Hello everyone and welcome to a new experiment, community threads!
Let’s see if we can use threads to get some conversation going, sharing ideas, experiences and resources with each other. With readers based in 46 countries and working in many different fields and system-changing capacities, there must be lots we can learn from each other.
Themes we could explore include; building confidence, thinking big/visioning, tackling the loneliness in leading change, bridging divides in system-changing work, burnout… I’d love to hear your ideas.
I’ll try a few and see how they land. Fellow substack writers seem to publish a thread, check in for a few days afterwards as people share their thoughts, and then store them for future reference. You can find these threads in a new section called ‘Community Threads’ in the main navigation if you’re reading on desktop.
Having just got back from a writing retreat, I thought I’d kick this off with a thread on writing. Writing can be such a powerful tool for change, both in how we communicate and collaborate with others, and how we process thoughts and change in ourselves.
I’ve long been into journalling as a personal reflection practice, I find it so helpful for processing challenges and reinforcing changes I’m trying to make. Recently, I’ve loved writing more for others via this newsletter, using writing as a tool to support and connect with all of you. But writing can be really hard! It’s taken a lot of introspection and practice to start finding my voice, and I’ve found the vulnerability of sharing my thoughts quite scary at times. I want to write more and get better at it, and I know I’m not alone in that!
So here are a couple of questions for us to explore together. Feel free to reflect on either or both, or contribute anything else that comes up for you when thinking about writing for change.
I’m really interested to hear your thoughts 🧡
What’s your relationship with writing?What do you love about writing? What do you find challenging about writing? Are there any obstacles to you writing more? How does (or how could) writing support your work as a system changer?
Which writers inspire your work as a system changer?What kind of writing nourishes you and your work as a system changer?Please share any writers/writing you love, whether it’s a newsletter, a book, poetry, anything!
A couple of gorgeous quotes shared by my writing retreat friends…
"We are not the things we deem important. We are story. All of us. What comes to matter then is the creation of the best possible story we can while we're here; you, me, us, together." - Richard Wagamese, Canadian Native Author
“Each of us will be asked to reach deeper, speak more bravely, live more from the fierce perspectives of the poetic imagination; to find the lines, in effect, already written inside us: poetry does not take surface political sides, it is always the conversation neither side is having, it is the breath in the voice about to discover itself only as it begins to speak, and it is that voice firmly anchored in a real and touchable body, standing on the ground of our real, inhabited world, speaking from a source that lives and thrives at that threshold between opposing sides we call a society.” - David Whyte, Poet and Author
Thanks for opening this up Gen & really lovely to continue the ‘kitchen’ vibe conversations from the writing retreat too!
For me writing historically has been so difficult- I was never good at it, always got feedback on my bad spelling and find grammar impossible. So to allow my self to write I’ve had to rewrite my own story of writing (if that’s not too meta!).
But I’ve pushed through as there came a point in my own system change journey a couple of years ago where it felt like the writing and telling the stories of experience literally flowed out of me - primarily to make sense of them for myself. In a world full
of so much - easy to get pulled by the currents of others the the current zeitgeist, writing is a grounding practice and a way of staying true to yourself and your integrity.
But there was another motivator for me to write - which feels a bit vulnerable to say - but I also felt a lot of what I was reading about how to change systems was so abstract / untethered and not honest about what it’s like to change things really, and how difficult it is. What it really takes to live chance. So a bit of rage & annoyance fuelled my desire to write publicly too!
Ah yess Louise, take me back to the kitchen table chats, I miss them! Love your point about re-writing your own story of writing, that sounds very empowering.
I'm really curious about how you reached the point of flow you mention, can you pinpoint anything that helped get you get there? I've had a few experiences of writing like that and they felt so amazing. I want to work out how to replicate them! I remember feeling a combination of relaxed, inspired and having some "fuck it" confidence?! I know that practice helps too. I'd love to compare notes on that.
GREAT point about the volume of abstract/untethered content on changing systems and what it really takes, I'm so glad you shared that. I'm also aiming to make this work more real and accessible for people, and to share many different perspectives and examples of how things can be done. Please keep writing about this, we need it!
My relationship with writing is both habitual and fleeting. I habitually journal and find it therapeutic, but it’s also safe because it’s just for me. There is no judgement there.
I fleetingly write for others and share the end product, but I have more saved in drafts than I’ve ever published because more often than not, I can’t get over the fear of judgement. The irony is, in that my most recent post, I shared a belief that most things we’re scared of aren’t actually that scary, yet I can’t seem to follow my own advice.
I had a few of your emails stored up to read as I knew the content would trigger something in me. And replying on this thread is evidence of that!
Hey Tim! Apologies for the delay here I missed your comment somehow :(
I can totally relate to the fear of sharing writing with others. What helped me was to work out what would help me to feel more safe, some 'safe to try' experiments that helped me to take on the challenge bit by bit. And to explore what my fear of judgement was all about - where it might have come from, how it showed up, whether I should really care about what everyone thinks... Thanks for chiming in here!
My relationship with writing is ambiguous. I always feel a sense of calm whenever I finish a piece of writing. But oh dear do I struggle to get started. My challenge is that I want every word to be the right one, every sentence to sound meaningful and every paragraph to be perfect. That keeps me from getting started and creating a regular practice of writing. What helps me overcome the fear are prompts like your questions or the experiment I‘ve recently started. For the last 100 days of 2023 I am writing something every day. No matter the topic or the length. There hasn‘t been a day so far where writing hasn‘t given me a special sense of peace. Hence I really want to build a regular writing practice so this community thread comes at a wonderful time.
Oh wow your first few sentences are so relatable, Andrea! This is the emotional journey I go on too haha :) So glad to hear the prompts were helpful, and great idea to design an experiment for yourself. Are you sharing any of the writing anywhere, or keeping it private? I'd love to read some if you're publishing. I'd also really love to hear how you get on with it and what you learn. Incredible that it's giving you a daily sense of peace!
My relationship with writing ebbs and flows. Like you, I've enjoyed the process of setting up a Substack and using it as a safe space to explore ideas within a structure that seems to welcome slowness, deliberation, and patience (vs. the sometimes hot takes of LinkedIn/Instagram). I have a fairweather journalling practice that I would like to be more in contact with. And I have loved writing since I was a kid, so there's definitely some childlike joy to be tapped into there.
Writers who inspire me - I love Anne Helen Petersen's Culture Study and Marlee Grace's Monday Monday newsletters, both of whom inspire me to write about the self as much as I write about culture and what I observe around me. I think this is quite fundamental to system change - seeing how you are located within a system, how you shape it and how it shapes you. I also love Katherine May's writing (Wintering and Enchantment) as she has such a lyrical way of connecting the reader to nature and ritual through her memoirs.
Hey Alaina, thanks for chiming in! Loving your substack.
I really relate to your point about childlike joy :) It reminds me of a great School of Life careers workshop I did once which, amongst other things, involved listing out our favourite hobbies as a child and what we enjoyed most about them! I’m going to try channeling that when I get the fear, thanks for sharing.
I really like Culture Study too, especially her threads. This one 'what community do you have, what community is missing?' https://annehelen.substack.com/p/what-community-do-you-have-what-community makes for such great reading and inspired me to explore how I could use threads here. So much gold in there! I’ll check out Monday Monday too.
Couldn’t agree more with your point about the self and systems, how we shape them and they shape us, it’s all connected. How beautiful ☺️
Thanks too for the Katherine May tip, googling now!
A couple of gorgeous quotes shared by my writing retreat friends…
"We are not the things we deem important. We are story. All of us. What comes to matter then is the creation of the best possible story we can while we're here; you, me, us, together." - Richard Wagamese, Canadian Native Author
“Each of us will be asked to reach deeper, speak more bravely, live more from the fierce perspectives of the poetic imagination; to find the lines, in effect, already written inside us: poetry does not take surface political sides, it is always the conversation neither side is having, it is the breath in the voice about to discover itself only as it begins to speak, and it is that voice firmly anchored in a real and touchable body, standing on the ground of our real, inhabited world, speaking from a source that lives and thrives at that threshold between opposing sides we call a society.” - David Whyte, Poet and Author
Thanks for opening this up Gen & really lovely to continue the ‘kitchen’ vibe conversations from the writing retreat too!
For me writing historically has been so difficult- I was never good at it, always got feedback on my bad spelling and find grammar impossible. So to allow my self to write I’ve had to rewrite my own story of writing (if that’s not too meta!).
But I’ve pushed through as there came a point in my own system change journey a couple of years ago where it felt like the writing and telling the stories of experience literally flowed out of me - primarily to make sense of them for myself. In a world full
of so much - easy to get pulled by the currents of others the the current zeitgeist, writing is a grounding practice and a way of staying true to yourself and your integrity.
But there was another motivator for me to write - which feels a bit vulnerable to say - but I also felt a lot of what I was reading about how to change systems was so abstract / untethered and not honest about what it’s like to change things really, and how difficult it is. What it really takes to live chance. So a bit of rage & annoyance fuelled my desire to write publicly too!
Ah yess Louise, take me back to the kitchen table chats, I miss them! Love your point about re-writing your own story of writing, that sounds very empowering.
I'm really curious about how you reached the point of flow you mention, can you pinpoint anything that helped get you get there? I've had a few experiences of writing like that and they felt so amazing. I want to work out how to replicate them! I remember feeling a combination of relaxed, inspired and having some "fuck it" confidence?! I know that practice helps too. I'd love to compare notes on that.
GREAT point about the volume of abstract/untethered content on changing systems and what it really takes, I'm so glad you shared that. I'm also aiming to make this work more real and accessible for people, and to share many different perspectives and examples of how things can be done. Please keep writing about this, we need it!
Hey Gen, thanks for opening this up.
My relationship with writing is both habitual and fleeting. I habitually journal and find it therapeutic, but it’s also safe because it’s just for me. There is no judgement there.
I fleetingly write for others and share the end product, but I have more saved in drafts than I’ve ever published because more often than not, I can’t get over the fear of judgement. The irony is, in that my most recent post, I shared a belief that most things we’re scared of aren’t actually that scary, yet I can’t seem to follow my own advice.
I had a few of your emails stored up to read as I knew the content would trigger something in me. And replying on this thread is evidence of that!
Be well.
Hey Tim! Apologies for the delay here I missed your comment somehow :(
I can totally relate to the fear of sharing writing with others. What helped me was to work out what would help me to feel more safe, some 'safe to try' experiments that helped me to take on the challenge bit by bit. And to explore what my fear of judgement was all about - where it might have come from, how it showed up, whether I should really care about what everyone thinks... Thanks for chiming in here!
My relationship with writing is ambiguous. I always feel a sense of calm whenever I finish a piece of writing. But oh dear do I struggle to get started. My challenge is that I want every word to be the right one, every sentence to sound meaningful and every paragraph to be perfect. That keeps me from getting started and creating a regular practice of writing. What helps me overcome the fear are prompts like your questions or the experiment I‘ve recently started. For the last 100 days of 2023 I am writing something every day. No matter the topic or the length. There hasn‘t been a day so far where writing hasn‘t given me a special sense of peace. Hence I really want to build a regular writing practice so this community thread comes at a wonderful time.
Oh wow your first few sentences are so relatable, Andrea! This is the emotional journey I go on too haha :) So glad to hear the prompts were helpful, and great idea to design an experiment for yourself. Are you sharing any of the writing anywhere, or keeping it private? I'd love to read some if you're publishing. I'd also really love to hear how you get on with it and what you learn. Incredible that it's giving you a daily sense of peace!
I love this Gen! Great idea to get folks talking.
My relationship with writing ebbs and flows. Like you, I've enjoyed the process of setting up a Substack and using it as a safe space to explore ideas within a structure that seems to welcome slowness, deliberation, and patience (vs. the sometimes hot takes of LinkedIn/Instagram). I have a fairweather journalling practice that I would like to be more in contact with. And I have loved writing since I was a kid, so there's definitely some childlike joy to be tapped into there.
Writers who inspire me - I love Anne Helen Petersen's Culture Study and Marlee Grace's Monday Monday newsletters, both of whom inspire me to write about the self as much as I write about culture and what I observe around me. I think this is quite fundamental to system change - seeing how you are located within a system, how you shape it and how it shapes you. I also love Katherine May's writing (Wintering and Enchantment) as she has such a lyrical way of connecting the reader to nature and ritual through her memoirs.
Hey Alaina, thanks for chiming in! Loving your substack.
I really relate to your point about childlike joy :) It reminds me of a great School of Life careers workshop I did once which, amongst other things, involved listing out our favourite hobbies as a child and what we enjoyed most about them! I’m going to try channeling that when I get the fear, thanks for sharing.
I really like Culture Study too, especially her threads. This one 'what community do you have, what community is missing?' https://annehelen.substack.com/p/what-community-do-you-have-what-community makes for such great reading and inspired me to explore how I could use threads here. So much gold in there! I’ll check out Monday Monday too.
Couldn’t agree more with your point about the self and systems, how we shape them and they shape us, it’s all connected. How beautiful ☺️
Thanks too for the Katherine May tip, googling now!