Kristin Miscall, LCSW

05/04/2022

Click on the link below if you'd like to read my latest journal entry on my site!
https://www.kristinmiscall.com/journal
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05/02/2022

12/01/2021

Hi Friends! To offer support during this time I posted a guided meditation on my website for working with difficult emotions, thoughts, or body sensations. May it provide support in returning you to What's True Now. 😘

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Link in bio

08/26/2020

A more timely read there never was.
Grab your copy now!
Thank you for this beautiful work of love.
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06/02/2020

White Comrades: Some guidelines I am practicing with ⁠
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Cease all personal content from June 1 to June 7⁠
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Amplify melanated voices by reposting content from Black voices with their captions but without my personal commentary⁠
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ALWAYS capitalize "Black" when referring to Black people and culture⁠
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Listen to my Black comrades and always remember that THEY are the ones to tell me what they need to feel supported and it is my job to just listen and follow suit accordingly. No questions, ZERO equivocation.⁠
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Knowing I'll f**k it up AND knowing that I just need to apologize, correct, and move on, no hand-wringing, no burdening Black folks to hear me.⁠
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In love and solidarity for justice and liberation ⁠

05/29/2020

Join me, Randi Zinn and Lia Avellino
for a vital conversation and Q&A with YOU where we'll dig in to the questions about how to meet our new normals in the wake of Covid 19
Tickets for the live podcast and recording are $20 and all proceeds go to Together Rising, benefitting families most impacted by Covid19. Snap up your spot here:

https://www.crowdcast.io/e/befriendanewnormal/register

05/28/2020

This is for my white sisters and brothers. And first I want to say unequivocally: I am coming to you from a deeply rooted love....ok now let's dig in...⁠
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I’ve written and re-written this post in my mind 100 times since the murder of . I have felt every expected emotion as a white woman and many of those emotions have been embarrassing and painful…. all revealing the work that I need to continue to do to drag apart and sincerely interrogate the nasty web of internalized whiteness.⁠
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Here are some of MY truths which I share in hopes that even one other white person in my circle here will make a sincere and honest commitment to the INNER work of seeing, identifying, naming, disrupting, and healing our 500-year-old inherited disease of allegiance to whiteness. Because even when we see over and over and over and over and over how much death and destruction it metes out every single day on the bodies of BIPOC, whiteness is most useful as a social construct, as Michael Eric Dyson says, “when its very existence is denied. That’s its twisted genius.”⁠
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When I buck and fight my internal process of facing this inherited set of privileges, I am in denial of my whiteness. When I turn away from the pain of yet ANOTHER story of murder of a Black American dying while black, I am in denial. When I sink into guilt, I am in denial. These acts of denial are literally killing Black and Brown humans. And I am responsible for this.⁠
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My white sisters, I am talking to you specifically here: we are all Amy Cooper in some way or another. And if we deny that, we are siding with white supremacy. If we other her as though the same set of inherited beliefs, behaviors, and privileges don't also run through our own veins and down to our very marrow, we are siding with white supremacy. If we continue to find ease and relief in the mere signaling of virtue as a “good liberal” without doing the very, very painful inner work with other white folks, we are siding with white supremacy.⁠
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So here’s my ask: Let’s STOP. Stop the denial. Stop the othering. Stop the virtue signaling. Stop the resistance to the inner work. It’s going to be really, really hard. But it is not even a micro-fraction of how hard it is to live while Black and Brown under the steel-toed boot of white supremacy. This is OUR work to do. This is our pain and discomfort to face. This is our liberation to take responsibility for.
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Lama Rod Owens inspired me to see so clearly that white folks need to stop focusing on insisting that Black and Brown folks accept our “love” and “kindness” but instead directly and fiercely turn the focus on loving ourselves so deeply that we are willing to cut ties over and over and over again with whiteness and white supremacy….this will be work for the rest of our lives. And it probably won't be enough to slay this monstrous dragon. Let’s do it anyway. I’m right here with you.
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In love and solidarity toward the freedom and liberation of every being on this planet.

These resources have been invaluable to me on my journey:

https://www.sandrakim.com/
https://whiteawake.org/
https://www.resmaa.com/about
https://robindiangelo.com/
https://www.lamarod.com/
https://angelkyodowilliams.com/

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05/26/2020

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Have you got your tickets yet to our first virtual event: How to be with (and befriend) a new normal during covid-19 happening Sunday, May 31st at 7pm EST?
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We’re featuring two brilliant psychotherapists & ⁣
Check out this video trailer to learn more about what it’s going to be all about! We can’t wait to share this conversation with you. ⁣
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Swipe to watch video all the way through! ⁣
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REGISTER in the link in bio!!

05/25/2020

Join me! I'll be sitting down (virtually of course!) with Randi Zinn and Lia Avellino for a much-needed conversation and Q&A about how to befriend the "new normals" in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. Come with your questions and comments, tell us your worries and fears. We are excited to generate soulful conversation in community!⁠
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Register here for this live pod-cast event on the platform!⁠
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https://www.crowdcast.io/e/befriendanewnormal/register⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
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05/23/2020

“I beg you to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.”⁠
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This is one of my favorite quotations. And it's been one that's shown up as teacher during the most difficult times in my life....this Covid-19 era is the latest of those times.⁠
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I think it's safe to say that there are more questions than answers for all of us right now. What would it take to engage radical presence with your questions?⁠
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Could you imagine a soft yet fierce upright invitation to live your questions?⁠
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Could you awaken the force of deep curiosity without the burden of conclusion or plan?⁠
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Could you navigate your fear and confusion born of those unanswerable questions knowing you are not alone?⁠
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We are together meeting this seismic world-wide shift. Let's live our questions with one another.⁠
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05/23/2020

I am so delighted to be teaming up again with Randi Zinn for a much-needed conversation about living the "new normal" in the wake of Covid-19.

What in the world is the new normal you ask?!

Great question! Spoiler alert, there is no "THE" new normal. There will be multiple new normals or semi-normals! And we will explore them all.

Fellow psychotherapist, Lia Avellino, and I will talk with Randi in this live podcast and also field questions from you!

So bring your worries, fears, concerns, ideas, inspirations!

Sunday May 31st 7-9 PM

Register below:

https://www.crowdcast.io/e/befriendanewnormal/register

05/20/2020

Join me again with host for a live podcast event about living a new normal in the wake of Covid-19. So delighted to team up with for what is sure to be an inspiring and lively conversation!
Head over here to register:

https://www.crowdcast.io/e/befriendanewnormal/register

04/30/2020

Ok my friends, let's start with this: whatever it is that you are doing to cope during these times, as long as you are not harming others, DO YOU.
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So if it's learning French, Marie Kondo-ing your entire apartment, baking 23 different kinds of chocolate cookies, or otherwise being productive or learning in ways that feed your soul, right on!
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AND if what's happening for you is more about simply surviving, metabolizing waves and waves of grief, anxiety, despair, rage, fear......I SEE YOU and I am here with you.⁠
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One of the points of clarity that has screeched into focus for me during quarantine is seeing how exploitive capitalism will encourage us to turn absolutely anything into an opportunity to objectify and commodify every part of ourselves and our lives. I'm not here for it. It's soul-sucking and it is part of our culture that needs to die a cold hard death.
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But in order to unlearn that patterning in our bodies we are going to have to be ok with sitting in some deep, painful, heart-breaking learning that will rock us to our deepest core. ⁠
It is not possible to disrupt delusions----individual and collective---without being with the pain and suffering that said delusions bring about.
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So if your body is in the despair, if you are quaking with pain from the truths that this experience is laying bare, TRUST. Trust your heart, trust your capacity to see deeply and feel hard stuff, trust that you are NOT alone.
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And if you are struggling with that trust practice, reach out to another being who can hold that space with you. We will learn deep trust together.⁠
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04/28/2020

I've lived in my house for over 13 years now but it has really only been since "shelter in place" began for me on March 13th that I've taken the time to see the view outside my back door.
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It's as though I never actually looked. I just moved along day by day treating my surroundings like some kind of disposable back-drop of a B-movie scene.
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Then the whole world came to a screeching halt and I stopped. ⁠
We all stopped.
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I made a vow to step outside---even in the rain---to look within stillness, to look so that I could truly see the life, MY life, amist the profound holding of the billowy clouds, the reach of the tree limbs like so many arms waiting for me to fall into their embrace, the birds serenading me, the breeze kissing my cheeks and gently drying my tears. ⁠
And I asked them all to forgive me for forsaking them, for forgetting that it's only ever about nature's pace of patience and presence.⁠
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So look up. Take in what you see as the gateway to seeing life. YOUR life.⁠
I'll look with you, alongside you. We'll live life together.⁠
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04/27/2020

The whole world is working with renunciation right now. And make no mistake about it, it's a FIERCE practice.⁠
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I remember when I first encountered this practice in the beginning of my Zen journey, it made me really angry. It felt somehow like a kind of submission to a weird life of asceticism, stripped of joy and wonder. Then I remembered that on his path to awakening, Buddha tried that trip and he gave it up for the Middle Way: not too tight, not too loose.
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And so I softened to practice with a place where renunciation could feel like freedom in my body, like a coming home to stillness that is vibrant and teeming with life unfolding.⁠
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We have an opportunity to lean on and find refuge in the support of the whole world as we each practice with one of life's fundamental truths: everything will go away.⁠
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EVERYTHING.
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When we loosen our grip on that fact, when we open to its inevitability, we can begin to meet life on life's terms. Less struggle, less fear, more freedom, more joy.⁠
Less pain? Not necessarily. In fact, better said, No. Pain is a part of life, but grasping our pain, fighting the letting go, that's suffering.⁠
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Practice with little renunciations....just practice....see how your body responds to little letting go's.

04/22/2020

I'm so excited to share this wonderful podcast episode of "Going Beyond" where Randi Zinn and I talk trauma, healing, resilience, and truth-telling! It was such an honor to be a part of the important work she's doing to keep us all informed and connected during these strange new times.
Visit her website here, take a listen, and tell me what you think!
https://beyondmom.com/

04/03/2019

Softening doesn't come easily to me. My fiery being prefers moving fast, pivoting on a dime, and chainsawing downed tree branches on an idle Sunday afternoon (TRUE STORY!) ⁣
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But I have learned the gifts of inviting a slower pace, even if only for a few breaths. When I slow down, softening arises on its own. Softening then connects me to this point in time right here. I can place my hands on my belly and feel how breath moves through me. I can feel how softness is my baseline human condition.⁣
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Don't get it twisted though---Be what's showing up for you right now! If you're feeling fiery, let the flames roar. If you're feeling airy, let space hold you. If you're feeling earthy, allow ground to support you. And see if through it all, softening lingers within.⁣
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