Consent-Based Organizing
Tiny practices for better communication and a more just world
This month, I’m offering you some concrete practices. These are tiny ways to participate in creating a more just world. They’re quick and easy enough that you can try them out today. And if these practices are right for you, there’s enough in them for a few months of practice, or maybe a few years.
First, some background. Each one of these practices is a steppingstone on a path toward what I call consent-based organizing. Consent-based organizing, in turn, is one element of my approach to cultural change. As I outlined in the very first issue of CommuniKate, I assume that everyday interactions, when repeated, become social patterns that impact the larger society. This idea is a cornerstone of social construction, an important theory in my scholarly community. I’ve also written, briefly, in past CommuniKate issues, about consent. Crucially, consent implicates far more than two people in conversation. It is always shaped by, and also shaping, a society’s power dynamics and politics. Further, for consent to be anti-racist, it must operate beyond the sexual contexts where it is often discussed. The practices in this post emerge from these assumptions. They are starting points for dismantling systems of violence based on gender, race, sexuality, and ability.
Before we dive into the practices, if you’re interested in hearing more about consent-based organizing, please subscribe to this newsletter. Also, stay tuned for updates about my second book, Transforming Trauma. It’s under contract, and I expect it to be published later this year.
Additionally, if you or an organization you know of would like to learn more about how consent-based organizing can transform your personal or professional relationships, and catalyze a thriving workplace, please reach out to me for a free consultation. We can chat more about my coaching and consulting programs.
Now, here are four practices for you. Let’s start.
Practice One
First, find a place where you can turn inwards and reflect. Take a few deep breaths. You may find that closing your eyes feels right.
Then, begin to ask yourself easy questions that can be answered with the word “yes.” For example, I might ask myself, “Is my name Kate?” or “Do I love to dance?” For me, these questions have immediate, clear, affirmative responses. I don’t need to think about them because I already know the answer is yes. Ask yourself three or four similar questions.
As you query yourself, notice your body when you respond with “yes.” What happens to your breathing? How does your belly feel? Does the tension in any of your muscles change? If it does, how? Continue noticing your body with curiosity and kindness. As you do, try to get a clear and detailed sense for what “yes” feels like to you and where it is located.
Spend a few minutes on these questions. Then, once you have a sense for what yes feels like, move on to Practice Two.
Practice Two
While you are still in a place where you can turn inwards and reflect, take a few deep breaths again. Then, ask yourself easy questions that can be answered with the word “no.” For example, I would ask myself, “Do I love cold weather?” or “Do I support the actions of the current federal administration?” Ask yourself several questions like these.
Again, notice how your body responds when it answers “no.” Does your heartrate change? If it does, how? What happens in your throat? How do your feet and hands feel? Do you feel any chilly or warm sensations, and if you do, where? As you attune to your body, notice as much nuance as possible.
Once you have a sense for what no feels like in your body, pause and take a rest.
If Practice One and Practice Two feel generative for you, I recommend trying them out a couple days a week over the course of an entire month. You may find that your own sensations of yes and no vary by context. They may feel different when you’re gleeful or scared, or when you’re around different people. If these two practices feel easy, or you’re ready for more, move on to Practice Three.
Practice Three
Again, find a place where you can reflect and turn inward. As in Practice One and Two, ask yourself questions. This time, go back and forth between questions that have yes and no answers. If I was doing Practice Three, I might ask myself, “Do I love to dance?” then “Do I love cold weather?” then “Is my name Kate?” I would answer yes, no, and then yes. Spend a few minutes eliciting yes and no answers from yourself.
Notice details of your body’s response that you didn’t observe in Practice One and Practice Two. If you enjoy being abstract or creative, you might imagine shapes or colors that go along with your body’s experience of “yes” and “no.” If you enjoy being more concrete, can you notice any sensations of expansion or contraction? Do you notice any temperature changes? If you do, where are they in your body? Become even more familiar with how you sense yes and no.
Once you have done this for a few minutes, turn your attention to the moment when your body shifts from “yes” to “no,” or vice versa. How does that change feel? What shifts in the space between these two answers? For the abstract imaginers among us, does the purple you’d envisioned shift to a different color? Can you dream up a sound or song that goes along with the change? For the concrete thinkers, does the change show up in your inhalation? In your gut? In your brow or jaw? In your knees or glutes? Does your diaphragm restrict your stomach? Be curious about these liminal experiences.
When you have a detailed sense of what your body feels like when it shifts between these two responses, start asking yourself a new kind of question. Although it can be answered with the words “yes” or “no,” you don’t yet know the answer. These questions are likely to be about more complicated issues, things like “Should I change jobs?” or “Should I apply to college?” or “Is it time for me to retire?” Pose questions like these to yourself and tune into your body. Scan for details in your felt experience. How do they match with what you noticed during Practice One and Practice Two? How do they align with your observations from earlier in this third practice?
As you do these things, you may be surprised to find that your body can sometimes tell you yes or no before you are consciously aware of those answers. Welcoming this wisdom provides one guide for action in the world.
Practices One, Two, and Three are all designed to support your internal relationship to yourself. Once you are satisfied with these three practices, or if these three practices do not resonate with you, you’re ready to try Practice Four. As in the previous three practices, it involves internal observation. Unlike the previous three, it also involves imagining interactions with other people.
Practice Four
As you have before, find a place where you can turn inward and reflect. Take a moment to recall a time when someone said yes or no to you in response to a question you asked them. It could be a recent moment or one long past. If you think of a few possibilities, pick one that has a low to medium emotional charge. Don’t pick the thing that turned your entire life upside down or the one that came along with devastating grief or super intense elation.
If you’re a social dancer, maybe recall a time when you asked someone to dance and they said yes or no. If you wander about without your phone or watch, maybe you recently asked a stranger, “Do you know what time it is?” Maybe you remember traveling to a new place and asking a passerby, “Can you give me directions to Main Street?” Maybe you shared a meal with a loved one and asked for a bite of their food or offered them a bite of yours.
Once you’ve picked a moment when someone said yes or no to you, remember as many details as possible from that encounter. What did you say, and what did they say? What were you and they wearing? Where were you located? What did you see at the time? Were there any smells or sounds in the scene? Recreate in your mind’s eye as much of that interaction as possible. I encourage you to use your imagination to replay this moment several times.
Then, when you have remembered as much as you can, start noticing your body. As you replay the moment when the other person said yes or no, what happens in your exhalation? When you relive the time when you received that yes or no, do your shoulders change shape? Do your fingers open or close slightly? Using the tools you developed in Practices One, Two, and Three, be curious about how your body responds to this memory of someone accepting or declining your request or your offer.
If you have more time and energy, try this fourth practice again while eliciting a different memory. And if you are done for now, rest. Return to this practice some other time.
Together, these four practices make up the first phase of consent-based organizing, all focused on internal awareness. If you continued along with me in my coaching or consulting programs focused on consent-based organizing, we’d move to the second phase which builds from these awareness practices into everyday interactions with the people in your world. And finally, those everyday interaction practices build into a third phase, which involves organizing groups of people and changing the dynamics of workplaces and other institutions.
If you’ve been following CommuniKate for some time, you’ll notice that this post is a bit different from the others. It is equally informed by theory and research, but it spends less time on those details and more on specific things you can do now to build communication skills. If you’d like to see more practice-focused posts like this one, please let me know by leaving a comment. And if you prefer my more standard format, I’d love to know that, too!
Next up, on March 10, I’ll be posting about how attuning to collective feelings can transform organizations.
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