect with Sarah * Website * Instagram
Links and resources for this episode * Self-Compassion by Dr. Kristen Neff * Kidizen
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How do you move out of the burn out and overwhelm cycle, and move your self care from a place that is reactive (something you do after a taxing event) to proactive (something built in to your routines). This is the topic for this week's episode.
Find more on the website.
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This week's episode aims to answer a question that I've had in my own practice for years: How do we learn how to celebrate when we hold ourselves to sky-high standards?
In this episode, I talk about:
- Lowering your standards—and how being more compassionate with yourself can help you celebrate more
- Celebrating your efforts (instead of just your accomplishments)—which is really about focusing on what we can control (what we do) instead of what we can't (what others do/how others react).
- Challenging the ways we celebrate in our culture—and learning to celebrate without alcohol or simply buying more stuff.
- And more!
Listen to the whole thing for more thoughts and tips on how to celebrate.
Links and resources for this episode * Michelle Ward * Your Win Book * Christy on Instagram
Subscribe & Rate the Show When you leave a rating and review, send me a screenshot (to christy@christytending.com) and I'll send you a free gift!
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I'm so delighted to welcome Vanessa Mentor to the show today! Vanessa and I originally connected via Instagram. Then she invited me to be a part of her free series, Tending (perfect, right?). And now I'm so excited to have her on the podcast.
Vanessa and I share an affinity for looking at self-care through an anti-capitalist lens, which was the perfect jumping off point. But Vanessa and I have very different backgrounds: she was born in Haiti, and talks openly about the effects of colonialism on her sense of self and self-worth. She talks about growing up in a patriarchal family—and how that led to her mission to help women live unrestrained.
I can't wait for you to hear the whole thing.
Vanessa Mentor is a Self-Care Educator and Coach who connects the dots between our individual self-care and the care of the world so we can take actions that heal and restore both. Her clients are working moms/women who've been burned out before and don't wan to go there but are torn between taking care of their needs and caring for their family's needs.
Connect with Vanessa * Website * Instagram
Links and resources for this episode * Vanessa's series, Tending * Christy on Instagram
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More of us are feeling overwhelmed, feeling, really spread thin and verging on burn out. What happens when you choose to tap into your own sacred focus and do less, but do it better?
Find more on the website.
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I cannot wait for you to hear this conversation. L'Erin lays out so much deep wisdom in this episode. I took so many notes—putting stars next to things and circling others—because I felt, in the best way, like I was back in school.
In this episode, we talk about intuition and power; being an empathic person; boundaries and trauma; and so much more. We talk about how empaths are made (not necessarily born)—and how to care for (and perhaps reparent) yourself as an empath.
We talk about accessing your personal power in difficult times. And we talk about intuition as something anticapitalist. Plus, we dive into how to tell the difference between the voice of your intuition and the voice of your fear.
About L'Erin L’Erin Alta is a powerful medicine woman + mystic living in full devotion of her spiritual calling. She has over 20-years of experience teaching classes, workshops and leading retreats that help people align their selves with their souls so that they can live their true purpose and share their spiritual gifts with the world.
A world traveler with 24 countries under her belt, L’Erin has worked with medicine men + women, spiritual teachers, mystics, gurus and guides from a diversity of spiritual paths + practices.
As the host of the “Black Girl Mystic” podcast, L’Erin talks with Black Girl Mystic highlights Black women + femme healers, spiritual teachers + modern day mystics who are changing the world by living their soul's calling.
Connect with L'Erin * Website * Instagram
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In this episode, I'm talking about cycles. And specifically, how we can choose to respect our nature as the cyclical beings we are? In this episode, I'm breaking down how I'm doing this in my own life. And at the end, I ask you to consider how you might approach this in your unique situation.
If things feel a little flat in your world at the moment, or if you're going through a difficult time, this one is for you. It's a gentle reminder that nothing blooms all year; we are all cyclical beings.
- Free Intuition Meditation
Homework Consider how you could allow for more respect for the cyclical nature of your life. Would it be possible to make your weekends totally work free? Could you do a better job of turning off notifications at night?
How could you allow for the full expression of yourself as a cyclical being to come into the world a little bit more? Or put a different way: How could you simply bring some awareness and mindfulness to the ways in which you are a cyclical being—so that perhaps you can allow in some of this grace, compassion, forgiveness, and acceptance for yourself?
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Born a farm girl, guest Candice English, the owner and operator at The Farmer's Daughter Fibers, embodies her heritage & home state of Montana into all aspects of her work. She's also an activist with Sisters United in Montana.
Connect with Candice * The Farmer's Daughter Fibers * Sisters United * FDF on Instagram * Sisters United on Instagram
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In this particular political moment, I've been feeling depleted and wondering how I can resource myself better for the long haul. The newness of activism has mostly worn off at this point, and the bright rage isn't enough to keep me going in a sustainable way.
One thing that I've been thinking about is the idea of imagination and particularly imagination as a political tool. How can we use our imaginations to fuel us? How can our imagination help to inspire us to keep going? And how can we use political imagination, collectively, to build more of what we want in the world?
Tune in!
- This week's freebie: Mission Statement Maker
Links and resources for this episode * adrienne maree brown * Octavia's Brood * Emergent Strategy * Pleasure Activism * Follow me on Instagram * Mission Statement Maker
Homework Complete your Mission Statement!
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I'm so excited to welcome Olwen Wilson to the show, and to share this conversation with you.
Olwen Wilson is a healer & creative facilitator who helps people who are drawn to making visual art but they don't feel like they have enough talent or time. She helps them figure out how to make it a part of a regular practice in a way that helps them clear their mind (even for a moment), get better at making decisions and take action.
Having taught self-care practices for over a decade, Olwen's practiced everything from yoga to energy healing, drumming to meditation. But the one she keeps coming back to the most is visual journaling. It helped her learn to trust herself again after suddenly getting diagnosed with a chronic illness so that she could stop wasting time waiting and worrying about what other people think and go after what's important in life.
In this conversation, we talk about the importance of play and rest; her journey with rheumatoid arthritis; and the power of visual journaling. This was an awesome conversation that I'm beyond excited for you to hear.
Connect with Olwen * Olwen Wilson * Instagram
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Today's episode is all about listening: what that looks like and how to do it and how to do it better and how to make it a practice and how to do it for all of the people in our lives.
When we pay attention to the people in our lives. We are really giving them. The greatest gift, the most valuable thing we have, which is our time, our attention, our energy.
###### Sign up for the free workshop!
Links and resources for this episode * Episode: Feedback is a Gift * Episodes on intuition: here + here * Free Intuition Meditation * RIE parenting * Janet Lansbury
Homework Tune in for the free workshop, Intuition Over Fear
Free Intuition Meditation
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This week, I'm so excited to welcome one of my dear friends (and the producer of Tending Your Life), Paula Jenkins of Jump Start Your Joy.
Paula Jenkins is a podcast producer, certified life coach, and host of the popular podcast, Jump Start Your Joy. Her mission is to bring more joy into the world through coaching, podcasting, and helping others create podcasts to share their voice. Jump Start Your Joy launched in 2015, and has been on iTunes New & Noteworthy and What’s Hot.
After receiving her Master’s degree in Religion from Yale University, Paula was a project manager for 20 years in the digital marketing space. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband, Sean the Chef, their 9 year old son, and their friendly rescue chihuahua-mix named Chewbacca Baloney Jenkins (who goes by Chewie).
In this episode, we talk about choosing joy, even when it feels hard; the value of playing small; and how to demand more than just "bed in a bag" joy for yourself—especially during the pandemic.
Links and resources for this episode * Jump Start Your Joy episode: Playing Small * Jump Start Your Joy episode: 6 Ways to Create the Foundation for a Joy-Filled Life During the Pandemic * Jennifer Louden * Christy on Instagram
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How do you cultivate trust, and learn to trust yourself? Trust relates to allowing for imperfection, embracing pleasure, knowing yourself, and taking action. Trust is very much interwoven and bound up in so many things related to self advocacy.
Links and resources for this episode * Course: The Art of Self-Advocacy
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In today's episode, we're going to talk about action. This is really where the rubber meets the road for our self-advocacy.
For instance: when we talk about boundaries, we can talk about figuring out what our boundaries are all day long, but action is where we start setting and holding those boundaries. We can talk about developing a new habit when it comes to our self care, but action is what allows us to actually begin and to follow through on those new habits.
Action is what allows us to go from avoidance to tackling the thing that we've been avoiding.
So today I want to talk about action—In a little bit differently than the way I usually hear it discussed. I want to talk about actions that are maybe a little bit less "heroic," but no less impactful.
Links and resources for this episode * Course: The Art of Self-Advocacy * Meal planning: Busy & Broke
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Too many of us don't have a courage practice.
We aren't cultivating courage on a regular basis. We are reckoning with or encountering discomfort or some sort of barrier, but we're not putting ourselves in a mindset of courage so that we can go and transform what needs changing.
Without a practice of courage without cultivating courage on an intentionally regular basis, our self-knowledge stays theoretical. While I believe in self-knowledge, what matters is what we do with it. What matters is how we translate that into impact in our lives.
Without that courage practice, our knowing stays in our heads. We don't have the difficult conversations or set the boundaries that we need to; we don't make it real in our lives. So this episode is about about the courage to make knowledge something tangible, to see it clearly, and to let it transform us.
Links and resources for this episode * Course: The Art of Self-Advocacy * Episode: Pleasure
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How do you get to know yourself? Especially when your are finding ourselves in a new phase of life—whether you're an empty nester or you're just going away to college yourself, whether you're a transitioning in your job in your family roles—knowing yourself is a critical piece of showing up in the world.
When we hit these transition points, it can be a shock to our system because we can lose or become distant from our orientation to ourselves. So when I talk about knowing myself, I'm talking about knowing what I hold sacred; knowing what my values are; knowing who I am in relationship to the people I love in my life... and beyond.
So if you aren't sure about yourself in any area of your life, it can be a little bit of a lonely and scary experience. What I know for myself is that the benefits of knowing myself really well are ever unfolding.
Links and resources for this episode * + Course: The Art of Self-Advocacy + Sylvia Boorstein
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In my experience, having worked with thousands of students and clients and change makers and activists and creatives over the years, urgency is often such a barrier to our self care. It's one of the things that can really derail us when it comes to maintaining a self care practice, and setting aside that time, energy, and space for self care.
Because it has this capacity to derail our self-care in this way, I see that it is often one of the leading causes of overwhelm and burnout because when we can't get ourselves out of a seemingly endless cycle of, of urgency, dealing with tasks all the time that we see as incredibly urgent, then we can't.
When we can't break ourselves of that habit, then our self-care gets neglected in a chronic way. So in today's episode, I'm going to be talking all about how we unwind ourselves and untether ourselves from what feels like a constant sense of urgency these days.
- The Un-Burnout Un-Challenge
Links and resources for this episode * + The Un-Burnout Un-Challenge + Episode: Perfectionism + Episode: Imperfection
Homework Join The Un-Burnout Un-Challenge
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How do we embrace pleasure? And why does pleasure have to be "guilty"?
In this episode, I break down how to create more pleasure in your life. It starts with what feels good—and it's a process that unfolds and evolves over time. Self-care doesn't always have to be "productive". It doesn't need to just recharge us so we can go out and make ourselves more overwhelmed or burned out.
We need to stop shaming ourselves over our self-care. It doesn't need to be all gym workouts and green juice. It doesn't need to be about making ourselves look good for someone else.Shockingly, self-care can just feel good. And we can make it happen without an ounce of guilt.
Links and resources for this episode * Resource Guide * Free Self-Care Course! * doTERRA Essential Oils
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We all know that perfectionism is the enemy of liberation.
Which means that imperfection is our ally in liberation. Which is awesome!
In this episode, I'm talking about embracing imperfection and the awesome impact that imperfection might have on our lives. Once we set down perfectionism, what could we choose instead? What are the things that we're able to access in the context of imperfection that perfectionism could never give us?
What I want you to take away from this is, is really that we do not live in a binary of perfection and imperfection. (We're never going to reach that perfection! It's not an option!) If we're never ever going to get to perfection, then we become free of its hold on us.
It means that we all exist somewhere on this spectrum of imperfection. Finding our place on that spectrum is pretty amazing.
Links and resources for this episode * Episode: Perfectionism is the Enemy of Liberation. * Episode: Sitting with Discomfort. * The When I Grow Up Coach: Michelle Ward. * Free Self-Care Course. * My Favorite Self-Care Resources.
My teachers on sobriety * Rolf Gates * Holly Whitaker * Elena Brower * Laura McKowen
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One of my most frequently asked questions is actually some version of: "How do we, as white folks, engage with racial justice activism and deal with the white guilt that arises?"
I'm not a racial justice educator, but in the last 20 years of my racial justice praxis, I have absolutely experienced white guilt—and learned how to stop letting it get in the way of the real work: defending Black life, and collective liberation.
In this episode, we'll talk about white guilt, how it isn't actually helpful, and what to do instead. I've linked the work of my teachers below. Please learn from them, respect their spaces, and pay them.
Links and resources for this episode * Rachel Cargle & The Great Unlearn * Sonya Renee Taylor: Book | Instagram * Leesa Renee Hall & The Inner Field Trip * Aja Barber: Patreon | Instagram * Austin Channing Brown Instagram * How to Respond to People in Crisis * Resources page * My statement of solidarity with The Movement for Black Lives
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When I think back on what has made my activism over the years effective, sustainable, and inspiring, the answer is simple: the people with whom I share my social justice praxis. And when I think about one of the biggest barriers some people face to participating in activism, the answer is the same: people.
Many folks don't have a community of activists around them already. This episode aims to change that. Learn what an affinity group is, how to create your own, and how to use the affinity group model to amplify your impact.
- Freebie: Mission Statement Maker
Links and resources for this episode * Episode 36: What do we do with white guilt? [Contains a list of my anti-racism teachers] * Resources page [contains more resources for anti-racist praxis] * Learn about Amadou Diallo [CW: police murder of an unarmed Black man] * Episode 13: Ten Tips for New Activists * How to Form an Affinity Group * Freebie: Mission Statement Maker
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In today's episode, I'm here to give a little State of Things update and to talk about my biggest a-ha moment so far in this unexpected and highly usual moment in which we find ourselves. In the midst of this shelter-in-place/COVID-19 pandemic moment, what do we do about self-care, let alone all of those difficult emotions and feelings that come along with this moment of deep uncertainty?
In this episode, I'm proposing something that is both compassionate, yet counter-intuitive. This is about sitting with our discomfort instead of trying to self-care it away.
Links and resources for this episode * The Art of Self-Advocacy
In this episode, I'm tackling one of my most frequently asked questions from inside my courses. It sounds something like, "This all sounds great, but there are things in my life that [for whatever reason] I can't avoid."
Or it looks like using self-care to cover up that thing we desperately want to avoid—and using it as a way to numb ourselves out. Neither is ideal.
In this episode, we’ll be talking about dissolving our avoidance; “boring” self-care; reframing things we can’t avoid; and the devotional practice of our everyday, not-so-pretty work.
5 Steps to Stop Avoidance: * Tell yourself the truth about what you're avoiding—and that you're avoiding * Remind yourself of your power and your ability to do hard things * Resist the urge to numb yourself or run away * Make a list of what you're avoiding and take baby steps to deal with them * Celebrate!
Links and resources for this episode * The Art of Self-Advocacy Course * Book: The Renaissance Soul * Book: Essentialism * The Patreon Community
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On March 6, 2019, I woke up with what I decided was my last hangover ever. In the year since, I have worked for my sobriety every single day. Today marks a year without alcohol, and I’m reflecting on the decision to quit; what it’s really been like; and how it’s changed my outlook, my practice and my relationships.
Listen in to hear how I’ve supported myself over the last year, and how I’m continuing to support myself in staying sober for the long haul. This has been one of the most important self-care decisions of my life, and I’m pulling back the curtain so you can get all the details.
Links and resources for this episode * Holly Whitaker * Laura McKowen * Africa Brooke * Taryn Strong of She Recovers * Tiffany Han * Rolf Gates
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The seed for this episode was first planted during a conversation with my dear friend (and podcast producer), Paula Jenkins of Jumpstart Your Joy. We were talking about the show and my vision for it. I was very clear about the kinds of things I’d be talking about and who the show was for (and not). We talked about the things that were non-negotiable for me, and the things I wouldn’t shy away from. We talked about how some of my opinions are… unconventional and even unpopular.
At one point, I said, “I’m used to having unpopular opinions, I just don’t care that much what people think about me.” And she said,”You should talk about that!” So I am.
Links and resources for this episode * Podcast: Welcome Episode * Paula Jenkins of Jumpstart Your Joy
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About the show Meditation and mindfulness are highly popular and well-recognized for their benefits from everything from depression to high blood pressure. So how do we take these practices off the meditation cushion and bring them into our ordinary experiences and interactions. Even if you’ve never meditated before, this episode offers a simple reframe that allows us to cultivate mindfulness wherever we are.
- This week's freebie: download the free checklist: 40+ places to cultivate mindfulness
Links and resources for this episode * Sylvia Boorstein * Erich Shiffmann * Donald Rothberg * Larry Yang * Rolf Gates * Spirit Rock
Homework What’s one place you can bring mindfulness today? What weather can you observe in your experience? Decide and then find out. Be observant. If you’re looking for some inspiration, download my free guide: 40+ places to cultivate mindfulness
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Integrity is a living practice, and we can cultivate more of it. Once you have your values, how do you act on them more consistently? If you’ve been feeling out of alignment or off-kilter, this episode is for you. If you’ve been feeling like what you say is important and how you spend your days doesn’t line up, I’m here to help. Integrity is something we can cultivate, and once we do, it’s ripple effect can be profound.
- Download the free Mission Statement Maker here!
Links and resources for this episode * Episode: Boring Self-Care * Episode: Year of Wonder
Homework Make yourself a new commitment and tie it to your integrity. (Look back at your homework from episode 26!) What’s the smallest step you could begin taking consistently toward that commitment? How can you make this a practice rather than a binary.
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About the show This week’s episode is a little bit different. This is something I’ve been turning over in my mind for a while now. It’s about money and the urge to monetize our lives. I think part of this has to do with the intense income inequality that exists in our world, and the rise of the gig economy. But this also comes from social media and a whole lot of myths about what it’s really like to work for yourself and make a living creating things for a living.
There’s a lot pressure to insist that our pursuits to support us financially or make us money when they might be—gasp!—just for fun.
- Download the free Mission Statement Maker
Links and resources for this episode * Freebie: Mission Statement Maker * Big Magic
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About the show By the time you’re listening to this, I’ll be happily in retreat-land. I’m heading off on a very short silent retreat (my first since my kiddo was born), so I wanted to take this minisode to talk about why I take retreats, the value of a retreat, what you can expect, and how to know whether a retreat is right for you.
Links and resources for this episode * Episode: The Next Buddha is the Sangha * Workshop: Craft Your Sacred Year * Kripalu * Spirit Rock * Green Gulch Zen Center
Homework Take a mini-retreat. Take an afternoon or even an hour to retreat with yourself for some meditation, journaling, and reflection—or join me for a replay of Craft Your Sacred Year, a mini-retreat to help you envision your year and life, with tons of supportive materials to help you feel like you’ve retreated, but from the comfort of your own home.
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What does it take to create lasting, meaningful change? Whether it’s in the world or in our daily lives, creating lasting change can feel daunting. In this episode, I’m breaking down my “theory of change.”
Usually reserved for how social movements create shifts, my theory of change is actually the same on both the micro and macro level of change-making: get to the root. Lasting change doesn’t happen as a result of surface-level action.
We need to go deep. In this episode, I'm breaking down how to go deep to make meaningful change in your life and in the world.
This Week's Freebie Download my cheatsheet: Top 10 Tips for New Activists (even if you’re an old-timer, this is a great one to share) Links and resources for this episode * Freebie: Top 10 Tips for New Activists * Freebie: Mission Statement Maker * Course: The Art of Self-Advocacy
Homework Name one place where you want to make lasting change this year. What’s going to be one part of your strategy or theory of change? How are you going to support yourself so that you can make this a lasting change? Tell me about it on Instagram or zip me an email. I would love to hear about it.
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I’m taking you behind the scenes of my word of the year for 2020. How I chose it. What it means to me. What I’m calling in through this word. How I use my word throughout the year. And how you can create your own “word of the year.”
This minisode is personal: a glimpse into where I’ve been and where I’m going. I hope it inspires you to take a look around at where you might also need a little direction.
In this week’s episode, I’m taking you behind the scenes of my year ahead, starting with my word: Wonder.
Homework: Find your word of the year.
Resources:
Past words of the year: here, here, here, here, and here.
This year’s word of the year: Wonder.
Craft Your Sacred Year: christytending.com/sacredyear
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By the time this episode goes live, I will officially be on sabbatical. For two months, I’ll be paring my work back to the bare minimum so that I can focus on other projects and pursuits that have been calling my attention. What is a sabbatical? Why am I taking one? How am I making it happen? And what the heck will I be doing during that time?
I’ll be answering all these questions and more in this week’s episode. Plus, I’ve got a special homework assignment for you and some free resources that’ll knock your socks off.
Homework Fill in the depleted to resourced cheatsheet. It’s a free download that will help you see where you’re depleted (and why) and start to brainstorm some solutions that will resource you more fully (even if you can’t take a sabbatical or a huge chunk of time away).
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The best way to heal burnout is not to get burned out in the first place. But when things feel dark, how do we avoid burnout and keep our hope, creativity, and well-being vibrant?
Links and resources for this episode * Book: Trauma Stewardship * Episode: Better Boundaries * Michelle Ward, the When I Grow Up Coach * Free Guide: 40+ Places to Cultivate Mindfulness * Free Guide: Depleted to Resourced Cheatsheet
Homework Your homework this week is to take one step to heal and one step to avoid burnout. Use any of the tips I’ve used in these episodes (as well as the free download) to take one tiny, baby step to heal and avoid burnout in a way that works for you individually.
Download the free resources above if you're feeling stuck.
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In part one, I break down my strategy to avoid burnout, spiritual bypass, and cynicism—so you can stay engaged. This episode is all about avoiding the pitfalls of long-term practice, whether spiritual or political.
Links and resources for this episode * Book: Trauma Stewardship * Episode: Better Boundaries * Michelle Ward, the When I Grow Up Coach * Free Guide: 40+ Places to Cultivate Mindfulness * Free Guide: Depleted to Resourced Cheatsheet
Homework Your homework this week is to take one step to heal and one step to avoid burnout. Use any of the tips I’ve used in these episodes (as well as the free download) to take one tiny, baby step to heal and avoid burnout in a way that works for you individually.
Download the free resources above if you're feeling stuck.
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Overwhelm used to be my default setting. I felt pulled in a million different directions, and always felt like I was drowning in commitments and things I “should” have been doing. When we’re in the throes of overwhelm, self-care usually doesn’t do us much good. A bubble bath isn’t going to fix your creeping dread. So what do we do instead? In this episode, I’ll show you how to dissolve overwhelm in the present moment so you can move forward right now.
Get my free guide, 5 Easy Ways to Dissolve Overwhelm
Links and resources for this episode * Episode: Tender + Fierce * Get my free guide, 5 Easy Ways to Dissolve Overwhelm
Homework Your homework today is to take a great big pause somewhere today. It doesn’t have to be a lot of time, but step away from whatever feels overwhelming and fill some space only with your breath and being. Allow yourself to simply be for a moment.
Notice that the world didn’t end just because you took a few deep breaths. As ever, if you want to share about your homework with me, you can do that over on Instagram.
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Thich Nhat Hanh famously said, “The next Buddha will be a Sangha.” In Buddhism, sangha is one of “the three jewels,” and is translated as community. So what does it mean for the next Buddha to be a sangha? It means that we need not just our teachers or our practice, but a community around us in order to protect and nourish our practice. This is true whether our practice is political, spiritual, or both. We need each other.
Links and resources for this episode * Article: The Next Buddha may be a Sangha * Article: The Fertile Soil of Sangha * Book: Emergent Strategy * Write a letter to a political prisoner * Free checklist: 40+ places to cultivate mindfulness
Definitions Sangha: spiritual community.
Formerly referred to the monastics in whom practitioners could take refuge. Now it refers to the Buddhist community as a whole. It refers to not just those who are monastics, but also those who are non-monastic householders within the Buddhist community. Often refers to the individual community in which a practitioner takes refuge or does their study.
Homework * Write a letter to a political prisoner. I’ve linked a list, with names and addresses in the show notes, and even if you are listening to this episode much later, write a letter to someone who is currently incarcerated for standing up for the planet, the animals, and social justice. You can find that list here.
This is something really close to my heart, and I hope that you’ll take 5 minutes and a little bit of postage to reach out to someone in our movement and let them know that folks on the outside are thinking of them.
- Share this episode with someone in your community with a note about what they mean to you.
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About the show I often say that true self-care is an anti-capitalist practice.
Through self-care we are reclaiming our sovereignty: owning ourselves and creating freedom from coercive or oppressive forces that try to profit from our unwellness, and our feelings of not being enough as we are.
Self-care turns that narrative on its head: it’s not about buying stuff to make ourselves feel better; it’s about building our power.
Join my workshop: Plan Your Sacred Year!
Links and resources for this episode * Episode: Intuition is a Feminist Issue * Episode: Let it Go * Write a letter to a political prisoner
Homework Write a letter to a political prisoner! Use the guide linked above to write a letter to a political prisoner whose story inspires or moves you. Especially at this time of year, prison can feel incredibly isolating. Simply letting folks know that we on the outside haven't forgotten about them and their sacrifices means a lot. If you have the means, consider sending one of them a book from their wishlist (many prisoners have one). Please read the instructions for sending mail and books thoroughly before you send your letter.
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Year-ahead planning is some of my favorite work. It’s a chance to release what no longer serves us and invite in what lights us up.
This week, I’m sharing my simple elegant system for year-ahead planning that feels light and inspired instead of rigid and overwhelming. The process begins with a question:
What feels meaningful?
From there, we can build what feels rightful and resonant.
Join my workshop: Craft Your Sacred Year!
Links and resources for this episode * Workshop: Craft Your Sacred Year * Episode: Fierce and Tender * Blog: The Difference Between Goals and Intention * Christy's Word of the Year 2020 * Susannah Conway
Homework Watch the workshop. Or choose your word for the year. Or simply take some time to set your intention for the year ahead. However you choose to do it, give yourself some time and space to envision the year ahead and how you want to inhabit it.
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Most of the time, self-care isn’t about doing more. It’s actually about doing less—and that involves saying no. A lot. If you’re uncomfortable saying no, disappointing people, or drawing boundaries, this is the episode for you.
Inside this episode, I’ll offer concrete ways to make saying no easier, clearer, and less awkward. And once you practice? It'll become easier; you'll worry less what others think; and you'll claim the spaciousness that comes from saying no more often.
Plus, get my free workbook, 5 scripts to say no (without feeling like a jerkface)
Links and resources for this episode * Episode: Bigger Container, Better Boundaries (Part 1) * Episode: Bigger Container, Better Boundaries (Part 2) * Hyde Yoga (use code christy10 to take 10% off) * Jade Yoga Mats
Homework Cross something non-essential off your to-do list. Turn down an invitation. Simply say no to that voice that tells you you're not doing enough. Find a way to scale down, in some area of your life, so that you might create more space.
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About the show In this week’s episode, we’re talking about intuition. More specifically, we’re talking about the ways that intuition is gendered and delegitimized—and how we can (collectively, regardless of our gender) reclaim our intuition and fight the patriarchy at the same time. When intuition is dismissed, it’s another way that we’re taught not to trust ourselves. Trusting ourselves, our knowledge, and our intuition is a feminist issue—and stands to benefit people of all genders.
Get a free sample module from my course, Your Magical Intuition
Links and resources for this episode * Course: Your Magical Intuition * Get a free sample module from my course, Your Magical Intuition
Definition: Intuition: “The ability to gain wisdom or a direct perception of truth, independent of proof, and without understanding how this knowledge was obtained.” —Christy's definition
Homework Next time you’re faced with a decision, write down what you already know to be true. What does your body say? What does your breath say? What knowing or pieces of information already live inside you?
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I rewrite my mission statement every year. It’s the one essential ingredient that keeps my business, my life, my activism, and my role in my family pointed in the right direction.
You don’t need to be a business or an advocacy group to need a mission statement. In fact, you don't need to represent anyone other than yourself. A mission statement can help you clarify your values, vision, and strategy no matter who you are.
In this episode, I’ll walk you through the importance of a mission statement; how mine keeps me on track; and the step-by-step process to create your own.
Download the free Mission Statement Maker!
Links and resources for this episode * Course: The Art of Self-Advocacy * Rising Tide North America * Hyde Yoga (enter Christy10 at checkout for 10% off!) * Download the free Mission Statement Maker!
Homework Make your mission statement!
Download the free Mission Statement Maker to get started!
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What happens when your self-care practice stops working? What happens when self-care just isn’t enough anymore?
In this episode, I’m taking you behind the scenes of my early parenthood days and how I had to evolve my self-care into something bolder: self-advocacy. It’s easy to advocate for others; advocating for ourselves is the advanced work.
It's embarrassing for a self-care mentor to feel like she's failing at self-care. But what came out of this time in my life was an incredible lesson about the ways that we need to bring some of our fierce side into our tender moments. This is what makes self-advocacy such a powerful combination of compassion and courage.
Download the free Self-Advocacy Manifesto!
Links and resources for this episode * Course: The Art of Self-Advocacy * Episode: Fierce and Tender, together at last * Download the free Self-Advocacy Manifesto!
Definition: Self-Advocacy: boldly declaring what we need and taking action on our own behalf that aligns with those needs so that we can feel whole, well, and authentically ourselves.
Homework Ask someone for help. It could be small or large, but if you are craving support of some kind, tell someone. Even if it feels uncomfortable, say "Hey! I could use some support. Could we jump on the phone?" or state the kind of support you're looking for. Or maybe it's that project you've been putting off because you don't have the knowledge to get started.
No matter what it is: ask for help.
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This episode wasn't on my original list for Season One. But I couldn't help it.
Once I had the brain-flash of doing an episode just for new or aspiring activists, I couldn't get it out of my head until I had gotten it recorded. This is for you. If you're a new activist or part of a new group. If you've been away from activism for a while. If you're an old-timer who trains new activists or helps to skill up the movement.
This is really for all of us.
And what's important to note is that this isn't definitive. Ask 100 seasoned activists and they'd come up with 100 different lists. Ask me in a year, and my list would be slightly different. This list of ten tips reflects the best of my knowledge in this moment. In this season.
And I hope that it serves you. Download the free guide, Top 10 Tips for New Activists!
Links and resources for this episode * Book: Black Flags and Windmills * Book: Active Hope * Book: Teaching to Transgress * Book: Beautiful Trouble * Book: Trauma Stewardship * Book: Tending Your Life * Blog: Narrow and Deep * Blog: Collective Care * Consensus Decision-Making Guide * Midnight Special Law Collective—archived site with a plethora of legal resources for activists * Download the free guide, Top 10 Tips for New Activists!
Definition: Consensus Process: a creative and dynamic way of reaching agreement between all members of a group. Instead of simply voting for an item and having the majority of the group getting their way, a group using consensus is committed to finding solutions that everyone actively supports, or at least can live with.
Homework Download the free guide, and even if you're an experienced activists, commit to applying one of these steps to your life and work. Then tell me about it over on Instagram!
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I'm so excited to share with you my interview with my husband, Dan Tennery-Spalding. Dan and I met through mutual activist friends almost twelve years ago and have been basically inseparable ever since.
Dan is a legal worker activist, computer programmer, bicycle/coffee/book aficionado, and my baby daddy (among other distinctions). I was lucky to be an early reader of his awesome book, How to Teach Adults (now in its 2nd edition).
In this conversation, we talk about parenthood, activism, and some of Dan's best advice for teachers (or anyone who leads groups). I hope you love this episode.
Have more questions for us? Hit me up on Instagram and maybe we'll do a second episode!
Links and resources for this episode * Book: How to Teach Adults * Book: Facilitating Group Learning, George Lakey * Book: How We Win, George Lakey * Training for Change * Learning and the comfort zone * The Patreon Community
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In this episode, I'm talking about the tough and sometimes uncomfortable work of evolving your legacy. There are lots of ways we can approach this.
In my own life, it's meant getting sober. And it's meant interrogating my whiteness and settler-colonial background. This is ongoing work, and each of our work is individual. Certainly, my son has been a catalyst for this work, in many ways.
But I'd like to think that I'd be on this path regardless. I'm personally curious about what it takes—even if you don't have children—to decide to know better and do better than past generations. And what it takes to fight for the future, especially when it means not just taking positive action moving forward, but undoing the harm of our ancestors.
How do we evolve our legacies in order to become the ancestors that future generations deserve?
Links and resources for this episode * Practice You Deck * Yung Pueblo * Layla Saad * adrienne marie brown * Rachel Cargle * Aja Barber * White Fragility
Homework Leave a rating + review on iTunes!
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This episode came from a question I received on Instagram, and is something I'm asked all the time:
How do we let go of our work at the end of the day? When we do work that we care about, that has deep, personal meaning to us, it can be difficult to put separation between ourselves and our work. But this lack of separation means that our work can seep into every area of our lives. It can take over.
And when we don't know where we end and our work begins, it takes a toll.
In this episode, I'm offering practical advice on how to start creating healthy separation between us and the work that is such a huge part of our lives. (At it's heart, this advice is really about deciding that we ourselves are enough, as we are.)
It's about deciding that it's safe for us to let it go. Links and resources for this episode * Episode: Better Boundaries * Blog: Setting Intention * Blog: How to Create Ritual * East Bay Meditation Center * Book: Self-Compassion * The Patreon Community
Definition: Dedication of Merit: Many forms of Buddhist practice conclude with dedicating the benefit of our practice to relieving the suffering of sentient beings and helping them awaken.
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I strongly believe that compassion is really only as valuable as what we do with it: the action that we take from that compassionate place.
So, why do we cultivate compassion? We cultivate it—yes—for its own sake. In Buddhism, it is recognized as one of the four heavenly abodes, or a Divine quality that we as humans can both in body and benefit from. But we also cultivate it as a means of transformation and healing for ourselves and others.
There are two modes of compassion. The first is compassion for ourselves on the individual level and then there is compassion for the collective. and. When we start to bring these two practices together compassion for ourselves, or what we now call Self compassion as well as compassion for others for the collective the universal.
This is how self-care and justice weave together.
There's a question of: what needs healing on the individual and the collective levels? So what does cultivating this look like in terms of cultivating compassion on the individual level? It might look like self-compassion, self-healing, or self care.
On the collective level it's going to look a little bit different.On this level, it's about honoring and dignifying our shared humanity and applying compassion to that humanity. This helps to create the conditions for shared, collective well-being.
Links and resources for this episode * Spirit Rock Meditation Center * Book: Self-Compassion * The Patreon Community
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In my experience there are three key ingredients that keep us from flaming out: gratitude, connection, and and dignity. The problem that we're up against is that we cannot always source these from within ourselves.
There's only so much personal development work, spiritual development, or individual evolution that's possible when we're experiencing systemic or institutional oppression. When were living under systems of oppression, or if we're trying to operate in our work in conditions that undermine our humanity, then we need to start changing those systems.
[FYI: if you're in a position of leadership, this is what you have to start changing in yourself and in your organizations in order to create sustainability in your organizations and in the people you lead.]
Today, we're going to focus on gratitude, but I promise we'll get back to the other two pieces in future episodes.
So why am I starting with gratitude? Personally, this is the one practice that is closest to my heart, since I had a gratitude practice before I had any other type of spiritual practice.
I started practicing gratitude as a teenager before I even had a meditation practice—long before I took my first yoga class. It really is this living thing within my life that I rely on every single day and for me it creates these moment by moment transformations. It reframes things in an instant in this way that I find very powerful.
I hope you love this week's episode!
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This episode stems from (really) every single decent leadership training I've ever done. This has been my biggest takeaway from all of my training: that feedback is a huge gift.
The thing that each of those trainings has had in common is that they included some form of feedback built into the program. Each has placed a really high premium on feedback.
As I continue to develop and refine my leadership and as I start to mentor more folks in their leadership, I have grown to understand what a truly essential piece feedback is for our growth in any pursuit.
It's an essential part of how we grow as leaders, how we develop ourselves, and how we make the impact that we want to make in the world.
Links and resources for this episode * Episode: Perfectionism is the Enemy of Liberation * Ring Theory to Avoid Saying the Wrong Thing During a Crisis * Rockwood Leadership Institute
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I grew up a serious people-pleaser.
Today we are talking about perfectionism as an enemy of liberation. As many of you know, I am an activist and I've been an activist since I was a teenager. I look at liberation both from a political perspective, but also from a spiritual perspective. In both realms, for me, liberation is the aim. Whether politically or spiritually, my goal is to become more free.
In the personal development world, we have talked about perfectionism a lot, as something to overcome or as something to squash. What we don't talk about enough is why we're trying to shed this perfectionism—and it's not just to make our own lives easier and more pleasant.
Although certainly less perfectionism means more joy and and a more delightful life, there's more to it than that. In my mind the real problem with perfectionism is that it keeps us from being free both individually and collectively. In this episode, we'll dive into perfectionism and how we can get it to loosen its grip.
Links and resources for this episode * BASAT Protocol and Principles * Blog: Stop Second-Guessing Yourself * Blog: Choosing Courage to Change the World
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I'm really excited to talk a little bit more about my own healing journey today. But I'm also excited to talk about the way that chronic pain or illness or grief or loss any big upheaval in life can really be a path to wisdom and to awakening.
I will be talking about this through the lens of my own experience and my own life working through the healing in my body and in my life that I've been doing and have been doing for close to 20 years now. But this could really go for any big transition that you're going through. So you should feel free to substitute any big life stuff that you're going through—any of that could apply here.
This could apply if you're going through anything body-based: an injury, an illness, a surgery—in my case, birth was one of these for me. But any of these big transitions could apply here as something that doesn't just exist in our lives as as something to get through, but really as an asset on our path to wisdom.
By going through these difficult times and transitions, we can use those experiences to develop greater self care, self-compassion, and, ultimately, spiritual awakening.
Links and resources for this episode * The Art of Self-Advocacy Course * Organization: Accessible Yoga * Book: Close to the Bone * Book: Trauma Stewardship * Book: The Body Keeps the Score * The Patreon Community
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This episode came out of my long history of frustration with seeing healing that looks really one-dimensional and has a very narrow definition that we're expected to adhere to when it comes to healing. So I want to dig into the realities and variations of healing; how it works and what it looks like in practice.
This episode also comes really from my personal experience working with scoliosis and mental health issues. My own personal healing journey has been a little bit unconventional, very nonlinear. And I've struggled with with others' perceptions of my healing journey. I'm also talking about this because I know that when I open up about my own personal experience of things being kind of messy on my healing journey, whether it's chronic pain, whether it's depression, whether it's my decision to get sober, that's where magic happens.
I'm invited into others stories and it's really an honor but it also means that I'm privy to a lot of the myths about healing and well-being that are holding a lot of us back. A lot of people I've heard from our are really grateful when I talk about this sort of complicated messy, imperfect healing journey that I'm on.
So I'm here to tell you that healing does not look just one way. There are infinite variations on healing.
Links and resources for this episode * The Art of Self-Advocacy Course * Teacher: Rod Stryker // his app: Sanctuary * Disability justice and anti-fatphobia resources: + yrfatfriend on Instagram + Sonya Renee Taylor + her book, The Body is Not an Apology + Sonalee, The Fat Sex Therapist + Disabled Makers + Mia Mingus + Accessible Yoga * Patreon
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Welcome to Part Two of Episode 04—Bigger Container, Better Boundaries. Listen to Part One here.
In part one, I talked about creating a bigger container for all of your pieces. This bigger container is designed to help you hold all of your complexity; to hold all of yourself and to honor every part of that self, no matter how messy.
In this episode we'll be talking about creating better boundaries so that we can really honor that container and respect it and all of the things that it's holding for us. I talk about what makes a good boundary, and how to spot when your boundaries have become a bit leaky. And finally, how to correct a situation where your boundaries have been crossed.
Want to share your tips for creating great boundaries? Join us more conversation over on Patreon.
Links and resources for this episode * The Art of Self-Advocacy Course * Book: Tending Your Life * Blog: Saying No is Self-Care * The Patreon Community
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Welcome to Part One of Episode 04—Bigger Container, Better Boundaries. Listen to Part Two here.
The first part of this episode is all about becoming larger and more expansive. In order to hold all of our parts in order to hold all of our complexity at once and in order to become a more suitable home for ourselves.
When I became a mom, I had to make room also for myself within my new identity and within my new reality. Doing the work of integrating that new identity for myself while also holding space for an entirely new human being was something I'd never experienced before and was very intense. But I don't think that this is unique to parenting, and I don't think it's something we talk enough about:
How do we make space for our whole, messy selves in the middle of transition? How do we welcome all of our identities to the table? Becoming a mom is how I personally woke up to this experience, but this could go for any major life transition you've been thrust into. How do we integrate a new identity for ourselves while caring for others. This goes for those of us who do activist work for those of us or who care for aging parents. It goes for those of us who have small children and it applies to those of us who have clients who are counting on us were often.
Holding all of our parts is actually essential to holding space for others. Don't deprive the people around you of your complexity, even if it feels hard to hold.
Links and resources for this episode * Blog Post: 21 Things I Want You to Know About Depression * Course: The Art of Self-Advocacy * Get the show notes as a rad PDF workbook, plus audio meditations and more on Patreon!
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In this episode, I'm tackling one of my most frequently asked questions from inside my courses. It sounds something like, "This all sounds great, but there are things in my life that [for whatever reason] I can't avoid."
Or it looks like using self-care to cover up that thing we desperately want to avoid—and using it as a way to numb ourselves out. Neither is ideal.
In this episode, we’ll be talking about dissolving our avoidance; “boring” self-care; reframing things we can’t avoid; and the devotional practice of our everyday, not-so-pretty work.
5 Steps to Stop Avoidance: * Tell yourself the truth about what you're avoiding—and that you're avoiding * Remind yourself of your power and your ability to do hard things * Resist the urge to numb yourself or run away * Make a list of what you're avoiding and take baby steps to deal with them * Celebrate!
Links and resources for this episode * The Art of Self-Advocacy Course * Book: The Renaissance Soul * Book: Essentialism * The Patreon Community
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This episode began with two questions: 1. Why do we construct barriers to our self-care, to our healing, to our liberation? 2. How can we tear down those barriers?
All around me, I saw people (myself included!) creating false prerequisites to self-care.
I call these "false," beacause there is no prerequisite to self-care. There's nothing you have to earn, because you're already worthy.
We need to dissolve hierarchies and get rid of the self-judgment so that we can access our self-care. Because there are enough barriers already without us standing in our own way.
The shadow question for this episode: How do we do this to others as well, in terms of who we advocate for? Are you still using the good activist/bad activist dichotomy?
Links and resources for this episode * The Art of Self-Advocacy Course * The Self-Advocacy Manifesto * The Difference Between Self-Care and Self-Advocacy * Book: Trauma Stewardship * Comic, via Everyday Feminism: No, We Won't Calm Down * The Patreon Community
Definitions Tone policing is a tactic designed to silence or end debate by invalidating an argument based on its tone, language, or emotionality—rather than the facts or message itself. Often used by groups with privilege to define the parameters of the discussion based on their definitions of "civility" in order to avoid discomfort.
Homework Assignment I want you to spend some time considering where you are limiting yourself care unnecessarily where you are putting up barriers between you and feeling good between you and having fun. You can email me about it at christy@christytending.com or tag me on Instagram @ChristyTending
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Today I’m talking about the qualities of the tender and fierce sides of yourself, and how you can bring these together in a more cohesive way. And I talk about the spirituality, politics, emotionality, and reactions that exist around each of these sides of ourselves.
This episode is really about embracing our whole selves, instead of annexing or exiling parts of ourselves. The fact is, we need both the fierce and the tender parts of ourselves. I fully believe we deserve to show up as our full selves.
Links and resources for this episode * The Art of Self-Advocacy Course * The Self-Advocacy Manifesto * The Difference Between Self-Care and Self-Advocacy * Book: Trauma Stewardship * The Patreon Community
Definitions Secondary Trauma: “Secondary trauma is defined as indirect exposure to trauma through a firsthand account or narrative of a traumatic event.” Which means, trauma that occurs when witnessing, hearing accounts of, or even by reading/watching news of trauma happening to others.
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I'm beyond delighted to announce the welcome episode of my podcast, Tending Your Life!
In the Welcome Episode, I offer a little taste of what you can expect from the show, some boundaries for being in my space, and what's ahead for this season. If you've never heard my story before, this is a nice way to get to know each other—then come say hi on Patreon. :)
This show has been a major labor of love—and a long time coming.
In this podcast, we’ll explore the spiritual and political practice of being human. Expect deep inquiry into activism, spirituality, nature, creativity, and relationships. Tending Your Life is designed to evolve our legacies, individually and collectively.
This is where self-care and devotional service meet—and become friends. Together, we’ll embrace our whole, messy, beautiful selves as we work toward this wish: May we all be free.
About the show An introduction to the rigorous spiritual and political work and practices that are involved with being human. I welcome you and begin the conversation around self care, devotional service, and change making.
In this episode I talk about who the show is for (and who it isn't!), and give a little taste of the season to come. I cannot wait to dive into this show with y'all. Have a peek for some free resources below.
Links and resources for this episode * About Christy * Free Course: Care in Action * The Self-Advocacy Manifesto (free!) * The Patreon Community
Definitions Spiritual Bypass is a “tendency to use spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep or avoid facing unresolved emotional issues, psychological wounds, and unfinished developmental tasks.” This can also apply to an avoidance of social justice issues, including racism and white supremacy. The term was coined by Buddhist teacher and psychologist John Welwood in the early 1980’s.
In each episode there may be a term that's unfamiliar. I'll try to define these in the middle of the episodes when I can and in the episode's blog when I can't.
Feel free to email me: christy@christytending.com
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An introduction to the rigorous spiritual and political work and practices that are involved with being human. Christy welcomes you and starts the conversation around self care, devotional service, and change making.
Launching soon: Tending Your Life from Christy Tending: activist, self-care mentor, writer, artist, & mama. We’ll explore the spiritual & political practice of being human. Expect inquiry into activism, spirituality, nature, creativity and relationship.