How does regulation and healing connect to antiracist work?

This is a question that keeps coming my way and I'm going to keep sharing about this here. I'd also love to hear your thoughts!

Today I'm thinking about worrying, and the role it plays in keeping us in inaction.

When we get caught up in worrying about something, like how to best address an issue related to equity, we can feel like we're doing something! We're consumed with thinking about the issue and what to do, we feel stress and/or anxiety about it, and worrying keeps us safe from actually having to be vulnerable and DO something about the issue.

Without awareness of this cycle, it is so easy to perpetuate. It's easy to think we're doing something and to feel frustrated or exhausted by how we're spinning our wheels, but never actually move into action.

Worry takes us away from the here and now. It allows us to move away from the deep discomfort that comes with staying present in the situation. The feelings of vulnerability, fear, and discomfort.

But worrying has never actually made things better.

It doesn't get us closer to a solution or action.

It doesn't lead to more creativity or expansion or imagining of new ways of being.

The discomfort and vulnerability in the present moment --

the uncertainty of what the best course of action is.

the fear of doing/saying the wrong thing.

the discomfort of unfamiliar circumstances and not being able to control the outcome.

It's easy to want to escape from all of that.

But staying in the challenge or situation is where the magic lies.

That's where the potential exists.

The potential for something new, and something even better!

the potential for clarity and for creating breakthroughs.

But staying in it requires practice.

It requires regulation.

Staying in it is hard!

But we can learn to be with discomfort.

We can learn to stay grounded and calm.

We can learn to lean into vulnerability and take informed action instead of staying stuck.

Here's a strategy that you can try...

Pause and take a few deep breaths

Make a list of things that you're currently worrying about

Connect to the present moment and notice what the worrying might be helping you avoid -- fear of doing the wrong thing? Vulnerability? Poke around and see what comes up.

How can you be present right now? Be with the fear or vulnerability, instead of the worry.

Then chose one action you can take to move forward and step out of the cycle of worry.