It’s true. I don’t think we can change people, but I sure do believe in change that liberates humanity. In 2022, I took a year-long journey of rest after quitting my job in late 2021. I was beyond burnt out. I was carrying the burden of not knowing myself, a burden that did not suddenly drop onto my back.
So, what created this burden?
Honestly, it was my decision-making and chosen environments that fostered it. Second-guessing myself constantly. Weight. Serving others without ever thinking about how serving them served me. Weight. Having few boundaries to protect the things I was grateful for. Weight. Supporting and fighting for individuals who were too scared or too comfortable to help themselves. Weight. Surrounding myself with people-pleasers. Weight. Waiting for traditional systems to solve problems at the pace of each problem’s urgency. Weight.
About five months into my journey of rest, when I transitioned from thinking my feelings to feeling them, I took the responsibility to “unbig” my burdensome back. And, whew(!), that’s when the revelations began their revival. For much of my life, I grasped onto a belief that I, Dana Tenille Weekes, could change people. What a lie.
There were two threads I had to pull and unravel to unlearn this lie.
The first thread focused on willingness. If someone is unwilling to change, they won’t. They won’t be curious, embrace something new, or step in a different direction. This is because we cannot force grown folks to do something they’re unwilling to do. It is their sole responsibility to be willing, so any action that follows from forcing is performative, disingenuous, deeply self-interested, and mostly temporary. Often, it is a waste of our time.
The second thread focused on being responsible for how I showed up. Do I show up conditioned? Or do I show up self-liberated, where I radically and comfortably exist as the change I want to see in the world? I realized I couldn’t enter any space liberated when I was conditioned to please by being a hoarder of other people’s needs and never making room for nurturing my own first.
I now believe (not kind of know) that I am solely responsible for living the life this world has imagined for me.
What is imagined often manifests through relentless callings I cannot ignore or fulfilling activities that give me a strong sense of belonging and understanding of my truth. If I act with this intention, I am living in my purpose. And those willing to change now have another form of representation for how they can be self-liberated.
Thrive Architects is part of the change this world needs, a true representation of me, and what I am meant to do at this point in my life. We partner with and invest in people and communities who have the willingness to see this dizzying world differently through education, advocacy, and self-liberation work. We also hope Thrive can serve as a realistic and doable example of living in one’s liberation, which the world is willing to make room for.
Dana T. Weekes
I am the Founder & Principal of Thrive Architects, a public policy and professional development firm offering strategic policy advising, policy education and training, and coaching and rest programs. I am committed to building change-based platforms that help organizations and communities enact meaningful change and for advocates to prioritize their well-being while serving others.