Equity is a practice. It is a practice of the personal and structural work of truth and transformation. This is what I help leaders and communities understand and embody as they unlearn various forms of inequity like racism, sexism, and queerantagonism. I introduce them to a 12-step process for unlearning addiction to the misuse of power. In order to do so from a place of authenticity, I had to begin my own journey unlearning habits of sexism that I didn’t even know were in me. Here’s a bit of my story, taken from UnLearn InEquity our new experiential course.
The need for truth and transformation isn’t just theoretical for me. It is real, in part, because in 2019 I almost lost what matters most to me at the expense of my own addiction to male supremacist logic.
After 23 years of marriage and three wonderful children, my beloved and I for all intents and purposes broke up. Those who know anything about addiction will understand when I say that was me hitting my bottom. We made the choice to center our children through the process, so that meant for us that neither of us moved out of the family home, though we did take separate rooms, and then we turned our attention toward seeking personal healing and being the best co-parents we could be.
We had met our senior year in high school on a tour of the college we would both attend the following year. We had basically been together ever since. We were married June of 1996, a month after our graduation from college, and a month later we moved to Atlanta to continue our life together.
We were so young. You don’t really know yourself at twenty-two, and if you’re growing like you should, every seven years or so, you are a completely different person. I thought I had figured something out when I realized that I had to wake up everyday and recommit to the new person lying in front of me. Unfortunately, that wasn’t enough.
In addition to the supremacist power dynamics we were addicted to, complicated by all the baggage of a fundamentalist Christian upbringing that insisted many of the abuses of power at play were God ordain, our major challenge is that we function on two foundationally different rhythms. I am a fish-or-cut-bait kind of guy; she is a when-the-going-gets-tough-the-tough-get-going type of gal. What that means is that I put in lots of energy on the front end of things, and she puts in more than her fair share on the back. It doesn’t take a genius to see the potential in that scenario for covering all the bases, but we too often lost sight of it. Twenty-plus years is a long time to live out of sync.
In the summer of 2019, my beloved called me out on the impact of my social addictions on her and the kids. It was hard to hear. I do equity work for a living. I’m a nice guy, “a good one.” What do you mean I’m using my power in abusive ways?
With the consent of each other, we both established key accountability relationships with small groups of friends, and we both got therapists, in order to begin to move toward healing. I can’t put into words how important both types of support were. Left to their own devices, abusers of power can’t get right.
I cried more those six months than I had in the 20 previous years. I began to learn to feel my full range of feelings and not to continue trying to subordinate them. I learned how emotional repression doesn’t stay under wraps but rather finds its way to the surface in ways that are often harmful to those closest to us. I was introduced by my therapist to “The Work” of Byron Katie and found freedom from the need to project so much. The shift from power-over to power-with that I had been advocating actually became possible in my relationships with my spouse and kids.
Not only that. I was reminded at the start of my 12-step journey of the body-mind-spirit connection, because around the same time I was diagnosed with chronic kidney disease, brought on by a decade’s worth of undiagnosed high blood pressure, exacerbated by excess weight and persistent lack of sleep that was stress induced. My body had been internalizing all the racism and toxic masculinity I was awash in, and it had literally been killing me. My healing journey took me back into regular exercise and meditative practice. Those along with better nutrition and the consistent use of a nighttime APAP machine changed my life.
Leslie and I finally reconciled in December of that year. It’s been great to continue the truth and transformation journey together. We aren’t formal about it, but we are for sure continuing to do the work. We now have better language and processes for working through problematic power dynamics when they arise and creating more equitable outcomes. We are solidly in recovery.
So I know what it means to want, to need a breakthrough. Like you, I’m walking this road of truth and transformation, believing that better is possible if we only have the courage to move that direction. READ ABOUT THE SECOND LEG OF MY JOURNEY>>>
If you or your organization could use design, advisory, facilitation, or strategy support continuing your own equity journey—including subscriptions to our new UnLearn InEquity self-paced course—contact us.