These Times, Your Career and Reclaiming Inner-Authority

How are you feeling right now?

Are you using your quiet wisdom to get centered?

Are you using your fierce power to call for change?

Good!

Are you also feeling despair and hopelessness?

I am with you. According to payscale.com. women still make 81 cents on the $1, black women sit at 61 cents on the $1 and this adds up to $900,000 in lost wages over a woman’s lifetime! BIPOC are still being held back, brutalized and murdered by racist policies around police and the prison system, healthcare, economics, politics and education. I cannot even begin to calculate that.

What Can One Person Do?

I was listening to a webinar recently and the host talked about how, when large cruise liners want to make a turn, they do not just simply engage their giant rudders, there is too much water pressure so, instead, they use the “trim tabs” on the large rudders to allow them to distribute the water so that the turn can be made without mishap.

When I look at the level of change required to get us to an antiracist society, I realize it feels like trying to turn a huge cruise ship by its rudders and the challenge seems almost insurmountable.

Yet, by using the idea of a trim tab, we can change the direction of this large ship of inequity.

One trim tab we all have is using the voice of our inner-authority to challenge outer-authority in order to affect change.

Checking-in with Inner-Authority

Your inner-authority is that quiet voice inside you that knows what is right for you. It knows when things are working and when things are off. Your head voice tells you to feel afraid, to stay quiet, to live small. Your inner-authority knows better. It knows where your power is needed. It knows the next right step for you. It knows the ways you can use your career to create an anti-racist society.

Get quiet and ask your inner-authority, an expert on equality and justice by the way, what you can do right now in order to create more alignment between your beliefs, your career and your current employer. Then listen and start journaling. What did your inner-authority have to say? Is your current career and company aligned with your own personal beliefs around anti-racism? Is there something you can do now to right the ship?

Some Other Q’s to Ask Your Inner-authority

Should I start/join an employee resource group that is working towards ending inequality?
Am I ready to organize a peaceful protest with my work colleagues?
Which social justice organizations should I donate to?
How can I get more educated on the black circumstance?
How can I best question outer-authority right now?
What do you think about creating a code of conduct with and for the marginalized?
How can I challenge my comfort zone right now in terms of the anti-racist movement?
Would there be value if I shared my story?
Is it time to ask my company to do a matching donation to causes in support of anti-racism?
Is it time to quit my current job? Is alignment not possible under current circumstances?
What is my next, right step?

Keep checking in with your inner-authority and then using what you hear to stay aligned. If you are not aligned, then challenge outer-authority and yourself to get this ship righted.