Throughout my entire journey of self-discovery, especially after flying out of state for the first time to somewhere I’ve never been, I’ve come to accept the fact that even as I slowly become more sure of myself and the kind of person I’m becoming, my “shadow work” is never truly finished. I’ve been on the road with Monique numerous times now for different purposes, causes, and events throughout the state of Maine, and from what little has been discussed about some of what she’s done in another timeline before becoming our executive director, Monique continues to amaze me with just how great she is at what she does, drawing from those past experiences.
When she mentioned “trauma responses” to me at the airport while waiting for our flight back to Portland, I knew right away what she meant by that, and I knew what I needed to work on next when I got back home from Washington. Monique has some valuable insight and can often point us in the direction of where we need to be when we look to her for guidance. She’s very intuitive, and she has such a good feel for so many of us and how we all operate.
I truly appreciate Monique being so patient with each of us and being so understanding, even when some of us weren’t always so easy to deal with. And I can never thank her enough for all the work she did to keep our group active and engaged throughout this whole trip as we all got acclimated with our surroundings, reminding us why we were here and why we kept doing what we were doing, and for all the work she did behind the scenes on this trip between keeping us all comfortable and safe, making sure we were all getting enough to eat and drink, and making sure we all had a way to get where we needed to be.
This Washington trip likely wouldn’t have happened in the first place without Monique putting in the work that she did to help make it happen. It really was a highly coordinated effort. Bravo, Monique. Take a bow.
If you are self-advocate and would like to share a blog post with us please email Laurie Coldwell at lcoldwell@sufumaine.org
The Speaking Up For Us (SUFU) blog contains views and opinions of each individual writer. The views and opinions expressed through these channels are purely the bloggers’ own and do not reflect the opinion of SUFU as an organization or any SUFU staff member.
