Radical Visioning for the New Year: A Liberation Practice

The new year often represents a new beginning and a fresh start. A time to initiate healthy habits and establish new personal goals. But this time around the hopefulness typically offered by a new year is muddied for many Latinas by fear of the impending second Trump administration — one that at least two-thirds of Latinas did not vote for. Many of us are struggling with a mixed sense of fear, dread, and anxiety about what is to come. We start to imagine scary possibilities like who will be harmed, what we will lose, or how the daily struggles we already deal with as Latinas will get that much harder. And while these fears are valid — Trump has promised to initiate mass deportations using the United States military and plans to enact tariffs that will dramatically raise costs among other horrors — this fear for what is to come can lead us to extreme overwhelm. Overwhelm that can turn into apathy. And apathy, which disconnects us from our personal and community strengths, is something we don’t have the privilege to sink into if we want to remain empowered, mutually supported, and active over the next four years.

Radical Visioning, a tool in our liberation practices toolkit, offers us an antidote to the fear and apathy that churns in our stomachs during these times of uncertainty. Radical Visioning offers us a guiding light, a north star. As Cuban Mujerista theologian Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz says, “When the present is limiting –oppressive – one looks to the future to find a reason for living.”

What is Radical Visioning?

Radical Visioning is a tool that asks us to vividly and creatively imagine the liberation that we seek- a world free from oppression, structural violence, exploitation, and exclusion. Radical Visioning is a necessary tool for our survival, and accompanies strategies of resistance. While resistance focuses on what we want to tear down or stand against, Radical Visioning offers a narrative of hope, esperanza, as we focus on the world as it could be, the one we are creating and building together.
We cannot achieve a liberated future if we do not challenge ourselves to imagine a society structured much differently than the society we exist within now. We need a radical vision for the future to inform our strategies for change and to guide our activism.

Practicing Radical Visioning

To practice Radical Visioning we begin with a willingness to engage in creativity. This in and of itself is a radical act as creativity, imagination, and joy can be suffocated under the weight of life under oppressive conditions. When you are ready, allow yourself to close your eyes, and take a few deep breaths. In your mind’s eye, imagine you are going forward over the bridge of time towards a future destination where incredible social, political, economic, cultural, and environmental change and justice has happened.
As you move forward on the bridge of time, allow yourself to sense the energy of change, growth, transformation, and power that has brought this new reality about, until you arrive at your future destination. It can be ten, twenty or maybe even more years into the future. It doesn’t matter. All that matters is there is a deep knowing that you have arrived at a time where our society has been deeply transformed. Allow yourself to explore this world, and actively engage with it. Move through different spaces and just notice what is present. Take in every sight, smell, sensation, taste, and sound. Look in every direction including to the sky and earth. Notice the energy of this place, how things move, and how people interact. Allow yourself to experience this space for as long as you want or need, and when you are ready to go remember you can return at any time.

Reflection

After a practice of Radical Visioning I will often ask my clients to share about their experience. They sometimes say things like “there were so many green spaces, the air was fresh and clear and I could breathe deeply. I didn’t see any cars around or even roads, everything was designed with people in mind not vehicles. People were enjoying being outside together and connecting.” Other times they say things like “everyone was working together, in community, and everyone’s contributions had value and were appreciated. The community was building an add-on to the free public school, because the children needed more room and open space. Everyone was helping, even the very young and old. When it came time to take a break we all sat together and shared a meal. We were all provided for, because we all took care of each other. The concept of paying for food or shelter didn’t exist. It was as accessible to everyone as the air we breathe. I felt peaceful and secure.”

For your own reflection you can use the following questions to reflect on your experience. If you did this practice with a partner or a group these can be used for discussion and sharing.

What did you envision?
What did it feel like to be in this space? How did you feel in your body?
What were your interactions with others or between others like?
What were people doing?
How were people or groups organized? How were decisions made?
What was the environment like?
How were resources distributed?

Using this Radical Vision in the New Year

Your radical vision has much to offer you as you come into the year 2025. Your radical vision can first be a guide for present action and a counter to a sense of apathy. In times where you feel uncertain of how to act, ask yourself “What is one thing I can do now that will bring this vision closer? How can I begin to embody the values, behaviors, or relationships of this future reality now?” Remember you don’t have to do it all, or all at the same time. You can choose to take small and deliberate steps towards your radical vision.

Second, your radical vision can become a place of respite, a place you return to in your imagination when you need to recharge, replenish your energy, or recover. Our human brain has difficulty distinguishing between imagination and reality. We can use this to our advantage, and borrow from the transformational healing that our radical vision will offer to society by spending time there now. Allowing ourselves to spend time engaging with our vision will provide necessary fuel to move through the next year and beyond still connected to our agency, power, and capacity.

Last, remember that it is okay if you don’t have all the answers even in your imagination. Once a student asked Octavia Butler, acclaimed science fiction writer, what the answer is to ending the suffering of the world. She replied “…there’s no single answer that will solve all of our future problems. There’s no magic bullet. Instead there are thousands of answers–at least. You can be one of them if you choose to be.”
In 2025 we can all be one of the answers.

Vanessa Pezo is a licensed trauma therapist who approaches her work through social justice informed lens.