My Blackness, femininity, and education, for example, were all identities highlighted as a focus of pride and representation as an African American woman. The difficulty with this focus is that it neglected several of my identities that were meant to be hidden, ignored, or erased. There was no room for my size, my sexuality, or my outspoken nature when situations felt unjust.

I determined my career path would be Marriage and Family Therapy. By the time I completed my studies, I had a lifetime of diverse experience serving various communities. Clinical work was my training but it lended to an understanding of systems such as child welfare, clinical supervision and instruction, and organizational leadership. Those experiences set the stage for an incredible journey in learning how to work with people and teams from their various identities and cultural contexts.

The culmination of my clinical training, career, and lived experiences resulted in a few core observations about human beings and how we navigate the world. In our society, we are socialized to be externally focused. Our accomplishments, careers, physical appearance, wealth, and power are ways we' are taught to value ourselves. If our focus is only on external factors, the result is disconnected from our sense of self. If there is diminished connection to self, we lose the ability to truly see ourselves in the context of the world around us. External focus then ultimately increases the likelihood of loosing sight of our sense of humanity. When we lose sight of our humanity, we stop seeing others as human beings. More importantly, if we are disconnected from our humanity, the way we feel good about ourselves is to see ourselves as better than someone else.

I now understand that those unacknowledged identities I held when I was a young woman helped me see the beauty in myself and those around me. Those forbidden identities became the source of my success. My purpose at this stage of my life is to share how to create different legacies centered in our humanity.