At our monthly team meetings, one of our crew members discusses one of our five values: strength, courage, commitment, heart, and trail-blazing. This is Karine’s reflection from this month’s meeting.
I chose heart, for the second time, I think. I went with heart again because I feel I am in a privileged place at YACC. I have direct and constant access to what pumps blood directly to YACC’s heart: our community.
When I attended my first Retreat Yourself as a volunteer facilitator in 2007, I developed a “professional crush” on Lesley and Geoff. I connected with their hearts so completely it left me with an empty feeling after each event we did together until I actually moved to NL.
This heart connection soon expanded to include YACC and what YACC represents to its community members. Maybe having my own kids won’t be part of this lifetime for me, but it always warms my heart when I can provide our community members with love, understanding, and support in a “motherly” kind of way. Not that I think I am anyone’s mom. I just like to feel this deep sense of connection that comes from Retreat Yourself or any one-on-one connections with YACCers.
My heart sang as our Retreat Yourself Adventure 2012 gang gave me my “Twitter name” and called me @yaccmom. They probably don’t know it, but I felt honored and touched by it. It felt right. After all, I was driving around a minivan full of loud kids all weekend!
Our community is the blood that brings oxygen to YACC; if we let it, it can bring oxygen and fuel our daily work. It can inspire us to keep on keepin’ on, it can touch us, make us laugh, make us cry; ultimately it can “allow” us to be better people.
- We are privileged to be working in an environment that pushes us to thrive.
- We are privileged to be working with people who allow us — no — who expect us to be authentic and real. Bullshit is not well-received in our community.
- We are privileged to be working in an office where the heart has a central place in everything we do. The heart is honored, respected, heard.
- We are privileged to work in a place where vulnerability is celebrated, welcomed, and encouraged.
- We are privilege to work for an organization that has big dreams and follows its heart.
All of this makes my heart very happy and gives me the energy to help people connect, feel supported, and ultimately feel less alone.