Community Agreements

Radical kindness is the term I use to describe how I want us to treat each other–and ourselves–while in community together. What this means is that you are pledging not to be “nice,” which usually is the word we use when we mean that we’re being tolerant.

We’re not here to be tolerant. We’re here to be radical. We’re here to make a change in our selves, our cultures, and the world.

There is no time for nice or niceness. Those are ways that we cover over or bypass our actual feelings. Niceness causes harm.

But by being kind, we are allowing ourselves and each other to show up as full, complex human beings.

It means we accept the messiness of living in a marginalized body in a world obsessed with dominance. It means that you’re allowed to feel what you feel. It means you don’t have to agree with everything that is said and you can challenge it. It means that you can be whomever or whatever you are, unapologetically in this space.

And it means that you will give the same to everyone else who says yes and shows up.

Radical consent means that we respect each other’s sovereignty and choice. It means that, before we offer our opinion, suggestion, or comment, we ask the other person if they have capacity and desire to receive what we have to send.

This also means that if the other person says no that we respect their no. And I know that is the hardest part.

Every single one of us knows what it feels like to have our consent, sovereignty, and choice trampled by people who mean well, think they know better than us, or really, really, really just want to help.

Let’s use this space as a place to practice unravelling that habit. It’s hard work, it’s going to feel awkward and tricky, and you won’t be good at it right away–or maybe ever.

And that’s okay.

That’s why the agreement is to practice. It’s how we all will get better.

Radical self responsibility is an idea that I have been thinking about for awhile now.

We’ve all been in a conversation around a hard topic and felt ourselves activated by something the other person said or did, even if it wasn’t directed at us.

And the bigness of our anger, sadness, and grief triggers a desire to lash out at the person because we want to defend ourselves from the attacks we’ve perceived and punish them for causing us to feel this way.

However, that’s often not about them… it’s usually about us.

We are all entitled to have our feelings. Hell, we can’t help but to have them.

Reactions happen.

But we can practice being better at relating to other people through conflict by being responsible for ourselves, our feelings, and how we respond when they come up.

This isn’t about swallowing your feelings, pretending they’re not there, and playing nice.

This is about finding ways to tend to your needs in moments of heated conflict, effectively de-escalating the situation and working towards resolution.