Here’s the thing about change and remaking the world: it requires each of us to play our role. And not just any role – the role that we feel called to.
To do otherwise plays into the paradigm of right/wrong, good/bad and urgency as rejection of needs.
With this in mind, its helpful to know there’s a framework for changemakers of 3 major callings:
1. Disrupt: to shine a light on injustice, and halt it in its tracks. Activists, law professions or journalism are just some examples. So too are disruptors within mainstream companies, who challenge them to change policies or do better.
2. Aid & Heal: to help those who are impacted by injustice. Healers, medical workers, conservationists, herbalists, nonprofits and volunteers often do great work in this space.
3. Build: to create the systems – businesses, movements, networks – that stand when the current structures fall (history teaches us that all structures do). This space is about planting the seeds of a more just & regenerative world.
The role of our inner compass (read through our body, emotions and desires) is to direct you into the area in which you best thrive.
Because none of us should be burnt out and exhausted while helping the world.
If we’re called to build, but we find ourselves in systems trying to aid, butting up against structures still resistant to change, we’re gonna get tired.
If we’re called to aid, but we find ourselves trying to disrupt, we’re gonna feel heavy, lost, out-of-place, anxious.
And while following your callings is not a magic bullet for thriving, it’s one part of what’s needed.
Are you a builder, disruptor or healer?
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Bell Hooks taught us that “To love well is the task in all meaningful relationships, not just romantic bonds.”. And Lilla Watson reminded us that “our liberation is bound together.”
That’s why I write Love Notes to Liberation, a weekly-ish email empowering changemakers with the skills to get free, get power and wage love as a robust, public good. Join us here.