I've been thinking a lot about harm over the last few years.
Investing more and more in abolitionist principles has helped me really explore what it means to cause harm, to be harmed, and what we do with the fact that harm is inevitable in community.
And as much as I'd like to think that there is a possible future where we don't hurt each other, the reality is that we will always hold the potential for incredible impact on one another, which exists on a wide spectrum of positive and negative. We (humans, animals, the earth, the elements), in community, hold the responsibility to, yes, do everything we can to reduce the chance of harm, and to engage with each other in kind and beautiful ways...and also, because harm is inevitable, we also must work to build more transformative ways of addressing harm when it happens.
And embodied awareness is needed for that work to be realized.
Personally, I tend to become quite indignant when I am harmed. And it's imperative as a part of the Collective that I balance that with the nuance that I, too, will cause harm.
There is no "good person" and "bad person."
We so often crave the binary, the black-and-white thinking, because it feels like it protects us. It feels like it makes complexities make sense.
But the nuance is where reality—and the magic—resides.
A part of the way we can experience more freedom within our own selves is through the embodied awareness of our place in the Whole...of the ways in which we impact each other, in the obvious and the more implicit.
How do I want someone to respond when I am harmed by them? How do I hope someone responds when I have harmed them? What, as a community, are we hoping to gain, to resolve, to prevent, from the ways in which we respond to harm when it is done?
I have a million more things to say (and an infinite amount more thoughts not yet fully formed) about all of this. But I wanted to share just this small bit today, because there is a deep importance to how we embody our lived experiences...and the more we can connect with our own intimately felt selves, the more we will have the capacity to participate in the world in increasingly restorative ways.
Experiencing harm, as both the giver and receiver, and establishing healing ways to respond that will help to implement accountability, restoration, and prevention of future harm...this is a complex, nuanced, and lifelong process, and it requires us to stop only being in our heads and to get into our bodies a little more.
The work we do together in coaching is a part of this, a jumping off point, and a supportive home to return to whenever you're needing the nourishment to sustain the work you're doing in the world.
We are in this together, always.