Hi Reader,
It’s been awhile since I’ve jumped into your inbox.
One of the reasons is because I’ve been working behind the scenes on bringing new visions of my business to life and the other is that life has been life-ing rather intensely.
And I know I am not alone in that second experience.
I’ve been navigating personal health challenges amidst my family dealing with their own health challenges, navigating “Wow-I-can’t-unsee-this” unbalanced relationship dynamics while also witnessing the continual and intentional house of horrors that is the United States.
It’s a lot.
I told my therapist this week that my current and seemingly forever lesson is understanding this simple but not easy phrase or learning to:
Care, Not Carry.
Care, Without Carrying: Learning how to embody care and act with care and also not carry the burdens of others.
As a highly sensitive person and also having a prominent Pisces placement (rising sign), having an almost psychic sense of what someone else is experiencing has always allowed me to be attuned to another’s experience and has given me a deep reserve of compassion for others but if I’m not aware, it can also veer into unintentionally feeling what someone else is feeling.
And then taking on that emotional experience as if it is my own.
It’s certainly well-intentioned but this veering starts to land in the lane of toxic empathy (different from compassion) where my emotions start to get blurred and confused with the emotional experience of the other.
Enmeshment ensues, entanglement follows and resentment and exhaustion come not too soon after.
This all leads to actions that don’t necessarily always reflect what is of best interest for the other person or persons and more so reflect actions that are unconsciously attempting to make us and *our* nervous system feel safe, good, stable, etc.
It might lead to tendencies to try to “fix” the other in an attempt to “help” them when in reality it’s more connected to trying to soothe our own dysregulated emotional experience (that might not even be ours to process in the first place).
Our identities and sense of safety might become completely attached to tending to others as well as being consumed by their actions or lack thereof (this can have deep roots in attachment and childhood trauma).
Not to mention chronic ailments, burnout, procrastination and general states of confusion.
This is why nervous system healing and energetic boundaries are a staple in my own personal practice and forever foundational pieces in working with me 1:1.
But you don’t need to be highly sensitive or have a Pisces placement to experience this. This is deeply intersectional.
We live in a culture and a society that demands, especially of those who identify as women, and even more specifically those who identify as black women to not just care, but to carry.
To not only carry children but then also be (not always) the primary caretaker of the children.
To be at the receiving end of sexism and/or racism (and many other intersections of “archys” and “isms”) and somehow be the ones leading the charge on figuring out how to fix it and make it not just better for themselves, but for everyone else.
This is not to paint a picture of victimhood or exclude the suffering of others who may not fit into this category but rather to just highlight the lived reality of so many.
This is why when I was approached by the She Leads Whole Team to ask if I was able to contribute to their Care Package, it was an immediate yes.
“The She Leads Whole Care Package is created by and for Black women and women of color leading social change. These are women holding so much – vision, responsibility, grief, brilliance – and doing it all with heart. The Care Package is our collective offering to them: a curated collection of free tools and resources that speak to the whole woman, not just the leader.”
I provided my website’s personal freebie, EFT Tapping for When Your Brain Says ‘Nope', but the variety of resources spans from salary reviews to writing your first book to yoga to racial healing.
Please feel free to send this resource through to your networks or people you believe would benefit from receiving these free resources. it will be available until September 30th.
Untangling the belief that care is an individual responsibility not only supports the inclusion of community in how we think about and act around care, but it also helps to untangle the draining and borderline violent belief that to care is to carry.
Another way is possible.
Let’s help to unburden ourselves and others so we can experience what it might feel like to truly be nourished, sovereign and free.
Ok, that's it for me this week.
Be well, drink water, stop scrolling, touch grass, call a friend and I’ll talk to you soon.
Bianca
p.s - Some of the ways I continue to practice care in my business is through creative liberation with my Procrastination to Creation Sessions as well as The Everyday Artist Community.