We Are All Lionesses: What It Really Takes To Be A Warrior of Love
“We are all born free and spend a lifetime becoming slaves to our own false truths.”
- Atticus –
Last week I had one of those weeks that changes everything. Seven days of breaking open a little more every day. Seven days of the truth revealing itself to me, layer by layer with one bold message:
You are not living as a warrior of love. You are part of the problem, not the solution.
The realization of the truth of that statement felt like fighting for breath after diving into a lake before it’s been warmed by the sun. I knew there was no going back. But how to move forward?
Those seven days were not more or less hectic than the seven before them nor the seven that lay before me now as I sit here writing this on a Monday morning. It’s also not unusual for me to have epiphanies in my day-to-day.
I’ve often said that my work feels like an opportunity to practice the theories I listen and read about to “human” better (if that’s a thing). And I every day I do grow and learn.
However, the depth of last week’s epiphany was unusual as the lessons bubbled up to the surface one by one to be seen and felt and (a process that is still unfolding) understood.
Those lessons are ultimately about love.
I write a lot about love and I thought I knew what I was talking about. I identify as someone with a big heart who also loves big.
Earlier this year as it seemed like things were starting to fall apart all around us, I argued that we all need to become warriors of love to create the kind of world we want to live in: one in which all humans, all other species and all ecosystems are thriving on a healthy planet.
And I thought I was a warrior of love.
But the truth is that I haven’t been a warrior of love. Not really.
And the reason why is because I talk a lot about the creation of the other. I often lament, and sometimes rant, that, if only we could see how we are all connected, so much of what ails the world would fall away. If only we could take better care of one another. If only . . .
But you see, Dear Reader, in judging the person who creates “the other” I have myself have created “the other”. I am the other-er.
There’s a well-known saying that if you point your fingers at another there are four fingers pointing back at you. Last week I saw the truth of that, in the most profound way yet. It knocked me off my soap box and left me temporarily mute.
That realization came slowly, and then all at once thanks to some great teachers.
Last week, as I often do during my workday when I’m not on calls, I listened to a course on Mindvalley. My choice was a course called Quantum Love with Dr. Laura Berman. It’s not the first time I’ve taken the course, and I read the book of the same name when it was first released. However, I’ve always seen the work in the context of personal relationships. And by personal, I mean not related to work.
But last week I realized that quantum love could also be applied to my work. At the moment I am deep in fundraising mode to sustain and scale up the work of the initiatives I lead at a time when that feels more challenging than ever before (which itself is a limiting belief).
To keep myself in a high vibe state I’ve been doing a grounding meditation every day and then getting into coherence with what I want. In this case funding to sustain and scale up the work.
However, as I listened to Quantum Love this time, there was an aspect to the course I hadn’t deeply engaged with. And that was the drama triangle.
Building on Stephen Karpman’s work, Berman developed her own version of the drama triangle to describe and understand how humans get stuck in unhealthy relationship patterns. There are three roles in the triangle:
The victim is someone who feels helpless and feels they need to be rescued by someone else. The villain is highly critical and judgmental and rarely takes responsibility for their actions. The hero feels they need to save the victim, often overriding their own needs to do so.
While the drama triangle was developed to describe romantic relationships, it applies to all relationships.
How do you know you’re on the drama triangle? Berman argues that anytime you are convinced that you are right and other people are wrong, then you are on the drama triangle. Breaking free of the triangle requires self-awareness as well as compassion and empathy (both for yourself and others).
Once we start to look at our own role in the drama triangle, then it starts to dissolve, and we are more likely to stay off it in the future (as long as we stay curious and self-aware). Because the drama triangle can’t survive when we stop pointing our fingers at others, when we cease blaming and shaming and turn our attention inward.
“You don’t’ have to be critical of yourself”, Berman argues, “Just curious. Because anything that triggers us when we see it in others, is invariably almost always something we judge in ourselves.
This was a light bulb moment for me. I could finally see how much I’ve been the person who creates the others, while simultaneously criticizing others for doing the same.
There are so many others in my world. The person who doesn’t recycle. The person who doesn’t believe climate change is real. The person who doesn’t recognize when they are being racist. And on and on it goes. As I said above, I am the other-er.
As the week went on, I moved on to podcasts that were aligned with those lessons. I also wanted to feel inspired, so I chose A Bit of Optimism with Simon Sinek. I am a great admirer of Sinek’s work. It’s informed my own work on leadership and generally I really love the conversations he curates.
But the episode I chose to listen to had elements of Sinek interjecting his view as if it was the only true thing, the only right thing. In this conversation with Lewis Howes (another person whose podcast and work I admire), he argues that courage is external, something I highly disagree with.
As I listened, I wondered why Sinek didn’t just get curious and ask more about the things his guest was saying, as it’s something he is extraordinarily good at.
Boom. More light bulb moments. I realized how often I don’t get curious but rather make an assumption or interject with my own opinion or perspective as if it’s the only right one.
Yikes.
That one was hard to swallow.
Again, slowly and then all at once, I understood I’m not being a warrior of love. Not really. Too often I am not making space for others. Making assumptions and not getting curious. Too often I am blaming and shaming as if I’m right and others are wrong. Too often I am standing on my soap box when what I really need to do is step down and listen. Really listen.
In another conversation at the end of last week I raised an issue I often lament in conversations across the landscape of work I do. How to make people in the Global North care more about those in the Global South? And yes, I did use the word “make”. And yes, it does feel forceful and yes, it’s coming from a place of me being right and others being wrong. Not getting curious. Not listening. Not truly.
Still, that one is hard. Because I know we are all connected. And if you’re reading this, you probably do too. At the centre of that is that there is no other. We are all one. One human family. Energetically intertwined.
Ultimately, the war on anything doesn’t work. Because the more we focus on something, the more energy we give it, the bigger it becomes.
But still, there is so much of the world that needs to change. How will that happen if we draw attention to those things? How can we create a world in which very human, every species and every ecosystem deserves to thrive on a healthy planet if we don’t show where we’re failing? If we don’t shine light on the gaps?
The truth is that love is the only thing that will change the world. But does that mean we don’t stand up for what needs to change? I’m still figuring that out to be honest. But what I do know is that the next step in my own work is to embody the change I want to see. And if I want to see more love, then I need to be more loving.
More on how that goes next time! Until then, stay well and take good care of each other.
Erin Roberts is a climate policy researcher and the founder of the Loss and Damage Collaboration, the Climate Leadership Initiative and The Lionesses. She believes that a world in which all humans, all other species and all ecosystems are thriving on a healthy planet is entirely possible. And that love is the only way to get there.
