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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.

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 ...

Living in Mess

Filed Under: Emotional Literacies, Everyday Feminism By Beth Godbee January 27, 2017 Leave a Comment

This week I overfilled my hot cocoa, knocked the mug, and spilled sticky-sweet almond milk on the kitchen counter. Before thinking, I was already saying aloud: “Ahhhh, Bethhhh …” I could hear a parent scolding a child, over-reacting about spilled milk. And I was shaken—stopped in my tracks—because I would not like to respond in such a way to any person, let alone myself. Spilled cocoa. Sticky surfaces. Mess. Mess characterizes life, and I like to think that I’m ... Read more ...

Mucking around in the Mess of Inauguration Day

Filed Under: Emotional Literacies, Racial Justice By Beth Godbee January 20, 2017 Leave a Comment

Image of muck with footprints holding muddy water.

This post wasn’t planned. It wasn’t the “next up” in my drafting schedule to write a new piece weekly in 2017 (#52essays2017). Yet, it’s flowing forth this morning, as I try to make sense of this day before me. An inauguration day? A general strike? A media black-out? A ramp-up to coordinated global demonstrations? What I worry about—and why I feel the need to write—is that I’m experiencing the day as a day like any other. A day that makes complicity possible. A day of ... Read more ...

Welcoming Winter by Looking Within

Filed Under: Emotional Literacies By Beth Godbee December 15, 2016 Leave a Comment

I haven’t always loved caves. I remember years of summer camp when I was so afraid of entering “the bat cave” that I worried about this outing for days ahead of time and even sat out a year or two. Yet, growing up in Tennessee and spending summers in Kentucky (the land of limestone, sink holes, and caverns), I learned to love—truly enjoy, crave, and seek time visiting—caves. Today, when I ask myself why I love caves, I realize that entering the earth feels like ... Read more ...

Heart, Head, and Hands: Explaining the Blog’s Name

Filed Under: Contemplative Practices, Emotional Literacies, Everyday Feminism, Higher Education By Beth Godbee December 12, 2016 Leave a Comment

Photo showing eight hands with varied skin tones: 4 with gloves, 4 without. By sharing three sets of “emergency gloves” among the five of us, we found a way to share in the warmth: each of us with one hand covered, one uncovered. Together, we created some warmth, much laughter, and good memories that remind me still today that we need solutions for solidarity and mutual support. Together, we can create warmth, even in chilly conditions.

For months, I kept a list of keywords and imagined titles for this blog. For months, I ran possible names by friends and family, who responded with “nope,” “eugh,” and “huh?” Then, casually and unsurprisingly, my friend and frequent co-author Rasha Diab said, “Beth, your blog is heart-head-hands. That’s your thing.” I guess this exercise—this linking of feeling with thinking with acting—is “my thing.” Often in classes and workshops, I use the contemplative writing ... Read more ...

The Call to Write

Filed Under: Emotional Literacies By Beth Godbee November 12, 2016 Leave a Comment

In the aftermath of Trump’s election, I’ve decided it’s time to move forward with this project focused on feeling-thinking-doing for JUSTICE. I’ve been tinkering toward a blog for months, but holding myself back. Now my heart, my head, and my hands are insistent: the time to write is NOW. So, I sit at the screen, hands poised over keys. Yet, the only word-like expression coming forth is “Arrrrrggggghhhhh!!!!!” I often joke that I study language (composition, rhetoric, ... 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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I’m really excited about @soulsupportlc and hope I’m really excited about @soulsupportlc and hope you’ll check out David (@dgs425)’s coaching support. 💗 See you at the launch?

#Repost @ericdarnellpritchard with @make_repost
・・・
Congratulations, David! 💜😭✨🌻🎉💃🏿💕 Today my beloved announced that he has decided to leave his position as a tenure-track faculty member in order to create more space to serve his purpose as a healer. Doing so, he has formally launched his life coaching practice, @soulsupportlc. I say formally because David has been a life coach to me and many of our kindred for a very long time. I am so glad he has chosen to share his gifts and serve his purpose more widely. Please follow his work at @soulsupportlc AND if your time permits, please register and attend the Soul Support Life Coaching virtual launch on June 30. Link in my bio!
vacation mode = cloud watching [Photo is taken l vacation mode = cloud watching 

[Photo is taken looking up at trees, clouds, and blue sky.]

#learningfromnature #cloudwatching #lookingup #trees #sky
I'm starting some time off for hiking and visiting I'm starting some time off for hiking and visiting family this week. And here's a photo of me at a North Carolina welcome center, high in the Appalachian Mountains, standing before a wall of blooming rhododendrons. I'm tired from all-day driving, but so happy to be deep in the mountains and surrounded by blues, greens, and even pinks! <3

#appalachianmountains #rhodadendron #blueridgemountains #home
Today’s newsletter points in multiple directions Today’s newsletter points in multiple directions, much like this turkey tail mushroom. (I love the striations of copper, cream, and olive green on these curly tails.)
 
Here’s a link to the newsletter on tending to brokenheartedness and burnout: https://mailchi.mp/99bd4ad2e962/burnout --> link in bio, too.
 
And if you aren’t receiving my newsletter but would like to, there’s a link to subscribe at the email’s end (just scroll to the bottom).
 
#LearningFromNature #HeartHeadHands #newsletter #brokenheartedness #burnout #resources
🧡🧡🧡 This touches my heart. Grounding and 🧡🧡🧡 This touches my heart. Grounding and guiding.

#Repost @yallaroza with @make_repost
・・・
The first person to show me the power of bearing witness was Helen, my first year Women and Gender Studies professor. Helen was a fierce feminist whose lectures felt more like prose, poetic and passionate. She made me want to take a hammer to patriarchy, and I loved it. 

With Helen, I felt safe enough to say the things I could barely articulate to myself. To name my wounds, to language hard truths, to let someone else in on my hurt. And with Helen, I felt held in those lived and living realities. There were no therapeutic interventions, no life adages, no solutions. There was simply a human being listening, honouring and affirming my experiences of misogyny, racism and sexual violence.

Years later, I forgot this wisdom. I went through therapeutic training(s) that, over time, left me feeling like that wasn't enough. That listening, and presence, and holding space for hurt wasn't enough. And in many aspects of life, I started to feel like I always needed a brilliant intervention that would offer an "aha moment." 

This week, I was reminded in many ways of the power of being present, of listening, of bearing witness. That you don't always need to have the answers, or offer your critical feminist thinking on a topic. You don't always need to have a solution, or advice. And you don't always need to intellectualize what someone's going through. Sometimes, you can just climb into the emotional fort they've built, grab a pillow, and be there. 

Yup, you can just be there, friend. And that's enough. 

(Consensually*)

♥️✨ Gratitude Tag: tag someone in your life who shows up in meaningful ways.
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About Beth Godbee

I'm an educator and former college 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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