After several failed attempts to complete a post, I allowed myself to be silent for a while. Out of that silence came a poem and the idea for this post. My father, Arthur Shigeru Mayeno, found his voice when he wrote about being incarcerated by the US government during World War II. His entire family and community were imprisoned for three years, without regard for the Constitution. Their only “crime” was their Japanese ancestry. For 953...

What do we do when we find our boundaries violated? How do we respond when someone makes a transphobic or racist comment? What can we do when we think we have done or said something to harm another? All of these situations, and many more, are calls for accountability.  We desperately need accountability. We need healthy ways to account or answer for our actions (or inactions). Without accountability, past and present harms go unchecked,...

We get messages from all around us in many different forms – from words, behaviors, images, books, television and more. Negative messages can leave us feeling that we don’t belong, we’re not enough, we’re too much, we’re unlovable, or we’re undeserving. This post provides some tips for resisting and countering those messages. Read on for ways to support young people, adults, or for your own self-care. When my child was growing...

The Gendering of Language When you pay attention, it’s hard to miss the fact that gendered words are part and parcel of everyday language. For most of my life, I just took these habits for granted. But, raising a nonbinary child and learning from the LGBTQ+ community has made me more aware of how deeply ingrained gendered language is, and how harmful it can be. Most gendered words are binary; they make room for only two genders...

In my work with organizations around race, power and privilege, I’ve noticed a pattern. Sometimes we anticipate defensiveness on the part of white people in the group and plan our sessions to accommodate this defensiveness. I’ve begun correcting this pattern and setting goals more proactively. At the same time, I have become hyper aware that a primary reasons we’re doing this work is that people of color may feel unsafe,...

Non-profits are magnets for people who want to make a difference in the world, yet many people who start out with high ideals end up down and discouraged. There is often one big obstacle to staff morale –  the morale of the leaders themselves. When leaders are deflated, overwhelmed and/or on survival mode, they aren’t good morale boosters for the organization. This is why attending to the morale of leaders is often a good starting...