Creating space for our own humanity

One of the things I've been thinking about is how we can create space to show up in our full humanity.

Sometimes what this means is being able to take off our hat as whatever role we are playing - professional or personal - and allow more of ourselves and our humanness in.

In other words, letting ourselves, and each other, just BE can actually be quite revolutionary.

For example, in my role as DEI consultant, facilitator or coach, it can feel like I am supposed to have it all figured out. If I'm struggling, if things are messy, if I make a mistake - I'm not supposed to talk about it.

Of course, all this does is perpetuate toxic and oppressive myths of perfectionism, of objectivity, of expertise.

To truly model inclusion, I have to be wiling to be human - and not only to be willing but to insist on it in order to create space where others can do the same.

And I'll be honest, this goes counter to how I have spent most of my past professional life in corporate spaces. I learned to compartmentalize heavily by drawing a clear demarkation between my "professional" and "personal" selves. Integrating these two selves is ongoing healing work, and by the way, this is not the same as having no sense of boundaries or privacy - being willing to be human does not have to mean sharing everything of ourselves.

What this has always looked like in my DEI work is sharing my story and naming the aspects of my identity that often go unnamed - race, gender, family and immigration background, socio-economic privilege, sexual orientation, family status etc. - and how these things have impacted my experiences. I've even gone back into the "belly of the beast" of my former profession - architecture - and named the things that I never felt comfortable speaking about when I was in the profession, such as slavery, genocide, colonization, white supremacy and oppression.

The space this opens up is almost always transformative. Colleagues who have worked together for decades learn new things about each other. Grown adults surprise themselves by tearing up describing some of their experiences they have never spoken about in a professional setting. Even those who "don't do vulnerability" find themselves opening up - because it's not so much about pouring your heart out as it about being able to show up more fully, more humanly. That experience in and of itself can bring tears to the surface - tears of acknowledgement, of feeling seen, of being recognized in our full humanity.

Lately what this has looked like is asking if anyone knows how to get an 8yo to go to sleep at the start of a senior leadership and project team meeting with a client. Or acknowledging at the start of an all-staff workshop that as Black and other WOC facilitators, this time has been hard and exhausting for us too. Or asking for pandemic advice from a health expert at the start of their coaching session with me. Or literally reminding a potential client that we are human.

Or telling you, right now, that I have been struggling. That our family hit a wall with quarantine. That I burned myself out by burning the candle at both ends with the impossible math of two parents working full time with two energetic and active young boys also home full time. That, even with all of our privileges, this time, living at the epicenter of a global pandemic, has been no joke.

I'm not special - many of us are struggling, and we are not all struggling equally. I have resources that others don't. Others have resources that I don't.

Creating space for our own humanity means being able to name where we are so we can better figure out how to get where we want to go. Creating space for our own humanity means creating space for the humanity of others. Creating space for our own humanity means building community, building trust, building inclusion.

What does creating space for your humanity look like for you right now?

Banner photo by David Levêque on Unsplash.