The End of a Chapter

Closing of Mindful Sights, a post-apocalyptic world, progressive house, and beauty

DALL-E “meditation rocks surreal contemporary”

Hi friend,

Over the past few months, have gone through a lot of changes.

The most prominent change - closing Mindful Sights.

When I studied meditation at Buddhist monasteries around the world, saw the importance of safe, sacred spaces for our underrepresented and systemically marginalized communities. After running the nonprofit for over three years, we’ve created spaces for thousands of queer, Asian, and BIPOC folx to sit in meditation and heal through supportive group discussions.

And while the closing is bittersweet, a few lessons coming out of it…

1. Just because it’s useful doesn’t mean it’s going to get support (especially financial)

The foundation of the nonprofit was extremely altruistic. I believed that if I built something worthwhile, that support and capital would naturally flourish.

During the height of Stop Asian Hate & COVID in 2020, our API Healing Space had hundreds of people signing up per session. While the attendance was extremely healthy (even being featured on Eventbrite as their highlight API event), the donation-based Dana model for our sessions rarely brought in funding. Even with visibility on social media, donations were scarce.

After pouring much of my funding into the org to help cover many operational costs, including accounting, software, and license fees, I realized this was not sustainable. Looking back, a realization of the need for financial strategy is needed to keep organizations going, especially when impactful to communities.

2. Social media is a rocky landscape, especially for smaller, grassroots organizations

Organizations truly investing their funding into their mission don’t get the viral visibility on these social media platforms driving larger awareness and donations. Successful fundraising through social media results in much of the donations poured back into these platforms and into the larger marketing machine (ad buys, influencers, community managers).

For example, Trevor Project (suicide prevention nonprofit for LGBTQ+ youth) spent almost $3.1M on advertising & received $5.2M in advertising & consulting in-kind donations in 2021 to drive awareness and donations (source). Grassroots organizations addressing similar audiences must figure out how and where they sit alongside these giants. And sometimes, it’s stepping away from the most ineffective arenas — especially social media.

While for Mindful Sights, this is a pause for now, with QTBIPOC Design, we are rethinking our funding/development plan and being more strategic with where we are investing our time and effort.

3. Finding grounding in social justice work is crucial

The landscape of social justice is messy (to say the least), and it takes a lot of grounding to weather the storm of social media platforms, news organizations, and influencers amplifying and monetizing violence.

While the work of Mindful Sights is paused for now, the practice of community-driven mindfulness still lives on as a way of grounding myself and (hopefully) others.

Here are other spaces and individuals I highly recommend supporting and following, especially with your mindfulness practice centering on joy & liberation. (And I highly recommend supporting if you want to see spaces like this continue as well!)

• Ganeshspace - Social justice education and mindful body movement, yoga, and meditation led by my soul sister, Kim Tran

• Dawn Mauricio Meditation - Equitable mindfulness & meditation by my mentor, Dawn Mauricio

• Kinsey Wellness - wellness training & coaching by one of my favorite & regular collaborators, Dalia Kinsey

• Collective Rest - Facilitated rest sessions by the wonderful Cassandra Lam

• Iya Yoga - Non-performative Yoga (amazing youtube channel by the inspiring Abiola Akanni)

• Liberate - Black-centered healing, meditation, and music with my mindfulness brother, Julio Rivera

• Cole Chance Yoga - Yoga & retreats (for the recovery/sober mind) by my dear friend, Cole Chance

With that, hope everything’s been well.

Can you believe it’s March already this year? Time to be more intentional with our energy and time this year.

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For our community

For queer Asians: Thu, March 16 - Yellow Glitter Sparkles

For QTBIPOC Creatives: Tue, Mar 14 - The Art of Storytelling with Sally Chung

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Something to Watch

Have been loving this live-action adaptation of Last of Us - a post-apocalyptic drama in a world where a mass fungal infection takes over the world. Each episode delivers deep, heart-filling storylines, and I’ve been extremely impressed with this show. (If you’re looking for more Last of Us content, check out Heavy Spoilers on Youtube for in-depth episode summaries)

Something to Listen

I’ve been listening to Sultan & Shepard for a while now and love their newest album’s take on progressive house with lyrical melodies and artful dissonance. I can play the entire album from start to finish repeatedly.

Something to Try

Was recommended this quiz to find my sources of pleasure, and my result was basking in beauty. (Beauty in surroundings, creativity, and creations)

As always, thanks for reading!

P.S. If you enjoyed this, share or sign up here: mindfulmoments.substack.com

Anything else? You can always hit "reply" to email me directly. 💌

Have a beautiful day!

Metta (loving-kindness),
Steven

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Listen: Yellow Glitter Podcast on Apple Podcast | Spotify | Google Podcast