Saturday at the conference one of the attendees had a crisis, she was overpowered the whole conference, I sat with her and took the time to listen to her during lunch and after the conference she came up to me and thanked me and she said she had a great time at the conference.
One time I was waiting for our reservations at a popular downtown Hartford restaurant a woman coming out of the restaurant stopped and said to me, “You probably don’t remember me but I attended one of your Cultural Competency training sessions, I just had a client come out to me as transgender and from your presentation I was able to better understand what she was going through.”
From time to time I am a guest lecturer for a friend’s multicultural education class at local colleges and he sends me excerpts from their reflection papers and one student wrote this,
When I was in grad school and on my first field placement my faculty advisor kept on asking about my support network and I didn’t understand what she was talking about, but then I figured it out, she was asking who do I turn to for help. Over the years I have needed my own support network.
There is a price that we pay and that is a little piece of our souls that we give away each time we help someone because if you are like me that is our reward. I give a little piece of me every time I give training. Saturday I had to go to a quiet place to unwind from the crisis and my reward? It was the smile on her face at the end of the conference.
One time I was waiting for our reservations at a popular downtown Hartford restaurant a woman coming out of the restaurant stopped and said to me, “You probably don’t remember me but I attended one of your Cultural Competency training sessions, I just had a client come out to me as transgender and from your presentation I was able to better understand what she was going through.”
From time to time I am a guest lecturer for a friend’s multicultural education class at local colleges and he sends me excerpts from their reflection papers and one student wrote this,
The biggest reflection I have this week after meeting Diana and partaking in the discussion, is being a bit more consciousness about my own nonverbal language and body language. I’m aware that when I feel greatly frustrated or even uncomfortable, I often smile (for no good reason) as a way not to show my true emotions, but this made me think about how much our body language and facial expressions are just as effective as microaggressions. Diana talked about microaggressions and comments that are made towards those that are transgender and I thought it be would equally important to include facial expressions and body language under that same umbrella.Some student's life might just be a little bit easier because their teacher understands.
When I was in grad school and on my first field placement my faculty advisor kept on asking about my support network and I didn’t understand what she was talking about, but then I figured it out, she was asking who do I turn to for help. Over the years I have needed my own support network.
There is a price that we pay and that is a little piece of our souls that we give away each time we help someone because if you are like me that is our reward. I give a little piece of me every time I give training. Saturday I had to go to a quiet place to unwind from the crisis and my reward? It was the smile on her face at the end of the conference.
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