Heart Wisdom's place ~ A social change lens
Last week, I drove to Kinglake Adventure Park to set up my tent and settle in for three full days of the Newkind Social Change conference. I’d heard about this gathering from friends after it’s initial birth in Tasmania. I’d always been keen to check it out. This year I applied and was offered the opportunity to partake both as participant and workshop facilitator.
Even though it was my first time at this event, something of its nature felt like a full circle moment for me.
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To put things into perspective: It has been twenty years since I first watched the documentary ‘Born into Brothels’. This documentary, viewed as part of a Media Studies assignment in my Bachelor of Arts undergrad, opened my eyes and reignited a fiery spark in me to pivot paths from my interest in reporting on such issues, to moving towards more grassroots on-the-ground project efforts. It has been eighteen years since I partook in my first overseas Community Development volunteer initiative in Epi Island, Vanuatu.
Thirteen years since I came back from back to back overseas projects finding myself burnt out and jaded from the industry I’d been so passionate about and dedicated to.
In that time I’d completed my Masters of Social Science (International Development); been both volunteer and leader in various projects; gained first hand experience of working with community and all the challenges that come from within team spaces, funding and achieving quantifiable results. I’d loved being immersed in various cultures, connecting deeply with others through curiosity and story sharing and working together towards a common goal.
I’d entered this field with that naive hope and passion I now see in many other young activists, driven by this sense of moral obligation and purpose. But I’d quickly seen the very harsh reality of cycles of poverty, systems that are built by design to perpetuate those cycles, and the levels of corruption as well as the white-man saviour complex that comes with this field.
Probably most frightening of all, with some of the gender-based violence aspects of human-trafficking in particular, that there was always going to be demand for this so there would always be a supply.
I returned from this work, exhausted, deflated, jaded. It was during this time that I turned inward and the focus was on self-reflection. Where was my place in the world? As an Australian-born Chinese young woman, a third culture kid if you will, I had resonated with marginalised stories of otherness and felt a desire to be to others what I had not experienced in my childhood - support, emotional holding, a sense of belonging.
It was during this season of reflection when I was invited to go to a women’s workshop, where the facilitator had returned from her studies in Somatic Movement Art Therapy. In this welcoming space we were encouraged to feel what was present within us, and express this - not through words but through the body, through art, through sound. It was a permission giving experience: I was able to explore my feelings which were present in this season of helplessness, without judgment and without cognitively trying to problem-solve, but rather allow myself to feel what was there.
It was this experience which offered me a new direction: a way to still work with people, and be devoted to community, through these healing modalities, which were not new in their concept but ancient in their knowledge of working with the body and expression.
The work started with me. The inner work, that is.
I begun again as a student and participant of various studies, mentorships and teaching exploring Somatic Movement and Expressive Art Therapy, trauma in the body and other group facilitation courses. I was able to get real about all the ways I had previously been dismissing my emotions and feelings, or overriding them, fuelled instead towards a goal, focused on the outer only. It’s so obvious to me now that that could only ever lead to burn out.
What I have learnt, since that time returning to Melbourne and first attending that women’s circle, is that we must learn ways - practical and creative ways - to sustain ourselves if we are to be in devotion to humanity.
When we are big hearted, big feeling, passionate people and when we choose to work with others - building teams, working towards common goals and holding important spaces for processing - we must have practices that enhance our capacity for creative-reflection.
Whilst I continued my studies, I continued working in Community Development within Australia, fostering community programs in my home city. One of those roles was designing, coordinating and facilitating youth programs, including Adventure Therapy camps - some of which we ran at Kinglake Adventure park. It has been seven years since the last one of these experiences I did, which took place in June 2019.
Seven years and I found myself last week, back in the same spot, but this time with a different lens.
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This is my tenth year of Intuitive Self and over the past decade my work has evolved.
The place where I’ve landed with my offerings now, is creating spaces, resources and experiences that live at the intersections of healing, self-trust, understanding, connection and community.
It is the self-awareness of being able to listen to, trust in and follow our bodies signals and intuitive knowing. It is advocating for us to learn how to be with our whole self - body, heart, mind and spirit - and rebel against our Western Societies patriarchal nature of putting the mind on a pedestal and forging productivity in a doing doing doing capacity, rather than a balance of doing AND being. It is encouraging and supporting others to have the capacity, resources, regulation and resilience to show up in the world capable and equipped to be with our wide range of emotions and engage with one another in a compassionate way.
In one of the workshops, the facilitator Dihan, asked us to share in small groups, “what is your heartbreak and what is your hope?”
My heartbreak (one of many) is looking around and seeing people so disconnected from their body, heart and spirit that they take it out on others.
My hope is that we can learn the skills and gain the capacity to meet ourselves and each other with more compassion.
Coming back from this social change conference I feel more determined than ever to continue the work that I do. I felt in this environment the absolute clear need for it.
But this came about not in the way you may think.
This conference was an incredible effort. In it’s ninth year, it is one of a kind in the wide variety of keynotes, panel discussions, workshop topics, activities and performances on offer that exists at the cross-sector of social change. It certainly showcased that these issues do not exist in silos and was an insightful and uplifting space to be with fellow change makers and have such cultural diversity where indigenous artists are platformed and real honest discussions can take place.
There is one key moment that stood out for me: a comment that one of the speakers said. It activated something in me and I’m still digesting, processing and coming to terms with it.
During a panel discussion, one speaker made a comment, potentially an off hand one, that she saw no place for the inner work, lumping it together in a phrase suggesting there was too much “kumbaya, incense burning and yoga retreats” and advocated instead that people need to focus only on the outer work, ending with if people are not involved in an organisation, then they are not doing enough.
There was a roar and loud cheers from the crowd, but I was struck by the nonchalant way she had spoken of the inner work. I’m giving this person the benefit of the doubt here, imagining that she may be jaded by the spiritual bypassing communities who potentially showed her they were all talk no action, or their way of being with such practices may be seen by her as too fluffy compared to real-world activism that she would rather see as counting towards progress. I do not know what experiences she has had to have made such a comment and I do not want to jump to any conclusions. I did see her passion and conviction in rallying people to fight for a cause they believe in.
I do want to lean into how activate I got from her dismissive comment and get curious about why it had such an impact.
As someone who strove for years doing the outer work, in a momentum of volunteering with different organisations, working towards causes, fundraising, taking internships, gathering together for change, studying this work to get the accreditation and experience to work in this field and being involved at different levels with numerous projects - I know that I could not sustain myself in these roles without the inner work.
To break down her off-hand comment, at the core of the three things she mentioned, “kumbaya”, “incense burning” and “yoga retreats” are practices that sustain our humanness, represent our connection with Spirit and our ability to continue caring for ourselves, earth and each other.
“Kumbaya” ~ from my understanding is a heartfelt song of prayer, meaning ‘come by here’ in creole language spoken by African-American communities. I know the power of prayer and the power of song, both in solo singing to Spirit and in small/large groups. I have experienced how cathartic this is and what this act represents on a larger spiritual sense of presencing God/Spirit and seeking comfort, support, tending to.
The act of burning incense has multiple purposes and cultural significant: used to connect with the divine and send prayers or offerings; a ritual of mindfulness and focus; to purify and cleanse spaces; and support shifting psychological states. Again, let’s not shame these practices or minimise their significance for people.
And thirdly, yoga retreats. Sure, there’s an influx of retreats, everyones offering them or going on them or has just come back from one it may seem. But, again, at its core, Yoga is an embodiment and spiritual practice and commitment to show up for Self, Spirit and ‘be' intentionally in the body.
In the words of Jaiya John, “Choosing collecting wellbeing is also a revolution”.
As a Community Facilitator & Guide that specialises in Somatic Movement & Expressive Art therapeutic modalities and processes, I advocate for people discovering and cultivating their own embodied creative-reflective practices for insight, awareness, self care, emotional processing and for personal growth which I believe can equate to our collective growth.
As much as we need to be doing the outer work in some form or another that works for your capacity, passion and resources - I argue that the inner work is just as important.
We have to start with us.
Dismissing that or minimising it, is dangerous.
I have experienced burn out, and I know many colleagues and friends over the decades who have also experienced similar. Who have, had seasons feeling a great sense of helplessness, where they’ve lost hope, or when they’ve given so much of themselves they found themselves exhausted, depleted. They haven’t had practices to return to, to refuel them, to support them in dealing with the very real repercussions of this industry: compassion fatigue and vicarious trauma to name only two.
Another moment I noticed was during the meal hours and it got me thinking: what good is policy changes when we can’t even show kindness and patience to our elders who need extra support at the lunch line.
If we don’t have the emotional intelligence skills to communicate, to compassionately and amicably work with others - how can we expect to dismantle, disrupt and redesign whole systems to establish social change movements and a work towards a new earth?
Humans are the reason the world is in the state that it is - what we do to each other, to the planet, to all living things. If we don’t know how to be with ourselves, we will not know how to be with others let alone move through all the challenges that rise when working together towards a common goal - at the centre of conflict resolution and repair work is communication.
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Having heard this comment from the speaker and having actively participating in various discussions at meal times and the workshops two days prior, I had context now for how I wanted to run my offering.
On Day four of the conference, my offering was titled - Sitting with the Heart: A soft sacred space.
A title, I now imagine, would have been looked over with an eye roll by some. But I’m honestly so glad I was activated by her comment the way I was because I am so much more driven now to educate others on the value of this work.
The value of learning how to grow our capacity for compassion, how to sit with ourselves and others with a curious lens and embody non-judgment as we are invited to tune in with ourselves and share honestly, vulnerably.
Share this work wider so people can experience the POWER and magic of such spaces of intimate sharing, what is co-created when we come together with that compassionate non-judgment. It is within these spaces that we embody our kindness, that we receive acceptance, that we allow ourselves to connect to our humanity.
It is in these acts that we refuel and renew our hope in humans, in the world, in the possibilities of connection. It is in the courage of sitting with the uncomfortable, leaning in to the heart space that we can allow ourselves to feel the full spectrum of emotions and share story from this honest place. It is through these emotions, feeling them and alchemising them for insight that we can persevere in the work that we do and sustain our momentum for social change movements.
It takes courage to not harden our heart, when we look around and there is so much devastation in the world.
It takes courage to still believe in the power of humans when we have been treated poorly and faced so much adversity, often alone.
It takes courage to act with kindness rather than disdain.
I know Heart Wisdom’s place in the context of Social Change now, because of this experience.
In solidarity,
Cathy x
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