I wrote a book in an age when no one reads, so you can do something creative and stupid too. I also wrote a post with this exact title in 2015 (when Medium was all the rage), which I am reusing on purpose, because, over a decade later, I still feel this way and I think that’s worth saying out loud.

Honestly, I’ve always felt like a mediocre writer, and yet I’ve always loved it, though I’m not sure it loves me back. For as long as I can remember, Teachers and mentors have told me the strongest part of my writing is that it sounds like I’m talking. That always stuck with me, and some days I take that as a compliment and other days I’m offended.

The first thing I remember about writing is my hands. Third grade, Writer’s Workshop, pencil smudges all up the side of my left palm, waiting every single week for my story to be the one pinned to the board with gold stars on it. It never was. I was seven when I decided I wasn’t a writer, and then I stopped showing my stories to anyone. That’s the story I told in 2015, along with a promise to myself that done is better than perfect, and then I spent the next decade not being done.

Nevertheless, I’ve always considered writing my art. First came poetry, then short stories, then whatever it is I’ve been writing these past few years. When I was deep in my internalized capitalism, I was envious and critical of people who chose to be artists. I thought art was something you saved for retirement, only because the capitalist system doesn’t pay most artists a livable wage. But secretly, my envy was rooted in wanting to be like them, and in feeling like their art was a distraction from the discourse I thought was appropriate: politics, human rights, and fighting the patriarchy with intellectual rigor. I thought hiding behind intellectualism would save me and give my life meaning. Living my twenties in the Obama era only exacerbated this, and that’s not a bad thing, but it did make me suppress my hobbies and the things that brought me joy even more.

What Barack Obama inspired in me was the belief that being smart, thoughtful, hardworking, prestigious, and cool was important, much more than creative endeavors, and I'm not blaming him at all; I was very inspired. He and Michelle made those things cool, and they still do (damn, I love them so much). I believed it so much that in November of 2016, four days before the election, I meshed my creative writing and intellectual fodder into a plea from abroad arguing that an American vote belongs to more people than the American casting it. I was spooked. I was flying home on election day of all days, and I thought that if I could just explain it clearly enough it might matter. That was very nearly the last thing I published for years.

However, I owe an apology to any artist I interacted with between 2004 and 2021. I was jealous of you. I was deep enough in my own internalized capitalism that I had beaten every hobby I ever loved out of myself, and I called that discipline, and I resented those for not doing the same. Then I gave birth. On top of a baby, a pandemic, and the crushing weight of “capitalism doesn’t care about you,” something in me started clawing for the things that made me feel alive, and writing was at the top of the list. Wanting it and actually doing it turned out to be different projects.

I wasn’t courageous or lucid enough to put words down for two more years. What finally got me was the arithmetic. We had already sat through four years of a man who cannot finish a sentence, and he had been president of the United States. If that was the bar, I could surely write for myself. For my sanity, if nothing else.

I now strongly believe that everyone needs a semi-stupid creative endeavor.

I’m somewhat embarrassed by how my Substack posts look. When I started this, I wanted them well-organized, in a consistent format, with pretty headers and lots of links to credible references, photos, graphs, all the things I admired in other writers. Alas, that is not what you, dear reader, are getting. If you’ve been here from the beginning, thank you from the bottom of my heart, but I’m sure you’ve noticed my writing style is a bit manic sometimes. At least that’s a safe place to manifest mania. I have so much to say, and sometimes it comes out crystal clear, and I organize it well; sometimes it doesn’t. Are you convinced yet that you can do this too?

That’s my semi-stupid creative endeavor, and I’m here for it. Just like the writers I admired, Kurt Vonnegut and Tom Wolfe and the others who broke the rules. Though I realize now that men are usually the ones who get to break those rules, and women have to be twice as clear, twice as organized, twice as vulnerable, to get half the attention. And when they do, the work gets critiqued so much, torn into shreds so thoroughly, that I truly and deeply admire any woman who dares to put her thoughts on paper.

I used to think that once I put an idea on paper, it was etched in stone, that those opinions and thoughts could never change. Now I know it’s okay to change. To write one way, and then another. I'm brave enough to say something, and then braver to come back and say, oops, I was wrong. That’s what reading has done for me. It keeps expanding my mind, my thoughts, my definitions, my ideas. That’s why I love reading and why it sometimes scares me. That’s why I love writing, and why it really scares me sometimes. For this brief time I have on earth, I am so privileged that critique and shame and exclusion are my biggest fears. I know I could be more afraid. I focus my fear on tarnishing the reputation of my intellect, and that is a privilege in itself.

So here’s to the crappy writers, the ones who break traditional writing rules, don’t get read, and keep writing anyway. Part of me hopes I’ll always be one of them. It feels safe and cozy, and when I do get the occasional, “I read what you wrote,” I blush, because it makes me acknowledge that I'm putting myself out there. I still yearn to see the smudges on my skin from handwriting and from being a lefty. I want to hear the clickity clacks on my laptop that make me feel alive. I want to leave artifacts behind that show I tried, and maybe that I tried to be nice, and to motivate others to do the same. If I can do that, it’s all worth it. And if not, that’s okay too.

Awkwardly yours,

The Restorative Rebel

A note on how this gets made: I don't let AI write my posts, but I do let it edit after I’ve drafted, because I cannot see my typos no matter how many times I look, and I tend to write run-on sentences that would make most people sweat (yes, I come up with those jokes myself). I have also been a long-time fan of the em dash and genuinely mad that AI took it, which makes me look less credible. For this piece in particular, I painstakingly resisted most of what Grammarly suggested.

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Hello friends et bonjour ami(e)s! I am writing this from France, where the price you see is the price you pay. No surprises, no mental gymnastics at the register, no guilt-ridden finger hovering over the tip screen while the server watches. What you owe is what it says. That’s it. I know that feels benign to many in other countries. But to most people in the US, that feels revolutionary.

Before I published my book, I wrote about my definition of internalized capitalism and how it shows up in our lives, workplaces, and culture. But one of the things I’ve come to believe, especially a year after my book came out, is that the definition isn’t static. It keeps expanding. Travel, in particular, has a way of making visible what living inside a system makes invisible. Every time I leave the US, I come back with new language for something I could already feel but couldn't quite name. This trip, so far, makes tipping stick out like the tip of an iceberg. Corny pun intended.

Tipping, to me, is a clear personification of internalized capitalism. In a single transaction, you can watch all three levels of it operate at once. The individual customer absorbs the moral weight of a business decision, calculating in real time whether someone’s humanity was performed well enough to deserve a living wage. The business structurally depends on that calculation to avoid paying one itself. And the culture has normalized this arrangement so thoroughly that questioning it reads as bad manners rather than a completely reasonable response to an absurd system.

The person who suffers most visibly is the one who goes home not knowing if they made rent this month, not because of anything they did, but because someone at a table decided their smile wasn’t quite right, or decided nothing at all. The person who benefits most invisibly is the business that never had to be part of that conversation. And the rest of us, the customers doing the math, are reluctant participants in a system we didn’t design and were never asked to vote on.

Changing how we see it has to come before changing it in law. But both need to happen.

In my book, I trace tipping's origins to England, but the more telling part of the history is what happened when it crossed the Atlantic. In the US, hospitality businesses seized on tipping as a mechanism to avoid paying formerly enslaved Black workers a wage, making tips their only source of income. It was codified so gradually and so thoroughly that most people today treat tipping as a cultural given, even a kindness, rather than what it actually is: a subsidy that individuals pay to cover labor costs that businesses refuse to absorb.

It hasn't gotten better. I saw this up close in 2012, visiting friends who worked in restaurants in New Orleans and were (and still are) earning $2.13 an hour, the federal tipped minimum wage that has not changed since 1991! The law technically requires employers to make up the difference if tips don't bring workers to minimum wage. In practice, my friends told me that rarely happened, and workers who raised concerns were usually the ones who faced consequences. The policy existed. The accountability didn't.

When my French husband first moved to the US, he was genuinely confused about the rules of tipping. Do you tip your doctor if the appointment went well? (No, because they’re paid enough, even with the medical school debt.) Do you tip at a counter where someone handed you a coffee to go? (The screen will ask you to and you will feel guilty no matter what you enter.) He was not being difficult. He was just encountering, for the first time, a system that had outsourced its labor ethics to the individual conscience and dressed it up as generosity. Each time he asked, I didn’t have a coherent answer, because technically there were no rules. It was all based on what each individual decided they should pay.

In France, if anyone tips at all, it’s a euro or two as a genuine gesture, not a wage substitute. Because workers here are paid actual wages. Not always enough, and they will tell you that, but enough to live on and entirely separate from their healthcare. And you can feel that. Not in rudeness, but in something more interesting: authenticity. A server who doesn’t depend on your performance review to survive doesn’t have to perform for you either.

That is internalized capitalism showing up in the absence of something. When tipping is structurally unnecessary, the whole anxious transactional energy around it disappears. Nobody is calculating. Nobody is performing. The meal is just a meal.

Travel does this to me every time. It doesn’t change my definition of internalized capitalism so much as it keeps expanding it, adding new examples, new textures, new moments where I can see the thing clearly because I’m standing outside it for a few weeks. The US is extraordinarily good at making its particular arrangements feel like common sense, like the natural order of things, like math everyone already agreed to do. Most of the world did not agree to do this math.

So the next time someone tells you tipping is just good manners, I’d invite you to ask whose manners they're talking about, who designed them, and who benefits when we all just go along with it.

I will not be doing the math on that one either.

How has internalized capitalism shown up somewhere unexpected for you lately? I’d love to know I’m not the only one keeping a running list.

Consistently yours,

The Restorative Rebel

I’ll be honest with you: I’m forcing this one a bit. I’ve been thinking a lot, having good conversations, and then getting tripped up by one word that keeps surfacing in all of them. The word is innovation, and what unsettles me is not the word itself but what gets assumed when someone says it.

In The Restorative Rebel, I write about how the US has a habit of reducing complex systems to tidy narratives that serve a particular worldview. We do it with “capitalism” and “democracy.” We do it with “freedom” and “opportunity.” And we do it with “innovation.” The word gets used as though we all share a common definition. We don’t.

In an effort to understand before I judge, I tend to go back to basics and start with definitions. Not because a dictionary settles anything, but because I’ve learned that people’s upbringings, backgrounds, professions, and values all shape how they define the same word, sometimes in wildly different ways. So I start with the official version, then I ask more questions.

Merriam-Webster defines innovation as “a new idea, method, or device.” It sounds neutral, almost boring. But here’s the thing: most people, and the media, don’t actually use it that way. In practice, the word has been quietly annexed by tech, startup, and venture capital culture. “Innovation” now conjures pitch decks and product launches. It implies a certain kind of newness, a certain kind of progress, with a very specific kind of person at the center of it. The dictionary definition is just the door. What people mean when they walk through it is something else entirely.

My own definition didn’t come from a textbook. It came from watching patterns across history and personal observation, from asking who has benefited from what we call progress and who has consistently been left out. I’ve had to peel back layers of my own conditioning to get there. It also means I can’t always keep conversations light. I know I’m not objective, and I don’t think true objectivity is possible in human experience. What we see, what we believe, the history we’ve lived or inherited, all of it shapes the reality we perceive. So a casual comment about which country is “most innovative” can pull me somewhere else entirely, not because I’m looking for an argument, but because I can’t unsee the pattern underneath the claim. Some days, even “How are you doing?” can send me into a spiral. Which part of me are you asking? I have several different answers depending on the day, the context, and the weight I’m carrying.

So when a dear friend told me that, despite everything happening in the US, it is still the most innovative country in the world, I didn’t dismiss that. I paused on it. And I asked myself: by whose definition?

In the book, I describe living in San Francisco and watching driverless cars roll past people sleeping on sidewalks. Select private spaces showcased cutting-edge advancements while shared public spaces told a different story, one of neglect and inequity. That is not innovation to me. That is a very expensive illusion of it. A country that still treats healthcare and education as luxury commodities rather than foundational rights is not leading in innovation. It is leading in a very specific, very narrow kind of ingenuity that works extremely well for a few and leaves everyone else to work it out on their own.

So here’s the invitation. Take a moment and actually define innovation for yourself. Not what the dictionary says. Not what the tech industry or media says. What do you mean when you say something is innovative?

Because when I sit with that question, what comes up for me is not self-driving cars. It’s not AI, the latest technology, or whatever is being announced at a conference this week. What feels genuinely innovative to me is the people who keep things from completely falling apart when the systems fail, and they always fail someone. The nurse who is navigating an underfunded clinic and her household. The teacher who is buying supplies out of their own paycheck and still shows up every day to welcome their students and make them feel safe. The parent holding down two jobs and still showing up to their kid’s school events. The informal caregiver, not paid, not recognized, not counted in most innovation conversations, and yet doing the most structurally essential work there is. We live in a system that fails to realistically care for individuals, and yet caregivers, formal and informal alike, absorb that failure every single day and keep going. That is innovation. Not with venture funding or a press release, but with creativity, will, and the quiet understanding that someone has to.

Innovation isn’t just an economic strategy or a tech industry talking point. It’s a lens, and whoever controls the definition controls what we’re allowed to imagine. Reclaiming that definition, insisting it belongs to all of us and not just the few, is its own quiet act of resistance. The questions worth sitting with aren’t just political ones. They’re deeply personal ones: What do you actually believe progress looks like? Who do you picture when you hear the word “innovative”? And what might you start seeing differently if you changed your answer?

Never fear, I’m still working on mine and still asking more questions.

Restlessly yours,

The Restorative Rebel

Hello Friends,

I hope you are all doing well, however you define it. For the last newsletter, I shared the books that cracked me open. The ones that made me angry, hopeful, and brave enough to write my own. Consider this the follow-up: what it looks like to actually try to live those ideas out loud.

Spoiler: it’s slow, messy, and uncomfortable. But that is how we work new introspective muscles we never knew we had.

A small but important shift first.

I’m moving this newsletter to a seasonal cadence. Not because I’ve run out of things to say, but because I’ve finally decided to stop forcing them. After years of writing, I’ve learned that my relationship with words ebbs and flows — and that fighting those rhythms produces worse work and a resentful writer. So I’m loosening the straps. Writing here exists to bring me joy, and I intend to protect that.

This summer, I’m juggling childcare, visiting family, and trying to keep work alive at the same time. I won’t pretend that’s easy; the systems that make it hard aren’t a personal failure, they’re a design flaw. But I’m going to try anyway, and I’m going to be soft on myself in the process.

On film, mothers, and the village we keep talking about.

One of the through-lines in The Restorative Rebel is that the systems we live inside aren’t broken by accident — they were built this way. Nowhere is that more evident than in the way America treats mothers.

I’m proud to share that I’m an associate producer on No Country for Mothers, an upcoming documentary that investigates the culture wars dividing American mothers — and the movement working to bring them back together. I am a founding member who shared my story as part of this community, and I’ve been moved by the honesty and rawness of what other mothers shared as well.

What the film gets right is something I believe deeply: raising the next generation is a community endeavor. When mothers struggle, we all feel it, whether or not you’re a parent yourself. And the divisions we’re sold, working mom versus stay-at-home mom, ambitious versus devoted, are a distraction from the real question: why does this country make it so hard?

The film premieres June 15, with community screenings beginning June 17 across the country — including virtual options. I’m teaming up with a few wise folks to plan local Bay Area screenings this fall. In the meantime, you can find a screening near you or host your own here.

On presence, connection, and putting the phone down.

This spring, I attended two gatherings that reminded me why in-person community is irreplaceable, and why so much of what I write about in the book requires being in the room.

The first was the Human Algorithm Summit in San Francisco, a cross-sector convening on human connection in the age of AI (in the epicenter of where people are building it). The most meaningful moment wasn’t any particular session. It was taking notes in an actual notebook. Being fully present. The irony of a tech conference teaching me to look up from my screen wasn’t lost on me. But the conversations and connections I had there, like when technology genuinely helps people and when it quietly erodes something we can’t get back, are ones I’ll be sitting with for a long time.

The second was the Young Futures Block Party in Austin, and it felt less like a conference and more like a family reunion. The kind of room where the ideas are energizing, not because they’re new, but because the people holding them are committed. Seeing young people doing legacy-building work reminded me that momentum is real, even when the headlines suggest otherwise. And it was great to connect with so many people with whom I have been working remotely over the years. Like, Maddie Freeman from NoSo Connection Collective. I've been a Mentor to her and her org for over a year, and it was lovely to see her in person; IRL FTW! Their team does incredible work, so check out more of it here.

Where I am right now.

Honestly? I’m reading more than I’m writing, trying to get a jump start on my summer reading list. I’m trying to squeeze out the last bits of focused work before a slower summer. I’m thinking a lot about rest as resistance, a concept I explored in the book and one that Tricia Hersey articulates far better than I ever could: rest is not laziness. It is reclamation.

I’m not always good at practicing what I write, but I’m trying. More on that soon.

With love and solidarity,

The Restorative Rebel

Hello friends,

I've been sitting with something uncomfortable lately, and honestly, it starts with me. I'm doing worse work than I used to. Not slower, and not less polished. Shallower. And that's a strange thing to admit, because in many ways life has never felt more balanced. I've slowed down intentionally as I've gotten older, I'm more deliberate about how I spend my time, and I actually like technology and use it sparingly. By all accounts, I should be doing my best thinking. But I'm not. I catch myself toggling between tasks and feeling a little rush of productivity, that familiar internalized capitalism high of doing many things at once, when really I'm just skimming the surface of all of them. I'm producing more while thinking less, responding faster while understanding less deeply. The volume is up, and the quality of attention I can bring to anything has quietly slipped away. I know I'm not alone in this.

When Busy Became the Baseline

We live inside what researchers call the attention economy, a system built by companies, representing the platforms and tools we use every day, engineered to fragment our focus and monetize the interruption. Every ping, every scroll, every notification is a small tax on our ability to think sustainably. And the cruel irony is that the same technology promising to give us back time has made us busier than ever, while leaving us with less capacity to actually do anything well. We’re told we’re more productive than ever, and by certain measures, that’s true. We send more emails, attend more meetings, and ship more “deliverables”. But productivity has quietly become a measure of throughput rather than quality, and somewhere along the way, we confused motion with progress, and busyness with depth.

The thing we’ve traded away without quite realizing it is focus. Not time management, not better tools, just the simple and increasingly rare ability to give one thing our full, unhurried attention. And yet the public narrative keeps telling us the opposite: technology has made us faster, AI has made us more efficient, output is up, everything is winning. If you talk to the people actually doing the work, though, the story feels different. Everyone I know feels stretched thin, juggling more roles and more responsibilities than even five years ago. And quietly, many of us sense the same uncomfortable truth: the quality of our work is suffering. This is not a character flaw. It isn’t laziness or lack of discipline. It’s something structural, and something worth naming out loud.

The Work That Focus Actually Makes Possible

Good work requires something that modern workplaces rarely protect anymore, and that’s time to think. In The Restorative Rebel, I write about how internalized capitalism trains us to equate speed with excellence and volume with value, but those things simply aren’t the same. Thoughtful strategy, creative problem-solving, and meaningful collaboration all require space to understand a problem deeply before rushing toward a solution. Instead, we’ve built cultures optimized for constant output, and now, increasingly, for AI-generated content (trust me, what you are reading right now is not that, but just wanted to clarify to really make sure I have your attention). The original promise of AI was that it would make our work easier. For many of us, it’s done the opposite. It raised the baseline for how much we’re expected to produce. Faster tools became faster timelines. The work didn’t shrink. It multiplied.

I live with this tension personally. In the past two years, I have struggled to create a work-life-income balance. When I started, I quickly learned that one contract is rarely enough to make the math work, so you stack them. You’re constantly delivering for the clients you have while searching for the clients you’ll need next. Add in the pro bono work I continue to do for organizations and people who genuinely need support, and there is very little time left for the thing that actually creates value: thinking deeply.

Strategically Undervalued Leadership, and the Focus It Demands

This is something I explore in depth in Chapter 5 of The Restorative Rebel, which I call Strategically Undervalued Leadership. The chapter is about the leaders, often women and people of color, who do the work that organizations say they care about but rarely resource properly: mentorship, ethical decision-making, long-term thinking, and community building. What I’ve come to understand more clearly since writing it is that all of this work shares one thing in common. It requires focus. Real, sustained, unhurried focus. You cannot mentor someone well while half-reading your inbox. You cannot make an ethical decision under constant pressure to move faster. You cannot build a community while your attention is being auctioned off to whoever bids the loudest that day. These are not tasks that can be streamlined or delegated to a tool. They are deeply human acts that demand we actually show up, which means we have to be capable of showing up. And that capacity is what the attention economy has quietly been eroding.

So we overpromise and underdeliver. Not maliciously, but structurally. Not because we’re failing, but because we’re operating in systems that were never designed to support our best work. Almost everyone recognizes this privately. Talk to people across tech, nonprofits, government, or startups, and you’ll hear the same themes: impossible timelines, understaffed teams, and constant urgency dressed up as ambition. A restorative rebellion begins with naming what’s actually happening.

What We’re Teaching the Next Generation

Lately, one of the most important things I’ve been sitting with has shifted this conversation in a direction I wasn’t expecting. We keep talking about AI and integrity, about whether people are using it as a shortcut. But maybe we’re asking the wrong question entirely. The research I do and what I am noticing around me are starting to surface something more unsettling: kids aren’t most worried about getting caught using AI. Their fear is that it’s making them dumber. There’s a distinction worth naming here. When adults use AI to handle thinking we’ve already learned to do, that’s cognitive offloading, outsourcing a capacity we already built. But for children who are still building those capacities, something different is happening. You can’t offload a skill you never developed, and the word for that isn’t offloading. It’s stunting. That reframing changes everything, not just how we think about kids, but how we think about ourselves. Because we are all responsible for raising the next generation, whether or not we have children of our own. The cultures we build at work, the pace we model, the depth of thinking we reward or rush past: children are watching all of it, and they are learning from it.

Reclaiming Your Internal Rhythm

Focus isn’t just a productivity strategy. It’s a way of reclaiming your own internal rhythm, the one the attention economy has been quietly overwriting for years. And reclaiming it is, I’d argue, one of the most quietly radical things any of us can do right now. Not because it makes us more efficient, but because it makes us more ourselves. The questions worth sitting with aren’t just professional ones. They’re human ones: What kind of thinking are we modeling? What are we teaching people to value, speed or depth? And what were we capable of, before we stopped making space for it? We forget what we lost. The work of getting it back starts with noticing it’s gone.

More on that soon.

Trying to focus,

The Restorative Rebel

Hello Friends!

This month’s newsletter lands a little differently. I've been wanting to put this together for a while, and this month, it felt right. So, whether you’ve read The Restorative Rebel, have it on your nightstand gathering dust (no judgment — same), or are just here because you like to read and ponder, this behind-the-scenes reading list is for you.

Every idea in my book came from somewhere and from many conversations and personal research. Years of reading, questioning, getting angry, getting hopeful, and occasionally throwing a book across the room because it said something I wasn’t ready to hear. These are those books. They’re not just citations buried in the endnotes — though they are all there if you want to go digging. They were the reads that shook me, gave me clarity on things I’d been feeling for years, and ultimately made me brave enough to write my own.

This is my essential reading list, documenting the ideas that shaped my own.

On Capitalism, Inequality & Economic History

The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith: Whatever your politics, going back to Smith’s own words is worth doing — especially when so much of what gets attributed to him has been selectively interpreted to serve a particular agenda. This book has been interpreted and misinterpreted many times over, but what I find interesting is that, although it is considered the foundation of modern economics, it contains no mathematical equations. Instead, it focuses on case studies and patterns that Smith observed (in white working men) and compiled. It's a reminder that even the "godfather” of modern economics couldn't fit people's behavior into numbers and equations, and neither should we.

The End of Loyalty: The Rise and Fall of Good Jobs in America by Rick Wartzman: This one genuinely surprised me. I grew up in the ‘90s with no real awareness of welfare capitalism, the idea that mid-20th-century employers felt a genuine responsibility to their workers. Wartzman walks through how that system was built by my grandparents’ generation, benefited my parents’, and was largely dismantled by the Reagan era. By the time I entered the workforce in 2008, it was already gone. Reading this gave me a whole new frame for understanding why work feels the way it does today.

Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty: I’ll be honest: I read this like a textbook, dipping in and around chapters and going back to remember chunks since I read it in 2017, and still, I've never read it cover to cover. But after the 2016 election, this book gave me genuine comfort. Piketty clearly shows that rising inequality isn’t a glitch in capitalism but a predictable feature of it, backed by things I’d been observing for years and that became a central theme of my book: capitalism doesn't care about you! His historical analysis of wealth concentration is essential reading if you want to understand how history repeats itself through it.

The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein: I have been a fan of her investigative reporting since I saw her documentary, The Take, in 2004. Klein shows how crises, like natural disasters, economic collapses, and political upheavals, are exploited to push through controversial policies that benefit corporations and the wealthy. It reframes how you look at every major crisis, past and present.

Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist by Kate Raworth: This work reimagines economic principles from the ground up and turns them into something appetizing for the worker's soul and the planet's well-being. Raworth critiques traditional economics for ignoring both ecological and social foundations and proposes a new model in which the goal is to meet human needs without overshooting planetary limits. It gave me genuine hope that a different kind of economy is still possible.

Das Kapital by Karl Marx: This is not a light read, and I definitely didn't read the original German version. I first encountered it in my undergrad political economics class, and it took real effort to unpack. But Marx’s historical analysis and his critique of how labor is valued (or devalued) remain remarkably relevant. If you’ve only ever heard about Marx secondhand, reading even a portion of this is illuminating, as I believe he is grossly misquoted and misinterpreted by capitalist culture.

Understanding Power by Noam Chomsky: I love how this man has been telling uncomfortable truths for decades, but I find Chomsky’s writing can be very dense and hard to understand. Nevertheless, I found this collection of conversations to be far more accessible and engaging. He digs into how powerful interests manipulate public understanding of ideologies, including Marxism, to uphold capitalist structures. As always, he provides eye-opening insights on the role of media and education.

On American Myths, Race & Class

A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn: I still think about the moment my high school history teacher pointed me toward this book after I asked why a country founded on “democracy” limited voting to land-owning white men. Zinn’s account of who actually benefited from the American Revolution, and how the promises of equality were always reserved for an elite few, permanently changed how I read history, news, and political speech.

White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America by Nancy Isenberg: This book dismantles the myth of American democracy by showing how class-based and ethnic exclusion were baked into the country’s foundation from the start, and how that history has been hidden by design.

Women, Race & Class by Angela Y. Davis: This woman is a poet, activist, scholar, and incredible writer, just to name a few reasons why I admire and respect her. In this work, Davis provides a Marxist analysis of racism, gender, and class in American history that gave me a comprehensive, intersectional framework for understanding feminism. Her work made clear that liberation struggles can’t be separated from one another — and that’s something I’ve tried to carry through in my own writing and advocacy.

Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi: This reshaped how I view American “meritocracy.” Kendi’s analysis reveals how discriminatory policies have historically advantaged some while excluding others, exposing the myth that success is purely a result of hard work. The systemic nature of racial inequality becomes impossible to deny.

The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin: I love all of his work, and out of so many, I find Baldwin wrote about America in the most painfully beautiful way. This was the first work of his I read, and I keep coming back to it. He exposes how systemic racism forecloses the promises of equality for Black Americans, and he challenges the country to actually reckon with its racial injustices. His voice feels as urgent today as when he wrote it.

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates: Much like Baldwin, Coates serves as a modern-day voice of truth, dissecting the American Dream and confronting the reality of racial injustice. His work is prolific, but I highly enjoyed reading it paired alongside The Fire Next Time. Different time periods, but very similar themes, and beautifully written with strokes of sharp critique, you can't unsee once you read them.

The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan: When I read it as a quirky teen, it shattered my understanding of who the American Dream was truly built for (hence my emo period). Friedan’s examination of the dissatisfaction and unfulfilled potential of women confined to domestic roles in post-war America felt startlingly relevant. Though published decades ago, much of her critique remains very much alive, although still unacknowledged by many in power.

On Work, Leadership & Organizations

Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World by Anand Giridharadas: I used to believe that businesses genuinely cared about making a positive impact. When I realized that wasn’t always the case, I became interested in the social impact sector as a way to address it. Then I read this book, and it opened my eyes to how many of the same businesses causing societal harm were profiting from appearing benevolent. At times, a tough read, but an important one.

The Fissured Workplace by David Weil: From the very first pages, Weil examines how shifts in employment practices have hollowed out job stability and worker protections. This is essential context for understanding the gig economy, contracting, and why work feels so precarious these days.

Give and Take: Why Helping Others Drives Our Success by Adam M. Grant: I return to this one often in my work, especially when I see internalized capitalism distorting business culture. Grant provides solid evidence that overly self-serving behavior actually hurts businesses in the long run, and that generosity and collaboration are not soft values, but strategic ones.

What Works: Gender Equality by Design by Iris Bohnet: In 2015, I had the privilege of hosting her at UNESCO, and her work continues to influence how I think about building equitable environments. Bohnet argues that gender equality is both a moral and a business imperative, and then she actually shows you how to build it into organizations through behavioral design. This book is both data-driven and practical.

Forked: A New Standard for American Dining by Saru Jayaraman: This one stood out to me because it talks about the racist origins of tipping, how it undervalues workers, and how businesses have actively fought fair wage policies to preserve an exploitative system that benefits them. If you’ve ever wondered why tipping culture is so entrenched in America (and almost nowhere else), this is a great, but unsettling, read.

Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon by Michael Lewis: An unexpected entry, maybe — but this book partially inspired an entire chapter of The Restorative Rebel. It raised real concerns for me about what happens when tech entrepreneurs with enormous resources approach “saving humanity” through algorithms and theory, without ever engaging with the lived realities of the people they claim to be helping.

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson: In this book, Wilkerson introduced me to one of the most important concepts I carry in my work: radical empathy. The active, deliberate practice of placing yourself inside another person's experience without judgment, and genuinely reckoning with the systemic forces that shaped who they are and what they've endured. It's a concept so elegantly articulated that it demands to be internalized and then practiced over and over, not just understood intellectually.

On Rest, Joy & Living Differently

Rest is Resistance: A Manifesto by Tricia Hersey: Before I read this book, I had internalized the grind so completely that I never thought to question it. Hersey dismantles the lie that our worth is tied to our productivity, exposing how white supremacy and capitalism have weaponized busyness against us, particularly against Black women and other marginalized people. Rest, she argues, is not laziness or a luxury. It is resistance. It is care. It is reclamation. This book reshaped how I relate to my own body and time in ways I'm still discovering.

The Ethical Slut by Dossie Easton & Janet W. Hardy: Ok, I realize the title could raise some eyebrows. But the reason this made the list isn’t only about relationships. Reading it prompted me to think about how its emphasis on consent, communication, and recognizing the importance of all kinds of connections applies far beyond the romantic. Some of its idealism is a bit much, but the foundational framework is genuinely useful for how we govern all relationships and applying aspects of it in how we work, whether paid or not.

A Few More Worth Knowing

Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind by Geert Hofstede, Gert Jan Hofstede & Michael Minkov: I love a cross-cultural research deep-dive. This is a classic on how national and organizational cultures shape behavior and values — particularly useful for thinking about how “work culture” differs across countries, and why American defaults aren’t universal.

Living on a Dollar a Day by Thomas Nazario: Fresh out of university, I contributed to this book as a qualitative researcher from 2011 to 2012, conducting fieldwork in Peru and Bolivia on behalf of the Forgotten International. Interviewing women about their daily lives deepened my understanding of the economic obstacles women face globally — and reinforced my commitment to advocating for financial equity, which is basically gender equity in capitalist terms.

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Well, that was a whirlwind!

Thanks for making it to this point. That sums up the 24 books that collectively dismantled, rebuilt, and deepened everything I thought I knew about capitalism, work, race, class, rest, and what it means to actually care for each other. None of them is easy to read, but none of the best things are. If even a few of them land for you the way they landed for me, I promise you’ll come out the other side seeing things a little differently — and seeing things differently is exactly where The Restorative Rebel begins.

Now I want to hear from you. Which of these have you already read? Which ones are you adding to your list? And most importantly — what should I read next? Drop it in the comments, reply to this email, or let me know in passing. I’m always looking for the next book to throw across the room in the best possible way.

With love and solidarity,

The Restorative Rebel

Hello friends.

Let's get into it. I got really scared recently. Full panic, dissociation, lost my breath, the whole thing. The four walls around me hadn’t changed, but I knew I was doom-spiraling. I had put too much on my plate, and instead of sending some of it back, I tried to balance it all. I reverted to bad habits. I bulldozed my own limits. I felt like I let everyone down, and I suffered. Not good.

Then I remembered: I can’t control what already happened, but I can course-correct moving forward. That’s what I’m doing this week. And. It’s. Going.

I’ve been thinking a lot about holding multiple emotions at once. I’ve been scared for most of my life, but I still did things that many have told me were brave (something that feels cringy when I write it). Nevertheless, fear showed up in both positive and negative ways throughout my life. When I became a parent, I felt immense joy and immense fear at the same time. A love I had never known before, and the full weight of how relentless parenting actually is. Those emotions live in different places in my thoughts and actions, and I’m trying to be more intentional about how I use them. Always operating from fear is taxing on the body, on our families, and on society.

The Nervous System Was Not Meant to Run This Hot

A few times in my life, when I was truly scared, my nervous system kicked in and got me out of danger. It gave me energy and clarity. But internalized capitalism never stopped to ask the real question: why are you scared all the time?

When I first saw Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, I assumed my fears lived near the top of the pyramid, close to self-actualization, that persistent voice telling me I was not enough, and I could do better. But the more I sat with it, the more I realized I was also worried about the bottom layers, about survival and safety itself, because the things that were supposed to move me up that ladder had all been commodified. Security. Health. Education. Shelter. To access them, I had to conform, contort, and constantly strive.

Even in moments of financial security, there was an inner voice reminding me I could lose it all in an instant. That I needed to stay vigilant. Internalized capitalism overworks our nervous systems until hypervigilance becomes our default state, instead of something we call on only when we genuinely need it.

This is something I dig into more deeply in my book, The Restorative Rebel, because understanding how capitalism colonizes our nervous systems was central to why I wrote it in the first place.

Doing It Scared

A few years ago, when I decided to change some things in my life, I had a lot of fear. I was afraid I was stuck in a rat race that was taking a physical and emotional toll on me. I was also afraid that if I got out and started doing the things I had always dreamed about, including working for myself, writing, volunteering more, everything I had built would crumble. But when the choice was made for me, and I was laid off, I was forced to shift. The hypervigilance kicked in I started working through fear instead of around it. And I'm still in the middle of it, two years and counting.

Some people might be surprised to hear that I am a scaredy cat. I’ve been told I come across as fearless, but I never feel that way. (It’s funny how rarely others’ perceptions of us match our own.)

I wrote The Restorative Rebel scared. I was afraid of the financial fallout, the professional risk, what people would think, and of putting myself out there. But something in me said, "Do it anyway,” and that choice cracked something open. What held me back a few years ago, I’ve built a resilience to. And I’ve come to understand that when people are conditioned to live in fear and stress, it can feel like a genuine threat to their existence when someone questions that conditioning. I have felt afraid to share how I really feel. But I am privileged enough to choose to do it anyway.

Emotions Are Not One-Sided

I keep returning to this idea: emotions are not flat. They are more like a many-sided dice. Fear can look like excitement. Excitement can become joy, learning, and inspiration when you work through it. It can also become grief, regret, or failure. Each roll marks us, and how it marks us shapes how we move through the world.

If we can learn to go inward when we feel something, it can change our outward view. Introspection is not something the men running our media cycles or our political circus are promoting. But it is genuinely transformative.

Take anger. Here is what I’ve come to understand about this emotion: when it is used to address inequity or injustice, that is exactly what it is for. Then it can be redirected toward repairing harm, restoring humanity, and becoming something we can all benefit from. When anger is used only to create more anger, it needs to be redirected. That is why I can’t stop thinking about matriarchy.

You Are Not Alone in This

Capitalist culture’s obsession with individualism is not inherently human; it conditions us to be afraid. Whether the catalyst is the climate, economic instability, family, or something entirely personal, I think we, the people, are starting to realize we are in this together, and that our humanity actually depends on it. I explore this more in Chapter 7 of The Restorative Rebel, titled “Embracing Joy and Taking Care.” Collective care isn’t soft; it’s structural. And it starts with choosing to work through fear together. That's what the matriarchy is all about, and I'm here for it.

So here is what I want you to take from this: fear is not a character flaw. It is a signal. It can become excitement, anger, grief, joy, or inspiration, depending on how you use it. Our nervous systems were never meant to run this hot, and the fact that so many of us are exhausted and overwhelmed is not a personal failure. It is a design flaw in the system we were handed. The work is learning to feel it, name it, and move through it anyway, ideally not alone.

You don’t have to be fearless. I’m not. I do it scared all the time, and I think that’s the whole point. When we stop pretending we have it together and start being honest about what we’re carrying, we create space for each other to do the same. That is not weakness. That is human, and it's a beautiful mess.

And yes, it is hard, new, and uncomfortable. But I promise you it will be worth it, too. However, that shows up for you, I'd like to hear about it. We are not alone in this.

Your truly,

The (doing it scared) Restorative Rebel

Hi Friends,

Spring has sprung, and I’m noticing growth all around me and within me. One year ago this month, I published my book and moved back to the States from France. I thought I was moving to France for good, but life had other plans, and I’m surprised and grateful for what has happened.

I didn’t make a big announcement about it at the time. Partly because I wasn’t sure what to say, and partly because the move itself felt like something I needed to sit with before I could name it. A year later, I’m still sitting with it — but now it’s starting to feel like a chair I actually chose, rather than one I stumbled into.

Coming back has been transformative in ways I didn’t expect and couldn’t have planned. Not because everything is better here — it isn’t, btw, and this political moment makes that painfully clear. But because returning forced me to confront something I had been outrunning: myself.

And returning has taught me that two things can be true at once. I am scared and inspired. Angry and joyful. And on that last one — I want to offer a special thanks to Oakland, and to Black Americans, who have taught me joy embodied. They have embodied it for generations, under conditions that would justify its absence, and chosen it anyway. That is beautiful. That is instructive. And I am genuinely grateful to call this city home.

How I Define Success

One of the things I come back to is how much a single word can hold — and how differently it lands depending on where someone is in their life and psychological development. We all move through different stages of understanding ourselves and the world, and the values and metrics we use to measure a life worth living shift as we do.

Success is a good example. For some people, success is about security — having enough, feeling safe. For others, it’s about belonging, or mastery, or achievement. None of those are wrong. They’re just different chapters.

For a long time, my success was solely tied to achievement. My definition of success was legible to the outside world. Measurable. Impressive, even. And underneath it, if I’m honest, was a kind of internalized capitalism I hadn’t fully named yet. The belief that my worth was in my output. That doing more was the same as being more.

But I’ve moved into a different chapter now. One where success means something harder to put on a resume: living in alignment with my values. And my values are rooted in intersectional justice — which means I can no longer tolerate the hypocrisy of professing to care about equity while participating in systems that undermine it. That tension has become unbearable to me in a way it simply wasn’t before, and I think that’s actually a sign of growth, even when it’s uncomfortable.

Writing The Restorative Rebel was, in part, an act of working that out in real time. I was writing a book about resisting extractive systems while simultaneously grappling with how deeply those systems lived inside me.

So when people ask how the book is doing, I want to say, “The book is fine.” But the more interesting question is, “How am I doing?” The answer, one year in, is: better. Slowly, genuinely better.

The New Muscle I’m Workin’

This year, I invested in therapy. I slowed my work schedule down, which made me less money but left me feeling more fulfilled and less stressed. I moved into a smaller place, which fits my budget and is easier to manage. And I made more time for offline connection: real conversations, homemade meals, showing up for people in embodied ways rather than digital ones. None of this came naturally. It's a new muscle, and new muscles are awkward before they’re strong.

There were (and still are) moments when the old wiring kicks in. Rest feels like failure. Quiet feels like falling behind. But something has started to shift. The slower pace is beginning to feel less like deprivation and more like ground. The kind of ground you can actually build something on. It’s scary. It’s also genuinely exciting. I’m trying to hold both: the discomfort of uncertainty and the real, growing sense that this is what health actually feels like.

I’m also trying to stay honest with my anger. Not suppress it, not perform it, but use it as motivation to spread more joy. The world is giving us a lot to be angry about right now. I’ve been finding ways to let that anger move me toward small acts of loving defiance: showing up for people who need it, reducing harm where I can, choosing care over compliance in the daily decisions that mostly go unnoticed.

That, too, is restorative rebellion.

MCert: Matriarchy in Action

I’m fresh off the first MCert convening and still sitting with what it meant to be in that room.

MCert is a new non-partisan initiative building science-backed quality standards for digital mental health tools for young people. It’s hard, important work that most people passively interact with every day without realizing it — every time a young person opens an app to manage anxiety, or turns to an AI because they don’t know where else to go. The convening was small and intentional, and the learnings will be shared broadly as the work evolves.

But what I keep coming back to is how this work evolved into matriarchy in action. 99% of our attendees were women. And I don’t think that was a coincidence. I think it was a signal.

Because matriarchy, at its core, isn’t the mirror image of patriarchy. It isn’t about who holds power over whom. It’s a fundamentally different organizing principle. Success in a matriarchal framework isn’t individual; it’s collective. It isn’t measured by who wins, but by whether everyone is better off. It centers children, not men. It prioritizes the next generation over the current hierarchy. And it is, by nature, non-partisan, because the well-being of young people isn’t a political position. It’s a human one.

MCert embodies all of that. A room full of women, working across sectors, without ego, toward shared standards that serve young people. No one needed to be the loudest voice to matter. Accountability and collaboration weren’t in tension. They were the same thing.

Women know this kind of work. We’ve been doing it forever, mostly without credit and often without resources. So when I say the room felt different, I mean it felt like what work is supposed to feel like. I know I’m in good hands.

What I’m Teaching

I just wrapped my second time teaching the Well-Being Strategist Training through the Berkeley Well-Being Institute, and it was beyond fulfilling. Teaching is one of my greatest joys, and this course in particular feels alive in a way that’s hard to explain.

The core insight of the training is deceptively simple: even when we share a language, we don’t always share the same meaning. Words like “success,” “support,” “listening,” or “gratitude” can mean genuinely different things to different people depending on where they are in their development, what they value, and how they understand themselves and the world. That gap, the one between what we think we’re communicating and what someone else is actually receiving, is responsible for so much unnecessary friction in our relationships, our workplaces, and our communities.

The training helps care professionals, coaches, counselors, and consultants learn to recognize that gap and work with it rather than around it. Not by prescribing the same tools to everyone, but by developing the attunement and humility to meet people where they actually are.

That feels as relevant to community building and social change as it does to one-on-one coaching. If you’re a care professional or educator looking for a framework you’ll actually use, I’d love for you to check it out.

Book Update

March is Women’s History Month, and Bookshop.org featured The Restorative Rebel as part of that celebration. There is a discount available until the end of March, and every purchase supports an independent local bookstore, which feels deeply aligned with what this book is actually about.

If you’ve been meaning to grab a copy, this is a good moment. And if you already have one, thank you. Truly.

Thank you for reading this far. I’m a work in progress, and so is the work, and I’ve made peace with my belief that those two things might always be true.

But I know this: the work of building something better — inside ourselves, between each other, in the structures we inhabit — is daily. It’s relational. It’s ours.

So here’s to another one. Slower, sturdier, and still in it.

In solidarity,

The Restorative Rebel

Hello friends,

In the States, in February we performatively celebrate Black history. In March, women’s history. And yet every single day, without a dedicated month, a parade, or a hashtag, we celebrate the history of untherapized men. In boardrooms and courtrooms, in legislation and living rooms, in wars declared over breakfast and policies drafted to keep the rest of us small and complicit.

Part of my upbringing included being told I could do anything I wanted, as long as I followed the rules. I tried. Until I realized the rules were not the same for men as they were for me, and that following them meant learning to ignore my emotions and my desire to care for others. I had to learn this many times, over many years.

“Boys will be boys.” “You need to be the bigger person.” “Smile more.” These narratives reminded me that the rules for surviving in society were presented as universal but in practice only applied to men when convenient, while the rest of us were expected to conform. American society, and western imperialism at large, has done a profound disservice to men by raising them to be entirely disconnected from their emotions, the very thing that makes us human.

And the rest of us have been paying for it ever since.

The Wound We Are All Living Inside

Women, people of color, and the LGBTQ+ community know this cruelty intimately: we are not allowed to show our emotions, and we are demonized for having them. We code-switch, shrink, smile, and survive. And meanwhile, these same untherapized men, the ones running companies, writing laws, deploying armies, are screaming, in every way but words, for a hug. For someone to ask them how they’re feeling and mean it.

Instead, they enact wars. They manufacture enemies. They write legislation designed to suppress our joy, limit our fundamental human rights, and criminalize our ability to feel. Books, art, emotional literacy, anything that supports the beauty of being a fully feeling human being, these are branded as weakness and a threat.

In The Restorative Rebel, I write about watching Silicon Valley reward overconfident young men who suppressed their emotions, performed as though they were machines, and were applauded for “moving fast and breaking things” with little regard for the harm they caused. They were celebrated as visionaries while their decisions and “innovations” lead to enshittification, economic violence, and increasing inequality. This is not a quirk of tech culture. It is a preview of how the whole system works. Disconnected men, validated by disconnected systems, scaling their disconnection into policy and power.

Emotional suppression is a feature of patriarchal capitalism, not a bug. A man who can feel is a man who might hesitate. A man who can grieve might question a war. A man who knows tenderness might not vote to take it from others.

What We’ve Always Known

Here is the thing about being forced to develop emotional intelligence under conditions of oppression: you become extraordinary at it.

Women, people of color, and the LGBTQ+ community have had to master reading rooms, managing reactions, metabolizing injustice, and still showing up with grace, not because it is easy or fair, but because survival often depended on it. The emotional labor we carry, the endless translation, the patience, the care extended even toward people who have harmed us, is not weakness. It is the greatest strength. Not because it is comfortable or natural, but because it is actively oppressed. And still we persist.

We are not asking men to be perfect. We are begging them to feel. But hell hath no fury like a man asked to be in tune with his emotions.

The Mess We Are In

Let me be clear: this is not about all men. But here is the problem— we never know which men. We are taught to be vigilant in every room, at every hour, with every stranger and sometimes every person we love. That vigilance is exhausting. And still, many of us show up anyway, extending a hand, holding the door open, believing in the possibility of something better. Because we know hurt people hurt people.

And the men who are most dangerous are often the ones in the most pain, with the fewest tools to process it. Suppressed emotional pain does not disappear. It migrates. It becomes control. It becomes contempt. It becomes policy. It becomes war.

A Million Tiny Acts of Love as Resistance

So what do we do with this? We who are already tired, already carrying too much, already doing the work on behalf of people who have not yet decided to do it themselves?

We do not have to fix them. But we can refuse to make their emotional avoidance comfortable and still leave the door open for them to change.

The answers are not complicated. They live in the ordinary moments, in how we respond when someone shows up emotionally, in what we choose to celebrate or let pass in silence, in how much of ourselves we protect in a system that profits from our depletion. These are not grand gestures. They are quiet, daily choices that accumulate into culture.

In The Restorative Rebel, I make the case that joy is not something you earn. It is an inherent right. And in a system designed to suppress what is most human in us, choosing joy, protecting it, sharing it, making it infectious, is a radical act.

You already know what that looks like in your own life. Trust that.

The Strength It Actually Takes

It takes tremendous strength to extend compassion toward people and systems that have caused harm. The emotional regulation required to hold both the grief of what has been done and the hope for what could be is not small work. It is not weakness. It is not naivety.

It is the hardest thing I know.

The majority of the oppressed have been doing this work forever, in homes, in movements, in quiet moments of choosing not to become the thing that hurt them. That legacy is the blueprint. Not for saving untherapized men from themselves, but for building the world they do not yet know how to imagine.

We do not owe anyone our healing. But many of us are still here, persistent, joyful, gloriously stubborn, because we chose to heal anyway.

That is the restorative rebellion. That is the strength. And it starts, as it always has, with us.

Emotionally yours, The Restorative Rebel

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Hi Friends,

Thanks for joining. It's been a minute (aka a month). I admit, I haven’t been writing much lately. I’ve been doing stuff more than sharing it. And right now, the doing feels more important.

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For myself in the US, I cannot deny that we are living in fascist times. That word carries weight, but so does this moment. Policies, actions, and narratives that dehumanize immigrants, separate families, normalize violence, and consolidate power are no longer abstract; they are happening (and have been for decades, but now it is in overdrive). Writing about this sometimes feels scary. But for me, it also feels necessary.

Part of why I’ve been quieter is because I feel protective of the work I’m involved in. Much of it is relational and local, rooted in trust and care. Not everything needs to be broadcast. Some things need to be built quietly before they are named.

And still, silence isn’t the goal. But the work takes time, and deserves time and space to take shape without comments and critique. This work is messy, and the idea of what community is, and what it can be, is taking shape in new ways — I hope you are seeing that around you as well.

If that makes me a threat to the current order, so be it. What I am not is a threat to a new beginning. I am deeply committed to helping build one.

What I’ve Been Up To

Much of my energy lately has gone toward community-based work that doesn’t translate neatly into a newsletter. It’s relational. It requires trust more than visibility.

The sentiments from The Restorative Rebel are very much alive in that work, even if I haven’t been actively promoting the book. I’ve been practicing it.

One place this feels especially tangible is in my work with the Berkeley Well-Being Institute, where I’m teaching an online Well-Being Strategist Training.

This training supports coaches, consultants, counselors, and care professionals who want to deepen their support for others. It’s grounded in science-based, experience-driven methods like:

• Socratic dialogue and perspective-taking

• Active learning and skill-building

• Critical thinking and self-questioning

• Facilitated discussion and co-created learning

It's about helping people understand how to activate their well-being skills, no matter where or when. It’s not about quick fixes. It’s about helping people build steadier internal foundations in a world that constantly destabilizes us.

Teaching is my passion, and doing it in this space feels like a restorative rebellion in practice.

If that resonates, you can learn more here.

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Updates

March is Women’s History Month, and Bookshop.org will be featuring my book as part of that celebration.

If you follow Bookshop, keep an eye out. Within my feature, they’ll offer a discount, and each purchase supports a local independent bookstore, which feels aligned with everything I believe about community infrastructure. If you don't know about them, I highly recommend buying books from them.

More meaningful to me than the feature itself is the lineage. This book did not emerge in isolation. It was shaped by generations of women who interrogated power, redefined leadership, examined capitalism, challenged patriarchy, and insisted on more humane systems. Many of the female authors cited in my endnotes cracked something open in me long before I ever wrote a sentence of my own.

Women who refused inherited narratives.
Women who told inconvenient truths.
Women who asked better questions.

If this book resonates with you, it’s likely because their work did first.

This feature feels less like a spotlight and more like a continuation — a small thread in a much longer tapestry of resistance, care, and intellectual courage.

How to Get Involved

I’ll be honest: marketing this book doesn’t come naturally to me. I don’t want this work to feel transactional or reduced to a brand. What I do want is for these ideas to be accessible.

If you’ve read the book and it meant something to you, I would love your help — not in boosting an algorithm, but in building spaces.

• Host a small reading circle.

• Bring it into a classroom.

• Invite me to speak.

• Experiment with the ideas at your dinner table.

• Recommend it to someone who is questioning the systems they were handed.

If you have creative, joyful, non-gross ways to share this work, tell me. I’m open. I care more about impact than optics, and I love creating with others — so this is one way I'm reaching out to you!

When things feel this hard, we tend to retreat into what we know. Old habits. Old hierarchies. Old defenses.

But the work ahead requires something different.

In the conclusion of The Restorative Rebel, I write about choosing your own adventure — about refusing to accept inherited scripts and instead actively shaping the systems you participate in.

We may not control the broader political moment. But we do control how we show up within it.

We can reinforce structures built on fear and extraction.
Or we can build something sturdier, rooted in care and collective well-being.

That choice is daily. It’s relational. It’s ours.

And with that, my invitation to you is that now, especially now, you have the opportunity to pursue your own restorative rebellion.

In solidarity,

The Restorative Rebel

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I’ve been sitting with a familiar tightness lately. The kind that settles into your chest when the news doesn’t let up and the ground beneath you feels less stable than it once did. Flashbacks from 2016 are circulating across social media, a decade ago now, and they carry memories of the first Trump administration. Unfortunately, I can believe we’re living through a second term, and yet… I am both deeply sad and deeply hopeful.

I’ve been reflecting a lot on who I was in 2016 and who I am now. I was still an activist then, but my activism looked very different. That year, I was freshly fired from UNESCO when the U.S. officially withdrew. I moved back to the Bay Area on short notice and threw myself into civic action groups, protests, and organizing. I was scared. I was angry. I knew how bad things could get. And I completely overextended myself—physically, emotionally, socially, professionally. I burned out. Hard. I had a nervous breakdown. I had to do a lot of work on myself, but you can read more about that in my book.

However, this time, things are different. I’m still scared, I am still showing up, but I have better psychological skills to cope and persevere. Oh ya, I’m also a parent.

I know that one of the most important things I can do right now is create a safe, warm, and loving space for my family. I have an international family, and that reality shapes how I use my privilege. We quietly talk through emergency plans, while also speaking openly with our child about how—as Mr. Rogers reminds us—to always look for the helpers. To recognize love. To spread it. To care for others. I want to show him, and myself, that the measure of our humanity isn’t found in dominance or isolation, but in relationships and solidarity. Not in what we possess, but in how we care for one another.

This moment feels different from 2016 because the things many of us were warning about back then are now being implemented in real time. As authoritarian policies advance and state-sponsored violence escalates, people are responding not only with outrage but with coordination. With care. With intention.

Last week, on January 20th, I helped organize a local walkout/dance party. The goal wasn’t spectacle. It wasn’t to amplify fear or anger. It was simpler than that: to offer a place to walk to and gather. To make use of public space (now called third spaces). To bring people together and layer in a bit of joy as wave after wave of heaviness came before and after. I brought my kids, we danced, shared donuts, and hugged.

During that walkout, I was interviewed by W. Kamau Bell. He's an Oakland resident, a neighbor I see around, and someone I deeply admire. What is beautiful about him is how consistently his work centers community, locally and nationally, with humor, honesty, and care. (And yes, deep gratitude for donating all of your Celebrity Jeopardy winnings to Oakland public schools. That kind of follow-through matters.)

What stays with me most from that day isn’t the interview itself—it’s the people. Seniors walking alongside my kids. Friends, neighbors, and strangers. Artists and activists. Parents and elders. People who might never otherwise cross paths, sharing air, sidewalk, and presence. There was no single message. No perfectly articulated demand. Just a shared refusal to isolate.

Third spaces matter more than we’re taught to believe. They’re where fear loosens its grip. Where isolation softens. Where movements remember their humanity.

I keep returning to moments like this because they help me remember who I am. Over the years, my life has moved me across many borders—U.S. to Canada, France to the U.S., and back again. I’ve been an immigrant and an emigrant more than once. My chosen family spans countries, languages, and legal statuses. Movement, displacement, and return are not abstractions for me; they are lived experiences.

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Distance alone doesn’t create change. What creates change is the internal reckoning paired with external action. That realization is what led me to articulate what I call a restorative rebellion—a commitment to change ourselves while challenging systems, without replicating the harm those systems rely on.

I come back because this is home. And home is complicated. Wherever you call home—whether your belonging is formally recognized or constantly questioned—there is a pull, a responsibility, and a shared stake in what happens next.

If systems of oppression are going to weaken, they have to lose legitimacy. That doesn’t always happen through grand gestures, and it usually takes a long time (just ask any other country that has been through this before). More often, it happens through what I think of as healthy inconveniences:

• Strikes

• Boycotts

• Phone calls

• Protests

• Community gatherings

• Spending less time online and more time in person

• Talking—really talking—to the people around you

For some, these actions are inconvenient. For others, the risk is real. That distinction matters. Privilege matters.

I’m increasingly clear about how I want to use mine: to show up when others cannot, to speak when silence is safer for some, to care for those around me, not for credit, but because that's what I love doing. Many people cannot participate in the same ways without fear or consequence. That doesn’t make their resistance any less real. It asks the rest of us to be more intentional and more thoughtful about the roles we choose to play.

Rebellion is happening.
Restoration is needed.
And we all play different roles.

A restorative rebellion asks us to examine those roles with care. To get uncomfortable where we can, while building in the practices that make endurance possible—rest, joy, mutual care. This isn’t about martyrdom. It’s about sustainability.

I’m calling myself in, and inviting others, to find small, everyday ways to coalesce our energy. To support one another. To practice love not as a slogan, but as a discipline. It’s the only thing I’ve seen consistently interrupt hate’s momentum. It’s hard work—and it’s been beautiful to witness.

If you’re feeling scared right now, you’re not alone.
If you’re unsure how to show up, you’re not failing.
If all you can do today is create or step into a moment of community, that still matters.

Restoration rarely announces itself. Sometimes it starts with a walk. With shared laughter. By choosing not to perform a version of “normal” that no longer feels true.

That’s how we begin.
That’s the side of history I want to be on.

In solidarity,
The Restorative Rebel

Hello to the kind people who have followed me into 2026.

I want to wish you a restorative new year. That word feels more honest than happy, which lately carries the weight of expectation and superstition. As if naming joy might tempt its disappearance. To me, the start of a new year never felt like a reset or a fresh start; it was part of a continuum. And no, more than ever, it feels like a jolt to the nervous system. The calendar flips, but the body remembers what it has already endured. I am trying to be soft on myself and hard on the system. But, if I’m being honest, I feel scattered, lost, fuzzy.

In the winter, I hibernate a bit. I sleep better and longer. I tend read more and create less. It might be the weather, the time, or many different things at once, but in general, I’m not as motivated to produce as I am to learn and absorb. I feel drawn inward rather than outward. I felt compelled to write about this last winter, so the theme is seasonal.

This year, I’m actively teaching myself that this is not something to fix or override. It’s a season. And seasons don’t respond well to force. This tension, between what the world expects and what our bodies and minds actually need, recurs throughout The Restorative Rebel. In the fourth chapter, I write about how deeply productivity culture trains us to mistrust our own rhythms, especially when they don’t align with constant output.

“We are taught to treat rest as something indulgent, irresponsible, or earned only after exhaustion—rather than as a basic requirement for sustainable work and life.”
— The Restorative Rebel, Chapter 4: Reworking Work

Hope still exists, but it doesn’t arrive quietly anymore. It competes with uncertainty, grief, and the low-grade vigilance that has become so familiar that many of us forget to name it. We carry it alongside headlines, notifications, and the subtle pressure to keep up even when we’re depleted.

I spent part of this past weekend reflecting, asking myself how I want to show up this year—in this newsletter, in my work, and in my life. That question is woven throughout the book, beginning in the introduction, where I name how often we confuse endurance with success and survival with fulfillment.

The question is not, how do I do more?

It is, how do I stay intact while participating in the world as it is?

We live in a culture shaped by urgency. Speed is rewarded. Convenience is celebrated. Friction is treated like a flaw rather than a signal. Our current fascination with artificial intelligence makes this especially visible. The promise is efficiency. Answers without waiting. Output without pause.

Ethical questions often get sidelined. The inaccuracies. The deeper cost of removing ourselves entirely from the process.

In the first chapter, I write about how deeply we’ve internalized the belief that faster is better, and that worth is measured by visible productivity.

“When speed becomes synonymous with value, slowness is reframed as laziness rather than discernment.”
— The Restorative Rebel, Chapter 1: Dispelling American-Made Myths

Instant gratification is not neutral. It trains us out of patience, ritual, and presence. It disconnects us from the cycles that human nervous systems rely on to regulate and relate. When everything is optimized, very little is felt.

This brings me back to the idea at the heart of the title: Rest is not a reward. It is not something we earn after proving our worth or finishing the work. It is infrastructure. Without it, everything else eventually collapses.

That theme is explicit, where I write about rest as an act of resistance within systems that treat exhaustion as a virtue.

“Rest is not the opposite of ambition. It is what allows ambition to exist without destroying the person holding it.”
— The Restorative Rebel, Chapter 7: Embracing Joy and Taking Care

Practicing this in real time is harder than writing about it.

This year, I’m deliberately exercising a new muscle. I’m slowing down in a world that keeps accelerating. I’m choosing analog connection where I can—asking people for advice instead of algorithms, lingering in physical spaces instead of optimizing every decision online, allowing boredom and waiting to exist without immediately filling them.

This is uncomfortable for me. I catch myself defaulting to old habits. I mistake stillness for stagnation. But as I note in the last chapter, sustainable futures, personal or collective, require imagination, not constant extraction. Relentless optimization doesn’t lead to freedom. It leads to depletion, disconnection, and a narrowing of what we believe is possible.

Many of the systems we were told would protect us are already failing large portions of the population. For some communities, living without institutional support is not a future fear—it has always been a reality. There is wisdom there. Knowledge about mutual care and survival that doesn’t rely on excess. This isn’t about fear. It’s about honesty, acceptance, and learning to do better, because we are more than capable.

As we move into this year, I’m holding a few questions close:

• What actually helps me stay grounded when things feel unstable?

• Who am I accountable to beyond productivity and performance?

• How do we take care of each other without waiting for systems that were never designed to do so?

I don’t offer these as resolutions. I offer them as invitations.

If you’re reading this and feeling similarly untethered, I invite you to slow down with me. To read more than you write. To listen more than you produce. To trust that rest, presence, and connection are not indulgences.

Here’s to trying and making better mistakes tomorrow!

The Restorative Rebel

Hello there,

As the year comes to a close, I wanted to pause and say thank you.

This past year was a meaningful one for me. I wrote and published The Restorative Rebel, and I’ve been genuinely moved by how it’s landed. The notes, conversations, and quiet moments of recognition people have shared with me along the way have been uplifting, and I’m incredibly grateful. What began as a deeply personal project, one I was genuinely scared to publish, has since become something collective, which is a dream come true. The response has humbled me and reminded me that I’m not alone. And if you’re reading this, neither are you.

The book has brought me many gifts and tested me to practice what I preach. I had the chance to host workshops, connect with dozens of thoughtful humans across sectors and geographies, and make a conscious choice to let this work remain a passion project — not something driven solely by monetization, but by care, curiosity, and impact. For that, I’m deeply grateful.

I’m especially proud that I’ve stuck with this Substack for over a year now, and that it still brings me joy. Your readings, replies, musings, and comments have turned this space into a real conversation rather than a one-way broadcast, and I don’t take that lightly.

Aside from the book, a few other things stood out this year:

• Moving back to the U.S. after time abroad, and re-rooting myself personally and professionally

• Supporting founders, leaders, and early-career professionals through internalized capitalism and burnout

• Contributing to youth digital mental health efforts, including launching a new project focused on creating equity-centered standards for care

• Designing and facilitating well-being and CSR workshops for diverse, global teams

• Advising organizations on how to build more human-centered, mission-aligned ways of working

• Supporting proposal development and grant writing to help social impact work move forward

• Offering pro-bono advising to people navigating financial literacy, workplace inequities, and big life transitions

All of this work sits under the same belief that guides The Restorative Rebel: that how we work matters, that systems shape our well-being, and that small, intentional acts of care can quietly push back against extractive norms.

I also want to share something important to me. As part of how I work, I commit to giving back. Five percent of all income, including Dab Collab consulting work and book-related compensation, is donated.

This year, those contributions supported:

• Summer Search, a youth mentorship and support program (I’m an alum)

• The Forgotten International, focused on global poverty alleviation (I’m a former fellow)

• Médecins Sans Frontières / Doctors Without Borders, providing medical humanitarian aid worldwide (I was a volunteer back in college and have always supported their work)

Five percent may not seem like much, and in many ways it isn’t. It’s a starting point, not a solution. I hope for a future where extreme wealth is taxed fairly, and resources are distributed more equitably—one where care isn’t dependent on individual generosity at all. Until then, this is one way I try to act in alignment with my values, even while acknowledging the system itself needs to change.

I don’t share this to be performative. I share it because transparency matters, and because money is never neutral. The work I was able to do this year with your support made these contributions possible. So thank you for your time and for your courage to question the narratives that no longer suit you. May this bring you lightness in the future.

As the year closes, December can feel tender, heavy, and reflective. It can also be quietly hopeful. What I’m carrying into the next year is a deeper commitment to restoration—for ourselves, for one another, and for the systems we’re trying to change without burning ourselves out in the process. Thank you for being part of my community, whether through collaboration, conversation, or encouragement along the way. Wishing you a gentle close to the year and a restorative start to the next.

With gratitude,

The Restorative Rebel 💛

As the winter holidays approach and the year draws to a close, everything feels intense and more hectic at the same time. Maybe it’s because people are being asked to work longer for less. Maybe it’s because most workplaces still refuse to acknowledge that we are humans who care for children, parents, partners, friends, and communities. Or maybe it’s because we live inside a system that insists buying more things, for ourselves and for others, will somehow make the discomfort go away.

In The Restorative Rebel, I write about how capitalism doesn’t just organize our labor; it also trains our nervous systems. It teaches us to override our instincts, to push through exhaustion, and to confuse consumption with care. The holidays tend to amplify this tension. We are expected to be joyful, generous, productive, and grateful all at once, without slowing down long enough to ask what we actually need.

Around this time of year, I try to make my world smaller. Not in a disengaged way, but in a protective one. I do the work that needs to get done, but I intentionally save most of my emotional and mental energy for my child, my family, and the friends I love but don’t see nearly enough. This choice, this scaling down, is something I describe in the book as a mini restorative rebellion: a refusal to let the system decide where all my care should go.

Recently, someone asked me a simple but important question: What is a restorative rebellion?

To me, a restorative practice begins with acknowledging what is broken (the capitalist system). From that acknowledgement, I choose to restore or rebuild rather than ignore, bypass, or normalize harm. And because the status quo rarely rewards repair, that practice often becomes a form of rebellion. A restorative rebellion starts with ourselves, with how we listen to our bodies, set boundaries, and refuse to go numb. But it does not stop there. It seeks repair beyond the individual, toward our families, our workplaces, our communities, and the systems that shape our lives.

And still, while I am attempting to do that, people are suffering everywhere.

Another school shooting. Another faith-based attack. Each one jolts me, every single time. Yet we live in a system that, through its inaction, quietly tells us this is acceptable. That message forces a painful contradiction. We are expected to be hyper-vigilant and numb at the same time. To keep working. To keep producing. To keep pretending to care about things that feel increasingly disconnected from what matters, because our livelihoods depend on it.

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In the book, I talk about how we have learned to move fast while feeling slow. Our bodies carry grief, fear, and anger, but there is no shared infrastructure for processing them. Some people suppress that pain. Others let it surface in ways that feel risky or unsafe. Capitalism does not give us time to grieve, and it certainly does not give us space to process collective trauma. Instead, it offers thoughts and prayers packaged as purchases, performances, or platitudes, as if those could replace accountability, care, or change.

Feeling, truly feeling, is not a weakness. It is necessary. It is wise. And yet the place where most of us spend the majority of our waking hours, work, rarely honors that reality. More often, it penalizes us for it. Emotional suppression is rewarded as professionalism, while emotional honesty is treated as a liability.

A small, privileged few can take “mental health” or “emotional health” days from work. But in my experience, those days often come with judgment, subtle punishment, or the expectation that we explain ourselves in detail, as if pain must be justified to be legitimate. And as if one day could be enough.

This is how numbness becomes normalized. Not because people do not care, but because caring is made unsustainable.

So this season, I am sitting with a question I return to often in my writing: what does it mean to stay human in a system that benefits from our disconnection?

Sometimes the answer is not a grand gesture. Sometimes it looks like making your world smaller without looking away. Letting yourself feel, even when it is inconvenient. Choosing presence over performance. Refusing to go fully numb, even when the system encourages it.

That, too, is resistance.

I want to close by honoring those who continue to feel deeply in a world that makes feeling painful and exhausting. I also want to hold compassion for those who cannot feel right now, for whom numbness is a form of survival. And I want to acknowledge everyone who is doing their best without sacrificing their physical or mental health.

With that in mind, I hope we show one another that feeling is okay. That care is not something to be earned or optimized. And that is when we practice small acts of kindness, toward ourselves and toward others, those acts can reverberate far beyond what we can see.

Emotionally yours,

The Restorative Rebel

When I was younger and deeply addicted to my own internalized capitalism, I believed in “mind over matter.” But the way I interpreted it was basically: don’t pay attention to your mind, it doesn’t matter.

I genuinely thought I was in charge of my thoughts and could “will” the bad ones away. Whenever I felt down from overworking, skipping anything resembling physical care, or isolating myself from friends and family to squeeze in more hours, I assumed it was unrelated. I thought it was a weird coincidence that every stretch of burnout and zero self-maintenance made my mental health nosedive.

Eventually, the connection became impossible to ignore. Anxiety and stress from work started affecting my physical health. Any work updates about “not doing enough” would immediately kill my appetite or leave me with stomach pain. I’d get headaches, my eyes would blur from staring at my computer too long, and my thoughts turned into a tug-of-war between “you need to rest” and “you’re weak for needing a break.”

Capitalism thrives when we ignore our bodies, minds, and basic humanity. It rewards people for proving they can push past human limits. The people who work so much that others wonder when they sleep are held up as role models. People get promoted for showing loyalty to the company over their family or their own well-being, even if they aren’t particularly good at their jobs. And somewhere along the way, we started treating that as normal, something to aspire to even (which is gross, but real).

What capitalism failed to consider is that the system needs healthy people with jobs and money to spend to function at all. The pandemic showed this clearly. If we don’t put real support in place when people are sick, the whole system collapses. And when people are forced to work while sick or burned out, they produce lower-quality work and spread burnout, stress, and illness to everyone around them. We still haven’t addressed this. In fact, the current government and economy are doubling down on the belief that the opposite is true, which means they are rooting for their own demise. This time, they think AI will “solve” the problem, but the problem has always been about ignoring and denying human rights and treating that as “business as usual.”

The pandemic exposed the cracks in a system that makes caring for ourselves and one another nearly impossible. The word “burnout” became easier to talk about, but nothing significant has changed to address it. And now, with AI, the same pattern continues. Even though humans are designing these technologies, we aren’t using them to support human happiness or health. We’re using them to build more weapons, increase surveillance, and take even more capital away from people. The problem isn’t that AI will take our jobs. It’s that AI gives capitalists a new reason not to pay humans for work that still needs to be done. There is plenty of work to be done, but less of it is being paid for.

In capitalism, the only way to truly “succeed” is to own the means of production and constantly lower what you owe others (wages, benefits) while commodifying and raising the costs of necessities like housing, healthcare, education, and food. No wonder we don’t own anything anymore. Take music, for example: With Spotify, we don’t even own the music we listen to and love. Miss a month of payment, and you lose access, no matter how much you paid before.

So if we don’t own anything, how can we acknowledge our mental health? This system requires us to ignore our mental health, but humans can’t do that forever. You can try to say “don’t think those thoughts,” but that doesn’t stop them from coming. If we suppress them, they eventually show up as anxiety, addiction, violence, or self-harm.

Workplaces today are becoming more decentralized, outsourced, and isolated. Most of us are working harder with fewer resources while being told this is just the reality we should accept. Meanwhile, the “tech” sector has generated more wealth in the past 20 years than at any point in human history. Yet, so many people in this community feel more isolated and stretched thin than ever before. The wealth gap in Silicon Valley (the tech HQ) is worsening at an alarming rate. The math ain’t mathing!

Money reflects what a society values. Right now, we’re investing in AI, weapons, and pharmaceuticals that don’t improve human well-being. People know these things aren’t good for us, but many end up working in these systems because they’re the ones that hold all the financial power.

From the beginning of civilization, one thing has consistently made societies flourish: education. When societies invest in education, we produce more intelligent individuals who innovate in medicine, technology, and community care. We all benefit. Yet the U.S., the loudest defender of capitalism, has been divesting from education for decades. I didn’t become a teacher because the salaries made it unsustainable, even though teachers are the ones who lay the foundation for every future flourishing, financially productive workforce.

So if it feels like incentives are upside down, you’re not imagining it. This is what frustrates me most about capitalism. It pretends to be coherent, but it’s actually chaotic. It also convinces people that this is the only way society can function, but when we look at history, we know that is not the case.

I want to live in a world where doing your “best” at work means doing what you can without harming your physical or mental health, instead of what you can do by ignoring them.

Just so you know, this desire (actually need) is not about blaming people. It’s about naming the systems and policies that deny us our humanity, so people can do better because they have the right incentives to act in more humane ways.

We can still take small actions, like mini restorative rebellions, that begin shifting our workplaces toward a culture of mental wellness. We don’t have to wait for leaders to change first. When we make humane practices normal, others eventually have to adapt, step aside, or explain why they won’t.

Which brings us to an honest question: How do we define mental health for ourselves, acknowledge what we actually need, and practice it each day while also pushing against a system that makes it feel so difficult?

My book offers some suggestions, but I know I don’t have all the answers, and I don’t want to pretend as if I do. I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences as we figure this out together. The more we name what’s true and support one another, the closer we get to building a world that not only acknowledges our humanity but actually nurtures it.

Well-fully yours,

The Restorative Rebel

Hi friends,

To those old and new—welcome! This is my monthly-ish newsletter, where I share updates on my book, The Restorative Rebel, and the work of creating restorative rebellions: within myself, my communities, and maybe something bigger. Alongside these newsletters, I also send two bi-weekly deep dives into topics connected to the book because, spoiler alert, everything is connected.

Last month, I forgot to send out my October newsletter. Most of you probably didn’t notice, but I carried the self-induced guilt for days, convinced I had let everyone down. And that tiny guilt spiral gave me an unexpected “ah-ha” moment about creativity, capitalism, and why we sometimes lose the joy in the things we love.

This book began as something I needed to write for myself. However, to actually write it and put it out in the world, I had to tap into my internalized capitalist mindset. I told myself I could market it and use it to help grow my business, Dab Collab. I initially pitched it as an e-guide for those surviving late-stage capitalism, thinking it would have greater selling appeal. However, in the process of writing, I moved away from that “messaging”, called it a book, and made it my own.

After the book launched, I was pleasantly surprised that many read it, that it briefly became an Amazon bestseller, and that people wanted to engage more deeply with this work. I wanted to nurture that momentum, so I created a “creativity schedule,” thinking that structure would help me expand on the book’s themes and stay connected with my audience. I thought if I was doing more, quantity would equal quality. Turns out it does not.

The more pressure I put on myself to produce, the more I dreaded writing and especially marketing it. It felt weird trying to market a book about internalized capitalism; maybe that’s just me. So I had a tough conversation with my boss (me!), took a breath, and paused. If this wasn’t enjoyable, I needed to step back and rediscover my passion for it. Taking those extra weeks off helped me separate the book and its message from my paid work (even though the ideas inevitably seep in). And in that space, I found my joy again: speaking at conferences, meeting new readers, spotting the book in unexpected places; reconnecting with why I wrote it in the first place. It’s a tricky balance, and I’m still learning it.

I’m crazy enough to believe the ideas in this book can be scalable in the real world for the sake of human and planetary health. But I’ve never believed in forcing it—or filling your inbox with so many messages that the core of the book gets lost.

So, with that in mind, as you create your own restorative rebellions, if it helps to create goals or tap into your old ways to work new creativity muscles, go for it. But remember not to be a shitty boss to yourself. It will suck out all the fun, and so use this intro as permission to skip a turn, be late on a deliverable because you needed more time, and try to separate “urgent” and “important.” They may seem the same thing, but in reality, few things in life are really urgent, no matter how internalized capitalism shows up.

With that spirit of gentleness and recalibration, here are a few updates—and some opportunities to get involved.

Past Highlights

📝 Spread the Jelly Feature — I wrote an essay on caregiving, capitalism, and why care can’t stay invisible. It’s one of my favorite pieces since the book launched. 👉Read it here.

✈️ Airport Surprise — I spotted The Restorative Rebel at the San Francisco Airport, Green Apple bookstore! It was truly surreal: I had extra time and was looking for a book, so I checked to see if mine was there, and it was! Check out the silly video of me finding it below.

🎙️ Midlife Unleashed Course — I was interviewed for Midlife Unleashed: Awaken Your Purpose, Supercharge Your Energy & Rediscover the Real You! Midlife is such a weird word, but If you are interested in taking a free course, you can watch my interview and find more resources to reset your mindsets (or just be easier on yourself) 👉 Sign up for the free course and watch my interview

🗣️ Summer Search Alumni Conference — I hosted a workshop on navigating well-being and mental health under internalized capitalism. As an alum, it was a full-circle moment to help others from an organization that has helped me so much. 👉 See workshop highlights here.

If you’re interested in having me host a workshop, speak at an event, or collaborate in any of the ways mentioned above, please reach out! I’d love to connect with your community.

Updates & Opportunities

Throughout my career, I’ve mainly worked behind the scenes supporting social impact projects and organizations. Recently, I’ve been applying insights from my book more often, which is both exciting and a little intimidating. If any updates or opportunities resonate below, please contact me to learn more.

🌱 Berkeley Well-Being Strategist Course — Coming January 2026

Back by popular demand, we’re running our second online course! In partnership with the Berkeley Well-being Institute, this certificate program is for professionals who want to better understand others, strengthen emotional resilience, and build well-being into their work and life. Starting in January, this low-commitment course offer socratic seminar along with resources and tips you can apply directly to your work and life.
👉 Learn more and grab a discount here

🤝 Goodera — Corporate + Nonprofit Partnerships

I’m partnering with Goodera to help nonprofits connect with corporate volunteers who can offer meaningful skills, time, and impact.
For nonprofits looking to build partnerships with tech companies worldwide, click here to learn more and reach out to me if you’d like to explore this kind of support.

How to Get Involved

If you’re new here, I wrote a book, and yes, you can read it anywhere in the world. The Restorative Rebel is available in print and digitally on:

📚 Bookshop.org (supports indie bookstores)
📦 Amazon
📘 Your local book store (Or wherever you buy your books)
📚 Also request it at your local library

This book keeps finding its way into more hands, hearts, and conversations—thanks to you.

📣Here are ways to amplify this work and keep the momentum going:

• Leave an honest review on Amazon, Goodreads, Bookshop.org, or wherever you like to review your reads.

• Share the book and Substack with a friend, colleague, or fellow rebel

• Connect with me to co-create with your community

Thank you for reading, reflecting, and joining me on this journey. Here’s to planting more seeds, making better mistakes, and embracing the bold, messy, restorative work ahead. I’m always eager to hear how these topics resonate with you. Please feel free to comment, share, or connect with me directly at any time.

In humanity I trust, yours truly,

The Restorative Rebel

Hello friends,

I’ve been late in posting — just calling out that I’m human and needed a few extra days to get this one out. Thank you for staying tuned.

In the time that’s passed, the political theater has only grown more absurd and inhumane. Yet people on both sides of the spectrum keep calling the US a democracy and it inspired me to write about it. But what if it was never a democracy? And what if that’s not a tragedy, but an opportunity to finally build one?

Ever notice how buying something new, a phone, car, or something you consider a luxury, feels euphoric for a moment, then quickly fades? Psychologists call this the Hedonic Treadmill: our tendency to adapt to a new baseline and crave the next upgrade.

The same treadmill exists in our politics. Every election, every “historic” reform, every new face in Congress promises to fix what’s broken. We get a burst of hope, then watch the excitement fade as inequality grows, corruption deepens, and the system lurches toward another shutdown.

We’re told to keep running: to vote harder, donate more, and trust that the system will self-correct. But what if the treadmill isn’t broken? What if it were designed this way?

It might be called democracy, but it certainly doesn’t look or feel like one.

As I write this, the US government is in yet another man-made shutdown. Millions face disruptions to critical services, while the lawmakers responsible still collect their salaries. That’s not democracy — that’s fascism with good PR.

The US has always excelled at storytelling, no matter how far-fetched. But I digress.

What I’ve come to realize is that the US was never truly a democracy, not at its founding, and not now. Especially not in a system where those who create the shutdowns get paid while taxpayers lose essential services.

Other democratic-leaning nations have built safeguards, like automatically passing last year’s budget to protect social services from partisan hostage-taking. But America’s design rewards dysfunction because it was built on exclusion and control, not participation and care.

We inherited a system that was never meant to work for everyone. Maybe it’s time to stop pretending it was.

The United States Was Never a Democracy

In the first chapter of The Restorative Rebel, I write about debunking “America-made myths,” and the US claiming it is a democracy is one of them.

When the Constitution was drafted, the right to vote — and therefore to power — was reserved for landowning white men, a very small minority at the time. The “founding fathers” wrote a great document to serve their own interests. It didn’t include women, Indigenous people, or enslaved Africans.

We can speculate about their intentions, but the practice of exclusion is well-documented — both in American history and in my book.

This hierarchy wasn’t a glitch; it was the operating system. The same forces that built the economy through slavery, genocide, and unpaid care work built the political institutions we still call democratic.

What we call “freedom” was always conditional: the freedom to own, control, and accumulate. Freedom, in other words, for the privileged few.

When we see American democracy seemingly breaking down — with fascist rhetoric becoming common, billionaires funding disinformation, and the government shutting down because politicians refuse to feed children — we’re not witnessing its collapse. We’re witnessing the ongoing operation of a system that was never a true democracy because it doesn't serve the people.

The US is not a democracy. There were moments when it leaned closer to that ideal, but today it’s better defined as a kleptocracy dressed in red, white, and blue. Its two-party system, the Electoral College, and legalized bribery through campaign financing all serve one master: capital.

As I wrote in The Restorative Rebel:

“The wealthy chase a hollow pursuit of profit while the poor struggle through an unforgiving landscape, blamed for their hardship instead of receiving support through economic measures.”

Our political exhaustion mirrors our economic one. Late-stage capitalism has merged with late-stage democracy, both promising mobility, both delivering scarcity. No wonder people feel numb. We’re running on the political version of the hedonic treadmill, adapting to dysfunction as if it were normal.

Before I even knew what democracy was, I heard that phrase repeated by politicians, teachers, and family members. It’s one of our most effective national myths — but history tells a different story.

When the Constitution was written, democracy applied only to landowning white men. Everyone else — women, Indigenous people, enslaved Africans — was left out. The founders knew exactly what they were doing: creating a government that preserved their property, power, and version of freedom.

If this were a true democracy, they would have freed their slaves, recognized Indigenous land rights, and granted women equal protection under the law. They didn’t.

Even today, the remnants of that exclusion remain, like voter suppression, gerrymandering, and the Electoral College. Here, we’re still told that two parties are enough to represent 330 million people’s interests.

That’s not democracy. That’s branding. We can do better for the people if we create it by the people.

Building Better Systems

Here’s the paradox: acknowledging that America was never a democracy isn’t nihilism; consider it liberation.

Because if democracy was never real, it’s not something we’ve lost; it’s something we still have the power to create.

The first step is radical honesty. The myth of “the greatest democracy on Earth” keeps us complacent. The truth sets us in motion.

Democracy isn’t a noun, it’s a verb. It’s participatory, messy, relational, and slow. It happens in how we organize, not just how we vote every four years.

We don’t need to return to some imagined past of unity or greatness. We need to build forward — from a foundation of equity, truth, and care, not exceptionalism and fear.

So How Do We Make It One?

The “not-so” United States was never a democracy, and that’s okay, because that means we still have the chance to build one.

Start small. Lean into discomfort. Rethink labor that harms your physical and emotional health, while building the skills to create change over time. Practice makes progress.

In The Restorative Rebel, I offer many suggestions because a one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t work for everyone and has only ever benefited a small, wealthy minority.

Still, the work begins not through slogans or saviors, but through slow, unglamorous effort:

• Localize power through community-led decision-making.

• Decommodify essentials like housing, education, and healthcare.

• Redefine leadership to center care, not control.

• Choose equity over exceptionalism.

Democracy isn’t something we lost; it’s something we’ve yet to practice.

But first, we have to step off the treadmill and remember: the goal was never to run faster, it was to walk each other home.

So maybe the question isn’t, How do we save democracy?
Maybe it’s, how do we start one?

So let’s start now — by turning toward each other and being present. It might not change much today or tomorrow, but like exercise, doing it over time gets easier.

That’s how we build.

💬 If this piece resonated with you, share it, forward it, or comment below.

Hello there,

When I wrote The Restorative Rebel, part memoir, part roadmap, my aim wasn’t merely to critique capitalism, although I do a lot of that. I wanted to trace how that system gets under our skin, reshapes our habits and sense of worth, and then offer real ways to unwind those patterns. I almost didn’t publish it because I was worried the book would be swallowed by headlines or made irrelevant by the next political shakeup, especially now, in the shadow of a Trump 2.0 presidency. So much has happened this past year, and 2025 isn’t even over yet. Yet the chaos has only sharpened the book’s purpose: to help us reclaim attention, rebuild care, and practice small, stubborn acts that restore our dignity and the fabric of community.

When I began writing, I looked for patterns and threads connecting my own exhaustion to the world’s unrest. Two themes kept resurfacing.

The first: no matter how much I strive, capitalism doesn’t care about me. It rewards efficiency, not empathy. It claims to offer care and stability, but instead commodifies those things and blames those who don’t have them.

The second: despite it all, I still believe things can get better. When things look dark, that is the best time to be bold and creative, but we need to slow down, look back, and move forward with intention and care.

These once felt like simple, almost naïve ideas. Sometimes the most obvious ones are the most profound. But lately they feel radical. We live in a culture that glorifies achievement while normalizing destruction, where “rest” is a marketing slogan, and empathy is treated as inefficiency. The result is a society that talks about well-being but rarely practices it, one that confuses aimless, constant motion with progress.

And the latest engine fueling that movement? Technology. The same tools that promised connection and progress have become new tools of extraction — this time not just our labor, but also our attention.

The Loss of Looking Away

Technology was once promised to bring us peace, understanding, and tools to fight climate change. Instead, it has commodified our attention while eroding our rights—and made the one thing most of us rely on to survive in this system, money, is harder and harder to secure. I know this firsthand: as a consultant with no benefits, I constantly negotiate for a living wage, and I feel guilty about having to make that argument.

Today, the majority of us have less capital but more ads pushed, embedded, and disguised in every corner of our lives. Our attention is precious, but social media has turned it into static. We are better than that.

I still remember life before smartphones. I was 22 when I first got one. I don’t romanticize it—technology has offered me opportunities and access—but it hasn’t protected my basic rights to education, healthcare, or safety for myself or my family. So I use that memory as a compass. When my eyes ache and the fog creeps in, I catch myself. I put the phone down. I step away. My phone will not have the answers, but I know my community will.

But it’s hard, and documentaries like The Social Dilemma show that it was made to be addictive by design. Even as I use these platforms to reach you, I feel myself resisting them. Resting away from screens feels both liberating and terrifying, as if I might miss the next news break, connection, or disaster the moment I look away. But I still hold on to that memory, and I always benefit when I step away, far more than when I stay plugged in.

Still, I’ve noticed how much social media has degraded my attention span, so I’m trying to create small habits to push me out of my comfort zone. I’m creating healthy inconveniences—not to escape discomfort, but to work with it. Because maybe the real rebellion isn’t in disconnecting completely, but in choosing where and how to give our attention.

Creating Healthy Inconveniences (and Why Attention Is a Radical Act)

Lately, I’ve been building healthy inconveniences into my life: small ways to reawaken my senses and rejoin the world around me.

It started years ago, by accident, when I lived abroad, especially in France. I never had a car, lived in multi-story apartments with no elevator, and spent most days walking to do errands. The cities I lived in, Aix-en-Provence and even Paris, were not built for 21st-century convenience; they were built for connection. Cars were discouraged from entering the center, so everyone moved at a different pace. It wasn’t always convenient, but it was rich. I felt grounded, safe, and aware of my surroundings. I felt more connected to the city and its people.

Now, I’m back in the U.S., and I’m trying to keep that part alive. I’m putting structure around my screen time. Interacting more with my community. Walking to do errands. Budgeting to buy locally. Window shopping instead of doomscrolling. I have limits and I falter, but I try to stick with them. When I hear the hum of my neighborhood, it soothes me. And at times, when I look around, it breaks my heart—but I don’t turn away.

There are unhoused people who live in my neighborhood. When I see them, I don’t turn away, even though it can be uncomfortable (a luxury I can afford). I give what I can—money, food, a moment of attention, or at the very least direct eye contact and a friendly “hello.” I don’t do it to feel better about myself; I do it to remember that we’re all neighbors. Meaning begins with acknowledging one another and offering each other basic dignity.

While working with The Forgotten International over a decade ago, I saw the impact of dignity firsthand. Systems and societies do not value all lives equally, but love, care, and attention make a measurable difference for those most marginalized. Add a financial contribution rooted in real attention, and it can go further in the hands of those who know what they need. And those who suffer from those systems are the best equipped to build them better. So our attention to each other becomes shared values we can build together.

Holding attention long enough can even change how resources move. I don’t believe people are bad. I believe the inhuman logic of capitalism forces people into fearful choices when they feel they don’t have time to care.

And this, I’ve realized, is the heart of the task of creating our own restorative rebellion: focusing our attention is a radical act.

When I doubted whether publishing my book still mattered, I realized I wasn’t saying anything new; I was just describing the same old patterns of exploitation, commodification, and disconnection. What’s changed is where I place the blame. It’s not on individuals for struggling; it’s on a system designed to keep us struggling, distracted, and depleted.

What can change everything is our capacity to pay attention—to notice, to stay with discomfort long enough to do something about it, even if it feels small or insignificant.

So try this:

• Focus your attention for longer than 30 seconds. If you’re doing dishes, just do the dishes. If you’re walking down the street, just walk. It sounds simple, but it is more challenging than you think.
  

• Support a local coffee shop or small business once a month. Do it to feel the pulse of your neighborhood, not just to consume. Take out your headphones and absorb the human hum all around you. It might be jarring at first, but it becomes meditative over time.
  

• If you have cash on hand, give it to someone you see on the street. Don’t assume where it’s going, just know it helps someone navigate a system that doesn’t love them and definitely doesn’t support them. Consider it an unconditional cash transfer.
  

• Take a few minutes out of your day to lend a hand however you can. One act of focused attention can shift an entire day—for you and for someone else.

These are attention-focused micro acts of courage, tiny rebellions in a system that profits from our numbness and lack of focus.

Your Restorative Rebellion

A smile, a hello, an offer to buy someone coffee, or simply listening—these are not futile gestures. They’re the foundation of a new kind of joyful rebellion.

You can start a restorative rebellion by not turning away.
By reclaiming our attention.
By embracing healthy inconveniences.
By imagining a future worth our focus. And then creating that future intentionally, step by step.

So let’s start now, by turning toward each other and being fully present. It may not change much today or tomorrow, but like exercise, it will get easier over time, and you’ll begin to feel the results. That’s how we rebuild: through countless small acts of love, attention, and care that quietly inspire others to do the same.

So, be brave and don’t turn away. Allow yourself to feel uncomfortable. Embrace that discomfort and turn it into action: a smile, a kind word, a moment of presence. Each small act becomes part of a larger ripple. And remember—just because it’s not shared online doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.

This is how we reclaim what technology has tried to take from us: our focus, our empathy, and our capacity to truly see one another.

Attentively yours,

The Restorative Rebel

Share The Restorative Rebel

Hello there!

To those old and new, welcome! September is almost gone, so this newsletter is arriving a little late, but worth the wait.

As a refresher: this is my monthly update where I share news related to my book, The Restorative Rebel, and the work of creating restorative rebellions within ourselves, our communities, and beyond. Alongside these monthly letters, I also send two bi-weekly deep dives into topics that connect both directly and indirectly to the book.

In my last two deep dives, I explored how every ending is also a beginning, and what it means to pause, rest, and reflect before embarking on a new adventure. You can catch up below:

Choose your own adventure Reflection Rest, and Reading

This month marked the return to school for my little one, and for me, a return to routine. I’ve been reshaping my days and rebuilding structures to carve out a rhythm that keeps me calm, creative, and steady even as I grapple with my own internalized capitalism and feel the weight of the chaos in the news.

Amid all that, I find peace in knowing what I’m good at: caretaking and educating. Capitalism may not value these roles, but I do, and society does—and so do the people whose lives are touched by them. And while I’ve found it challenging to market a book about internalized capitalism (because it takes the joy out of why I wrote it in the first place), I keep returning to its heart. I wrote this book to inspire and connect with others who may feel the same way.

This work is my lifelong pursuit. And beyond the book, I’m leaning into new projects with Dab Collab that are inspired by The Restorative Rebel. Some are ready to share, others are still seedlings—but all of them feel like acts of boldness, seeds I’m sowing now so they can take root later.

With that, here are a few highlights and updates on how I’m putting these words into action and trying to make better mistakes along the way.

Highlights

September brought a few opportunities to share my story and expand on the ideas behind The Restorative Rebel in new spaces:

🎙️ Podcast with Purple Circles Coaching
I sat down with Purple Circles Coaching to discuss how I stumbled into coaching and how I apply coaching frameworks across all my work. You can listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube.

📝 Featured Founders Spotlight
I had the chance to walk and talk with the team at Featured Founders about my journey, community, and what it takes to build something new. You can watch the interview here.

✨ Boss Moves Magazine – Digital Edition
Last month, I was honored to be included in the September print edition of Boss Moves Magazine. This month, the digital edition launched, and it includes my interview on my writing process and what fuels my work. Read it here.

Updates & Opportunities

For most of my career, I’ve worked behind the scenes supporting social impact projects, companies, and organizations. Now, I’m putting myself out there more directly, which is equal parts exciting and terrifying. The book was the first big leap, and now I’m practicing getting better at doing the things that scare me.

Here are a few updates and opportunities I’d love for you to be part of:

🌍 M.Cert – A New Standard for Youth Mental Health
With the help of many, I co-founded M.Cert, an initiative to build cross-sector standards for youth mental health technology. Right now, digital mental health solutions are proliferating faster than the systems to evaluate or distribute them responsibly. In an era of deregulation, we need bold collaboration, grounded in science, to make sure what reaches young people is safe, effective, and easy to access.
👉 If you work in youth mental health, policy, funding, or innovation, I’d love your perspective.

🌱 Berkeley Well-Being Strategist Course – Coming January 2026
For those looking to take their understanding of well-being further, I’m excited to share an opportunity with the Berkeley Well-Being Institute: The Berkeley Well-Being Strategist Course is returning in 2026! This certificate program blends research and practice to help cultivate well-being in life and at work. In a time when the outside world feels uncertain, it offers a path to unshakable internal well-being, so you can stay grounded and lead against the current.
👉 Learn more here: Berkeley Well-Being Strategist Training

🤝 Goodera – Corporate + Nonprofit Partnerships
I’m also working with Goodera, a social impact and CSR company, to bring corporate volunteers closer to nonprofits and their work. The goal: connect nonprofits and corporations in a global community that drives real change through meaningful partnerships.
👉 If you’re a nonprofit interested in this type of support, let’s connect.

How to Support This Work

If you’re new here, I wrote a book, and yes, you can read it wherever you are in the world. The Restorative Rebel is available in print and digitally on:

📚 Bookshop.org (supports indie bookstores)
📦 Amazon
📘 Or wherever you buy your books (or request it at your local library)

This book keeps finding its way into more hands, hearts, and conversations—thanks to you.

📣Here are a few ways to amplify this work and keep the momentum going:

• Leave an honest review on Amazon, Goodreads, Bookshop.org, or wherever you like to review your reads.

• Share the book and Substack with a friend, colleague, or fellow rebel

• Connect with me to co-create with your community

As September ends, I’m reminded that each step, whether sharing stories, launching projects, or simply showing up, is part of the larger work of creating restorative rebellions, both internally and out in the world.

Thank you for reading, reflecting, and joining me on this journey. Whether you leave a review, share the book, or reach out to collaborate, your engagement keeps these ideas alive and growing.

Here’s to planting more seeds, making better mistakes, and embracing the bold, messy, restorative work ahead.

In community,

The Restorative Rebel

Oh, hello there! It’s that time of year again, my birthday, which always pulls me into reflection. Fall has always felt more like a new year to me than January does, and it’s nice to know that other cultures honor new years in the fall (happy Rosh Hashanah). For me, it’s a reminder that time is a construct, and you can get reflective whenever you want. That, in itself, is a small act of restorative rebellion.

This year, I gave myself permission to celebrate by doing very little. I had lunch with a friend, and in the middle of our conversation, they mentioned they had bought my book but hadn’t started reading it yet. Then they asked what I wanted to do with the book. I laughed and replied, “Not sure—what do you want to do with it?” I meant it with love and sincerity. The truth is, I see the book less as a product and more as an artifact that leaves a small mark and something to spark larger conversations. As so many books inspired me and nudged me past my own impostor syndrome, my greatest joy would be if mine makes someone pause and think.

The rest of the day, I worked hard at not working— I ended up taking one meeting, then did twenty minutes of focused work, and then I let it go. At first, I felt guilty. Then I reminded myself: it’s my birthday. What better day to practice what rest and joy look like in real time? That practice carried into this piece, too. Instead of forcing myself to publish on schedule, I let it be a day late. Sometimes things take longer, and that’s okay.

I’m realizing more than ever that slowing down, choosing rest and care over speed, is part of my restorative rebellion. We live in a world that blames technology for the pace of change, but let’s be honest: humans created the demand for speed in the first place. If we created it, we can also decide to slow it down. And slowing down isn’t just good for us individually—it’s good for the climate, for our collective wellness, and for our psychological survival.

And that brings me to another place where slowing down matters: how we consume information. We’re surrounded by more information than ever, but very little of it becomes knowledge. Information is noise; knowledge is information synthesized into meaning and structure. Knowledge serves a purpose. I’ve always been drawn to using it in ways that help humanity, not harm it. The challenge is that knowledge demands more of us: it asks us to slow down, think critically, and consider multiple perspectives. Information, on the other hand, gives us a quick high of satisfaction. But like a drug, it fades fast, leaving us restless and helpless. Instead of doing the harder work of seeking knowledge, we too often go back for another hit of information.

On Lateral Research/Reading

This reflection also brought me back to how I consume news and information. In The Restorative Rebel (Chapter 9), I wrote about how building a post-pandemic renaissance depends on strengthening tech literacy and practicing careful information-checking. Technology moves at the speed of light, which makes it even more important that we slow down—pausing to verify, synthesize, and reflect before we react.

This is where lateral research (or reading) comes in. It’s a method of fact-checking by leaving the original page and cross-checking the information elsewhere. Instead of getting trapped in a single article or headline, you scan across multiple sources before deciding what’s reliable.

I get into this more in the book, but here are some practical ways to practice this when you’re consuming information online:

• Check the source: Open a new tab and search for the website or author. Is it reputable? Is it cited elsewhere?

• Cross-verify facts: Look up key claims in at least two other outlets, ideally with different editorial leanings.

• Distinguish information from knowledge: Ask yourself—am I just swimming in headlines, or am I building understanding of the topic? Can I take a moment to review multiple sources on this topic and then apply my critical thinking skills to form my own opinion?

• Pause before sharing: Notice if you feel triggered or reactive. That’s usually a cue to verify before posting. Since we receive information faster than vetted knowledge, we owe it to ourselves and our well-being to take a beat, read more, and then post.

• Consult your community: Instead of defaulting to influencers or algorithms, ask a trusted friend, colleague, or mentor what they think. Pause to listen to their take before interjecting with yours (which I need to practice).

Re-learning these skills helps us stay grounded instead of overwhelmed, and it reconnects us to our communities as sources of wisdom.

🌱 Reflections for You

So here’s the question I’ve been sitting with, and maybe you can sit with it too.

Why do we feel compelled to take advice from AI tools or influencers we don’t know, but hesitate to lean on our own friends and family?

If you’d like to explore this in your own life, here are a few small steps you could try:

• Pause before you ask tech for advice. Try reaching out to a trusted friend, colleague, or family member first.

• Practice lateral research/reading. The next time a headline or post stirs you up, open two other tabs and cross-check the claim.

• Notice your patterns. Do you turn to information for a quick hit of certainty, or do you slow down to build knowledge?

• Share your reflections. Talk about what you’re learning with someone in your community—wisdom grows when it’s exchanged.

Choosing reflection over reaction, knowledge over noise, and community over convenience is its own form of restorative rebellion. Whether it’s how we work, how we write, or how we consume information, the invitation is the same: pause, take stock, and choose connection. That’s where meaning and real change begin.

Restfully yours,

The Restorative Rebel