Antidoting Burnout and Division in Peace Activism: Interview with MacGregor Eddy and Leah Yananton

WILPF – 1950

Introduction

MacGregor and Leah come from different generations of peace work, yet they met on the frontlines – literally – protesting missile launches. Their shared commitment to peace created a lasting bond that eventually led Greg to introduce Leah to Nonviolent Global Liberation (NGL).

MacGregor (Greg) Eddy is a lifelong peace activist and trained nurse who has spent decades working for peace. She is an active member of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), the oldest feminist peace organisation in the United States, as well as the War Resisters League, the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, and has written for Waging Peace.

Leah Yananton has been involved in peace work since witnessing Sept 11th while in university. During the pandemic, she studied economics to understand the effects of capitalism on our society and environment. Leah started peace work with World Beyond War and CodePink: Women For Peace, and joined MacGregor to demonstrate against nuclear weapons and missile launches at Vandenberg Space Force Base. She is a teacher, filmmaker and writer with attention on biosphere dynamics, human connection, indigenous stewardship, nuclear disarmament, and the peace economy. Leah lives in Los Angeles, where she is also an advocate to end oil and gas drilling, and to grow more trees.

This article explores how NGL has impacted MacGregor’s and Leah’s inner transformation and their outer approach to peace work within their movements. We will delve into the frustration and burnout in peace movements, and explore the tools to move beyond pain and anger and into vulnerability, empathy and liberation.

MacGregor protesting at Vandenburg SFB. 
Leah giving testimony in front of the Air Force regarding SpaceX expansion at Vandenberg SFB.

Context and Opening for NGL

For both MacGregor and Leah, peace activism has been a driving force of their entire adult lives.

Greg: “There have been so many wars that have defined my life. My husband and I met opposing the Vietnam War, and from 18 to 22, we did nothing else.” 

Leah: “I was in college in New York when 9/11 happened. That was a huge awakening. I became more conscious of U.S. imperialism and the profit-driven forces behind it… My activism has since expanded to speaking at hearings for the National Nuclear Security Administration. The testimonies from residents near Los Alamos deeply affected me and changed me forever.”

Despite their commitment to peace, both activists experienced the personal toll of activism. 

Greg had a crisis moment in her involvement in a local peace center during the Gaza conflict, which led her to confront her own capacity and communication style. She was initially skeptical of Nonviolent Communication (NVC) but opened to the experimental framing with NGL:

“When the conflict began in Gaza, I was very distressed, and the rest of the board was not. I took that as a judgment. I really attacked them. I thought I was caring for the whole, but I was dividing them. I became more and more isolated and desperate. I was at low capacity.”

“People who’ve been working for peace are seeking a better way to communicate – to build the world we’re dreaming of, to say it in a way that’s clear – see that these tools are useful.”

“I knew about NVC and didn’t like it – I saw it as privileged people playing with puppets… The term ‘experiment’ in NGL appealed to me, I’m a nurse, and I value the scientific method – you test and based on the result, you modify the method.”

Leah had carried the tension of combining social justice frameworks without a community that could hold the complexity and provide useful language rooted in nonviolence:

“When Greg invited me to NGL, I was eager and happy to find a community focused on NVC. I believe that speaking is the key to world peace, diplomacy, national security and international security, when we can bring awareness to this precious faculty of speech.”

In NGL, both Greg and Leah began to see that the liberation work wasn’t only in strategies – but in how people relate to each other under pressure, across difference – rooted in nonviolence.

NGL Engagement and Transformation – MacGregor

MacGregor enrolled in the 2024 Experiment with Truth course, to address the anger she felt. She was moved by an article by Miki Kashtan, ‘The power of the soft qualities to transform patriarchy,’ which encompasses her biggest lessons from NGL: the importance of softness. 

“I am very interested in exploring how soft qualities can open more possibilities… Because people who work for peace all their lives get very angry. I’ve heard people who tried to send this message. If done clumsily, it comes across as criticising exhausted peace workers. What I see in NGL – and it starts in NVC – is tools that work, not just good intentions.” 

“I picked anger as my experiment, to figure out why I’m so angry. I can see a way to bring people who are very angry into this relief… which is through the soft qualities – mourning, humility, vulnerability, generosity.”

She continued engaging with NGL, feeling at home, and seeing real changes in her work.

“I felt at home the instant I was in the course; the goals and intentions made sense to me right away… I had vision, but I didn’t have the tools. I had no ability to ask for help.”

“The biggest recruiting tool I’ve had is changes in me that people noticed. They say: ‘Wow you’re not as angry as you used to be, what happened?’ I tell them: ‘I cry more’.”

MacGregor attempted to bring what she had learned from NGL into the Disarm Committee at WILPF. With years of activist experience behind her, she desired to share new ways of working that felt more collaborative and compassionate. But the shift wasn’t easy.

“I tried to change the leadership style in the Disarm Committee. This was a mistake, I now realise. I tried to introduce a way to do it differently, and I came across as criticising.”

“I had been in groups to address privilege, but it always came out as othering somebody… I am meddling, I think I’m doing it for everyone’s good, I’m very bossy.” 

MacGregor came to see the limits of her individual effort, and learned to hold spaces in collaborative leadership with Roni Wiener from NGL, practices that she plans to bring to the Middle East Committee at WILPF.

“I see now you have to have an agreement to work on in the beginning. Not introducing it alone, to have conversations with several people in the group.”

“You don’t need complete consensus, you just need collaboration. Not everyone’s opinions are on the table, but all the needs are on the table. Presenting tools that people already see as being useful – for example, how to run a meeting that’s neither top-down blame or control nor consensus; instead, we engage in collaboration with an agenda and time limit.”

NGL Engagement and Transformation – Leah

Invited by MacGregor, Leah first engaged with NGL, seeing a connection in values with her life’s work, and with the feminist peace organization CodePink in which she participates. 

“Code Pink is probably more in line with NGL than other organizations, very inclusive. The founder wrote a book called The Peace Economy – it shares some of the tenets of NGL to create a peace economy.”

She first engaged with a coaching and leadership series in NGL that many activists attend, called Responding to the Call of our Times (RTTC). She was initially skeptical, but began to see the value in the core teachings of the same soft qualities that Greg mentioned.

“I joined the RTTC leadership program, as support for me and other activists. I was told ‘maybe we don’t have the capacity to keep fighting’. When I received that guidance, I was annoyed and disappointed. Giving myself that permission – that maybe I don’t have the capacity – allows for surrender, and a transformation.”

“One of the most valuable things I’ve gained from NGL is the permission to be vulnerable, to grieve and be sad, to speak honestly. That’s so freeing.”

As Leah continued her activism in LA City Hall to phase out oil drilling, she found NGL tools and practices helpful – they even guided her community to victory recently thanks to her testimonies and thanks to other activists in STAND-LA who have been organizing around urban oil drilling.

“I live within 450 feet of an active oil rig. When I gave my testimony and spoke at the city council, each time I used NGL points to deliver an effective testimony. We just got news that we won to ban toxic acid maintenance. L.A. City will also be re-issuing the oil phase-out ordinance.”

MacGregor and Leah

Learnings for Peace Activists

Mourning and Softness as Liberation 

Through NGL, Greg and Leah reconnected with the strength of softness – vulnerability, humility, and generosity – as an antidote to burnout and division. Rather than fueling movements with anger, they have learned the power of mourning as a tool for healing and connection.

“When I found NGL, I didn’t need to pretend I was okay carrying the heavy weight of the poly-crisis we’re facing. It was the first time I felt that my limits were respected in activist work.” -Leah 

“The first thing Miki told me was to mourn. The mourning replaces anger. When you see your country, everything you work for, undone – abortion rights, immigration rights – you get very angry. But that anger harms yourself, harms your family, and even harms your enemies.” -Greg

“Over the last 60 years, every peace movement lost, there was a lot of anger, it’s also a lot of grief. I saw that I was being hard on us. And the soft quality of humility sets us free, because if we’re humble, we realize we can’t stop the war. If it doesn’t stop, it’s not our fault that it didn’t. It sounds silly, but it’s not. It’s humility that brings you to that. It was a liberation – it stopped me from blaming the people at my side.” -Greg

“A miracle happened where I didn’t have to agree to have all this burden in my lap. When I spoke at the city council, to oil company lawyers, I had softness and fierceness to look in their eyes and say ‘you men are undermining our democracy’.” -Leah

Connecting to Life Beyond Winning or Losing

Both activists have faced both “victories” and “defeat”, yet they both continue their work by orienting to openings and connecting to life.

“Years of war and defeat, loss after loss, you see what you’re against. Working for peace rather than against the current war, is a broader deeper conversation that evokes a world that works for everyone. It opens things up rather than close them down. That’s been a profound change.” -Greg

“The heaviness and the lightness is real. I study with indigenous elders, and I heard them speak about how there are only 2 energies – heavy and light. Humans intrinsically create heavy energy; we need to be in relationship to the Earth to compost our heavy energy, to give our grief and fear and anxiety and tears to the Earth, and to give an offering to Her and to the Nature Spirits. Then, the Nature Spirits take our heaviness to compost, and give us lightness and support. Grounding this work, by including the earth in our appreciation and gratitude, is the path that brings me peace and hope.” -Leah

Continuous Practice with Communities of Support

Both Greg and Leah have faced moments of breakdown, of feeling alone and without capacity. They describe the continuous nature of nurturing these skills with their work and in their organizations, through constant practice and communities of support.

“I thought it was something learned, but it’s practice. It’s not the same as learning it by watching a video. I am getting support now from the NVC community here locally. It opens a whole well of support, emotional support. There are sources of support even outside NGL, the whole NVC community is one of those.” -Greg

“I had a breakdown last week. I didn’t have the capacity to write a 3-minute speech to testify in front of the Air Force about their proposed increase of SpaceX rocket launches from Vandenberg SFB. I called MacGregor. She gave me permission not to go. I still wanted to go, so she gave me the permission to skip writing a speech but to instead speak from my heart. We agreed that even if I can’t speak at all and all I can do is cry, then I allow myself to do that when I get to the podium. I ended up writing my speech there; it was exactly 3 minutes, it was potent.” -Leah

“There’s something potent in the surrender, and to acknowledge that we don’t have the capacity. Then our vulnerability opens us to seek the support of others. In seeking the support of other people, we become stronger.” -Leah