Hello hello,
Happy November 🙂 Happy belated Diwali! My family and I enjoyed a beautiful festival of lights in our neighborhood with sparklers and Indian sweets.
I am living for this 2 part conversation with Anand Giridharadas and Brene Brown. The first thing to acknowledge is that so much about our country is messed up AND YET, we continue to offer a uniquely positive experience to so many humans from other places (I’ll be honest, I needed to hear Anand’s experience to re-appreciate this). We all must learn to accept this cognitive dissonance – holding two opposing truths in our mind at the same time. This is tough, but so necessary to make any kind of progress. Check out the episodes here:
https://brenebrown.com/podcast/the-persuaders-part-1-of-2/
https://brenebrown.com/podcast/the-persuaders-part-2-of-2/
In episode 2, Anand emphasizes that we can all chose to sit in despair, or we can chose to think about moving beyond our discomfort and take action. I think Covid helped us see what ‘sitting in despair’ meant for a couple years – and it doesn’t feel great.
It’s election day today. I know it’s too late to insist people head to the polls. Nonetheless, it’s not just about today but about internalizing hope as a discipline. Like everything else that sucks in life – eating healthy, exercising, meditating… it’s not a one and done- it’s a practice. Every election matters because progress is made whether your candidate wins or not. Check out this podcast episode which really helps break down why this all matters:
I find myself starting to get overwhelmed as the holiday season is upon us. I’m giving us all permission to both enjoy and detest this pressure cooker of an environment- and most of all, we should embrace and normalize any of our inevitable feelings that are anything other than joyous… I see you. I’m in the trenches with you. Let’s rally.
Happy holiday season – talk soon
Jessica
#blacklivesmatter #courageousconversations #powertoprivilege
PS -For those from a Christian background (practicing or not), remember when all we did was show up, home from college, to a decorated house with dinner planned and presents already wrapped? THAT is why we love Christmas. Now that I have to do all that, it’s WAY less enjoyable!!! lol