Description:

The future is not an escapist place to occupy.

All of it is the inevitable result of what we do today,

and the more we take it in our hands,

imagine it as a place of justice…

the more the future knows we want it,

and that we aren’t letting go.  

adrienne maree brown

As we continue within the conditions of our new physical, social and political reality, every day reveals a little more about individual and collective patterns under pressure. But where are these patterns coming from, what are their exact shapes and how can we regulate ourselves in healthy and expansive ways?

As we witness our emotions, actions and reactions emerge, how is this rooted in a larger culture of individualism vs. communalism? In white supremacy vs. racial solidarity? In class fear vs. social power? Looking at the various cultures we each grew up in – national, familial, spiritual, movement or land based – what is consciously or unconsciously steering our understanding of our role, our rights and our responsibilities? Of course, how are race, class, gender, ability and other identities influencing our most core reactions? What resources from our backgrounds are we most grateful to lean on as we continue forwarding audacious visions? What habits of body and mind are showing up right now that are hurting ourselves, our community and our commitments? So much seems possible right now, so much is being questioned. This dialogue is an opportunity to slow down, go deep and feel into how we want to be during one of the greatest collective opportunities of our lifetimes. Out of this time what are we visioning as our new future, and how are we creating it now?  

Resources:

Resources shared out during the dialogue and in the chat:

Notes:

These are rough, uncut, unfiltered, and anonymous notes taken at the dialogue. We get that these may not be very readable to those who were not in attendance at the dialogue, and, honestly, sometimes even to those of us who were. We still feel it is important to keep them available as part of our accountability process and for archiving and reference purposes.  Some of these notes have been digested/transformed into blogs.

Opened with centering practice from gs

Framing: We’re in a “grab” (gs reference) – our reaction and response is usually cultural, familial, other factors of identity, collective consciousness. European collective consciousness has a focus on individuality that has impacted many people – everything became about taking care of own family, moving fast – what are our automatic responses. Juicy point between how we are socialized by families and what we’re seeing in organizing spaces. Vision. Think and slow down – what does it mean to be able to vision amidst chaos? Most movement breakthroughs have come through moments of crisis. Individual and community level. What’s possible. 

Checkins

  • What can we deepen that already exists? What are the permanent shifts we can create. Centering with accountability 
  • Food security and food as a vector of community response – seeing individualism and people taking care of themselves. Food as an entry point to think about what we want to build? What care and resilience and what future we want to live into. Seeing my own sense of urgency, individualism, wanting to show up to community care.
  • Individualism vs collectivism – caring for myself doesn’t mean I can’t also care for collective – not an either/or. Feeling self-judgment. Comforted by reading things about ok to feel feelings and self-care but also knowing my pattern as white woman and wanting to push past patterns.
  • Wanting to find a way to step into interconnectedness or race and class and capitalism. Looking for collective care and a way to embody from a place of solidarity. 
  • Learning about transformative justice and seeking more and more at the intersection of identities. Love the term grab – speaks to default tendency to put self first – want to unlearn this instinct. How to let the “grab” release.
  • This has been on my mind. Work as social worker, so I’m going to work and feeling the challenge of the fear of death and seeing my response in relationships. How white privilege has insulated me from confronting death. Having that fear in my pace on a daily basis – confronting what it means to have this so present in ways that others in my life always have it. Noticing in myself the desire to have a mask and other self-protective patterns. Fighting for everyone to have them, but especially me, uncomfortable to see this in myself. Seeing the interdependence of taking care of myself equaling care for others, but want to get beyond that.
  • Looking for ways to connect. This seemed nourishing. I live alone and am an introvert, and a lot of my work is inward, so wanted to join. 
  • Appreciate the vulnerability and honesty and glad to be here. The title spoke to me. 
  • Excited just to be available for this. Community landed me here. 
  • Wanted to share a space looking at white collectivity
  • Tension between appreciation for downtime and wanting to take action 
  • Feeling the grab of habitual patterns – overworking/perfectionism, efficiency determines my value, how that relates to my whiteness and jewishness, stories passed down around safety and how that all overlaps. 
  • My initial reaction of flight, physically left my community, reconciling my privilege to leave when things get rough and be with family
  • Craving community and a place to process – going through global crisis but processing so individually
  • Feeling my privilege, wanting to talk about individual vs collective – how to move towards a collective holding of wealth
  • Do a lot of holding space – nice to be held. Feeling a lot of fear. Tendency to make sure I’m okay and my family is okay. How do we use this time for intense global change. Everything could crumble, or we could do something different. How to direct those energies towards shifting. How to be most useful, given overwhelm. 
  • Busier than I’ve ever been. About my trauma response and not the world. Curious about my deep sense of hopelessness. Rather than getting engaged, I’m just criticizing everything as not good enough/pivotal enough. What part of me is this serving? Related to privilege – the movement to redistribute stimulus checks. Of course I’ll donate, but annoyed that it’s what the movement is asking – feels like a bandaid – why are we focused there instead of larger structural demands? 
  • Feeling inundated by work/stress/stories and need – grappling with despair – our movement being trained to ask for big, bold things – trained to be dependent on gov’t and each other. Seeing my patterns. Looking to structures that were in place before this moment – hard to envision building that now. Feeling chasm – work at home, not in need of food/people – what does that do for my willingness to push? What do we do when so many of our actions are off the table? Are we seeing people putting the stones in place in the direction we want to walk.  
  • This period has been mixed for me – I’m privileged and also hopeful that this period will produce positive changes. Major changes happen when major things shut down. 
  • Behavioural reactions to grabs is interesting to me – how we react has to do with unhealed generational stuff. I get excited by mass chaos. But I see the pain and harm. My spiritual practice is knowing that there is a place that we’re building into. Uplifting my frequency to rise to that need. Ad/or is that my privilege? What are we creating from this? What are the survival strategies? What’s the next thing that will happen. Who are my neighbors?

Diving into dialogue

  • Noticing that hoarding is fear of then not having down the line. If I don’t hoard, I don’t trust society to then provide for me. I have to provide for me. Scarcity and lack of social structures. 
  • What is the limit of my sacrifice? As I grow, do I push that farther. My limits are so dependent on race and class. How do I separate from what I expect to have
  • People who have been trained in white anti-racism in bay area have probably been exposed to tema okun patterns of WS culture – anytime we see – getting curious – trauma of WS to see scarcity/urgency when it isn’t there, but it is actually here now – but there is a scarcity and urgency – feeling scarcity/urgency doesn’t necessarily mean I’m operating from a place of WS
  • Scarcity mindset – structural thing that is made – when we say it is real, I would like us to think what reality makes it real – capitalism and desire for profit and to exploit – would be in abundance – but access is cut off. How do we disrupt? 
  • Choices are made by systems to create scarcity, real and not real – the entitlement of whether I get this resource that I can access but others can’t.
  • Now there is an emergency
  • Urgency – I have apartment/job – I don’t have financial concerns. Not wanting to take it on as my personal trauma.
  • Urgency right now is good. Extra quality on top of urgency – that feels like WS culture. Something coming up around sacrifice. There are moments when I’m giving a lot to movement spaces and times when I’m not. How to do it coming from a rooted place of care. How do we frame the idea of sacrifice? The quality from which we’re responding. 
  • Curious what are behaviors that are deeper than WS – Dr Edmund Nichols – land creating deep responses. Instinctual response of my European roots is a lack. A hoarding/fear that isn’t the same for others who have different histories. Not that none of it is WS culture, but also rooted in historical trauma. Privilege layered on top. How do I widen it enough to see what else is there? Walking around my neighborhood doesn’t feel good, but is pushing by boundaries in a way that feels a part of the greater good.
  • Legacies of trauma and loss – Irish and Jewish legacies of loss and escape and scarcity. 
  • Centuries of loss, and seeing ways it’s playing out. So much weight of what’s come before. Beyond an individual comprehension. How do I come into a place of viscerally knowing I can care and receive care?
  • Who is in real relationship to each other?
  • I was hating on my anxiety, maxed out, and feeling shame for ways I acted towards others. My jewish ancestry says I always need to be preparing for the next existential threat. Gratitude for ways that moved it forward. This is real urgency, not manufactured. Feeling the grief for how that impacted those around me. Questions of whose lives matter, who are we prioritizing?
  • When there are two people and one mask – I don’t have that instinct to give the mask to the other person. To what extent is that entitlement, or just human nature/survival? Both. Fear is the human thing that keeps us safe. I think it’s okay not to have the instinct to give it away. Before the pandemic, I was super busy. Now ramping down, seeing the absence of care. Wanting to be in a system of care. 
  • If it was my kid or my mom, I would give them the mask first. It would damage me physically. Easy to organize those who are directly impacted or a step away from it. Am I willing to be in the trenches for it? I don’t know what I’m willing to lay down? What are we building re: real interdependence? I’m not willing to give without the relationship. I’m not proud of that. Have to be building those relationships. 
  • Have been on the periphery of movement work, but not super involved myself – have been thinking about why that is. Non profit martyr complex. Sense of scarcity within the nonprofit world. Overgiving model. Not doing enough if not giving 200% – has kept me at a distance. Honoring relationships and all we have are each other. 
  • I don’t want to plug into things that don’t feel revolutionary. I’m exhausted. I don’t want to organize for Biden. Relationships  
  • It is hard to invest in things that feel compromised, bc we’ve seen how that sometimes leads to worse things.
  • Coronavirus capitalism – practice the Black radical tradition of pragmatism. I have to think about that – not want to make compromises c I see what that does to my spirit and our movements. 
  • Skeptical of activism. Bringing up the why. What I have to sacrifice to show up. Tension between I want to do something, but I don’t know what. How do you address being an individual who wants to do more but also doesn’t want to do more. 
  • Good question to ask yourself – is this coming from relationships/love/care?
  • Energy I felt from being in service created expansion in me. Only taking care of me is constricting. If we’re giving from a place of guilt/shame, that may be an addition to collective consciousness. Money is coming to everyone, how can we give from a place of love. Adding energy to the collective. We need more of that consciousness of higher vibration. 
  • Most people considered essential are underpaid, shouldn’t be put in this place of having to give away what we need. 
  • How do we shift the system so that we don’t have to decide between ourselves and others – make there be enough. That is how I show up to the work with love. Want to see a different system. Example of factory workers trying to stop building planes and missiles and build ventilators instead. 
  • Need to address the way the system exploits us and taps our resources so we don’t have anything left with which to show up.

One word “mood” checkout: 

  • Messy, unresolved, relationships, motivated, held, conflicted, resourced, connected, grateful, baby steps..