You don’t do this work for yourself.

You do it because you believe that something is wrong, and that it can be changed.

You do it because you believe that the cost of not showing up is higher than the cost of showing up.

That your life only had meaning when you were fighting for something. That rest was a privilege you hadn't earned. That your needs came last — not as a temporary sacrifice, but as a permanent condition. That love, belonging, and a place in your community had to be earned through dedication, through suffering, through never being enough.

You didn't choose that story consciously. But activism can install it — or reinforce one that was already there. And it will run you into the ground if you don't name it.

I know this experience from the inside out.

I've been an activist since I was a teenager. By eighteen, I had my first burnout. By twenty, my second. I've lost count of the ones that came after.

Over two decades I worked in human rights, organizing, and international advocacy — including sixteen years living and working alongside Palestinian communities. I gave that work everything. And I absorbed, along the way, a set of beliefs that nearly cost me my life:

That I was too privileged. That it was my responsibility to heal the world. That my life was only worthy when I was fighting for those who were less fortunate than me. That I needed to earn my place to be loved. That dedicating myself to others was the justification for my existence.

I didn't just burn out. I burned out and rebuilt, and burned out again, and rebuilt again — more times than I can count.

I started to seek help.

I worked with mental health professionals, healing arts practitioners, spiritual leaders, and communities specifically focused on healing. I read books, listened to podcasts, attended workshops, retreats.

I changed my beliefs, slowly and with enormous effort.

I changed my relationships — with family, friends, romantic partners. friendships. Some were able to transform, others I left entirely, many I built a new.

I changed the workplaces and colleagues I surrounded myself with. I changed the kind of work that I do.

All of it. Over years.

Eventually I knew I needed to stop, I needed to pause. I called it a Shabbatical — a sabbath stretched across a year, inspired by the Jewish practice of shmita, the seventh-year release. I stepped back from work, leadership, and media entirely. I walked in nature. I lived simply. I let go of who I thought I was supposed to be.

What I found on the other side wasn't a different set of values. It was a self that could actually hold them — without disappearing in the process.

And then I rebuilt again. This time, a life and a practice that was an expression of where I’ve been and what I now have to offer.

This is the journey I want to accompany you on…