This November has brought us major emotional upheaval with the election results on top of what we’ve already been dealing with and the holidays coming around the corner.

If you're like many of us, the holidays can be a stressful time. Family dynamics, obligations to attend events, the absence of loved ones, and financial or emotional strain can all add layers of complexity to what is meant to be a joyful season.

If you’ve been feeling this way, I want to offer you five simple practices to help soothe your holiday stress:

1) View food as neutral

2) Honor your boundaries and give yourself space

3) Make conscious decisions

4) Offer yourself grace, compassion, and LovingKindness abundance and

5) Do something soothing every day

…All with an emphasis on the importance of self-compassion, flexibility, and mindful energy expenditure.

Jump in for all the goodness!

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Additional resources from this episode: Get the episode transcript here.

Instagram accounts referenced: @nutritiontea, @your.latina.nutritionist, @black.nutritionist, @raquelmartinphd

In this episode, I welcome a cool-ass human, Dr. Dee Frayne (pronounced fray-knee), to the show!

Dr. Dee Frayne, she/they, is a professional changemaker, disruptive leadership strategist, and performance coach. She loves nothing more than helping feminist leaders, changemakers and social entrepreneurs to lead the fight against social inequality and systemic oppression. Dee wants to help you BE the change so that you can LEAD the change…without the burnout, overwhelm, pressure, and punishment.

The shit we need to talk about this week is the importance of acknowledging and reclaiming anger as a tool for sustainable change.

In our conversation,

- Dee emphasizes that anger is a protective emotion often suppressed due to societal conditioning, particularly affecting marginalized groups.

- She highlights the physical and emotional toll of suppressing anger, linking it to stress-related health issues and even forming a connection between anger and autoimmune disorders.

- Dee advocates for small, intentional steps towards change and self-care practices that nourish the body and mind. And the most important step - doing it in community.

Dee also shares about her Anger Academy, a program aimed at healing anger through community and structured support, and stresses the anti-oppressive nature of self-love and self-care. Here’s how you can connect with Dee:

Website: www.deefrayne.com

Instagram: @deefrayne

The Anger Academy - www.deefrayne.com/anger

Jump in for all the goodness!

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In this episode, we dive into the collective feelings of exhaustion and overwhelm that many of us experience during the fall season. And this year in particular, as schedules change and responsibilities increase, it's important to also acknowledge how external events—like the ongoing effects of COVID-19 and the turbulent political landscape—are deeply impacting our well-being.

We discuss the importance of recognizing and validating these feelings, rather than spiritual bypassing or gaslighting ourselves. You’ll find practical self-care strategies to help you cope with the season's challenges, emphasizing awareness and simplicity. From nourishing your body and calming your nervous system to engaging in meaningful relationships, this episode offers a variety of actionable steps to promote balance and self-compassion.

Join me as we explore ways to create space for ourselves amidst the chaos and cultivate a sense of ease and grounding during this tumultuous time. Remember, you don't have to do it all—start with one small practice that resonates with you.

The offerings in this episode are robust and it is meant to serve as a guide you can reference again and again throughout the fall.

Jump in for all the goodness!

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Fall schedules and responsibilities are now in full swing amidst the transitional period between seasons - which might have you feeling a bit off, too - and the political climate is SO MUCH RIGHT NOW.

It’s likely, and unsurprising, you’re feeling overwhelmed and drained, and as a result, you’re on autopilot or numbing out to just get through the days.

It makes complete sense to choose one of those coping mechanisms, especially at this point of the year, because the shit you need to do (whether you want to or not) requires your attention however you can give it, plus the stuff you actually want to show up for matters to you too much to throw in the towel altogether.

The hard part about this approach is that staying numb or on autopilot will result in you being disconnected from the people you want to focus on showing up for AND unavailable to what those people need.

And it leads to you being disconnected and unavailable to yourself as well. The reality is:

The people and causes and responsibilities you want to show up for need you to be tuned in and actively listening, with your whole self.

In this week’s episode, the shit we need to talk about is:

- Going on autopilot and numbing out isn’t working for us and are causing us to:

* Not being tuned in properly to hear/see/witness the real needs - both on the surface and below of the people you want to serve

* Become oblivious and even desensitized in many areas of life

- Instead of numbing out or going on autopilot any longer, you need to stay present to what’s going on with you and others and take care of yourself. Ways to do this include:

* Coming back to foundational self-care practices

* Move through the day with mindful awareness and care for yourself in small ways

* Tending to the type of energy you’re feeling, whether that’s anxious, angry/hyperfocused, or stagnant.

Jump in for all the goodness!

Join The Resourced Crew! We start September 25th!

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Fall is hella busy and full of transitions. And, we need to make it to the US presidential election day on November 5th as easefully as possible AND THEN move through the days after with resources STILL AVAILABLE.

Because as I said last year, we are no longer entering December running on fumes.

This, my people, is most certainly not that. So if you’re feeling under-resourced, this episode is for you.

The shit we gotta talk about this week: Whether Fall is YOUR TIME OF YEAR or not, feeling under-resourced heading into this season with all of its busy-ness and variability is not the way we want to go. Like at all, under any circumstances.

So here’s what we ARE gonna do:

- Recalibrate by checking in and asking yourself: how am I feeling now, how do I want to feel in the fall, and what support do I need to bridge the gap?

- Foster stability with your morning and evening routines

- Let doing B-level work be OK and release self-judgment when you do it

- Take time daily to recognize all the ways you’re showing up for the people, work, situations, and causes you believe in

- Do the thing and then take a break - often!

Jump in for all of the goodness!

Join The Resourced Crew! We start September 25th!

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Additional resources from this episode: Get the episode transcript here.

The shit we need to talk about this week is: Right now, you might be feeling like your bandwidth and capacity are way too low going into all that’s around the corner in the coming weeks. I hear you. Many of us are feeling stretched thin in terms of our available time AND what we can realistically do in it. And I don’t think it’s really an exaggeration or underestimation, honestly. The levels feel bleak and they are.

And I know you - your work, your responsibilities, your causes, your contributions, your people, your well-being are all way too important to you to lay faint in the corner with your head under the covers for too long of a time.

The good news is: there is a glimmer of hope. We CAN expand our capacity to do whatever it is we want to show up for. We can turn this around despite the very real dumpster fire we’re in.

Join me in this episode as I discuss the elements that will help you expand bandwidth and capacity, complete with thought process and mindset shifts, including:

- Showing up even when you don’t feel like you can

- Reclaiming your time and energy from things that drain you

- Asking for help (I know, I’m cringing right alongside you!)

- Doing the smallest of things, what seem insignificant or “not nearly enough”

- Being willing to feel like you are under-resourced as you start and also feel as though you’re not doing anything significant during the process AND KEEP DOING IT.

- Bringing energy back to yourself - through boundaries and things that bring you joy/enjoyment

Jump in for all of the goodness!

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The shit we need to talk about this week is that it’s astonishing to me that I keep having a conversation around people knowing self-care is important but they’re still half-assing it. So I have to ask you point blank: At what point are you going to cut the shit and actually do it?

You’ve acknowledged how important self-care, rest, and resourcing yourself is but there is a resistance in actually taking the time to do it. You know doing these things is an act of resistance, it’s radical action based on what we continue to go through in this world under systems of oppression. Why can we make sense of it in our brains, but we’re not actually changing behavior?!

What will it take for us to finally implement this information into our lives?

And I know you want to do a better job of taking care of yourself so that you can feel more resourced and at ease and effectively do your work and serve the people and causes you believe in.Yet, still there is some sort of disconnect between the wanting and doing of your self-care.

It’s true that energy, time, resources, and support are stretched thin, low, or non-existent. It’s hard to show up for your work, your people, and your causes, and have anything left over for yourself. AND. What I also know is: the time is now. Are you in?

Cuz there has to come a point where you decide that enough is enough. Life is beautiful and hard and the systems suck. Like suck and also suck the life out of us. And while so many of us are working so hard to disrupt and dismantle all of it, I have to say, we cannot wait on self-care. We cannot keep putting everything before ourselves. We cannot keep half-assing our care or putting it off or making it a part of our to-do list.

Jump in for a conversation that gets to the root of why you’re half-assing self-care and wtf to do about it already so you can feel more resourced and at ease.

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Additional resources from this episode:

Caroline J Sumlin: @carolinejsumlin on IG

We are officially past the halfway point of what has been a very tumultuous year and friends, it just keeps going. The presidential election here in the US is on the forefront of the mind for so many of us, on top of multiple genocides, and that’s on top of all of the changes in legislation and horror and injustice that’s been happening. Shit is very scary out in the world and I am feeling palpable outrage and fear from people I’m connected with. And rightfully so. We have every right to be angry at what’s going on politically here in the US and terrified of how the election will turn out.

When so much is going on leading up to an election and what will surely be a pivotal event in our lives, it is easy to get caught up in all the worry over what might happen, not to mention the fear of what the fallout will be. It all makes sense based on all of the awful shit we’ve already seen happen!

And still, I have to ask you, ask us, really: What will worrying get us?

The shit we need to talk about this week: we can’t worry over what we cannot control.

What good will it do? And what will the impact be on us in the end?

You know that the answers are that 1) it will do no good and 2) the impact on us in the end will be shit for sure. Panic. Dread. Anxiety. Numbing. Giving away time doing nothing that is soul-filling. Disassociating. Disconnecting from ourselves AND EACH OTHER.

And friends, this is not the time. It’s never the time, let’s be real, but based on what we’re up against, THIS IS NOT THE TIME for disconnecting from ourselves and each other. It’s quite the contrary. THIS IS THE TIME TO DOUBLE DOWN ON OUR CARE OF AND CONNECTION TO OURSELVES AND EACH OTHER.

Join me in this episode as I discuss ways to meet your worry, move through it, and do something about it (to support yourself and the cause you're worrying about) so that you’ll be resourced rather than depleted as we find our way through the world’s dumpster fire.

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