Carry Your Torch

with Kate Barr and Jill Barkley Roy

We all know elections are important, from president to city council and school board. But have you ever heard anyone talk about running for office… as self-care?

We hadn’t either — until today!

This week on the pod, we were joined by two inspirational women: Jill Barkley Roy and Kate Barr. Jill is the Director of Emerge Action Fund, an organization that trains women to run for office. And Kate has been fighting against gerrymandering in North Carolina for years and now, she’s actually running for office as a Republican as a way to beat those unfair maps. (Listen to the episode to hear her explain it - it’s genius!)

Not only did both Jill and Kate share what they’ve been doing to help women (including themselves) run for office, but they both said that the work they do is what helps them not lose their shit on a daily basis.

Jill even said that after training 25 women to run for office at a recent Emerge bootcamp, she was so excited that she couldn’t sleep. That sounds a lot better than lying awake because of nightmares about ICE!

Kate, meanwhile, shared this wisdom that she first heard from a Tibetan monk about not spreading ourselves too thin. We should find our torch — the issue we care about most — and carry it as long as we can.

“Our job, for mental health purposes, is to find our torch and carry that torch. And not try to carry 20 torches, not try to carry somebody else’s torch, but just take our torch and walk in the direction that we feel is right and true. And if other people wanna come with us, that’s terrific, but they don’t have to. And it doesn’t mean that our torch isn’t important.” (Kate Barr)

Don’t miss this week’s episode of How To Not Lose Your Sh!t.