This week, our reflection is delivered by YCL Design & Community Manager Shalaka Jadhav and Co-Founder & Executive Director Dominique Souris.

*“By finding beauty in cycles often seen as negative...there was a framing of justice and community work as re-membering.”*

As a young team, it’s important that we work collaboratively to build workplaces that uphold our labour with dignity, and break the cycle of workplaces we have felt uncomfortable in because of unhealthy work cultures. To break this cycle, we wanted to reflect on what it would look like to build balanced and healthy relationships with our work. There’s an added layer of difficulty finding this balance when working in climate justice, where we recognize additional grief and heaviness that comes with the work we engage in.

Thanks to the help of coaches Kristen Sison & Roxy Cohen, we collectively moved through a version of “Rooted and Rising” (https://yfile.news.yorku.ca/2020/05/28/new-program-trains-environmental-leaders-of-the-future/) with our journey rooted in the principles of gratitude, care, inspiration, resilience, disruption, joy and uplifting transformation.

Cycles of Change

During our sessions, Kristen and Roxy framed the work of cultivating a personal ecology, emphasizing the importance of re-connecting with natural cycles of change to realign our work.

Content by: Kristen Alaan Sison and Roxanne Cohen
Design by: Kristen Alaan Sison

Reflecting on these natural cycles motivated the YCL team to build their features, like time for play, rest, and grieving, into our work in a more meaningful way. One of the outcomes was the decision to close the YCL offices for one week a year to encourage meaningful play and rest across the team. In 2021, the YCL team will be off from September 6th -10th.

Grief in Climate Work

These sessions acted as a space to recognize the tolls of sitting with grief, and recognizing the accumulated costs of blocking our pain. Through this work, members of the YCL team identified the need for healing spaces to practice self care while facing the intersecting crises of climate change, the pandemic, and continued acts of racial injustice. By taking the time to acknowledge and tend to the pain and tensions in our work, we came to realize that decolonization work is also the work of remembering how to care for ourselves.

In reflecting on pain and remembrance, Kristen and Roxy forward the cycles of rot and regeneration.

Rot - decline or decomposition; the cycle of decay and loss

Regeneration - the natural process of replacing or restoring after damage; to recover or regain the ability to function

Engaging on these cycles was a sticking point for many members of the YCL team. Rot and regeneration can happen all at once, a reflection of the movements for change that often come with injustice and grief. By finding beauty in cycles often seen as negative, rot and death, there was a framing of justice and community work as re-membering. One YCL member shared,

*“It’s comforting to know that I know the answer somewhere, and my work is about reconnecting to that knowledge!”*

The same team member added that they would “love to incorporate this framework into my work more intentionally.”

Another team member shared that “this session was an invitation and reminder that feeling into my work is necessary, and that I need to carve out space to process and feel into all that I may be holding working towards climate justice (protection for the planet and the communities close to me). Love is at the heart of this work, so it requires a willingness to bring some vulnerability into my role at YCL (especially in facilitation & with other staff)”.

Healing Together

When questioning the need for the connection between personal ecology and collective healing, we were reminded by Kristen and Roxy that if we don’t make space for dreaming, we risk getting stuck. Through personal and collective reflections, members of the YCL team engaged on how we can hold space for each other and acknowledge both the moments of joy and pain. One team member shared, “I frequently don’t allow myself to feel grief in the work that we’re doing - it was challenging to remind myself that this work is overwhelming sometimes.” Alongside the feelings of overwhelm, we made space for outrage and optimism, towards the reminder that another world is possible!

About Kristen

Kristen Sison is a diasporic Filipinx womxn practicing community choreography as an artist-healer, storyteller, + book witch. She serves community by creating youth-led education spaces that re-imagine how we teach about climate justice — from Conscious Minds Co-operative, and most recently through a 3-month climate leadership program Rooted and Rising (https://www.bonesthrown.com/rootedandrising). In June 2021 she released It's Bigger Than All Of Us (https://www.bonesthrown.com/its-bigger-than-all-of-us); a ritual object, workbook, and community archive that reflects the process of claiming self-sovereignty within our bodies, while deepening our relationship with Spirit. She's also a founding member of Kapwa Collective, a mutual support group of Filipinx-Canadian artists, critical thinkers, and healers based out of Tkaronto.
www.bonesthrown.com/@bonesthrown

About Roxy

Roxy Cohen is an educator and consultant passionately transforming the education system and uplifting cooperative leadership for regenerative and healthy futures. She creates education programs with youth that re-imagine how we teach about climate justice. At age 21, Roxy co-founded Conscious Minds Camp & Co-op – a youth-led space for imagining and practicing the world we want. Now completing her PhD on Education in The Era of Climate Change, Roxy has coordinated a new team of professors, graduate students, community artist-educators to co-create and run the first Youth Climate Leadership Certificate Program at York University, Rooted and Rising (https://www.bonesthrown.com/rootedandrising), in partnership with 6 grassroots and non-profit organizations. Roxy also trains and supports pre-service teachers and is working on professional development with teachers in climate change education. Working with the St. James Town Community Co-operative, Roxy does education in food sovereignty and urban planning too. Roxy has managed staff teams, and led design charrettes, strategic planning, and municipal dialogues towards the climate resilient OASIS Food Hub. Roxy also trains managers and team members in diverse settings including corporate, co-operative, union, not-for-profit, and government in Change Leadership, Mental Health in the Workplace, Stress Management, and Resilience, with an emphasis on coaching.

YCL Staff Reflections: Personal Ecology