Written by Jesenia Hernandez, Communications Manager at Broetje Family Trust
For the last 12 weeks, Center for Sharing has partnered with Centro de Compartimiento in Mexico to offer a servant leadership course in Spanish to Broetje Family Trust employees. Mena Mendoza shares her experience here:
I am a very anxious and negative person. I have trouble speaking and sharing my thoughts with others. Although I have knowledge and thoughts to share, I find myself frozen and unable to speak. Through these courses I have learned to analyze myself and reflect on who I am right now as well as who I was made to be by God. I think back to what created my anxiety and I can recall being in school in Mexico. I had a teacher who would force me to stand in front of others and read from textbooks. He knew that I was a quiet person and would intentionally ask me to read so that he could embarrass me in front of others. He would get very close to me and put his hand to his ear, yelling for me to speak up. Instead of helping me build a voice, he took it from me.
My friend Eréndira and I are taking this course together. We learned about the Enneagram and found that she was a 9, a peacemaker. It makes sense because she has been working with me to calm my anxiety and see the bright side of things. She tells me that it is ok and helps me collect my thoughts. She empowers me to speak and use my voice when I am ready. This is hard and it is not coming easy, but I am wanting to put in the work.
I am slowly trying to take what I learned and put it into action. My son and I have always bumped heads at home. I am realizing that I would always speak at him and not to him. Now, instead of asking “why aren’t you doing this?”, I am asking him questions like, “what is going on?” I am wanting to build a better relationship with him and really try to understand who he is without wanting to change him. I’m also learning to understand myself as a leader, as someone with a voice who can make a difference.
Mena held her servant leadership book, The Servant as Leader by Robert Greenleaf, and with the most serious eyes she looked at it, looked up again and shared, “This is very important to me; very, very important to me.”