Was this email forwarded to you? Welcome! You can subscribe here. If you know someone who'd like this, please forward it their way. |
You don't need all the answers — just a place to begin.
Sometimes, the best gatherings aren't the ones we plan for, but the ones we create in response to the world around us. Ashley had recently moved into her own apartment in St. Louis after a 15-year-long partnership ended. Just as she was dreaming up a housewarming party to mark this new era, she learned that the International Institute of St. Louis had furloughed 60% of its staff after Trump paused federal grants to programs benefiting immigrants. "Just inviting people over to sit around a beautiful place and soak in our privilege while this happened around us suddenly felt superfluous," she said. So Ashley pivoted.
In lieu of a housewarming party, she invited 20 friends to the "Second Story Café." (Her apartment is on the second floor, and she was also starting her "second story" as a newly single person.) A great baker, she made two types of quiche, pistachio cream chocolate chip cookies, and blueberry muffins. She flavored her own simple syrups for coffee in sage, maple, honey, and thyme. Her friend donned an apron and appointed herself "café manager" for the day, reminding guests that everything was "donate what you can" while Ashley made lattes. All of the proceeds went back to the Institute. All morning, friends dropped by and ate and drank and donated and found refuge in one another. And as they talked, they also began to wrap their heads around how the IISL furloughs were actually affecting people. They benefited from and felt what it was like for someone they knew to do something – anything – about it.
As I've watched the Trump administration spend its first four weeks brazenly consolidating power in the executive branch during its first four weeks, I'm eerily reminded of two sentences I wrote in 2018 on the very first page of The Art of Gathering:
"In countries descending into authoritarianism, one of the first things to go is the right to assemble. Why? Because of what can happen when people come together, exchange information, inspire one another, test out new ways of being together."
When the world is on fire, it can feel like the scale of action needed is simply beyond us. But authoritarian leaders know that gatherings have a way of catching, of shifting people's sense of what's possible, of revealing the next viable step.
Three questions for moving from despair to action:
1. Ask: What question is too big for me to answer on my own?
Megan, a therapist living in Austin, Texas, has watched as more and more clients come to her couch struggling with stress and fear about the national and state policies targeting immigrants, women, and trans people. The overwhelm was real, and trying to help felt like whack-a-mole.
So she decided to gather. She invited ten other women therapists in Austin to her office for a dialogue circle called "Showing Up for the Questions." The invitation read:
What does it mean to take care of yourself without turning away from the world and reality? I'm sitting with this question but don't have the answers, but deeply trust that showing up for the questions within a small circle is the first step.
We will share simple strategies that support our ability to remain connected to ourselves and others while skillfully responding to reality. We will remind ourselves of what we know to be true about trauma, denial, creativity, and resilience, and lean into our skills to begin to reorganize.
As the therapists walked into Megan's office, she greeted them with tea and pastries and introduced them to each other one by one. For the next two hours, they sat in a circle and shared their questions, fears, and practices that gave them the strength to help themselves and their clients navigate this moment. They left feeling nurtured and found that just participating in an act of community care grounded them in its possibilities.
Megan didn't wait until she had the answers for what her community needed to gather. She invited others into a "first pancake" gathering, as she called it. By doing so, she helped them shift out of despair and build the micro-muscles needed to move toward insight and action.
2. Ask: What is my superpower? What are my unique strengths?
When Ashley first heard about the IISL furloughs, she wasn't sure what she could do about it. She wasn't an immigration lawyer. The more she thought about it, she teetered between despair and overwhelm. Instead of trying to come up with the perfect solution, she started with what she knows and loves. Ashley loves coffee. She's dreamed of opening up a coffee shop. Gathering is her love language. By hosting Second Story Café, yes, she raised money for the Institute. But she also built the kind of energy and can-doism and spiritedness within her community that led them to ask: What's next?
3. Ask: If I could wave a magic wand, what do I wish would happen?
For most of her adult life, Nechama and her family have run the Palisades Chabad community center. When the Palisades Fire burned the Chabad, her home, and the surrounding town to the ground, the community scattered far and wide. She wanted to support them, but it felt impossible. "How do you keep community when what held you is gone?" she said. "How do you get together when space and time are out the window?"
A kosher restaurant in an unaffected part of Los Angeles reached out to gift a meal to the Palisades Chabad community. Nechama decided to gather the 30 parents of their Hebrew school class for dinner. For most, it was their first gathering after the fires. Getting there was both emotionally and physically difficult. Many were staying in far-out parts of the city. Some were embarrassed that all they had to wear were donation clothes. Their young children, traumatized by the fires, couldn't be left alone at night. Nechama coordinated and hired babysitters and rides to get them all to the dinner.
To begin the evening, Nechama had them all go around, say their name, a highlight of the past two weeks, and what, if they had a magic wand, they would wish for right now. "I wish I'd grabbed my kids' stuffed animals before we evacuated," "I wish our community could be together again," "I wish they'd rebuild quickly," "I wish I could take the trauma away from my kids." As people shared and named their wishes, there was an emotional release. "It was Chicken Soup for the Soul level," one guest said later. By speaking aloud their wishes, they witnessed each other's needs and sorrows. They also began to articulate emerging hopes and possibilities into existence. The act of hosting is the act of shaping reality and showing others that it's possible to do the same.
***
It's important to gather in good times. It's even more crucial to gather in bad. Gatherings remind us that even in despair, we're not alone. That what feels too big might get broken into the next viable, visible step. That we don't need all of the answers to do something. Often, just simply putting words around a shared, urgent question can open the world.
As always,
Priya
If your meetings are languishing, it might be because you're not preparing intentionally enough for them. I spoke with Think Fast Talk Smart about how to design meetings that actually energize people.
Inspirations
| | Her dad, the 10,000 records he left behind and a viral lesson in grief For the last many months, Jula has held a virtual "listening party" on Instagram where she plays one of her late father's 10,000 records. She started it as a way of connecting to him, and it's grown to be a massive, collective, daily virtual gathering for more than half a million people. "His spirit is holding me in this time, and is just cheering and dancing with what I'm doing with what he has left." |
| | Celebrate Good Times: How Celebrations Increase Perceived Social Support If you don't believe me, believe the social scientists! 🤓 "Celebrations promote perceived social support." Yes! They define social support as "the belief that others will be there for you for future negative life events." Did you finish a big project at work? Successfully potty train your kid? Maybe you just spotted the first new growth of spring in your garden. Whatever it is, invite a few friends to celebrate it. There are three parts: (1) mark one person's positive event; (2) "involve consumption" (also LOL); (3) invite others. There you have it. Doctor's orders. |
| | My 93-year-old grandma has the best advice for throwing a great party Next time you feel gathering perfectionism holding you back, try this: the "come-as-you-are party," courtesy of the writer's grandparents. "The only catch: Don't change your clothes, don't shower, and simply show up in whatever you're wearing. Oh, you're painting your kid's bedroom? Well, looks like you're attending a party in paint-splattered coveralls." The upside to letting go? You're more likely to gather in the first place– and not sweat the small stuff. |
Share with someone you care about Do you know someone who could use this monthly dispatch right now? Forward this email to a friend. | | |
| | Find this newsletter through someone else? You can sign up here for Priya's monthly newsletter. |
No comments:
Post a Comment
Keep a civil tongue.