I'm so bad at being "managed" - out there communication

1-year of push2exist: reflections, updates, and celebrations :)

I was scrolling through my Instagram looking for the date I made the first post on @push2exist… and it was exactly one year ago TODAY (wrote this on 08/08/2023)! Can’t believe it.

this was me one year ago facilitating my first ever somatic consent workshop to a group of teenagers at camp brave trails!

At the time, I was struggling to pick a name for my new business endevour, and a colleague of mine suggested that I can just pick something for now, and change it later. I’m so grateful for that advice because it gave me permission to start…and I kept the name. :)

I decided to start my own business in part because I am SO BAD at being “managed”. I’m pretty sure like…many people are? When working for others, I asked why a lot and was eager to find organizational solutions that centered equity and accessibility. This caused a lot of friction at my jobs because, well, for one, it wasn’t my job to do those things, lol.

I was a project manager! A program developer! An event producer! My job descriptions did not include diversity, equity, and inclusion consultant, employee well-being advocate, or facilitator of cultural change; however, I often found myself in those roles. And honestly, ultimately, I do not see how we can have one without the other.

Projects, programs, and events can be massive undertakings with lots of steps and lots of people. They require cultural and diversity competency, project scoping in a way that minimizes burn out, and facilitation skills that allow the team to move forward with ease.

I learned a lot in my time as a corporate trouble maker. :P One of the biggest takeaways is that people are tired. There’s a seemingly universal desire for things to be slower. To work less. To enjoy life. To make more spaciousness for creativity and fun! But how, how do we divest from systems rooted in urgency and control?

I do not have a one size fits all answer, but I do know it’s something people have been doing for a long time. There are tangible skills that can be learned. There are ways to practice together. <3

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I’m celebrating a lot as I reflect on the past year.

10 organizations and 6 individuals decided to sign a contract with me and pay me money???

Like wow - I’m so humbled by the trust and it’s been such a pleasure to support folks who are doing incredible work.

Here are a few client highlights:

Chan Zuckerberg Initiative

Facilitating part two of a two-part facilitation workshop series.

I worked with the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative’s Movement and Capacity Building Team to develop a series of four 90-minute workshops for their grantees.

Two of the workshops were on building skills around trauma-informed, transparent, and accessible facilitation. One was on justice-oriented compensation, and the final was on giving and receiving feedback.

Nearly 500 people joined for some period of time over the four workshops. I’ve never shared my work with that many people before! I also advised 16+ non-profits over 40 hours on facilitation, conflict, confidence, decision making, and values aligned management.

It was all incredibly exciting, fulfilling, and overwhelming. I'm super grateful, and so glad it will never be the first time I’m doing something like this again, lol.

I’d love to do more projects like this! Here are some things the grantees said about the workshops. 🙂

Laila is amazing, I cannot wait for the next session to continue learning from them!

The session today was phenomenal!
Laila was amazing, especially around finding comfort in the discomfort and offering tools to reframe and respond to conflict!

Thank you for the workbook and resources. Can't wait to share with the team. I am the Capacity Building Program Manager in my organization and having the checklist will help me guide my team when they are creating their trainings.
This was SO GREAT! Laila was a really warm, engaging and smart facilitator (with a calming voice)-- I want to learn more from them :) I appreciate somatics being brought into this training, and naming the violent roots of perf. reviews (without diverging into a long academic convo-- we stayed super practical which was great).

Laila is such an effective facilitator and takes time to go through the nuances and individual questions at hand, and call attention to really important patterns and larger systems at play.

The facilitation was fabulous and the facilitators were professional, well-prepared, and knowledgeable. The inclusivity was top-notch and a model for others to follow.
Excellent trainer for this topic! I feel much better informed on how to frame and run future meetings. Thank you!

Brown Girl Surf

Brown Girl Surf came to me desiring to use a 10- hour group coaching grant for six Brown Girl Surf facilitators to learn more about trauma-informed and somatic-based facilitation, programming, and communication.

I was humbled by their trust to develop a brand new program for them. It was such a delight to do this work together, and the feelings were definitely mutual:

"Having Laila as our coach was truly transformational for our team. We always left our coaching sessions feeling fruitful in thought and in better understanding on how we can individually and collectively facilitate from a somatic-consent based lens, with a deeper understanding of boundaries, attunement, de-escalation techniques and best practices that has deepened our understanding and commitment to strengthening our trauma-informed facilitation toolkits in all of our programs.

Prior to working with us, Laila took the time to get to know our team dynamics, learning styles, values and dreams which allowed for a distinctly personalized curriculum and coaching sessions that felt applicable and deeply relevant to our needs and the specific communities we serve. Each session was a lovely balance of theory, discussion, practice time and space to reflect and workshop future applications.

We especially loved and appreciated Laila consistently modeling the teachings throughout each session, so that we could all experience the learnings both mentally and experientially. Laila's dedication to supporting facilitators show up as their best and most authentic self is truly inspiring. We are grateful to have had the opportunity to learn from/ with them, and would absolutely work with Laila again!" -Madoka Hara, Program Director, Brown Girl Surf

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Wilhelm Foundation

Helene at the Wilhelm foundation is a remarkable human with a devastating story. Three of her children died of an undiagnosed disease…

So, she and her husband Mikk started an organization dedicated to finding diagnoses for undiagnosed diseases in children around the world. She reached out looking for support in planning the first ever Undiagnosed Hackathon in Sweden — bringing together programmers and scientists from 28 countries to diagnose undiagnosed diseases in children.

Over our sessions, Helene and I discussed the overall run of show, communicating with participants and partners, and centering accessibility and inclusion.

They were able to diagnose FOUR diseases at the Hackathon, and there is still work underway to solve others. Truly remarkable.

I loveeeeddd working with Helene, and am looking forward to working work with more Helene’s of the world:

“I’m so thankful for everything you have taught me and Mikk. The Undiagnosed Hackathon would not have been such a success without your help!” Helene, Founder, Wilhelm Foundation

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