In The Den with Mama Dragons

Redefining Self-Care

• Episode 103

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So many of us lead overly busy lives and often find ourselves consumed with caring for others, including our children. Self-care is often the last thing on our priority list. Perhaps the whole concept of self-care feels frivolous or trendy. In today’s episode of In the Den, Sara sits down with Reverend Florence Caplow, a Zen priest and teacher, to discuss the reality of self-care and some very practical suggestions for prioritizing personal well-being so that we’re better equipped to care for ourselves and those around us. 


Special Guest: Rev. Florence Caplow 


Rev. Florence Caplow is a queer UU minister and an ordained Soto Zen priest and teacher, as well as a climate change and social justice activist, writer, and change coach. She regularly leads classes at Zen Centers around the country, and she offers one-on-one coaching for big life changes/transitions. To learn more about her you can visit her website, www.cloudway.live.


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SARA: Hi everyone. Welcome to In the Den with Mama Dragons. A podcast and community to support, educate, and empower parents on the journey of raising happy and healthy LGBTQ+ humans. I’m your host, Sara Lawall. I’m a Mama Dragon myself and an advocate for our queer community. And I’m so glad to be part of this wild and wonderful parenting journey with all of you. Thanks for joining us. We’re so glad you’re here.

Happy New Year Mama Dragons Community! It is 2025. Can you believe it? I hope all of you had some beautiful holiday celebrations, some time to rest and reflect and prepare for the coming year. We here at the podcast wanted to start out this new year with an episode focused entirely on self care! Because we are going to need all the tools we can get in this coming year to help us maintain some equilibrium in our lives. And so many of us, especially parents and moms, I know we lead extraordinarily busy lives. And our lives are consumed with caring for others, especially our children. And self-care is often the very last thing on the list. It’s the thing that keeps dropping off the list. And maybe some of you don’t even understand the whole concept of self-care because it seems like yet another trendy thing we’re “supposed to be doing” to lead some whole and complete lives.

Like so many of you – I just want to share – I also struggle with self-care. And as I’ve begun to deepen my own exploration of it and what it means and how to practice it, I’ve realized I had it all wrong. The self-care I struggled to make space for which often felt like self-indulgence, wasn’t the kind of true, deep self-care but merely things that made me feel good and required a bit of time just for myself and that was good. But self-care is just so much more than that and that’s what we’re going to talk about today and I can’t wait!

My guest today is both a minister and a Zen priest whose professional and personal life have led her on her own journey of self-discovery and understanding self-care. I’m excited to welcome Reverend Zenshin Florence Caplow is an ordained Soto Zen priest having studied and practiced in both the Zen and Vipassana traditions, regularly leads classes at Zen Centers around the country. She is also an ordained Unitarian Universalist Minister, an author, a Change Coach and Social Justice Activist. I know Florence as an advocate for the Slow Movement, which advocates for a reduction in the pace of modern life, encouraging us to embrace a more thoughtful and deliberate approach to daily life and activities. And Florence began a Slow Ministry group for her Unitarian Universalist Colleagues which I know has been really meaningful for me, so she’ll have lots to share on this topic. Florence, welcome to In the Den. I am so excited to have this conversation with you!

FLORENCE: Thank you, Sara. I’m glad to be here. Glad to be speaking with the Mamas.

SARA: So Let’s unpack this whole concept of self-care for people. And I am curious for you -- because this was my experience – but before you really began leaning heavily into your ministries, although I know you’ve been a Buddhist for a very long time – did you have a sense of what self-care was and how to do it? What did you think it was?

FLORENCE: I’m not sure I even had the concept, to be honest. In a way, I think that where we really start to realize – and we’ll go into whether self care is even the right word for it – when you are in either a caring profession or a life of being a care-giver for elders, for young people, for children, in a way you can get away with thinking that it isn’t even relevant to you. But when you are in a caring landscape, all of the sudden you start to realize that there’s something you really have to attend to, whatever you want to call it, and whatever it is. I feel like it wasn’t really until I went into ministry that I realized how essential it was. And I’m saying “It” we’ll get into what we might mean by that.

SARA: Let’s go right there because I’m intrigued that you’re not even convinced that self care is the best way to describe what we’re talking about. So, share with us a little bit more about that.

FLORENCE: Sure. Absolutely. I think there’s a couple of problems with self care. One is the word, “Self” as if it doesn’t include everyone else in your life, the people that you care for, the people that you work with, as if it’s purely individual act. And you referred to that, go and get a massage or whatever. But really, when it comes down to it, if we are not able to find some inner peace in our lives, that lack of inner peace is going to extend to everyone we come into contact with, right? So it isn’t ever just about self. I do like the word, “Care.” I think “Care” is a good word. But, again, it can feel like another job. We’re already caring for the people in our lives. So now it’s like, now I have to care for myself too? Come on. You just added an extra weight on me.

SARA: And it’s become a kind of buzz word of late and feels like a trendy practice, perhaps co-opted by the wellness industry. So I know there is this addition outside pressure sometimes that is hard not to succumb to. Like, I should be better at this self care. I should be doing more. Or If only I had bought this thing or did that particular yoga class, myself and my life would suddenly just be fruitful and balanced and feel fabulous. And that’s, unfortunately, just not how it works.

FLORENCE: Yeah. And I feel sort of the same way about “Work/Life Balance” which was also trendy for a while. And I think that one of the ways that I like to think about it and maybe it kind of gets to something where we’re really talking about just how we are and how we live rather than particular activities. And that would be “Self Compassion.” And the job of a parent is so hard and, for many people, it’s already gotten harder post-pandemic with the kinds of stresses that kids are experiencing and parents are experiencing. And we don’t know how much harder it’s going to get. And so, to be able to come from a place of recognizing and honoring that it is genuinely hard and that your well-being matters too. And matters not just for yourself, but for you children, for your family, for your community, for the world, really.

SARA: Really. Thank you. That makes so much sense, rings true for me, and also really connects deeply with this book that I’ve really gotten into recently called, Real Self Care by Dr. Pooja Lakshmin. And she does a wonderful job of sort of differentiating between the principles of real self  care – as she identifies them –  and faux self care which is the one-off kind of pleasure, feel-good activities. Not to say that they are bad, but that they are not the real self care which are sort of a deeper set of principles. And one of those principles is self compassion which you just mentioned. And that is also a difficult practice for a lot of us. Can you share more. How do we do that? How do we practice self compassion?

FLORENCE: In this culture of course, women are socialized to believe that everybody else’s needs come first, right? We’re not all built that way, but it’s a pretty strong socialization. So my guess is that a lot of the people who are listening to this have tremendous compassion for other people in their lives, right? What’s that expression, you’re only as happy as your least happy child, so tremendous empathy. And yet, we don’t always extend it to ourselves. We don’t see that we also are struggling and it’s okay to recognize that and to honor it. And one of the things from the Buddhist tradition is just understanding that it’s not easy to be a human being. It’s not easy to be a mother. Right? And that’s always been true and might be even more true right now. And so, even just to put, literally to just put your hand on your heart and to say, “This is not easy, what I’m doing. And I matter too because I’m part of everything around me. And I also have the right to compassion.” So we may not get that from partners or spouses or parents. But we can offer it to ourselves. We can reparent ourselves, actually. And because we know what it’s like to be a parent, there’s that opportunity to offer that same love that we have for children knowing that we are also – whatever your theological language might be – but children of God, sacred beings, and we’re struggling too. So I think those are some of the ways to connect with self-compassion.

SARA: And I just appreciate the recognition that life is hard and there is a lot of struggle and it’s kind of inherent in being human. And the shiny, consumer-driven world we live in tries to pretend that’s not true. And it’s hard to sometimes really sit with that.

FLORENCE: And particularly if you care for other people, it’s hard, right? Because those other people are having a hard time, right?

SARA: Sure.

FLORENCE: But that’s actually love. There’s nothing wrong with that. That’s love and compassion. And if we can include ourselves in that circle, and from that compassion, that’s actually the ground or foundation where taking care of ourselves as well as the other people we take care of becomes almost more natural. It’s not this big idea that we’re kind of trying to add to our already overly-full life.

SARA: Right. In some cases it might be a good practice to try to see what we can let go of in our overly-full life. And one of the pieces of this that’s also one of the principles of real self care in Dr. Lakshmin’s book also has to do with moving past guilt. And I think self compassion and guilt can be intertwined because we can feel a lot of guilt about how things are going in our lives and our kids lives and the lives of our families. And when that is a struggle, we bear that with some guilt.

FLORENCE: Right.

SARA: I think particularly those of us who were socialized as women, socialized to bear a little bit more of that emotional labor and emotional guilt. And that can be really tricky.

FLORENCE: Yeah. And I wanted to come back to this thing about how we nourish ourselves. Maybe that’s a better word, too.

SARA: That’s a great word.

FLORENCE: How we nourish our spirits does help others as well. So that not to think that when we do that we are somehow stepping away from our commitments. Can I read a quote? This is one of my favorite quotes. I use this a lot.

SARA: Please do.

FLORENCE: So it’s from the Vietnamese teacher, Zen teacher who has passed away who lived during the Vietnam war. He was in Vietnam. And then only died a couple of years ago. And he was a peace activist. And he was also helping people during the time when people were fleeing from Vietnam, the Vo people that were trying to get out of the county in these little tiny boats in the middle of the ocean. You might think what does this have to do with my life in 21st century America. But I just want to share this because I think you’ll hear the resonance of what it’s like to be living in these times. So he wrote, “When the crowded Vietnamese refugee boats met with storms or pirates, if everyone panicked all would be lost. But if even one person on the boat remained calm and centered, it was enough. It showed the way for everyone to survive. I am inviting you – he goes on – I am inviting you to go deeper, to learn and to practice so that you can become someone who has a capacity for being solid, calm, and without fear because our society needs people like you who have these qualities. And your children, our children, need people like you in order to go on, in order to become solid and calm and without fear.” So I just love that quote because it’s like what we do to find that in ourselves is going to matter. It really matters.

SARA: It really matters.

FLORENCE: And so it’s not self-indulgence.

SARA: Right. I think that’s another myth that is really hard for people to let go of, particularly when we’re thinking about the activities that sometimes make up self care, or faux self care. Those feel selfish. But that quote and the whole underlying message is trying to remind ourselves – and it goes back to your point about parenting and reparenting – is that we are models for our kids, for others in our workplace, about how we can show up in the world and what it takes to show up as calm and centered, sometimes also means not doing certain things or not doing them to the maximum level, and letting things go, and working through our guilt so that we can be present.

FLORENCE: I think that there’s also a connection with – and this seems like it’s gotten even more intense in the last decades – of doing things perfectly, being the perfect parent, being the perfect person at our job, being the perfect spouse. And you know you could add onto it, being the perfect spiritual person, right? Not to think of it as something that is about perfection because none of us are going to ever meet that standard, but that we can be a little more like the person in the back of the boat. We don’t have to be the perfect person in the back of the boat.

SARA: There you go. Thank you. A little bit more. Like not setting that as an unrealistic goal or expectation that we feel like we’ll never be that person.

FLORENCE: Exactly. But we all can be that person to some degree.

SARA: At some point.

FLORENCE: And I actually think that people in family environments are all the time kind of like in a boat in the middle of the ocean.

SARA: Sure.

FLORENCE: Storms and pirates. Sometimes, literally little pirates. Again, all of this is really just to say that this is not separate from the rest of your life. It’s all one piece.

SARA: It’s all one piece. And as you were reading the quote I was hearing that to myself and I’m glad you clarified the whole idea of we don’t have to be that person all the time, every minute, make that the new perfectionist goal. But was also thinking what goes unsaid there but what I know to be true is, it is okay also to be afraid and to have those feelings. It is not a duality. Everything exists at once. One can be afraid and still conjure up this sense of being an anchor and calmness. Or we go and we freak out and then we can come back and we find that sense of inner calm because we’ve been able to release some of those fears and anxieties in spaces that are helpful and appropriate. And I felt like I just wanted to name that. It’s not about not being afraid.

FLORENCE: You’re 100% on the mark there. Exactly. But again, and now we might move towards what does it mean to bring in practices into our life that can actually be done on the fly, like right in the middle of what we’re living in. Not, guess what, I can’t go off for a week of retreat at some lovely retreat center where they feed me good food. But if it’s resonating for someone who’s listening to this, that, “Yes. I would like to feel more grounded. I would like to feel that it would both help my life and the people  around me if I was not frazzled to the very edge of my capacity” Right? So what are ways of doing that, that are very simple, very, very, very simple.

SARA: This kind of gets at one of the other principles in the book which is around setting boundaries which I also think is yet another big struggle. But there’s so many. Which it sounds to me like these two things could connect because in order to do those things that you’re mentioning, even quickly, even on the fly, we kind of have to set a boundary that we’re not going to do something else or we’re not going to respond here. And I think about one of our colleagues who shared this lovely story about finally putting a little sign on her bedroom door that she could turn around to say, “Quiet time.” Or something to that effect and close her door. So it was a signal to her household that she needed a little bit of time for herself. Please don’t interrupt. And I thought that’s a beautiful, tangible way to set the boundary. It’s one thing to say it, but then sometimes you’re five-year-old doesn’t remember that you’ve said it.

FLORENCE: He might not be able to read the sign.

SARA: He might not be able to read the sign. I think she did say that she put some pictures on there too. But the idea of setting the boundary, whatever that looks like for you. So when we’re talking about the activities that sometimes make up self care, the underlying principle is setting the boundary. So I’m going to set the boundary and I’m going to carve out this time for myself. And in that time I might decide to meditate or take a walk or do some yoga. But the deep self-care piece of that is the setting aside the time, the setting of the boundary.

FLORENCE: Yes. And I think maybe one way to think about this is that, again, it’s not just one thing. So having an actual breathing space and we do have to just say the role of our phones in all of this is just huge. Because what do most of us do if we have a moment? We’re on the phone. I do it too. And it’s almost irresistible. It’s an incredibly seductive piece of technology. And honestly, it might feel like it’s giving us a break. But it’s not giving a break to our nervous system at all, especially if we’re scrolling through the news. And yet, there it is. So it’s not just boundaries for other people. But can we go for a walk without our phone, right? That’s pretty huge. And for some of us, it’s literally the phone is never more than a foot away, day and night, right?

SARA: Sure.

FLORENCE: So yeah, I think you’re right about boundaries. Some of the practices that I sometimes suggest, I call stealth meditation.

SARA: Yes, tell us.

FLORENCE: So one of the things – and this is one that you can literally do anywhere, at any time and it sounds so easy that it will seem almost ridiculous – but it’s to feel your feet on the ground. So if you’re listening right now, Sara, you could do it. Just feel the actual sensations of your feet on the ground while you’re sitting here or standing or walking, whatever’s happening as you’re listening to this podcast. Probably lots of people are out for walks. And to feel each foot fall, that is literally grounding. And it’s putting you back in your body where most of us do not spend much time these days.

SARA: That’s wonderful.

FLORENCE: And the body is actually a huge source of renewal and nourishment to be aware of the body. And all you have to do is be aware of the bottom of your feet. You can do it while you’re standing in a grocery line, anywhere. I sometimes say, it could be on a pickett line. You could be on the grocery line. You could be at a demonstration. You could be walking down the street. Wherever you are, you’ve got your feet. And some people have problems with their feet and this is kind of troublesome. But most of us can feel our feet. And if you can’t feel your feet, you can feel your hands. But the great thing about the feet is that it is connected to the ground, literally to the earth. And there’s another practice of going outside for a moment and just touching a tree, or taking a deep breath, like again, feeling your feet on the ground. Thirty seconds practice that can do so much, actually. So much.

SARA: I am remembering a time when I was working with a spiritual director and it was a highly anxious time in my life. Actually, I think I might have been right at the end of seminary and right  before going through the whole ordination process and that whole bit. And she said to me, “Sara, go outside and take your shoes off and put your feet in the dirt, the grass, wherever you are. Find a place that you love and just put your bare feet there.” And I did. And it was magical. And I was stunned. I shouldn’t have been. But at the same time to really have that physical experience was wonderful. And now I try to do it more often. I try to find those places outside where I can for a moment just take the shoes off and put my feet on the earth somehow.

FLORENCE: And I think part of being in a caregiver role is that you’re hyper vigilant all the time. Right? So you’re always watching. What’s going to go wrong next? And again, this grounding is a way of actually settling your nervous system. It’s actually worth its weight in gold, right? Again, you can do it without anybody even knowing you’re doing it.

SARA: Which is also lovely. I appreciate the stealth practices. You might be in a place where people will notice if you take off your shoes and you plant your feet on the floor.

FLORENCE: And, you know, another thing that I really appreciate. There’s been a lot written about this recently. Here’s a fantastic resource, actually, for self care – we’ll use the word self care in quotes – there is an organization out of University of California, Berkley called the Greater Good Science Center. And they specialize in sharing research and making it really accessible around positive mind states like altruism and compassion and empathy. They have a whole bunch of stuff for families, for teachers, and it’s all very easy to take in and apply. It’s a fantastic resource. But one of the things that their founder is very interested in is awe, A-W-E. And taking an awe walk which is like a 15-minute walk where you’re just opening up your senses. And I’ll just say, I think children do this very well, especially if you have small children, you can go on an awe walk with them. My late mother was actually a person who was in awe a fair amount of the time. Nothing made her happier than seeing a blue sky. And it was like bliss to see a blue sky. So we can do that and that’s also deeply, deeply nourishing.

SARA: That’s wonderful. We’ll make sure to put a link to that resource in the show notes so people can access it easily. I love the idea of an awe walk and I love that the youngest folks in our lives, all we need to do is walk with them and remember.

FLORENCE: And be willing to go as slow as they go and look at caterpillars.

SARA: Look at the bugs.

FLORENCE: Whatever. Yes. Exactly. So they can teach us, actually, quite a bit about this. I think children, especially quite young children, can teach us a lot.  Sometimes we say we’re not human doings, we’re human beings. And children are in being time. They’re just there. And yet, and so are very old people, actually. In between, we get all caught up in human doing.

SARA: So great to have some young and elder mentors around us and sometimes I even think of going to sit with an elder. As a congregational minister I have the blessing of being able to do that on occasion. And I will say, it takes me a moment to kind of settle because the doing-mind is so busy. And I think that’s true for thinking about this whole topic of self care is it takes a moment. You’ve got to give yourself that settling time and kind of try to tune down, if not turn off, the mind that says you should be doing 30 other things.

FLORENCE: There’s another place where it matters where what we do for ourselves matters for the people we’re around. Because, again, anybody who’s been around a small child or a very elderly person, you can be so busy taking care of all the things you think you need to take care of. All the very practical things, right? And what do they long for? They long for your full attention and presence more than anything. And we don’t even give that often because we are so caught up in our doing. That’s a big lesson that, oh actually, I don’t have to be doing anything. The person just wants me to really show up, which you can’t do when you’re running around the house taking care of things. Right?

SARA: And the idea of you don’t have to be doing anything – as you were speaking those words, I was also thinking about that mantra for ourselves. And how difficult it is to really sit in that place of that inherent worthiness that we don’t have to do anything in order to be worthy of life and love and happiness and care and all of those things. And sometimes, when we can slow down enough and slow the doing down enough, and focus on this kind of self care, we can get in touch with that. We can start to feel that.

FLORENCE: Absolutely. Yeah. And, again, not separate from everything else that we are and the other people that we touch. If we can slow down, if we can take a breath, it has profound effects on the people around us.

SARA: I know a little bit about your story and I’m wondering if you’d be willing to share some of that with us? Because I know that it was your story that drove you to want to start our Slow Ministry Group and really lean into that space and this idea that we live in a culture that praises over-work and over-functioning, and hyper-activity and hyper-vigilance. And so I wonder if you’ll take us through your own journey a little bit and how you came to greater understanding of the virtue and value of slowing down.

FLORENCE: This slow movement – and some people might not be familiar with that – has been around for quite a while now. And it started actually in Europe, in Italy ironically enough. So I bet everybody thinks Italy. They just hang around drinking wine all afternoon. Well, actually, it was people in Italy who realized their lives were speeding up to the point that they were eating fast food all the time and just running from one place to another. But because it hadn’t been very long since that culture had been a much slower culture, there were a group of people in Italy that were like, “We have to bring that back. We have to slow down.” And slow down around food, the cooking of food, the eating of food together, the deep enjoyment of food, because food is pretty important in Italy still to this day. And so that’s kind of where the Slow Movement started. And there’s a big Slow Food Movement that’s worldwide even now. But it’s expanded into many different parts of life. So actually there is a Slow Church Movement. And the idea of that is that maybe we don’t need as many activities in a church. Maybe actually what people want from church is a place to rest and a place to connect. Maybe that’s enough. And one of the things I love about the Slow Church Movement is it’s something that faith communities can explore regardless of what their theology is. You could do Slow Church whether you were Evangelical or Unitarian or whatever. So that’s what I first heard about was this Slow Church Movement. But as I was preparing to start seminary – it’s the ultimate caring profession, really, right? – My biggest fear which turned out to be extremely well-founded was that it was going to be a 70-hour a week job and that I knew enough about my own health which was not terribly strong even before I went to seminary. And that also a spiritual life was really, really important to me and that I might lose both by going into ministry. And I came across this book called The Contemplative Pastor by Eugene Peterson. And he has this great line in there that the word busy before the word minister is like the word embezzling before the word banker.

SARA: Wow.

FLORENCE: Or it’s even kind of adulterous before the word spouse. That’s how strongly he felt that something profoundly off in busy ministry. So I was like, “Okay. I know that is what I’m interested in in ministry.” Was I terribly successful at actually doing Slow Ministry once I was out of seminary and these cultural forces are so strong.

SARA: Right.

FLORENCE: There are probably people who would like to do Slow Parenting. In fact, I bet you there’s a book out there on slow parenting. And yet, you’re like, “How? How do I do this?” And I had the same experience in ministry. But I now lead small coaching groups in slow ministry and what’s been really cool – and many of these people are early in their careers – I can bring all the ways that I was not capable of doing it very well to the coaching. And I actually have seen people start to create sustainable ministry right from the very get-go. And boundaries are a big part of it.

SARA: Boundaries are huge because you have to set those boundaries and those boundaries have to be about what you will and will not do and what you have capacity for. And I think that’s been a big learning for me, and in life, right? You’re talking and I think it’s Brene Brown who talks about how we’re rewarded for business and we wear exhaustion as a badge of honor.

FLORENCE: Totally.

SARA: So this is how we show up in space together. We’ve been conditioned to tell people how exhausted we are and how busy we are.

FLORENCE: Again, ministry and parenting have lots in common. And one of the things they have in common is that they could expand almost endlessly. If you could stay up 24-hours a day, you would still not get everything done.

SARA: Correct. Yes.

FLORENCE: So, again, back to that dropping of perfection and recognizing that really, again, in ministry, in parenting, almost everywhere – maybe not in the corporate world. I don’t know. I haven’t been in that world.

SARA: Is there a Slow Business Movement, A Slow Corporate Movement out there?

FLORENCE: Probably. This is a fantastic quote actually, this is from my long-time zen teacher who was the director of a hospice program for many years. And, again, this is a caring profession. This is about taking care of people. He would tell the nurses and the social workers and everybody – the receptionist, everybody who came into contact with people who were facing an incredibly difficult time whether they were the ones dying or the family of people who were dying – he would say, “The greatest gift you can offer another person is the quality of your heart and mind.” “The greatest gift you can offer is the quality of your heart and mind.” So how do we find that quality of our heart and mind? Right? And it’s not being super busy all the time.

SARA: Right.

FLORENCE: Another practice, again a very, very simple practice, I also work with people that are chronically ill and offer spiritual practices that can benefit so people who are in pain for instance – is to look for pleasure everywhere. And I am not talking about the massage. I am talking about walking into a room and noticing what gives you pleasure. And I was taught this by – people don’t think of Buddhists as being concerned with pleasure – but my incredible Zen teacher who was also severely crippled from rheumatoid arthritis, she said she would walk into a room, she would notice what she saw that was beautiful. She would notice if there was someone there that had a smile on their face. She’d notice the feeling of soft fabric. She loved to wear soft fabric and the softness of sitting on a couch, those kinds of sensory pleasures. It’s really important for people who are chronically in pain to be connoisseurs of pleasure because then your pain is only one piece. It might still be there. It’s not going to mean it goes away. But it’s part of a big picture that also includes pleasure.

SARA: And in those moments, you kind of have to slow down to notice and experience the pleasure of those simple things like sitting on a soft couch.

FLORENCE: Exactly. It’s a practice.

SARA: It forces that slowness in a good way.

FLORENCE: Yes. Right. And I’m thinking about the people who are part of listening to this podcast are people with queer kids and those kids are under all kinds of really ferocious societal pressures right now. It’s a hard time. So parents might not be experiencing physical pain but they may be experiencing emotional pain. And, again, it is okay, even if your heart is heavy, it’s okay to ground yourself. It’s okay to find pleasure in a cup of coffee while you’re looking out the window. Whatever it is, it does not have to be big. And that’s so important because some people, you know, just what you have to do to survive economically these days. You may not have much time at all. But you do have time to drink a cup of coffee and look out the window.

SARA: That’s beautiful. And it’s such a helpful reminder to listen to you talk about that. And as you’re talking, I’m thinking that the Slow Movement itself is a really counter-cultural orientation. And those of us who live in spaces of wanting to create that kind of counter-cultural space whether it is in our workplace, in our homes, in our own personal lives. I know that exists especially for a lot of us who are raising queer kids. We’re in the middle of that counter-cultural movement to demand equity and equality and fundamental human rights, which feels counter-cultural in this moment. So it really is a way of living out your values, of really bringing them internal. And the other piece of that that I think is really linked together is that, not just the value and the physiological importance of rest, but rest as a counter-cultural practice. I wonder if you want to reflect on that?

FLORENCE: Well, you one of my favorite books on rest is the book by Tricia Hersey called Rest as Resistance, written by a black woman and about very specifically how rest for black women is essential for survival. And if anybody wants to look her up online, she refers to herself of the Bishop of Nap Ministry which I just adore.

SARA: I love it.

FLORENCE: And she actually has a rest deck of cards.

SARA: I have one of those in my office. Yes. It’s beautiful.

FLORENCE: Yeah. So actually Eugene Peterson that I referred to earlier with The Contemplative Pastor, one of things he said was, “A pastor or minister is subversive in this culture because this culture does not value necessarily the inner life, the spiritual life and that even the teachings of Jesus were counter-cultural. They were subversive. And that if a minister or pastor just goes with the flow, then they won’t be able to be the subversive force in the world that’s actually needed. And I loved that. I really resonated with that.

SARA: I love that too because I think so many of our community members in the Mama Dragons community and fellow parents, we are subversive. We are living in that space all the time. And so how beautiful to think about how to expand that to really bring it into our own practice. And I love Tricia Hersey. I’ve been following her for a long time, but I just finished the book and just really appreciate the way she is just so unequivocal and so clear about reclaiming rest as a counter-cultural practice, as a counter-capitalist practices that it allows us to be in power over or own selves and our own bodies in a society which often tells us otherwise. And for black women which was built on the fact that the power was taken from them. And she would host these public naps which I’ve always been entranced with. And think I want to host some public naps or I want to go to one. But if there’s no public nap in your area, you can still claim it for yourself.

FLORENCE: And I think about when I was early part of my elementary school, kindergarten – I don’t know if they do this anymore – but we would actually have nap time where we would lay out little blankets on the floor and take a nap.  So, actually, kids used to have public naps. But it’s a great idea.

SARA: Well, it makes me think of Italy and some of the other European countries there that build in that rest time into their day that where it has – at least in the past – has been a really important cultural practice that I think is likely being overtaken by our globalism and global-capitalism and that big reach.

FLORENCE: I will say, actually if you go to a small village in Italy – I was just there a year and a half ago – everything is closed down after lunch for like three hours. So I know they’re still doing it, not in the big cities. But in the villages, that’s still part of life. And it’s not just for napping. It’s actually for family time. It’s like you’ve done your work in the morning and then you go home and you spend time with family.

SARA: How lovely. Culturally built in, how lovely. I just think about that because I think I wish our society was more oriented in that direction instead of the businesses. We’re always sort of fighting for that family time instead of it just being a thing that is just part of the way you live your life.

FLORENCE: So another thing I think that comes up for me around all this. So while I was in seminary I was based in California because I went to Starr King in Berkeley. And a group of women who were all parents of school-aged children, asked if I would join them to co-lead a little meditation group. And they met once a week. They practiced silent meditation together for half an hour. For all of those women that was the only time in their week that they did anything like that. And then half an hour was just checking in with each other about their lives. And it was transformative for those women. Every single one of them saw shifts in their relationships with their husbands, with their kids, through doing that. And one of the things I think – and again to kind of break down the self care idea – it’s incredibly helpful to do some of this in community, to find other parents, to connect with other parents who might have the same wish to maybe be living in a different way and actually support each other. So it’s not just you all on your lonesome doing all of this but that you find – this podcast is an example of that.

SARA: I think the Mama Dragons community is a great example of that. And so what I want our listeners to take away and really kind of hold in their hearts from you, Florence, is that communal space and that support, that community, is self care.

FLORENCE: Right.

SARA: It is not separate. And I know that many of us feel that when we’re in it or when we’ve just finished with it. But sometimes it’s not often given that same level of status as some of the other things we think of as self care. So thank you for naming that.

FLORENCE: I think it’s pretty important however that shows up. And I actually think that for parents, this is incredibly important to have a place where you can be real with other parents about what it’s like.

SARA: Absolutely.

FLORENCE: Because that’s another thing, we pretend.

SARA: Oh, we pretend so hard all the time.

FLORENCE: So that’s a huge form of caring and compassion for yourself to have a place, even if it’s just one friend, where you can say, “I lost it today with my children. And it feels awful and yet, that’s what happened.”

SARA: And there is something very transformative and very helpful about hearing other people tell those particular kinds of stories.

FLORENCE: Absolutely.

SARA: As a parent, hearing all the screw-ups, really I think I’m like, “Oh, thank God.” It’s so easy to get sucked into this weird notion that everybody has got it together. Everybody else is doing it better than we’re doing it. And it’s so helpful to hear those stories. I find it helpful in ministry too. I  always want to tell colleagues, “Tell me your mess-ups. Tell me what went terribly wrong so I can feel good about mine.”

FLORENCE: Absolutely. And I think about organizations like PFLAG, right? If there’s a PFLAG group in your community, that’s a fantastic place to find some community as parents of queer kids, right?

SARA: Yeah. Absolutely.

FLORENCE: Because parents need that. Kids need that. Kids need spaces where they’re with other queer kids, trans kids, whatever it may be. But parents need it too. As much or more, right?

SARA: Absolutely, yes. Especially now, especially in this new year. I think that is what is going to keep us centered and keep us being able to move forward with all that is to come and all the anxiety and uncertainty that’s unfolding around us.

FLORENCE: So treat community as essential. Whether you find it online or in your neighborhood or wherever it might be. I’ve been telling this to everybody and myself as well in this time. Community is going to matter more than ever.

SARA: More than anything.

FLORENCE: Yes.

SARA: And I feel it. I absolutely feel it in a different way than I think I’ve ever felt it before how powerful and meaningful it is to be in those shared communal spaces in all facets of my life. Florence, you’ve offered us some really great practices, some easy ones, and naming community. And I’m just curious if you have a favorite practice for yourself?

FLORENCE: Well, you know, obviously as a person with a lot of years of meditation, for me – and it isn’t the medicine for everyone – but for me to spend at least some time in the morning before my day starts actually breathing and grounding myself in my body, it changes my whole day. So that’s really important to me. And now, there are wonderful insight timers, apps that you can use. And, again, I’m not saying that that’s the medicine for everyone. Maybe for some people it would be prayer. For some people it would be journaling. Or maybe for some people it’s like a little bit of yoga and stretching. But if you can find a way to start your day, there is something about how you start that really matters. The weirdest thing is that I find that if I do that, I have more time in my day even though I’m doing the same number of things. I don’t understand it. It’s like there’s more spaciousness.

SARA: More spaciousness. Yeah.

FLORENCE: And you know, also for me, connecting with the natural world is pretty huge. So if I remember in a day where I’m meeting with people all day or whatever, to just go outside for a moment and smell the air. For me, that’s just huge.

SARA: Me too. Me too. I try to have a regular morning walk when I can in the morning. Even when it’s 19 degrees here, I’ll still try to get myself out the door in the proper clothing because there’s just something really powerful about being outside, with the trees, breathing the outside air.

FLORENCE: And, you know, if you have a dog, the great thing about a dog is they force you to go outside.

SARA: They do.

FLORENCE: Get a dog.

SARA: Get a dog, there you go. Uh-Oh, we might get in trouble for that one. I have a couple of final questions that I like to end with for all of my guests. This has been an extraordinary conversation. You have brought me back to the values of self care in all of the ways that it shows up and all of the ways that we can access it. So thank you for that. But my final questions for you are first, the Mama Dragons name came about out of a sense of fierceness and this fierce protection for our kids. So I like to ask my guests, what are you fierce about?

FLORENCE: That is such a great question. And actually, I love the words fierce protection or protectiveness. And I think for me, I’m so aware of the many different ways that people are vulnerable in the world. And that when you are vulnerable, often you’re not in a very good position to be self-protective because for whatever reason. And so those of us who can, we can be that shield for those who are not able to be for whatever reason. And, you know, I just pay attention in my life to where that shows up and show up. And we are really, really going to need to do that. Nobody gets to be an island in this coming time, I don’t think. We’re all going to be touched by it and actually showing up for those who are most vulnerable is really going to help.

SARA: Thanks for that reminder and that showing up comes in a lot of forms. Sometimes you don’t even need to know what you’re doing but just showing up makes a huge difference.

FLORENCE: Yes. Exactly.

SARA: Okay. My final question is what is bringing you joy right now. And reminding all of us it’s a good self-care practice too. You did mention it a little bit, the pleasure and the joy.

FLORENCE: Yes.

SARA: We need it, especially in these times. So what is bringing you joy right now?

FLORENCE: Well, I lived most of my adult life in the Pacific Northwest. And I came back to the midwest to take care of my mother in the last part of her life. And I’m going home. So finding home, whatever that looks like. And I’ve known. I’ve known that that was home. So finding the place that feeds your spirit, finding the place that nourishes you. And from there, whatever that is, maybe it’s your garden. My garden has been my home here in many ways. From that, then I can nourish others. But finding home.

SARA: Finding home, finding places that nourish your spirit, finding our own fierceness for ourselves, all beautiful messages. Thank you for this wonderful conversation. I really hope that our community will take it in. Maybe even listen to it a few times to really get ourselves centered and grounded and regrounded in this new year. I really appreciate it. Happy New Year, friends. And Happy New Year to you too, Florence.

FLORENCE: Thank you. Thank you so much.

SARA: Thanks so much for joining us here in the den. Did you know that Mama Dragons also offers an eLearning program called Parachute? This is an interactive learning platform where you can learn more about how to affirm, support, and celebrate the LGBTQ+ people in your life. Learn more at Mamadragons.org/parachute. Or find the link in the episode show notes under links.

If you enjoyed this episode, we hope you’ll take a moment to tell your friends and leave us a positive rating and review wherever it is you listen. Good reviews make us more visible and help us reach more folks who could benefit from being part of this community. And if you’d like to help Mama Dragons in our mission to support, educate, and empower the parents of LGBTQ+ children, please donate at Mama Dragons.org or click the donate link in the show notes. For more information on Mama Dragons and the podcast, you can follow us on Instagram or Facebook or visit our website mamadragons.org.tT


People on this episode

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Sara LaWall

Host
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Jen Blair

Producer