Usually we pay a lot of attention to our thoughts and react quickly based on them. But how often do we pause to examine our whole body response?

If we receive messages that when we make mistakes we are bad people, it dramatically decreases the chance that we will genuinely own up to those mistakes. If we don’t have models and structures for taking accountability, many of us will “shame-spiral,” and get so caught up in that shame that we don’t do any of the work of accountability and repair.

I believe restorative and transformative justice have much to offer us in the way of these alternative visions and practices. I also know there are many others who have been thinking through these questions far longer than I have and, for this month, I’d like to share a few pieces highlighting those voices.

I do not believe you can recreate in-person experiences virtually, but I also do believe that online collaboration and training can still be effective and meaningful.

Still, we continue to live with uncertainty and for some of us, now may be a time to invest more energy and focus into what that looks like than we had before. To me, this means both challenging myself to get more comfortable with the unknown and see what opportunities it holds, while still acknowledging the profound fear and pain that come with it.

What we know now more than ever is that we have to hold each other up and look to others when we need to be held. We are not in this alone. We never were.

That’s why it’s a personal goal of mine to get more comfortable facing conflict courageously in my own life, as I support others to do the same. It’s a process I expect to take time and to come with setbacks and slip-ups. But I believe that to be true of any big change we attempt in our lives and is certainly not a reason to give up on the effort.