You're Invited to the Earthworm Slumber Party!

Honestly it's an elite invitation

Hello beloved friends!

Vibrant flowers blooming in my mother’s garden

I absolutely adore the long days of summer, especially as someone who loves swimming. There is nothing like an early evening meetup at the river. These days I’m in South Carolina, so instead of the river I head to the pool in my parent’s neighborhood after work. It is overrun with families and children, but a pool is a pool and I have been swimming in this pool since I was ten years old

me, outside the pool with my special pool floats!

Living in South Carolina has me deep in my feelings of gratitude for Black community

As someone who grew up in South Carolina, I have always been nourished and nurtured by Black culture and people. While growing up in South Carolina truly exposed me to something special, I believe almost everyone in the United States who listens to music or engages with culture is being nourished by Blackness in some way.

I think it’s really important to acknowledge they dynamics of culture, race, power, and consumption.

I just sent out my first ever subscriber-only post

Right now you can make a one-time donation to my Ko-fi for as little as $3 and I will give you access to my premium substack for a year. I utilize a paywall as a way to create a space for more vulnerable sharing and video content.

You can read the first half of the post for free here. The post, titled 32, renewed, and basking in my own bullshit, is really meant to be a more realistic reflection on my birthday and life over the past year, a playful contrast to my last post about the magic of friendship. Everything in my last post is true, but I worry about the hyper-aspirational narrative it may push forth.

I really, in my soul, needed to offer a complimentary perspective to capture the reality of this time in my life and to give voice to the often uncomfortable experience of being a human.

Speaking of the human experience and getting messy, I have some really exciting news!

The first four episodes of my podcast, Earthworm Slumber Party, just dropped!!

Here’s the trailer:

Each episode my co-host, Nisha Modhi, and I take turns telling each other a story. We aim to go deep and get into messy emotions. Nisha and I are both big thinkers that have devoted our lives to the work of healing and healthy relationships. Genuinely every conversation we have for the podcast ends up somewhere new and unexpected.

We always aim to keep the episodes around 20 minutes, and although we go over sometimes, our podcasts are overall pretty tight and stay on track. We are talking with intention!

We would be so delighted if you gave us a listen!

You can find us on YouTube, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts. We are so grateful for your support! Please consider following us on Ko-Fi, and rating and reviewing us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

This past week, I had the honor of talking about conflict and connection with a group of leaders in the HIV healthcare space in Arizona.

So often, when we talk about conflict, people use the word resolution, but I purposely choose to talk about conflict navigation.

I make this distinction because sometimes the best thing we can do is allow conflict to exist and breathe, unresolved.

We can’t always resolve everything, because conflict, especially in communities experiencing systemic oppression, is often complex, deep, non-linear, confusing, and often not about what it appears to be about on the surface.

It was such a gift to speak with a group of leaders committed to transforming the world about how best to navigate the waters of communication and emotion in human relationships.

While having communication tools can serve as a crucial lifeboat when the waters get rough, what saves us is our capacity for compassion*.

This is why I do the work that I do.

I believe we need to have realistic and nuanced conversations about what conflict is and how to respond, beyond just making it go away.

We have to learn to harness the power of conflict to make our communities stronger, to celebrate the unique medicine of people who disrupt systems and initiate conflict, and not just throw them away for "disrupting harmony."

Because the harmony that is disrupted is often an illusion, and we know that navigating conflict creates safety. We also know that teams that have healthy conflict and a high tolerance for difference are more innovative and productive.

I was excited to see that participants found the workshop useful.

This session helped me to better understand how we as leaders can understand and navigate conflict and better attune to our own needs when navigating that conflict.

Inspiring and informative

Eye opening and able to apply both personally and professionally. Thanks!!

If you are looking for individual support or support for your community, book a free discovery call with me today to learn more about how I can support you.

Thank you for reading!