Community + civil conversations (aka 2025 goals)

We need our communities and caring relationships more than ever. It was so wonderful to try out Substack Live for the first time to talk about community and civil conversations with my dear friend

Asha Dornfest

. Our goal was to offer a caring space for folks and we hope you feel that energy in this broadcast. I even brought crystals to set the mood LOL.

Enjoy the post-broadcast! It appears that the first few minutes of introduction did not record, but I’m glad the broadcast saved at all (since it did not appear to be the case initially). Below are resources mentioned:

• 8 ways to prioritize community (my post from January 21, 2025); this comment from

  Andrea Hughes Cook
  is wonderful (thank you, Andrea!): “This short and do-able list is just the motivation I needed to get out of my post-election, introvert-induced stalemate. When issues feel too big to tackle, local action and community building is a great way to feel empowered and tip the scale toward the kind and inclusive world I want for all of us.”

• "Can we just *not* talk about politics?" (Asha’s post from January 24, 2025); also, Asha mentioned this post, Co-regulation

• Morality, Politics, and How to Find Common Ground, a fantastic conversation from January 16, 2025 with Dr. Kurt Gray, author of Outraged: Why We Fight About Morality and Politics and How to Find Common Ground (reading Kurt’s book and having this conversation impacted my mental and emotional framing in a really good way)

• Subscribe to my podcast Edit Your Life (Apple, Spotify) to be notified when an incredible conversation with Dr. Nilanjana Dasgupta, a sociologist and author of Change the Wallpaper: Transforming Cultural Patterns to Build More Just Communities, drops on February 27 (in this episode you will be able to hear Nilanjana’s feedback when I asked for her thoughts about my racist post office experience)

• Exiting Instagram and investing in the real world with Sarah Powers — a conversation with

  Meagan Francis
  and
  Sarah Powers

• I’m Walking Here by

  Liz Gumbinner
  — I referred to her brave wonderfulness on the broadcast

• The Double Shift by

  Katherine Goldstein
  — I mentioned her on the broadcast and her post on going places alone is wonderful (I am signing up for that tree planting event at the library thanks to her LOL) and also check out her How To Find Your People Club