Shattered

This post contains content that may be sensitive to some readers. Please be aware of your mental health and your own triggers before reading, and know you are not alone in your mental health battle.

The first time I ever really felt shattered to pieces as a woman and as a person I was 25 years old.

As a survivor of domestic and sexual violence I had learned at a very early age to numb myself quickly and wholly. While life had it’s traumatic experiences, I had never fully shattered until I was 25 years old on the floor of my apartment with a gun in my hands. I was ready to take my life and it was the darkest night of my life.

I made it through that night and packed my entire home into a storage unit in six days. With what could fit in my car I drove 12 hours to be with my sister as the most shattered version of myself.

The process of becoming whole again was the fight of my life. Some shattered pieces were lost on that 12 hour drive. Others didn’t fit back into place no matter how much I cried. I spent tens of thousands of dollars on an angel we call a therapist (I adore you Dr. B; thank you for saving my life over and over again) and battled a depression I never knew I could face.

Keeping my career was horrifying. I fought to be present, stay in the ring, keep my mental health managed as I sat in the board room and in meetings. I knew I could lose everything I had worked so hard for because I was so shattered and could barely breathe. The year and a half following that shattered night on the floor of my apartment was a war I still tear up writing about.

Today, after a shattering like that, I look in the mirror of the person that’s been put back together and have never seen a more - radiant, strong, loving, brilliant, innovative, inclusive, problem-solving, boundary-holding, warrior.

Shatterings will do that to you…and to systems.

A shattering happened in the United States on November 7, 2020. A non-white woman was elected the Vice President of the United States.

Since the moment it was announced women around the world have been picking up the pieces of glass that have been left behind from Madam Vice President Kamala Harris shattering the all white male glass ceiling.

And what we will see in the wake of that shattering is a more radiant, strong, brilliant, innovative, inclusive, problem-solving, boundary-holding, warrior nation.

The time between shattering and that look-in-the-mirror-and-see-something-you’re-proud-of moment can be dark.

Humanity struggles most with the in-between. We are obsessed with the final product, the IPO company, the top sales rep, the CPO, the biggest brand. We loathe the friction of metamorphosis, the pieces of our greatest processes crunching under our boots, the electrifying smoke of “what’s next” that falls once the norms are eradicated.

America is standing in that electrifying smoke now; your employees are standing in that smoke now.

And I say to you, Human Resources professional, find more glass to shatter.

This is not the moment to quote change management gurus about slow change. This is not the moment to hang on the excuse that we are change fatigued. It is the moment to pick up the biggest hammer you can find and break every fucking glass ceiling you can reach.

It is the moment to look at a non-white woman in the White House and set your sites as high as she did.

That HRIS system that’s out of budget but exactly what you need, write the proposal for it.

Non-gendered bathrooms to be installed before people return to work? Make it happen.

They/them pronouns in the employee handbook? Done.

A black employee experience focus group? Launch it.

A pay equity report by gender and ethnicity? Make it public.

For the love of God do not miss this, HR warrior. Pick up your hammer, breathe in the electrifying smoke, and shatter the norms of Corporate America.

Lean into the idea that for the next four years the world will live in the in-between they loathe, and that allows strategic partners to use this time to make legitimate change, forever change.

Change that makes us look in the mirror after and say…we are more radiant, strong, brilliant, innovative, inclusive, problem-solving, boundary-holding, warrior nation.

Run.