4 Layers of Solidarity and Relational Resilience
What does it really mean to act in solidarity with others?
If you ask a bunch of people, you’re likely to get a bunch of answers – each of us, after all, has our own ways we would like folks to show up with us and preferences for how to show up with others.
For me, the word “solidarity” brings to mind a couple very specific images:
a group of people moving together in protest against the inhumane and unjust;
two people sitting together in the midst of the heaviest of grief as if to simply say “and here we are, together.”
And if you asked me for my rough definition of solidarity, I think I’d offer something like this:
The development of relational resilience with one another, a shared understanding of reality and what is possible, and the building of collective power to transform conditions.
And I get it – that definition is a lot. And not very practical.
So below are four layers for how solidarity is developed:
Co-Regulation
Mutual Aid
Shared Analysis
Collective Action
Beginning with the layer I think is most often ignored or undervalued:
Co-Regulation
We are co-regulating with others everywhere we go – intentionally or not.
At the grocery store, in our schools, with our families: whenever a group is together, our individual nervous systems interact and engage in a form of dance with each other.
Our bodies are constantly tuning in to the emotional states of others, often without us even realizing it. This is what we experience when someone with curmudgeonly energy moves into our space, and we feel a tightening of our shoulders, a shifting away, and our heartbeat getting quicker.
Or when someone with light-as-a-feather energy comes near us and we feel ourselves letting our guard down, breathing deeper, and relaxing.
This communal interplay between people, nervous systems, emotions, and energies is what we refer to as co-regulation. (And note: it’s not always wanted or positive!)
Often, people think of co-regulation as the act of collectively shifting down into some neutral, calm, centered state.
But we don’t only co-regulate down like this – we also co-regulate up.
This happens when we create spaces of celebration and excitement and energy. (Imagine a big, loud dance party.) Or when we organize around our anger, sense of agency, and desire for action (protests, organizing meetings, etc.)
To move in solidarity with each other, all of this is needed.
When we create spaces where co-regulation is intentional between people (where we can both up-regulate and down-regulate together), we begin to develop shared practices and culture that allows us to deepen our relationship resilience.
And this is what allows us to move sustainably side-by-side toward a shared goal; to navigate rupture and repair together in the midst of conflict; to stay connected with each other even as societal forces seek to pull everything and everyone apart.
Make it practical:
Reflection:
Take a few moments to reflect on the communal spaces you engage with regularly: your workplace, your family, volunteer organizations, faith communities.
How do your nervous systems interact with each other in shared space? Are there individuals or actions that tend to lead to the group co-regulating up? Are there individuals or actions that tend to lead the group to co-regulating down? How intentional is co-regulation in the space (is there shared language for it?) How often are you aware of how others’ nervous systems and behaviors are impacting yours?
Next Steps:
Begin to notice and name when up-regulation and down-regulation is occurring with people around you: “When you show up like that, I feel myself getting activated.” “How can I show up better so you feel more at ease?” “I realize I just said something because I was feeling defensive; let me take a step back and call myself down for a moment.”
Speak with others in your community about how you might be more intentional in developing shared spaces and practices where you can intentionally up-regulate as well as down-regulate together. (Some up-regulation examples: parties, singing, dancing, exercise. Down-regulation examples: group breathing exercises, nature walks, humming, muscle relaxation exercises.)
Mutual Aid
Mutual aid is a radically simple form of community sharing based on the horizontal sharing of resources within community – no hierarchy, no gatekeepers, no one deciding who is deserving or worthy and who is not. It is built on a foundation of trust between people: that when someone needs something or has something to offer, there is a community to hold them.
On a small-scale level, you probably have plenty of experiences of this kind of reciprocal sharing: going to a close friend group in a crisis and asking for support; giving a friend starting a house project your spare toolkit; dropping off a home-cooked lasagna to someone recovering from surgery. These are acts of “you-don’t-need-to-return-the-favor,” abundance-centered mutual aid.
And on a broader community level, we also have plenty of examples: childcare co-ops, tool libraries, stroller‑share libraries, school‑lunch debt funds, volunteer-run food distribution networks, literal mutual aid networks. These are organized and coordinated efforts by the community for the community.
During the Pandemic, one of the most beautiful expressions of this was the explosion of community-organized food and medicine distribution campaigns. With older and immunocompromised populations staying home as much as possible and low-income folks not able to afford delivery fees, mutual aid networks across the country sprung into action organizing medicine deliveries, food shopping, and all kinds of errand runs for people who couldn’t do it themselves.
Here in Tacoma – and elsewhere – the process was simple (although not effortless by any means) and gate-keeping free: people filled out a Google Form with a request and if there was a volunteer to make it happen, it happened. No costs, no fees, no expectations of payment, even for the cost of groceries. All the costs were covered by others in the community donating money and time.
The core principle of mutual aid is simple:
People give and receive at different times and in different ways based on what they have and what they need.
(And giving has a wide definition: it could be time, money, skills, materials, space or something else entirely. Mutual aid takes seriously that everyone has something to offer – it’s not dependent on money alone.)
Communities who engage in mutual aid and organize their interactions around trust and unconditional offering and receiving – from small scale family units or friend groups to larger social organizations – are building their own infrastructures of relational resilience.
Not just to address each other’s immediate needs, but to design and embody a future where everyone has a place to belong.
Make it practical:
Reflection:
What comes up for you when you think of "unconditional sharing?" What narratives do you have around "free-loading" or other phrases like it? What communities do you move within that could organize around mutual aid of some kind?
Next Steps:
Locate a mutual aid network in your area and consider how you might respond to shared needs in your community.
Identify a community you move within and consider how a culture of mutual aid might be fostered. Who are the people to talk to about this? How might needs and supports be offered and received in a low-pressure way without gatekeepers or hierarchy?
Shared Analysis
In order to create long-lasting change, whether it be in a workplace or at the national (or international) level, there must be a shared understanding of “what is going on” and how it came to be.
What are the root causes of the status quo?
Who has power and who does not?
How has that power been used?
What has already been tried?
What tools do we have?
Why does this matter?
Shared analysis is the ongoing work of learning together, listening together, and building a theory of change that emerges from collective wisdom rather than only individual expertise.
In other words, it’s about grappling with our differences – which brings us back to the importance of co-regulation – while developing a shared understanding of the barriers in the way of the change we seek to make.
A concrete example: at my workplace, this often looks like taking walks with coworkers and listening to each other share our experiences navigating the executive leadership.
We take a few minutes to vent, but then we get more focused: what is the core problem, how has it come to be, what has already been tried, what might we need to do, and what do we need in order to make a change happen. Sometimes the next step is easily available to us; sometimes it’s unclear and requires more conversation with those of us being impacted.
(Our executive leadership disparagingly refers to these kinds of conversations as “coalition building.” 🙄)
Building shared analysis might also look like hosting study groups that connect theory to practice, strategy sessions that plan out upcoming actions based on a set of values, or group reflection on what has gone well and what has not.
At it’s base level, it is the act of getting real with each other about what we’re experiencing, why we think it is the way it is, and what the path forward might be.
Make it practical:
Reflection:
In your communities, what is a change that you would like to see happen? Who are the people you can begin building a sense of shared analysis with? What aspects of the current state of things do you need to understand deeper in order to effectively make change?
Collective Action
When we are active in a community that has learned to co-regulate with each other, has developed a culture of mutual aid and support, and worked to build a shared analysis of the current problem, this is when we can most effectively bring forth the change we seek to make.
But it’s really important to name: we don’t need all of these things to actually make change.
Engaging in action (from attending a local protest to working with colleagues to solve a problem in the workplace) often doesn’t require all of this deep work: it might just require our intentionality and our willingness to show up.
We might all act in different ways – some people feel more comfortable with direct action, others with behind-the-scenes organizing, others with writing and documenting the moment – but collective action is when a group of people move together with shared purpose, if not always identical tactics or a shared analysis of the issue.
The key is to not go-it-alone.
Make it practical:
Join an Indivisble or SURJ group (especially us white folks); volunteer with the local mutual aid network; have real-talk with your co-workers; join a group taking a free bystander intervention training; invite friends to walk the neighborhood with you and pick up trash; talk to the neighbors and ask what they love and don’t love about the neighborhood; offer your skills to the local public school; and yes, show up at the next protest.
Collective action is what gives movement to all the other layers of relational resilience. We co-regulate, share resources, and develop analysis so we can act together more effectively, with greater resilience, and deeper connection to our values.
