When I started my journey nearly a year ago I felt like I had a pretty clear path as to what I would do and how I would get to the objective. My objective was to complete my degree, improve my non-profit leadership and learn from other cultures who have been impacted by trauma and learn what ways they have healed or built resiliency in order to bring it back to my community of women Veterans. I approached the fellowship in the beginning like I a mission to accomplish. Step one-two-three, but, what has actually occurred is something far more meaningful, beautiful and life changing.
It started with the fellowship retreat when we first gathered together to connect and learn about the fellowship when I had my own awakening of sorts. That weekend ended the feeling of separation I had felt between the civilian world and the military/Veteran world I had been a part of. The realization that others notice and recognize leaders and that I was part of that group was a game changer for me and how I had been navigating the world. I could stop trying so hard and start being. My humanity was recognized and I felt connected again.
The second thing that happened that weekend was perhaps the most impactful. As I sat in the room with my new peer group and listened to their stories, dreams for their communities and their individual credentials I both felt a sense of belonging and a sense of guilt. I felt like I had worked hard throughout my career. I put in the time and energy to improve my community. I was engaged and working to make the world a better place. I had felt hardships and challenges, discrimination was a woman in a mans military yet I too had accomplished a lot in my 40 years of life. But, I had done it all as a white woman. I hadn't even finished my college degree. Not because I didn't have the opportunity but because I was afraid I couldn't do it. Afraid of failing math and science, and I found up until now I didn't need to have a degree. But sitting there in that room with my new peers, most of which not only had a degree but advanced degrees as well. I looked internally and new I was in this same room because of my own white privilege. It motivated me to finish my undergrad and not hesitate ever again. I needed not to do it just for me but for respect of my peers, so I could sit at the same table of honor as each of them do.
Following the weekend I took the IDI(Intercultural development tool) and I learned of my results. Its embarrassing to say that I feel midway on the scale that I someone who thought I was aware of the issues of race, culture and what it meant to be discriminated against because of gender was still showering in my own white privilege. This realization, after I licked my wounds, was perhaps the best part of the fellowship journey. It forced me to do some serious self-reflection and to question myself and to be more aware and to interrogate life in a new way. It has also taught me to listen and learn in a new way.
Shortly after this awakening I made a trip to South Africa to attend the international healing of memories conference. This conference brought together people from 29 different countries who had all experienced trauma. I was one of 3 white people in attendance, and most of whom had experience trauma because of white soldiers. I quickly felt the hostility because of my skin and realized what my whiteness represented to them and how I needed to hear it and lean into it as uncomfortable as it was. Not only did I find personally healing but, I know because of my willingness to listen, an to not defend, I was an instrument of others healing. (I wrote about the experience in a short story that was performed by Eisa Dais and Brooke Adams at the Writers Guild Initiative Gala in New York.).
Since then, I've had the amazing opportunity to connect with people from around the world and to learn in a new way with more critical eyes and open ears. I've been to Haiti and spent time in the poorest slum in the world and to Great Britain and a country of bounty with a way to see both the beauty and the ugliness of each place and to celebrate the resilience of the people.
Because of the fellowship I have also changed my career path and taken on new positions that are part of my own development. I'm working in county government which I've discovered I actually quite enjoy. I'm able to learn about policy and how individual lives are impacted on a local level because of the policies in place. I've also taken on a non-salaried position with a non-profit serving Veterans in housing which is part of my non-profit development goals.
To answer the question more directly about what stands out is that the path of leadership isn't straight and you can't often see what around the next turn or over the next hill, but when you get there its worth the journey. The fellowship provides the endurance and tools of support for the journey. I can only imagine what might be in store in the next year. I know that I'm open to wherever this path may lead.
The fellowship has allowed me to grow beyond what I could have imagined and experience people, places and connections I could have never planned for or anticipated. I've accomplished the things I meant to accomplish, undergrad degree complete, non-profit training and development on-going, and a network beyond my wildest dreams. The fellowship has allowed me to be able to say yes to things I wouldn't have ever been able to manage prior and to be able to say no to the things that have held me back.