This past winter and early spring, I was struggling. I felt as though I was being pulled in a thousand directions. Though I wanted to show up for everything and everyone, I found myself fully present for nothing and no one.
My not-fully-present manifested as exhaustion. Not like a “I really need to sleep” kind of exhaustion, more of a “my soul needs a lie-down” kind of exhaustion.
Read MoreWith all that’s going on in the world right now (and since we’re in the middle of two (2!) months of Adar, we thought it would be good to reprise Episode 10 from the conclusion of election season. Tracie asks April for advice on working through the negative emotions that sometimes accompany justice work. They unpack the ways we've been taught to associate anger or rage with justice work (and anxiety with intelligence), and April shares suggestions for achieving the positive effects of BOTH feeling your feelings AND cultivating joy and presence.
Tune into this episode and read the full shownotes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts!
Read MoreA few weeks into 2022, April and Tracie share with us what they’ve learned about how to set intentions and their best practices for succeeding. Referencing the conversation they had in Episode 70, they chat about achieving goals versus implementing systems. They unpack some of the patterns around setting intentions and assumptions of our own enoughness. Tracie shares her personal 10 commandments for the upcoming year.
Tune into this episode and read the full shownotes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts!
Read MoreIn this week’s episode, Tracie and April both react to recent experiences they have had which have deepened their consciousness or understanding around racial justice and healing. For Tracie it was a neighbor’s reaction to an activist campaign to Free Keith Davis, Jr., and for April, a weekend at a virtual Black liberation retreat. This leads them to a conversation on the need to balance the work of liberating individuals and communities from oppressive systems with also grieving the collective trauma that is caused from generations of being targeted by and struggling against these same systems. For it is only by grieving that we can become better change agents for our collective liberation.
Read MoreMy relationship to Juneteenth has been evolving over the years, both as a result of developing and deepening my liberatory consciousness and because of what happened right around Juneteenth last year. On Freedom Day 2020, I was in the midst of what I now refer to as the Deluge.
Read MoreBut the true reason why I love Spring is because it is messy, and it teaches me that I can be messy too as I grow. Maybe you have never thought about Spring as messy, so think about it; for every warm, glorious blue sky Spring day, there are ones of cold and rain, even snow!
Read MoreHave you ever seen or heard the advice, “be the person you needed as a child”? That’s kind of what the Ko’ach Fellowship is for me. When I was a Vice President at the URJ, I deeply needed a mentor who was Jewish leader of color who had walked that “senior executive at a large establishment institution” path before. That person just didn’t exist.
Read More“Anger is a messenger. My emotions are guideposts for me that give me a sense of things that my brain can't comprehend or comprehends too quickly for me to be able to process it. But when an emotion is lingering, that is helpful for me - and I leverage that.” - April N. Baskin
Read MoreI felt so peaceful and grounded afterward, and the effects of those 5 minutes lasted a week.
I remember 4 days later, another student ran into me in the quad and just kept on walking. BOOM! I remember him plowing into me, and as my body was pushed backward from the impact, it was an unexpected surreal experience for me. It was like the moment was happening in. slow. motion. in. my. mind. I remember thinking, "This is when I would normally feel very angry…but I'm not…. more accurately, I feel like I have a choice about whether or not I will choose to feel angry or not… ?!?!?! ...Whoa... This is amazing!”
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