This Week's Opening Thought: January 2, 2023

This week's opening thought: If you're into making New Year's resolutions (I'mma keeping my opinions on New Year's resolutions to my damn self), I implore you to be selfish as hell with said resolutions.

Make your resolutions about your health and well-being that are mentally, physically, and emotionally healthy and not driven by the voices and abuse of others.

Make resolutions around seeking and maintaining the joy and energy you need to thrive and grow.

Make resolutions that help you fight the urge to make resolutions you're "supposed to make" as dictated by societal, familial, and workplace-based pressures.

Make your resolutions for you, by you, and about you.

It's OK to be selfish sometimes. And it will always be OK - and healthy - to be selfish when it comes to what you need to live your life happily while mitigating mental, emotional, and physical harm.

Here's to your resolutions being all about you.

2022: A (Personal) Year in Review

Image Description: A wooden table is adorned with green, yellow, and blue lights. The words “Happy New Year” are spelled out with Scrabble tiles. The year 2023 is displayed below them, each number carved out of white wood.

Sitting in my home on the last evening of 2022, I can't help but take a moment to step back and look at the year that was. 2022 was…interesting. Up, down, surreal, and interesting. For me, 2022 was not only my 40th year on Earth but one big ass learning experience.

2022 was a year of me trying to find my creative spark again while grappling with swallowing the hard pill of why my spark was gone.

2022 was the year that I began taking my mental and emotional health more seriously and learning how to process generational and personal trauma.

2022 was the year I started my lifelong journey of addressing codependence in my personal and professional lives.

2022 was the year I began learning about and recognizing how much harm codependence has caused me in relation to family members and co-workers who have not addressed their codependence.

2022 was the year that I decided to take a hiatus from being an in-house anti-racism trainer and facilitator for companies and organizations.

2022 was also the year that I decided to make that hiatus permanent once I realized how much better I felt not doing anti-racism work as an in-house employee with no autonomy or support.

2022 was the year that I had to sit with myself and mull over if I wanted to work in human resources anymore after realizing how my codependence was interconnected with how angry and powerless I've felt as an HR "professional."

2022 was the year that I began figuring out what being an empathetic, human-centered, boundary-oriented HR "professional" looked like and putting these lessons and ideas into action.

2022 was the year that becoming the HR "professional" I need to be to maintain my mental and emotional health and well-being was met with more jeers than cheers, not just from other HR "professionals" but many people in power in organizations I worked for.

2022 was the year that vitriolic emails, comments, and messages from HR "professionals" expressing their anger with me holding the field of Human Resources accountable for the harm that it perpetuates and upholds outweighed the "hate mail" I received from every other field.

2022 was the year that more Global Majority HR "professionals" and HR "professionals" of color tried to silence me, chastise me, and tell me to leave the field of HR "if I don't like it" than Global Majority folx from any other profession and occupation.

2022 was the year that white "professionals" got angry with me when I would no longer engage in "debates" with them or accept connection requests from them on LinkedIn and my social media channels. How angry did they get? So angry that a group of them collectively reported everything I posted for three weeks, intending to get me banned from multiple platforms for "hate speech." And they almost succeeded, too, with me having to have numerous discussions and go through various appeals with LinkedIn and Instagram safety personnel.

That's a lot of sh--, ain't it?

Real talk? Sure, all of the above happened this year. But I find myself on December 31 healthier than I have ever been. I'm happier. I've had more joy between sorrow and pain this year than I have in years, and that joy has outweighed the pain more than ever. Nothing's perfect. There's still a lot of work to continue doing to take care of myself and to continue healing. But even amid the healing and work ahead, I'm the best version of me I've ever been.

Sometimes you need a year of transformation and intention-setting to set up the next stage of your life. For me, 2022 was that year. If you're going to have a transformational year, having it be your fortieth year on Earth ain't a bad time for it to happen, y'know?

I hope that if you're reading this and 2022 was a struggle for you, there is a light at the end of that tunnel and hope on the horizon. I know it's not always easy to find that hope, to embrace joy amid pain, but I wish you nothing but forward progress in 2023. I hope you can do what you need to process the trauma and pain of 2022 and the years past and begin a new journey of health and joy in the coming year. And whatever your journey looks like, I hope you have people to help you when you stumble on the path because I know from experience that the path is full of rocky terrain.

Out with the old. In with the new. Auld Lang Syne. Drink responsibly—all that jazz. Make it home safe.

Here's to (hopefully) less B.S. and more joy, growth, and the energy to live as authentically as we can in a beautiful, ugly world.

Adios, 2022. Salud, 2023.

On Crappy Supervisors and the Workplace Cultures That Protect Them

I've seen a lot of posts on social media throughout 2022 about people leaving companies because of toxic supervisors. This is a valid and legitimate reason why people leave jobs and organizations. With that said, let's not leave out the fact that if you had a crappy supervisor, it's because the company's culture and workplace norms are designed to prop up and protect crappy people who espouse the company's "values."

Patriarchal white supremacist workplace culture norms and practices are why your former supervisor can be abusive, hateful, racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, xenophobic, and ableist, yet face no repercussions for their words and actions.

Patriarchal white supremacist workplace culture norms and practices are why your former supervisor still has a job at your former employer and will stay employed for as long as they want. In contrast, people in your former role will cycle in and out of the organization like a revolving door. They, too, will seek help but soon realize it's just best for them to find another job.

Your former supervisor? They are long overdue for being held accountable for the harm they've caused you and countless others during their tenure at your former employer. But don’t let your former employer off the hook.

They prioritized norms, comfort, and fear of changing and evolving over keeping you as an employee and treating you like a person.

There’s enough accountability to go around. Trust me.

This Week's Opening Thought: December 19, 2022

This week's opening thought for melanated folx: at some point in time, we have to talk about the generations of codependence many of us are carrying in our brains and bodies.

We have to talk about how codependence has impacted how we navigate the world. We have to talk about how the roots of our codependence often lie at the intersection of ethnocultural toxicity and societal norms. We have to talk about how at the core of our codependence, we can usually find a cocktail of systemic oppression, racism, and white supremacy that many of us grapple with every day.

We have to talk about how codependence has led many of us into overextending ourselves in a quest to help everyone and fix everything, to the detriment of our mental, physical, and emotional health. We have to talk about how for many of us, our codependence led us into careers in community work and equity and anti-racism work. Then we have to talk about how that work is killing our brains, bodies, and souls because we have only ever had to engage with being codependent, not being healthy while helping others, and maintaining healthy boundaries. And when we talk about this work killing parts of us, we also have to be willing to have honest conversations about the toll of this work. We have to talk about being honest with organizations that want to hire us to "fix" their racism, equity, and inclusion problems about the toll of this work. And we have to talk about it with clarity and an understanding that the work is theirs to do and not your responsibility, regardless of pay.

We have to talk about how codependence has been modeled for us by our parents, aunts, uncles, and grandparents and forced upon us as "taking care of our own" instead of the lack of boundaries and self-care that it is. We have to talk about how the codependence fostered in us from an early age has made many of us feel inadequate and like we're failing at work and in our families. We have to talk about how we can break the cycle and make sure this codependence isn't passed on to the next generation by engaging in the uncomfortable work of unpacking our codependence. And by doing that, we have to talk about having honest conversations about our codependence with family members, parents, and grandparents while crafting and maintaining healthy boundaries in those relationships.

Look, I know this sounds daunting, and some of it hurts when you read it. But you deserve to be healthy – personally, professionally, within your family, and workplace. It's a lifelong journey of unpacking and maintaining, fighting the urge to do it all and fix everything because taking care of everyone and everything but yourself is in your DNA. From my ongoing experience as a recovering codependent, I can tell you that it's not easy, but it's worth it.

Take care of yourself today so the weight of our generational trauma is lessened for the next generation.

That's how you take care of your family and community.

On tWitch, Trauma, and Being a Black Man in Peril

Image description: a picture of Stephen "tWitch" Boss. He is wearing a yellow beanie and a red and green plaid shirt with rolled sleeves. He is smiling at the viewer.

TW: Discussion around suicide and Black trauma.

With the passing of Stephen "tWitch" Boss, I found myself thinking again this morning about the weight many Black men carry in their brains and bodies.

I think about depression, anxiety, and how Black men and Black bodies have been conditioned to "just deal." In concept and conversation, I'm reflecting on the taboo treatment of mental health in many Black communities. I'm thinking of how my family scoffed at me when I brought up my struggles with depression as a teenager and adult. I think about how I was a functional alcoholic from 15 to my early twenties to dull the pain of feeling inadequate and unable to help my family rise from poverty. I look back on how my family and parents reacted when I mentioned one or all of my siblings possibly struggling with depression and anxiety. I find myself in my teens again, watching my father block out his depression and childhood trauma with gambling and alcohol. I reflect on how my father was in a near-constant state of unhappiness for most of my childhood and adult life and finding out about his decades of drug abuse a few years ago. And while mulling over all of these things, I can't help but wonder how many Black men might still be here if our community cultures didn't deter Black men from being vulnerable and more open to taking care of themselves and asking for help.

I wish being a Black man could include being a human being grappling with your trauma and emotions and seeking help and support from other Black people without being looked down on and being called a "sissy" or "punk."

I wish being a Black man didn't come with the spoken and unspoken shackles of "just deal" ideologies.

I wish being a Black man came with the option to believe in self-care and therapy and talk about it out loud to show other Black men, Black people, that you don't have to be afraid of being a multi-layered being.

I wish being a Black man didn't come with so many ingrained and societally-driven ways to die.

To my fellow Black men: it's OK not to be OK. It's OK not to "be hard" and walk around with a facade masking your pain and trauma. It's OK to ask for help. It's OK to prioritize your mental and emotional health. It's OK to be vulnerable and open and honest. It's OK to believe that you deserve to feel better because you do deserve it.

If you need help, please do not hesitate to seek help. Go to https://www.sprc.org/populations/blacks-african-americans for resources and information. Call the Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-TALK (8255) or text the Crisis Text Line at 741741. Find a Black therapist in your area at https://www.psychologytoday.com/us and schedule an appointment as soon as possible. Get the help you deserve. Your life and health matter.

Black Mental Health Matters.

Rest well, tWitch. Rest well.

[Image description: a picture of Stephen "tWitch" Boss. He is wearing a yellow beanie and a red and green plaid shirt with rolled sleeves. He is smiling at the viewer.]