Care to Hear A Story?

As you may have noticed, I have made my pivot into direct client work, through my coaching practice. I am quite excited about this opportunity and creating spaces for a diverse audience to be served. In my process over the past few months, I was looking at some old notes from sessions with a former client. I read through some of her recollections of her childhood growing up in the Caribbean and the exuberance she felt being with her brother and her parents. She expressed how fond she was of her childhood and the community in which she had been raised, inclusive of extended family, schoolmates, mentors and some of the “average” passers-by, given the closely knit culture of her community at the time.

She shared that her experience with trauma happened when her family decided to move to the United States and how much that experience in her late teens really shifted the way she looked at community and had to learn how to handle difficult and uncomfortable situations. I remember thinking to myself, how much of an idealist this client appeared to be, given the very eclectic exposures she had in her early years. I could see her optimism and delight in life, when she spoke about her childhood and the ways in which she enjoyed connections. Her disposition shifted quite noticeably when I asked her about the challenges she faced while living in the U.S. and how those experiences shaped her. The first thing she expressed was that she treated navigation of the U.S. context like a bootcamp, especially given her immigrant background and the ways in which she had been oriented to how immigrants who looked like her, were treated.

She shared stories of college and being introduced to the concept of “dressing white” and how she had been told she was “not really black” as she learned that “blackness” was stereotyped by limited projections of not being intellectually inclined or not having a positive work ethic among some other characteristics, I certainly dear not share in written form. I was quite disappointed she had been told about black identity in such deficit based ways. She remarked, as I noted, “if being black in America meant all those things, then for sure she was not black enough”. It became one of her guiding posts as she further navigated her career, where she experienced even more intense experiences of imposed identities such as the popular “angry black woman” when she spoke confidently and passionately about the communities she worked on behalf of. She even highlighted the time when she was told by one of her best friends,

“Now that you are working in corporate America, you will need to work two times harder if not three times, just for people to consider you worthy of being valued. Be prepared to be told you are a threat and no longer a good fit for the direction of the company.”?

She told me how odd it felt to listen to her friend tell her all these warnings of being black in America and began to feel that the road ahead would be arduous. Despite these cautionary tales, my client remained steadfast in her authenticity and her boldness, but also learned how to code switch and to play down various aspects of her identity. It seemed to work for a time, which turned out to be long enough for all that playing small, to make her ill. Literally physically ill. By the time she had noticed the toll that this bootcamp was taking on her, similar assaults were being dealt with by her family members. Her mother suddenly became very ill and died in her very early 60's, her father had multiple strokes, before the age of 70 and is now permanently disabled, and her brother has his own challenges, as the mental toll of being a black man in America comes with a weight unlike any other.

What was inspiring for me to hear from this client, was her turn around and story of becoming buoyant. She became more and more discerning about the spaces and people she engaged and the levels to which she shared her authenticity, as she had learned many spaces are not deserving of such energy. She created a career of service to those who are grappling with the intersectional identities of being an immigrant, culturally different, bold, colourful in presence, deep intellectual and servant leader. I remember telling her in one of our last sessions, that she seemed to have rewritten the book on being a professional, given the work landscapes she had traversed. She shared, “Yes, I have written one in which my authenticity is valued, and my cultural perspective is an asset to the spaces and teams I work in and with.”

Such a memorable client...

The kicker is, this client…was me. I was my own first client. All the lessons learned and the many yet to come, are gems I wish to share with others who are wondering how they can be valued, or how they can find spaces that can safely hold the parts of their authentic selves that are appropriate for the workplace. Many like me, have wondered or are possibly wondering, will they ever find such spaces? I believe so. I have been willing to move from one state to another, to find those spaces. They are few and far between, but they do exist. And if you do not find it, create it for yourself.

I have created a space of my own now, where I am essentially the coach I needed in my early career as an immigrant, culturally different woman of colour, figuring out herself in so many ways, in a community that was historically marginalizing toward her person. I stand ready for those men and women who are feeling lost, stuck or overwhelmed, in their process of personal-professional life, in foreign spaces. There is more than resilience in your ability to be authentically yourself, there is absolute joy and well deserved peace in it as well.

As always,

Be Well