Tending Your Life

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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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:

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.

• 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.

• 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!

• The Art of Self-Advocacy Course
• Book: The Renaissance Soul
• Book: Essentialism
• The Patreon Community

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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?

• 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

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.

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 [email protected] 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.

• The Art of Self-Advocacy Course
• The Self-Advocacy Manifesto
• The Difference Between Self-Care and Self-Advocacy
• Book: Trauma Stewardship
• The Patreon Community

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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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.