Category Archives: Introversion

Autoimmunity, General, Introversion, Reflection, Transformation, Uncategorized

Healthism is Ableist, Capitalist Bullshit and Musings about What’s Next

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Healthism: identified by Robert Crawford in 1980, healthism is “the preoccupation with personal health as a primary – often the primary – focus for the definition and achievement of well-being; a goal which is to be attained primarily through the modification of life styles.”

Ableism: discrimination in favor of able-bodied people

Capitalism: an economic and political system in which a country’s trade and industry are controlled by private owners for-profit, rather than by the state.

Six years have passed since my health started its downward spiral. Fall of 2014 was the first clear inclination that something was up, beginning with exercise intolerance and weird night sweats. The downturn continued for four more years, with sprinkles of hope and improvement mixed in, but it would be fall of 2018 before any marked recovery took place. In that time, I burnt my career to the ground – not by choice, stopped running for months at a time, radically modified my diet, all in hopes of reclaiming a shred of the wellbeing I once took for granted.

It’s quite common in our culture to hear people brag about how they don’t take medication. It’s not meant to shame those that do, but folks take pride in being medication-free. It bothered me before, as someone who’s needed thyroid medication to function since I was 25, and allergy medicine to prevent me from taking my eye balls out of my head and scratching my face off since a decade before that. But as someone who now requires handfuls of supplements a few times a day, in addition to the aforementioned thryoid and allergy medication, to make up for the nutrient deficiencies documented within my body, it reeks of ableism. Folks who are medication free are largely so because of good fortune and good genetics.

But what is healthism, beyond the overly stuffy definition quoted above? Our attitudes about overweight and obesity are perfect examples. Folks are blamed by society if their bodies don’t fit our fucked up ideas about what bodies should look like. All bodies must be thin, ideally white or white passing. Anything other than that is subpar and a problem to be addressed. Never mind that a person’s body sized is influenced by many factors, most significantly genetics. It’s also affected by income levels, food security/insecurity, access to healthcare, stress, a community’s built environment – or how people move about one’s community (are there sidewalks, is it safe, is it bikeable), all things partially or completely outside an individual’s locus of control. In spite of all of that, a person’s weight is viewed as a moral issue. An urgent problem that must be solved.

How many companies exist for the sole purpose of “helping” people lose weight? Who is making money off of our culture’s obsession with thinness? Who benefits? Certainly not women who are taught from a young age that our unruly bodies are something to be controlled and managed. Our healthcare costs are some of the highest in the world, our outcomes not befitting those of a wealthy nation, a nation obsessed with health. Where’s the disconnect? Never mind that our bodies are no one’s business. The size of it, the state of it, what we do with it, how we treat it, none of it.

The chronic flare of my autoimmune condition started because of stress. Specifically stress at work. I cared deeply about my job and it was incredibly challenging. So I did what many women do, I ran myself right into the ground, without a second thought. I spent the decade before burning the candle at both ends and getting away with it. I climbed ladders, took on more responsibility, earned a decent salary, all for someone else’s – namely my employer’s – benefit. Sure I had some money in the bank, but I was not the main benefactor of my labor. It’s what I was supposed to do though, right? Bust your ass, even if it costs you nearly everything. This is capitalism. An economic system that benefits a small class of wealthy people, not the everyday folks stuck in the middle of it.

So now I am a person with a chronic illness, someone who will forever exist outside our culture’s obsession with health. I no longer possess the capacity to burn the candle at both ends. Most days I feel pretty good, but I still have days I can barely get off the couch. Less often than a few years ago, thank goodness. I sleep a lot, not by choice. It’s the only way I can function. I spend an inordinate amount of time prepping food. Taking care of myself feels like a full time job most weeks. I’ve spent the last few years trying to figure out where my career fits in the midst of all of this. I’m young enough that I still have a lot I want to accomplish, a lot to offer. I want to be of service, to make all of this mean something. I explored, and even started, going back to school. I’ve explored a number of other options, none of them feeling like the right fit. All of those options have been within how we traditionally define work, namely my working for someone else. My pay, my worth, defined by others.

Finally, it occurred to me that perhaps the way forward isn’t the way it’s always been. What if I worked for myself, on projects that matter most to me? Where I have complete control over how and when I work, taking advantage of when I’m feeling great, scaling back when I need more rest. What if I created a career for myself that can go wherever I go, wherever we go?

Months of soul searching, questioning, and facing a whole host of fears I didn’t even know I had (thanks to M for his tremendous patience while I worked through these) has me on the cusp of starting my own business. I’m a few months from launch, but I am starting Juniperus, a leadership and communications coaching service focused on quiet, introverted, empathetic women who want to cultivate more courage and resilience in their work and in their life. What I loved most about being a leader was mentoring and bringing up other women with me. When I thought about how I wanted to spend my limited resources going forward, I realized it is here. I think the concept of work-life balance is bullshit, especially as someone with a chronic illness. Work-life integration is what I’m going for, and what I hope to help other women manifest in their own unique ways. In addition to my nearly two decades of experience as a quiet leader, I’m also taking a life coach training that starts in October. Not because I want to be a life coach (NTTAWT), but because I want to enhance my question-asking and listening abilities. And a coaching certification seems important in the longterm. I’m exploring anticapitalist pricing strategies and plan to increase our giving as I earn income again. I have very modest goals initially, but I’m not ashamed to say that I want to make up for the income that I’ve lost out on the last five years. I believe I can help quiet women leaders be more effective and fulfilled in their work AND earn a decent salary while I do it. Creating work that accounts for my very real limitations in a way that doesn’t feel like a compromise feels pretty damn good too.

I’ll post on the socials when I officially launch, but none of this would be happening without this persistent, relentless flare, and the wildfire it created. Without being forced to burn it all down, I wouldn’t have had the time or the space to think about the kind of impact I want to have with my work and how I can make that happen. In a different society, one that valued true health and wellbeing, that honored different abilities, I could likely go back to a more traditional career. I could still be a leader in an organization. That is not an option for me, or thousands of other people in similar situations. And what a loss that is. Our talents and our skills are missed because our capacity is different. Because workplaces care more about my butt in a seat for eight+ hours than the quality and quantity of work I can offer. I’m grateful for the privilege to go out on my own. Grateful for a husband that’s been a rock through these last terrible years. Grateful for our good financial decisions that provide the resources to get Juniperus off the ground. Grateful to Vasavi Kumar, the extremely talented business and mindset coach who’s helping me nail down the specifics of this business.

The fire is out, the smoke has cleared. Little bits of life are poking up through the charred earth. I turn 45 in eight weeks. LFG.

Introversion, Politics, Uncategorized

Confessions of a Campaign Staff Newb

The noise was deafening. I don’t know how many people they anticipated at the party, but the room was packed. I have no idea what this crowd was doing on Election Day two years ago, but I was at home with my husband watching early returns through horrified eyes. I went to bed extremely early that night, unable to watch the train wreck that was taking place. Upon waking Wednesday morning, November 9, 2016, I immediately checked Twitter to see my worst fears confirmed. Our country elected a foul-mouthed, misogynistic bigot as president. I honestly don’t remember much about the other races on the ballot that year, beyond my senator Tammy Duckworth (Tammy Duckworth!!), mostly because of how unbelievable the race for president became.

For me, that election was a reckoning.  Hillary Rodham Clinton’s candidacy laid bare once and for all how far women still had to go in order to break through that final glass ceiling. Much would come to light thanks to #metoo about how terrible men in media shaped our national dialogue about her candidacy, her viability as a candidate. Men such as Matt Lauer, Charlie Rose, Mark Halperin. But the deed was done as they say, and no measure of consequence could set back the clock a decade or two (or three) to change the conversation about the woman who was bold enough, ambitious enough, to want more.

But her candidacy and ultimate failure lit a lot of us on fire. I’m guessing there was no shortage of people, particularly women, in that big hotel lounge on Tuesday night who were there in large part due to Hillary Rodham Clinton. Women like my dear friend Jill, who the morning after in 2016 said “what next?” and immediately got to work connecting with other people who felt the same. I’ve known Jill for ten years, since we worked together as administrators at the local community college. We became good friends after we moved back from Colorado several years ago, and the conversations she, myself and our friend Julie have about politics at our regular dinners are always a highlight of my month. These women are thoughtful, articulate, well-read, but most of all gracious and kind. I’ve learned so much from them in their willingness to talk about Hard Things.

Several months went by, and we’d get regular updates from Jill regarding the local meetings she attended. Soon enough, she floated the idea of running for office. Deliberately and intentionally, she set her sights on her state house race, as the current representative had been in office for nearly 20 years and ran unopposed for the last decade. This was summer 2017, and I couldn’t have imagined in my wildest dreams that just a few months later I’d be joining her campaign staff. But there we were at a dinner that September, with Jill mentioning her difficulty at finding a campaign treasurer, and me just a few months into my sabbatical to finally address my persistent and debilitating health issues. Knowing nothing of political campaigns, but with an affinity for numbers and mundane details, I thought I could help. So before I could talk myself out of it, I jumped in. We were nearly a year into the Trump presidency and in many ways, he proved as terrible as we feared. Voting wasn’t enough at this point, I needed to DO something.

So that’s how I found myself at a watch party Tuesday night, an event coordinated by the McLean County Democrats. Being an introverted introvert means I didn’t attend many events during Jill’s campaign, preferring to work anonymously in the background, but I recognized a lot of faces that night. I felt part of something bigger than myself, part of something even bigger than Jill’s campaign. This was the start of a movement, regardless of who won or lost.

As the night wore on, the energy in the room got more intense. Returns on the east coast started coming in, the crowd cheering or booing with every result. I took refuge in the war room for a time, sitting with Alanna, Jill’s campaign manager, while she watched for returns. Even though I rarely stay up past 10p, I wanted to be there as our local races were announced. Lizzy, Jill’s volunteer coordinator and a candidate for county board in my district, rode the roller coaster of thinking she’d lost but then learning she’d won. Two more county board candidates won their races, as did the dem candidates for state-wide offices. Jill would lose her race, despite running an incredible campaign, as would the other dem candidates for state and US house.

Even though the results were a mixed bag for local candidates, Tuesday night felt like a tremendous win. Not only did local residents have more ballot choices than they’ve had in decades, but local democrats were energized and mobilized like never before. All residents benefit from an engaged and participatory electorate, and the increased organization by local democrats is no exception. Voter turnout in my county increased from 49.2% in the 2014 midterms to 61% this year. Because so many races were contested, elected officials participated in debates and answered questionnaires…or didn’t answer them, which was feedback in-and-of itself. Many of these same elected officials hadn’t been held to account for their votes in years. So even though a number of our candidates lost, they forced increased engagement from those who did get elected, a win for all constituents. The fire that started on November 9, 2016 is in many ways still just a spark. It will take time for democrats to build the visibility and infrastructure to win more elections locally, and this year was an important next step.

For me personally, getting involved with Jill’s campaign provided an outlet for the seemingly endless frustration and despair that accompanied the news reports each morning. I still can’t reconcile that we are a country that imprisons children, that sends the military to the border to confront asylum seekers, that put another sexual assaulter on the Supreme Court. But writing checks, keeping spreadsheets, making deposits provided an unlikely outlet for that frustration. Knowing that I was doing something to get good people elected provided tremendous peace-of-mind.

For my friends who are similarly discouraged, regardless of political affiliation, I encourage you to connect with local politics. There is no shortage of campaigns that need good, dedicated volunteers. While there will always be a need for canvassers and phone banking, there many other things that don’t require knocking doors or making calls. I couldn’t have imagined two years ago that a good friend of mine would be running for office, or that I would be volunteering with her campaign. But I am so encouraged knowing that people like her are stepping up and stepping in, and many of those candidates got elected Tuesday night. And many more people like me were pulled in with them. Together, I believe we are laying the foundation for transformative change in this country.

And I’m going to try to get myself to more meetings now that this campaign is wrapping up (there are still checks to write and data entry to do, even after the election). I want to stay engaged with this movement, to get more connected. There are municipal elections next spring, and then it’ll be time to start looking to 2020. But not until next month. During this month’s meeting I’ll be at the spa.