Oh, hello New Year

Let's make it a Wicked one

Like many people in this moment, I have caught the Wicked bug. (And I don’t mean Covid, which I have for the second time. Ugh.) I saw the musical movie with Austin and friends three times in three weeks in the theater last month, and every time, I left feeling inspired, moved, energized — which usually led to me wildly dancing and singing around the theater, parking lot, house, sidewalk, etc., for an inordinate amount of time.

If you haven’t seen it yet (well, to be honest, what have you been doing with your life?) this may be a little bit of a spoiler. Among its many powerful themes is the tension it portrays between belonging and authenticity. Given my passion for community building and healing conflict, I want to dig into this, especially given the New Year and all that is being projected for the days ahead.

The basic premise of Wicked is a re-telling of the Wizard of Oz story from the perspective of the Wicked Witch of the West, also known by her given name, Elphaba. The musical begins with her death at the water-bucket-throwing hands of Dorothy, and asks the question of whether we are born wicked, or is wickedness something thrust upon us? The story clearly makes a case for the latter hypothesis by sharing Elphaba’s experiences. Even more so, it demonstrates that ‘wickedness’ can be in the eyes of the beholder; i.e., if someone is standing against an injustice, they can be called ‘wicked’ by the people who have a stake in maintaining that injustice (that old ‘freedom fighter’ vs. ‘terrorist’ debate).

Elphaba’s ‘wickedness’ became more complicated, though, because it wasn’t just about standing up for the care and dignity of those in danger, nor just about standing against the fraudulence of the wizard. She also had to let go of her best friend, her reverence for the wizard, and her dream of working alongside him and finding a ‘cure’ for her green skin. She had to decide that being her true self and abiding by her values was more important than belonging to a community of her peers and being valued by others. She makes this choice with biting clarity, grace and power. (The song ‘Defying Gravity’ speaks to this moment, both literally and figuratively, as she challenges her friend Glinda’s plea for acquiescence to the authoritarian order and takes to the skies.)

Late in 2023, I heard Gabor Maté, one of the world’s leading experts on trauma healing, talk about this tug between authenticity and attachment. Authenticity is being honest with/about myself and sharing my truth with others; attachment refers to my sense of belonging and being included in a group. Gabor Maté shared how this tension was coming up for him as a Jewish person — between saying what he felt from his heart about the injustice of the war on Gaza, and risking inclusion within his Jewish community. He felt, as I’ve heard other Jewish friends share, that in the choice between authenticity and attachment, he had to be true to himself. From my viewpoint, he was aiming to do this in a way that would invite belonging elsewhere — among other people, including other Jewish people, who stood for a similar perspective on the war. He was also trying to offer compassion and understanding for those who felt unwilling or unable to relinquish their attachment to the group, and how it enabled their justification for the war.

I wonder how we can co-create communities and living systems with less either/or and more both/and? Where I (and each of us) get to be more fully authentic, and I (and each of us) also get to belong and be included. Where, in fact, our authenticity leads to greater belonging, and our belonging leads to greater authenticity — a mutually reinforcing cycle, rather than a push and pull. This interweave reminds me of something Satish Kumar, the luminary founder of Schumacher College in the UK, wrote a long time ago, “You are, therefore I am.”

I have seen this both/and happen many times in YES! Jams over the decades. It usually looks something like this: The second or third day of the Jam, a person is so sure they will be rejected for their ‘divergent’ experience or feeling, that they hold it in, until, one way or another, it bursts out. And then, rather than brushing it aside or making that person wrong, one of the facilitators invites the group to slow down and fully hear them. After giving them more space and time, the facilitator then usually asks, “How are you feeling now after you have shared that?” They often say something like, “Scared that you all hate me now. And that I won’t be welcome any more. And also, somehow, lighter, because I said what was true for me.” And then the facilitator asks them if they are willing to look around the circle and see who has been listening to them. And if they are willing, then the facilitator asks them, “What do you see in peoples’ faces and eyes for you?” If they look, they usually find that people are looking back at them with love, compassion, understanding, solidarity, appreciation, etc. They realize that their authenticity hasn’t derailed belonging for them; rather, it’s expanded it. And, not just for them, but for every other person in the room and their authentic truth as well.

Even if someone feels angry, hurt, or disconnected after listening, and wants to offer their experience in the mix, that is welcome, too, in the spirit of co-learning and meaningful dialogue. Realness is valued over niceness or conformity. Collectively, then, as we make more space to listen and receive, we widen the field of understanding and connection, instead of narrowing it. The would-be isolation of authenticity is countered by the value that every additional unique ‘sound’ adds to the Jam and offers another dimension into our humanity. After all, the rule of thumb in facilitation is that if one person expresses something in a group, usually at least three other people are feeling similarly. So people are rarely alone, even if they felt so sure beforehand that they were.

In previous Substacks, I have written about some of the practices that enable people to share their truest truth and to receive belonging in return, like listening without JIF-ing, speaking from the I, reflective mirroring, appreciative inquiry, the support of facilitants, and simply slowing down when challenges come up. I sense these practices are at the heart of expanding both belonging and authenticity in our current world. They let us widen the field with each other and get into the unique story, feeling, experience of each person, instead of stopping at the first sign of an opinion (which is really the laziest tip of the iceberg). The more listening there is for/with each being, the more space there is for everyone to be included.

Of course, having an environment which values and invites these practices is key. Just to circle back, for Elphaba, the both/and of authenticity and belonging felt impossible in that moment of choice. The Wizard was bent on domination, and he couldn’t do that if all the magic in Oz wasn’t under his control. So, if she was going to be free from his subjugation, she had to choose authenticity and relinquish inclusion. That didn’t necessarily make the choice easier — especially when she had been scorned most of her life for her green skin and had, for the first time, been embraced by friends and community. And yet, accepting isolation seemed to be the only way to retain her sovereignty.

In systems that demand conformity for belonging, and don’t have any mechanisms to support peoples’ uniquenesses, the either/or between authenticity and attachment may be inevitable. Maybe that’s what the US political system and many of our social systems, workplaces, education systems, feel like right now — a (false) premise of either get in line with a dominant viewpoint, or you’re on your own. If that’s the case, how do we cultivate the both/and of belonging and authenticity in these places?

On a recent walk with my friend Juanita, she was talking about using the term ‘lifeways’ in her transformative work, as in co-creating lifeways instead of building culture. I could see how ‘lifeways’ evoked more openness and aliveness, with a sense of multiple paths, instead of sounding more rigid and established in the way that ‘culture’ can. It called up for me all what is life-giving, life-receiving, and nourishing to all life. I remember how my friend Brett used ‘lifeways’ to describe his work with regenerating food systems based on indigenous knowledge, and how that too galvanized this kind of energy.

So, can we be lifeways to each other in this New Year? Can we co-create more lifeways with each other? More paths and possibilities for authenticity and belonging, which we need in equal measure to bring forth for a more beautiful, just and healthy world?

Maybe using practices, like those mentioned above, can micro-dose change throughout these calcified and fear-based systems, even in little pockets. I can find belonging with others who feel the same, who want to grow/expand lifeways of authenticity and multiplicity and belonging, and keep extending compassion and curiosity outward to others who are struggling with it. I know I would put my energy towards that, rather than towards fearing a Doomsday coming with Trump’s second term and feel sapped before it even begins.

With the fires raging in Southern California at the moment, and all the loss of life, land, and home, I feel even more motivated to make 2025 a year of lifeways. In this climate disaster, as with so many other ones over the last years, I keep hearing stories of people turning to each other for support, mutual aid, and care, instead of turning on each other in a survival of the fittest frenzy. That inspires and assures me of tremendous possibilities for the days ahead. It’s why I am working on reviving Communituesday (a weekly open potluck gathering in the Bay Area) and supporting other community-building initiatives. Maybe we can make gravity-defying lifeways together for a Wicked New Year.

What lifeways are you growing (or want to be growing) this year to support authenticity and belonging? I’d love to hear in the comments, if you’re willing to share!