Ame-Lia Tamburrini: Beyond Tolerance And DEI To Create A Culture Of Belonging (Episode 467)

Ame-Lia Tamburrini is the founder and CEO of HUM Consulting based in British Columbia, Canada. She moves organizations and communities beyond diversity, equity, and inclusion into cultures of belonging.

Her clients include non-profits, corporations, those in government and education sectors, and rural, remote, and Indigenous communities. Ame-Lia holds a Master of Science in Epidemiology and a BSc in Kinesiology, and she is a certified facilitator of restorative justice, circle dialogue, and trauma-informed practices.

Today she speaks with Dr. Karen about cultures of belonging, self-knowledge and understanding, vulnerability, the value of feminine leadership for all genders, and the lessons she learned from her cancer journey.

Reach Ame-Lia at her website or on LinkedIn or YouTube. E-mail Ame-Lia at Ame-Lia@humconsulting.ca

The post Ame-Lia Tamburrini: Beyond Tolerance and DEI to Create a Culture of Belonging (Episode # 467) first appeared on TRANSLEADERSHIP, INC®.

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Ame-Lia Tamburrini: Beyond Tolerance And DEI To Create A Culture Of Belonging (Episode 467)

Do you want to go beyond tolerance to create a culture of belonging from the inside out? What are the benefits of a culture of belonging? My special guest, Ame-Lia Tamburrini, talks about how to create a culture of belonging and why belonging is vital to a healthy workplace. Let me tell you a little bit about Ame-Lia. She is the founder and CEO of HUM Consulting based in British Columbia, Canada. As an inclusive leadership speaker, author, and master facilitator, she moves organizations and communities beyond diversity, equity, and inclusion into cultures of belonging from the inside out.

Her clients include nonprofits, corporations, and those in the government and education sectors. Her unique approach appeals to diverse sectors, especially traditionally male-dominated industries such as mining, engineering, education, and law and government institutions. For more than 20 years, Ame-Lia has also engaged with rural, remote, and Indigenous communities around the world in resource extraction, housing, public health, restorative justice, and education.

She holds a master of science in epidemiology and a bachelor of science in kinesiology and is a certified facilitator of restorative justice, circle dialogue, and trauma-informed practices. She brings all of herself to work and receives the highest ratings at conferences and leadership retreats with her approachable and engaging combination of humor, vulnerability, and intellect. Ame-Lia sees the light in everyone and ensures participants leave better equipped to shine their light. Ame-Lia, thank you so much for being with me on the show.

Thank you, Dr. Karen. It is a true honor to be here and a joy.

Understanding Belonging: Going From DEI To Belonging

Thank you so much. I am delighted. I’ve been looking forward to having this conversation with you as I think it’s very important and vital for the workplace. Ame-Lia, I’m just going to jump right in and ask you, first of all, to let us know what is belonging since that’s such a core part of what you do. What does it mean to go from diversity, equity, inclusion, and DEI, to belonging? Tell us about that.

When I think about diversity, equity, and inclusion, I immediately go into my head and I get busy thinking about definitions and how I’m going to do that right. When I say belonging, there’s something that settles into the body and it becomes a feeling sense. For me, fundamentally, that’s what belonging is. When you enter into your workplace, there is a feeling sense that you are valued just as you are, and that you have wisdom to share and contribute. You are connected to this community that can lift up and support you and help you to be your very best self while contributing to whatever the organizational goals happen to be.

I think it’s fabulous if people have an opportunity every day to contribute their gifts to the workplace in the way that you’re talking about. Wouldn’t that be wonderful in terms of the cultures that we all get to live in and also to create together? When you think about DEI, diversity, equity, and inclusion, does it feel more like a formula or as if you’re looking at just metrics that may be absent the heart? What’s the difference?

Diversity, equity, and inclusion for me feel like definitions. It feels like policies. It feels like exercises and checkbox approaches to getting things right. This whole getting things complicate the journey of diversity, equity, and inclusion, like creating those spaces where people can show up as themselves. It’s an old way of being, a way that’s been conditioned into many of us. Getting things right triggers that survival mechanism.

All of a sudden, we’re not relating to people as humans with all the messiness that is there, but we’re trying to be good. We’re trying to look good. That can shut down a conversation in a hurry. This is why I like framing this conversation in terms of belonging because it really talks about what this is at the core, which is love and joy and heart space versus something that you have to figure out intellectually or govern with a policy.

Thank you for saying more about that. I think that really gets to the heart of the difference as well. Share a little bit, Ame-Lia about what does it mean to do this work from the inside out, because I know that’s a core concept for you as well.

Again, I don’t want to sound repetitive, but it is coming back into that heart space and recognizing that it’s not so much about what we do with each other, but it’s how we be with one another. How we be is very much governed by a lot of programming, a lot of things that we’ve heard about how we should and shouldn’t be in the world, and things that we’ve learned about other cultures or other people that we bring forward, mostly unconsciously.

It is not so much about what we do with each other but how we are with one another. Click To Tweet

If we’re not aware of the stories that we’re telling ourselves, how we’ve been programmed, the conditioning that is in our bodies, and how that governs what we put back out into the world, then we’re not going to get very far. It’s going to be very surface-level. We’re going to find ourselves back saying things that we regret or not saying anything at all because we’re too scared because we want to get things right. When we can really get intimate with how we are as humans and see the commonalities in that, it becomes less scary. It becomes a very different conversation.

I think what I’m hearing you say is that we have to be willing to look in the mirror a little bit and do some self-examination. Even as we’re doing work in this space, it starts with us, as I would frame it, the instrument of our own leadership, because I know in my book, lead yourself first. That’s the whole point. If you’re really going to be effective in leadership and creating belonging, you do have to start with you. I really appreciate the fact that that’s a lot of what you do too, when you’re talking about it from the inside out.

I learned that through my own journey. I think all the work I do today is really taking the lessons that I’ve learned to live a life that has more joy, more fulfillment, and causes less harm, and just re-teaching people those gifts that I’ve been given over the years in interesting, fun, and sometimes really painful ways. I’ve learned the lesson and I believe that we come here to teach what we learn.

Restorative Justice: A Key Concept In Today’s World

Certainly to share with each other and then we can learn from each other because we will probably have some different experiences and different lessons along the way. Each one of us has to experience the exact same thing because if we’re in a community we benefit from all of our experiences. I really love that as well. Ame-Lia, you refer to some of your work as restorative justice. What is restorative justice and how is that important in our world today?

Restorative justice is an alternative to the criminal justice system. For me, I work with an organization called Restorative Justice Victoria as a volunteer facilitator, and we have cases referred to us from the police or here it’s called The Crown. Instead of having people go through the criminal justice system, they come to us and have very compassionate heart-centered dialogues about taking responsibility for harms that are caused.

If somebody does spray painting or maybe it’s an abuse of some kind or a fight that happens, those folks will come to us and the responsible parties. We don’t call them offenders or criminals. We’ll work with them. First of all to have us understand what was going on for them that day, and learn more about their life history so we can get clear on why potentially they showed up in the way they did in that moment. We have similar conversations with the affected parties. Again, we don’t call them victims because we want folks to be empowered in their lives.

Eventually, through these dialogues, we bring those people together to have conversations about what happened that day in that moment. We have people take responsibility for the harm that they caused. The affected party gets to ask for what they need. What would feel meaningful for them to repair that harm? It’s a beautiful approach. What I love about it is the transformation that occurs in both people. The affected party feels less fear at the end of the day because they’ve been able to connect to the humanity of the responsible party.

That responsible party heals in some way by being able to know themselves better, not feel so bad about what they did because they understand where it came from and they get to make that apology, which so many want to do. I think it’s important for today because it is that compassionate approach. It’s very easy for us to put up walls when harm has been caused and point fingers and blame but when we can see ourselves in each other, we stop perpetuating the same cycles.

It is easy to put up walls when harm has been caused. But when we can see ourselves in each other, we stop perpetuating the same cycles. Click To Tweet

What a beautiful description and example. It makes me think about healing more than punishment and understanding on some level and certainly making reparations of one sort or another, but from a deep place of knowing each other rather than you never see the person except for maybe in a courtroom where you’re not really speaking to them or whatever. “Yes, you must pay this fine or you must do this thing, but it’s very impersonal.” I guess that is what I would say about the criminal justice system. When you are doing restorative justice work, some of these outcomes, what have they been in comparison to what happens in the criminal justice system? Why do people still send individuals to you for this approach? They must be working in some way.

It’s definitely working. I don’t think I can comment on what’s happening in the criminal justice system, but I can say that with everybody that I work with, there is a huge transformation and we have these people that are causing harm in some way or another. They have 99.9% of the time never experienced true love in their life.

Somebody really has them, holding them, ensuring that they feel seen and heard and respected. There’s also generally some trauma in the background. They’re either ongoing or in their past. That healing that you talk about is really important. I think that’s what we create, that environment for them to do that healing. We also create a space for them to be seen and heard and not thrown to the curb, which is what happens in our criminal justice system.

We said, “You’ve committed a crime and then we lock you behind bars and remove you from society and your support and your social structures.” Those people end up becoming leaders in their community. They go back into whatever the crowds they were hanging out with and start to make different decisions and start to talk about what they learned in this journey. They become agents of change, which I think is fabulous. I don’t know, I cannot comment if that’s happening in the criminal justice system or not.

It’s a beautiful story, what you’re talking about in terms of restorative justice. It makes me think about this notion of how God is love. As people experience love, they’re experiencing more of God. As they are loved, they have more capacity to go out and love other people. It’s just a beautiful cycle that I see that you’re creating in your work. Thank you for doing this very profound work that I know is transforming lives from what you’re describing.

Building Trust With Indigenous Communities

Ame-Lia, I also know that you transform lives in the Indigenous communities, First Nations people and very often, at least in the United States, I don’t know if it’s the same in Canada, but I would assume it might be the same. Very often, Indigenous people don’t want outsiders coming in and showing them anything. There’s something about how you work that really resonates with them. Tell us a little bit about the work you’re doing with the Indigenous communities and why the connection actually works.

I’ve spent quite a number of years working alongside Indigenous communities, and that was through different work I was doing where it was centered in resource development, a lot of oil and gas, and mining. I got to travel throughout North America and overseas as well and work with Indigenous communities of the lands there. Firstly, I’ll say that I’ve actually learned from them and have changed my own worldview because of those experiences. Through that journey, I learned about different definitions of health. My background is in health, kinesiology, and epidemiology.

They taught me to expand what I was learning in university to consider environmental and social factors and spiritual factors and emotional factors. Instead of just like, “I have an injury or an illness and that means I’m not well.” They have this beautiful definition and concept of well-being. I’ve learned from them. I also saw how the trauma they experienced through colonization played out in their communities through addictions and domestic violence and a lot of things like that, which are still very prevalent today.

When I work with indigenous communities today, I’m not going in to help them. I’m going there to stand beside them in conversations, generally with non-Indigenous organizations that want to work alongside them. I think what works in my approach is that I come in and I’m curious. I simply listen. That has supported me a lot to better understand their worldview and also to gain trust.

The Indigenous communities have an oral way of being. They tell oral history and that can take some time. Often, non-Indigenous communities want to cut it off and get to the business and get to the agenda but that interferes with the relationship building. That’s also what Indigenous cultures are centered on relationality versus being transactional, which we tend to do in our more Western way of being.

I think listening, curiosity, and going in with that beginner’s mindset that I know nothing. I just want to learn in this setting. Those three things, they’re what I tell my clients as well. If you’re going to be working, engaging with Indigenous communities, to park your wisdom. It doesn’t mean you’re not smart. It doesn’t mean you don’t have knowledge. There’s an openness to potentially the Indigenous wisdom has something to teach us, especially in this moment.

The Circle Method: Fostering Connections In Communities

I think this is really captured that what you said about standing beside people. When you’re side by side, you can really share and exchange and learn from each other. One is not above or below your shoulder to shoulder, you’re next to each other. I think that’s a beautiful way of thinking about mutual learning and growth and development and being curious, as you said, having that beginner’s mind. That makes perfect sense. You also have as a primary intervention process something you call the circle method. What is that? What is the circle method and how do you use it to create more connections?

In its most basic form to describe it so people can get a visual. I envision it as people sitting around a fire, which is the root of all of our ancestry. It doesn’t matter where you come from, what color your skin is, or what religion you are. Hundreds of thousands of years ago, they started to gather fire and people gathered around that fire. In that moment, language was developed, safety was created, they shared food, community was created, and it really is the core of our roots.

We sit in chairs, there are no tables, we generally have something in the middle that is meaningful, and we pass a talking piece from one person to another person to another person. What this does, is this way of being, and it can be used in so many different settings, it allows, first of all, everybody to show up as a knowledge keeper. When you have that talking piece, everybody’s listening, there’s no back and forth or interrupting or advice-giving or anything like that. That person is just sharing their wisdom, and then the next person talks and it goes around like that.

It also establishes that everybody in that space is a leader because you’re taking collective responsibility for what happens, and what gets created in that circle. The third thing that happens in that circle setting is a realization that we are interconnected with each other because I know you know this, as you’re listening to stories, you can learn about yourself through somebody else’s story. You can also feel less alone because you’re like, “Me too. I’ve also had that experience.” That sense of community gets strengthened in terms of what it is. It’s really that very intentional way of being together where one person is sharing at a time.

How Italian Heritage Influences Personal And Professional Life

I love that. Ame-Lia, we’ve been talking about culture, we’ve been talking about backgrounds and sharing and so on and so forth. I know that you have a background as an Italian. Tell us a little bit about how your own heritage and culture shows up in your life and in your work and talk about maybe the values or the experiences that you bring from the Italian culture and how you live every day.

I love it. If you interviewed me a few months from now, I would have a very different answer because I’m actually going to Italy for two months to learn more about my own heritage. My father did, he immigrated from Italy when he was eighteen but my parents divorced when I was pretty young. I mostly grew up with my mom, but I have this Italian like very passionate about the fact that I am Italian.

My father too, being an immigrant, and there was a generation there that thought it wasn’t okay for us to learn Italian. English was the root to success. We didn’t learn Italian growing up, my brother and I. I’m on this journey of learning Italian. I think learning a language is a beautiful way to understand culture on a different level. You can so clearly see the worldview in the words people use.

Learning a language is a beautiful way to understand culture on a different level. You can clearly see the worldview in the words people use. Click To Tweet

Today, my journey into getting to know my roots really stems from my work with the Indigenous community. When I speak with them, they always tell me, you need to get to know your lineage. You need to get to know your heritage. When Indigenous people introduce themselves in a meeting, they talk about their parents and their grandparents and the lands that they came from. My “lands” are overseas.

I’ve never really been on them. That’s what this journey is for me. I’m starting to incorporate Italian into some of the presentations or speeches that I give strengthening my holiday traditions like Christmas. I now cook a sausage and lentil dish. There’s something about it that feels amazing. I cannot explain it, but it does feel like I’m connecting to something that is in me. When I get back from Italy in a couple of months, I have this strong sense that it’s going to much more influence my day-to-day life and how I do my work in the world.

I think that our own culture and history, it’s part of the strengths that we come into the world with. The more we can understand those strengths and tap into the wisdom, if you will, of our cultural heritage is we show up in more powerful ways and we have more to share. As you very well know, Ame-Lia, you’ve seen me in many settings. I often am expressing some aspects of my cultural heritage and what I might be wearing. African American and also Cherokee on both sides of my family.

There’s always some hint of something African, maybe a hint of something Native American at the same time. It doesn’t necessarily have to be Cherokee. Most of my stuff is actually Navajo because I really love their beadwork and yet it speaks to me as well. I think that when you come back from Italy, it’s going to almost feel as though there’s been a pouring in. I would love to talk to you when you get back to see what that pouring in was all about. It’s just going deeper and who you are.

I love that about you. Like just the expression in how you be, but your look and the clothes and everything. Even planning my trip for Italy, I find I’m dressing differently. All of a sudden, I’ve gotten more of an artistic flair. I don’t know what’s happening. When I work with diversity, equity, and inclusion, the non-White population is often saying like, “That’s part of the White problem is that we’re not connected to our culture.” When we’re not connected to our culture, there’s no root, there’s no stability, like you were saying.

We’re very wobbly and we need to find safety by controlling others. When we are fully rooted in who we are, we know ourselves deeply and have the wisdom of our ancestors with us at all times, we will show up very differently in the world. I think that’s a call to action. I think for the listener is getting to know your roots, and our ancestry, connecting in whatever way you can is so important if you are truly committed to creating a world that is not more diverse, but is more accepting of diversity and feels inclusive and has that energy of belonging.

Feminine Leadership: Empowering All Genders In The Workplace

I hope people are listening to that call to action. We all can go a little bit deeper into our own roots and our own foundation and create stability today. Also, think about creating more to share across the different aisles. There’s more that often connects us if we take the time to look and find it and talk about it. It’s always surprising like you were saying earlier, many different cultures were around the campfire, so to speak. That’s a shared experience across many different cultural and ethnic backgrounds and groups. Ame-Lia, you also are passionate about bringing feminine leadership to the corporate business environment. What is feminine leadership and how does it benefit everyone no matter what their gender is?

I’m part of this organization, a co-chair of Female Wave and Change Canada. It’s part of a global organization called Female Wave of Change. This organization really supports women, and people from all walks of life and wants to help them grow, and develop their leadership qualities. Doesn’t matter if they’re a “leader,” in an organization or of their own business, or in their families or their communities. Personally, I think we are all leaders. We just need to claim that for ourselves. That shifts how we show up in the world.

The principles that the female wave of change focuses on and that I think are considered “feminine” are compassion and creativity, collaboration and inclusiveness, emotional intelligence, intuition, and authenticity. I think what has been happening are the world that most of us have grown up in, is those values haven’t been at the forefront or they’ve been expressed less than or valued less than other qualities that were more controlling and more logical and less abstract, I think, that are generally associated with the masculine. What we’re doing is really trying to balance things out.

We don’t want to go above, but just equal the playing ground, so to speak, so that natural way of being that like we’ve always meant to have this balance, but because of the way things have transpired, that balance hasn’t been there. Einstein has a great quote, “You cannot solve the world’s problems with the same consciousness or thinking that created them.” I think that’s what this organization is getting at. It’s like, we cannot come at the world’s problems that exist today in the same way we have. We need something different. This is potentially one solution.

In a way, if we think about the challenges in today’s world, if we only bring half of our resources, it’s really not enough to really understand what’s going on and to be able to move the needle, so to speak, on whatever is happening there. The feminine way of leadership has been absent in some places, and I think sometimes we may move more quickly even to wars and fighting as opposed to sitting down and communicating and collaborating.

Maybe that could be more of a first choice in some cases, and we could avoid some of the other outcomes. When I think about the beginning and God creating the heavens and the earth, when he created Adam and Eve, he says he created man and he referred to them as male and female under that term man. It’s like man and woman, and the whole point being. They’re together. You cannot separate them in that sense. That’s what I hear when you’re talking about this.

I love that perspective. I was thinking about COVID and some of the leadership that came up through that time period. Certainly the New Zealand Prime Minister and our medical health officer here in British Columbia, she was a woman as well. What she demonstrated during that time was an immense amount of vulnerability. There were moments when she stood in front of the camera and cried because she was overwhelmed and just up at all hours of the night.

She allowed herself to bring that forward. Some people criticized her, but mostly what she did was brought people together. I think when we take that divide and conquer mentality, the fighting and going to war, I have this sense people are less and less okay with that anymore. We need something different. The feminine has something to offer in that space.

It’s interesting you bring up the pandemic because we did a podcast about Jacinda Ardern and her leadership during that time in New Zealand. One of the things that struck me about it is how much she communicated and shared with people about what was going on and what they needed to know. Often because people don’t understand and they’re in the dark, they make choices that are not in their best interest. Just being able to share with people relevant information and to give explanations and offer options and alternatives was a very powerful way to lead. She’s still in my mind because of that.

That’s amazing. Actually, this was a man. I gave a talk at a government ministry here at the provincial level. That’s equivalent of the state level. It was the assistant deputy minister of this ministry who had asked me anything for this branch that is under his umbrella. I used to work for the government. I was really curious to listen. He came on right before I was speaking, but Dr. Karen, he was so vulnerable and honest.

He wasn’t hiding anything. He just felt like it was a fireside chat with your best friend, but giving real-life advice from somebody who has clearly done that himself. I do see this shift because I don’t want to be male and female necessarily. I think men are learning new ways of being as well because everybody suffers when we’re not connected to all the parts of us. It’s nice that we’re creating an environment, speaking about belonging, where men too can tap into more of their feminine qualities and become more whole versus having to be this one-sided way of being.

I love that because this really highlights how it’s relevant for both genders, because both genders can embrace some of what we call feminine leadership, and both genders can embrace what we call male leadership and you bring out whatever needs to happen in that moment to benefit the community. I think that’s a great call to action for both genders really to think about under that term a rubric of man which is all-inclusive and when we think about God is also inclusive of the male and female qualities because he’s made us in his image.

Bringing Your Full Self To Work

That’s a good thing to keep in mind that even in God, there’s a both-and rather than an either-or in that sense. You mentioned and talked about how important it is for leaders to bring all of themselves to work. In your own case, what challenges have you experienced in bringing all of yourself to work and how have you overcome those challenges?

That’s a great question. I think I’m bringing more of myself than ever before, more of all of me than ever before. What that has required of me is getting to know myself more and being able to face the qualities that are generally deemed as unpleasant in our society or simply in how I was brought up. Things like being judgmental or being selfish, lazy even. For most of my life, I just wanted to keep hidden from people. I’m learning to really see those and embrace them as part of who I am and see the gifts that those bring to me at various times.

Every way of being has a virtue and every way of being then has more of a shadow or a dark side to it. In learning more about myself and embracing all the parts of me, I feel like I’m more easily able to just show up as I am and just name in the moment being like, “I feel like I was just being judgmental there.” I can start again. When we keep trying to hide that we have these parts of us, then we just create barriers and then we have a greater tendency to project them back out into the world. This comes up for me a lot in Circle because as a Circle host/facilitator, some people think that I need to be a certain way.

The people that pay me to support them in that work, that I need to be strong and not have weaknesses or qualities like that and not express emotion like tears. That’s the way that I’m really challenging myself to be myself in that moment. It’s hard for me to have a circle when there’s not but there is not a moment where I tear up because I am so connected to people’s stories. I’m also learning about myself in those moments. I am a human being, so people will say something and I’ll notice a part of me that feels judgmental, that wants to separate myself from that person.

I don’t always articulate it out loud in terms of what’s going on for me, but I will do my work in that moment to check in, to come back into the present moment, and to reestablish that connection. Some people will judge me for being that vulnerable in those spaces, but most people are being able to see it that is also their conditioning that needs me to be a certain way for them to be okay. I think when we can really get there when we don’t need other people to be a certain way for us to be okay because we’ve embraced all of our own uglier parts. That’s the world that I’m working toward creating in my spaces.

I think it’s pretty profound that you are modeling what it’s like to be honest and to be authentic and to recognize first in yourself, that you’re not perfect and nobody else in the circle is perfect either. It gives them permission to be okay sharing a word or two here and there. If something shows up that they weren’t expecting to figure out a way to include it in the learning at that moment, rather than because I have warts and moles and whatever, I better just shut up and hide and not engage today. I think that’s important that people know that it’s safe enough that they can come to the circle and share who they are, good, bad and ugly, or whatever at times. That’s great modeling. Do it that way. People know it’s okay.

That’s part of it. I love, I don’t know if you just said naming it, but that’s one of the techniques I use is when I come into a circle and we’re going to be talking about the hard stuff and people’s stuff is going to come out and there’ll be anger and there’ll be frustration and there’ll be tears. I name all of it right in the beginning to say, “Here’s what you might notice about yourself as we go through this.” What that does is in that moment, it actually has people relax and say, “Okay.”

When they notice it come up in them, they don’t feel the shame or the guilt around it. They are clear that this is just a normal part of being human and a part of this change process that we’re in. It’s a great way and I recommend that for all leaders as well to the more that you can simply name things, and bring them to the surface, the easier it’s going to be to have any difficult conversation in your organization. Do you find that as well? I know you work with leaders a lot.

Yes, absolutely, I find that’s true. The process that you’re talking about in psychology, we have a term that relates to it. We call it normalizing. You do talk about it upfront. People aren’t surprised and shocked. They know what to expect. When those things happen, they aren’t thinking, “Something’s drastically wrong or we’re off base or this isn’t supposed to happen.”

Cancer Thriver: Overcoming Adversity And Embracing Growth

Normalizing, talking about upfront, giving people permission, giving them a roadmap, a little bit about what they might encounter along the way in this conversation and the leadership journey.” Yeah, I resonate with everything that you’re saying about this. Absolutely. Now I know that life is not usually a straight-line function for most people and we do experience challenges that are also our growth opportunities. You refer to yourself as a cancer thriver. What did you experience? What was it that you overcame? What did you learn through your cancer experience?

Thank you for that. I was diagnosed with cancer five years ago and I had just quit my job at the provincial government and was launching into my business that I have now. I’m consulting. It was one month after that I received this diagnosis. I was in a tremendous amount of uncertainty at that moment in terms of will I live or not. Will this business succeed or not? What is my future? I have no idea. Gratefully, Hodgkin’s lymphoma, it’s very treatable. I did endure six months of chemotherapy, which was a really scary and very vulnerable time for me.

At that moment, I got to learn a whole bunch more about myself, both during the event. I think during this, I realized how resistant I was to receiving any support whatsoever. I lived by myself. My family was all out East. I had to make the, I didn’t have to, but I chose to make the decision to rely more heavily on my friends and receive their love and support. What I realized in that journey was that so many of them were grateful, first of all, because people want to help, but they generally don’t know how to help when such a diagnosis happens.

Opening my door to food and other kinds of support felt good for them. They also said, “You’re so much more relatable in this vulnerable state of receiving because otherwise we just thought you had all your stuff together. That you are untouchable.” It actually helped me deepen my relationships with my friends, which felt very vulnerable to me. I was very conditioned to keep a safety net around me. Speaking about vulnerability and having your shadows out in the daylight, they got to see me at some of my worst moments.

That was connecting fundamentally at the end of the day. When you’re going to a cancer journey, it really is a chapter of survival. You’re going from one treatment to the next and saying, “How you’re just managing all the symptoms and the side effects that come up from both the chemotherapy, but then also the drugs you’re taking to manage the side effects of the chemotherapy.” It’s a very complex combination of medication that you’re managing. That was survival mode. When I came out of those six months, it really did feel like I had been hit by a tsunami and was standing there in the rubble wondering, what is this life?

Who am I and how do I rebuild this? I don’t even know what I want anymore. There were a lot of questions in that stage and that actually felt more vulnerable to me. It opened the door to have me heal more of my own trauma, to really look back at my childhood and say, “Okay. There was pain there and that still does impact me. It had me heal the trauma of going through the cancer experience and so much more.” That opened up a window to the work I do today, which is very much trauma-informed and seeing division through that trauma lens of what is this division really?

For me, it’s all unhealed trauma. Fundamentally, the cancer journey gave me the gift of being able to do the work that I do today. It more deeply connected me to what was fundamental in life, which was love and joy. It’s the signature of my business. I have a hummingbird, which for me represents love and joy. When I was first diagnosed, I had this spiritual book that tells you the spiritual diagnosis of your physiological issue.

It said in this book, “This person has forgotten the purpose of life, which is love and joy.” I made the cancer journey, the journey of love and joy. That’s what I bring now into my day is that thriving concept that life isn’t about surviving. Many of us are stuck in that mode, the busyness of life. For me, it’s about where can I find the moment of joy in this moment, in the next moment. Even if there’s suffering and pain, there’s joy fundamentally underneath that.

Life is not about surviving. Many of us are stuck in the busyness of life. It is about where we can find the moment of joy in the next moment. Click To Tweet

That is a profound journey to a deeper sense and understanding of purpose, and meaning in life, and a more profound healing, not just of the cancer, healing of traumas from the past and other places that needed to be healed where you might not have shined the light in those corners maybe in the past. Also just that mutual experience of learning to give and receive. Recognizing that those who give to you are also benefiting in that moment as well. Sometimes we forget that for them to give is a joy as well.

The Story Behind The Name Of HUM Consulting

You learned a lot through this process and you’re bringing a deeper sense of living life to your clients because of those experiences. You know what it’s like to thrive, even through the challenges, and still see joy in the challenges. People need to know that because sometimes they think the joy is all gone when in fact it isn’t. That’s beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. You mentioned your company and the hummingbird being the picture of it and your company is called Hum Consulting. Tell us about the meaning of that name because it is relevant and how you came up with it.

It was a conversation with a woman. We were just bouncing ideas off. That’s how it came. It’s one of those words or acronyms. First of all, I didn’t ever want an acronym, but it ended up being one. It’s a word that I find more and more meaning in every single day. The deeper I get into my work, the choosing of that name makes more sense. I know it was a divine gift for me because of that. The acronym ended up being Harmony, Unity, and Momentum.

For me, Harmony is remembering that we are nature, nature is us, and there’s a beautiful harmonic balance that happens with diversity because nature is an ecosystem. We are ecosystems that require diversity to thrive. We also require knowing our purpose and our specific gifts that we are meant to give to the world and creating spaces for that to happen for everybody and that’s harmony. When we can work in that way together, there is this unity that comes when we’re sharing stories with one another, like sitting around the circle where you get to see the other in yourself.

You said earlier that we have more commonalities than we do differences. Creating those spaces for that unity to be known. The momentum piece, which is trauma it’s like stuck energy. It’s energy that needs to be moved. For me, the momentum is twofold. It’s how do we heal that trauma to get that energy flowing again in our more natural state? Also, how do you get just unstuck in your organizations that are often in this place of not moving forward because they’re not able to have the conversations that are needed to shift the dynamic and the culture?

Challenges Facing Corporations Today

That’s actually a great segue because I wanted to ask you a little bit about what you see as some of the biggest challenges that corporations and businesses are facing today, such that the work that you do would be really helpful to them. How would you name those challenges? What’s going on?

The biggest challenge I see is that all of the structures and systems that are in place today were created a long time ago. They’re these immobile hierarchies in organizations. I use the organizational chart as an example when I give my presentations because you have a visual of the organizational chart. That’s the structure that most organizations are working in where only some people are leaders, only some people are knowledge keepers, and there’s a separation between us all. It’s a beautiful visual because it’s something that is day-to-day in all organizations.

We don’t even think about it, but in some ways, it perpetuates a very divisive, segregated way of being in the world that doesn’t allow space for all of us to be leaders and for all of us to be knowledge keepers, to utilize that interconnectedness that we have. That is the challenge that I see and that I keep hearing is like, change is hard because we just have these systems in place that are ancient and archaic and holding us back.

My response to that is systems are made up of people. If you do the inner work and really get underneath at what is creating those systems and holding them in place by doing your own healing work, the systems will change. They’ll actually change way quicker than I think you can possibly imagine in this moment. We just need to have the courage to say yes to doing that inner work that is so essential.

I am finding that people are wanting that more and more. People are done with checkboxes, and one-off approaches to diversity, equity, and inclusion. They want to see true transformation and people also want to come to work and feel joy and feel like they’re meaningfully contributing to the organization. To do that, you have to start unpacking yourself so that the structure can start to reform.

I think the concept that you’re talking about, and you said it earlier about leadership, not just being resident in one person. We all are leaders and we share the leadership role. We pass the baton, just like you pass the talking stick in the circle. Sometimes this person is leading and then they may step back and somebody else leads for a while and it’s a whole community. I mean, I think about the flock of birds. You’ve got the lead bird out there flying, but that lead bird is not always the same bird.

I mean, the bird goes back to back and rests a little bit and another bird comes up and flies at the front of the formation where you’re getting a lot of wind draft in that front space, but that’s not a place you stay in 24/7 or you’ll die and burn yourself out. I think it is important to think about how leading in the community leverages the gifts of all members of the community. It’s powerful to think that in organizations, structures may prevent the very kinds of conversations and thinking, and perspectives that are needed for this moment in time.

It just takes a visionary, somebody who can see just beyond what is currently there, what feels very real. I think really takes more of a spiritual approach to leadership to understand that when we look at this from a human perspective, it’s maybe seem like it’ll never change. We have so many powers with us that we can tap into to support us on this journey.

We’ve been given a lot of gifts along the way. Ame-Lia, how can people reach you? How can they learn more about you? Maybe they would like to engage you to help create a culture of belonging or have you be a keynote speaker at an event. Let’s talk about that.

My website is HUMConsulting.ca. That’s a great way to just have a view about what I’m up to in the world. Connecting with me, you can email me at my first name and I know you’ll put that in the show notes because the spelling is odd, Ame-Lia@HUMConsulting.ca as well. I’m on LinkedIn or YouTube. You can find me on both of those channels where you can get to learn more about me. My podcasts are up there as well that you can listen to those if you want to just understand more about how I work. I would love to connect and just have a conversation. I’m very much relational, so nothing is a commitment, but I want to hear what’s going on for you.

Yes, and I can attest to the fact that you are very relational. They will enjoy that conversation with you when they do connect. Your name again is Ame-Lia@HUMConsulting.ca, correct?

Correct.

Words Of Wisdom For Corporate Executive Leaders

Now they have it more than once. Amy, as we’re winding up now, you’ve shared a lot of words of wisdom so far. What additional words of wisdom would you like to share with my community of corporate executive leaders?

I think it comes back to what we were touching in on near the end about love and joy. When I do this work with organizations, that’s always what I tie it back to, that absolutely we have to do better for populations that are disenfranchised, left on the fringes, being left out. Yes. This is fundamentally for all of us to reclaim our wholeness. In that wholeness is enjoyment, is creativity, it’s contentment and love, and connection, which are all core human needs. Finding whatever that motivation is for you to do the inner work, to look at the shadows, and claim them for yourself because it sounds in opposition.

Going into the darkness is actually where you find joy in this life. We need that energy to go out into the world. We don’t want to get trapped in the stewing on all the bad things that are going on. The more bad things we see, that is just a call for more love and joy and for you to go and do more of your work to get to know yourself so that you can express that higher vibrational energy into the world, which we all need so much right now.

Going into the darkness is where you find joy in life. Click To Tweet

That’s wonderful, Ame-Lia. What it makes me think about is it’s really easy to see the sunshine when it’s high noon and the sun is shining really brightly, and yet we need the sun at all times. To be able to see the sun in the dark and to bring out the light in the dark, that’s what the world needs is people who are committed to that. Thank you for being committed to shining the light in the dark and showing others how to get there too.

Thank you, Dr. Karen.

Thank you for being here, Ame-Lia. I really appreciate everything that you shared and I know people will benefit from it. We will close today with Bible verses, a couple of them that come from James, the first chapter, and it’s verses 19 and 20. “My beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath, for the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God.” As you heard from my special guest, Ame-Lia, you heard from her that what produces results is listening, hearing, deeply understanding people, and showing love. Showing love, connection, and belonging. Have a blessed day as you live and walk into all those spaces.

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Victorious Family’s Goal: Reaching 9.2M Families By 2030

This is Dr. Karen. I’m here with Terence Chatmon, who is the president and CEO of Victorious Family and also the author of Do Your Children Believe? Victorious Family has a goal of reaching 9.2 million families by 2030. Terence, tell us how far along are you on that goal?

We’re very excited. Last year, for example, we reached 133,800 families and prior to that. We’re right on around the 400,000 family mark towards our 9.2 million goal in the second year, really in a year and a half. We’re extremely excited.

That is very, very exciting news. I know that it’s many new initiatives that help you to reach even more families. Tell us what’s new in the ministry.

What’s exciting in December 7th of 2023, we had a national newspaper cover of Victoria’s Family and it went throughout the country. That has exposed us to over 30 million families in the U.S. From that, we’ve got a great deal of responses. One of those responses is a new partnership that we’re forming with Hampton University to come alongside of them and work in eight counties in the Hampton Roads area. We’re really excited about that. Millions of families will be exposed to what does it looks like to have family transformation taking place in their homes.

That’s phenomenal. How can people reach you and how can they reach your weekly resource that you have as well?

They can reach us at VictoriousFamily.org. Our resources are there and we’re excited because we have a brand new resource that just came out. It’s our Weekly Rhythms Guide. It really gives the parent and individual a day-to-day rhythm and how they might walk in Christ. We really would encourage that they get a copy of our Weekly Rhythms Guide for parents and individuals.

Thank you so much, Terence. I’m so glad that you’re here with me. To you out there in the audience, please go to VictoriousFamily.org, donate to the ministry, get the Weekly Rhythms Guide, and see what else is new in the ministry. See you next time.

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The Bible League: Spreading The Word Of God Globally

It’s Dr. Karen here, and I’m here to celebrate the work of the Bible League, which is a global ministry that provides Bibles, ministry study materials, and through activities like Project Philip also teaches and trains local people in how to share the Word of God. The president and CEO of the Bible League, Jos Snoep is with me to share a little bit more about what the Bible League is doing.

The beauty of the local church is that it is the body of Christ and it is the Holy Spirit that is calling the local church to be engaged in the Great Commission. As Bible League, we just come alongside those local pastors. Last year I met a pastor, his name is Rolando in the Amazon and he has this great vision to reach 200 communities with the Word of God. We’re able to come alongside them and help them with Bibles and resources.

Thank you so much, Jos. We are all partners together. You, the Bible League, are the hands and feet to the local people on the ground, and there are partners and donors out there who can be hands and feet to you, as you also share with others. Those of you who are reading, if you want to be part of this ministry, and I invite you to be a part of it, I’m a part of it, go to BibleLeague.org, see more about the ministry, and see how you can participate and donate.