The Hero's Journey (Write/Speak/Code 2019)

I took a sabbatical in October 2018 after a very difficult year, both personally and professionally. I stopped working and traveled by myself for three months, during which I started the slow and deep process of healing. This talk (which might feel more like poetry at times) aims to share some wisdom I have gathered on this journey -- that this industry, this world, wounds us and that we need to heal and transform ourselves in order to transform anything else.

Transcript

27. founder
28. founder director
29. founder director public speaker
30. founder director public speaker social justice warrior
31. founder director public speaker social justice warrior BADASS
32. founder director public speaker social justice warrior BADASS workaholic
33. founder director public speaker social justice warrior BADASS workaholic party girl
34. founder director public speaker social justice warrior BADASS workaholic party girl coding icon
39. trauma
41. burnout
43. divorce
45. rage
47. fear
50. suicidal
51. “I drove him, drove them all, 
 to be first, be bold, be perfect—be the greatest. 
 What I did not do was drive them 
 to be whole, to be free. ” 
 Casey Gerald
57. “My question at the time was simply: What is wrong with me? Ever wonder that? If so, my final admonition is this: Stop. Drop whatever's in your hand. Leave your basket in the aisle. Retrace your steps out the door. Find the crack. Try to find its source, understand its reason, excuse or not. Try. That is all I knew to do.” 
 Casey Gerald
62. “I don’t want us to have to work twice as hard to have to prove our humanity. I don’t want to die for social change like our ancestors did.”
91. “I realized I wasn’t upholding my end of the sacred bargain: My life is a miracle that cannot be recreated. I can never get these hours, weeks, years back.
 
 Each day should be lived on purpose.” 
 adrienne maree brown
96. founder director public speaker social justice warrior BADASS workaholic party girl coding icon
97. founder director public speaker social justice warrior BADASS workaholic party girl
98. founder director public speaker social justice warrior BADASS workaholic
99. founder director public speaker social justice warrior BADASS
100. founder director public speaker social justice warrior
101. founder director public speaker
102. founder director
103. founder
107. “Small is good, small is all. (The large is a reflection of the small.)” 
 adrienne maree brown
110. where are my motives?
 
 what would I do if no one was watching?
 how do I act out of love for myself?
 does this get me closer to being whole & free?
111. “Nothing is required of me more than being, and creating. Simultaneously being present with who I am, who we are as a species... and creating who we must become, and within that who I must become.” 
 adrienne maree brown
113. “I drove him, drove them all, 
 to be first, be bold, be perfect—be the greatest. 
 What I did not do was drive them 
 to be whole, to be free. ” 
 Casey Gerald
114. “We heal ourselves, 
 and we heal in relationship, 
 and from that place, simultaneously, 
 we create more space for healed communities, healed movements, 
 healed worlds.” 
 adrienne maree brown
115. “The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that 
 your very existence is an act of rebellion.” 
 Albert Camus
116. “Transform yourself to transform the world”
 
 Grace Lee Boggs
121. “I have a radio. It picks up only two stations: Life and Death. 
 I turn the death off, now that I know the sound. 
 The diddy bop of death. 
 I sit in silence if I have to.” 
 Casey Gerald
123. “Not trying to get by I’m trying to get free” 
 Mereba
124. @alexqin @withdrawin.gs
125. @alexqin @withdrawin.gs