Watching storm clouds race through the office peep hold window as I prep this issue to send out. A tornado watch has East Nashville on high alert as we’ve had more than our fair share of traumatising storms in the last few years, but we keep moving throughout our day anyway aware that we might need to kick into emergency mode at any minute.
It feels like a crude metaphor for how life in general has felt this past year for us— always on edge for the next emergency, disaster or life event. So if that you as well, I want to invite you to try and engage in a moment of calm. Take a deep breath through your nose and breathe out through your mouth. Maybe take a few. Turn off any music you have going and centre yourself. Allow yourself to feel grounded in your chair or feet planted on the earth. Give thanks for it, and breathe out your anxiety and frustration. You are worthy of rest.
Hopefully you feel a little better.
Let’s move into our weekend now.
g + c
Finding Peace in the Violence
By Chris Llewellyn
Last year I made the “mistake” of entering into a nuanced conversation on the internet.
This year my inbox is STILL is filled with hate mail.
Some examples are so outrageously offensive that I honestly can’t believe they came from the keyboards of the very straight-laced, church elder - looking people in their profile pictures. (Turns out not watching HBO shows and Harry Potter doesn’t stop you from learning R rated insults!)
But I think my least favourites are those that draw connections between my son’s developmental differences and my heresies. Like we’re being punished by God for my thought-crimes. (I think God could have come up with a better punishment than a life with the roguishly handsome, utterly unique and snuggle prone, Nutella fan that is my Daniel.)
But other people’s vitriol is not my problem - I can’t control that.
The part that maybe I can control is my own hair trigger eff off reflex - my own vitriol.