The Creating Belonging Podcast
In the book, Creating Belonging: A Practical Guide to Accelerate Belonging in Organizations and Communities, Justin Reinert describes a model where belonging sits at the intersection of authenticity and acceptance. In The Creating Belonging Podcast, host Justin Reinert will continue the conversation of creating belonging by discussing others' experiences when they've been at various levels of authenticity and acceptance in their communities. Our goal with this podcast will be to help others find new paths to belonging in their communities.
The Creating Belonging Podcast
Societal Expectations | Part 1
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What happens when you combine an honest conversation about identity, belonging, and society's expectations with a dash of personal experience? You get an insightful and thought-provoking episode featuring my long-time friend, Dr. Britt Andreata, CEO of Brain Aware Training and author of books on the brain science of success. As a white woman, married for twenty years, and bisexual, Britt joins me in discussing the Creating Belonging Model and her eye-opening experiences with race and societal expectations.
Together, we delve into the minimizing experiences of women in a predominantly male world and how society often teaches women to expect sexism. From sharing our personal stories of dealing with issues like childhood molestation to examining the science behind power and harassment, this episode is packed with raw and genuine conversation. We also explore the privilege of straight men and the expectations placed on women to attract a partner. Join us as we discuss the contextual nature of belonging and the work needed to dismantle oppressive structures that inhibit a truly inclusive world. Don't miss out on this engaging discussion that will leave you reflecting on your own experiences and the journey towards a more inclusive society.
Check out Carell Augustus' book, Black Hollywood: Reimagining Iconic Movie Moments. https://amzn.to/46crV66
You can access a free chapter of Britt's new book, Wired to Become, here: https://www.brittandreatta.com/books/wired-to-become/
Find Britt on LinkedIn
You can order your copy of Creating Belonging on Amazon.
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Hello, welcome to another episode of the Creating Belonging podcast. Today, my guest, Dr. Britt Andreatta, is used to having people introduce her for her because she's that big, but today I'm going to make Britt introduce herself. So, Britt, if you wouldn't mind sharing a little bit about yourself?
Britt Andreatta:I love that, Justin. My name is Britt Andreatta, I'm the CEO of Brain Aware Training and I write books on the brain science of success. So I kind of synthesize research from the world of neuroscience and biology and all the other sciences along with big, big data on business issues coming from, you know, global giants like McKenzie and Gallup and all of them, and then I really turn it into practical takeaways for learning practitioners in particular, and then those of us who have jobs how to make worth the world of work a little bit more enjoyable and more productive for all of us. So that's kind of my professional side.
Britt Andreatta:Personally, I'm a mom of a teenager, so that's going really well with driving and snarkiness and all that fun stuff. I am married to my husband of 20 years and, but I identify as bisexual just for the listening audience and I'm also a cat owner, so I'm oftentimes chasing lizards and gophers out of my house that have been brought in as gifts. Luckily, my kitties like to bring them to me live. My favorite one was a snake. So yeah, that's all good.
Justin Reinert:Okay, Brett, seriously, you just blew my mind for a second. I've known you for eight years. We've become like better friends over time, and you have never disclosed to me your identity as bisexual.
Britt Andreatta:Well, I mean, it's out there in the world. I've been public about it, so maybe you just didn't read the right thing.
Justin Reinert:Apparently well. Thank you for sharing that.
Britt Andreatta:Well, it's interesting too. I mean, you know, as someone who's been married and in a committed relationship for 20 years, I'm not exactly like out on the dating scene or going to clubs and saying who am I attracted to? That, you know that part of my life has kind of settled but I still very much identify as bisexual and that's part of my identity. But you probably don't see me actively engaged with that exploration anymore.
Justin Reinert:Yeah, no, that makes sense, Thank you. Thank you for sharing that. What other you know, as people are getting used to with this podcast, we usually have our guests dig into some of their identities. What other identities would you like to pull out for our conversation today?
Britt Andreatta:Yes, so for the listening audience, I am a white woman and I have an Irish background, so I'm as white as white can be. I kind of glow a little bit blue in the sun. I burn, don't tan. I'm a first generation person. My parents didn't complete college, but I have a PhD. I grew up very low income but I'm doing okay now. I also am the child of a mom, a single mom with mental illness, and so have grown up in some abusive environments and had to do a lot of therapy to work through that. I consider myself an anti-racist who still it's a lifelong journey to unlearn privilege and bias and the things that we were taught, but I consider myself a committed ally to all communities. What else? I think those are the big ones.
Justin Reinert:I get the unlearning thing is, it takes work. for sure, for sure.
Britt Andreatta:Yeah. I mean, as a mom, I've had so much of my internalized patriarchy and sexism really slap me in the face because a thought will pop in my head of something to say to my daughter and it just shocks me sometimes. Boys won't like it if you're to o this, or boys won't like it if you're too that and I don't speak it out loud, but it's just like, oh gosh, that tape is there.
Britt Andreatta:And the amount of things that I find myself thinking that I don't believe. So there's this whole internal tape of thoughts that have been installed that come to the surface and they're a little shocking sometimes. Then you're like wait, where did that come from? That is not who I am or what I believe, but a lot of stuff comes up. I'm seeing a lot of the internalized sexism right now as a mom of a teenage girl.
Justin Reinert:Well, as someone who does a lot of research in neuroscience and studying behavior, things like that, I think we'll definitely let's come back around to what you're finding in the research around that. Here's these things that I'm popping up that I want to say that I actually don't believe is an interesting thing to look at. But I want to get into the stuff that I love talking about digging into some of the personal experiences of our guests. And so I know you're familiar with the creating belonging model And I would love to hear if you could pick one area of the model that you have an experience that you could relate to and share that with us.
Britt Andreatta:Yeah, I mean the one that really stands out to me is overbearing, because as a white person I was very much raised with total blinders on around the impact of race and that my race meant something and that my experience of race was very different than other people's experience of race. So, this all kind of came to my attention in college and those blinders were ripped off very quickly and painfully, but I'm so grateful that they came off. And I remember to this moment the really shocking experience that I had that started my exploration, and it was when I was on a summer trip with a group of friends and there was like five or six of us all of us were white, except for Carell Augustus. He's a famous photographer, he wasn't famous then and we all went on a trip to Napa Valley, and we had been in a grocery store and realized one of the wineries we were going to we were all, I think we were seniors or graduate school, one of the wineries was closing. And so, we were all rushing to and so we many of us had gotten out in the car and Carell was coming out of the store And I was like Carell run, we're going to be late.
Britt Andreatta:And he just kept walking and we were like Carell, hurry, come on, run, Carell, run. And he just sauntered his way over and got in the car. And we were like, dude, we're going to be late, and he looked at us and he was like I am a black man, I will never run from a store. Do you understand what that could do to me? I could get killed for that. And we were all just gob smacked and shocked.
Britt Andreatta:And then he went on to explain you know how much he experiences racial profiling that even the act of running from a store could be enough of a trigger for a person or a police officer or something to assume guilt first. And it really was, it was really, God, it makes me sad just to hear think about it. I mean, I could hear the pain in his voice and that was when I realized that he lived in a very different world than I did.
Britt Andreatta:And so, after that, many of us really dug into the work and did some really intentional learning around privilege and bias and race, and of course that leads you to all the other isms too. And so, I think that's what's hard about these conversations is that, I know that people of color, people who are in marginalized communities live the pain of being the target all the time. There's also pain, and when you learn that the world that you thought you lived in doesn't exist and it's really hard to deal with that. Sometimes it's called white fragility, sometimes it's called white guilt, but I also think it's just the shock and horror of realizing that you've been not only lied to about what the world really is, but you've been participating in it in ways that you didn't know.
Justin Reinert:Mm. hmm, yeah, thank you for sharing that.
Britt Andreatta:There's overbearing for you. You made me cry in the first five minutes, Justin.
Justin Reinert:I know, look at me, I look at me, I'm the new Barbara Walters. I, you know the overbearing part of the model, I always I make a little joke about how the stories that I share about myself in the book are in belonging and the stories I share, especially in overbearing, are always of other people. But I know that I know so much of my life I've been in a place of overbearing. You know I talk a lot about growing up in rural Iowa and the extreme blinders that that puts on one.
Justin Reinert:And then and I can't remember if I've talked about this before, but then kind of you know going along my journey and then you know embracing my gay identity and holding onto my gay identity as like, oh well, I'm marginalized too. So, I'm just like everyone else who's marginalized, and I held that until, you know more recent than I would like to admit that I finally realized that, you know, while I have that part of my marginalized identity, like I have a lot of other privileged identities. And so, you know, the work of the book I think, got me into thinking about, wow, all the times that I've been an overbearing and all the things that I've done that have hurt other people without realizing it. So that overbearing one is interesting and it's I think it's powerful when we can find, when we've been there, because it's really hard, like I talk a lot about, we don't see ourselves as bad people and so when we look at things like you know being an overbearing, like well, gosh, I wouldn't, I would never do that to someone, but we do.
Britt Andreatta:Right. Yeah, and I think you know this intersectionality like we can, we can go through each type of identity. You know being married is a privilege, being middle aged is a privilege, and you lose that privilege when you're a child and you lose it again as you age. There's there, we all go in and out of privileged and targeted communities, but then of course, depending on your background, you could you could be overwhelmingly stacked in the in the privilege side, right? So, it's complex. I wanted to say that.
Britt Andreatta:So, Krillin and I have been lifelong friends and last year I had the privilege of going to his book signing. He just produced a book called Black Hollywood: Reimagining Iconic Movie Moments, where he took all these classic movie moments from Singin' in the Rain and King Kong and all of them and reimagined them with black actors, and I loved it. I loved seeing that representation, I loved seeing the beauty of his work. But of course, he got a lot of pushbacks, and I literally just went and saw The Little Mermaid last weekend, which is also having push back. It's amazing how much privilege literally colors people's views of what they think they're entitled to. I'm entitled to have my characters look the way I want them to look, and I want them to reflect me, and it's just, it's just. It's just interesting how, how much the discomfort of difference really freaks people out.
Justin Reinert:It's I mean, I think part of it is, is change, which I know you've researched the Neuroscience behind how we react to change, and so I think part of it is just that, and people feeling like they're losing something, which is unfortunate because you're not.
Britt Andreatta:Right, yeah, I mean a lot of our resistance to change of all kinds is that we first we first perceive change as potential danger. Our biology is wired that way and then we focus on all the things that could go wrong or that we could lose, again wired for our survival, and then over time we can start to embrace the new idea and get comfortable with it and get used to it. You know, that's just. That's true of all change. And then when race or sexual orientation or classes added to the mix, that can create that reaction. While normal can be very painful to other people and some people are so freaked out but their own reaction, they just want to stop the change. Whatever it is right, shut that change down. That change is too uncomfortable for me.
Justin Reinert:So, looking at the model, I love that you dove right in and shared an overbearing story, because it's not many people want to go there. But I'd love to hear when I talk to folks about the model, oftentimes I hear from women oh wow, I didn't realize I was in minimizing. This is actually. This is describing my experience that I didn't know was happening. I'm curious if you have any thoughts or experiences that you relate back to the minimizing area.
Britt Andreatta:Yeah, for sure. I mean definitely. As a woman, I have had to navigate a man's world and I was very much raised by a mother who instilled in me that we're constantly having to meet men's expectations. Please men, be attractive to men, make men happy, and so that's definitely there and I'm seeing it now as a parent and what pops up in my head. As a woman, I have definitely experienced sexism, active sexism. I have experienced levels of I was molested by a man in a grocery store as a child, in second grade. I have been on dates where I wasn't sure they would stop when I was saying no and realized that I didn't know how this was gonna turn out. So, it was interesting.
Britt Andreatta:I did a webinar during the Me Too movement, kind of explaining the science behind power and harassment, both from the harasser's biology as well as the victim's biology. And I realized the survivor's biology and putting that together I realized, oh my gosh, there's all these moments that I've experienced this. But as a woman, you're kind of taught to expect it like you're taught that the stats aren't good, that you will likely be assaulted in your lifetime, and you're taught ways to protect yourself. And that's just kind of woven into how we're educated about how to navigate the world. I remember having this one really interesting moment. I used to teach college students and we were teaching privilege and oppression and some of these concepts in a class, and young men in particular when they're navigating this concept of queer identity.
Britt Andreatta:You know, young men 18 year old men who identify themselves as straight oftentimes get very uncomfortable with the conversation, and I remembered this gentleman sharing a story about how his parents had a business in San Francisco and they expected him to work at a table during a gay pride event. And he was sharing the story about how bothered he was because while he sat at this table, guys were walking by and like cat calling and whistling at him and one guy handed him his phone number and he just was like horrified that he has experienced some sexual attention that he did not want. And the 18 year old girls in the classroom just looked at him and were like dude, I'm a waitress. That happens to me every day, every shift I work. That's how I'm treated.
Britt Andreatta:And it got me thinking that this is really an important thing to unpack, because I think particularly white, straight men grow up in such a world of privilege that they're not used to dealing with them, not having 100% control over how they're treated and or how people perceive them, And I thought, huh, we really need to give young people better skills around that so that they're not so shooken if it happens to them right, Nobody was attacking him, nobody was assaulting him. They were just flirting with him and it freaked him out. But I realized that he was not used to that. He was not used to being in a position where it was kind of expected that would happen.
Justin Reinert:Yeah, I mean, I've definitely experienced that a lot, from like, oh gosh, I wouldn't want to go to, from straight friends, like, oh, I can't go to a gay bar because I don't want to get hit on. I'm like, well, why, who cares? Right, I mean that, and or relay that back to the way that you behave with the opposite sex then, right? Yeah, so something I was thinking of I want to rewind a little bit, because so you were talking about kind of your experience of assault and or just kind of you know, unwanted advances or no, you know, is no going to stop this, the other side of that being your mother, who's like you need to be attractive to men. You need to pull that in. Like I'm curious, I want to dig into that a little bit more, because you're sitting in the middle of that like what's? I'm going to stop there and see what you're thinking, how that's resonating.
Britt Andreatta:I think women in this society, in American society, and certainly of a generation I don't think this is true for teenagers today, but it was very much you are in the male gaze and so you want to date and attract a good husband. I mean, my dad really told me like you should learn to golf, because the rich guys, the one's that would make good husbands golf and you're gonna meet them on a golf course. So, this whole thing around like ultimately your goal and it was true for their generation. You know, my mom definitely lived in a generation where you needed to get that husband. And remember then, the husband at the time I mean this was not that long ago the husbands were able to know the medical records, husbands could choose mental health treatments for their wives. All of this stuff was something that was the reality of that time and place and so you know they were raised with those values, and they instilled this to the next generation.
Britt Andreatta:So, I was definitely raised with this idea of you need to attract a man, you need to be pretty, you need to be not too loud, not too smart. You know being too smart will scare some men. So, I had messages around kind of dumbing myself down, not laughing too loud, looking cute, but you're right, like, doing those behaviors then become the very things that make you make it your fault when something happens to you. Right, like, I should look cute, and I should be appealing to go on a date and be asked to date, but then later those things are then used to victim blame, right? So how men are taught to read those signals I think is really interesting too, in terms of how much it gives them permission, right? And we're seeing a lot of this in the conversations right now around bodily autonomy and the role of women's bodies in society.
Britt Andreatta:We're really going backwards right now and it's very scary. But I think that there are a group of men who really want to return to the days where they owned a woman and the woman stayed home and made their dinner and did every you know her whole job was to make him comfortable, and that world doesn't exist anymore and I can imagine for those who got to live that world it feels like a real bummer to lose all of that. I don't know, I feel like it's a big question.
Justin Reinert:Yeah, no, it is. But you've actually illuminated something for me that, relating it back to the minimizing area of the model, what I'm hearing from you is all of these messages that you were getting was programming minimizing into you right? Is like forget about who you are and who you want to be. Here's all of these messages that you need to abide by so that you attract other people, so that other people are comfortable, and I don't know that I've heard it that explicitly. I think there's the undertone of, like you know, like I said, I hear from a lot of women that they are like, wow, minimizing is, I didn't realize that's where I sat a lot, but I haven't heard anyone so clearly articulate that it is the program's societal messages that put you there.
Britt Andreatta:I've had the experience of in my own work as an anti-racist and my own work as an ally, be honored to have people of color share their authentic stories with us and talking about all the messages that they grew up with around being acceptable and minimizing their risk of being a target. Don't drive while , you know the whole thing around. Well, Carell's story, I'm never going to run out of a store. Who taught him that? Even if his parents didn't explicitly say it? but I can tell you most black parents definitely tell their children how to avoid being attacked or being the target of police.
Britt Andreatta:He picked it up in school. He picked it up by watching the news. He picked it up by seeing what happened in his neighborhood. All children of targeted communities are getting those messages around. Here are some survival tactics to make the group in power happy with you how you dress, how you speak, how you engage and also how to protect yourself from when members of that same community cross over and are intending you harm, how to survive that harm or how to minimize that harm. It's a very complex set of messages that make it really hard to navigate.
Justin Reinert:Yeah, it makes me think about. I just keep re-bouncing all of this at the model and thinking about, one of the things I love about this podcast is talking to people and it's helping me see new perspectives on the work. What I talk about in Recluse is that it's okay if that's what you need to be safe. It's interesting because part of me wants to say, hey, let's use this kind of a conversation to illuminate and say let's rethink the social programming and allow people to be themselves. However, the whole world isn't necessarily ready for that. There's a careful balance of knowing when you need to protect yourself versus finding spaces where you can belong. That was one of the, I want to bounce this at you because then this is related.
Justin Reinert:In my last episode with Vanessa, we talked about how she, as a trans woman, first found her community of other trans folks. It was the first time when she really felt like she could move into being herself and being in a place of belonging. I'm curious. I love this idea of the "we don't necessarily have to belong everywhere. It would be nice, it would be great, but there are those places where we comfortably belong. I'm curious what have those spaces been for you?
Britt Andreatta:That's a great question. The one thing I would say about the model is we don't live in one quadrant all the time. We're bouncing back in these spaces. It's very contextual who we are around and what signals we're picking up in the environment in that moment. I could see you feel one way in your house, and then you get in the car, and you feel another way on the road. Then you pop into a coffee shop, and you feel another way there. Then you get to your office, and you feel another way there. It's constantly moving. I think we're in agreement, though, that we need to continue to do the work to get rid of the structures and the long held views and beliefs that create this whole thing. Nobody's happy in this environment. Everyone's feeling tied to it. It's just folks with power want to continue it, but they're not even happy with it either. I think we're going to get there. We're making progress, but it's painful and it's hard. In terms of my sense of belonging.
