This week marks four years since my accident that led to a severe concussion and brain injury — and while most (not all) of the physical affects of that injury have gone, the lessons of that moment have stuck with me.

Up until this accident, I had been working at breakneck speed, and stress and anxiety had just become an accepted part of the daily grind. In terms of work, many of my priorities and projects came to a grinding halt during my recovery. Not only was I out of the office for a while healing from my injuries, but my slow recovery forced me to put on the breaks, slow down, and meaningfully reflect on the ways I was working—and how I wanted to work going forward.

Everyone around me was telling me to “take care of myself,” but what did that really mean in a broader sense. Was I taking care of myself before these accidents forced me to slow down? Would I quickly return to the same pattern of overwhelm and overwork as soon as my physical body had healed from my injuries?

During my recovery, I took slow walks in nature with my wife (who was my grounding during my recovery, for sure), I began to practice yoga more regularly, I listened to audio books, and I read when I was able to – reflecting on what it meant to slow down, and not just because I had to, but as a new way of working, a new life practice.

I became connected with authors, thinkers, and spiritual teachers like Pema Chodron, Lama Rod Owens, Thich Nhat Hanh, Rev. angel Kyodo williams – and I’m now sitting here at my desk with a copy of Katherine May’s book Wintering as well as Tricia Hersey’s amazing new book Rest is Resistance.

Putting these four words into action

For me, “slowing down” has meant so much more than just these words – it has been about putting this into action in deep and meaningful ways.  And that’s hard, I get it.  I’m far from perfect when it comes to slowing down. Look, it took a major injury for me to step into action in the first place. But it’s been a regular practice and value for me, and for my family.

Slowing down is not just simply taking a break or saying “ok, I’ll just take it easy this weekend.” It is adopting a life practice that starts with interrupting everything we’ve learned. It goes against so much that our society and culture teaches us, against so many of the ideas of “success” and “productivity” that are ingrained in our brains.

Even just unpacking those inner beliefs can be a key part of slowing down.  Ask yourself:

* Where does your “need for speed” come from?

* When did you first feel that pressure to go fast, do it all?

We’ve got to take some time to unlearn these internalized everyday behaviors, habits, and beliefs. There are so many harmful and self-sabotaging stories that we’re telling ourselves day in and day out, and we can replace those stories with positive and powerful stories of slowing down and taking care of ourselves.

Our greatest barrier to slowing down

Whether you’ve realized it yet or not, one of our greatest barriers to slowing down is ourselves. In Rest Is Resistance, Tricia Hersey writes, “We are grind culture.” She continues, “we push ourselves and each other under the guise of being hyperproductive and efficient.” We have internalized the capitalist, white supremacist, ableist, patriarchal systems that we live in, and we often act in ways that align with the values and pressures of those oppressive systems.

We are in control of our own behaviors, how we show up in our work and in our lives.  So it’s up to us to make the decision to resist the toxic culture of “productivity” and to embrace the practice of slowing down.

A few invitations to slow down

If you’re feeling like things are a bit out of control, like life is going like a runaway train, here are some ways to reel it back in and become more grounded:

* Breathe: Take a moment (now, after a meeting, before making a decision, anytime) and just connect with your breathing. Slow your body down, slow your breathing down, and re-ground yourself.

* Wintering: As we head into the winter season (for those of us in the Northern hemisphere), embrace it rather than resisting it. Light some candles, make a cup of tea, and find a book to read that feels like guilt pleasure (something that isn’t related to work at all – something you might not normally read but that will bring you joy).

* Give yourself permission to slow down:  Adopt a type of mantra or repeated message for yourself that affirms the idea of slowing down and taking care of yourself & others. You might even write “slow the f**k down” on a sticky note, and put it next to your computer or somewhere that will regularly remind you of this personal call to action.

* Ask yourself: What is the worst thing that will happen if you slow down?  Better yet, what might you discover about yourself if you slow down?

I hope you are reading this and listening to my voice note above at a moment that can spark you to reflect, rethink, and reset – and, as hard as it might be, to hold on to that. Don’t let your embrace of slowing down fade in a couple days, a week, or a month. Stay with it, and keep practicing it.

I’d love to hear from you. Add your thoughts in the Comments below:

* What does slowing down mean to you?

* What are some challenges you’re having with slowing down?

* What are some ways you’re finding to bring this into your life in new and powerful ways?

“Many of us have been running all our lives. Practice stopping.” -Thich Nhat Hanh

Hello Agents of Change Community!

I am very excited to share something with you that I’ve been working on for a while!

On Tuesday, May 24, from 5-6:30 pm Pacific time (8-9:30 Eastern), I am going to be running a special online workshop with my Super Nature Adventures partner and co-creator Bryna Campbell focusing on nature, wellness, and self-care. 

If you've been following me in any capacity—especially my Instagram or Twitter accounts—you probably know by now that connecting with nature is something incredibly meaningful to me. In fact, it’s the major reason I started working on Super Nature Adventures and have been focusing much of my energies there since leaving my museum job.

And as I opened up about in my previous post “It’s Been Two Years Since…,” this mode of care has been a core tool for helping my spouse and I manage the ups and downs of the past couple years. I have grown my own practice of spending time outdoors through daily walks, regular hikes in nearby parks, and even gardening. 

Immersing oneself in the natural environment can be one of the most powerful and effective strategies for care and healing.  Through these experiences, we also build a deeper connection between ourselves and the natural world. 

In this way, as author M. Amos Clifford writes in his Guide to Forest Bathing:

"we come to relate to our shared earth in a fundamentally different way."

When we connect in slow and intimate ways, engage our senses, and get in touch with our creative side, we are restoring connections that have been interrupted though the culture of stress and overwork.

In our Nature as Self Care workshop, we will guide you through a series of exercises designed to help you slow down and connect to nature in ways that can help create calm, reduce stress, and combat burnout.

You’ll learn more about how and why these exercises can be effective, and be introduced to some basic philosophies and research behind nature and self-care.

And in true Super Nature Adventures fashion, you’ll also receive an illustrated handout with additional prompts, activities, and resources to help you adapt these strategies for your own daily life.

We encourage everyone who signs up to to bring an object from nature with them (such as a plant, leaf, cone, flower, or even just a beloved house plant) for some of the activities, and to have some pencils, markers, or crayons as well as paper or a notebook for journaling and drawing.

NOTE: The cost to register is $25. Spaces are limited. We have decided to keep the workshop small because we envision this space as intimate and conversational to explore these ideas, practices, and activities together.

As part of my process of bringing together my work for museums & nonprofits with my work in nature education, place-based learning, and design, Agents of Change is partnering with Super Nature Adventures to offer this workshop. It draws on our work with Super Nature Adventures, as well as my experiences running workshops on forest bathing, creating change from within, and from the chapter in my book Museums as Agents of Change on healing and care. 

We are opening these tickets up first to the Agents of Change community as well as those who currently subscribe to Super Nature Adventures packets, so if you are interested, it's a good idea to nab your ticket soon, before we share this event more widely.

“We don’t have to scale mountains or ride rapids to benefit from being outside. Being outside for a few minutes, looking at a tree, and observing the light filtering through leaves can regulate your nervous system and allow you to be more present.” -Laura van Dernoot Lipsky, founder of the Trauma Stewardship Institute

Greetings Changemakers!

I’m so excited to share some new strategies and tools today in this post, as well as a brand new project that I’m piloting that builds on the ideas I share through this newsletter.

I am often asked about the single most important thing we can do to make real, meaningful change happen within institutions such as museums. And I always think back to these words from writer and activist adrienne maree brown from her pivotal book Emergent Strategy: 

“Relationships are everything.”

This concept of deep relational work has grounded my own practice for many years. It has been central to my writing about how museums and nonprofits can be more human-centered and community-centered. When we focus on people and take the time to engage in meaningful, slow, and intentional processes of building and sustaining relationships, we can shape a better future for the institutions, organizations, and communities we work in. 

In their book The Relationship Is the Project, a collective of community-based artists and activists from Australia really tackle this idea through their own practice. 

“It seems simple to say that ‘the relationship is the project,’” writes cultural consultant Jade Lillie, “but it’s often the thing that gets lost amongst the deadlines, egos, lack of experience, shame, bias, time, external expectations and our busy lives.” 

We are doing our best work when we’re developing and nurturing our relationships—it’s as simple as that.

But how can we keep this focus on relationships front and center in our practice?  How can we stay grounded in a more people-centered approach to our work, and not let it get lost amidst everything we are trying to balance? 

It begins with reimagining our work and simply bringing a focus to the human connections around us.

Mapping and Growing Our Relationships

Shining some light on these human connections was at the center of a series of mini-workshops I facilitated recently for the Museum Division Preconference of the National Art Education Association. Each of these workshops brought together a very small group of museum educators for a fast-paced session focused on our work as changemakers. 

We discussed our varying comfort levels with change, and then I introduced one of my favorite strategies for building support for change: Mapping Relationships. 

“Relational mapping,” as it is often called, is a form of rethinking our working structures.

It’s an exercise that helps us to reframe the way we think about our work to go beyond the traditional organizational charts. It pushes us to notice the connections, relationships, and communities we have formed with other people, regardless of the rigid reporting structures and silos within our organizations. 

When we work to move away from our emphasis on traditional org charts based in oppressive hierarchies and power inequities, and instead focus on the human relationships we have in our work, we can begin to transform institutions and the existing power dynamics. 

In the voice note available at the top of this post, I walk you through the exercise step by step.

Listen to the voice note, give the Mapping Relationships exercise a try, and share your experience with me and the Agents of Change community in the comments.

Here are some questions to think about as you work through it on your own. 

* What does it feel like to map out the relationships and human connections in your work?

* What are some ways this practice might help you identify and develop new connections and relationships?

* What impact might this focus on relationships have on your work? What about your organization’s broader work with local communities?

As you leave your comment, read and respond to those of others. Let’s learn together and strengthen our collective practice.

One final inspiring thought from adrienne maree brown:

“in community, our potential is truly realized. what we have to offer to each other is not merely critique, anger, commentary, ownership and false power. we have the capacity to hold each other, serve each other, heal each other, create for and with each other, forgive each other, and liberate ourselves and each other.”

We can all actively work to be in deeper relationship with others, be more vulnerable, and treat each other as the full, complete, and complex human beings we are.

Resources

Here are just a few resources for those interested in extending their learning and growth when it comes to relational work. Let me know if you find these useful.

“The Relationship Work of Systems Change,” Stanford Social Innovation Review

* In this recent article, Katherine Milligan, Juanita Zerda, and John Kania of Collective Change Lab write about various key aspects of relational work for collective impact. In it, they state: “Sometimes we lose sight of a simple truth about systems: They are made up of people.” 

Emergent Strategy, by adrienne maree brown

* For me, this has been an essential resource when it comes to social justice practice and community organizing work. Inspired by Octavia Butler's explorations of our human relationship to change, brown’s book is a radical self-help, society-help, and planet-help guide designed to shape the futures we want to live.

The Relationship Is the Project, edited by Jade Lillie, Kate Larsen, Cara Kirkwood, and Jax Jacki Brown

* This collection of essays and case studies by a group of Australian artists, curators, and cultural activists offers a great set of strategies for community-engaged practitioners in the arts. And I could not pass up a book with a title like this.

in relationship with others, adrienne maree brown

* This short piece by brown offers some inspiring insights into the value of relationships and what beloved community means. She begins with these words: “the most important personal and political skill to develop is how to be in relationship to others.” Yes!

Through all the conversations I have with people about change, one issue that comes up again and again is the feeling of being alone in our work to advocate for change. Many of the comments on previous posts here in this publication suggest that many people feel isolated, alone, disconnected from others, and even singled out as they push for necessary change and institutional transformation.

Last year, during a workshop and presentation I led for about 300 people, I asked (through a poll) if people ever felt alone in their role as a changemaker, and 90% said “yes.” Even this week, I asked the same question to a smaller group of museum/nonprofit professionals, and nearly two-thirds said that they have felt alone when advocating for change in their organization. A vast majority of us feel a bit untethered when doing the important work of making change happen. We frequently feel like we just don’t have the colleagues and leaders who share our purpose and values as we struggle to make positive changes in our organizations and workplaces.

Some New Ways to Define Loneliness

In a 2021 essay in Harvard Magazine entitled “The Loneliness Pandemic,” author Jacob Sweet shares that social psychologists commonly define loneliness as “the gap between the social connections you would like to have and those you feel you experience”—a definition that made me pause and think about all the times I have felt lonely, wishing that there were more people around me supporting the same changes I wanted to see happen. The essay also highlights some of the research on loneliness and health, including one study which shows that being lonely has the same health risks as smoking 15 cigarettes a day (yikes!).

Our feelings of loneliness and isolation have certainly been accentuated through the pandemic as we live through lockdowns and quarantines, and as our work moved online to platforms like Zoom. We’ve all experienced so much distancing, and it’s certainly going to take some time to feel connected (truly connected) again.

In his recent book Together: The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy defines several forms of loneliness, including collective loneliness, or “the hunger for a network or community of people who share our sense of purpose.” Throughout the pandemic, so many of us have been reflecting on our values, what matters most to us, and what type of work aligns most closely with our personal values—and so many people (in nonprofits, museums, and many sectors) have changed the type of work we do to connect with others around a shared purpose.

Building Our Relationships with Others

As we dive deeper into our relationship with change, I think we should also be reflecting on our relationships with others.

How can we work to build connections with others as we advocate for meaningful change within our organizations? How can we lean in to forming communities of changemakers? For me, this is so much of what this Agents of Change publication is about—bringing people together, learning from each other, and equipping ourselves with the tools we need to fight for positive change. I’m leading several workshops later this week called “POWER UP for Change,” and they are not only designed to offer strategies to better advocate for change, but they are also about bringing together small groups of changemakers to be champions for each other.

None of us are alone in this work!

We know that others are doing this work, and we’ve got to be intentional about reaching out, finding them, and recognizing our collective work together.

Let’s Share with Each Other

As part of this process of building our relationships with others, I invite you to share your responses to the following questions with the Agents of Change community:

* How can each of us work to build connection and community as we work toward making change happen?

* What is one small, practical step you might take right now to begin a more intentional process of building relationships with others as you advocate for change?

* What is one way you might already be powerfully connecting with others and advancing collective action around change?

Leave a comment here, responding with as few or as many thoughts, questions, and ideas as you’d like to share. Yes, short responses are very welcome – and so are long ones. And I’ll share my gratitude in advance for your honesty and vulnerability (both superpowers we need more of in this world).

Please consider reading each other’s comments and have an exchange via this platform. After all, I don’t see “Agents of Change” as just another passive monologue, but rather a more dynamic dialogue where we can be in conversation and connection with each other.  That’s how we learn together and strengthen our collective practice.

One final thought from Murthy’s book Together. In it, he writes:

“being connected to others gives us a stake in more than our own interests. It expands those interests to include our whole community and thus increases our motivation to work together.”

We can all be agents of change, even in these lonely and challenging moments, and we can do this work together!

Uncertainty and change are here to stay, that’s just a fact of life. So I’m always interested in exploring our relationship with these forces and giving ourselves some space and kindness to unpack that relationship.

For this issue of the newsletter, I ‘m experimenting with a new format – a voice note. I am hoping it helps to bring that extra feeling of human connection to this newsletter that I don’t think we get from just reading text on a screen. The voice note is not an audio version of this writing; it’s kind of a companion to this text. So I invite you to read this post and listen to the short voice note. You can access the voice note by hitting the play button at the top of this post.

Let’s Breathe Together

I don’t know about you, but as I make my way through transitions and changes in life or work, I just feel the weight of everything pushing down on me. Whenever I feel like this, I try my best to remember to just breathe and connect with how my body feels as I breathe. It’s a simple yet powerful human strategy for all of us changemakers.

Years ago, I heard visionary dance activist Shamell Bell talk about how the word ‘conspire’ actually means ‘to breathe together.’ With a group of museum professionals and nonprofit leaders, she led us through some very simple breathing exercises – and I remember how good it felt to connect with my own breath and to breathe with others. This has resonated with me ever since.

Let’s all just take a moment here, and breathe together. Connect with what it feels like for the air to come into our lungs – and then slowly exhale and feel the air leaving our lungs.  Our breathe is life-giving and, yet we tend to just let it happen in the background. What happens if we bring it to the foreground more often, and simply feel the movement and rhythms of our breathing?

Our Relationship with Change

I have been spending time these past few weeks diving into Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower and at the same time listening to Octavia's Parables, a phenomenal podcast hosted by adrienne maree brown and Toshi Reagon. While a dystopian novel about the future might sound like grim reading, I assure you it is not. Not only does Butler bring forth a shining vision of hope and change, but brown and Reagon’s podcast places Butler’s writings in a context for those intending to change the world through activism and community organizing work.

The podcast goes through Butler’s novels chapter by chapter, providing insights and key questions that bring additional layers of meaning to the writing (which, by the way, is already jam-packed full of some powerful meaning). I have found this to be the perfect pairing during uncertain times, allowing me to more fully engage with the complexities and challenges of the present moment and my own role (as an individual and as part of collective efforts) in proactively shaping the future.

Early in the podcast, adrienne maree brown poses the question: “What is your relationship with change?” Are we comfortable with change? Or not? In what ways are we changing the world around us, and how are we changing in response (even in the smallest ways)?

With everything always changing around us so rapidly, it can feel quite challenging to then be an advocate and agent for change in any aspect of your work or life. Right? Why on earth would we want more change? This is why I think it can be so important to hold space for our relationship to change, and be kind to ourselves as we navigate our struggles with change.

Let’s Share with Each Other

As part of this process of envisioning change, I invite you to share your responses to one or more of these questions with the “Agents of Change” community. These questions are also perfect for self-reflection as well as for sparking a conversation among your team or with people at all levels of your organization:

* What is your relationship with change – right now, in this moment?

* What are you struggling with the most?

* What change might be challenging or difficult?

* What changes are bringing you joy?

* What are you most proud of right now?

Leave a comment here, responding with as few or as many thoughts, questions, and ideas as you’d like to share. Yes, short responses are very welcome – and so are long ones. And I’ll share my gratitude in advance for your honesty and vulnerability (both superpowers we need more of in this world).

Please consider reading each other’s comments and have an exchange via this platform. After all, I don’t see “Agents of Change” as just another passive monologue, but rather a more dynamic dialogue where we can be in conversation and connection with each other.  That’s how we learn together, build relationships, and strengthen our collective practice. We can all be agents of change, even in difficult and challenging moments, and we can do this together!

I close this message with the opening words of Chapter 1, which adrienne maree brown has tattooed on her left arm:

"All that you touch