What is In Tending?
Are you a caregiver? Do you sometimes feel as though you may be losing your mind? Have you been intrigued by the promise of using “mindfulness” to stop it from trickling out of your ears? Have you ever felt frustrated by the fact that the guidance you’ve encountered so far seems to be aimed very bendy twenty-one-year-olds, mid-career professionals with predictable desk jobs, or celibate monks — not people immersed in the 24/7 grind of changing diapers, slinging dishes, pulling weeds, patching up patients in the ER or teaching preschoolers all day?
Me too. So I’ve created this community (sangha) for us.
Who writes this?
I go by Ryan (she/her/hers). I’m a parent, educator, writer and consultant based on the East Coast of the U.S. I did my first downward dog in a yoga class over twenty years ago. I began my formal meditation practice about fifteen years ago. I traveled to my first Buddhist monastery in Asia over ten years ago. I became a registered yoga teacher in 2018. I have offered mindfulness guidance to one community or another regularly since then, from stressed-out teens during the pandemic to perinatal loss groups in the post-Dobbs era. Mindfulness has saved my life more than once during this time.
I also hold one degree in journalism and two in education. This means I have little patience for B.S., whether this means counterfactual takes on basically good ideas, or spiritual spaces and people who promote oppressive beliefs. But I have a lot of patience for crafting careful, inclusive, easy to understand explanations for complex things, like mindfulness, for people who are curious and willing enough to learn.
When I’m not writing here, I’m supporting helping professionals and their organizations as a consultant, with a particular focus on breathing through seasons of big transition. I have helped to grow many start-ups who do work at the intersection of mindfulness, creativity and education, including Readworks, Tinkergarten and Breathe 4 Change.
In previous eras of my career, I taught 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. I co-edited two books and published articles with the likes of The Boston Globe, The Boston Herald, The Boston Business Journal, and many others. I’ve also wrangled Yelpers as a community manager, appeared on TV in South Korea, and interviewed GZA. Change has truly been a constant for me in my life — and most days, I’m just happy to still be here.
I’m so glad you’re here too!
Here’s what you’ll get if you sign up to hear from me:
Resources on buddha mind, which relate to tapping into the innate wisdom of the mind, heart and body during seasons of change. Things like this meditation, this journaling prompt, this essay, and pretty much every interview I’ve done here.
Resources on dharma, which relate either to the nature of reality itself, or to the skillful means of working with it as conveyed through mindfulness teachings. Think notes on ancient texts and practices, modern-day teachings and teachers, interviews with wise friends, observable everyday phenomena and embodied experiences that can help us breathe through change.
Resources on sangha, which relate to being in community with other people. Especially those who are also attempting to answer the sticky, annoying questions that come up as we try to apply the wisdom we glean from the above to our everyday lives. When you sign up (for free) I’ll send you more information on how you can join in.
You may be asking: How will this be different from all the self-care stuff you’ve consumed before? Some of it is really annoying, tbh.
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 religious in a preachy or jargon-y way.
Content that is whitewashed to the point that it lacks appropriate credit, context or critique when it comes to the specific cultural or historical roots of a particular topic.
Content that pressures you to feel #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 will fill up your inbox with sanctimommy-esque exhortations to churn your own butter with your children, mindfully, at the expense of your dedicated self-tending time.
Content that is not intersectional — that is, that does not acknowledge the stressors and obstacles faced by mindfulness practitioners and caregivers who experience any marginalized identity, or several overlapping ones. Patriarchy-fueled misbehavior in particular is sadly just as common in the world of mindfulness as anywhere else, so we will be using our critical thinking here to ensure we stay focused on dismantling oppression everywhere, which is the ultimate act of compassion.
If this sounds good to you, you can:
Thanks for reading!
🙏🏽 Ryan
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