Pahoua Khu Yang Log 3

My husband once made an observation about how I choose jobs. Actually, he said to me, “You don’t choose jobs, you choose programs or organizations, and then the job. I don’t care who I work for, I choose the job, but it always matters to you who you work for.” I think what he was trying to describe is how incredibly important it is to me that the values and mission of the people and the organization I work for align with my own personal and professional values. Values alignment and congruency – what I think, feel, value, and how I behave – have always been things I valued in other leaders, and what are critical to me in leadership. This is the same for the things I choose to stand up for and fight for, whether it’s in my work, in the community, or in my own personal life. It always works for me to connect with my “why,” which fuels the work that needs to happen, especially when it’s really tough and there are no easy answers, but I still have to make a decision anyway. When I lose sight of my “why,” work, and life, become burdens. When I’m clear about my “why,” I know every day I’m doing exactly what I was meant to do.

Many of us arrive in nonprofit leadership because we don’t have any life balance. We spend our time choosing our community, or our work, or our cause, or our fill-in-the-blank over and over again, often at risk to our families, our health, and ourselves. We suppress our own needs for the greater good and we feel guilty when we take care of ourselves. In fact, one of the first conversations our 2022 cohort had was why we “had” to focus on self-care. Many of us thought that felt enormously self-indulgent when there is so much work to be done, so much need in our communities. Our facilitator at the time asked a very important, if crass question. He asked who would take on our work if we died because we hadn’t taken care of ourselves. I realized then that there is also a certain self-indulgence in thinking one should be so above self-care.

In many of our posts, you’ll see my cohort and I write a lot about learning to accept that self-care, taking care of our health, our lives, and our own families is not self-indulgent, but self-nourishing and soul-nourishing activity that actually better propels our work in our communities, that helps us better show up in helpful ways and sustains each of us for the long haul. These are things that are not new concepts. These are things I’ve spent my life preaching and not following – not because I did not value them, but because I did not think I was worthy. My worthiness as a leader, after all, and especially as a Hmong female leader, was in how much I could give to others. The congruency I prided myself on applied to every aspect of my life except for taking care of myself.

In the past two years, I have finally come to embrace my full self as a leader, including the worthiness part that I was afraid to admit. I now understand how deeply flawed my thinking was that the only thing I had to contribute as a leader was to keep giving, and to keep expecting others to keep giving. I now know deeply and practice the art and science of self-care, of self-compassion, of being able to value myself and my family while also valuing “the work,” and the community. I’m not sure at what point I decided I had to choose one or the other and darn it if I hadn’t chosen the community every single time. I can admit that now, because I will never go back to doing that. I can choose both, and I have found ways to choose both that doesn’t sacrifice my integrity as a leader or as a mom, a daughter, a wife, a sister, an auntie. I’ve lost weight. I sleep now. I see my doctor regularly (and by the way, she can’t believe how well I am!). I attended every one of my daughter’s volleyball games last year. I’m going on college visits with my son soon. My husband and I take walks every night. I call my mom daily. Before my dad passed away, he and I talked a lot and he became one of my best friends. I get more meaningful work done, and I do it better. My unit is experiencing incredible growth, grounded in what our community needs. I continue to meet new people daily who are on similar journeys, and they are becoming my people. I’m helping move legislation. I’m changing long-standing unhealthy policies, practices, and culture at work. My soul finally feels full and I got here by understanding and deciding to also choose me.