Song of the Week

Listen to this song as you read to help open you up. Stand By Me by Dominique Fils-Aimé.

Updates

Eggs are being laid, it’s time to give birth to our hopes and dreams y’all. I was reading the Land Knows The Way two weeks ago with my morning matcha and oat milk, as I do. I read slowly, and when I feel like it as a practice. I’ve been sitting with this excerpt about asking for what you need, which came at a time when I was waffling back and forth about asking for help. Was I ready to ask for help? Did I need to do more prep before I asked? What would happen if I asked for help before I was “ready”? You’ve been there. Sometimes books give me the push I need when I’m not around humans who could do that with me.

Ricardo goes on to say this is the basic principle of living with intention.

This brings me to a podcast I listened to which was discussing values. Check out How to Survive the End of the World, episode, The Five Stages of Defiance with Dr. Sunita Sah. They discussed how values don’t mean much until they are in tension, that is until you need to live your values out loud. The hard thing about this is when we are afraid we often aren’t who we want to be. This is a RIPE moment. It’s a moment we want to look inside into who we aspire to be. It’s helpful to think about making moves, decisions, and behavior points, based on who we want to become, rather than who we think we are in the moment which is in tension. This helps us overcome the hump of “but I’m scared”. One step at a time we become who we are. Our behaviors and the choices we make, make us who we are. This is actually what originally drew me to OT as a field and science, how to help people shape behavior and action based on who they want to become is a fascinating and worthy endeavor.

My questions for you this week is:

• Who do you want to become?

• What is the next best(ish) move to get you there?

The assignment for this week, if you like that kind of thing, is:

• Say what you want to someone, or write it down for yourself. Say it clearly and eventually, often. Start with someone who supports you.

If you feel like a fake or a fraud, which is a common thing that comes along with living with intention when it’s newer to you, listen to this. Gabor Maté, who I am sure also got this from indigenous wisdom, shared that when one feels imposter syndrome, it’s because at some point in your life, often as a kid you weren’t allowed to be yourself. So you faked the role or character you needed to fill or be. Be kind to that part of yourself that had to do that. Now, pair that with starting to discern the difference between feeling like you are small/insignificant/powerless versus believing you are small/insignificant/powerless. You can’t argue with feelings, but beliefs you can challenge and change. Feelings shift from that place.

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Community Events

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Urban Research and Outreach-Engagement Center Conversation

A friend forwarded this to me, it looks interesting and John Keller has stood out as a leader in community for immigrant rights for the last decade I’ve known of him.

May Day in Powderhorn Park

The May Day parade in Minneapolis is evolving, sounds about right. Every year since the Heart of the Beast stepped away from organizing it, May Day has been wildly different. In some ways it makes me sad and in other ways I’m happy to see that the energy to celebrate spring is alive and well.

Thanks for READING! xoxo Eiko