Adam Kol and his anti-racism educator, Ask Alexis, are inviting folks to talk openly about race-based mistakes they have made to embolden others to do the same.

Listening at Sidewalk Talk is an important practice in developing as a person who strives for equity in a way that is not trying to “be a good white person” or “act out trauma vis a vis” injustice. 

Read Traci's personal share of race-based mistakes she has made and what she has learned.

Goodness, or virtue signaling is a thing now that many Americans are facing our history of racism for the first time.  We want to be “seen” as good and good has different definitions cross-culturally.  Here is the challenge, if we need to be “good” the parts of us that are “not good” go underground - we hide them from others and ourselves.  Sadly, we are prone to finding a group of people to hold our “not good” parts for us.

The death and ongoing fight for justice for George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery and the countless lives not covered in the media is why Sidewalk Talk listens. We will always will be 100% behind, Black Lives Matter now, then, and in the future in this work. We say often listening is a practice. So is anti-racism.

What we know is listening positively impacts mental health. What most people don’t know is that “active listening” is often not the kind of listening that creates those impacts. To listen in a way that improves mental health we cannot just change our behavior, we have to have a change of heart. That is what Sidewalk Talk does. Oh, and yes, that is NY chapter leader Kerrie Mohr presenting Sidewalk Talk on stage with Esther Perel in 2018.

We want your help in creating a mental health promoting culture. Join us for May Mental Health Awareness Month activities. We are also celebrating Sidewalk Talk’s 5th Birthday. SimplePractice is helping us celebrate by matching $2400 for the month of May.

One of the downsides of loneliness getting a lot of press with Dr. Vivek Murthy’s book, Together, and others, like Johan Hari’s, Lost Connections, is it can lead folks to shame their lonely feelings. 

Something I notice is in my life is I make up stories about my own belonging. Because I have a wound around not being wanted as a tiny baby, I can get hooked from time to time. What I now know is there are two sides to this belonging coin. In order to create more belonging in the world we have to create it not only outside, on the sidewalks, but inside of us.

​The last seven days, anxiety crept up on me, by surprise. I was quite haughty, feeling pretty grounded and grateful for the first two weeks of this quarantine. I have space to move and our family life has settled into a collaborative routine/ non routine that seems to be working. And I was working from home long before this thing started.

Over the years, I have witnessed ways in which empathy and active listening can harm rather than serve. Weird thing to say, right? Stay with me. We all need to digest this fully for empathy to help rather than harm.

Yesterday I was watching Kevin Bacon talk about his hashtag #IStayHomeFor and today, my German Sister-In-Law sent me an article by Matthias Horx. My life, since moving to Germany, involves a lot of staying home. I work from home. I eat at home for all my meals. I do not have a car so leaving home must be a deliberate and intentional act. Most mornings now, I wake up, coffee in bed, and several hours of reading and pondering. Long before #IStayHomeFor was a thing in response to Covid19, it was my reality. And I am thriving in this reality.

Head and heart are often in a tug of war inside of me. Especially right now. You too? So is fear and love. So is knowledge and wisdom. And so is aloneness and togetherness.

Sidewalk Talk chapter leaders around the world sit out on public sidewalks to change our culture to a connection culture. We aim to remain heartfelt and intentional so we can create hopeful connections while we all follow the WHO guidelines and local health guidelines during our community recovery from Coronavirus.

I do not have a lot to write today. I just want to invite us all to stand in what Parker Palmer calls righteous speech. There were primary elections in the US and many people are feeling disillusioned by the results.

We are all susceptible to blind spots. Happily, I am the kind of person who likes to share mine, so you can have a good laugh, feel like you aren’t alone, and be more willing to look at your own human foibles.  I am told this is my secret sauce. Yay for imperfection.  We are rockin’ it out together!

Sidewalk Talk has grown in leaps and bounds over the last year and a half. We’ve more than doubled our number of listeners and Chapter Leaders as well. We have 89 Chapters in 15 countries, with more than 7000 listeners holding events every day.

Most of us are on the hunt to feel better, feel more excited, and feel inspired in some small way every day. We pay big bucks or go to great lengths to find more excitement and good feeling. I am with you. Life can hem us into boring routines or busyness that make us feel like we are robots on auto-pilot.

Even Brené Brown says listening and connecting with strangers will help heal the wounds of disconnection, loneliness, and not belonging our society is rife with. She says, lean in and hold the hand of a stranger in her most recent OnBeing interview with Krista Tippett.

I am a couples therapist, as you know by now. I spend a LOT of time encouraging active listening and empathy between spouses. Important work, slowing the pace down of a heated fight using reflection and mirroring. That slowing down, can, but not always, open heated arguers up to a larger perspective and even empathy for the person they are arguing with. It is beautiful, when it works.

Judging someone is a real bugger.

Judgment prevents us from connecting as people. And it kinda makes us sick.
Not proudly, I judge people all the time. And I am not always aware when I am doing it. Sidewalk Talk and being married have both been my biggest teachers for being a better human.