Is there only one right way to be a change-maker?

If you've ever been afraid that someone would tell you: "You're doing it wrong", I think you'd benefit from watching this conversation.

Tasha Harmon and I hosted this live event to talk about the lie that there's only one right way to create change.

Whether you're currently caught up in thinking there's only one right way or you're hella tiredt from the ways you are currently engaging in change-making, we believe you'll walk away with a new idea, awareness, understanding or action.

In this conversation, we'll share:

• a story about how we once believed there was only one way to create change,
• the moment that made us think differently,
• how the lie of the "one right way" drains our energy and efforts, and
• resources to support you on your change-making journey which you can find by CLICKING HERE.

Below is the transcript:

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

tasha, feel, love, work, change, place, thinking, petra, stuck, community organizer, deepa, job, roles, exhausted, resources, world, figure, depleted, social justice, talk

SPEAKERS

Tasha Harmon, Petra Vega

Tasha Harmon  00:03

We're doing it. All right, let's do it. So I am excited to be in conversation with you today, Petra, I am for those of you who are out there listening to us. This is Petra Vega, who is a liberatory leadership coach, and Petra and I are going to talk about how we and other people we have encountered get stuck in the idea of there being one right way to create change, or one best way or the way I need to do this or whatever language, you know, whatever language your mind creates around it, and how we moved through that process and what came out the other side, and then we'll get practical about how you might move through that and get out the other side. So Petra, for folks who don't know you will you just talk a little about who you are and your work for a sec.

Petra Vega  00:51

For sure. So my work is really surrounded around liberatory leadership this idea around there are other ways for us to lead that are non hierarchical, that don't require this one person to know all of the things. It's really about power sharing, and that power hoarding. And I really do this work with other black and brown and queer leaders who often get stuck is related to this topic around there's only one white one right way, because of self doubt, right? That's what they what they really crave is to lead with integrity to be authentic, and to really be someone who leads by example, but they often get stuck about when the converse is gonna have today. What about you, Tasha, I know that you are a facilitator, a coach and all around capacity builder, but share more a little bit about your work. So I, I think of myself primarily as a facilitator that does that in lots of different arenas, right. So I, I work with organizations, I work with individuals, I work with relationships. And my goal in all of that work has always been like yours in the liberatory framework, how do we move people and organizations through what gets in our way to our most authentic selves? And how do we do that in service to healing and transforming the world? So that's, that's where I come from. And, yeah, in the last few years, I've been really actively last more than few years now, last 15 years, I've been really actively weaving together, the organizational development expertise I have and the coach training that I've done, because it all feels to me like the same work. And so figuring out how to blend those toolkits and those, that language has been a big part of the journey for me. So, and I know you live on East Coast. Yeah, in New York, and I live in Portland, Oregon. No, I spent years in New York City and Brooklyn. So you know, we're kin on that level. So cool. So Petra, what what's the Center for you today? What do you care about today in this conversation?

Tasha Harmon  03:04

I really been thinking about this week around, how are we stretching ourselves and our capacity in ways that really can hold multiple truths. And so I think this really leads in the conversation we're having today around, what are all the multiple avenues that we can be a part of change, right? But for me, it's really like, okay, how am I stretching? My capacity around multiple things being true? What about you, Tasha, what do you care about today? What's hap of mine? I love that framing that just feels so right to me. So like, live to me. So I'm just going to ongoing with your framing. I really love the way that feels. So let's dive right in there.

Petra Vega  03:48

Oh, okay. So as I shared a little bit, we really want to focus today on this idea that we can get stuck on, there's only one right way, right? We want to share a little bit more about our story and how we got stuck in in this place as well. If you are currently in misplace or been in this place to share some in that space with you, we'll probably be talking for about 20 minutes. And then we're going to send this out as a replay. And so if you have any questions or anything kind of comes up for you, we'd love to hear it. We'll also be sharing a resource document with some resources that we kind of put together to help you on this journey around thinking around. Okay, what is your place in supporting movements and liberation? That is it just this is one way that you might be thinking? And so Tasha, could you kick us off with sharing what is one story, one example of how you kind of got stuck in this one right way train? Sure.

Tasha Harmon  04:42

So I grew up on the south side of Chicago in the household of a community organizer and a radical preschool teacher. And so the conversations at my dinner table from well, before I could talk, excuse me, were We're about racism and social justice and social change. And because my father was an AI F trained community organizer, his focus was on systems change. Like all of it was about the upstream work. And I remember him telling me as a young adult is using this metaphor, like, you know, there are all these, you know, all these organizations that work downstream that like are pulling the bodies out of the floodwaters and trying to put them back together or bury them, right. And we want to work upstream and prevent the flood, which is a very powerful metaphor. And it's a very one right way story about what needs to happen in the world. And I spent the first three decades maybe three and a half decades of my life, trying to figure out how to save the world. Because when you absorb that at two, you know, you're you're clear, like it's urgent, it needs to happen now, and it's my job, right? That's what you absorb when you're too. So I spent those years stuck in this picture that in order to be doing the real work, in order to be authentically, standing on the right side of justice, I needed to be working to change the economic and political systems directly at a systems level, that was what I needed to do. And it absolutely sucked me dry. I was exhausted, I was depleted. I was chronically ill, for five years, the rest of my life kind of blew up. And at that point, I was like, hmm, I gotta think about this more. So yeah, so we'll talk about that half the journey in a minute. But now I want to hear about how you got stuck.

Petra Vega  06:39

Yeah, I super super resonate with that, that I, I also received that message around how, how can we engage with change? And it's really looking at the policies and the structures and thinking about these very macro systems, and how are we influencing them. And it's still like, the place where I lead but I think early on when I first learned about social justice, and oppression and started connecting, like the person was killed political to my life, and the people that I was looking to, for ways to advocate against those things that made me feel smaller and made me feel quite as someone who grew up really believing that I should be seen and not heard as the woman of color. And the thing that I thought that I'm even this is good timing, because you see, my my beloved Assata Shakur, who has this coke, it's like a woman's place is in the struggle. And that was very much how I was inundated. And I was like, Okay, I need to be base building, I need to be doing grassroots outreach, I have to be door knocking and making phone calls. And that was real cue. And so I started really looking at like, but how am I for real, right? And I'm somebody who has lots of social anxiety. I'm the kind of person that as soon as I agree to go someplace, I'm already thinking about, like, When can I leave, and I like, have heart attacks and like panic around making phone calls and doing all of those kinds of things. And that was, like drastically in opposition with what I saw, as the purest way to make change is when the people who are most affected by an issue are the ones leading it. And so I really thought that I was like, Okay, I need to be in the streets, I need to be telling people around ways that they can change the conditions of their environment. Um, and again, that was really misaligned with me being like an introvert who needs a lot of time and space for rest and reflection, and peace and quiet from other people. And also with some of the ways that I felt like some of these actions while they were important, like really took so much out of me, right. And I was just like, I'm fucking exhausted. And this is the bid. It doesn't, it doesn't feel fun. And so I really want to honor like the contradiction that's in that right that you can have something that you're really passionate about, but it's something that something just doesn't quite feel, right. And we want to get into now around like, Okay, what's what was that turning point right for both of us, and I'll kind of get started with for me. I think what helped me ship make the shift after doing so much grassroots work in college. And then in early my earliest part of my career was when I got my first I'll call it my big girl job. My first like salary paid job was really more around management and capacity building. And so I wasn't necessarily the one doing the phone calls or the door knocking or kind of engaging with people one on one, I was more so supporting the people who are doing that work. And for me, being someone who really enjoys like learning about how change actually happens and getting that person to work already. And knowing like that's not really my place to shine, I really shown and really be able to kind of light up and just be so delighted. I think people like do things that they can't be had no idea that they could do right, or getting groups together to be able to communicate better. Because then that allows me to not to still make the kind of impact and change that I want to have. But it's not in the in the limelight, where initially because I have these ideas around how change happened. It meant that like oh yeah, I'm the one talking I'm the one kind of showing up to places I'm The one being at the forefront. And that's really like, that doesn't make me feel good. And so that really was a shift for me of being seeing like, okay, what are the ways that I can support people on the ground? And I really want to do that for like the rest of my life. What about you, Tasha? What was that shift for you from going? And thinking about, like, all of these systems chances you shared, too? And then seeing that you're like, I'm actually really depleted and burned out? How are you able to kind of shift that for your life?

Tasha Harmon  10:28

Yeah, before I go there, I just want to say I so resonate with the, with the tension that you're naming because I too, am an introvert, right? And as a neurodivergent person, like, there's just stuff I don't, I don't want to be doing, you know, like, I mean, I knew I couldn't be a community organizer, I knew right away, I couldn't be a community organizer. But I kept thinking, I gotta do housing policy work, or I gotta do you know, like, how am I going to fit in this box of like, systems change. And I think the seeds for me the seeds that planted this other possibility were when I got what I could think of as my first big girl job, which was as an executive director, God help us all at 26, for this little tiny nonprofit that was running as a collective called the Center for popular economics, which taught radical economic change activist probably still does. And that group operated as a collective and my job, like your job was the behind the scenes work, I was not in the classroom, I was not writing the big policy papers, I was not doing those things. I was creating a space where that work could happen. And I was removing barriers, so that it could happen more easily. And I was helping young teachers figure out how to move forward, and then the participants would arrive at the Summer Institute. And my job was to make sure that nothing got in the way of their learning. Right, and that I could figure out like how to make this as easy as possible, and all of those other levels, so they could just engage. And all through that period, I was like, I'm not doing the real work. I'm not doing like that message was running around in my head, and I was having a blast. I was loving the work, I was having a really good time. And I was like, uncomfortable because I wasn't doing the real work. And I went off to graduate school and got a regional planning degree, because I was like, maybe that's the real work. Like, maybe I can get into like, how do we create environments where people can thrive, like at the policy level, right, because that's where it has to happen. So but I kept running into the tension, I kept running into the like, well, this is what feels good. And this is what I think I'm supposed to be doing over and over again. And I did a bunch of housing policy work, same problem, right, the work I loved was where I was bringing all of the property managers together to talk about, you know, across the organizations to see what they could learn from each other. And, you know, trying to figure, all that kind of work. I loved that, right. And then I would write the housing papers, and I would go, you know, testify in front of city council, and I was good at it. But I would be exhausted and depleted and freaked out. And all those things, right? I didn't want to be bulletproof. I wanted to be open and vulnerable and soft, and working with people from there. So when I got sick, and I quit my job, as an as an executive director of a different organization that was housing focused. Um, I sort of had to rebuild it from the bottom up. And a lot of things went south in my life in that period. So there was a lot of like, I'm standing in the rubble of what do I pick up? Right, so So the universe handed me an opportunity, I guess, is one way to think about this, right? I I had to decide which of which of the boulders that were lying in, in the rubble of my feet was I going to pick up and rebuild from and about a year after I did that, I got a Lifetime Achievement Award. For my work in housing policy, I was not yet 40. And I thought, Oh, I got a lifetime achievement award for doing that stuff. Check the box. I've spent a lifetime doing that already. I'm gonna spend the next life doing something else. It was this bizarre moment, but it was really lovely. And it didn't solve the problem yet. Like, I didn't know what that looked like. But it was this beautiful little internal shift. Like, oh, I could imagine something different, what could I imagine? And it created this breathing space for me to just think differently about it. And so what I started to do was to look back at well what were the parts of the work that I'd been doing that I loved. And I got really clear like I love creating spaces where people learn and grow. I love the facilitation part. I love what I have learned to call the coaching part, right? i And and that part where I'm going head to head on the system's level and losing every bloody battle now I don't love that part. It's really important work and I I know it needs to be done and I respect it hugely and the people who can do that and feel enriched and fulfilled by it, I just I love those people. You know, I'm and I'm ready to support them in all kinds of ways, but I am not that person. And so that was this, like, it took several years of kind of discernment and playing and you know, and I just kept digging deeper and deeper into this work that I do now. You know, with a few side dishes distractions, shall we say, into, like, how do I make money? And so I would do a thing and if, you know, not that, but but it was like, I think for me, the turning point was really giving myself permission to ask the question, What about what I've been doing? Do I love? And how do I do more of that? And so over the last two decades, I've just kept coming back to that question, you know, because because it evolves over time. And because I keep learning more about what, where my gifts actually are? And what are the pieces of this that are actually energizing for me, which is important, because so much of what we're doing is really hard. And the battles that we're fighting are exhausting, and often discouraging. And, you know, I don't need to be fighting with me at the same time. Like, there's plenty of opposition out there. Let's not be fighting with me. So yeah, so it's been, it's been this relatively gradual process, but it keeps getting richer, and it keeps getting more interesting and exciting as I go. So I feel like I'm on the right path, to just keep reflecting like, Okay, let's look at this last year and a half, what's been really juicy? And how do I do more of that? So, yeah,

Petra Vega  16:44

yeah, I feel like there's the want maybe like two threads that I hear that's one around really assessing? What's the what's the part of the work that you're currently doing, even if you are like, really defeated or burnt out or kind of at your wit's end? It's like, is there any part that feels really enjoyable? And then an opportunity to see like, How can I amplify that more. And I think the other piece that you're kind of naming to is like, heart of social justice and liberation, I think this is also how you think about the future, the vision that we want, is that we do want it to feel good, right? It's not just like that. We're all like doing disgruntled work, and we're like, fucking tired and exhausted. And we have nothing to give to anyone else or to ourselves in moments that isn't just doing this labor, right? And it makes me think about this, Adrian Marie brown quote, that's like, how do we make social justice the most pleasurable thing? And I always think about that, for those of us that get stuck in like, Here I am, like you said, like, I am already opposing white supremacy, and capitalism and heterosexism, and all of these things. And also, I'm opposing myself, like my true self, right? If that's how you want to think about it, and whether or not that is where your best efforts are, or useful, I think is the question that we're kind of offering here. And so I think I kind of want to move on to that part, right. Where I think that that's a wonderful question for people to think. But what are some other resources, strategies, kind of considerations, you have Tasha for people who may be at that place where they're like, Okay, I've been doing this work for a long time. I'm kind of sick and tired of this thing. But I'm not really sure how to go to a different place, what might you say to this person?

Tasha Harmon  18:21

So one of the places that I often go with people is Deepa Iyer's work on the roles in the social justice ecosystem. And we'll put a link to that in the resources document that will attach to this somehow, I don't know quite what that's gonna look like yet, but we will do it. And and part of what I love about that is that she's naming all these different critical roles that need to be played, like there's the frontline work, and there's the sort of philosophy and the thinking and the imagining, and there's the storytelling and there's the caregiving and and they just, like there's like, 20 of them, something like that, I don't know. And it's, I mean, it's gorgeous little diagram, right? But but it's, but she's really articulate about, like, we need all of these things to make, the transformations we want in the world happen, all of these things have to be happening. And what we need is for each of us to be to stretch, but to stretch into the roles that fulfill us at where our gifts are and bring those because we're going to then bring more of ourselves and the world needs all of what we can bring right now. But when we're trying to bring something that's not our gift, then we get smaller, and we get brittle and we get exhausted and we get we can't bring right whereas when we're bringing from the places that feel nurturing to us that that feel alive, it feel joyful. We can bring more and we can stay in it for longer and we can keep at it like it becomes a legacy thing, right? So, so Deepa Ayers piece I also am sticking a Venn diagram I created in the resources document that talks about like your gifts and you know, your theory of change and your interests. And you know what? Anyway, I'll stick the little Venn diagram in, because that's sometimes helpful for me to think about. Yeah, I think I'll stop there and see what you got. Back and forth here a little maybe. Yeah. So

Petra Vega  20:22

I think I love Deepa Iyer's roles of social change ecosystem, I had also found recently that I added to the resources. The slow factory has one called colleagues and roles for collective liberation. And I think they marry really beautifully with deep Ayers framework. What I like about them is that I feel like it speaks more to kind of this skills versus the identities is how I kind of see it. And so if you're a frameworks person, if you are thinking about like, Okay, what's the role that I can play, I think both of those resources are fantastic. Um, you had shared with me Tasha, Sonya, Renee Taylor's video around the differences between barriers and boundaries, which I thought was really fantastic around how I feel like we're at a time where people are like, set your boundaries, you poor boundaries, and we just have this, it's in the culture, but I don't know that we are all talking about the same thing. And so I'm always like, well, how are we defining things. And so Sonia talks about how maybe the boundary that you're setting is really a barrier for you to engage to be to be really involved in the thing that you want. And so it's about maybe like, five ish minutes is really fantastic. And so I want to offer that one. And I think the other thing that I would share in terms of a practice is really like, I think if you're at a place where it's too much, and you're feeling like things are crumbling, I want to first offer that yeah, it's, it's a lot like it's a lot, it's a lot to be alive in the world. First, and also, I want to give you a little some because just saying that may not be that helpful. Or it might be right, just to say that, like, I think we both agree and can empathize with like, yeah, things are a lot. And also, I think this is an opportunity for us to really practice our requests, and our ability to say no, right? So I feel like this is an opportunity to ask someone to like go to that meeting, instead of you to ask for a little bit of leeway, right? If something is due at a particular time, or maybe a little need a little help around the house, right? Is there anyone or anything that could be able to provide you a little bit of support? And I think it's in the on the opposite scale around, like, you got to start saying no to stuff, like as, and I think for me, it's like, I always think about making tiny risks. Like I think that we ask people to do really big things. And that's gonna be really hard. But if we start with a tiny No, right, like, can you tell your partner who loves you unconditionally know about something just so you can start to feel in practice? Like, what does it mean to say, no, say no to your cat, right? Like, who is someone who can start these very tiny nose with so that when your boss is coming at you, so that when someone who is agitating you on the frontlines is like coming at you that you can say no, and kind of set those, those parameters for yourself, but that you can start with like those itty bitty knows. And then of course, I'm going to offer that, like, if any of this is difficult, or you would like support, we definitely want to offer Tasha and I as a resource. Yeah. Is there anything else you want to share Tasha with the people before we kind of close out?

Tasha Harmon  23:16

No, although this conversation is making me think like, you and I get to have all these great other conversations, so we should talk about that. Because like, they're like 20 other conversations, like built into like, I was like, Oh, we know, like, nope, nope, 20 minutes, we're gonna stay here. So yeah, I'm, I just really appreciate this conversation. Petra, I'm really excited to, to see this sort of weaving of the work that you and I do and our experiences together. And I hope it's been useful for y'all out there. And yeah, reach out if you have questions or comments or or if you want support in some way. So and yeah, we'll figure out getting that resources document attached somehow, because tech, but we'll figure it out.

Petra Vega  24:00

We will absolutely figure it out. What a thank you again, for for having this conversation. I know when you and I are preparing for this. They were like wait a bucket list of stuff. And so even if y'all had heard some other things that you would like, be in Tasha to kind of talk through or dive on. We're open to hearing that. And we appreciate the time that you all spent watching us and kind of being being in this space and sharing with us. Yay. Thank you. Thank you