This work is informed by feminist and queer poets, academics, and thought leaders who have challenged traditional gender and power constructs. I'm healing, and I want other cis-men to reclaim their ability to feel, connect, and love This work is deeply personal as a queer, soft, Latine, immigrant, there is a lot I had to leave behind to conform with patriarchal masculinity. Still, we have yet to see a significant contribution from groups of organized cis-men in philanthropy. Women, Black, queer, and immigrant communities, among others, have done and do their part. Why? Because it is time for cis-men to show up. I'm exploring the ways in which philanthropy can help those raised and/or socialized as men heal their relationship with patriarchal masculinity. I don't have a flashy website to show, and that's ok. I let go of my need to create a website for now, and I reclaim my right to "be" in the work with joy and wonder. So, let this post be the remedy to my fear. Instead of centering my desires and my passion for this work, I have been centering fear - fear that my English is not good enough, fear that I haven't figured out exactly what I will be doing, fear about how to ask for funding for this work, etc. Perfectionism and the need to show up with all the answers created deep fear in me. Why? Ironically, the same thing I want to help men heal - our relationship with patriarchal masculinity. I agreed that it was a great way to put down my ideas and let people find me.įor the last few weeks, I have started three different outlines, recorded myself saying what I wanted on the website, created a mock website to see what it would look like, and talked to my friends, family, and therapist about it. Two months ago, both my coach Maritza Schafer and my "femtor" Jara Dean-Coffey (she/her/hers), suggested I create a website to describe my body of work on healing masculinities. I tried to create a website for my healing masculinities work, and I failed. #hiredisney #elephantintheroom #leadershipcourage #onwardsandupwards They can be big and scary, but the effort is well worthwhile. So I'd encourage you to think about your elephants. Whether I can achieve this or have to make compromises remains to be seen, but at least I now have a clear baseline. So now I'm clear about what I want from my next career step. It's been illuminating for me after years of having accepted assignments, projects and even leadership tasks as a Good Corporate Citizen without really having an opportunity to ask whether the Thing was really aligned with my own desires or needs. It's an important part of the change curve to analyze what you do and do not like to do, what you are good and not good at, and what to do about the gaps. This has meant tackling my personal elephants. So what's your elephant in the room? My department has recently been laid off from Disney as part of the great reset, so I have been thinking about what I want my next career step to look like. For me 'elephant' has now become synonymous with 'courage'. I still have my elephant on my desk, and I've thought about it a lot in the last couple of weeks. We were undertaking a difficult task and we were to use our elephants when we wanted to talk about a topic without fear. One of my fabulous mentors once gave each member of her leadership team a model elephant.
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