Activating Leaders For Social Change
Interview with Meg Berryman
I chat with Meg Berryman, who is passionate about seeding regenerative ways to live, lead, learn and do business. We discuss how our everyday life and parenting choices position us as leaders for social change. At the core of this conversation, we explore how we relate to ourselves, our children, and the earth to create a regenerative world.
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About Meg
Meg Berryman is a neurodivergent writer, facilitator and teacher seeding regenerative ways to live, lead, learn and do business. Meg is working toward a world where diverse folks feel valued and valuable, where we steward our resources wisely and where we heal the disconnection with nature, within ourselves and with each other. Meg is the author of the book 'Wilder: A journey back to life' and offers somatic coaching & equine assisted learning
We explore the following questions:
Tell us how everyday change makers can create social change from the inside?
How can people become activated as social leaders without burning out?
How does the way we relate to ourselves create a regenerative world?
What role does individual responsibility play in the new wave of activism?
Why is it essential to express our social vision in multifaceted ways?
How important is taking in the world you’re fighting for?
How do you see care as a representation of unconditional love?
Additional resources we spoke about:
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Transcript
Julia Jones:
Hello and welcome to the Newborn Mothers Podcast. Today I'm speaking to Meg, who is, well, I'll let you explain what you do yourself, Meg, but I'm really excited to be talking to you today because I've been thinking for a long time, really for the last year or two about what it means to be a parent and specifically a mother in the age of climate change. Because it is in many ways, quite a scary time to be alive when you're thinking about the future for your children. It's big. There's a lot to consider and a lot of mothers really want to create a better world for their children.
Meg, I've invited you on because I want to find that balance between creating a better world and activating our ourselves as leaders, because I think mothers are natural leaders in society, in a society that works at least. How do we do that in my culture without burning out, without sacrificing our own needs? Meg, do you want to introduce yourself and talk a little bit about what you do?
Why are you passionate about everyday change makers creating social change from the inside out? (01:36)
Meg Berryman:
Yeah, sure. Thanks Julia. I'm so happy to be having this conversation. It feels really important this week and all weeks, but yeah, just the timing feels really resonant, so thank you. Basically, I'm an educator, I'm a coach, I'm a yoga teacher, but I also come with 15 years of experience and two master's degrees in social change and humanitarian aid and development work. My focus right now is I'm the founder of an online school called The School for Sacred Social Leaders, and it's really about activating everyday change makers to create social change from the inside out.
What I'm really passionate about teaching is that for so long we've been taught that social change is a natural extension of our actions. I'm here to share that social change is the natural byproduct of our own empowerment. Particularly my work with mothers centers on how do we use this energy and this identity shift that we find ourselves within and that fierce mama energy and the strength and advocacy that comes through with that rebirth in order to activate us into the social change leaders and see ourselves as the social change leaders we've always been.
I think that mothers are the most important piece of this picture. I say that with no pressure and no expectation, but simply that social change takes time and it's going to be many, many generations hopefully beyond us that we see the effects of the actions that we take now. Mothers, with our one foot in the next generation and one foot here, we have this tremendous opportunity to do the internal empowerment and healing work required that allows us to literally be the change. Our kids see and watch that as well.
Julia Jones:
I love that Meg, that just gives me goosebumps. One of the first things that comes to mind when you talk about that there are many, but one of them is one of my other favorite podcasts for anyone listening at home, it's called Pretty for an Aboriginal, and it's by a couple of absolutely awesome kick ass aboriginal women talking about what it means to be aboriginal. They interviewed, and I don't remember his name unfortunately, but do go and listen to the podcast, they're all great. They did interview someone who was a Black activist from the US and he was talking about hope and how because African Americans were slaves for 400 years, there was actually many, many generations of people who were working hard as activists to abolish slavery and they never saw the result of their work. He was saying, we actually have to think bigger and longer term than just our own lifetimes and sometimes even longer term than the lifetimes of our children when we are talking about really changing society and really making a big difference.
Like you mentioned, I think mothers are perfectly placed for that work and it is going to be a lot of work. I don't think anyone in the climate space would say that this is going to be easy, it's going to take a long time. I think mothers are perfect to do that. Also one more thing I'll add is that for hundreds of thousands of years, humans lived in matrilineal earth centric societies. Actually I think reviving those ways of living where mothers are natural leaders in their own communities is probably going to be one of the keys to the social change that's required to create more respect for the environment and more respect for social justice and all of those kind of things.
Meg Berryman:
I totally agree. I just couldn't agree more with the fact that I think what we have to understand is that right now where we sit in time, there is a massive shift in consciousness happening at the same time as a universal systemic breakdown happening. What we need to understand is that it's not all on our shoulders. We are part of an evolution that's happening naturally. When we can align with that, then we can not only find that hope, but we can also find practices to transmute the grief and the suffering that comes along with transitions and with challenge.
I think that when I think about systems and systemic change, which is where we're all oriented towards, the system change has to come from individual change. We understand that yes, political change is important. Yes, policy change can create an enabling environment, but when it comes to a regenerative culture, a culture that is deeply connected to earth ourselves and each other, then fundamentally that has to come from an individual awakening, an individual shift and an individual dismantling of the systems that oppress.
Mothers in this opportunity to completely lose ourselves through the process of that rebirth, have the opportunity to reclaim so much power and to come to the understanding that the reason we feel powerless to make social change is because we've been taught to feel that way because a lot of people have vested interests in us remaining powerless to change social situations.
My thing is we're coming back to ourselves, where are these places within us even through our mothering journey where we are getting into paralysis or powerlessness or power under. We find these stuck places when we hit challenges or when our kids trigger us or whatever it is and each one of those opportunities that our life is giving us now in this moment is an opportunity to reclaim our power. If we think about intergenerational change, like you and I sitting here, Julia, we are our ancestors' wildest dreams. Just to remember that moment of holy shit, we are talking over the internet here about things that we love and we're raising families and doing this and we are our ancestors wildest dreams. That inner empowerment piece is really what creates burnout resilience, because we're not focused on carrying everyone else. We're not even focused on making our kids not suffer. What we're focused on is I want to be the fullest most empowered version of myself and I want them to see that and feel that energetically as well.
Julia Jones:
Yes. I'm like fist pumping here. I didn't want to interrupt, but I wanted to cheer and clap. I completely agree. My word of the month, I've spoken about this to quite a lot of people, so some of my listeners may know, but my word of the year for 2020 for me is decolonization, which is exactly about dismantling those systems of oppression that are keeping not only indigenous people small, but actually colonizers small as well as women and all sorts of people. I think everyone who lives in the same society as I do, it will be experiencing a lot of the hangover of colonization. As you were saying, there are so many vested interests that want to keep our voices small. A lot of people say like, "How do I find my voice? And it's so scary." A lot of the time the things that are holding us back are so tiny like I'm worried that someone won't like me or what if I'm too fat or I don't think I'm good enough for this for whatever reason.
But all of those things are just stories that we've been told to make sure that we don't rock the boat, to make sure that we don't stand up and say, this isn't right. We can do much better. Whenever people are worried about that and ask me, how do I get out of bed every morning and keep doing this work, that's just so, it's scary for me to be in the spotlight. I'm not that kind of personality that loves being on stage or anything, but I feel like my voice is a gift to future generations and I'll get over all sorts of things like thinking that, my hair's not right or something. Just because I realize that those systems are there for a purpose and exactly the thing that makes me think that is exactly the system that we need to dismantle. Decolonization I think is the same kind of concepts that you are talking about, that personal transformation that leads to the bigger social transformation.
How can people become activated as social leaders without burning out? (10:40)
What do you think we can do, there's two questions here. Have you got any actual practical tips? How can people step into this role and become activated as social leaders? Then the second part of the question is without burning out, without too much personal sacrifice.
Meg Berryman:
I think the first way that I always start this process is to understand that as energetic beings, we are always causing an effect. The very concept of we are not impactful, all we need to do is take a moment to bring our beautiful mindful awareness that we've all cultivated through this shift in consciousness to understand and to look for all the ways that we are causing an effect every single day. Whether that's through us consciously choosing to parent our children through a different paradigm other than that which we were raised in, which was part of a colonized culture. Whether that's how we're working within our household to reduce or minimize waste, whether it's through the conversation that we have with the person at the coffee shop who maybe doesn't feel connected and so that for them is regenerative culture. Just to start looking for all the ways that we are already leading and that we're already showing up in support of the vision of the world that we want to see.
I think obviously having been enculturated or grown up in this system that always is looking for where we're lacking and broken and need fixing and us doing more, having this embodied sense of I'm doing enough and this is enough, and actually consciously parenting my kid is actually a really big deal. Actually me doing that internal work and healing is a really, really big deal. We need to actually shift our perspective and our paradigm away from social changes, volunteering for something or giving my money to something or a way to every single day in every single way, I am bringing the vision of the world that I want to see into fruition through the conversations, through my energy and through my intention. I think a really good example of that is last week I was feeling a bit in one of those places of fear and lack of clarity. I was not in my faith of this is meaningful and important because particularly as mothers, what we are doing is not valued and it doesn't feel meaningful and important.
I went in to breastfeed my youngest at daycare because she's just started and I was giving her that transition time. As I'm sitting there and it's this beautiful time of the day in the center, I got them in a cooperative center and I'm on the board and it's a community there. We are a community and we're supporting these, growing these kids up. I was sitting there and it's that quiet time and all the kids were going into bed and the fan was on and the music was playing. I'm looking down at this pristine person that I've birthed and one of the educators came into me and she sat next to me and I've known her because she's had my other child. It all came spilling out about her fears and her experiences and her trauma. I just held space for her and listened to her and honored her.
I came away from that discussion just being like, how arrogant am I to think that this is not meaningful, that having the space to hold someone else's grief or pain or having that moment of common humanity that that is not the most meaningful, most pristine, most amazing, most present thing that we can do every single day. How arrogant to assume that I know better than this thing that's moving through me wanting to be expressed in every single way in my parenting, in my work, in my relationships in my community.
It's just like this process of getting out of our own way and understanding that we are powerful and we are impactful. I think that really starts with on a cognitive level, paying attention to where we are being impactful and having that faith that the intention will carry with it the signal of that world that we want to see. You look at all the best leaders in history, Gandhi, like they all held that vision even when their 3D reality looks totally different. For our kids, they need to see that we have that hope. They need to see us being the embodiment and holding that vision so clearly, even when the 3D reality looks scary AF, if that makes sense.
Julia Jones:
I love that. It really, it's exactly what you were talking about before with regenerative culture. I also think it really feels to me like what got us here is not what's going to get us there and being competitive and independent and combative and all of these things that we've been doing so far, that's what got us here. To get us there to that big change, it is going to have to be love and connection and listening and trust, and it's going to be a different world that our children grow up in. Ultimately what makes us human is exactly those small daily interactions and that's what makes life worth living as well. You've kind of actually answered both questions by looking for those small moments, it protects us from burnout a bit too, doesn't it? By creating that kind of regenerative culture.
How does the way we relate to ourselves create a regenerative world? (16:51)
Meg Berryman:
Totally, we are not all alone. We're not islands. Capitalism loves to talk to us as islands and talk to us as in our fear. It's a really radical thing. I loved those words you said around trust and compassion and kindness and present. These things, these qualities of a regenerative world. Actually, one of the most profound things we can do as women doing the decolonizing work is to change the way that we are relating to and talking to self, knowing that our kids, their nervous systems are going to register or clock that.
What I find creates the most burnout in social change spaces is that there's a disconnect between, there's a lack of congruence between who we are being with ourselves and the image that we're projecting outward. I think having worked in the spaces for 15 years, it was no longer an option for me because there was such a lack of congruence between what we were saying we wanted to do and then how we were doing it.
If your regenerative world looks like, and everyone has our own vision and in the school we work through it, but if your world is something like a world that's connected and loving and kind and your little tiny piece of that is how you express that through your soul given gifts and expressions and experiences, then how you relate to yourself has to be loving and kind and compassionate. Otherwise, there's lack of congruence. Otherwise, that's what creates burnout because suddenly we are attaching to an external validation to say, ‘I'm a change maker and this is good and this is important’. But to change systems that are predicated on us not being enough, we have to do the radical thing of finding within ourselves a sense of enoughness and amplifying and expanding that as much as possible.
Julia Jones:
Exactly. I totally agree. That inner voice, we would never talk to our children, we would never talk to our friends in the way that we speak to ourselves. I often think that's actually what causes the burnout, is the stories that we tell ourselves that you're a failure and this isn't working and you are not good enough and you are not enough and you are deficient or you're taking up too much space. These stories that we tell ourselves are ultimately, I think what causes the burnout, not necessarily the work itself.
Meg Berryman:
I agree. Or with even more clarity, the running away from those stories in case they're true. We’re attached to projecting outward, the career or the perfect mother or the thing as a distraction away from those feelings being present. I think that I always talk about motherhood being the perfect storm of empty space syndrome. Suddenly all of those things catch up and we can't run away and we're in this emotional shit show. But it ties to this next point that came through as you were talking and thank you so much, around being a parent in these times and being able to transmute grief is a really important part.
I think that all our workers, conscious parents turning that and reorienting that back to the self around holding space for our own grief, our own fear, our own big feelings around these transitions that are happening. Which is why the spaces that you are creating and others are creating are so important where we're supported and held to just be in the full expression of the grief and the sorrow and the fear and that that's really part of it. As we all know in that motherhood journey, if we don't have the courage to allow that to catch up with us in a way, we can never turn that from a void or a wound into a resource and it will constantly remain perpetually running away from it. If you take that up to the macro level, we see a culture that is obsessed with distraction and running away from and projecting identities outwards and doing it in such an unsustainable way, which if you boil down to the root is we don't have the tools to sit with our trauma and our pain yet. That's part of the awakening too.
Julia Jones:
Yes, I love that. It's sort of like an individual playing out of consumerism, isn't it? That idea that we always designing new things and even a lot of people who think that they're not as consumerist as other people in our society still for a lot of us, there's a lot of work in that area of that feeling like we're not enough just as we are and that we want to avoid dealing with all of these big emotions by the next distraction or the next status or the next yeah, whatever it is.
What role does individual responsibility play in the new wave of activism? (22:08)
Meg Berryman:
What would a world look like where each of us took responsibility for our own consumption instead of waiting for a father figure to come along and save us, whether each of us were like, I'm going to get empowered around this. I'm going to look at where in my life I'm going numb or more paralyzed or powerless and how that is driving my consumerism and just be the embodiment, so allowing others to watch that. I think the new wave of activism is not about preaching or shaming or another thing that I see a lot is being righteous, that my way is better and my way of eating is better and my way of consuming is better. It's not about that. It's about taking the individual responsibility and allowing others to watch in a loving way.
Julia Jones:
Yeah, I love that. One thing I've become really obsessed with over the years is growing my own food to the point that we've actually started an urban farm in my local suburb. We've turned an old bowling green into literally a farm, and we go down every week and do some planting and do some picking, and it's not individual plots for individual people, it's a whole co-owned farm with 200 members. We can afford to pay a farmer three days a week to actually coordinate all the volunteer effort.
Anyway, part of that feels to me on a very, very basic level, looking at what my needs really are and needs are very simple. Really there's the need for food and shelter and water and love and those sort of things. Then taking responsibility for those needs in a very local community-driven way. For me, that's taken a lot of my need to, my wants I guess, my distractions and thinking that I need big expensive holidays or fancy clothes and all of that kind of stuff. I feel like it's really getting down to the most human level.
Why is it important our social vision is expressed in multifaceted ways? (24:08)
Meg Berryman:
I love it too, because what you're demonstrating is something that I'm really passionate about, which is that we let our social visions be as multifaceted in their expression as we are. I think the capitalist version, I'm running a business training at the moment and we're really challenging some of these ideals around that our business is here to save us and be the one thing that we do forever and ever. It's like we're so multifaceted, how can our social vision not be expressed through lots of different ways?
I think there's all these different levels where we can determine what our sphere of influence is. I think it's really worth saying that our sphere of influence is simultaneously smaller than we imagine because we're not all got 10 million followers on Instagram, so it's smaller, but the depth is so much more potent than what we ever can imagine.
It's challenging this idea of more is better, more action is better, more jobs is better, more whatever. Just being like, where is my sphere of influence right now in this moment? Am I called to do it in my community or through my business or through my parenting. Letting that be enough so that when we start to gain the confidence of, hey, maybe I am creating this ripple from the inside out, then that's how it gets expanded in breadth. But it has to start on that really understanding the power that you have as an individual right now in this moment to shift people and to shift energy.
Julia Jones:
Yes, I love that. You know what immediately makes me think of is for women, we often get stuck in, well, at various stages of life, men and women both, but women often get stuck in the feminine thinking - we have to stay home, we have to look after our children, we have to be the sole carer and sacrifice everything for our kids. Then we think we don't have time for hobbies and work and volunteering and fun and a social life and exercise and all of those things.
But then for men, that often plays out as thinking that work is the only thing, that's the masculine drive. They have a career that takes up 50, 60, 70 hours a week, and then they don't have time for family and volunteering and health and whatever else. But in fact, all people are multifaceted. All people need feminine and masculine aspects to their lives and all people need to do lots of different things in lots of different ways. But it's a very convenient story, this idea of a nuclear family for making sure that women stay home and men work and that's all you do with your whole life.
Or that if women do work, we have to do it in this masculine way, whether that's all we get to do and we don't get to also be a mum. It's like you have to choose rather than going, ‘No, I actually am both.’
How important is taking in the world that you’re fighting for? (27:00)
Meg Berryman:
I'm all the things, and also I'm everything. But it's like again, I really think that it's the attachment to the thing that's going to be the thing that's going to create the identity, that's going to create the validation for the things we feel we missed out on. I certainly, when I went into motherhood was like, I'm going to be the mother. I'm going to just do this so well, and it was another attachment that comes from a place of lack. When I really, and it's been a really big process this year of letting go of needing anything to save me from outside myself. You can enjoy the things and not second guess yourself or not have to be the best or not have to.
I think there's a really big part of this that's to say that I think as socially conscious mums with kids growing up in a climate insecure environment, that we think we're honouring them and honouring our ancestors by staying in fear and not allowing ourselves to expand into pleasure. For me, it's worthwhile reminding myself from time to time that if I'm not here to wonder in awe at the sunrise and to smell the roses literally, and to dig my feet deep into the earth and to laugh with my kids and to experience life in its fullest most vivid expression, then what the hell will they be fighting for?
Julia Jones:
What's the point of supporting an earth that you're not even enjoying and experiencing?
Meg Berryman:
I think that we're perpetuating our disastrous future by focusing on what we've lost and what's not here. Again, it's coming back to, well, what is here? How is she supporting me? How am I guided? How am I resourced, how am I connected? Realizing that again, in this moment, we have everything we need and that focusing on that and amplifying that is going to bring more of that on an energetic level.
Julia Jones:
I think so and allow you to take the risks and things that are required to actually reach the top of the mountain. You need a certain level of security and everyone's got different levels of privilege, but for people who do actually have enough food and a roof over their heads and clean water, if you actually have those basic needs met and you can enjoy the sunrise and you have freedom to find peace and joy in your life, when you really focus on those things, that's almost like fuel that can help you get to the next level without even actually trying. Because like you're saying, you're not doing it out of fear anymore, you're doing it out of energy, just that feeling that you've got everything that you need, that you are enough, and then that propels you actually naturally to the next level.
Meg Berryman:
Yeah, and those resources being available all the time. I think if we've grown up in a scarcity fueled environment, the challenge as mothers is always going to be that we are going to tend toward Martyrdom because it feels safer to be in insufficiency and resourcelessness than it does in being resourced. Having the courage to really be resourced and to feel the fullest level of resourcing that's available to us right now just from the earth, that that's really profound.
Julia Jones:
Yes. It's like Marian Williams says, it's not our light, it's our darkness that scares us the most. Sorry, it's not our darkness, it's our light that scares us the most. It's the potential that we could be everything that actually makes us play small. That that's a huge responsibility in a way. I like the way that then you bring it back to just do what brings you joy as well, because otherwise the weight can feel too heavy.
Meg Berryman:
Totally. Our kids, they deserve a childhood, they deserve love. They deserve the sunrises. They deserve us to show them the flowers and that that's really profound, they're watching us, what we do as you know.
How do you see care as a representation of unconditional love? (31:27)
Julia Jones:
Thanks so much, Meg, do you have anything else you want to add? And also I'd love to learn more about the School for Social Change Leaders and where we can find out about you and your work.
Meg Berryman:
Thank you. I think the only thing that I just feel called to share for this community is really just wanting to see and acknowledge that because we care so much because you care so much, that that to me is the most beautiful representation of unconditional love. You know that that love can be expressed through our fear and worry. I think that I see it as love. I see it as unconditional love, and I see the beauty of that and how we can also orient towards the love through loving as opposed to love through worrying, I think is what I feel really called to share and yeah, thank you.
Julia Jones:
I love that, love through loving. I think that's quite profound. A lot of the time I think we think we are loving when we are really stuck in stress and fear and that sort of thing, we can love without that.
Meg Berryman:
One of the most beautiful expressions of compassion that a dear friend talked to me recently is ‘I'm not afraid for you’. That being so profound in my life in terms of how I hold space, in terms of with my kids, when they're in their fullest emotional expression, I'm not afraid for you. Carrying the intention of that, I think about a world like that and it looks so damn beautiful.
Julia Jones:
Yeah, similar thing I often remind myself is how strong my children are. Sometimes in my earlier parenting years, I wanted to protect my children from every possible bad outcome that the world could throw at them, but that just put me into fear and kept me small and led me away from trust and collaboration and things. Then as my children have gotten older, I've consciously changed my mindset to my children are strong. I think that's kind of thing, instead of I'm afraid for my children, I change it to my children as strong, and I know that I trust that they can face what life holds for them. That's really opened up a whole world and my way of thinking about the future by having that faith that my children are strong people.
Meg Berryman:
So profound in that the only way we can actually see them in that fullest strength based approach is to be able to see it in ourselves too and in the humanity.
Julia Jones:
Exactly and to not find my identity in being their soul protector and provider. I think sometimes like you were saying, we get too stuck in one identity, don't we? That my children need me, they need me for everything. When actually, if we can just take a little step back and feel more like a guardian or a space holder or something like that for our strong, brave, independent children, they're human beings. They're fully formed humans. So I see myself in quite a different role now because my identity isn't tied up with them needing me all the time.
Meg Berryman:
I really love that. I'm going to take that as my wisdom for the day.
Julia Jones:
And all your pearls. We are definitely going to have to do this again Meg, that was a really great chat. For people who enjoyed it, where can they find you? We'll put some links up in the show notes as well.
Meg Berryman:
Thank you. I mostly hang out on Instagram, so it's @megjberryman The School for Sacred Social Leaders, the next couple of months, our focus is on beyond burnout. It's really providing a framework to build back better after burnout, not only for ourselves but for the planet. Because my personal philosophy is that burnout offers us a portal into individual and collective healing just like motherhood does. There are going to be events in Victoria and Queensland, and then an online program as well. There are lots of different courses in the school around business and self-empowerment and parenting. You can find all of that at megberryman.com
Julia Jones:
Fantastic. Thank you so much, Meg.
Meg Berryman:
Thanks, Julia. I loved it.
Julia Jones:
Yes, me too. See you next time. Bye.
