Hi! I’m Ryan.
I’m a parent, educator, writer and consultant based in Massachusetts, U.S.A. I’m fiercely protective of my fellow caregivers. I want to see us break free of burnout and to live happier, healthier, more liberated lives.
In this newsletter, I draw on the following to deliver essays, interviews, practices and other helpful insights specific to caregivers:
My work as a consultant, supporting many smart people doing good work at the intersection of mindfulness, creativity and education, including folks at Readworks, Tinkergarten, Breathe 4 Change, Global Girls Prep, and RTZ Hope.
My professional experiences with teaching hundreds of children and adults across NYC, across a wide variety of public, private and charter schools, as well as in spaces like The Brooklyn Kitchen.
My personal experiences with caring for others while caring for myself, including supporting a sibling through cancer, battling infertility and endometriosis, surviving perinatal loss and coaching perinatal loss groups post-Dobbs, and parenting a child with special needs.
My years of study and practice as a meditator, a mindfulness and yoga teacher and teacher-trainer, and serious student of Buddhism. This includes time spent studying the Korean language, living in East Asia, and learning from wise teachers there.
TLDR: I believe that we who support others deserve more support. Here, we talk about how to make that happen.
Here’s what you’ll get if you sign up to hear from me:
Resources on finding clarity and tending your own interior life. Things like this meditation, this journaling prompt, this essay, and pretty much every interview I’ve done here.
Insights from texts and teachers on tending others and the self. Think notes on ancient wisdom, modern-day teachings and teachers, interviews with wise friends, observable everyday phenomena and embodied experiences that can help us find our way back to wholeness when we’re feeling disconnected.
Opportunities to create community (sangha) with other caregivers who Get It. Especially those who are also attempting to answer the sticky, annoying questions that come up as we try to move from survival to thrive-al (I just made that word up) in our everyday lives. Check out the Community tab for ways to join in the conversation!
You may be asking: Wait, we’re going to be talking about how self-care and mindfulness can help us fight burnout and get free? How will this be different from all the content I’ve consumed before that just tells me to calm down and/or follow a script and/or buy more stuff?
I too have consumed that stuff. Here’s what I don’t love and thus will not be sending you:
Breathy meditations with distracting New Age music in the background.
Content that is advertorial or influencer-y in nature. You will not find affiliate links for $70 facial serums anywhere near this newsletter (though I will sometimes recommend a good book or two from an indie bookstore that I’ve actually read and liked).
Sanctimommy content that suggests you should be #grateful for your domestic burdens, especially if you’re shouldering an unjust amount. Or content that pressures you to feel any specific way at all.
Content that is vibes-based and not evidence-based. Meditation and yoga have proven benefits; so do vaccines and SSRIs.
Content that suggests in any way that you should change the shape or appearance of your body. This is a size-inclusive space; pro-diet talk is discouraged. (You are, however, allowed to be healing your relationship to your own body and to diet culture while you’re here.)
Content that is not intersectional — that is, that does not acknowledge the stressors and obstacles faced by caregivers who experience any marginalized identity, or several overlapping ones.
If this sounds good to you, you can:
Thanks for reading!
🙏🏽 Ryan
Stay up-to-date
You won’t have to worry about missing anything. Every new edition of the newsletter goes directly to your inbox.
