We’ve Entered Our Chrysalis!

Hello dear ones,

You may have noticed that we’ve been pretty quiet lately. Things are changing here at RSC, and we want to share with you some shifts that we’ve been going through behind the scenes over the last few months.

After five beautiful years of dreaming up, building and operating the Radical Support Collective, a few things are happening:

1. Our team is changing! Anastasia has stepped back from our little three-person team to pursue her dreams of JEDI consulting and coaching (JEDI = Justice, Equity, Diversity, Inclusion). It’s a major shift for us to go from being a trio to a duo.
2. We are celebrating that we’ve done what we originally set out to do. The founding purpose of RSC was to work support each other to make building our coaching practices easier and more enjoyable, while amplifying our ability to support movement leaders. Five years later, we have done just that! Our coaching practices are established, and we’ve supported hundreds of social change leaders through our coaching and programs.
3. New visions are emerging. There are exciting new dreams, projects, directions, and ways of contributing that are calling us to a new level of our work. (Stay tuned! You’ll hear more about these soon.)
4. Our sweet bodies and souls need rest! Starting and running a small business requires a lot of energy, and we worked long and hard for quite a while. We’re proud of the results, and we’ve also been longing to slow down for a few months to rest and reflect.

Introducing the “Chrysalis”!

We have learned through working with our clients over the years that change like this is a normal part of running an organization. We were tempted at first to push through the change, build on the celebrations, jump right into the next vision, and go go go instead of pausing. Then we realized that we were setting ourselves up for overwhelm and exhaustion by doing it that way.

Another way is possible! What we want for social change movements and leaders is to have the skill and support to slow down instead of speeding up when change happens. We’re learning to embrace the vulnerability that slowing down provides, so we can bring intention, discernment, and ease to our next step rather than rushing out of fear.

So, to practice this learning, we have decided to set aside this summer (and maybe fall) as a period of rest and reflection before we make any big decisions about what’s next for RSC and ourselves. We’re calling this time our “chrysalis” as in the transitional state when a caterpillar dissolves into a sort of primordial goop before reforming into a butterfly. In this time, we’re paring down our work commitments and allowing ourselves to re-dream what we want for our work and our lives as a whole. (Shout out to Allied Media Conference for sharing the idea of a “chrysalis” with us)

We actually started back in May, and it’s already been a transformational experience for us so far.

Here’s what we’ve been up to and will be for a few more months:

• We’re decreasing our workload and giving our bodies and minds the spaciousness to rest, adventure, and dream up what we’d love to contribute next. Exciting possibilities are already emerging like a podcast about embodying the Great Turning with Joanna Macy and a coaching group for community leaders about creating thriving neighborhoods.
• We’re still seeing clients and running a coaching group or two.
• We’re being very selective about the work we take on, the events we attend, and the meetings we schedule.
• We’ve been less present on Instagram — posting occasionally as we’re inspired to do so, instead of multiple times per week.

There are a few reasons we’re making this unconventional move:

1. It’s prefigurative! In the world of the hustle and the grind, stepping back and slowing down as a way of navigating change is not “normal”. We think it should be. We’re proud of our chrysalis exactly because it flies in the face of the extractive capitalist work culture. We don’t want to keep on growing just because it’s what we’re supposed to do. We want to see more businesses and organizations choosing to pause rather than push when their purpose or strategy becomes unclear.
2. We’re prioritizing purpose, impact, and joy. We want for ourselves what we want for our clients: to live our whole lives in service of a more just and life-sustaining world, and to be lit up by the work we do. RSC has lit us up for years, but we both have a longing for our impact to take a new form that’s not entirely clear yet. We want to do work we love in a way we love, and we can’t do that without a clear vision for what we’d love. This chrysalis is about intentionally setting aside what we’re “supposed to do” to keep our business running the way it has, so we can explore and play with new ways of living and contributing that light us up.
3. Heart-centered, impactful and vulnerable leadership for justice is what we created RSC to support. We see this pause as a way of living our values. This change is vulnerable, and it puts us squarely into a state of uncertainty. But, despite the discomfort, we’re not rushing to get out of it.

Of course, we’re not simply jumping headlong into the void without support! We’re calling in support from our friends, loved ones, coaches, and each other to help guide us through this chrysalis experience. We are talking regularly to share what we’re learning about ourselves and seeing about our visions for the future, and we’ve set a date by when we intend to emerge and declare our next steps. You’ll likely hear from us in the fall with a retrospective, lessons-learned, and what’s next for each of us and RSC.

In the meantime, we’d like to leave you with a prayer we wrote for ourselves to guide us through the chrysalis. May it be as supportive for you as it has been for us!

May this chrysalis period show us what is next for our individual/collective purpose.

May we catch a clear and compelling vision for the contribution that is uniquely ours to make & how we want to live as we do this work.

May we be ready to build the next piece of our work and contribution as a result of taking this time to live the questions.

May I live a life lit up with passion and contribution to the world!

May I ask juicy questions that make me come alive!

May I live in flow! May I break the rules/expectations in service of what is authentic.

May I uncover/unleash my soul and allow spirit to move through me.

May I listen deeply to my body’s needs and honor them.

May I be joyous and playful.