I went to the Deceleration Assembly last week, and here is what I captured in my notebook.
- Change: face into it or bury our heads in the sand?
- “Clear is kind, unclear is unkind.” (Brene Brown) –
- Have the courage to speak clearly and kindly about challenging realities – have the difficult conversations.
- Create the openings for people to have this conversation with you.
- Honesty vs magical thinking
- How are you going to sustain yourself through this process?
- Self-care includes peer support.
- It is possible to have these conversations and come out the other side, and in better shape than you were before – this is what we do.
- Joy, gratitude, purpose!
- Grief is part of our human contracting and social contracting.
- We’ve not been educated, encouraged, given permission to say “I am grieving” – (grief = taboo)
- Share the work / the emotional load *in community* – so it is less heavy (and not just 1 person who talks about and holds people’s emotions about death and grief while everyone else avoids the subject)
- HAVE FAITH
- Be clear in your approach – put it out there – give it time – people will find you
- Grief and transitions require safety – built through clarity, and kindness, … and what else?
- Being a leader (especially in small orgs) doesn’t feel like a safe space!!
- Collapse of public funding, ineffectiveness of legal structures to drive change right now
- When we live as if there will always be a tomorrow: *** infinite to-do lists ***
- But if we consider shorter timescales – what’s a real priority? Focus in.
- Ritual: a way of containing a space, going through activities together as a group, that enable the group to move together / navigate through time.
- How do you process and integrate these experiences?
- Make spaces for doing(tangible) – give people tasks and keep them busy
- Make spaces human – support and notice one another
- Culture and society mediate responses to grief.
- It’s a privilege to grieve and to have space to grieve [inequality in systemic grief]
- Commemoration is a big part of transitions – recognise the context and the impact.
- There is a fuller range of emotions than just grief (also fear, joy, celebration, etc)
- Closing well and consciously is a revolutionary act.
