We were lucky to catch up with Erin-Kate Escobar recently and have shared our conversation below.
Erin-Kate, we are so happy that our community is going to have a chance to learn more about you, your story, and hopefully even take in some of the lessons you’ve learned along the way. Let’s start with self-care – what do you do for self-care and has it had any impact on your effectiveness?
I’m so glad you asked this question. Self-care is something I think about a lot. The term “self-care” has its origins in the Black Power movement of the 1960s and 1970s; however, today it is often used as a tool for productivity or is shown in a particularly capital-centric way. Self-care is often seen as something we have to spend a lot of money on, like we need to travel to some remote island or visit mountain top resorts. While those are lovely experiences and attainable for a few people, I prioritize self-care as everyday practices. I often think of self-care as taking the time to feel the emotions that are showing up, setting boundaries, and doing what I can to meet my needs. Prentis Hemphill captures my feelings well, “boundaries are the distance at which I can love you and me simultaneously.”
By making time throughout the day, week, month, and year to intentionally disconnect from my phone and the internet and take time to be outside in my neighborhood or visit nature close by, I can tap into my needs and feelings. Sometimes, they just want to be heard/acknowledged; and sometimes, they want action and I can take do what helps me meet or tend to them.
It is an ongoing practice,trying out a variety of ways I can make time for breaks and human connection while balancing running a business and meeting with clients. I have tried four-day work weeks, taking short walks every hour, taking an hour off in the day to be outside or be away from screens, and building time in the day to cook delicious food and clean the spaces I live and play in.
The notion that we take time off to rest so that we can be more effective takes the liberatory nature out of our rest. My thinking about this is informed deeply by the work of Tricia Hersey, founder of the Nap Ministry. She reminds us that it is our right to rest, and that when we rest in order to do more, we are playing into a system of work that continues to exploit and dehumanize us. Hersey’s manifesto helps me challenge the idea that we have to work at a machine-level pace. I’m so proud to build a business rooted in liberatory practices based on work like Hersey’s. These practices allow me to work with the flow of what is feeling good and allow myself to say no to work that isn’t aligned.
It’s important for me to build new ways of being that challenge the many systems that tell us, as workers, that we need to be working as hard as we can for as long as we can until we can’t anymore because that’s what “success” looks like. When I say aloud, “I’m trying to do less,” it often doesn’t make sense to the average person. That’s okay. I have a lot of options each day as to where I put my energy and knowledge, and it has been a really powerful practice to be aware of all the choices I’m making and to choose what would be more liberatory or go against my socialized, colonized mindset that allows me to run a business that both supports me financially and emotionally.
I hope that sharing a bit of what is inspiring me and the practices I’m nurturing while running a diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility, and belonging consulting business in a liberatory and decolonized way can help you on your journey to finding liberation in whatever you’re passionate about as well.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you.
Of course! I am someone who is curious about the world and each person’s experience and looks for ways to move energy through my body. Sometimes that’s dance, painting, singing, or hiking. I have really enjoyed building my own business over the past three years that allows me to explore human experience. I’m a diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility and belonging consultant or practitioner. I work in collaboration with small businesses and organizations (typically less than 100 employees) seeking structural DEI changes that specifically challenge systems of oppression on intrapersonal, interpersonal, cultural, and systemic levels. I offer coaching to people who are seeking resources, strategy, and education in pursuit of their own diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility, and belonging projects. I recently published the Transformative Employee Resource Group Toolkit, which is a guide for building a group that addresses challenges associated with historically excluded groups, supports leadership development, and creates ERGs that are aligned and making change within the organization. I have a vision of a world where every person is able to navigate and challenge oppression as a whole human.
It’s most exciting to be a part of both changing systems within an organization and then educating the staff on how to implement those changes that are a part of building more inclusive and accessible environments.
I’m dedicated to staying curious and bringing a beginner mindset to my practices so that I can keep learning and keep sharing with my clients.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
The quality of being a lifelong learner has continually served me in learning how to run a business, in always being hungry for knowledge, and learning from human experiences, data, and research. I’m always reading a new book, interesting articles, and newsletters written by people who I’m excited to learn from. I prioritize building a healthy budget for professional development. Between 5-10k of my earnings go right back into learning and developing who I am and what I am working on. This serves me well in keeping me up to date in my field, feeling nourished in my soul, and being able to apply the knowledge to my practices in coaching, consulting, and strategic planning. The latest course I just completed was learning how to lead a really powerful meditation called, The 7 Homecomings by Lama Rod Owens. I’ve now brought this meditation into my facilitation at retreats and I’ve been invited to lead it at the opening of workshops that colleagues are hosting. I’ve felt the positive effects of it and have watched how it shifts and transforms the energy of each space in which it is shared. It is a beautiful and really centering practice. My advice to folks early in your journey, invest in you and your ongoing learning.
As we end our chat, is there a book you can leave people with that’s been meaningful to you and your development?
Most recently, I’ve really appreciated the work of Jenny Odell. Saving Time: Discovering Life Beyond The Clock is the latest book to influence how I think about time working and rest. The following questions have been guiding me:
- What would rest look like to you if we didn’t have images of rest of leisure that are outside of the life we live everyday?
- What if rest wasn’t something we did so that we can be productive?
- What if rest just meant that we were whole human beings who took time to take care of ourselves despite the demand that says we must provide labor to compensate for being alive?
- What if we weren’t always trying to optimize and take the most out of our time?
- What would change about your current schedule?
- How many and what are the seasons that we interact with in a week, month or year of my life?
Through answering these questions I’m better able to think about how I can integrate more rest and liberatory ways of being in this world.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.erinkateescobar.com/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erinkateescobar/
