Self Care in the Age of Activism

Before I get started, I have a question. Anybody else being inundated with spam? I normally used to get a notification once a month or so that there was a blog comment that needed moderating, but over the weekend I got like 15, in just a couple days. I'm thinking blogger botched some upgrade and made it a downgrade.

But back to the topic at hand...

Some of my Facebook friends will have seen an abbreviated version of this, but I thought it was work expanding on.

It is a time of high passions and many of us find ourselves putting a lot of energy into trying to hold off things we see as not just bad but destructive. Now I'm not going to get into which side and what activities. If you have been around, you know my politics, but this is not ABOUT that. This is some wisdom gleaned at a wellness day put on for some employees at the U where I work.

Now my purpose at being invited to this has to do with my dayjob. The U is making a serious effort at creating a more inclusive environment on campus and departments have champions, if you will. These champions, by definition, CARE. We care about people feeling included, which means collectively, we have higher than average empathy. And the risk factor I am addressing is related to THAT.

Compassion Fatigue

Why don't I start with a definition. Compassion fatigue is what happens when we see so many people hurting and we work like crazy to try to help, but the cases keep on coming. A person with a soul could get it watching the news these days. But at particular risk are people with causes close to their hearts. Nurses. Social workers. People who see people in the saddest of situations. But also human rights advocates. Aid workers. It covers an awful lot of us.

So How Do We Combat It?

Please consider these to be the patronuses against the dementors that are out there:

Purpose: keep the faith in yours—what you are doing is important. Allow yourself to feel that.

Creativity: use some, no matter how small it seems. This can be challenging. I find when my heart is drained it is harder to do what I consider good work. But there are lots of kinds of creativity, and who says it has to be “good”?

Connectedness with other people, real, online, friends, strangers. We did an exercise where we spent 90 seconds with a stranger, alternating—each got 45 seconds to ask questions, with a goal of finding a connection. And you know what? We did. It can be that fast. So the kind words in the grocery line matter. So does reaching out to someone you haven't talked to for a while, or pausing to actually interact with someone you see daily.

Presence: The other word is mindfulness. Try to be in the moment, rather than worrying about things that are happening in some other place or will take place at some other time. Our minds can wander, but if we stick to the here and now, the stresses don't compound so badly.

Sleep: 7+ hours a night, whenever possible.

Exercise: Especially if you can get out in nature to do it, or if it also involves some mind/body interaction. But most of us can get in a zone to exercise and take a little mental break.

Eat well: Lots of vitamins and minerals. Minimal highly processed crap. Whatever else works for your body, you probably know best. You can put whatever energy you can manage into it, but fresh stuff=good; processed crap=bad. Those are reliable rules.

Self Compassion: This is one we may have to keep reminding ourselves on. Be gentle with yourself. Take a break if you need. Let yourself feel good if you get something good accomplished. Let yourself grieve when it's called for. Treat you like you treat others... you are no less deserving.


And just keep on being your excellent selves and do what you can to make the world a better place, eh?

Seven Act-i-visms

Note: The 8th day of Christmas has been delayed. it will arrive, but some 9 hours late or so...

On the seventh day of Christmas the Book World gave to me...

Seven Activisms
Six Plots-a-Brewing
Five RE-JEC-TIONS
Four Steampunk Stories
Three Co-zies
Two Fabul-Agents
And the notice of a best selling book!


Okay, so it might be a little bit of a stretch on thinking this is about books, but it IS about freedoms, specifically from censorship...

You see, quietly under the radar this fall, first the senate then the house passed a VERY UGLY bill—bi-partisan support. In which American citizens, on American soil, can be indefinitely be detained (the new piece of this is that the entire US has basically been added as a 'war zone'). The cause is 'suspicion of terrorism' but the definition is vague and even includes such things a 'stockpiling food' (defined as having more than a weeks' worth stored at home)--so any of you who have disaster supplies? Yeah... good luck with that.

A separate bill that seems to somehow be piggy backed and I find even scarier in some ways is this internet censorship thing—where the government or corporations can remove content you post. Now THIS media blackout is related to increasing the POWER of existing media. If the internet is censored, then the traditional media wins back some ground—we no longer have 'somewhere else to turn'.

Now WHY has this all passed so quietly? I will tell you. Our media has been bought at paid for by large corporations. These large corporations have provided HUGE sponsorship related to this bill.

The LAST CHANCE to stop this nonsense from passing is to convince President Obama to veto this. So I am throwing out seven things YOU can do... the FIRST one is REALLY REALLY important.


1)  Call (202-456-1111) or email President Obama (online form) and ask him to PLEASE veto this atrocity!

2)  TELL people. It is shocking how many people this has caught by surprise. People who only watch network news DON'T KNOW. Strangely, other than my social network, Jon Stewart seems to be the only one talking about it (the jester has always been the truth teller, eh?) But if you have friends and family who are NOT active in social networks, they may not know.

3)  Look up your own legislators. Which way did they vote? Are you happy with them? There is a certain Carl Levin in Michigan who won't be getting my vote again. But I really should tell him...

4)  Get involved locally. I believe the only way this police state doesn't become a done deal is if more real people ENGAGE. We need to elect people who are NOT corrupted by corporate politics or cronyism.

5)  In fact... I'd like to see a PLEDGE. I would like everyone running int 2012 to sign a pledge to put people before corporations in all cases, and not to take money from Special Interests with corporate funding—a SIG of volunteers is one thing, but a SIG or PAC with corporate origins has NO BUSINESS influencing government. This PLEDGE should include a commitment to lobby reform (elimination, even) and a PLEDGE for campaign finance reform. Commit to only voting for people willing to play by the people's rules.

6)  Commit to Civil disobedience. In the case of the internet censoring, commit to speaking your mind loud and often. Don't be afraid. If too many of us do, they can't silence all of us... erm... I suppose they COULD, if they shut down the internet, but if they do THAT, there is no more hiding what game it is they're playing.

7)  Please don't go back to sleep. This thing is big and scary and it seems to be coming from several directions. Look at what you care about and fight for it.

Sorry to be so heavy, but this is important.

Note:  Saw this morning that the house had dropped the internet thing without a vote this session, but Harry Reid intends to make it first thing in the new year--definitely time to tell your senators what you think of it.