What's your relationship to receiving help? For me, it's not been a strength of mine. But the last couple of years, it's been a real...growth area.
One year ago my wife had endometrial cancer and had a hysterectomy. (Thankfully she didn't have to have chemo or radiation and is now cancer free.)
Part of navigating her surgery was thinking about what kind of help we wanted to ask for and then navigating various generous and thoughtful offers of help. I'm much more comfortable offering help. Being on the receiving end is hard.
Putting together a meal train wasn't too hard (though I didn't take up someone's offer to do it for us). Looking back I was grateful to not have to cook for a month. As the caregiver I was grateful that people I loved were scheduled to stop by. As my wife recovered and got stronger she valued good people coming by. I like cooking and not having to do it for a month was a gift.
Accepting a ride to the hospital was harder--we have a car and I can drive. It was uncomfortable to accept the gift of our friends waking up at 5am and picking us up at 5:30am. It was so much easier though--no parking, they dropped us off right at the front door to the hospital. And when we found out she was coming home yesterday one of them left work early and took us home. I was underslept and very stressed out--it was sensible to not be driving.
I solved some "problems" with money--we hired our dog walker extra days and I've hired cleaners to come in after a week.
It's been really interesting noticing where my control stuff comes up (like, everywhere if i'm being honest) and old messages about who deserves help (not me) and stuff about relationships and self worth. Phew! I thought that had been unpacked a long time ago. Receiving helped heal something inside of me.
As the world crumbles and as we age, I'm confident that the only way through is together. And that means getting better at receiving help, not just offering it. This is one of my core values of reciprocity.
What is one of your core values?
Values compass coaching sessions
Our values are a great compass to navigate tough decisions.
Getting clear on your values and using them as your internal compass to make decisions about how you want to move forward is a great strategy.
Last month I did a session with a founder on her values and the values she that will be foundational to her next company.
You'll leave this session with a list of 5-7 of your values and an action plan to live into them more. These sessions are $425, limited to 3 slots each month until the summer.
Pride
I'm not sad that many big corporations have stopped making rainbow versions of their logos for Pride. So much corporate pride stuff misses the mark for me. Here's three artists who have made beautiful things that excite me.
What pride collabs or merch makes you feel seen and proud?
fabulous! fierce!
Knifewear, a Canadian shop that specializes in imported Japanese knives and fancy cookwear, is on point every year. This year they've collaborated with Mike Hooves, a non-binary Albertan artist and muralist for this year’s stickers and tea towels.
Mike Hooves protect trans kids geese design is also pretty awesome.
Nusmata's serigraph
Nusmata is a contemporary artist from the Nuxalk nation, who is living in the unceded lək̓ʷəŋən territory.
June is both Indigenous history month and Pride. If you're interested in buying a copy of this print, reach out to the artist on Instagram.
Transpainter
Rae Senarighi is a non-binary artist and cancer survivor who makes beautiful things, including "accurate and celebratory representation of the trans community".
I have a "Protect Trans Kids" shirt and a "Femme" one. I love his work.
Liberating Structures
Liberating Structures is a great facilitation toolkit that helps groups "solve immediate problems while simultaneously building capacity to take on complex, higher-order goals".
I love these because they unleash everyone's brilliance. How we structure workshops and meetings matter to who speaks up and whose voice is really heard.
They just launched an updated fieldbook with 43 methods, introducing ten new, second-generation Liberating Structures to tackle modern challenges. They've all been tested and used online too.
Ways to work with me
- 1:1 coaching — 3 or 6 month packages. Book a free chemistry call to see if we're a fit.
- Team offsites — I design and facilitate in-person experiences for teams. I'm actively looking to do more of this, especially in person. Reply with the basics (who, what, when) and let's talk.
- Speaking — keynotes, panels, fireside chats. I'm booking events for Pride this year. I'm a strong interviewer if you need someone to draw out a great conversation. Here's my current keynote on leadership and values.
- Inclusion consulting — strategy, thought partnership, and culture work for organizations building high-performance inclusive workplaces. Reach out here.
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