community

Spooky Season and Self-Care

| jamiefeinberg

 Well folks, things are getting spooky in the United States right now, and I don’t mean Halloween antics or that the darkness of evening is coming more quickly. I mean, of course, that millions of people are being denied their life-saving SNAP benefits because Republicans would rather starve people and keep a tax cut for billionaires while increasing healthcare premiums exponentially. They won’t even tap into the emergency SNAP funds that exist just for this purpose. And yes, we need to have corporations pay their fair share too, but in the short term, let’s prevent starvation!

Some other news on my mind: 

Trans healthcare for youth may be banned outright. Gay marriage may be relitigated. And no one with brown or black skin is safe from profiling and persecution in Chicago and around the country. 

A wellness influencer with a lapsed medical license and a history of sharing lies about immunizations is nominated as the US Surgeon General, aka “the nation’s doctor”. 

The wannabe dictator gets closer and closer, killing people without proof of cause, preparing to send more troops around the country, destroying the East wing of the White House, and exhibiting more and more behavior showing he’s likely both physically and mentally unwell (likely had a stroke) and his team is hiding it. 

Republicans are afraid to swear in Rep. Grijalva and release the Epstein files. Gaza is once again being destroyed. 

National parks are at risk in the shutdown. More drilling? Nuclear war? Apparently it’s all on the table with this administration. 

What do we do, in the face of all of this? How do we care for ourselves? How do we care for our neighbors? For our planet? 

Here are a few questions I ask myself to help me discern amidst the noise and horror and daily challenges too. Maybe they’ll help you as well. 

Are my basic needs being met? Are the basic needs of my family and friends and neighbors being met? 

  • Do I have an emergency fund, and how long can it last? How precarious a position am I in? How vulnerable are those closest to me? 
  • Consider reaching out for help if you need it. There are organizations and maybe some individuals in your network willing to help. And if you do not need help, consider what steps you can take to support your loved ones, and perhaps your wider circle too. 
  • Prioritizing your own survival is important. Supporting those who turn to you for support or sometimes support you in turn is also important. And consider what ways you can support your neighbors and the larger community, whether it’s helping to connect them with resources or sharing resources of your own. 
  • It can be a wise thing to ask ourselves these questions. But worrying about the future is not helpful when it gets us stuck in thought loops. Instead, do some work to ground yourself when worry or fear is dominating. That’s when you’ll best be able to a) recognize the dangers and b) deal with them. It’s also extremely important to take time to rest. 

Am I remembering to rest? To feed myself? To shower? To find joy? 

  • Working 24 hours a day isn’t sustainable. The sabotaging voices in our heads will tell us that we are only worthy when we “earn” it. They are lying. Your wise mind knows that you are a treasure, just because you are you. Even if other people, even if your religion, even if the government tells you otherwise. You are worthy of love and joy and a safe existence. 
  • Set some breaks in the day – for a walk, for a meal, for a shower or bath. 
  • Treasure your loved ones. Make a call, watch a show together, play a board game, sing a song. We never know how much time we have left. 

Where are my feet? 

  • Take time each day to remember where you are – and to feel it in your body. Feel your feet on the floor or wherever they are. Focus on your breathing. Listen to the sounds around you. Take time to be fully present. 
  • Find yourself getting overwhelmed by the news or anything else? Presence is life-giving. Get present so you can support those who need you. 

What is abundant? What can I share? Who can I support? 

  • It may be counter-intuitive, but we do feel better when we can volunteer or give back in some way. We also know how life-giving gratitude is. Find what you have in abundance, be grateful for it, and consider what you have to share. Your time? Your money? A listening ear? A strong body? What do you have to give, from a place of ease and abundance? And who would benefit from those gifts? 

You are doing great, friend. This world is TOUGH, especially right now, and you are still here. And you are doing the best you can. Keep breathing. Make a choice to care for yourself and your neighbors, as you have capacity. I’m so proud of you for continuing to show up. Even when it’s hard. Even when it’s hard to see how it matters. 

Need some help finding a broader perspective? Want to know you’re not alone? Want to learn how to get the negative voices in your head to calm down and get out of the way so you can get more done, and with ease and joy?

Let’s start with a saboteur assessment. 

Work with me

My favorite Enneagram resources 

Take good care, friend. 

Photo descriptions: I am wearing a flapper feather headpiece for the 1920’s themed Halloween party I lead a singalong for on Halloween. A second is a photo of my husband. We went out for the best Mexican food we’ve had since New Mexico on Saturday, and we are both extremely grateful for each other and for the amazing meals and drinks we were able to enjoy, especially when so many will be going without in the coming weeks unless Republicans fund SNAP. A third photo shows my gorgeously lit grapefruit mocktail (it was amazing) with boba. I hope it doesn’t seem tone deaf to celebrate the joyful moments. I hope you can do the same, whether it’s a night at home or out in the world.

Finding and creating community

| jamiefeinberg

Have you ever struggled to make friends? Have you ever found yourself without a person to call or text, without a ride to an appointment or someone to vent to when you had a hard day? 

I think it’s fair to say that all of us have felt this way at some point in time, and some of us have felt is very often. If we are a member of the queer community, or BIPOC in a setting where that isn’t the norm, or disabled, etc. etc. etc., we might feel this struggle even more frequently. 

I’m someone who has frequently created events as a way to bring people together and do something fun. I started all sorts of clubs on the playground and in my neighborhood and at my middle school. I staged a musical revue as a secret way to make friends when I moved into a new community in my early twenties. So for me, I can’t help but bring my creativity to the table when I think about how we build community. 

Photo description: I (Jamie Feinberg) bumped into these sweet daisies, a bit of nature by the pavement on my walk

I’m thinking about the role of community right now a lot, especially because it’s Pride Week here on Prince Edward Island, a week (or even ten days!) full of intentional community-building and fellowship. On Sunday, I led a queer-centered showtunes singalong, sitting at the piano in the middle of a room full of musical theater fans. I shared tidbits and stories about queer writers, queer characters and queer performers in musical theater, interspersed with anecdotes about my own experiences seeing and performing musical theater. The previous day, I spent my morning in the Pride Parade, handing out candy attached to rainbow-colored flyers promoting our singalong. 

Being a member of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community (that’s what we usually say here in Canada, but insert your own acronym as preferred) can present all sorts of challenges, but for a week or two each year, we are SO lucky to feel safe and seen enough to gather in community. When my husband and I first moved to Canada, I knew I needed to find my people, and I did so through music. I felt a nudge to join a chorus again, and that’s where I met most of my friends. We’d been here for less than a year when we experienced our first Pride Week on PEI, and for both my husband and I, that was a transformative moment. We were so proud, and we felt so welcomed, so seen. We knew we were home. 

Community for me can be found making music, gathering in queer spaces, in Jewish spaces, in community with theater artists, and sometimes at the intersection of all of these things. We can find community in coffee shops and speakeasies, in nature and at play. And when our communities are being threatened, we show up for each other, just like others have shown up for us. 

A few years back, I wrote up a bunch of tips for making friends if you’re childfree, and the tips actually work really well for anyone who’s seeking to find community. (The full article is here.) I think it’s important, now more than ever, to have a variety of friends, in a variety of spaces. Know who you trust, and in what capacity. Know where you can go regularly to experience joy. 

I will also mention that the more intersections of communities that apply to you (for example, queer + Black or trans+ disabled), you may find it even more challenging to find communities where other people are dealing with the same stuff you are. I hope that even if you find that some people in your community don’t look like you or struggle with the same exact things, that you can still find “your people” – the people who love you and trust you and have your back, regardless of what you have in common. 

I will also reiterate here, that while I know it can be cliche and even dangerous sometimes when people say they are a “safe space”, I am truly trying to do the work to be a safe space. I may not be trans, I may not be Black, I may not have your exact struggles, but I hope that I can offer you community if you desire it. 

Coaching and mental fitness training have been an extraordinary place for me to build community and to foster it, for myself and for others. If you’re interested, I’d love to talk to you about the ways we can study the Enneagram or do mental fitness work or other types of coaching together. 

Whether you decide to start your own knitting group, join a book club, or learn to swim, I hope you have found or are finding your community. Have any tips for others? Please share them. 

Recent articles from me you might enjoy: 

Let good enough be good enough

Creating space, allowing stillness

Anxious for the future? Quiet and control those hyper-vigilant thoughts

Finding gratitude while facing fascism

Enjoy the sun

10 ways your mind is messing with you

Joy as resistance

Tell me when I can pre-order your book!

Together to do the hard things

| jamiefeinberg

Hi friends. While I am feeling so grateful for the sun entering my room and to be safe and warm on this cool January day, my heart is heavy with the quick pace of horrendous news coming at me and worries about what this will mean for friends, family, and the larger community in the United States and around the world. 

(Photo of a gray blue surface of a rock, by Pixabay, who told me this is a hard thing.)

I wanted to share a resource I found helpful today, as well as a new opportunity I’ve created as my own personal contribution. 

Robert Reich shared an excellent article yesterday with ten suggestions for what you can do now in the face of all of this. 

His top ten includes great detail, but the quick overview is below: 

  • Protect undocumented members of your community
  • Protect LGBTQ+ members of your community 
  • Help officials in your community Trump or his allies are targeting for violence
  • Participate in or organize boycotts of companies that are enabling the Trump regime, including X, Tesla, and those advertising on X or Fox News
  • As you’re able, fund groups litigating against Trump
  • Spread the truth (and keep doing so!)
  • Urge those you know to avoid propaganda outlets, and consider helping them to wean themselves off them and find other news sources
  • Push for progressive members in your community and state
  • Encourage worker action
  • Keep the faith – remember what a small win Trump had; never give up 

If you’re like me, you may be finding it really hard to stay motivated right now – even completing the mundane tasks of life or work can be really challenging in the face of these potential stressors. 

In addition to my weekly Refuel & Renew program (found in my group Crafting Your Life Adventure) and all of my coaching and mental fitness offerings, I’m going to try a new offering, called Together To Do the Hard Things. If this is something you’re interested in but the timing isn’t good, please let me know what times would be better for you. I know it can be much easier to motivate ourselves to do the hard things when we do them together. (Many of our neurodivergent friends have learned this trick – it’s called body doubling!) So if you’d like to have a little accountability and support, whether it’s for paying your bills, or writing your reps or washing the dishes, join me Monday at 6:30 p.m. ET or 7:30 p.m. AT. If it’s popular, I’ll keep offering it. You can keep the screen on or off, and I’ll offer support and coaching to those who’d like it as time and space allow. 

I’m looking for more ways to make a difference in the world. If this would be helpful for you or for others you know, please share it with those you care about. 

Take care, and I hope to see you soon. 

P.S. If you’d like more personalized support in understanding how you get in your own way and in laying out a roadmap to creating a better life, please schedule a Saboteur Assessment Feedback Session. 

Prioritizing community

| jamiefeinberg

When we finalized our plans to move into an apartment and settle down in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, both Ross and I were particularly excited about the opportunity to find community.

Previous to hitting the road in an RV, we’d both found community mainly in the arts. Though I was still seeking a “best” friend or two, for the most part, we were happy enough day to day with our social circles. We had friends of different ages, friends who we’d invite to parties, and the friends that we performed with. It wasn’t perfect. Ross struggled to find a strong, accepting music community with plenty of opportunities for him, and I didn’t have the close friends I was hoping for. But we knew we were lucky to have lots of friends and fellow musicians that we were sad to leave behind when we started traveling.

As full-time travelers in an RV, our definition of community shifted. We found online community with other RVers or musicians, in-person community when we settled into a campground for a while, and in some places, we were welcomed into the local music community too. When we hit it off with friends while workcamping, held in-person meetups with friends we’d met online, or stumbled into a wonderfully accepting music community (think Seattle, Denver, Orlando, and most ESPECIALLY Portland, OR!), we rejoiced and made the most of it. And when the pandemic hit, Ross found community with musicians from around the world at ukulele meetups.

By the time we moved to Canada, we were ready for other types of community. The need had been exacerbated by the pandemic as well. We were ready to find a local farmer’s market, a regular grocery store, retailers, restaurants. We were ready to build lasting relationships and find a musical home that would accept us and sustain us moving forward.

For Ross, finding community has happened fairly naturally. As a student, he met classmates and professors and was soon getting invitations to parties and musical performances. He started performing in ensembles and socializing during and in between classes, and together we enjoyed local holiday festivities and concerts with the wider community (when COVID protocols and our own comfort permitted).

For me, finding community has meant taking deliberate actions on a regular basis, and following my intuition. I had a hunch that music would be a great entry point to making friends, and that hunch was completely correct. It led to me making a couple of wonderful friends within a few months of arriving here, and I’m now collaborating with dozens more through Island A Cappella and Luminos Ensemble. I even made a friend through a purchase on Facebook Marketplace!

My friend Jenn and I, at a wonderful comedy show, pre-Omicrom variant.

I’m now regularly receiving invites and getting to know my new local friends. I’ve even joined a local book club, one of those things I’d “always wanted to do” pre-pandemic, but never had.

And while COVID often slows things down for a while, each of these efforts has had some positive effect. I have both in-person and virtual meetups regularly.

Meanwhile, I’ve continued to strengthen my existing friendships, with Zoom meetups and phone calls with friends and family: our personal development mastermind, RVing friends, monthly family teas, and monthly check-ins with family and friends from so many places in my life.

I spent so many years feeling frustrated that I didn’t have the close friends I wanted. If I threw a party, it was always a hit. And I could cast a show or a concert. But who did I call or text when I was struggling? Honestly, for most of my adult life, I didn’t have anyone, or if I did, it was my partner. My husband is amazing, but we do better as a couple when we each have our own friends too.

Now, as I’ve struggled with anxiety and overwhelm in no small part due to the COVID-19 pandemic, on those tough days, I have a list of people I can connect with. I can make plans with friends. And in any given week or month, I’m getting some of those 1:1, deeper conversations that are one of my favorite things in the world and that energize me.

So if you’re challenged in finding community right now, I wanted to encourage you. I believe it’s absolutely possible. It may take months or years (even decades!) – but it’s possible, if you are able to carve out the time. Especially if you will prioritize it. Join a book club (online or not), a musical group, a walking or hiking club, start a group to attend theater shows together, volunteer…the possibilities are endless!

And one of my goals for this year is creating a retreat so that I can foster and share that kind of relationship-building that I’ve found so helpful and comforting in my own life and business. (Do let me know if that interests you!) I’ll be leading virtual retreats and, in the future at least, in-person ones as well.

Where do you find community? Is this an area that you struggle with? Have you found virtual outlets for when in-person gatherings aren’t feasible?

Please comment, and let me know. I’m so curious. And thanks for reading, friend.

A New Beginning

Image | | jamiefeinberg

Ross and Jamie blurry dance

It’s absolutely insane for me to start this right now. My life couldn’t be busier – well, not easily. I’ve got a fantastic but completely overwhelming arts job that I love and am suffocated by on alternating days. I run my own theater company on a staff of none, a few volunteers, and some amazing actors. And I fit in as much theater, music, dance, nature and family time as possible while focusing on finding time to spend with my husband, Ross, who is equally overwhelmed and having his own life crisis as he juggles teaching music, radio work, live sound and his own composing and band projects.

But if all of this stuff is running around my brain, won’t it be more productive to get it all out? I sure hope so.

I had a dream last night. I dreamt a solution to the conundrum I’ve been pondering, somewhat unnamed, for weeks. If I know I want to go from where I currently am to a life that is simpler, involves a tiny home and a yard in a place with work we both enjoy (and less need of work at all), WITHOUT having to take a fancy job for a paycheck and give up what we care about in the meantime, how can I do that?

“Oh, I’ve got it,” said Dream Jamie. “Downsize your life,  you know, like you’ve been working on. Then maybe get a studio or something else small to save some money. Buy a used motorhome. Put your stuff into storage – but not before you’ve mapped out a tour for you and Ross. It should involve all of the awesome skills you have – you can both teach lessons, maybe write a show together, Ross can run audio, Jamie can teach some theater classes and do some editing work – in other words, you don’t need to save up megabucks. Follow the steps. Once you’ve got the motorhome and your tour dates, you’ll start traveling, spending time in communities you might like to settle in some day. And once the tour is complete, you’ll choose your new community and move there – and start saving for a tiny house, with its own land eventually, for the two of you to live in.”

Of course, right? How did I not think of this? Thanks, Dream Jamie.