How To Fuck It Up Gracefully
The #1 most important skill to hone as an activist...
Want to have more of an impact as you’re using your VOICE to champion collective liberation?
Begin shifting your focus AWAY from “how to say the perfect thing in the perfect way that perfectly encapsulates what i feel and never unintentionally hurts anyone ever”…
…and TOWARDS “how to fuck it up gracefully.”
The skill of fucking it up gracefully is one of the MOST IMPORTANT muscles to build when it comes to effective activism.
It’s also one that so often gets ignored.
Fucking it up gracefully means cultivating the humility necessary to always be open to being called out.
Fucking it up gracefully ALSO means cultivating the SELF-COMPASSION necessary to always know, unshakably and unchangingly, that you are absolutely whole and worthy… EVEN WHEN you are actively being called out for something.
A huuuuuuuge part of championing collective liberation is amplifying the voices of the most marginalised
- meaning that we’re going to have little to no lived experience of the injustice we’re trying to disrupt.
We’re going to be fighting for the liberation of those with much less privilege than ourselves- a lot of the time.
This opens us up to clumsiness, and showing the world unconscious biases we have no idea we’re still running (EEK)
For example: you’re declaring your ferocious allyship with trans women of colour. You fight against the systems and structures that seek to oppress them and strip them of their humanity - so as to dismantle the systems and structures that seek to oppress ALL OF US and strip us ALL of our humanity.
If you’re doing that from the perspective of a white cisgender woman (for example), you’re going to be speaking into oppression of which you have no lived experience - you can only empathise through imagination.
You might be holding unconscious biases.
You might think you've "done the work" here... but there's still some of your worldview that's tied up in colonial cisheteronormative patriarchy.
You say the thing. You show up. You declare your unwavering commitment to dismantling these systems.
A transgender woman of colour might then correct you on the language you use, or reflect back to you some colonial indoctrination you might not know you were still operating inside of (for example).
She might be coming to you in good faith, or she might be reeeeeal mad.
(Both are valid, both will happen.)
In your efforts to champion her liberation (and in turn, all our liberation), you fucked up, and you unintentionally hurt her, and in doing so, you caused harm to the very people you're devoted to allying with.
WHEN THAT HAPPENS…
Can you a) hold the humility necessary to realise that she’s the authority on her own oppression, and that whatever her tone is, she’s coming to you as your teacher right now?
And b) hold YOURSELF with the kind of ferocious self compassion that says “even in the middle of this fuck-up, I’m still unconditionally whole and worthy”?
Working the fucking it up gracefully muscle means stepping up and saying the thing over and over again.
The more you make your declarations to the world, the more open you are to being unintentionally clumsy with it, the more self compassion and humility you learn.
Teach yourself to look forward to these moments of fucking it up - they mean you get to learn how to be more effective in your activism, and how to adapt when you're unintentionally causing harm.
When we put our attention towards learning the exact right way to say the thing that never unintentionally injures anyone ever, gotta learn more stuff before I step into the movement more vocally, gotta stay quiet in the meantime...
...we not only end up doing WAY less for the movement...
...and only ever end up having the TEENIEST TINEST possible impact...
...we ultimately never get to learn where our unconscious biases are - we never get to learn how to be more effective.
When we focus our attention instead on fucking it up gracefully...
...we prioritise showing up, saying the thing, all the damn time...
...which leads to more impact for the collective movement...
...and WAY more education for us as individual activists.
Win-win.
All of this- VEEEEERRY FUCKING HIGH SENSATION.
It feels gross in the moment. It's humiliating, and potentially devastating.
But when it's handled skilfully, it's one of the most powerful and important muscles we can strengthen as activists.
And believe me - it is a SKILL. One that CAN be learned, and eventually mastered.
This month inside REWILDING, we're exploring the Ovulatory Rite. Taking up space and holding high sensation emotions in service of collective liberation is the name of the game right now.
Want to hone your skills in fucking it up gracefully, taking up space in the movement, holding the EXTREME SENSATIONS of visibility and being perceived...
...come join us. All lessons, workshops, and rituals we're moving through this month will support you in all this, massively.
To learn the skills and practices you need to build your STANDING TALL IN THE MOVEMENT muscles, join us by signing up through here.
The fight for collective liberation needs you.
Big love 💛💛💛