The Practice of Decision-Making

This is the first in a series of articles about The Practice of Decision-Making – 
situating the experience of decision-making in the context of healing.

Decision making. OH. There is that feeling in my solar plexus – tight, full, dense. My shoulders squeeze up along my back in hopes that if they could just cover my ears then I wouldn't hear all the voices of doubt in my head. 

My heart races to match the pace of my thoughts.

My heart races to evade the claws of commitment, each choice threatening to define and confine the rest of my young limitless (until now) life.

I’m standing still but I’m panting from the loops my brain dances.

Decision making. That shit stresses me out.

I’ve noticed that a lot, and by a lot I mean all, of my friends have had to deal with anxiety around decision-making. I think there is something generational about this – we do live in an age of endless options and infinite information, after all. Many folks nowadays are over-educated, over-informed and over-whelmed by the possibilities of existence. If this is going to be a theme then we better start developing our decision-making skills accordingly. And let’s not settle for simply reducing anxiety. Let’s actively thrive. I mean, we might as well while we’re alive and whatnot.

I recently faced a deep ‘ol decision making experience with all the trappings of a Big Decision – time commitment, monetary commitment, potential commitment to career and life path. Dear Ones, I came through, and I’m damn proud of my decision. Not because I think my choice is so awesome, which it is, but because I feel so empowered through my process of decision-making. I got to know myself better, especially the parts I usually try avoid. Through this experience I’ve singled out some tools and approaches to decision-making. I hope they will help others find healing and clarity as they navigate their own juicy, possibility-filled lives. This advice is mostly geared towards life-path style decisions – where to live, where to work, where to learn, etc. If the tactics I mention don’t resonate with you, great. The main point is that we deserve to feel empowered and inspired by our decision-making processes, and we can be. Figure out what works for you; then tell me about it.

Decision-Making as a Practice

People have yoga practices and meditation practices. I’d like to talk about developing a decision-making practice. That was the big switcheroo for me this time around – as I realized that a big decision was going down, I took a deep breath and some wiser voice deep down inside reminded me that this was just one more opportunity for self-healing. The narrative went something like this –

“Well A-Ro, we didn’t see this one coming, but for today’s self-healing exploration, we will be 

investigating how we deal with decision making.”

Cute. Don’t get blindsided by the decision on hand. It might appear that the biggest deal in your life is figuring out the right way to turn, but that’s a decoy. The biggest deal in your life is your life, and this moment is an opportunity to get intimate with your own unique anatomy of big-decision-navigation. Say “yes” to this learning, let it be valuable in and of itself, and the immense pressure on your decision will lift and all that ensues will be caste in the light of self-love and healing.

So now we have two co-developing processes – the process of the decision itself and the meta-process of you, beautiful holy and complex creature that you are, making that decision. The tools I am offering address both processes simultaneously. In other words, the very way that we go about making decisions should be self-reflective and healing, while supporting clarity and good, solid decisions. One hand washes the other, eh? But actually. It’s true. You will make a better decision through holding a healing lens over the process. This is pretty standard knowledge. Has anyone ever told you to “just follow your heart?” Yeah, easier said than done. It’s not like you can knock on your chest and ask if anyone’s home. Listening to our hearts means radical self-acceptance - accepting our truths, our unspeakables, our vulnerability. It requires grounding and meditation, even if that is a 2-second meditation. When someone tells you to follow your heart, they are asking you to engage in a self-healing practice. They intuitively know that our healthiest wisest selves speak from that still place, and that’s the self we’d like to enlist in decision-making. Please. Thank you.

So then what?

The next few posts will go into a handful of aspects I’m currently finding important for decision-making. I have too much to say for one post. Some are tools and some are perspectives to hold on to throughout the process. The whole practice is always spiraling back, reflecting on itself. So I’m not posting in order of “steps,” but rather in the order of my own natural flow of awareness through the process. Mix and match, jump in and out, develop your own story. Here’s what’s up in the posts to come:

Yo’ Body – Centering and re-centering the body as home-base throughout the Decision-Making Practice.

Writing Is So Awesome  - Game-Plans and Personal Reflections. Utilizing the written word to articulate our underlying needs, dive into the bigger truth of the situation, and alleviate stress.

Play All Day – How approaching your Decision-Making Practice with an attitude and expectation of playfulness transforms the experience, motivating you and honoring your dignity.

I’m looking forward to hearing others’ experiences of decision-making and the approaches that have helped them. Please share! We’ve got lots of big ol’ decisions coming up on in the world, what with the need to protect the planet and liberate the majority of people from massive marginalization and oppression. Here’s to walking our truth with every step and loving the crap out of ourselves. May this practice and all practices serve all beings, sentient and not, through space and time. Bless it and be it. MMmmmmm.

Some bitty thoughts on Resisting Racism: Queer Liberation is Collective Liberation Workshop

Jenna and Damien (facilitators of the workshop) and Ian (Provdience-based queer organizer and artist extraordinary) celebrating the warm feeling of "woah, we talked about some heavy shit" after the workshop.

Traveling organizers!
what a thought!
what a dream!

Last weekend Jenna Peters-Golden and Damien Luxe blew in to town for a weekend of doing. The two bad-asses facilitated a refreshingly (not being sarcastic! truthfully!) 4 hour long workshop about how racism manifests itself and what queer liberation has to do with all forms of liberation.
It was refreshing cause it didn't have to end as soon as we got started.
15 people came, which is wildly wonderful considering the time commitment. It speaks to the hunger of people to connect the queer movement to broader struggle.

We almost had enough time to and enough detail to get really specific with our dreams. One exercise had use imagine the collaboration of two historical activist groups who never actually had anything to so with each other. I was in the group combining the American Indian Movement and the Boston Women's Movement. This was surprisingly fruitful, but so rushed that we couldn't get very creative and I felt anxious the whole time about getting a chance to speak or about one person talking the whole time. So, note to all facilitators: give lots of time to the creative side of things! I felt like most time was spent on clever tricks for understanding racism, taught by the folks in the front of the room to the folks in the back of the room. Because it was an audience of activists, I think more time could have been spent sharing our own opinions and experiences, and spent on building alternatives. Remember y'all, i'm in a hyper-action-ey mood lately, so i guess take this criticism with a grain of salt. or don't.

There were almost only white people in attendance, which we didn't mention, but I just mentioned, so there. Is there a growing attempt on the part of white activists to get real about their anti-racist work? Is this just guilt? Is this just a tiny subsect of people who were already convinced that there's such a thing as modern racism? Where is this coming from and where is it going to?
My hope is that more folks are waking up to the pervasiveness of racism in the United States, that more folks want to figuring out how they can DO something about it versus comment on it often, that folks are increasingly seeing how racism operates at every level of society and identity.

What is the conversation around race in organizations and communities that you are a part of? What are the actions people are taking? 

I'm particularly interested in groups that aren't explicitly anti-racist, such as feminist groups and queer groups - are y'all organizing around race?

Fuck This; or how I feel on Youtube; Or Sexism is more than a Feeling

This was set off by a conversation with my father. He was complaining that he'd heard all about this "war on women" thing, but couldn't see how women's rights are being particularly eroded right now, why there's a war on women specifically at this moment in time.

I answered that it's harder to get an abortion now than it was ten years ago. That one in six women get raped. That women still get paid an average of 77 cents to a man's dollar, less if you're a woman of color. All these arguments seemed to fall flat on him - those were issues of access, of economics, not gender. Those were long-standing issues that have gotten better, not worse. None of those things are rights that the national government has impeded.

I realized that I need more facts in my toolbelt. I need numbers, ratios, trends, graphs that help break down the invisible oppression that mediates most women's lives, killing them, raping them, preventing them from realizing their dreams, keeping them from health, love, and intimacy. Ok.

 I will begin compiling my own and create a post with the most poignant information (i'll cite whoever sent me the info), so we can all use this in our toolbelt of education. Please send your factoids (cited if possible) my way.

 Re-post this or respond, and we'll make a great resource for everyone!

In the meantime, here are some interesting youtube trends I've noticed. I was really excited to find Anita Sarkeesian's series, Tropes vs. Women. Get's into some of the nifty bullshit I'm almost entirely used to. So I get all excited and then start clicking on links that pop up on the page - featured videos, etc. At first I'm thinking - wow, Tropes vs. Women is so smart, so well produced, and it has so many views! Until I noticed how many views these other videos were getting.
Note how youtube works: you see an opening image, a title, and the number of views. With that in mind, check out these popular videos and imagine what sort of culture results in these numbers.

#4 The Evil Demon Seductress (Tropes vs. Women) : 95,978 views

#1 The Manic Pixie Dream Girl (Tropes vs. Women) : 145,746 views

Anti Feminist : 326,101 views

Mumbai Girl Forced in Jungle : 740,762 views

 

Detroit: Squatting like it ain't no thang

I showed up at the spot I would be couchsurfing at for the rest of the AMC.
It was already dark and it was far out there. I didn't know anything about where I was going, except for that a few Detroiters said various "mmmmmm..." sounds when I told them where I was staying. Driving up (thanks person who so kindly gave me a ride so I wouldn't have to wait 2 hours for a bus!) we passed one and another and again burned out houses. I had already google-mapped the spot, so I knew what to expect. Right?

 

 Turns out my couchsurfing host lived in a community of 9 (NINE!) squatted houses and lots, all on the same block of Detroit. Say whhhaaaaa? Like it ain't no thang. Most of these houses were off-grid. Ok, lots of squats are off-grid cause they haven't gotten the electric company to turn their juice on. But in this case they were taking the opportunity to install rainwater catchment systems and build cobb ovens. Yeah, there were chickens. And that sad looking house I'd seen on googlemaps? 

It's been transformed into a free bike shop for kids called Red Planet Bikes. Running on the regular, teaching workshops and giving away tons of bikes. For freez.

 

That night I fell asleep in the attic of the first unlocked city house I've stayed in in years. 

And that was what hit me the hardest about this space - people were out on the stoops, in the street, constantly talking and sharing food, ideas, lighters. The street was poppin, and this in the middle of blocks of burned-out depression. 

The amazingly sparkly room I stayed in

I have hesitations with squatting - who's doing it? Isn't there already a word for middle class white people moving into a community of color without adding economically to the people who already live there - gentrification? (total disclosure - i didn't think of that zinger, it was read somewhere else on the ethersphere). But there seemed to be real community involvement, many of the people involved had lived around there all their lives. I wasn't there for long enough to really understand the complicated dynamics that usually go along with squatting, but I know that the block felt really welcoming. 

They used glass bottle and cobb walls to fix burnt out city walls! Notice the light coming in through the bottles.

The history of the place is even more wacky.  The ecovillage got started as a part of Tumbleweed University, which is now wrapped up in the Goldengate Restoration Project. Basically, Occupy Detroit took all that momentum and all that heady theory and did what so many occupations talked about - squatted the hell out of foreclosed houses. So now this is also the Occupy Detroit epi-center.

Making a front yard garden in some serious sun

 Interestingly, almost no one around here knew what the Allied Media Conference was. I suppose Detroit ain't tiny, but still, with folks coming from around the world, you'd think they'd manage to take a trip around town and see if anyone who doesn't happen to work for a not-for-profit might be interest.

This place was such a delicious balm from the incessant concept crazy of the AMC that I was choking on. I do think that I'm actually over-reacting to the AMC and it was way more skills based than most conferences, but my own experience was surprisingly frustrating. Point is, here I was on accident, just looking for a couch to stay on, and I tumbled into the welcoming lab of a block of squatting community building self-sufficient DO-ers.

Maybe all I want to do is hang out with plants. 

Allied Media Conference Thoughts: Pragmatism, Buzzwords and Metaphor

note: this advice and rant is so deeply happening because, of all people, i live in abstract theory land and this is my struggle on the regular. i've noticed that my advice is generally stuff i'm trying to believe in myself.





Skills vs. Discussions. Workshops need to be labelled clearly skillshare, discussion, lecture, or performance. Have you ever gone to a workshop expecting some skills and it turns out everyone's sitting in circles theorizing about what the word "skill" means? Point is I have learned something important about myself at the Allied Media Conference.

I have no patience for metaphor.

I have no patience for theory. 

I want to learn what you tried yesterday, how it went, and what you are going to try today.

Display from the Maine-based Beehive Collective

The AMC is a conference full of Radical Activists (note the capitals). A lot of these folks know the language and the grammars of this community. I swear if I hear another buzzzz word.... liberation. oppression. I don't even know what liberation means! I don't even know what oppression means! Don't just drop that as though you're saying something when in fact you're saying everything/nothing!






Mind you I drop that shit like an exhale. I'm all "feminism"-this and "liberatory community practices"-that. Cause I'll admit it - it's useful. I need these words so I don't have to talk all day just to explain the first sentence I said when I woke up in the morning. But nah, nah, nah, ENOUGH.






Being in the high-density-buzz-world of the AMC has convinced me that this language is dangerous. We can talk in circles all day about the word accountability, but if I still have no idea what tactic you tried out last time there was an assault in your community, if I have no idea what that conversation looked like and what steps were taken, then what have I learned?
I've learned that a lot of people think accountability is important.
Cool. Check. 




Of course education is extremely important, but let's be conscious of our audiences and our opportunities to move into action-mode. DOING is more important than theoretically-doing-but-it's-cool-cause-I-have-a-list-of-references-I-can-google-later.







Have our brains been so academicized, so made to privilege intellect, that that is the inherent mode in which we operate? We slip unblinkingly into analysis, criticism. & yes, that is essential. But at a certain point it rings hollow. What are we talking about? Are we too afraid of making mistakes? of being remembered negatively? of speaking for others? So we stick to abstraction. Better that than allow the vulnerability of giving a single detail. Our vocabularies are so bulked up, our brains so used to filling out multiple choice surveys, that all description,  all experience, all detail have fallen to the wayside. I think it also has to do with not trusting that our experiences are truly worthwhile and relevant.




This happened so much in femsex. Big ideas, suggesting at experiences, got traded around like abstract playing cards. We sat inside a flurry of hints forming clouds of people that I maybe knew something about. It took months and one much-needed conversation about masturbation to put some spine into our concept clouds. Some intimacy. Yes darling, imagine for a moment that you're truly around friends. Tell them what happened. They'll try to understand. You don't have to convince the room that your head is in the right place or that you read the right zine.


Pragmatism. I'm taking about what makes us do things.
How we spend our minute of our days is not besides the point. Are you trying to guess at how best to change the world? Or are you trying shit out on the daily to see what sticks?

Detroit Day 3, AMC Day 2. Or was it 1.5?

Have you ever been to a conference? 

 What were your first thought when you arrived?

How did you stay grounded?

Reflections from Day 2 in Detroit: Parkour is Possible, Couchsurfing Rulez, AMC = AMCrazy

Day 2 in Detroit.

Again, I'm feeling slightly overwhelmed by the sheer newness of this all. I arrived at the AMC to get my name tag and everyone there looked like someone I'd like to meet, organize, or make out with. Generally they were triple threats.

So of course I ran away, and now I'm in a cafe a couple of blocks away, drinking (overpriced) coffee and dog-earring every single page of the AMC Program Guide. Should I pick one track and stick with it, doing deep with a few key ideas ? Should I take some of everything, pushing myself to try some things that don't even look any good?

But reeeeeewiiiiiind, last night I couch surfed for the first time! Let's talk about that, that feels more stable than the rest of the unknowns of my life. Wow, couch surfing is the most stable thing in my life right now. Interesting.

So, last night my awesome couch surfing host Kris brought me to hang out with her friends in Ann Arbor. We stopped along the way to do some parkour. That's right! We were having a conversations in which I was mourning how on the one hand parkour is crazy cool because it reclaims space, but on the other hand it is so competitive and exclusive because it's all about badass tricks. Kris was like "Nahuh! Everyone starts off small! You only see the very best on youtube, but everyone started vaulting over low walls." So we did. At the first gas station we passed. I even scraped my knee!




When we had been sufficiently pummeled by the concrete we got back in the car and she lay the rest of her philosophy on me. My hang-ups about park our, she said, are exactly what keeps most people from trying new things. People don't want to try karate cause they're not already black belts. They won't touch snowboard cause they might fall. Kris had snowboarded about 3 times when she decided to go snowboarding at the fancy Italian slope in the Alps. Did she notice that everyone else was wealthy as hell and had grown up with all the fancy ski lessons one could buy? Sure, but she didn't care. She was there and she wasn't going to let anything sep her from getting hers.




In her opinion, exclusivity exists only in your mind, not in institutions themselves. I disagree on some levels - I don't think that the onus of inclusivity should fall solely on less privileged/experienced/fit people. But her outlook is a very inspiring and useful personal philosophy that I'm going to return to again and again. Who's fancy hors d'oeuvres at a black tie event we weren't invited to? OUR fancy hors d'oeuvres at a black tie event we weren't invited to!







Last thoughts -  the family in Ann Arbor we were visiting - really big, really bonded, really loving, really involved with cool social justice projects, real conscious of privilege, really Christian. These things are all connected. The community they had, their values and their drive all grew from their religious structures, more or less. I'm confused. Can we create this without god?

my first (of probably many)  Parkour injury

for more pics of detroit, visit my flickr
more conversation about the AMC to come. that shit was cray.

Detroit! + some tips for cheap travel

Welcome to Detroit!

i say to myself.

I've stepped off the bus for the last time (until next Monday) - no more connections to catch, 20-minute stretch breaks to squander. The brutally hot and broad boulevard is home now, unless I can find a spot better suited for survival. For thinking.

This headfirst tumble into the east/middle of the U.S. was obvious, thoughtless when all I had to compute was where and when the next bus was coming in and how to secure a window seat. But walking wordlessly away from the bus's hissing hydraulics, I can't help but notice that I have no idea what I'm doing. The 30 or so strangers on the bus with whom I barely exchanged glances now feel like a veritable community compared to how new all these people on the street look. Ok. Here I am. Whew.

I am in Detroit, MI for the 4-day long, widely-loved Allied Media Conference. The conference brings together artists, organizers, educators, techies, and media folks of various stripes to talk about how all these tools can make things, in a word, better. Several activist friends of mine have referred to the conference as "dreamy." Apparently it's so full of passionate people and actual movement-building that it'll make ya pinch yourself to see if you'll wake up. I've never gone before. I'm not even sure where I fit in to all this (am I an artist? an educator? Ahhhhh who am I?!?!? ok crisis over) but I'm volunteering for registration and documentation and I'm super pumped.

But all that's gonna come later. Right now I'm in Detroit a day early to "get a feel for the city" and I have no idea what's going on.
Ah yes, that sweet chaos-feeling.
I love travel.

Cafe Cass

Here are some of the ways I'm make this trip affordable, for all you would-be conference goers who can't swing fancy trips every time some activists decide to hang out:

1. Volunteering for the conference

You can find ways to volunteer or work trade for almost every conference, gathering, or festival. I volunteer for lots of reasons, only one is the free-ness. The biggest reason is that it gives me a chance to participate in the making of these things. It's far easier for me to make new, real connections when I am working side by side with people; I get lots of appreciation from everyone attending; and I don't get lost at sea in the craziness that is a large gathering. Sometimes I also get a free t-shirt and maybe even a soda.

1. Couchsurfing

I actually haven't couch surfed before this, but it was super super easy. Couch surfing is a free website where you can find places to stay, people to hang out with, and stuff to do all over the world. The most amazing thing about this to me is the community. When you're a couch surfer, it's like you're in on this crazy secret (hey! you can stay anywhere in the world for free! and with people who will take you out for a beer and introduce you to their friends!) and you're in the family immediately. 

1. Packing food ahead

This might seem nuts, but I went to the grocery store before leaving Providence and I bought enough snacks (nuts, dried fruit, hard cheese, some fruit) to pretty much last me the weekend. It's really not that big of a hassle, and now I don't have to watch my hard-earned singles disappear into the hands of every over-priced food truck trying to tempt me.

1. Megabus

Megabus goes all over the place (not literally) now. I had to separately get 3 trips to get to Detroit from Providence, but all in all it took the less time than one single Greyhound  bus doing the same trip. So even if it looks like there's no direct line, see if you can get some connecting ones. If you get tickets early it can be ridiculously cheap, and if you miss your bus you can get on the next one for an extra $5. You can also get creative with paying, but if you want to talk about that let's chat later.

delayed post: The Free Yard Sale!

I got rid of almost all of my stuff last weekend. Stuff and more stuff. No home = no storage, and there's only so much a pack can expand.  I was also taking care of two ex-roommates boxes of old unwanted clothes. There must have been at least 70 items of clothing, no joke.

So I organized a yard sale, hoping some community time and maybe even some dollars could be a part of the stuff-destruction. I made signs, a Facebook event, I even made a shit-ton of lemonade.
Thinking I'd catch lots of foot traffic, I set up all the clothes on hangers hung on the chain link fence next to the India Point Park Pedestrian Footbridge. And. The. Day. Wore. On.






I couldn't take it. I sold maybe 6 items in 5 hours. Made maybe 12 bucks. When it came time to pack up, i knew I couldn't emotionally handle another day of this. At least logistically I didn't want to deal with it. First thought was to bring everything to Salvation Army, but I ruled that out. I didn't want anyone to have to pay for it, and hasn't SA been accused of all sorts of mismanagement of dollars?
Then my friend Pau has the brilliant idea to do just DO what i wanted to do: leave all the stuff there, give it away for free. YAY!

One big "Free!" sign later, people were already starting to gather and buzz. In ten minutes I made as much money as I had made the whole day, just from folks wanting to knock me down a buck for the 7 dresses they picked up. I simply walked away from the whole thing, promising to come back the next day and clean up the debris.

This, my friends, is literally all that was left:

All hangers: empty. All knickknacks: disappeared. It literally looked like someone had decided to clean up for me.

And then the real joy! The stories! I kept running into friends who had randomly walked by the Free Sale. They had my friend's homespun yard, my mom's boyfriend's mama's wool sweater. They told me about the gaggle of people teeming around boxes, picking things up and exclaiming "Is this stuff really free?" 

My friend Jamie told me a ridiculously heart-warming story about 2 little girls who were there with their father. They kept picking things up and asking, shyly, if they could take it. "Yes, it's all free." was the response, and the girl's eyes would widen with surprise and joy. They didn't need to worry about the burden it was on their father, whether they had earned it. Jamie said she could see these little girls grappling with the possibility of stuff being for free; stuff that yours just cause; the possibility of people sharing for no reason beyond the desire to share.


So there you have it folks: free stuff makes you more money (if it's also donation-able), more community, and brings out the best in us.

Seriously, next time you have a yard sale, make it free!