Do the Work
During this time of racial reckoning, we each have our own work to do.
By Marvia Davidson
“People who are hooked into a particular way of thinking or behaving are not really paying attention to the world as it is. Being emotionally agile involves being sensitive to context and responding to the world as it is now.” —Dr. Susan David, Emotional Agility
I work in the school improvement arena, and it’s a lot of heart-and-head work. As an educator, I am constantly thinking about social emotional learning (SEL), emotional intelligence, and well-being. I have a keen interest in all three, especially emotional intelligence. Having strong EQ is critical because we work with people as they navigate all manner of change, including during a pandemic.
I’ve been reading psychologist Susan David’s Emotional Agility: Getting Unstuck, Embrace Change, and Thrive in Work and Life. Her work is critically important for this moment, as our country faces a pandemic, police brutality, racism, and all kinds of unrest.
A moment of real talk: This time in our collective history is not a passing fad. This moment, this movement, these events, this pandemic, this heartache, these uprisings, these peaceful protests—these things aren’t going to go away quickly. We will need to work to get through them, and emerge from them as stronger, healthier communities.
We have to do the work to be able to deal with the heartache, grief, confusion, anger, pain, loss, madness; and to be able to want to do something to help or show support to make things right. I believe it is very hard to make things right if we ourselves are not operating from healthy, healed places.
Maybe do the work means do your own internal work first, in your heart and mind. Maybe that means get in touch with what you’re really thinking, feeling, questioning, frustrated over, mad about, and wondering. Check yourself before you wreck yourself.
Maybe doing the work means it’s time to get healthy. It’s hard to engage if you’re not healthy. You can’t heal what you refuse to feel. For me, it means continuing my own inner work. No one else can tell me what that work is, because I know what I need to do. I have to manage myself. You have to manage yourself. We all have to manage ourselves so that we can cultivate and nurture healthy healing communities. Are you willing to do that work?
It’s your choice. No one can make you do anything. I won’t berate you. I’m not here to guilt you into doing what you may not understand or even really want to do. I’m not going to tell you that you have to read books by Black people or brown people or any other minority group.
I do not want to tell you what I think you should do, especially if you’ve not asked me. I don’t want to tell you that you have to do all the work. I don’t want to tell you that you should feel guilt. I won’t shame you into doing something. That’s neither my goal nor my responsibility, for I am not your Holy Spirit.
That’s just not how any of this works. If we’re concerned about our communities, relationships, and seeing them be mended, then maybe we have to get better at doing life with people, having healthy relationships, and being emotionally agile.
But don’t join the bandwagon without doing the work. Maybe learn to listen. Maybe allow space for hearing the stories of people not like yourself.
I don’t know, honestly. I can’t tell you what the work is that you should do. However, I do believe that, deep down in your heart, you know what work you have to do to be able to engage in these challenging times.
Doing the work must be your choice because you see and recognize the need for a breach to be repaired. I want to invite you to get real, to get gut-level honest about what you can do right now to be healthy and whole. To be a healer, to be a comforter, to be a learner, to be a repairer of the breach.
Friend, let’s choose to get real and honest with God, with your community, with your friends, with your family, and with yourself. What is the work you can, want, or need to do in this right-now moment?
Let’s not be afraid to do that work. It’s the kind of work that leads us to love in ways that defy our frail human understanding. That kind of love is the kind of love that repairs breaches, bridges the divides, raises the standard, shows the Gospel, restores people, and makes us who we are meant to be.
That kind of love—that’s the real work.
Photo by Katelyn Beaty. Used with permission.
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