brown, adrienne maree. _Holding Change: The Way of Emergent Strategy Facilitation and Mediation_. First. Chico: AK Press, 2021. --- # Progressive Summary # Key Points Interdependent / Decentralized Facilitation - We feel what we need to heal. - We all have permission to feel, to heal, and to channel healing to others. Sometimes we need to be told about this permission…not given this permission, but reminded it is already there. - Wholeness already belongs in the world. The body in its wholeness is true. The body has been packaged to us in a controlled form, or as something that is in desperate need of control, managing, fixing, changing, beautifying, shrinking, strengthening. Something else becomes possible when we orient to the body in a spirit of invitation and respect. - Listen to your body to learn what you need in order to heal yourself and others. The initial messages might be confusing, still distorted by systems of oppression. Keep listening. - Find teachers who want to build you up, not break you down or make you into them. - We benefit when we connect embodiment and mindfulness—inhabit the body in its wholeness, inhabit the intuition or self in its wakefulness. It’s a whole system with all kinds of data, and we can actually process so much, so fast. If we awaken, we can trust the process to be more and more aligned with our highest intentions. - Take responsibility for your change process. Instead of focusing on what you lack, fixing yourself, or the impossible endeavor of eliminating all hurt and harm, keep your attention on what grows your ability to feel. - Belonging to yourself is a crucial aspect of belonging to life, planet, community. - Some knowing and feeling can’t be spoken. - Humble yourself to what is, and appreciate that this is what has unfolded so far. Then notice that you have your whole life to shape what’s next. - Understand what you’re saying yes to. Look at how you spend your waking hours to get clearer on what you are saying yes to. - Only teach what you know. You only know what you practice. - Decolonizing is crucial on a path to healing, and it is lifelong work, as the systems we are decolonizing from are high functioning and all around us. - Center. Fall off of center, get distracted, get hurt, get reactive, get numb, get human. Then recenter. - Don’t let principles of transformation get caught in any institution. Institutions, even those that seem perpetual, or start from a radical root, are not permanent. Our relationship to the earth and to each other is/must be. Keep transforming to stay in right relationship. - “We need space to transform ourselves vs. changing according to someone else’s standards.” —Prentis Hemphill # Resonances # Oppositions # Questions / Comments # Quotes