This post is the fourth of four based on Shawn Ginwright PhD’s The Four Pivots: Reimagining Justice, Reimagining Ourselves. The Four Pivots include: 

Flow.

“Flow is the state of consistent, focused, and nearly effortless activity that is free of judgment, doubt, fear and confusion.” – Ginwright

 

Flow can be experienced alone or in a group, often when creativity is used to design or problem solve. Flow is especially powerful when we know that the task is one situated in our purpose, or striving for justice. Gloria Anzaldúa’s concept of slowing down cultivates “spiritual activism” – it centers “Indigenous, African, and Eastern practices of grounding, purpose, and flow”. This is extremely important when we think of transformational change in schools, where we tend to feel a sense of rush, solve, and do.

Okun reminds us that a “continued sense of urgency makes it difficult to take time to be inclusive, encourage democratic and/ or thoughtful decision-making, to think long-term, to consider consequences”. Ginwright reminds us that frenzy and busy-ness, and the to-do lists we create to make sure we accomplish are all symbols of capitalism. When productivity and competition are overvalued, there is a tendency to base human value on what a person produces. We find discomfort and feel inadequate when we have unfinished tasks. I find that when I am feeling overwhelmed, I feel less in the moment; my focus on the things I have to do may take precedence over my relationships and connections with others.

To develop a flow practice, Ginwright suggests:

1. Take an inventory of your typical week (aim for 20-30 activities). Rate each of the activites from 1 for miserable up to 5 for extremely enjoyable. Analyze your patterns and consider what impact they have on your well-being, family, and friends.
2. Find small windows of time to nurture flow. Exhale, burn a candle, meditate, and do things you enjoy. Try to schedule times within your days to embed these practices.
3. Consider timelines and ask whether a deadline can be extended in order to produce a more thoughtful, meaningful end result. This enables time to collaborate and bring new ideas forth and to consider the most transformative process to use.

Rest.

“One of the most underestimated challenges to justice is rest.” – Ginwright

 

Rest has been seen as weakness in the history of the United States. A strong work ethic has encouraged a martyr culture where laziness is to be avoided. Rest leisure was reserved for and considered to be earned by white people, while black people were viewed through the lens of labor. More on Rest inequality can be read in Chapter 11.

Instead of feeling burned out, rest is the “ability to get a good night’s sleep; it’s also the ability to not worry and have sustained peace of mind” (Ginwright). The country Bhutan has even developed a GDP: Grow National Happiness Index. Nature serves as a model of resting: when soil rests, it becomes more nutrient rich.

Some strategies around rest include:

• Investigate your relationship to rest, to more deeply understand your practices and feelings.
• Take an inventory of the habits you have to nurture rest (or its opposite). What activities help you feel rested? Are there activities that can be reduced or eliminated? Make a rest plan, and consider where rest best fits into your days and weeks.
• Build a support system of people at work and at home. Think creatively about how we can provide time and space for rest. How can we cultivate a value for rest instead of seeing it as a weakness?

Wild.

“Wilderness is a perspective that we hold about things we view as unknown, untamed, and uncontrollable.” – Ginwright

 

Some of us find the wilderness frightening while others feel confidence, know the rules, and see it as a place that can be tamed or conquered. The notion of knowing the rules is huge. I think of my students as readers. If they can understand the structure of (or rules of) a text, they are much better able to comprehend it. It is empowering to deconstruct a text as a reader and a writer. In the book, Ginwright describes how Howard Thurman urges us to prepare and “center down” before walking into the wilderness. Centering down includes asking questions about who we are and how and where we are going. I appreciate the idea of “calibrating our collective compass toward justice in the wilderness”.

This pivot ends with a description of accountability and grace.  Accountability is necessary for justice; it’s where we act for the collective good. Grace, or “giving ourselves and others permission to be human” (Ginwright), is also necessary and often more challenging. With skill, we can move between accountability and grace.

The idea of giving self and others grace brings us back to where I began the first of the four posts on The Four Pivots, with belonging:

“Belonging is the capacity to see the humanity in those that are not like us and to recognize that the same elements that exist within them also exist within us.”
– Shawn Ginwright, PhD

 

Let us give each other permission to be human, and offer the same to ourselves, as we engage in this necessary work of creating a more just world.

Resources:
The Four Pivots: Reimagining Justice, Reimagining Ourselves, Shawn Ginwright, PhD
White Supremacy, Tema Okun