Justice and care work can be exhausting

Hi friends! A friend of mine who is also part of The Healing Hype membership brought something up that is really important: justice and care work can be so exhausting. My workshop, “Connecting to the Land, Connecting to Ourselves” this Sunday, August 1, gave her some pause. This wasn’t because she didn’t care about it, it’s because in this capitalistic, white supremacist, and extractive world, we get tired. She’s tired. As individuals, caring about justice can feel like 2 steps forward and 5 steps back. Maybe 20 steps back. I’ve been experienced this too. Climate change alone is freaking me out enough to make me lose hope. And now with more news of surges in Delta variant COVID cases, it’s hard to not throw up my hands. This is all aside from existing systemic racism, sexism, transphobia, homophobia, fatphobia, and ableism. My friend told me that sometimes she doesn’t want to think about these sad things, especially on the weekends. That’s when she wants to experience joy! So I just wanted to pop in here to say a couple things: (1) It’s okay if you get tired from justice and care work. We need space away from it in order to refill our cups. So watch that trash TV show, hang out with your friends, lay in the grass. Do what you have to do to experience joy. (2) When you are someone who is very principled about equity, humanity, liberation, and justice, you will come back to this work. It is in the fabric of your being. (3) My workshop, “Connecting to the Land, Connecting to Ourselves” will be a celebration of ourselves and the land. It will be imaginative and creative. So I hope this is something that ends up lighting you up, not bringing you down. However, I also understand that thinking about the land and what has happened to it because of extractive forces can be a lot to absorb. So please join if you have the capacity. And if you don’t, you can always watch the recording later healinghype.substack.com