Hey, I’m Andrew Lang

Parent
Educator
Jolly Facilitator
Gentle Changemaker

Curious about who I am and how I came to this work?

Here’s a bit about me in four stories:

Story 1: The Tension of Living Two Lives

In 2014 and 2015, I spent my weekends door-knocking for local political campaigns in the Seattle area. For anyone who’s ever canvassed before, you know it’s hard work.

And, as it turned out, I was especially good at one thing:

Going to the wealthiest houses in the neighborhood and convincing people to vote to increase the minimum wage. (There were still plenty of doors slammed in my face though.)

What kept me going from door-to-door was knowing I was on the right side and someone else was on the wrong: the dualistic, good versus bad, right versus wrong energy of having an in-group and knowing the out-group.

But that wasn’t my entire identity.

At the same time, I was spending my Thursday evenings leading a group of 20 folks in meditation and conversation where we would practice grounding our nervous systems, getting to know each other beneath the surface-level, and connecting to something deeper in our shared humanity.

I began to feel the tension between the two – between the sharp, good-versus-bad energy I felt I needed to carry to be effective in politics and the inclusive, curious energy of living in a more intentional and grounded way.

Before long, the tension metastasized into frustration with myself and a sense of “ick” whenever I was in activist spaces for too long.

Story 2: Feeling the Need to Do More, Bigger, Better

Around the same time this frustration was building, I began my teaching career and left electoral politics behind. I told myself that in the classroom – with my students – I could practice reconciling these two different energies within me.

And then Trump got elected, the first time.

I remember sitting in a circle with my seniors the day after, 18 of us just quiet: my undocumented students terrified; my conservative students excited, but hesitant; even my politically apathetic students understood the world had shifted.

That year was heavy. Each day included raw, intense discussion as I learned to hold space for young people with radically different life experiences and belief systems. Two of my conservative students took to learning German that year and openly flirted with Neo-Nazism. (Both had given this up by the end of the year.) Another few students created activist art campaigns around the city, honoring women’s voices and the power of resistance.

As a teacher, I did everything I knew to do to make sure it was a safe-enough space and that every student felt seen, respected, challenged, and got to experience how their story interacted with the moment.

But every day, I also went home absolutely exhausted and depleted, feeling constricted by the tension of thinking I needed to do more.

Story 3: Our Bodies Let Us Know

Here’s what I’ve come to learn about tension:

If we don’t metabolize it, we tend to blow it through other people’s nervous systems in the ways we act around and to them.

Looking back, it’s no surprise my engagement with my then-fiancée began to fall apart. Between the challenge of teaching in a Trump Presidency and the normal complexities of co-navigating life with another person – with their own set of stories and dreams – the tension I held in my body began to show.

I became easily frustrated and let go of my meditation practice. My perspective shrank to what was right in front of me and I felt like I was walking on eggshells, afraid to do or say the wrong thing – which, of course, only amplified the tension I felt. For a year, we lived in a liminal “trying to make it work” space: neither of us ready to call it quits, but both of us knowing this wasn’t what we wanted. The grief and uncertainty of it all was brutal. (And it didn’t help that we worked at the same school too.)

When things finally fell apart – the relationship ended, I took a year off from teaching, and moved to a whole different city – I finally had space. I had time to attend to my inner life and grapple with the questions I was holding:

What truly makes me “me?”
How do I embody that in my communities and relationships?
How can I make a difference in a sustainable, life-affirming way?

And in beginning to ask these questions (and going to therapy), I started becoming reacquainted with both my inner squishiness and the posture of open-focus I wanted to embody in my life.

Story 4: In the Face of Fascism, Gentle Change

As I explored these questions, the words and teachings of trauma specialist Resmaa Menakem became an invaluable guide in helping me understand how to metabolize the tension I carried into action.

In his book, My Grandmother’s Hands, Resmaa writes:

“There’s a way out of this mess, and it requires each of us to begin with our own body. You and your body are important parts of the solution…Your body—all of our bodies—are where changing the status quo must begin.”

Emboldened by his invitation to form a working group, I began meeting weekly with a group of friends who pushed each other to take action in the ways we could – not to do more, go big or go home, or to solve the world’s many crises, but to become imperfect-yet-active participants in our various communities.

And at the same time, I began to build on what I had learned in the activist scene in Seattle, bringing together my training in school-based mindfulness, asset-based community development, and activist strategy with Internal Family Systems and somatic awareness.

All of this is the basis of what I now call Gentle Change: a process of holding ourselves and the outcome of our changework gently, while being fierce in our commitment to change in our communities.

It is an invitation to see activism, not as a set of giant projects or a marker of identity, but as an everyday commitment to showing up with soft eyes, a posture of open focus, and a curious readiness to be present to what is needed.

It’s an everyday challenge – my desire for comfort is strong. But I’ve learned I’m most able to stay leaned-in and present when I have a group of folks supporting each other as we all work to move forward.

Other Random Tidbits About Me…

My most re-read books include The Phantom Tollbooth, My Grandmother’s Hands by Resmaa Menakem, Wild Mercy by Mirabai Starr, and Let Your Life Speak by Parker Palmer.
My perfect Saturday involves meandering through a city without any destination or purpose.
I live with my partner, two young kiddos, two doggos, and a robot vacuum named Best Friend – that sometimes works.
I am definitely a morning person.