Burnout is not a personal failing among today's changemakers. It is a systemic cost, one that philanthropy, movements, and communities can no longer afford to ignore.
In this episode, we travel to New Orleans for a live conversation on the importance of rest, co-produced with Beloved Community.Gabrielle Wyatt, Founder and CEO atThe Highland Project;Rhonda Broussard, Founder and CEO atBeloved Community; andCharmel Gaulden, CEO and President atFoundation for Louisiana, come together to explore rest as a personal practice, a source of spiritual grounding, and an essential part of the infrastructure that sustains movement work.
The conversation moves from individual habits: walking, writing, dance, prayer, to the systems that either protect or erode rest for the people doing the most demanding work. Together, they consider what it would mean to build rest into philanthropy, leadership, and community life, not as an afterthought, but as a strategy for sustaining people and movements.
Jump straight into:
00:00 Darren opens with a poem framing rest as the still point between waves.
04:47 Gabrielle recalls a personal episode and a warning that her body needed rest.
10:30 Rhonda reframes a solitary walk to the bathroom as her most luxurious rest practice.
15:22 Gabrielle's daily ritual: one sentence of gratitude, written morning and night.
17:20 The panel turns to rest as spiritual practice, tied to prayer, silence, and faith.
23:04 For Rhonda, dance becomes both prayer and stillness.
24:39 Rest as personal practice to rest as infrastructure.
33:00 Rhonda on protecting rest for frontline and operational staff, not only senior leaders.
35:13 Post-Katrina, Charmel built Communities of Care to sustain overworked nonprofit teams.
Resources
Organizations Referenced:
The Highland Project: founded by Gabrielle Wyatt to build and sustain a coalition of Black women leaders closing the racial wealth gap.
https://www.thehighlandproject.org/
Beloved Community: founded by Rhonda Broussard, a New Orleans-based nonprofit building sustainable change toward racial and economic equity.
https://www.wearebeloved.org/
Foundation for Louisiana: led by Charmel Gaulden, funding climate, racial, gender, and economic justice work across the state.
https://www.foundationforlouisiana.org/
Other Resources:
“Trough” by Judy Sorum Brown – the poem Darren opens the episode with, published in “Poetry of Presence: An Anthology of Mindfulness Poems.”
https://www.ayearofbeinghere.com/2013/08/judy-brown-trough.html
Octavia Raheem: rest coach and author referenced by Gabrielle Wyatt as a mentor in her rest practice; author of “Rest Is Sacred.”
https://www.octaviaraheem.com/
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