The cure for burnout is not “self-care”; it is all of us caring for one another.— Emily & Amelia Nagoski, Burnout
The modern notion of working for many of us— at least 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, with a couple of weeks of paid time off if you’re lucky— runs counter to every natural instinct we have as animals. We are meant to push as hard as required when there’s necessary work to be done or when the season calls for it, and then to retreat and rest when there’s nothing immediately pressing. Ebb and flow is at the heart of us, not grind and toil, and grind some more.
Even as lucky as I am in my job at this point, it’s still a slog to do the same thing, at the same pace, on the same schedule for months and months on end. So, I scheduled a vacation, which is an incredible privilege in today’s economy, for sure, simply to be able to schedule a (paid) vacation and pay for it. But when I scheduled it (in January), it wasn’t based on any visceral feeling that the second half of August would align perfectly with when I need rest. It just happened to be when my office could spare me without too much trouble, I could arrange for extended time with my kids without them going to their dad’s, and when the house was going to be available.
Like I said, so unnatural.
Which means, in my case, I reached my limit, oh… about two weeks ago, and have been treading water increasingly desperately ever since. Just…make it…another…week…another…day…another…hour. When life is like this, when I’ve exceeded my limit and still have to just keep flailing until some future, arbitrary point in time, I get increasingly myopic. Being narrowly focused due to burnout also makes me narrow-hearted; I get impatient, petty, and mean on the inside.
I do not like myself when I’m like this.
The antidote for me right now to get some good hits of pure oxygen for my soul, keeping me in my integrity and reviving me until I get to rest, isn’t to focus on self-care. Instead, it’s to look far beyond myself to stories of people taking care of each other, society, and the planet. Being reminded that even as I’m slogging away over here, everywhere regular people are showing up to tackle seemingly intractable problems with dedication and love, that they are living into their integrity in public for the good of everyone, is like the deepest breath of the cleanest mountain air. Like I can inhale inspiration, hope, and clarity of purpose and send it out through every cell to carry me just that little bit further.
Here are the pure hits of soul oxygen that are getting me through these last few weeks. I hope they revive you, too, for whatever necessary labor is before you.
Is Dr. Bronner’s the Last Corporation With a Soul?
I’ve loved Dr. Bronner’s— an organic, biodegradable liquid soap— for 40 years now. When I was a young kid spending every summer hiking and canoeing the woods and waterways of rural Virginia, Dr. Bronner’s Peppermint Soap was practically the only show in town. You could put a bar of Ivory soap in a plastic case to stash in your pack, it’s true, but it was only good for washing your skin. Dr. B was good for everything (Okay, somewhat theoretically. The shampoo idea was very bad. But still, it was great stuff.).
On top of its multifunctional utility, the founder, Dr. Emmanuel Bronner, covered the labels with paragraphs of teeny, tiny text about his All-One! philosophy, which focused on the ultimate unity of all people. Was he a wacky, mystical, Christian nutbar? Absolutely. But I came from wacky, mystical, Christian nutbars, so Dr. B’s screeds didn’t phase me. They were mostly endearing, honestly. Like your weird uncle who rants at family holidays.
These days, Emmanuel is long gone and the company is run extremely successfully by his grandchildren and their mom, his daughter-in-law. They have kept true to his “Moral ABC’s”, continually improved their products to get in even greater alignment with his vision, and organized the company to take incredible care of its employees and society. They lobby for an end to the drug war, racist mass incarceration, and the legalization of psychedelics for mental health treatment, paying for all of this activism by limiting the salaries of their executive team to no more than 6X the company’s lowest paid worker.
This means that no one at the second largest skin care company in the United States makes more than about $300,000 dollars a year, which if you know anything about the reality of corporate America is pretty much unheard of. The article linked above is a really thorough and absorbing profile of the company, which along with outdoor apparel and gear company Patagonia, is proving that conscious capitalism is not only possible in this country, but thriving.
The Sum of Us
Heather McGee ran the think tank Demos, focused on fostering a healthy democracy. She then went onto write a book, The Sum of Us, challenging the zero-sum paradigm that undergirds so much of the factionalism of American politics— the notion that progress for some can only be paid for by limiting resources and opportunities for others— via stories of regular people working across differences for mutual uplift. The book was long-listed for a National Book Award in 2022.
McGee then followed up with a podcast (linked above), which I’ve been listening to as I walk back and forth to work this past week. It’s a short, single-season project— only eight episodes. Each episode tells the story of a different community across the U.S. where people are working together to solve problems, confront injustice, and lift each other up.
Do you know the name Justin Pearson? He’s featured in one of my favorite episodes. Justin is a young, Black state legislator in Tennessee who was removed from office by the Republican majority after he and two other legislators staged a protest on the statehouse floor against gun violence. The people of Memphis reinstated Justin temporarily, in defiance of the state GOP’s attempts to silence him, and on Thursday of this week he was officially re-elected with 90% of the vote. When was the last time you knew any politician in state-wide office who won 90% of the vote?!?
Pearson’s activism didn’t start, though, with his election to the state legislature. He emerged in public life as an environmental activist, protesting the installation of a crude oil pipeline through historically Black communities in his hometown of Memphis. The episode featuring Pearson outlines that remarkably successful struggle. Not just because the everyday people of Memphis defeated the pipeline, but because the victors were a multi-racial coalition in one of the most segregated cities in the country.
My other favorite episode of the season is about immigrant farmers in rural Maine. Some of you may remember that my ex-husband and I were organic farmers for nearly a decade; the vitality of small, family farms is very important to me. My family also has deep history in East Africa. So, to hear the story of how Bantu Somalian immigrants are helping save family farming in the U.S. was a convergence of previously disparate parts of me.
Maine might be the last place you’d expect such a story to play out. Mainers are well-known for being resistant to people from “away”, and you’d be hard-pressed to find somewhere further “away” from Lewiston, ME than Somalia. Also, like many places, Maine politics over the last 15 years has been largely controlled by incredibly racist politicians who actively stoke anti-immigrant feelings, which is easy to do in communities that are mostly White and economically-depressed, as so many farming communities around the country are.
The thousands of Bantu Somali immigrants that ended up in Lewiston in the early 2000’s, therefore, were entering an often unwelcoming reality. And their eventual efforts to try and return to farming, like all their ancestors before them, were not met with community support or encouragement. Years were spent trying to get a foothold. But then George Floyd was murdered and White folks, including many White, organic farmers in Maine, were awakened to their complicity in supporting the segregation of farming. They pitched in to help and Liberation Farm, owned and operated by the Somali Bantu Community Association, was born.
Listen to the story of this remarkable, resilient group of farmers. You won’t regret it.
Listening to This Might Change You
When I was a kid, my mom taught Swahili in a medium-security prison in Lornton, VA. In my twenties, I started a program to support domestic violence victims incarcerated in the county jail in Seattle, WA. My brother David was incarcerated multiple times before he died. The question, therefore, of whether prisons are for rehabilitation or simply punishment has long been important to me and my family. So, when I saw an opinion piece in the New York Times about music programs in prison I had to click on it.
Author Maurice Chammah of the Marshall Project lays out the long history of prison music, from Jim Crow times until today. Did you know that in Texas in the 1930’s there was a very successful radio show that featured live musical performances by inmates? And that the governor came on and talked about the importance of listening to the music of inmates because it humanized them? Can you imagine such a thing coming out of current-Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s mouth?
I didn’t know this history and abhor how we got from there to here. But if we can get here, then we can get back.
Featured in the article is a link to the above short film on YouTube. It’s about a concert given at Carnegie Hall by musician Kenyatta Emmanuel, who was incarcerated for 22 years. While inside, he connected with a music program and became a composer, and on the day he was released he walked into the Hall and performed his own original music.
His expression looking out on all those people, who he could finally touch and see, face-to-face! That’ll snap you out of a burnout funk, for sure.
The human spirit, given the chance to be free, is a gorgeous thing to behold.
During covid, I walked my dog for miles and miles. And though I was always a bread baker, I went into high gear, sending loaves around the neighborhood, an act that nourished my soul and allowed me to keep kneading! I went through 125 pounds of flour in less than a year. It is marvelous what can be accomplished with salt, water, yeast and flour.
Dr Bronner’s- great stuff!!
Dogs and trees are my best oxygen. Enjoy your vacation! You deserve it!