Cultivating Hope
Recently we teamed up with Anchor 13 Studio and headed down to the George Floyd Memorial in Minneapolis, about 15 minutes from where our offices are. We were a mixed group of suburban women representing three different nonprofits armed with the idea that we would create a space for processing what our city is experiencing through art and the written word. None of us knew what to expect.
A week later I was on the call with Anna Friendt the Founder and Director of Anchor 13 debriefing our time on 38th and Chicago. As we talked out our thoughts and feelings about our time and what we experienced, the theme that emerged from our conversation was hope. We saw hope in the willingness of people to share their thoughts, feelings and stories with us. We saw hope in the friendships portrayed between light and dark skin people, and we saw hope in the children as they are the ones who first kneeled to paint; leading the way.
We talked about how without hope, we as human beings can build up walls around ourselves. We put up a "strong" front when really under the surface we are anything but strong. Instead we are often dealing with depression and isolation that can lead to feelings of worthlessness at best and suicidal thoughts at worst. But, when people intersect their lives with ours and draw us out of our inner fortress to common ground of shared experience, art, words or even food we can see that we aren't alone and in this, and hope can begin to grow again.
Cultivating hope in our communities looks like taking many small steps, choosing to move outside of our inner circles and intersecting our lives and stories with others. We can be carriers of hope through a simple choice to care and honor each other. By creating spaces where stories can be shared we can begin to look past our many differences to see our common humanity.
If you are looking at the issues of justice surrounding us today and are feeling helpless, I want to encourage you to take a first step by offering the best thing you have to give to the world; yourself and your story. Treat yourself with compassion and then take that compassion and give it to those you encounter. Be a better listener than talker, look for common ground instead of difference of opinion and then, watch hope sprout and grow.
You can listen to more of Steph and Anna’s conversation on the Connecting our Stories Podcast. Subscribe to support this content and our anti trafficking work Patreon.
