Empowerment can only happen in the collective

Empowerment can only happen in the collective.

You can have power alone, as we are witnessing, you can have power over alone.

You can’t have empowerment without the collective.

Empowerment is when you’re with a group of people who are your people, who are your tribe, who are your clan, who mirror back to you you’re meaningful, what you said mattered, and I resonate with it.

Also, in a robust collective, you can offer something that feels different.

Because the spaces that you can trust the most are the spaces where difference is permitted, where difference of experience, of feeling, of purpose, of meaning is permitted.

But in the beginning we’re just noticing, where is our common humanity and how do we build a sense of ourselves on that common humanity?

And when that’s there, then we can start to include our differences.

The more trust you build, then conflict can come in.

Conflict is an advanced nervous system base where conflict can be included.

We can have different beliefs and feel quite strongly about them, and at the same time, remember that fundamentally, there is love and pleasure and ease also present within the conflict so it’s a real skill.

~ Helena Walsh