student affairs

Forgive and then give anyway

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A few years ago I was betrayed by a friend, a very good friend and fellow woman student affairs professional. The truth is, I am not over it yet. She really, really hurt me. She betrayed me in an underhanded way. It was behind-the-scenes and it impacted not just me, but my job, my family, and our living situation. After months of not speaking about it, she finally broke the ice and contacted me. We met in a public place. I could not trust myself to be alone with her. I needed the safety of other people. So I wouldn’t lash out at her, so I wouldn’t cry, and so I wouldn’t jump on the “it’s okay” bandwagon that women so easily do when they have been wronged by others. She apologized. Sort of. She made excuses. She said she didn’t really know why she did what she did. She hoped that I would forgive her. When I was ready, she would be there waiting for me and we could pick up where we left off. (That’s not a real apology, but that is a post for another time.)

That was four years ago. Four years that I have let this hurt eat away at me. I have let it have power over me. I have let it change me.

I know I need to forgive her. I’ve written about that before. (See here) I haven’t forgiven her. Not completely. The wounds that she created cut deep and the scars are still fresh. However, as a result of some positive experiences I have had this summer, I feel I am closer to forgiving her than I have ever been.

A colleague (whom I have never actually met in real life but whom I feel I know thanks to Twitter and Facebook!) created a summer reciprocity group. Basically, it is women from all over the country, getting together virtually (some IRL) and submitting pitches. Your pitch is a call to action, an “ask.” You submit your ask and then anyone within the reciprocity group can comment with suggestions, tips, names of people to contact, resources to share. It has been AWESOME. The pitches have ranged from “please help me with my website” to “I want a career change” and the level of time and care that has gone into the responses has been the same, regardless of the ask. In our “free time” women are helping other women get what they want. We are all helping each other get where we want to go. There is camaraderie and genuine interest. The level of advice has even gone beyond the week of your pitch. People are continually posting articles, video clips, helpful tips, and resources, myself included. All free of charge, only asking that when it is your turn, someone will do the same for you.

This summer reciprocity ring has been the exact opposite of what I experienced four summers ago at the hands of another woman who used to be my friend.

As part of the ring, we have “Thankful Tuesdays” and “Flaunt it Fridays.” These are opportunities to thank someone, whether in the group or not, and chances to brag about progress you have made. Yesterday someone posted that they were grateful for…

Me.

Me? Sarcastic, sassy, too loud, not put together, abrasive, aggressive, east-coast me?

Yes, that one.

See, this summer, I have gotten back to my roots. I used to really love helping people. Helping them be their best. It’s why I chose student affairs as a profession, why I learned MBTI, why I used to volunteer and do community service. I am constantly reading articles or watching videos about interviewing, coaching, etc. Somewhere in the last four years, I stopped sharing all of that and kept it to myself. As a result of my friend’s betrayal, I became bitter. I got a huge chip on my shoulder and decided that I would only help someone if: they helped me first, if there was something in it for me, if I got compensated in some way, if, if if.

I put a shell around myself to prevent further hurts. I put strings on my giving. 

Being part of the reciprocity ring has helped me stop doing that. And, I am having an absolute blast! I have been sharing all kinds of stuff, not because I think it is so great. I have been sharing because that’s what you do. Help others. Help them be their best. Give them information that is relevant to what they are looking for. If they use it or not, that’s up to them. But, give it anyway.

I am realizing that by not forgiving my friend, I have hurt only myself because I closed myself off to the great joy that comes from selflessly helping others and letting them help you. This group has helped chip away at that exterior. Thank you, Amma for including me.

 

Self-Advocacy While on the Student Affairs Path

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THANK YOU to The Student Affairs Collective for the opportunity to share my experiences as a mid-career professional. You can see the original post here

During a recent #sachat about leaving student affairs, I posted this final thought: “you have every right to advocate for yourself, family, personal, mental, and financial health. If that means leaving, so be it.”

I am hesitant to publicly state that I want to leave. It seems so final. And I fear that by declaring my intentions, I will become invisible to colleagues and friends or worse, that my current efforts will be discounted because I lack stamina. In reality, these possibilities are remote. But, they feel real to me personally. I have devoted my entire “career” to higher education. It is all I know. If I leave, what the heck would I do? And, didn’t I spend a lot of time, money, and energy earning a terminal degree in this field? Where can I go where I can contribute to a team in a meaningful way and where my degree and experience would be valued?

Like many mid-career professionals, I am at a crossroads. As has been discussed before, to move up the ranks, I would have to move out. This means either relocating to another part of the country (not possible for us right now), or actively pursuing more advanced roles at my current institution. Both of these choices would require a significant lifestyle change in terms of the amount of time required to do the job well. Ideally, moving up would also mean a salary increase or some other form of compensation. But, if I am honest with myself, I am not sure that the modest salary increase would be “worth” the extra time required.

So, here I am: 15 years of experience in different functional areas at different institutions, Ph.D. prepared, and feeling lonely. What should I be when I grow up? From my doctoral research about the work-life strategies used by mid-career women in student affairs, I know that I am not alone. This sense of career path instead of career trajectory is a common one for women and especially for women with children. Yet, I am hesitant to make the leap and try something else. We advocate for students. We teach them how to advocate for themselves. I believe that we also need to advocate for ourselves. This gets tricky for most of us, myself included, because in student affairs we are supposed to love what we do. That love is supposed to be enough fuel for the long haul. Most of us probably didn’t get started in this profession for the residence hall director salary or glamorous lifestyle. In the beginning, it was about students and relationships. On many levels it still is about students and relationships. But, at mid-career, it has also become about paperwork, politics and red tape.

My desire to change the system from within has been tempered by the reality that higher education is slow to change and often resists outsiders with new ideas. My final thought from #sachat is true. All of us have the right to advocate for ourselves and our own well-being. This means me, too. I am quite comfortable advocating for the student organizations I advise and more than once I have encouraged my colleagues to create proposals asking for conference funding or time away. Now, at mid-career, I need to turn those advocacy efforts inward and advocate for myself. Since the Twitter chat, I have devoted serious time to thinking about how to use my training and experience and leverage them to make the next right step for me and my family.

There are ways to stay connected to higher education and college students without being part of a student affairs division. Maybe that means combining my true passion for childhood cancer awareness with my higher education experience and helping foundations recruit students as fundraisers or campus ambassadors. Maybe it means starting a coaching or consulting side business. Maybe it means another lateral move or truly taking all of my vacation days next year. What I said before about higher education being all I know, that’s not really true. And, it’s not true for you, either. We have a tendency to undersell our gifts and talents because so much of our work is behind the scenes. Let’s advocate for ourselves and stop doing that.

As a Ph.D. prepared professional, a mid-career administrator, mother and advocate, I know how to get stuff done. The skills that helped me negotiate a doctoral program, our son’s treatment, and my career thus far are the same skills I will take with me when I go. In student affairs, the typical timeline for career ascension is somewhat clear: Master’s degree-first job-Assistant Director-Director-VP. There is no roadmap for leaving. And leaving doesn’t have to mean forever. It could just mean that it is what’s next. I am trying to be patient and think in short-term achievable goals, rather than an all-out career leap. It’s a path not a trajectory.

Practice makes…good enough

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I’ve been doing yoga lately. On Tuesday it’s “Basic Yoga” with Hannah (pronounced Hah-nah like Ah-nah but with an H in front) and on Wednesdays it’s “Yogalates” with Scott. No interesting pronunciations there and sadly, no lattes either. “Yogalates” is half yoga and half pilates. I’ve never had a male yoga instructor before either. He’s very zen. But not in an over the top way at all. And, he has a tiny little gut that hangs out of his tank top. It makes me like him more.

Both of these classes kick my butt and my mind in the best ways possible.

I have actually done yoga and pilates off and on for years. Prenatal yoga was an absolute necessity for me and pilates helped me get some of my pre-baby body back. I always seem to find my way back to yoga. And when I do, I am always like, “Oh, yeah! This is why I come back.” I love yoga. This cracks me up because yoga is the complete opposite of everything I think of myself: fast-paced, sharp-tongued, east coast, impatient. Yoga is none of those things. And that is why I love it.

At first, I was hesitant to take a “basic” course because I’ve done yoga before and I was like “I’ve done this before, I don’t need basics!” Then, the first day of class, and every day since then, I have fallen more in love with “basic” yoga. Hannah is always telling us, “don’t let anyone tell you that basic yoga is not hard. It’s hard to focus on one thing. To actually stand there and work on one muscle at a time. And tomorrow, you will feel it.”

Basic means you focus on one part of your body the entire class. Last week it was shoulders. Today it was hips. We do maybe three or four different poses. But in each one, you focus. It’s hard work to stand or sit and only focus on one thing. One thing! You breathe. You stretch. You strengthen. You practice. I love this about yogis (Am I allowed to say that? I’m not a yogi, so I hope I am not breaking some cardinal rule here.). They are always saying, “the practice of yoga” or, “today in your practice, focus on this.”

Practice. Isn’t that a lovely concept? Not mastery or perfection. Practice. Get out there. Put yourself out there. Try. Fall down. Get back up.

I love yoga because it is one of the only judgment free zones in my life. I don’t judge anyone who is there, ever. And I don’t judge myself. Yoga provides the time, space, and place for me to practice. Practice breathing, standing up straight with my shoulders back and heart center open. I am not sure about you, but spending hours in front a computer pretty much guarantees that my shoulders are kissing my ears by 830am and they don’t come back down until 530pm, if they come down at all. That 50 minutes at lunch is all about me and my body. Listening to what it is telling me. I am learning to listen back and not push muscles (or thoughts) that shouldn’t be pushed. And, areas that can be stretched a little bit more each time.

Today, Hannah threw out this gem that has stuck with me all day: “They say that shoulder and neck tension is the most recent. As you go further down your spine, the tensions are older. So by the time you reach your lower back that would be the oldest tension.” Whoa. I’ve had lower back pain since 2001. That’s a lot of holding on to stuff.

I have also been thinking of student affairs practice. I remember in graduate school the word practice got used a lot. I remember writing essays about my philosophy as a student affairs practitioner (rooted in the word practice). As a mid-career professional, I feel pressure to have it all figured out and am no longer allowed to practice. Practice means doing the same thing over and over and over again, until it clicks and becomes innate rather than forced. Practice means making mistakes. I know I made at least one mistake today. Tomorrow, I will go to work and hopefully not make the same one again. I am going to practice.