The last two weeks I have written about leadership because the last few weeks challenged me as a leader at work and at home.  Because of my leadership role on a college campus, I have been connected to many students with challenges.  Often the college-age children come to my office complete with concerned family members and friends who voice opinions intended to offer support and advice to the students.  In speaking to concerned family members, I have said, “We often learn our most important life lessons in the midst of our greatest challenges.”  However, the experiences I referenced above led me to a new discovery: Some really important life lessons and practices can be learned when I help other folks work through their challenges.

I recognize that my new revelation might not have been new to anyone else, but this discovery was exciting for me. I hope it is also exciting for other people like me who learn to be content living in the shadows of other people and causes.  My life in the shadows generally focused on the challenge, the crisis, or the need that required my attention.  Rarely did I think about how the experience would benefit me.  I found satisfaction simply because I was engaged in the process.  I loved feeling empowered when my decisions dictated change or when I could implement strategies to solve problems.  Focusing on people in challenging situations meant that I often neglected myself.  As a shadow dweller, I considered my feelings distractions and my time a gift to the cause.  Recent encounters with students and members of my staff have prompted me to reevaluate my support roles from a different vantage point – my own.

I have two large white boards in my office filled with lists, schedules, visions, “student insights,” and random things that people ask me that have nothing to do with my job.  I have explained to people that the whiteboards reveal many of the things that go through my mind on a daily basis.  The thoughts on the whiteboards are categorized by topic and each subject receives a designated section on one of the whiteboards.  Until now, I had never really evaluated why I needed so many of my ideas written on the boards and why I used so many colors.  Initially, these boards were just task boards solely used to keep the premenopausal supervisor from forgetting things.  After I started an introspective evaluation of the boards, the whiteboards manifested a deeper expression.  Color represented life to me and life represented creativity, possibility, and hope.  My current leadership role requires me to speak boldly and frequently about living life with thoughts centered on possibility and hope.  Standing in darkened places as a shadow dweller taught me the practice of investing myself emotionally, physically, and intellectually to the person providing me shade.  Whether life in the shadows meant that I was lending support to a really cool experience or speaking calm into a chaotic situation, I found the years of rehearsal beneficial in creating an environment that welcomes a troubled or needy spirit.

Over the years, I have learned that everyone was not made to support other people through tough situations.  Some people are so easily excited that they just make stressful situations more stressful while other people spend all of their time judging the person in the crisis for being in the midst of a crisis.  Moreover, I have learned that even if everyone was equipped to help other folks they would not help because choosing to help means sacrifice of time and resources.  These lessons learned about other people led me to an appreciation of my own role and purpose.  I began to cherish the fact that I have a gift that can quiet emotional storms.  Moreover, I began to appreciate my most recent opportunities to offer support to students and other faculty members because those encounters showed me how much I care about the issues that people bring to my space.  I realized that in bringing them to my space there is always a connection with the possibilities and hope on the whiteboards.  As I sat in my office looking at the whiteboards, it became clear to me that writing my thoughts, visions, and plans on a whiteboard demonstrated a level of trust of others that I hadn’t always possessed in my shadow dwelling days.  I realized that I have worked hard to provide people who are in the shadows of some kind of situation  a space to trust someone.   Somehow those messages on the whiteboards prompt conversations, giggles, and questions that make a discussion about the challenge or concern easier to share with me.  This self analysis has made me dig deeper into my why to figure out the symmetry in my behaviors and methodology.  I figured out that I value the opportunity I have with each individual I encounter to enable and empower that person to get better on a personal level and to think about a bigger plan for the campus and the larger community when they leave our campus.  The work in the shadows has been exhausting the last few weeks and so has the work of trying to figure out why it mattered so much to me that I pushed so hard and got so tired.  When you figure out your why and your purpose I hope that you find that you are willing to give it all you got.  In sports people say, “Leave it all on the field of play.”  That statement applies to other arenas too and what I learned is that in providing a service or sharing a gift with others means you must schedule a time for yourself.  For me that means focusing on more than two forms of self care and diversifying my self care options.  Separation from the emotional and physical demands of supporting other people in the midst of challenges provides time for rest and recovery after investing so much of yourself in your work.  I decided that I help others figure out how to make themselves and their situations better by using the lessons from my shadow living experiences and a couple of weeks ago I decided that I needed to “practice what I preach” so to speak in my own life.

During my shadow living experiences, I developed a practice of listening with an ear and a heart for solving the most immediate problems.  Additionally, I learned the importance of addressing the underlying issues to prevent those issues from giving rise to a new problem or resulting in a recurrence of the same problem.  In looking for solutions to problems that exist in my department and on campus, the words on the walls of my office spoke to me about the need to use every encounter to not only improve the station of the person who comes to my office with a challenge, but to improve the station of my life too.  I don’t think anyone has ever described me as quiet so it would follow that even the things that I write have sound.  I have learned that the things I write can speak even when my mouth is closed and because I write in colors my words project life, possibility, and hope to all who read the words on my whiteboards.  I hope that my audience members will figure out why they do the things they do and how they can also receive a benefit in the midst of another person’s challenging situation.