‘You’ve got to fight for your right to party’ – balancing accessibility and momentum building in a time of social isolation

Recently, I travelled a few hundred miles to one of the three cities I consider to be a ‘home town’, in order to host a party marking a new chapter in my life. The tricky decision making process about how many people to invite, what venue to hire, what food to provide, what time of day to gather, and anything I could do to make showing up easier and more enjoyable got me thinking about how we get people together and make things happen in this peculiar moment in history. I’m starting from an assumption that it’s harder than it used to be to bring people together in person, whether in a social setting, on a group programme or for a community event. It's important to explore and challenge this assumption, though the struggle to assemble in the 2020s is a fairly established concept.

Reflecting on my own experiences of being a host, facilitator or participant, I’ve been wondering about how we can strike a balance between creating spaces that respect and accommodate people’s complex lives, depleted energy levels and access needs, and eliciting commitment and participation at a time when it seems like we need strong community more than ever. Of course, this may be a more crucial question when applied to building movements than in relation to party planning. But community and connection take many forms, and we are living in a particularly fractured time, with lasting impacts from Covid lockdowns, healthcare and economic crises, and safety concerns for many as we descend into scary political territory. So perhaps it’s worth considering how we get people together for whatever reason in this difficult context.

Let me offer a caveat. I don’t want to use this as a platform to complain about being inconvenienced or upset by people not showing up for things, nor as a way to question whether progress towards more accessible spaces and communities has ‘gone too far’ – in most situations, accessibility has not gone nearly far enough. I’m interested in our changing social contracts, the impacts of technologies on how we plan, communicate and socialise, what it might mean if we’re all too exhausted to get together, and how we address these challenges in a way that honours people’s autonomy, need for downtime, and variable or limited capacity to consistently take part in community life.

And so, to the challenges of planning parties, meetings, training sessions, workshops, community events and so on. The rule in 2025, I’m told, is that we should expect around 50-75% of an invite list to say yes, and around 50% of that group to show up on the day. This seems to be surprisingly accurate a lot of the time, though it’s not something we can rely on in the planning process - who wants to risk being the host who only provided for half of the people who RSVP’d ‘yes’, only to find that everyone actually shows up? In my experiences of both facilitating and attending events in the last few years, there is a marked difference from expectations pre-pandemic in terms of attrition rates. Last minute apologies often come in a flurry, especially if someone starts the process of responding publicly on a chat thread or group invite. It can seem as if a handful of people sharing their (entirely reasonable) stories of exhausting days, heavy workloads or babysitting issues gives anyone on the fence about attending an event the green light to cancel. I’d hate to live in a world where people felt pressured to attend a meeting, party or group session, no matter the emotional, physical or financial cost. And I also wonder how our ability to show up has been shaped by a world that’s hyper-individualised, and full of endless choice about what to buy, where to go and what to engage with (all filtered through algorithmic curation by billionaire owned tech platforms).

How might we be influenced by a culture offering so many options that we find ourselves exhausted and in decision paralysis? I remember considering this in my first few years of living in London, during and after Covid lockdowns. The experience of being newly resident in one of the world’s mega-cities was surreal at a time when I could only explore my immediate surroundings for an hour a day. Later, it was equally surreal and overwhelming to find that there were countless events, groups, places and experiences available to me at any given time. I eventually found activities and groups that I was able to integrate into my weekly routine, but otherwise dipped in and out of communities, political organising, and recurring activities fairly inconsistently. I suspect this may be a feature of life in a big city at a time when communication technology and good public transport links make it possible to find just about anything we’re interested in, and to unconsciously assume that all of these opportunities will still be there next time if we miss out today. It seems that being in large group spaces also became more energetically costly during recent years - our post-pandemic relationships to the risks and compromises of sharing physical space form part of the changing social landscape. There have been many times in the last few years when I’ve been faced with a choice between stretching myself to face a sweaty, crowded London commute to gather with people for something that would bring me a sense of purpose, connection, energy, catharsis or joy, and staying in my comfort zone at home, with the option of quietly recharging my batteries or doing something requiring minimal social effort. I’ve almost always felt better for choosing to stretch myself if I’m able to, and happy with my decision to have a recharge day if I genuinely need one. But there have been other times when I convinced myself to avoid something I’d been looking forward to because I was apprehensive about meeting new people, or didn’t want to travel, only to find myself later wishing I had. One example of this is an embodiment group that I’d hoped to be involved in developing with some peers. Life took me in an unexpected direction, and I stepped back for a while. When I found myself more available, I struggled to build a routine of attending consistently, but hugely valued the sessions. I was disappointed when the group inevitably ended due to a lack of participation, but had to acknowledge my part in that.

Conversely, I’ve found that I respond well to activities with built-in accountability when it comes to building routine and making commitments. I appreciate the clear expectations, and also the discretion and flexibility of attendance and cancellation policies offered by some groups I’m part of - they’re not designed to prevent people with inconsistent health or life challenges from being able to meaningfully participate, but they lay the groundwork for enough consistent participation to allow progress towards a goal, or a critical mass of participants. It can feel like an uncomfortable wielding of power or boundaries to implement something like this, especially at a time when we’re more conscious of each other’s needs and challenges. But if we’re able to self-advocate, negotiate and offer flexibility within these boundaries, perhaps it’s less necessary to avoid setting them. I wonder whether living in curated bubbles that cater to individual needs and desires via an array of goods, services and personalised settings has made our comfort zones so enveloping and enticing that we have diminishing levels of incentive to step outside of them into a world that may involve risk, inconvenience, over-stimulation, and also growth, connection, challenge and learning. At the risk of falling into a ’back in my day’ cliché, I can’t help thinking about the contrast between making and carrying out plans in a pre-smartphone era and doing so today. I’m not the first to notice the impact of being able to fire off a quick message half an hour before an event to offer an apology without having to look the recipient in the eye, and with the assumption that the message will be received in time because we expect each other to be tethered to our devices by default. I’m grateful for the obsolescence of the communication fails I occasionally experienced as a teenager (e.g., a friend and I waiting for each other at different branches of the same city centre coffee chain, resulting in some comedic pay-phone relay calls to each other’s parents). And, while I appreciate living in a more convenient world, I must admit to a pang of nostalgia for the expectation that a plan would go ahead because there was no easy way to change last minute without knowingly affecting whoever was waiting for us. Maybe this nostalgia signals a new phase of life for me, as a member of the last generation to spend our childhoods without 24/7 online connection and then enthusiastically adopt it in early adulthood. Regardless, I find it interesting to reflect on the ways in which technological and social changes are inextricably linked, and shape our social contracts.

When I’ve had friendships or professional helping relationships with people whose health makes it difficult for them to reliably show up, there has been a clear and direct message from many of them – ‘please keep inviting me’. One resident at a housing project where I offered wellbeing support said ‘I really appreciate you inviting me to sessions, even when I don’t respond. Please don’t give up on me’. That was a powerful reminder of the tenacity required to keep trying to build a shared space in the face of barriers and challenges. And yet, there are finite resources (including energy and tenacity), as well as minimum levels of participation required in order for most projects to work. I’ve been disappointed when courses I’ve enrolled in have been cancelled because there weren’t enough participants. But it happens - sometimes the timing is wrong, and sometimes, the challenges with getting bums on seats tell us something about the economic or political climate that it’s worth paying attention to. This is the main reason that I’m refocusing a significant proportion of my work from private client contracts to funded programmes that are more accessible to those who need them most. Some programmes I offered saw a disparity between interest and participation because people who needed the input weren’t able to make the investment at that time. It felt important to respond by considering how to meet people where they are.

This doesn’t neatly answer the question of how we might meet people where they are, if where they are is a place we can’t find a way to reach. And of course, there isn’t one right answer. Something I’m working on is not taking others’ non-participation personally. It’s true that a last minute drop in numbers for an event or programme might have an impact on resources, plans and dynamics, but the challenge is to keep perspective. It’s easier to learn about what has worked and what could be done differently next time from a place of curiosity than from feelings of rejection. Sometimes, meeting people where they are involves continuing to invite them to let them know that they are valued, even if they never show up. Often, clearly addressing access needs, preferences and anxieties experienced by people who are new to a space or group can improve participation. And in some contexts, agreements about accountability and commitment levels are necessary to ensure that enough people consistently show up to keep an activity or movement alive. I find myself returning to the same question in many of my posts - where is the balance of individual and collective responsibility here? There are many things that a collective, or those with responsibility for hosting events can do to meet as many participants’ needs as possible. And there are things we can do as individuals in order to contribute to a world where communities grow and thrive, and where in-person, embodied gatherings remain viable and accessible. I’m enormously grateful for the way that meeting virtually has opened up opportunities and connections to people regardless of location, health or mobility. I’m also someone who often needs time to recharge my social battery, an experience I share with many of my friends. So, I understand that we won’t solve society’s problems and improve our own wellbeing just by pushing ourselves to spend more time in groups. And yet, in this particular moment, where billionaires stand to benefit hugely from our isolation and exhaustion, it feels like an act of resistance and social change to find ways to step out of our curated comfort zones and into community.

Community as an anchor – staying connected to self, others and reality during turbulent times

This weekend, I met a friend for lunch and a stroll through the park. As we shared our news, lamented the price of a coffee in a central London café and promised to meet for wholesome Sunday walks more often, I felt a familiar sense of being re-resourced by taking time to relax, reconnect and enjoy some time out in nature. This was briefly disrupted by unexpectedly passing a far-right rally in the park – suddenly, the two of us seemed significantly outnumbered by people who would likely wish harm on us and many others. We moved on and inevitably spent a long time discussing the state of the world and how we might respond to an increasing sense of division and uncertainty. I reflected on what helps me to keep things in perspective and feel safe when things feel scary and hopeless, and immediately thought of various communities that I’m part of, and the concepts of mutual support and safety in numbers. I also remembered some tools from trauma therapy, like Babette Rothschild’s oases, anchors and safe places[1], which are helpful in addressing feelings of overwhelm and detachment. Bringing the therapeutic concepts and the idea of community together, I’ve been considering community as a form of anchor, which might serve to keep us grounded and connected.

What are oases, anchors and safe places?
An oasis is an activity that you enjoy, and that you need to concentrate on (such as knitting, playing an instrument, learning a language, or cooking from a recipe). If you can carry out the activity on ‘autopilot’ without really thinking, it won’t function as an oasis unless you incorporate something new or challenging into the activity (such as learning a new piece of music or trying a new knitting pattern). This serves to give your conscious mind a break from potentially spiralling, as well as using the positive associations with the activity to signal to you that it’s time to relax and recover from stress responses.

An anchor, is something or someone external that exists in material reality (rather than something that you can imagine or draw upon from within yourself), and that you find supportive in some way. Anchors can be objects, places or people that create a sense of calm in your mind and body when you are in contact with them or when you think about them. Anchors can be identified and used in therapeutic settings when a client becomes overwhelmed and needs support with getting grounded. The therapist might ask a question about the anchor in order to take a break from distressing content and to offer a nervous system reset.

A safe place is, as the name suggests, a place where you feel or have previously felt safe and relaxed, and it’s a specific type of anchor. Ideally, this should be a real place that you can call to mind, in order to make use of somatic markers (or memories of colours, sounds, smells, textures, body sensations etc.) associated with it. This safe place can be called to mind during times of high stress or overwhelm, and may also be used in modalities such as hypnotherapy.

The aim with all of the above is grounding and re-connection (to self, to here-and-now reality, to safety). While this might be directly applied in situations where people are experiencing post traumatic stress, they can also be helpful concepts for anyone at a time when we may be feeling overwhelmed, unsafe, disconnected or powerless in response to what’s happening in the world.

How might community become an anchor?

Maintaining wellbeing and being safe requires a balance of self and collective care. Exploring and finding this balance of looking after ourselves and others (while allowing ourselves to receive support when we need it) feels especially important in a context of widespread unrest and a social structure set up to benefit profit over people, as we’re increasingly sold the idea that our wellbeing is entirely our own responsibility. Hyper-individualistic society necessitates a ‘one up/one down’ structure and competition over collaboration; while highly collectivist societies may sideline the needs of individuals in favour of the needs of the group, potentially leading to aspects of a person’s identity or choices being suppressed. Community that respects the autonomy of all of its members, and offers space where people feel supported and equally valued can be part of recovery, personal development and social change processes. It can also be a means of safety, with looking out for and protecting each other being part of the remit during times when there are significant threats or a lack of institutional resources and safeguarding.

Community can become a form of ‘anchor’ by offering a real-world experience of human connection, support and collective power. If a community feels safe and grounding, it’s something we can call to mind to anchor ourselves in moments of disconnection (either through recalling our experiences of being together, or by reaching out to the community in a bid for connection). There are so many distressing things in the world that we’re being relentlessly exposed to, and that lead to a sense of instability, powerlessness and disconnect. In a world of quick and cheap dopamine hits and algorithmically driven content, my first instinct when I feel overwhelmed by distressing news and doomscrolling is often to seek connection and people expressing shared values through online platforms. I’m not advocating for throwing the baby out with the bath water and getting rid of this. But there’s something important about the embodied, real-time, and relatively uncurated nature of connecting with people in person that offers a good foundation for developing authentic and strong connections and alliances, away from the profit driven influence of most online platforms. In-person interaction, community and movement can offer solid ways out of the stuckness. Supportive and robust relationships with others can also allow them to fulfil the role of anchor, which becomes one of the resources supporting us to re-regulate our nervous systems and reconnect with our Adult capacity when we start to drift.

What might building communities that serve as anchors and places of safety look like?

The older I get, the more I notice how difficult it can be to carve out space and time to get a group of adults together, given the responsibilities and pressures of work, family, and all the various tasks involved in living in a fast paced society during an economic crisis. Slowing down and protecting time to nurture multiple relationships can be a challenge at the best of times. And finding the energy to engage in the often messy business of being in community with people with different and potentially competing needs, ideas and ways of communicating might be an even bigger challenge. So, we need leverage – what is the shared set of values, goals, interests or needs that makes it worth the cat-herding efforts, social contracting, miscommunication and conflicting ideas that will likely arise as we attempt to build inclusive and powerful communities? It might be addressing a social issue or injustice, sharing an activity we’re passionate about, being together in a space that allows us to unmask, feel seen and give/receive support. It might be a space where we can allow ourselves to be vulnerable and connect with ourselves and each other on a deeper level, or it might be a space for playfulness, levity and a break from the heaviness of the world. At different times, it might be all of the above. As I write this, I’m thinking about a couple of examples of groups and communities that fulfil all of these needs for me, and as I do so, I notice the impact on my breathing, which in turn, allows me to let go of some of the tension I’ve been carrying around. And that’s an example of community as anchor.

I’ll admit that it’s not always been easy to get to a place where a community gives me more nourishment and energy than it asks of me (sometimes it’s remarkably easy, but I think there’s an element of luck in that). I’ve been part of many developing groups and communities in different contexts, often with challenges arising when something functioned well in the context of a small group of friends building a group activity or supportive space together; and then struggled to keep up with expectations, access needs and the need for more formalised agreements when it grew into something bigger. In order to become the safe anchor, there has to be something worth persisting through the ‘storming’ phase for, clarity of purpose and communication, and a desire to work together to overcome obstacles. We can never be all things to all people, and my own and others’ experiences demonstrate the unfortunate reality that someone may feel shortchanged no matter how much effort we put into creating safe, accessible, welcoming and compassionate spaces. We may need to manage expectations about what can be offered and how we will need to work together to address challenges (as opposed to organisers providing a service for people showing up in ‘customer’, rather than ‘contributor’ mode).

There is also an edge to the concept of safety in terms of community building – in any given group, people can work together to agree and implement a social contract that aims to address any barriers to people feeling welcome, valued and as psychologically safe as possible. But we can’t eliminate risk, conflict, competing needs and being in community with people we may not get on with (even if we share common goals or values). There’s a limit to the promise of safety and comfort; and yet, within these boundaries, it’s still possible to create the conditions for healthy challenge, disagreement and overcoming obstacles without compromising an overall sense of safety. If we each take responsibility for developing and practising the self-awareness and communication skills necessary to navigate this, we’ve already done most of the work required to build communities that keep each other safe, grounded, connected and hopeful.

Having shared goals and values, and a sense of our collective power can help us to address feelings of helplessness, dissociation and overwhelm, which feels like something that’s desperately needed right now. In the midst of so many storms, it’s important to be able to pause and put anchors in place, and to find places of safety in which we can rest and recover before braving the elements again.  

[1] Rothschild, Babette, 2000; The Body Remembers

Reframing resilience – collective care, ‘staggered breathing’ and permission to be vulnerable

The word ‘resilience’ has become one of the ubiquitous buzzwords that has been favoured in fields from education, to workplace wellbeing, to psychology (in both pop and clinical forms) for quite some time. While I’m in favour of finding ways to pick ourselves back up when we’ve been knocked down – and occasionally even partial to a Kelly Clarkson karaoke moment – I find myself asking questions whenever the concept of resilience comes up. I might wonder whether it’s the most helpful word to use in the given context, and how it’s being understood. For example, I used to offer wellbeing support to a woman who had been through an extraordinary amount of adversity and trauma in her life. When I met her, she still faced some significant challenges, but the way she had turned things around and overcome massive obstacles was remarkable. Any time people heard her story, they would comment on how unusually resilient she was. There’s no denying the truth of that, but she internalised the message that she was ‘a resilient person’, and struggled to reconcile this with her experience on days when she felt overwhelmed and less able to cope. We worked on reframing the idea of resilience, reflecting on the idea that it’s not something we are, but a part of us that we might feel more or less in touch with at different times. We also considered the potential confusion between resilience and stoicism, since she would say things like ‘I know I’m supposed to be resilient but some days I don’t feel strong and I just want to hide from the world’. Sometimes, when people think about resilience, they might place it at odds with vulnerability. We might conflate the old ‘bootstrap’ mentality (where painful experiences are ‘character building’) with the idea that adversity can lead to more ability to bounce back in future. But of course, it’s not a given that experiencing more difficult or traumatic experiences leads to greater resilience – it’s true that humans are masters of adapting and adjusting to our circumstances, but getting used to difficult experiences is not the same as becoming more skilled at coping with, and growing through them. That depends on a number of factors, such as what support and resources are available to help us to rest, reflect, make sense of things, safely connect with others and express emotions. If anything, developing greater resilience requires us to have permission to be vulnerable enough to let ourselves fall, be caught and learn, as well as the courage to get back up and try again.

The connection between resilience and supportive human relationships feels crucial to me, and I’ve also spent a lot of time recently thinking about how the idea of resilience is used in workplace contexts, especially where wellbeing and working conditions are concerned. There are so many challenges we’re all facing right now, from economic crises and funding cuts, to political unrest, law and policy changes, and widespread health issues. Most of us are being asked to do more with less, and the helping professions are seeing higher levels of need and crisis. It’s not all bleak, but there’s no doubt that this is a context that requires practically superhuman levels of resilience. It seems like a big ask for each individual to build up enough proverbial muscle to carry more and more cognitive, emotional, physical or other labour – not for the first time, I find myself asking how much responsibility lies at the level of the individual, workplace, community or government. I’ve seen organisations struggling with dramatic funding cuts and getting into disputes with employees over increasing workloads, staff sickness and a lack of time and space to process traumatic events. Senior leaders with responsibility for preventing service closures and protecting staff from as best they could from the worst effects of sector wide challenges were at their edges, and responded defensively to staff concerns. The top-down messaging in these situations was often simply, ‘you need to be more resilient’. Sometimes, this was delivered along with a checklist of the wellbeing support on offer to those who felt they needed more support, but reminding traumatised and burned out frontline workers and managers that lunchtime yoga was available did not tend to go down well. Intentionally or otherwise, this is the sort of situation in which the concept of resilience can be weaponised, and used to locate problems at the level of the individual. Given the importance of relational support and connection in terms of resilience building, this is unlikely to be a winning strategy. It’s also a way to avoid taking on the daunting task of considering the systemic issues that might be causing or contributing to challenges. This in itself requires a level of resilience and robustness that it can be difficult to get in touch with when we’re in survival mode and under-resourced. This, for me, highlights the importance of protecting space to take some time out to really reflect, create the conditions for genuinely reflective, vulnerable, honest and challenging conversations (with outside support if necessary). Developing strategies that will lead to more organisational or collective resilience needs to start with this level of listening and honest reflection.

I’m pondering the idea of collective resilience, and how this might be a helpful goal in workplaces and communities. What might collective resilience look like, and how do we develop it? Firstly, there’s a sense of shared responsibility. This means not over-relying on one person (distributed responsibility, collaboration and transparent information sharing come into play here). It balances the rights and responsibilities of each individual with the needs and responsibilities of the collective. We’re not individually let off the hook here – each person needs to uphold their end of the bargain as best they can. There’s an acknowledgment of our flawed, vulnerable, diverse and brilliant humanity in this. Teams and communities that benefit from a range of different perspectives, skill sets and experiences are demonstrably stronger. And in a group of humans, it’s a guarantee that people will get sick, experience traumatic life events, have bad days or become overwhelmed with their responsibilities at some point. A resilient collective would have enough resources to make contingency plans and to let people step up and support each other when needed. If everyone is at their edges, it’s very difficult to shoulder the extra responsibility needed to keep things running smoothly when one person finds themselves in crisis. As a lifelong choral singer, I was delighted to come across ‘staggered breathing’ as an analogy for this recently. Staggered breathing is a technique that choirs employ in order to be able to sustain long notes and phrases far beyond what one person could manage on their own. People take breaths at different times, knowing that the group will keep singing when they need to refuel, and the audience experiences this as an uninterrupted sound. Skilled choral singers pay close attention to the breathing patterns of their neighbours, in order to create a more staggered effect and ensure that if the person next to them is breathing, they are singing and vice versa. Maybe it's the choir nerd in me, but I find this to be a perfect analogy for the ways that communities can support each other. It’s well established in grassroots organising spaces, where burnout is common and expected. Being aware of, and responsive to each other’s needs lets the community as a whole sustain its work more effectively.

I also connect collective resilience with the ability to disagree, withstand conflict and learn from relational challenges. Rupture and repair is a well rehearsed idea in the therapy world – this means that successfully navigating and repairing after conflict leads to a stronger foundation in relationships. This concept is closely related to the idea of resilience, with the experience of not only surviving, but also learning from a difficult experience building a sense of confidence that future challenges will also be manageable. This feels especially pertinent in situations where teams and groups are under pressure and different views, communication styles and needs potentially lead to getting stuck. And learning the skills to be in community with people in spite of difference and disagreement feels more necessary than ever, in the wider political context. This is something I struggle with personally at times – my neurodivergent justice sensitivity and experience of being ‘othered’ can make it tricky to let go of a desire to stick with those who align most closely with my values at all costs. But in the context of algorithmic echo chambers and purity politics, the chances of minds being changed or short term compromise for long term gain are low. Being able to humanise and hear each other when we disagree seems to offer the best shot of developing nuance, reducing othering and building resilience. Having said this, I’ve heard this argument used to pressurise oppressed groups into arguing for their rights with those who wish them harm. I admire people who feel able and willing to take on this kind of risky emotional labour, but it shouldn’t be an expectation. It’s easy for calls for building bridges to spill over into platforming human rights violations and hate speech – whether a group of people deserves to be considered to be fully human and treated equitably is not something I am willing to debate or ‘agree to disagree’ on. So, there is a need for boundaries and clear social contracts, within which, rupture, repair and different perspectives can lead to growth. And I have to hope that it’s possible (though no doubt relatively rare) that, with enough resilience and connection, prejudicial beliefs might be changed. My idealised vision of a resilient community involves having enough resources, time, space and will to meet everyone’s needs and value each member equally (even when we’re frustrated with each other). Under these circumstances, the chances of dehumanising, scapegoating or weaponising ‘resilience’ as a demand for people to withstand increasingly difficult conditions, are pretty low. As utopian as this might sound, the business of creating these conditions is hard and messy work. But in my experience, the move from prioritising individual resilience (or stoicism) to collective care is very much worth the effort.

Navigating personal and political grief in a time of chaos and change

‘I don’t know if we were meant to carry so much grief in one body… Yet, we are not alone’ (Alexandra/Ahlay Blakely)

-These are the lyrics of a song that I’ve sung with others at song circles, protests and other events where groups have assembled to process and express grief (alongside other emotions) and to share the experience of trying to make sense of things that feel big, scary and unfathomable. The song also contains a part that is essentially a tuneful wail, in a bid to reconnect us to the embodied, messy, loud and cathartic nature of expressing grief. Right now, I’m struck by the ways in which reclaiming ritual, authentic expression and communal grieving can be forms of resistance to the legacy of colonial, Victorian Britain, where emotional repression and sanitised grief processes became the only socially acceptable options.

I’m thinking – and feeling – a lot about grief at the moment for two reasons. Firstly, because I recently experienced an important loss in my own life. My family has always been small and very well versed in grief and generational trauma. For the last twenty years, my Gran was my last living close relative. She died two weeks ago, at the age of ninety five. The loss process was a slow one, with so many of our ‘lasts’ taking place over a period of months, years and even decades. It’s been a long time since the last of our trips to the garden centre for coffee, cake and unnecessary purchases of hand cream and silly ornaments. It’s been a few months since we had a real, two-way conversation that I could be fairly sure was understood. It’s been six years since I cleared out the last of my childhood homes, which contained three generations worth of photo albums, favourite mugs, books, school reports and the like. And so, this particular grief process has been less of a crash landing and more of a slow glide than others I’ve experienced, although it also feels even more significant in some ways. My main regret is that she died while I was on my way to say goodbye and support her transition. But I’m relieved that she was not alone at the end, and that we’d had a conversation about dying while she was still able to communicate. When I finally made it to the nursing home, I had a first experience of witnessing death up close, and I reflected on how odd it was to have never done this before. I sat beside Gran, still in her bed, and chatted with a relative and the local minister in a way that felt strange and surreal, yet somehow, also normal and natural. We played one of her favourite songs as she was taken to the funeral home, and the nursing home staff lined up to say goodbye and send her on her way. At the funeral, although I felt safe, held and not especially overwhelmed, I was struck by a familiar sense of disconnect between what my body wanted and what felt possible and acceptable in the relatively formal environment of a crematorium and church service. I feel sure that I wouldn’t have been judged for a loud or physical expression of grief, and I didn’t especially feel the need to wail or collapse in that moment; and yet, something in my body said ‘this feels too distant and mysterious – how am I supposed to be present in this space?’

All of this has made me think about the need for more open conversation, ritual and encouragement of authentic emotional expression in the culture I’m part of. Social media and public health campaigns are awash with messaging about the importance of sharing our feelings through talking and other forms of expression. That’s a step in the right direction, though it might sometimes feel like a bit of a platitude. But what about the impact of bracing against and repressing our expressions of grief in order to stay acceptable and ‘sane’? And what might happen when a person’s expression of grief becomes too noisy, inconvenient or disturbing to be considered healthy? Like most people I know, I’m a passionate advocate for accessible, free and de-stigmatised mental health care, but I also feel I need to acknowledge the ways that psychology and psychiatry have been used as forms of social control, and have pathologised responses to grief and trauma that may be culturally specific or entirely rational in the face of irrational and intolerable circumstances. What might happen if we allowed ourselves and others to reconnect with the full experience of being human - the moments of irrationality and madness; going through and holding each other in moments of despair, rage, exhaustion, guilt, hope and new growth; witnessing the full cycle of life in all of its magical and sometimes horrifying glory? It feels like something that we need to explore further if we  want to stay well both individually and societally. And I say this as someone who often has a hard time expressing vulnerability and big emotions. I feel things deeply, but I’ve always tended to save them up and channel them through singing and other forms of creative expression. Embodied practices, especially if they involve music, have always cut right through my defences, and I find them incredibly powerful when I need to process big or sticky emotions (hence why I coach others in finding embodied tools that work for them). I’m hopeful in general about change in relation to how we sit with, process and express difficult feelings. But a move towards widespread emotional intelligence is in direct opposition to the global rise of the far right and backslide on gender equity – fascism venerates the ‘strong man’ and seeks to shut down forms of self-awareness and communication that might lead to cooperation, inclusion and collective power. And so, we’re seeing disenfranchised communities and lost young people being encouraged to shut down any expressions of vulnerability, grief or fear in favour of turning the discomfort outwards into rage at women, at refugees, at trans people, or whoever the latest scapegoat might be. It’s depressingly familiar, in that we all learned about a similar political climate in the run up to the war that was supposed to remind us to never let this happen again. That took place in living memory for some people – it’s certainly something that profoundly affected my Jewish immigrant Gran, who was brought to Scotland at the age of four in the 1930s. She was an avid follower of world news, and I’m glad that she wasn’t able to see and understand the direction things seem to be heading in the final part of her life.

This leads me to the second reason I’ve been thinking about grief, which is the experience of collective grief over witnessing a genocide that seems to be never ending, and the criminalising of that grief in several countries, including the UK. This also feels consistent with the colonial project of shutting down communities’ own forms of expression in favour of whatever presents the least threat to the people in power. I think it’s fair to say that protesting genocide is an expression of grief. I’ve cried at almost every national march I’ve attended in the last nearly-two-years, and each time felt disbelief about needing to ask for our elected representatives to stop participating in acts that contribute to an unfathomable number of deaths. I’ve also bowed out of protests at times when it’s been too much for various reasons, and felt guilty, since showing up seems to be the very least I could do in the face of such atrocity. But this is where community becomes important – we let each other take breaks and remind ourselves that our power is in being in it together. This is something that we can apply to grief more generally too, since it can feel like such an intensely isolating experience. At this point in ‘late stage capitalism’, division is lucrative, because we’re more vulnerable and malleable when we’re isolated, and because rage creates engagement, which turns into profit. So, our resistance and our healing needs to happen in community. That’s not a particularly new or radical idea, but it feels like the sort of thing I need to remind myself of frequently in this time of chaos. And while nobody can process my grief for me, the power of being witnessed in a moment of full, messy humanity feels like it could be pretty transformative.

LGBTQIA Pride – Authentic Expression and Being Seen, Heard and Valued All Year Round

(Content warning – hate crime, discrimination, homophobia, transphobia, serious violence)

As we reach the end of Pride month, I want to reflect on what the concept means to me, the importance of being able to show up authentically, and the need to create spaces where people feel seen, heard and valued to continue all year round.

Like many in the LGBTQIA community, I’ve developed a level of cynicism about the corporate pinkwashing that characterises parades and parties that have their origins in civil disobedience and resistance to oppressive laws and discrimination. It’s a complicated picture, because on one hand, I feel extreme discomfort about marching alongside corporations involved in the arms trade, institutions that are being investigated for horrific abuses of power, and more run-of-the-mill big businesses that will drop the concern for their queer and trans colleagues the moment they change their social media banners from rainbow flags back to ‘normal’. But on the other hand, I’m well aware of the need for visibility, for antidotes to shame and stigma, and for spaces where we can show up authentically and unapologetically. And some might argue that pinkwashing is preferable to the alarming experience of seeing companies retract their public support for the LGBTQIA community through fear of upsetting powerful bigots.

Recently, working with people whose experiences of being LGBTQIA in their home countries were shockingly full of trauma and danger reminded me of how important it is to have public, joyfully resistant declarations of welcome and inclusion. And seeing queer or questioning kids attend their first Pride is always a humbling and beautiful experience that makes me so happy that they’re not growing up in times like so many of us did (Section 28 – the UK law that banned public sector bodies from discussing or ‘promoting’ LGBTQIA identities – lasted for my entire school career).

So I begin this reflection with a word of caution that’s repeated by tired members of the community every year. Performative allyship, and enjoying the glitter without engaging with the struggle that necessitated marching through cities, yelling ‘we’re here, we’re queer, we’re not going anywhere!’, isn’t helping. It’s great to show solidarity and be visibly supportive, but stigma, lack of access to healthcare, transphobic public policy, homophobic hate crime and poorer mental health outcomes (to name but a few) don’t go away when the flags are packed away for another year and the queens get out of drag.

I’m not advocating for getting rid of marches and celebrations altogether, but I’m more interested in grassroots, community level organising and thinking about how we can create spaces all year round that are based on a real desire to support people to show up authentically and know that they are safe, welcomed and valued. An intersectional approach is crucial, so it feels important to say that I’m not imagining these spaces with only the LGBTQIA community in mind. Apart from anything else, we contain multitudes and might have several minoritised identities that mean facing very specific barriers to access and forms of discrimination. I’d like to take some space to think about what those spaces might look like – what values, action and principles might be involved, and how it feels to be part of them.

When I think about what stands out to me as the important elements of Pride month that I’d like to see honoured throughout the year, the first words that come to mind are resistance, representation, rememberance and reimagining. Some of this might be at odds with the shiny, corporate approach to celebrating Pride, though I’m curious about how the idea of disrupting or ‘queering’ these spaces, at least as a first step towards deeper change.

Resistance

I had a great time at last week’s Dyke March in London, with ‘The First Pride Was A Riot’ scrawled in sharpie across the back of my jacket. This was an event that did a great job of showing joyful resistance – a combination of power, playfulness, euphoria and outrage. It encouraged us to stay connected to the origins of the Pride movement, and what we’re marching for. Maybe some of the people who show up to wave at the floats and watch the performances in their home town each summer would be horrified to think of trans people throwing bricks during the Stonewall riots, but that was the origin of today’s movement in all its shiny, corporate glory. And I hope they would also be horrified by the police brutality and human rights abuses that led to that riot in the first place. If this all seems like something that happened in a bygone era, and perhaps not so relevant today, I’d suggest that we’ve come a long way with so many rights and freedoms, and that the backlash against that progress is very real and very frightening. Keir Starmer, likely the next UK Prime Minister, has recently stated that he is against the teaching of ‘gender ideology’ in schools, effectively signalling a return to something akin to Section 28. And looking at equivalent developments in the USA and in European countries (such as restrictions on lesbians’ right to adopt in Italy) shows how easily things can change for the worse. It’s therefore essential that we protect our ability to speak truth to power, to show up in public as our authentic selves, and to protest injustice. Beyond LGBTQIA issues, there are threats to our civil liberties and freedoms creeping into our societies, and we must be able to find strength in numbers and resist. There are related ideas that we can extrapolate from this in terms of community building and organisational development too – essentially that it’s dangerous to hold too tightly to rigid and traditional hierarchies where people are afraid to speak up.

Representation

To return to the subject of Section 28, I often think about the impact of having little to no meaningful representation of people whose sexual orientation and gender identity I could relate to throughout my childhood. I didn’t understand my own identity for a long time, having had my formative years influenced by enforced silence on the subject of LGBTQIA identities, bodies and reelationships. I realise that there were many people in my generation who were joyfully, defiantly queer in the face of all of this, and who couldn’t deny who they were if they tried. But no doubt, there were at least as many of us who were confused, ill-informed and dealing with a nagging suspicion that something was ‘wrong’ about us and that it wasn’t a good idea to talk to anyone about it.

It's perhaps a cliché to say that representation matters and that ‘if you can see it, you can be it’. But there’s also a lot of value in considering who is visible in a space, a role, a community, or a position of power, and what that might do to welcome or discourage people from attempts to be part of the community, or pursue a role. It’s also worth pointing out that people who may have had to develop hypervigilant levels of sensitivity to signs of safety/danger tend to be pretty good at seeing through tokenistic attempts to ‘tick the diversity box’. Again, going through the motions from a place of compliance isn’t going to contribute much to meaningful change. But for young people, and former young people who didn’t see themselves represented in the past, seeing positive examples of people like themselves in spaces and communities can have a genuinely positive impact.

Remembrance

Pride is, in part, a celebration. But it’s also an opportunity for us to commemorate those we have lost, to remember where we’ve been and how far we’ve come, and to use this to inform ongoing action towards further change. I’d suggest that this approach, which locates us in time and place, and offers opportunities to learn from our mistakes, is a crucial part of any social movement or community. Some of the injustices and tragedies that have taken place, and continue to take place, within the LGBTQIA community are almost too overwhelming to comprehend. Losing so much of an entire generation during the AIDS crisis in the 1980s seems to have had a fairly significant impact on intergenerational learning and younger people’s engagement with their community’s history. Part of me is relieved for queer kids growing up in more recent years, perhaps being able to take many of their rights for granted, or to be unable to imagine what it might have been like not to have them. But there’s a risk of not learning from the past, not honouring those who fought for human rights and those who lost their lives, and becoming complacent. We don’t have to look very far to see how quickly and easily hard-won rights, laws and policies can be revoked, and how successfully minority groups can be made into scapegoats to distract from abuses of power. And we don’t have to look far to find very recent examples of the loss of lives as a result of violence and discrimination – I’ll be remembering young people like Brianna Ghey as I march tomorrow. These are difficult and sobering thoughts, though remembering those lost and those who came before is the least I can do in a bid to connect with our shared history.

Reimagining

It’s often the case that ideas and ways of being move from the margins to the centre, only for something new to appear outside of the norm and eventually influence mainstream culture (and/or perhaps be assimilated into it – though assimilation is a topic in and of itself). I believe that the world has a lot to learn from queer culture, and pushing the boundaries of ‘respectability’ is potentially helpful for everyone. Similarly, the stigmatising of certain bodies and what people do with them has done, and continues to do, serious harm – pushing back against this with radical inclusion is necessary and important as part of a move away from categorising some bodies as inherently better than others. Equally, we can all learn from the freedom that comes from ways of relating to each other without there being a script or template that we’ve been primed for throughout our lives. For example, how do we work out the division of labour in households where the usual gendered expectations don’t apply? Well, generally we might work it out according to ability, preference, need and so on, as opposed to social expectations based on chromosomes. I’m being a little flippant, and I realise that many people of all genders and orientations are entirely capable of non-stereotypical negotiations, but the point is that there’s freedom and a chance for Adult-Adult communication when we don’t have so much baggage from social pressures and norms. And I’d like that to be extended in so many ways beyond the LGBTQIA community – for us to reimagine what spaces and communities free from inherited and restrictive notions of gender, relationships and identity might look like. What would it be like if we all had the resources that helped us to develop the skills to work out exactly who are and what we need, and if we all felt safe enough to show up courageously and authentically everywhere we went? I hope these are questions to reflect on as we imagine what’s possible going forward, and I want to offer my gratitude to the LGBTQIA community for offering me welcoming spaces to work out who I am and show up as myself.

Essential Skills for Socially Conscious Leadership - Using the Seven Cs Model to Drive Change

In recent years, there’s been a cultural shift in many parts of the working world, from top-down, ‘command and control’ leadership to more socially conscious, collaborative approaches to leading teams. For some, this may still be seen as a fluffy optional extra or an invite to waste precious time by crowd-sourcing decision making processes. But I’d argue that developing leaders who are emotionally intelligent, skilled communicators with good boundaries and socially conscious values is a necessity, not an option. Even now, it’s often still the case that career paths can involve becoming proficient in a specific role, then being promoted into a leadership role  on the strength of experience that may or may not require good people skills. If organisations don’t invest in supporting emerging leaders to develop the relational skills necessary to support healthy, happy, successful teams, they risk their people’s wellbeing, the quality of their work and the potential for innovation and creativity. So, what are these skills and why are they important?

One framework that might be helpful in defining good social leadership is the ‘7 Cs’ – part of the social change model of leadership development created by the Higher Education Research Institute of the University of California Los Angeles. This model highlights that anyone can develop these qualities and be a leader, regardless of their position in a hierarchy. It identifies seven qualities and skills that socially conscious leaders need to have in order to succeed. They are:

Consciousness of self

Self-awareness is an important starting point in any successful endeavour, especially as it relates to being and working with others. Understanding our own preferences, needs, areas for growth and development and communication styles can help to prevent misunderstandings and conflict, as well as supporting each person in a team to play to their strengths. Of course, being aware of our own needs and preferences is only the beginning of the story. I’ve often encountered examples of leaders and teams taking quizzes to determine their communication preferences, personality structure or archetype, only to then use their findings as a way to absolve themselves of unhelpful behaviours and responses – ‘what can I do, I’m a [insert category here]!’ Don’t’ get me wrong, I’m not here to denigrate any of these categorisations – they are as useful as their application. Ideally, self-awareness will be an impetus for further personal development, asking for support where needed, and negotiating with others about how to get the best from communications with us. When I was training in Performance Psychology, my supervisor had me develop what was essentially a ‘how-to’ manual that explained the quirks, needs and preferences that might help others to work well with me. I’ve never handed over the physical document to a new contact (perhaps a slightly overwhelming prospect). But it has often been helpful for me to explain to people I line managed that, for example, my brain needs time to transition between tasks, and as such, if I’m focusing on a task and am interrupted unexpectedly with a request, my initial response might be a blank stare or a clipped tone. I’ll generally manage to mentally change gear after a minute or so, but I’ve found that it’s kinder and more efficient to negotiate ways to check my availability for a chat, rather than launching into a discussion of which I’ll miss the first few sentences. This doesn’t mean that I have no responsibility to do my part in getting the most from both my brain and my relationships with colleagues, but in this case, the thing I’ve developed an awareness of and communicated to others is related to an ADHD trait – it’s not something I can easily change. That is to say, sometimes we can become aware of a tendency, communicate it and realise that we need to make a change within ourselves. And sometimes, it’s enough to develop the awareness, communicate a need and negotiate a workaround.

Congruence

This is a core concept in many therapeutic schools of thought. It’s about honesty, integrity and alignment of thoughts, feelings and behaviours. We are social animals, evolved to be (for the most part) sensitive to social dynamics and signs of potential conflict. As such, many people are at least subconsciously aware that something feels ‘off’ when someone is being inauthentic. When our language, behaviours, body language, micro-expressions and signs of energy levels seem to contradict each other, trust can be eroded. This might call to mind the debate about ‘bringing your whole self to work’ and how much authenticity is appropriate in specific work related situations. We often have a concept of ‘professionalism’ which suggests that we should leave our real emotions and thoughts at the door in favour of a more polished version that carries less risk of conflict or discomfort. I’m a fan of diplomacy, professional boundaries and appropriate challenge, and I don’t think these are particularly at odds with an approach to leadership that gives permission and encouragement for leaders to be unashamedly human, with emotions, flaws and the ability to come back from making mistakes. This permission can help us to cultivate more congruence – we might feel more able to say things like ‘I’m really sorry – I do want to help you with this but I’m a feeling bit overwhelmed with working on task x and might struggle to give you my full attention right now. Can we find a time where we can sit down and really get stuck into problem solving the issue?’ or ‘I’m noticing a bit of resistance in myself as you talk about this idea. I think I need to go away and explore what that’s about – I don’t want to shut you down. Can you give me a bit of time to ponder it and then we can discuss it again over a coffee later today?’

Commitment

This seems like an obvious point in the context of good leadership, but commitment to the cause is essential. Given that, as previously mentioned, we’re all human, there will likely be times when we feel less motivated or more overwhelmed with our work and find it difficult to connect with our commitment. There’s a real watch-out for burnout here – if we begin to feel a sense of apathy and disconnection from the mission, vision and values we’re working towards, and struggle to find compassion for the people we’re supporting, we need to listen to the warning signs and take action (including the sort of action that leads to taking genuinely restorative breaks). But when not at risk of burning out, it’s important for leaders to be able to find and demonstrate motivation and some level of passion for their work. Personally, I was never especially passionate about management roles in and of themselves, but I’ve always loved supporting people to develop and recognise their skills, find their passion and bring their unique skills and insights to their work. I loved using a coaching approach in my leadership work, even before I trained as a coach. That passion offered enough leverage to get me through the aspects of management roles that I found less inspiring. Even in leadership contexts where the commitment isn’t related to the core activities of a business or organisation, a deep commitment to supporting people is essential.

Common purpose

Ideally, establishing shared values and purpose begins at recruitment. And it falls to leaders to support others to connect to that sense of purpose, particularly when things are feeling difficult or stuck. This can link back to congruence – it’s worth interrogating and discussing how (and indeed, if) an organisation or team’s stated values and purpose actually live beyond the pages they’re stated on. And there may be a need to establish a set of specific values, aims and purposes beyond those of a wider organisation – what do people really care about, feel motivated by and want to get out of a project? Again, the concept of leverage is often useful when motivation is low or it seems there is no end in sight – how can we connect with the wider purpose and the reasons behind our efforts? There are a couple of caveats attached to this, however: firstly, it’s important not to abuse or over-use this tactic in a bid to push people beyond what can reasonably be expected of them. Having spent around two decades working in the third sector, I’m very familiar with the ways that people’s passion for social justice can be exploited and used as a reason for being overworked and underpaid. And secondly, it feels important to inject a little realism (or perhaps cynicism?) about the realities of the working world for many people. We live under a capitalist system for the time being, and selling our labour is necessary for survival. Not everyone takes on a job out of a sense of passion for a cause, and many people prefer to show up, tackle the tasks at hand, and go home to enjoy the remaining hours in their day. So I’m not suggesting that we need everyone to demonstrate commitment to a shared purpose at all times; but if we’re thinking about the sort of work that asks for shared values and commitment to a cause, establishing a good fit at recruitment and support to connect to purpose are key. A final watch-out here is conflating shared values with groupthink – while it's important to have everyone pull together in the same direction, conformity and a restrictive sense of ‘culture fit’ can really deprive a team of diverse perspectives.

Controversy with civility

This is about appropriate challenge and leaning into discomfort without creating a hostile working environment. It’s a difficult thing to achieve and, I believe, very much worth investing the effort into. As mentioned above, a sense of common purpose doesn’t negate disagreement, conflicting needs and challenge. These will inevitably arise (and if not, that may present its own set of concerns to be addressed), and how leaders respond and help to cultivate a safe enough environment to contain them is crucial. I’ve found myself in groups of leaders where the majority view was that challenge and disagreement were negative and to be avoided at all costs. I found this deeply uncomfortable, as it seemed obvious to me that this would likely lead to festering resentments, a lack of congruence  and missed opportunities for learning and growth. I’m very committed to creating environments where difficult conversations can be held with compassion and curiosity… and yet, I’m also quite conflict avoidant, so I understand the urge to smooth things over, rather than get them out in the open. I believe that good social leadership involves being grounded, compassionate, sensitive and robust enough to make and discuss difficult decisions, to hear challenge from a place of openness, to speak up when something feels wrong or unjust and to encourage others to do likewise. ‘Civility’ in this case isn’t about polite avoidance, a stiff upper lip approach or an aversion to disagreement; but rather, might involve things like the use of ‘I statements’ (where we take responsibility for our own reactions to others and start with describing our own feelings, e.g. ‘I feel frustrated when you keep missing and pushing back this deadline, because it stops me being able to do my next task. I’d prefer it if you could give me an honest assessment of what’s getting in your way, whether you need any additional support, and when you realistically will be able to get it done’). It might involve unpacking our own sense of defensiveness when we’re challenged and taking time to formulate a more thoughtful response. It might involve some reflective work around your organisational culture around challenge and controversy.

Collaboration

Collaboration has become something of a buzzword over the years, and with good reason. There are levels of collaborative work, from consulting with and incorporating others’ ideas and views into planning a project, right through to structures with flattened hierarchies and equal decision making power. But the spirit of collaboration in any context is about genuinely valuing each person’s contribution, understanding the benefits of bringing different ideas, perspectives, experiences, skills and ways of working together, and making space for others. Sometimes, collaboration can be the most effective, efficient and energising way of working, because it can allow people to draw on their strengths and to support each other. Alternatively, it can feel slow and laborious compared to a more top-down or stoic ‘I’ll just do it myself’ approach. But the benefits tend to far outweigh the frustrations of inviting colleagues further into decision-making, planning and carrying out tasks. Multiple studies have shown that collaborative approaches increase healthy working relationships, fostering an environment where trust and good communication grow. And that collaboration supports significant improvements in innovation and business outcomes in general. What good collaboration looks like in practice will vary from team to team and from project to project – it’s worth taking time to do the groundwork around this, as well as considering factors such as whether increased responsibility within a particular project will add pressure to colleagues’ capacity (in this case, it’s worth considering how their time and workload might be protected).

Citizenship

This seems to me like the most nebulous of the 7 Cs, but it offers a valuable opportunity to think beyond the confines of the project or organisation that the socially conscious leader is part of. It’s about the leader, and the team they are part of, connecting to their wider community and society, and considering what they might contribute. How might we utilise the skills and insights that we have learned through leadership development to benefit the communities we are part of? And how might the leadership work that we are doing be part of the change we want to see in the world? It can be helpful to step back from time to time and look at the bigger picture, re-establish our goals and vision, and decide whether we need to make any changes or new commitments in service of this. However, I do acknowledge that this can feel like a huge responsibility, and am conscious of a need to work within our sphere of influence without over-stretching ourselves. It seems possible to hold both positions though – we can aim to make change on a realistic, sustainable level that protects us from burnout, while considering how this links to the bigger picture and how we might best use our skills to be a small part of bigger changes.

Is there a good time for difficult conversations?

Almost two years of intermittent lockdowns gave us opportunities to reflect on what’s working or not, challenged our assumptions about what’s possible and necessitated a bit of a review of our needs and resources, both on individual and collective levels. For many people and organisations, this has pushed a need for change and exploration of potentially challenging topics further up the agenda. At the same time, events like the murder of George Floyd and resulting groundswell of support for the Black Lives Matter movement triggered a flurry of questions about social justice and what this means for us as individuals and communities.

And yet, all of this exploration has been taking place in a context of collective trauma, burnout, grief and uncertainty. The overwhelming message I’ve heard from people returning to changed workplaces and tentatively stepping further out into the world is that they are tired and perhaps a little more fragile than usual. Sure, there are those who have flourished in recent times and (provided it’s not at the expense of others) I’m happy to hear that. But for most, a sustained period of relentless change, restriction, uncertainty and potentially trauma has had an impact. So, what do we do with a context that includes big questions and burnout? Is this a bad time for difficult conversations? Is there such a thing as a good time for them? Below, I outline what considerations might be part of a healthy and effective approach to these tricky questions.

With any significant discussion or project, I believe that contracting and checking in about how we’re doing are among the key elements for success. The bigger picture of the contracting process involves things like establishing what we’re trying to achieve by setting aside time to explore a specific theme. If everyone has a broadly similar idea of what’s expected, the risk of misunderstandings can be lessened, and there’s more opportunity to ensure genuine, informed ‘buy-in’. Beyond these broad brushstrokes, we get into the nuts and bolts of contracting – the ‘when, where, who’ and logistics. But the question of ‘when’ is more than just a logistical one. Diaries can be hard to synchronise, both in professional and social worlds at the best of times. And when we’re at our edges, scheduling takes on extra significance. Many of us have found that what had previously seemed like a manageable number of meetings, social engagements and projects now seems like a real overstretch. Stamina and expectations may have shifted, and some interactions may be more emotionally costly than they once were. With this in mind, figuring a bit of decompression time in following a difficult conversation might be particularly helpful.

Asking ourselves, ‘is this the right time’ is a matter of honestly assessing a number of factors - the purpose and how urgent it is, whether we have capacity to do the conversation justice, our energy levels and resilience, and whether there’s a chance we could be avoiding the conversation because it’s likely to be uncomfortable. A quick assessment of what the risks and benefits of tackling the issue now or saving it for later could be a good start – what might happen if you do or don’t discuss this? How far away is ‘later’? As someone who’s spent years working with my tendency to start what feels like a hundred projects at a time, put the low priority ones off until ‘later’ and then forget about them entirely, I’m well aware of the risk of using ‘later’ as an avoidance tactic. I’m writing this at the end of a tough year – looking towards a new year is often a great time to pause, reflect and set goals. So, putting things in the ‘for the new year’ pile might make a lot of sense right now – but is there a specific plan and timeframe, or are you really saying ‘too hard, not now’?

Whether addressing a possibly friendship-ending disagreement on a political issue, making difficult organisational decisions or taking steps to improve a tense working relationship, some of the underlying themes are the same. Humans are so hard-wired for belonging, that this arguably shapes all of our interactions with others and heavily influences our sense of self. Ultimately, what makes difficult conversations difficult is often related to fears of being rejected or a strong sense of ‘I’m right and you’re wrong’ – establishing an in-group and an out-group. We might worry about being judged, about causing hurt and the consequences of this, about not being heard or having our dearly held beliefs called into question. These are significant concepts, and there can be a lot of shame attached to them. We’ve evolved to cooperate or risk rejection and death – it sounds dramatic, but the parts of our brain that are first to respond to a potential threat haven’t caught up with the fact that an argument with a colleague about, say, pronouns in an email signature, generally isn’t a life-or-death situation (but an important caveat - since we’re talking about pronouns, it is worth noting that a 2018 study found that the use of correct name and pronouns significantly decreased depression and suicidal ideation in transgender youth). Knowing that we may be carrying these fears or defensive positions into a difficult conversation, and that we’re doing this at a time when we may be feeling less resilient than usual, what can we do about all of this? Here are a few tips for the difficult conversations you’ve decided you need to have now.

·        Gather your resources, work on your resilience

If you’re feeling a little tired and rough around the edges, coming into stressful situations with a well-equipped toolbox is of extra importance. Take some time to think about what helps you to be at your most present and grounded, rested, calm and confident? You might want to make a list of objects, actions, people, places, words, and consider how you might take support from them in the run up to and during a hard conversation.

·        Bring in an outside perspective

When you are enmeshed in a situation, it can be hard to step outside the perspective you’re seeing things from in the moment. In a one-to-one or group environment where everyone has a stake in the outcome, it’s understandable that things might escalate. Bringing in an outside person to hold space can be useful. I won’t say that they’d provide an ‘objective’ view – on some level, they’d be bringing their own life experience, beliefs and knowledge into the room. But what’s crucial is their distance from the outcome of the situation at hand, which can provide a wider lensed view. This is something that can be done through professional intervention (consultancy, therapy, a senior colleague from another team) or in a more informal way, if you can identify a fairly impartial person who might offer a bit of a mediating role in a personal conflict.

·        It’s worth taking the time to really connect

Recognising the common humanity underneath our differences can mitigate the urge to put everyone into ‘them’ and ‘us’ boxes – that in-group/out-group default setting. It might not make a huge impact on fundamentally different views, but I’ve found it incredibly helpful in terms of promoting listening with open minds and hearts. It’s worth considering how you’ll connect as fellow humans before you launch into the Big Topics – for example, this might be done through a check-in (with the question ‘how are you really?’ in mind), some mindfulness work or even ‘just’ space for a coffee and a chat before getting stuck in.

·        Plan what you’ll do if it goes ‘wrong’

A bit of consideration of how to deal with overwhelm can go a long way. Even with good communication and planning, sometimes trauma triggers are hit and limits are reached. It happens! Thinking about offering time-outs and breaks, the ability to renegotiate for another day if you get completely stuck and opportunities to debrief later can support you in getting back on track and prevent a situation escalating further.

So, to return to the question ‘is there a good time for difficult conversations?’, the answer is yes, there can be. And with all the right support and planning, you may find that the conversations aren’t so difficult after all.

Need support with a difficult conversation? Contact me to find out more…

Fear, Hope, Action!

New year is a time that, for many, symbolises hope. There’s the looking back and reflecting on the time that’s passed, followed by the ‘reset’ - positive intentions and desire for more of the things that went well and a chance to improve on the things that didn’t. This new year has been no different, in some ways. We all know that pandemics and political crises don’t care what date it is, and yet, we may wish to shed 2020 like a too-tight skin, casting its chaos into the past and looking towards brighter times. I’m always at my most reflective at the turn of a year – I enjoy the opportunity to pause, take stock and consider what’s next. And the extraordinary events of the last year have got me in full ‘meta’ mode – reflecting on reflecting. I’m interested in the nature and purpose of the hope that we may bring into a new cycle, and its relationship to fear. Recently, I’ve heard a few people say that they dare not allow themselves to hope, which strikes me as desperately sad. I’ve allowed myself to peek at a little crack of light coming from somewhere, but it seems dangerous to trust that the light source is the end of the tunnel. This seems at odds with my usual way of being these days – I worked for years on making cracks in my (frankly, very impressive) emotional suit of armour. There’s nothing like a persistent pandemic and its mismanagement to make me run towards the old familiar defences, I suppose! And I’m angry about some of my hope being ‘stolen’ because of a lack of competent leadership in the country I’ve moved to. I want to look ahead to thriving arts scenes, live music, hugs with friends and shared spaces, and use them as leverage to persist a little longer with the inconvenience and the fear. But it’s never long before my refrain of ‘I wonder how they’ll manage to screw it up this time’ kicks in. It reeks of powerlessness, and I don’t like to stay in that place for long. 

And so, I notice a desire to take the anger about my dashed hopes for an end to feeling scared and being trapped in a seemingly endless cycle of locking down and opening up, and channel it into action. Action may not always have predictable consequences, but it exists in the here and now, the material world. Hope and fear, on the other hand, are essentially two halves of the same phenomenon involving looking ahead. We may also feel fear during a particular event, but the anticipation of what could happen seems to account for the majority of our fear and anxiety responses. The point is that we may often look to the future with hope, fear or a combination of both – they are responses to uncertainty, and there is plenty of that around right now. 

In the last year, I’ve learned more about how I respond to risk, uncertainty and feeling powerless. I’ve taken risks that surprised me. I’ve endlessly weighed up the potential consequences of every small decision, so as to avoid causing harm to others. Sometimes I've put my foot down and advocated for my own and others’ rights, and at other times, I’ve been pulled reluctantly along a path that doesn’t feel quite right, forgetting all about my power. This range of responses will no doubt provide me with some useful information to ruminate over for a while, but what I’m left with again is the need to have both reflection and action. The next step, of course, is to figure out what that action is.  

‘Hope over fear’ is a familiar soundbite for me as I cast my mind back to 2014 - it was a central concept in the Scottish Independence campaign. I’ll try to resist the temptation of rehearsing lengthy op-eds about the differences between Brexit and Indyref, or the difference in public trust in the Scottish and U.K governments’ handling of Covid-19 for now. Suffice to say that there was a powerful moment during that campaign when young people were more politically engaged than perhaps ever before, the signs in windows, street art, community events and polls spoke of hope, and of each of us having the power to contribute to real change. I think what I want is a bit of that feeling back. I know that this particular campaign has never gone away and I remain hopeful that we’ll be successful in the end. But I don’t just wish that feeling of solidarity and change for my own country – when we’re done with staying in our homes to protect each other, I hope that we’ll find other collective, proactive ways to protect each other and hold those in positions of power to account. Even as I write this, the defensive suit of armour is whispering in my ear ‘those who are taught they’re born to rule will do anything to cling to their power’, ‘what about all the people who have shown us they don’t care about others?’ and ‘how much can you really achieve when you’re up against a system meant to benefit the few?’ But I’ve concluded that, in order to get to action, I need to hold on to hope. Not blind optimism, but a healthy mix of hope and caution, perhaps. Maybe the healthiest approach really is to allow ourselves to believe that the light we can see is the end of the tunnel. And if it isn’t, the question becomes ‘what are we prepared to do about it?’ 

Black History Month and Coercive Control in the Curriculum

Somehow, we’re well into October already. Autumn always brings the passage of time into sharp focus for me, and never more so than in this year, when so much and yet so little seems to have happened. We’ve had far more time to reflect and ruminate on global events, politics and injustices this year. October is Black History Month – something that my colleagues in a Black-led grassroots organisation welcome with caution. It’s an important step in the right direction to have a month of centring people, events and perspectives that have been wilfully erased from historical narratives. And yet, a month of focus on Black experiences before re-opening history books written by the “winners” may seem like cold comfort at a time when traumatic news of racist violence continues to abound. I find myself thinking and feeling deeply about this, though I’ll never experience that trauma first-hand.  

The vision of my coaching and consultancy work is to contribute to communities that facilitate wholehearted communication, mutuality, safety and creativity. I write and speak often about social justice issues because I cannot see a way for us to fully live according to these values and practices while systemic oppression prevails. Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about this in the context of education. While we humans are equipped with the potential to live together in ways that value our equal worth, nurture skills and talents and promote positive wellbeing, in reality this requires supportive structures and systems, practice (or learning by doing) and the tools to think critically and reflectively.  

And as we moved into Black History Month, while the modern iteration of the civil rights movement continued to fight, the U.K government launched an attack on the sort of education that will equip young people to think critically about what is included and excluded from the stories they are told by way of ‘historical fact’. While this guidance does at least ban the teaching of racist material, it does likewise for what it considers to be illegal or ‘extremist’ movements, in which it counts Extinction Rebellion, and some of this summer’s Black Lives Matter protests. Preventing schools from teaching narratives not written by the winners is a thinly veiled backlash to calls for ‘de-colonising the curriculum’.  

I’m part of the generation whose school years happened to coincide with Section 28, the legislation that banned educators from “promoting homosexuality” (for that, read “mentioning any form of queerness at all, unless explicitly condemning it”). It was revoked right around the time I finished high school. As a person who took a long time to make sense of my queer identity, I can only imagine how different things might have been for me if my education had been explicitly inclusive of all genders and sexualities, and if I'd been taught about the LGBTQI people before me who’d fought for their rights.  

The history of civil rights movements cannot be taught in a political vacuum. It would be difficult to teach Black history in this place and time without being somewhat critical of the political, philosophical, religious and (pseudo)scientific beliefs and practices that led to, for example, the transatlantic slave trade. Even those who may privately yearn for the ‘good old days’ of Empire and eugenics would not get away with explicitly voicing these views in a mainstream education setting. There is a consensus that it is acceptable to be critical of injustices that happened in the past, given that we are encouraged to hold a belief that we have made so much progress since then that nothing like this could ever happen again. But, without cultural criticism, analytical skills and the introduction of a range of philosophical concepts, how will we know whether we’re collectively sleepwalking into further atrocities? What are our young people expected to make of acts of violence against specific groups of people that are taking place right now? And who will be held to account for ensuring that the curriculum doesn’t implicitly or explicitly centre the voices of some learners over others? It’s hard for me - someone who was privileged enough to be raised and educated with more than my fair share of critical and rebellious tendencies - to see this as anything other than a cynical attempt at censorship. This is something that totalitarian regimes do, and they don’t usually do it all overnight. It’s a slow creep of human rights being eroded that always includes banning criticism of the current political system.  

I spent several years training professionals in how to teach Relationships, Sexual Health and Parenting (RSHP) Education to young people. We in Scotland moved from a tired, old curriculum that essentially encouraged victim-blaming and an over-simplistic view of consent, to a somewhat improved version that taught about moving beyond narrow gender roles, about enthusiastic consent and how to ensure you’re not engaging in coercive control (something that had recently been defined in law as a form of abuse). How ironic, then, that this latest warning to teachers in England should fall under the banner of Relationships, Sex and Health Education (RSHE), when the guidance itself seems to be a great example of coercive control. 

Having a background in youth work, I’ve always been heartened by informal education as a way to teach young people to critically engage with the world around them, especially the media and key cultural influences of the day. I’ll continue to advocate for holistic, well-funded youth provision that supports young people to have their voices heard, to build relationships of trust with adults and to learn to make sense of the world. Of course, the youth work sector has faced savage funding cuts under the current UK government too. And yet, just this week at work, I was reminded of the power of young people talking passionately about their lived experiences. I heard young, Black people speaking with clarity, rage and a wisdom that they shouldn’t have had to develop at their age. These young people, like so many others, give me hope for the future... but we can’t leave it to them to rescue the rest of us, especially since they didn’t get us into this mess in the first place. Someone needs to take responsibility for teaching history from the bottom, for inspiring the younger generations with stories of struggles for freedom that were won, no matter how small. And if this is really to be prevented in formal education settings until the current administration is finished, let’s take to social media, to community organising and to the streets to teach, learn and raise voices together. 

Psychological safety

In recent times, the term ‘psychological safety’ seems to have become something of a buzzword. Outside the therapeutic circles I tend to move in, I’ve also heard people talk about it in relation to team meetings, political disagreements on social media platforms and other situations involving groups of people. And I must say, I am pleased to hear terms like this used in popular discourse (as long as they’re meant genuinely).  

Safety is a concept that can’t have been far from anyone’s mind lately. This may be a more practical, rather than emotional form of safety – assessing the risk of a trip to the local shop during lockdown, asking ourselves ‘should I self-isolate?' when we perceive the slightest tickle in our throats, weighing up the pros and cons of meeting a friend in the park for a socially distanced catch up. These decisions might weigh heavily on the psyche for some of us. Our perception of safety, or lack thereof, is psychological. Material risks may not be directly altered by the power of our minds – they exist regardless of our acknowledgement. But our individual relationships to managing risks have a bearing on how we go on to interact with them. At the risk of shaming different approaches to dealing with Covid-19, it’s an interesting study in our different approaches to safety. From those who were furious about joggers continuing their exercise regime in public because they assessed the risk to be critical, to those who flat out denied that anything out of the ordinary was taking place and that the virus is ‘just a flu’, perception informs behaviour, and I’m not sure that I’ve ever before seen an example of this scale where our choices could so profoundly affect the lives of others.  

When I talk about psychological safety, I’m not just referring to the mental risk assessments we all regularly carry out, but they’re a crucial part of the picture. For me, psychological safety is about creating an environment where people feel emotionally safe enough* to allow themselves to be vulnerable and to be seen and heard as they truly are. The term appears in the therapy and coaching worlds because they are about self-reflection, making sense of things that have hurt us and allowing ourselves to be witnessed in a state of vulnerability. In order to feel safe enough to do this work, we need to be able to trust the person or people we’re sharing with. Our mental risk assessment might involve asking questions like ‘will they keep my story confidential?’, ‘do they have my best interests at heart?’ and ‘are they reliable?’ As someone who is trusted with the gift of other people’s stories, emotions and thoughts, I take the responsibility of building a safe enough environment for my clients very seriously. This influences the physical environments I work in, how I set up and contract at the beginning of a relationship with a client, how I organise my time in order to be consistently available and how I respond to clients in session. Occasionally, things go wrong in a client-coach relationship – with enough rapport, trust and safety built up, we can move past any misunderstandings and use them as a powerful learning process.  

This way of thinking has influenced how I am outside of my professional practice. I tend to be acutely aware of how psychologically safe a given situation feels, and will adjust my choices accordingly. I should also add that I am a naturally risk-averse person. Or perhaps it’s less ‘natural’ and more learned. I grew up in a family that had endured an unusual amount of tragedy by the time I came along. My life, health and safety were upheld as the most precious commodity – not to be squandered by doing dangerous things. Of course, there were times in my youth when I rebelled against this as hard as I possibly could. But the tendency to shy away from risk remains. It’s something I work to override when I perceive a risk to be worth taking.  

And so, as we cautiously creep out of our homes after three months of relative isolation, my risk assessment process threatens to go into overdrive. While large gatherings are not yet permitted in London, there will soon come a time when I need to use the city’s notoriously busy public transport system. The question of trust appears in this context as I consider whether those running services will prepare adequately to manage risks, whether I can trust my fellow commuters to take necessary precautions and whether the ‘powers that be’ are offering sensible guidance (I’ll let you guess my take on that last question). And hopefully, before too long, it will be safe to congregate in larger groups again. I imagine that, in our first forays into a wider social life, many of us will experience feelings of elation, relief and a new appreciation for experiences we may have previously taken for granted. But I also expect there to be anxiety and awkwardness for those of us who tend towards a more cautious relationship with risk. How can we reach a place where we feel able to trust not only the people closest to us, but the people we share cultural and physical space with? How do we build psychological safety on a grander scale? This question feels especially pertinent in the current climate of oppression being brought fully into the light, civil unrest and resistance. And it’s one that I do not claim to have an answer to, but we can start with a moment of self-reflection. We can ask ourselves questions like ‘what makes me feel safe and why?’, ‘how do I react when I feel threatened?’ and ‘how do I react when my view of the world is challenged?’. An honest examination of these questions may yield some hard truths. It can be helpful to discuss these with someone we feel psychologically safe with. I believe that getting to know what makes us feel safe and why we feel, think and act the way we do is at least the first step towards collective safety and from there, on to healing the deep rifts in our societies. 

*I refer to ‘safe enough’ or ‘safer spaces’, rather than ‘safe spaces’ because we can only take steps that contribute to another person’s sense of safety. We can’t create it for them. If someone has a deep internal sense of being unsafe due to trauma, we can mitigate by building enough trust and a secure enough environment for them to begin working on this. It’s neither transparent, nor realistic to claim that “you will feel safe here”.