On Communication and Fighting Muscle Atrophy

Too many people think they’re great communicators and listeners while not being good at either. Many communication issues I’ve helped people work through in their personal and professional lives stem from people not understanding how legitimately hard communication is. The truth is that communication and active listening skills are memory muscles that need to get meaningful reps to maintain their effectiveness.

Knowing your primary communication and conflict management styles and being conscious of how fluid communication and conflict management styles can be depending on the circumstances are oft-neglected nuances that lead to miscommunication and escalated conflicts.

Understanding the necessity of being an active and engaged listener, in listening and reiterating key points shared with you before responding, is the difference between people feeling heard and validated when they share themselves with you or feeling neglected and unheard.

Some of y’all will read all that and think, “Why do I have to do all the heavy lifting? Why isn’t the other person working on their communication skills?” You’re going to have to let that go. You can’t control the willingness of other people to put in the work to be better communicators and listeners. But you can damn sure work on yourself and model how necessary these skills are to others personally and professionally. Maybe they’ll catch on and rethink the ways they communicate. Perhaps they won’t. What matters is that you’re getting your reps in. And I guarantee you will see some gains, even if those gains are centered on your fulfillment, learning, and growth.

Don’t let these memory muscles atrophy.

This Week's Opening Thought: May 15, 2023

This week’s opening thought: contrary to what many white folx and people of privilege want to believe, there is a difference between self-care and taking care of yourself. That difference lies at the intersection of privilege, white supremacy, socioeconomic status, physical and mental disability, and the generational trauma you endure due to the impacts of white supremacy and colonialism on your community.

On Workplaces, Family Systems Theory, and "Family"

Work is not "your family."

It will never be "your family."

I hope you have a family, chosen or genetic, that is a healthy space for you as a growing and evolving person, but the workplace ain't it.

With that said, you better believe that work is still a toxic family system that we're knee-deep in for 40 hours per week.

And as you should with any family system you're a part of, you need to be clear about your perceived or forced role in the family system and what you want or think your role should be.

Just like family members, workplaces will prey on your co-dependence, need to be liked, need for validation and support, narcissism, lack of boundaries, and need for safety to force you into the role it thinks you should be in within its toxic family system. And that role often predicates some level of harm to yourself or others because workplaces are set up to be collaborative yet driven by individualism. You owe it to yourself to take the time needed to know your worth, capacity, co-dependence triggers, and toxic traits to work on so you can show up in your workplace's family system with better mental health, firmer boundaries, and intentionality.

Even if you work at Olive Garden, you ain't family while you're there. At least not a healthy one.

We all deserve better "family time" than what we're getting.

This Week's Opening Thought: May 8, 2023

TW: discussions of violence, gun violence, anti-Blackness, distortion of mental illness.

This week's opening thought: I grew up in Detroit, Michigan, in the 80s and 90s. At that time, Detroit was considered the most dangerous city in the United States. Its homicide rate was astronomical, with much of it attributed to gun violence. Growing up, my siblings and I grew accustomed to ducking and seeking cover at the sound of gunshots. As with most things related to the intersections of poverty, classism, systemic oppression, white supremacy, and anti-Blackness, politicians and pundits viewed gun violence in Black communities as an issue of values and upbringing. My community, Black communities, were told that the lack of fathers in our homes, a deficiency in morals, and a lack of “American values” were the catalyst for the gun violence in our neighborhoods. We were blamed for the gun violence in our communities, which increased the danger my community faced.

Then Columbine happened.

White U.S. Americans were shocked when the Columbine High School massacre happened in the Spring of 1999. As the news cycle ran with the story, the white shock became excuses and rationalizations for why two young white men killed thirteen people. White media ran with the narrative that these young white men had “lost their way.” Suddenly mental health and other conditions mattered because these young men “were raised by good families.” They were “good young men” who shouldn’t be judged too harshly for their murderous actions.

Fast forward to 2023, and the United States of America has had 199 mass shootings in less than five months. White men perpetrated all but a handful. The same excuses are used for their heinous actions over twenty years after Columbine. Meanwhile, Black communities are still facing the same hurdles with policing on physical and moral levels as poverty and generational trauma ignite gun violence in oppressed communities.

The wildest part of these two completely different narratives and treatments around gun violence in Black and white communities?

No one ever wants to talk about the damn guns.

In all this, the proliferation of and access to guns are never labeled as the issue they are.

After the past few weeks, with a mass shooting occurring almost every 48 hours, I'm confident that guns matter more than human lives in the United States. I'm more confident than I've ever been. Why?

Because whiteness has proven that it doesn't care about white lives over the right to own a gun and use it as you please.

And if whiteness will make excuses for white people gunning down other white people and white children while going out of its way to look past the elephant in the room?

Then the rest of us are chopped liver.

Once again, if whiteness won’t deal with its sh— and the harm it causes- we all suffer.

But you know, morals and a good upbringing and whatnot.

This Week's Opening Thought: May 1, 2023

This week’s opening thought: on my way home from a job interview, I peered out the bus window and saw a white man in black and red Chinese linens, traditional Beijing shoes, and a straw hat with what appeared to be a sake or wine crate under his arm. He was walking down the street without a care in the world. He strolled down the sidewalk with all the confidence of a mediocre white man who thinks they are the greatest thing since sliced bread. When I saw him, I looked twice because I was honestly taken aback. I don’t know the context or story behind his outfit, but I didn’t need to know any of that information BECAUSE HE WAS A WHITE MAN DRESSED IN A CHINESE STEREOTYPE COSTUME FROM SPIRIT HALLOWEEN.

So yeah, racism, anti-AAPI hate, and cultural appropriation are all still a thing, just in case someone out there thought otherwise.