Level Up 2021
1/8/21 - The new year has already been more of a lot. Amid so many challenges, here are the practices, advice, and rituals we're bringing with us into 2021. CYG producer Jordan Bailey shares her rituals for letting go of the old year and welcoming a new one. Sabrina Hersi Issa, whose personal inventory days may have already changed your life when she last spoke to us in 2018, is back to teach us about coming home to ourselves. Beth Pickens is keeping a death journal while hosting a new podcast and Homework Club for artists. Plus, Aminatou's decision matrix and Ann's daily writing practice.
Transcript below.
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CREDITS
Executive Producer: Gina Delvac
Hosts: Aminatou Sow & Ann Friedman
Theme song: Call Your Girlfriend by Robyn
Composer: Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs.
Producer: Jordan Bailey
Visual Creative Director: Kenesha Sneed
Merch Director: Caroline Knowles
Editorial Assistant: Laura Bertocci
Design Assistant: Brijae Morris
Ad sales: Midroll
NEW YEAR TIPS, PRACTICES AND RITUALS
Sabrina Hersi Issa’s advice for coming home to yourself
Define your personal operating values
What is freedom to you?
What belief or mindset have you inherited that you wish to let go of?
What belief or mindset do you want to pass on as an ancestor?
What do you want to cultivate in your life to bring you joy?
What would name your rap album?
Define your personal operating actions
What practices light you up?
How would you like to be able to recognize living your values in the world?
How would you like to be able to measure executing on an operating value?
Build pillars of support by sharing values and actions with others
Jordan Bailey’s new year rituals are drawn in part from Ev’Yan Whitney’s workbook Review, Reflect, Release
Beth Pickens’ death journal practice comes out of the Jewish Mussar tradition and the death positive movement.
TRANSCRIPT: GOOD RIDDANCE 2020
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Aminatou: Welcome to Call Your Girlfriend.
Ann: A podcast for long-distance besties everywhere.
Aminatou: I'm Aminatou Sow.
Ann: And I'm Ann Friedman. You know, we have a little ritual here of our first episode off the year being made up of voicemails from people who we love talking about the practices or the energy or the ideas that they are bringing with them. That they maybe learned in the last year or that they know they want to enact in the new year. And we have some incredible guests in voicemails today.
[Theme Song]
(1:30)
Aminatou: Hi Ann Friedman.
Ann: Hello Aminatou Sow. Coming to you live from my couch under a blanket and exclusively soft items, that's where I am right now.
Aminatou: Wow. Coming to you live from under the blankets in bed and I should be wearing soft things but I'm wearing spandex and it is serving me very well right now.
Ann: Do you feel held?
Aminatou: I feel really held. I was like I need a hug today and I live alone so this is the hug for today, you know what I'm saying?
Ann: I honestly feel like this is a distinction that applies more than any other to me getting dressed in the pandemic which is do I want a loose-fitting soft pant or do I want to be held by my stretchy pants? These are the two modes. [Laughs]
Aminatou: Ann it's so funny that you say that because obviously my entire wardrobe now consists of eight pairs of sweatpants that rotate. But my number one criteria for sweats is how much holding do they do in the waist? Which I like a held waist and I also like them to be cinched at the ankles. I love that kind of sweatpant where you're like okay, great, there's cinching here and here and at the waist but otherwise I want them to be billowing. Like my ideal sweatpant is actually those -- like is a harem pant that is a sweatpant, it's so . . .
Ann: Like a gap year sweatpant? [Laughs]
Aminatou: 100 percent. But yeah, it's so funny how sweatpants just used to be sweats and now I'm like no, no, no, there is different kinds of sweats.
(3:08)
Ann: Well let me tell you I developed a distinction which I think a lot of people probably did months ago which was I was like you know there's some loungewear that I'm going to reserve for actual lounging and then everything else I'm going to work in or whatever. Part of this is like a long-running I work from home by myself way of distinguishing I'm in work mode and I am not in work mode. And so there are a couple of items that I'm like no, this is just for lounging. These are my special, relaxing only cozies and I'm going to draw a line.
Aminatou: [Laughs]
Ann: And I want to tell you today I have crossed that line. I am wearing relaxing only cozies while we are here at work. Are bets are off in year two of this pandemic, so yeah.
Aminatou: I love that where everyone mentally landed in April is where you're finally at. You're like okay, this thing is real. I am no longer wearing my work sweats.
(4:05)
Ann: You know I need structure to thrive.
Aminatou: You know, Ann, I love this about you. Welcome to year two, man. How's it going?
Ann: Well I feel like the physical description of where I'm at right now should just serve as the stand-in. I'm just going to let that be . . . I'm going to describe what that is and just let that be my answer to how's it going. How are you doing?
Aminatou: You know, honestly in this moment minus the fact that I have this small lisp. Sorry to everyone that's listening. [Laughs] I'm just dealing with some oral surgery stuff so we're all going to have to bear with me. But minus this lisp I feel weirdly -- this is going to sound demented knowing the state of the world -- I have never felt this good in a new year in like a decade.
Ann: I love to hear that.
Aminatou: Which I mean it's demented. It goes to show you how in shambles my body was and so yeah, it's like post-cancer, post-so many things. This is the first time this week in January that I'm like oh yeah, I think I'm alive. I feel good in my body. So it's a very strange feeling.
Ann: I love hearing that. That makes me feel better just to hear that you're feeling good in your body right now and that you are held by all that spandex and ready to be in January. I love to hear it.
Aminatou: [Laughs] Yeah, listen, I've already done my physical for the year. I've gone to all my doctors. I got my moles checked. I got my everything because I have to have it done as part of my full like still a cancer patient patient. So all of that is done and I'm like am I about to join the January tax club? Are my taxes about to be done in the middle of January? [Laughs] It's so weird. I was like this is usually my entire to-do list for the year and I'm about to have most of it done so I am having a surreal experience right now. I was like this is bananas what is happening in my life.
(6:05)
Ann: Ugh, I love it. I'm also excited about, you know, we have a little ritual here of our first episode of the year being made up of voicemails from people who we love talking about the practices or the energy or the ideas that they are bringing with them. That they maybe learned in the last year or they know they want to enact in the new year. We have some incredible guests and voicemails today.
Aminatou: First up to tell us how to survive the next 365 days and how to stay sane is Jordan Bailey, producer of Call Your Girlfriend and all around ten out of ten A++ human being and Jordan is going to talk to us about reflecting on the previous year as a way to ground yourself in starting the new year.
Jordan: This is Jordan Baily, CYG producer, and I love New Years. I have all kinds of rituals and habits that I do at the end of every year around New Years. I just really love the time to reflect on the year behind you and set goals for the year ahead. I think there's something just really fresh and clean about January 1st of the new year and it always inspires me to do a lot of reflection around that time.
(7:30)
So I always start by reflecting on the year that's closing and I do this with a workbook that I downloaded a few years ago from Ev'Yan Whitney who's a sensuality doula. Their name is evyan.whitney on Instagram if you want to follow their work. But they created this workbook called Review, Reflect, and Release and it's designed to be done around the end of the year and it's ten or more -- honestly it's a pretty long PDF workbook just sort of encouraging you to reflect on how the year went in all these different categories. Questions about your creativity and your creative practice, questions about your body and your relationship to your body, questions about relationships and friendships, questions about like sex and sexuality. There's a whole section for talking about things that didn't go well, challenges or mistakes that you made or things that didn't go as planned. And then there's also a really fun section of best ofs where you can put down the best meal that you ate, the best show that you watched, the best book that you read, the best decision you made I think is always a really good one to reflect on.
It's just a really comprehensive guide to looking back on the year and kind of reflecting on it in a really holistic way. So I usually take the last two weeks of the year and do a little bit at a time and sort of reflect on things as they come to me.
There's also a section in the workbook that guides you through doing a release ritual. So if there are things that kept coming up for you this year like habits or old patterns or stories or things that kind of kept you making decisions that you didn't really want to make or things that repeatedly went wrong she guides you through how to release those things. So yeah, I don't do the release ritual every year but some years when I feel like there are things I really want to release I will do that thing. I'll write them down on a piece of paper, take them into the back yard, and burn them. If you're a crystals person or a candle person those are good things to have during release rituals and I pretty much always listen to Solange when I do that.
(9:55)
So the other thing I like to do is set goals for the year that's coming and I really do think of goals as different from resolutions. For some reason resolutions to me always feel like, you know, something you want to change about yourself or a habit you want to break or something like that. But goals feel more like . . . they feel more like an opportunity to just like lay out how I want to grow and what areas I want to grow in and kind of get specific about what I want the next year to look like.
And so I will come up with a few different goals for different categories in my life. So I'll have like work and career goals. I'll have goals for friendship and family, like sex and relationship goals, day-to-day habits, and then there's fun stuff like travel goals even though obviously in 2020 that didn't really pan out very well.
And I usually do this with friends. I really like to do it with friends because I think just the exercise of articulating out loud what goals we have for ourselves together can be a really powerful bonding experience and I just love to hear how my friends want to grow and what areas of their lives they're most looking forward to working on and growing in. And doing it together has kept us accountable to the goals in some ways. In years past we've checked in quarterly on these goals and kind of checked in and looked at how things were going for us and it's just a good way to not forget the goals that you've set which I think can happen pretty regularly. So that's another good reason to do it with friends.
(11:38)
But yeah, typically on the 31st of the year we'll go through the goals and kind of mark how we did with them and then on the 1st of the year we will plan goals for the year that's coming. Those are my New Years rituals. Oh, also I always have black eyed peas and collard greens on the 1st. I'm very superstitious about it. My grandma has made black eyed peas and collard greens on January 1st every year since I can remember and when I'm not home with my family I always find a way to get them. That's definitely a non-negotiable for me so that's another very strong New Year's ritual for me.
Ann: We work with the best humans truly.
Aminatou: Truly, truly, truly, only the best humans. That was really great. I am usually allergic to New Year homework, I'm not going to lie to you, but that's because I don't believe in the Gregorian calendar, you know? I'm just like eh, today's just whatever day of the week it is. The slate does not wipe clean. But I love how low-key and grounding she made this exercise feel and now I'm excited to actually give it a try.
Ann: Me too. But then again I love a January homework assignment so I was primed to love this one.
Aminatou: [Laughs] My Capricorn friend!
Ann: Ugh, you know, it's not my fault my birthday coincides with the calendar year. It's all aligned. I'm ready to go.
Aminatou: [Laughs]
Ann: Our next voice message is honestly a repeat classic guest of this New Year episode. Sabrina Hersi Issa has been someone whose advice for how do you think about the next phase or the next couple months of your life I have really taken to heart in the past. I believe it was our 2018 yearly kickoff episode where she talked about taking a personal inventory day every month where you reflect on, you know, what has been going on for you in the past 30 days and also where you take care of tasks that you need to do for your own personal maintenance that might otherwise slide to the bottom of the to-do list.
That is something that I certainly have adopted and will -- we can link to that episode from the archive in the show notes if you want to listen. Anyway, she was at the top of our list for people who we wanted to hear from as we head into 2021 and here is her voice memo which is about coming home to yourself.
(14:08)
Sabrina: Hi CYG, Sabrina here. The last time I was with you all to share about my personal inventory days, the operating system I created to help me get things done and thrive in the world. Now I'm here to help you design what it looks like to come home to yourself. So I work in technology, media, and politics. All of these roles meant that in before times I was someone who was always in motion. On planes, trains, and meeting after meeting swinging from monkey bar to monkey bar, from destination to destination.
And you know what? I really liked it. I'm good at what I do. But there were huge gaps. I am someone who has always felt I could make my home anywhere in the world. I never really considered my community rooted in one physical place and so I've had to develop deliberate, intentional practices of connection.
But I realize looking back how this prioritized everyone else. How this pace of living was not really a life. How this pattern of go, go, go kept me unintentionally disconnected from myself. I am proud of what I've made happen in the world and for others but I wanted more of me in my life. I wanted to be kinder to myself. I wanted more time for my interests. I wanted to feel more at peace and I didn't want to wait for a crisis to prioritize this.
(15:45)
So about three years ago I took myself on a retreat just to get some space, to get honest, and to hold myself accountable to filling these gaps that I recognized. The outcomes of this was coming up with a set of personal operating values, very clear and explicit ways that guide how I want to show up in the world for myself. It's one thing to come up with a list of values, we see companies and organizations do this all the time, but it's another thing to make it personal and specific to you. It's also next level to ask yourself how do you know if you're actually living them?
So I paired these with a set of personal operating actions, practices, and habits that I can map directly back to my value system. So listener, these two things together, values and operating actions that are personal to me, they are my compass back home to myself.
You don't need to get away to make your own. You just need to get honest. So to build my personal operating values I asked myself a set of guiding questions. They included "What is freedom to you? What belief or mindset have you inherited that you wish to let go of? What belief or mindset do you want to pass on as an ancestor? And what would you like to cultivate in your life that brings you joy? What would you want to name your rap album if you had one?"
To then build my operating actions I asked myself a different set of questions that included asking myself what practices light you up? How would you like to be able to recognize living your values in the world? How would you like to be able to measure executing on an operating value?
So for me one of my personal operating values is this: I value my well-being. Some personal operating actions that I can map and align to living this value, they include I sleep eight hours a nap. I love to exercise. It's true, I do. And I fly first class back when we were allowed to fly places. Now I'm not going anywhere.
(18:15)
This is not an exhaustive list and it might even seem really silly to you but it's how I gift myself peace. The next step is recognizing you can't just create these and hold them close to your chest. You actually need to share them with someone who you care for and who cares for you too. Defining your values and defining these actions that go with them and sharing them, these are necessary steps that are part of a process that I call building pillars of support.
Life will not always be kind to us. Letting your people know your values and actions means you will have help finding your way home again if your compass ever gets broken. About a year ago a friend of mine did this for me. She left me this voice memo that when I read it now it reads like the most universal greeting card, especially with the world going through so much pain. She said to me "These things are not supposed to happen. They shouldn't be happening and a lot has happened. Just because you're strong doesn't mean you need to minimize the hard. I am glad you're accepting support."
We all need people to help remind us who we are sometimes. This is the process: define your personal value system. Define your personal operating actions that go with them. Put your stake in the ground. You can always move it if you need to or outgrow them. And then share them with somebody. Do this and then live your life. Through quarantines and lockdowns with these pillars in place I feel like I created clear paths back home to myself even though I didn't go anywhere.
(20:15)
Everyone grapples with change and disruption but our greatest challenges are often our greatest opportunities too. I know for me I am leaning into living this shift. The golden rule works both ways: be good to yourself, live your values, and you will be able to be good for others. So I use my compass. I'm back. I'm home. I am the happiest and now it's time to do unto me. Have a wonderful year of thriving, CYG. You deserve it.
Aminatou: Wow, love to hear advice from a boss lady. Man.
Ann: The only type of person I want to hear advice from honestly is people like Sabrina who are really living it, you know? Not just sitting in an armchair and giving advice but really thoughtfully invested in the way that they're showing up in this world.
Aminatou: And also giving real, practical advice. I will say there is an entire cottage industry of people who are -- you know, it's kind of their job to be thoughtful and very loft. You know, the thought leaders.
Ann: Sure.
Aminatou: Very lofty ideas people and it frustrates me endlessly and Sabrina is a thought leader who is not a charlatan at all so she gives you practical here is how you do the thing, one, two, three, A, B, C. And I love that so much and I think it's why her previous advice on this podcast is iconic and so many people come back to us asking about that all the time because it is just rooted in reality.
Ann: Ugh, it's true. If you want more Sabrina which why wouldn't you you can find her at beingbrina.com and that's also her handle across social media. She's an incredible writer. She founded this thing called The Bold Prize which I encourage everyone to Google. She is a tech genius and yeah, I feel like if you loved hearing from her here you're going to love the full range of Sabrina's work in the world.
Aminatou: Well let's take a break.
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(25:03)
Aminatou: Up next to tell us how to survive the next 365 days is my good friend Ann Friedman. Ann what's your advice for the team?
Ann: [Laughs] Oh my god, I feel like I was just thrown the ball in the team building exercise.
Aminatou: [Laughs] One hundie P that's what happened.
Ann: Okay, so rather than say something I am hoping to try to do I'm going to talk about something that has improved my life for the better in the past which is getting an accountability buddy for one specific thing that you want to do. And this is not a new idea. This is not like a copyright me (TM) idea. I think this is something that a lot of smart people have advised in the past.
But I came out of our book writing process and was like oh god, I have cleared the decks. How do I figure out what I want to write next or do next? And decided I really wanted to spend more time in a daily writing practice rather than say like I'm going to go away and retreat and figure it all out. I was like no, I really want to figure out a way to just show up for an hour every day in service of this question of what do I want to do as a writer next?
So dear friend Glennis McNickel who is also a great writer who has also been on this podcast and I devised a plan where we committed to each setting aside an hour every day. We do it in the morning but it wouldn't necessarily have to be that. And we text each other at the end of the hour here's the timestamps of when I started and when I ended. Here's how many words I produced, and sometimes it's zero. Sometimes it's just like I read a bunch of stuff that's related to what I'm doing. And also just ask for support or encouragement.
(26:45)
In the beginning we devised a sort of punishment system if we didn't do it which was [Laughter] -- I know, which is tailored to each of us. So for Glennis it would be she would have to sell off a clothing item, an impractical clothing item from her closet if she did not do her hour a day. And for me, this was obviously months and months ago, I would have to donate five dollars to Kanye's presidential campaign if I did not do my hour a day.
Aminatou: Oh my god! Did you give that man a dollar?
Ann: I did not. I'm here to tell you it was very motivating. Very motivating.
Aminatou: Wow. Wow, wow, wow.
Ann: So anyway, so we each kind of picked something we thought might be a good punishment if we didn't do it. But I have to say honestly just the check-in of like okay, because Glennis is ahead of me in the time zones I would often wake up to a text from her saying "I did it." And it was very motivating for me to be like okay, now I'm going to get up and do it too. So I don't know, I don't think it necessarily has to apply to a creative goal or a work goal but I also can tell you that I would've put in far fewer hours into that kind of nebulous writing practice if I didn't have someone that was standing there saying "Hi, I'm doing this too." And obviously this is a thing -- this is why people have running buddies. This is why people do all kinds of things with community support. But I love it because it's free. I love it because you set the rules and you set the intervals. And also it's like Glennis and I are definitely friends but this has kind of become a primary thing for us and it was kind of special that . . . I don't know if it would've worked with someone I was texting every day as a pal. Because we didn't know each other quite that well it kind of worked perfectly. So anyway, that is a thing that I've learned that I am fully carrying with me into the new year. I'm going to keep doing it. I love it and just want to share how I got it done and didn't make a single donation to Kanye. [Laughs]
(28:50)
Aminatou: I love this for you. You know last year I read this book that was literally about how creating ritual with a friend is really good way to go deep in your friendship so I love that you're applying that.
Ann: Aww, who wrote that book?
Aminatou: It's called Big Friendship. It is available wherever you buy books. The authors are kind of insufferable but the book is fine.
Ann: I hear you. I hear you. It's some good messages in there, yeah.
Aminatou: [Laughs] I love that. I love that so much. One of the things that I came into the new year being very adamant about is I needed more accountability in my life. And I knew this already and I think last year I made some good strides to build in accountability but I was like this is the year where, yeah, I'm getting the running buddy of every area of my life that needs accountability. It's great. My thing that I want to take -- that I want to talk about is very . . . it's a little abstract and loosie-goosy but it also has been really helpful for me has been to make a criteria for yourself about which things you will automatically say yes to and which things you will automatically say no to.
Ann: Ah, the Aminatou matrix.
Aminatou: Yes. Because I suffer from this problem of everything is kind of exciting to me and I always just want to find out more. And I would've never thought of myself as someone who was a people pleasure or someone who was a yes person. And in my story of myself that I tell myself, I actually say no all the time. And then last year I started cataloguing all the things I say yes to. And actually I say yes too fast. I say yes too fast all the time. It's in work, it's in life, it's in a lot of things. And I was like actually the thing that needs to happen for me is instead of saying yes or no I just need to say "Can I think about it?" That's the deep breath I need to take and just say can I think about it?
(30:45)
That has been really kind of a game changer for me because it means it actually forces me to sit down and think about it. And for the last couple of years one of the things I've always done is any time I've said no to a work event or any sort of nebulous professional engagement I kept it in a spreadsheet. I have a spreadsheet of all of my nos because I'm just like what are we saying no to here? And also it's a good way to go back because sometimes it's like oh yeah, I didn't have time for that last year but I kind of do have time for that this year. Then you go back to the person like "Oh hi, do you still want to do this thing?" And a lot of times the answer has been yes so that's been exciting just to catalog it that way.
But back to the decision matrix. I think that it's so important to have one. You're like what are things that you want to do? And so what is your criteria? Is your criteria it has to be fun, it has to be easy, it has to be something that's aligned with my values or it has to be something . . . you know, you get to decide your criteria. I will not tell you what my criteria is.
And similarly you should have a criteria for what do you want to say no to? And know how you feel in your body when you do things that you don't want to do. And I have found that going back to that decision matrix over and over again, mine is three things. And if it's two out of three I'm like eh, begrudgingly I might do it. If it's three out of three I will definitely do it, or corollarially if it's the negatives I will not do it.
(32:15)
I find it has saved me so much time and it's saved me so much annoyance because whenever things go badly like that I'm always annoyed at myself, not at the situation, because I was like if I had stuck to my criteria this would've not happened. And we are in a whole pandemic. There is no reason to add more aggravation to your life.
Ann: I love that so much.
Aminatou: Just stick to your guns. Stick to your guns and yes, say no, keep a list of the things that you say no to and maybe you change your mind in the future. But yeah, things don't go away forever and also it's really important to listen to your gut, you know? Because sometimes things can seem like really good opportunities but if you're not actually excited to do them or you don't think that they will be fruitful in the goals that you've setup like oh, are you trying to learn something? Are you whatever? You will end up being miserable. I am not trying to add more misery on top of the global misery that I'm experiencing right now so that's my place. Have some criteria and anytime someone asks you for something whether it's personal or it is for work run the list in your head and say okay, does this tick the boxes? Does it not? And then you have a baseline for how you make decisions.
Ann: Ugh. I really, really love that also because I feel in my bones the truth of every time I've done something that has gone awry -- this is true in my personal life as well as my professional life -- I knew. You know what I mean? There was a voice within me or an icky feeling where I was like this is probably not going to be the best but okay. And, you know, there are consequences to ignoring and not taking that pause.
Aminatou: 100 percent, especially with work. With life it manifests itself in a different way but with work I can think of this like ten different ways where you're like oh, I said yes because someone said it was a good opportunity or because the money was exciting or whatever. And then you get there and you're like no! Actually I hate this! I hate this and this is not how I want to spend my time. And the next thing you know, you know, I'm like there are a very finite amount of days in a human being's life and let's try to minimize the days that you're doing things you're not happy doing.
(34:30)
Ann: Totally. We do not get to do everything that we want to do in this life and so on a microlevel that means we don't get to do everything we want to do this year or this week. Priorities. Priorities.
Aminatou: Yeah, it's totally fine. But I think if you are kind of like me where you get frazzled or you get scattered easily or you get excited easily take a deep breath and have a way that you're going to make a decision about something that doesn't just rely on is this exciting to my brain in this moment?
Ann: Oh my god. What if you kept all of that stuff aside and then checked in with your accountability buddy about whether you were taking your beats or whether you really wanted to do something? I don't know. I love it. I love it so much because I also love how you were like this is abstract or whatever. I'm like no, this is a practical tool. This is very, very concrete. I'm sorry. Sorry to disagree with your assessment of the value of this advice.
Aminatou: Listen, it's so good. It's so, so, so good. One of my accountability buddies will be very excited to hear that I'm finally taking my own advice to heart.
Ann: That's the thing about this, it's very easy to talk about how great all this stuff is but I also want to note that you just mentioned it as a practice you already have and that makes you, you know, not bullshitting yourself or me or people who are listening.
Aminatou: That's right. Take that 2020 Aminatou, coming for you. [Laughs]
Ann: Ugh, should we listen to one more voicemail?
Aminatou: Yes, tell me.
Ann: Ugh, okay, well friend of us as humans and of this podcast Beth Pickens is one of my favorite thinkers for this kind of planning and practice question. She has a lovely little voice memo for us about keeping a death journal.
Beth: Hello CYG, my name is Beth Pickens. I'm an arts consultant and writer in Los Angeles. I'm also a longtime fan of the entire CYG team. I want to share with you a practice that I began this fall which I am definitely bringing with me into 2021 and that practice is keeping a death journal. Every day I take a moment, often brief, sometimes longer, to reflect on my mortality and the fact that one day I will die.
(36:55)
Now to some of my loved ones, my wife for example, the death journal seems macabre, way goth, and perhaps even superfluous during a pandemic when we're surrounded by death and dying. But the purpose of keeping a daily death journal is to remind me of my life. This daily contemplative practice helps me focus on being alive. Who do I want to be? What do I want to do? And surrounded by which people?
A death journal keeps my honest about the unknowable but finite time I have to live and this encourages gratitude and being very present. The death journal comes out of two important philosophical streams that are central to my life. One is the Jewish Musar tradition which developed in 19th century Lithuania and is having a resurgence in American Judaism. The Musar tradition is based on middot which is just a soul trait, things like truth, compassion, generosity, humility.
Every year at Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, my rabbi Susan Goldberg asks our congregation to select a soul trait that we will focus on individually for the entire Jewish year. We check in throughout the year with members of Nefesh, our LA Jewish community, and talk about how this soulful work is going. This year I selected the middot, the soul trait, called yirah. Now yirah doesn't have a direct translation from Hebrew into English but essentially it's the combination of two experiences: fear and awe. Musar practice would link yirah to the fearful awe or the awesome fear of God. I'm channeling yirah into the soulful contemplation of death.
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My death journal is also inspired by my relationship to the death positive movement. This movement encourages death acceptance and you can learn all about it through the Order of the Good Death, a large community of death industry workers, advocates, artists, writers, and researchers who know that America's culture of death denial harms our society. The Order of the Good Death is co-founded by feminist mortician Caitlin Doughty and it's inspired by the work of anthropologist Earnest Becker and his book The Denial of Death.
Okay, I know that's a lot of names and movements to look up but I strongly recommend that you do. Maintaining a daily death journal keeps me connected to my life, to the present, and it actually makes me focus on being true to myself, actively loving people, and committing to justice. My death journal makes me want to live as much as I can.
Aminatou: You know that this is 100 percent my kind of content. Like I love death content all of the time. I love humans who are in tune to the fact that we are all going to turn into dust and bones and I . . . like what a good way to start the year is to be like I, you know, might not finish out this year and let's do this.
Ann: Let's fully accept that possibility and yeah.
Aminatou: Let's do it. Yeah, only advanced humans are emotionally there. It's like thank you. Every day is a gift. Every day is a weird surprise. Let's let that guide your every step. I'm into this.
Ann: If you want more from advanced human Beth Pickens you can go to bethpickens.com. She is the author of the book Your Art Will Save Your Life which is incredible, highly recommended. I think probably mentions several of the things we've talked about in this episode. She is also the host of the podcast Mind Your Practice and the Associated Homework Club which is like speaking of wanting accountability a really structured way to get accountability with other artists and with a leader like Beth. So recommend all of those things.
Aminatou: I'm in Homework Club and I just met my accountability pod and I am in love with them so there you go.
Ann: Ugh.
Aminatou: You can have built-in accountability with people who do awesome work, who will have zero judgment, and just want to see you win. I am so into this.
Ann: It's true. It's also just like, you know, if that is not your speed and you just want to do some reading about this stuff truly Beth's book -- previous book and forthcoming book -- are the way to go. So I mean all of our guests in this episode, I just have to say, only A-listers. Only stars.
Aminatou: Only stars. Only stars. Thank you to Jordan. Thank you to Sabrina and thank you to death.
Ann: See you on the Internet all year long.
Aminatou: I will see you on the Internet. I will see you on the phone. I will see you . . . Ann, I'm just going to say this: you are my informal accountability buddy for life so I will also see you in the accountability check-up. [Laughs]
Ann: I know. I also -- I did have that thought about the death journal. I'm like is my death journal just my texts and record of conversation with you? Is that the real deep journal? Deep thoughts. Deep thoughts.
Aminatou: I mean, listen, let's talk about it online, offline. Happy new year. Happy new year. I'm excited to do this. I have to say I know the year is off to a very not great start but you know what? We are all still here and I am going to be excited about the new year so let's hang on for dear life.
Ann: Time to get out of bed and make lunch. Grab this day. [Laughs]
Aminatou: I am not excited enough to get out of bed but I am excited . . . absolutely not. I'm in here with my hot water bottle. Uh-uh, not going anywhere. Ann, here's my tiny practical winter tip for people who live in cold areas and I know this is going to sound stupid but just wear brighter colors. I fully turn into Scandinavian color theorist Aminatou Sow but I believe that if you wear bright colors, your sweats and your whatever are bright, fluorescent colors, that will give you one dose of serotonin for the day so try that.
Ann: You know dressing in bright colors is like my informal religion so I am fully onboard with that.
Aminatou: Coming at you from the red spandex. I love you. I will see you soon. [Laughs]
Ann: See you on the Internet.
Aminatou: You can find us many places on the Internet: callyourgirlfriend.com, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, we're on all your favorite platforms. Subscribe, rate, review, you know the drill. You can call us back. You can leave a voicemail at 714-681-2943. That's 714-681-CYGF. You can email us at callyrgf@gmail.com. Our theme song is by Robyn, original music composed by Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs. We're on Instagram and Twitter at @callyrgf. Our producer is Jordan Bailey and this podcast is produced by Gina Delvac.