How Do You Hold Love And Resistance at The Same Time?
My colleague Adam Slade, President of the Board for the Center for a Loving Workplace (CLW), posed a timely question recently.
He gave voice to the struggle that many are feeling in these disruptive, frightening, and grievous times, “How can I lead in loving work when I feel myself armed and ready for battle?” That is, ready for the struggle against injustice and oppression.
Do you feel the tension of that question in your mind, heart, and body?
Yeah, me too. So, I was grateful today that Rick Gage, a wise, Loving Leader and Executive Director for CLW, led a session exploring this question.
Now to be sure, we don't usually engage in metaphors of war and violence because language and frames are so leading. But in this case, it was revealing to ponder these two energies and to consider the serious and very real struggle in which we are engaged.
Rick first invited us to reflect on the experience of being “armed and ready for battle." He invited us to pay attention to images and thoughts that came to mind as well as physical sensations. Then he invited us to notice what “leading in loving work” evoked in terms of images, thoughts and physical sensations.
Finally, he invited us to activate our observer to see what we might notice about the two parts and their relationship to each other.
Can both be active at the same time? Or is it one or the other?
What becomes possible if both are present?
What could work well if we are able to flow between the two?
Try this reflection and see what comes up for you. What do you notice in yourself?
Five archetypes emerged today. There may be more. See where you line up, and what's true for you.
Some of us will hold leading in love and being armed for the struggle as two separate distinct personas that we move between. Each has its own strategy and focus. Each has its time and place.
Others hold these two as distinct but simultaneously active side by side. They are complementary and enhance each other and are more complete when functioning together.
A third group will see the active struggle against evil and injustice as loving. For them, direct confrontation is the way to demonstrate deep care.
While for others, the opposite is true: Evil and injustice are combatted by actively resisting evil by standing for empathy and compassion as a Loving Leader.
Finally, the last group will be keenly aware of their contradictions and unsettled in their embodiment of both love and fear, battle and care, struggling to understand how this plays out.
Here's What I Came Away With
There's no right or wrong way to love and resist, no one way to be in this time of upheaval and chaos. We each bring to this time of challenge our unique relationship with these two energies, these two roles, two needs, two ways of being.
We will each lead with love and join the struggle in different ways. But if we each do this authentically, then collectively we will have a more complete response and successful outcome.
This can result in two things.
It can bring you peace with your unique way of leading with love as you engage in the struggle.
It can foster acceptance for the variety of ways others will hold these energies.
But one thing is certain: This is the time to engage and bring your love and justice into practice authentically and actively.
