Finding Your Role in Social Change—and How It Impacts Your Mental Health
At Upstream Mental Health, many of our clients are students, creatives, healers, organizers, and educators who are trying to stay grounded while also staying engaged. We also know that our individual mental health and well-being is inextricably tied to our collective wellbeing. If you’re someone who cares deeply about creating change, justice, and the well-being of others, you have probably spent plenty of time and energy figuring out how you can help society work toward change. But often, it can be challenging to know where our efforts are needed and what role is best suited for our particular skills, strengths, and capacity.
If you’ve ever found yourself asking:
“Am I doing enough?”
“Why do I feel so burnt out even when I care so much?”
“Where do I fit in this movement?”
You’re not alone—and there’s a powerful tool that might help.
Deepa Iyer of the Building Movement Project created the Social Change Ecosystem Map to help you reflect on what role(s) or lane(s) you might fit with best in the fight for justice and collective liberation. Whether you are a seasoned activist or new to social change efforts, this guide can help you identify where to start and how to transform your energy and emotion into action.
Finding Yourself on the Map
Below are the ten roles within the map, as well as their characteristics. As you read through them, consider which resonate the most with you.
Deepa Iyer, Building Movement Project. SM, © 2020 Deepa Iyer. All rights reserved. All prior licenses revoked.
Weavers: I see the through-lines of connectivity between people, places, organizations, ideas, and movements.
Experimenters: I innovate, pioneer, and invent. I take risks and course-correct as needed.
Frontline Responders: I address community crises by marshaling and organizing resources, networks, and messages.
Visionaries: I imagine and generate our boldest possibilities, hopes and dreams, and remind us of our direction.
Builders: I develop, organize, and implement ideas, practices, people, and resources in service of a collective vision.
Caregivers: I nurture and nourish the people around me by creating and sustaining a community of care, joy, and connection.
Disruptors: I take uncomfortable and risky actions to shake up the status quo, to raise awareness, and to build power.
Healers: I recognize and tend to the generational and current traumas caused by oppressive systems, institutions, policies, and practices.
Storytellers: I craft and share our community stories, cultures, experiences, histories, and possibilities through art, music, media, and movement.
Guides: I teach, counsel, and advise, using my gifts of well-earned discernment and wisdom.
You can learn more about the framework here, and engage with reflection questions.
Why This Matters for Mental Health
One of the biggest sources of burnout among social change-makers is the belief that we must be everything, all at once. But when we begin to understand that there are many valid, necessary roles in a movement—and that our roles can evolve and shift over time—it becomes easier to:
Release guilt for not “doing more”
Recognize your unique contribution
Ask for support and collaboration
Protect your energy and capacity
In therapy, we often talk with clients about internalized capitalism—the pressure to always be producing, fixing, or fighting. The Social Change Ecosystem Map helps us step back and ask: “What is mine to hold—and what is not?”
Let’s say you’re a grad student organizing mutual aid while also caregiving for a loved one and trying to finish your dissertation. You might be living in the roles of Caregiver, Builder, and Frontline Responder—without even realizing it. Or maybe you’re a queer artist sharing your story through music or zines—you’re embodying the Storyteller and Visionary roles. Each role carries gifts, and each also involves emotional labor.
By recognizing your role(s), you can also identify what you need to feel replenished, what boundaries might support your healing, and what it might look like to take a break, shift your role, seek community, or even say no.
A Gentle Invitation
At Upstream Mental Health, we work with folks across a range of identities who are doing both the outer work of social change and the inner work of healing. Many of our clients carry deep care for the world and a desire to contribute—but feel overwhelmed, stuck, or unsure of their place. Therapy can be a place to reflect and gain support with 1) clarifying your role in the bigger picture, 2) making space for grief, rest, and transition, 3) finding tools to manage anxiety, trauma, and burnout, and 4) developing sustainable practices that nourish your activism and well-being.
If you’re feeling exhausted by the weight of it all—or like you’ve lost yourself in the expectation of “doing enough”—consider this permission to pause. The movement needs you, but it will only be sustainable if you ensure your own cup is full.
If you’re interested in learning more about what this all could look like for you, reach out to our team at Upstream Mental Health here.