Karina Ann Forrest Perkins Log 2

The most profound learning that has taken place this past year has been my new awareness of suspending judgement…judgement on self and others. I cannot say exactly when this happened but organically there appeared to be an emergence of new thinking…different from the way I was accustomed. The visible part was suspending judgement on myself and giving myself permission to make a mistake, to learn by taking an inefficient path, to stop…just stop so I could rest, reflect, and find meaning in what I was doing. This swiftly translated to others. I began to ‘notice’ more and when I noticed, I did just that and very little else. I learned to be quiet and listen. Others around me paused more and I found that the insights that we all generated were deeper and more open.

Other key insights:

* Career Exploration – That my seeking as to whether it was time for me to change career paths or not was in and of itself a preparation for doing exactly that. I have gained a far more sophisticated insight into what is really involved in change management with living systems…it is more about ‘leading through change’ versus ‘change management’… and when we introduce a new idea or new thought into a living system; we have already started to change it. When I began thinking and seeking about the career shifts I want to make, I had already leaned in the direction of doing it. The majority of this thinking has come from my courses at school. I learned (from two students specifically) that the freedom to see our careers as one point of influence in a larger collaborative effort relieved me (all of us) of a massive burden. What is important for me and where I end up is about how I want to ‘be’ in this work; what I need to do that; and that I can be confident that others are influencing their environments in the way that is the most meaningful to them. So while I love my place of ‘work’ currently; I know that the time has come for me to explore new opportunities for me to emerge and serve differently and in that order.

* Cultural Tension and Shame – My heritage includes native contexts and caucasian contexts. My native context is being a member of the Cherokee Nation. Prior to Indian Removal and Relocation to non-reservation land allotments, the Cherokees negotiated a peace with the US Government. This ‘peace’ included a series of compromises that stripped them of their ceremonial dress and activities, their spiritual practices, their parenting relationships, and ultimately into the ownership of slaves all to protect them staying on their sacred land in what is now North Carolina and Tennessee. This unholy agreement ultimately contributed to them behaving in ways that degraded their values and those of others. After President Jackson forced relocation (anyway, of course) and up to and after the Civil War, the Cherokees made amends to those enslaved in several areas with the ultimate granting of those ‘Freedmen’ tribal membership status. For the past decade, the Cherokee Nation has been fractured by the majority now demanding that the Freedmen be separated from tribal affiliation. While I stand with the minority position; I still find that I am filled with shame, grief, and disappointment at this behavior and abusive thinking. I then look at my caucasian context and hold the same pain. I have discovered through the fellowship process and those protected spaces of solitude that I have to prioritize those parts of my heritage that still hold value for me. I cannot hold the shameful actions of others but instead have to act differently and differentiate myself from those ways of being. For so many years I felt that I had no cultural tether…that the abuse I experienced in childhood and the abuse that still haunts us from continued enslavement are almost too much to bear. Today I realize more that I have an opportunity to create a cultural way of being for myself that does not include those things that are opposed to my heart and spirit. This fellowship gave me the time to invest in myself so that these reflections had the cover they needed to manifest into a new kind of strength with a new kind of future.