In this episode I’m inviting you into this question with me: “Is It Burnout Or The Energetic Expense Of A Spiritual Breakthrough?” Now let’s be clear, sometimes it really is burn-out. Sometimes, no…a lot of the times, capitalism, the patriarchal refusal to compensate care work and the lack of a state sanctioned social safety net can really bring us to our knees and leave us feeling burned out. I want to acknowledge that, but what I also want to be emphatically clear about acknowledging is sometimes it is spiritual severance, self-denial and self-negation that is at the core of our exhaustion. What creative invitations have you been resisting? Let’s take a look at that and try to answer these questions together.

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In this episode I want to make the case for breaking away from institutions and creating communal containers of healing instead. And because we’re all about the spell and the strategy at Seeda School…it is also my intention to make the argument that if you are already writing countless grants, drafting applications, making pitches and proposals and making bids for fellowship in institutions that sometimes (or usually) gets awarded, then you are already good at sales. Through this episode I want to invite you to turn that skill toward creating deeper pathways of empowerment for yourself and your communities, not institutions who siphon our worldbuilding capacity for their own survival. This episode is about our survival, our collective ability to thrive.

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So who is perfectionism for?

What stops us from hitting publish or inviting folks into an offer?

Are we waiting for the somatic safety, self-trust, or sense of belonging we’ll magically feel on the other side of a new title, degree, or wave of applause?

So often we stall, hesitate on pressing publish, resist releasing an offer we’ve already thought about so much we could design the entire thing in a weekend, because we want to project the patriarchal premise of expertise or “thought leadership”.

But what if we centered our lived experience instead?

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I chose the path of tech and software engineering out of creative curiosity, yes. But on some level, if I’m being real, I also chose it because it would, perhaps, make my parent’s sacrifice mean something. It was impressive, it was something they could brag about on Facebook. And, at the time, my inner child connected being impressive with worthiness. She connected being small with love-ability. She connected following orders with freedom from punishment. She connected suppressing desire with survival.

In this episode we explore the ways our creative practice invites us to make new connections. Because inside the erotic as power, we find our fear based connections can’t hold for long.

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There is no such thing as an independent artist. We judge ourselves for having needs constantly. The reality of interdependence may look different for us in different seasons of our lives. In one season we might need the help of our families to provide shelter (like I did). In another season we might need the companionship of a partner or a pet. In another season we might need the trust and respect of our peers to engage with our work. In other seasons we might need our communities to rally around our mutual aid requests and bids for care. Perhaps underneath the craving for safety is really the desire for relation that doesn’t terrify us. In this episode we call our power back to us by surrendering to the truth of interdependence.

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We talk more about this in Thursday’s Worldbuilding Workshop, but you may have seen the quote going around “if it’s not free, it’s neither radical or revolutionary”. I want to start off by saying I disagree. Equitable, anti-capitalist, values aligned resource exchange that is accountable to the communities we serve and the planet we inhabit can be some of the most radical and revolutionary work we do. In this current economic system, “free to you” just means the money is coming from somewhere else and a lot times that chain of funding is obfuscated, which can make accountability tricky if not intentionally impossible. In this episode I want to invite us to consider the ways in which pricing our offers for sustainability doesn’t have to compromise the integrity of our work, in fact I want to propose it can actually empower and actualize the worlds we dream of building.

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Cover Art: Keeping the Culture (2010) by Kerry James Marshall (b.1955) Medium: Oil on Board Dimensions: 76.2 x 121.9 cm. (30 x 48 in.) Source: Artnet

This episode is for our Libra eclipse moment, it’s especially for YOU if you’ve been wanting more balance and clarity inside your practice. If you’re overwhelmed by the sheer number of your ideas and desires on your heart then listen up! This is the worldbuilder’s dilemma but it is also our power. So let’s dive in.

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Citations

Cover Art: Julie Mehretu, Stadia II, 2004, ink and acrylic on canvas, 108 x 144 inches Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh) © Julie Mehretu

Today I want to talk about the permission I had to give myself to pivot before I could invite anyone else into the transition. Today I want to talk about how sneaky scarcity mindset can be, even with the abundance of wisdom, tools and skills we’ve learned inside our journey of transformation. Today I want to talk about why, after a summer of experimenting with 3 different offerings (a retreat, a monthly membership and accepting applications for a 1:1 service-based offering), I am bringing the Seeda School paid-offer ecosystem back down to 1 core offering.

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Referenced Inside the Episode

Cover Art: A black and white film photograph of David Hammons creating his “body prints”. The photograph is titled “David Hammons, Slauson Studio” (1974) by Bruce Talamon. Source: Studio Museum of Harlem

Last week we talked about how the journey is the dream and the destination is the practice through the metaphor of teaching and learning. I want to pick that thread back up. Just as I believe creativity is the spiritual disposition of our species, I want to argue curiosity, teaching and learning are organic to our ways of being as well. So organic the debate of nature vs. nurture has been going on for centuries now. Today, I’m less interested in teasing out the difference between the gifts we’re taught and the gifts we’re born with. What I’m more interested in teasing out is what happened to us and how can the lessons we learned along the way serve others?

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Referenced Inside the Episode

Cover Art: Two black girls look out the window of a “Freedom School”. © Ken Thompson, United Methodist Board of Global Ministries. Image Source

Maybe you’ve been talking yourself out of taking a creative risk for months, maybe years just like I have. A life is something we create, too. Maybe your creative risk is leaving a job with an abusive company culture, moving to a new city or removing yourself from relationships where your power is perceived as a threat to neutralize instead of divine intelligence to collaborate with. Whatever transition is tugging you toward its trail, whatever creative calling won’t leave you alone, I need you to know the journey IS the return on investment.