Fighting Feelings of Powerlessness in the New Year
By Account Manager, Eliza Malecki
The results of November’s election may have you feeling exhausted, as though the fight will never end, or disheartened by how our country consistently suppresses marginalized groups. Everyone processes things differently—you might be focusing on your community, seeking hope, supporting others, feeling angry, educating yourself, searching for an escape, or gearing up to fight. Feelings of powerlessness are common – I’m especially looking at you my fellow white folks!
This year, I want you to take a new year's resolution with me to reject feelings of powerlessness and to empower yourself and your community to look inward at how you specifically can make a difference - and no, we don’t have to all go marching on the streets! If you wish to contribute to positive social change, there is a path forward for you.
Social Movement Ecology, developed by the Ayni Training and Research Institute and translated to me by the incredible J. Cottle, teaches us that just as there are multiple personality types, there are also different social change roles for how individuals can contribute to larger social change. While we also need to hold national and local lawmakers, corporations, and wealthy and powerful individuals accountable to advocate for and implement real change, we are not powerless. There are four main frameworks in which change is made, listed below.
Mass Protest: Large, visible, and disruptive actions that bring attention to societal issues, as seen in historic events like the 1963 March on Washington and the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests.
Leveraging Dominant Institutions: Reforming inequitable systems by engaging with them through civic participation, community organizing, and advocacy.
Personal Transformation: Internal change through introspection, education, and accountability to unlearn biases and shift behaviors for personal and societal growth.
Radical Imagination: Envisioning and building a joyful, equitable future by dreaming beyond current systems, with practical innovations like Universal Basic Income and abolishing the police.
Next, check out the different ways people like you can navigate these frameworks while making positive change on a micro and macro level. Take note of which of these resonate most strongly with your natural dispositions.
Weavers: I see the through-lines of connectivity between people, places, organizations, ideas, and movements.
Experimenters: I innovate, pioneer, invent. I take risks and course-correct as needed.
Frontline Responders: I address community crises by marshaling and organizing.
Visionaries: I imagine and generate our boldest possibilities, hopes and dreams and remind us of our direction.
Builders: I develop, organize and implement ideas, practices, people and resources in service of a collective vision.
Caregivers: I nurture and nourish the people around me by creating and sustaining a community of care, joy, and connection.
Disrupters: I take uncomfortable and risky actions to shake up the status quo, to raise awareness,and to build power.
Healers: I recognize and tend to the generational and current trauma caused by oppressive systems, intuitions, policies and practices.
Storytellers: I craft and share our community stories, cultures, experiences, histories and possibilities through art, music, media and movement.
Guides: I teach, counsel and advise, using my gifts of well-earned discernment and wisdom.
Learning about these systems of navigating social change helped me to understand myself on a deeper level. I learned that I am a builder and a caregiver, with eagerness to get s%^* done using my event production and administrative skills and an aptitude for fostering spaces where people feel comfortable and can engage in community and joy, which is a radical practice in itself. With my interest in arts advocacy, I support those working the inside game through spreading knowledge and awareness while also engaging in ongoing personal transformation and radical imagination. I encourage you to look at the practices you engage in already and to examine what you can do to expand those habits in order to benefit your community.
In November, I attended a meeting in my area led by MassCreative and learned about the important initiatives being put forward in my local government to protect creative spaces, fund public art, develop arts districts, promote arts tourism, and improve accessibility for disabled individuals. Some of these bills have been in motion for up to ten years, constantly being re-evaluated, redrafted, and re-submitted. I was reminded of the resilience and patience required for meaningful change to take place. Taking to the streets and making a strong stand is an important step towards change, but it is nothing without the folks on the inside leveraging their power for good. The ecosystem of change is layered, and we all need each other to keep moving forward so that we too can continue to push forward.
An important reminder I received from the Founder of Midday Movement Series, Marissa Molinar, is that whatever change you want to see in your country, state, or town is likely already in action. In order to create social change you should not be reinventing the wheel, but rather doing the research to learn about the people and groups already doing aligned work in your community. Connect with them and utilize the skills you have identified when reading about social change roles to further the work they already have in motion. If your research comes up dry, expand your search to your entire state or general region, and see how you can bring new initiatives to your area. Utilize your friends, family, and community, and chances are there are people like you closer than you think who want to support you and make positive change! While there is no silver bullet I can recommend that will save us from bigotry and the divisions in this country, I hope you will latch onto a nugget of inspiration for how you alone can be impactful in your community.
