With a constant stream of lightning-fast news, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed and fearful these days. The fear that grips me most is for the future that’s currently being shaped for our daughter. Sometimes that fear is debilitating, sometimes it’s motivating.
I’m trying my damnedest to lean into the latter.
That doesn’t mean my goal is to stop feeling fear entirely. Fear is a normal – even necessary – emotion, and it would be impossible to cut completely out of our lives. We need to feel our fears, our anger, our dread. Burying these feelings can allow them to fester and grow stronger. We must allow them to exist. Feel free to scream about them. Vent to loved ones. Cry in the shower. Blast angsty music and dance it out.
Take action. Rise to the challenge in any way you can. Repeat to yourself: You are strong, talented, and smart. You are unstoppable (this is, coincidentally, my affirmation every morning as I take my first sip of coffee, superhero pose in place).
Challenges give us experience and build our resilience. Research suggests that after going through a difficult time, a person can find a greater sense of self and purpose, gratitude for life and loved ones, and an increased desire to act for the greater good. How can we create positive change for the greater good of our communities? How can we inspire action amidst complacency?
Every step you take is an act of optimism. You are moving forward in the belief that a better outcome is possible. What’s the best that could happen? How can we help make it true?
Remember, though, you are not responsible for fixing everything. And being positive and optimistic doesn’t mean you have to be happy all the time. It just means you acknowledge the possibility of better days ahead. Sometimes the best that can happen is that you agree tomorrow is a new day, with potential for positive change.
New life arises from an old way of being. Hope is courage, and action is bravery, especially in a time of transformation. Keep believing in possibilities. Together, we can make this future better for our daughters, our neighbors, our grandkids, ourselves. Let’s do this, friends.
“You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.’”
Eleanor Roosevelt
8 Ways to Find Courage in Challenging Times
Feel your fears, and take action anyway.
1. Positive Self-Talk
– Give yourself the “best friend pep talk”
– Journal about your fears and hopes
– Make a habit of saying Affirmations or Acceptance Statements
Place your hands on your hips or out in the air like a starfish. Set your legs shoulder width apart, lift your chest, and hold your head up high. Hold this position for two minutes while taking deep breaths. Research shows that this dominant upright position increases self-confidence. Testosterone increases (allowing for assertive behavior) while cortisol (the stress hormone) decreases.
A la Rebecca from Ted Lasso, make yourself bigger to feel braver.
3. Find support, inspiration, or a mentor
– Model the bravery of someone you admire
– Read authors who inspire you to action
“A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is brave five minutes longer.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
4. Embrace Failure
Doing something you fear could very likely result in failure. Keep at it. The more you fail, the more you’re trying, the more likely you’ll succeed (and face that fear for good).
Take care of yourself, too.
5. Maintain a Top Priority List
What are the top five – or even three – most important things in your life right now? Keep this at the top of your mind… and see if you can let some other things go.
6. Do a brain cleanse:
– Get some fresh air
– Write out what you’re grateful for
– Consult your priority list. Take one action step to support that list
“Courage is not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.”
Nelson Mandela
7. Seek Happiness in the Day-to-Day
– Take a self-care time-out
– Find a healthy outlet (Exercise, book group, volunteering, focusing on personal health goals)
– Engage in something that makes you laugh
8. Be a Helper
Focus on how you can help in your own community, neighborhood, family. School district. Look around for folks that might need your help. Ask for help when you need it.
We have a Gen Z kid in the house at Inspire(d) HQ, and she consulted on this maybe dorky, maybe cool Mother’s Day project! Either way, chocolate is definitely a Mother’s Day favorite around here. Download these printable Gen Z Chocolate Bar Wrappers and let your mom know she slays!
Gen Z Chocolate Bar Wrappers Supplies:
– Chocolate Bars (I ((Aryn)) love these Chocolove bars we can get from the Oneota Food Co-op in Decorah – my MOST favorite is Salted Almond Butter) – Glue stick – Scissors – Pen (to use if you write a note to your mom in the blank space on the wrapper) – templates (we’ve got five options!):
How to make your Gen Z Mother’s Day Chocolate Bar Wrappers
Print the template (or templates) you want to gift to your mom for Mother’s Day, and cut along the dotted lines around the design.
Once it’s cut out, you can write a nice, heartfelt message to your mom! This is optional, but as a mom, I can tell you it would be greatly appreciated!
Flip the design over, and get ready to wrap your chocolate bar. You’ll need the glue stick handy, and since you’ll be gluing along the edges, putting a scrap of paper under the template can help keep your table free from glue goo.
Glue along three edges. You’ll want your note to be on the outside of the wrapper, so glue along the left side, right side, and the side where you wrote your note. (FYI, I added “Happy Mother’s Day from Inspire(d)” to the templates after I took these photos, but you will see it on the template print outs.)
Fold the unglued edge of the wrapper up over the chocolate bar. I imagine you wrote your note on the blank side opposite the “Happy Mother’s Day from Inspire(d)” note, but either way, make sure you fold the side in that DOESN’T have your note on it (if you chose to write a note).
Carefully fold the glued side over top the chocolate bar and press down along the edge to stick the glue.
Then, as neatly as you can, press the edges together so they don’t look too crinkled (but it’s okay if they do, because your mom loves you no matter what).
Once both edges are sealed, it should look like this (see, I’ve got crinkles on the left but I don’t care)!
Now, to make it even cuter, carefully trim the edges in a design. You could do little triangle cut-outs like I did, or make it sort of wavy…it’s up to you (or you can just leave it as is)!
Ta da! Cuter, right? You can see the wavy one I did in the background.
Finally, you’re ready to give your mom her Gen Z Chocolate Bar Wrapper gift! Huzzah! I know I would love this gift, and I hope your mom will too! (Maybe she’ll even share her chocolate with you?!?)
For author and activist Bobbi Rathert, adventure is always on the brain. She’s been a self-proclaimed “wonderer and wanderer” her whole life, traveling all over the world and exploring wherever she landed.
Bobbi Rathert / Courtesy photo
One thing about wandering is that it makes you appreciate the feeling of home even more.
Twenty years ago, after many years of living in Chicago, and before that, her hometown of Cresco, Iowa, Bobbi wandered to a ridgetop farm near La Crosse, Wisconsin. It was just the home she was looking for.
Bobbi has loved living in La Crosse for many reasons – its big city services with smaller-city access; its abundant and beautiful wildlife; the willingness and friendliness of its residents; its rich arts community; its biking and paddling options; and its college-town energy.
“I also love the geography here, the rivers that run through it, the barges and other river traffic, city bus system, mobility features, maintained parks and recreation areas, and easy access to travel whether air, rail, or interstate,” explains Bobbi. “It is a city that is easy to navigate by car, bus, bike, or on foot. Some say it is because La Crosse is boxed in by ridges and the river, making it a long and narrow geography easy to decipher. I agree totally. I love to navigate through the neighborhoods and ridges alike. La Crosse has made the riverfront accessible to everyone, too, which many waterfront cities do not always accomplish.”
Paddling for Hope raised funds and awareness for Hope Restores, a La Crosse-based community organization that “supports, advocates, listens, and bridges the gap between the African American community and local services.” / Photo courtesy Bobbi Rathert
But Bobbi saw that La Crosse was not always accessible and welcoming in other ways, especially for members of its Black community and folks experiencing homelessness. As she neared retirement, she began to wonder how she could give back to her community.
In 2020, Bobbi watched a local film called Amplifying Black Voices. It featured Black youth and their parents in La Crosse, telling their stories of discrimination in the community. Bobbi was heartbroken and wanted to do something.
She watched the film again, wrote down the participants’ names, and proceeded to build meaningful relationships with them. “I witnessed the strength of the people in the Black community who frequently felt demoralized and discouraged when just getting groceries, going to school, applying for jobs, or accessing local services,” Bobbi says.
By then, she had started volunteering at Hope Restores, a La Crosse-based community organization that “supports, advocates, listens, and bridges the gap between the African American community and local services.” As she planned her next adventure, a solo kayaking trip the length of the Mississippi River, Bobbi couldn’t help but think of the folks served by Hope Restores. She wondered if she could use this trip as a tool to raise awareness and money for the organization. “One thing led to another when eventually a committee was formed and a name for the initiative was given: Paddling for Hope. In the end, there were so many pledges and much support that we raised $30,000,” Bobbi says.
In May 2022, Bobbi set out from the headwaters of the Mississippi in northern Minnesota. She paddled a total of 650 miles before succumbing to heat exhaustion and ending her journey. “I did not die on the river. I lived,” she writes in “The Truth on Water,” the book she authored, chronicling her experiences.
Writing a book and kayaking the Mississippi, both solitary and deeply personal, proved to have many similarities that one finds in uncharted territory. “Both required awareness of precise details and rapid learning and presented very steep learning curves with no one watching out but me,” says Bobbi. “Someone on my river trip said that a kayaker did not need to train to paddle the Mississippi because the trip itself was the training. The paddle, as well as the writing, proved this to be true. I was left with a deep sense of fulfillment from both even though I am not an expert in either.”
“It’s Time. After loading my kayak on the car and a loving send-off early today, I traveled with family and friends the nearly 400-miles to our lodging in northern Minnesota. Along the way, I watched the Mississippi River move. Swift and bulging each time we crossed over it, the river was rushing south as I was racing north just to get on it and ride downward. Of course I thought, WHAT am I doing!? Still, launch time creeps closer every second. I myself have set this time, early tomorrow morning, but I want to cancel it as if someone else has forced this. It is natural to resist what we love, to want to give into fear and discomfort by staying home. But I keep going toward it as it pushes me against gravity. That is what I’ll do before dawn. Pray, eat a meal with friends, go,” Bobbi writes on her Paddle for Hope Facebook page
After being on this kayak trip where she slept in a different place every night, Bobbi was relieved to return to La Crosse. “I felt the peaceful experience of being back home, belonging,” she explains. “Then I noticed the difference between me and those living unhomed.”
On a walk along the river park in downtown La Crosse, Bobbi passed a large, active tent encampment, full of unhoused people going about on foot, riding bicycles, and carrying provisions from one tent to another. The contrast between her rooted experience and that of the people there was profound.
The idea to interview these unhomed community members was born. She wanted to learn their stories, hear their disappointments and dreams, and understand where they came from before they began living outside. Bobbi had a hope that sharing their stories may aid in the effort to find solutions for chronic homelessness.
Once she went out to actually talk to people, her resolve faltered.
“When I started to hear stories, I felt clumsy,” she writes in the introduction to her book, “Where’s Home,” the culmination of these interviews. “A voice in my mind kept asking me, ‘What are you doing!?’ I was so embarrassed of myself that I was even out there and obviously over my head. I didn’t understand any part of it and felt awkward and ill-prepared.”
“Where’s Home: People Experiencing Homelessness In La Crosse County Share Their Stories On a Quest for Understanding, Belonging, and Stability” by Bobbi Rathert
Bobbi thought frequently about ending the project but reminded herself that she needed to finish what she started. For five months, she listened to people’s stories, feelings, and dreams and goals.
“The people started expanding, no longer in my periphery like paper dolls,” she writes. “They began to take shape and dimension. I began to remember names and their deepening stories…I was receiving phone calls asking if I was coming out, or informing me that their friends wanted to speak with me….stories poured out…sorrows and strengths, memories of moms, brothers, and school, obvious faith and ideas, jobs, hopes, and memories of grandparents, their children, and desires for home.”
In 2024, “Where’s Home: People Experiencing Homelessness In La Crosse County Share Their Stories On a Quest for Understanding, Belonging, and Stability” hit the shelves. The first four pages that encompass the introduction are the only part of the book that includes Bobbi. The rest features powerful stories of these local people living unhoused and tells of agencies and services that are working to help those experiencing homelessness.
Bobbi’s engagement in social justice efforts is a heartfelt one. “I run on a belief that, if humans, particularly those privileged, are shown or can gain a better understanding, they will want to do good and contribute more toward the wellbeing of others – to be part of making that difference,” she says. “While my belief is not necessarily true in reality, it is in me to always hope for it.”
Bobbi’s love of the Driftless helps keep her hopeful as well.
“The Driftless Region is a wonderfully spiritual place to live. I feel blessed to know it has been my home since birth in Northeast Iowa and now in Southwest Wisconsin,” she says. “Of all places on earth, this has always been the most satisfying and enriching place for me to return. It is a deep joy to live here.”
As for her next adventure, for Bobbi, it’s just one of self-reflection. “I am on an adventure right now, one of finding my own self and what I need from my world. I have had an external outlook much of my life, regarding others and what I can do to be most helpful. So, nurturing a self-focus is a real adventure and time of discovery.” She adds, “I long for more kayaking and sleeping outdoors, so we’ll see!”
