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Day 115

Excited to participate in today’s #BringInDaLight episode of The Hoodoisie! The Hoodoisie is:

“Chicago and America’s only bi-weekly underground live, live-streamed and web news show disseminating block-optic and radical perspectives on culture and politics occurring in different gentrifying neighborhoods every episode.”

Founder of The Hoodoisie, Ricardo Gamboa says, “The Hoodoisie is an accessible and entertaining attempt to center the experiences and perspectives of everyday people—particularly people of color, queers and women of color, and working-class people—and encourage them to engage the discourse that shapes their lives but from which they’re often excluded.”

I’ll be live tweeting (www.twitter.com/theshanaeast) to “celebrate” Mayor Lori Lightfoot as the show broadcasts live from 7:30-9:00pm CDT at: www.facebook.com/thehoodoisie. Please retweet the following hashtags:

#BringInDaLight #BringInTheLight #LoriLiefoot #DefundCPD

#ChicagosMayor #LoriLightfoot #LightfootLovesHILCO #LoriTheCop

#LoriIsACop #WeWantRecoveryLori #LoriHatesUs #StopLightfoot

#CopsOutFoCPS #CPDOutCPS #FueraHilco

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Day 114

Slow start today. Did some work. Cleaned up. Wrote a journal entry. Drafted an email to the Illinois Bernie delegation to the DNC Convention. Worked out.

Had a difficult therapy session this afternoon (surprisingly so). My therapist asked me specific questions regarding my negative self-talk, and countered with various alternate perspectives. It was upsetting to actually hear how hard I am on myself. Negative thoughts spiraling around my head seem “normal” at this point, but for some reason having to communicate the same thoughts out loud to someone else made me realize how cruel and uncompassionate they are. I would never talk to someone else that way… why do I say those things to myself?

After that I just relaxed… trying to be kind to myself and not feel like I need to accomplish a bunch of things tonight. Some days you have simply “done enough”—and it should be okay to convalesce, eat snacks and watch bad reality teevee in bed.

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Day 113

Today I am getting down to work on a few things — after a nice, relaxing holiday weekend.

In addition to my day job, I started work on building up my self-esteem and confidence. I ordered the book, “The Self-Confidence Workbook” after recognizing how my low self-esteem has impacted me negatively. Particularly, following Phil and I’s engagement being broken, I noticed that I have felt really bad about myself. After attempting to “freestyle it” for a couple months now, I realize that I am going to have to focus and do some real work to deal with the trauma I have experienced. I have been in individual psychotherapy, and while talking to someone has helped… I’ve needed more.

I read the first chapter this afternoon, and did all of the corresponding exercises. I can’t explain why but this kind of cognitive behavioral work seems to help almost immediately. Maybe it is simply the act of helping myself, and feeling like there could be a path forward without suffering (hope)?

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Day 109

Catching up on work today after a successful Illinois Poor People’s Campaign Statewide Call last night. The Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis did an amazing job laying out the PPC vision for what’s next, and we heard some amazing reflections from impacted folks across the state on our June 20th Mass Poor People’s Assembly and Moral March Digital Gathering.

I did get a bit frazzled this morning though — struggled through our Development department meeting. My boss said she wanted me to come back to work at the office again to “regain a sense of normalcy.” I felt put on the spot being that this was a group call and not a private discussion, but said I was hesitant to go back at this point because I don’t feel our work environment is safe for me. Then after the meeting, I called her and spoke with her privately about how I don’t trust the reasoning behind states opening up again, and am concerned it is more about what is good for business rather than public health. She was understanding and said she would be flexible, so hopefully we can figure it out.

It is just ridiculous the lack of leadership we have in this country, and that folks are being put in these scenarios where they have to rationalize and advocate for their own health and well being. Guess I should get used to it — this pandemic won’t be going away anytime soon!

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Day 108

Super nervous about tonight’s Illinois Poor People’s Campaign Statewide Action Call that I am producing/facilitating. As of this afternoon, we had 455 people registered — eep!

Sort of getting into a flow with these statewide calls now… doing them monthly rather than bi-weekly will definitely free me up to work on other things (because they are a LOT of work!). For example, the South East Side Coalition to Ban Petcoke offered me a paid gig to facilitate their monthly meetings. I am going to speak to their co-founder Olga Bautista tomorrow in more detail about the opportunity!

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Day 107

Back in Chicago after my trip to the Northwoods… and jumping right back into the Illinois Poor People’s Campaign to finish putting together our next statewide call, which will be tomorrow, Wednesday, July 1st at 8pm Central!

We are honored to have national Co-Chair The Reverend Dr. Liz Theoharis speak on the call about next steps for the Campaign. This meeting will be crucial as we just had our successful Mass Poor People’s Assembly last week, and are now heading into one of the most important election cycles of our lifetime. Please join us! You can register for the call here.

The Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis – Co-Chair of The Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for a Moral Revival