We had to begin to practice deep, authentic collaboration. This meant a shift in how we move financial and human resources—there are enough people out there to support the movement(s) we need, but currently, organizations are pitted against each other to access money (less and less money), rather than creating and investing together to maximize a diversity of resources from money, to people, to spaces, to skills. Because we are not investing in a shared network of resources, it is easy to let structural and ideological particularities create deep splits throughout the non-profit sphere, rendering much of our work useless.

Be Wrong…

Sometimes there isn’t one definitive truth. (My favorite situations.)

And sometimes there is one and you can’t see it. (Least favorite. Least.)

Just at least consider that the place where you are wrong might be the most fertile ground for connecting with and receiving others.

And in a beautiful twist, being soft in your rightness, as opposed to smashing people with your brilliance, can open others up to whatever wisdom you’ve accumulated. I am grateful to all the people who were softly right about me this past month when I couldn’t see my own needs.

I have been in movement spaces for a long time, and we have a way of doing things that is so steeped in critique that I have often wondered if we would strangle movement before it could blossom. Sometimes I think we put up the critiques to excuse ourselves from getting involved, and sometimes I think we do it to protect our hearts from getting broken if it doesn’t work out. Critique, alone, can keep us from having to pick up the responsibility of figuring out solutions. Sometimes I think we need to liberate ourselves from critique, both internal and external, to truly give change a chance.

When the response to mistakes, failures, and misunderstandings is emotional, psychological, economic, and physical punishment, we breed a culture of fear, secrecy, and

isolation.

So I’m wondering, in a real way: How can we pivot toward practicing transformative justice? How do we shift from individual, interpersonal, and inter-organizational anger toward viable, generative, sustainable systemic change?

In my facilitation and mediation work, I’ve seen three questions that can help us grow. I offer them here in context with a real longing to hear more responses, to get in deep practice that helps us create conditions conducive to life in our movements and communities.

Learning in community helps us see how our own ideas are shifting over time. Hopefully we develop and change with time, applying life experience to our way of seeing the world. It seems a sign of immaturity to hold fast to one position regardless of new information.