Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds by adrienne maree brown

Author:adrienne maree brown [brown, adrienne maree]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: AK Press
Published: 2017-03-19T23:00:00+00:00

Once you become aware of the dynamic, it is important to take some space to get clear in yourself. So often these dynamics perpetuate because we are scared to be alone, scared to create conflict, scared to take a step back. And then once we do, we get more air, more clarity.

If it feels like there is work that can be done for mediation, healing, and transformation, by all means put time and attention there, but with some humility—the nature of abusive dynamics is that they are foggy and hard to navigate from within. Often we leap to couples therapy or office mediation while still in the private fog of it all. Get transparent and current with trusted friends or comrades who can offer perspective on the situation.

You have the right to tell your story. The silence and shame around these dynamics makes people think they are alone and especially flawed. Not so. Organizations are rife with abusive bosses or collective members, social justice movements are full of couples in private battles against the oppressive dynamics we face in the world. You are not alone, and you do not have to be silent.

You do not have the right to traumatize abusive people, to attack them personally or publicly, or to sabotage anyone else’s health. The behaviors of abuse are also survival-based, learned behaviors rooted in some pain. If you can look through the lens of compassion, you will find hurt and trauma there. If you are the abused party, healing that hurt is not your responsibility and exacerbating that pain is not your justified right.

You do have the right to walk away, to literally and virtually gather yourself up and remove yourself from the dynamic. Take space in order to remember and fortify yourself.

You have the right to create boundaries that generate more possibilities for you. Those boundaries may be short term or permanent.

You have the right to ask for support from your friends/community. It really helps to find neutral mediators, or mediation teams, to support conversations that the abusive dynamics may make difficult. Sometimes the feeling of things being unresolved will keep pulling you back into the conversation—mediation can help draw the line.

You are not obligated to engage in a process with someone if you do not feel like it—whether you feel unsafe or exhausted or angry. While we are working towards a world where all conflict can be resolved in a transformative way, we aren’t there yet, and a lot of messy shit goes down in the name of transformative justice. One thing to really track here if you are the abuser, or in a mutually abusive dynamic, and you don’t want to participate in a process—this could be you dodging responsibility that, if you did take it on, could transform your life and future relationships. But it’s up to you.

You have the right to not know the right moves to make.

“I remember as a small child seeing the geese flying south. Firefly season. A cicada that lived for a while in the cracks of the cement bricks that made up our porch wall.

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