If you are working on social impact and social justice this is a newsletter to energise your journey - sign up by adding your email below
Power, care and the courage to be ourselves 🤖❤️🩹😁
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Dear community Gosh, what a week it’s been! I feel privileged to be around people who are holding big problems but also holding bandwidth to look at big themes too. Here's some themes coming out. Send me an emoji which section resonates. 🤖❤️🩹😁 Power and responsibility 🤖When we have a homogeneous team, there are going to be blind spots. This could be class, colour, schooling or less obvious. If you ignore that you have a homogeneous team, it will bite you on the a** sometime. Are we afraid to bring in conversations about black feminism and its power in anti-oppression and creating greater impact in social justice because we feel we’ll get the words wrong? Are we scenario planning a sanitised version of our current climate? My stomach turns about the level of male entitlement and abuse of power coming through the news. I wonder how much we are all complicit in the tiniest of ways. Facing the realities of what is happening is tough and has become a radical act. If it’s done with compassion and creativeness, something special will happen. Care and self-worth ❤️🩹It's really hard to keep motivated and help others to keep motivated when everyone seems to be either living day-to-day or month-to-month. Those who have more stability are feeling more and more piled on top of them. For many of us, including myself, our self-worth is tied to the impact we're making by 'doing good', and when that impact is taken away, it's really scary to find self-worth in just being. Many of us have put our physical and mental health into crises and justice work. This isn't the scary part. The scary part is finding ourselves as a person. Who the heck are we in this world right now? Self-care has become individualistic, and we've forgotten that the root of this is also the self-care of community. In community, in a group, in a team, you can be seen and heard, which is hugely motivating, even if it feels scary to do! Collective care is essential right now as an ethical praxis of being together, recripical and non-hierarchical. We are afraid of healing the distress that 'work' is causing. Joy and possibility 😁If we dare to dream of a different world and then look at our role within that dream, our role might not be as far away as we realise. Try it. When values are aligned, a team can come together and deliver a huge amount quickly, compassionately and in community. The backbone is culitvating trust. Joy. Don't forget this among the rubbishness of this world. The people you hang around affect how you think and are. My clients are often mirrors, and it's been amazing to see them thrive, build a new business, build trust with their teams, make bolder decisions, exercise more and be with themselves more. Super proud that a participant in Rise in Our Roots Whatsapp'd me this... “I am more carefree, goofy, laughing out of control, crying whenever the tears flow and not fighting them, I just feel free!” Prompts for the weekChoose one to sit with this week. What's an act of self-care for you? What's an act of self-care for your community or team? If you were to accept that we live in a more oppressive society than we realise, how might you be different this week? Who's in the room and who isn't? And a song for the start of your week
Connect with me..I would absolutely adore holding space to chat about power, collective care or courage. Up for it this month? There's five questions I'd love to ask you to help formulate a bolder action :) https://calendly.com/mo-belonging-people/connect |
Mohammed Ali (The Innovation)
If you are working on social impact and social justice this is a newsletter to energise your journey - sign up by adding your email below
Dear men of the community I sometimes forget that others see me as a man. I’m often more aware of my femininity, my colour and my neurospicyness. But I am seen as a man, and I need to pay attention to what comes with that. This week, a dear friend sent me the image below. Please download it. 🔽🔽🔽 Some of its words stopped me. It reminded me that, however I understand myself, I have a responsibility to face the harm men cause. I have caused harm. I have used male entitlement, sometimes without...
Dear community I’ve been sitting with Lara Sheehi’s phrase psychic militancy. It has hit my heart hard and rocked how I think about my “career” (loose career!). As I understand Sheehi, it is a practice of noticing how power shapes our thoughts, and refusing to let it decide what futures are possible. The question underneath it feels familiar: What happens when systems of oppression start to live inside the way I think? How much have I lived true to my vision of an anti-oppressive future? How...
Dear amazing community As the earth turns towards a new season, I’m wondering what feelings are present for you right now? Overwhelm? Anxiety? Drive? Groundedness? All are welcome. As many of you who work with me will know, we often talk about how we are not our feelings. We are the ones who can witness them. That being said, let’s talk events! Rise in Our Roots 📍 London 📅 24 September 🕙 10am If you’re feeling the need to reconnect with yourself, your identity and your sense of agency, and...