Sweet July to you.
I was recently on a forest walk with a dear friend in the foothills surrounding Vancouver, B.C. We were discussing the power of attention, and specifically how a shift in attention prompted by experiencing art has the potential to generate lasting change.
Attention is sticky. Where we place it matters because it amplifies whatever it is focused on. When we place it on areas of our lives that we have previously taken for granted, it creates more space in the crevices of habit to breathe choice into our actions.
Last month I sat in the back of a Seattle University classroom and watched my students in the Environmental Beliefs and Behaviors class I taught during Spring quarter give their final group presentations. I was so proud of them, y’all. They had researched and designed strategies for shifting student behaviors to be more environmentally friendly, and their recommendations for campus-wide interventions were brilliant. Two insights in particular stuck with me.
First, one group found that the signs they prototyped with the intention of guilting and shaming them into not wasting food did not, in fact, motivate them (surprise 😉). Rather, it was the self-awareness of their actions and resulting impacts that led them to throw away less food. In other words, it was their attention brought to this patterned behavior that sparked an opportunity to slow down, pause, and make a different choice.
A second key insight emerged from another group: testing their prototype and sharing their ideas and affirmations together as a group, compared to doing it individually, motivated them to keep up with their new strategies and feel excited about what they were doing. A sense of belonging and community helped them not only be accountable to their intentions, but also find more joy in the process.
Attention and intentional practice supported within a community for change. That gives me life.
I’ve felt deeply grateful and humbled the past few months to offer somatic guidance sessions to the Design Justice Network’s Care Pod and Steering Committee who are building a culture of care within DJN and the design field at large. Their process is profound. Among the many insights and lessons I carry with me after each of our gatherings is this: an intimate group of committed people engaging in personal and collective change work together creates ripe conditions for emergent, radical transformation.
This isn’t groundbreaking, but it is an important reminder and North Star for those of us engaged in change work. Where might we create pockets of community within larger community to enable a level of intimacy that might make more healing and change possible? How might we pair the intentional practice that we are doing to change something in our individual lives with the support of a community who is also grappling with similar questions? Is our attention where we would like it to be? What are we trying to grow?
As always, please don’t hesitate to reach out with any reflections, questions, and thoughts. Your attention to these notes are a gift.
Warmly,
Em Wright
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