Diary of An Isolated Director: The exhaustion is real.

Conversations over the last two weeks have been heavy and deep. 

They have usually involved one or more of the following topics. 

• The Typeface Group, its future, work on, new clients, etc
• Related to the pending house move 
• The mental and physical health of family and friends
• COVID and what we are allowed to do
• Anti-racism
• Greif
• Understanding what JKR said and finding out more about the trans community
• Equal rights
• LGBTQ+ and pride month

I have really enjoyed the majority of them. Especially those that have been:

• Respectful 
• Involved listening without judgement
• No shaming or undermining with "yeah but" or "you say that"
• Resulted in one, both or more of us learning something

These conversations have been with family members, employees, clients, social media followers and friends. Each talk, I believe, is doing a bit of good. But let's not ignore that even with only a few of the above bit which is on everyone plate, these conversations alongside navigating a pandemic is tiring.

And I am a White person. 

Imagine how exhausted your black and brown friends, family, colleagues and community are. If you are white and starting to do the work, I urge you to go to Nova Reid's website and request her FREE Anti-Racism guide. 

Not only will it stop the overwhelm and the inevitable procrastination of starting, but it will also elevate the exhaustion and often trauma that your black peers, friends, family etc. are experiencing by answering your question. 

Now I am not speaking for all black or brown folk here. This is based on me listening and talking to black and brown people that are in my network. 

Celebration & Joy.

Just because all this is happening, we should not be:

• Taking time out to do things that make us happy
• Sharing good news to spread a bit of joy

This was part of an in-depth conversation with Farah Fonseca, who is my Strong Woman coach. My first session back was yesterday, and of course, the topic of racism came up. Part of it was around exhaustion and feeling a bit guilty for doing self-care when there is systemic racism to dismantle.

Taking my lead from the course I did with Nova (yes yes yes I am a fangirl get over it), Nova stresses the importance of self-care when you are doing in the inner work. Nova appreciates that it is going to be hard, exhausting and the rest. So, that while we can argue that it is our white privilege that allows us to have the choice to rest, trying to have open discussions when you are scraping the bottom of the energy/emotion/life barrel are not going to be effective.

Pausing is not stopping. 

My favourite quote from Norm Kelly that my co-fo and best friend Polly introduced to me is that you can not pour from an empty cup. 

There is no shame in losing yourself in gaming, trashy TV, a good book or some online shopping if it is nourishing you to continue to do the work.

Similar to my previous article, if we don't give ourselves a break or acknowledge that we are moving forward. We will burnout and give up. We can not do that.

Sharing what I know.

• Learning to become anti-racist takes time, inner work and conversations. It won't happen overnight because you have lived in a racist environment all your life. 
• You probably will never get to the end of the work as until you push yourself out of that comfort zone you won't know where the next round of bias is.
• Don't feel shame if you uncover something. Work through it. If you can talk about it with someone else that you trust and is also doing the work. I recommend finding a group of people that you can speak with openly - this has been revolutionary for me.
• Take your own time - it's not a competition.
• Find whatever is the best way of learning for you and do it. I find reading arduous, so audiobooks work better for me. 

So take care. I hope you are all ok. 

Thanks for reading.

Nat