encouragement to show up fully when you are away

05 Oct 2022

the other day, a friend and collaborator, yoojin lee, and i were talking about how hard it is to be present in convening/gathering spaces. we were particularly talking about folks we facilitate for who, without doubt, schedule other things during multi-day convenings and gatherings. i mentioned something that peter forbes and i have been saying during the better selves fellowship and she prompted me to write it out so here we are.

the better selves fellowship is a 6 night, 7 day program for BIPOC leaders and white allies to rest, reflect, and find their better selves; the selves their work and world(s) need. it is inevitable that people try to schedule work calls, interviews, etc. during the week because a week is a LONG time (for most of us) to take off. and it’s even more difficult to take that time off as a person of color who experiences the focused energy of systems of oppression on ourselves and in our communities. attending to things around us can sometimes be a matter of life and death.

and yet, we have found over and over again that the more participants can show up fully during the week, the better. they have a better experience, find more access to themselves, connect more deeply with other fellows, and really tap into what is most important for them to be paying attention to during their time on the farm.

so to support that we i have learned a couple of framings that feel helpful in getting folks to understand why their presence matters. some of these i’ve learned from peter and some have come to me over the past two years. i can’t necessarily tell the difference between them anymore so let’s just assume that any harsh things here are mine. these are some of the elements of these frames that i think about and say to folks (either to the full group or to people 1on1):

• when your attention is split between two or more places, you’re only able to bring part of you into whatever is happening where you physical body is.
• when you only show up partially, you don’t have access to all of yourself. that means your wisdom, knowledge, and capacities are all only partly available.
• when you show up partially, if something really needs a part of you that isn’t there, that thing won’t get what it needs. i have seen this play out live when someone needed and wanted to be resting and writing out a dream but couldn’t because they had a conference call coming up and their attention was split. they never got to write down that dream.
• the more you can release things that pull your attention away from where you are in the moment, the more of yourself you have access to. which means be with and use more of your magic, for yourself and for others right in front of you!
• sometimes we think we can’t put things down but we actually can. it might be hard. we might need support from others to do it. but sometimes we hold things because we fear that others can’t do it or won’t do it as well as we can. this is toxic hero culture, a wild (and often under-acknowledged) manifestation of individualism that is particularly present in social justice space. if your work can’t proceed without you, you are in a codependent (at best) relationship with your work. most (all?) of us can learn to relax our relationship with our work and that can lead to all sorts of beautiful benefits: rest for ourselves, increased ability to ask for help from our friends/families/colleagues/therapists/coaches/etc, opportunities for others to step into their leadership, moments for us and our collaborators/coworkers to realize we actually are doing too much and let some things go, etc etc.
• it cheats your people when you only partially show up somewhere. bear with me here: if you are going somewhere on behind of your organization/group/community, you are their representative there as well as the only person who can bring things back from that space. since they can’t all go, as much as you can present is as much as they can be there through you. when you only show up halfway, that’s all they have of their representative in the new space. and because only part of you is present in the away space, only part of you gets to give the gifts of your community and receive the gifts of that place. you can only, at most, bring back half of what was to receive. this means your people have to deal with the reality of your body being gone but they only get, at most, half, of the benefits of where you went. and the other people in the away place only get to see half (at most) of the community you are there on behalf of. i have seen several times how this creates warped perceptions of who a person and their community is.
• on the flip side, it benefits your people when you show up fully! when you get to be fully present, you can go as deep as is available. and if you happen to be changed or even transformed there, you get to bring that back. then your people get a new you. they get to experience and feel all the ripples of a changed you.

in some ways and at some times, it really isn’t possible to step away. but WAY more often than not, we think we can’t step away and put things down when we can.

so if you’re reading this on your way into a gathering, or if you’re someone who holds space for others (in long stretches of time in particular), i hope some of these thoughts support and others to show up fully and do everything you can to put down things that take you away from where you are. and, of course, when you can’t, to be in integrity with yourself* as you make decisions about what you can and can’t do while away.

phew. that was a lot more than i intended write. sometimes it just flows, ya know? ¯_(ツ)_/¯

ps - shoutout to rev. Angel for the “being in integrity with yourself” line

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words / writing / post-processing
1045w / 32min / 12min