THE THREE As: ANXIETY, AMBIVALENCE, ASPIRATION →
Attune
Reveal
Convene
Equip
Sustain

Guiding Principles

Reveal

Be emotionally honest. Name what’s real in these challenges we’re facing. Communicate nuance. Model vulnerability. Watch for being a positivity maven.

This is hard stuff. That’s okay. Name it.

Go deeper.

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What does it mean to reveal?

Many changmakers believe we have to stay positive, focus on success, hide our fears and failures to keep people engaged.

This is understandable, because when people feel overwhelmed, sad, scared, and angry it’s hard to imagine taking any action. We don’t want to encourage negativity, we want to inspire and motivate. We also know that for many people, the issues can feel insurmountable, and our involvement can feel negligible. Add into this mix how these issues bring up anxieties, ambivalence, and yes, aspirations for change.

To avoid overwhelm and negativity, we tend to focus over and over on the power of the individual, the opportunities we have, the benefits of change—anything to get through this drop-in-the-ocean effect of such global, systemic issues.

If we want to truly be effective, we have to be real. We have to avoid turning into cheerleaders and jumping on the positivity bandwagon. This is because when we’re emotionally honest with ourselves and others we build trust and credibility. We create traction with our people. Not only that, but scientific studies show that when we name it we tame it as Dr. Daniel Siegel says. This means the overwhelming and complicated feelings become much more manageable when they are named and heard.

By being open and honest about our difficult experiences we make it safer for others to face and move through theirs—and this is a key to sustaining engagement.

But, how exactly do we do this
without making everyone depressed?

This is especially the case when it comes from leadership and key stakeholders in your organization. This seems paradoxical, but when we acknowledge the hard stuff we can move faster into what’s possible.

Here are five beginning steps to revealing
the hard stuff:

First, start with how you are relating to the difficult realities of this work, the daily feedback about devastating losses, missed opportunities, slow political response. Don’t worry, we will get to the positive stuff soon! Stay with us here. Investigate your own threshold for what Donna Harraway calls, “staying with the trouble.”
  Do you allow yourself space to feel, grieve, and process, either with your teammates, in nature, in solitude, with your partner, or in large crowds at a demonstration? How you relate to painful stuff is going to rebererate and echo across your work. Building your tolerance for feeling the feelings is what builds your resilience and that of others, so we start here.
Being Real with Yourself

In order to attune and reveal with others, begin with yourself. Use this worksheet to explore whether you show up as a cheerleader, educator, or guide.
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Paired Activity

Activities

Review what you are putting out into the world—content, messaging, campaign strategies, and events. Are you focusing only on solutions, positive stories, and feel-good messaging? Do you come across as a cheerleader? Review your materials through this lens of balance, nuance, and realness. This is not the same thing as depressing, doom and gloom. Realness and revealing is about being straight up, and modeling a humanity that is relatable.

Provide opportunities for authentic personal storytelling and set the tone for vulnerable sharing at the leadership level and throughout your organization. Mix up your narratives. Feature unexpected stories, perspectives, and vulnerabilities. Be watchful of the heroine narrative tendency to only focus on people who went through a tough time to emerge triumphant and radiant. This is hard stuff and it’s a relief to hear it told straight. We want to hear from you. How hard or bad was it? How did you navigate it? What still gets you down? Be real.
A Playbook for Real Storytelling

Use this guide to transform the way you approach challenging conversations with your community and stakeholders.
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Individual Activity

Guides

Name the enormity of challenges we face. Express your humanity. Bring as much humility and humor as possible to all your communications. Show up as yourself. Imagine an approach to engaging people about transforming how we live—with each other, on the planet, and with ourselves—that is candid, witty, real, and down to earth. Imagine an approach that integrates the hard-hitting truths that are so hard to bear, with the imagination and verve and edge of which we are so capable. Imagine a way to engage your people that is not sugar-coated or fixating on the perky tips, tools, and resources, but on authentic connection and community. This is what we’re after.

Create a culture where people feel safe to struggle by sharing your own challenges. Make sure that you create opportunities internally with yourself or your team to process, reflect openly, and use yourselves as a living laboratory for a more transparent, honest culture. Often as teams we tend to police each other unintentionally about the full range of our experiences. However, as a team and organization, we can foster an atmosphere of authenticity and psychological safety. We encourage you to dive into resources to support your team in this capability. We recommend these tips.