Surviving, Sustaining, Becoming
This past year, I’ve had conversations with leaders who look at me, weary, and whisper, “We are tired, but we are still here.”
I feel that in my bones. I’ve known seasons where survival itself felt like victory. And I’ve learned that survival is not small—it is sacred.
Organizations are carrying so much right now. Funding streams are uncertain. Staff are stretched. Dreams sometimes feel deferred. And yet—the people remain. The work remains. The “why” refuses to let go.
bell hooks once wrote: “To be truly visionary we have to root our imagination in our concrete reality while simultaneously imagining possibilities beyond that reality.” (hooks, 2000, p. 110). This is the balance of survival and sustainability. We must honor the reality of tight budgets and heavy hearts, and yet, we must also imagine what is possible beyond this moment.
At ashlove, LLC, I help organizations and leaders hold that balance:
To honor survival as holy ground.
To build practices of sustainability that draw not only on funding, but on community, clarity, and care.
To keep imagination alive, so survival becomes the soil for growth—not the ceiling of what’s possible.
In my own life, when I’ve been in survival seasons, I’ve found small rituals help. Lighting a candle. Writing the names of people who hold me. Breathing. These practices remind me: I am more than what is pressing in.
For your organization, I invite you to ask:
What does survival look like right now, and how can we honor it?
What practices sustain not just the work, but the people doing it?
What possibility is trying to be born from this difficulty?
These times are heavy, yes. But they are also fertile. In the cracks of what feels impossible, new seeds are being sown.
May we honor the survival, nurture the sustaining, and lean toward the becoming.
References
hooks, b. (2000). Feminism is for everybody: Passionate politics. South End Press. 2015 Edition.