The Menstruality Podcast - 132: How to be a Cycle-Aware Activist As a Highly Sensitive Person (Dorcas Cheng-Tozen)

Episode Date: February 8, 2024

Today's episode is for you if you’re curious about how to maintain healthy boundaries when you are working to create change for a cause that you deeply care about. It’s especially for you if you self-identify as a highly sensitive person. Many people come to cycle awareness because they are feeling burnt out from a system that pushes them beyond their natural limits. Our guest today, Dorcas Cheng-Tozen is someone who knows burnout intimately, and - luckily for us - has devoted herself to a study of how we sensitives can find our way to contribute to creating a more just and beautiful world, which doesn’t break us in the process. Dorcas Cheng-Tozen is an award-winning writer, editor, speaker, and communications consultant whose work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal and today we’re diving into her brilliant new book: Social Justice for the Sensitive Soul: How to Change the World in Quiet Ways.We explore:The "Activist Ideal" and the peer pressure that exists within activist circles to be ‘on’ all the time, willing to sacrifice mind, body and soul on the altar of the cause. A wide variety of activist approaches and roles for sensitive, introverted empaths; including research, art as activism, record-keepers, builders, and what Dorcas calls relational activism.The ‘seasons of activism’ and how to find your own natural ebb and flow as you work to increase the love, compassion and justice in the world. ---Receive our free video training: Love Your Cycle, Discover the Power of Menstrual Cycle Awareness to Revolutionise Your Life - www.redschool.net/love---The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email [e-mail]---Social media:Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.schoolSophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardyDorcas Cheng-Tozen: @chengtozen - https://www.instagram.com/chengtozun/

Welcome to the Menstruality Podcast, where we share inspiring conversations about the power of menstrual cycle awareness and conscious menopause. This podcast is brought to you by Red School, where we're training the menstruality leaders of the future. I'm your host, Sophie Jane Hardy, and I'll be joined often by Red School's founders, Alexandra and Sharni, as well as an inspiring group of pioneers, activists, changemakers and creatives to explore how you can unashamedly claim the power of the menstrual cycle to activate your unique form of leadership for yourself, your community and the world. Hi there, welcome back to the podcast. Today's episode is for you if you're curious about how you can maintain healthy boundaries when you're working to create change for a cause that you

deeply care about. And it's especially for you if, like me, you self-identify as a highly sensitive person, an empath or an introvert. Many people in our community come to cycle awareness because they're burnt out from living in a system that pushes them beyond their natural limits. And our guest today, Dorcas, is someone who knows burnout intimately. She's experienced it several times and luckily for us, has now devoted herself to a study of how we sensitives can find our way to contribute to creating a more just and beautiful world, which doesn't break us in the process. Dorcas Cheng-Tosen is an award-winning writer, editor, speaker and communications consultant whose work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal and today we're diving into her brilliant new book Social Justice for the Sensitive Soul, How to Change the World in Quiet Ways. So Dorcas, thank you so much for being here on the menstruality podcast I've been absolutely loving reading your book social justice for the sensitive soul I've got a feeling I'm really

really sure actually that so many people listening to this podcast will greatly benefit from your perspective because we have a lot of activists in our community, people who really want to serve, be of service to create more justice in the world. And we also have a lot of people who are highly sensitive, a lot of people who are highly sensitive and drawn to this cycle awareness work. So I can't wait to get stuck in. But yes, thank you so much for being here. Of course, I'm so glad to be here.

And these folks all sound like my kind of people. So I'm so glad to be here and and these folks all sound like my kind of people so so glad to be in this conversation I wanted to start by asking you about yourself as a highly sensitive person about some of your story in your book you share a couple of really vivid stories of you know your own experience as a highly sensitive person I'm thinking specifically now of the the panic attack that you had when you were in China um so I just wondered if you'd walk us into like how you understand yourself as a highly sensitive person maybe through the lens of one of those stories yeah well I will say that the understanding of being a highly sensitive person is fairly recent for me. I have an older sister who studied psychology in college, and she made me aware of this personality trait.

Oh, only maybe eight, nine years ago. And I hadn't heard of it before. I looked into it and started to realize, oh, I think this actually explains a lot of who I am and a lot of the experiences that I've been living with that I didn't fully have a framework for perceiving or interpreting. So the example of China is a great one because I had moved there overseas with my husband. We moved to the city of Shenzhen. If you know anything about it, it's this huge mega city in mainland China in the southeast corner just across the border from Hong Kong. And it is a, it has changed quite a bit. So we were there about 15 years ago.

So I can't say that my experience that I had then would be the same as what somebody visiting today would experience. But we were there to work. And we were supporting my husband's startup, which in and of itself was already incredibly intense, very long hours, very stressful day in, day out. We were not sure if the company would survive. We, to a large extent, had no idea what we were doing. And we were all trying to do that within a foreign context. So I am Chinese American, but did not grow up in China. And my family speaks Cantonese, not Mandarin. And so this still felt very, very new to me. And what I didn't recognize was that aside from the stress of the work itself, the environment that we were in was taking a really, really huge toll on me. So Shenzhen, as it was back then, it's an industrial city. So there was a lot of pollution, a lot of smells, a lot of traffic, incredibly congested in terms of people, traffic, cars, you name it.

There was stuff going on there, very noisy, very stimulating, right? It's in a very hot and humid part of the country. And so there was just this constant sense of needing to battle the elements every time we stepped outside. And also being ethnically Chinese, but not from China, I had a particularly unique experience that my husband did not. Because everyone looked at me expecting me to be able to speak Mandarin, to understand the culture and to know all of the cultural norms, which I did not at all. And so the locals got very frustrated with me. And it tends to be a culture where people are right up front with you if they are frustrated with you, if they don't understand you, if they

are annoyed with you. And so constantly I was just getting yelled at, berated, insulted by total strangers because they did not understand. And I think because of the country's history of isolationism, they just could not fathom the idea of somebody being ethnically Chinese, but not being culturally Chinese. And, and so it just wore me down and wore me down to the point where about 10 months in, I had this panic attack, and it lasted for a good four hours. It was first I'd ever had in my life, it would not be the only unfortunately. But I think that was my body screaming out to me and finally forcing me to pay attention because I had just been trying to ignore it all, ignore it all, ignore it all, and just barrel through everything. And it wasn't

working. It took such a huge toll on my mind, on my body, on my spirit. And it took me a good year and a half, two years to come back from that. And that was a year and a half two years to come back from that and that was a year and a half two years of doing nothing of sleeping of weeping of getting counseling um quitting my job just needing to focus on healing because all of that had taken such a significant toll on me and I didn't recognize it until my body completely shut down. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. I know I relate having had to spend various periods of my life doing the same thing, sleeping and weeping after really intense, intense periods of work or intense periods of life. And how was it for you then when you learned about being highly sensitive and you had that

aha this is me this explains so much yes well it it sort of came over time which I think is not unusual for highly sensitive people right so one of our traits is that we are deep thinkers and we can take a long time to process things. And so I think there was the first level, oh, this explains why I'm so emotional, why feelings wise I'm so sensitive. And then later on it became like, oh, and then this is why I have these sensory sensitivities. And then this is why I think the way I do. This is why I respond in these particular contexts. And even in researching this book, there was so much more that I learned about myself and about what it is to be sensitive. And I continue to learn, ago, and there's still a lot more for us to understand. And so it is a complex trait to be sensitive. It is not just one thing.

And it comes in lots of different varieties, right? We're all a little bit different. It is a whole spectrum of what it is to be sensitive and um but it it has been really helpful in allowing me to be more healthy to understand what boundaries look like and why those are necessary for me but also to celebrate the very real beauty and strength that comes with being a sensitive person. Yeah, yeah. One of the things that I felt very affirmed by, or I just felt very seen by in reading your book, it's a funny thing, you can write a book, and then people can read it on the other side of the world and feel known and seen and accepted. Yeah, I know. It's amazing. It was when you were talking about, well, I've got this quote here.

Sometimes I shake my fists at the heavens and demand to know why I care so deeply about contributing to social change yet I don't seem to have the right personality traits for the job and I'm laughing because I've had that thought myself so many times like if I care so much you you know, about people, about justice, about changing the world, about helping our planet, why can't I do it? You know, why don't I seem to have the metal or the muscle to be able to push through and keep going? And through reading your book, and also I'm thinking of the book Bittersweet by Susan Cain. Yes that's a good one. I think you mentioned it in your book and I felt really seen by that one too

as a kind of more melancholy person. It was really helpful for me and I can imagine it's helpful for a lot of listeners to hear someone say that because as you say in the book, there's this kind of activist ideal that so many of us spend our lives striving towards of like being out there, being on the front lines, being fierce, provoking. And I've always judged the kind of activism that I do as on the sidelines or quiet or behind the scenes as not as good or not good enough. Yes, you are certainly not alone. And this is something that I've struggled with throughout my adulthood, you know, finishing university, I went into the nonprofit sector and have been very

engaged in activism work, justice work. And there seemed to be this type of person that we were all striving to be, right? I think anybody who's been in these spaces, it's very much what you've just named, somebody who is unafraid to be out front, to confront, to challenge, and who bounces back, you know, doesn't let failure or disappointment get to them. They just kind of pick themselves up off the ground, dust themselves off, and they just keep going. And as I was doing research for this book and reading about different activists in history and today, the word fearless kept coming up over and over again of, you know, how biographers and journalists and others would just describe these activists. So they're just fearless.

And I think that is who we all think we should be, because that's who we most often see on the front lines of these movements leading the charge, creating the change that we so dearly want to see in our communities. And it's not just in our heads. So there has been research that social scientists have done among activists themselves. And there is this very, very high expectation that activists in Europe, in the US, all around the world have set for themselves and for one another, where if you are truly dedicated to the cause, you need to be 24-7 dedicated to the cause. And anybody who talks about self-care, who wants to take a break, who wants to take a day off, a single day off, is seen as being less committed, is seen as being less effective,

is openly derided for, you know, wanting to sleep a little bit more or wanting to spend time with their loved ones. So there is very much this peer pressure with an activist circle of you need to be a certain kind of activist, you need to be on all the time. There is no such thing as balance. This needs to be the number one only thing. And you need to be willing to sacrifice every part of yourself, mind, body, soul on the altar of this cause. And if you don't, then you're not one of us. There are even terms like slacktivists thrown around, right? For people who are seen as not real activists, you're doing sort of like the easy, fake, around, right? For people who are seen as not real activists,

you're doing sort of like the easy, fake, quiet behind the scenes activism that we're talking about. And that's considered not as legitimate. And it really, you know, as I was looking into this, it kind of breaks my heart because this is a space that is so much about caring for people, right?

And honoring the dignity of people. And yet somehow we are failing to do that for one another. We are not lifting one another up. being who can live under that kind of pressure and expectation for years on end. And so no wonder that the average activist burns out within two to five years. That's very, very typical. badly that they leave the work altogether and they cannot come back because they do not know how to operate in the space and no one has shown them or explained to them how they can do it in a way that is healthy and allows for boundaries and that is sustainable and and that's a I think that is sort of the underlying question that um that fueled me to want to write this book of, I love this work so much. I want to be in it for the long haul, but I can't, I can't do it. If this is what's expected of me, it's just not possible for me.

And being sensitive just amplifies all of that and makes it even more challenging. Yeah, it's one of the things I loved most about the book is how all of the different options you you laid out for people who are sensitive introverted high empaths you have a whole list I've got them here there's relational activism artist activism record keepers builders equippers researchers and you tell these great stories of many different of these kinds of people who were doing the quieter, maybe more behind the scenes, but just

as needed activist work. But I just want to come to a cycle awareness idea here that feels really interesting to me. So many people come to menstrual cycle awareness because they've had some kind of burnout experience or because they have health health problems and menstrual health problems. And one of the things that people start to learn as they start to track their menstrual cycle, or this can also work with the menopause process to tracking yourself through the menopause process, is they just come to know themselves, they come to know their own natural rhythms of energy, you know, the world wants us to be go, go, go, do, do, do. And cycle awareness shows us, oh, hang on, I have more energy, like often around ovulation I have a lot less energy as I'm in my pre-menstrual phase and I need to rest when I'm menstrual that's that's a

pattern that we often see not always that way and there's some terms that we use at Red School which is like the first half of the menstrual cycle from menstruation to ovulation is the via positiva when our energy is rising and we're kind of being built up inside andation to ovulation is the via positiva, when our energy is rising and we're kind of being built up inside. And then after ovulation, when we go into the premenstrual phase, it's the via negativa, where there's a natural breaking down process inside, kind of an ego, ego busting process inside, and we tend to have less energy. and so we often talk about via negativa people the people who are actually happier in the premenstrual half of their cycle when their focus is more inward when their energy is a bit lower when they can kind of focus in on themselves and as I was reading

a book I was feeling like oh this book is for the via negativa people this is for the people who are naturally more um inward more introverted rather than being more via positiva people which the world likes you know the world likes us when we're in our you know out there with energy and able to be active and there was something that you said I'm just looking through my notes here yeah that being a sensitive soul in social justice work requires to a large extent the courage to be counter-cultural it requires a deep self-awareness of what you can and cannot do it requires focus and limits it requires a careful consideration of people situations and environments it requires an understanding that you cannot change all things or be all things to all people but you certainly can

make a meaningful difference and um yeah it just made me think of how my own cycle awareness practice is what brought me out of burnout and has given me more resilience as an activist because I know myself and I know my rhythms. Does that make sense? Absolutely. Yeah. The question I have for you is like, what has helped you to know your own rhythms? What has helped you to kind of advocate for yourself and take your own side in the face of this activist ideal? Well, I think, for me, it was a lot of mistakes. A lot of time spent not paying attention to my needs and my rhythms. So we've mentioned burnout a number of times. I've honestly lost track of the number of times I've burned out, you know, that that time in China was one of the worst, but it was definitely not the only time that I have burned out. It's probably been a

good seven, eight times at least that, that I've burned out over, you know, 15, 20 years. And it, so it was the cycle that none of us, which is that I was sort of on this regular cycle of burnout pretty much every couple of years. And, and over time, it became very clear to me of, you know, as each burnout got progressively worse, right, the stakes became higher and higher. And I realized that I can't keep going like this, you know, maybe in your 20s, you can push through a little bit, and then you get older, and you take on more responsibilities. You know, you have a family or if you have other things going on and we just change physically and mentally and psychologically. And I simply could not do it anymore. um and and so it's been super helpful for me to begin to understand that this idea of not having a a pace not having a rhythm not having um i think in the book, I talk about seasons, right? That that I think is maybe more of a newer idea, or at least it's an idea that has kind of captured us in the here and now, but it is not necessarily something that has held true for, you know, for our ancestors,

for others who have come before us. And so as I was researching the activists that I talk about in the book, there are a number of examples of people who they were very conscientious of, this is my time to act, this is my time to be out in the world. And after that, and before that, I'm going to take time and I'm going to withdraw. I'm going to rest. I'm going to that, I'm going to take time and I'm going to withdraw. I'm going to rest. I'm going to think. I'm going to plan. I'm going to commune with my advisors and friends and loved ones and sort of rebuild myself up, right, because we give so much of ourselves when we're out in the world, when we're doing this kind of work. And so that sort of rhythm of engaging and disengaging, you know, I think there is this perspective that that is laziness, right? Getting back to the active ideal that some may buy into. But the more I have begun to practice this, and I've watched those around me practice it,

the more I recognize that it's actually, not only is it healthy, but to some extent, it's a necessity, right? Because if we just keep going, going, going, either you burn yourself out, or you kind of lose yourself in the work to the point where there are a lot of activists who are really, really angry people, right? And I think most of us get into the work with the desire to make the world better, to rebuild relationships with people, to increase the love and compassion and justice in the world. And, and yet without doing our own inner work, it can be so easy to get caught up in those same systems of, um, of, of anger and negative energy that kind of can fuel a lot of the injustices that we see around us. Right. So even if you are on the right side of an issue, it doesn't necessarily mean that you're approaching it in a healthy way

or in a way that actually builds up communities as opposed to dividing people, tearing people down, right? We see so much of that now in social media with the negativity and the calling out and the canceling. And ultimately, I believe that we all need to be our healthiest best selves in order to contribute to society in not only meaningful ways, but really healthy and long lasting ways that are good for the society beyond, beyond us, beyond our little bubble. But, but that can have a positive reach you know far beyond our individual lives yeah it's that the ebb and the flow is absolutely vital like everything we see in the natural world is is ebbing and flowing the tides the seasons the trees blossom

and then their leaves fall like absolutely it's what's happening everywhere around us it's just in our human culture we seem to think that we can just bypass that cyclicity and just keep keep going I wanted to ask you about resiliency I think there's a whole chapter about this and chapter four. And can I read another quote back to you? Is that okay? That's great. It's very connected to our cycle awareness work as well, because it's about determining your calling or your purpose. And one of the things that we guide people to do is through cycle awareness practice, through coming to know ourselves is to really get clear about what we most love, what we most want to serve and then go out and

serve it so you say determining your calling or probably more accurately series of callings is a sacred act that requires patience wisdom and trial and error and so the rest of this book helps to explore those questions and offer possibilities so that you can move closer to the freedom song that speaks most to your heart which i think is a very beautiful sentence and i wanted so that you can move closer to the freedom song that speaks most to your heart which I think is a very beautiful sentence and I wanted to ask you as a sensitive soul what's helped you to hold on to your purpose through the ebb and flow yes uh well so what what you're getting at is you know I that that chapter was so important for me because as a sensitive person, I had always assumed that being resilient meant that I didn't get hurt as easily, the definition actually is quite different, right? And the definition is more about holding on to your sense of self and identity and purpose,

even as there are challenges, even as the world is kind of swirling and changing around you, but you have this clarity. And when I read that, I had this sense of, oh, I can do that. That I can do. I can't do the bouncing back right away, but the knowing who I am, holding onto that sense of purpose, I think that's something I can do. Not that it's easy. I think that there is so much in life that can confuse us, can pull us away, can distract us, or just overwhelm us, right? But I think for me, at least, going on walks, talking to very dear friends, going through counseling, doing personality assessments. Like I love the Enneagram and there's a number of really good ones that have just been so helpful for me in understanding myself and knowing what to look out for and what to work on. So those have all played a key role. and calling, there's definitely, I think, been an openness to experimentation that I have needed to allow myself to do.

So earlier on in my career, I write about in this book how I really felt like I had to know. I just had to know. I just had to know. I had to very clearly define exactly what I was going to do and why I was going to do it and what I was going to achieve. And I've come to realize, at least for me, that it doesn't have to be so minutely defined, that I can have this general sense of these are the things I love in the world. This is what I care about most deeply in the world. But exactly how I'm involved in that, what I do to address that, who I work with, there are so many different possibilities. And so there is a freedom in just trying different things out, seeing what's out there. It's almost like trying on clothing, right? Like what fits, what is really my size, my style, and is a unique fit just for me and how I'm wired. And I'll also say, you know, I'm a person of faith.

And so my faith and my faith community and just spirituality have kept me really grounded as well. Right. And I talk about that in the book too, that spiritually as defined by Brene Brown is, is really this connection to something greater than yourself, right? A greater community, the universe, a divine force. Those are the things that kind of help us keep a bigger perspective, help us see things in the long run and not limit ourselves to only what is right in front of us or only what is within our control. connected to this greater community it gives us more hope to knowing that there have been many that have come before us and there are many that will come after us and and so those are all

different perspectives tools that have been really helpful for me as I've tried to hang on to my sense of of who I am in the midst of all the challenges. I'm going to pause the podcast for a moment to share a special invitation with you. In a couple of weeks, we're embarking on a three-day online cyclical wisdom quest. It's a rare opportunity to spend three days with Red School's founders, Alexandra and Sharni, who will guide you to explore the power that's calling to hundreds of thousands of us now, the gifts that live within the four phases or the inner seasons, as we call them, of the menstrual cycle.

It's for you, whether you currently have a cycle or not, and you can find out more at redschool.net forward slash quest that's redschool.net forward slash quest it's from February the 20th to the 22nd and we're offering everybody who's in our global community a free ticket to get your free ticket please join our newsletter list at redschool.net and then email me at sophie at redschool.net and I'll get you connected with your free ticket. So join the newsletter list at redschool.net and then email me at sophie at redschool.net and I'll get you connected. The Quest will also serve as a great introduction to the kind of experience you can expect from our menstruality leadership

program which is our annual leadership training based on the wisdom of experience you can expect from our menstruality leadership program which is our annual leadership training based on the wisdom of the menstrual cycle it's starting in march and you can find out all about it at menstrualityleadership.com but for now here's a short story from one of our graduates nishma about how the menstruality leadership program transformed things for her and then we'll get back to the conversation with Dorcas. I decided to do the menstruality leadership program because I was at a place in my life where I was experiencing the most horrendous periods and it was really affecting my ability to work and everything else. So I began this journey of self-discovery and I learned about the work through a mentor of mine

at the time and reading about Red School and what they do was like a calling, my soul calling me home and I haven't looked back since. It's allowed me to really trust myself and trust my cycle. I've grown in many ways but it's held me through my life transitions of pregnancy, birth and motherhood. So Red School you know gives you more than just learning a learning experience it's an Mae ysgol y Redd yn rhoi mwy na dim ond profiad i'w dysgu, mae'n brofiad o gyfnod oed. Rwyf wedi gwneud llawer o hyfforddiant dros y 4-5 mlynedd diwethaf ac mae hyn wedi bod yn y ffordd mwyaf ymddygiadol i mi. Felly os ydych chi ar y ffenster, mae'n rhaid i chi ei wneud. Ni fyddwch yn anghofio. Mae'n ymwneud â ddweud heno i fersiwn newydd eich hun ac rwy'n hynod o ddiolch i fod wedi bod yn rhan o'r myfyrwyr. it's about saying hello to a new version of yourself and I'm so grateful to have been a part of this journey thank you that was a really beautiful list and I love that definition of resiliency as being able to know your own identity and stay stay true to your own identity no matter

what's happening it reminds me of something that Sharni often says who's one of the co-founders of Red School is like take your own side and it is one of the things that cycle awareness helps us to do is to go okay this is what's happening around me but how am I feeling inside what cycle day am I on how's that influencing this and it's taking a long time for me to do this I'm 42 now I feel like I've been trying to do this my whole life but to to know that when something difficult happens that I'm not a bad person I'm me you know to remember who I am to remember my values to remember what I'm about and yeah hold my own and then maybe go out and recognize a mistake that I've made and go and make it right but to actually move through all the kind of

layers of shame that can exist to be able to yes make my own side is um especially as an activist because we do make mistakes oh absolutely it's just part of walking our own edges, which activism just demands that we do. I'm curious about that. How do you handle it when you make a mistake as a sensitive person? Generally not well. I do great with it, by the way.

I'm so good with it. I'm so glad. Yeah, but autism is hard work. It is incredibly hard work. And it's complex. There's all these social dynamics. And so I think it is just par for the course that we are all going to make mistakes at some point. We individually will make mistakes in as organizations, we will make mistakes as collectives, we will make mistakes. And yes, what you're talking about that that sense of shame, it used to just crush me. And one of the things that highly sensitive people tend to do is that if we have an intense experience, and at least for me, it tends to be more the negative experiences than the positive ones. If we have an intense experience, it is pretty common for us to keep replaying that in our minds over and over and over again on a loop.

And you're constantly thinking, what did I do wrong? What could I have done differently? And it's just this broken record that you cannot stop in your mind. And it would haunt me during the day. It would haunt me at night. And I could not stop it. And as I have gotten older, I'm in my 40s as well, as I've hopefully gotten a little wiser and understood that one thing, all of that cycling, that mental, emotional cycling, it wasn't helping me. I wasn't actually learning anything. It was just berating myself and beating myself down. And in the end, it wasn't doing me any good and it wasn't doing anybody else around me any good. And so to realize that, well, one, that we just need to give grace to ourselves, that

we all make mistakes. It is very much a part of the human experience. It's part of our growing process. And oftentimes, sensitive people will tend to be harder on themselves than others are on them. And I think that recognition helped as well of as much as I was beating myself up over these mistakes that I had made, pretty much everybody else had already moved on and a good number of people had forgotten that that had happened, right? And so the import and the impact of what I was imagining my mistake to be really, it wasn't that significant. And so that also helps me to realize, you know, it, it, it doesn't have to be such a huge thing in my imagination. I can try to sort of resize it to make it into something that, that I can actually handle that it feels like, okay, this is something I can kind of hold in my hands instead of it being such a huge boulder that it's going to crush me. And then I think also this does come from experience of realizing that of the many, many mistakes that I have made and failures over the years, there have been such valuable learnings that I have gotten out of that about myself, about how the world works, about how other people think and feel.

And those have been assets for me. They have been really, really valuable pieces of knowledge for me to be able to hold on to as I've navigated through life. And so there is a part of me that while I still don't enjoy making mistakes or having failures, but I can appreciate that there can be a purpose behind it. Or at least there can be a redemption of it. There's there's something that we can we can love it. Right. That that phrase of like beauty from ashes of. Of, you know, we can choose how how we respond to our mistakes is very much within our control,

right? And so we can choose to see it as a really valuable learning experience. And, and Brene Brown actually has a wonderful process that she walks people through in one of her books. And I talk about it in my book as well, of how do you process through these kinds of hard experiences? And then ultimately, it helps you recover from them. It helps you to move on and kind of put it past you and be like, okay, you know, I've gleaned a lot of learning from this. I feel like I've grown from the experience, and now I don't need to keep thinking about it. I can let it go and, you know, hope that I've gotten as much as I can out of it and, and move on. Yeah. Thank you. That was so beautiful. Um, I'm thinking of one of the

things that's helped me. Um, we, we talk about the premenstrual inner critic a lot at med school. It doesn't, I mean, often it escapes out of the premenstrual phase of the cycle and just runs all the way through the month, that inner judgmental voice. But one of the things that I recognize now is if I hear myself saying, so if you always do that, you can never do this. When my mind goes into those extremes, I've learned to just clock it and bring a bit of humor in and go, Oh, I always do that. Do I? Do I always do that? I'm not sure. Is it never like that? And it helps me just get a little bit

more space. And just if I can just inject a little bit of humor, that normally kind of opens things up in my mind so that I don't keep cycling in that way. But it's, yeah, again, it's taking me a long time. Yes. Well, and one thing I want to mention as well is, you know, there's this idea of self-compassion, right? Kristen Neff is a psychologist at Stanford who writes about this quite a bit. And, and what I love about self-compassion, again, it's one of these terms that gets thrown around like self-care and there can be a sense of, oh, you're just navel gazing and not. But what I love about the idea of self-compassion, and this has been demonstrated in study after study after study, is that the more compassion that you show for yourself,

it actually has this beautiful multiplicative power where your ability to show compassion and kindness to yourself actually builds up, amplifies, strengthens your ability to show kindness and compassion for others. And so the more you build up that muscle within yourself of, I can laugh at myself, I can be kind to myself, I can forgive myself, right, for all that I've done, it actually kind of prepares us to be able to bring all of that goodness to the world around us. And so that's, I think, another way in which that, that kind of ebb and flow, right, that the inner work and the outer work have this very deep connection. Because, because you kind of practice it on yourself. And then and then as it becomes a habit, as it becomes part of

who you are, becomes easier and easier to share that with the world in a way that is really, really healthy and nurturing for the world around us. That's so beautiful. I'm also thinking of the amount of messages we receive, media messages, all the way throughout the day that are literally designed to make us doubt ourselves and make us compare ourselves and make us think that there's something wrong with us. And that self-compassion is a really important antidote to that especially for sensitive folks like us I would love to spend the last part of the conversation if we can talking about how people can find their kind of activism which is sort of the second it feels like the second half of the book is really devoted to this

um you one of the things you speak about first and I'm thinking about our menopausal and post-menopausal listeners right now is that your life stage really I don't want to use the word dictates influences maybe thank you your life stage influences the kind of activism that will work for you and you gave the example of Mahatma Gandhi one of the things that made me an activist actually was reading his biography when I was um 22 it would have been I had a great job in France as part of my French degree where I got to go and live in a French village teaching for eight hours a week at a school that's all I did and the rest of the time I just got to wander around the countryside in France and read Mahatma Gandhi's biography it was a great year but you named that he was actually 45 when he returned to India and began his organizing work. You give another example of Alicia Zobaznabar de la Cuadra,

and she was 62 when she founded this incredible organization that you described, the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, to fight the dictatorship in Argentina. You know, there are... Our activism can change throughout our lives, and it might be that as we enter different as we go through different transitions and enter different life stages different kinds of activism arise for us like it's it's never too late yes yes very much i think there is the the stereotype right

of the young activists in their in university in their early 20s. And certainly that is an incredibly important age for a lot of people to engage with social issues. But yeah, it doesn't have to stop there. And I really hope it doesn't. Because as people are in different life stages, as they enter into midlife and beyond, I believe that there is so much wisdom that they have to bring. There's so much goodness that they can contribute. And we absolutely need activists, advocates at every stage of life, because I think we do need some of that sense of balance, of learning from one another, of exploring different approaches to, you know, how can we address this issue? How can we talk to the decision makers? And I think also, you know, specific to highly sensitive people, one of the most encouraging

things I learned in my research was that our sensitivities can change as we get older. And a lot of times they change in ways that make life a little bit easier for us. The sensitivities that really, you know, if you have, there are things that like sensory wise, sounds, smells, if they really bothered you when you were younger, it's very likely that as you get older, it will not bother you as much. Or, you know, there was this great study done, I believe it was in Japan, where they found that people who were very sensitive to reading facial expressions, who especially, you know, could recognize those emotional cues of, oh, somebody's angry with me, or they're annoyed, they're disgusted, they're distracted, even they're not paying attention to me, that our ability to actually recognize those cues starts to diminish

as we age, which I actually think is a real grace for sensitive people, because we are so sensitive to, oh, my gosh, is this person upset with me? Did I do something? Did I say something? And so the ability to like care just a little bit less and notice just a little bit less that other people might be frustrated or annoyed, I think actually helps us, you know, because it may make us a little bit braver, a little bit more able to say the things that we might not have been willing to say when we were younger. But even as we, you know, may, our sensitivity to those cues of anger and disappointment may diminish, our ability to sense joy and happiness in other people remains the same as well. And so I just, and also our appreciation for beauty, for nature actually increases as we get older. And so, so I feel

like the kinds of the ways that our sensitivities develop as we go through life, it's actually really, really beautiful. And, and it kind of makes me look forward to getting even older and, and being able to experience some of that. And, but I think that that some of that perspective, that appreciation, we so need that in our activist movements right now. I, I do feel like there, it's a little bit out of balance right now in terms of how, how angry activists are, how, how divisive and hostile it all has become. And, and I do, you know, I have a friend, Sarah Corbett in the UK, who runs the Craftivist Collective, and she's all about gentle activism. And I love that term. I love that approach. And I believe that ultimately gentle activism, compassionate activism, like human centered activism. Right. It's not just about the issues. It's not just about winning the debate, but truly creating communities and societies in a world that where everybody can flourish and where everybody is dignified and feels loved, right?

If we're going to truly do that, then we need to learn how to care for one another and love one another really well, even if we don't agree with one another, even if we're on different sides of an issue, right? And that kind of wisdom, that kind of perspective, I believe that it is people who are, you know, middle-aged and beyond who can bring some of that and, and hopefully, I don't know, find, find some, some balance to, to our approach to social change right now that is more inclusive and is more inviting um and and so that's i'm very very hopeful that that there can be more people um who engage regardless of their life stage or age yeah well there's so much that you just said there firstly i just want to say how happy i am by what you just shared about how the sensitivities change and how happy my hobby aid is going to be

because like we may get to a point in our relationship where I can handle his techno music playing in the background and I can deal with this pungent smell of his chili sauce that he puts on everything it's like he's going to be like yes I can listen to my music and I'm thinking you know as we're talking about people in midlife and beyond taking the lead with activism there's a couple of women that I've been really grateful to interview for the podcast Amashade Bernie Scott and Karen Arthur who both in menopause noticed that their truth-speaking voices became louder and the kind of filters that they'd had because of their sensitivities started to fall away and they both um on different sides of the

pond karen in the uk and amishadi in the in the us both became advocates and activists for black menopausal women who just weren't being represented in the global conversation at all and both doing incredible work and yeah that they have changed a lot through the menopause process and they've found their activism in a new way and that was on the other side of burnout so yes exciting exciting to feel the possibilities there one story that feels really important especially now with many people on social media and social media being a place where their activism is is happening you shared a story of of a twitter fight that you had about immigration policy and it was all like through this lens of like choosing where and how you do activism. Like your takeaway was you don't have to fight social justice online if it's hurting you and if it's if it's really difficult for you as a sensitive person.

But could you walk us into the story of your tweet fight? Yeah. So I think this was the one and only time I ever tried to do this. You know, this was during Donald Trump's administration when all sorts of very draconian immigration policies were being put in place and refugees were really being limited. And so I posted something on Twitter a stranger responded I wrote back and she I mean we probably went back and forth maybe five six times um and all things considered it was actually quite civil like she you know I believe it was she uh she was definitely debating me but um but but there were no, there was no name calling, you know, there was no belittling. It was just, you know, but the, what about this?

And, and yet the amount of stress that that one little exchange caused me, I mean, this happened over the course of an entire day, right? So this is maybe a six hour stretch that she and I are going back and forth. It just, every time I saw, you know, that little notification come up, my heart would start racing and I'd start sweating and, and I would like start to tingle all over and I'd read her comment and be like, oh my gosh. And then I would spend, you know, I don't know, a good half hour crafting my 120 character response and like writing and rewriting. And, and I just really, in the end, we didn't convince each other of anything. And we got nowhere. And I was just exhausted. You know, it was like I had, I don't, I don't actually run, but I imagine it was what it would be like to run,

you know, a 10K or a half marathon or something. I just, I was done for the day. I couldn't do anything else. And it just made me realize for one thing, this is not healthy. Or another thing, this is not effective. You know, I'm spending so much energy debating this one person who I don't even know. I have no context for where she's coming from, how she sees the world. And, and it just, it took so much out of me, like the cost of it was so much higher than, than any sort of benefit. And so it made me realize this is not a good use of my time. This is not a good use of my energy. And, and it is very much the case that, and I think this is just the reality that, that

people are only very reluctantly beginning to recognize is that social media is very very limited in its ability to actually sway people um there i mean there have been some very prominent examples of course we've seen with black lives matter me too um of messages stories um events getting amplified all around the world, which have been incredibly effective. But in terms of sustaining movements, right, because if we are talking about real structural social change, systemic social change, that frequently takes decades. And to sustain a movement over decades, social media is not the way to go. Social media will keep your movement going for a few weeks, maybe. And even then, it is very much about putting us in silos, about encouraging conflict

and division, right? So you all have probably heard the way the algorithms work is, you know, if someone posts something and if it gets a lot of angry responses, like angry emojis, angry comments, it is more likely to show up in your feed than something that somebody has posted that gets a lot of smiley faces and likes and, you know, kind and happy responses. And so because it is those controversial, divisive, angry comments that get people worked up and get them engaging on social media. And ultimately, that's what the social media companies want. They just want people to be on there, to be hooked on it, regardless of how they're feeling, regardless of what damage it does to them and their relationships with one another. And so I

increasingly distrust social media, don't really want to be a part of it. And yet, because of the work I do, I feel like I need to at least minimally maintain a presence. But in terms of like, if you look at my social media feed, like it is not really where I feel like I do my actual activist work and you know for some people they love it that like that is their space that's where they interact with people it feels super meaningful for them and that's wonderful I mean we we absolutely need justice oriented compassionate people on social media like yes please but I think for a lot of folks, knowing that how much it takes out of us, and also how ineffective it is, it really does

not at all need to be where you engage, right? There's a lot of pressure to do it. You, you know, you got to have the right, you got to have the right frame around your profile photo, and you need to post a comment about everything and react to everything. And if you don't react, then people assume that you don't care. And I think, again, this is getting to the point of getting older is I think I just don't care as much anymore. It's like I know what I think. The people who know me know what I think. And it doesn't totally matter what these random people on social media might assume, I think. What matters much more is actually how I'm living my life and how I'm spending my energy and what I am doing with my time and energy to actually try to make the world better because posting angry comments on social media is not going to make the world better oh it's a little soapbox about social media oh thank you for getting

on that soapbox I feel a lot of relief hearing you say that and I just appreciate the permission giving there of like this doesn't have to be the place where the activism happens it doesn't work and you had earlier mentioned relational activism. So that's one of my favorite chapters in the book. I think what I most appreciate about relational activism is that anyone can do it. It is actually perfectly in line with with people who are highly sensitive because it's all about just human connection. You know, relational activism is about friendship. It's about just genuine conversations with people. One of the most powerful statistics I came across

in my research was the organizational psychologist, Adam Grant, did a survey of more than 500 other studies, right? So he looked at more than 500 other studies. These were all studies that involved two people sitting down face-to-face, not online, face-to-face, in person, having a conversation. They were two people from different backgrounds, different socioeconomic backgrounds, different ethnic backgrounds, different nationalities, different religions. They're sitting down and they're just talking. They're not debating. They're not trying to convince each other of anything. They're just trying to get to know each other, ask questions of one another, expressing genuine curiosity and being themselves. And when people have conversations like that, 96% of the time, there is a reduction in prejudice. Amazing. And I can't think of any

other form of activism that has that high of a return rate, right? And it's just about being kind. It's about being genuine. It's about being curious. And that can already change people and it changes us. And there's another wonderful story in there of a guy named Daryl Davis who just purely through friendship. So he is a Black man. He became friends with members of the Ku Klux Klan, just friends, just trying to understand them, just being very curious, not condemning, not rebuking. And just through that friendship, he's been able to influence more than 60 individuals to leave the Ku Klux Klan because finally they understood, wait, you know, what, what I've been learning in this organization, it doesn't make any sense. You know, I have this real live flesh and blood person in front of me who is my friend. And I want to live a life that is, that is more loving toward this friend. And that was enough for them to just make a very, very significant life choice. And so like, please, please don't underestimate the small things that you do, the ways that our interactions with one another can have a really, really significant influence. It doesn't,

I mean, I think that if we can sort of wrap up with a thought, I mean, I think that if, if we can sort of wrap up with, with, with a thought, I mean, that, that's one of the things I most want people to get out of this book is that it's not, activism is not about the grand gestures. It's not about the, you know, the, the speech in front of cameras and millions of people, it's about these daily small acts of just showing up, of being kind, of being true to who you are, of treating others with dignity and care. And doing what you love as well, doing things that bring you joy and also bring hope and help to our planet um and and that is a recipe that that will definitely lead to something really really wonderful in your life and in the lives of those around you thank you Dorcas thank you for your courage to step up as a sensitive person and write this book and share it and invite so many more of us into activism in ways that actually work for us and actually are sustainable thank you so much if people want to connect with you what's the best way for them to to find out more about you and reach you yes well despite my social media so

I am on social media I do check so that's a very easy way to get in touch with me I'm primarily on Facebook Instagram and LinkedIn actually so you could just in touch with me. I'm primarily on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn, actually. So you could just search me up. I think I'm the only one with my name and I will just pop right up. Feel free to drop me a message. I love it when folks get in touch. Always appreciate the chance to meet new friends. You can also go to my website, Changtozen.com and leave a message for me there.

But yeah, please do do please do get in touch thank you so much I've really really enjoyed this conversation thank you and I'm feeling affirmed and inspired to to go out and continue continue my work slowly steadily that is my deepest hope so I'm so glad to hear that thank you so much for joining us today and for listening all the way through to the end I love being in this community with you gathered around this podcast and around this conversation around the power and the magic of the menstrual cycle and menopause and I look forward to being with you virtually again next week and until then keep living life according to your own brilliant rhythm.