Greetings from La Befana’s Table and welcome to another edition of Espresso Yourself Mondays.
I’m Dina Gregory and today is Monday February 17, 2025
I’ve decided that I want to get into the habit of starting Espresso Yourself Mondays by marking time.
To not make everything I do some piece of “ever green” content like the marketers tell you to do.
The whole point of Espresso Yourself Mondays is to be in the practice of showing up to La Befana’s Table as I am, so that if you choose to join me at this table, you too can feel at ease showing up exactly as you are.
I’m not going to mince my words, the last couple weeks have been hard.
The chaos of our social world coupled with the coup that we are witnessing here in the United States has required me to do a lot of re-evaluating about what I take in, and how I show up.
Because while I feel a certain duty to bear honest witness, I also have a duty to guard my heart, my dreams, creative visions, and to keep on living the stories that I long to tell.
My high sensitivity and empathy has often functioned has in the past been more like double edge sword but with a lot of work I’ve realized that I also have a duty to not allow my vessel to sink by taking on water from the ills of living in a fractured and wounded world.
That means, looking at my own bull shit square in the face and doing something about it.
In my case, that means downloading the App Blocker and sticking to the parameters I set for myself cause guess what even “highly sensitive spiritual people” aren’t above doom scrolling.
It means going to the grocery store and cooking myself actual nourishing meals and continuing to move and bend my body so I don’t break.
It means, finding the voices that I know and trust to tell it like it is and not overwhelming my nervous system with so many voices that I lose touch with my own.
I’ve been reading
letters as well as that of , and listening to episodes of the Daily Stoic on my way to work.Because life has taught me that this shit is not hocus pocus, it’s focus.
And because I don’t believe in putting my head completely in the sand as tempting as spiritual bypassing may be, I downloaded 5 Calls, and have started making connections with local organizations that do work around the causes that I care about and I am positioned to lend my support towards.
What I have yet to do is to gather friends of La Befana’s Table to create accountability around the ways in which we show up in these times.
I must admit I do find the burden of upholding democracy to be much more fun to do together, so if any of you like the idea of me hosting a 5 Calls Happy Hour at La Befana’s Table, shoot me an email or hit me up in my DM’s @iamdinagregory or @labefanstable and let’s get one started.
And now let met get on with the whole point of this Espresso Yourself voice note to begin with.
Which was to encourage you that when all else fails and you feel like you are drowning in despair, one of the best thing thing you can do is to make art
I’ve been working in spurts all weekend long on a Spoken Word piece entitled the Poetry of Puppetry that I will be performing at Vanessa Racci’s 6th annual Festa Della Donna on March 9th at the Columbus Foundation in NYC.
And though I was really struggling with this piece at first, the writing of it has helped me to shift out victimhood mentality and into one in which I’d describe as a mentality of creative resilience.
Believe me, there is no shortage of things to despair in our world, but the more we tap into our creativity the closer, I believe, we come to our Creator, and it is from this place that we find both the peace and fortitude necessary to show up in our world.
Believe me, I’ve been contemplating going full time hermit, and as much as solitude is necessary for my Soul, so is actually participating in my community and the world at large.
So with that said, if you’ve been feeling the despair, go make some damn art.
Don’t worry about it being good or bad.
Just do it as an act of creative resilience.
Feel free to email it to me or post a picture of it in our private chat.
I will give you all the claps and smiley faces necessary for you to take the work of creative resilience seriously.
Alright folks with that I wish you a blessed week ahead
Much love from La Befana’s Table to Yours
Steps out of Despair
Set limits on your social media usage. App Blocker is pretty awesome.
Download 5 Calls
Art by
Make ART and build your creative resilience
Upcoming Happenings
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