Exploring Liberation

Why working on personal liberation matters

Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash

In this issue

We explore why even personal acts of liberation can contribute to collective change.

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Regenerative Impact features weekly explorations about what it means to be entrepreneurs or leaders who positively impact their communities and planet while nurturing themselves and building a culture of care and collective well-being.

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I've been thinking a lot about liberation lately. It’s a recurring theme in the books and articles I’m reading, and it’s the theme of the national holiday I’m most fond of, Liberation Day, celebrated on April 25th.

This year, with a more and more threatening fascist government in place, celebrating it was even more heartfelt. Many of us also marched to protest against what’s happening in Palestine and ask to stop the genocide because we mustn’t take for granted our freedom and rights, and we must remember that until everyone is free, no one is.

Liberation is a word that I didn’t use to associate with my work. I mean, activists and organizers usually use it, and I’m neither.

Or am I?

For sure, I’ve been one in the past. And I always quit at some point. I felt drained and then felt I wasn’t doing enough, so I thought I wasn’t enough and retreated to isolation.

Thank you, capitalism, for having ingrained in our minds the idea that our productivity determines our worth.

But I’m digressing.

What if the work I did as a coach in the past five years has always been liberatory work?

I don’t want to appropriate terms that are not mine to take, but if I look at the common thread of how I practice coaching, I can see it’s all about

Let’s find your way of doing X.

Let’s uncover what works for you.

Let’s acknowledge and then leave all the external (and internalized) expectations outside the door so you can give yourself permission to act in alignment with your core being.

Can this be a facet of liberation? I think it can.

I know it can sound like it’s liberatory work for privileged people. But our cages can be very different. And they all need to be broken if we want to build a more equitable, just, and joyous world for everyone.

Breaking free from a cage, even a golden one, means you can begin to see, little by little, every other cage there is and then start passing around the lime, the picklock, and all the tools we need to open them.

I saw this happen with most of my clients, and I believe this individual, won-back freedom contributes to regaining collective freedom. Awareness is powerful, empowering, and driving. When you see, you can’t unsee. When you know, you can’t unknow, and then you have to decide what you want to do. And, in my experience, most of the time, what you’ll do won’t be navel-gazing but acting to create collective change.

So, yes, I think I can give myself permission to say (and believe) that I’m doing liberatory work. Also, now that I think about it, I wouldn’t know what other kind of work I could do considering how deeply I care about every being, our interconnectedness, and the planet we live on, which is ours to care for.

Those lines above tell about my own liberation, too. I’m liberating myself a little more every day, and every day, I try to put my liberation at service to the collective one — in a way that feels as good, sustainable, and aligned as possible.

But I wouldn’t have even thought about my liberation and its impact if I hadn’t paused to ask myself what it means to me. Now that I know, I can be even more intentional about it.

So, I want to pass this question and a couple more on to you:

What does liberation mean to you?

How did/does it show up in your life?

How can you recirculate it in a way that respects your energy, capacity, and overall well-being?

Have a good reflection time!

With care,
Giada

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🌱 Let’s have a Regenerative Chat!

I’d love to talk with you about liberation, so check out my Regenerative Chats project. It's all about talking, reflecting, and brainstorming about how to make an impact while feeling good and not burning out in the process.

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🗂️ Open Tabs

Stuff I kept thinking about or still open in my browser

• When you’re liberating yourself and are not sure about what to do with that (by

  Ryn Kingsley
  ).

For when the Proven Tried True Fool Proof Plan is false advertising

• When you’re tired but what you need is not a vacation but a revolution (by

  Ayana Zaire Cotton
  ).

To Crave Certainty is to Crave A Lie

Work with me!

Hello! I’m Giada (Jah-da, more or less), an Impact Coach who blends coaching and neuroscience to empower change agents to turn their impactful vision into action and contribute to collective well-being while feeling good and not burning out in the process. Sounds interesting? Let’s have a chat!