Small is the skill we'll need for the future

Happy Sunday, Soothers! I'm so glad to be back regularly in your inboxes this week. If you follow me on Instagram you know plenty has been going on in my life; an August trip to rural Indiana; lots of promotion around my brand-new Highly Sensitive Person Leadership Academy (read more about the Small Leadership I'm going to be teaching in there, and know this is open for enrollment now until Oct 1); and then upon return from Indiana just settling back into routines, starting working out again, and oh yeah I'm doing a 100 days off caffeine, alcohol and gluten, and by the time you read this I'll be 17 days in and I think it's going great. A whole topic for another time is am I finally ready to go completely alcohol-free...?

But for now I'm considering a massive shift in perspective that has been taking place for me over the past year or so. Funny I should call it "massive," since it's actually about how I can think smaller in every area.

In short, there's something funny happening to me and in my life, and it's that for the first time I can really recall, I want to go smaller, not bigger.

This isn't about letting go of ambition or not doing work. For better or for worse, whether it's my inherent nature or grind conditioning, I am a naturally ambitious person who has a large capacity for doing work I love (with a lot of privilege, and being child-free, and in an able body).

I want to work harder than ever, but I want to do it small. Not big.

And I want to learn more small skills.

I want my work to be recognized and seen first and foremost by me and my small circle or community and people I deeply care about. No more chasing internet strangers, trying to convince them of my worth or skills in teaching or writing.

I don't care about gaining thousands more followers on Instagram or in this newsletter, I want to get to know more the people who are already here. (Hello!)

Instead of figuring out ways to improve or re-decorate my house so it's more and more Pinterest-worthy, I want to figure out how I can finally learn to use a drill to make minor repairs and consider the question, "What if I never updated anything that wasn't actually broken? What if I never updated anything again simply for aesthetics and trends?"

Instead of trying to make more and more friends or feeling bad for not having a very large social circle (or feeling guilty about friendships that have drifted away since COVID), how can I deepen the small circle of existing relationships I do have?

How is it possible that I'm nearly 44 and really still don't understand where the majority of my food comes from and what it takes to get it to my fridge? How can I rectify that and purchase more locally and understand the skills it takes to farm, and maybe even learn to grow some food myself?

What else am I talking about when I say I want to "learn small" or "learn small skills?"

• The skills to live lightly

• To be unattached to material things

• To be able to repair items instead of having to buy new ones to replace them

• To be grateful for what is present and what we do have even if it doesn't feel like "enough" next to capitalism's standards

• To handle gracefully not having immediate access to purchase whatever we want and getting it within 24 hours

• To grow my own food that can't perhaps make up my whole diet, but could meaningfully supplement it

I have been thinking on this for a long time, and Nic Antoinette captured it well in her recent newsletter that jives with why I think it's really going to be necessary to do this:

Well, I’m pretty sure we’re headed toward multiple forms of societal collapse, which means that practicing voluntary simplicity by giving things up that I have become accustomed to and trying to live more lightly on the earth feels like both a necessary act of harm reduction and also the only possible way to have even a hope of remaining in integrity with my values in this ever changing landscape of who-the-hell-knows-what-comes-next.

I wrote in the comments that, "I have definitely thought about this kind of living as learning a new skill that we'll need during collapse/whatever comes next...I think this will be an invaluable skill, one most of us aren't considering right now, and it's one I hope to practice in my own ways."

So that's a concept I want to invite you into today:

Learning small as a skill for the future.

A lot of us have been told we should practice gratitude, presence, and an abundance mindset because it would help with our mental health (which, it definitely can).

But I want to invite you into learning these skills because if we do not have them, if we do not learn...

• self-sufficiency

• self-trust

• self-reliance

• non-attachment to material items

• a sense of worth that is not dependent on our workplace titles or salary

• how to have gratitude for what we already have

• how to have a regulated nervous system that can offer us safety in our body

• skills to navigate conflict in community and relationships

• how to build a relationship with nature and the land (including food growth but also stewardship)

• and much more...

...we may suffer as our society evolves and, yes, trends towards collapse of existing systems that have made up our world as long as you and I have been alive.

These systems have been all about the big. More money, more expansion, more growth, more accumulation. Something's off with you if you don't want the most, if you're not always striving to be at the top. And the systems are big enough they could always promise that somebody could come in to save and help you should you need it.

And a lot of the skills we've been encouraged to learn throughout our life support this Bigness, these Big Systems. Money accumulation, climbing work ladders, how to purchase and own bigger homes and more material items, how to get more promotions, more recognition, more external validation.

But what happens when climate disasters make it such you can't take that trip to Hawaii and post about it on social media? Or, on another level, that plane travel overall becomes less accessible as climate change causes storms disrupting travel, or large technological systems sputter, creating impossible, endless delays

What if you get laid off from the big-titled tech job and have to take a middle-entry or retail job?

How will your nervous system feel if you can't online shop, whether it's because of a reduction in budget you have to make or because infrastructure issues make it that items may take weeks or months to reach you?

What if all the weird creepy billionaire bunkers in the world won't actually protect said billionaires from navigating the loss of loved ones, learning how to express grief, learning to have self-worth and self-tenderness despite their money?

The people who are going to be able to adjust more easily for the shifts that are coming in the future aren't necessarily the ones with a Tesla, more money, huge savings accounts, or 100k followers on social media (though let's be real, the money will always help).

It's the folks who are learning principles of sufficiency and resiliency, self-worth as an inherent right no matter your status, community building, knowing how to work with the land and nature, non-attachment, being able to hold outcomes lightly, regulate emotions and nervous systems, and generally be resourceful, present, and able to see the enoughness in every moment.

Small skills.

I know this all can sound unnecessarily alarmist but I do think it's worth considering and thinking about how we can re-orient our lives to adjust to new realities that seem more inevitable than ever. So, if you've read this and found yourself nodding along a bit, but also feel at loose ends of how to actually, you know, start all of this small skills living, here are some general ideas. (I'd love to hear more in the comments if you've got them!)

And in the spirit of this newsletter, these all may seem "small"... and that's the point 🙂

• Put yourself on a shopping ban, whether it's a week or six months. Challenge yourself, every time you want to buy something new, to see if you can find something you already own that would fit its need or the emotional desire.

• Go for a long walk in nature without any electronics.

• Do you know your neighbors? Challenge yourself to introduce yourself to one neighbor a week, or if you already know them, to meaningfully interact with them (bring them a baked good, stop for a longer conversation on the street, etc). Perhaps at the end of a few weeks you have them over for a meal or a happy hour. Community relations of the people directly around us geographically are going to be very important going forward.

• Take a class or watch some YouTube videos or get a book from the library on land skills. For example, I'm going to be studying herbalism, particularly medical herbalism, next year. But you don't have to go that big; it could simply be a YouTube video on how to grow a small tomato plant or kitchen herbs, or a video on learning the names of some of your local plants/trees/flowers/herbs.

• Bake or cook something from scratch, using the materials you already have in your fridge/freezer/pantry.

• Read some Buddhist literature on non-attachment principles.

• Learn to meditate, even if it's just 1-3 minutes a day. I can't think of a world situation where this skill and its benefits won't come in handy.

• The next time something you own breaks, just google/YouTube to figure out if you can repair it. You don't have to ACTUALLY repair it yourself... but at least google and watch the instructions first to learn a bit more about how it works.

• Any sort of downsizing I think falls in here, whether it's decluttering your closet or thinking about, would it be possible for you/your family to downsize your home, should you ever need to? What could that look like?

• If you rely heavily on takeout/dining out, could you learn to cook 1-3 really simple meals that you could incorporate into your rotation?

• Read a book on nervous system regulation (Deb Dana's books are great) and begin to apply the principles to your daily life.

As I'm writing this I think it may be even more beneficial to think of "small skills" as split into two categories: practical and material skills (growing your own food, repairing household items), and the emotional "small skills" we could all use more of: self-trust, self-worth, non-attachment, mindfulness, meditation, conflict navigation, etc, so that's a framing you could give yourself if you want to journal on this a bit.

It can be really tough to talk about this topic (I mean essentially I'm dancing around the possible if not inevitable reality of societal and climate collapse) without being very alarmist and further panicking many of us. I know that this is a thoughtful, sensitive group of folks, already very worried about the future of this world, and I don't write about this today to further dysregulate you and cause more anxiety.

But I write about it because 100% the best antidote to fear, to freeze, to anxiety, is to take small action, so you can build resiliency, self-trust, and the knowledge that no matter what might change or evolve in your life and the circumstances around you, you will know how to have your own back, steward yourself thoughtfully and tenderly, and when you can, be able to help others do the same.

I believe learning small skills is one way you can begin to do that.

So who's in? What small skills do you want to learn? Where can you practice sufficiency, enoughness, gratitude for what is, resourcefulness around your environment, and learning skills that can bring you closer to nature and the land

Let's all start together. Because even if we have small skills, they are nothing without community and sharing. And I'd love to hear from you in the comments below.

(PS: I feel I must add, that I do recognize that learning and implementing small skills or anything of its ilk isn't going to mitigate the pain, death, loss and suffering that will continue to be created from climate disasters, capitalism, economic inequality, and more, and that has already taken place. Companies and politicians that have done nothing in the face of the collapses here also need to be held accountable. That said, the Sunday Soother is often a newsletter that focuses on the power of the personal, on personal agency, and what we can do individually, so that's the spirit of what I'm hoping to convey today.)