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Welcome back to mental health week on the We Are For Good podcast. We want you to feel cared for this week. So be sure to visit our full landing page with resources and more at we are for good.com/mental health. We're so glad you're here.
Hey, I'm John. And I'm Becky. And
this is the We Are For Good podcast.
Nonprofits are faced with more challenges to accomplish their missions and the growing pressure to do more, raise more and be more for the causes that improve our world.
We're here to learn with you from some of the best in the industry, bringing the most innovative ideas, inspirational stories, all to create an impact uprising.
So welcome to the good community. We're nonprofit professionals, philanthropist, world changers and rabid fans who are striving to bring a little more goodness into the world.
So let's get started. Hey, Becky, what's happening?
Welcome back to Mental Health Week, everybody. I am so entirely jazzed and honored to introduce you to our guests today who came to us through our dear friend Tanya, Tanya Bhattacharya. And she said, you've just got to meet this amazing human. And we started this conversation on LinkedIn, DMS, which is my favorite kind of conversation because those are so raw and so free. And just meeting this incredible human we knew we had to bring her in to mental health week she has so much to teach us and the lived experience I think is just going to be absolutely aspirational for all of us. So I want to introduce you to Becca Giacomo Antonio. She is the child of a police officer and an accountant. I'm gonna say that again. Julie Sorry, I was snubbed of the count it. Becca Giacomo Antonio is the child of a police officer and an accountant that was raised on land stolen from the Wabanaki confederacy that we now know as main liberation for every being through radical healing has really been her lifelong pursuit over the years. And it's taken shape through things like environmental conservation work, political organizing, and restorative and transformative justice, facilitation. And today, Becca is a host and keeper of the interdependence incubator, which is this incredible therapeutic community of practice for white folks raised as women who crave healing and freedom for everybody, which I feel like you're talking to me when you say that, Becca. So she's going to be leading us through just some healing today, she's going to facilitate slowing down resting the curiosity of what we can do when we listen to our body during these fractured times. And we're just so delighted to have you in our house. Becca, welcome to the We Are For Good podcast.
Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to just be in this space with you and start a conversation. Yeah,
that's really what it's all about. And I think that there's so much healing that comes from other people listening to our shared lived experience. I know when I shared my mental health journey. Last year on the podcast, I just kind of had to get my big girl pants on and just jump for it because it's such a stigmatizing issue. And I am so humbled every week, at the people who reach out and say, and whisper I'm going through that right now. And I'm like, you don't have to whisper this is a safe space. So thank you for bravely coming on. And before we get into this, we just want to know about Becca. So like, take us through your journey. Tell us about where you grew up. And what led you to have this heart for this work.
Yeah, I mean, it's it's a long journey. Right? Many points for all of us, I think. And not measured by yours on the planet. But I think for me, it really started. You know, it really started because I was raised on the land that I was raised on. I had my family home, had we had some acres and most of the acres were woods. So I just spent so much of my childhood just like covered in dirt laying on the ground, like looking up at the trees and just listening. And that combined with because the woods of Maine have so much to teach us. I mean the woods anywhere do but I'm biased towards the woods of Maine. And then that like combined with being raised by a police officer and an accountant. My mom was the head of accounting at the largest nonprofit in the state of Maine. And then add to that I was raised in a conservative evangelical home. So just tons of opportunity for questions and It's just exploring what it means to be in right relationship with other humans and with the earth. In so many different contexts, you know, what does it look like, at the, you know, the police station with my dad, like, what does that look like here? How are people trying to be with each other here? What is what is the result of their effort in this context, and then in the nonprofit that, you know, just hearing about my mom and her work and what she's doing, learning through that, and then in the church, and then in the woods, and then all these places, I was just, I just was born knowing that something was wrong, and just pursued that quest for understanding what that thing might be in any place that I was admitted to, which was mostly the woods but other places do.
Well, thank you for that context, because it's a dad that's raising their kids trying to run around and stay in the dirt. Like, I think it's a really good place, a real grounded place to spend time and reflective. And I think it's such a good posture. But I want to hear about, you know, kind of your next steps in life and how you ended up in the nonprofit space. And I want to take you back, take us back to that part of your journey as you kind of lead us into your story.
Yeah, so I started out in environmental conservation, nonprofit, I worked, doing like administrative stuff in high school for a nonprofit doing environmental stuff. And then another one, I was like volunteering that was more of like a soup kitchen. So it was always pretty clear. Although the one thing my mom said my entire childhood was she was like, Don't become a social worker. Like, just don't work in the nonprofit sector. Like don't do it. Don't do it. Don't do it. And I was like, Okay, well, no, don't be a lawyer. You know, like, by the time I was graduating high school, I was already like, you know what, I felt like something's wrong with our police system, like something about our justice system. Just doesn't really feel I don't really know what it is yet, but I have some suspicions. Which I had intimate exposure to because my dad would take me to the police station all the time. So from high school, I went in and I was like, I'm gonna be environmentalist. So I tried to pursue that but then incarceration work just massive like working with mass incarceration just really pulled in my just pulled me towards it. And I ended up volunteering for an organization called the Innocence Project, which ultimately took me into just working on exoneration, which it's funny I remember distinctly writing a paper in college, and I was using the word exoneration, and Microsoft Word did not recognize exonerate as a word, it would tell me that it was spelt incorrectly. And as I was typing, I was like, Man, this is so meta, like, word is not accepting this as a word. So then I transferred colleges moved to New York City. Because I started in Florida, transfer colleges moved to New York City and just dove headfirst into anything around mass incarceration, exoneration, you know, wrongful incarceration, all these things. And ultimately, that internship, the first internship that I got led me to restorative justice. And actually, because the founders of the organization, I was working at New Vanya Davis, who's a big name in restorative justice. And so I met her. And I was like that, that is the thing that I came here to do, and just pursued it relentlessly, which put me again, squarely in the nonprofit sector I never left I was never not in the nonprofit sector. Sorry, mom. Exactly. A school all the way until 2021. I was employed to some degree at a nonprofit. And then ultimately today working as a consultant largely with nonprofit people or organizations as well.
I just some sitting here thinking about like 18 year old Becca, trying to navigate her passion in this area, which of which we have a shared passion at We Are For Good for exoneration. And for this restorative justice. And this is a very heavy topic. And I just want to reach my mama bear arms through the podcast, my care to you and to every single person out there who's listening right now that's working in a nonprofit that has incredibly heavy, heavy topics that you are working through day by day. These are not switches as human beings that we can turn on and off, you know, as we clock in and we clock out. And I want to talk to you about your personal mental health story. You know, this week we're holding space to discuss burnout and well being of nonprofits professional was in the sector. And I want you to talk a little bit about your own personal story and how mental health intersected with your work. And I would love for you to kind of talk to us about what you're seeing in the sector through the lens of what you felt and what you experienced on your own journey. So the mic is yours.
Yeah, so much there. I think when I, when I started, when I moved from my environmental work or focus into justice, and this question of what justice is, and what it looks like, and how it's happening, or not happening, I did so largely sort of died. You know, I was raised by a police officer, but I'm a white person. And my dad is also white. And I grew up in a place in Maine, that was very white and my dad's community, even he didn't work in the community that I lived in, but it was also mostly white. And there's just so much that I didn't know. And that's the, that's the privilege of whiteness, right, is that we get to Nanyo. Like, we have the ability to just be on unaware. And then I went to college in Florida. And I remember I was driving to college. And I went to college in Florida, as I mentioned. And just before just between Tampa and Sarasota. On the highway, there's or there was, you know, 10 years ago, this large confederate flag. I mean, it was the largest flag I'd ever seen in my entire life. It was the size of a building, it was just huge. And I was just driving along and I was like, huh, the world is not what I thought it was, you know, and that for me was sort of how things began to shift from an environmental focus to a to adjust his focus. And I tell that story because my mental health journey like my emotional well being, and my mental well being is not my own. Right? We are human beings, we are networks, right? Like our emotional well being is so deeply entrenched not only in the people that are physically around us in any given moment. But also like my well being my my mental health, my emotional agility comes in ancestrally, right comes back intergenerationally comes through, like how my grandparents were oriented, how their capacity to access wellness and healing on my parents have been like, all this stuff is filtering through and not just in my lineage, like my actual blood lineage. But like as a, as a community as a culture, I am part of a community, a culture of white people and our white culture is, is fraught with mental unwellness that became codified as personality and culture to shout out resume, not comms book, like, there's so many pieces of how we are with each other, that are actually just maladaptive traits. So that's like a long winded place to start. But it's important because the more that I discovered, what was happening in the time that I spent, alongside the people that are most abused and oppressed by our criminal justice system, which includes largely black and brown folks, like, the more I realized how little I knew about the world and just the weight of that compelled me into Okay, well, here I am, I didn't know all this stuff. I didn't have to know all this stuff. I have to do everything I can to make it right. Like my whole life. No, it my life is no longer about me. It's about fixing. And it was a martyrdom response. I didn't realize that then. But what it did is that it meant that the next five years, six years in my life, I just completely deprioritized myself and just was like I'm not worthy of feeling good. I just need to fix and and do whatever I can to like change the situation. And year after year of D prioritizing yourself of working at a nonprofit and taking full time classes and having an internship and working as a waitress to pay bills.
Gosh, like so many nonprofit
walls closing in around you. Yeah.
Oh yeah, feeling you here.
And it's not enough just to have your nonprofit job. You also need to be donating more of your time like you just need to give every last ounce of your capacity, to the mission, to liberation to justice to whatever your vision is like. You need to give your whole self because you need to atone for the sins of your head. ancestors. And ultimately, that just led me straight into the massive burnout and nervous breakdown. And I just collapsed. Everything shut down, I was not able to do any of the things that I had previously been able to do. I mean was like one day I could, I was living in New York City at the time, one day, I could do my 14 1618 hour day, take the subway bike, do all this stuff. And the next day, I couldn't leave my house, I just was just completely done. my nervous system was like, you have been avoiding me, you've been ignoring me for 567 years now. And we're done. Like, there's nothing left here. So you need to retreat. And I've been asking you politely over the last few years to take space, and you haven't. So that's it. And I had to quit my job and drop off the face of the earth from the volunteer opportunities I was doing. And I moved out of New York City. And I just, fortunately, was already planning a move to Guatemala and had to terminate contracts earlier because I, I just couldn't do anything, and went to Guatemala and just licked my wounds for two years.
Thank you for sharing that. I, I hear so much of my own story in there. And I am feeling the heaviness of that and the paralysis that comes with going 90 to nothing and then to full stop and trying to adjust your life and your mind around that. And I know we have a listenership who is struggling through mental health challenges that are so similar to what you're saying, because they're DMing. Me. And because I'm meeting with them almost once a week now somebody in our sector, who wants to share their story, and they are right on the edge. And I and I share my story. And Becca shares her story. And Lynn Westar last, you know, season shared her story as a cautionary tale to everyone out there. That's that. We know this work needs you. But your body needs you. Your mind needs you, your people need you. And you need to be kind to yourself. And I know that that's not the biggest takeaway here. But I need to create some pause to say if you find your story reflected in what Becca just said, It's time for a really hard pause. And that is a gift you give to yourself. And it's not selfish. You're worthy of it. There is massive value and healing in it. But let's take a hard pause there. And thank you, Becca, for sharing all of that so courageously.
Yeah, I mean, thank thank you for taking us there. Because I heard it's kind of threaded through your stories. I want to give you an opportunity before we go to Guatemala with this because I want to hear what happened when you went there. What were some of the signs looking back that you now are thinking, you know, that was a signal that I wasn't listening to? What were some of those things along your journey?
Oh, yeah, I mean, there were many now. i My gastrointestinal tract was a disaster. absolute disaster. I was like, do I have IBS? Do I have lactose intolerance? Like, I mean, you name it, like, I was so uncomfortable all of the time, all of the time. And in my body was just like, look, you're you, we don't have enough to process food. Like, we actually don't even have enough energy left to process food. Yeah, and other things like I was not sleeping. It was just not sleeping. And I was extremely irritable. And just like always on edge just constantly on edge saying and doing things that are just not in alignment with my values. And I know we'll get to this maybe later. But a lot of the signs that I have now identified as part of the pathway to my breakdown, are I only have seen because I've seen them in reflection other people. Now, I worked with a boss a while ago who would say and do things completely out of alignment with her values, and then I'd bring it to her and I'd be like, Hey, I saw this, like, I'm really concerned. Like, do you want to talk about it, like out of curiosity, you know, and she just be like, I didn't do that because that's not something that I do. But the thing is, she was not in her body when it happened. Like she was offline. And I see this in particular with white folks. That's why I work with people that I do is like in white women to like we have the skin auditioning to make ourselves small and to just like people please and to do all these things that deny our selfhood. And what that looks like, every time we do that we lose, we lose connection with ourselves. And so being disembodied, being disconnected from the moment is easier when you've already had so much practice of like denying yourself in these small ways along the way. So eventually, you're just like, not even there, you're on autopilot. You know, you're just like doing one thing to the next. And when we're on autopilot is when we cause the most amount of harm because we're not actually present.
That's something really powerful because I think you're right, like when we become numb, like, it just registers like how dangerous of a place that can be when you're numb to your own emotions. But those around you too. I mean, not a way to Yeah, powerful stuff.
Yeah, one thing I just want to add really quickly, it's not about sitting in your feeling like there's there's an important conversation that that so when race and whiteness comes into the room, and we're talking about mental health, well, lots of people will say, or lots of people will have a fear and this was true for me like I'm not worthy because of all the institutional in harm that I've that our people have caused, like white people have caused so much tremendous harm, but I'm don't deserve to feel good. And I need to give my entire being as I mentioned to the work that actually is not constructive. You denying your needs as a human being your cumin hood, is not generating liberation. Right? What it's generating is this numbness. It's this dysregulation, it's this dis embodiment, which then causes and perpetuates more harm. We're like putting ourselves in a place where we can't be online. So we go offline. And our offline self is like the picture of white supremacy culture like that is what our like, defaults are set at when we're not paying attention. Which means that we're causing more harm, even as we're trying to, like devote ourselves to ending harm.
I tell you, I have gone through this in therapy, feeling that my suffering is, you know, less important than those I foresee, or I have a perception of has suffered worse than I have. And my therapist has taught me suffering is suffering, y'all, you know, work through your needs, work through the place that you're at. Love yourself? Well, you know, self care is as important as any other level of care that's out there. So I want to transition into this story in Guatemala, because I know you've, you had an epiphany and you saw found light again, and I want you to kind of take us through that part of your story and what you learned in community.
It's the thing about being in a space in a community where people that I was around, which was a mixed group of other American immigrants to Guatemala, and Guatemalans, the city that we were in, tended to attract white folks, American immigrants, who were in this place of just like, end of the road burnout, like, there were a handful of other women who had been in the nonprofit sector who were in Guatemala, in that town in Guatemala, recovering and like trying to figure out trying to figure out what was how I was so wild, It's so wild. And to get the like, three of us it really ended up being like I had two other really, really good friends who are also nonprofit people. And they were both white women. And we just sat there in in community and I was like, I can't do anything like I need, I need you to do everything like I am in a place where there is no me like going to the market without other people. And it just was this opportunity for me to just completely drop all my individualism. And the the beauty of being in Guatemala while doing that. Is that that is the way that Guatemalans are like, there is no me there's just us. There's just this collectivist solidarity, just like way of being in the world where we we belong to each other. And it got to a place where I was facilitating, eventually I was through lots of reading and meditating and just like being vulnerable and asking for what I need, I was able to get to a place where I was facilitating restorative justice trainings in and facilitating processes. And I would come to the space just with total just like everything on the table like here's what I'm doing, here's where I'm at, like, I'm not going to pretend like I'm not recovering from this massive nervous breakdown. And I know that I'll be held here in community and it's not that I will was bringing out the fullness of my like emotional turmoil, but I just wasn't pretending like I had everything all figured out, I was really showing up to those spaces. Like, hey, I'm exploring this practice this process. And I want to really truly dig into what it means to be in community because the way that I had been taught restorative justice back in the States, was still through this like individualistic tint and living alongside Guatemalans and seeing the way they were, that they were functioning really made me question how I was practicing. And so I would come to the trainings with questions, and just like ideas and processes, and in those relationships of exploring what might be possible in interdependent, like, what interdependence might look like, I was really able to find a lot of healing for the wounds that I was carrying, because what I was carrying, were wounds from an attempt to live a life, completely self reliant, you know, trying to take on the burden of the world as an individual without relying on anybody else meant that everything just ended up collapsing in. But as soon as I said, Hey, here I am, here's, here's all of me, like, here's all of the stuff that I'm that I'm, here's just the fullness of my experience as a human being. And I have this vision of liberation, like, how do you want to be in this together? When I recognized that mutual belonging, that relationship alone was the pathway for healing?
Wow, I mean, what a beautiful testimony to your like story, because I'm, my brain is like having flashbacks to our last year's Mental Health Week, and I hear your story. And this be like, the moment when you kind of just like release control, and like, I can't just do this on my own. But also think of like Eleanor wells, telling us that like self care is not about self, it's about community. Yes. And like, what a powerful testament to that, you know, just showing up vulnerably. And, you know, we preach that and want to embrace that want to provide that here in this space. So I love that that's been part of your healing journey so much.
This is just such a powerful conversation. And I feel like most of our rabid fans will remember that we started out We Are For Good with seven core values. And about three months in, we realized that we had probably the biggest one missing, and we added an eighth and it is community is everything. And if you allow yourself to embrace community, and everything that you do, things are going to be easier, things are going to be less lonely. These kinds of rituals and practices are going to come more naturally because you're going to be encouraged and uplifted by people who share your values. So I want to move into the this concept of self and community care. Talk to us a little bit about what does slowing down look like, and a sector full of professionals that and I'm using my air quotes, where so many hats. Talk to us about your philosophy around community care and this approach to well being?
Yeah, I mean, this is something that my therapist, no mentor has been telling me since I was 14, right? Just slow down. Just Becca, please. Slow down. And, and I was always like, yeah, sure, whatever. Like, it's easy for you to say you live on this, like a Dilek farm in Maine and like, your mood is
you don't have four jobs, right? I mean, but seriously, yeah.
So I was always just like, whatever man, like, cool, they'll slow down. And then and then when you have a nervous breakdown, like, you don't just slow down you, you stop. Like, it's just stop. And, and something about the journey that I had in the space that I was healing, predominantly in Guatemala. Oh, like just really was an opportunity for me to like, see, you know, when you're walking somewhere in Guatemala, and you, you stop you like you have point A and point B, but between point A and point B for like a half a dozen people and if you know them, that's that's like two that's like an hour, which I loved because I was like, first of all, also, as an introvert, like there isn't an expectation that you spend like lots of time with people, there's an expectation that you spend like little chunks of time with people throughout the week. Right? Which is great for me, because then I get to reset every 15 minutes. But regardless, slowing down it came to me just because it was something I was living. And then I think what I what I talk about when I talk about slowing down as community care is that we're so encouraged and conditioned to move quickly to produce to like wear many hats to finish our to do lists to just like, be ruled by deadlines and timelines and just like these things that have just been, are mostly arbitrarily created, right? Like, there's no real, like existential pressure, on timelines, for the most part, right. And when we feel when we, when we consume that pressure of the need to produce the need to produce in on a time speed, that actually honestly, like, is 1.5. Like it's sped up, the expectation is 1.5. If we like the baseline living is one, right? That's the expectation that we produce, we're actually we're expected to produce faster than what would be like the normal flow of life. But if we go back down to point seven, five speed, for example, and we just slow everything that we're doing down, all of a sudden, we have the other opportunity to notice our internal landscape, like, what's the quality of my breath? What's happening? What am I thinking in my head? What is what shape is my body in, you know, like, all of these things that we don't pay attention to, because we're busy on to the next thing on to the next thing on to the next thing, but other people are seeing, right, they're seeing how we're talking, and they're picking up on our tone, they're picking up on our body posture, like our body language, all these things. And so there's that there's that element that sort of affects relationships. But the other piece is that like, if I'm moving so fast, I can't actually see you. Like, I can't actually see your breath and your posture, and connect in with what like you are like, see you in your fullness, you know, but if I slow down, if all I do is slow down 2.75 speed, I'm more aware of what's happening internally, and I'm more able to see you. And then I'm more able to like, get a full breadth of like, what's happening in the situation? What are the what are we actually talking about? What do I actually want to say? What do I actually need to say anything? Can I just like, be with you in this moment? Do I have to be typing or like doing something else? Like, what if for like, just an hour, you lived at point seven, five speed, you know, or even 30 minutes or five minutes or something like that just can you actually look like slow down and look at your to do list. And like other things on your to do list that aren't actually things that you need to do. But just things that you feel like you need to do, can you remove those because for those of us that are wearing multiple hats, like it becomes sort of like a magnet. Like when you say you're doing multiple things, and all of a sudden your to do list is just like a magnet that's attracting everything that like gets even close, like even brushes by feel that that magnet just goes, sticks right to it. And it's like, I can just spend my whole life trying to clean out this magnet and do all the to dues. Or I can slow down, look at the magnet and be like oh, that's That's not mine. Yeah, that actually belongs there. Or this just can go in the trash. Like, that's not even a thing that needs to be done. You know.
I mean, I think all that you've given us is like, kind of the playbook for how leaders can kind of infuse this. And if the set point seven five really sticks out to me. I'm like everybody, listen on your podcast right now, slowest down, because I listen to podcasts like 1.5, I can't like handle the slow on that. You will go crazy. And I think it shows you like we're so used to like trying to rush through things. But it's like savor to actually listen to give yourself space to process. Like what an interesting social experiment like that you're messing with my head now. So thank you.
And it's also about not only being in tune to yourself, but to others. And I think that's the great gift we can give to our friends in the sector, and not just our friends who are our colleagues, people who are our family and our neighbors and in being alert and awake to the fact that something could be off. And you know, I only had maybe two people in my life say, I don't feel like you're the same Becky that I have grown to know and love, because I was so good at hiding it. And I didn't and I didn't want anybody to worry about me. And so if we're moving too fast, I think we can miss some of those red flags not only for ourselves, but the people we love to
totally, totally, I think about how much easier it would have been if I had just slowed down and how I could have avoided a breakdown basically, I would have felt burned out but I would have not ended up where I did like if I had just slowed down sooner. Same
well as we kind of transition into like activation. I mean, this is where all of us can do the self reflection. Talk about your ideas about resisting individualism and really is that relates to mental health and wellness.
I mean, I think the greatest lie that we've been sold in the West In the United States is that we can do it on our own like, is that we can pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, you know, rugged individualism, you know, that we should be able to, like, move into our own apartment and like, you know, pay our own bills and like, do our own thing. I mean, it's absurd given inflation, like, you know, the reset, like all these things that are happening, and we're still expecting people to like, be able to be totally fine in their own apartment isolated. And I just like, can we
have we saw the results of that, and it was not good, most not good, double negative there,
I really want to, if there's one thing that the work that I do in the world, in or maybe there's two things like it, there's two things that the work and that the work that I do in the world does, it's like, can we just slow down and stay together, like just be just recognize that we belong to each other, and that we are interdependent beings, and the cultures that have survived any disaster that can be thrown on them. Most embedded in connected are collectivist cultures. And the individualist culture that we exist in is not surviving, like our rates of suicide, like these things like depression, anxiety, all these things are absolutely plaguing us and they're in they're crushing us. And I just know that if we saw ourselves more, you know, there's, there's a Rumi quote that says, You are not just a drop in the ocean, you are the entire ocean in a drop. And I like to like remix that by saying you are both a drop in the ocean and the entire ocean in the drop, like, we are individuals in a collective that we necessarily are in a collective, like, I may have my own. I have my own autonomy. And my autonomy is dependent on you having autonomy, none of us are free until all of us are free, right? Like this is, this is old stuff. And people have known this forever. Lila Watson said it. She's an Aboriginal woman from Australia. You know, like, if you have come to help me because you recognize that your liberation is bound up in mine, bound up with mine, then come let us work together. Like it was never meant to be a solo project. It was never meant to be a solo project being a human.
And I wonder if that threads back to your story when you kind of called out the Savior? Isn't that you felt in the nonprofit work? How do you view that time now and kind of your mindset?
Oh, so I have so much. I just feel for younger Becca, I'm just like you you didn't know, you know, like, you just had know that
same way about little Becky you bless her heart. Yeah.
And, and I also am just sort of like, oh, you know, like I'm so I had to make amends. At the end, when I came out the other side of the burnout, because there was so much that I did. In that time, when I was trying to quote unquote, save the world, I literally would say that, right? Which is just such a problematic view. Like it's not one person, it's about being with each other and collectively working towards interdependently working towards liberation. But the other was so much that I did out of my best interest, my best intention. Because I was on autopilot and not feeling anything, you know, not realizing what was happening that I had to like, make amends for. And so now when I'm talking to the like, to the people that I work with, in my in my interdependence, incubator, the white women that I work with, I'm really just constantly returning to this idea of like, none of us are free until all of us are free, right? Like, we need you to be whole. You, we need you to be your whole part of this whole, you know, and you can only get hold in connection with other people. So like, let's work through this together. Let's, let's practice slowing down. Let's practice pausing. Let's practice breathing. Let's practice being here in this moment returning over and over again, to this year now, together.
I'm so glad we're talking about this, Becca, because the more you're talking about individualism, I'm just thinking of the harm and the trauma that that creates, I think about the way at least in my mind, the narrative I would put it in my art my mind was I don't want to bother anybody. I can do this myself. I'm not going to ask for help because I'm extremely independent and I can take care of myself and I take care of everybody around me and those sort of false narratives are so damaging. And when you can release and let go. And I pray that everybody listening, you know, can find a way to release not to the point where you're at collapse, you know, because you've because you've broken, but when you can release and you ask for help, and if that's your one good thing you take away from this conversation, do it, ask for help tell somebody your story, tell them your struggles. It is so free, it is the liberation that you're looking for. And I'm like, we do want you to be our best selves. Because this work is too damn important that we're all working toward, for us not to be caring for the one I always think about like the airplane, and they're like, you know, put your mask on first, before you help others. It's like, please put your mask on right now. And before we get into story, I just I just want to ask you this. There are so many leaders who are listening to this episode and tuning in to this week. What advice would you give them about fostering a culture that bounces back that sorry, must say that again? What advice would you give them? Regarding how to foster a culture that prioritizes that balance and well being?
I mean, the first thing that I would say is take care of you. Right? Like, it's, you can't, you can't lead a community to healing from a from a broken place. Right? If you're not resourcing yourself, then there's nothing you can do for your community. There's nothing you can do for your community. So are you You know, in a therapeutic relationship? Are you in a therapeutic community? Do you have accountability buddies? Do you have people that you can go to, with your stuff that have consented to being these people for you to hold it? Because sometimes I run into people who are like, I tried talking to someone about it before, but they turned me down. And I'm like, Yeah, keep, like, that's in their power. They can say no, like, we need to respect that. No. And keep going until we find someone who said yes, because you there will be someone who has the capacity to support you, and don't give up on the first person. Right, like, so there's, that's a side point. But with the with the leaders, like the invitation is to just like, how can you first slow down for yourself and like, can you get the support that you need to be held, as you're trying to cultivate this space, trying to because thinking that because you're a leader, you can do it by yourself, or you should be able to do it by yourself, because you're in a position of leadership that you can't be honest or vulnerable with, with the people you're working with. And to some degree, that's true, right? There's, there's boundaries that are important. And it's important to be authentic, like I am getting support around this, you know, and actually be getting support around that. So my advice to leaders who want to create this community of belonging is to just like belong to yourself first, and get the support that you need, so that you can that you can be fostering this community of belonging, integrity.
I mean, so good. There's been so much in this conversation. I mean, philanthropy is kind of like this first thread that bound us together and your story, I wonder if you take us back to a moment along your journey that just really stuck with you after all these years?
Yeah. I met someone I met a mentor of mine in Guatemala. He's from the States. He's in his, like, mid to late 70s. Now, and I was at a place obviously now in my life, where I was just questioning everything. I was like, I've been doing fundraising, like, what does that even mean? Like? How is that showing up? And like my martyrdom, like what is what is fundraising, in addition to like, what is the meaning of life because I was also there, right? And this guy, this this person that I met, he was the deacon of an Episcopal church that was like English, Spanish, and he did the English service. And he looked like Santa Claus. Like everything about him. I was giving his fault. But he had a beard. No, but he was just like giving major Santa's energy. And he quickly became a mentor of mine, because I would ask him questions, every question that I had, just from the meaning of life to find what about fundraising, you know, and he's the only person that I've ever met in the context of a church that would answer I don't know, and not qualify it. Just say I don't really know about that. Here's where I maybe with look, but yeah, I don't know. And I was just dumbfounded. And and so I kept I went to this I started going to this church because I was like, if you're a guy with a white collar, and you can say, I don't know then like I need to and be joyful, that I need to know everything about
how you can trust. Yeah. How did you get and
he was so joyful, just like Mary like, like, like Santa Claus. And over the course of the years that I knew him or that I, like, you know, did live alongside him in Guatemala, I saw him give away hundreds, if not 1000s of dollars, just just giving no strings attached, like people would ask him for it, and he would just let it go. And I was just like, how, how he always had enough for himself, like he never wasn't in dire straits, just like, people would ask for it. And he would just give it to it, no questions asked. They could be obviously, you know, it could, it could be the kind of profile of someone who you would assume to be like, on using the money for alcohol or whatever, like, it didn't matter he just gave. And he had these relationships with these people who no one else had relationships with, because they live in the street, or they presented a certain way. And I just learned so much from him about money, and life and joy, and just all of these things, but the one thing that stands out is just his freedom to just like give without condition. And, and somehow still be supported, and somehow still have enough.
And that's literally philanthropy.
Oh, great story. Becca, we end all of our conversations with a one good thing. And we wonder what your one good thing would be that you'd offer to our community today.
I think my one good thing would be nature. For me, it starts there. It ends there. I mean, it's everything in the middle is there, every good idea or piece of knowledge that I've had has started because I was hugging a tree, or swimming in the ocean, or just looking out my window at the birds, and really taking the time to slow down again. And just like be for a moment, just in the sunlight. Like, this morning, I was walking my dog and I was about to come into my apartment, and I noticed that the sun had just risen above the building. And so there was just this direct gleam and you have these micro moments where you can make a decision about what you're going to do in that moment. And I could have just like walked into the room, you know, and started my day. But instead, I was like, You know what? No, I'm going to just look at the sun. And take a deep breath in this like luscious sunlight. And those micro moments change everything. They change everything. So that's my that's my one good thing is go outside. Wow.
Okay, so Becca, you've given us so much today to think about to stew on I really hope it is touched and resonated. Someone who was willing to make a 1% shift today in self care, tell people how they can connect with you. Where are you online? And how can they find any of your work? Yeah.
Totally. So I'm just so grateful for this conversation. Yeah, 1% better, is it but to find me I am on LinkedIn, you can just search at BK HG ACO, and my profile will will pop up because my last name is kind of intimidating. If you you can also copy and paste it, you know, from the
show, go to the show notes. We'll link it right there and make it easy for you to
Yeah, and I also have a website which you can join my newsletter on. And every week, I'm just posting I'm just sending out invitations to practice liberation in the here and now through healing and slowing down and all of the things that we've talked about and so much more at the intersections of of what it is to be alive.
I mean, what a cool, full circle story this has been. And I hope people connect with you, you have really given us so much to think about today. And just the way you show up is so authentic, I just feel that you through the screen today. Thank you for sharing space with us. And, you know, I just feel like we got to do like call to arms here. If you're listening and you feel like you need help. Like don't sit in that, you know, we've curated resources around this at we are for good.com/mental health, but you're not alone. Like community is everything. Yeah, and we want we want to surround you with that. And so go there, reach out. And thank you for leading us into this wonderful conversation today.
And I gotta add on to that if you need a space to talk to someone please come to the we're for good community.com We will we hold safety, psychological safety and confidentiality in that space. As you have 1000 people who will love on you and if that's too much for you, DM me, or email me, Becky at we are for good.com I'm not even kidding. Make sure that you have someone that you can talk to. I'd be happy to be your someone if you don't have someone. Thank you. Appreciate you so much. Thank you. Thanks for joining us for these powerful discussions about mental health. If you'd like to dig deeper, we're continuing the conversation in the we're for good community. Here. We'll double click on some of the topics and support each other and community. Come join us it's free at We Are For Good community.com
