"Our collective goal must be to create workplace cultures, policies, services, and daily practices that are healthy, emotionally supportive, inclusive, and healing for everyone who engages with them" - Julie Nicholson, Priya Shimpi Driscoll, Julie Kurtz, Doménica Márquez, LaWanda Wesley
Last week, my blog took a version of the workplace wheel of power and control and I adapted it to be more reflective of how power and control show up working within schools.
My friend and our guest blogger on the site, Leona, writes often about the ways that abuse can show up. Identifying abuse and then answering "what next?"
A few days after I created the adapted power and control wheel, I asked myself (and quickly, asked Leona) - what is the opposite of power and control? She named personal responsibility and empowerment, as well as The Four Agreements (we're both big fans) and Trauma-Informed Care. She pointed out: power and control are what you do to others; personal responsibility and empowerment are what you do to yourself. Power and control is inflicted; personal responsibility and empowerment are practiced and shared.
With these ideas in mind, I created a similar wheel to reflect ways that we can counter how power and control manifests within relationships on individual, collective, and organizational levels. This is not to say that only features of personal responsibility and empowerment OR power and control can exist at any one time. Relationships, systems, and people are complex and may simultaneously perpetuate aspects of both wheels.
Ideally, we can create and function collectively within personal responsibility and empowerment to access healing and wellness for everyone.
What resonates with you on this wheel? What would you like to purposefully create or advocate for more of?
*a note 3/24/21: from feedback and reflection, I am processing how to make some updates to the section "Don't take anything personally" - if you have ideas, I welcome you to share them!*
