What the Land Can Teach Us About DEIJ | What to Do When the Winds Get Rough

After months of not being able to connect with the land due to winter rains and a nasty bout of plantar fasciitis that kept me off my feat, I am finally back on the land! While I can’t yet do a full hike, I am grateful that I am able to resume walks in my neighborhood because:

Nature is a force that my ancestors, many of my living relatives, and myself draw strength, grounding, and inspiration from.?In my case, connecting to & with nature regulates my nervous system especially during these challenging times. ?

During a recent evening stroll, I became mesmerized by the fresh tender leaves that were sprouting from the tree branches. They seemed to cling to the branches they were attached to as the intense winds that are characteristic of the Bay Area this time of year appeared to blow them upside down and all around.?Miraculously, they stayed fixated in place!

To me, this felt like a powerful metaphor to contemplate particularly within the context of my work with clients in the DEIJ space and given my own lived experiences as a Black woman.

For many folks who come from historically marginalized social identity groups and backgrounds, the winds have not stopped blowing since 2020.?In fact, 2020 was not the first time that we noticed they were blowing.?But, now, they feel even stronger as unchecked power & privilege dynamics, various -isms and phobias continue to play out right before our eyes.?

Read the recent headlines about what’s happening in Oklahoma, Tennessee, the widespread attacks on DEI, or the recent shooting of Ralph Yarl and you’ll get a feel for what’s in the air.?

To me, it seems that the winds have reached further down to the interpersonal level, now impacting conversations between friends, colleagues, and loved ones.?

As they hit closer to home, I’ve noticed that it’s becoming more difficult to avoid or downplay the impact the winds have on our sense of safety and overall wellbeing, especially when a friend or a loved one casually asks, “Hey!?How are you doing?”?

I suspect that I’m not the only one longing to respond, “Do you really want to know??Are you prepared to hear my real answer to your question?”?

Because I myself have felt a lot like those leaves holding tightly to my branches, foundation, and to my roots over the past few weeks.?

On that night, while gazing at the leaves & branches, I began to wonder:

What is it like to stay committed to communicating my lived experiences as the wind blows harder and harder??

What connections are possible when I share vulnerably about the impact of the wind to the people in my life??

Since that evening walk, I’ve explored and experimented with those questions quite a bit.?

Where I once would downplay or hold back about the wind’s impact, I now dare myself to speak candidly and openly about how the wind impacts my lived experiences and, ultimately, my ability to move through the world.?

For example, when a White friend called to say hello and ask how I was doing, I decided to brave new terrain.

I shared the deeper truths of my experience to see what new levels of connection and vulnerability could be available between the two of us.?I shared that I was deeply saddened by the Ralph Yarl shooting.?I shared that I was worried that something that tragic could happen to my godson, a family member, or even myself given the current social climate.?I confided that it was particularly frustrating to see companies lose their DEI momentum or peddle back on their commitments considering the headlines that show that both our individual and collective work is nowhere near done.????

Now, in case you're wondering.?

• No, we hadn’t had a conversation like this before.?This was uncharted territory for both of us.?It was awkward and uncomfortable. In a perfect world, our conversation would have been planned and structured.?But, in our imperfect world, it was organic, unscripted, and unplanned, as many of these conversations often are. We didn’t have the luxury of time to come up with the perfect lines.?This was an encounter that required real time honesty, vulnerability, and presence.
• Yes, I worked hard to not get swept undertow by my own social conditioning which sits in the backdrop of many of these conversations like a pile of magical carpets encouraging me to hold back, not say anything, “not make a big deal about it”, “not be the friend that always talks about race”, and to “separate my identity from my work”.?
• Yes, I felt empathy when my friend shared that they were afraid to talk about race due to past negative experiences.?AND I also wish they had found empathy for my lived experiences, hadn’t shut down the conversation by making it more about their experiences & feelings, and abruptly ended the conversation due to their discomfort.?

The experience of our interaction saddened and angered me because it was a missed opportunity for deeper connection.?

Even now, I wonder what new understandings, insights, or actions would have been possible if we had stayed in that conversation and explored where deep empathy led us.?

I’ve repeated this experiment a few times since then with mixed results. ?

My best experiences were with folks who were willing to sit in that awkward, unknown, windy space together.?Some admitted they didn’t know what to say or how to say it, but they were honest and forthcoming about their ignorance.?

These ones realized their silence came at a cost and were open to making changes and adjustments so that our connection & friendship were no longer the price to be paid.?

Others who recognized the impact of the wind were willing to stay present with me, themselves, and our friendship even in the messy, unsettling, presence of the strong gusts.?

In doing so, they positioned themselves to better allies to me and people within the communities that I am a part of, which showed me that deeper connection is possible.?

As for my worst experiences, some folks completely disconnected or distanced themselves from the conversation and my experiences completely.?Many avoided the tenderness and vulnerability that accompanies these winds by:

• Finding ways to make the conversation about their feelings or experiences
• Falling silent instead of asking from a place of reverent curiosity or empathy
• Providing a hyper-intellectual analyses of personal shares
• Becoming entrenched in their own shame to the extent that they left or shut down the conversation.
• Placing a hyper focus on positivity, assimilation, or tried to emphasize the "It's a small world" or “We’re all the same” approach to reducing or ending the conflict or discomfort.
• Resisting through gaslighting, invalidation, defensiveness, and denial
• Becoming heavily reliant on data, proof, and logic instead of being present with the emotions that had surfaced.
• Minimizing & invalidating the concerns or experiences of others

With this experiment, I learned that staying in challenging conversations around our diverse lived experiences is a skill set that folks need to learn and practice.?

It is a skill that I most love teaching people how to do through the coaching, consulting, and training services I offer at the Powell Consulting Group.?

It is, from my vantage point, the next frontier for individuals & organizations continuing their DEIJ work because this is precisely where the conversations breakdown even at a policy and structural level.?

Not investing in developing this skill set is truly a missed opportunity for deeper connection to learn about how the winds impact those we say that we care about or that we work with every day.?

Scientists have probably found that there’s whole entire ecological mechanisms, processes, and dynamics at play between the leaves, the branches, and the wind.?We humans though are still trying to figure that out especially as it relates to each other particularly in the realms of diversity, equity, and inclusion.??

Through simple observations of the wind, the branches, and the leaves, the land has once again taught me a lot about DEIJ, mainly:

1. It takes courage, skill, and practice for the metaphorical leaves and the wind to be in healthy relationships and to experience the deep sense of connection that comes from being vulnerable with each other about the issues of our time.?
2. To experience healthy relationship with each, we must explore what it's like to NOT hide behind our discomfort, fear, shame, or defensiveness and to, instead, connect from a place of vulnerability and place our attention on using that deep level of sharing to co-create new dynamics within ourselves and with each other.?
3. For members of historically excluded & marginalized social identity groups like myself, it’s important that we become like those leaves, not abandoning our connection to our lived experiences and bravely, boldly, and vulnerably communicate about the wind’s impact.?Doing so is what connects us to our roots and branches and own empowerment.? The wind may not stop blowing but holding back is detrimental to our own wellbeing and our ability to stay connected to ourselves and others.?This means we might have to put a few folks on pause or let go until they are capable of being in deep connection around the winds that shape how we experience and move through the world. In that release, new folks will enter who can connect in ways that are rich, deep, and supportive.
4. For members of dominant social identity groups, the work becomes two-fold.?First, recognize the ways in which you act as the wind in relationships.?Second, stop using your power & privilege to run away, silence, avoid, shield, or overlook the ways in which the wind impacts the people in your life, which ultimately results in deeper disconnects and divides.?

As the winds continues to blow, I find that being transformed by deeper vulnerable truths is a vision of DEIJ work that is worth standing for in this lifetime.?

Like the leaves, it’s the connection to our lived experiences and being able to share that with each other is what will lead us down a path towards true connection, real multiculturalism and the liberation that we long to experience individually & collectively.??