 Each year as the holidays approach, dread seems to consume me more and more. For example, it has been at least two years since I stopped listening to Christmas music, eight years since I decorated anything for ANY holiday, and one year since I resolved on Thanksgiving that it would be my last. This reflection is about transforming my resentment by calling myself out...
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 [The following is an excerpted and edited version of a paper written in college. Full circle, I am once again looking at the difference between atonement and apology in my life and found it less painful and more relevant to share publicly some of my story.] Atonement is a loaded word in my family. First, there are religious connotations (e.g., the biblical “atonement day” that my family observed for many years), then there are associations with family failures to resolve conflicts, and if ever discussed together, I imagine there would probably be a philosophical debate of the general definition and atonement’s importance.
Aha moments are a trending title these days with Oprah and Brene` Brown on the forefront of the media coverage around finding our soul in a society warped by appearance and short-term fixes of every kind. Consider the meme phenomena of social media, which is often criticized as a lazy venting of semi-cooked thoughts. It also might be that memes are often a simplified nugget of a person’s aha-ha moment. I've been called out online for
 According to Kim Scott, Radical Candor means challenging directly while caring personally. Kim is a leadership development coach who's worked with some of the top tech companies' leadership in the world. Her model has released me to be more me as leader and human. One of my favorite ah-hah!’s from Kim’s stories was recognizing that I can be perceived as obnoxiously aggressive or ruinously empathic and I might have been consciously practicing Radical Candor all along. The goal is not to have everyone going around and hi-fiving me for being perfectly radically candid!
 The star system to the left is called Eta Carinae. It is at least two stars who have rubbed against each other in an implosive and explosive way. I found these stars when looking up a visual representation through google images of abundance and scarcity. These stars have an abundance of some elements and a scarcity of others. Together, they represent one of the brightest stars in the sky... sometimes.
 Where does civility matter most during the increasingly polarized time we are all living in?
A friend recently invited me to a talk on Civility by the Masons at a local lodge. The speaker, Russ Charvonia, asked the audience to consider the difference between debate and discourse.  This post started in March of 2018 as a title, draft, and intention to address gender discrimination. I believe that it is up to the privileged to redistribute our power and bring greater inclusivity and safe places, which will create diverse environments for all. Figure It In is about remembering the harm of compartmentalizing and how to begin including all the puzzle pieces (and people) into the equation. In this situation, my role as the leader of my Returning to Compassion Counseling LLC and Figure It In, LLC businesses was finding a way to bring unisex bathrooms to the building where I rent my offices.
This morning, 13 months later, uni-sex bathrooms are finally a reality throughout the building! I am telling this story to model the conversation on how change happens considering that when I researched non-binary restrooms activism, I didn't find any such posts/blogs/articles that offered this recipe. Here are the highlights of the process of calling my building manager and owner IN (versus calling them OUT and publicly humiliating them).  This reflection is to continue a conversation on racism and how much I and we are all swimming in it constantly. I invite your reflections on additional ways I could have responded in this recent attempt to support the Black Lives Matter movement, and all the ways I can find more balance in my attempts to redistribute my privilege to minorities.
 Setting boundaries can be hard. Experiencing set boundaries can be even harder. Understanding that we get to set boundaries even when they are experienced as hard or uncomfortable is an important part of becoming our most healthy and human self. Lately I've been contemplating the archetypes of the swan and the dragon and representations of how boundaries can be experienced. If a boundary is felt like a swan, it is felt as beautiful. If it is felt like a dragon, it is felt as burning. Sometimes however, our inner ponds or lakes of connection turn to swamps, and in order to replenish, they have to burn off the undergrowth and soggy dead roots. When this happens, anything no matter how gentle and lovingly offered as a boundary can feel like we are being harmed.
After a longer than usual day at work, I decided to splurge and take an Uber pool home (instead of walking). My intention in sharing what happened on my ride is to keep growing and learning on how to improve my awareness and response in these situations, and also to invite you to join me in this journey of owning my privilege and being a better ally to those without.
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About the Author
Ruth Diaz, LPC, Psy.D. is a counselor, consultant, and coach on returning to compassionate connection in relationship with ourselves and each other at every level. She works as an organizational consultant and therapist in Portland, Oregon. Archives
October 2019
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