The undertaking of Trauma Informed Care here at Hopeworks has taught me something about culture change. I have come to appreciate that culture change isn’t simply a cognitive action–where I learn new information and then adapt my behavior. If this was the case, then I would simply change any bad habit I have, and people would stop smoking simply when they learned that smoking causes cancer!
Culture involves feelings–feelings about change, feelings that are rooted in identity . Identities give us a sense of safety: we know how things “ought to be.” However, culture isn’t solely a construct that yields feelings of familiarity. Rather, culture is a blending of the emotion and the cognitive creating a structure of meaning. . . . .
. . . . . .I am learning to value “holding steady” in the gaze, to admire Venus, Saturn and the many moons of the culture here, but to also wait in the spaces for the other constellations to emerge. To learn to look is the first step and to gaze is the second step of real culture change. To tolerate and welcome both the brilliance and the darkness for the purpose of seeing more, making different meaning– it is “holding steady” in the gaze.
Comments (0)