The Steward Project

Hi friends! In this episode I'm expanding on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on student well-being and academics. There is a lot of fear mongering about this topic, so I'm bringing some calm to the chaos. Le me know what you think!

Hi Friends! It's been a minute since I've dropped an episode of the podcast...and by a minute, I mean 3 years! As a solo social worker in a school district working through the pandemic, it's been a challenge to do anything extra. But now I'm back! Thank you to those of you who kept asking about the podcast and gently pushed me to get things moving again.

If you were an "essential worker" during the pandemic, I'd love to know how this episode resonates for you (and THANK YOU for your service). If you were a student during the pandemic, please share how the pandemic impacted you (and if I missed anything). Most of all, THANK YOU for being here and for how you show up in the world.

xo Nicole

Radical Self-Care for Helpers, Healers & Change-makers includes the regular practice of REMEMBERING. As our work gets more challenging and our world gets more chaotic, it’s vital to pull back into our WHY. Work with other humans is messy...so why THIS work? Remembering who we are, at the core of our being, helps us gain an understanding of the ways we are drawn to the work of helping, healing & making change. 

Once we remember who we are & why we do this work, we begin to understand how our passion is used (or abused) to keep us overworked & underpaid. We begin to unravel the root causes of our stress and overwhelm when we take time in the space of Remembering. Then we’re able to use the power of remembering our WHY & our PASSION so that we can reignite that fire to keep us sustained in this amazing work we love...the work of Helping, Healing & Making Change!

In this episode of The Steward Project podcast, I'm offering something a little different.

This episode, I'm offering a guided meditation to help us expand our containers in order to thrive in a challenging world as we do radical work.  When I was in Mexico for my yoga retreat, I made sure to sneak down to the beach and record this guided meditation for you!  

This is one of my personal Radical Self-Care practices...whenever I'm in nature (whether it's the ocean, a lake, the redwoods, or a warm summer night with crickets singing), I record a minute or two of the sounds.  Then I listen to the sounds again in a moment when I need a break.  I highly recommend this practice. Another way to ground ourselves in the midst of chaos.

After you listen to this 11 minute guided meditation, I'd love to know how it was for you!  Leave me a comment or come to the blog to share your experience!

 For more information, visit https://www.radical-tendencies.com/blog.

In this episode of The Steward Project podcast, I'm sharing what I call the Radical Self-Care Reality Check.  

Rates of burn-out, chronic illness, and death by suicide are on the rise among Helpers, Healers, and Change-makers.  This has long-term impacts on us as human beings but also impacts the outcomes we are trying to achieve for those we serve and for the world on a larger scale.  We must do something to stem this tide and turn it around.  

A Radical Self-Care practice is necessary for Helpers, Healers, and Change-makers.  For many of us, the issues/work/professions we are drawn to and become passionate about are deeply personal to us and may speak to a deep wounding we experienced in the past.  This can be a strength and a challenge.  When the work we do in the world requires us to be emotionally engaged with an issue or with individuals, our own wounds can be triggered.  This triggering causes a stress response that can get out of control, causing us to burn-out, get sick, and sometimes can even lead to death either of chronic illness or by suicide.

In this episode, I share the data on what's happening now in the world of Helpers, Healers, and Change-makers and what we can do to change this.  When we are doing radical work in the world, we must meet that with Radical Self-Care to keep us sustained and thriving in our work.

 For more information, visit https://www.radical-tendencies.com/blog.

In this episode of The Steward Project podcast, we're exploring the cultivation of compassion as an act of Radical self-care.  

Compassion is the foundation of a Radical Self-Care practice.  Without self-compassion, we may not believe that we need or are worthy of the same care we give to others.  We may feel that self-care is selfish or a luxury.  But what we are seeing now is an epidemic of compassion fatigue and burn-out of helpers, healers and change-makers.  If we want to mitigate burn-out, we must cultivate a practice of self-compassion.

Compassion means "to have concern for the suffering of others".  The root words are COM (with) and PASSION (suffering) and the Latin origin word "compati" means "to suffer with".  In order to sit with the suffering of others, we must have compassion for them...and in order to sit with the suffering of others without becoming overwhelmed by them, we MUST have self-compassion.  Self-compassion allows us to see life from a different perspective, to commit to deep, courageous self-care practices, to prioritize rest and time off, and allows us the space (time & energy) to be with others' suffering while also tending to our own.

Toward the goal of Cultivating Compassion, I'd also like to invite you to a yoga & sound healing retreat April 15-19, 2019 in Puerto Morelos, Mexico.  We will be cultivating compassion through a daily practices of yoga, meditation, sound healing and restorative yoga.  For more information, visit https://www.radical-tendencies.com/retreat.

In this episode of The Steward Project Podcast, I'm getting real about burn-out.  It's a topic that is coming up a lot and there is growing awareness of what burn-out is and how it impacts us.  However, there is a special flavor of burn-out experienced by those of us in the Helping, Healing, or Change-making fields.

Join me for this in-depth discussion on the classic signs/symptoms of burn-out, how burn-out impacts us, our work and the outcomes we hope to achieve, and what we can do about it.

What are your thoughts on burn-out?  Have you experienced on yet?  What has it taught you and what changes did you make? What's your self-care go-to? 

Let me know by posting a comment on my blog: https://www.radical-tendencies.com/my-thoughts

In this episode of The Steward Project, I want to talk about Love & Light and Good Vibes Only.

Now, you know I'm a big believer in Love & Light. And in Good Vibes. Absolutely. But there's this way of using these things to cover up sadness, anger, frustration, or hopelessness. It's used to silence the pain of others, to invalidate the uncomfortable experiences of others (like illness or trauma). We use it to push away the reality of our bad habits. We use it to numb ourselves out from discomfort. We use it to dissociate from the reality of the world. 

Our challenge is to experience ALL the "vibes", all the emotions, and learn how to navigate them while moving towards Love & Light.  And to understand that when we allow ourselves to experience the full range of emotions, life is sweeter and we can really pull into the Love & Light in an authentic way.

What has been your experience with Love, Light and Good Vibes Only?   Let me know by posting a comment on my blog: https://www.radical-tendencies.com/my-thoughts