The Oxygen Mask: A Community Project
If you’re someone who wants to show up better for the people & causes you care about, but struggles to care for yourself, this project is for you…
A community project exploring the ways in which caregivers & changemakers are caring for themselves so they have the capacity to tend to the people and causes that matter.
“Put on your own oxygen mask first.” How many times have we heard this message? We all know how important self-care is to our health and well-being. And we all understand intuitively that we are no good to anyone else if we’re gasping for air.
But in reality, tending to ourselves first - and sometimes tending to ourselves at all - feels a lot harder to pull off, doesn’t it? Most of us claim “There’s not enough time” but what we often really mean is “I feel responsible for too much!”
In a world that feels like an erratic, dangerous, unpredictable place with no one in charge, it feels like it must fall to us to ‘save it’. And when we’re already weighed down from all the roles and responsibilities in our own lives, it can feel downright overwhelming to add on the urgent mission of working to ease or end the chaos ‘out there’.
Yet, much of this burden of responsibility we carry is outside of our control!
The hard truth is this: we can’t control the people and circumstances of our lives, we can only hope to influence them.
And sadly, we can’t make much of an influence - on raising the next generation of leaders, or creating justice and equality for all, or cooling the planet - when we are exhausted, depleted, and (let’s be honest) terrified. So many of us suffer from what Emily and Amelia Nagoski call “Human Giver Syndrome” where we give, give, give without taking time to fill the well first.
The only thing we can truly control is ourselves. So that’s where we can focus our attention first. WE are the only thing we need to be responsible for!
We ultimately get to control how we feel, how we show up, and how effectively we influence… by choosing how we treat our bodies, our time, our energy, our thoughts, our feelings, our voices, etc.
When we decide to nurture and nourish our minds, bodies and spirits, we feel at our best, ready to bring our talents, skills, experience, passion and energy to the conversations, situations we find ourselves in.
I want to help people shift to viewing self-care as the most practical, empowering thing we will ever do in a day…with the biggest return on our investment. I want us to see tending to ourselves as non-negotiable - The Essential Ingredient needed to begin and sustain the work.
I want to help people shift to seeing self-care as easy to fit in our day because we have an enormous smorgasbord of “reset” actions available to us - each one a gift we can’t wait to give ourselves first!
I want to be part of a revolution where loving and caring for ourselves is our primary focus…so we have access to the energy, creativity, compassion and perseverance required to create the change we long to see in our world.
Which is why, for one month in 2022, I invited 20 lovely caregivers and changemakers to share how they care for themselves so they have the capacity to care for what matters to them.
My hope is that these essays will inspire and empower you to take back control of your health and well-being. In these essays you'll discover countless approaches. resources and tools that can help you do this, and I invite you to try out any and all ideas that resonate - find what feels good! Every step you take gets you closer to feeling and showing up as your best.
Read the eBook
You can read each and every one of the submissions, all in one place. Just fill in the form below to download the free eBook.
Meet the Contributors…
The amazing humans taking part include:
OLIVIA GRIGG | Luis Patricio | Krista Kankula | Jennifer Slay | GWYNETH JONES | MAGGIE PIERCE | ANNE WHEATLEY | NICOLA HUMBER | ELAINE TAYLOR-KLAUS | RUTH POUNDWHITE | DEBORAH THORNTON | REBECCA HENDERSON | Jessie Jones | JULIE BOYER | BRIAH LUCKEY | APARNA VEMULA | ARIELLE KAYABAGA …& me!
Can You Help Spread the Word?
I feel so passionately about this topic! If it resonates with you, could you do me a favour and share it? I really want to make sure that as many people as possible see the amazing submissions from each of the 20 caregivers and changemakers taking part. Plus, the more people who read these stories, the more people will be inspired to "fill their cups" first so they have the capacity to care for the people and causes that matter to them. So please share this page with anyone who you think might benefit (or direct them to my Instagram profile)