Cynthia Luna, summer 2004, wrote: "Last weekend I had the fortune to attend the MKP/WWI summer conference in Chicago. And I learned a lot about myself, about others and about our community. I was involved in several disucssions about gender, race, classism, elitism and multiculturalism.  And in all of them was a common factor: lack of awareness!

I have sat in circles where I have been the only Mexican, the only Spanish speaker, the youngest, the only woman, the only unemployed. I have felt sad, alone and frustrated sometimes. Especially when I have heard women and men telling me that diversity is not a priority. And when I am apart of big community gatherings such as last weekend, I look around and find a big crowd of white middle class people. I saw only Mexican women (me), one African American woman, two young women (under 30). There is so much to do yet, and I have hope.

I thought to myself, "I feel blessed I was able to come to a community like this of while middle class people who are doing good work." I also told myself, "I have so much to learn and to serve in this community, and if it is not diversity I wil be able to serve in other ways."

After this weekend, I realized I was not alone, that there are men and women who want to reach all kinds of communities: white, black, yellow, brown, rich, poor, religious, young, old, etc. I have received so much from this work that I want to extend it to as many people as possible. If you go to the WWI web site (www.womanwithin.org). the first belief stated is, "We value and celebrate community, connection, similarities and differences."

Part of my mission is to celebrate our differences and our similarities, and work together to grow as individuals and as a community. There is so uch to do . . . and there are people willing to do it!

I believe that there will be a day when both sides will be open to share - and especially listen, breaking the walls - to learn about each other and about ourselves, as others are mirrors of our own shadows."

Cynthis Luna, summer 2007 writes: “I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you might be until I am what I ought to be.” (Martin Luther King, Jr., Strength to Love, p. 7)

I cannot find a better message to send to this community than the words from Martin Luther King. I have written so many words in the past. I have tried to communicate my feelings and my experience in so many ways, but today I am speechless . . . Not so much because there is nothing to say, but because what I have to say is not a message from the mind but a message from the spirit. The spirit that you and I are, and the spirit that becomes stronger because of the combination of our differences. It is a message that calls for freeing our souls and be open to the connection that we have with one another.

Last night one of my coaching clients (an African American woman) broke into tears for the first time as she told me her story of “modern racism”* at the university where she is studying for her PhD in Psychology. This university has been recognized for the multicultural focus of its programs, and yet very few members of its faculty are non-white. When my client has raised questions of racial bias, administrators and faculty have dismissed her concerns and invalidated her by saying there is no racism — “you just have to continue doing your own work,” they told her. She came to me feeling powerless, alone, and doubting her own sense of self.

I tell this story because it was my own story and the story of many other women of color that I have heard from in Woman Within. As I sat and held space for my client, I was holding myself, and all the women who have come before and after me. Black women, white women, gay women, Muslim women, Mexican women. We all suffer from this “lack of awareness,” a lack of awareness of others, a lack of awareness of ourselves.

We live disconnected, unaware, afraid of anything different from what we know. And even though it might feel comfortable to stay where we are, our spirit is suffering. Suffering the disconnection. Suffering the not knowing. Suffering from being alone.

I know that a group of women from this community came together in June to talk about “white privilege.” My heart is joyful. Conversation has started. I know it is difficult, but please keep it going. Not for others, but for yourself. Allow your spirit to be free, loving, caring, and growing.

In South Africa I learned a very powerful Xhosa word: “Ubuntu,” which means: “I am because you are.” And Nelson Mandela reminds us in his autobiography Long Walk to Freedom that: “The oppressed and the oppressor alike are robbed of their humanity.”

Blessings to all of you for working to recover our humanity.

Cynthia Luna
(WWTW, Delavan WI, 2002)

*Isms & Issues training terminology for racism based on the assumptions, the underlying beliefs, that non-whites are inferior and whites are superior. The concept was originally developed by Visions, Inc.

Cynthia Luna Certified Integral Coach www.lfleadership.com Email: cynthia@lunafreund.com Mobile: +1 (773) 750-8704 Chicago: +1 (773) 290-6953 California: +1 (909) 632-1247 Mexico City: +52 (55) 5351-2348 Growing Leaders, Transforming the World

Cynthia Luna