THANKFUL FRIDAY

I started following Ella Emhoff last year partly because I think she helps me to stay in touch with what the young arthouse club is into these days. They are also very cool and the kind of young person I’d want to hang out with, meet for coffee and discuss needle point. They recently posted a thread in substack about writing down every positive and negative feeling you have each day and this reminded me of the complaint free bracelet I had to wear as an exercise during yoga teacher training. The idea of the bracelet was that you moved it from one wrist to the other every time you voiced a complaint. The goal was to not have to move the bracelet. The exercise for yoga teacher training was to wear the bracelet for one week and then write about your experience. This meant wearing the bracelet outside of our yoga space and into our regularly scheduled lives. The whole exercise inspired Chris to invest in a bracelet and then he bought a whole bunch of them to hand out to our friends.

Here is what we learned from that one week. We learned that we complain a lot about tiny insignificant shit. I’m not going to say that complaining is bad. Complaints are valid, but this exercise taught us what complaints are truly valid enough to be voiced. Am I whining or is this something I can constructively complain about to be fixed? It also helped us communicate our wants and needs to each other in a kind and thoughtful way so as not to hurt feelings. The bracelet taught me to really pause before voicing my complaint. In that pause, I would ask myself “Am I complaining about a problem of my own making? Is this something I have the ability to fix?”. Everything in life is a choice and this pause allowed me to choose my reaction to a problem. I abandoned the bracelet years ago, but every once in a while I pull it out of my jewelry box to wear for a day as a reminder.

It might be time to wear that bracelet again.

At the end of my yoga class this week, a student that only shows up once in a while to my class remarked on how much she really needed my class that day. She said “What is happening?! Wildfires and snowstorms and flooding and the current administration firing so many people. This year isn’t getting off to a good start.” But for forty five minutes, I had just provided space for her to set all of those thoughts aside and focus only on her physical well being. I like to think of it as nourishment or a moment of pause before reactions. I am providing sustenance to power us through future difficulties. Because, no, this year has not started out well and has created large messes that is forcing our communities to clean up and rebuild.

Just this week, the USDA rescinded grant money to the Ivanhoe Neighborhood Council, a local non-for-profit neighborhood improvement organizations who provides fresh vegetables and produce among other benefits to a low income area of Kansas City. A lot of that produce comes from urban growers and the majority demographic of the neighborhood is black. This is considered to be a DEI project by the Trump administration. These cuts and funding freezes are also having a hard hitting effect on rural farmers. Any farmer who signed up for a project supported by the USDA that pays farmers for planting up to 500 acres of cover crop are not getting their reimbursement money. This amounts to a $16,000-$17,000 dollar loss for each farmer. These are the people feeding this country and these are just small blips of horrors committed by this administration in this week alone.

My complaints against this administration are for problems not of my making and ones that I can do little to solve. I use the 5 Calls app daily to constructively voice my complaints and wishes. I make sure I know what is on the ballot and how those issues will impact my neighborhood. Then I make sure to vote at EVERY opportunity. Starting in May, my summer vegetables will come from local urban farms purchased at the Ivanhoe Farmers Market so that my dollars can benefit my community. I canceled my Amazon unlimited books subscription so that I can be more supportive of my local library and small business book shops. It is easy to get overwhelmed right now, but there are things we can do. Maybe you have a friend who recently lost their job with the National Parks Service. Hire them for a day to give you a tour of a park or invite them over for a meal. Maybe you have a friend who’s a veteran and struggling. They no longer have a crisis hotline to help them in times of need. Invite them out for coffee and a chat and just be a listener for them. Buy produce from local growers. Start building a secret room for hiding your LGTBQ+ friends when the time comes. Learn how to safely stock pile and administer the abortion pill.

These small acts of good make for bigger impacts that any of us can imagine. I am grateful that I have the ability to do small acts of good.