Keeping emotions “out of it” doesn’t work. Try this instead.

One of the team’s I’ve been coaching recently reached out asking for a training session. In their request, team members asked: “How can we handle conflict and share feedback while keeping emotions out of it?” What was unsaid: “I’m uncomfortable with the my own strong emotions and those of my colleagues, and I don’t know what to do with them. Strong leaders don’t show their emotions and especially don’t let them impact other people.” 

To that, my friends, I say: The only way out is through. We simply can’t be in productive tension with other humans (hello, leadership!) without processing with the emotions that create that tension - in fact, our capacity to feel a full spectrum of emotion is what makes us human and what ties us to others. Our emotions don’t have to be an annoying barrier to get past; instead, they can be breadcrumbs on the path to deeper connection with ourselves and others. 

The most successful leaders I’ve known and coached see emotions as a necessary part of knowing themselves and being in relationship with others, and see emotional agility as critical to navigating healthy conflict. Excellent leaders explore their emotions intentionally and communicate them responsibly.  

And - I get it. The truth is that I’ve spent thousands of hours wishing my feelings would just go away. Throughout my life, I’ve received constant messages that my feelings were too intense or too emotional (which is weird, by the way. Is water too wet? I think not!) 

As a child and young adult, without a safe space to process my inner emotional landscape, I usually experienced feelings in one of two ways: They flooded my system and then spilled over onto others in my path, or they got locked up and stuck inside my mind and my body to fester. With nowhere for them to go, I became my emotions, and embodied them at a great personal cost. As a college student, this (sometimes) led to disconnection and self-destructive behavior. As a professional, this (sometimes) led to insensitivity and anxiety. As a leader, I absorbed and perpetuated the story that leaders subjugate their feelings in order to remain stoic, collected, and even-keeled at all times. When my emotions did boil over, it sometimes had significant consequences for those in my path.

With a lot of time, support and practice, I learned that I can feel my feelings and also that I am not my feelings. I can get curious about and sit with even the most uncomfortable emotions, and see them as information and clues to a puzzle instead of reality. With this separation, I can communicate my emotional experience with intention and without blame or victimhood. I can get better insight into my needs and how to meet them. And - actually feeling my challenging feelings has meant that I get to feel the more pleasant ones more deeply too - an invaluable reward.

This practice has made me a more resilient parent, a more empathetic friend, a more present partner, and a more grounded, compassionate, whole person. I don’t get the feedback anymore that my feelings are too much; instead, I get feedback that I’m an an extraordinarily empathetic, human-oriented, deep listener with the capacity to hold complexity and tension. This access and insight I have to my feelings with curiosity - even the most deep, complicated, dynamic, and sometimes even dark ones - is my superpower. 

It might be yours too, in fact. Keep emotions in it and see what happens. 

Why setting boundaries is so hard (and what to do about it)

I’ve had appendicitis twice. Both times, I was a first-year ED. The first time, I didn’t have surgery but was in the hospital for three days, on IV antibiotics and unable to eat or drink anything. When I was released, it was thankfully the holidays so I had some space to rest. 

The second time, it was mid-January, about a month later. I went right back to the hospital, this time getting an operation to remove the offending organ. Three days later, I was back at it: driving to meetings I felt I couldn’t cancel, feeling terrible and bloated and in pain. It was…terrible. 

Some months later, I mentioned the whole situation to my manager, who lived halfway across the country but knew what was going on. “Should I have told you to go home and rest?” he asked. At the time I thought, “YES! Of course.” It seemed like to obvious answer. And yet, over the years, I’ve thought a lot about that moment. Why did I, an at-the-time 35 year-old woman, need this man to give me permission to care for my body? Why didn’t I cancel my meetings to rest and recuperate? What was I so afraid of?

Now years later, I still think about this moment all the time. I’m now a parent, and a follower of Dr Becky, a parenting educator that I have found incredibly helpful in my journey. She recently shared on a podcast that boundaries are something YOU will do - not something you expect someone else to do. Essentially, you can’t make anyone else do anything; you can only follow through on what YOU say you’ll do. Your boundaries belong to you. Yes, my manager should have insisted that I rest, because in an ideal world he would have recognized that we all live in burnout culture, receiving negative messages about rest and toxic messages about our worth. In an ideal world, he would have intuitively known what I needed to hear. 

And, because even though he should have, he didn’t - I also needed to see that only I would protect my boundaries at the level needed to be truly take care of myself: my body, my mental health, my creativity and imagination and community.

Almost all of my clients struggle mightily with this kind of boundary setting. Maybe you do, too. Here are a few potential reasons why. Maybe…

• You don’t know what your boundaries actually are (this is a key first step!)

• Healthy boundary setting was never modeled for you - so you’ve never seen it!

• You’re operating a scarcity mindset that says that “no” depletes rather than adds (i.e. FOMO) 

• You aren’t clear about or don’t know what you want. 

• You’re keeping yourself small (away from the big ideas, moves, or leaps) by staying stuck in the little things 

• You’re protecting yourself from your fears, traumas, or even your dreams because they’re scary 

• The dial is turned down on your inner-knowing and you’re cut off from your intuition.

• You’re operating with the brain, disconnected from the body and heart. 

• You think you have to say yes (or else…) 

• You’re a product of our individualist and capitalist society and thus equate your value with what you produce, check off your list, or accomplish. 

• You’re a person of color, a woman, or hold another marginalized identit(ies) and so are more likely to bear the brunt of oppressive systems 

• You’re operating under the influence of perfectionism. 

• You’re giving someone else your power. 

• You’re tired and taking the path of least resistance. 

• You’re a human. We want to be prosocial and connected, forgetting that overcommitting and burning leads to less connection. 

• You’re worried to offend/hurt/disappoint someone or cause friction. 

These are just some reasons. It’s hard to say no. For most of us, it’s a muscle we never learned to build, and the barriers are steep. I’m still building this muscle, along with pretty much every single one of my clients. 

So what can we do about it?

There are lots of different kinds of boundaries - but these specifically are about protecting your time and energy, specifically in the context of work. No one else will do that for you - and in fact, I find that a lot of times, clients haven’t been clear at all with others about the way that their energy is being drained. Others simply don’t know what boundaries you have if you don’t share them. So — knowing what they are, and sharing them - is the first step. After that, it’s about holding them. 

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but rather a list of ideas to get you started. You can start with the systems (and most folks do!), but until you change the way you relate to boundary setting internally, it will never quite stick and you’ll find yourself asking, “Why don’t people respect my work blocks?” Or “Why did I say yes to that thing I really didn’t want to do?” In those moments, get curious about what happened, and dig in. That’s the work. I’m still doing it myself. And if you need help - let me know. We can be in it together. 

Individually

• Work (maybe with a coach!) to dismantle the part of you that believes in doing over being; consider where that notion might come from and how it has its grasp on you.

• Practice being and not just doing. Reward yourself for being present, for resting, for pausing. 

• Consider what feelings or emotions come up for you when you say no or set a boundary. Sit with them. 

• Notice what feelings or emotions come up when you betray a boundary. Sit with them. 

• Know and internalize the priorities that matter most (so everything else can wait).

• Be aware of what makes it hard for you personally to set boundaries (because it’s slightly different for everyone).

• Draw up an ideal week as a template to understand what your boundaries are and protect your best thinking time, family time, friend time, thinking time, focus time, etc.

• Fully be out of office when you say you’re going to be.

Interpersonally: 

• Let people know that how you plan to spend your time is changing and what to expect.

• Ask for an agenda or explanation when someone drops a meeting on you.

• Ask people to send you the 1-2 most important questions prior to the meeting. 

• Decline a meeting! 

• Reflect back what you heard and STILL hold your boundary.

• Reflect back with empathy and STILL hold your boundary.

Systemically: 

• Determine the ebb and flow of your week or month (when are you able to take meetings, and when are you not).

• Set up an auto response to let people know when you’re not available and when you plan to get back to them.  

• Use Calendly (that’s what I do!) to gate-keep your availability; it’s very set-it-and-forget-it, which is awesome. 

• Get an EA who will hold your time for you!

• Hold office hours 1x a week and ask ppl to book 15 minute slots for quick questions

• Ask people to send you voice memos with their most important Qs

• Timebox email checking: set a work block 2x a day to check emails and then the rest of the time - focus elsewhere.

• Schedule deep work; snooze notifications when you’re doing deep/focused work on a project 

• Set an away message when you’re deep in a project or on a deadline and need extra leeway

Culturally: 

• Demonstrate and model rest: Make it a cultural expectation to be away from the office when you say you’ll be and model rest for the team.

• Demonstrate and model prioritizing: Do less. Do less better! Make it an expectation that people in your organization will know their priorities and stick to them — adjusting if necessary, but only when making necessary trade-offs (vs. taking on more and more and more).

• Make it an expectation that work blocks are not fungible — when you see a workblock on someone’s calendar, that actually means they’re working and are intentionally protecting that time. 

• Declare an org-wide no meeting day, weekly or biweekly or monthly.

• Create and culture where it’s ok to say “no”; or, where it’s celebrated! 

• Organizationally, really looks at this issue of boundaries from a DEI lens and consider how people of color or other marginalized people might be disproportionately impacted a culture that doesn’t respect or encourage boundaries. 

• Especially if you’re a white leader but also if you’re any leader with positional power, hold yourselves and others in power accountable to dismantling structures that place value on burnout and judgement on rest. 

Perspectives or ideas on what to add? Have you tried any of these? You don’t have to do it alone - drop me a line and let me know what you think - and what you need. 

Why I’m a Relationship Person Forever

Our relationships are our mirrors. If we’re paying attention, they’ll tell us the work we most need to do on ourselves. What we’re triggered by in others, what we’re drawn to in others, and what we avoid in others are clues to the maps of our hearts - the key to discovering where our most tender wounds lie, and what we ultimately need in order to heal them. Still, when you consider the most significant relationships in your life, you might not immediately think about those that have caused (or still cause) discomfort or dis-ease.

But some relationships show us where our wounds are, and others help us heal them. Some might even do both.

In work and in life, my most challenging, frustrating, and gut-wrenching relationships have been my greatest teachers. They’ve dropped painful, sometimes jarring knowledge, and have revealed to me where I was holding on to control, where I needed to be right, where I was insecure, where I needed external validation, and where I was disconnected. 

And then some relationships help us heal. In work and in life, my healthiest, most secure and most committed relationships have also been guides. They’ve held my hand as I’ve learned how to love, how to receive, how to trust, and how to give. That doesn’t mean they’ve been free of conflict - quite the opposite. In fact, through that conflict, they’ve shown me how to be wrong, how to be soft, how to hold space, how to move through, and how to keep coming back.

Sometimes the most challenging relationships can also be the healers. Admittedly, it’s not easy, and requires reciprocal vulnerability, commitment, and courage. It often requires support form a coach or another third party. But it’s possible, and where some of the deepest learning and change lies. Some of my learning has looked like this: 

• As I’ve softened my approach towards others, I’ve been softer towards myself. 

• As I’ve accepted others’ limitations, I’ve made space for my own limits. 

• As I’ve witnessed others’ wholeness, I’ve seen myself as more whole too. 

• As I’ve listened more deeply to others, I’ve been able to listen more intuitively to my inner voice.

• As I’ve deepened into empathy and connection, I’ve been more compassionate and loving towards myself.  

In a world that tries hard to keep us disconnected from each other, tending to and examining our relationships is an act of self-love and compassion just as much as it is an act of compassion towards others. That’s why I’m a relationship person - forever. 

Let your relationships teach you (and them), frustrate you (and them), challenge you (and them), and yes - change you (and them). Let them help make you (both) who you were meant to be. We’re in it together.

Birth and Rebirth: Healing and Transformation after Baby #2

In January of this year, towards the end of my second pregnancy, I took myself on a weekend solo retreat. I desperately needed the time away. It had been an exciting and truly exhausting year in which I successfully launched my business, grew a whole human in my body, tended to my other small human and, well, lived life. 

The busyness had also meant that I’d only sort of contended with the trauma I’d experienced during my first birth and postpartum period, and thus I’d been repressing the anxiety in anticipation of a second. As much as I was telling myself that this time could and would be different, I hadn’t really allowed myself to visualize a truly empowering birth and postpartum experience, for fear that I’d get my hopes up and then it wouldn’t happen. It was easier to imagine the worst as a way of protecting myself from disappointment. 

Knowing that I needed a little space to breathe as work wound down and preparation for the new baby ramped up, I decamped to Mill Valley for a few nights, staying in a sweet little cabin in the Redwoods. There, I read, watched movies, rested, made labor playlists, and sat in silence. I journaled, cried, and of course dug into a Tarot reading in the hopes that I could gain some confidence and clarity about the coming event and subsequent upheaval of our lives. 

What came up loud and clear in the reading was that the impending birth - and the period of time following it - would offer an opportunity for healing. I didn’t know exactly what this meant, but I began to be more fully open to the possibility that the arrival of my second child could offer some kind of healing experience, and an opportunity to experience some closure of my initial, somewhat rocky foray into motherhood. 

Six months and a second baby later, I can report that it did, albeit in unexpected ways. Here are some of the most salient lessons and opportunities for healing that my sweet daughter’s arrival brought forth for me.

1. I realized that I can’t control the outcome - only my reaction to it. In the end, my daughter's birth was even more wild and unexpected than my son’s, with even higher highs and lower lows. There is zero chance I could have predicted how it would go, but the point wasn’t whether I could predict or control the actual outcome or experience, but rather how I’d be able to react to the reality. Shit went kind of haywire, just like the birth of my son. But I noticed that my nervous system stayed steadier, and in turn so did my daughter’s. With each twist and turn, I had the opportunity to react differently to the present moment, and stay grounded in the concept that no matter what happened, we’d be ok. In doing so, my body learned a sort of resilience that only comes from surrendering control and then coming out on the other side. 

2. I let myself feel my feelings. Having been through the postpartum period once, I knew that I’d need to give myself a lot of space to feel my feelings, hormone-induced or otherwise. Everyone knows intellectually that postpartum can be rocky for most women, but it still doesn’t feel socially acceptable to struggle emotionally when you’re supposed to be in bliss, bonding with a new baby. Because I’d been there before, this time I gave myself the literal space (no overnight visitors for a month!) and the time to really be with the rollercoaster that is postpartum. I knew that the ride would eventually end, and I also knew that working through the hard feelings coming up -  anger, overwhelm, and even grief - would deliver me to  the softer, more tender and connective parts of the journey more whole. 

3. I explored my relationship to worth and value. Taking “maternity leave” as a solopreneur means that I’ve been unpaid during my time with my daughter. I’ve been privileged to have had paid time off in the past, and yet it’s a tough pill to swallow. In a society that tells women that their labor in parenting holds no real worth, I’ve had to remember that what I am doing every day: holding my own emotions and healing my body; caring for our baby daughter and providing emotional support for our son as his world changes; navigating an ever increasing workload to keep our home in tact…all of that is WORK. Despite myself, I didn’t realize the extent, until now, that I equate value with money. It reminds me that I have a lot of continued healing to do in my relationship with work, money, and the importance of rest (as do most of us!) 

4. I accepted (or tried to) my physical limitations. Whether it’s because I’m 39 this time around or because I’m just 1000% more tired, this pregnancy and postpartum were way harder on my body than my first go around. Throughout my pregnancy, I had to work hard to accept that I was physically limited. As someone who prides themselves on being strong, I struggled with this, mightily. I still do. I want my body to be able to do what I want it to be able to do, and it’s hard to feel sidelined by recovery - as if I am somehow weak. But I’m learning that accepting my physical limitations as they are without judgment or the need to control is perpetual and worthy work. And - that celebrating my body for its accomplishments and feats (two beautiful humans!) changes my perspective drastically and necessarily. 

All of the above are invitations that I try, and often fail, to accept daily. Ultimately, it’s the process that makes the biggest mark, not any sort of perfect final destination. I’ll never likely arrive at a moment when motherhood feels like a breeze, and that’s ok. I’m still learning every day, and over time, I’m transforming. As a coach, this may be the lesson that most animates my work – a deep belief that our most powerful growth can come from our most challenging moments. That on the other side of pain comes rebirth. 

On One Year in Business: Reflections + Celebrations

It’s been a whole year since I launched this coaching + consulting practice of mine, embarking on a learning journey that has brought so much growth, personally and professionally. At the same time as I was building a business, I was also working on building my family – we’ll be welcoming our newest family member in February. So, it feels appropriate to pause and celebrate Year One’s accomplishments as I prepare to step back and spend the next few months focused on my family. 

Over the past year, I’ve had the immense privilege of walking (virtually) beside many incredible leaders doing beautiful and deeply courageous healing work out in the world - and for many, more importantly, within themselves. By being brave enough to align more authentically with themselves and their values, they are increasing their ability to show up for others vulnerably, with an open-heart. Truthfully, a revolution. 

More specifically, I had the honor of coaching 14 clients who inspired me, some for the better part of the whole year. I worked with white-identifying leaders looking to learn new ways of being that would inflict less harm in the world, and repair harm they’d caused; leaders of color bravely unlearning that which had previously caused them harm; and courageous leaders in boldly taking leaps to leave roles that had once fed them when they realized that, as heartbreaking as it felt, their time was up. I coached leaders looking to explore challenging relationship dynamics - and to fully own their part in them. I worked with more than one leader brave enough to witness how imposter syndrome was keeping her small, and how oppression was influencing her approach to a new leadership opportunity. All of my clients pushed through barriers and worked hard to accomplish incredible growth, and I was honored to play a small part. 

I worked with leaders starting up organizations, setting strong foundations by codifying bold and authentic core values; and other orgs, decades old, courageously taking on systemic change. I worked with leadership teams looking to lead their teams in a bold new direction; and teams looking to heal after collective trauma. I facilitated multi-day retreats and countless workshops, meetings, and alignment exercises. 

While my business and areas of focus are still evolving, I can point to several reflections from the past year that are sticking with me: 

1. I am most energized by supporting leaders and organizations at inflection points. Most of the leaders and organizations I worked with came to me because they are/were at a crossroads, and they wanted support in courageously charting a path forward. Together, we diagnosed the current state, set a bold new vision, and took steps to actualize it.

2. Inflection points offer the opportunity for (re)alignment: Thoughtful, whole-hearted leaders all have moments where they are seeking realignment - whether for themselves, their teams, or their organizations as whole. This might look like realigning personal and professional values. Redefining authentic leadership. Balancing strategic goals and organizational or team culture. Building (or rebuilding) authentic, human-centered and fulfilling relationships with self and others. 

3. The human side of strategic work is hard but necessary. The most transformational leaders know that the work they do is deeply interconnected with the people who do it - including themselves. As we tackle big strategic challenges related to the impact they want to have in the world, I love helping folx tap into the softer, more vulnerable sides of themselves - and experience massive growth - in the process. 

4. Facilitation > “Consulting”: Instead of coming up with recommendations in a vacuum, I facilitate spaces and experiences that elevate and codify the answers that are already there - and deepen relationships and community in the process. I work best with clients who want a full service thought-partner with whom they can experience change.

5. Collaboration rules. Coaching always feels like a collaboration, of course; and when it comes to facilitation or consulting projects, my favorite experiences from this past year involved a co-conspirator, thought-partner, and friend leading the work alongside me. 

I feel so much gratitude that I get to do meaningful work with people I care about and contribute to the healing of this place we all call home. In 2023, I’ll continue to do my own personal work - living in ease, developing deeper self-trust, cultivating presence - at home, through my practice, and alongside my amazing clients and collaborators. While I don’t know exactly where my business is headed, I can be certain more learning, reflecting, love, courage, and community will be at the center, somehow. 

Thank you for following along - there’s so much more to come!

Who would you be if you were enough?

Someone recently asked me this question, and I’ll admit - it had me shook.

To be fair, pretty much all our systems thrive by convincing us we’re not enough, and most of us simply accept it - consciously or otherwise - as truth Especially for women, and even more so for folx who hold additional marginalized identities. In the absence of enoughness there is scarcity. And so, I’ve woken up every day trying to hustle, to be enough. To do more. To be better. To never disappoint anyone, anywhere, ever. Like I’ve told you before, I’m working on it and so are pretty much all of my clients. 

For as much work as my clients and I are doing on enoughness, I (we) have had some persistent questions: 

1. If enoughness is not present for most of us, what is in fact present? An important answer, I have come to believe, is scarcity: The pervasive mindset of not having - or being - enough. Oppression thrives on scarcity in that it creates a zero-sum game, wherein there’s not enough of something to go around - if someone else has it (or is it), that must mean that you don’t (or are not it). Oppression loves to stack, create hierarchies, and create a scenario in which only some can “win”.

2. What would take up space in my brain if I really believed - and lived like - I am enough? What would I notice, and what would I let in? What would truly banish - or crowd out - scarcity? Here’s what I, after talking to mentors and friends and colleagues and teachers, am playing with:

I. Presence. Feeling not enough leads the mind to generate a million thoughts a minute on how to “fix” an apparent deficit. It takes you out of the moment of what is into thinking about all things that aren’t. It’s scarcity thinking. It’s deficit-based thinking. It’s the opposite of presence. 

II. Abundance. Sometimes, seeing my son play joyfully with my husband doesn’t feel joyful to me because I get sucked into a thought-loop about how “I wish I were better at play,” or, “My husband’s energy is just so much more abundant than mine.” Instead of going there, if I believed I were enough, I might instead find joy in the silly abandon with which they entertain each other. I’d find gratitude for their sweet relationship. I’ll find abundance in centering what I have - which is so much - and what it means to me. 

III. Creativity. Creativity requires presence - but it also requires the ability to suspend feelings of judgement and comparison, even if just for a little while - if we’re going to allow ourselves to muse on ideas, propagate new ones, or create something into existence for no reason other than just to do it. Furthermore, the ultimate act of enoughness is putting our creative work out into the world, no matter who sees or approves of it. 

IV. Self-Care. As someone who spent years overdoing stuff and depleting myself to please others, my own self-care and self-tending often has taken a backseat. Being enough means being ok with disappointing others in order to care for ourselves (heyyy, boundaries!) because we know that, even in those moments of disappointment, we’ll still be loved, held, and whole. 

V. Connection. Being in deep connection and relationship with someone means being vulnerable, open to loss or heartbreak. To do connection well - and be in right relationship with others - we need to see ourselves as whole first. The connection we can access from that place is so much more pure - more real - than when it comes from a place of need. 

VI. Growth. Growing and evolving requires a lot of vulnerability - and the fundamental belief that, despite your flaws, you are worthy and valuable and malleable, if you want to be. 

So: The next time you feel the shame or the anxiety or the depletion of scarcity, I dare you to ask yourself - “who would I be in this moment if I were enough?” and see what comes up. It might be enough. 

Don’t just change. Evolve - to be better.

As they say, change is indeed constant: From daily micro-changes to the major earth-shaking tectonic shifts that rattle us to our core. At each of these inflections big and small, we have the choice to simply acknowledge and move through, collecting our wrinkles or scars. Or - we have the opportunity to evolve - to become better. 

Whether it’s an intense relationship or interaction, something we witness, or an experience we have: when we are faced with new inputs, we get to let them move us. We have a choice: we can turn away, or we can turn toward. Turning toward is what leads to evolution. Turning toward means allowing new inputs to complicate what we think we know, so we can glean new insights that alter our behaviors and the prism through which we see the world. We might, as my coach laura brewer says, let ourselves “be radicalized.” That’s not simply change. That’s evolution.

And it’s not just for us. When creatures evolve as they have since the beginning of time, it’s in order to survive for the good of the species - alongside their environment, and not in contrast to it. It’s my belief that in our culture, the internal, human-lifetime scale evolution is a revolutionary act because it requires that we step outside of ourselves and consider the collective vs the individual. Evolution requires attention to and consideration of our environment and the others around us. We adapt and evolve to be better - not just for ourselves, but for the collective. I’d argue that it is what we owe each other. 

If we’re paying attention, even our micro-evolutions will lead to major transformation. But this requires work. It requires empathy. It requires deep self-reflection. To that end, here are some journal prompts, which come from a mix of teachers and traditions, that I use during moments and seasons of change to ensure I’m evolving for the better: 

I. What am learning through this experience?

II. What am I shedding and leaving behind? What old stories and patterns are no longer serving me? 

III. What is on the other side? What intentions can I set moving forward? 

IV. What do I need right now? What does my community need? How can I show up for both? 

Now go forth and evolve. 

What is your (leadership) Work: Part II

Note - This article is meant as a part 2 to my original piece on personal Work. If you haven’t read that one yet, consider starting there and then coming back here!

Before I became an Executive Director, my personal “Work” felt like my own - something that lived mostly internally. As my title + salary increased, my words and actions began to have much bigger and much more tangible ramifications, amplified by both my positional power and identity. When I took on a senior leadership role, my personal liabilities became actual liabilities: out there in the world, with the potential to cause very real damage if I wasn’t actively mitigating them. New paradigm, for sure. 

I have previously written that my “Work” has been to learn to be enough. Enough for others, but more importantly, for myself. As a professional, I’ve always been a hustler. I’ve been conditioned to want to be the “best” and to want to win, and my life experiences and achievements have reinforced those desires. While there’s nothing inherently bad about wanting success, the issues come when that drive collides with your personal liabilities and positional power such that it negatively impacts others - especially people of color or other marginalized folx. Here are some ways this intersection sometimes showed up for me as a leader that sometimes caused harm. Do they sound familiar?

1. Hyper-focusing on what was going wrong vs. celebrating what was going well

2. Overreacting to setbacks or challenges

3. Focusing on staff or teammates’ shortcomings or growth areas over their strengths

4. Hoarding power and grasping for control

5. Overworking - leading to burnout, modeling unhealthy imbalance and perfectionism

To be clear, I didn’t always do these things, and I did plenty “right” too. But I had a responsibility to understand how my liabilities, which came from decades of my own experiences, relationships, traumas, and stories - might interact with my positional power and identify as a white leader to cause potential harm to others. If you do your Work as a leader, you’re working on yourself, and vice versa: Your personal Work will impact your leadership. As I developed more awareness and started to thread more connections between what felt like my own stuff and my leadership stuff, I’m now more likely to:

1. Hold complexity, looking both what is challenging and what is going well with equal weight;

2. React to setbacks as opportunities, ultimately determining a stronger strategy forward

3. Hold up my team members’ strengths, celebrate their wins, and champion their growth & development

4. Distribute power among my team and share decision making rights

5. Hold boundaries and ensure I am taking care of myself

Leadership is definitely about strategy, team-management, making tough decisions, enrolling others in a vision, and allocating energy and resources to ensure the vision and impact are realized. It’s also about working through your stuff - your Work - so you can show up for yourself and others as a more evolved human. 

What is your (leadership) Work? Are you doing it?

Note to self: Your perfectionism is showing…

I’ve been potty training my toddler, and I’ll be honest: I wasn’t ready. Things are turning a corner, but let’s just say there’s been a lot more cortisol rattling around in my body. It wasn’t just the act of teaching my strong-willed 2.5 year old something new that caused the stress - my thoughts about the whole situation are what made it spiral. A truly perfect storm.

When I feel super stressed, I sometimes revert to my tried and true coping strategies, even - and maybe especially - the ones I thought I’d ditched for good. My drug of choice has often been perfectionism, along with its friends anxiety and catastrophizing. They help me retain the illusion of control when things feel really wonky. Perfectionism tells us that things are either good or bad, right or wrong, going well or decidedly going terribly. This makes it the nemesis of little people doing the messy (pun intended) work of figuring out how to be human, but maybe more importantly, the nemesis of adults also trying to figure out how to grow as a human. 

When I feel myself sinking into a perfectionistic black hole (and I finally notice I’m here), my thoughts usually spiral into anger - at myself. “How could I be so weak? Why am I letting this stress own me? What’s wrong with me - have I learned nothing? I’m back at square one!!”

Not surprisingly, that kind of talk sounds a lot like - you guessed it - perfectionism.  After years of working to move perfectionism farther and farther to the back of my emotional closet, it still pops out to say hello when I’m losing my grip, as an invitation to keep building the muscle it takes to try to be with whatever is hard, in ways that are softer, more nuanced, more compassionate, and more real. I’m glad it does, because once I’ve realized the lesson, I can put it back in the closet, knowing that it will show up again when I need that particular workout again. I - and my toddler - are grateful for the reminder that we are human. Messy. Nonlinear. In process. Imperfect.

Planting a seed on my 38th birthday: (Re)learning to love the process

On the morning of my 38th birthday (March 12th, 2022), I sat down to a birthday tarot reading. I use tarot to glean insights into the evolution of the last year, and how to enter my 39th revolution around the sun. My reading solidified and affirmed the learnings of the past 12 months: Move slowly and intentionally. Allow for ease and spaciousness. Plant and tend to the “sacred seeds”. Trust - and revel - in the process of growth and evolution. 

I remember, years ago, learning about monks who take weeks to painstakingly push tiny colored grains of sand into intricate mandala designs, only to wipe them away shortly thereafter. I had a hard time understanding, even after seeing it myself when visiting Southeast Asia. I couldn’t believe that anyone could bear to make this beautiful art that wasn’t a tangible thing to hold at the end, to put on the wall, to marvel at. I regarded the whole thing with a mix of horror and fascination. Eventually, I learned that the mandala making was a form of meditation, and of expressing a deep relationship with the process of creating something and not with the something itself. At the time, I didn’t know what it meant to be in process with something; the outcome felt like the goal. It felt painful and itchy and raw to be in the messy part - to be shape shifting and confronting obstacles and stumbling forward. 

I continued to struggle with this until I finally saw that It wasn’t actually the skill of being in process that I had to learn. Instead, I had to heal the part of myself that was conditioned to need immediate results, and to want to avoid the sometimes painful process of getting there. For the monks, the very act of creating the mandalas was an act of healing - revolutionary, really, in a world obsessed with instant gratification and stuff. 

In more recent years, I’ve been working my way through this sort of healing, partly because I keep taking on things that require me to; things that require that I be a gardener, planting seeds and allowing space for the sapling to emerge. While my conditioning still wants success quickly, I’ve been working on sitting with the discomfort that comes up in the germinating, in the tending, and in the waiting. I’ve been doing the heart work required to be in relationship with (and even love) the process. I am sowing sacred seeds that might not bear fruit for some time. I am putting them in the ground, and waiting, allowing the seeds to grow at their own pace, in their own way. I am both holding a vision for what’s to come, and relinquishing control at the same time.

Here are the seeds I am planting as I enter my 39th year:

1. My son. Parenting is the ultimate seed sowing. We plant words, new foods, ideas, facts, and love inside our children. We don’t know what it means or how it will manifest. We keep planting, day after day, moment after moment.

2. My family. We are looking to grow our family, and so are planting a very literal seed: The relationships our children will have, and an unborn child’s potential to make an impact on the world.

3. My business. Vulnerably and humbly, I’ve set a three year vision for myself and each day put one foot in front of the other to work towards it - and towards greater alignment personally and professionally. 

4. My relationships. Often the last seeds we tend, I find that my close relationships need perennial attention. It’s a lifetime of process to deepen our connection and intimacy with our partners and friends. 

5. My community. I’m at a time in my life when I want to deepen my existing relationships and expand my community with intention, building new friendships that bring fulfillment and joy. Building new friendships as an adult takes persistence, and so, so much patience.

So this year - I am a gardener, watering, tending. Watching. Monitoring conditions. Fertilizing, watching. Protecting. Watching. Waiting. Noticing how it feels to sow a sacred seed. Waiting for bloom. 

Everything I know about strategy

“What is strategy, anyway?” I asked this exact question to a senior leader in my first job post-grad school. It was my first role that was not direct service, and I was still getting my footing - learning about what work looked like when young people weren’t in the room every day. I consider myself to be a natural strategist, and yet no one had ever broken down what strategy is before. Mind you - I was 31 at this point. The senior leader said, “Strategy is choosing a path among many paths.” She went on to share that it’s not only about what you do do - it’s what you don’t do that defines strategic choices. If you’re choosing to do it all, you’re not being strategic. Period. 

Seems straightforward, right? Nope. 

The way she laid it out made sense to me, and I was glad to have such a simple way to describe a thinking style that, generally, comes naturally to me. But was it straightforward? Not so much. Strategy isn’t easy, because it doesn’t happen in a vacuum. As an Executive Director, I often felt bombarded by the often varying (and often disparate) interests of my board, team, larger organization, boss, and myself. It felt complex, and in a very on-brand way, I often overcomplicated it. Further mucking things up were my own personal beliefs, conditioning, and intuition (which I often accidentally ignored). Missteps in the strategy process impact not only whether you hit your goals but also the culture of your team, the health of your resources, and the system within which you operate. It took a lot of time and practice to realize that good strategy usually means slowing down, involving the right people, and listening to my gut while being open to challenge. Good strategy is the alchemy between what the hard data tells us and what we already know intuitively. Check out below for some common mistakes, and the antidotes that make strategic work - and the people that create and execute it - better and more inspired. 

——

Common mistakes:

1. Skipping the goal-setting and visioning + alignment.

2. Over-estimating resources and under-resourcing strategies.

3. Trying to do too much or do it all.

4. Over-emphasizing quantitative data.

5. Power-hoarding on strategic decisions.

Antidotes: 

1. Choose a goal and setting a vision for impact. This is a skip that often gets skipped - or doesn’t get fully completed before moving into the next step. It’s critical to get clear on where you’re headed first, and then land on the path you think is most likely to get you there. Then, test the viability of that path through the lens of people, capacity, values, and capabilities - and align resources to make it happen.

2. Examine the conditions. Often, there are “below the surface” pieces that need to be shifted to allow for change to take place. Listen to people, look for cultural patterns, and identify mindsets that might boost - or hinder - your strategy to ensure real systems change.

3. Ensure your strategy is values-aligned. Leave it on the cutting room floor if doing it would compromise your integrity or the integrity of the team, or if you’d need to do anything outside your values.

4. Get clear on what you won’t do. There are lots of different ways to get to a goal, and many leaders feel pressure - either self-imposed or imposed by funders or other forces - to do way too much. The consequences of this go without saying - there are cultural ones (people feel scattered, under resourced, confused, or operate with a false sense of urgency) and there are impact ones (it’s harder to meet a goal when resources are spread too thin, and the most valuable ways of spending time aren’t clear). You have to choose. You just do.

5. Align resources appropriately. Really listen to the people executing the strategic priorities to understand what is needed to truly do them justice. This means often resourcing more than feels comfortable to ensure that folks have what they need, are compensated appropriately, and don’t burn out. A strategy is only viable if the people doing it are able to do it in a way that is sustainable, and it’s only equitable if it doesn’t tax some folks (with less power, agency, or proximity) disproportionately.

6. Look beyond the numerical data. Strategy comes from qualitative data - but also hunches, intuition, qualitative data, and connective stories. While it’s obviously smart to look at quantitative data, if you just look at that, you’re losing out on a critical piece of the picture — and a lot of the context in which you operate.

7. Allow for flexibility and what emerges. That means building in spaces and opportunities to review and change direction as needed or consider additional information as it becomes available. It also means leaving some empty space in a plan so your team isn’t overtaxed and folks have some spaciousness.

8. Share power, be transparent, and include diverse perspectives. Strategic planning must be inclusive of diverse perspectives across your team, organization, and external organizations (depending on the size of the project). It will make it better - and make sure it actually comes to fruition. More importantly, perhaps, it’s critical that folks across all levels of the organization feel a genuine sense of ownership and investment, which starts with involvement. Strategic direction, if done right, will have a very real impact on people’s day to day lives - and often, the biggest impact on those doing the direct service work. While you’re not trying to reach consensus, you are ensuring all voices are heard, centering those with the least decision-making power.

While it’s not as simple as “a path among many paths,” it doesn’t need to be complicated either. Every leader has areas of strength when it comes to strategy - and areas for growth. Putting the time and energy into interrogating your approach and what’s working (and what isn’t) will lead to stronger strategy, more motivated teams, and better outcomes. 

What I learned in 2021: takeaways for a new year

2021 was a year of massive shifts and changes for so many - myself included. I left my leadership role, started my own business, had the great privilege to take a 6-month traveling sabbatical with my husband and 2-year old son, and had some primary relationships changed dramatically. The big changes and the time away meant I finally got to internally traverse some emotional territory that I’d been avoiding as well as integrate some of what I’d already been stewing on in fits and starts. Amidst all wild rollercoaster of the past few years, my little family’s 2021 journey was quite literally that - we covered over 15,000 miles of earth. But it was an emotional one as well, and I am emerging anew, ready for 2022 with new insights and opportunities. Here is a piece of what is standing out as my personal takeaways from 2021 in all their raw and hopeful honesty. 

Feeling all the feels.  

In the early days of my sabbatical, I read Burnout by the Emily and Amelia Nagoski. Although much of the book didn’t feel entirely new (literally who isn’t burned out by the past several years?) its central theme still deeply resonated. The book posits that in order to avoid Burnout - we need to do something deceptively challenging - feel our feelings. The stressors of daily life, of living with any marginalized identity, of work and family - this stress stays mostly unprocessed, locked in our bodies, wreaking havoc until it comes out in unhealthy ways. Health issues, relationship issues, work issues - essentially all of it can be chalked up to unreleased, unprocessed emotions. 

What surprised me more than this thesis is realizing just how much I’d been holding in. In the early days of my sabbatical, without the distractions of an all-consuming job and a never-ending litany of household chores, I felt like a veritable faucet of emotions - they came pouring out. Some of it was old stuff - stuff I should have worked through already but hadn’t, or stuff I’d been burying for actual years.  Some of it was more recent grief over changing relationships and the heartache that comes with that. Some was related to the stress and sadness of being a human right now in the midst of so much suffering, immediate and ancient. These emotions surfaced through journaling, through movement, and through simply allowing them some space at the table. When I let them have their space, I saw clearly that all emotions offer information and lessons; they clarify unmet needs, invitations for change, or our values. It was my thoughts about them that caused the strife - not the emotions themselves. 

2022 is certain to bring new challenges, and new feelings. I’m committed to finding practices that allow for this regular processing, even when the distractions - and the chores - return, so that emotions move through me and I might live more presently, compassionately, and intentionally. 

Committing to ease. 

The tension between ease and effort is one that most yoga practitioners understand. When you contort yourself into impossible shapes, the teachers askyou to slow down your breath, smooth out your brow, and allow the pose to be both hard and soft at the same time. Despite having a yoga practice for years now, I hadn’t learned how to translate this concept into my day to day life. After muscling through nearly 15 years of professional life, I’d mostly learned how to make shit happen by hook or by crook - and it worked, to a point. Muscling through is more like running a marathon - heavy breathing, refusal to quit, and probably getting injured in the process. All this means that the successes I had came at a cost, reinforced by the toxicity of capitalism, white supremacy, and patriarchy. These oppressive systems tell us that our value is in what we produce. While I’d understood these concepts, I hadn’t implemented a strategy to actively resist them and not overdo everything. Taking a break - stepping out of my pattern and starting a new business (both a revolutionary and privileged act in itself), gives me license to try doing things a new way and invite more ease with intention. As I start my new venture in an uncertain world, my goal is to practice ease. To allow for spaciousness. To set better boundaries. As the Nap Ministry recounts, “rest is resistance.” 

Becoming my own teacher. 

Folks that know me know that for years I’ve leveraged Tarot for insight, growth, and self-discovery. I’ve done so for the last seven years, and I continue to encounter epiphanies through the symbols and teachings of this millennia old practice. The Hierophant, traditionally, is a card that represents external and often patriarchal structures - the ingrained beliefs we hold deeply within ourselves - and the stuff we have to unlearn. 2021 was a heirophant year numerologically, and I think a lot of folx were in the process of untangling their inner knowing from the grip of what we’ve been socialized to believe. That’s some deep shit. The Tarot teacher I follow, Lindsay Mack, said, of 2021: “There is no gatekeeper - there is no teacher. This was an awakening around our relationship with the folks that are teaching us.” Oof. 

While this detangling happens so much internally, my choice to “go out on my own” was an external manifestation of this process. I no longer have an organization to serve, a boss to report to, or an HR department to comply with. I’ll need to make decisions based on my own (and my community’s) intuition, knowledge, and values to determine what is most of service to myself and others. Internally, I, like so many others, am working on rewiring my brain to listen to myself instead of some supposed all knowing structure or teacher. In 2022, I plan to continue the work of clarifying and communicating with is true from the inside out, in right relationship with my mentors and community - alongside them. 

Cultivating compassion in parenthood.

Although I’m not working in a traditional salaried job during my sabbatical, I have, in fact, been working. I’m not even talking about the few clients I’ve taken on. I’m talking about the (much more constant) unpaid labor of motherhood, and while it’s labor I love, it’s still labor. It’s not only the physical (although that’s been intense; mothering a toddler 24/7 is truly phenomenal exercise), but the emotional work that’s been the most consuming. Don’t get me wrong - I wouldn’t trade this time for the damn world. I’m in love with my son. But full-time parenting is f-ing hard, especially on the road. During the middle of our trip, I shared with my best friend that I was feeling burnt, and not just by the constant tending to others’ needs. It was the constant processing of guilt, shame, and my own childhood that had me shook. My friend told me that I was on what she called a “motherhood accelerator,” and that made so much sense to me. I have been fast-tracking my way through years of ancestral motherhood-related unpacking, and at times it’s been like drinking from a firehose. But the benefits? I am already treating myself, as a parent, with vastly more self-compassion than I was before. I am healing pieces of my relationship with my own mother with more compassion. I can accept the parts of me that are prickly, are triggered by whining on tantrums, or just need a break. It’s not easy, but I’m more aware now than I was before just how much self-compassion is required to love ourselves as parents - and how much compassion we need to have for others in their parenting journeys, including our own caregivers. I am excited to do this in community upon my return. 

Remembering our inherent gifts.

The pandemic, the political and social upheaval, and deep divisiveness have drawn on our reserves these past several years, in big ways - marginalized folx most of all. People are naturally creative, resourceful, and whole. Co-Active Coaching Training Institute (CTI) leverages this concept as the basis for it’s framework. Leaving my leadership role, uprooting my family and taking a 6-month traveling sabbatical has shown me just how true it really is. 

Take my two year old. This incredible kid has traveled 11,000 miles by car (and much more by air!), visited over 25 states, slept in countless AirBnbs, hotels, and family guest rooms, and has proven that, even for an allegedly routine-obsessed toddler, adaptability is accessible. It simply requires creativity, resourcefulness, and wholeness, which toddlers naturally have. And while it hasn’t always been cute, and has involved its fair share of tears and meltdowns, it’s been overwhelmingly positive. Toddlers have a way of figuring things out, living with inherent optimism and gusto, and accepting the intense emotions along with the good ones. They have to - their worlds are ever changing and they must adapt to keep up. They naturally seek connection when faced with obstacles, prioritize love and affection, and see others’ humanity. These tools often atrophy in the face of modern life as we age, and even small changes can seem like threats - not to mention big ones.

As I enter the next phase of my vocational journey, working with leaders as a coach and partner in their work, our trip has served as an ever present reminder that we all truly are creative, resourceful and whole when faced with even seemingly insurmountable challenges and that no matter the outcome, that will always be true if we choose to see it.

2022, here we bravely come. 

Shedding light on the shadows

I was one of those kids who was deathly afraid of the monsters under my bed, and the shapes in the corner of my room made by piles of clothes forgotten for weeks. Darkness, quite literally, terrified me. As I got older, the shadowy cracks in my mind freaked me out too, and for a long time, I managed to avoid looking at them too much. That didn’t mean I didn’t have issues and everything was cool; it wasn’t. But it did mean that, along the way, work and my career became a place I actually ran to in order to hide from the darkness, and it meant I was already over a decade into my career and in a pretty high level of leadership when I started to really understand my shadows - and how, despite my best efforts, they followed me right into my role. 

What I realized is that often, the more visible we are in our roles - the higher in leadership, the higher stakes the work - the more we are motivated to turn away from what makes us squirm about ourselves instead of toward it. The rewards for turning deeply and consciously toward our dark spots are few and far between, offer only delayed gratification, and involve a lot of time-consuming and often painful healing work. It’s lonely, and can be downright excruciating. 

As a leader of an organization and team, I had no choice but to peek in the corner. In fact, my weaknesses were on full display, particularly for those closest to me, namely my peers in the organization and my team. To be honest, I wasn’t surprised when they noticed my shadows. After all, I’d been living with those piles of laundry, the ones making seemingly nefarious shapes in my room.  I’d just ignored them to the point of not really seeing them. Now, it was like suddenly I had new friends coming over and I had no choice but to clean up. 

Over time, I learned to greet my shadows with love, as though I was greeting old friends. The goal has never been to eradicate them - that isn’t even possible (although I am a believer in putting my clothes away). The goal is to see them, get intimate with them, and recognize how they sometimes inform my actions - so that I am empowered in how I interact with them. This process allows me to get intimate with my light, too; for example, I’ll always be someone who values perspectives, and wants to understand a problem from all the angles. But sometimes this means I opinion shop, or get caught in the false and patriarchal belief that there is a “right” answer and I just need to find it. Our strengths can also be our liabilities - at the same time. 

To be clear, I’m a deep believer in leveraging your innate superpowers and strengths to do great work in the world, as long as you are wielding them responsibly. But I’d argue that, in the long run, shedding light on our shadows means we can lead from a place of deeper authenticity, equity, and love - holding space for others to see and engage lightly with their shadows too. Khalil Gibran writes about this in “The Prophet”: One can’t fully experience joy or the true depth of love and compassion without experiencing heartbreak, turmoil, and anguish. Once you’ve befriended your shadows - they unlock the light. Are you willing to look? 

Less happy…more whole

When I started my role as an executive director, one of the things I believed I wanted most was to have a happy team, and I assume this to be key to success. I envisioned us together in some meeting or retreat, smiling, slapping each other high-fives, giving shout outs, and always 100% positive. We’d be known for our optimism and can-do attitudes, and we’d rarely be critical. Ironically, I don't even consider myself someone who’s particularly happy all the time - at least not traditionally. While I cultivate deep joy, I’m fundamentally a seeker who’s sensitive to and curious about shadows, and a deep feeler who easily absorbs others’ emotions. And while they don’t always make me outwardly happy, these traits make me someone who connects deeply with others, is an excellent critical thinker, and can understand a variety of perspectives. It also makes me human. 

But still, somehow, I’d absorbed models of leadership built on patriarchy and whiteness that said a truly successful leader would lead to an outwardly happy team. That presupposition, as sneaky as it was, would make leading really hard - because shit is messy and hard and work, especially social justice work in today’s world, is never simple. It would also make the work of leading feel pressurized and full of land-mines. Any little thing that might  trigger “unwanted” emotions from others seemed off limits to talk about, because it would distract from the presupposed happiness. I sometimes pretzeled myself into unruly shapes to try to convey only the good, and to bypass conflict, criticism, or dissent. I tried to spin every challenge into an opportunity. And the thing is - it didn’t even work. Even though I was hitting targets, truthfully  I often felt like a failure as a leader during those first challenging meetings, and I felt the dissonance between who I was at my core - a complex human who felt all the things - and the always-smiling cheerleader I thought I had to be. One thing I know to be very true - it’s nearly impossible to lead from an inauthentic place, and I’d been ignoring huge swaths of myself in the pursuit of team “happiness”. 

Sound familiar? 

Here are some things that white supremacy teaches us that I had to unlearn: Successful teams are only happy, all the time. It is my job to make people happy. Happiness looks like constant positivity, conflict avoidance, and I have power over others emotions. You can see where I had to untangle my vision of executive leadership with paternalistic notions of power, right?

Instead of “happy”, people need to feel whole. That means they need to feel like all their emotions and experiences are part of the ride, and are valid. And while we all owe each other awareness and care when it comes to how our emotions impact others, it’s also true that we don’t pick and choose what we feel the way we pick our produce at the grocery store - it all ends up in your basket, whether you want it or not. Accepting emotional ups and downs as part of the process of doing complex and challenging work every day, of making difficult decisions, and being a full human with a life outside of work, means that everyone is allowed. Folks can show up authentically as themselves. Creating space for conflict and dissent means that ideas and strategies become stronger, everyone is held accountable, and everyone feels safer. 

Instead of unsuccessfully pushing happiness, cultivate wholeness. You might:

• Provide opportunities for clearing or curiosity during team meetings or check-ins, holding space for your team’s sometimes strong emotions

• Offer monthly skip-step meetings with your direct reports’ direct reports, with no agenda except to listen and validate - and understand what’s going on in folks’ lives (to the extent they want to share)

• Be transparent and candid when something is hard. Of course share all the good, and also share the not-as-good, and then talk about all of it. After sharing challenging or potentially thought-provoking news or information, hold intentional space to get reactions

• Share your own sometimes challenging emotions or reactions; let the team know when something was challenging, or when you’re grappling with something

• Make validating emotional experiences and sharing personal experiences (and their impact at work) part of your culture

• If something isn’t feeling right in a meeting or in a check-in, pause - don’t bypass the emotion or the experience. Ask, “I’m sensing something is coming up for you. Am I right? Are you open to sharing?” or, “My intuition tells me that you are feeling _____. Am I right about that?” 

• Explore and interrogate how your identity or positional power might silence voices that are offering critical perspectives, dissent, or pushback. Do the personal work necessary to be able to hold real and safe space, particularly for staff with marginalized identities, to share what's coming up for them.

Leading in this way meant that my team got to be whole, but it also meant that I got to be whole. I stopped feeling anxious before team meetings. I stopped feeling triggered by intense reactions or by frustrations. I was a more authentic version of myself, a more equitable leader, and, maybe ironically - a happier, more joyful human.

A huge thank you to my most recent team for being teachers, space holders, and holding me accountable in all of this learning.

What is your Work?

When I ask you “what is your Work,” I don’t mean the emails you send, or the meetings you hold, or the books you write, or the people you manage. I’m not asking about what you do day-to-day to make a living, even if it’s such an amazing vocation, so well matched to your passions, that it doesn’t even feel like work. 

I’m asking about your capital-W Work. That’s the deep, dark mire you wade through. The stuff that keeps you up at night, or makes you send late-night texts even though you know you shouldn’t, or deepens your relationships, or keeps you smaller than you might be, or makes you grow more aware than you knew you could be. It’s borne of your traumas and your humanity and your particular constitution and your struggle, and even born of your strengths and the shadows that inevitably come along with them. When I ask you about your Work, I’m asking you: What is the thing that comes up for you in every relationship, every effort, every endeavor - the thing that drives you absolutely crazy? The thing that impacts how you show up in the world? 

I believe that each of us has Work to do in this world. I capitalize Work here because, yes - there’s work - the way we spend our time day to day or the chores we do or what we get paid for. But overlaying all of that, like the air we breathe, is our Work. It’s the lifelong effort of overcoming what seeks to hold us back, as humans and as leaders. It intersects with almost everything we do personally and professionally, and it’s flavor spices up most of our relationships to their own unique taste. 

My Work, like that of probably many others, is learning to be enough; to believe in myself so deeply and be so whole that I know I am enough, no matter how much I fail or how often I meet someone that doesn’t like or approve of me. My Work is believing so wholeheartedly in the human that I am that I don’t even try to do more, be someone else, or live someone else’s life. As an executive, this looked like learning to recognize and disrupt perfectionism and attempts for control that kept me feeling like I was doing enough. It also meant disrupting my latent expectations that others around me “hustle for their worth” too. It meant seeing myself, and my team, as inherently worthy, even when systems of oppression would have us do otherwise. I have other Work too, but I find that this one is the most central to my life - the one that is most present in my day-to-day interactions, my most foundational personal and professional relationships, and most of my states of being. It’s Work - because I spend time dissecting it, looking for ways to disrupt habits that don’t serve me, and leveraging it to understand myself and my relationships more deeply. 

You find out what your Work is by looking for patterns among the things that make you feel the most broken, lost, and alone. What situations trigger that feeling? What sorts of relationships, what sorts of experiences? What is the connection point between those triggers? It takes digging and diligence. After all, it’s Work! It shouldn’t come easy. You won’t stumble upon it happily. It’s waiting for you to make the mighty effort to put all the pieces together so that you can start dismantling it, piece by piece, across a lifetime, living a more fulfilled, peaceful, and connected life as you go. 

Not everyone is willing to dig into or even see their Work. But if you do, you enrich your life; over time you might come to see it as a friend or companion, a helper, and a guardrail. You know that in order to live your very best and most aligned life you need to continue to do that Work. 

I know that it’s unlikely I will wake up one day and feel fully enough. But each day I work to be 1% more enough, and to practice ways of being that make me feel more enough in my everyday relationships and in my leadership. I know I’m doing my Work when I see opportunities to dig into it instead of run away from it, and I relish those opportunities as growth moments - however hard and Sisyphean they might sometimes feel. 

I am doing my Work. What’s yours?

Saying yes by saying no

When I had been out of college and teaching for just three years, my partner (now husband) Matt finished law school. It was the height of the recession - 2009 - and the firm he was set to work for asked him to delay his start date by giving him $10,000 and asking him to come back in January (it was August). At the time I’d been planning to continue in the classroom; I was getting better at it, and enjoying it more and more. I could see myself teaching for several more years, and maybe eventually becoming an administrator. But here we were - ages 25 and 27, with $10,000 in the bank and an opportunity to travel the world for a few months with guaranteed income on the other side. Matt asked me if I wanted to leave my job and buy a one-way plane ticket to Southeast Asia. I said yes. I’ve never once regretted it. 

In one of my favorite books, “Let Your Life Speak,” Parker Palmer talks about his experience with the Quaker concept of “way closing” and “way opening.” It refers to the subtle ways in which life directs us - or shows where we ought to go - by giving us choices. Sometimes the way forward is not clear, but what is clear is what is closing behind us - or what no longer feels in best alignment to who we know we want to one day be. 

These sorts of opportunities to choose can be an assessment of our values, and how they might have shifted over time. Sometimes these choices signal big transitions or life shifts - but more often, the little micro-choices we make every day allow us to practice what it looks like to be in alignment with our values. Do we say yes to an invite even though what we really want is to stay home and read? Do we turn away from or turn toward a grieving friend? Do we process a hard day by numbing out or by writing? We practice and practice in small ways, and then sometimes, we have our game day. 

For me, one of those game days came recently. Similarly to when I was 25,  I was choosing between staying in my current professional role versus walking into the unknown in the form of a sabbatical and a new business venture. This time, the decision felt more complicated, and not just because we now have a child and a mortgage. I’d been an Executive Director for nearly four years, and had poured my heart and soul into the work, my team, and my own personal growth and development. I’d built something I felt incredibly proud of, and faced down so many challenges along the way. I felt transformed by the work, more resilient from the challenges, more skilled from the responsibilities. But at the end of four years, though still inspired by our vision, I also felt drained by the day-to-day work. What energized me vocationally and my greatest gifts, I realized, laid beyond the bounds of being an Executive Director. I wanted to take the learning I’d done and partner with other leaders to evolve the way I’d had to, and to be in more alignment with their authentic selves, whatever that might mean for them. 

So when Matt and I once again saw an opportunity to travel, it was clear a new way was opening. It also meant a way was closing. Choosing to travel with my husband and son and start a new business meant that I’d need to close the door on my chapter as an Executive Director - and to the organization and colleagues I’d come to deeply care for. It meant choosing freedom, family, and in some ways my own wellness over the hustle, intensity, and prestige of a “big job”. I knew I’d be saying no to the job security I’d enjoyed, and yes to my dream of being an entrepreneur and working for myself. And though I’d learned so much as a leader and human in my ED role in addition to growing a team, a budget, and an organizational footprint - this new way would mean choosing a different kind of growth. I said yes. 

Parker Palmer says, “... each time a door closes, the rest of the world opens up...We must take the no of the way that closes and find the guidance it has to offer - and take the yes of the way that opens and respond with the yes of our lives.” To me, closing a door means having the courage to grieve what you’re leaving behind. It means humbly gathering up what you’ve learned into your arms and stepping through the doorway with clear eyes and conviction. As hard as it is - I don’t believe I’ll regret it.