this email is the first in a series pulling apart productivity, habit-making, and schedules. it’s also inviting you into the autumn reflection and reset workshop I made,
$22, use for many seasons to come.

In my Friday afternoon writing class one day, years ago, I was bringing the group back together after a few rounds of quiet co-writing time. I like to check in during and after these rounds, always asking “how’s it going? what progress are you making? are you stuck anywhere?” etc. And I remember that day, one of my students, Cassandra, unmuted herself and answered, “It was productive.”

Have you ever answered that way, too? When someone asks you how your day went, you answer, “It was productive"?
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I’ve heard the tutors at my day job describe tutoring sessions or moments with students where there was some kind of stuckness for the kid or they were dragging feet through an activity as “unproductive.”

As if working through the doubt and frustration isn’t a natural and inevitable part of the learning process. As if the only thing that matters is a correct, neatly polished answer instead of the process it took the child to arrive at that answer. As if it’s not our job as teachers, as tutors, as guides, to support them in working through these moments. (I am digressing a bit cuz fr fr don’t get me started on the education industrial complex!)

More and more every day, as we continue dismantling the empire and rebuilding ecosystems of care and community and love, I believe even more deeply in the precision of language, how and in which contexts we use words and the energy behind them.

Productivity is a fundamentally capitalist concept, where our worth, our morality, even, is measured in our output, how much we can produce, how much the land can produce, how much labor and energy can be extracted.

It favors outcome over process. Quantity over quality, numbers over feeling.

While results, repetition, and numbers have their place, how much are we letting these things define ourselves and our experience?

Productivity is also a $60+ billion industry.

So, when you label your days, your moments of experience, your creative practice as productive or unproductive, with an eye and heart for discernment instead of judgement, what are you really saying?

What and whose measurements are your evaluations based on?

Again, I do not say this as judgment or to shame you. Nadia de Ala, negotiation coach for women of color and founder of Real You Leadership, says question systems before you question yourself.

I invite you into that here, as an inquiry, as an unpacking, as a moment of reflection. This is a moment to be honest with yourself: where are you extracting your own labor? Where are you approaching your creative practice as a thing that needs to be checked off instead of connected with?

Because empire wants us severed. Disconnected. Extracted from, again and again and again. It wants us to hit the override button inside and ignore the body’s cues for rest, for contemplation, for slowness and softness, for nervous system reset, for flow. It ignores our needs. Our capacity. And when we internalize this, which we all have (I skip way too many meals in favor of checking more off the to-do list, 100%), we allow the disconnection.

Because, at the end of the day, when you are sitting with all that you have experienced within the container of 24 hours, it’s really not about how productive you were. It’s not about the quantity. It’s about how connected you were, to your self, your body, your practice, the spirit of the thing that wants to come through you.

​Heenali, one of my business mentors/teachers, once said, “measure your success in moments of connection.”

And when you experience moments of doubt, moments of dragging feet, frustration, or stuckness, those are moments where you are being invited into deeper connection. While it may not feel “productive,” you are giving your self what you need.

And that’s not productivity, it’s love. It is care. It is devotion to your self, your creativity, your dreams, to the ancestors whose prayers rain over you.

Isn’t this what we truly desire?

A little practice for you:

• Where can you meet your self a little more closely today? What do you need and how can you give it to your self? Maybe it’s a 20-minute nap, or a 5-minute moment outside to close your eyes and take in the sunlight.
• Where can you meet your creative practice a little more closely today? What does the spirit of your practice need from you? Maybe it’s a 10-minute pen-to-paper flow session. Maybe it’s some hip spirals to your favorite song.
• When you lay your head on your pillow tonight and run through the moments of your day, how will you measure how you experienced it? Scan for the moments of connection. Where were you able to slow down and enjoy the water flowing down your throat? Did you linger a little longer in a hug, either with your self or a loved one? Did you sit down to sketch, feel the utensil to page, and the pulse of your own creative energy? Win, win, win, win, win!

And before you go listing out all the habits and projects in your trackers, cuz tis the season, I invite you to sit with your intentions. Ask your self, why? Why these? We’ll go deeper into habits and life pattern-making next week, so for now, I leave you with:

Instead of “It was un/productive,” what was the experience of it? How did you feel? What sensations did you experience in your body and mind?

I’m coming to the end of writing this, and the colonized part of my mind wants to yes, call it productive. But I’m imagining you, beloved kabsat, reading this as I write. I am listening to what wants to come through today, this moment. And yes, I feel connected. To you, to this practice of writing these messages, to the spirit of agballa creatives. So much so it’s stirring up tears in my eyes (also about to enter menstruation phase so feeling real raw today). I feel excited. I feel grateful, for answering the call, for showing up despite the headache, despite the rest of the to do list, despite my other responsibilities.

Like, shit, this took 20 minutes lol (and somehow the headache is gone? whoaaaa, magic medicine, this work.)

it’s not about productivity, beloveds. not about your to do list or getting it “done.” it’s about what you value, your deep desires, your dreams.

may you find flow. may you connect despite the doubt. may you create despite the fear. may you return to your practices from this place, again and again.

in the autumn/seasonal reflection and reset workshop, the “reset” portion guides you through:

• your big vision for the upcoming season,
• landing/rooting into your dreams and values,
• shaping your daily priorities (re: to do list/schedule) based on those values, AND
• working with your natural rhythms and ways of being, aligned with sunlight and moonlight.

get it, here, for the price of a hardcover book that you can revisit weekly, monthly, seasonally, as needed:

loving you so, kapwa-tao. wishing you an easeful day and a restful evening, layered with connection and long, lingering hugs (if that’s your thing 😊)
teresa
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also! come join the writing wednesday telegram group.
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here we’ll:
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☑️check in with our writing practice and each other
☑️share the thing we intend to write
☑️hold each other accountable to writing it!
☑️if you want to share the writing itself, that is welcome too 😊
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even if you don't identify as a "writer," writing comes up in all the sneaky places: grants, captions, emails, texts. all these things count, too! it doesn't just have to be your next novel or poetry collection (although it most certainly can be!)​
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​writing wednesdays​
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I live, work, and mother as a settler on kānaka maoli land, the island of O'ahu. In support of landback initiatives and the community here, I want to amplify the work of Oʻahu Water Protectors, The Hawai'i People's Fund, and The Hawai'i Community Bail Fund. Our support of these organizations is to support the kānaka community in defending their land and waters.

If you ever feel the need to unsubscribe, I respect that. The button is below. Thank you for reading this far.

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