Here's the full video along with an excerpt of our chat. Even if video is not your thing, I encourage you watch at least the first 10 minutes, to hear Anita share the Four Sacred Gifts and pass them on to you.

Even our bodies are accustomed to overstimulation as the norm. We don't notice that chronic overstimulation is an indicator of an over-activated nervous system and a sign that we need self-care. We have not been conditioned to read our bodies’ clear signals as a need to slow down.

When the entire world is telling you to keep going, resting is a radical act of self-care. When we rest, we let ourselves know that whatever we’re doing, it’s safe to step away.

When I became an aid worker, I absolved myself from examining whether I could be racist. I gave myself a free pass because I was a changemaker, and I thought that racism didn’t influence me. We think “I’m a good person, I can’t be racist,” but it’s a defense mechanism, constructed to protect our sense of self from discomfort.

If you’re identifying your bias and racism for the first time, remember that most people could already see it, so don’t be too embarrassed or ashamed to do your work.

We are at the beginning of rapid change towards something new, so it's natural to experience a bit of vertigo and stress about it. We look for safety and security, and if we don't find it, we grab and clutch at something to take its place.

COVID has shown me gaps in our empathy and support systems that I am unable to stomach. All around me, I see people paralyzed by the misplaced hope that someone will come to help or save them. You've heard the line from June Jordan’s poem, "We are the ones we have been waiting for.” Right now, that statement feels like both a blessing and a curse.

It’s a bad feeling, watching health care workers plead for support and supplies, and tell us that they’re willing to sacrifice themselves for us. It’s hard to keep reading the news after seeing a message like that, but because of our leadership stories, we do. We consider martyrs an inevitable outcome of the system, but what if that wasn’t true?

Anyone telling you that you need to optimize your time right now is deep in their own freak-out and acting like a robot. Posting about how we can optimize our work output during this crisis feels off when so many of us are losing jobs and afraid our loved ones will fall sick (if they're not sick already). Reaching for quick fixes points to a deep denial about what is going on.

We need to learn how to do the work ahead of us in a way that doesn't consume us, that is not just sustainable but in fact deeply nourishing. I know that it's possible. What it requires is self-care.

If you understand exponentials, you can see that like a slow-moving tidal wave, COVID-19 is becoming a serious pandemic. Because of exponential growth, what seems like a slow rise of cases can quickly surge to overwhelm our health centers. ­We all want do our part to avoid this, so let’s explore some risk mitigation…

The public health system undertakes pandemic preparedness to be ready for a time like this. Almost everyone underestimates how much can be done to prevent more cases with simple behavior change.

Things are getting more chaotic as the pace of change accelerates. There are lots of reasons for this, but around the world, old systems are under tremendous strain. We're already in transition towards something new, but probably not prepared for the toll this uncertainty is taking on us as leaders.

Three minutes is the Minimum Viable Practice because everyone has three minutes a day to meditate. Everyone. New mothers, CEOs who live in business class, my friends on humanitarian assignment in Mozambique. In all my teaching, I have found this to be true.

Stress may not be optional, but how we respond to it is. People exposed to the same stressors have different stress hormone levels, depending on how each individual responds. We may not be able to control the stress we’re exposed to, but how we chose to respond to it is everything.

Exclusion and belonging are part of the same dynamic, and at the core is a need to be seen and cared for, as a member of a group. On an animal level, I don't think we realize how much connecting to other people means to us and how valuable it is for our long-term well-being.

The world around us tells us we're not enough, or we're too much, and we should [Fill-In-The-Blank]. I say no to that. You know what you need. Give it to yourself. Surround yourself with people who nourish you.

Assuming we "deserve better" means that something in inherently unfair. You're being treated badly by someone or something, which immediately takes away your power and puts you in the stance of a victim. We say it about a situation or a person, but either way, "deserving" invokes the idea that we live in a fair and just universe, that has somehow failed to deliver to us what we are entitled to.

Recent research now indicates social media actually causes depression — as in, there is a cause (social media use) and an effect (depression). The study, published in this month's Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, shows that limiting social media use to no more than 30 minutes a day significantly reduces loneliness and depression.