Almost ten years ago, a small tourist town in Florida became known as my “Happy Place.”  I had not given much thought to why the place made me happy in the past.  I just knew that it made me happy.  Recently, I visited my “Happy Place” and thankfully it still made me happy!  I think that the more mature me really needed to understand the things that motivate me positively and negatively.  The mature me also figured out that my leadership as a stay-at-home mom, wife, and conduct officer had similarities in the emotional and physical demands on me.  As a result, this time when I visited the Happy Place I sat quietly with my thoughts to consider why happiness was the prevailing emotion every time I was in that place.

My family introduced me to my Happy Place after it was recommended by a family friend.  The initial visit was a thank you to me from my family for the work had done as a mom.  Ironically, the Happy Place was nested between the city we called home at that time and another city, but whenever I went to the Happy Place I felt like we were miles away from civilization.  My Happy Place was everything I needed in order to escape the stress of my life.  The Happy Place was quiet and picturesque.  It soothed my spirit and my mind without requiring much effort on my part.  All I did was show up there in order to basque in the consistent blessing of the peaceful atmosphere.

When I arrived at the Happy Place this time, exhausted described my countenance.  The routine of walking through life carrying the burdens and challenges of my daily grind made me exhausted.  For some of us, we have carried weights derived from negativity and problems and others from heaping portions of favor and good fortune.  A psychologist once told me that stress can come from the good and the bad.  While our minds may interpret the good as more beneficial, more positive, and less stressful, he said our bodies can absorb both experiences like the stressful life experiences.  As I sat, I remembered a time when my doctor advised me to steal away for a period of recovery.  She was concerned that my life was making me sick.  My mother was ill and I was her first call.  I was responsible for her affairs at the nursing home and with her team of care providers.  I also had a sister with challenges that kept me involved in conversations with her mental health team.  Moreover, I had the responsibilities of my roles as wife and mother.  I was exhausted.

Last week, I thought about my decision to describe myself as exhausted and why my Happy Place seemed to be a good remedy for my condition.  Exhausted people, in my opinion, were not just physically tired.  Exhaustion, for me, meant a physical and mental heaviness hanging like an anchor on my spirit.  Exhaustion tugged on my soul and made me feel like there was a ball and chain attached to the ankle of my dominant leg.  I told a friend that in those moments it seemed like there was a phantom person holding on to my shirt in the back in order to slow my progress.  My friend told me to pull away from that force and run away from it as fast as my feet would take me.

My Happy Place became my escape.  In that space, there lived freedom to release the weight of my life.  In the Happy Place, I surrounded myself with people eager to encourage me to rest my mind, my body, and my spirit.  In that environment, I learned that everyone needed a Happy Place and I needed that place more than I knew.  I needed a place confident in its strength to accept and carry the weight of my worries.  I needed a place capable of taking my troubles to the warm waters nearby and then letting those troubles roll out to sea.  I loved the visual of my burdens riding the waves out into the distance and then floating out to that place where the sun met the water.  I envisioned my issues touching the sun and then igniting into a million tiny pieces.  In the Happy Place, I envisioned those tiny pieces floating even further away from me in the vastness of the space beyond the sun.

I worked to train myself to remember those visuals after I left the Happy Place.  Additionally, I trained my muscles to remember what felt like the relief of dropping heavy weights on the floor after a deadlift.  The Happy Place reminded me of the value of holistic health practices on my physical, mental, and spiritual well-being.  In my Happy Place, I had permission to inhale the aura of fresh warm serenity while exhaling all of the tight coolness I brought into the space.  The Happy Place transformed me into a courier for restful calm thoughts as opposed to the chaotic, stressful thoughts that caused my exhaustion.

We all need a place that grants us permission to breath.  We need a place that welcomes us to release the burdens and pressures we deal with daily.  We all need a place that refuses to judge our method for coping, but just provides a comfy space that permits healing, recovery, and clarity of thought.  I want each person in my audience who leads at home, in the community, or at a job to incorporate the benefits of their happy places as often as possible.  Such a practice will enhance each of us personally while promoting positive energy in the places we go and in the people we encounter each moment of each day.

Successful leaders proscribe to a process or a series of processes. I am not generally a person who loves monotony, but as a leader I have learned the benefits of using a process to guide me through the tasks required in my department.

When I was asked to lead my department on an interim basis, I called a dear friend who was the dean of a law school. I told her that I had been asked to be the interim assistant dean of the student conduct office on my campus. I also told her that one of my reservations was that I had never run a conduct office. I asked her if she believed that I could do the job. Although I didn’t ask her if she thought I could manage the office successfully, I knew that she felt the nerves and concerns lurking behind the question I chose to ask. She assured me that I could do the job. With confidence she said, “You could do the job of a university president!” Honestly, I was struggling to even imagine myself as the assistant dean for a student conduct office so the thought of me as a university president lived somewhere in the distance far away from me. Her final thought in this thread of confidence building comments was to advise me to make sure to get my hands on the office policies and procedures manual. According to her, she trusted in my ability to do any job as long as I had the policies and procedures manual. I didn’t realize it then, but what I learned over the course of the next year in my interim role was that the manual gave the collective processes needed to successfully operate the department.

In the last six months, I have found myself evaluating successful programs and realizing that each program prided itself in the disciplined approach of owning and decidedly engaging in a process. In late July, there was the emergency room technician who choreographed the movements of the cancer patients in the designated waiting area. The patients were directed to wait there in an effort to protect them from airborne diseases.  In this area, the staff could more supply provisions and interim support services to the patients.  The staff made regular visits to this area to comfort the patients while they waited to be seen by the doctors. I thought, “How cool! They have a place just for my loved one.” Then I thought about it and thought that it was not cool that the disease was such a constant issue at the hospital that it required a process. While I wrestled with my thoughts about the need for the process, I was grateful that the process had been established and adopted when we needed it. The process made my family feel that our issue was important and that someone understood the difficulties and challenges associated with the this particular health issue.

Shortly thereafter, an issue arose in my office that brought to my attention that I had developed a process or two myself. I noted that, like the hospital staff, I had a desire to implement steps to address recurring issues in my office. I, too, sought to design plans to address the specific challenges common to those involved in this type of conduct matter. Additionally, I wanted to record the responses and coordinated efforts that would be necessary for an efficient and prompt resolution of that type of conduct matter. As I worked to execute my response to the call, I thought about my friend’s discussion about policies and procedures.  The procedures part became the focus.  It was clear that I had become a director who embraced a process.

A few months later the dots connected for me as I cheered on my Alabama Crimson Tide football team. The network aired an interview between a journalist and a freshman athlete on the team. The student athlete told the reporter that he was experiencing a notable level of success because of “the process.” From the hospital to my department to my college football team, there was evidence of a process. This finding was based on my observations and personal experiences with each group. My findings revealed that there was a greater likelihood of success with a process than there was without a process. The talk about adhering to a process with dogmatic persistence seemed robotic and limiting. This selling of a mechanical approach to managing human behaviors screamed of suffocation to the artist in me. However, my practical, minimalist nature allowed me to analyze these scenarios and discover the benefits.

First of all, having a process removed the guess work after someone made the decision to engage in the challenge, goal, or mission. Secondly, having a process lessened the feelings and insecurities that came as a result of people knowing their potential to show others their human imperfections as they tried to address the tasks mandated to successfully accomplish the goal, remain on a course consistent with the mission, or to overcome the challenge. Having a process established a framework that was expected to or that was known to deliver more successful outcomes than failures. That fact, in and of itself, created a more confident group of participants which in turn resulted in confidence in the work product by those inside and outside of the program. Finally, a reliable and consistent process led to a more confident and unified group working together in the process until there was a resolution of the issue, goal, or mission before them.  As you lead, think about the overall goals and mission of the organization.  As you lead, take note of the  recurring needs, challenges, successes, and failures of the organization.  Then, develop a process for each that can guide those working within the organization to the desired goal or mission.

Every year I seem to have made a comment like, “I can’t believe this year is almost over.”  When 2016 began, I was recovering from a 2015 that brought a lot of change: the death of my mother, life as an empty nester, the birth of my professional career, and the realization that at almost 50 my thoughts about my present and my future must be purposeful.  I spent moments in 2016 reflecting on my past and the journey that delivered me to my present state.  In 2016, I owned the fact that the events of my past did not define me, but that each moment of my past had the ability to impact and influence each future moment in my life.  In 2016, I also owned my life calling to use my voice to encourage, empower, and enlighten villages with the hope of building supportive, healthy, safe spaces for young people.  I began to think of myself as a living lab experiment yielding interesting observations about the constants and the variables in my life.

One thing in my life that has been a constant has been the chaos that came with being a caretaker or the support network for a primary caretaker.  The constant caretaking created a constant positioning in a role very similar to that of a first responder.  Beginning at age eleven, I helped my mother and father care for my sister after her first mental break.  The following year after my father had his first heart attach I helped my mother care for my sister and my father.  During middle school and high school, I watched my mother spend at least one night a week in the country caring for Mama Love as we continued to support my sister and my father.  The caretaker theme continued into my adulthood and I began to believe that my purpose in life was to ensure that other folks had positive life experiences at my expense.  By the time my kids and their friends were added to the pool of needy subjects in my life, I had perfected the process of having the backs of multiple people with varied types of needs and at various levels of neediness.  I moved through life like a kid dancing the May pole dance.  I skipped from the hand of one person or cause to the next.  I often found myself grabbing the next hand before letting go of the former.  At some point in 2016, I saw that I was still skipping around that May pole getting worn out from managing stuff.  However, the energy output felt different and I returned to the question: Was there a difference between my pre 2016 life and the life birthed in me in 2016?  The answer was emphatically, “Yes, there was a difference!”

There was a difference between reacting to a crisis delivered to me courtesy of another person and then becoming a part of the solution or management of the crisis simply because I could do it or just because I cared about the person or the cause.  It was quite different thing to have the crisis delivered to me and then making a decision to examine the situation and the potential impact on my life before deciding to be actively involved in the management of the crisis.  There was a difference in the helplessness and felt in the former circumstance and the empowerment I felt last year when I used my brain and my voice to protect my time, energy, and resources.  There was empowerment when I decided to choose to use my gifts and talents for situations related to the calling for which my life was purposed.  There was a difference between the exhaustion I felt pre 2016 from engagement in situations that I managed, but did not control and the gratifying exhaustive feeling that came from stepping into a challenge I knew I had the ability to strengthen or change for the better.

Life is different when you believe that you are in control of your decisions. In 2016, I challenged myself to initiate actions that would further my goal of living out the calling on my life.  I decided that I would spend my energy enhancing my skill sets or empowering other people to strengthen their villages by focusing on ownership of their personal development and decision making.  I have never been an advocate of new year’s resolutions because I always feared that I wouldn’t be able to follow through on the year long challenges.  I feared that the resolutions were made to be broken.  I learned in 2016 that I had a better chance of meeting the challenge of a New Year’s resolution if the driving force was my passion and calling.  Last weekend as I uploaded my blog, I celebrated the fact that each week except in 2016 I posted a blog entry.  I celebrated the fact that I made a decision to use my voice to promote positive, supportive villages for young people every week of a year.

I get one time to live this life and I plan to use my time to focus on decisions that make the things and people around me better.  I will choose to make decisions and take actions that make me better and I will promote the same attitude among those I encounter.  In 2017, I plan to be about the mission of my blog which is to encourage, empower, and enlighten!  I hope that my audience will spend 2017 making decisions to live their callings and passions out loud too!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Winter commencement season 2016 brought with it excitement about the culmination of a rite of passage sought after and endured because of expectations of breath of knowledge, hope for professional opportunities, and ownership of preparedness to manage the potential obstacle course in the world beyond the college bubble.  Working in higher education has afforded me and others freedom of thought and expression.  Interacting with students, faculty, and community partners has also meant opportunities to engage in spirited conversations about life and current events.

This week I attended two graduation events and I heard two different graduation addresses made to graduates.  The first speech I heard was made by a college dean and the other by a state politician.  Both speakers compelled their audiences to celebrate the voices of all people around them, especially those whose concerns and messages are different than their own.  Their impassioned words drew verbal responses from their audiences and prompted conversations between the audience members during the speeches and afterwards.

As I listened to the commencement speaker at the end of the week, I was reminded of an online interview I watched recently.  In that online interview, I heard a young woman make a distinction between the actions of one person and the words of another person.  More specifically, she was trying to explain how one candidate “did” something and the other candidate only “said” something.  There was an argument made that a person saying “nasty things” was not as impactful or negative as doing “nasty things.”  The young woman also suggested that the things we say don’t have an impact on how we operate as individuals.  She argued that the things said in no way influence the way we govern ourselves or others.

After hearing this young woman defend “nasty things” that people say, I thought about the number of people who have lived their lives trying to overcome the pain and grief caused by something said to them.  How many people struggle as adults because someone told them they would never succeed or because someone called them fat or ugly?  How many people have said that they have used the words of another person to motivate them to do better or do more?  I remember players for a professional football team saying that the trajectory of their championship season changed from losing to winning after a powerful locker room speech.  I have seen the words of rejection from a break up or firing leave people in tears, in depression, or sitting with a tub of ice cream inhaling the cool, chocolaty, diary goodness.  Words have power and there is power in our words.

Maybe because I am a writer, I have a tendency to let my imagination take off and live in the world of “what if’s.”  I wondered, “What if one of those speakers had the opportunity to have dialogue with that young woman? Would it be possible for the young woman to own the power of her words like the more senior commencement week speakers?”  The speakers embraced the opportunities to stand in front of audiences and use words to call for people to engage in critical thinking, to increase the social conscience of the community, and to fashion conversations built on informative, unifying words.  I wanted to know how many of us deny the power of the tongue and the power of the words spewing from our mouths.  I wanted to know if we realize that denial of our verbal strength will not prevent our words from influencing those around us.  Our words spark people to think or live out the messages in our words.  I began to think about how reckless and dangerous it was for the young woman and others like her to use words to form sentences without expecting those words to prompt a response of some sort.  If there is no expectation of actions or impact from words, why are we speaking at all? If there is no expectation of actions or impact as a result of our spoken words, why would I ever say, “Hey, did you hear what I just said?”  Why would anyone ever get upset with their kids for not doing exactly what they were instructed to do?  Why would there ever be a need for an apology if the words and “nasty things” we say to one another are not “doing?”

I am beginning to think that only a person who does not want to hold themselves accountable for the things they say believes that their words don’t matter or have power.  I also wondered if people who believe their words are powerless have a fear delving into their hearts and minds to examine the core that drives their thoughts and the passionate words spoken by them.  Believing that our words influence our communities means that we might also have to evaluate the heads and hearts of those we love or support.  Believing that our words have power means that we might need to challenge the people around us to broaden their thinking and vocabularies.  We might have to actually listen to the words coming out of our mouths and the mouths of the folks around us.  We would have to understand that our word choices, the organization of the words in the sentences, and the inflections used in the phrasing of the words all matter.  I started to realize that some people are living robots able to repeat the same phrases over and over again as long as their words result in their desired end.

Once, when I was a child, I told grown ups that someone who was close to the family “did” something to me that I didn’t like.  I remember also telling grown ups that another person “said” something to me that I didn’t like.  What was “said” and what the other person “did” caused me pain and confusion that impacted how I interacted with people for many years.  I used words to tell grown ups that I needed their support and help only to have them make a decision not to act in response to my words.  Even as a child, I expected that my words would prompt some type of action or response.  I know that when there was no action and my childish words were rendered powerless I was forced to cope and build up defenses that impacted my communication for a long time.  Maybe the young woman in the online interview “said” words at some point in her past and nobody “did” anything in response.  Maybe that is why she can say that there is a difference between doing and saying “nasty things.”

As a result of my childhood experiences that silenced me for a while, I made a decision to use my words to support and defend young people.  I also learned that being ignored by people when I am speaking to them is a pet peeve of mine.  I became stronger when I learned that my words had power whether I wrote the words or communicated them verbally.  I hope that my audience will accept that their words are nouns and that when the words are spoken they become action.  I want us all to remember that whether we “do” something or “say” something that involves words that the words we use and the way we use those words matters.  There are quite a few proverbs in the Bible that remind us that words have power.  Those verses speak about the favorable outcomes when we use words responsibly and the unfavorable life predicaments that flow from irresponsible uses of our words.  I hope that my audience will hold themselves and those who govern accountable for their words and the resulting outcomes even when the person speaking looks like them or often agrees with their personal philosophies.  I hope that we will define the word “govern” loosely to include those in our friend circles, our religious circles, our school boards, local governments, and our global community.  Having the ability to communicate thoughts and ideas through language is a blessing and we must remember that the words we speak have the power to heal, empower, enlighten, and educate our communities.

I have heard debates about the place of old Negro spirituals in the church since the world is different now and since churchgoers are more accomplished than in the days that moved people to sing from a soulful place deep within.  There was one spiritual about the gratitude for having a praying grandmother.  Today, I am thankful for both of my praying grandmothers.  I was on the younger end of the spectrum of the grands of both of my grandmothers so I didn’t have the length of life experiences with them that my siblings and older cousins did.  I am thankful now that their prayers had power then and that they intended for God’s blessing and favor to rest on them and their “seed” (as Big Mama would say) for generations to come.  I often joke about how “I’m not a really good church lady” because I can’t always tell you when the next Bible study will be held.  I don’t generally remember the focus or date of the next special event at church and I will miss literally “a month of Sunday’s” in order to spend time with myself or my family.  There were times in my life when church folk would guilt me or shame me for my absences and lack or participation.  It bothered me to the extent that I discussed it with my mother and I remember her saying, “Well, God put you in this position.  He knows your schedule and He understands that your life isn’t like everyone else’s life.”  I am thankful for Mama and her faith and trust that our God knew that change and opportunity would dictate new perspectives on my needs, my practices, and my responses the same.

From my childhood to this moment, I have searched for the meaning of the church and religion in my life and in the lives of those around me.  I have seen women take a break from gossiping about somebody’s “inappropriate” outfit to give a sanctified, loving hug to another sister who likely spent her last check on her outfit without contributing anything to the church offering.  I have heard Mama talk about the church man who came to their house to criticize my grandfather for “taking a little nip” of alcohol then telling my granddaddy he needed to excuse himself to the outhouse where granddaddy stashed the good bottle.  Surprisingly, the good church dude always left the bottle a little less full after his trip to the outhouse.  I wrestled silently with the grown folks who criticized kids, in general, but skipped church on youth Sunday.  I have struggled with those who use scripture to oppress others without ever envisioning the words they recite might apply to them.  I tried to understand why someone might honestly have an expectation that all people would accept and adhere to their interpretation of the law if it never seemed to apply it to themselves.

I remember when Mama gave me permission to wear pants to church.  I was really grown with two young children living in a very frigidly cold Midwestern city when she came to visit.  She was the same woman who, during my teen years, saw me leaving the house in pants to go to a Saturday afternoon youth meeting at church and made me change into a skirt because it was “still church.”  Mama told me that “only death or marriage” would get me out of Old Ship A.M.E. Zion Church when I wanted to go to a Baptist church where the choir director blended hymns with gospel music during the service.  I said all of that to explain how thankful I was that my mother believed that God mad me to “think about things differently than most people” and that she affirmed that unique quality in me.  At every phase of my life, she listened to my worries and frustrations displaying a quiet, discerning spirit.  She was my quiet in my storms.  If only we had more folks who saw themselves as the quiet in the storms of others we know and those we encounter.  I guess it is hard to see yourself quieting someone else’s storm when that might get you emotionally weighed down or make you feel the need to share your resources or contacts with that person.  Surely, sharing resources would mean foregoing opportunities designed only for you.  And this thought gives rise to more questions in my head:  Why are God-fearing, God-loving people so worried about sharing “their” stuff with other folks?  If it’s really all God’s stuff and God made everything and everybody and if God will provide, why so much resistance?  Why the selectivity in what we choose to share and with whom we elect to share?  Why do we purportedly embrace and attest to a life of global love for humankind yet tell all of God’s children of His love and the prosperity we can have through Him then use His words to oppress and shame?  Is it because shame and guilt demonstrate grace and mercy?  Do we really believe that God hears the prayers of those who righteously judge everyone outside of their circles if they fail to hold themselves and those within their circles accountable for their ungodliness?  Is it about faith?  Is it about God?  Is it about the resource, human and otherwise?  Is it about the sharing of our stuff or is it just about power and control?

Mama was a lefty who the teachers tried to force to write with her right hand.  Why wouldn’t the teacher force Mama to do that?  Everyone else in the class used their right hands and there had never been a need for the teacher to provide instruction in penmanship to a left-handed student.  Instead of banishing Mama and other lefties into exile or some other dark, cold, isolated place, someone figured out how to build desks for left-handed folks.  We figured out how to sit at a table so that our elbows didn’t bump when we ate meals together.  We also learned later that those folks who seemed weird, abnormal, and different because they were left-handed added richness to our communities of educators and leaders.  My big boss is left-handed as were many presidents of the United States of America, including the current president.  What might have been the result in the leadership trees of our country and my university campus if the laws banned left-handed people from being just who God created them to be to do only what God placed them here to do?  What would have been the outcome if the interpretation of the scripture remained so narrow that it suffocated the breath of life that was fueled with God’s will?  I don’t know the answers to these questions, but I consider these questions and others as I watch people tell the world that they stand with God and with me.

I consider how to stand with them as they stand with hate.  I try to understand how to stand with them as they refuse to talk about what is happening right in front of us all.  I am told to just wait and God will fix it.  I am told to just have faith and it will be alright.  I am told to pray more and pray without ceasing.  Hmmm.  Then, I have more questions:  Did the tea go into the Boston Harbor without human assistance?  Did the Big Bang also create the American Red Cross?  Did the legions leave the man and go into the pigs because of a miraculous work of man?  Was the Jim Crow South a new south without the work and voices of change from people?  While I don’t know the answers to most of the questions raised in my head around the mergers of life and religion, I know that religion lived well is lived out loud in practice by people.

We must be the voices of the messages we claim to represent.  We must see other folks with the clear, unbiased lens used by our God.  We must acknowledge that it won’t be easy because we are full of bias and scars from our personal journeys.  We must exercise flexibility in our thoughts and perspectives to give folks permission to be who God called them to be doing what He called them to do.  We must become content and satisfied that we are not God and that the things we judge are His way of presenting the things in which we need greater depth of understanding.  Then, we need to do the hard work of getting comfortable in that uncomfortable territory while implementing the advice we gave other people – be faithful and trust in God’s mighty power to see us through the situation.  In developing this healthy quest to love the questions beneath the symptoms makes us like the physician who welcomes opportunities to spend time exploring the symptoms reported by the patient to determine what might be beneath the surface causing the pain, the discomfort, or the red, burning, inflamed spot on the skin.  Physicians know that watching the patient suffer won’t stop the suffering.  They also know that saying to the patient, “Stop suffering” or simply looking away from the symptoms of the patient won’t end the suffering.  The symptoms that anger or repulse us or those that impact others in the community may only change when we develop a healthy curiosity to seek to at least hear the heart of the person walking in the eye of the storm.  The world we live in only gets better when we believe that sitting in the eye of the storm is safer and more beneficial than playing the role of storm chaser.

The truth is that nobody really expects that life will be perfect, but everyone has some expectation that somebody will care when the imperfection visits their space.  Faith, hope, courage, and change live within each of us.  Challenge yourself to use these to enter the world of a person whose position you disagree with most.  Then, challenge yourself to sit in the eye of the storm with that person and apply every survival coaching tip you have for them to yourself until.