Hurry Slowly - The ladder inside you

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Artwork by Albert Dros.

Hi Friend-

I did one of my all-time favorite interviews recently. It was a conversation with writer and activist Mia Birdsong, and I’m thrilled to share it with you today.

Last year, Mia published the revelatory book How We Show Up: Reclaiming Family, Friends, and Community, which is, among other things, a deep exploration of how the American Dream has failed us.

In our conversation, we talk about how the ideals of the American Dream — individualism and independence — create loneliness and separation even in those who “succeed” at it. How our fixation on the nuclear family and self-sufficiency and privacy keeps us from knowing others and from being deeply known ourselves. Not to mention keeping us from developing a truly supportive community where we can ask for, and offer, help.

Mia is fierce, funny, and incredibly wise. There’s so much to unpack in this conversation. You don’t want to miss it.

Listen to: "Mia Birdsong: The Longing to Be Known"

Also: A quick heads up, that my course RESET, a cosmic tune-up for your workday, will be re-opening to new students on October 5th. If you'd like to get more info and a sweet discount code, sign up for the email list at reset-course.com.

Sending you good vibes,
Jocelyn

Artwork by Albert Dros.

LINK ABOUT IT

Sonya Renee Taylor on the ladder inside us. In our interview, Mia Birdsong sung the praises of Prentis Hemphill’s podcast and right she was. This interview with Sonya Renee Taylor, the author of The Body Is Not an Apology is a complete knockout. Just trust me: “It's about looking at where does the system of comparison live inside of me? How am I judging myself, judging my own being based on this hierarchy? Because the thing that makes the ladder real is our attempt to continue to climb it. That is what validates and materializes and operationalizes the ladder. So when we look at, Oh, I'm bought into this, I'm bought into thinness, I'm bought into sexism, I'm bought into able-bodiedness. All of those things we're not looking at, reaffirm the foundations of the ladder and keep them moving. So the first place is: How do I destroy the ladder in myself?”

How one person can make a difference. This is a hugely inspirational story from one of my favorite writers, Atul Gawande, about how one man helped plant the seeds for a new system that has vastly improved healthcare in Costa Rica. “What set Costa Rica apart wasn’t simply the amount it spent on health care. It was how the money was spent: targeting the most readily preventable kinds of death and disability.That may sound like common sense. But medical systems seldom focus on any overarching outcome for the communities they serve. We doctors are reactive. We wait to see who arrives at our office and try to help out with their “chief complaint.” We move on to the next person’s chief complaint: What seems to be the problem? We don’t ask what our town’s most important health needs are, let alone make a concerted effort to tackle them.”

Taking the exquisite risk — the undefended heart. I recently re-listened to this stellar podcast episode from Tara Brach: "For humans, this is not a one-shot, we are continually waking up out of our cocoons— cocoons of illusion, cocoons of limiting beliefs, cocoons of behaviors that keep us small...I would like to take a phrase that I heard recently from the poet Mark Nepo. He describes this shedding of the skin as, “taking the exquisite risk.” Every time we open up out of our familiar cocoon to contact a wider reality, to really touch aliveness more fully, we are taking the exquisite risk. I love it because exquisite connotes a kind of beauty and excellence and sensitivity and responsiveness. Exquisite. And then risk — it is exposure to danger and loss. We are willing to let go of an old experience that gave us some measure of comfort, security or certainty and exchange it for what is unfamiliar and way more alive."

This is the sound of my soul. Shout-out to the person from my Radiate community who recently turned me onto this wonderful, honest piece from Nilofer Merchant about finding your voice: "Here’s the thing. None of us show up with fully formed ideas or our fully formed voice. Our voice and ideas are developed in context. It’s when someone asks us a question that we now know what we believe. It’s when someone asks how your idea relates to another, that you get more specific about your own. Voice is not a one way street of you doing your thing, in spite of others, and all by yourself. No. It’s not you screaming in the wilderness. If you are putting your ideas into a safe space, it has a chance to be built on, shaped, explored until it becomes viable. But if we put our ideas into unsafe spaces, we’ll do it haltingly or so rigidly that it can’t be molded and shaped to even become viable."

+ The transcendence of tantric sex. (Don't pre-judge, just read it ; )

+ Andy Didorosi on calling the world's bluff.

+ Let’s replace ambition with adaptation.

+ Work is a false idol.

Artwork by Albert Dros.

SHOUT-OUTS:

Link appreciation to: Sebene Selassie and Dense Discovery.

The artwork is from: Albert Dros, who's based in Amsterdam.

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Hi, I'm Jocelyn, the human behind this newsletter. I created the online course RESET, a cosmic tune-up for your workday, and I host Hurry Slowly — a podcast about how you can be more productive, creative, and resilient by slowing down.

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Website: jkglei.com
Twitter: @jkglei

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Hurry Slowly - The ladder inside you

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Satisfaction vs Vulnerability

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