Here's who has given me hope this year

This is my last newsletter of the year, and I am sending it from Hawaii, where I will be for the next few weeks with a friend. I decided to gift this time to myself to escape the Christmas mania. Perhaps many of you reading this understand the need to run away at this time of year and I feel it more now than ever, without my parents around.

This has been a tough year for so many people I know. Humanity’s problems seem greater than ever (although I sometimes wonder whether this is what every generation feels). And it seems we are repeating old unhealthy patterns of pressure and hustle that many of us hoped we could move beyond in the wake of the Covid pandemic and lockdown. It is sadly no surprise that burnout is its own epidemic – particularly in the humanitarian and social justice space – when many activists and aid workers are trying to respond to genocide, violence, displacement and climate crises on multiple levels in multiple contexts and with diminishing resources.

Amidst all of this, it is so easy to lose hope. My goodness, have I felt on the edge of this so many times in 2024. But what has kept my hope alive is the ever increasing initiatives and movements arising that are seeking to challenge old structures of working and being in the world; that encourage us to show up with more softness, more compassion and more creativity both in our daily lives and in our humanitarian and human rights campaigns and interventions.

I would like to name a few here, as these are people I have built relationships with in 2024 who have given me a reason to believe that positive change is coming on the individual and collective – even on the systemic– level.

GlobalDev4Palestine is a community that I started engaging with this year. There have been many important and moving initiatives within this community, but one which I was closely involved with was the Aid Worker Vigil in October. It was a space where 50 or so people from all over the world came together to shed tears in remembrance of the – as it was then – nearly 300 aid workers who have been killed since Israel began its campaign of genocide in Gaza (tragically, more have been killed since). I believe wholeheartedly that having these collective spaces where we pause together to acknowledge, to cry, to pay our respects is an essential component of both honouring the dead and honouring our full aliveness as human beings – our grief, our rage, our need for human connection and community – so we may regain purpose and heal together.

In March this year I completed a special yoga training with the inspirational Uma Dinsmore-Tuli, dedicated to supporting women’s health throughout their seasons and cycles – including menstruation, fertility processes, motherhood and care-giving, and menopause. The practices I have learned are gentle but powerful ways of helping women to reconnect with their true essence, with what their biological and spiritual needs are and how to reclaim them, and ultimately to challenge routines and behaviours that keep us small, that often force us to ignore our sexuality, our creativity and our right to rest.

The term ‘rest as resistance’ has had so much resonance for me this year, and I believe everyone can cultivate this – even for a few minutes each day – to push back against burnout culture; whether through a power nap, through time in nature, or through creative activities such as drawing or writing that have no end goal beyond the power of this pause. Since completing the training, I have continued to collaborate with my teacher Uma; organising a webinar for activists in August and more recently helping with facilitation on her current online well women’s yoga therapy training. This is not a typical yoga training – it is an education and a remembering of women’s wisdom through the ages and how this continues to evolve through our feminine rhythms and cycles. It runs every year and I highly recommend it!

Dimple Dhabalia is a fellow author who I got to know when she was writing her excellent new book Tell Me My Story. There are not many books like this in the humanitarian and human rights space, and it is so meaningful to hear these real life stories of burnout and recovery in our sector. In October, we got to meet each other in the flesh to have a discussion with other aid workers about mental health in the sector and how things have shifted and developed since Covid. It really encouraged me to hear of some positive examples of more caring workplace cultures. And to envisage together what else we can do if we work collaboratively to challenge burnout culture.

These discussions are continuing also via the NGO Staff Wellbeing network – a global community of HR leaders, and other leaders and consultants committed to improving staff wellbeing in the humanitarian and development space. Contact Melissa Pitotti if you wish to join the network. And the discussions are also continuing via my own inititiative, relaunched this year – the Vulnerable Humanitarian Circle of Practice. ?Do come along to one of my upcoming monthly sessions, where we discuss a different topic each month related to ending burnout culture. In 2025 I will also be inviting in guests into the Circle who can share their own unique approaches and strategies for supporting new ways of working that are kinder, more compassionate and more caring.

One of these guests will be Tracy Johnson. Tracy is taking a fresh and much needed approach to advocacyand communications work in the social change space. Tracy and I bonded over breakfast in Brighton a few months ago, and I was particularly inspired by her ideas on bringing empathy and compassion directly into advocacy work and the way activists communicate their message. And I am so happy that Tracy has now brought these ideas together into a brilliant webinar series, starting in February 2025: ?Driving Change through Compassionate Communication.

Here is what Tracy has to say about this series: "It's easy to get caught up in what we want to say, because we know how important our messages are. But impactful, effective communication isn't about what we want to say. It's about what the audience needs to hear to be motivated and inspired to act."

There is currently a special launch discount on the Driving Change Through Compassionate Communication virtual workshop series, which ends soon. Here are all the details. And we look forward to sharing with you further details of her guest session for the Vulnerable Humanitarian Circle of Practice in the new year!

I hope what I have shared here will provide you with some inspiration, and encourage you to find the people and movements who can support you in your struggles and help you regain hope and purpose as this year draws to a close. It is vital that we continue to build community and connection in these times of division and separation, so I hope very much to see some of you either in person or online in 2025. Wishing you love and peace until then.