Showing Up For Yourself and Others Today

So many of us are facing real and significant challenges in our lives, at work, and in our communities. These challenges can make us want to hunker down, but to face them, we must show up and step forward. 

 On this week’s Facebook Live, Rich Harwood discussed why showing up–stepping forward to engage with the challenges that face us–can help us address the issues we face in our work and life.

Transcript:

Hi. Hi, I'm Rich Harwood. Welcome to another edition of Turning Outward Together. These are intended to help you stay grounded in these challenging crazy times that we're living in. If you want to see one of our previous episodes, go to our Facebook page, you'll see a banner there that says turning outward together. Click it on, you'll see a playlist, and you can get all the previous episodes that have been part of this special series called turning outward together.

You know, so many of us are facing real and significant challenges in our lives, in our work, at home in our communities and society today and we're also experiencing so many new opportunities to deal with these challenges. How do we step forward in these times? And so today I want to talk about a special topic, one of my favorite topics to talk about, which is, what does it mean to show up for yourself and for others in times like these?

Shoot me a message and let me know that that you can hear me. I'm glad you're with me today. Let me know where you're calling in from.

And, and here's a question I'd like you to think about as we go through the next 20 minutes or so together. What are you wrestling with in terms of showing up for yourself and for others in these times? Again, my name is Rich Harwood. This is a special edition of turning outward together. Our topic is showing up for yourself and for others today.

I've been talking to a lot of people even just this week about all the things that are happening to them, that are happening to me, they're happening to you, that are happening to us. In these times, I just want to offer three examples of things I've heard. I've heard them more than once. They're kind of patterns and things that I've heard over phone calls and Zoom calls and, and all sorts of other other things, emails. Lots of people I've been talking to have told me that they've been experiencing increasing amounts of fatigue from this pandemic, that never seems to end there is, I think, for all of us, a fatigue that comes along with the growing uncertainty and ambiguity of when this is going to end just yesterday, there are headlines in the paper today, just yesterday, was the third highest record of new cases since April of the Coronavirus. So our numbers don't seem to getting better. It's not clear what's going to happen even amid all these new states opening up. And so there is fatigue setting in about how long is this going to go on for? And how long are we going to be on these Zoom calls for? And how long are we gonna have to figure out what to do?

There are other folks I've spoken to three people in just the last two days, who've told me that they've made severe and deep job cuts in their office, that they've made incredible budget cuts, that to keep their organizations going, that they've had to reinvent entirely their organization. One person told me that they cut half of their budget and 47% of their staff since this pandemic began. That's incredible.

And then there are the those of us who are talking about and I think this is so many people across the country today, so many of us who are talking about systemic racism and injustice in our country. This issue has crystallized in the consciousness of Americans in a way that that, at least in my lifetime, I've never seen. I think, in many people's lifetimes, they'd never seen this conversation that we need to have creates a lot of churn. It creates a lot of trepidation. It's there are a lot of tough conversations ahead of us. Just on a public radio interview last week, I was talking about these different issues. The host said to me, you know, Rich, it sounds like you're talking about that, in order to deal with these challenges, fatigue from the pandemic, the job cuts and organizational changes that people are going through, the systemic racism and injustice conversations that we're going to need to have in this country that we're going to have to show up, you're talking about showing up in a different kind of way.

You know, this has always been part of the Institute's work, there's always been this really interesting nexus point that I've always been fascinated by between what we as individuals need to do, and how we need to bring ourselves into the world. There's this, there's this really interesting nexus point between those two things. And I think that's where so much of the action exists in terms of creating the kind of change and progress that so many of us want to see in our lives, in our organizations, in our communities. And so we face a choice about how are we going to show up and for whom. How are we going to show up and for whom.

And so I'm talking to you today at an incredibly important moment in our country's history. Some of you may be coming into this episode, some of you may be listening right now. And all you want to do is hunker down, and retreat and maybe pull the covers over your head, you're tired. Others of you maybe listening today, and you're scared and frightened, and, and want to turn away and want to turn inward. There are still others of you that may feel frustrated and angry, and perhaps enraged about what's been going on in our country and how things have info unfolded.

And there are others of you that even amid this frustration in this rage and this desire to hunker down and retreat, there are those of us Some of you, who actually feel an incredible sense of excitement, an incredible sense that there's this rising energy in the country, to deal with things to come together to be part of something larger than ourselves. And you're wondering, how can we make this work? How do we make this work? And so today, the question is, how do we make this work? And I think at the center of that question, is how we decide to show up ourselves, and how we decide to show up for one another.

So three points I want to make today about what it means to show up for yourself and for others right now. And these are three things that you can begin immediately and exercise in your life and that I hope that as I'm talking about these three things, that maybe you'll write them down, maybe you'll think about them as I'm talking about them and And you'll think about how you can put them into use immediately in your life.

So here's the first one, to show up, you need to make yourself visible. To show up, you need to make yourself visible. I've often talked about this, and some of you have heard me talk about this on other episodes of turning outward together in other places, or maybe you've read it in my book. But the story that always comes to mind for me, is Moses standing in front of the burning bush, when God calls out to him. And Moses hears the call and stands there and wonders, is he calling me? Who am I? How does he know my name? And, and God is essentially saying to Moses, step forward, Moses and make yourself visible so I can see you. And importantly, so that you can see yourself and so that others can see you because I have a task for you. I want you to go to Pharaoh and tell them him to free the the, the Israelites from slavery. And so amid his own trepidation, Moses step forward to say, Here I am, I'm right here. I am prepared to engage. I am ready to engage.

You know, when it comes to issues of race and inequities, of getting things done on your job, the types of challenges I was talking about earlier, you might feel that someone is better at those things than you that maybe someone is better trained or equipped than you are that maybe someone is better spoken than you are that maybe they're more articulate than you. And so you may be filled with doubts and fears and concerns and trepidation about whether or not you can make yourself visible and so on. Often in these moments, we can find ourselves hiding, we can find ourselves obfuscating what needs to be seen, we can find ourselves pretending that we have made ourselves visible. But it's at that very moment. It's at that very moment that you need to step forward and say, Here I am, I am right here. I'm going to step forward and make myself visible. And not only that, I'm going to lean into what I need to do.

It's a really interesting thing to think about what it means to lean into something. to lean in means to apply yourself right to touch the challenge that exists before us whether it's in equities or systemic racism or the challenges you face in your workplace, or the challenges you face in your home. That we need to touch those challenges, lean into them, to be in touch with with the challenge that we face, it means when you lean into something that you make the choice to exert yourself, to bring energy to the tasks that you need to do. This is about you. It's about how you make yourself visible, and how you show up in your relationships with others in your workplace, in your home, in your community, in our society.

And it's not simply about you, as I said before, it's about the nexus point between you and these other things, right. So when you make yourself visible, you are saying that I am taking a sense of ownership of what's before me. I am taking a sense of responsibility about what needs to be done. It is an expression when we actually take that step and decide to make ourselves visible. It is an expression whether we say it out loud or not, doesn't matter. But is it as an expression that I simply don't want to be by myself, I want to become part of something larger than myself, I want to be part of the solution that we need to create, I want to make a contribution to how we can move forward and make a better world a more hopeful society a more inclusive, equitable and fair society. It is that you hold the belief that amid these challenges that are before us, that you have something to contribute to helping us move forward. And as you may have heard me say before, and I will say it again here today, that the size of your contribution does not matter. Don't let anyone tell you that it does. What matters is that you have taken this step forward. You are leaning in, you are exerting yourself, you're becoming part of something larger than yourself, and that you have made the choice to make a contribution to helping us move forward.

Now look, I know this can be difficult. I know this can be hard it is for me on many days you can feel fatigued, you can feel like you want to give up. You can feel like you want to hunker down or retreat. But for you to show up for others means that you have to show up yourself first. And so I'm asking you today, I'm asking you to make a declaration to make a declaration that within each of us and to one another, we can show up and be present. So that's number one. To show up, you need to make yourself visible.

Number two, to show up you need to find an embrace your courage, your courage. Now this is something we talk a lot about nurses society. There are a lot of self help books on this. There's a lot of fields good stories that the news media runs on things like this, you know, and they're good stories don't get me wrong. But sometimes when we talk about courage, it's, it's a way to inflate our own self worth. It's a way to position ourselves as being more important than we are. It's a way to embolden ourselves. It's a way to sort of beat our breasts and to have a kind of false bravado. That's not the type of courage I'm talking about. It's not the type of courage I have in mind. It's not the type of courage I think you need or that any of us need to show up. That type of courage, this false bravado, this beating of our breasts, this in bolding ourselves this, this sense of false importance. It actually stops us from from actually engaging with one another it stops us from seeing the possibilities for progress. Instead, the currency I'm talking about is different.

The courage I'm talking about is the courage to step forward and make yourself visible and to declare, here I am, it is the courage to decide to work on things, to face reality for what it is not to get lost in utopian visions, not simply to talk about what you're against, but to articulate where you want to go. It is the kind of courage where you reach out to others, especially to others who may be different from you or may seem to hold differences from you. It is the courage to reach out to people of a different race or creed or heritage or ethnicity, and to try to build bridges. It is the courage to reach out across political divisions, and find at least some modicum of common ground that we can work on together. Is the courage to listen to one another, amid the hurt and sorrow that we may hear, when in fact we decide to listen. Courage is to put a stake in the ground so that other people can see what you are for.

I remember a good friend Stacy Stewart, who at the time was president of United Way of America. She's now the president of March of Dimes. And I remember her over and over again, when we were working with local United Way's getting up in front of them, and passionately stating and clearly and forcefully saying, look, in your communities, you should put a stake in the ground and everyone in your community should know what your United Way's stands for, what you're working on, what you're working toward. That's the kind of courage that we need the kind of courage that Stacey Stewart was talking about.

Now, of course, all of this can give rise to fear within you, and we can't be all things to all people. So you're going to have to make choices about where you put that stake, and what you actually stand for. That's what courage is about. And so it's I know, it's easy to feel anxious about the challenges that face us. But if we're serious about facing these challenges, if we're serious about creating a more hopeful, inclusive, equitable and fair society, then you've got to find a way to rely on your courage. And so, I'm asking you today to embrace your commitments not to sidestep them. I'm asking you today to authentically engage with others. I'm asking you today to put a stake in the ground as best as you can, and have the courage to show your face and be visible and to move forward with others.

So, if the first part of this is to show up, you need to make yourself visible and the second part is to show up. You need to rely, find and rely on your courage. The third point is this. To show up you must exercise humility. Courage, you know is never alone when it's taken by itself. It should never be exercised in isolation. As you know, courage by itself can lead to hubris, it can lead to arrogance, it can lead to blindness, that we know all the answers that we know everything that needs to be done that you just need to follow me and we'll all be fine.

Humility is one of the most beautiful words one of the most beautiful notions I know. It reminds of of our vulnerabilities. It reminds us of our limitations. It reminds us yes of our fears. It reminds us of our need to connect with others that none of us can go it alone on our own. It reminds us importantly, at its core, about what it means to be human about what it means to be alive. Right? What it means to be human, just think about it. In order to put a stake in the ground, we need humility. Courage isn't enough. Because without humility, how would you know where to put it? How would you know how to listen to others and to take in what they're saying and to consider their point of view and to recognize that you alone don't have all the answers. How would you know without humility, to engage with others and that the sorrow that people feel the hurt They feel that systemic racism that they've experienced over generations.

Without the humility, how would you understand or at least try to understand those experiences so that we could know where to put the stake in the ground? Without humility? How is it that we can open ourselves up, that we can enlarge our hearts and open our eyes and open our ears to other people?

Think about it without humility. We tend to close down our hearts we tend to shut our eyes we tend to put our hands over our ears. pretending that we know everything there is to know that we've got all the answers that we know the right path to take all by ourselves. Without humility, it's almost impossible to let go of a solution or an idea that we brought to the table to recognize that maybe it's not the right idea, or the right solution after all. And so, to have humility is to be open is to be an active learner. It's to be ready to listen.

And this is so important right now because, as you know, in so much of our public discourse right now, one of the things that happens in moments like these is that in people's passion, in their emotion in their belief in their cause. What happens is that we tend to believe that if people aren't pure, then they're not with us. If people aren't pure, then we can't work with them. If people aren't pure, then they don't share our common cause. In my book, I quote, someone who was working in advocacy, who said, I realized, I don't have enough humility. As an advocate, it's hard to stop. And listen, there's going to come a time when you put that stake in the ground, that you're going to realize that it's going to need to move. Maybe because external conditions have changed like a pandemic, maybe because of financial stress like we're experiencing today. Maybe because there's a new public agenda that or an old public agenda, but that we need to now deal with, like systemic racism and injustice. And you're going to recognize that your stake is in the wrong place, that you need to pick it up and move it and put it in a new place.

Without humility, it's almost impossible to do. St. Augustine once said, there is something in humility that raises the heart upward. Let me say it again. There is something in humility that raises the heart upward. We need our hearts to rise. We need our vision to rise. We need our ability to work together to rise. And in order for us to raise those things, we need humility. There are many difficult challenges that are before us, many of them personal and then many of them societal as well. by exercising humility, you are setting up the possibility for more productive and honest conversations. You are setting up the possibility for more effective solutions and you're setting up the possibility for more meaningful impact.

So today, when it comes to humility, I'm asking you to liberate yourself, to be with others to connect with others while never losing sight of yourself. So today's about how you show up for yourself and for others how you make yourself visible, how you find and rely on your courage and how you exercise humility in doing these things. And so let me just end as I always do with my hope for you today it is that in these challenging times that you stay in good health, and stay in good spirits. And as you do, do not turn away from others, but turn toward them so that you can show up for yourself and for others. We need you and we need each other.

So thanks again for joining me on another episode of turning outward together. If this episode resonated with you, if it's a message you believe that others should hear, I hope that you'll share it with them and encourage them to listen to it and share it with others in their network. I'll be back in two weeks on Wednesday at 4pm for another episode of turning outward together. If you want more information on the Harvard Institute. Go to our website, the Harwood institute.org. If you haven't already ordered a copy of my new book, stepping forward, please go to Amazon and do so. In the meantime, stay healthy. Stay well. Thanks for joining me. Thanks so much.