The ‘What Can I Do?’ Series
What Is This Series?
How Is This Series Organized?
The Framework: Name, Witness, Act
Why Multiple Perspectives?
The Compassionate Courage Foundation
How To Use This Series
What Can I Do? is a monthly series of practical perspectives on navigating conflict in everyday life. Each perspective addresses a real, timely conflict situation from a specific perspective, drawing from the field of conflict resolution and the Compassionate Courage framework developed by the founder-Director of the Center for Conflict Studies, Dr. Pushpa Iyer.
This is not a series that tells you what to think or what to do. It offers frameworks, questions, and possibilities. You bring your own judgment, your own values, and your own context. The work is yours. These perspectives are offered to help you do it more clearly, more courageously, and with more compassion.
This series is organized into Themes. Each Theme explores one conflict situation from multiple perspectives. The first Theme, When a Word or Phrase Hurts, has three perspectives:
Perspective 1: When I was hurt by a word or phrase someone used
Perspective 2: When I caused hurt by a word or phrase I used
Perspective 3: When I witnessed someone hurt by a word or phrase
You do not have to read all three. Start with the perspective that speaks to where you are right now. But reading all three will give you a fuller picture of the conflict and the people in it.
Every perspective in this series follows the same three-movement framework, grounded in the Compassionate Courage approach:
Name. Identify what is really happening. Not the overt conflict, not the comfortable version, but the real issue. Name your feelings, the people involved, the history, and what you actually know.
Witness. Stay with what you found. Do not rush to act. Examine your own biases, your goals, your assumptions and your values. Sit with the discomfort long enough to understand it. Witnessing is not passive; it is rigorous and courageous.
Act. Move from a place of clarity, not reaction. With compassion toward yourself and courage toward others. On your terms, when you are ready, grounded in what you named and witnessed.
Conflict is never one-sided. There are as many perspectives, if not more, involved as there are parties in the conflict. Each carries something. Each party in the conflict has responsibilities. Each can cause harm in the process of trying to address harm.
This series does not take sides. It accounts for the full complexity of what happens when harm is caused by one or more parties and considers how everyone else responds to that harm. Read the perspective that speaks to you now. Return to the others when you are ready.
Every perspective in this series is grounded in the Compassionate Courage framework, developed by Pushpa Iyer at the Center for Conflict Studies. Compassionate Courage holds that:
Compassion is empathy in action. It requires not just putting yourself in someone else's shoes but walking with them through their experience.
Courage is staying true to your values, especially in uncomfortable spaces where your beliefs and identity are challenged.
Change requires both the compassion to hold self and others with care and the courage to name what is true and act on it.
The What Can I Do? series applies these principles to conflict situations from the different perspectives of those involved.
Read the perspective that speaks to you and your experiences.
Be brutally honest with your reflections. Particularly, your own biases, prejudices, and your values. You don’t need to share them with anyone.
Use the Name, Witness, Act framework as a sequence rather than a checklist. You may need to return to Name or Witness before you are ready to Act.
Share perspectives that you are comfortable with others, primarily your allies. It might provide you with a more wholistic understanding of the situation.
Come back. Conflict evolves. Where you are today is not where you will be in a week. Return to these perspectives as the situation develops.