Insisting We Have to Talk

Interview Gail Bradbrook

“There are different stages in change. Agitating is only one, but it’s an important step to really insist that we have to talk about something.”

Hello · What If We Get It Right with Gail Bradbrook

Dr Gail Bradbrook has been researching, planning, and training for mass civil disobedience since 2010 and is a co-founder of the social movement Extinction Rebellion (XR), which has spread internationally since its launch in October 2018: there are more than 1150 XR groups in 75 countries.

We talk about what it takes to get the story out there and make sure climate change is on the agenda everywhere. What tactics are needed and how far can activists can go before the systems spits them out? Gail talks about the internal conversation within movements and where the dangers are of over pushing the disruption methodology. And when it is and isn't important to be in the news.

Interested in understanding how the organising strategies used by Extinction Rebellion can be used in business environments? You'll hear more about how XR is set up, it's inner challenges, how the movement spread, the importance of keeping the spirit alive and whether or not to choose for disruption. Gail is a master at relating the different stages of change and why activists in business are super crucial at this time.

Gail Bradbrook has been arrested several times for acts of civil disobedience, and for these actions she faces a potential jail sentence of up to 10 years. She has trained in molecular biophysics, and her talk on the science of the ecological crisis, the psychology of active participation, and the need for civil disobedience has gone viral and been inspired many to join XR.

She is from Yorkshire, the mother of two boys, the daughter of a coal miner, and was named by GQ as one of the top 50 influencers in the UK, and honoured in a Women’s Hour Power list for her part in instigating a rebellion against the British Government. She is currently working on a major new global programme of work called XR Being the Change.

Twitter: @gailbradbrook

photo credit: Gareth Morris

Selected links from episode

Extinction Rebellion - a do-it-together environmental movement.

Power for All - Julie Battliana and Tizana Casciaro

Fridays for Future - youth-led and -organised movement

The Sunrise Movement - the climate revolution

Transition movement - Rob Hopkins

Reinventing Organisations - Frederic Laloux

The Week - Creating space for conversations

Recapture the Rapture - Jamie Wheal

The Fearless Heart blog - Miki Kashtan

Praler - Planet Repairs Action Learning Education Revolution

Heading for Extinction and what to do about it? Roger Hallam

The More Beautiful World Our Heart Knows is Possible - Charles Eisenstein

Stop Ecocide Movement - Polly Higgins

Transcript

↓ Write transcript below this line ↓

Tessa Wernink

Thank you for coming over speaking to me today. Because of your experience setting up a movement, building a movement and organizing protests and action. And I'd really love to hear more about that. That may be good to start off with an introduction into who you are on later, and I saw you were passionate about social change from a loving place, and I thought maybe you could talk to me a little bit more about what that means to you.

00:00

Gail Bradbrook

Yeah. Thank you, Tessa. So I am from Yorkshire. I always feel like it starts with that in the north of England. And my dad was a coal miner, so I have a working class background and I trained in science, so I did a Ph.D. in molecular biophysics and some research. So, I've had that sort of intersectional experience of being a working class woman and attempting to be in science. It was tricky. I was always, though, very deeply interested in social change from when I was conscious, and I that’s more the pathway that I took. I have worked in the world of NGOs and charities. I know their limitations and around 2010 became deeply sensing that my civil disobedience was part and parcel and necessary for change. And you said in your introduction then that we have a right to protest. In the UK, we no longer truly have a right to protest. It's become so authoritarian here in the UK that any forms of effective protest that might involve putting your body in the way of something and that form of nonviolent direct action. So, trying to stop somebody chopping the tree down or digging a road or whatever. That's been effectively outlawed, even noisy protests can be outlawed. Even protests by one person can be outlawed. There are 50 protesters in jail at the minute in the UK. There’s never been that many people in jail in the UK. And when you get to court, they are closing down our defences. Our ways of saying why we did what we did and speaking to the jury. So, I don't consider the UK has a functional democracy. I think it's a fake democracy. And at the heart of a functioning democracy is the right to dissent and the right to protest. And in that way, I actually think that's reflective of what's going on across the whole world. That we have an economic system that's got destruction baked in. And we have democracies are failing across the world and we have corruption left, right and center of many different forms. And so, I think it's really important to take matters into our own hands. And in that way, the activists within businesses are super crucial at this time. Super crucial.

00:29

Tessa Wernink

Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, it's depressing. I was reading about Australia and a woman who was in prison there for eight months as well, and all the new laws that are coming into force. And yeah, so I'd like to hear more about what that means I guess because in businesses it's also not democratic environment. We have employee rights in some parts of the world. So, with that how important it is I guess to know your rights able. So I have some understanding of this before you protest.

03:05

Gail Bradbrook

Can I come back on that point. There's knowing your rights, etc. is important. It's useful to know whatever you're doing, so you can think very tactically about what to do and how to be as safe as possible. And I think deeper, there’s knowing your own humanity and know your own truth and your own integrity and where your rights are and what the law says. Look at that in a historic context. It was legal to grab people from their home countries and take them into the transatlantic slave trade. And so reparations haven't been paid on the basis of that. And I guess it's not just payment on the basis that, well, it was legal, you know, So it's like who's law? who's deciding what the landscape is? And then there's a higher law, there's a natural law. And part of that is to understand our lives are short in a consumerist culture. We're not even supposed to think about death and dying. We’re death phobic. So, but when you think about life as a bigger, beautiful, incredible, mysterious entity that you're here in this formulation of it for some time. Then there's a deeper question about what's yours to do. What's your purpose? what you are you alive for? How can you really live a life of integrity and adventure, actually? This this machinery, this anti-life machinery is asking you to give up being a human being and to be part of the machine being your mechanical left hemisphere mind. Is that how you want to live? Do you want to do something else, and how do you want to do that? How do you want to be a good ancestor? And I think that with the sort of deeper questions for these times.

03:42

Tessa Wernink

Absolutely. And it's always this kind of the matrix moments of awakening to the fact that there is a machine and that you're part of it. And then when you do, you can't go back, right?

05:38

Gail Bradbrook

I find that you sort of glitch in and out of it. And that's why it's so important to be in connection with other people that are also doing that so we can hang on to each other and encourage each other.

05:51

Tessa Wernink

So tell me about Extinction Rebellion and how that got started.

06:01

Gail Bradbrook

Yeah, there's lots of different ways into telling a story. And you may know Peter Koenig's work and talk about source and taking big risks. And there were many of us that were around be ten of us in particular that made this intention to start a rebellion against the UK government. And for myself, I had tried to start my civil disobedience through a platform called Compassionate Revolution, focused on tax and tax injustice. And didn't get very far. And so, I went to pray. You know, I have a spiritual practice as well as being a scientist. And I went to pray, and I worked with quite intense psychedelic medicines. I consider them medicines. And in a two-week period, I work with iboga twice, ayahuasca, three times in cambo. And so that was a big risk. You are literally willing to throw your consciousness off a cliff and ask this big mystery, this universe, this informational universe, as the physics suggests, what information is missing and what to do and who to do it with? And in all honesty, and with that mystery, those questions were answered. And I met the right people. And I think some of the inner change work happened. So, you were asking about doing this work with love. One of the things that happened in that process and I you know, it's not like I've only ever done a two-week process of doing lots of other things, but in that process was looking at the self-righteousness that sits amongst activists. And we have ten principles and values for Extinction Rebellion, and I was the main author for those, and one of them is about no blaming and shame in doing this from love. Understanding that we're all culpable in different ways. We all have our strengths and weaknesses, and we're here to be human beings and hold each other's hands together and walk down a better path together rather than being the ones that think we're right and other people are wrong. Because that feels to me like that's still part of the machine that we're in, which is either /or thinking patriarchal, thinking, scarcity, thinking. So that was the more mysterious cosmological answer. And then on a practical level, and I think actually it's really important to say that I think both things are important. There's a film out called Conscientious Protectors that captures the April rebellion. And I said to the filmmaker, You've captured two main things that made that rebellion happen. One is really obvious, it’s the detail around the organizing. Do you know what the other is? This person said, I don't know. There's a spirit there. There's a spirit and it creates an attraction. And in sociology it's called the collective effervescence or something like that. It's an attraction. You want to be together? Of course you do. There's wisdom in this vision and there's togetherness and there's agency there. So that's something for people to feel into, an experience and aliveness around, as well as thinking mechanically. The mechanical mind has its uses, it has its purpose, it has it needs to be with us. It just needs to be in service for this bigger vision. And so, the mechanics of it was we had already some of has been building compassionate revolution, rebranded it, rising up. So, we had a website and some social media and having gone on courses around momentum driven organizing, we did what is requested, which is you write your principles and values. You set out your stall, which is what your story is, what your strategy is, what your structure is. So, it's clear ways in for people to be involved. They understand what they're signing up to. Our colleague and friend Miki Kashtan uses this word preclusion. How do you write something in a way that people can decide in advance? That's not for me, because that's actually also really helpful to support people, to choose not to join if it's not their thing. And then and then we Roger Hallam drafted this initial talk Heading for Extinction, What to do about it? And we created this name Extinction Rebellion. I would say I've worked quite strongly on the science around the for Extinction talk, because it's important to be scientifically accurate and I have the background for that and to bring in grief. To really welcome the idea that if this is not an intellectual exercise, this is a feeling. This is a feeling, and feelings of despair and grief are completely reasonable and natural need holding and supporting. And I would say not getting stuck in. And I think part of that attraction field meant that people came offering support, offering grief circles, etc., and the talk invited people to think about these times and to have agency through the methods of civil disobedience. And then you do things like, you know, you set dates when you're going to be on the streets, you set intentions, you use actions, specific actions to create a story and to tell the story. And those actions lead to interest. And through that interest, you invite more people to come to more things and create talks in lots of different locations. So there's a momentum in, there's a process. It’ss fairly well worked out now. I mean, I would say Roger in particular is a master at detailing those first steps as an organizer, and you can see that in his work in Just Stop Oil. He is in jail at the minute, by the way, on remand. So, there are steps and processes and practicalities. And I yeah, as I said, I think it's really important to have both and have clarity.

06:06

Tessa Wernink

And so much information in there. Thank you. And I was particularly inspired also by the spirit part. I was wondering like at what point did you - because you said he captured it - but do you remember feeling it for the first time?

11:41

Gail Bradbrook

Um, yeah, well, yeah, so. And I think it's important to say something maybe more about I don't know if you're aware of Iain McGilchrist's work, the Master and his Emissary. Which is about the brain and the nature of the two hemispheres and how we have these very different personalities in our heads. The machine mind, mechanical representative, left hemisphere in the right, visionary. And they get quite separated in movements quite easily because when people are in that, especially when they're in the sympathetic nervous system of the body in ‘fight, flight and in fear’, they can get quite concerned. And get panic. You get tense and tight like that you don't think in a visionary way and so that can easily be a separation in work. The history of Western democracies and and culture through the lens of what was going on for the hemispheres. It's fascinating stuff. And I think until we understand and integrate that in our practices, we're stuffed. So, I think it's a big deal. Feeling the spirit of it. We had this intention to have a ceremony in Parliament Square and to launch Extinction Rebellion, and we thought maybe about 100 people would come and we'd used all limited social media and start doing our talks. And a thousand people showed up when we thought, Whoa, okay, something's happening here. So we had a really cool guy, Ronan macKnown, who'd done the media for the Occupy movement. And he joined us and helped us get the media's attention early on, which is part of the journey and important and the feeling of, wow. I mean, you know, that day when we launched, Greta Thunberg had come and very few people had heard of her. But one of our co-founders is Swedish. Niels, and he’d invited her. And we talked about having a little bit of a civil disobedience that day because you can't talk about civil disobedience and then not do anything. So, somebody was going to lock themselves in the road outside parliament and we were building up this kind of spirit in the crowd of rebellion. And I was doing the comparing and I thought, my goodness, we can't just, you know, go down the pub now and just leave it at that. And so, I and I didn't have the time and the ability. It was life in the moment to ask people, should we do something else? I checked in with one or two people and I just tried to intuit it was okay. And we invited everybody to slowly walk into the road and occupy the road outside Parliament. George Monbiot with many others. Caroline Lucas came out to be with us. And this wonderful woman, Soul, started to sing in singing us into the road. If you want to know where the power lies, turn and look into each other's eyes. So, is there such a feel? And there was the start of some which has always been a strong part of exile. There was the Buddy Samba group there from Butterfield, I think. And they samba into the road and we were in the road for and we decided how long to be in the road. We had little assemblies about how long to stay there. And it felt like the start of something very beautiful. Yeah.

11:57

Tessa Wernink

It gave me goose bumps. Yeah. So I guess the bridge is to nonviolent direct action, civil disobedience. But we met in the Bristol at the Blue Earth Summit. We were talking about this definition of employee activism. But it's like using your position or your influence in organizations to talk about social and environmental issues. And I remember you kind of pointing out that that level of disruption is important as well. And I wanted to know what that means to you and also in the way that you organize your protests. Because I also because there's a lot of public debate on the form and not the content.

15:12

Gail Bradbrook

Well, that's what gets the story out there. And that's what the, you know, right wing press choose to focus on. And that's why we have to do disruption is because if you just literally stand on the corner of the street and wave a banner and nobody's listening to you. And even, you know, a couple of weeks ago, Extinction Rebellion organized a mass focus on Barclays Bank, we targeted over 108 banks, and it barely made the national news. While JSO had seven people walking down a road. Sorry, Just Stop Oil. And it's all over the news but not necessary in a good way. I mean, they're just talking about the disruption. So you're walking a fine line and it's an internal conversation within movements about where the dangers are of over pushing the disruption methodology. And sometimes it's not always important to be in the in the newspapers. Climate change, to some extent it is more talked about. So, there are different stages in change in the book Power for All. They talk about agitate, innovate, orchestrate. And so, like the agitators like really insisting that we have to talk about something that, you know, as an employee and in a company, you could simply start a group and invite people to it. And that may be sufficient and maybe a lot of interest. Or you could do something more disruptive, and I mean disruptive in the widest sense of that word, because sometimes speaking truthfully and passionately tearfully is disruptive. You know, sometimes sticking up posters in the toilets anonymously is disruptive. You know, there are just you that person needs to work that out within their own organizing. And and then the innovate phase is, you know, I also think it's really inspiring is how could we be different, you know, in society, in our company. What is possible here? I like the work of Rob Hopkins, who started the transition movement here, where he talks about moving from ‘What is’ to ‘What if’? The process of imagining. And one of the things we say in the politics are I working at the minute, called Being the change is that you know the system of of of the machine anti-life system some people call it waitiko. It atrophies that ability to vision and to think and to imagine that something else is possible. This system that we're in invites us into paralysis and surrender. You know so to us to actually believe that change is possible makes you a person who is somehow in resistance to a system and wanting to create something new. And then the orchestration is working with different groups to drive through change, you know, And again, within an organization, there'll be different ways of doing that. So, yes, to be clear that there's a process to go through here and there's so much that's about relationship that can get skipped over in our desire to see things change quickly, the relationship matters.

16:05

Tessa Wernink

The relationship between people, you mean?

19:20

Gail Bradbrook

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

19:22

Tessa Wernink

What I often hear people say in companies or in general, I think in response to activism is that there's it's such a loaded term when people have this feeling that an activist is always out on the barricades, you know, fighting. I’d really like to understand, I would really like to understand maybe using one of the examples of organizing an event or maybe some people that, you know, transformed or found their activist self because everybody kind of needs to find their own role in the revolution. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What are the different kinds of things that people in your organization do and how did they find that that space?

19:24

Gail Bradbrook

Yeah, yeah. Thanks for that question. Yeah. I mean there's a really I'm a bit of a workaholic and they're not for everybody either, but there's a great book called The Entangled Activist by Anthea Lawson, where she's talking about that identity because every time it's taken label on it comes with certain sort of positives and negatives and polarizations, and some people identify with that and other people strongly don't. And does that make a separate and different and especially the places where activists get entangled with the problem that they're talking about, and we can still be manifest in a version of the problem, even through our activism. Talking about how colonial mentality and racism shows up in social movements, for example, and whether people even want to use that term. Because really what we're talking about is being a human being willing to stand up and and try to make a difference. And there are different ways of that. I like that idea of the craftivist movement, of the more introverted forms of activism, the softer qualities, as Micky Csshton calls them. You know, places of vulnerability and empathy that we may want to bring through when we have that image of activism in our minds is on the barricades and with our fists in the air. And I'm all for that as well. To be honest. And it's limiting. So there are different roles. Even whatever you set up, you know, there are – and I could never find this again. But there was a brilliant poem which was about doing admin for the revolution. And, you know, God bless the people willing to do the admin work. We had some great finance team people I've worked with in XR. That's been often my focus. The creative types were all dressed, looking, really whacky, cool. And then I was with the people doing the spreadsheets and they're like, old men jumpers and mean, we're all beautiful. We all bring what we need to bring. Some people are good at spokespeople work and some people can work social media well and other people are good at writing, writing things down, expressing things. Some people, you know, you meet people in XR who just made it their thing. I remember a woman who made it her thing to run the kitchens and people have their strengths and it's all needed. So, It’s always an honour to be there. The figurehead in a way, because I get thanked quite a lot and it's sort of embarrassing because it's like, whoa, it's this body of people, you know, it's this body of people that are willing. And some people want to be seen and some people are willing to be seen, or the people are just really, I want to be behind the scenes doing my bit. So, and I think it's I just to say, it's always important to sort of question your own motivations. We all have shadow motivations as well as good motivations and to have some self-awareness. So, whether you get pulled to do one thing and not the other, and to be willing to stuff the envelopes of everybody else, you know? So, yeah.

20:37

Tessa Wernink

I like this image of doing admin for the revolution. And it's true that everybody can then kind of engage with the movement in their own way and maybe just some more. And how are you organized? How do you. And where are you now? Because I remember you saying that it's a lot of work.

23:25

Gail Bradbrook

Yeah. Yeah. So. So we have this thing called a self-organizing system, which is a structure for Extinction Rebellion, and that came out of reading and learning about Holocracy, which is how like a system for organizing in a decentralized way and it has its power. And I think it's why Extinction Rebellion is still around because you can once you set up a system, something can be perpetuated. But in that way certain negative behaviours can be perpetuated and carried on. I think Extinction Rebellion has really done a significant job in terms of moving the narrative. We weren't the only people, of course, with Fridays for the Futures and others and Sunrise movement. We made a pivot to working on the finance system and thinking about economics, and I think we've done some good contributions there as well. There's a move to try at the moment to get 100,000 people on the streets in April next year. I, I think it's a stretch and I really understand people's willingness to try that. I think that activist movements can get stuck in the agitate mode and the idea of there being a bigger strategy that tactics are part of is something that I've been trying to communicate across our movement, really. For myself and working with our internationally Solidarity network and our co-liberationteams around being the change. And we're focused on globally communities that are in resistance, educational revolution, so communities taking charge of education and really deep decolonizing work that can come through that through a project called Prailer: Planet Repairs Action for Learning Education and Revolution. We're looking at how resistance can come through non-payment of debts, you know, things like that. So, I think that the other thing about Extinction Rebellion is that we have these ten principles and values I mentioned, and anybody can organize this extinction rebellion so long as they fit these principles and values. If you want to be part of the UK structure, this is self-organizing system and may well be something similar to that in other countries. But anybody can take things up and roll with that. And that has its power because it unleashes energy. And so you had XR our doctors and XR lawyers and scientist XR are and grandmothers and family groups and Muslim groups and you know many many different groups and there's a where there's ways in which you can seed different groups to emerge. So that's all good stuff. And I think there are some of the social movements grow out of a sense of community and togetherness, so the scatteredness is important. And then in social movements here we have power breaking moments when you come together, but there needs to be enough to get in and enough clarity. And therein lies the tricky balance and the possibilities for fractures and splinters and so on, and for energies to be lost. And I'm not sure where we're at in those cycles at the minute. I wanted to mention that the the holocratic organizing, we were informed quite a bit by Reinventing Organizations by Frederick Laloux. And it's been really tricky at times. We've had some inputs around how to organize better. We've had some consultants come in to support us. There's a website called XR ISON.earth/bcan. There's the seed pod, and in there somewhere is the outputs of something called a systems realignment project, I believe. But sorry, that's probably way too much information. But there's work that we've done to try and think about how to organize this stuff so maybe be more better for the links below. Anyway, we said to Frederick. Oh my goodness, this is really messy at times and difficult. And he said, Well, I think you're actually at the leading edge, which is often where it's difficult and messy. And lessons are being learn right now. I feel like humanity needs to work out how to decentralize and organize and still be able to come together and have moments of focused attention. It’s something to work out. What Frederick's gone on to do with his wife, Helen Garan, is create something called the Week, which will be launched early next year. And I really hope that folks that are consider themselves active in some ways in companies would look that up and consider that as part of their activism within businesses. It's a process by which people. Learn about the climate and ecological crisis, do an experience together and learn about the causes and what and then go through a process of thinking about what might be theirs to do. And I think it's a ready-made package for somebody. It takes a lot of work off somebody's shoulders if they're wanting to make change. So, I'm really, really, really glad that is coming and I think people find it very helpful. And I think that's part of the thing. Well, with our despair and fear of what's happening and how we're in it, you know, people keep saying we've only so many years left. I mean, arguably it's too late. I mean, there's not a binary here. In fact, I don't think. But it's easy to just feel in a rush. And I think sometimes it slows down enough to really face what it is and to feel it. And that's where the spirit can come through of determination. Yeah.

23:42

Tessa Wernink

Thanks. Yeah, I heard about that. I've been in contact with somebody about that, which you reminded me of. I should go back to that because it is like it is something really for internal use within organizations. Yeah. Insurance. Yeah. Yeah. And yeah. And I was talking about this woman in Australia. I think she said Extinction Rebellion wasn't disruptive enough. So, they started a Fireproof Australia or something. It's almost like that, that leading edge.

30:00

Gail Bradbrook

It’s called a radical flank.

30:35

Tessa Wernink

Or radical lank exactly what it means. You've gone like you've gone from radicals, I guess, to... I was wondering. How do you how do you celebrate or how do you like when you say we've achieved something or we it or how do you even. I guess know what it is when whether you're making a difference or you're growing or you're achieving

31:18

Gail Bradbrook

I mean, I think I think it's always good to stop and celebrate and just to be in life. You know, life wants to be lived. And this is what we're here for. And, you know, and to protect something, if you don't do it now, you know, if you just in the doing rather than some of the being. So it's good to stop and reflect and to fact is one of our principles debris from reflection and regenerative cultures. I mean, ultimately from the climate activist point of view and environmental activist point of view, the ultimate impacts are reduction in carbon emissions and reductions in pollution and biodiversity loss and the needles going in the wrong way. So, you know, as Greta said, in the way she's very good at nailing things is that we're failing. And at the same time we were named in 2019, the biggest influencers on the climate in the globe. So, for something that launched like 18 months before, that was a huge indicator of something that three of our three demands were partially but not completely met. And in some cases, like the finance sector, they've done their own measures about the impacts we're having on their reputation. So, you know, and I'm told very frequently by people that we've really changed the landscape and made their work more possible. So, yeah, that's how I have a sense that we've made a difference. But still, I have a sense of what's going to happen is that the system's going to collapse. From what I understand about system thinking, because we have a food system that's based on a climate system and a finance system that all of which are very, very unstable and they're going to tip. And so, we need to be ready. And being ready is the work of mitigating the damage is the same work is building and adapting in some ways because the initial the main work is to face something, is to get together and to figure out what's yours to do. And being the change we say relate, repair, protect, become. So, the relationship first, including with your own self, your own emotional landscape, you know other people repair what's yours to repair, what's yours to make better protect. You know it's not just about going off and doing a nice regenerative project. There are attacks coming all the time from the system. How do we hold the line as best we can together and support the people who are on the frontlines and through that, becoming something global, a globally orchestrated immune response to the tendency of domination and exploitation that's baked into the negative side of human neurobiology. That's a complex way of saying it. If you needed one.

31:48

Tessa Wernink

And when I said I've got two, maybe three more questions. Right. And I've always this idea of people power coming together and bottom-up movements. And I think it was in that song that you said, Look in each other’s eye to where the power is, but we also need these kind of key figures that are in places of power and influence to listen to. And I was wondering whether there were any allies or people that you remember in this process of movement building that were important for you.

34:14

Gail Bradbrook

I mean, what's interesting is people behind the scenes include in the finance system, civil servants. And I Greta said this as well. They tell us that what we're doing is helping and making their job easier. But they can't they don't feel they can say that publicly. And in many cases I understand why. So, some of us, by the way, who've broken their windows are using the argument that there's consent in the system that people need us to do this. Well, what I would say is when you have a system with simple rules and the simple rule of money has to make money and you have to have growth, that the people that get promoted into certain positions within that system find themselves with positions of power that the system sort of selects for a type of person. And they only have the amount of power insofar as to an extent anyway, insofar as they will comply with what the system's requiring of them. So, I think one of the things I said when we were last together was that people need to be underground and disruptive within as well within the organizations that they work with. So, for example, ESG person, environmental, social governance person told me that a person within Shell had who was working on sustainability had said they'd been there for 15 years, and they said that they could not get anything passed unless it made money. Right. And if you're working in an organization like that, I think if you if you really truly believe that the you know, this system creates sociopathic institutions, and if you think that you're going to change it in a big way, I think that's something that feels relatively naive to me in that there's always something you could do, presumably, but possibly the most effective thing you can do is to to disrupt is to break the computer systems or something. It's a big ask. But I think I personally think that sabotage in the harmful frontline, harmful nature of the system is also something that we're going to have to face up and do what is going to take us under.

35:24

Tessa Wernink

Because I guess that's my last, like tying up this and the sense of feeding our humanity and understanding that we can't separate that in our whole lives and our work lives in our lives as citizens. And do you feel there's a difference between being more activist and disruptive in a workplace environment than on the street?

36:50

Gail Bradbrook

I think that's probably not a great deal of essential difference. I think ultimately you have to work out what's yours to do, who to do it with how to do it, how to feel, how to make it sustainable, you know, so that you're not burnt out by it. How to mean it, and not just be going through the motions to feel a bit better. So, which of course is reasonable as well. I think that I you know, I'm a parent. I've got two teenage boys. I think that we are the job of those of us that love people that are in the generations to come, and probably most of all of us is to give them a good life, to look forward to and to protect them from harm. And the devastation of these times is unable to do that. But we have to hear that call in our bodies and not give up.

37:16

Tessa Wernink

Do you believe that companies in medicines as the way they are? Established within our economic system. To even become places for change.

38:24

Gail Bradbrook

I think some kind of thing. Some are all, you know, I mean, I just think businesses are inherently business is a form of organizing to meet some needs. I mean, if it's creating some wants and through some advertising and driving consumerism, some businesses just need to stop doing what they're doing, you know, and in some cases that they're meeting needs. And to do that as well as possible. And markets have existed outside of business and markets have existed outside of a consumerist exploitative growth based. I mean, growth in the sense of cancerously growing the system. And absolutely a part of the future. So, you know, so it's obvious like that that there are ways, mechanical ways like becoming a B corporation and things like that that the companies are able to do. I think some companies have got such a poor track record and are in they are in the you know, on the wrong side of history have been promoting climate denial. They'll still have good people in them.

38:37

Tessa Wernink

Yeah. I think one thing that’s true for me anyway is - having been part of like disruptive or at least social entrepreneurship – is that it feels a little bit the same as the way you were explaining growing this movement. It’s that being at the front edge of it is that you're always experimenting, always figuring it out and there's never the answer to our problems you know, and I and I feel that this for me, is like this is the way our current systems work is that we still think in the way of that there are experts or someone who has a solution.

39:49

Gail Bradbrook

So this is a really good example of the brain hemisphere thing that I'm telling you about, right? So, so now so the left hemisphere wants an answer. It wants to control. It will take control. It wants to grab onto something, reduce it to parts and say this and this and this is the plan. Here's what we do. You know, and actually, the more that the system tries to control, like the food system, the more it becomes a monoculture, like big agribusiness etc. but actually the less control it has ultimately because it's causing the destruction of the planet. And it's so fragile from a systems analysis point of view, it will tip over. So that's the madness of the left hemisphere. It wants this control, but can't have it and it needs to surrender and it needs to feel safe, right? So, the other thing is that when you're in your own right hemisphere in the practices for this, you know, there's something called poly vagal theory, and there are sorts of ventral vagal resets on YouTube. You've got yoga and stuff like that, right? Or, you know, sitting with a lovely hot cuppa as a restorative practice. So, when you're in your ventral vagal system as a sort of one way of describing it might be also the parasympathetic nervous system. You’re curious. So rather than being distressed, ahhh there's no plan. I'm at the leading edge of that. Ahh, it's all a mess, you know, there's another side to all of this. And this is what I mean. We have responsibility for this, and this is why we have agency to get into that. Part of ourselves is curious and playful and goes and so let's go the hubris of like, we've got to make this change. Well, we can try, but you know, this this like incredibly intelligent universe is this planet that's been around a long time and we're here. And who knows, like we could maybe get over ourselves. We can be so much better than we are, but at the same time, take the burden off our sort of widen the shoulders of a thinking, thinking that we have to fix everything. We have to control everything. Be playful with it and be interested in it and feel the aliveness, the dancing with the cosmos that comes from being curious and playful.

40:22

Tessa Wernink

And trust. Because when you were talking about how to grow the movement, you know, I think that tis and you need to be, it needs to spread in a certain way. But there's also be a sense of trust that if your values and your principles are clear, you trust people to carry those forwards in a certain way that is actually innovative, right? Because I think brands tend to kind of go, “Oh, we need to control this in all our touchpoints need to be the same, and everybody needs to have the same identical feeling whenever they are in touch with the brand.” Whereas I think with Extinction Rebellion, you could get a slightly different feeling and yet the same spirit.

42:30

Gail Bradbrook

Yeah. That organising principles being is used in business. We used Laloux’s work on Reinventing Organizations, chaotic practices. I think as well. What we're really talking about is when we're in a system that's negative, when we're in a paradigm, this destructive, we're making agreements with each other. It's like, “hey, Tessa. We're being really nice with each of the human with each other right now. But if I'm in this kind of a mood I do this kind of thing and I'm letting you know that you can do respond in this way. You know, you can make relational agreements with people. You can make group agreements with people. You can define principles of how you want to work together. And then you have to have practices for tending to it when it doesn't work and learning from it. You know, that's what nature is. We that's why we talk about being the change. You have to become like nature. Nature is a learning system, integrates information. The domination system does that too but integrates it for the wrong purpose. So being clear on your purpose and next in the you know, if you're the overall purpose of a group is X and then a group within that you know the social media team have its own purpose get clear on those things and the agreements. Yeah I mean theoretically, It all makes sense to me. And then practically it's a mess. And that's why it's just really good to find some lightness around the heaviness of it all. You know, find some, you know, of the right hemisphere as human as well. It's just it's not. I just think the more sort of we sort of need to take it so seriously and get really clear and well organized around it at the same time, because you can do both and in the right hemisphere at the same time. Let it go. Stress less about it. I would say, you know, be joyful about it.

43:08

Tessa Wernink

And what's the one that you do? These are something that gives you lightness and joy?

45:03

Gail Bradbrook

That when I have I have different practices, right? I mean, before we spoke I two things took hold in my pouch has got some of the things I work with in here. I have work with ceremony and prayer and body practices. And, you know, I like a good gin and tonic on Friday. Jamie Wheelle has written a great book If people can cope with my bookisness here called Recapture the Rapture, where he's taking you through all the various different processes and practices that exist. There were many. There are practices based on the body, the medicine practices. They've made a lot of them illegal, but who cares? And then there's some sex practices, actually movement practices dance practices. Indigenous cultures call it cultivation of the good mind. And there's ways in which a healthy culture does things to cultivate a good mind. And the thing is so easy and activist basis to skip over that. It’s really important to sing, for example, singing is so good for connecting the mind and the heart.

45:15

Tessa Wernink

And there's none of that organizations, is there? Not really. Like in terms of those habits, I'm going to ask you one last question. I don't know whether this is the right way to put it, but I know that in organizations, people, you know, you either stay, and you kind of suppress this feeling of what you're what you see happening that you're against. You stick around and you become cynical, or you leave because you think you can't change things. And then there's that middle kind of moment of maybe if I if I speak up or if I act or do something or organize, change something. And I'm interested in that. It's I guess my question is, when do you how, when do you know that you need to leave or that you.

46:22

Gail Bradbrook

It's a very good question. And I guess because some aspects of that would be like for me at the moment in terms of our movement and I can speak to that. But I suppose if you're thinking if you're talking about somebody who's working in a particular company and whether that's the right place for them to be in, I think that's just a well, you know, my colleagues kind of talk about is neuroception. It's really feeling into your body. And when I work with it's about medicine. By the way my higher person was available and is it's your right hemisphere. It's got this language it's not hippie stuff. It’s science. And so there's something to listen to inside yourself. It's not just the words in the chatting. There's something to listen to. And however that works for you.. Whether it's going out for a long walk, or sitting around a fire. You know, Polly Higgins, who started the - she's not with this anymore well she's here, but she started the Stop Ecocide movement. She sort of teaches that way of listening to your body by you can sort of use it like a pendulum like you fall forwards for a yes and backwards for a now. You know, to just stand straight and ask your question. Clearly you sort of set it first, like I like porridge for breakfast or I my name's Bernard or whatever. And so that's the way just to really, really listen to yourself. So yeah, I think, I think that's.. and in that is the word you used earlier is trust. I love what Charles Eisenstein talks about that that we, we, when we offer ourselves in service to life. I'm paraphrasing him, but that that will get taken to the edge of our courage and not beyond. And it is hard when you're on the edge of something and in that way for myself you know, things have happened around Extinction Rebellion that are challenging. And it's like when you've given birth to something, even if it's annoying at times, like teenagers come… they just necessarily walk off you. You stay. Where's the place where you can stand, both in your integrity and dignity and curiosity without. Without leaving in a huff, without to surrendering into something and express that as well, sir. So, I guess it depends on the specific situation, but it's the so much wisdom in our bodies if we listen to what we're really thinking and feeling.

47:11

Tessa Wernink

thank you. It's true. It’s just that we forgot how to listen. And I guess sometimes for me, it was listening to you that sometimes it’s this thing you create, is that you leave something behind so that it is still alive when you leave, when you pass. Like you leave some legacy, right? Or a steppingstone for somebody else.

49:55

Gail Bradbrook

Yeah. Yeah. Tom Nixon writes on source and what it means to make sure you've passed things on. Well. It's good to read.

50:13

Tessa Wernink

Thank you so much. I. I wrote down some things while you were talking, but I might have to get back to you to get the right titles.

50:22

Gail Bradbrook

That's okay.

50:37

Tessa Wernink

Pass it on to the bookaholics. But there's so much wisdom and I get to listen to it again. Okay, thanks again.

50:34

Gail Bradbrook

Good luck with the editing.

50:46