Community Agreements Part 2

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When I facilitate brave learning spaces where people are learning to do Allyship and Leadership, we always start with Community Agreements. It doesn’t matter if it’s a one-two hour session or a multi-day workshop. On the rare occasions I’ve skipped them for time or just forgot, we always had to backtrack and set them when differences in understanding happened. Let’s be real, if you’re a human who interacts with other humans, miscommunication and misunderstandings are going to happen. We don’t all start with the same background knowledge, experiences, and education on a topic. Community agreements can help you and your team get on the same page.

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Community Agreements Turn Mistakes Into Learning Opportunities

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Maybe society (especially FaceBook) should come with Community Agreements like our GLSEN presentations and workshops. These are a list of expectations – a semi-formal social contract that we agree to use in the space. When we set agreements like: Lean into Discomfort, Call In instead of Call Out, Oops/Ouch, and Use the Language You Have, we set expectations that IT’S OK to make mistakes because that’s how we learn.

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I’m Not Pizza; Doing Allyship isn’t Popular with Everyone

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A wooden plaque says: YOU CAN'T MAKE EVERYONE HAPPY YOU'RE NOT PIZZA" which is a perfect metaphor for doing allyship.
A wooden plaque says: YOU CAN'T MAKE EVERYONE HAPPY YOU'RE NOT PIZZA" which is a perfect metaphor for doing allyship.

“You can’t make everyone happy; you’re not pizza.”

I saw these words on a plaque a couple of months ago and I knew I had to have it. As a lifelong people-pleaser, I have spent the past several years learning that it’s simply impossible to please everyone. Add to that the fact that I love pizza. It became imperative that I see these words as a reminder Every. Single. Day.

My calling leads me to the center of discomfort on a daily basis. Enough outside my comfort zone where growth can happen, but not so far out that I require a blanket fort to cope. In this messy, awkward, super uncomfortable middle is where I’ve discovered that magic happens! It’s where I try to get others to join me in seeing the world in a new way. However, no matter how I try to engage people, I get judged by people standing outside of my arena who tell me I’m doing it wrong. I can be kind and empathetic or hurt and pleading. I can be angry (though rarely). No matter how I engage, someone always sees me as confrontational. Someone always perceives me as pushing away people who see things differently than I do. So what is left? Silence? I refuse.

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