Thank goodness for the year 2024, the year of the Wood Dragon in the Chinese Zodiac, the year everyone finally realized we were more alike than we were different.
Perhaps because that year was astrologically ordained to usher in an era of empathy and compassion; or perhaps because that year saw some of the worst natural disasters in known history, which finally provided a wake up call to shake people out of “the way it’s always been done”; to me, it was the year I won an essay contest with a cash prize. That money enabled me to establish a marketing campaign for my online course Reclaiming Hope, a step-by-step program I developed at the beginning of the pandemic, designed to help people navigate and rise above the bleakness that loomed over us all. With that marketing campaign I was able to reach thousands of people, and then tens of thousands who were hungry for direction, for purpose, for hope that we can truly pull ourselves out of this nose dive.
Some people consumed the content voraciously, completing the coursework in a single day; others took their time with it, going through one lesson a day or even a week. But as more and more people watched the videos and worked their way through the exercises, they began asking for support groups to discuss the content and brainstorm ideas. I was naturally delighted to coordinate the groups, sharing my science-based techniques while holding a safe space that would allow the participants’ innate curiosity and creativity to flourish, so everyone could bring their core gifts and strengths to the table.
It turned out that what many people really needed in their life was someone who was part teacher, part cheerleader, part soft space to land when life felt like too much to bear. Which I discovered is exactly who I am as a person: Insightful, educated, deeply empathetic, and unwaveringly committed to helping people discover who and what they need to be. Soon my days were filled with coaching and strategy sessions, moving from one online group to the next, members gaining clarity about how they would transform their lives and the world around us.
Not long after, I was training others to lead support groups themselves, and we began seeing Reclaiming Hope communities spring up all over the globe, with para-groups meeting to compare notes and learn from one another’s challenges and successes. The program was almost infectious, as those who had internalized the ideas and had seen the positive impact in their lives rushed to share it with everyone they knew. Young and old and in between, across genders and ethnicities and religions… because every human being needs to feel that there is hope for their future. That they are not powerless in their own lives.
Realizing that commonality, that core need that everyone shares, opened the floodgates to discovering the myriad of other things we all share. It helped us see one another as humans, rather than antagonists. We began to spend more time unpacking principles of oppression in the support groups, and healing the cultural wounds that had made some people unwittingly seek dominance and had made others feel like victims. As everyone began to feel empowered in their own life, healing their own shame and guilt and inter-generational trauma, the old methods of oppression simply stopped making sense.
That led to a collective rejection of “isms”, the dogmatic cultural tools that had held us apart from one another and had whittled away our agency and autonomy. There was no longer any patience or acceptance of systems that didn’t work to support everyone, so people set about creating alternatives. Taking everything we had learned throughout the history of humanity, across every civilization, winnowing out the parts that were pro-social, that helped us evolve and grow and heal, discarding any that did the opposite.
Naturally there was push back from those in positions of power, who saw themselves “above” the cultural shift that was taking place. But when the majority no longer saw themselves as powerless, subject to an imposed socio-economic hierarchy, there was no way a minority could keep them down. We did not try to “dismantle the master’s house with the master’s tools,” heeding Audre Lorde’s warning; instead we planted ivy at the base of the house, that as it grew would dissolve the bricks and mortar until the house naturally collapsed in on itself, leaving the ivy hale and whole. We wove our social experiments around and through society. Not fighting, not rebelling, simply evolving into new ways of being that were more sustainable, more equitable, more kind. Within which were built systems that supported further exploration and experimentation, so we could continue to refine and hone and improve. We could continue to grow. Not outward or upward, but inward.
Which, of course, turned out to be what we had really needed all along.