I often get asked why I chose to dedicate my life and career to sexual and domestic violence prevention. When I think back on how I first got started, I picture myself sitting in my high school auditorium when I was 15 years old. In my mind’s eye the room is dark, the stage illuminated, and a handful of juniors and seniors are sharing information about a new student club aimed at addressing and preventing gender-based violence. They are sharing statistics and definitions and as they go on, there’s a dim flickering light that becomes ignited and starts to grow hotter and brighter right in the center of my chest.

That moment, more than two decades ago, changed my life. It changed me. It’s not because the presentation was so well executed or that statistics themselves can be transformative. It was hearing someone- and specifically my peers- give names and definitions to describe events that I had already experienced and hearing statistics that confirmed that I wasn’t alone that irrevocably changed the course of my life. Both our ability to heal and our ability to create meaningful change require us to be able to use our voices, tell our stories, and know our truth. And I knew, when I was 15, that I did not want other children or teens to have to wait so long to be able to have the words that could free or protect them. That initial spark that came to life in my high school auditorium grew to a powerful flame throughout that year, and by my 16th birthday I decided that this would be my life’s work.

In the beginning of my career, my goal was to spark the interest of my audiences and inspire them to want to learn more and become agents of change themselves. To that end, I felt it necessary to burn as brightly as I could in as many places where I could gain access. For some, the fire was contagious- I saw the ‘a ha’ moments in workshop participants and moments of transformation during community events like Take Back the Night. I can recognize now that by taking on this approach of intensely spotlighting gender-based violence in one-time engagements, some of my participants were illuminated, while others were cast into darkness- feeling overwhelmed or powerless by the enormity of the issue.

I began to shift my practice to prioritize long-term partnerships with schools and in the community. This deeper work allowed me to develop and foster relationships and transition from awareness raising to skill building; I saw the sparks of interest become steady flames of intrinsic motivation within individuals and communities.

Despite the change in how I approached my work with others, internally I still held onto a harmful belief that my value was in how much I took on and how much I could do on behalf of the organizations I loved. My trauma was so intimately connected to my passion for my career that I tied my worthiness to how much I could accomplish, how many people and communities I could reach. I thought what I was doing was so much more important than how I was doing. The pressure I felt to burn as brightly and in as many places as possible took its toll. Just as fiery passion can spread, so can burnout and overwhelm.

It took me time and a number of missteps to learn some hard and lifelong lessons about the importance of being intentional not just in what I did but how in how I did my work. As someone who wanted to be a leader in the movement, my practice was not sustainable nor responsible. I was working at a pace and with a prolonged urgency that would threaten to burn me out multiple times, resulting at one point in a 6 week leave of absence. Worst of all I was setting a dangerous example to those I supervised and mentored.

I burned so intensely because I wanted to be worthy of a movement that I felt saved my life and has the capacity to change the world. Part of what slows our movement’s progress is that we have individually and collectively received and internalized implicit and explicit messages that if we really care about this issue, we will never stop working and will always strive to work harder. There is always more to do and never enough resources to do it. Many of us know firsthand how lifesaving and life changing this work is, and we want to show up for survivors and communities the way someone showed up for us, or we want to be there for a survivor because we know intimately how not having support or people to listen and believe us can create so much pain and suffering.

It is my love and dedication to this movement and its most precious resource- our people- that drove my decision to start JT Consulting. I transitioned from working within organizations to working with organizations as a consulting partner to focus on providing the comprehensive support that empowers individuals and organizations to be effective and sustainable. Working with organizations to develop the structures to prevent and mitigate burnout and providing the training and support to amazing individuals who have chosen this career lights me up. My flame is brighter than ever because it is reflecting the unique light of my clients and partners. If you are new to this work or have dedicated decades of your life to this movement, you deserve to have your light protected and celebrated and to have the systems and supports in place that allow your flame to be sustained. That is the heart of what we do at JT Consulting.

A special thanks to Emily Christman for designing a logo that beautifully captures our heart.