Supporting People Who Can Move Things Forward
What we know in RC is more incredible than I think we often understand—it’s the missing piece of information needed for the survival of our planet. We understand the discharge process. We understand early hurts and distress recordings and their role in feelings of powerlessness and discouragement. We understand that closeness and love are basic to being human and much needed in the world.
I have been thinking for a bunch of years about how to most effectively get what we in RC know out into the world. The following are some questions that I think about:
Why do we so often keep what we know about RC to ourselves [not share it]? What do we need to discharge to share it more widely? Shyness? Humiliation? Fear of being attacked?
Who could make most effective use of RC information in this period? This is not about who needs it the most. It is about who we are connected to, and like, and who—if we back [support] them, listen to them, and tell them the basics of RC—could be much more effective in their work as well as share the information with other people they are connected to.
Whom do we have access to who has the biggest reach into the world? Who has already done organizing work and decided to play a big role in the transformation of society? Who would it be fun to get close to and let know that we like them and have this resource we could share with them?
What if each of us chose one person in our wider community who is playing an important role in world change to get close to and offer the tools of RC to?
All of our minds work better when we are listened to and get a chance to discharge. They work better when someone has confidence in our thinking and likes us a lot. It’s amazing the difference we can make to people by just liking them. We RCers have had sessions in which we fight to remember we’re connected to each other—we understand something about closeness that we shouldn’t take for granted.
I do not get close to people with an agenda of getting them into the RC Community, even though that is a good thing to have happen—they would get a fuller picture of RC and be able to use it in a bigger way if they were connected to other people besides me. But these are busy people, so I’m flexible in how I have contact. Sometimes it’s just listening to them for five or ten minutes, or I take a minute or more to tell them how wonderful they are.
I always talk openly about RC. I’ve found ways to talk about distress recordings and the discharge process. I say a bit about early distress and how everyone is good. This is easy to do; it’s just part of a normal conversation. I’ve done this with a number of people over many years.
As for the upcoming election, I’m working with someone in my organization, Youth on Board, and backing him and other trainers to build a Listening Works project. Within that, we have three partner organizations that have a big electoral reach in the United States and organize large numbers of mostly young adults.
I have chosen four people to put my resources into: the head of one of the strongest teachers’ unions in the United States, an owning-class person who gave away all his money and writes books and speaks internationally about the “underside” of capitalism and hidden wealth, the executive director of a young adult national climate organization, and the associate director of a national organization that works on immigrant rights.
I think we need to get over [stop] being shy. We need to get over being worried about being attacked. We’re going to get attacked. I’ve been attacked a few times in other contexts and have gotten smarter each time. We’re going to make mistakes.
Another Co-Counselor and I have become buddies in doing this. We both love it. We text each other with successes. It’s been a lot of fun trying things and remembering how important we are and that we matter.
Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, USA
Reprinted from the RC e-mail discussion list for leaders of wide world change
(Present Time 202, January 2021)