art is life

Hello.

Hello, everybody. We're doing something a little bit special today. This is our first simulcast. We're going over both channels, Tananarives and mine.

So you might be on Steve's page or you might be on my page. I'm Tananarive Due. I am an author and screenwriter. I teach Afrofuturism at ucla.

I'm Stephen Barnes. I'm a novelist and teacher and I've taught all over the world, all over the country, a little bit around the world. But we're here to talk about something really important today.

And if you like our message today in our life writing live video, please do be sure to share it because when you share it, that lets us know which messages are resonating most with you.

Absolutely.

So, been an interesting week politically. Kind of a lot going on, never a dull moment in our new administration.

Oh, God, it's. I see this as the flux and flow of history, that America is going through a period right now of change. And what's important is for all of us to speak our truth, to be able to take care of ourselves, protect ourselves, and have the courage to know that our feelings about the world have validity.

And one way to really honor your feelings is also to let yourself take in the good with the bad things. There were a couple of setbacks this week in terms of cabinet appointments, but just recently the court basically upheld the stay on the Muslim ban. So basically that is a victory and it might not. You know, there are people who will go on social media and say, oh, it's not going to stand up in the Supreme Court and blah, blah, blah, take the victories as they come. They won't always come and there won't be that many of them. So while we don't want to have rose colored glasses on, we have to let ourselves experience moments of, okay, that's one less thing I have to worry about tonight.

I've been seeing a lot of people. I mean, literally, I've had suicides in the circles that I'm connected to and suicidal ideation, deep depression and deep senses of anger. And it's just critically important that people of all types take care of themselves. But I have a special affinity for the artistic community and artists quite often have an extra gentleness to their spirits and they can get hammered at times like this.

Absolutely. It's almost like the hyper empathy syndrome in Octavia Butler's parable of the Sower, where you're taking in pain from other people. You know, kind of the way actors have to take in other people's pain in order to express it. We kind of do the same thing, but on the page. So artists out there, or if you're not an artist, but you're feeling this very deeply, yes, your grief is real. Yes, there are things to be afraid of, but you are not alone. I have had so many new Twitter followers just this week, many of them who were not familiar with me as a writer but were drawn to my political tweets. And there are a lot of people out there of all races, men and women, who are very concerned about where we are. And I wanted to talk just a little bit about Audre Lorde, the late poet and activist. She had a quote about self care I thought might be a little bit relevant to some of you. Basically, she said, caring for myself is not self indulgence, it is self preservation. And that is an act of political warfare. So remember, taking care of yourself is an act of political warfare. Taking care of your family is an act of political warfare.

You guys who know me know that I tend to be more philosophical than political. I'm interested in what is true. What is true in this particular sense is that if you feel stress, if you feel so much stress that you're starting to crumble, feeling strain, you develop tunnel vision. You start hallucinating that all is lost. Even if there are possibilities, potentials, answers right around you, you can't see them any longer. So what you want to do is start by taking care of yourself. That five step process for healing our country that I've talked about. You start by first, taking care of yourself. Second, loving one other person and extending yourself to them. Three, developing a view of human history that allows you to understand where we are and where the world is without feeling despair, without castigating the people around you, without needing to feel that the world is filled with knaves and fools. The fourth thing is to find your tribe, people who agree with you and nurture them. Rather than spending your time fighting with the people who disagree with you. There are people who need you. And the last step is to win is to define. I would say defining winning is we want a healthy country. However that looks, whatever that's going to.

Be, I'm going to pop in right here. My feed did not go live. Apparently it's not live. So I wanted to make sure that people on my page have an opportunity. There we are. So if we're just joining us, Steve and I have been doing a simulcast on self care, the hearts of artists. How so many of us know people who are in genuine distress over recent political events. The fact that we have to celebrate those small victories, even if they might feel fleeting. We had a small victory today with the Muslim ban and the courts upholding the stay on those deportations. And so let's take in the good news. I was thinking earlier today that I probably could not have gotten through the days right after the election easily without Bruno Mars, of all people. He was on Saturday night Live right after the election, and 24 Karat Magic was his new song. He and his crew did this amazingly choreographed dance and. And I listened to that song obsessively in the days after the election because no matter how horrible I felt, I might have tears running down my eyes, but my body was moving and dancing and celebrating.

Well, that thing about physical movement, that's really important. The whole morning ritual that I've been begging people to do is about moving your body. Put on a song, something that you like, and move every morning at the same time. Think about the things that you have to feel grateful for in life. If you think, I don't have anything to feel grateful for, Would you be unhappy if you lost your eyes? Would you be unhappy if you lost your closest friends? If that's true, then why not be grateful for them now by bringing that gratitude in your life? Don't just pay the dues on tragedies that have happened. Celebrate the fact that you are alive, the people you love are alive, that you have your limbs, your sight, that you have the resources to go online.

On Facebook, that you have loved ones, that you have friends, that you have children or you have grandchildren. If you have people on the Internet you've never met but have become kind of a new family because you're in a community that's kind of isolated and at work. It's a nightmare because you can't speak your mind. Well, we're here for that on social media.

Absolutely.

And take care of yourselves. And actually, Steve and I have a really exciting offer.

Well, basically, those last year, we had something called life writing premium, and we did thing called revolutionary writing.

Writing for social justice.

Writing for social justice. I don't care about your politics as much as I care about the fact that you are willing to engage in making this a better country. You're willing to look at people and see their hearts and share your heart with them. I can tell you from my own point of view that art saved my life. That is not figuratively speaking. The rage and the pain and the fear that I felt growing up. I needed some way to express myself. And we created that revolutionary writing class, that Writing for Social justice class, in order to share real techniques. And we've done something. We wanted to make it more affordable. We wanted to make it easier, we wanted to make it more powerful.

And if you missed it, you get a chance to see the videos.

That's right, all the videos. And more. We're doing more. And the membership is only open a few times a year for just a couple weeks at a time, so that we can spend most of our time actually taking care of the people who join that your welfare, the welfare of your creative flow in your lives is tremendously important to us. So we're opening again. LifeWritingPremium.com LifeWritingPremium.com until my birthday coming up on March 1st, we're open again.

You can join for just $1 for the first month. Check it out, see what you think of it.

Absolutely.

Is this the community you've been looking for? What do you think of the coursework? And then after that, there's a fee.

Every month, $27 a month.

You can decide to stay or not, but we hope you'll stay. The revolutionary writing course, Writing for Social justice, was fantastic. We had a lot of great guest speakers, screenwriters and activists. So hopefully you'll find some ways to channel what you're feeling into your art. Whether or not your art is specifically political or in a subtle way or it doesn't seem to be political at all.

And one more thing. If you're dealing with stress, I always like to teach people this. Every three hours, stop for 60 seconds and breathe slowly and deeply. If you're really suffering from stress, then at the top of the hour, for 60 seconds, just stop belly breathing. We're not up in your chest. Put your hand on your tummy, and when you inhale, the tummy goes out, expanding like a balloon that's being blown up. When you inhale, tummy goes out. When you exhale, tummy goes in. For 60 seconds. You will rewire your body's reaction to stress every hour. At the very least, once every three hours. That's the. Anything else you'd like to say?

Just remember to move your body to appreciate what you have to celebrate, even the small victories. Yes, it's okay to feel sad, but remember, you're not alone. And you can use music and writing and dance or comedy. I listen to comedy every day. Whatever it takes to take yourself away from the news for a few minutes every day.

Yes. Step away from the news. Step away from the news. Stop getting into arguments on Facebook. There is no worse waste of your time.

You're not changing anyone's minds. You're just wasting a lot of time and stressing yourself out. Find the people you agree with and come up with strategies to work together.

And the thing is that there are always things to agree with. You know something, you could not put any human being in front of me, and I would. You could put any human being in front of me, and I would find something that we had in common, something that we agree with. And if you will start with that, you're starting to knit the world together. You're making. You're being a warrior.

And remember, you can reach strangers through your art that you never even have contact with on social media.

Yeah, I've reached millions of people around the world on television shows that I've written and the books that I've written. And it makes a difference. And you never know whose life you're going to touch. You never know who's hanging on by their fingernails that if you have the courage to speak your truth and you learn how to apply it to your art so that you can actually take advantage of the machinery of distribution, get out into the media. If you can do that, you will save lives, you will save your own heart, and you might be able to help save our country.

And everything you do will make you feel less helpless. So please do check out www.lifewritingpremium.com and go out, celebrate what there is to celebrate and write.

That's right. So that's all for right now. And make sure to share this. Don't just like it, share it. Because sharing is the way we know that people are liking what it is that we're doing in the way that we know to do more of this. That's all there is right now. Thanks very much.

Good afternoon, everybody.

Take care. Bye bye.