Oatmeal Every Morning
Every morning I get up early, ideally 6am, but sometimes I “sleep in” until 7am, I make oatmeal (it’s full of good stuff like a shit ton of cinnamon, peanut butter, raisins, cranberries, blueberries, honey, almonds or walnuts if I feel spendy — if you’re in Portland I’ll make you a bowl!), and then I get to emails, writing, and reading.
Habits and consistency help me ground myself, reflect on how far I have come, and allow me to plan and prepare where I want to go next.
Habits can be crucial to our overall health. Varying habits have varying outcomes. The kind of consistency I practice is in many ways a luxury because it requires a stable income, a stable living situation, and supportive conditions for mental and physical health.
In Portland, gentrification has skyrocketed the cost of living pushing out many Black families and individuals who have lived here their whole life. The decisions and habits I make are less because of hard work and integrity, and more because of my white skin. I have access to housing, generational wealth, and everyday resources because I am white. I can rely on this. This stability allows me to create healthy, consistent habits.
While we want to interrogate our own whiteness (a social construct with tangible impacts) and attachment to being white on an individual level, we also want to acknowledge, address, and dismantle the systemic and institutional racism that we are complicit in by virtue of the way our society is rigged.
In my “Detaching from Whiteness” series we dig into ourselves and the racially segregated world around us, so we can show up genuinely, authentically, and in our full humanity to fight redlining, police brutality, and our own motorized responses to white supremacist violence.
If you would like to join me for the July series of “Detaching from Whiteness” I have few openings left.
If you would like to subscribe to my newsletter, you’ll get an opportunity for a free 15 minute consultation, my e-book, “Six Big Lessons I have Learned Since Beginning the Process of Detaching From Whiteness,” a bi-monthly newsletter with tips, insights, lessons learned, recommended reads and more!
Thank you for being in community with me!
