How do you recognize when staying true to your values means stepping back?
The Care Work podcast is dedicated to exploring the challenges, necessity, and beauty of caregiving. Often, the conversation turns to the need for caregivers to take care of themselves in this difficult work—something that can be hard to prioritize for individuals so tuned to caring for others.
With these lessons in mind, after nearly two years of recording and sharing Care Work, Alida explores what she has learned on this audio journey so far. She shares how she came to the decision to place the podcast on hiatus to uphold her own values and make more room for rest and restoration over the coming months.
Reviewing personal values
Every December, on her birthday, Alida puts together a vision board for the upcoming year. It’s a significant undertaking—a big piece of craft paper covered with all the images and words that felt impactful enough to clip out of magazines and save over the previous months.
Her 2024 vision board featured three words, right in the middle: Repair, Regrow, Regenerate. In 2023, the Care Work podcast was a wonderful extension for connection, education, and restoration, feeding the pursuit of these values.
In recent months, however, Alida has been working much more with clients through Ethos, her DEIB transformation firm, as well as promoting her second book and writing her third. On top of all that, she is navigating life with a toddler who refuses to sleep.
The fraught state of DEIB
These days, making progress in the world of DEIB—diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging—is probably the hardest that it has ever been. The stakes are higher because the topic has become so politicized, with government changes and election speeches calling into question so much of what passionate supporters have fought so hard to put in place for people who need this care.
Alida spends a lot of time coaching, facilitating, and consulting with people and companies to help them build workplaces where employees feel they have dignity and respect. Meanwhile, factions on the other side of the fight keep pushing back, claiming the people receiving these benefits are not earning them.
Deep truths and takeaways so far
All this factors into Alida’s decision to put the podcast on hold until early 2025. Before saying this temporary goodbye, though, she reflects on the wonderful benefits of the show so far.
Guests like Dr. Alexandra Solomon and Micky ScottBey Jones spoke about sitting with disappointment and simply being there for people, rather than always acting and reacting. They draw attention to the curative potential of this gentler, more restful way of being present.
The Disability Justice arc, featuring Tim Villegas, María Emilia Lasso de la Vega, and Lauren Schrero Levy, made clear the link between DEIB and social justice. If you are looking for episodes to revisit while you wait for Care Work to return, these are wonderful options that highlight the ways we’re falling short as a society in caring for others, but also the inspiring ways people are working to change that.
This solo episode of Care Work gives a deeply personal glimpse into the challenges and growth Alida has encountered so far in this podcasting journey. Listen in for inspiring insights about living a life true to your values, as well as thoughtful episode suggestions to tide you over until the show returns in 2025.
