Thank you for the reminder to take care of relationships with those whom we co-labor with for justice. So often, as change agents, we simply agree to disagree . This may move us past the point of conflict but it does not resolve it. Ultimately there is a residual affect. I'm ashamed to say that I have left organizations doing good work in the community because of internal strife, and not understanding how to help resolve it. How do activists and agents of social change embrace self care as a wav to heal from within?
It's like Sophia says in The Color Purple: "All my life I had to fight." When we don't balance the fight with play, rest, and joy, we get to the point where we fight all the time, even with people who are on the same side. I've seen it play out so much. It's heartbreaking. If we don't do the healing work, it will destroy our organizations and our movements.
This is a beautiful reminder. And I wonder whether this problem is one of the last internal bastions of capitalism that is embedded even in those trying to create justice: the reduction of any legitimate action to *work.* To *labor.*
We ask ourselves and each other whether we’re “doing the work.” Not whether we’re doing the play, the rest, the joy, the love, the quiet, the affection, the pleasure. We teach ourselves to set all those aside--to make them secondary to--The Work. And even while we admit our fatigue, our stress, our anxiety, our depression we let the work consume us and each other. Because we come to believe that only work matters.
Care and pleasure and love aren’t tools; they aren’t strategies. They’re fundamental to our humanity. And when we don’t nurture that humanity, what do we have left to sustain us? I say “we” but I’m talking about me. I’ve spent most of my life ashamed that I’m not more productive, what I haven’t accomplished. But I think we need other measures of our lives.
I think you're right about how capitalism infects justice movements. I've heard people "count" their work in terms of actions they've participated in, led, etc. And there's often an obscene sort of pride that comes from wearing ourselves down for the sake of the movement. I have seen so many activists belittle self-care as if it's a dirty word, because they've bought into the idea that their worth is measured by their productivity.
Thank you for the reminder to take care of relationships with those whom we co-labor with for justice. So often, as change agents, we simply agree to disagree . This may move us past the point of conflict but it does not resolve it. Ultimately there is a residual affect. I'm ashamed to say that I have left organizations doing good work in the community because of internal strife, and not understanding how to help resolve it. How do activists and agents of social change embrace self care as a wav to heal from within?
It's like Sophia says in The Color Purple: "All my life I had to fight." When we don't balance the fight with play, rest, and joy, we get to the point where we fight all the time, even with people who are on the same side. I've seen it play out so much. It's heartbreaking. If we don't do the healing work, it will destroy our organizations and our movements.
This is a beautiful reminder. And I wonder whether this problem is one of the last internal bastions of capitalism that is embedded even in those trying to create justice: the reduction of any legitimate action to *work.* To *labor.*
We ask ourselves and each other whether we’re “doing the work.” Not whether we’re doing the play, the rest, the joy, the love, the quiet, the affection, the pleasure. We teach ourselves to set all those aside--to make them secondary to--The Work. And even while we admit our fatigue, our stress, our anxiety, our depression we let the work consume us and each other. Because we come to believe that only work matters.
Care and pleasure and love aren’t tools; they aren’t strategies. They’re fundamental to our humanity. And when we don’t nurture that humanity, what do we have left to sustain us? I say “we” but I’m talking about me. I’ve spent most of my life ashamed that I’m not more productive, what I haven’t accomplished. But I think we need other measures of our lives.
I think you're right about how capitalism infects justice movements. I've heard people "count" their work in terms of actions they've participated in, led, etc. And there's often an obscene sort of pride that comes from wearing ourselves down for the sake of the movement. I have seen so many activists belittle self-care as if it's a dirty word, because they've bought into the idea that their worth is measured by their productivity.