Conscious Business - Sarah Poet

THREE ORGANIZATIONAL VALUES THAT HELP MITIGATE GENDER BIAS

Post originally published in Equity Over Everything Magazine Oct 2021

Have you ever been in that awkward work situation at work where you thought, “This has more to do with gender than anyone here is willing to admit!?” You may be unsure how to bring up the issues you see, exactly what to say, or what will happen if you do speak up.

If so, you’re not alone.

We are in a post-#metoo era, with trans and non-binary identities on the rise, and issue of gender is only sure to get more interesting in the coming years. Organizations will need to innovate their value and skill sets in order to meet what is coming.

Whether or not women earn equal pay is no longer the extent of gender equity conversation. In my opinion, we need to talk about the complex pressures and stereotypes put on men just as much as we need to talk about women’s rights.

All people need safe spaces to voice concerns and have innovative conversations without the fear of losing their job for speaking out. HR is often the place where gender equity concerns get funneled, and often attempts to mitigate risk and avoid sexual harassment claims end badly.

I actually had this happen, personally. I took a legitimate concern to HR and it was handled very poorly.

As the only female member of a leadership team, women in the organization were coming to me to express their sense that there was gender bias against women. I had also experienced strange events such as when I was publicly shamed and made to apologize to a male employee. While the company handbook never would have condoned outright bias, women, myself included, were noticing some evidence of bias.

I decided to address the issues so that we could improve the organization. When I formally brought these concerns forward, there was never a direct conversation. I was funneled quickly to HR, offered a severance package, and asked not to speak to anyone.

It was scary for me, and years later, I see now that it was very scary for the organization as well. Well-intended people were afraid, and they chose to get me out the door instead of having an authentic and vulnerable conversation. As Brené Brown says in Dare To Lead, they didn’t know how to “rumble with vulnerability.”

Unfortunately, I don’t believe my situation is unique. I heard of another example just last week. I share here in order to highlight the need for a different way, beyond the standard, non-relational HR attempts at mitigating employee concern as liability. Such concerns are actually an invitation for an organization to evolve and meet the changing and diverse needs of these times.

I am passionate about innovative leadership. In a changing world, the most innovative leaders will not exhibit a need to have it all figured out. Rather, they will bring vulnerability, right action, and curiosity to their organizations, leading by example.

VULNERABILITY: In a post #metoo era, the need for vulnerability is greater than ever. If we maintain that everyone must already know all of the answers, there is simply no way to improve. We must be able to admit what we do not know, what we do not understand, where our mistrust gets triggered, and where we do not feel able to speak up. We must create cultures that model the ethic of healthy vulnerability from top levels of leadership.

RIGHT ACTION: The most innovative leaders will hear from the people in their organizations, and take action based on what is good for the whole. I am in no way advocating that workplaces decrease productivity by focusing on emotional processes. But leaders who are willing to get real with their employees will ask for real feedback to affect needed change through effective right action, improving employee relations and organizational health.

CURIOSITY: I worked at a charter school that championed character development, and one of the primary teachings was of “curiosity and courage.” These two go hand in hand. Let’s be willing to get curious about others’ experiences – men, women, & non-binary – so that we can lead with the courage to be compassionate and relatable.

Gender Equity does not have to be a scary topic. It does not have to be a finger-pointing topic. We all have bias and we all have something to gain when we get curious and vulnerable about one another’s experiences. I believe that we can safely learn about the experiences of others and to create safe and optimal workplace environments for all.

Sarah Poet, M.Ed is a thought leader in gender equity, feminine & masculine leadership, and authentic relationships. She offers mediation and leadership training services to organizations looking to innovate gender equity practices. You can learn more and contact her at www.sarahpoet.com/reconciliation.

To expand, first stabilize.

As I type this, I just removed a social media post that I originally thought was casual but really offended some people, which was not my intention and I found to be stressful. I was sorry that I’d caused others stress. I have a to-do list that I’d hoped to get through today but won’t. I’m tired and have a few hours of meetings left today.

So instead of cramming all that out, before the next meeting, I brought my laptop to bed with some quiet music playing in the background, which pleases my nervous system very much, and decided to write on this topic that continues to arise for me lately, like a little whisper that comes into my ear at moments when I feel things spinning just slightly out of equilibrium.

“Stabilize.”

Stabilize the breath. Stabilize the moment.

I’ve honestly been expanding quite a bit lately. I realize looking back that 2021 was a year where I chose more quiet, more family, fewer big choices. I had focus words during last year that included “resourced” and “sustainable,” because I’d really been looking so very closely at this thing of the depletion of feminine energy in my life that continued to sneak up on me just when I thought I’d figured it out.

And as I said in a client call this morning, while talking about these anchoring words that hold our intentions for how we want to feel, what we intend to create, I feel I did experience “resourced” and “sustainable” energy last year in a beautiful way. And then, at the very end of the year, a friend gently called me out and told me it was time to expand.

I had been worried about being out of integrity, charging too much for a program offering, trying to figure out how to offer lower pricing and still get paid what I needed to get paid, and he told me that I was playing small and afraid to charge what the offering was actually worth. I respect his reflection, and so I looked at it and began to listen to the audiobook suggestions he gave me, and long analysis short – he was right. I had become “resourced” and “sustained” but I now needed to expand, and expand what I am wiling to receive. (Read – the *goodness* I am willing to receive!)

I like my family. I like my little life of structure & flow in daily entrepreneurship, I like my clients very much, I like walking my puppy and being a mother to my son. I like it. And 2021 was about recalibration. But now it is time to expand, and I’m ready. Expand the things I am willing to say (even if not everyone gets it or I do challenge some opinions), the number of people I reach, the impact I can have with my time on the planet. It’s time to expand what ceilings I assumed are over my head, expand my monthly minimum of what I’m willing to accept in my income (I learned this from the audiobook – it’s called an “energetic minimum” and this concept is awesome for me at this time), and expand my capacity to love more and more deeply.

And it’s time for me to receive more, as a result of the expansion.

This is inevitable, IF, and only if, I also “stabilize.”

Many times, when coaching a client, I’ve talked about this rubber band effect in personal growth. We’re growing, and that’s like stretching a rubber band, but if you don’t stabilize, that rubber band will snap back into place.

If we want a new normal, a new normal that is a growth edge for us, we have to stabilize when we stretch.

Many times, I’ve gone after growth, but it wasn’t regulated into my nervous system by the time I quickly did the next thing, or got the next negative reaction, or experienced failure, and then *snap* – back to the start.

The expansion can only actually happen if stabilized, and stabilized into the nervous system as well. To take more action on top of anxiousness or worry is absolutely destabilizing. We are working against ourselves in this sense.

So, in this moment, I am stabilizing instead of thinking I just need to zoom to the next thing on the list. I’m writing, something that is to me like creating art, and I’m doing that to stabilize the moment. I’m not completely inactive, and sometimes I might just actually meditate or take a nap. What stabilizes us will not always be the same, from moment to moment or person to person.

I regularly do an exercise called “The Class,” and in it you move your body quickly, activating a cardio response. And then, at the end of the song and the movement, they say “Hand on body, hand on chest,” and say to breathe and notice. This is stabilization in action.

That is exactly one energetic example of what I’ve been working with regarding expansion – actually moving my body in a way that I break an energetic norm and cross a threshold into the new. Maybe I lift more weight for longer than I did the day before, or hold the breath in kundalini yoga for longer, or jump harder while doing The Class. And then I witness – “Ah, I can expand, and then I can stabilize.”

When I’m working and creating, and I have bigger goals (which I do), I don’t get them done in anxiousness. I get them done in stability.

When I’m parenting or training a puppy, I don’t get it done by being quick, short, or demanding. I do it by stabilizing the energy in our surroundings.

When I’m working with clients, I’m stabilizing the space. That’s my job.

Before, when I was writing, it was like they were all flying around at once and it was hard to see one piece of writing through. I now organize my ideas by first purposefully stabilizing.

Stabilize the moving parts. Stabilize the breath and the nervous system. This is how you increase your capacity – not by rushing, forcing, or multitasking.

Energetically, we can become used to a certain capacity, like I did in 2021. Like we all do. And that capacity might even be working okay for us. But it might also be an excuse not to grow, and not to receive more of what we actually really want.

I’m ready to expand. I’m ready to receive more, and in a way that the stretch doesn’t have to snap back.

Are you?

If you’d like to “Breathe to Receive” with me, that is the name of my next offering, coming mid January. In every way, we will stabilize through the breath to increase your capacity to receive. Ensure that you are on my mailing list at SarahPoet . com and check your emails for sign up information.

Here’s to an expansive, and stable, 2022.

Staying Home to Come Home: Women in the Pandemic

I heard that from many women during quarantine – the realization that what modern life expected of them no longer felt sustainable.

What happened when you stayed home during quarantine? I’ll hear whatever story of change you want to tell, but what I really want to know is what happened on the inside of you?

As I write this, we got the “stay home” order in North Carolina almost exactly three months ago. And, now, even though the cases of Coronavirus are greater than they were three months ago, the “stay home” orders are now increasingly lifted for economic reasons. There is a push for things to go back to normal, and yet, I hope we don’t miss the available lessons.

How did this quarantine and all that it exposed change you? And is it still?

For a little context, I’m the mother of an 11 year old son who lives between two houses, and I’ve worked from home via the internet as a life coach, distance healer, and women’s & relationship coach for over two years. So the format of my work was not affected when this hit, and actually, I was prepared for it because I’d already been through the highs and lows of such deep transition and could now assist others. And, I was able to actually spend more time with my child, which exposed quite a bit.

While I won’t bore you with the small accounts of what happened during quarantine, I will say that all of the things that were not working in our busy day to day life immediately became apparent when we stayed home. Discrepancies in parenting between households and the way our child had grown emotionally avoidant in fifth grade came to the surface to be revealed. We looked at it, and within two weeks, we had a new schedule and a new family therapist. I’m so grateful for that, because it’s made a huge positive impact on our child, and we otherwise would have missed it, had life just kept on.

Then, in April, a baby goat was born on the farm we lived on, and I thought, “Good grief I’m so glad he’s not in school right now.” Because when we heard the mama goat yell out in labor, he was able to run and get to the pen in enough time to watch the baby goat land in the hay. He got to help name it Pixie.

In case I need to spell it out, this was incredibly special. We’d moved out of the city a few months prior, and now, the choice to have done so grew even sweeter. My boy was watching the birth and early rearing of a mammal, learning about the placenta and birth, watching the milk come in and holding Pixie in his arms at 10pm in front of the mama goat’s nose while the farmer worked to prevent mastitis from setting in. My son had a place in things that was different as a result of staying home.

So I became “that mom” when I emailed the school – the school where I was formerly the middle grades principal – and I said, “Now that we know North Carolina isn’t counting grades this year, and my son is building forts while learning about measurement & cooperation, planting gardens, and is deeply engaged in the life of a new baby goat, I’m going to advocate that we all relax with the piles of computer work.” On Earth Day, when there was homework to research something online, I intervened and simply submitted a picture of him and Pixie the goat instead of evidence of a closer relationship with the Earth.

Real life again mattered more than assignments or schedules. And I was witnessing that my child was touching childhood in a way that he would not have if not for this pause. And as I looked around at the women’s groups that I was hosting, each woman was touching life in a new way as well.

We were touching life. Eventually. Because each life went through an adjustment period in quarantine, as you know. Uncomfortable at first, and then, there was more life.

I was facilitating two women’s groups online – one a six-month Mastermind that had begun mid January 2020, and another a group called Choosing Nourishment that came together right at the beginning of quarantine when I noticed that women, even though they were already tired and juggling quite a bit in their lives, jobs, and households, and you may have thought that quarantine would provide reprieve, were actually quite frazzled in their nervous systems as a result of the changes.

“You want me to stay home, work from my computer, and homeschool my kids?”

“You want me to stay in the house with this husband of mine that is unwilling to actively help us figure out our finances?”

“You want me to stay in the house with the man who doesn’t care at all what my opinion is and makes me feel invisible?”

The panic was up. The nervous systems alert. This did not feel like a good idea to stay home. In fact, to some, I noticed that it felt really scary. Like modern life had been some sort of very busy distraction, and even though it wasn’t necessarily working or feeling good, nor particularly fun, it was the norm, and they’d learned how to manage it. This was the same reason I’d left working in schools to start my own business two years ago – modern life just wasn’t sustainable any more.

I heard that from many women during quarantine – the realization that what modern life expected of them no longer felt sustainable.

As time passed, and as we held the space in confidence and safe space in these women’s groups to talk about how to choose the nourishment, how to be in communion with this opportunity to push pause, I noticed that all of the women began to care less about whether or not things like the homeschooling got done, and cared more about feeling good, re-connecting with their families, and listening to their authentic inner voices.

Feeling good matters. Knowing oneself matters. Being able to sit and breathe in a body with a settled nervous system matters. And modern life makes these things “self-care” periphery practices instead of, well, the norm. But in quarantine, more women began to prioritize a rebalancing that they’d previously only dreamed of.

Priorities shifted. Preferences stated more clearly. Boundaries realized.

And then, about six weeks into quarantine, in the Mastermind that is all about the quest for the Sacred Truth within each woman, after months of clearing old stories and identities, a “Coming Home” theme emerged.

And I chuckled as I said, “Hmm, staying home to come home.”

And everywhere I looked to see what women were doing, in these groups and in the collective of women, I kept hearing women say:

“Maybe it doesn’t have to go back to the way it was.”

“That was never sustainable and we knew it all along.”

“I don’t even want to go back to work. I never want to feel like that again.”

“Maybe I won’t send my child back to school next year.” “Maybe it’s time to finally own my skills as a healer.”

“Maybe it’s time to start the business I really want to start.”

It was mandated that we all stay home. Yet, it was rather unsuspected how we discovered that so many women, would, also, come home to themselves. And I love witnessing it. It feels like only a beginning to what has been such a long time coming.

Women remembering who they are.

Women coming home to the truth of who they are.

Women, refusing to live unsustainable lives.

Women, planting gardens and knowing rest for the first time in years.

Women, making plans for what they might create next.

I truly hope that we don’t go back to life as usual, that this actually changed us in the way it had the potential to change us. Because through a wider lens, this is how the feminine rebalances with the masculine, a story I told of my own life in my TEDx from last year. So much happens when women come home to themselves.

Worlds open.

The feminine principle, the archetype – which involves rest and bodies and satisfaction and families first – was touched through this quarantine experience. I’d say it was awakened, in many women.

How did this change you? What are you willing to go back to and unwilling to go back to? What will you do differently?

I chose to integrate family and home life with my partner, moving in together during quarantine. I chose to begin to walk in nature daily, even though I’d lived in nature before and yet failed to prioritize it. I chose to begin organizing a potential home-school cooperative for the fall with the same children that my child was able to play and bond with during the spring.

I’m beginning to dream of new systems of education and women’s entrepreneurial collaboration that before seemed so far off, and now, it feels like the time to choose based on deeper preference and intuitive knowing.

I found myself choosing to relax and read fiction, to sleep in, to start a new yoga practice.

I chose to come further home, and I choose it still.

And I’ll ask you, women, did you come home? And I’ll encourage you. Come home to the truth of who you are. Don’t go back to an unsustainable status quo. If you allowed yourself to dream, what would you create?

If this article speaks to you, let’s work together.