I am writing this blog to share with
you my experiences as a mother, eco-warrior, local activist and someone who is
learning to live and lead from my “woman-ness” – or divine feminine.
To me, leading from the divine
feminine means living your values, having authentic relationships, and loving
and honoring earth and nature. I love to write about what I have learned in
getting to this place in my life – and specifically the joys and challenges of
living, loving, and working in Detroit.
Detroit can be a harsh place and it
presents its own challenges to being your authentic self and living from a
justice and environmental perspective.
Mostly I have learned to live some of
my values (I am definitely not all the way there yet) – from switching cleaning
products and changing diapers, to organization building and working with
principles, and also how I measure what makes an authentic relationship in
marriage and friendship.
For the first time I work in an
environment where it is possible to be my whole self.
I have been trained, educated, and
then retrained to believe that showing my emotions is a sign of weakness – both
personally and professionally.
I am proud and humbled to now lead
East Michigan Environmental Action Council (EMEAC), an environmental justice
organization in Detroit. I believe the organization has a significant role in
Detroit given the number of children and families affected by environmental
related illnesses.
I have also been told (and I agree)
that EMEAC is an example of how women really can work together.
I talk a lot with my co-workers about
true work/life balance … this means work in which you can be your whole self
and not have to “code switch.”
Code switch is a linguistics term
that has come to mean what happens when we change the way we talk, look or act
to fit into white male mainstream culture – especially at work.
When we don’t do this code switch the
work is already more balanced and we’re able to bring our softer, gentler “home
life self” into the workplace.
About a year and a half ago some of
our staff started referring to each other as family. Six months later, in moving further away from
my code switch and allowed myself to share these emotions with our staff
–sometimes even at staff meetings.
I believe our society and our world
would be so much better if the vast majority of us did not need to lead double
lives professionally and personally.
At our organization we put an
emphasis on cooperation over competition (a far cry from the white male
mainstream culture).
Within our work, and in the ways we
create our programs, there is a lot of emphasis on intuition, feeling, emotion,
working together, grief, belief, spirituality, laughing and story telling.
This is what I specifically mean
leading from your womanness in work!
We are mothers, caretakers – people who lead full lives
and can bring themselves completely into their work. We are not these
things in addition to our work – it is why we do the work we do.
