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#CollectiveCare 🫶 'I love you,' as in 'our liberation is interconnected.'
How can we cultivate our mindsets surrounding love to center interconnectedness? Swipe to read more!
Where the Oppressors are fueled by fear-driven hatred that encourages individualism, we must choose to be fueled by courage-driven love that fosters collective-driven action. But in order to do this, we must divest from the limitations of the status quo surrounding ‘love,’ and expand our imaginations of what ‘love’ is, and can be.
Our last #CollectiveCare post discussed steps we can take as part of building the reality we dream of:
Identifying Issues: What are we trying to fight and dismantle?
Practicing Radical Acceptance: Accepting our current reality, and our human limitations.
Knowing what we want to change: How will we do better? How do we sustain our ideal reality?
Embracing responsibility: The world we want isn’t gonna build itself!
Honoring our the past, while fighting for the future: Thank you, as always, to our ancestors and relations
Today, as part of our ongoing discussion, let’s think about how we can embrace radical love as a foundation for our values, and source of fuel, to keep us focused and motivated.
Let’s reflect - what are some manifestations of ‘love' that are generally accepted, encouraged, or considered ‘respectable’ by ‘mainstream’ cultural norms?
Through the ‘Five Love Languages’ (physical touch, words of affirmation, gift giving, acts of service, quality time)
Dating and marriage (though mostly centered around patriarchal, cis/het, and other norms).
Familial love (though mostly centered around ‘nuclear family’ norms).
Positive emotions, such as joy, comfort, and laughter.
As we mentioned in our Valentine’s Day blog post, not everyone expresses or feels love in the same way. And to many of us, love is so much more than what can be captured in words, and within ‘respectable,’ ‘socially acceptable’ terms.
Though all the earlier-mentioned manifestations of love are valid, we must challenge ourselves to look deeper, and beyond.
Did you know that the concept of there being ‘5 Love Languages’ was coined by a now-87-year-old, White American, Baptist minister Dr. Gary Chapman, first introduced in his (rather misogynistic, and cis/hetero- normative) 1992 book, ‘The 5 Love Languages?’
While this is not to disparage the positive impact this concept has had on many people’s lives, regardless of its author, this is a reminder of one of the many ways our mainstream reality has literally been written by the White cis-het patriarchy.
What are some other human manifestations of love, beyond heteronormative, capitalistic, individualistic expectations?
Sacrifice, whatever that means to us.
Helping others meet their material needs, with no strings attached.
Performing cultural rituals alongside loved ones.
Helping others run errands
Learning each others’ languages.
Joining resistance movements.
Repair after difficult conversations.
Facing our fears, including facing each other during conflict.
Cooking for one another. Telling each other that the food we cooked is delicious.
Protest.
Long term resistance.
Queer love (unapologetic, human love, that transcends labels and other barriers based on limiting beliefs such as ‘gender’ norms)
Feeling the whole spectrum of human emotions, including ‘negative’ ones such as anger, sadness, grief, discomfort, and rage, as well as joy, comfort, and laughter.
Helping strangers, as well as friends.
Courage, whatever that means to us.
Letting go of ego sometimes.
‘Physical touch’ and forms of ‘sex’ that transcend the norms imposed by the Oppressors’ imagination.
Making others feel welcome.
Our values, and staying true to them.
Making art and other gifts for each other.
Other ways of expressing love in ways that transcend the words ‘I love you,’ and spoken language.
And more…
As demonstrated, love can manifest in infinite ways, beyond what is promoted and considered ‘acceptable’ within the capitalist status quo. If we treat love as our foundation, and as a limitless, expansive source of energy and motivation, the possibilities of what we can build are endless!
Let’s continue to cultivate our mindsets in a way that challenges the status quo around love to expand our imagination and motivation, by working to…
…view love as an infinite resource, rather than a limited resource to be gatekept and given conditionally, e.g. unconditionally loving someone because of who they are, regardless of what they look like, or how they make you look.
…use patience and critical thinking when encountered with hateful, fear-mongering propaganda (e.g. resist fascist news headlines that spread demonizing narratives about marginalized groups of people), channeling our empathy and love for humanity in order to counter the hatred.
…decenter the nuclear family, and heterosexual romantic relationships, and spread love to all our relations, including friends, chosen family, etc., e.g. by not limiting our love to our partners and blood relatives, and expanding the amount of love we can give to others as well, and engaging in collective (rather than individualistic) wellbeing practices. Not being in a nuclear family, friend circle, or romantic partnership does not make anyone less deserving of love and care!
…surrender, forgive, and release ego, to remind ourselves and demonstrate to others that we value our relationships even in light of disagreements, triggers, and differences, e.g. Through letting go of grudges, through repair and/or radical acceptance.
…view each other as interconnected, and mutually deserving of love and care.
…practice patience, understanding, and empathy, e.g. Even when some situations or people frustrate us, we can find ways to navigate them so that we can sustain our relations in the long run.
…uplift, love, hold accountable, and heal oneself e.g. We heal our own wounds so we do not hurt ourselves and others, and so that we can collectively experience more joy, grounding, and peace.
…prioritize connection over superficial displays of love, e.g. Someone’s worth as a friend is not measured by how much money they can spend on a gift for you.
…accept different people have different love languages, and part of community care is recognizing others’ as well as your own, e.g. While some people want to be told they are loved, others prefer being held.
We are living through times where the Oppressors are intensely bombarding us with fascist propaganda and other attacks against our humanity, designed to tear each other apart, neglect our collective wellbeing, promote individualism, and discourage us from divesting from their System. This is not ok!
When we unlearn limiting, colonized beliefs, such as those surrounding what love is and looks like, we can better tap into its infinite power to counter hatred, and drive forward our work.
Last but not least, we never forget to acknowledge the wise thinkers who came before us, whose dreaming and imagination led us to where we are today, and from whom we draw our inspiration. To learn more about radical love, make sure to check out the work of iconic Black American Intersectional Feminist writer and theorist, bell hooks best known for her book 'all about love,’ that has made a profound impact on the movement to decolonize narratives surrounding love. She is a huge source of inspiration for our practices!
Whilst Oppressors choose to be fueled by fear, hatred, and individualism, we choose to be fueled by courage, love, and collective care. We love you, as in, “our liberation is interconnected.”
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