Huh?
Tools for surviving capitalism was formally known in my office as compassion fatigue and burnout treatment/prevention.
In 2019 I completed training to become a certified compassion fatigue provider. Since then I have used the tools I learned about to help individual clients and groups of people through professional presentations and workshops work to find balance in their lives. This training has prepared me to work with people on reframing their purpose at work, their boundaries around their jobs, making space for taking care of themselves, and prioritizing taking care of themselves through actionable steps that prevent/treat burnout.
I have realized, however, that we wouldn’t need these tools as much, if at all, if it were not for Capitalism (and probably also patriarchal and white supremacist structures that are intertwined with Capitalism).
What do I mean by that? Capitalism requires that for it to exist we must disconnect from our bodies (See “Laziness Does not Exist” in the book recommendations to the right for more about this). A simple example is not listening to our body when it is hungry or needs to use the restroom. Instead this is ruled by official breaks in our schedules or unstructured breaks in which we can tear ourselves away from our work. Disconnecting from our bodies puts us at a significant disadvantage for connecting with our bodies.
Capitalism also promotes a lack of boundaries for the sake of production/making money/achieving. This can mean we don’t know how to say “No” and take on too much, or that we take responsibility for other people’s performance because it is intertwined with our own outcomes (for the company, not for ourselves).
So I am still using these tools because we do live in a Capitalist society at the moment, but I want to make clear that the need for these things is the result of Capitalism and in some ways, teaching/using them is a way to perpetuate the system.
Poster from Bread and Puppet
Books and resources
If you are interested in more I recommend the following books:
“Laziness Does not Exist” by Dr. Devon Price
“Burnout” by Emily and Amelia Nagoski
“Trauma Stewardship” by Laura van Dernoot Lipsky and Connie Burk
“The Addictive Organization” by Anne Wilson Shaef
Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front
by Wendell Berry
Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.
So, friends, every day do something
that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.
Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion — put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?
Go with your love to the fields.
Lie easy in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn’t go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.
“Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front” from The Country of Marriage, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc. 1973. Also published by Counterpoint Press in The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry, 1999; The Mad Farmer Poems, 2008; New Collected Poems, 2012.
Chelsea Leeds Art Therapy and Counseling 