When I undermined my resilience
I referred to myself as a “front-line worker” for years when I worked for a non-profit. During that time in Vancouver, I described many of my days as a “war”. The nature of my work was framed as a fight: a battle for rights, safety, and resources.
Over time, many of my friends and colleagues became exhausted, disheartened, or sick. I was relatively lucky. After months of close to daily sobbing rituals, I experienced a serious two-week bout of bronchitis. In the middle of it we moved apartments. I couldn’t help because I was so weak. Weaving together my new response to grief and injustice, my partner gently whispered: this is not good for you.
Months later I left front-line work, even though I loved it. My body and soul were carrying too much weight. I knew, if I was going to continue to be well and thrive, that I needed to work human rights from a different angle.
Years later, I learned that the war language I used to describe my work and context- undermined my body’s resilience.
My words and language amplified, to some degree, a way of making meaning that hid the creative, vibrant, and dynamic resistance of the community I served.
Here are just a few quick sentence stems to demonstrate.
The housing system paralyzed….
The abuser stalked and threatened…
The food system starves those on social assistance…
The police racial profiled and frightened the teenager….
Above, you can see that there is a noun “X” and it does something to “Y”. This is the simple language of effects. It helps us understand harm and attributes agency to the thing or person activating that harm.
For me, and other activists, when we use this language the system or person doing harm is the main focus. It helps us get clear on what we need to challenge and change.
But this (my) language has a downside- it decenters the buoyant creativity and resilience of how people respond to systems of oppression and inequality. When I use this language, the focus is always the harm, and layers and layers of it.
Going back years ago, I can see how my language unintentionally created an additional weight to the raw reality before me. Like so many fighting systems, I understood why my body and heart became tired, on the verge of more serious consequences.
Energy follows Attention (and Language)
Energy follows attention, I’m reminded by Helen Palmer.
And how I give my attention matters.
When I discovered this push-pull of language in how we describe our systems- it yielded a sensitivity and resilience within myself.
A short story.
I remember talking to a dear colleague about the infinite strain on her team-mates in relation to ongoing levels of violence in the community. Given this, I wondered about burnout in her organization. She said gently, “we rarely get burned out”. I was surprised when she said that, because it seemed everyone was burned out. Instead, she explained, “when we focus on the resilience, I come home admiring the micro-resistance people consciously choose each day. This fuels my endurance.
In our brief exchange, there was no language of war.
No pointing to the battlefield of funders, resources, or extremely fraught social lives. It wasn’t that these experiences were absent. Rather, her awareness, and that of her team, focused on the creative responses of people. To the housing system, an abuser, food policies, and policing. Her awareness was big enough to include both.
So why does this matter?
When we shift awareness to creative response- the load becomes lighter.
Our language, and awareness, can become a potent compass to stay grounded in the natural overwhelm and complexity of systems change work. With conscious awareness and choice, we, as leaders can stay grounded in systems change- even when the trenches get us down.
The language of responses, amplifies resilience.
When we focus here- on the micro and nuanced stories of how people (and communities) create, resist and express resilience- there is a liberation of energy, sustainability.
So if you feel dishearteded with the lack of change, movement or flow- pay attention to where you’re placing your awareness.
Are you focused on the unilateral effects of a system or decision, that doesn’t include the resilience or resistance of citizens, team-mates, or colleagues?
Are you making room for the creative tension that arises from each human breath as we protect our dignity, freedom, and potential to innovate?
Your ability to sustain energy, passion, and wellness (despite the trenches) to advance your cause may be deeply served by shifting your awareness and language.
Practice for You- Get Curious about Micro-Resistance
Taking the longer, wider view is possible when we focus on both the impact of inequitable systems/culture and the creative responses. The responses of humans are unique, dynamic, and infinitely adaptive.
To explore this, here is a fun practice that you can take into your family or work context.
1. I invite you to begin to shift your awareness to the potential of how someone is responding to an experience. Within a response, see if you can notice how someone is always ‘resisting’ or ‘responding’ creatively to maintain their dignity or freedom.
2. You can look at responses to: requests, tone of voice, suggestions, actions that are out of our control, decisions.
• Some of the responses and resistance might be obvious. Like, you ask your kid to do the dishes, and “they’re like, no”. [Maintaining freedom to choose if and how they help out].
• Or, it could be slightly more subtle. Like, you suggest a stand up staff meeting to keep it brief and everyone sits down.
• Taking it to a higher level, at an organization or system, get curious about the response to climate change policy decisions or institutionalized racism.
3. Notice the tone, energy, and dynamism of the response you’re observing. Ask: what is it on behalf of? And how does it advance our collective potential?
4. How does this collective potential energize your endurance, even when boundaries, limits, silos, or rules slow the rate of change?
I know you’re committed to the long term and want to feel re-energized. Connecting to perspective and language that emphasizes the creative response to the most complex challenges of our times will help you ground.
Xo
Jennifer
PS. I’d love to hear from you- where do you struggle and where do you thrive in your changemaking? Let me know what topics, questions, or struggles you’d like me to explore and share in service to your development at jennifer@sparkcoaching.ca
PPS. Curious about how we can work together to cultivate your leadership? Book a Free Discovery Session here to learn how I can support your endurance, resilience, and growth in leadership to create just and sustainable systems.
