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Emotional Literacies

What emotional literacies—embodied awarenesses, knowledges, intelligences, and response-abilities—are needed when striving toward justice? These posts offer emotional insights through storytelling, contemplative practices, and investigation into daily life.

Playing Through the Pain

Filed Under: Contemplative Practices, Emotional Literacies By Beth Godbee August 6, 2017 Leave a Comment

This image shows an indoor swimming pool with the YMCA logo against the back wall, a blue water slide to the right, and a sign with "Pool Rules" posted in the front.

I’ve written recently about violence in our everyday lives, in our shared social world. For many of us, this violence is internal and personal as well. Even though I aspire to self-love and self-care, I fall back into patterns of negative self-talk and “playing through the pain.” I continue to push myself even when I recognize the desire to slow down. I do violence to myself even when I set the intention of being gentler, kinder, and more forgiving. With this ... Read more ...

Imperfect Meditation and the Desire to “Slow Way Down”

Filed Under: Contemplative Practices, Emotional Literacies By Beth Godbee July 19, 2017 Leave a Comment

Photo shows snapped rubber bands positioned in the shape of a heart.

Lately, I’ve been craving time to feel-think-move my way through transitions and even physical pain, as my lower back has been speaking up again. In response, I’ve been practicing daily meditation: sitting for just 10 minutes on my yoga mat each morning. Even when practicing imperfectly, I find that meditation gives me the permission, the opportunity to slow down. I’m finding that the more time I spend in meditation—breathing, noticing, releasing thoughts, and being ... Read more ...

Swinging from Sweet to Sour

Filed Under: Emotional Literacies, Racial Justice By Beth Godbee June 22, 2017 Leave a Comment

This image shows a brown swing seat held by two blue rubber cords. Sandy dirt with fallen leaves are in the background.

A roller coaster of emotions. This isn’t a new experience for me, but one that’s becoming an every-day, every-week norm. I swing from moments of real hope and sweetness to moments of real hate and sourness. This roller coaster can motivate resistance, and it can send me back into the cave to confront both personal and collective shadows. Here’s what these swings look like. In the past few days, I’ve witnessed the acquittal of the Minnesota officer who killed Philando ... Read more ...

Disrupting the Mind-Body Split

Filed Under: Emotional Literacies, Higher Education By Beth Godbee May 20, 2017 Leave a Comment

This past week I dreamed that I was standing before a group of students, guest-lecturing in a colleague’s class. In the dream, I was slurring and stumbling over words—making little to no sense. The colleague asked if I was confused, and I realized that I had a concussion. Not from any physical injury, but from the semester. The semester had given me a concussion! I woke with a strong sense that the dream was symbolically true, metaphorically speaking to me. Because, ... Read more ...

Exploring Exhaustion and Energy Loss

Filed Under: Contemplative Practices, Emotional Literacies, Higher Education By Beth Godbee May 5, 2017 Leave a Comment

This image shows a person (read as a white woman) with hands and hair covering the face and whole body slumped in front of an open laptop.

I’ve been particularly exhausted, as is so often the case at the end of each school year. I often feel that the further I get into spring semester, the more I become tired, grumpy, and on edge. It’s as though my brain becomes over-worked, my body under-utilized, and my balance thrown totally off. This year I’ve also been experiencing exhaustion as more than regular semester stress, and I feel certain it’s due to the routinization of daily assaults on personhood. It’s ... Read more ...

Gratitude for/on Earth Day

Filed Under: Emotional Literacies By Beth Godbee April 23, 2017 Leave a Comment

Earth Day snuck up on me this year. Though I wasn’t thinking about this annual event, I was in the midst of writing blog posts about why I’m vegan, how hiking supports my commitment to justice, and why there’s cause to be alarmed with the world right now. All of these posts communicate the importance of environmental justice and connections between how we treat the earth and how we treat each other. In other words, environmental justice is also about racial justice, ... Read more ...

Potato & Kale Casserole (vegan + gluten-free): Finding Comfort in the Growth Zone

Filed Under: Emotional Literacies, Recipes By Beth Godbee March 31, 2017 Leave a Comment

These days I’m experiencing a lot of stress, finding myself quick to cry, and noticing both tightness in my chest and shallowness of my breath. Undoubtedly, this stress is both personal and political, particular to me and shared in our collective. Conversations throughout the day address concerns about the Muslim ban and travel restrictions, ongoing deportations and abuses of power, challenges to health care, an unwillingness to look for missing black and brown girls, ... Read more ...

Attending to Anger

Filed Under: Emotional Literacies By Beth Godbee March 6, 2017 Leave a Comment

“Anger is an appropriate reaction to racist attitudes, as is fury when the actions arising from those attitudes do not change.” —Audre Lorde, “The Uses of Anger” (Sister Outsider) In my first post launching this blog (back in November 2016), I wrote about anger. I found myself sitting at the computer screen, typing “Arrrrrggggghhhhh!!!!!” I felt completely inarticulate, yet full of emotions—called to write, though struggling to find words. Today I’m finding the words ... Read more ...

Finding Love, Fueling Justice

Filed Under: Emotional Literacies By Beth Godbee February 14, 2017 Leave a Comment

“The search for love continues even in the face of great odds.” —graffiti message shared by bell hooks (All About Love xv) I’ve written previously about the roller coaster of emotions I’m currently riding—fired up one minute and laid low the next. My guess is this up-down, high-low rhythm will be my norm for some time to come. At one point, I’m knocked down by the force of historic, mounting injustice; the next I’m connecting with and inspired by others truly ... Read more ...

Today Resistance Looks Like …

Filed Under: Contemplative Practices, Emotional Literacies, Everyday Feminism, Higher Education, Racial Justice By Beth Godbee February 7, 2017 Leave a Comment

How do we work to align feelings, thoughts, and actions (heart, head, hands) with the world we’d like to see? How do we go about our everyday lives for the “ought to be,” for justice? I’m thankful for Jardana Peacock (of the Liberatory Leadership Project) for modeling a contemplative writing practice that I’ve been using to think through these questions. At the end of each day, I’ve been filling in the answer to her prompt: “Today resistance looks like …” I ... Read more ...

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Embodied knowledge matters. So do commitments. And especially acting on commitments as part of everyday life, BIG and small. This website—a mix of blog posts and research writing, courses and offerings—shares ongoing efforts toward everyday living (feeling, thinking, and doing) for justice.

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  • Contemplative Practices (61)
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bethgodbee

Update: THANKS to everyone who alerted me to the a Update: THANKS to everyone who alerted me to the account and who reported it. It appears to be down. I’m really grateful. 💚

*************

So … apparently someone has cloned my account and started one at @bethgodbeee (with eee — 3 e’s at the end). 

If you’ve received a request from this account, will you report them?

And if you’ve had this happen or know more about this sort of copycatting/cloning, I’m so grateful for camaraderie and advice. I’m in a learning curve.

Thank you!!!
If you're currently on a journey with a writing pr If you're currently on a journey with a writing project, consider joining this Thursday's #writing retreat.

I think of retreats like this boardwalk: there's a pathway to follow with clear edges and a lot of spaciousness to work/walk throughout the day.

Learn more about one-day online retreats, sliding-scale registration, and upcoming dates here:

https://heart-head-hands.com/product/writing-retreats/
✨✨link in bio✨✨
It's fall! A few views from here: 1. My partner J It's fall! A few views from here:

1. My partner Jonathan and me hiking at Great Falls.
2. Crocheting in progress. I'm picking back up this project started early in the pandemic.
3. Pumpkin pancakes. Yum!
4. Weird leg-like mushrooms sticking out of a log.
5. Book display on whole food plant based (WFPB) eating.
6. Embers in a simmering campfire. 
7. Shadows of me and my partner on a winding trail.

{Not pictured: Recovering from covid and flu vaccines. Send healing wishes! :-)}
Updates to the new offering “Pathways Through Bu Updates to the new offering “Pathways Through Burnout: A Cohort Experience”:

For the past year, Candace and I have been listening to requests for an offering around burnout (or, more precisely, being burned up), and we launched a new cohort experience August 1st. We are deeply grateful for the range of responses we’ve received since then, and we’ve been prioritizing time to listen and discern what people want and need.

Through a lot of conversation and reflection, we’ve decided to slow down further and to reshape the offering. 

We’ll continue offering interactive workshops on practices for navigating burnout—with new dates announced for November 3rd and December 15th (and more to come in 2024). 

Starting in January, we’ll hold a few one-day retreats with time for art, play, contemplative practice, conversation, and coaching. We hope the retreat will feel like something that’s possible now (with so many pushes and pulls on time and attention).

All of this is leading to a 12-week version of the cohort experience: a season of connection to match a season in life. We’ll reopen applications in the spring and hope that a small group forms well ahead of our start date in September 2024.

The details of all of these experiences—and an invitation to join the workshops in Nov and Dec—are shared online here: https://heart-head-hands.com/pathways-through-burnout/ 
✨✨link in bio✨✨

And we continue to appreciate all sorts of feedback (questions, suggestions, affirmations), so please reach out anytime. <3

[Image says: “Pathways Through Burnout / Practice Workshops / One-Day Retreats / Cohort Forming for Fall 2024” and shows photos of the two of us—Candace and Beth—side by side.]

With @dr._candace_epps_robertson_ #burnout #update #practice #contemplative #meditation #writing #art #retreat
I am slow to edit and share photos, but I want to I am slow to edit and share photos, but I want to share these from the Beyond Granite public art exhibit that just left the National Mall here in DC. I wish this installation was staying long-term. How I struggle with visiting the Mall in the best of conditions. And how these pieces helped me appreciate what could instead be done in this space. 

Also, Jonathan and I got really lucky that the night we visited was the most spectacular sunset! Scroll through for photos of how "America's Playground" appears against an orange sky (no filter).
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About Beth Godbee

I'm an educator and former writing studies professor who believes our fully embodied selves matter in the world. We can’t just think our way out of the incredible injustices, dehumanization, violence, and wrongdoing that characterize everyday life. We must feel and act, too. [Pronouns: she/her.] Read more ...

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