I'm Lindsay , and it's time to gather at the well . We're on a mission to microdose wellness , create human-centered systems and retain our greatest asset our people . We believe it's time for podcasts that teach , moving beyond thought leadership and towards change leadership . Join us and our friends at we Are For Good as we model the way with concrete examples from the field and gain tangible tools , because it's possible to build adult work cultures . We don't need to heal from . Let's get into it .
Speaker 1Welcome back to a special episode of Gather at the Well hosted by our partners at we Are for Good . This episode is titled when Hate Calls , and I want to give your nervous system a little bit of a heads up that the content , while definitely could evoke some discomfort , some pain , some wounds , there are also some learnings that I'm hoping to share with you all , some healing and some critical hope . So I thought we had until January , but it turns out we don't . If you've been gathering at the well along the past few months , you know that we've wrapped our five-part series and even recorded the sixth recap episode , and just a day or so later I got a harassing call . Just a day or so later , I got a harassing call and I've chosen to come to the podcast community because I could have kept it a secret , I could have let my fear and anxiety dictate my behaviors , but instead I want to leave some of the baggage at the door . I want to complete this experience through my nervous system and I want to move on with clarity , with continuing improvement and growth , and just lighter . That's my truth , and so I'm coming to share this with you all with a tender heart . I hope you hear me . I'm living in that complexity of leading an organization and yet through this very deeply personal episode , I'm going to take my hat off just a little . I can never fully take it off as the executive director of this nonprofit , but in a crisis there are no frills , there's no masking , it's just your raw identity and truth .
Speaker 1So here goes and activation warning you can skip ahead about 30 seconds to miss the violent message that could trigger your nervous system . So picture this I'm seated at my desk coaching a superintendent . It's Friday morning at about 943 . And I receive a number I don't know . Now , if you really know me , you would know that anytime I get a number I don't know , I answer it . Want to know why , just in case it's Mackenzie Scott , what do you mean ? Why any other ED answers their phone , but this time I didn't , because clients first .
Speaker 1So I saw I had a voicemail and at about 10 am , just 15 minutes later , I took a moment to listen . Here's what it said in a mocking voice yeah , I'm calling to get a affinity group . The one I want for my college is whites only and straights only . You , effing racist , effing , kill yourself . That's a lot . The trolls are going to troll , but to be contacted on my personal device in the safety of my home on a work morning was a lot .
Speaker 1It felt like a violation for many reasons and I wanted to say friend , fridays are sacred . We love a great Friday , a chill Friday , just let me be . And as a trauma survivor , I have a toolkit . So I'd love to take us through the process that I used , and , to be honest , I had to do this several times across the day .
Speaker 1But , as you know , I love to tone my vagus nerve . I love vagal toning exercises of all sorts , and so I followed the sequence I splashed my face with cold water , I swayed and I focused on five audible out breaths . If you want to pause here and actually try the sequence , including the cold splash . I welcome it , but for the sake of this moment , I'm going to invite us just to do the second and third step that I've offered . So you might just ground your feet , you might adjust your spine , getting comfortable in your seat . You might adjust your spine , getting comfortable in your seat . You might just rock from side to side , front and back . You might make little circles with your body , find the sway that feels most nourishing to you . For me , it's just rocking side to side and I'm going to do five audible out breaths , starting in the nose and out the mouth , each time allowing my chest and belly to rise with power and with intention .
Speaker 1That was a lot . It's a lot , even telling you all here in this way , and yet I feel balanced , I feel clarity and in my certainty , because I've done the work to process this incident . It's something that happened . It's not happening to me in this moment , and being able to delay or put space in between an activating event and our response is critical . So this thing happens . How do you cope ? I started to think about how I would title what I did , and I'm going to call it a CRC , a continuous replenishment cycle that entire 24 hours , the first day that this event occurred , that entire 24 hours the first day that this event occurred . I worked through this cycle and if you come to our blog , we're going to create a visual for you that you can share with your teams , your clients , anyone in the world who might face these types of incidences , because this is not the first time and it will not be the last , not for me and not for organizations and leaders across this country .
Speaker 1The CRC starts with attending to your basic needs . So , in the face of a crisis , you need to make sure that if you are hungry , if you haven't drank any water , if you need to use the restroom , if you feel physically unsafe , you need to attend to your basic needs . The second step is to engage in somatics to try and get your frontal lobe back online , to access your reason and your brilliance , the leadership skills , your training , perhaps . Then it's doing the work there's going to be follow-up after any major crisis event and finally , it's activating community support , appropriate community support and I'm about to talk about how you would discern and identify that and that is kind of on replay y'all Tending to your basic needs , engaging in somatic work , handling business , seeking communal support . So before we move into a little bit of the discernment building , I want to just invite in a second somatic . In case you're still feeling tense from the heavy share I made , let's do a little compression session to do this . You might just reach around you as if you're giving yourself a hug , taking each hand and caressing or coddling even a little coddle , squeezing a self-hug if you will , just taking a moment and again noisy out breath , dropping your shoulders , let's talk about it .
So one of the biggest lessons that I learned and was reminded of was that it's really critical to protect yourself from others' reactions . You need boundaries within support , especially as a verbal processor . It can interrupt your clarity seeking You're working so hard to emote , to express , to work through what happened but also what steps you need to take . And as a verbal processor after a crisis , it's probably not the best thing if you are accessing someone who is interrupting a whole ton in that moment . Right , we want to be in dialogue , don't get me wrong . You don't want to just like talk to yourself . Unless that works for you , then you know , bless it . But for me , as a verbal processor after a crisis , I really need to work through and feel someone's warmth and energy and have them ask important questions , but not at a cadence that is disruptive to my best thinking .
Speaker 1Yeah , I'm making a case for people who are also skilled at self-regulating , because what I found is that , understandably , an incident like this activated fear and stress and anxiety and anger in pretty much everybody I talked to . I could go to my team and I'm not talking about calling a whole staff meeting to share immediately what happened . If you think back to episode four , I am reminding us of the me we world . So after I did the continuous replenishment cycle , after I went through that somatic progression , I naturally had a meeting with my supervisory team , the team of supervisors at the teaching . Well , they are all skilled at self-regulation , at co-regulation , at emotional resilience and community care . The folks you go to to work through this incident need self-awareness and they need self-management if we're talking about socio-emotional competencies , because here are the people you'll meet in .
Speaker 1Reactivity and fear is the thread . Everybody is entitled to respond , but you might not get what you need . As the person who experienced this crisis event , you might meet someone that goes immediately into protective mode , an aggressively loving reaction . If I were to map that to a trauma response , it might be that fight energy . You might meet someone who co-ops the moment Now . They need you to soothe them because they're scared for you , for themselves , for the world . I might map that to flight . They want to run towards you for support , even though you're the one that just encountered this event . You might meet someone that does nothing . They might not even respond . That's terrible , this is too heavy , let's not talk about it . Right ? They might freeze in that moment and just not be able to meet you in your pain . They also might start to replay kind of their inner stories or anxieties and it could sound like well , if you respond with this , then you'll which can land as invalidating or gaslighting or catastrophizing , right . And you might also meet that fourth trauma response the fawn someone that does everything . I'm coming over to your house right now to clean . Okay , I'm calling everyone and we're going to have a neighborhood watch meeting . I'm like wait a minute , hold on , friend , can I get through this day ?
Speaker 1I've realized that I have a very high crisis tolerance . I have a high capacity and resilience in the face of a crisis or emergency , and a big part of that is that I spent almost a decade in crisis response roles , both as a turnaround school administrator , as a district leader who was getting the phone calls when there was an emergency for 5,000 children , and now at the teaching well , when people call us when things are hard in their schools or their nonprofits or their companies . But not everyone has that crisis tolerance . My truth is that most folks in my personal life who love me so deeply showed up in reactivity , with lots of care , with lots of care . So who I could go to to most effectively process was actually the leadership team of the teaching well , who I knew could manage their needs , practice that self-care , but also practice community care , and they gave me permission to not work and they gave me permission to co-regulate and they loved on me too . But they believed me when I said I want to keep working . Today . They believed me when I said I just need thought partnership on X or Y and that's important . Let's do another noisy out breath here , deep inhale . So you got to know your people in that first 24 to 48 hours after a crisis . You've got to know who you can go to that can support you showing up in your power . And so what's here ?
Speaker 1I have been talking to executive directors . I've been talking to board members , I've been talking to superintendents about this incident , and the truth is the vast majority of folks that I have connected with have no plan , and so a part of the blessing of this challenge is that it has really propelled our organization to externalize a crisis plan across three lines , and again , come visit us at theteachingwellorg forward slash blog to see a little bit more details about this plan , but at a high level . There are three components what are we going to do to prevent right those prevention steps , what are the intervention moves that we're going to emphasize and what are the postvention elements that we want to ensure our team has access to ? This has required us to codify some new policies . So , for example , in the prevention , we have now created a phone policy , as many small organizations do . Many teammates in my organization have their personal phone number in their email signatures , because we want our clients to be able to access us at all times , so we are now providing the option for high visibility roles like mine to have a second phone paid for by the org if that is something that we so choose . We're also willing to pay for Google numbers for any teammate , and we gave direct instruction to the team to remove their personal numbers from their email threads any other identifiable information right as intervention . We are creating the plan to inform our team , to immediately notify org and board leadership , so in this case it would actually be them letting me know and then I would take it to our board chair and vice chair , both of whom I talked to that day . Intervention also includes notifying the authorities .
Speaker 1After this incident , both a police report was taken and filed , as well as the FBI tip line . We don't play with hate crimes . We don't play with threatening messages . You take all threats seriously . That's my training . You take them seriously , you document them all , and so both the police and the FBI have all of the information for this individual .
Speaker 1But if your organization doesn't have a wellness stipend , you might , in the postvention , want to consider a one-time wellness stipend to help your team re-resource it . So I didn't have to worry about dinner , that I could get a delicious , nourishing meal at the end of what had been an intense experience . There's so many ways that folks showed up for me across the community and I'm grateful . Postvention should not be overlooked after a crisis . It's a part of where the healing lives . So this is a shorter episode and thanks for allowing me to process with you all in community , to be in dialogue , to share some of my reflections and , in true gather , at the well fashion , I'd love to offer you a couple of affirmations . I am safe , I am supported , I am resourced , I can heal .
Speaker 2And if you're a person of faith , no weapon formed against me shall prosper . It won't work .
Speaker 1Right , so do you . I had to access my Fred Hammond because that's my business and that's what works for me . Some homework for you , that's really , really important . Do this at baseline . What I mean by that is don't wait until a crisis comes to you . Do this at baseline . What I mean by that is don't wait until a crisis comes to you . Do it now , when you are hopefully calm in a safe place . But there's three parts of homework . I never give this much , but teacher Lindsay's here , because I care about you and I want you to feel safe and prepared . Not because I want you to feel anxious and bracing , but because I want you to feel safe and prepared .
Speaker 1The first bit of homework write down one to three names of people in your life who you can access in a crisis moment with the same or more regulatory capacity . Second , write down your CRC , your continuous replenishment cycle . You know yourself . You've been through stressful moments . Is it hydration ? Do you just bypass the bathroom ? What do you need to do ? Write it down . I'm going to drink a cup of water . The somatic practice that I know works best for me is blank . You can leave the do the work open because you don't know what it's going to be . Yet and then again , those one to three people would be your community activation . And finally , especially you , org leaders , begin designing your plan . Keep yourself and your people safe , fortify your organization right .
Speaker 1So , as we begin our downward descent , I want to share just a couple closing thoughts . First , a huge reflection and moment of gratitude that I have is that I have what's called a corrective experience with the police . At first , when I knew I needed to make the police report , I felt my somatic state tighten . I haven't always had positive or safe experiences with the police and having them come to my home to do a report , I was cautious and , if I'm being honest , a little worried , especially about scaring my children or exposing my husband right , who's a black male to a potential risk . So I was like I'm going to go out on the porch and I'm going to make this whole right . And I was met with two phenomenal Oakland PD officers . They were caring , they asked thoughtful questions . They also named the confusion like wait , what ? So they just want a white affinity group ? I was like well , you know , the irony is we have those . We do offer white healing spaces . They're like it's weird that you're being called a racist . When this is racist , I was like , yeah , well , that's the way the world works . But I just had a really powerfully supportive experience with the police and I'm so grateful for that .
Speaker 1The other thing that I'm really thinking about is just how heavy the burden of rage is , and I know because I used to carry it myself . So when I think about the people across this country that are so filled with hate and rage , it's my deep prayer that they're just able to set that down . It's my deep prayer that they're just able to set that down . As a woman of faith , I have prayed for this man every day since this event . My task is to be love , and I will so to close with a critical hope .
Speaker 1I know it's so easy to go on this pendulum swing , either being reactive or inactive , right Like being defensive and angry and being ready to take up arms , or that inactivity . Let me just wait until home . I can just push this off a couple more weeks . I'll deal with this at the next break . My invitation for all of us is to slow the swing , do the work to get in your body , in your brain , and to stay in your values and then get ready to take action . That way , you're responding and not reacting .
Speaker 1Here's what I know , y'all .
Speaker 1I will not be deterred from good trouble . I will not be deterred from good trouble . I can't bend to the will or fear or protection of my brain .
I was called to create bridges and community and to love across difference , and I have to surrender and see it through . I know what my purpose is and I'm on the right path . And if that's true for you too , then take the moment to heal , to process and then get back to work . That's what I'm doing and I feel complete and whole .
Speaker 1I'm grateful to all of you , if you've listened to this , for witnessing me . I'm praying for covering over all of us and , most importantly , I know what's possible when we all link up in solidarity and heal this country , and I have endless critical hope about that . So come back and gather at the well with us . Thanks for being a community . Have a beautiful day , all right , y'all . Thanks for coming to play at gather at the well , the podcast that teaches . If you like this conversation , come visit us online at teachingwellorg and hit us up on our socials . Remember to visit the podcast page to download a couple of useful tools to get your life and heal up your work .