Feminist Founders Subscriber-Only Podcast

Faith Clarke (00:01.134)
Hi everyone and welcome to this episode of our Feminist Founders Insider podcast. I'm Faith Clark and I've been thinking a lot about self care. So I just decided to include you in my own reflections on self care. This is a really difficult time for me anyway. It's been...

to kind of be in this experience of rapid political change that's creating collective disruption, regardless of where you stand politically, there's such like...

chaos, if you're watching the video, then you can see my hands, in the emotional environment. And then if you hold any of the multiply marginalized identities that have been, that have felt threatened in the changes that are happening, then there is a personal level to the sense of threat. So there's this collective threat, there's a personal level to the threat. And I think that our bodies have just not been used to have not in this lifetime.

Maybe ancestrally some of us have experienced this and people who lived in the US during the times of 50s, 60s, 70s, where there was 60s. I didn't live in the US. I don't know. But I can imagine that I have colleagues who are older than me who've experienced this. I haven't. So there's this sense of politically...

sanctioned distress and unsafety that I'm kind of living with. And I've been wondering what's the sustainable way to lead my life, which includes my business during these times. So that kind of coincides with my own reflections on self-care. And I'll just start by defining self-care as whatever your body needs to be alive and healthy in your environment.

Faith Clarke (02:11.31)
So when I'm thinking self care, I'm not necessarily talking about nails or spa or even vacations. I mean, it gets really basic for me. There is water drinking and there is breathing and there is moving my body and there's eating food. And in the context of high anxiety, fight, flight and stuff, what does my body need for me to be able to...

manage my life well, the current life, including lead my business. part of my own philosophy as a person who focuses on integration and inclusion is to make sure I'm designing systems that include me. So many of us design our businesses in ways that don't include the actual lives we live, right? And especially because these business systems have been designed for

it with a supremacist ideology in mind, know, pref with offering preference to people at the top of the hierarchy that was created by the structures that be right. So when we are designing our businesses, we have to know that the many of the design structures that we received aren't honoring us. and in a time like this, where your body might be feeling the impact of the constant onslaught, as well as the internal

stuff that you may be going through depending on how you're being affected, how do you care for yourself and run your business? You know, and I think lots of people have been talking about this. How do you care for yourself and live? You know, how do you, how do we, what are we doing? and so for me, I, I'm, when I'm thinking about this, I thought back to years and years ago, those of you who know me know I have three kids who are neurovariant. My oldest has autism and the combination of all of the things that my kids have dealt with kind of created for me this.

the sense of having six or eight kids. So I three kids, but I felt like I had six or eight kids. And I remember saying this to a mentor of mine. was learning, I was in the early stages of learning about caring for my emotional body and my physical body. So in this conference, I went up to one of my mentors, she was a speaker in the conference and I said this very thing. I feel like I have six kids. And she said,

Faith Clarke (04:30.542)
So why are you acting like you have to? How do people with six kids act? How do they treat themselves and how do I organize their lives? and it was such an invitation into honesty, you know, like how, if I really had six kids, I wouldn't be, she said, how come you're acting like you have two, you know? And I would be designing with six kids. would have designed stuff differently. I would, would not be going to certain places or maybe I'd be, I don't know. And so I.

I am inviting you as I'm inviting myself into some honesty. Like it feels like I am being chased for a sport. That's the, my body's acting like I'm being chased for sport. And it was such a sudden reaction. Like I was suddenly so much more activated than I'm used to being that it was hard for me to kind of catch my breath. And just to say that I am, I have spent a long time.

practicing the pause and practicing separating my reactions from the stimulus that created the, that started the reaction and understanding my stories and understanding my physiological response. And so in most situations, I am, I'm not usually caught like in a reaction, right? I usually am like, this is what's going on. Ooh, this is what's going on for me. This is what, this is a story that I have and I'm,

able to do that in real time most of the time. So when I catch myself not being able to do that in the past few weeks, it was just like by the time I noticed I'm full on in flight, fight, freeze, fawn, or something, I am full on in the story in my head and in complete withdrawal. So the invitation to honesty is just how I want to start this. I was like, oh, something is really real for this body right now.

And when I am puzzled, like I don't know what to do and I've taught myself a fair amount of suspicion for a lot of the modalities that exist right now, I look at nature and I'm like, what does nature do when it feels like it's in an onslaught? I mean, we've been seeing it, you know, there's the forest fires and the, like nature allows itself to respond and

Faith Clarke (06:55.584)
Yes, there is a slow response because nature tends to be fairly slow moving, but there is a response. And I started to look at elements of nature that are fast moving. I grew up, I don't remember what it's called here in the U.S., but in my yard in Jamaica when I was growing up, there was this little plant. don't know if you can comment if there's a comment section of this when you're watching it. Tell us, tell me. But it's a little plant that had, each leaf was multiple small leaves.

and it kind of had like a fan kind of shape where the leaf would be open like this. And then, but when you touched it, it had lots of little thorns, tiny thorns. When you touched it, the leaves closed. And I just, like my brain went to that response. It was fast and it was a quick shutdown. We had in my yard when I lived with my grandmother, she grew everything, a lot of our food, she grew in our backyard. And so she was constantly on the lookout for snails and slugs.

because she'd be like, they're eating the peppers and they're, and it was just, I would watch so many times she would pluck a snail and with its shell off the plant immediately, as soon as you're, even before you've touched it, it pulls in, it's on the inside of its shell. And that's how my body feels. There is such a big pull in. I want to pull my children close. I want to pull in and I want to say,

let's stay away. Let's just, let's, let's hunker in, you know, let's pull in. And I want to have a lot of self-compassion for, for me in that process. And I invite you, there's a so much about our society and how we've designed our businesses that has very little to do with self-compassion, but this honoring of our humanity, having a human experience in the middle of all of what's going on. I, can I just,

let myself be nature. You know, can you just let yourself be nature? Having this human experience. None of the things that you are trying to create will matter if you're not here or if you're not able because of your body will, nature will insist on its way unless we care for it and unless we offer it the support that is needed environmentally and whatever, right? So it will matter.

Faith Clarke (09:16.576)
all the things that we need to happen in our businesses. It just won't matter if we're not able to offer ourselves care. And I think this is not just an acute disruption. This is a chronic disruption. This is, this is something that's going to be happening for a period of time. So it's not just like, I can pull in and kind of ride the wave and then come back out and be okay. That there is a way that there is some, that we have to have compassion. I am inviting myself into compassion.

for this collective experience and how we're all trying to navigate it as best we can. So I want to honor my Pullin response while also saying how do I move forward? And one of the things that I've decided to move forward in is a certain amount of honesty. What do I have the capacity for? So there's a way that this time has interrupted my sleep or my sleep, I'm just, I'm sleeping less.

I have been sleeping less because you know, I'm woman of a certain age, but I've been managing that and it's, kind of, got a handle on it. And then it's almost like I'm losing the handle on it again. So not only is the kind of disruption in my body chronic, but I'm tired and management of anxiety and emotional response is exhausting. Right? So I'm feeling the exhaustion and my body isn't releasing the fight flight enough.

to rest deeply. And so being honest with that is what it is. I am invested in supporting that, but also my self-compassion says that is what it is. So physically right now I'm tired. So then what do I have the capacity for? I do believe in only going as fast as I can go well. And if I'm tired, then there's some things that this tired body can't do well.

So what can I do well? And this is something I, especially as a mom of humans with complex needs, I've often worked with women founders who themselves either have chronic illnesses or have kids or people they care for with chronic illnesses or complex medical situations. And this is a foundational piece of business design. I have to design my business in a way that it includes my present moment life.

Faith Clarke (11:44.694)
What can I do well given the nature of my chronic illness, given the nature of my kids' lives, and in my case right now, given all of that and the nature of the instability that's happening all around me, what can I do well? And there are things that I can do well, but most of the things that I was sort of good-ish at, I'm no longer able to do well, right? I don't have the additional space.

to do things that were hard when I had a more rested, more relaxed body. So how do I redesign some of my work? And I'm talking about me, but you take from this what works for you, right? I'm inviting you into a thought process on your self-care and what's your plan for your care during this chronic disruption. I am now thinking about honestly, what do I have the capacity for? What can I do fast?

with this body, I'm taking, I'm turning my page because I just wanted to not ramble on. so to, kind of be clear on that answer, what I decided to do, cause the answer doesn't come easily. This body, the tired body is also answering nothing. You can do nothing. It's still in the pull in, snap down, shut down phase. Right. And so I've decided that my immediate response needs to be a certain amount of tending. Drink water.

Faith Clarke (13:15.084)
I'm chronic, I don't drink enough water. And so I found in these times that I've been even more attentive. Drink water, move your body. As soon as I finish recording this, I'm gonna go and walk for 20 minutes. I'm gonna go walk a mile. Eat food, breathe. I've noticed my breathing was ever just ineffective, but now it's super ineffective. I have a mentor that says, why are you sipping the air? Why are you sipping the air?

Um, I'm inviting you into just like in this time, what's your body saying to you? Do you need to be drinking some more water? Do you need to be eating some more food, some different food? What are your choices? Are you like me? Right now I've been chocolate ice cream, just at night. What's your, what's your thing and what's the one small tweak? What's the tending that's needed where your food is concerned?

So I've gotten a little bit more rigorous with my drinking of water, with my moving, with my breathing. And I think for the sleeping, I'm gonna have to get more, like I need to kind of check what my nighttime process is. And it's hard for me to control sleeping because of the humans I still care for, but as much as possible to just invite myself into that. So like the temperature of the room at night and stuff like that. I'm gonna have to be on it because...

the tending for this body that's in this kind of really tight place is essential. And my wisdom, the wisdom that I need to know what I can do well comes, is needed from a body that's a little bit, like it's from a different place. I need to kind of curate the groundedness internally so that I can know what I can do well. So I am practicing the pause.

This I teach a lot on restorative practices in organizations. And one of the most fundamental is the pause, like that way to separate stimulus from response. so I'm noting that the pull-in is really a request for a pause. And so I'm allowing myself to pause. And that means doing an inventory of what do I need to reshape to allow me to continue in this pause. Not for as long as

Faith Clarke (15:34.2)
for as long as is needed. And that doesn't mean interminably, but you do want to do some kind of reflection on what does this mean financially, capacity, like what do you need to be addressing so that you can respond to whatever your body saying that it needs right now. In addition to feed it, give it water and make it sleep and move your body and so on. And so for me, that meant,

reducing my activity and assessing my finances to see what was possible and allowing, you know, like moving things around and just so I can be in a fairly steady state for the next month or two. And it's gave myself a month or two to just like, okay, I know what I, I know how I can pay the bills for the next month or two. When you have staff, some of this requires more finagling than

I am doing when I'm just managing, I'm managing myself, I'm managing my collaborators and I'm managing my home staff, my kids and the staff that helps us at home. But I not jeopardizing anybody's income by pausing. And if you're pausing is going to affect your immediate finances and...

Let's get together and let's dialogue if you need to pause and let's think about what your strategy is for giving yourself the rest you need to come up with the long-term sustainable strategy because that's part of the care. And Becky and I would be happy to just be in a conversation with you about that. So I decided on the pause and then I've decided on some boundaries to protect that pause. so boundaries just mean I'm not announcing my boundaries. I just know what they are. And those boundaries

are included in, it's what I'm doing to keep myself away from the things that are gonna toss me over further, you know? And I am more like I don't pick up the phone every time it rings, that's me. If it's ringing before a certain time of the day, you I was that way before, I know I'm even more so. But I think I'm also,

Faith Clarke (17:53.886)
making those assessments based on how my body is feeling in the present moment. So if I'm feeling wrecked, if I made the mistake of looking in social media and I saw something that tossed me over, then it's not the time for me to engage in certain other things. And I'm kind of really trying to listen for what those boundaries are and to execute them. I have some friends who are preppers and they're like, you know, are we storing up the groceries? Are we figuring out what our food situation is going to be for the longterm?

And I confess that I'm not that way and I'm happy to be in relationship with those people because their prepping is gonna definitely help me if needed. But I'm asking myself, what's the prep for the long haul in terms of my business? So the shifting that I've been deciding to do, I moved to a place of clarity on how I wanted to shift my business and I basically redesigned my business so that I can be in GoSlow for a year.

And you know, if you're somebody that knows me, we could talk specifically about what that is. I hope you're not hearing my background noise. And I think I only came to that clarity because I'd already been in the pause. I know I had been asking myself the question about the long haul, but not demanding an answer. And I remember one day I was sitting in Beacon, which is close to me New York, and just...

looking at the river that runs through Beacon. I had the view, was a gorgeous morning, the sun was hitting me, it was cold but not too cold. I was kind of sitting with my coffee looking at the river and it was like my body hit the right level of regulation for a minute. And it's like the sun parted, I the clouds parted and the sun hit the the cognitive sun, the like you know and I was like right this is that project but I could do it in this way.

And that's the way I could, that's I could sustain for a year in a slower, kind of less hectic, more nourishing pace, given the chronic disruption and how my body is responding to that chronic disruption. Not only that, but it's enlivening to me. I want to do this work. I, my tired self could not hear what I wanted to do when I was in the snap down. So I, just to give you a timeline.

Faith Clarke (20:17.626)
I have been in a pause for about three, maybe four weeks. And it was like at the end of the four weeks that I started to have a sense of, here's a way. I haven't activated it fully yet, but I am beginning to understand what are one or two things that I want to be doing and how do I listen for those things and respond to them as they come to me. So I'm part of my own.

long-term strategies to kind of slow myself down and see what comes to me and respond to the things that come to me. So it's prep for the long haul. What can you do honestly, given what's happening in your business and in your body right now over the next year? What's the design that would help you? And that's the question that I started the inquiry with when my body did the

pull in and I knew I couldn't get to that answer without drink water, talk to, nourish my relationships, move my body and so on. So, and the last thing I would say is accept help, accept help. I've been in so many fantastic conversations with people. I felt so supported. As I've expressed, this is what's going on for me. I felt the support of MeToo and just...

there's a way that the collective experience causes a little bit of a, a lot of like a wrapping around and arms together kind of feeling. And I encourage you to find your community or pocket of people that will link arms around you so that you can be in a puddle in the middle and there are people around you and we're all taking turns at being a puddle, but we can be linking arms together. And of course, if Becky and I can help you find your people or

wrap some people around you, we're here for it. But yeah, accept help. And that means whatever it is, if it's therapy, if it's, you know, in a time when finances may be tight, then there is a conversation of how to get the help if finances are a question, right? But I can't tell you how many gifts have come my way in my deciding to accept help and then seeing something and asking for it and

Faith Clarke (22:40.494)
scholarships have come my way and like it's been interesting to open up to help and to see help come and to see resourcing for the help also come, right? So I would say if you want help, let's chat, let's figure out what's available to you within our community and in the communities that you're a part of that can support you in this time. for me, it's therapy.

It's, there's a spot down the road that has a sauna that has my name on it. And I, I go in either sauna or red light is, I thought it was more expensive than it was, but it's not as expensive as I thought it was. And I found out that my insurance has a reimbursement and I can. So that's part of the help that I'm getting therapy sauna, conversations with like-minded beautiful people.

My spiritual director, I have a spiritual director I've had for 10 years and she has been like a lifeline to me. Whatever your support team is, pull it together and be specific and ask for the help you need. and yeah, let's figure out what our self care plan is at least for the next year during this disruptive time. And I'll also say, that

when your body is insisting is having a big response. One of my mentors said this to me recently. She was like, follow it, see what it's actually, you have to get to the place of the body honest request. And so if you can, with all this support and all this thinking, follow it all the way, your body all the way to what go as deep as you can and get that body honest request.

from yourself out. What is your body saying you need to be doing right now? Listen to that and then just say, hmm, is that something I can really do? But at least get the shape of the request and then take that to your support team and say, is the thing, this is honestly the thing I'm feeling. I have no idea how, if this is even possible, but this is what's going on. And let's together, let the collective wisdom and the collective arms hold you.

Faith Clarke (25:04.742)
as the wisdom shows up on the whole, it might be possible, you know, but again, through the lens of the care that you need to offer yourself and that the community can offer you when we're in these times of chronic disruption. So that's it, that's me talking myself through, and I have no illusions that this little parting of clothes that I feel right know where I get to have this

twinge of clarity as to what I could do for the next year. I have no illusions that I'll keep that because my body will shift depending on what's happening in this environment. I feel so chaotic. And so the thing I'm doing, my mentor tends to talk about rigorous practice. The thing that I'm rigorously practicing is...

Faith Clarke (25:58.392)
drink water, breathe, move your body. Because I want to give myself as much of the care that this body needs so that as things happen, I have a little bit of, you I can adapt a little bit, have a little bit of room to respond, to think a thought about what am I supposed to do and how am I supposed to be, right? So my rigorous practice is let me tend this body like it's holy, which it is, and let me...

like it's sacred, which it is, and then let me lean into an honest reflection on what are you saying? What are you saying? What are you asking me to be? Your business will be better for it, I promise you. But we as founders have to lead businesses in ways that nourish us and therefore by definition model a certain kind of

Yeah, not taking advantage of, not abandoning ourselves. All right, take care. Any questions, any comments, reach out, we'd be happy to chat. But wishing you the nourishment and the care that you need as you navigate whatever the disruption is that you're experiencing. Take care.