Stop looking for reasons you don't belong

Author

Allison Punch
April 20, 2021

Ramadan Mubarak to all my friends celebrating!

Stop looking

I used to have a Brene Brown print by my desk that I got while attending a book talk for her Braving the Wilderness (which I still haven’t read, oops, but I’m a big fan of Daring Greatly and The Gifts of Imperfection). The print features a quote, which I’m paraphrasing here: “If you are looking for reasons you are not worthy, you will always find them.”

Over the past year, I’ve often found remote work and life bringing out deep seated insecurities that I thought I’d dealt with long ago. I love being in communities with others, and during COVID, finding safe, in-person community has been challenging if not impossible. I find myself second guessing my relationships - and in turn, myself - a lot more than is healthy. I’ve been repeating this quote to myself a lot lately as I struggle maintaining my relationships from a distance. If I’m looking for a reason a friend is mad at me, or distant, then yes, I will find one. If I’m looking for a reason why I don’t belong in a certain community, I will always find one. So I repeat that quote to myself and (try) to stop looking for reasons I don’t belong.

Books, Books Books

  • Currently reading: I’m still making my way through The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone And How We Can Prosper Together and this is definitely gong to be a new go-to recommendation for folks looking to understand how deeply embedded and fucked up racism in our society is. I’m also about 30 pages into Jazz. I know Toni Morrison is an incredible writer, but the prose in Jazz really feels next level.

  • Recent favorite: It's been awhile since I was fully absorbed by an audiobook, and Truth and Beauty sucked me in. This is the story of writer Ann Patchett’s friendship with poet and memoirist Lucy Grealy, a childhood cancer survivor and author of memoir Autobiography of a Face. I can’t wait to discuss the controversy over Lucy’s family’s response to the book with my book club this weekend. While I loved the portrayal of female friendship and young women writers, I'm sitting with how often people with disabilities are portrayed on others' terms, not their own. So even though there may not have been a ton of explicit ableism, at least in my read as an ablebodied person, I can't help but wonder.

  • Backlist book recs: Since it’s still National Poetry Month, I’m going to recommend Aracelis Girmay’s Teeth. This will forever be a go-to poetry recommendation and in line with my previous recs, is a great entry point if you're intimidated by poetry. I love her work so much.

  • Preorder corner: I may need to remove this segment because I’m actually at my max on summer preorders, LOL - but then I found out that Mia McKenzie is releasing a new novel with PRH this summer called Skye Falling!? I still haven’t read her novel The Summer We Got Free but I loved her essays in Black Girl Dangerous and recommended it as a previous Backlist Book Rec in the newsletter. Yes to Black queer stories published by Big 5 publishers!

Note: All of these links are to my Bookshop.org affiliate, of which I receive a small commission. I also encourage you to shop from your favorite indie (or one of mine) or check your local library.

Self Care

One of the best pieces of advice I’ve received the past year came from a coworker when we were both really struggling with focus and motivation at work. She told me: “whenever I have those moments of motivation, I lean into them for as long as possible.” 

Getting stuff done is an act of self care. (It can also be an unhealthy obsession that so many of us have with productivity. Striking that balance is a lifelong journey!) But if you’re like me in that you’ve struggled to find your pre-pandemic levels of productivity, I recommend being generous with yourself and, when you have those brief bursts of motivation, leaning in.

I do this a lot in my day job, but I’ve also been struggling staying motivated to move my body - something that is essential for my anxiety. This week, I randomly had motivation and worked out two days in a row (shoutout to the Lauren Leavell fitness membership community for affordable, fun, inclusive workouts. The recordings are essential for when motivation strikes). What will you lean into when the time comes?

Community Care

To support my free newsletter, please consider donating $5-7 to one of the causes highlighted here!. While I can’t promise to share every single link, if you ever have a need, please send it to me for inclusion in the newsletter. 

  • Traci over at The Stacks Podcast has a badass ambitious goal to raise $50,000 to donate books to prison through the Million Book Project and I am HERE FOR IT. She’s already raised over $20,000 and you can give here to help her meet her goal. I’ve donated $25 and would love for you to match me!

  • Memorialize the Movement is an amazing project with a mission to “collect, preserve, and make accessible to the public the protest art that emerged following the Minneapolis Uprising of 2020. This will ensure that the story of these historic events that occurred are told by the voices of the Black community who experienced them.” I love this mission because it sits at a really important intersection of public art and archival work with a focus on keeping Black art and history within the Black community. You can support the project here.
     

Small Biz Corner

  • Since I first came across KNRD, I’ve gone back and forth about whether or not I can pull off these earrings. While for me the answer might be no, I want one of you to decide that you can pull them off and buy them because they are amazing (and supposed to be so lightweight!)

  • Always time for more candles.

  • ​Everything on NoireBud’s website is 20% off today only for 4/20 - I love this Black woman-owned CBD company.

Slice of Life

I still don’t quite have the words for how very much not normal these times we’re living in. Maybe society has lived through mass trauma, pandemics and whatnot before, but not in my lifetime, or maybe I just was in a cushion of white privilege, youth, and ignorance.

I had to unsubscribe from a white lady newsletter on Sunday because she focused on the “small losses” of the past year without once mentioning, y’know, racism. To fail to acknowledge how difficult these past couple of weeks have been, particularly for BIPOC communities, doesn't sit right. Capitalism’s demands can feel so dehumanizing when we have deadlines, work to do to earn an income. I learn a lot from my colleagues on this - those who have autoreplies talking about the need for a slow reply centering wellness and care, those who pause and interrupt when we don’t bring a healing or trauma-informed view to how we’re showing up in our day to day work. I’m not saying turn work into a place where you expect every person of color to process their trauma - as I’ve written about in previous newsletters, boundaries matter - but we also can’t act like nothing’s happening when we’re living through a constant barrage of a horrific news cycle, targeted attacks on the AAPI community, police shootings killing Black and brown children, and more.

I don’t think I get it right. But I’d much rather try to acknowledge the impact and flail. For me, that looks like acknowledgment in email, being as flexible as possible with deadlines, pushing back meetings when we need to. Even that can feel empty.

I wanted to end this newsletter on a hopeful note and now I’ve gone and made things all serious and don’t quite know how to. Overall, I’m doing okay. I’m trying to spend less time on my phone and more time reading. I’m working on my bond with my dog.