Travelin’ Thru: Launching the Brave Space Leadership Blog

tra*ve*log: a story about an experience from a journey.

The journey to launch this blog has been a long and winding road.

Several years ago, I started talking with my dear friend and collaborator Kristi Clemens about a follow-up to our chapter on brave space in The Art of Effective Facilitation. We’d learned so much from our ongoing use of the brave space framework in our own facilitation practices. We’d also heard from many colleagues who had offered us their wisdom about where the framework was useful, what its limitations are, and how it needed to evolve to better support diverse groups to talk and learn about social justice with one another. We knew we wanted to write about how our thinking about and use of brave spaces had changed over time. Curiously, however, I found myself drawing a blank when the question changed from “should we write?” to “what kind of writing shall we do?” While we had no shortage of answers to the latter question, none of them lit the spark of passion and inspiration I needed to put the proverbial pen to paper.

Fast forward to a few years later, when I formed Brave Space Leadership and announced my intention to transition to working full-time as a coach and consultant. I was gratified to receive an abundant outpouring of support and encouragement from my community … and yes, also suggestions. One of the most common things I heard from folks is, “you’ve got to write.” And I get it. Writing is one of the most powerful ways we can practice thought leadership and help people understand how we approach the complexities and nuances of healthy and humanizing leadership. Moreover, I enjoy writing; it might even be fair to say that I’m good at it. Even so, I constantly found myself prioritizing other kinds of work and rationalizing putting writing on the back burner.

Eventually, I realized that when it comes to writing, I was stuck. I was swimming in different options for writing yet did not feel powerfully moved toward pursuing any of them. This realization naturally led me to think about coaching, which I have found to be one of the best ways to help people get unstuck. So I asked myself one of my favorite coaching questions: “when it comes to this issue, what do I want?” As someone with multiple minoritized identities who built a long and successful career in a helping profession, I find this deceptively simple question to be profoundly powerful, because in a million ways I have been socialized not to think about what I want, to focus instead on what others want or need. As such, I often don’t even know what I want. That’s a recipe for inertia, because it means I don’t know what my choices are nor how to evaluate them. By contrast, knowing what I want gives me energy and direction, both of which I found when I asked myself what I wanted when it comes to writing.

I want to write when I have something to say.

My husband is a former daily newspaper reporter, and by all accounts an exceptionally talented one. His success was not due to his award-winning writing skill alone; it was also because he wrote well on deadline, and could find interesting things to write about even on slow news days.

That’s not me.

A prescribed cadence for writing stifles rather than stimulates my creativity, so when I think about setting a goal for a certain number of social media posts in a week or starting a newsletter, my palms start to sweat. I do my best writing when I follow rather than force my inspiration. A blog lets me go ham when I am overflowing with exciting ideas, and slow down when the cup isn’t so full.

When I have something to say, I want to say it in a timely way.

One of the benefits of social media as a forum for writing is that you can share your thoughts about current issues much more quickly than in more formal publications. The same is true for blogging, but without the character limits of LinkedIn and Bluesky, my social media platforms of choice. Those character limits can be especially challenging for writing about the nuances and complexities of diversity, equity, inclusion, social justice, and belonging - topics which are deeply important to me and come up often in my work with leaders.

I want to write in ways that authentically align to my style and strengths.

I have range as a writer - I can run the gamut from snappy social media posts to a dissertation - but what I have always most loved to do is tell stories, and it’s in storytelling that my writing goes from good to great. Social media channels only occasionally lend themselves to the kinds of longer storytelling I want to do. I have often had to truncate my thoughts in social media posts, and I want the spaciousness to say all of what I want to say. But not too spacious - books offer a more expansive format, yet I don’t often find myself wanting to tell book- or even chapter-length stories. For these reasons, the flexibility of a blog appeals strongly to me. I am looking forward to writing in my own voice and at whatever length is suitable for the topic at hand.

I want to write on my own and with others.

I love writing on my own, but I also love collaborative writing, building and honing ideas with friends and colleagues and sending them out into the world together. I intend for this blog to include these kinds of collaborations. At times, it may even feature writing that isn’t mine at all. I’m excited by the prospect of inviting guest contributors and elevating others’ great writing which aligns with the mission of Brave Space Leadership.

I want to be able to revisit and revise my writing.

I am constantly learning and changing. Books, articles, and other traditional forms of publication represent their authors' thinking at a specific moment in time - once they’re published, that’s it. But I want my writing to evolve as my thinking does, and blog posts can be updated at any time and as often as needed.

I want my writing to be easily accessible.

For me, the point of writing for anyone other than myself is to be of service to as many people as possible. I don’t want any unnecessary barriers between my writing and people who might find it useful in some way. That means no paywalls on this blog. I’ll also do my best, as someone who loves interesting and unusual words, to avoid using jargon - or at least explain it when I do. And I am committed to practicing universal design so that disabled and nondisabled people alike can meaningfully engage with the content.

I want to make it easier for others to respond to my writing.

In the final paragraph of our book chapter on brave space, Kristi and I said:

… we recognize that brave space remains a relatively new framework with ample room for growth and refinement … we welcome your additional philosophical and theoretical analysis of the framework as articulated here, as we know that others will see and understand the strengths and shortfalls of brave space in ways we, as yet, do not. We look forward to continued engagement with you in our shared journey to develop ever more efficacious social justice facilitation practices. (Arao & Clemens, 2013, p. 149)

We’re so glad that many people took us up on this sincerely offered invitation, even though it meant they had to do some extra work to find us. A blog makes this kind of engagement easier. For now, the comments section will be turned on, with some reasonable guidelines and boundaries - we are all about brave space here, after all.

I’m looking forward to sharing travelogs from my (and others’) healthy and humanizing leadership journeys marked by vulnerability, growth, and a commitment to equity. I am of the firm belief that any journey is enhanced by good music. As I wrote this post, I kept singing the hook to a Dolly Parton tune called Travelin’ Thru; when I listened to the whole song again and paid attention to the lyrics, I understood why. This verse feels like a good way to sign off, for now.

“Oh, sometimes the road is rugged and it's hard to travel on

But holdin' to each other, we don't have to walk alone

When everything is broken, we can mend it if we try

We can make a world of difference, if we want to, we can fly.”

-Dolly Parton, Travelin’ Thru