Welcome back to the Origination Point Podcast! This week, we are doing things a little differently. In this episode, Bill is starting a new series called ‘The Awakened Heart’ where he interviews guests and gives people a platform to tell their story. If you enjoy this episode, be sure to share and subscribe!
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The Awakened Heart
This is Bill de la Cruz. You’ve been tuning in to The Origination Point show. I’ve got a special treat for you. We’re starting a brand-new show. It’s called The Awakened Heart. It was the brainstorm of my good friend, Guadalupe. We talked about how it’s apparent how divided our country is, and how human beings are hurting. It’s quite interesting because, at the same time, a lot of you out there are demonstrating these incredible acts of kindness all the time, even in the craziest and harshest of times. As my friend and I were talking, we thought, “What if we encouraged people every day to share stories of positive things that they’re doing across differences for people right in front of them?”
That’s how this idea came about. It’s to share with you what we’re calling The Awakened Heart. Guadalupe will share a little bit more about where this idea came from. I want you to start to think about what those acts of kindness that we’re seeing are. We’re going to encourage you to get in touch with us to tell us, too, what you’re doing every day out there in these crazy times that we’re all living in. I want to introduce my special guest, Guadalupe Guajardo. Guadalupe, tell us a little bit about yourself.
First of all, I want to thank you, Bill. I’ve had a dream to start this show for years. It came to me in the middle of my meditation that I needed to collaborate with somebody who knew what they were doing and I knew also, in your heart, you share a lot of the same things that we want for the world, which are to be less divided, share our stories, and recognize that humans are good and that we do good.
The Awakened Brain: The New Science of Spirituality and Our Quest for an Inspired Life by Lisa Miller
I believe that the more those stories are shared, the less there will be division among us. It was in reading Lisa Miller’s book, The Awakened Brain, where she also talks about The Awakened Heart. I want to credit you with the tagline that goes with that which is rehumanizing our connection. While The Awakened Heart sets the tone, the intent is to rehumanize our connection.
This is a vision and a passion that I have. You and I talked about collecting stories, particularly, the stories that are compelling. We then share those stories of acts of kindness. Dr. Lisa Miller, in her book, talks about how all the major religions have several things in common. They have altruism, love of our neighbor, oneness, the sense that we want to be one and connected with each other, and the fact that often there is a moral code that underlies so much of our human acts. These stories all are going to have that in common.
When I was reading that, I thought of Sandy Froman, whom I live in a community with. We are both part of the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary based out of Montreal, but we belong to the US-Ontario Province. I’ve been living with Sandy for several years. Sandy’s been a wonderful White ally for me. She has told these stories of when she had an opportunity when she was working in the corporate world as a manager. The steps that she took that underline it, for me, are these four dimensions that Dr. Lisa Miller mentions in her book, The Awakened Brain. As you and I talked, I shared one of the compelling stories that Sandy shared with me. It seemed to me that we both thought that was a compelling enough story to start with as an example.
I want to remind you that one of the other practices that informed this was the practice of Sacred Transcendence. It is important to mention because, in your role as a sister, you’re practicing that sacred transcendence. That’s partly what we’re talking about. Regardless of what your beliefs are, how do people practice that sacred transcendence into something that’s more than what we think we can do or who we are? Am I getting that or am I off this?
You are getting that. Although it’s possible that I’m having a senior moment and I don’t remember that as being one of the elements, the tone and the spirit of what we’re doing are about spiritual transcendence.
For all of our readers out there, it was something that was shaped through Guadalupe’s vision, our connection with each other, and now through Sandy’s story. I’m sure there are thousands of stories that all of you have out there of the beautiful things that you’re doing every day. I’m going to let you go ahead and introduce Sandy and we can jump into the story that she wants to share with everybody.
Sandy and I met several years ago. Sandy was becoming a lay-consecrated member of the Holy Name Sisters. We came from very different worlds. She came from the corporate world. I came from the nonprofit world, but we found some common ground around leadership and what it looks like to take leadership in the world and in our lives.
I’m going to ask Sandy to share her story of the profound leadership she took. This is only one example of the many stories that she has shared for several years, but this is one that deeply touches my heart as an example of what we can do when a situation presents itself right in front of us and we are in a position to influence what happens. Sandy, I’d like you to say a few things about yourself and then share a story.
The Awakened Heart: When a situation presents itself right in front of us, and we are in a position to influence what happens, make a difference.
I worked for this high-tech company for many years. I’d been there for several years and we were getting a lot of training around discrimination and not doing that. We had a lot of people that worked in our factories who were from Asian countries. At the time, I had been managing a factory of 45 to 50 people and part of my job was to budget for salaries for the coming year. I had put together my budget and noticed when I was looking at people’s salaries that there was this one young woman who has the highest quality, highest output, and lowest salary.
I thought, “What is that about? I need to fix that.” I put in a very large increase for her and that went to my boss. My boss said, “I’m not sure about this. You better check with my boss.” The second-level boss called me over and said, “What’s this?” I explained to him that she’s the highest quality and output, and the lowest paid. I said, “She was from Vietnam.” He said to me, “She doesn’t understand English, does she?” I looked at him and said, “I’ll forget you said that,” and she got her raise.
I’ve asked Sandy a couple of times, where she got the chutzpah to stand up to two male bosses and not back down. Sandy, what did you say when I asked you that?
I don’t remember what I said to you, but I know that that was part of our training to make sure that people were treated equally. It was a very wonderful company that we work for.
Part of being a leader is to make sure that people are treated equally. Share on XDid those super supervisors or men go through the training as well?
Yes.
What do you think happened that it didn’t connect with them or that they would say something about her ability to speak English as part of her compensation?
They were so worried about the budget and concerned that someone could get such a large increase because it was large to bring her up to medium within the group. They weren’t sure how they were going to sell that.
Was that a standard where people who were not White were looked at as, “We can pay them less,” or was that a practice that happened in that company?
I don’t think it was that conscious, but yes.
It’s that implicit stuff that we don’t know about but becomes part of the culture of an organization and nobody questions it.
It’s nested in a capitalistic economic system. It’s not surprising that these higher-level managers or directors were always looking at the bottom line because that’s what investors or boards often look at. Implicit is the bottom line in an economic system, but that is not going to close the gap.
The Awakened Heart: Implicit is the bottom line in an economic system, that is not going to close the gap.
He understood as soon as I said, “I’ll forget you said that.” He knew that he had done the wrong thing.
Did he apologize?
No, but she got a raise.
It’s interesting because a lot of our systems are rooted in that patriarchal structure where men hold more power and have more access. It’s interesting that that’s how it all played out. While it might be implicit that’s unknown, it’s still an explicit part of a patriarchal structure.
What makes me proud of Sandy and so many White people is that they leverage their position to do the right thing. Sandy, I don’t know if you were thinking of yourself as a White ally.
No.
You were going, “This is the right thing to do. We have gotten this training that we need to address issues of bias, prejudice, and discrimination.” It was right in front of you and you were in a management position to do something about it.
It’s interesting, too, when we think about how many organizations are doing diversity and bias training. Whether it’s just a check the box or something that facilitates real change, which is a whole other conversation that we can have around everybody who is saying, “We need a diversity trainer or diversity person.” What do you think the message would be for people who are reading this that want to do right by other people? Is it about training, awareness, or taking action?
It is about doing the right thing. That’s all it is.
For everybody out there reading this, are you doing the right thing? How are you taking care of each other? How are you supporting your neighbor? If you’re in an organization and you supervise people, how are you making sure that they’re taken care of?
The other lesson that I would put forward is unless you’re taking action, you can call yourself an anti-racist. It’s an ideal we strive for. Taking some leadership and doing the right thing, especially when the organization is promoting it is an opportunity to take action and manifest the value the organization says is important.
Taking some leadership and doing the right thing, especially when the organization is promoting it, is an opportunity to take action and manifest the value the organization says is important. Share on XWe can label ourselves anything we want yet until we do something, we’re not going to manifest real change. Is there anything else, Sandy, that you want to add to your story or lessons?
No, it was such a shock to me because we all went to the same classes. I thought, “Was he not in there?”
Maybe he was there to check the box. Who knows?
What’s lovely is that you gave him the opportunity to do the right thing and manifest the values that you had all been through to make the company more authentic. In my mind, that’s an important piece.
All I said was, “I’ll forget you said that.”
That triggered something in his brain and said, “Maybe I shouldn’t have said that.” How long ago was this?
I worked there for many years. It was a long time ago. It was in the late ’60s.
Now, with the cancel culture that we have, maybe he would’ve been fired versus learning a lesson. It’s interesting to think about how we are treating people when something like that happens versus learning a lesson, we say, “You’re done. See you later.” You then have somebody who leaves upset and never learns. “What did I do? How did it affect another person?”
Whether that person was in the room or not, it still affected you. It’s an important thing for us all to think about. If we got rid of everybody for a blind spot transgression that we have, nobody would be left. We’ve all done something that affected somebody else that we wish we could like push back in our mouth, but it’s already out there.
This is hopefully one of many more stories that we hope to collect of the time that we were in a situation where we could influence, take some leadership, and do the right thing.
In a situation where you could influence, take some leadership, and do the right thing. Share on XFor everybody out there, you have been reading our new show. It’s called The Awakened Heart Rehumanizing Our Connections. It’s set up to share stories of ordinary people doing extraordinary things in their lives like us. If you have a story that you want to share about a difference that you made in somebody’s life, that was altruistic, that is about loving your neighbors yourself, that created a sense of oneness, that transcended that sacred practice, or you lived your moral code, whatever that is, we’d love to hear from you and start to catalog these stories.
As we said at the beginning, it’s easy to get hopeless and to think that nothing will change, yet we know that there are people out there reading this who are doing things that are supportive of each other. We want to rehumanize our connection. Guadalupe, I’m going to let you have the last word and then we will sign off until next time.
As I was listening to you, I was thinking of a saying we have in Spanish, “Esperanza muere ultimo,” or “Hope dies last.” These stories are about hope. Thank you, Bill, so much for being my collaborator in this event.
You’re welcome. We’ll look forward to more stories. Sandy, thank you for being our first guest on this journey that we’re on. We look forward to hearing from many of you out there and hearing your stories. Keep growing. Thanks, everybody. We’ll see you next time.
Thank you.