Changemakers Lab Module 1: Navigating my purpose

In the highs and lows of life, it is easy to get distracted by detours. Perhaps it is a side-effect of my ADHD brain, but I often follow detours for long periods of time and have happily ended up as a multipotentialite. As with everything else, this has pros and cons. 

While I have certainly led an interesting life full of art and music, facilitation and movement, (these days I spend long periods birdwatching with my binoculars) I need tools to help me stay the course.

One of the tools from Ana's module focused on following a compass of questions to return to again and again. In thinking about these questions, I have found more clarity about why Circles of Diversity is important to me, why I choose to manifest my dreams for a better world in this particular way of creating peer support spaces, and what my skills and interests are that resonate with the work I want to do.

The questions and answers below offer some insight into where I am situated in this particular time and space. I hope to return to them again and again to regain my understanding of my vision and values.

Why am I doing this?

Life is complex. I spent years trying to figure out one problem after another only to realize that all major problems are entangled together in a mess that’ll need all of us. All people, all animals, birds, plants and fungi. I can’t imagine being able to solve it all but for me, togetherness in moving forward is foundational. 

There used to be village communities that held each other up. Now that we are isolated in nuclear spaces with more wealth and less connection, there are spaces in the heart that cannot be filled with things. Only connection can bridge that gap and allow feelings to emerge so that they don’t drown and subsume us, controlling us before we are able to control our behaviour.

I experience this loneliness and isolation on an ongoing basis, and find vulnerability and sharing to be key components of finding deep empathic spaces. Sometimes showing up even when it feels scary can ease the pain and replace it with some warmth. I want to find ways to make space like this for more community for myself and for others.

To what end?

I have seen that intersectional marginalities often struggle so much more, often going numb or volatile. As a brown, neurodivergent third world kid who’s queer and mixed caste, I experience this first-hand, bumping into one trauma after another and finding myself unable to grow, paralyzed by the voices in my own head. 

I want to share ways that I have learned to cope with these demons. I want to learn from others what they have learned. I want us to grow together and face them consistently. Life is not a two-hour movie - it keeps going. A continuous support space available for people of all kinds to find rest and connection can be vital to ongoing healing as the work of transformation continues on all levels. 

Why do I care?

I had to learn from scratch because intergenerational trauma was so strong in my family. I have been gathering tools for decades now, and still I regularly collapse in waves of growth and paralysis. There are times I create grandly, times I cannot associate with my work at all. All these parts are mine.

Considering that each person has different parts that they live with everyday, there is so much chaos in human relationships. I am yet to learn how to navigate this chaos successfully, but I want to. I want to open and grow, to find many kinds of love, trust and community, chosen family to help navigate this world. 

I have been scarred and saved many times by community. I hope that I have offered something to others’ journeys too. I want to structure this experience in a way that people can intentionally join and benefit from togetherness. 

Why does it matter? Why is it important? 

Human lives too are part of nature’s mycelial network. Where I stand, I may not be able to offer grandiose solutions to the many many problems at hand, but I can offer presence and community. I can offer space that holds safely so people can crash and be silly together - that we may have a container when it is required, ever present to offer support. This safety is integral to transformational work. From that open space can come creative solutions aimed for more good than harm, where rest is the foundation and actions emerge from mindfulness. These fundamental values matter as the core of the world we grow towards as the old one collapses around us.