What happened to the goofy kid in that picture?! Once upon a time, if I had my car, my girlfriend, a flannel shirt, and the open road… I thought I was doing pretty darn well. And I was right! There is such an immense amount of privilege that comes with those experiences. I had the freedom that comes with having your own car and enough financial support to pay for gas to get to the park or to pay for the deposit on a new apartment in the next state over. I had family that was complicated (and really who’s isn’t when you’re a teenager!), but they all loved me, supported me, and encouraged my adventures. I had a relationship that was full of love and free of abuse. I wasn’t terrified of being abandoned or of incurring my partners rage from out of nowhere. I travelled the roads of the west coast states freely, without getting harassed or racially profiled. I didn’t know what it would be like to get pulled over just for being in my skin, or how scary it would be to fear for your safety just walking into a restaurant or gas station. I was privileged and mostly blissfully unware of it.

I say mostly unaware because I could see the cracks in our culture and social norms. I didn’t have the education or understanding or experience to know how to talk about it or what to do about it, but the cracks were obvious. I wasn’t a practicing Jew, but I definitely looked Jewish, especially compared to most of the folks in Oregon in the 1990s. I could see how most people (teenagers and adults) were more interested in the stereotypes they could attach to somebody than anything about who they actually are or what their own experiences are. Everybody loved jokes about people’s race, gender, religion, body shape, perceived sexual orientation, etc. Anything to make fun of everyone that wasn’t white, male, cisgender, heterosexual, Christian, and generally liked sports, guns, and objectifying women. I remember lots of threatening stares from guys in trucks with gun racks. I would hear comments that suggested something about me was funny when the word ‘kike’ was involved or there was a reference to money. I had many close female friends and learned about how frequently men would try to coerce them into having sex and insult or demean them if they resisted. When the coercion escalated to rape, the amount of shame and humiliation they felt was so intense that most of the time they were unable to report it, fearing the reaction of their own parents, the rapist’s parents, teachers, school administrators, police officers, etc.

My empathic imagination was growing. I was seeing and feeling the world through the eyes of my friends and my coworkers. I was noticing the patterns of how people do things together. What they talk about. What’s valuable and important. What’s not valued and gets ridiculed. Who’s included and who’s excluded. What the rules are for participation. What the punishments are for breaking the rules. I’m glad I lived in different places growing up. It made it more and more obvious that the social norms and expectations were, essentially, made up. They were not ‘real’ or ‘scientific’ and usually they didn’t work for most people. They actually hurt most people. Why did we continue to go along with it? Why didn’t we rebel and just embrace each other with love and appreciation? My years working in corporate technology were a clue on the way to answering that question… Power. Money. Reputation. Exclusivity. Control. This was a turning point for me. This was what I wanted to focus on. I wanted to dive into the complexity of psycho-social experience and change these patterns. Little did I know at the time that what I was really heading towards was culture change.

It’s no easy task to shift culture in any direction, must less in a direction that would cause people to lose some of their exclusive hold on power and resources. I spent years in school, first community college and then university and finally a graduate degree. All the while refining my understanding of humanity, culture, and how I would have the positive impact I was now feeling more and more committed to. Around the time I found The Relational Center something was starting to click. It was going to require a multi-pronged strategy to make the world a place where people value and practice empathy, where our differences are appreciated instead of mocked, and where everyone’s leadership is meaningful. We would need politicians capable of fighting for a government that upholds these values. We would need activists consistently protesting and bringing larger public attention and pressure to the struggles of so many people. We would need businesses and community organizations that work differently, purposefully disrupting the current patterns and practicing new ways of getting things done that are more collaborative and inclusive. And, we would need caregivers that bring these values into their work and model what it means to be human, what it means to be in relationships, and what it means to be part of a community.

I cannot emphasize enough how important The Relational Center has been to my personal and professional development. I’m not the person I was when I first came here. I understand how my values take shape in relationships and in my daily work. I see the amazing courage and leadership of everyone around me every day. I’m inspired, and exhausted, and happy, and sad, and all of this is an important part of being human. We are vulnerable. We need each other. And to keep doing what we are doing, The Relational Center needs you. We need your support to keep offering a politically relevant, socially just, culturally competent resource for healing the trauma felt by so many of us. We need your support to keep training mental health professionals to be advocates for community wellbeing and champions of empathy, diversity, and interdependence.

Thank you.

Every year we host a year-end appeal that offers our supporters one last opportunity to make a tax-deductible donation to The Relational Center before the end of the calendar year. Our goal for the 2018 year-end appeal is $30,000. These funds are critical for sustaining The Relational Center's community. With your support, we can continue to integrate individual healing and systemic cultural change through affordable comprehensive mental health services to low-income and marginalized folks. Help us build stronger, more empathic communities that can change the world!