turning towards power
sketch of me done by my dear friend Teffer Adjemian
Welcome back to the newsletter, friends.
I don’t know about you, but somehow it’s the last full week in January, and I’m only just beginning to find my routines again, the daily/weekly/cyclic/seasonal cadence that makes days feel like days, time feel like time. The new year was a wallop, and I’m reminding myself that I can create gentleness. I love the steadiness of remembering my rhythms – a daily bracing walk in the cold sunshine, a weekend spent simmering broth and kneading pastry, a return to this weekly (ish) practice of writing. I hope you are finding tenderness, too.
Lately, I’ve been circling around conflict and intimacy. My notes app is full of snippets on restorative vs. transformative justice, tips on facilitating across power hierarchies, an exploration or two on relational skills and how to practice them. Last month, I led a team through a facts-and-feelings finding mission, and then a repair and restoration workshop. We scoured the conflict clean, invited intimacy as well as boundaries, and practiced apologies. We named what could not be repaired, and we committed to the practices that would restore. After weeks of anxiety, fear, avoidance, and hidden grief, they wrote to me after that the scouring was an “intensely positive” relief.
In relationships of all kinds, I find that one of the most dangerous things we can do is to turn away from the power we already have – whether we are afraid of it, avoiding it, or disbelieving of it. How much easier it is to wield power and cause harm when we do not acknowledge its existence, when we bury our heads in the sand and turn away from accountability. Turning away is a choice we make – which means that turning towards can also be an invitation.
I have to remind myself of this in a week of global strike, when it feels nearly impossible to believe that a phone call is a powerful thing, when I collect paperwork that detail how much of my earnings in this first year of self-employment will be used to fund a genocide. I commit to uplifting prep guides and actions, to re-opening the app that I have let languish and making the phone calls. We can (and must) turn towards, again and again.
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How are you turning towards the power you already have?
Bearing witness is a skill, but being witnessed is a gift. Thank you, as always, for the gift of your attention.
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until next time.
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PS – I’m easing into the year with a sale for new equity coaching clients. Book a free inquiry call to learn more, and use code JANUARY for $500 off, through the end of the month.