DIY is a L-I-E
Here's a spell I've been casting on myself every day this month:
More support generates more abundance.
Might seem obvious, but for most people I know, it's deeply countercultural.
We're taught implicitly and explicitly that success is a product of individual effort, talent, and discipline.
And so we have a whole hell of a lot of I should be able to do this myself.
We say “you have the same 24 hours that Beyoncé has,” but we neglect to consider that you do NOT have anywhere near the same support staff.
(BTW - I googled around quite a bit to learn about Bey's support staff, but of course, there's little coverage of the extent of it. The best I found were a couple articles about the eight full-time nannies, providing round-the-clock care to the kids).
The individualistic, go-it-alone ideology we're all steeped in comes from the systems that depend on us keeping our heads down and noses to the grindstone.
Late stage capitalism, white supremacy (especially if you're Black, brown, indigenous, or immigrant), patriarchy: all of these prefer we are giving support, not receiving it.
All of these systems prefer us blaming ourselves for not being able to do enough.
All of these systems have taught us from day one that success is the product of good, hard, smart, strategic work. And that if you're not succeeding, the only person to blame is you.
So yeah: every day I need to remind myself that more support generates more abundance.
That the more I ask of myself, the more help I must receive.
That it takes a village, and the village thrives when we all support one another.
I hope this helps us reshape a multi-generational, structurally oppressive tendency to give way more than we receive.
I hope this gives us the courage to invest in support: for our physical and mental health, for our households, for our caregiving, for our growth.
I hope this helps us to see investments in ourselves as investments in our communities of care - and, investments in our communities of care as investments in ourselves.
Generating abundance isn't a solo act.
Really, nothing is.
love,
Natalie