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We almost all have people in our lives, loved ones even, who know how to push our buttons, whether they intend to or not.
I’ve found that communication can become fraught very quickly, if not go downright off the rails.
For the people we care about, and for the people we have to work with, this can be a problem when it compromises trust and psychological safety over time, not necessarily equally in both directions, but in both directions.
Read MoreWe’ve been having a great discussion with one of our client groups about organizational, national and global turmoil, and what to do when we are sick and tired… and sick and tired of being sick and tired.
The idea of being obstinate in the face of overwhelming challenges and a bleak outlook came up.
And so we brainstormed ideas for “obstinate” healing and joy.
Read MoreI know that we’ve all been holding a lot of mixed feelings these past couple weeks. You may be somewhere on the spectrum of grief, openness, protection, anxiety, and hope. Finding yourself in that nebulous place where the ground feels unsteady can be difficult, and especially hard to navigate as you show up to work and are expected to do well.
I’m LaVoya Woods (ve/ver)—but you can call me V. I’m the Director of Trauma-Informed Methodologies at CCI, and I’m honored to bring my voice to this space alongside Alethea’s. This post marks the start of a new series where I’ll be sharing insights monthly from my own perspective as a Black, Queer, Trans Non-Binary, Neurodiverse, Disabled leader navigating complex systems and supporting folks in recovery and transformation.
Read MoreA lot of people have been processing a lot of emotions over the past two weeks since the US election, whether publicly, privately, outwardly or inwardly, in large or small, direct or indirect ways… or not at all.
We’ve held group processing sessions for at least some segment of staff at all of our client organizations as well as 1:1 coaching and each conversation has been very different.
Read MoreMy social media feeds are a cacophony of post-election shock, grief, despair, panic, reflection, analysis, strategizing, wisdom and business-as-usual right now.
I’ve been taking the time to curl inwards, rest, and remain steady, not that a total and utter freakout isn’t justified, but here’s what has been coming up for me.
Read MoreIn 2016, I told myself I NEVER wanted to feel that way again - shocked, betrayed, and most of all ANGRY at the ways at which I had learned to deny my race, even to myself, in order to buy a kind of safety that was NEVER on the table, because safety that requires you to deny parts of who you are, safety that is offered up at the expense of others, a safety that props up a system of advantage and privilege based on genocide, enslavement and colonization is not actually any kind of safety at all.
Today, I am saddened and dismayed, but my work over the past 8 years means I am not surprised. Because what I’ve learned is - this is who America is.
Read MoreA few years ago, one of our team members proposed a new day off for us… the day after the election.
That’s right, not the day of the election, but the day after, as it’s then that we need time to process the results.
Read MoreBlack women are incredible. They lead, they innovate, they stabilize entire industries—often while juggling more than anyone should ever have to. And yet, the numbers tell a darker story: Black women are paid just 63 cents for every dollar earned by white men, and even with advanced degrees, that only rises to 69 cents. Despite making up the largest percentage of women in the workforce, they hold just 1.5% of leadership positions in industry.
Read MoreSomething we’ve seen with our organizational clients is that traditional, top-down, hierarchical models of leadership continue to have a strong grip on many leaders.
This makes sense, given that traditional and dominant culture in the US, including corporate culture, has its roots in plantation culture.
Read MoreAuthenticity is an essential inclusive leadership skill. It builds the trust and psychological safety needed for collaboration, innovation and impact. It’s one of the things that people need to do their best and most fulfilling work in alignment with the mission of their organization.
But if authenticity is defined as being true to oneself, how can you measure authenticity, particularly in the context of the workplace?
Read MoreThere is always grief and trauma around us, at a local, national and global scale. Organizations often grapple with acknowledgements - what events should be acknowledged, and how can you possibly cover them all?
We’ve been talking about this at Co-Creating Inclusion as well, and have been considering the idea of a “grief acknowledgement.” We may not be able to acknowledge every single thing that is going on, but we can acknowledge that we are all likely struggling with varying degrees of grief and trauma, including secondary trauma.
Read MoreI’ve been thinking a lot (again) about how women continue to do a disproportionate amount of caregiving work… invisible, overlooked, devalued, under or unpaid emotional and administrative labor in the home, the workplace, and all around. And sometimes it feels like white women do it so cheerfully it makes it that much harder for women of color.
At an event recently, I heard a horrifying statistic - apparently 98% of food shopping is done by women!!!
Read MoreOne of the things that happens when we start to talk about privilege with people who are not accustomed to naming it, and especially about white privilege, is that the word “privilege” is experienced as an insult.
And that’s because the word “privilege” is often used as an insult.
That’s not what we mean though.
Read MoreAnother school shooting. Another week in America.
An eighth grade friend of my son said to me this weekend about his school’s new cell phone policy something to the effect of “why do they care more about keeping us safe from our phones than keeping us safe from guns?”
Read MoreMy sister wrote this heartbreaking yet beautiful article for the Wall Street Journal.
This is a tender topic for me as well so please, no advice, thanks. Shared experiences from your own perspective are invited.
Read MoreA few months ago I wrote about how every memory hurts and everyone is traumatized.
Every memory still hurts.
And what I along with our team at Co-Creating Inclusion have been exploring is how grief is necessary for change.
The ability to grieve, then, is a rarely articulated leadership skill, if we are aspiring for creativity, innovation and transformation towards equity, inclusion, justice and liberation.
Read MoreMuch as it seemed to be becoming more and more of a possibility over the past few weeks, I wasn’t prepared for the shift last week from Biden vs Trump to Harris vs Trump.
I’ve trained myself to set realistic (ie low) expectations over the past 8 years and… it felt like we were a lot further away from electing a Black and Asian woman as President than we suddenly find ourselves.
Read MoreI had a whole different blog post planned for today… and then the news broke. In fact, my 12 year old broke the news to us in the car as we driving home because his friends were texting him.
The 12 year olds are watching.
And yes it’s messy, and no America hasn’t been ready to elect a woman, let alone a woman of color… but we’d better get ready.
Read MoreThis may seem like a bit of a non-sequitur, given that I don’t think I’ve ever talked about diet culture and fatphobia on the blog or in our work… at least not extensively.
It’s something I’ve been on a personal journey with that isn’t entirely my story to tell, and so I am realizing it is something I have held back on.
This morning, though, I stumbled on a social media thread in a group I’m not very active in that reinforced just how deeply indoctrination into patriarchy, white supremacy, capitalism and fatphobia goes.
Read More“Impact is greater than intent” is one of those concepts that has been popularized over the past few years, especially within white liberal progressive culture.
The idea is that the impact that you have, meaning the impact of harm, outweighs whatever good intentions you might have.
It’s a concept, frankly, that I often see white women using to chastise each other in desperate attempts to virtue signal… which makes sense, given that white women are generally socialized to be pitted against one another by patriarchy and often are not able to see how accountability can be accompanied by support.
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