Our Theory of Change
The traps we struggle with personally are the same ones that underlie all systems of oppression — and the same ones that sabotage our movements for social change.
Many of us come into social change work because we look around the world and see how much pain there is. We see harmful patterns all around: people in positions of power hurt people with less power, people with access to wealth take more than they need and leave others with not enough, people degrade one another as less human or not human at all. We feel deeply sad, deeply mad, sometimes deeply terrified by how people, systems, and societies operate. And so we want to be part of making a difference, making the world a better place.
For us, the below map illustrates three primary illusions - separateness, human hierarchy, and scarcity - that compel people with social power to set up systems of oppression across time and space.
Through studying and overlaying anti-racist political analysis with a number of spiritual traditions and
healing methodologies, we’ve laid out a map that, though incomplete, we are finding useful for recognizing these traps and moving into healthier ways of being.
Through our work together, our crew has come to believe that all of us carry versions of these same harmful patterns of separateness, human hierarchy, and scarcity inside of ourselves. The versions that we carry inside can be hard to perceive because they have different faces than what we see out there in the world. They can also be hard to perceive because, for us just like for everyone else, from the inside of these experiences, they feel true, justified, and needed.
And, because we hold versions of these patterns in ourselves, we build progressive social movements that also have their own versions of these traps, with different faces than in the right and in systems of oppression. We see ourselves as separate from the right and from the mainstream; we set up hierarchies of human value inside our movements and vis-a-vis the right; and we build movements that operate from fear, urgency, and scarcity.
The great news is that, in addition to carrying versions of these traps, all of us also have a divine within (other names in other spiritual traditions) that we can access at any time. This whole self, inside each of us, knows how to live in this world in ways that nurture and protect life for all beings: living in the realities of interdependence, universal dignity, and trusting in the flow of life. Spiritual traditions across history have taught about these ways of being. When we do personal work, we learn how to access feeling of wholeness more often, and so spend more time in and navigate life from that energy. In doing so, we can unhook our life decisions from systems of oppression, engage in change work from a healthier and more effective place, and also live happier, more fulfilling, more connected lives, even in periods of deep uncertainty and pain.
And so, with this specific analysis, we believe that in order to truly contribute toward a better world, we have to both:
work to change systems
and
do personal work of changing ourselves.
We believe that for the world to change, all of us, especially those of us who hold the undue social capital of whiteness, need to learn to perceive the versions we still carry inside, learn how to unblend from these versions, and reconnect with healthier ways of operating that we have always known deep-down, and are always available to us.
Watch a video that goes into much more detail about this framework