When I decided to join a digital nomad program for a month-long, immersive stay in Cape Town, South Africa, I was met with support and genuine curiosity from my Axis community. Not surprising; that’s just how we roll. I explained to my manager and the team that I had lingered in my post-panny hangover too long and needed to shake the dust off. More than anything, I was desperate to find the Raven of the before times to restore my sense of wonder, courage, fearlessness, and wanderlust. Now listen, the truth is, I would have been happy just to remember how to have a longer than 15-minute conversation outside of Zoom without getting distracted or anxious. Either way, I was determined to upgrade my software.
Our warrior CEO, Laura Donald, is relentless in her pursuit of a liberatory culture, and I must admit that there have been times when I didn’t know what to make of it. Maybe it was just another novel way of saying, “We’re a cool place to work…we celebrate Juneteenth…we’re women, hear us roar”? I’ve stuck around long enough to understand it’s not just a novelty. Thanks to the culture we are building here at Axis, the easiest part of preparing for this extended change of location was aligning my work responsibilities with my desire to reconnect with myself in a way that had little to do with my role at Axis. What I know for sure (throwback Oprah reference activated) is that liberation is more than divesting from oppressive structures and rejecting despotic iterations of professionalism and ways of being. Liberation is the space and opportunity to self-actualize, realize our talents and potentialities, and freely pursue well-being and creativity.
When I boarded my flight, I had a moment of stillness to recognize that I was keeping a promise to myself and showing up for myself in a deeply important way. In South Africa, I watched glorious sunsets, took long, slow walks, danced on tables in townships, made an hours-long amapiano playlist, ran out of breath climbing mountains, almost bungee jumped, and made lasting friendships outside of Zoom. I also continued partnering with our incredible clients, interviewing stellar candidates, and having juicy one-on-ones with my manager.
The journey to liberation, though, is not a straight line. I got lonely in South Africa. Reconciling the time difference and work demands was frustrating at first. Liberation isn’t always a clean shot. Self-actualized people “are motivated by health, growth, wholeness, integration, humanitarian purpose and the ‘real problems of life.’” There will be knots to untie and problems to solve on the journey to true freedom. Building micro-practices that facilitate self-actualization is as liberating as taking a long trip to another country. Liberation must first be found in our own bodies and being. There’s slowing down, creating intentional space for contemplation, trying and not getting it right that liberate us. If lucky, we might find a well of “optimal creativity, well-being and self-transcendence” waiting to be unbound.
bell hooks declares that “rarely, if ever, are any of us healed in isolation.” True liberation requires community. You need your people. To know that I could be seen striving and seeking and that I didn’t have to do that in a silo but in an integrative way that included an audience of my badass Axis colleagues and our clients was just as meaningful as the journey itself.
Sources:
hooks, b. (2000). All About Love: New Visions. William Morrow.
Kaufman, S. (2018, November 7). What Does It Mean to Be Self-Actualized in the 21st Century? Scientific American.
