March can be a hard month. We are exhausted from the responsibilities that have piled up since the start of the year. We are eager to welcome the beauty of spring but are still reaching for our winter coats and scarves. On top of that, we are constantly faced with new moments of collective grief, loss, and anxiety. 

It’s hard to find hope or motivation right now. However, as Anti-Bias Educators, we know that staying engaged in this hard work of creating equity and belonging requires us to channel individual and collective resilience. These habits help enforce the practice of showing up for ourselves so that we can also show up for others. Join us as we work to bring our best selves into 2022 and bring belonging to life. 

1. Center health and wellness: Tend to your own basic needs (security, belonging, power/success, freedom, fun) and support your community as they do the same. We cannot show up meaningfully for others if we do not first care for ourselves. 
2. Listen: Listen to your body. What does it need from you? Listen to those around you. What support do they need? Learn from and seek input from others. Whose voices do you need to listen to, center, and amplify?
3. Hold compassion: Self compassion is a practice of emotional resilience and is a starting point for compassion for others. Commitment to compassion for self and others  is a commitment to change. Compassion lays the groundwork for deeper transformation at individual, interpersonal, institutional, and systemic levels.
4. Practice joy: We can’t do the hard work of dismantling systems of oppression and creating more equity and belonging for all without also allowing for joy, pleasure, fun, and love. Where can you find daily pockets of joy to feed and sustain you? How can you set yourself up for experiencing these moments? 
5. Be brave: Create a community of practice committed to brave space for intentional conversations about identity, difference, and bias with empathy and understanding. Being brave is not always comfortable. Lean into discomfort so you enter into deeper learning, growth, and authentic relationships with yourself, others, and your community.