Seasonal Approach to Practice

I am a human rights and social justice advocate. My work centres on holding space for people within systems that don’t always hold them well. I approach this through lived experience, what I’ve carried, witnessed, and learned, so I can stay present in difficult situations. My main message is that sustaining social justice work requires ongoing self-awareness, tending, and presence.

Much of what I know comes from experience and responsibility, learning to stay when leaving was easier, and to continue without shutting down. These grounds my approach to this work.

As I reflect, I have come to understand both my life and this work through seasons. Not as fixed stages, but as cycles that overlap, return, and shift. There are winters where the work asks for endurance, springs where something begins again, summers where there is movement and expansion, and autumns where I gather, integrate, and let go. These seasons do not arrive in order or stay in place. They move through each other, sometimes all at once.

There are times of survival within what appears to be strength, and stillness within periods of intensity. Even when nothing seems to change on the surface, something is always moving beneath the surface. Strength moves this way too, not always visible, often quiet, shaped over time.

Through these cycles, I’ve survived difficult days, carried too much, seen things fall apart, and learned to slow down and listen. None of these stands alone. Each season shapes how I stay in this work and how I understand strength—not as force, but as the capacity to stay, soften, endure, and begin again.

In parallel, yoga has become the place where this evolving understanding lives in my body. Not as performance, but as practice. A way of returning to breath, to presence, to awareness of when to hold and when to release. Through yoga, I have learned that strength and stillness are not separate. They exist together, informing how I move within both my life and my work across seasons.

Continuing with this, breath grounds me. It helps me stay present, especially when the work is heavy or uncertain. It is a steady thread that carries me through each season, a quiet practice that allows me to remain without becoming overwhelmed.

All of this has shown me that tending to myself is not separate from human rights and social justice work. It is what makes it possible. Without it, the work becomes unsustainable. With it, I can remain present, engaged, and connected without losing myself in the process.

As I continue, Learning is ongoing. What has shifted is my awareness of what I can carry and what I must set down to remain present and sustain this work—a core part of my main message.

I do not need to have all the answers. What matters is my willingness to keep learning, to remain present, and to move forward with courage, sustaining this work through every season.