Self-awareness

Review: Social Justice for the Sensitive Soul

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Social Justice for the Sensitive Soul, Dorcas Cheng-Tozun. Minneapolis: Broadleaf Books, 2023.

Summary: How highly sensitive persons can also contribute to social justice efforts in ways consonant with their personalities.

Susan Cain began an important conversation with her book Quiet (review) about the distinctive contributions to the world that introverts can make. This book goes further, considering a related personality, the highly sensitive person (HSP) characterized by their depth of processing, by being more quickly overstimulated, by their emotional sensitivity, and their ability to sense the subtle. The world of social justice activism often seems like the last place for such persons because of its confrontative nature and the wrenching realities of injustice. Burnout can occur with the most resilient and especially among HSPs like the author, as she discovered in her own social justice efforts.

This led to a journey of discovering the unique ways highly sensitive people can contribute to social justice efforts, not as warrior kings but as priestly advisers. She contends that Mahatma Gandhi, Abraham Lincoln, and Martin Luther King, Jr. are examples of people with this personality who made a difference. The key, she believes, is self-understanding combined with an expanded awareness of the ways people may contribute to social justice efforts beyond standing at the barricades with a megaphone.

The first part of her book explores more of what it is like to be a sensitive person and the unique gifts of conscientiousness and care for others coupled with deep empathy. Priestly advisers “observe, listen, consider, gather, plan, and generate.” Their thoughtfulness often leads to the recognition of the pathways to achieve social justice aims and not simply protest injustices. This requires shedding the “activist ideal” to practice the self-care that enables the sensitive person to keep showing up. They develop a resilience rooted not in bouncing back quickly but in holding onto one’s identity and purpose. As they understand their own value, they also learn to value the complementary strengths of less-sensitive collaborators.

The second part of the work focuses on considerations and questions, the most important of which is to listen to our lives, what we are learning from our experiences about what we do well, what we care deeply about, and how we can live and work sustainably. Cheng-Tozun then explores several kinds of questions we might consider: the what questions, the who questions, the when (in terms of life situation) questions, and the where questions. In each, she offers a number of very specific questions for consideration.

Finally, in part three, she describes some of the vital roles in social justice movements in which sensitive persons can make singular contributions. She discusses:

  • Connectors: those able to forge vibrant relationships and alliances based on deep empathy and trust.
  • Creatives: the use of various artistic abilities to capture the imagination of people for social change.
  • Record Keepers: the archivists and those who document injustices, making the pleas for justice harder to ignore in the face of evidence.
  • Builders: these include the designers, inventors, and engineers and others who can leverage technology in ways that serve the most needy.
  • Equippers; the trainers, mentors, coaches, and teachers who prepare skilled advocates, as was the case with the Highlander School which equipped Rosa Parks and many others for social justice work.
  • Researchers: the academic researchers who pursue socially relevant research on everything from gun violence to environmental justice.

In her conclusion, Cheng-Tozun speaks of the power of hopeful sensitives, those who understand where their gifts and the world’s needs meet. She writes:

“This hope is not abstract and aimless; rather, it is measured and thoughtful, compassionate and directed. Hopeful sensitives have the tools and the energy to create specific, implementable plans and visions for themselves and for the greater good of their communities. They will always keep human beings at the core of their actions and choices” (p. 190).

What is powerful about this book is Cheng-Tozun’s quiet yet clear voice offering the vision that social justice work requires all kinds of people and sensitive persons need not be marginalized or marginalize themselves. She gives permission for sensitive persons to be who they are, to care not only about injustices but for themselves, recognizing that such a gift results in the release of compassion, creativity, insight, and innovation. The questions she asks to help with self-understanding and the examples of the ways sensitive people contribute argues for getting this book and putting it alongside your copy of Quiet, as its constructive sequel.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher through LibraryThing’s Early Reviewer Program.

Review: The Self-Aware Leader

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the self-aware leader

The Self-Aware Leader, Terry Linhart. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press (Praxis), 2017.

Summary: Explores the blind spots of one’s leadership and helps us become aware of the unseen influences that shape and hinder us, so that brought into the open, they can be recognized, addressed, and redeemed.

It hardly seems that a month goes by where we don’t hear the sad tale of some prominent Christian leader who must step down from leadership because of some personal failing. You probably can multiply these publicized stories a hundred times over with the unpublicized but painful stories of lesser-known leaders, and often, those they have led. We’ve instituted accountability groups, training, oversight–and yet the frequency seems as great as ever.

Terry Linhart would argue that part of the reason is a failure to address our blind spots in leadership:

“The phrase blind spots is regularly used in leadership circles to describe problems or patterns that lurk unseen and pose potential danger. For the last two decades I have been developing and equipping young adults to serve as ministry leaders, pastors, youth workers, missionaries, and managers. That process includes helping them reflect on what they may not notice—the areas of their life too personal or hidden to see easily—that may pose potential problems. The truth is that we all have such areas, even if we’re not that young” (p. 10).

Drivers learn where their blind spots are, and “clear” them when changing lanes or maneuvering. Linhart would contend that we need to develop similar practices of self-awareness for the blind spots in our lives. He uses an example of a cross country coach who called him out to run a better race than he thought he had in him, and in this book acts as a coach, helping us become aware of those blind spots that thwart running our best race as leaders for God’s “well done.” He explores seven area:

  1. Self. At best, leading out of the unique personality and gifts of who we are rather than competing or wishing we were like someone else. He invites us to take “selfies” of our reactions and reflect upon them.
  2. Past. All of us have developed “scripts” from past experience, sometimes deeply painful experiences, that unconsciously shape our behavior patterns. Often, others can help us recognize these and experience healing as we understand where they come from, and how grace brings healing to them.
  3. Temptations. He addresses the “big five” of seeking prominence, control, materialism (“shiny stuff”), inappropriate intimacy, and resentment.
  4. Emotions. He challenges us to emotional maturity through learning to “keep a sentry,” label our feelings, be aware of other emotions, recognize the intensity of emotions, particularly unusual reactions, manage emotions, learn from them, and submit them to Jesus.
  5. Pressures. Leadership is living with pressure. Understanding internal and external pressures and developing systems to address pressure is vital.
  6. Conflicts. Conflict, like pressure is a reality of leadership. It can be handled badly or well. He offers ten pointers to healthy conflict resolution and concludes with some vital insights on passive-aggressiveness.
  7. Margins. Leaders often lack margins in their days, weeks, months, and yearly patterns to listen to God, to grow and renew mentally, and to recover from intense periods of work. He describes the idea of “sprint-drift” that I’ve found so describes the life of ministry. The danger is we try to sprint all the time!

Each chapter includes “self checks” to apply concepts and concludes with questions “for greater awareness.”

This is one of those books I wish I had forty years ago! I think I’ve learned most of the lessons in here, mostly by making a ton of mistakes, and sometimes through the gift of insightful people who observed my blind spots and helped me become aware of them. And that brings me to a paradox in this book. We don’t become self-aware by ourselves. We may take initiatives to ask others how they see us, but the truth is that there are some blind spots we will only see through the help of another–a spouse, a supervisor, a coach, or those we lead.

Linhart is a good coach. He shares his own journey toward self-awareness, his own failings and then, sometimes gently, and sometimes more annoyingly, presses us toward our best self in Christ. I once heard a prominent leader observe that people love to be led well and that aspiring to lead is a noble thing. Sadly, this leader has experienced his own failure in leadership that may reflect a certain lack of self-awareness. But the observation stands. What Linhart helps us to see is that those who lead without ending badly are those who continue to search out the blind spots that may thwart or disqualify them. Perhaps the greatest danger to the leader is the vulnerability one thinks one doesn’t have or doesn’t know about. Linhart names them without shaming us and offers guidance without guilt. Like that cross country coach, he gives us hope that we might be capable of more than we think possible even as we become more aware of who we are.