If the (Leadership) Shoe Fits, Wear It

Every year, the women's leadership program I advise has a ceremony to recognize the young women who have participated in the program all year.  I am asked to speak at this ceremony, and I try to write something  that relates to the year's theme and leaves everyone feeling great.

This year, as I ruminated about my experience of the program, the rough times kept coming up.  My most recent post reflects my challenges with coordinating this program.  It is hard work.  As with any kind of development intervention, I don't always see that the students have made the connections I think they are supposed to be making.  I don't always get the satisfaction of knowing that they have learned something.  And yes, I would like to know that I have made a difference, and that doesn't always happen in the way I would like.  More often than not, I feel taken for granted and, in some ways, abused by the very people I am trying to guide in the personal and professional development process.  So when I thought about what to write, I wasn't concerned about writing a "feel good" speech. I decided I wanted to make sure that people would connect to some truth within themselves that they may not have accepted yet; something that would cause them to reflect on their leadership journey and integrate their personal identity with that process.  What emerged was a list of leadership lessons, entitled, "If the Shoe Fits, Wear It".

1. It’s really important to stay true to your word.  When you are a leader, people want to know that you will do what you say you will do.
2. With that said, don’t say yes to everything.  You will find yourself overwhelmed and feeling incapable of doing it all.  I can promise you that people who look like they can do it all have just learned the art of limiting themselves to what they know they can do.  Those who actually attempt to do it all won’t be able to get it all done.
3. Remember that a leader is, first and foremost, a servant.  Leadership isn’t convenient.  People will want to see you lead.  Be where you say you will be, when you say you will be there.  And understand that a title or a position means nothing.  There are plenty of people walking around with titles who are not true leaders.  True leaders understand that their role is to serve, to help others, and to provide the inspiration for lasting change.
4. If you want to change the world, your community, or even your own home, you must begin with yourself.  You cannot be a leader who isn’t willing to change or grow.  Every person you meet and every circumstance you find yourself in are opportunities to grow.  Do not close yourself off to those opportunities.
5. On that note, be open.  Be vulnerable.  Sometimes being vulnerable will cause you to be hurt by others, but it also shows others your humanity.  And we all need to see our leaders as humans so that we can aspire to leadership.
6. Be genuine.  Walk the talk.  Don’t "fake it 'til you make it".  You are on a leadership JOURNEY; therefore, it’s okay to fall, to make mistakes, to get back up and be better from the fall.  People know when you aren’t genuine, and truthfully, people don’t respect people who aren’t authentic.
7. Love.  As the Argentinian revolutionary Che Guevara once said, "At the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love.  It is impossible to think of a true revolutionary lacking this quality...We must strive every day so that this love of living humanity will be transformed into actual deeds, into acts that serve as examples, as a moving force."
8. And, don't forget my motto - "strive for excellence, not perfection".  You'll never achieve perfection, but excellence is within your grasp.

      Reflect on these leadership lessons, and you may find that some will resonate with you now, some at a later point in your own leadership and life journey.  If the leadership shoe fits, wear it.  Maybe it doesn't fit comfortably right now, but once you have tried it on, worn it a few times, and let it stretch, you may find yourself settling into your identity as a true leader.

Closed Doors

Photo courtesy of the Global Theater Project

"When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us."

- Alexander Graham Bell

Today, I got a door slammed in my face.  Not literally, but it felt that way.  And yet, as that door closed before me, I felt a mixture of emotions.  Amidst the sadness, betrayal, and abandonment, I felt something else.  I felt freedom.

I often try not to be too open about things that happen at work, mainly because I am grateful to have a job.  While no one's job is perfect, I have a pretty good thing going on.  I have tenure, so I don't have to worry about losing my job - ever.  I also see about twelve students a day, so I'm definitely busy.  I serve on committees and I plan campus-wide events, and I even got a call directly from the President of the college today.  So I really don't have much to complain about. 

Except that I am not being "fed" at work.  I have been doing the same job for the past six years, and while I have looked for opportunities to grow within my job, there's not much professional growth that can happen within my institution.  In other words, I'm pretty stuck in the position I'm in now.  Again, I would not normally say these things in a public forum, except for when I believe there's a lesson to be learned from it.  It's in my nature to help others, and if I have to be vulnerable to do so, I will take that risk.

In addition to my actual job, I am the program coordinator and advisor for a women's leadership development program.  This is not just a series of workshops, or a "girl's group".  This is a well-thought out program; a full-year leadership institute that aligns with nationally recognized standards and that utilizes student development and counseling theory.  There is a mission, vision, goals and a strategic model for running this program.  It is something that someone could possibly do as a full-time job, and for the past six years, I have been the one consistent presence in this program, although I have had several interns and students who have poured their time and energy into making this work.  I know that this program works, because I just completed a qualitative study that assesses the program's impact on young women's self-efficacy.  I know that it is one of the safe spaces on our campus, especially for young women of color.  I know that it provides opportunities for growth and development in the short span of one year for many young women on campus.  And I know many young women who can truly say that it has been a transforming experience in their college career.

Over the past couple of years, I've noticed that running the program seems to have created a burden on the team that helps me run it.  That wasn't always the case.  Maybe I was spoiled by previous teams with whom I'd developed a great personal and professional relationship, but the team dynamic was what refreshed and energized me for the first three years.  They made the extra evenings and weekends worth it.  More recently, I've noticed that the "spirit" of the organization is missing.  It has been missing for the past two years.  And while there are many very good moments, I don't know that the spirit of the organization will ever return.  Somehow along the way, it lost its heart, its energy, its passion.  And I have lost mine along the way as well.

I started to notice some things recently about myself as a professional.  Others at my job are getting opportunities to learn new things that I've asked to learn but didn't get the opportunity to because I'm "too busy" with the women's program.  And while some of the young women who complete the program go on to utilize the leadership skills they've developed to obtain internships and jobs and amazing experiences, I am like a movie still, playing on the same loop over and over again.  

I have contemplated moving on from this program for the past two years.  It has been difficult because, in many ways, this program helped me find my purpose in life.  However, as I look at the unhappy, tired, and even apathetic faces of the women who are supposed to be the most passionate and energetic about it - the team leaders - I realize that this door was closed awhile ago, but we were staring at it, hoping that it would open and provide us with something new.  

Today, the door was slammed in my face when I learned that no one who has been on the team wants to continue this journey with me.  And now I have a decision to make. Do I continue to look at this door that has slammed shut in my face?  Or do I move on?  

One of the things I have learned in the past year is that I need to care for myself.  All of the times I wanted to quit since the inception of this program, I was asked by someone not to quit.  I was asked to continue for the benefit of others.  But today, I realized that I can't ask anyone to do the same.  And so that door that has closed has given me a new, open door.  The door to MY life.  The door to what benefits ME.  

It's time for me to stop looking at that closed door.  It's time to look at the doors to my new life that are opening.

I am grateful to all of the young women who have given their time and energy to helping me develop young women leaders.  You have no idea how much you have taught me.  

"I Just Want You to Be Happy" and Other Things People Should Stop Saying

Feeling Faces Chart

The other day I was having a conversation with a good male friend who asked if I'd tried online dating yet.  Backstory: I had previously mentioned I might try it this year, but when that little tax cut came to an end and I saw a decrease in my paycheck, I decided that online dating sites was not in my budget.  Therefore, at this point I am not currently putting in any effort into dating or romance.  On top of that, my responsibilities at work are in the process of changing and we are understaffed, which means I'm doing the equivalent of about two and half people's workload.  Oh, and on top of that, I am taking a class that requires research, interviewing, transcription, and many hours of writing. And I'm taking care of myself - mind, body and spirit.  So...I'm kind of busy.

I get along with a lot of people.  I wouldn't say that I have a lot of close friends, but I have a lot of friends.  Many of my friends are men, and I'm the kind of person who stays friends with the people I've dated in the past, so there's that element that sometimes gets into my relationship dynamics.  I am also friends with men who are married.  Some of those men are unhappy and are pretty vocal to me about their unhappy marriages.  (Now, I know what you're thinking.  And no, you're wrong.  The minute a man talks to me about his unhappy marriage, I ask him what his responsibility is in making the marriage work. I'm not stupid.)

Let me tell you a little about me.  I'm spiritual.  I have two degrees and working on a third.  I'm curvy and working on getting rid of the chunky parts.  I'm one of the healthiest people in my family's history.  I speak two languages and understand a couple more.  I'm pretty smart.  I can cook (I mean, I can throw down in the kitchen, pretty much).  I write.  I can hold a note.  I can shake what my momma gave me.  I laugh a lot and I have a lot of laughs.  I smile practically all day, every day.  I'm a human being, I make mistakes and I own up to them.  So...what's missing?

My male friends acknowledge these things about me, and sometimes, dare I say it?  The married ones wish their wives had some of my qualities.  And they wonder, out loud, why I am single.  This is usually how the conversation goes:

Guy: Why are you single?
Me: I don't know.  I haven't met anyone who wants to commit.
Guy: Well, have you tried...

1. Online dating?
2. Taking up a hobby?
3. Going out to bars?
4. Church?
5. Dating me? (Yep, some of the married ones have tried this.  I don't talk to them much anymore.)

Me:

1. Yes (kind of).
2. Ain't nobody got time for that!
3. No, unless I want to get shot.
4. Haha that's one of the worst places.
5. Sure, I'll go out with you as long as your wife comes along.

Guy: But I just want you to be happy.

PAUSE. Take a look at the third paragraph.  The one about me.  Again, I don't claim to be perfect.  However, I do have some great qualities and I'm usually smiling and laughing.  That's usually a sign that a person is happy.  The statement "I just want you to be happy", in my case, implies two things:

1. A woman can't be happy without a man.
2. I'm not happy.

And here's where the fallacy about happiness gets axed: Happiness is an emotion, like any other.  Happy, sad, confused, tired, excited, etc. are temporary emotions that NO ONE experiences all the time (unless you suffer from clinical depression, and even then, those emotions are more complex than sadness).  If we were happy all the time, we would take that emotion for granted.  So, am I happy all the time?  No.  But do I lack happiness because I don't have a man in my life on a consistent basis?  Not at all.  Would I be happier with a man in my life?  Maybe some days, but I'm pretty sure that for at least one week out of the month I would feel homicidal.  

I'm grateful for the people I have in my life.  I'm grateful that when I eat what I cook, sometimes I say I want to marry myself.  I'm grateful for my curves, my pretty hair, my expressive eyes, and basically my overall awesomeness.  I'm grateful for my heart, which fights to stay open because it understands that love comes with the risk of pain but it also comes with the possibility of overwhelming love. So I'm grateful.  

Since when is a grateful person not happy?

I promise you, my friends who just want me to be happy, that I am happy, most of the time.  And when my life partner decides to walk the rest of this journey with me, he's not going to be the period - the validation that I have done all I could to be perfect enough to deserve a good man.  No, he's going to be a human being, just like me, with great qualities and a beautiful heart.  And we will walk this journey together - happy, sad, excited, confused, hurt, angry, bitter, and happy again...but together.

Happy New You!

From My Own Kitchen Table

Let me tell you what I did not do last year.

• I did not finish writing my book.
• I did not self-publish the book that I did not finish writing.
• I did not lose all of the weight I wanted to lose by summer.
• I did not get accepted into another doctoral program that I applied to.
• I did not change jobs.
• I did not have different (or growing) responsibilities at my job.
• I did not change geographical locations.
• I did not find the love of my life.
• I did not start a family.

These are some goals I had set for myself last year.  As the year went on, disappointment became a part of life.  I was most disappointed in my lack of progress regarding the book I am in the process of writing.  I think I've written about two full chapters as well as an intro (but don't quote me on that).  So I felt like a loser.  Most of us do when we don't meet our goals, and we do like to make lofty goals every new year, so I would say that we usually put ourselves in a position to feel like losers.

Let me tell you what I did last year.

• I took a semester off from my doctoral program.
• I started seeing a counselor.
• I joined a weight-loss program.
• I started working out and, most consistently, practicing yoga. (Nothing fancy, just some dvds.)
• I tried some new things, like breathing. (Really!)
• I went on a few vacations to places that calm me and give me joy.
• I started eating food for health benefits as well as for enjoyment. 

Honestly, I am really happy about what I did accomplish.  The difference between the goals I set for myself (which I did not achieve) and what I accomplished is that the goals were outward achievements - things I could be applauded and congratulated for - while my accomplishments were more personal. Yes, people have noticed some weight loss. Yes, people have remarked that I seem a lot less stressed now.  However, I personally experienced the benefits of the practices I incorporated into my life moment by moment, which helped me to appreciate the small changes that were transforming me into a new me.  

So what have I learned about making goals for the new year?

1. You really don't have to.  If you don't, you're not a loser. If you do and don't achieve them, you're also not a loser, but you'll be more likely to think you are.

2. If you are going to set goals, they can be as small as, "I am going to incorporate a fruit and/or vegetable into every meal", and those goals can be set, and met, daily.

3. Goals should be super-specific.  "I am going to be healthy" is not a goal.  "I am going to tell three people I love them today" is.  At the end of the day you should be able to specifically assess whether or not you met your goal.

4. Stop expecting yourself to be perfect and do amazing things.  Honestly, amazing people just are.  Just BE. 

5. Congratulate yourself for making it through what you have been through.  And find reasons to be happy with who you are, and who you are becoming.

Happy New You!

Trish

Special Guest Blogger: Palabra Smith

Here's a poem written by a friend of mine, who asked me to post it on my blog.  Since it's a celebration of women, I totally said yes!  Enjoy!

CLICK, CLACK, SWAY, SWING

It’s an undeniable rhythm. An enticing chorus of sounds and motion, both unique distinct.

 It turns heads and stops traffic. Equal parts natural beauty and black magic.

Some call it a gait, some call it a strut or the harmonious mechanics of female motion.

Is it the natural grace of her feminine form?

A poetic fluid dance that she subconsciously performs.

Is it a secret of her ancestors? A silver string unbroken.

Mama and Auntie taught her in a whispered language unspoken.

Every man knows the sound. Young and old respond the same.

Allow me to give this anonymous female phenomenon an appropriate name.

It’s called the Click, Clack, Sway, Swing.

As she walks you hear her heels striking the pavement, leaving her mark on the world and awakening the desires and ambitions of those in her wake. Click, Clack!

Each step she takes is engineered and measured by the dynamic and graceful locomotion of her shapely calves, her supple thighs and her curvaceous hips. Sway!

From the “melancholy stroll” to the “can’t be late march”. The speed and purposefulness is controlled by her arm. A pendulum of feminine power and simple elegance. Swing!

Each woman has her own signature motion. Each man loves one more than the other. Undeniable, unmistakable poetry in motion. Click, clack, sway, swing.

  

By: Palabra Smith

Mirrors

For most people, vacations are a time to get away and have fun, and even get their "groove back".  For me, vacations have a different purpose.  I live a very busy life working, going to school, and coordinating a women's leadership program.  Most of the hours of my day are dedicated to something or someone else, and the little bit of time I have for myself is usually spent exercising, cooking, eating, studying, and sleeping. There is little left for the things I LOVE to do, such as writing, singing, reading for fun, and introspection.  When I go on vacation, it is usually so that I can get away from the demands of life much like it is for everyone else, but it is also so that I can retreat and have some peace and quiet to reflect on who I am, where I am, who I am becoming, and what lessons life wants to teach me.

Most times, I take these vacations alone.  Sometimes, I go with a friend.  The friend I most often go with  is someone who has been in my life most consistently in the past few years, but I've known him since I was ten years old.  Although our reunion almost four years ago originally occurred with the idea of dating and developing a relationship, this did not work out.  Blog post upon blog post refers to the story of our relationship, which ends on one level and begins again on another.  To put it bluntly, we can't seem to let each other go for good.  While the feelings and interactions aren't always the greatest, I've come to understand that there is something we need to learn from one another, and although I sometimes feel weak and, frankly, stupid for continuing this undefined relationship, I trust that I always know when something must end and when God closes a door.  

Our last trip was just a few weeks ago.  It was a few days after my 41st birthday and I honestly had planned to go away alone to spend time reflecting on another year of life, but in the planning stage of this trip, my friend offered to go with me.  I couldn't understand why he wanted to travel with me, since the last time we traveled together I was extremely hateful towards him (see my blog post about that here).  His response was that I had "vented" all of my feelings already, so he figured I would be fine.  This was kind of true, actually.  So we went to Orlando for a few days and I was prepared to be as nice as possible, especially because all of my "venting" the last time I saw him wore me out.  

While my expectation was that things would be calm because I was calm, that wasn't necessarily the case.  He has a really subdued demeanor so he never really gets out of control, but he's very sarcastic and blunt.  In the first few hours of our trip he asked me a couple of sarcastic questions regarding other men, and decided that he was going to point out something he didn't like about me.  I ignored these things because I was trying to be peaceable and decided these statements were not worth pursuing.  But the next day, when I asked a question as a joke, he sharply told to me to stop asking rhetorical questions and that he really doesn't like when I do that.  He was more than irritated.  I told him that he should really let it go because it's not that important, and that I wasn't going to spend my time on vacation arguing about something so trivial.  But in the back of my mind I understood that his irritation wasn't really about my habit of asking rhetorical, sarcastic questions to be funny.  It was "his turn" to be mean to me.  

Later that night, we were at dinner and somehow the conversation turned to us spending time together.  I asked him, "If you really don't like me as a person, why are you here with me?"  He responded that he knows who I really am and he loves who I really am, but that I am always in protection mode because of my past experiences and having been taken advantage of by other men.  He urged me to be myself and stop trying to protect myself all the time, because when I'm protecting myself, I am keeping others at arm's length. 

I took in this feedback with complete understanding about what he was experiencing with me.  However, because part of this conversation referred to my ugly actions during our last trip (which he claimed to have forgiven me for), I began to internalize our entire interaction that day as hurtful. We argued in the car on the way home, and later that night I said, "Let's agree that the next few days we will try to be ourselves and let go of the things we don't like about each other, because these next few days will be the last few days we'll ever spend together."  (Italics emphasize where I spoke out of hurt.) 

The next day, we went to the Epcot International Food and Wine Festival and had a really nice time.  The environment was pretty, he had never been there before, and experiencing it with him helped me see things with new eyes.  We had tons of food and drinks, took pictures, sat and enjoyed each other's company in a way we hadn't in a very long time.  In other words, we kept our agreement.  

The next day was our last full day together, and it was kind of somber.  It was low-key, and while we were together, we each did our own thing - he was working on his computer and I was reading by the pool for class.  We are both writers, and I was reading one of his screenplays about his relationship with his mother.  What I read helped me to understand him a lot better, and why our relationship was so difficult.  He is always in protection mode because of his past experiences.  He does not show who he really is, and he keeps others, including me, at arm's length.  The more I point out to him the things I don't like about him, the more he shuts me out.  The more he points things out to me what he doesn't like about me, the more I push him away (refer to the italicized statement above).  

I share all this at the risk of sharing too much information about myself and this person to illustrate that our relationships - especially the ones we don't necessarily ask for - provide mirrors for self-reflection.  After the trip, I sent him a text with a nugget of wisdom I heard from Iyanla Vanzant, a spiritual guide who has a show on the OWN channel.  She said, "The deeper you fall in love, the more unloving you will behave."  His response?  "Yeah that sounds like you."  My response?  "You too! We are mirrors for each other."

One of the most influential people in my life, a professor in my counselor education program, once told me that we are mirrors for each other.  That statement opened my eyes and helped me understand my relationships.  We are drawn to those who are like us at the soul level, whether we like it or not.  And we are drawn to each other because we need that mirror to show us what we need to change about ourselves.  

It is the brave one who can look in the mirror and be completely honest about what needs to change.  It is the courageous one who will not behave unlovingly towards the one who serves as a mirror.  When we are unloving towards each other, we are unloving towards ourselves.  Look at the person who serves as a mirror in your life and say, "Thank you.  I love you for showing me, me."  And do the work so that the next time you look in the mirror, you absolutely love what you see.  

What IS Love, Really?

Courtesy of ghank.com

Love.  We all talk about it, think about it, sing about it, write about it, dream about it.  It is something that we all believe we have experienced.  I love my mother, I love children, I love my job, I love shoes, I love pizza.  We use the term love to express admiration, care, respect, connection; any emotion that is positive, really.  But do we really know what love is?

I had been pondering this question for awhile because of a recent experience.  It actually goes back months, maybe even years.  For many years I had shut down emotionally because of several losses I'd experienced, and it got to the point where I felt nothing.  Then someone I had known for almost my whole life came back into the picture.  As soon as I would use my best "put your guard up" techniques, he went to work dismantling them.  I was in shock and taken aback because he didn't take what I said at face value and walk away, like many had done before, and like I was secretly hoping he would do so that I could blame him for not wanting to develop a relationship with me (like I had done many times before).  I'm a talker, and sometimes I would just have to be quiet and process what was happening.  This person was not accepting my emotional unavailability.  He was forcing me to be uncomfortable with my comfort zone.

Throughout the years, we went through good times and bad times.  In the good times, I felt very much at home and safe.  In the bad times, I felt angry, taken for granted, and taken advantage of.  If I shared details, you would probably agree that many times those negative feelings were justified.  However, that doesn't really matter.  What matters is that I was actually feeling something.  When I woke up one morning after months of stomach aches that I attributed to anxiety and fear and realized, "I love him", the fear and the anxious stomach aches went away and I felt peace.  It was never easy with him, but I was actually feeling, and for some reason, that gave me great joy.

The last time I saw him, I had pretty much decided that there was no future for us.  I spent a lot of time lashing out at him, telling him that he was incapable of loving me, and eventually the words (that I tried to hold back even as they were tumbling out) "I hate you" came out of my mouth.  I'm not gonna lie, I'd had a couple of drinks and hadn't eaten, but that still doesn't justify those words.  After I realized that my words helped end my marriage many years ago and were now going to end this relationship, I started to cry as if someone died.  I went to the person who I'd just said "I hate you" to, and he held me while I cried uncontrollably.  He just held me and let me cry for what seemed like the longest time.  Then I said to him, "I love you more than anyone I've ever loved".  It was then we both agreed that there is a very thin line between love and hate, and within that line dwell our deepest fears about being abandoned and rejected.

I left that particular exchange wondering how powerful love is; so powerful that it could turn into hate.  Then I wondered about how we use the word love and make it so trivial.  We think we know what love is.  People say that love is never hard, but I knew my experience had been difficult and challenging.  I knew that anyone who could hold me after I had told them "I hate you" was clearly more capable of loving me at that moment than I could ever be.  I came home and thought about what the Bible says about love:

Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn't want what it doesn't have.
Love doesn't strut,
Doesn't have a swelled head,
Doesn't force itself on others,
Isn't always "me first,"
Doesn't fly off the handle,
Doesn't keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn't revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.
Love never dies.

- 1 Corinthians 13: 4-8 ("The Message" version)

After all these years of not allowing myself to feel, I learned what love really is from being in this very hard, very emotionally challenging relationship.  I wanted what I thought I deserved (because of my "swelled head").  I kept score and very eloquently relayed all the details of his wrongs.  I forced my way of doing things on him, and when he wouldn't accept them, threatened him many times with "losing me".  And God knows I flew off the handle.

So how can I say that I learned what love really is?  Because I did all of the things love is NOT, and he accepted me anyway.

To be continued...