Pooja's Picks for November
Five links to help you meet this moment.
Hi, folks. Welcome to another edition of Pooja’s Picks. I know we are all looking for ways to bring ourselves feelings of grounding, agency, and, solace when so much going on in the world is out of our control. So my picks this month are a little heavier than usual and largely focus on how to deal with loss and uncertainty. I came up with this list with the hope that you’ll bookmark this email and come back to the conversations here slowly over the course of the next weeks.
For those of you who are new here, Pooja’s Picks is my monthly list of reads, recs, and things that resonate. (Check out September and October’s picks, too.) As a reminder, these recommendations don’t include affiliate links (unless specifically stated).
November recommendations from yours truly
1. Standing in the Gap with Kate Bowler: Parker Palmer
Best-selling author and Duke professor Kate Bowler served up some balm for our souls in her conversation with Parker Palmer. Palmer is the author of 10 bestselling books that have sold over two million copies, including Healing the Heart of Democracy, and is the founder of the Center for Courage & Renewal. This conversation is tender, hard, and honest. In it, Palmer talks about his three episodes of clinical depression (in his 40s and his 60s; he is now in his 80s). What I found comforting about this conversation was hearing from someone of a different generation about the challenge of living with very strong forces that we cannot control.
2. What I Shared With Doctors Picking Up The Pieces From Hurricane Helene by
I love author Anya Kamenetz’s work. She is a former NPR education reporter who went solo to dedicate her skills to covering the climate crisis. She recently gave a talk for doctors who are caring for survivors of Hurricane Helene and shared it in her newsletter, . (Anya is from New Orleans and was there during Katrina). This piece has a ton of gems for how to emotionally support those who have been through a climate- or polycrisis (this was a new word for me — polycrisis means multiple crises happening all at once, like climate disasters plus the erosion of democracy).
3. A Slight Change of Plans: Maya’s Slight Change of Plans, Revisited
Trigger warning: Pregnancy loss
October was Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month, and this podcast episode, first run on in 2021, was one of my favorite listens. A Slight Change of Plans “blends compassionate storytelling with the science of human behavior to help us understand who we are.” Host Maya Shankar, a concert violinist turned cognitive scientist, flips the script in this episode and goes from being the host of the show to the guest by sharing her story of loss.
While as a culture we are hearing more about pregnancy loss, what I appreciated about Maya’s story is that she comes to it from the lens of surrogacy (Maya and her husband Jimmy were working with a surrogate as Maya was not able to carry a pregnancy). She describes the grief of losing multiple pregnancies, but also the loss of a surrogacy relationship.
Note: this episode goes into detail about pregnancy loss. If you are in the midst of an infertility journey or have a recent history of pregnancy loss, it may be a hard listen. You can listen to this episode for free on the web, but to listen in Spotify, you will need to be a Pushkin subscriber.
4. On the Loneliness, Sometimes, of Being Odd by
New Yorker cartoonist Liana Finck talks about her experience of being odd, writing/drawing a book about being odd, and how it feels when people struggle to relate to you and how you see the world.
We’ve all been there. And I’m noticing that with my patients, this concern is coming up a little bit more — perhaps because those of us who feel like it takes us a little bit more work to “fit in” (when we want to) need to find unique ways to deal with our grief. If you like cartoons and illustrations that describe the messiness of being human, is a gem.
5. 3DFitBud Pedometer
I bought this old school pedometer a few months ago because I wanted something that could just count steps and nothing else. It’s cheap and completely analog. When I started the Fall of Slow last year, I joined my local YMCA and wanted to be able to count my steps more accurately, but my Fitbit wasn’t working well. This does just the trick and keeps me off tech.
In my recent note on Instagram about slowing the fuck down, I mentioned walking as a good routine to get into — here’s something to help jumpstart your habit.
What are you loving so far this Fall? Tell me in the comments!
xo,
Pooja
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Thank you so much Pooja for including me in this wonderful list of recommendations.