94 | Ways to "Do the Work": Sharing and Taking Action

Welcome to the Small Steps Podcast. I'm your host, Amy Soon. I'm a nutritional therapy practitioner, blogger at Small Eats, author of Not At My Dastal Lunch, Designer, and Avon Learner. In my nutrition practice, I help you cut through the health and wellness noise to find what works for you.

This podcast is here to educate, inspire, and empower you to grow, try new things, and live a life you truly feel good about one small step at a time. Each episode has small steps that you can try and see how they work for you. You can find all the show notes, small steps, and other episodes at small-eats.com-podcast. Remember, the materials and content within this podcast are intended as general information only.

They are not to be considered a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Well, hello. Welcome back to another episode of the Small Steps Podcast. I am so glad that you are here.

It is episode 94, and this is part five of a five-part series around ways to do the work, around social justice, and understanding the systems of oppression that affect us all. This episode covers sharing and taking action. And before I get into this episode, like I have done with all of these episodes, I highly recommend that you start with episode 32 and 33 first before listening to the series so that you can understand the context and liberatory approach that I learned and I've come from, as well as other ways to do the work that aren't being talked about in this series. If this is the first episode you're listening to of this series, I highly recommend after listening to the context of my approach, I would go back and listen episode 90, that's episode one in this series, and it talks about where to begin before really getting started.

I highly recommend starting with that one first within this series because everything kind of builds on top of each other. Episode 91 is part two, and that talks about ways that you can gather information to continue your social justice learning as well as ways to engage your critical thinking in this particular area. Episode 92 is part three, and it talks about doing media and money audits in order to make sure where you're spending your time and your money, also aligns with your values and where you want to go as far as your life and your social justice work. And episode 93, which is the last part that we talked about last week, we've been listening to this in real time, talks about the importance of your own care while you do this work and how you can define that and give yourself the care that you need because taking care of yourself is actually an extremely important way to continue to do the work, the more that you can take care of yourself, the more that you can make doing social justice work in whatever form you want or need, sustainable for the long haul and preventing me burnout, which is a really important thing to consider.

Important disclaimers, like I've said, with every single episode, I am not a social justice educator. I have learned from a lot of amazing social justice educators directly and indirectly over the years to really help me understand concepts, take them further, apply more things. If you are interested in formerly or informally learning from a social justice educator, I have provided some recommendations in episode 90. They are no means the definitive, these are the only people you should look at, but if you're trying to figure out where to start, definitely go back to episode 90 and those show notes in the episode and then also get the names of people in the show.

If you are also gonna work with folks, please also compensate them for their time to make sure that it's even exchanged. This series is actually for sharing what I've learned at I've even my social justice education, what I would have done knowing what I know now, and it's a way to provide you additional structures and steps on how to start and or continue your social justice learning and work. And there is no substitute for social justice and systemic oppression education. This series is not a shortcut, this is not a way to replace any longer term learning.

Also, like I have invited you with all shows on this series, please check in with yourself as you listen to this series, as you do this work, this work can bring up a lot of feelings, a lot of trauma, a lot of stuff that you didn't even know was there, so please make sure you're taking care of yourself and doing the things that are important to you and they're aligned with you. All the small steps in this series are suggestions, they're not requirements, so do what works with you. So this episode, sharing and taking action. I'm gonna talk about sharing the knowledge that you're learning and also taking action on what you're learning.

Learning is a really crucial part of the work and we learn in order to take action. Taking action is really, really important. There can be often this like, I'm gonna acquire all the information, which is great, but if we don't do anything with that information, then we're really not going to be able to contribute in the ways that we want to unless we take action. So this is all about how do we take some action?

And also depending on what's been happening in your life and in the pace of your social justice learning, you may not be able to act in big ways, big ways and like heavy air quotes. And know that any action that you take counts. This is, as I've said throughout this whole series, doing social justice work, like any work that you do that's important to you, is lifelong and it is a developmental process. That's something that I learned from my mentor, Dr.

T Williams. And that means it will continue to build on itself and grow as you keep learning and taking action. If taking action also, I want to say, makes you feel anxious or nervous or brings up a lot of feelings. Know that is a very normal feeling that ties back to a lot of different things.

And it can vary depending on your life and your identities. It can come from how you've been socialized, from your own life experience, from your family to the systems of oppression and the dynamics that are based on your identities, fears that you're gonna fuck it up, fears around perfectionism and and and. And it's important too, with all those aunts, share that doing this work is definitely not done perfectly. You will make mistakes.

I have made plenty of mistakes and will continue to make mistakes. Protecting yourself or feeling a strong need to protect yourself from making mistakes really won't help you in doing the work and it won't help you help other people. It will just mess with your brain and potentially stall you. And it's important to remind you I've said this in other episodes.

I'll say it here again. Perfection can also be oppression, doing its job to keep you silent. So for you personally, if you've noticed that thinking about doing stuff or maybe me just talking about that to you right now, taking action, if it feels uncomfortable, it may be helpful for you to get clear on what makes you specifically feel nervous to act. Now, depending on what that is, it may be helpful to talk with another person, a mental health professional, a therapist, et cetera, to help work through that.

Also know that the more that you work on this muscle, the more that you exercise it, the more that you take action, the more that you do things, the more that you do things, the more that you do things, the more that they are, the less scary it is. I promise. I remember about a year ago, maybe over a year ago now, I would have a really strong physical feeling in my body that was telling me no, don't do this. This is really terrifying.

This is really scary. Don't speak up. Don't make a scene. It went against almost everything that I had learned in order to stay safe.

Also, the feelings of like, I need to say something. I can't not say anything or too big. And so even though my body was like, danger, danger, this is really not the good thing to do. I still did it anyway.

It was exhausting because my body was so going in overdrive to try and keep me safe, but I kept practicing it and I kept doing it. And those intense, oh my God, I'm so scared feelings, they pop up every once in a while, depending on like who I'm talking to, who I'm taking action with, et cetera, et cetera. But overall, the frequency of that intensity is so much lower now because I've done it enough. And for me, it's been fine enough.

I've been heard and received enough that my body is starting to be like, oh, okay, I think we can do this. I think it will be okay. And know that it's not always gonna be like that. Not the whole, it's gonna be less scary, but there are a lot of factors depending on how you speak up, when you speak up, where you speak up, lots of things go into that.

For me, in my personal experience, the more that I've done it and been very clear about where I decided to do that, these weren't things on social media, a lot of these things were like real life things with real people, based-to-face conversations that I know. The more that I have done that, the more that it's been easier for me to continue to practice and do that. So there's a lot of context that's gonna know that you're just gonna try and you're gonna feel eventually less scared. So that's important to know.

Some of what's gonna be shared also, I wanna say in this podcast, as a huge hat tip, I've mentioned Dr. T. Williams every single time in this podcast series, because a lot of the things that I'm gonna be sharing in this podcast in particular, a lot of things I've been sharing throughout the whole podcast are very, very much influenced by my education, by my learning, by my questions that I've had with Dr. T.

Williams. So some of the things in this podcast, I do want to give a clear hat tip, a clear nod. I took an action in allyship class with Dr. T earlier this year, and it really helped solidify a lot of things for me, so I'm gonna be referencing some of those things.

If you're interested in taking a class like that, I don't know when he's gonna do that next, but definitely check his website, his information will be in the show notes, to see when he would hold one of those classes next, or do a webinar or some kind of event. Also, the more that I have worked on my own healing, like what I talked about in episode 93, and I worked on my self-awareness in a very structured way, and that has been with Dr. T within our social justice community, the more that has been really a lot easier for me to understand what is mine and what is not, and working through my own patterns, working through my own socialization, because that really does, for me, affect how I show up in social justice work, and how I show up in every area of my life. The more that we know ourselves, and the more that we understand ourselves, and the shit that we are carrying, the more that we are able to step away from those things, recognize those things, recognize that those things are oppressive, and that they have been taking up a lot of space, and the more that we can let those things go, so that we can do the things that we want to do, take up the space that we want to, and utilize more of our magic and brilliance, that made our patterns might be hijacking from us.

I also want to say, again, I'm pretty sure I talked about this episode 93 as well, but healing from our own pain is extremely, extremely important, because one, you're an important person, and you deserve care and healing, and also, healing from our own pain helps us not pass on pain that's been given to us to other people, especially people with more targeted identities than us, or just other people in general. There can be folks in the social justice world, I have seen them, I have experienced some level of stuff, they can actually perpetuate the harm that's been done to them onto other people, because potentially, I don't know them personally, but potentially they have not really focused on their own healing, and they haven't really stepped out of those shame blame and guilt cycles. So to stop those cycles, we really have to take a moment, focus on our own stuff, feel those things and heal those things. So I know I talked about this a lot in episode 93, but I wanted to say it again, because that can affect how you share, how you take action, how your action is received, is it actually what you want it to do, or is it responding out of patterns, which might intentionally cause harm?

There are a lot of things to think about. I don't want you to get overwhelmed, because again, this is a process it takes time, it takes a lot of stuff. I just want you to be aware that this is a process, it takes time, it's developmental, it takes a lot of stuff, it takes a lot of work, not to say that it's not worth doing, but it's so much bigger than just donating to a cause, or signing a petition, or whatever, like doing this lifelong work will have ripple effects, like I've said in other episodes, and so it's important to know and see how much those happen, because I certainly didn't know, I kind of knew, but in experience, and like, I'm gonna say this, and you might hear it, but you may not really hear it until you do it, so I wanted to say it, wanted to put it out there. So small steps for sharing and taking action.

Step one, define your spheres of influence. So you might be thinking, yo, Amy, I'm not a person with a podcast, I'm not an influencer, I'm not a blogger, I'm just a person, so why are you talking about my influence? Because no matter how many followers you have on any social media platform, if you even fucking have any social media platforms, it doesn't matter if you have a podcast or a blog or whatever, every single person has influence, and I really want you to take a moment and recognize that. Because in today's society, there are so many power dynamics, things around class, things around position, et cetera, that reinforce this idea that people with more followers, people with more money, people with more stuff, are more credible, and therefore should be believed, more than other people.

And there has been this idea of who is the dominant voice, who is the person that we listen to. Sometimes that person may not look like you, sometimes that person may not even have the same values as you. So it's important for you to know and recognize that you have influence, and you can spread that to different areas or spheres in your life. So the term spheres of influence actually originates from a political term, which I didn't know, where a country has the power to affect the developments of another country that it has no formal authority of.

And this term has since taken on additional meanings. I don't know exactly for sure when and where and how, but I'm assuming based on how I've been exposed to the terms spheres of influence from the business and or personal development world, to where an individual or an organization has the power to affect events and developments. And in most of the context of how I'm talking to you, I'm gonna go with where an individual has power. So this can also be explained in many infographics if you Google spheres of influence.

In any image search, you'll see a bunch of in centric circles basically look like a dartboard. And those concentric circles show the different spheres of influence. They're all slightly different. I haven't found one that's like the spheres of influence registered trademark TM1.

So you'll see a few and they change based on the context, but here's the general idea. You are the in the center of the circle. You're in the center of the dartboard. You're the bull's eye and radiating outward are different spheres of your life that you have impact on.

And the ones closest to you are the ones that you probably have the most impact on. And as it radiates out to the center, you probably have impact, which you might have quote, less impact as you move all the way out, because those usually get bigger and bigger and bigger. So outside of you, the ring right outside of you could be your immediate family unit, who you live with, your partner, your kids, your roommate, whomever, wondering outside of that can be your extended family and your friends, depending on your relationships and who's in your life. One ring outside of that could be your neighbors and acquaintances.

One ring outside of that could be your workplace, your school and communities that you are active in. And then from there, you can continue to go out to your broader community, whether that's just like in your geographical area or your state, and then other rings could be larger forms of government, the rest of the internet, et cetera. It can kind of go out from there. So you see what I'm saying.

The further we go away from the center, the bigger the audience gets. So I would really invite you to take some time. And if you need to Google and look up the spheres of influence to see if you're a visual person, I'll put a link in the show notes too. One of the ones that I looked at, looking at this podcast just so you can see it.

But take some time to think about your specific spheres of influence based on your life. We all have different life experiences, we all have different communities, we all have different living situations. So take a moment and see what your specifically are. Start with yourself in the middle and start radiating out from there.

You can list your friends, your family, members, the communities that you show up in. If you have a child and they have a school, or they're in activity groups, like think about those things as well, and write those out. So once you've written those out, I really invite you to think on ways that you can engage with those different spheres about social justice. How can you share with people in these spheres?

Are there other people within these spheres doing social justice work? Where do you want to take action in these circles? Because you get to choose where you want to do action. I think there's a lot of talk about like do everything, like yes, that's ideal, but like we're all about small steps here.

So like where do you want to start? Where do you feel like taking this action in these certain circles will have the best results? Where will they be received the most, et cetera. So where do you want to start focusing in taking action?

What could that action be? Also know that just because there are people in your circles, like some of your circles could have a lot of names. If you want to get specific and write people's names or certain groups, know that you do not need to engage with every single person in every single community in all of your spheres of influence. You get to decide where you put your time, energy and attention as you engage in this, or honestly like any work that you want.

There is this thing about like you need to talk to that problematic uncle at the Thanksgiving table or whatever and you're going to know the social dynamics of your families and your social groups and your friends way more than I would. And I want to make sure that especially if you have a complicated history or somebody in your family or in your circles is toxic or hard for you to deal with or has a negative impact on you because of historical things because of all things that I don't know that you might know, please know you do not have to talk to them like that's your choice. Know that just because you don't talk to that one person does not mean you have failed. You probably have so many other people that would love to have this conversation or would be willing to have this dialogue if you would figure it out over this one problematic person that you may have a really complicated and harmful for you history.

And you don't always have to engage with that person. I think that there is a lot of, especially in social media, like you've got to talk to all your people. If you want to, if you feel like you have the resources, you feel like you've done your healing work and you want to take that on, go for it. But if you're not in the place to engage with that, if that's not something that's going to be helpful for you or healthy for you, I think you should have a say in whether you do that or not.

And if you feel like that's going to be more harmful for you, maybe you don't do it, maybe you focus on other people who you'll be able to have impact in their lives and they'll bring it to their people and et cetera, et cetera, versus someone that's going to bring you a lot of pain. I don't know if that's a super popular opinion, but I do want to state that, like you get to choose. You get to choose and I think that you will probably choose and lean into people that will want to hear this or want to have more of a dialogue and that will be a lot more life giving, then trying to go head to head with whatever problematic person that's in your life, even though you want, you might not really want them to be there, but they are there. We all have those people.

It's up to you. The next small step is define your skill sets. It's important to remember that you have a bunch of skills. You have a bunch of really good skills and talents and things and those things can be applied to the social justice work, whether you think it's a natural fit or not, because how you do social justice work is not have to look the same from the person next to you to the person next to you to the person next to you.

It probably shouldn't. There are so many ways and places and spaces that oppression lives and where liberation and social justice can benefit from. So why don't we all take our own unique magic and apply it in a way that would be helpful in the retory for us and for other people? Just like with your health, there is no one size fits all solution here.

So there is no one size fits all skill set requirement of how you do this work. So as you start to think about how you want to engage with this work, I invite you to take a minute to write out, talk out, brainstorm, whatever, things that you're good at, things that you love to do and skills that you have. Also as a side note, if you notice that you are having a hard time doing this or letting yourself brag about yourself or taking up space, that is something to notice. That is also oppression, trying to keep you small, quiet and complicit and not doing the work to push back on the systems that are making it hard for you to take up space and say, I am a badass because of XYZ.

So after you write those things out, see how you can and want to use those in your social justice work. And they could be quote smaller things, but remember all of these things add up. So for example, say you love cooking. Do you want to have also like some of these examples are non-COVID times examples, but when COVID times are over, do you have a dinner party where you talk about social justice things with people that are open to that?

Maybe you host a Zoom meeting or something like that, a small thing with people that you care about. Maybe if you live with other people and you want to start with them first, maybe have that dinner party with the people you live with. If you don't want to do a dinner party or if that's not totally or jam, could you make food for protesters? If there are any protests happening in your area or could you volunteer at an organization that helps feed targeted folks or people with marginalized identities?

Are you great at connecting with people? Are there people that you can connect to learn together? Are there ways that you can connect other people to your network, to social justice people or organizations that might need additional support? Maybe you've got someone that is really great at fundraising or that has a lot of great strategic ideas about nonprofits or scaling all that shit and maybe you know of a nonprofit that you've learned about that might need that help.

Maybe you connect them. Is creating a community to do this work? Is that something that would be helpful? Maybe you've got a bunch of people that might not know, they want to start, but they don't know each other.

Maybe you bring all of those people together? Are you referring other people to helpful resources that support their healing, that support their care? Are there creative ways that you can apply this to share what you've learned? Are you an artist?

Are you someone that loves graphic design or making social media graphics? Do you want to slap a thing of what you've learned giving credit that's appropriate? Because that's really important and sharing that on whatever platform you want or sharing that with your friends or family or putting it in a space where people can see it in real life. Does that relate to raising money for any causes that you feel strongly about?

I have a pin that donates a portion of the profits to go to the ACLU on the Elle Harbor Fund because I wanted to do something when the abortion bans started becoming something that could have happened. That's one way that I took action in a way that was creative and specific to me. Is there a way that you can do that in a way that is important for you? Are you great at finding information?

In fact checking, where would you share it? Where do you want to share it? Are there other ways that you can support other people and helping with their healing? Are you really good at listening?

Are you gonna be the person that helps hold space for other people while they're processing and doing their stuff? Also, totally make sure that you are asking other people to hold space for you as well and make this a two way street. So using your skills does not have to be frontline movement related stuff as well. I want to say that.

It can look like supporting the people that are doing the frontline work. It can look like feeding people. It can be looking after kids while other people do movement work. There's all different ways for us to work together towards a common goal and some of it, depending on your comfort level, your health, your abilities, all those things, we can all do the work in different ways.

As long as we are taking action and continuing to take action, that to me is what is really important. So I've got two work related small steps here as well. One is gonna be if you are in an office and the other one's gonna be if you are a freelancer or a small business owner. So let's go with the office one first.

So if you are in an office or a semi corporate environment, consider checking in with your HR department and we're manager. If you're gonna get as a please go with what works best for your office, you know your office way better than I do, you know the dynamics. Checking with someone, manager in HR is a great place to start, but I don't know your office. And ask them some questions.

Ask them if you feel comfortable, if you feel like this person will listen, et cetera. What are the policies around equal employment opportunities in hiring and promoting? How is the race, gender, sex, ability breakdown within the company? This is something that's been happening a lot in light of companies making Black Lives Matter statements.

A lot of customers are responding to those things saying, hey, but what's the breakdown in your company? Who's leading it like I was talking about in the media audience? Customers are responding and saying, hey, like we wanna know what your breakdown is to know if your value is, if you're actually doing the stuff. So could you ask your own company, what's that breakdown?

How are we as a company? How diverse are we? How diverse are we not? Does your company have any values?

If they do, and you can't find them, ask somebody. Do they have any values or a stance around social justice? If they haven't made any public-facing statements or internal-facing, ask about those. Also, did they make any statements around Black Lives Matter or working on anti-blackness or anti-racism?

How's their progress on that? How is this recording? It's only been about two-ish months, but still. Are they taking steps?

What are those things? Are they moving forward somehow? Depending on how big your company is, progress can be slower than others, but if they're not communicating that, that's something that is important to know and ask about. So that they know that in the company, people are like, hey, this is important to me.

Are they looking into any kind of company-wide education regarding social justice, whether that's just a workshop or something, like what are they doing to help the employees learn more about this so that the whole company can really take action? Because the company is made up of individuals. So if the individuals don't know how to take the next steps, the individuals aren't all on the same page. Taking a unified step forward as an organization is gonna be hard because the people inside the organization aren't all speaking the same language, aren't all coming from the same place.

Is there any support for non-dominant employees that could be mental health? That could be letting people know that they can take breaks, et cetera? Is there any openness to start an ERG? So an ERG is an employee resource group.

It's usually run with specific ideas in mind, like you could have an all women ERG, you could have a people of color ERG, you could have a gay coworker ERG, usually they're run by employees. I've never worked out a company that's large enough to start an ERG, but there's a lot of information out there about how to start ERGs. Is your office big enough to do that? Is that something that they're open to supporting, et cetera?

Ask any of these questions, like you'll know which ones are the most appropriate for you. And if more of your coworkers are asking, or this is something that people continue to state is very important, this will signal to the HR department and managers that this is important, and maybe hopefully fingers crossed, they will start to do something. Also, it's important to know that upper management needs to really believe in this as well. One of the most common things that happens in the failure of implementing DEI, which is diversity, equity, inclusion, or social justice initiatives, the main reason why they fail, oftentimes is because the upper management doesn't really fully buy into it and support it.

So if you can get, whether you or someone else that you work with can really help confirm and get buy in from executives, that means that that work can really continue, and your company can start to move forward into a more corporate citizen model, which is what I talked about in episode 92, especially if your customers are demanding it as well. So there are a lot of, there are also like so many books out there, some of which I've read, some are great, some are okay. There are a lot of books out there about the first-day inclusion in the workplace, and I know that a lot of companies are thinking about it, especially now on how to do it, and hearing from their employees that this is important, pretty good thing too. Also, I think it's important to think about, in addition to going to people that can make change from a structural level in your company, what are some other ways that you can share this stuff in your company with your coworkers, with other people, what are some ways that that conversation can start from all areas, not just from the top.

Also, I wanna say, if you are a person of color listening to this, please know that it's really important to take care of yourself in this arena too. It is far too common and far too normal, and not a good thing, that marginalized folks are really heavily relied upon to be the source of a lot of race-based education, or if you're the only gay person in the office, like you'll be like the person to ask all the information about gay folks, even if it's not your focus, if you have an identity that other people don't have, you're gonna become the expert, and that's fucking tiring. That's also oppression continuing to play itself out again and again and again. If you notice that that's happening, highly recommend that your company hire someone to talk about social justice, and get support from your manager and HR if possible.

And also please, please, please, deeply, deeply, deeply, take care of yourself outside of your job if there are complicated things, because work environments can be fucking messy. I have been in several of them, and I haven't always been in an environment where people were really able to listen or hear or support me in the ways that I wanted it needed. So if you ask these questions and you're not received really well, please continue to take care of yourself in the ways that you can. And if it's really important to you, maybe, hopefully, I don't know, it's hard in these current times, but like, see how you can find another job in the future, if that's possible, I know that might not be possible for everyone, but how can you take care of yourself if these things don't quite turn out the way that you want?

If you are a freelancer, entrepreneur, or small business owner, see how you can incorporate social justice into your work, into your job. Check in with your values and see how you can, based on your business, see how you can start to incorporate those. Remember, small steps here, you don't need to incorporate all that once, maybe you adjust your business model, and how do you do that? Maybe you work with a social justice informed business coach, Andrea Renee, who I mentioned in episode 90, this is her jam.

So maybe you see her name, her information will be in the show notes, maybe you hire her and work with her and figure out how to do this. Do you look at all the language on your website or social media or any other copy that you have that's out there and see if it has inclusive language? Maybe you remove gender language, maybe you have things that are more inviting or don't use the word blind spot or tribe or whatever. Like, can you start working also with more folks of non-dominant identities as service providers or vendors?

It could be really helpful to do an audit of all the vendors, depending on like what kind of work you do. All the vendors, suppliers, manufacturers, shipping services, and other companies that you use, similar to the audit that we talked about in episode 92, to see if you want to shift anywhere to align more with your values and your social justice values as the boss for a lot of stuff, especially if you're making things, like you have the power to work with other people, you have the power to look for and find other people to print your stuff with, nail yourself, ship yourself with the things you pack them with, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. See if those people align with you. Can you start connecting with or highlighting more non-dominant identity colleagues?

Could you partner with them? Could you refer them? Could you just have more conversations with them? Could you do some kind of fun collab, depending on what you do?

Like, how can you really start to embody this work in your business? If, depending on the way that your business works, could you donate some of your profits to a charity that benefits non-dominant entities? You don't have to do this forever, but if it's important to you and there's something that you can do, could you do it? If you speak at any events at any time, are you asking to see what the other panelists or speakers are?

And if they all look the same, or if they're all different, and if there's a good mixture of folks, that are, if there's an equal or more equal representation, if not, do you have friends that you could refer that would be more non-dominant, or maybe do you turn it down? These are all things that are, quote, more common, that are being talked about now, but how can you really bring social justice into your business? Another thing that's not related to business, and is a bigger one, is how can you start and or continue working on your listening and asking skills? A big part of helping folks, especially folks that have different backgrounds, experiences, identities than you, is listening, and really listening to those people and what they're asking for and what they need.

And this sounds really obvious, but listening to listen can be really fucking hard and can often not be a thing that we were taught or socialized with or raised with, and this can be a way more difficult skill than you think. We still often listen to respond to share our opinions and that can take away from the person sharing because they may not feel as heard or as understood, and we can not not hear what the person is saying, we just really want to share what we know, we really want to respond, we really have this thing on the tip of our tongue and we just really have to share it. And I know that everybody's got different levels of neurodiversity and neurodivergence and whatever, and also how do we practice listening to more people? How often have you been interrupted while talking or was the person interrupted?

How did you feel when you were interrupted, or why were you interrupting? Was it to help? Or was it maybe to unintentionally show that you're a good person, you're a smart person, that you're paying attention, that you wanted to insert your stuff, and that that actually might not be what this person is talking about or asking at all. And this is not to make you feel bad, it's not to make you feel shameful, it's not to say like you're a shitty listener, it's to say from personal experience, the more that you step back and look at how you listen, you may realize that you're not really listening to listen, you're listening to respond, and that takes work.

And this term of listening to listen is called active listening, and this was something that I learned. I learned it when I was in nutrition school, it was a skill that we called motivational interviewing, and also I went a lot deeper with the skill when I took self-awareness with Dr. T. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, episode 32, we talked a little bit about it, I think I was, I had just finished taking self-awareness one, and I've since been like really focusing on my self-awareness skills probably for the last year plus.

So it takes time, and I still work on it all the time, and I still make mistakes active listening all the time. So I say this with experience, like I was really not good at this, and it takes a lot of practice and a lot of skill. So what does active listening look like? What does it entail?

It looks like letting the person talk, say everything that they need to say without interruption. Even if they take a long pause, even if they're searching for their word, or they're a slower processor, like just letting someone talk. It means having eye contact with that person, putting down your phone, or anything that affects your concentration in listening to that person. It involves your body language and nodding and understanding, or leaning in or uncrossing your arms, or having a more pleasant or receptive expression on your face.

You can ask the person in a pleasant tone, not in a like, you're done, kind of way, but if you can say, are you done sharing? Is there anything else you would like to share? And when they're done, you can affirm them with what they've shared or ask how they've been feeling before adding your opinion. This usually happens with a lot of difficult stuff.

I'm like, oh, that sounds difficult. Thank you for sharing that with me, or I'm sorry to hear that you're having a hard time. Or thank you for sharing that with me. You can also reflect what you've heard back to them to see, to make sure that you understand.

So you could say, what I hear you saying is, and you can reflect about what you heard, and at the end you can say, is that correct? Is that what you said? It sounds like, the thing, is that what you said? You can also totally ask clarifying questions, and I would definitely start with, can I ask you some clarifying questions?

Or can you tell me more about this thing that you said? I'm not sure that I understand. Depending on who you're talking with, you can also ask, how can I support you? Because a lot of times, the person is sharing because they need to share that they need to share that, they need to get it off their chest, they need to feel seen, heard, and understood.

And maybe they also need specific support. So by saying that, by offering that, you are helping that person get what they need. It's about validating them, and figuring out how you can support them if that's related. And watching how active listening helps someone is amazing.

I've seen it several times, I've watched it with clients, I've watched it with other people that I've been learning and stuff wearing is with. And it is truly amazing to watch someone receive the attention that they need, because we all are pretty deficit on receiving the attention and the care that we really want and need, where all we all need attention, and we didn't get it. And so when you give someone your full attention, that person who receives that attention, can do some really fucking amazing shit. They can connect their own dots, they can come to a lot of realizations, they can feel seen, they can feel understood.

And that's pretty amazing. If you're practicing this with someone that you know, please also make sure that this listening process is something that you talk about with them, that's something that you say, hey, I'm doing this thing. Hey, can you re-practice the skill together as we can we take turns so that you can both feel seen and heard. So giving some context about it, maybe looking into active listening, looking into motivational interviewing as a skill so that you can understand and get a little bit more framework.

I'm going over it really quickly, I've been studying this and practicing this for over a year. So look into it a little bit more, I'm giving you like, I'm really glazing over it because I'm not an expert in it. But if you're interested, definitely look into it. Also in active listening, I mentioned some question-asking skills and asking questions is another skill that you can really develop together and also separately with active listening.

Asking is a key thing in building a consent culture and consent is so much more about sex. It's really about making sure that people are respected and encouraged to share their needs and their wants and their boundaries so that we know how to best support them. Asking can be about sharing information, receiving support, needs, boundaries, anything. Asking can also improve your communication skills and show that you respect someone because you're asking and you're making sure that they're okay.

So ask someone if they're available before sharing something rather than just being like, oh my God, can you believe this fucking thing? Like, hey, are you available to talk right now? Or hey, when you're free, can I talk to you about this thing? Can I share something with you that's related to this, that or that?

Asking someone if they can listen and hold space and help you. This could be like, I would help with this thing, can you help me? Are you available to talk with me about this thing? I really would like some support.

Asking someone how you can support them when you think they might need support and saying, hi, I know there's a lot going on right now. How can I support you? Asking someone if they need help or support in general. Asking someone how they're feeling, or after they're shared with you as an information like I mentioned earlier, before just saying like, wow, that's shitty.

How do they feel about that? You may not know from their tone or especially if it's in a text form, like you may not know how they're feeling. So just ask them before they might have a lot more to share. Again, like I mentioned before, ask them clarifying questions to understand.

And also asking if someone wants to do something rather than assuming that they want to do it. That gives people more agency and more choice. The more that we can listen and ask questions intentionally in a way, that puts the focus on the person we're asking. That puts the focus on the person that we ideally want to help.

And the more that we can make sure that we're listening and supporting, the more that we can really cultivate habits to really see and help people first, if with what they want and what they need, rather than being like oops, sorry, I fucked up. What do you actually need? So it can reduce harm, misunderstanding. And also, especially in the social justice context, help us see when we might end this step back, to help others step forward and take up more space, or just like let someone do their own thing.

Question asking, reading the room, learning to listen, like these are all really important skills. I feel like don't get talked about enough as far as like working towards allyship, but they are extremely important things to do because the interesting dance of working towards allyship and working towards supporting other people is knowing when to step up and when to step back and other people lead, and how to support other people to lead themselves and the groups that are important to them. Like we want to prevent savorism here, right? We want to prevent being that person that's whoops and saves the day, especially if we're not from the community that we're trying to help, or if we don't have all the same intersections.

And one of those intersections that you don't have, one of those identities that you don't have is like a way that you're helping someone. If you're from the upper class and you're helping someone from the lower class, they're gonna know what they need, and they're gonna know how much more supportive, more than you are. How do you step back and let them step forward to say what they need to say, to share what they need to share, like how do you support folks? All these skills are really helpful in learning how to support folks, and they take time, they take practice, they take a lot of awareness as well, and cultivating self-awareness is such an important skill in doing this work.

I've said a lot of things, I've talked about a lot of stuff, small steps for sharing and taking action are, define your spirit of influence, define your skill sets. If you work for a company, consider checking with your HR department or manager about company policies, procedures, stands, education, related, social justice, anything else. If you're a freelancer, entrepreneur, or small business owner, see how you can incorporate your social justice values into your work. And lastly, start working on your listening and communication skills.

Give yourself so much kindness and compassion as well as you do this because again, this work takes a lot of time and a lot of practice, and that's okay. So every week that I've been talking about, this is what action steps you wanna take this week, or next week, or any of those, any time in the future. You don't have to do all these steps because some of them may not resonate or apply, and that's totally okay. And with that, holy crap, let's do the last episode in this five episode series.

And so before we wrap, invite you to take a moment to reflect back on all these five episodes, and think about what's resonated with you, and all these shows. Let's really stuck out to you. What's stuck out with you with this show, the previous episode, et cetera, et cetera. What are you more curious about?

That might help you continue your learning here. Like what's stuck out to you? What's been the, huh, that's new. How do I look into that?

What sparked more questions? Something that Andrea Renee said to me when I took a workshop with her in person and said on other workshops that I was participating in via Zoom, her goal was for you to leave with more questions and answers, and I was like, wait, what? And when I took after I took the first one, I was like, oh yeah, I have a lot more questions. And you know what, the good thing, it might seem really frustrating, but the good thing, if you have more questions, that means you're thinking about stuff, that means you're critically thinking, that means you're curious, that means things are working in there, clicking into place and simmering and you're like, well, what about, like, that's an amazing sign.

So what sparked more questions? What are those questions? And also, what have you learned? What have you learned as far as like the actionable steps that we've talked about?

And what have you learned about yourself, through this process, through these small steps, through the series? What's really stuck out to you? And the last one, the most important one to me, is what steps have you taken so far, and what steps are you taking? Because, like I mentioned in the show, this is about action.

This is about continuing to take the small steps towards the larger goal, the larger goal of continuing to spread social justice work everywhere. And this is lifelong, and it takes a lot of actions and small steps, and remember, no matter how small, these steps feel in this moment, they are building towards something bigger. You may not be able to see it right now, but a few weeks from now, a few months from now, a year from now, several years from now, you'll be able to look back and be like, wow. Look how much progress that I've made in this work, and look how much I've been able to affect change directly and indirectly.

Look at the folks that I've supported in doing this work, and that's extremely important. You'll see all these amazing things because of all these small steps that you've taken. So thank you so much for listening to this whole series. I really appreciate it.

As always, I would love to hear your feedback. What stuck out to you? What do you want to learn more about? Anything you would like to share?

This is the last episode in the series. There's gonna be one episode next week that's not related to the series, and then I'll talk about it next week as well, but I'm gonna take a little bit of a break, talk about it more in the next show, but I am so glad that you have listened to the series. And thank you so much for listening as always. All right, until next week, remember, you can do this once more stuff at a time.