🌅 Care + Feeding Manual for These Times™

Hi Reader, 

If you’ve found it extremely difficult to focus on anything, let alone creativity, over the last few weeks, I am with you!

The barrage of news seems to be never-ending, which is a strategy to overwhelm us, so, if you’re feeling overwhelmed, that’s an appropriate response.

That being said, there are things we can do to reduce the overwhelm and cope with it. Also, like all self care, it’s a moving target.

Enter, the personal Care and Feeding Manual for These Times™!

If you've taken my self care workshops, it's like a much bigger, more comprehensive version of the self care menu. (Bonus for brains like me: organizing a document like this is satisfying in the face of all that cannot be organized or controlled lately.)

I made it in Notion, which has the handy functionality of toggle headings, so you can expand and collapse each category as your attention allows.

I’ve been working on my version of a souped-up self care menu for a while now, and it’s still messy (these things will always be living documents) and somewhat personal, so I’m not sharing the entire document, but I will share plenty of bits and the ideas behind it, in case you’d like to make your own!

The Care and Feeding Manual includes many different categories, some of which can be treated as a menu of possibilities to choose from (like the self care actions), and some of which are more like rules or manuals for “what to do if…”

Here are my categories so far:

• Self Care Practices (a general catch-all area for ideas to be organized - technically this is all self care!)
• Energy Management
• Social Media / Internet (very intertwined with the energy management category)
• Values (how am I expressing them, how am I living them out)
• Financial (how am I planning for a more uncertain future)
• Activism
• Inspiration
• Feelings + Strategies
• Creativity

Here are some highlights in a few of the categories:

Energy Management

• Practices for clearing energy - meditations, mantras, visualizations
• Tapping into what makes me feel powerful / empowered / more centered
• Work on detaching from mental political arguments

I regularly have to remind my brain that trying to convince those who don’t agree with me (especially just inside my mind!) is mostly energy-depleting, and doesn’t really keep me safe from the troubles at hand. It’s like when your phone is out of range and constantly searching for a signal, depleting the battery faster. I could be using that energy for taking political actions, creating music, and fortifying myself instead.

Social Media / News

Our attention is one of our greatest assets, and I’m finding that I need to be MUCH more intentional about where mine goes, especially in the social media / internet realm. I’m noticing that I’m having cycles of being extremely tuned in and binging news (usually at the beginning of the week), then getting burned out and needing to tune out. My current practices:

• No social media or news before bed / after dark (exact time depends on my capacity that day)
• Limits on time - I set limits in the iPhone settings for 1 hour of social media per day, and am attempting to use the “one more minute” or “15 more minutes” button instead of reflexively hitting “Ignore limit for today” 😬
• Limits on how I consume news information - instead of doomscrolling, picking a few sources to specifically check (my favorites are Rebecca Solnit, Heather Cox Richardson, Jessica Yellin, and Emily Amick AKA Emily in Your Phone)
• Checking in with myself on how I’m generally feeling when I read news (empowered and informed vs. anxious/depressed/incapacitated), and adjusting limits accordingly
• Weekend breaks (meaning only necessary phone and computer usage), or even one day can be so helpful

Activism

I noticed that each time I felt pre-election anxiety, I felt so much better each time I channeled it into action, like writing letters to get out the vote. Now I am calling my reps daily (the 5 Calls app makes it so easy!)

I may not be able to counteract all of the harmful things happening in the U.S. government, but I can channel my feelings about it into political action in my own community AND into creative things I’m passionate about.

This feeling has led me to want to share online more, and lent an urgency to it. I’m also working on a page for my website that articulates these values clearly for folks who might wonder if I’m a good fit for them to work with.

Inspiration (kind of a mood board brewing)

• Mycelial networks! 🍄
• Starling murmurations
• Curious animals and kids
• (more to come)

Creativity

• This pep talk that I wrote over the summer on how to keep creating even when things are hard. 
• Remember that creative energy goes in cycles along with mental health, and it’s not the end of the world if I have no desire to make anything - it’s a signal to rest.
• The Feel-Good Creativity Un-Challenge I made in 2020 (a set of free creative and wellness prompts which help soothe your nervous system and put your mind in the right place for making art at whatever scale is possible right now)
• Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5

These questions:

• What feels good right now?
• What feels important to make or share?
• What type of creativity is a “low bar” or easy point of entry for when I have less energy?

Plus, remembering that creative energy goes in cycles along with mental health, and it’s not the end of the world if I have no desire to make anything - it’s a signal to rest.

I was going to wait to share this with you until it was “finished” and “perfect”, but living documents are never finished, they’re intended to evolve with us. 

Also, that totally goes against one of my main creative values - that it’s okay (and necessary!) to start small and imperfectly!

There’s lots more to say in the Creativity category, of course, and also in relation to Feelings + Strategies. I’ll be sharing more about that in the coming weeks!

So, if you’re in need of more coping strategies for These Times™, I hope this gives you some good ideas. Your categories may be different than mine, and that’s great - I’d love to hear more about it if you make your own!

Find the joy where you can, and take care of yourself - wishing you fortitude, peace, and creative energy! 💗

🤩 Share your creative joys! 🤩

From now on, each email will feature a section celebrating creative joys - not just mine but YOURS, too! 

Hit reply to share any kind of creative joy you’re causing or experiencing, and I’ll share it next time! 🤗

Examples of creative joys:

• celebrating a small action you took on a project
• something inspiring you read / heard / saw
• someone else’s work of art
• an item that makes your creative workspace a better place to be

My current joys:

• Making music with friends in my all-women group playing Brazilian music by women (among other musical joys)
• This disco snail on my desk
• Stickers from Pipsticks
• My new projector that illuminates my office area with northern lights and/or stars
• My cat Tsuki and the many adorable cats and animals of the internet (I have a saved folder on Instagram dedicated solely to cuteness!)

Next time this section will be full of more joys, beaming out to you from me and anyone who wants to contribute! 

🕸️ Staying on the good side of the internet 🕸️

• Belonging with Becca Piastrelli Episode #136: Practical Magic for Turbulent Times - This episode gave me comfort, despite the fact that Carmen Spagnola's work has a lot to do with preparing for various types of collapse.

• Claim Your Magic - This article from Jennifer Louden's Substack is definitely in the spirit of FIERCE LIGHT (my 2025 phrase of the year)
• It is our turn to carry the world by adrienne marie brown - This "community safety ritual" is beautiful, and adrienne's words are always a balm for my soul.
• Minimum and Maximum Creative Time - A cool way of thinking about meaningful contributions to your creative work in an amount that actually works for you.