“How are you taking care of yourself, walking through the adventure of impermanence and unknowing?”

Julius and I met at a Lead Now Pittsburgh retreat. After a session, we went for a walk around a lake and out onto a pier. Gazing at cloud reflections in the water, we noticed how they stretched and broke apart on ripples left by a family of paddling ducks. We talked about legacy and sustainability, making people whole, and self-care. We imagined organizations that grow, change, evolve, breathe. We talked about all that goes on which is unseen and unmeasurable. We talked about love.

Our conversation seemed to take on the properties of the nature around us: the shine from his lavender jacket became the silvery air. His straw hat, the grass. And each thought abstracted into water, then clouds, then nothingness. Or was it back into everything-ness?

Years later, Julius reflected back on this time in a Facebook post:

“Instead of trying to force outcomes, I became flexible and free. There were times when I felt I was losing control. In hindsight, I have a deeper appreciation for what was emerging. I was being positioned to grow in ways that I’ve never experienced before. The more I became like water, the easier it was for challenges, obstacles, and crises to seemingly resolve themselves.”

So that was 2019. Six years ago. At that point we did some personal assessment stuff, and what came up for me was a really low score on like self-care. Personal self-care.

Prior to that, I barely been introduced to or interested in maintaining my own consistent personal self-care, wellness, therapeutic healing practice. For me. Like not to be better at my job, or… It was like literally for me. And to see that assessment, it was like, “Oh, it’s clear.” Like the data is literally telling you, you are not taking care of yourself. You are on the verge of burnout. And I felt that. It was just reinforced by that assessment.

We did breath work, we did mindfulness stuff, we had these healing practices that were intentionally integrated into what we were doing. I took that practice and some of the other practices I had had prior with those healing practices and became more interested in, “How can I take care of myself better?”

It’s not that I didn’t believe that I could prioritize myself, my own healing and my own wellness. At that time though, I believed or was convinced that I had no control over it. That life was just so busy. There was so much going on. I have to do all this work in community. I have to do all his stuff for family, a lot of should’s and have-to’s that I didn’t feel confident or competent or even willing to take the steps to try to start taking care of myself. It would just be like, “Nope.” Like, “On the grind, gotta hustle.” Like, you know, it’s just, I get it. It was like that indoctrination was just the way of being that I accepted.

I would want someone who’s looking at the painting to reflect on that. Maybe just plant a seed for them to raise their curiosity or have a small amount of increase in their awareness about it with the hope it could spark something in them or it could reactivate something in them where they’re like, “I think I’m gonna take better care of myself.” How are you taking care of yourself?

How are you tending to your personal wellness and healing needs? What might that look like for you? If you had an opportunity and the support and the people around you to help you and be there for you on your healing journey.

I was working two or three jobs. But at that point, I had resigned from one of those jobs. There was a lot of uncertainty. I didn’t know how I was gonna provide for myself and my family at that moment. I was terrified when I resigned from that job, but then when I went back home, things started to align and the universe started to conspire to help me in this next chapter.

I believe I got a vision directly from God to do the work that I do and to be the person that I am. But with that has been this constant thread of uncertainty. I’m walking on this path, I’m following the steps, and I can only see the step in front of me. Or I can barely see. Like, I got to put my foot down. And then you’re like, “Oh. Oh, okay. There’s another step. I hoped it would be there.” And then the step is there.

The last four months of 2024, I had four dear loved ones pass away. It was death, planning, funeral service, death, planning, funeral service, from September 16th through the end of December. I’m bringing it up because I’m leaning into my grief process and the loss process. What can emerge and what has emerged for me sometimes is that similar feeling of like, “Damn, like this is just out of control.” Like it’s out of control. And I don’t have any control over it. And then with that comes, “Gosh, what do I do with that? Like How am I supposed to function and serve myself in the healthiest way possible?”

There’s impermanence all around us. And in the unknowing of traveling through the adventure of impermanence, you just get there. If you just keep going, you will get through. And getting through isn’t resolving a hundred things or it being a specific way. It’s just literally back to the steps. I’m literally just walking through the adventure of impermanence and unknowing and trusting. And part of me there is knowing that it’s gonna be okay. Put that foot forward. Okay. Right. You can’t see, just put the foot forward. Put the foot forward.