Sharing and taking up space in the world – how do we move past a scarcity mindset?

There are 8.3 billion people in the world, and several perspectives on whether this rock is big enough for all of us. If we zoom out, we may have to reckon with a correlation between population growth and the destruction of our home planet, though that might tell us at least as much about a capitalist approach to extracting, creating or sharing resources as it does about an inherent relationship between people and planet. Closer to home, we’re living through a turbulent political time where there is widespread encouragement to view the ways in which we share space and resources with fellow humans through a lens of scarcity and fear. Far-right narratives encourage fear and exclusion of those positioned as ‘other’, prompting many to shrink themselves for the benefit of a wealthy minority intent on claiming more space. I’m interested in exploring the ways that we share and take up our space in the world, and how we might begin to protect against a scarcity mindset in relation to this. Join me on a meander through considerations of sharing space and migration, gender roles, wealth and status, and how social change can begin with looking at things from different angles.

‘There’s not enough for everyone’ is a political choice, not a material reality

There are enough resources globally to meet everyone’s needs. The real issue is distribution - a fact that’s widely accepted but rarely sparks outrage or calls for change. In a predictable ‘tale as old as time’, attention has been diverted away from the few who have amassed enough wealth to eradicate global poverty, and pointed squarely at those who are already marginalised and navigating extreme danger in hopes of eventually reaching safety. The anger and fear being directed at asylum seekers and refugees may not be new, but the context in which it currently exists is. What’s new is the amount of money being thrown at anti-immigration campaigns from domestic and international sources, the technology available to support the rapid spread of disinformation, and the implosion of clearly defined political positioning (see for example, the Labour Party in the UK rushing to make policies that were further to the right on immigration than their Conservative predecessors). Counter-messaging may need to up its game in order to be heard above the well funded and emotive cacophony of hate.

At the risk of entering into a political diatribe about the policing of borders, I feel it’s probably worth addressing the question of how we know when a country is ‘full’, and what decisions are made on the basis of this. There tends to be a dearth of factual information about levels of migration into and out of a country, birth rates, ageing populations, and investment in infrastructure when arguments are being made for further restricting immigration. The intention is to engage people on an emotional level, and it works because of a sense of there not being enough to go around. That seems like an obvious assumption to make when people are choosing between heating and eating, struggling to find work and living in poor housing conditions. When people express fears of overcrowding, it’s almost always an expression of a sense of scarcity regarding public services, job and housing. There may be another conversation to be had about the uneven pressure on services and economies, with more urban areas often experiencing more poverty and issues with infrastructure, alongside a bid to protect what remains of a country’s green spaces from the impact of high human population. There are also inconsistencies around which communities and areas are invested in or neglected. But, ultimately, this issue boils down to economics and political decision making about what is invested in and what is cut.

The UK’s housing crisis persists, even as nearly a million homes in England stand empty or serve as second residences. A ‘lack of social housing stock’ is an expression of political will, not a material reality – social housing stock will exist if the government of the day invests in it. While there may be ‘no magic money tree’, there is an abundance of funding available for things that may be less popular with the voting public, yet more attractive to key political allies (the most obvious and controversial being contributions to wars and illegal occupations elsewhere in the world).

We’re served a sense of inevitability about this system, which likely makes us feel powerless. The people making political and economic choices are too powerful to be stopped – the mega-rich can get away with anything if they throw enough money at the problem. So, where does that leave us? Perhaps in search of someone else to take the fight to – someone we can win against. This is how despots have used scapegoating to redirect anger towards a vulnerable minority throughout history, and apparently, it still works.

If we feel confident that it’s possible to fairly distribute resources and access to public services (which are disproportionately staffed by ‘immigrants’) among all those who need them, we have no reason to fear losing what we have to anyone newly arrived. What reframing would it take to believe, and behave as if, there is actually enough space and resource for all of us? This is a conversation I’d like to hear in political spaces.

Taking up your space – how we embody or resist our assigned roles

I’ll be honest – this piece began in my head as a rant about ‘manspreaders’, and later morphed into something a little loftier about how humans negotiate sharing space in the world. London commutes in recent years have seen me choosing passive aggressive sighing over potential confrontation (or having to touch the offending manspreader). For the uninitiated, the term ‘manspreading’ refers to men taking up more than their allocated amount of space in public by sitting with legs spread wide in what seems reasonably interpreted as a show of casual dominance. It’s a minor issue on the face of it, but I’m interested in the ways in which we embody the roles we’ve been given in life via the accident of birth, and the interplay between how much space we feel entitled to take up and social hierarchy. This is not a new concept - feminist and anti-racist discourse has had much to offer about the idea of shrinking ourselves to avoid appearing threatening to those who hold a kind of social power that, on some level, they know is fragile. That fragility can be dangerous, and so those of us in female, Black, Brown, queer, trans, disabled and other marginalised bodies often learn – consciously or unconsciously – to make those bodies as small and convenient as possible when faced with potentially dangerous situations. And of course, there has been a tennis match of backlash in response to this – one notable example being the game of ‘patriarchy chicken’ that some women have documented as a way to test how often they would collide with men while walking in public if they didn’t give way to them (spoiler – the answer is ‘very often’).

I’m concerned and curious about the ways in which social divisions and a return to restrictive ideas about gender might calcify some of these embodied expressions of role and power, and the potential for violence as a response to non-conforming self-expression and claiming of space. This policing of norms, bodies and entitlement to space in the world comes straight from the fascist playbook. And while I don’t want to advocate for anyone to put themselves at risk of harm, I feel that we must continue to work on taking up our space in the world, letting others take theirs, expressing ourselves authentically, and pushing back on archaic roles and power dynamics.

Lawns, legroom and lobbies - social hierarchy in measurable terms

Literal space in the world, in the form of land, has been available to acquire through purchase or invasion throughout most of human history. This is a concept that might feel inevitable, in spite of its absurdity when we zoom out from it. We exchange our labour for currency, a human construct that (in contemporary times) fluctuates in value according to the whims and anxieties of professional gamblers. We hope that this exchange of labour and currency will allow us to say that a slice of the planet we live on belongs to us to do with as we please (local planning regulations permitting). The more value our labour is deemed to be worth by mysterious market forces and the social structures that influence them, the more space we are permitted to occupy. The value assigned to specific forms of labour doesn’t necessarily bear any relation to its social or environmental impact – what’s valued most is potential for further economic growth. So, taking up a lot of space in the world may be considered to be a reward for contributing to companies’ profits and the overall profits made on of a larger patch of land.

In contemporary society, buying a space to call home is increasingly inaccessible. For many of us, the aim is to take up the space that we need in order to live a comfortable and peaceful life. But the number of square feet we can call our ‘own’, and other forms of entitlement to space have also been status symbols throughout history. Take, for example, the humble suburban lawn. This patch of trimmed grass isn’t traditionally designed to support biodiversity, to grow food, or even necessarily to be occupied by its owners. It’s often an extension of the home that is maintained and observed, but doesn’t offer much functionality. Lawns originated as status symbols among the upper classes and, even today, modest lawns serve as displays of wealth—often in climates ill-suited for them. The point of this example is not to berate anyone who meticulously maintains a small patch of grass, but to step back from social norms and markers of status and look at them with curiosity. Disentangling ourselves from the idea of inevitability in the ways we organise our lives (both in private and in community) offers an opportunity to start imagining how things could be different, and what we might want that to look like.

Another example of this ‘space as status symbol’ phenomenon is the hotel or corporate office lobby. These are spaces whose practical function doesn’t necessarily tally with their square footage or their grandeur. They exist to let people know immediately that they are entering a prestigious, important and/or expensive space. The impact of this may be a sense of importance, power and belonging, or a feeling of exclusion (if not, in some cases, a more literal experience of exclusion). We can communicate a lot about who is or isn’t welcome in a space, and how we would like them to feel, through the ways in which we present and organise that space. This is not news to designers, architects, or city planners, but may be a consideration to bear in mind for those of us creating spaces that we wish to be welcoming and inclusive, often on a far more modest budget than a luxury hotel owner.

And now, to air travel… Each time I’ve flown over the last few years, I’ve found myself expressing the same frustration. I’m a pretty small person, but I’m convinced that the amount of space available to me on economy flights is reducing a little with every trip (no, it’s not me expanding). The shift of functional services and relative comfort from standard to premium is a common feature of life in the 2020s. This reminds me of ‘enshittification’ - a corporate tactic of initially offering quality before degrading it and raising prices, while pushing competitors out of the market. A version of this applies to leg room and seat space on flights. I remember complaining about having splashed out for ‘economy plus’ on a flight and apparently being put in a cramped economy seat. When the actual economy seats in the back half of the plane were pointed out, I was reluctantly glad not to be a six foot person who’d spent upwards of £1000 to be crammed into a child sized seat for eight hours. This was an airline I’d flown with a few years previously, and the difference was jarring. What’s interesting about this is the sense of scarcity and acceptance of declining standards around access to space and comfort. In a struggling economy, companies will take whatever action they deem necessary in order to stay afloat, including packing people into spaces like sardines. I’m curious to see how far we will go in accepting the widening division between those who can afford comfort, space and functional services (both commercial and public), and those who have their access to experiences cut off or limited by miserable conditions, long waits and increasing inconvenience. Since my expertise lies in the social, rather than the economic field, it’s difficult to imagine an effective solution for this. But I’m interested in what progressive and creative experts have to say on the matter, and I’m aiming to stay curious about what’s possible, rather than let my lack of knowledge lead me back to a sense of powerlessness and inevitability.

Abundance mindset – what looks different through this lens?

With all of these weighty social issues in mind, it might feel overwhelming to tackle questions of what’s possible as an alternative to a competitive, fear based approach to sharing the world with other humans. We’re not going to revolutionise embedded systems and perspectives easily, quickly or singlehandedly. But if we zoom all the way back in to our own thought processes (and how we communicate them to others), there is a starting point that could be both achievable and encouraging.

I’m using the concepts of ‘scarcity mindset’ and ‘abundance mindset’ here as a way to frame different ways of looking at the world. But I don’t use them uncritically – these are ideas that might lend themselves to over-simplification and stigmatising people for their experiences of structural inequality, so it’s important that they’re offered and considered with nuance and an acknowledgement of the two way relationship between how we think and the systems and cultures we are living in.

A scarcity mindset tells us that there is not enough to go around – this may be about physical space, housing, food, public services, jobs, money etc., but also may be applied to more relational concepts like power, love, being seen and heard, time and attention. If our baseline is a sense of scarcity, an obvious survival response may be to fiercely guard our resources, shut others out and compete for more. We might need to tell ourselves or be told various stories in order to position this as ‘fair’ and maintain our sense of ourselves as ‘good people’. Even though we’ve evolved to survive through cooperation, the amygdala-driven instinct to narrow our focus for our own survival can be powerful, hence populists successfully connecting with this response in disillusioned people, no matter how many times we say ‘never again’.

Conversely, an abundance mindset is similar to a growth mindset, in that it assumes that there is enough to go around and that we have the capacity to access the resources we need. It’s a focus on the possible, which tends to encourage us towards action because it positions us as powerful. It’s easy to see why economic crises, oppression and deteriorating living conditions make it harder to cultivate an abundance mindset – in these situations, evidence, experience and exhaustion tell us that we’re not powerful, and that resources are scarce and inaccessible. Spending the time and energy on reflecting and cultivating an abundance mindset might feel like a luxury when we’re in survival mode. But perhaps it’s a good, preventative practice to get into before we hit survival focused tunnel vision. Change starting with a belief in what’s possible is a cliché, but also an important aspect of human psychology. One of my favourite coaching questions is ‘what would you do if you did believe [insert relevant growth focused belief]?’ Imagining and outlining the steps towards a goal doesn’t guarantee success, but it’s a good starting point from which to look for ways around barriers, keep motivation alive and catalyse change. I’m not advocating for some bootstrap capitalist approach (no doubt, that’s obvious from the mini manifesto above) – it’s not about the power of the individual to improve things for themselves. It’s about taking the time, space and energy to reimagine what sharing the world with others could look like, even when time, space and energy feel scarce. And sharing ideas and imaginings with others may be another step towards changing things for the better – as interdependent creatures, we have so much capacity to make apparently impossible things happen when we tackle them together.

‘So what is it that you actually do?’ – Stories from a coach and facilitator with a niche job title (Part 1)

I have a confession to make. I sometimes dread the question ‘what do you do?’, because my work might sound like a very specific niche that I need to spend some time explaining. I offer services based on concepts like ‘embodied communication’, though I realise that they may be unfamiliar for a lot of people. So, in the interests of practicing what I preach and communicating authentically, here is an explanation of some of the things I actually do in my professional life.

I’ve spent many years working in the charity sector, part of which has involved considering and discussing how to make services more inclusive, fair and easy to access for service users, staff and volunteers. Sometimes, it also involved discussing our response to global and local events and injustices. These conversations and reflections ranged from life affirming, to awkward and uncomfortable, right through to downright traumatic. Conflicts and competing needs could arise, even in close knit, emotionally intelligent teams. We sometimes found ourselves grappling with shame, guilt or defensiveness as we considered privileges given to us by society at large; and conversely, we may have experienced fear, anger or exhaustion if marginalised elements of our own identities were up for discussion. I vividly remember the emotional intensity of discussing gender as a social construct and gender roles in the workplace with one team I was very invested in working with. And the discomfort of reckoning with my own white privilege in an organisation where I was one of two white team members (and also in a position of authority). I learned a lot from spending so many years in environments where we were all so invested in social issues, but still struggled at times to formulate what felt like a ‘good enough’ response.

Meanwhile, on my days off, I was training in various body and psychology focused modalities. I’d experienced these as a client, working with performance psychology practitioners on recovering from a vocal fold injury and slowly learning to trust my body to help me to communicate clearly again. I learned to tune into physical sensations, to give myself physical support and to regulate my Autonomic Nervous System when I found myself in a nerve-wracking, emotionally charged or even exciting situation. Initially, this was focused on supporting performance and public speaking, but it soon became clear that these techniques were useful in other aspects of life and communication. I started to notice subtle physical warning signs during difficult conversations, and respond to them in order to prevent escalating into unproductive and stressful conflicts.

When I set up my full time coaching and consultancy practice in 2020, I seemed to fall into Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) work as one of my main areas of focus – partly because of my experience in this area, and partly because so many people and organisations were thinking about issues related to this in the wake of the murder of George Floyd and other horrific events that brought structural inequalities sharply into focus while the world went into lockdown. A theme that quickly emerged in my work was a palpable sense of anxiety around confronting complex and difficult topics related to power, privilege and identity. There was often ambivalence or resistance among people in positions of authority and those with societal privilege – sometimes based on a sense that perhaps they were going to be shamed or ‘told off’ for things that may be out of their control. And there could also be a question for people with any role or identity about whether a group environment in the workplace was a psychologically safe enough space in which to openly and honestly discuss any challenges related to inclusivity, accessibility and fairness. I found that it was getting increasingly difficult to get a group of professionals together in a room to discuss these issues or, in fact, anything else that required quite a lot of vulnerability, risk and trust in order to be tackled well. Some initial projects I facilitated that had an EDI focus moved painfully slowly, as leadership teams tried to decide how invested they were in this work. This could be frustrating, but it was also important to accept the pace of change, and it also offered me some further learning.

These experiences led me to become really interested in how I might use the resources available to me from the world of body focused, trauma-informed work to help set up the conditions for difficult conversations in groups and teams. One way to offer this might be through individual coaching with leaders, with an element of focus on deepening awareness of the client’s communication preferences, physical warning signs of overwhelm, triggers, assumptions and preferred resources for getting calm and grounded. Another is to work in a group setting, taking time to co-create a space where people feel enough of a sense of rapport, calm and safety to tackle difficult conversations with courage and honesty. This can be a big ask, particularly in an organisational setting where not everyone is on board with either the subject matter or the addition of my approach to holding space for it. In an ideal world, I would focus on people who want to be there – if something feels forced or coercive, it’s much less likely to be effective. But sometimes, people have felt able to give voice to their resistance, and exploring what’s behind that can be powerful. I really appreciate it when people can show up and say how they’re really feeling, rather than feeling pressure to conform to social expectations and telling me what they think I want to hear. Of course, there are limits to how people’s real feelings might be helpfully communicated, and we’ll have created a group contract that outlines how we will attempt to create a compassionate, courageous environment during sessions. But discussing feelings of reluctance, resentment, anxiety or uncertainty, and doing a bit of myth busting early on in a piece of work can be a good way into authentic communication. And I’ve had people who were deeply sceptical at the outset offer some of the most usefully challenging and insightful contributions to a conversation, and also sometimes tell me that they felt very differently by the end of a session.

Part of what I do in sessions involves offering people ways to tune into their bodies and sit with how they’re really feeling underneath the social veneer that we tend to bring to professional situations and groups where we don’t have established, comfortable relationships. For some, this might feel like a risky approach – particularly if they’ve been working hard to keep emotions out of the way in case they ‘splat all over the walls when the lid comes off’, or if they feel a general sense of disconnect from their body. It’s really important to offer choices, adaptations and ways of letting everyone involved know that they are in control and are encouraged to do what they need to do in order to keep safe. Another simple strategy that can be helpful is an extended process of checking in to share a bit about how everyone is feeling and what’s on their mind as we form our group and ‘land’ in the space. This has two purposes – helping everyone to feel more focused and present, and also reminding us all that everyone here is a fellow human who might have had a stressful time with public transport, a joyful school drop-off, or a frantic rush out of the door with toast in hand before arriving to a session. We might also explore different ways of connecting with each other, and creative approaches to reflecting on subjects that might bring up fear or other difficult emotions.

It's important to draw a distinction between this type of work and therapy – that’s not to say that there can’t be therapeutic elements. But it’s helpful to inject an element of lightness into discussions that can get heavy at times, and to emphasise that, while all of our emotions are welcome in the space, the aim is to notice them and sit with them, then move to a place of working out where we collectively go from here. If things get particularly intense, there may be a need for reflection and support beyond the scope of the session. I learned this early on in my journey as a freelance facilitator – sometimes, I was asked to come into organisations where conflicts were all-encompassing and raw, and found that there was a need to be very clear about the scope of the work and what we could hope to achieve in a space where emotions ran high and traumatic experiences were very recent. It’s also helpful to pay special attention to rapport building, even in groups where everyone (with the exception of me as facilitator) knows each other. Deepening trust is one of the keys to encouraging authentic, courageous communication.

I’ve worked with teams on subjects including making a women’s space more trans-inclusive, exploring why specific groups are critically under-represented in an organisation, tackling white fragility, and discussing staff members’ anger at a ‘sticking plaster approach’ to vicarious trauma and burnout. I really appreciate being part of a group where there is a real willingness to meaningfully take on sensitive topics, rather than keep things compliant, operational and superficial. It’s a privilege to have people share their thoughts, feelings, ideas and challenges in a way that can sometimes be risky. And I’m delighted every time I see, hear or feel a difference in the atmosphere in the room, or the depth of communication after I’ve supported participants to connect with themselves and each other with curiosity and compassion.

If this sounds like it might be useful for you or a team you’re part of, why not book a free exploratory call?

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.

Preventing burnout: Coping Strategies for Witnessing Atrocities

Understanding the Impact of Witnessing Atrocities

The world feels like a scarily inhumane place to live right now. Just when I think I can’t be any more shocked by the cruelty of another act of internationally sanctioned violence, a heartless national policy closer to home or a story I’m told by a client, friend or stranger, something new appears and ups the ante. I was hesitant to write about how those of us fortunate enough to be observing tragedy and brutality from a safe distance might be feeling. But, if we’re deeply impacted by what we’re observing in the world and moved to try to be part of the change, we must have opportunities to pause, process and get back out there in any way we can. The same is true whether we’re campaigning against systemic violence, leading a project that poses a risk of vicarious trauma or considering how we engage with and communicate about the information we’re able to access round the clock via social and traditional media. Let’s explore how we might prevent burnout, overwhelm, normalising what may once have shocked us, and feeling frozen with guilt or shame.

The most pertinent example of this for me right now is my response to witnessing seven months of genocide. I feel a sense of obscenity about the fact that, for me, life goes on more or less as normal when I’m not engaging with this horror. Many professionals working in frontline services and people who have lived through ongoing traumatic events can attest to how quickly the unthinkable can start to feel normal. We’re an incredibly adaptable species, with a need to make sense of our environments and the capacity to do what needs to be done in order to survive. Our brains are wired for energy saving wherever possible, and there’s a finite amount of energy available to stay in a place of shock, fear, anger, disgust and so on. And so, we may start to become numb, to distance ourselves from the costly business of feeling. If we’re very lucky, we may also be able to look away, and to avoid engaging with things that are happening to ‘others’. It’s an understandable response, and none of us should be put in a situation where we’re forced to reckon with the horrific choices made by fellow humans on a day to day basis. But something I look out for in my emotional world is a sense that the unfathomably awful images I’m seeing each day online might be starting to feel normal. It’s a sign that I’m reaching capacity and need to clear some space to process my emotions before I re-engage. Yes, that’s a privilege in itself – for anyone in literal survival mode, this is not an available luxury. But as allies, we’re of limited use to those we want to support if we’re burned out, numb or stuck. Using the resources we have and leaning on community to step in when we need to step away is crucial.

Compassion fatigue and vicarious trauma can be rife in systems that are under-funded, under-appreciated and over-subscribed. Taking on responsibility for too many people and too many projects can mean dangerously high stress levels for all, and a sense of distancing that starts to threaten empathy, mentalisation[1] and the capacity to see others as fellow, flawed humans who are probably doing their best. There are obvious structural solutions to this problem in the form of well funded public services including high quality training and support. So, when we’re not applying political pressure on this issue, what can we do about burnout and vicarious trauma prevention for leaders, campaigners and anyone who feels called to do something about the horrific events they’re witnessing?

COPING STRATEGIES for change and resilience

Firstly, some form of pressure valve can be invaluable. This can take many forms, from reflective practice spaces, to grief circles, embodied practices and space to share our thoughts, feelings and experiences with others who ‘get it’. It’s also important that these opportunities to let go, feel, express and reflect are contained and limited. We can’t get stuck in grief, despair, hopelessness, fear or anger, though it’s important to acknowledge, rather than suppress them. Knowing that there’s a specific time and space to let off some steam can help us to get through the day. In my experience, a well held space with a managed transition back into day-to-day activities is very much worth the required resources. That transition from engaging and expressing back to a more contained place might involve activities and tools that intentionally change the energy in the space and reconnect us with our capable, Adult selves before we dive back into whatever needs to be done. The timing, frequency and format of pressure valve activities deserve some careful consideration. And crucially (especially in a workplace environment), all involved need to feel safe enough to show up authentically and express what they need to express. If this doesn’t feel possible, there may be wider cultural issues to address within the team or group.

Perhaps that sounds easier said than done, especially if what people are processing involves deeply divisive and potentially traumatic themes. What do we do about competing needs? There are no magic wands here, sadly. It’s crucial that people are able to set and maintain their own boundaries, rather than feeling coerced into participating in something that doesn’t feel right for them – feeling ‘done to’ can often be a contributing aspect to the onset of burnout. One organisation that I work with offers separate (optional) reflective spaces for people of different identities, as well as spaces open to all – this may be a helpful approach to potential divisions and concerns about psychological safety in some cases. In any situation where discussions of sensitive topics might be encouraged, it’s advisable to have a strong and compassionate group agreement or shared set of values that everyone signs up to. How challenge and conflict might be met is a helpful consideration here.

‘We fight, we rest and we rise’ - taking breaks and re-engaging

(Jenny Moore)

When it comes to engaging with disturbing news, images and first hand accounts of violent and traumatic events, what’s the ‘right’ level of engagement? The potentially negative impact of excessively consuming social media isn’t a new or radical concept. I believe it might often be oversimplified or overstated, but I’m also aware of what my own experience tells me. It’s important to step away, to try to avoid the ubiquitous doomscrolling habit, and to give our eyes and brains a break from the never ending stream of new information and artificial blue light. We must apply the usual ‘put your own oxygen mask on first’ advice and look after our own health, listen to our bodies and let our minds rest. And yet, this is balanced with regular calls on those of us watching atrocities from a distance to ‘not look away’. Daily access to video footage, pictures and first hand accounts of horrific cruelty is a new concept, and brings an additional sense of responsibility, since we can’t claim to have been unaware. We’re being asked to witness, to mobilise, to see people’s humanity and recognise the value of their lives. For many of us, what we witness will feel like too much to bear or believe, and what we can offer will feel woefully inadequate. But we can witness to the best of our ability and capacity, taking space to re-energise where we need to and then re-engaging. Sometimes we need to look away for a moment, while perhaps connecting with gratitude that we are fortunate enough to do so. There’s an important distinction here between gratitude and guilt or shame. Sometimes, what we feel grateful for is an unearned privilege – something we’re lucky to experience or avoid due to the accidents of birth, time and place. Acknowledging that luck doesn’t necessarily have to lead to feeling guilty about it, though that’s an obvious next step (as is defensiveness, at times). The thing that’s so difficult to face is that occupation, war, famine, pandemics and so on could happen to any of us at any time. We may hope that, if it happened to us, that those not directly affected might step in and help. We’d probably want them to be as well resourced as possible, to be compassionate, informed and ready to roll up their sleeves and take any action, big or small, that might contribute to our survival and eventual return to thriving. We probably wouldn’t want them to be burned out, numb, paralysed with guilt or fear of doing the wrong thing or so overwhelmed and in denial that they refuse to acknowledge what they’re seeing.

building community support networks

When we’re feeling powerless, one of the solutions may once again be found in community. Creating spaces to decompress and share our experiences with others can help to relieve some of the heaviness of witnessing trauma, and in turn, can re-energise us for the onward journey. And when we’re feeling powerless, we can celebrate the small moments of shared humanity where we find them. We can remind each other of times that unbearable cruelty and oppression were forced to come to an end through political and financial pressure that millions of people came together to contribute to in their own ways, however small.

Resources & references

If you are feeling overwhelmed or experiencing burnout/vicarious trauma, please seek support:

Contact me to find out if I can help

Visit https://www.mind.org.uk/

 Self-care resources by TARSHI

Support for Palestine:

Gaza Emergency Fund

Medical Aid Palestine

Palestine Solidarity Campaign

‘We Fight, We Rest, We Rise’ (Jenny Moore/F Choir)

[1] Mentalisation is the ability to imagine what another person may be thinking and feeling

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. 

"Speak the truth, even if your voice shakes"

 So much of my work is about voice, from singing and performing, to having the confidence to speak up for self and others, and speaking your truth to power. This is a moment in time when the power of collective voice is being felt around the world. 

It has been a momentous and traumatic few weeks. At a time when so many people continue to deal with the effects of a pandemic, it seems that each passing hour now brings news of more racism, police brutality and denial of human rights. These are by no means new issues, but we are living through a historic moment of heightening tension and resistance that I hope will be the catalyst for lasting change. 

I hold the privilege of living a life free from fear of racist violence, abuse and discrimination. I am acutely aware of how the pain and anger I experience as I watch from a distance is a fraction of what I’d be feeling if the violence and oppression being brought sharply into focus was being aimed at ‘people like me’. I can choose to switch off, step back and spend time considering how to be a good ally. When there are structures in place that have systematically oppressed a group that you are part of, switching off may not seem like a possibility.  

Being in some version of lockdown at a significant political moment like this gives those of us with white privilege the gift of time to learn, think, support and recharge. The ‘recharge’ element of supporting social change is important because we are in this for the long haul. There will be backlash. There will be steps forward and back. It will require courage to keep pressing forward, raising our voices and demanding change. It will take an enormous amount of energy, though the more we share the load, the less draining it stands to be. Those of us who are not directly affected by a particular form of inequality can help by taking some of the load of challenging, sharing/amplifying and putting pressure on those in power, in order to let the people who are directly dealing with this trauma rest. I feel it’s crucial that we don’t turn away from the discomfort... even though growing can really hurt and so much of what we’re seeing is horrific to watch, it must be acknowledged. But to keep that stamina up and look after our mental health, we all need to take time to recharge. We all deserve support and good health. And the struggle needs us to be in good health and good voice. For me, recharging means taking breaks from social media, news, protests and petitions to do things that energise or soothe me - from singing or breathing to taking baths and watching escapist series. It also means connecting with like-minded people, in order to feel sane, seen and heard. It involves being gentle with myself if I’ve ‘got it wrong’, while still committing to do better.

I’d also like to acknowledge that it’s Pride month. The struggles against racism and homophobia/biphobia/transphobia are inextricably linked. In the U.K, transgender people are facing very vocal discrimination, and their existence is being denied by those with positions of huge power. Again, I have privilege here as a cisgender, queer woman. I believe it was a cynical move for JK Rowling to take space away from the demands for an end to oppression by speaking out against another marginalised group (many of whom are doubly discriminated against due to ethnicity and trans identity). Much of my work over the years has been about supporting transgender young people to feel accepted, able to speak up and be seen. These are basic human needs and I will stand up against anything that threatens them in any way I can.  

I am aware of how many words I have used here – partly as a way to process my own feelings and partly because there is so much to discuss. I want to avoid taking any more space away from people whose voices need to be amplified louder than mine. In the end, it comes down to a plea for us to educate ourselves, be courageous enough to speak out against injustice even if our voices shake, and to stay safe and well.  

Resources and ways to support:  

Ways to support BLM https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/ 

Ways to support BLM UK https://blmuk.carrd.co/ 

Free therapy for Black people https://www.blackmindsmatteruk.com/ 

Opinion piece on black trans rights https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/when-black-lives-matter-black-trans-people-must-be-freed-ncna1228316 

Round up of BLM reading, resources & Black owned businesses https://thefword.org.uk/2020/06/the-f-words-suggested-list-of-blm-reading-and-resources/ 

Charity for trans children & young people https://mermaidsuk.org.uk/ 

LGBT campaigning charity https://www.stonewall.org.uk/