"Pain is temporary, pride is forever." Versions of this unattributed quote have been all over sports gear for decades. It instantly taps into our human need for recognition and the lengths to which we'll go to get it. But of course, we don't have to be putting in the...
A Year of Dignity #5 – Acknowledgment
Have you ever experienced a time when your presence, input, or even pain was ignored by someone? Most of us have. And I'm sure you'll agree: it feels terrible! It sends the message that we're not important. That's the power of acknowledgement, this week's essential...
A Year of Dignity #4 – Safety
I found the topic of safety difficult to approach at first. Viewing the world through a lens of safe and unsafe seemed a little clunky for some reason. Until, through some discussions with others, I came to think of safety in terms of vulnerability and humiliation. If...
A Year of Dignity #3 – Inclusion
This week I discovered that the difference between someone feeling included or alienated can be surprisingly small. It could be a smile, a handshake, a comment, or the lack thereof. I saw how behavior I tend not to think too much about can be perceived as exclusion....
A Year of Dignity #2 – Acceptance of Identity
In this post my goal was not only to reflect and write about acceptance of identity, but to establish a structure for the first twenty or so weeks of this blog post series. The format I landed on is one in which we review the element of dignity (or later in the...
A Year of Dignity #1 – What is Dignity?
I can still remember the first time I learned about the concept of dignity. I was sitting on a bench in the Topiary Park of downtown Columbus, Ohio. I lived a short walk away and in those days--when I was a freelance writer bashing out 3,000+ words a day just to pay...