If you have come here to help me you're wasting your time, but if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.
                                                                                                  – Lila Watson

My Vision
 
I firmly believe we can do equity work in a humane, developmental way that leads to positive growth, transformation and justice for everyone.
 
That leads to a deeper connection with who one really is and wants to be in the world and a greater sense of internal agency to achieve it. And that leads to a deeper ability to connect with others across difference (race, gender, class, etc.) from this place of deep authenticity and internal power.
 
I believe it is possible to do equity work this way with everyone – with people who have and continue to experience discrimination and oppression, as well as with people in socially dominant positions (white folk, men, etc.). And that doing so will actually lead to better outcomes in terms of achieving equity and justice than many of our current paradigms.

My Approach
 
The core of my approach is about developing long-term, ​relational processes that focus on one’s beingness and sense of internal power. This is in comparison to short-term, more transactional processes that focus on one’s doingness and sense of offender/victim-ness.
 
Long-term: What I do requires ample time and space. It is not a quick fix because, when it comes to people, there are no quick fixes. I only work with clients who are committed to achieving change and transformation and who understand that this means playing the long game.

Relational: My approach is inherently relational and seeks to create felt experiences of belonging. People change in the context of relationships where they feel like they belong. Real accountability can only occur when one knows that the people holding them accountable also fully see them, care about them and want them to succeed. 
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Focus on one’s “beingness”: I believe that if someone shifts their “beingness”, how they show up and what they do will shift accordingly. I’m interested in getting a sense of who people are, who they want to be, and how they view themselves; their experiences of pain and struggle and their aspirations and hopes for the future; why they do what they do and what they really deep down most want. This provides a rich foundation from which to help people feel seen and heard and create belonging; tap into people’s authentic experiences and deeper motivations; and begin to help them build connections between their experiences and motivations and what they’ve internalized as a result of their many intersecting social identities. A critical part of this is helping people heal and make new meaning out of their unprocessed, unresolved experiences of pain and trauma associated with the limited understanding of themselves that they were taught based on their race, class, gender, etc. This process can help transform one’s entire relationship and orientation to the topic of equity in ways that can’t be predicted.

​Focus on one’s internal sense of power: In her book “Power: A Users Guide”, Julie Diamond makes a clear distinction between one’s external “positional” power (granted through a role or status) and one’s internal feeling of being powerful (taking maximum responsibility for one’s experiences and actions). She finds that most abuses of power actually stem from internal feelings of powerlessness, even when someone has external positional power. I am interested in how one experiences their power on the inside, and how to increase their internal power to be responsible for their experiences.

 Learn more about My Approach to Equity Leadership Coaching

Additional Reading:

The Assumptions I Hold that Inform My Approach

Equity Leadership Coaching for White Leaders