I’m inspired by Adrienne Maree Brown’s writing on how to sustainably stay in organizing and activism work. She speaks about a question that’s been very provocative for me - "Are you satisfiable?" In the context of your activism and work for social change, is there an amount of giving, impact, and contribution that would be enough for you? What would be satisfying to you?
Do you know what satisfies you?
What gives you a sense of peace, wholeness, meaning, and fulfillment? This leads to another important provocation - Are you willing to do less? If your reaction is NO, that may be a place to get curious and look closer. What does doing more do for you? Always wanting to do more, and taking action from that place, feeds something that will never be satisfied. By asking, "Am I satisfiable?", we get closer to the core of our needs as human beings.
Practicing satisfaction can look like...
Getting support to slow down, to do less of what doesn’t fill you up, and more of what does.
Sitting in the discomfort of seeing that what you may have been doing is not actually the stuff of life that energizes you. There’s pain and grief in that. The pain and grief don’t have to go anywhere, because in being open to those emotions, one is open to the truth that they hold.
Doing this work in partnership with another human being. We sometimes cannot access things alone that in groups or with a guide there is space and compassion to look deeper into ourselves .