One Chair at a Time
Hey friends,
George and Becca have been loving the series ‘Ted Lasso’, and I am always amazed at the places George finds his teachings. This week he is sharing one that came from the opening credits, of all places. It is a simple image of a stadium full of blue chairs, and it says a lot about how change really happens.
I’ll let him tell it. Grab a cup of tea and take a few quiet minutes with this one.
Uy skweyul siiye'yu (Good day friends),
My wife and I have been watching the latest season of Ted Lasso. I have been thinking about the character of Ted. He is a very positive character. He thinks positively about everything, even when the people and circumstances around him give him every reason not to. It has a profound, lasting effect on everyone he works with, whether they realize it in the moment or not.
During the opening credits of each episode, it shows Ted in a stadium. The chairs are blue, but when Ted sits down, the chair he sits in turns red. Then the two chairs immediately on each side of him turn red, then the chairs beside those turn red. The graffiti marks disappear as they change from blue to red. Soon enough there are a lot of red chairs, far more than the one Ted started with.
Sometimes when we make changes there is a ripple effect, and it begins to affect the environment around it. We might only see the change within us. We might not even notice it happening. But we could be affecting change in the person next to us, our family, our friends, our coworkers, long before we ever see the evidence of it.
That same positivity in Ted is something universal. It is not about pretending things are easy or ignoring what is hard. It is about choosing, again and again, to bring something good into a space rather than taking something away from it. I think that we too can affect change in ourselves so that we can move forward and make change in others. We do not always get to choose what happens around us, but we do get to choose what we bring into it.
That is exactly the work we are doing here at Culturally Committed. We are looking inward and seeing the changes that we all need to make within ourselves, then who knows where it might go from there. That is the beauty of the ripple effect, it goes out in many directions, further than we can trace and often further than we will ever know.
We are bringing a positive change one Community Call at a time, one workshop at a time, one Teaching Tuesday at a time, one relationship at a time. None of these on their own feel like very much. A conversation here, a story shared there. But that is how real change tends to move, quietly, person to person, chair by chair, until you look up and the room looks different than it did before. This is how we are going to push back against the Indigenous specific racism that is rearing its ugly head right now. Not only through big moments, but through the steady, patient work of showing up for one another.
If you are reading this and you have not yet understood exactly what we do at Culturally Committed, I encourage you to come and see for yourself. Come as a guest to a Community Call, a Monthly Workshop. Sit with us for a while. And if you are reading this, please share this Teaching Tuesday with your family, friends, and colleagues. It is a nice introduction into the work that we do, and you never know whose chair it might turn red next.
Huy ch q'u | Thank you
Wholwolet'za | George Harris Jr
Thank you, George, for this one. I keep thinking about how we rarely get to see the ripple, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t moving. Change tends to travel quietly, from one person to the next.
If you’ve been curious about what we do at Culturally Committed, come and see for yourself. Join us as a guest at a Community Call or a Monthly Workshop, and sit with us for a while. And if this Teaching Tuesday made you think of someone, send it their way. You never know whose chair it might turn red next.
Huy ch q’u | Thank you,
Kim
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