Many Ways to Lead: Heal Yourself to Heal the World

Part Two in a Four-Part Series

Seal Cove in Moss Beach, CA. Photo by Liza K. Williams

Dear courageous leaders,

Welcome to part-two of a four-part series on Many Ways to Lead. This series is meant to challenge our conceptions of traditional leadership and to think about alternate forms of leadership that don’t center patriarchal, white supremacist, and capitalist ways of leading. In today’s blog, I explore the intersection between healing and leadership. We need leadership models that advocate for healing at all levels – individual, collective, systemic, and institutional. If we truly want to engage in creating systems of equality, equity, and justice we cannot ignore one very important aspect of that work – healing.

But why? Why is healing such an important part of doing justice and equity work?

Healing is so important to our justice work, because histories of oppression are inherently traumatic and oppression is inflicted on bodies.

We now know that trauma is passed down through generations, through both genetics and the systems that we inherit. Oppression is made manifest through the ways we structure systems and systems move oppressive conditions onto certain bodies that are deemed less valuable than those who hold the most power and privilege. All of this creates trauma on many levels. We experience that trauma as individuals in systems, as families, as cultures, as groups, as nations – and so on. This is why it is so important to incorporate healing into the ways we work toward dismantling systems of oppression. I suggest that we cannot truly change systems without incorporating healing methodologies. But where do we start? For many, the thought of “healing” is nebulous, vague and too big of a concept. What does it mean to heal? How, exactly, do we heal?

One of my favorite voices on healing justice and embodiment is Prentis Hemphill. Hemphill has a new book out called What it Takes to Heal: How Transforming Ourselves Can Change the World.[1] They are a therapist, political organizer, embodiment facilitator and teacher, and the Founder and Director of The Embodiment Institute and The Black Embodiment Initiative.

Hemphill has this quote posted on their website, “Trauma and the ongoing traumas of oppression can keep us hypervigilant, limiting our ability to dream and vision. Believing we can conjure new worlds is part of how we heal our relationship to imagination and creation.”[2]

I love this quote because it redirects how we think about anti-oppression and movement work. For many activists, non-profit leaders, scholars, and those who work at political theory and organizing, our spaces of change are often constructed in either/or dichotomies that draw a line between our spiritual and communal spaces, healing spaces, and spaces that engage with rigorous critical thinking and healthy debate. Despite this, there is a new space emerging, held by people like Hemphill, who are doing work that sits at the intersection of systems change and individual healing.

My own work through the Rise and Thrive Women’s Leadership Academy also sits at this intersection. My course offerings (Regenerative Leadership) and workshops are informed by Hemphill’s work, along with others in this conversation, including Brene Brown and adrienne maree brown. These voices not only advocate for individual healing from trauma, but they also advocate for individual healing in ways that also support systemic healing. This is incredibly powerful work.

We absolutely cannot do systems change without focusing on the health of the individuals who are part of those systems – this means all of us.

In my own experience as an indigenous woman who has lived my entire life navigating systems of oppression, I have found that my personal experience is a microcosm of the systemic oppressions inflicted on the collective. In their quote above, Hemphill points us toward the first step of doing healing work. They suggest that oppression takes away our ability to imagine, to vision, to create – and healing means “believing we can conjure new worlds.” Hemphill further explains that our ability to conjure new worlds is exactly “how we heal our relationship to imagination and creation.” Through this quote, Hemphill provides a map towards our individual and collective healing.

The big question is, how do we engage with our leadership if we are working through the complex effects of generational trauma and personal trauma?

Here are three ways we can begin this work:

First, we must believe that systemic change is inextricably linked to individual change, and therefore systemic healing is inextricably linked to individual healing.

How do we believe in this interconnection? One way is to learn about ways that systems and individual experience are connected. Read works that outline the relationships between the two. Stay open to the idea that there is a relationship between individual healing and collective healing Cultivate a learning environment on these topics in your organization. Start a book club. Read Hemphill’s work, adrienne marree brown’s work, and Brene Brown’s work. There are others as well – seek out their work and learn about how systems operate, how systems are connected to histories of colonialism and oppression, and how systems perpetuate these histories today. Black feminist and Indigenous feminist work has long been making connections between the two. Revisit Audre Lorde, reconnect with Angela Davis, curl up with Joy Harjo’s poetry, or sink into the writing of Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes. Take courses on this topic, read scholarly papers that describe the connections, and take notes. Make learning a cornerstone of creating a new form of leadership for yourself, your team, your organization or even your family.

Second, we must believe in our ability to heal – ourselves and our systems.

To believe in our ability to heal, we must believe that healing work is manageable, doable, and possible. We must create “brave space,” as Micky ScottBey Jones writes.[3] This means making space for difficult conversations, conflict resolution, for genuine apologies, and for plans to rectify any system harms that have been perpetuated (consciously or unconsciously). It means having the courage to face difficult histories, and our part in upholding those long-rooted inequities. It also means taking small steps to heal the way oppression shows up in our bodies, in our thoughts, and in our daily lives. Are there damaging ideas about ourselves that we can work to release?

Healing often feels like too big of a commitment in our over-busy, hyper-productive lives shaped by social media likes and a culture of capitalist production. Start small. Healing also means to bring awareness to the ways our bodies experience all aspects of life. When we bring awareness to what our bodies are experiencing in response to our systems, we make connections between what feels good and what doesn’t. When we know what feels good, we can add more of those aspects. When we feel discomfort, awareness allows us to explore what isn’t working. Is there a change that needs to happen? Is there a growth edge we’re up against? Do we need extra support to move through the discomfort, such as seeking out a therapist, a coach, or a mentor?

One way to bring awareness to the body is to take five minutes (or only one minute if that’s all you can manage) to sit in a quiet environment without distraction. Place one hand on your belly and one hand on your heart. In this stillness, breathe normally and simply notice. How does the air feel on your skin? What sounds do you hear? What is your body feeling in your belly, in your chest, in your neck or your shoulders? Over time, awareness will come easier as this becomes a practice. Having a small awareness practice is one small step toward believing in our ability to heal.

Third, we must believe in the possibility of new worlds.

As Hemphill reminds us, healing our relationship to imagination is a necessary part of this work. To heal our relationship with imagination, creativity, and possibility, we must be open to reimagining new worlds. Visioning as a practice is important to this healing. A visioning practice means we see our goals, dreams and imaginations as dynamic, always shifting, and something to revisit and revise. A new vision for our world isn’t static or one dimensional. To grow our relationship to reimagination, we must make room to imagine, to create, and to be with others in communities who also want to create new worlds. Make room for visioning. Create a vision for your life, for your organization or team. Find groups of people who share your values and engage in community work alongside them. Revisit your vision each quarter, or every six months, or every year on January 1st. Allow your vision to be the expression of your highest ideals for the world. What do you want a new world to look like? To feel like? To be shaped by? Practicing visioning can become a fun, connecting and creative way to engage with our healing and our communities.

But, how do we connect these practices to our leadership? There are many ways to connect our individual healing work with our collective healing work, just as there are many ways to lead. If you simply practice on your own, you will build resilience, stamina, and agility – all of which is important to being a leader committed to social change and social justice. If you can bring this work to your organization or team, you can create space to engage these practices as a group, and that is an integral and important step to addressing systemic oppression.

However, authentic, deep, lasting change and transformation - both individual and collective - happens in community. We need one another. We need all of our minds, our hearts and our hands working together to heal ourselves so that we can heal the world.

Rise and Thrive is here to support you on this journey. Registration is now open for my signature course, Regenerative Leadership, which gives you the tools, practices, and community support to grow strength in your leadership toward social change. Our Fall Session begins August 21st, 2024!

For more information and to register, click here.

There will be other free workshops offered in July and August so stay tuned! To be one of the first to hear about these offerings, sign up for my newsletter at drlizakwilliams.com. And when you sign up for my newsletter, you will receive a FREE workbook designed to support you if you are about to embark on change. The workbook is called, From Fear to Flow: Four Principles to Help You Navigate Fear When You're on the Precipice of Change.

I can’t wait to be an important part of your journey as you heal yourself to heal the world.

In solidarity and warmth,

Liza

[1] See Prentis Hemphill, What it Takes to Heal: How Transforming Ourselves Can Change the World (New York, NY: Penguin Random House, 2004).

[2] Prentis Hemphill, “Collected Works,” https://prentishemphill.com/collectedworks (accessed June 30, 2024).

[3] Adrienne Maree Brown, Holding Change: The Way of Emergent Strategy Facilitation and Mediation (Chico, CA: AK Press, 2021).