Endnote Reflections from the Field

This is part of a reflection I wrote in September of this year as I returned to finish up the last bits of my Masters in Design in Inclusive Design.

“This return to class is scary. There I named that emotion. The niggling feeling at the back of my neck as I sat at my computer trying to get Zoom to allow me into class for the first night. There I was, showing up, nudging, poking, prodding. Believing I deserve to be able to be in that room too. But what of my privilege for having the confidence, power and position to know my worth and question academia for their steps and process? What about all the others who slip through the cracks, that turn away and give up?

I’m seriously at almost zero spoons this time of day, every day. Learning to make clearings, and to allow others in to know where you are and the amount of energy you are serving us is something I learned to try to do. I think this wouldn’t work in all spaces, but in a space trying to foster this type of community, I think it was rather successful in moments. 

As someone who works from home full time, all the time you do not turn off. That space of disconnection is so critical. I started forcing a new routine and would go to my farm and sit in the flowers, weed and read…I even took a nap. But I would set an alarm and treat it like I was catching the bus. Otherwise, I’d probably work from 6AM to midnight.

Braver spaces. That is something that’s stuck with me too. No matter our intentions, they are not shared because our lived experiences differ so much—the problem with desiring homogeneity as the only thing with true purpose. Power structures reinforced. Questioned. That reflection is dangerous itself. Because it is unwilling to unpack, learn, relearn, shift, guide or expand beyond the tightly held views that breed “white safety”. I consider this a prototype to refine what I capture as growth opportunities throughout the next 12 weeks. I promise to be honest with myself and others and show up with what I have at any given moment to this small community. I will attempt to ask for what I need and raise questions when needs go unmet. This is a commitment to myself and to others.

Finding grace, giving space. I recognize that I am a career professional and my positionality in the space the program is covering does not mirror or match other students. I have been reflecting on the amount of space I’m taking in conversation and am hoping to instead shine a light on others and take up less room. I find that my boundaries are often wonderful protectors. It took me decades to realize that rest was worthy. I will keep exploring.

— signed the girl who struggles to cross the finish line but carries heavy weight.

Note to self: There are moments of gratitude to be found in the mundane. Not everything needs to be extraordinary.”

Where I ended the semester

This past semester I took a class for my MDes in Inclusive Design called The Difference. One of the things that we did in this class was to create a baseline for our potential learning journey. 

• Where we were where we wanted to go? 
• How we might get there? 
• What we think measurement could look like? 
• What support structures we might need to enable that effort?
• What was the purpose of these goals?

It was in some ways a little gut-punchy to get people to think differently, to open up to explore with curiosity, to be willing to notice, pause and disrupt something around them. To take that space of reflection and grow from it in ways that both brought others in, but also put ourselves out there. Disruption honestly has some ground rules from my perspective, care should be centred, safety ever-present and the creation of possible braver spaces is expected to even get off the ground, let alone thrive.

This class did that and so much more. Out of all the other classes I've ever taken in my educational history the capacity to learn a way to slow down and reflect at a cadence that was impactful is the biggest learning I could have achieved. It is crucial to how I'm planning to nurture my craft, grow myself, spark learning build on my own energy into 2024. Don't get me wrong, I've done other things and will continue to do them like my quarterly satisfaction check-ins, gratitude exercises and an overall craft that's focused on care, nurturing, questioning, unlearning, unpacking and relearning new ways of both doing and being. Yet somehow this feels like a new tool that adds dimension and depth to my own capacity. I have already built space around it and the ability to pause and give myself and others both grace and a cooldown time has been life-changing. Sometimes things just flow out of me. 

And I get it, you might say: 

“Julianna, you are just journaling, there’s nothing revolutionary about that.” 

But it isn’t the art of doing it that’s different, it’s the process and place my brain and heart are in when I am doing it. It’s both emergent and grounded, it’s multi-modal, and in some ways felt reciprocal. It added this dimension of accountability that I’ve struggled with my whole career. I set a goal, I do it for a while and it falls by the wayside. But this one, it seems to have taken root and developed deep roots into the earth and fibers of how I practice both inclusive design and equity work.

Burnout has been a real problem in my career, even when I attempt to set strong boundaries. This reflective practice growth has enabled me to really lock in on these areas as places to build energy, and in turn provide a healthier me for myself, my family and my place of work. I'm very mindful now of how to spot burnout as it arises, but that wasn’t always the case. sometimes in the middle of burnout, people might not be able to recognize it. That was me at least twice. 

I set strong boundaries for myself this year

• Deep focus Mondays
• No meetings after 6pm EST
• Quarterly think week
• Weekly planning, reflection and gratitude exercises
• Quarterly satisfaction check-in
• Continue to build a practice of pause, notice and reflection
• Continue to develop a practice space for honouring self-expression
• Amplify others, actively give attribution and recognize contributions (as frequently as possible)

For 2024 I'm adding a few things

• Morning exercise, even if it's just a quick stroll to detach from my desk and get some fresh air
• Prioritizing disconnecting during my PTO / vacation
• Planning a personal writing retreat (reward)
• Giving myself more grace, and working towards a space of less self-doubt

It's hard, the routine doesn't work for everyone, but I needed to see how my sleep cadence was affected, my mood, if I was remembering to eat, how it was all balancing with my family life, etc. Burnout can have a high cost. The daily garden walks this summer and fall made getting away from my desk such a lovely distraction, and it made me feel so much better. So those are the things I will build upon as a new year starts.

Our current world is overcome by conflict, pain, harm and dehumanization at such a global scale sometimes I feel like perhaps I cannot breathe through it all. Yet I’m finding myself embracing reflective practice through reciprocity and pause. I hope to see a ripple effect from fostering a healthier me that will enable me to positively influence even a tiny space in this world. Each of us is connected in ways that we do not realize, but we also must be able to hold ourselves up. 

I find myself wanting to seek out a community of practice so often because I feel isolated as a ship sailing in my own lane covering a pillar of work that might intersect with others but is often left on its own and I found that both in the public and private sectors. 

How do I as a practitioner of inclusive design as someone who explores with curiosity, equitable innovation and applied ethical practices, shift paradigms and mindsets and help build a community-led future while I hold a role in a technology sector? 

I live right now at the intersection of emerging technology, generative art and the potential harms that come from biased and stereotypical human representation. What of those within the creative economy? Or the loss of liberty and identity losses? I question where I can have a different sort of impact. Throughout the course, I've talked about wanting to participate in education, the development and growth of other people, and helping folks build the reflexes around their practice whether it's through reflexivity or reciprocity. Where do I go from here? Is there a program that's a way to broaden my horizons to dig deeper to build more credibility in the space? Organically I have built a large community I've done hundreds and hundreds of office hours both with the private sector in the public sector as well as those in academia but I wish in some cases I was closer to the root. 

I am still trying to work through finding space to give myself grace and the space to give others grace. I've adopted practices learned in the other class this semester in my work. I was caught a little off guard when that happened because I have been more dismissive than maybe I would like at least in the first half of the semester. Yet in the last class, I felt engaged as we finally shared information on the decolonization of qualitative practices or the questioning that maybe even in our attempts to be inclusive in practice with qualitative research we've just formed another variation of colonialism. and while I wish we had done that earlier and dug into some of the meat in the class that I found interesting I am glad to have access to these resources and that we got to explore them more and I am ending this semester on a high note.

🌱🌻💐 

“We cultivated seeds, we nurtured that growth together, and we are seeing the fruit of our harvest, in the depth of our conversations, experiences and asks for the future.”

— signed gal who is holding their own, and building in the clearings and pauses necessary to balance self-regulation.

Note to self: Giving grace does not have to be a stretch. It can be part of our day-to-day. Keep leaning into that.