WEBVTT
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This is a Stereo Forest production from StereoForest
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.com.
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Information, resources, and opportunities to support the show
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and connect with others are available at StereoForest
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.com daily reconnect.
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This podcast is for informational and educational purposes
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only, and is not a substitute for medical
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advice, diagnosis, or treatment.
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If you have specific mental health concerns, please
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consult with a qualified healthcare professional.
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Now, onto the show.
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Welcome to the Daily Reconnect.
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It's March 24th, and I'm your host, Jen
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DeHaan.
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This podcast is designed to help you reconnect
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with the present while you might feel detached
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or unmotivated with the world around you, or
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if things just feel pretty surreal.
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Together, we'll re-engage with the reality of
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the world, our minds, and hopefully, each other.
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This podcast is going to be the same,
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with a bit of a weekly reorganization.
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This is while I gear up towards a
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sustainable daily offering.
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On Mondays, I share some words of motivation
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to continue with your week.
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Life is a struggle, and remaining motivated to
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continue this fight that is existence, and to
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maintain democracy, well, all of it is pretty
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exhausting and draining.
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Other episodes include grounding exercises to settle the
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nerves and reconnect.
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So, use whatever resonates with you, and modify
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or discard anything that doesn't feel right or
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doesn't work for you.
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So, today, we will explore the subtle but
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pretty powerful territory that exists between recognition and
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action.
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It's a space where many of us find
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ourselves today.
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So, by now, you may have come to
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see systems of harm, things such as the
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exploitation that exists in capitalism, or the very
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dangerous patterns that we're seeing in fascism.
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You might even recognize the interconnected crises of,
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like, climate, and healthcare, and isolation, and how
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fascism rises from all of these things happening
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simultaneously.
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Recognizing this is really important, because that is
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the foundation of any meaningful response that we
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can even make to all of this that's
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going down.
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But this recognition alone, while it's really important
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alone, it changes nothing, or not very much.
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Like, sitting with signs, that doesn't change anything,
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or even attending a rally in a convention
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center, just going and showing up.
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Very little comes from that as well.
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The action after these things, that does change
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something.
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There's a particular comfort in awareness without action,
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a sense that seeing clearly is enough, that
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naming the problem somehow addresses it, just having
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the conversation.
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We tell ourselves, well, at least I understand
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what's happening, at least I'm not deceived.
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We share articles, we share posts on Blue
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Sky, we express our outrage on a Reddit
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thread.
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We might attend a big rally, or a
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presentation from our political leaders.
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We might have passionate conversations with like-minded
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friends of ours.
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And all of these things, yes, they're important,
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but they might stop short of anything that
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is really transformative.
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Action.
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And this moment in history demands action.
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Many of us find ourselves waiting.
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We wait for leaders to emerge out of
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all of this, ones who will show us
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the way forward.
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We wait for the perfect organization to join,
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or we wait for the perfect organization to,
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you know, get behind and say that we
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support.
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We wait for a moment when the action
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feels less risky, or less inconvenient to our
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schedules, less disruptive of our daily lives.
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We wait for someone else to do the
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work, someone, say, more knowledgeable than you, or
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more eloquent than me, or more qualified to
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organize the resistance, or create an alternate option
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for us.
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We're waiting to act.
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And until then, we don't want our lives
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to be disturbed.
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Now, this is understandable.
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What we're looking at today, our rights as
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humans, or the climate, or our workspaces, or
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money, or access, or politics, it's enormous.
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All these things are huge.
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Individual action can seem insignificant against these huge
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things, these huge systems.
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And yet, throughout history, the significant movements for
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justice and liberty didn't start very often with
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charismatic leaders, or the perfect plan.
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They started with ordinary people who simply stopped
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waiting.
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These important movements, the ones that have succeeded,
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have often started with a bunch of people
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in a community meeting in the basement, and
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coordinating, and staying in solidarity, being consistent.
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Powers that be, they don't concede that power
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from way up there, but they do respond
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to a significant amount of pressure from below,
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from people like us.
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Grassroot action, organized effort that just emerges from
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the communities that are affected, have been the
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primary catalyst for meaningful change.
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Now, that doesn't mean that all of us,
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every single person, has to become an activist
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full-time, or organize a massive movement.
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And if there's something that's already out there,
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already organized in motion, go and join that.
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But know that these grassroots movements, the ones
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that start in basements, they thrive when they
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have diverse forms of participation, diverse participants with
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a bunch of different skills from a bunch
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of different backgrounds that can offer their insight,
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offer their expertise.
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And what makes these movements so powerful and
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so effective is because they aren't uniform.
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They're people, they're groups that are refusing to
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wait for someone else to do it, for
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someone else to fix it.
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So honestly assess, sometime this week, assess your
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life and see if you are waiting, perhaps.
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If you notice any of these patterns of
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thought, like I'll get more involved when I
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have more time or more energy or more
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money, or I'll do something when I find
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the best organization, or maybe I'll do some
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more research and look into it later.
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Or maybe it's something like I'll act when
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I feel more confident, like I don't feel
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comfortable on video, or whatever it is.
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And now these thoughts, they're totally normal.
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So many of us share them, but they
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end up working as barriers essentially, between recognizing
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that big problem, the thing that you recognize
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and understand, and actually starting to act upon
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that concern.
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So what would it look like to stop
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waiting?
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You might need to be a little bit
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shy or uncomfortable until you get to know
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people in the organization.
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Recognize that.
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If you know that's probably going to be
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true for you, recognize that it's occurring and
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know that it won't necessarily be forever.
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Or maybe you need to reorganize a part
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of your week to be able to fit
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in some sort of volunteering or effort into
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a hectic schedule.
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So your contribution might be small, and that's
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okay too, because it still matters.
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Grassroot efforts and changes, this comes from consistent
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and coordinated efforts across many people with many
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different skills and talents.
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It doesn't come from one or two heroes
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or notable names.
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The change comes from hundreds or thousands of
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people, each doing what they can wherever they
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are with what they have, and that's often
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enough.
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So find the courage to act on what
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you care about today.
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Notice when complacency might appear as your voice
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of reason.
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Maybe that voice is telling you to wait
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for something better or any of the things
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that I mentioned earlier, like better leaders or
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tasks or a better time in your life,
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and challenge this voice.
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Challenge it.
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Be curious and challenge it.
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The cost right now with a lot of
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what we're dealing with is pretty darn high,
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and because of what we're looking at, we
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might feel like we're never quite ready.
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You don't need to have all the answers
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or know the entire path forward or what
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we should do, but grassroots action begins with
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just showing up in your community.
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Bring your honesty, your curiosity, your humanity to
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these spaces where people are working collectively towards
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justice, towards our shared goals.
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And in those spaces, that's where the strategy
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comes out.
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That's where it emerges through that relationship that
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you start building.
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Clarity.
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What we need to do develops through these
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shared experiences, and confidence grows through this little
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victories, the small wins that we win together.
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Because it's not easy, and it's not supposed
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to be, but also you're not alone.
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These huge scary systems that we're confronting, these
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systems, they want us to permanently wait.
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That's how they win.
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They don't want action.
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So our most powerful response to what's going
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on is to just begin.
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Just start anyway.
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If it's imperfect or partial, like that's fine,
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but we need to act decisively and now.
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The world that we want doesn't come from
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perfection or sometime later, or someone else fixing
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it, somebody else saving it.
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But if we have the courage to come
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together right now, we can build this from
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the ground up with the people around us
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today.
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There's so many more of us than there
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are of them.
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You're not powerless in the face of these
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systems.
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Your capacity for action, especially when it's joined
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with others in your own communities, that has
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a real potential for change, even if things
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seem pretty hopeless right now.
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And the time for waiting, that passed a
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while ago.
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The grassroots movements, those will shape our future,
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and they're here, and they're growing in size.
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They don't need you to be perfect.
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They don't need a perfect time.
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They simply need you to be there, to
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be present, to be persistent, consistent in it
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for the long run, in whichever ways you
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have the capacity for.
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So that's it for today, March 24th.
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Thank you so much for joining me, and
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let's reconnect again on Wednesday for a grounding
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vagal nerve exercise.
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Thank you for listening to The Daily Reconnect.
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Episodes are released on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday,
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every week.
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This show was created, written, hosted, edited, and
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produced by Jen DeHaan.
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Links to contact information, ways to support the
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show, transcripts, the free newsletter, and our community
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Discord can be found in the show notes.
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This is a Stereo Forest production.