Striving for Authenticity
Last Saturday, on the first day of Pride Month, myself and Ardent’s Research Director (Kirsty) got married - to each other !
As a queer couple who live and work together, it’s often hard to know how much to share. We are instinctively private people who don’t often publicly disclose aspects of our personal lives. But as people who work in the DEI space, and who hold multiple marginalised identities, we also know that the work we do is profoundly personal.
Whilst representation is not - on its own - enough, it is still of deep importance. We are millennials who grew up in the desert of LGBTQ+ representation that was the 1990s - 2000s. We went to school under the shadow of Section 28. We watched Queer as Folk way too young (because there was nothing else out there), and had to wait another 5 years for some decent queer female representation in the form of The L Word. So we know the simple importance of seeing the LGBTQ+ experience represented in all its forms. We know that just the act of living authentically and openly as ourselves is a political act. And we are determined to use what privilege we have - in whatever small way we can - to encourage others to do so.
However, we also know that being authentic is not always easy. Some spaces are simply not safe for revelling in all our authentic glory. And for many, moving through the world with authenticity is a daily challenge. So sometimes all we can do is strive to be ourselves - with a little acceptance and compassion. Whilst this can be scary and might require a leap of faith, as Audre Lorde notes:
“Nothing I accept about myself can be used against me to diminish me”
Ardent's Ella McCann-Tomlin & Kirsty Gardiner on their wedding day, on the first day of Pride month 2024.
Ardent is just the two of us - no Marketing team, no outsourcing, and no assistants to delegate to. For the past few weeks, whilst in a flurry of final wedding preparations, we’ve been trying - and frankly failing - to fit in time to write this blog article. The bar we set for ourselves is high, partly because we’ve learnt along the way that the bar the world sets for us is high. Meeting deadlines is non-negotiable, perfectionism is a given.
And yet, this is also something we are learning to unlearn. As author and activist Caroline J. Sumlin reminds us, perfectionism is the work of supremacy. The systems of oppression that thrive on individualism, perfectionism, workaholism - are the systems we are working to dismantle. But doing this work with our clients is one thing - applying it ourselves is quite another! The irony is, of course, that we coach individuals on giving themselves grace, compassion, and rest - but it remains a daily struggle to truly model these behaviours ourselves.
Take this as an opportunity to consider when you last gave yourself the grace you give others. Do you give yourself rest only after you’ve ‘earned it’? Do you stay on top of your emails on holiday (regardless of the advice you give to peers and team members)? Do you work on evenings and weekends to ‘get the job done’ (and is the job ever really done)?
In a world that demands every last drop of our productivity, rest is radical. Our humanity and our worthiness extends beyond our output. Another reminder from the incomparable Audre Lorde:
“Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.”
And on that note, the out-of-office is going back on!
