35. Ease your inner turbulence

Frequent bouts of turmoil isn’t it.

In this week’s episode, the shit we need to talk about is: the work of disrupting and dismantling the oppressive systems in our life, and namely our well-being, does not require us to be martyrs and run ourselves into the ground in the name of being faithful servants of the cause. 

On the contrary, it requires us to be resourced, as full as we can be in the moment, aware, connected to ourselves, living authentically, and being that person when we go out into the world. 

It requires us to handle our shit and be in the continuous process of handling our shit - not as in keeping a lid on things, but as in actively dealing with our emotions and meeting our needs as best we can. 

It also requires us to NOT be navigating turbulence and experiencing turmoil more often than not. 

As much as I’d love to blame all of our inner turmoil on the fucked up systems and how all of that is playing out in our lives, especially for people of the global majority and the LGBTQIA+ community, I’m gonna say an unpopular that just might get you all up in your feelings: We have some culpability in our inner turbulence and turmoil and the reason is - we are upholding aspects and characteristics of white supremacy culture. Yes, even those of us who are in Black and brown bodies. 

And we are doing this in our perfectionism, sense of urgency, desire for quantity over quality, defensiveness, AND SO MUCH MORE.

The offerings in this episode to support your journey in smoothing out turbulence, softening turmoil, and easing dysregulation include: 

• Understanding the role of white supremacy culture in your well-being

• A process for moving through the day with mindful awareness 

• Pinpointing supportive coping mechanisms at the ready for regulation based on the type of energy you’re feeling

• Pranayama (the 4th of Yoga philosophy’s 8 limbed system) - developing your breathing practices or deepening your relationship with them

• Checking back with your daily rhythm for practices to remain resourced on a regular basis with 2 shifts:

  • 1) coming at them from a place of love and support rather than should

  • 2) basing your self-care actions on how you’re feeling, your bandwidth, and capacity

Please note: In this episode, I encourage going to therapy, however during the recording, I failed to acknowledge the privilege and advantage involved in doing so. 

Jump in for all the goodness!

Enroll in the Fall Back to Yourself Series!

Additional resources from this episode: Get the episode transcript here.

Caroline J. Sumlin (she/her): @carolinejsumlin on IG, author of We’ll All Be Free