Practices for cultivating revolutionary optimism

Originally published October 18, 2021

Create relationships where you can love each other and allow space for all the things you dislike about one another and disagree on.

Learn what it feels like to be mutually committed to other human beings without needing each other to be perfect and aligned on every single thing.

Figure out what it’s like to keep boundaries even when the other person isn’t happy about it.

Feel the discomfort of contact when those boundaries are in place.

Allow the discomfort to be, and see how you continue to be with each other.

Listen to the needs, wishes, desires, and wounds of someone who grates your nerves, who makes you mad by the very essence of their being.

Accept care and support that feels imperfect.

Allow others not to like you.

Keep believing in your inherent worthiness.

Allow yourself not to like others.

Keep believing in their inherent worthiness.

Learn to see through the fog that obscures your committment to uphold the dignity and humanity of others.

Feel the incredible strength that comes with the ability to love in the presence of everything that tries to thwart it.