Hey 👋🏽,

Owwww!

We were 30m in to brushing out 5yo’s hair. Brushing implies that we used a tool but I worked through his head with my fingers, one curl at a time.

Impatient me took over on a matted tendril, losing the deep breathing light handed baby pace I’d maintained for the better part of an hour.

His screech slowed me back down. Black hair is a labor of love, you can’t detangle quickly and well. My inclination is always to jump right in, rip knots out but black moms everywhere will tell you to section out the work and plan to go through each area with your fingers then a brush or comb. Slow is the best way to go.

When you slow down, you see that the knots that seem too far gone can be untangled. Patience creates the perspective to see where each strand is stuck so that you can game plan to free each one.

One of my coworkers often talks about solving problems, untangling knots. It’s easy to procrastinate on the gnarliest ones than to run toward them, to just start. Start by asking: what are the contributing strands, what’s the system? Once you see that the work is being curious enough to understand the problem, the answer usually begins to appear. And when you inevitably get stuck, slow down, shift gears, try again.

How are we doing?
That’s better.

I see you, I love you, come sweat with me this week,

PS need a forcing function to start untangling some knots? I’m going to start hosting remote coworking sessions through flow.club this week. Let me know if you’d like an invite.