“Our Many Identities”

On Thursday, August 4th, the Needham Resilience Network met back at Powers Hall at Needham Town Hall. As a gateway to next month’s focus on exploring belonging and othering in Needham, Network members reflected on their own experiences around identity, belonging and othering. Upon entering the space, members were asked how they felt in anticipation. 


LEARNING AND SKILLS   
                 

Members engaged in two experiential learning exercises. Both activities in this meeting included a continued focus on “bridging and breaking”. 


EXERCISE #1: PAIRS

Our first exploration focused on our many identities:

  • the assumptions others may make about those aspects of identity they can see, how we navigate that, and what we do with those parts of our identities others cannot see and also,

  • the assumptions we ourselves make about how others may view us, or how we view others.

Pairs of participants considered 3 questions together:

  • What is one part of your identity that is likely to be seen by others? 

  • What is one part of your identity that is NOT likely to be seen by others, but is OK to speak about? 

  • What is one part of your identity that is NOT likely to be seen and you might want to share in order to be understood - and it’s something you might not share without certain things in place (and what would those need to be)?

Some revelations from the pairs were discussed in the large-group share-out: 

  • Our assumptions about others capture the tip of the iceberg. There is so much more to know about a person underneath all that - and we need to understand that, too, to understand all of them.

  • Telling a story about oneself can be awkward, yet it’s good to try to open up a little because then you might start to feel understood.

  • Targeted or structured questions can help us to get to know people better than everyday life, like in the context of a normal conversation; structured questions create a kind of cocoon, making it safe.

  • At times, it’s more comfortable sharing with one person than with a whole group - with just one other, you can get a better read on people by paying attention to how they’re responding. 

  • For some it’s in their nature to be open, and when you ask someone what may seem like to you a little question, it may be a large gift, a welcoming invitation that can be affirming for both yourself and the other person. 

  • Sharing can be contagious, snowballing into a whole community or culture that is increasingly open and caring; in this circumstance, when you ask how someone is doing, they offer heartfelt responses and ask you back with real interested in how you are doing as well.

  • It’s an honor to be trusted with such intimate information. 

  • You put something forward thinking that it’s only you who are feeling a certain way, then come to find out someone else has had a similar experience and you’re not alone.


EXERCISE #2: SMALL GROUP EXERCISE

Members broke into groups of 4 to share stories of:

  • Belonging: a time that made you feel this way and why it was special, and 

  • Othering: a time you felt excluded, dismissed, not fully seen based on some aspect of identity.

This was followed by a brief round of questions based on the SAVE - stories, actions, values, emotions - model and skill-building. While we did not ask members to share the stories they discussed in the large-group share-back, we did ask participants to reflect on them using the following questions as part of our closing pulse. 

Without referencing specific stories…

  • What about this exercise was difficult? Surprising?

  • What themes came up in your group’s belonging stories? 

  • What themes came up in your group’s non-belonging, or othering stories?


Large Group Exercise/Closing Pulse


As a closing pulse, the large group shared the surprising and difficult aspects of the conversation, and the themes that emerged in people’s stories about belonging and about othering. Observations included: 

  • One can feel like they don’t belong in familiar places, and like they belong in unexpected, faraway places, like other countries (e.g., ancestral homelands, different systems, etc.). 

  • Telling and listening to stories and memories about belonging and othering can elicit a lot of emotion.

  • Many of us spend a lot of time in places where we don’t completely feel like we belong.  

  • Belonging comes more easily in places where there are either strong affinity groups or on the flip side, a lot of diversity. 

  • Does anyone feel they belong all of the time? How would that be? Would there be an upside and a downside to that?  

  • Currently there is no belonging index for other countries, but it would be interesting to learn about how the US compares to other countries.

  • There is a difference between an experience of not belonging and one of being othered…. We will explore this further as a Network.

  • The more life experience you have, the easier it seems to be to shake off experiences of being othered.


GROUP BIOS


ROTARY CLUB OF NEEDHAM

Don DeVeuve, the President of the Rotary Club of Needham, shared information about the impressive local and international projects that are being sponsored by the Rotary Club. 

Regional projects include support of children and adults, through partnering with and offering financial support to a large variety of programs including:

  • helping to create a school sensory room for autistic children

  • DEI work (through book fairs, conferences, trainings and donations)
  • domestic violence prevention and intervention

  • advocating for carbon tax legislation, and

  • forest stewardship.  

International initiatives impact in a broad range of arenas including:

  • building community schools and clean water projects

  • installation of safe solar lights

  • building literacy and dialysis centers

  • aid to Ukrainian refugees, and

  • supporting global shelters for refugees displaced by disasters or violence. 

Many Network members have seen and been positively impacted by the ambitious local Rotary work and expressed enormous gratitude for these contributions.


BETH ISRAEL DEACONESS MEDICAL CENTER - NEEDHAM

Jennifer Pinto, Trauma Specialist and Director of Trotman Behavioral Health, presented the scope of BIDMC’s focus on health. Jen emphasized that in the hospital’s perspective, an important component of their work (and especially her ‘outward facing’ role, is providing assessment of and resources for ‘whole health’. BIDMC’s focus on community health includes emphasis on: 

  • Holistic Health

  • Stress and Trauma 

  • Mental Health

  • Trauma - Informed Treatment

  • Health Inequities

  • Community Resilience

  • Meaningful Community Engagement to Support Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging 

BIDMC is committed to creating programs and policies aligned with the community’s interests, concerns and is in turn providing offerings based on expressed needs, such as ‘supporting caregivers’, ‘social media and youth’ and suicide prevention.

NRN once again gratefully acknowledges Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center - Needham and the Crimson Lion Lavine Family Foundation for their generous support and partnership! 

                              
UPDATES & NEXT STEPS


NRN is inviting their subnetworks into the fold! In the next month subgroups will: 

  • receive the link to our community survey

  • be introduced to the NRN through some common language, as well as personal stories from their NRN liaison

  • be asked by their liaison about their lived experiences of belonging and discrimination/hate. These critical, anonymous narratives will be brought back to NRN for discussion and consideration of action. 

This Fall will mark our ‘coming out’ via social media, the NRN Website, and a press release via local news.


RESOURCES


What We Are Reading/Watching/Listening to:


  • Suzie Wise has a fabulous new book, replete with ideas and exercises for local application. Check out Design for Belonging.


  • The Founders Bequeathed Us Something Radical. On July 4, the Executive Director of the Ford Foundation made a beautiful argument about what’s at stake in our democracy today, and why it’s worth fighting for. Core to his argument? Our country needs pluralists–citizens who can listen, speak and problem solve across difference.

  • This July 4th, Meet Three Americas by David French. In this short and powerful essay, conservative journalist David French invites our divided, exhausted country back to pluralism.

  • On Belonging & Democracy: In this podcast, Ezra Klein interviews Anne Applebaum, author of a new introduction to Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism. Arendt argued that democracies start to fall apart when people don’t feel a sense of belonging (and further, that lack of belonging leads to support for authoritarianism). 


Onward!
Beth & Nichole (NRN Co-Directors)