May the effulgent rays of your energy

cast away all unholy forces

that tremble in fear

at the sign of your light

and melt in love with you

losing their might

May I learn to live from you

with wonder and curiosity in all

with endless energy and verve

with independence and resolve

with love for all things

but need for nothing

with choice words

with an infectious grin.

may i be brave like you

standing tall.

different from everyone

yet loved by all.

may i see you in joy

may i see your care

may i know that you’re my son always

by the heart that you wear.

It is hard to say when it all started.

Was it 4 years ago, shortly after COVID ended?

I definitely became aware then. Of a virus much worse than COVID, that was seeking to undermine and sabotage my life covertly.

In 2016, I had started Shakti Arts, my nonprofit, dedicated to fostering diversity and inclusion through the arts. I had been writing prolifically, on topics like feminine leadership and how we can communicate and connect across racial, ethnic, and political divides. I surely didn’t hold back on my criticism of growing up with angst and loneliness as a first-generation Indian-American in the US. And I was quite outspoken about how important it is, as women, to live our own lives and follow our passions.

Shortly after, I met my husband “Bruno Farreca de Araujo” through Tinder. He seemed like the perfect man. Tall, dark, handsome, and kind. Coddled me constantly and I was initially a happy recipient of all the doting.

But after some time, I started noticing his increasing demands. Demands that I call him more, that I cut my trip abroad off early, that I move from DC to NYC to live with him. The doting began to feel suffocating, and mysteriously many of my other, close friendships were breaking off. I was ready to call it off, but then I got pregnant mysteriously. It was strange because he had told me that he was married previously, and that his doctor had found he was sterile. How was I suddenly pregnant?

All around me, I was receiving messages, which I now know as “propaganda” created — to have the baby. My friends, the clinics, and even my parents acted like there was no other choice, moralizing against abortion. So I finally decided to go ahead with it, against my own wishes and feelings on the topic, and to marry Bruno. This was my first experience of my own contacts and close ones being weaponized against me using technology.

About 2 years into my marriage, I started noticing strange happenings. At the time I was heavily into my work while he would do the cooking. Often I would feel sick after eating. Along with that started noticing inconsistencies in what he said and did. Lies about finances, about his past marriage which turned out to be a lie. Computer hacking that I started noticing, connected to his computer. I had no idea what it was all about. Anytime I would ask him about these things, he didn’t speak.

In November 2021, I finally got fed up and reported him to the FBI.

It was a day after that that I noticed my apartment fill with smoke, during the day. It seemed it was coming from the tube on top of the microwave, which I then unplugged. My bedroom was filled with this odd smoke. From then on, life was never the same. I tried to tell the police, but they didn’t believe me. Instead, Bruno convinced them that I was crazy and needed to be taken to the hospital. Before I left, he gave me a drink, which I foolishly drank. In the police car I began hallucinating strange creatures. I don’t remember much what happened after that, but I woke up in a dark, gray hospital room in intense agony, crying. I was then sent to an inpatient psychiatric program for the first time in my life. I realized he was trying to make me look crazy. Through this process of scaring the living shit out of me + making me look crazy to the world, he also abducted my child to Brazil and blocked me from access to him.

I don’t know how to explain my life for the last 4 years. I have tried hard to understand it. It has become clear that Bruno was some sort of spy who had targeted me early on. My experience has included gangstalking, being completely invalidated by everyone including my family, losing my best friends mysteriously, losing my belongings like numerous cell phones, laptops, clothes. Losing trust in everything around me. Losing my successful business and having to rebuild everything again.

Yet also some mystical experiences that have been quite beautiful and surreal. A greater feeling of God with me, a greater trust for myself and my truth, and learning to stick with it even when I am invalidated by almost everyone.

My reason for writing this story is both for my own justice and as a dire warning of what is possible with technology when it is used in malicious ways. Besides what is already known about hacking and phishing, which are more important now than ever to be wary of, take note:

1. These days, it is easier than ever for AI to impersonate someone on text message/messenger services. There is also not an easy way to prove this is happening besides one’s own intuition when something feels “off.”
2. The CIA has studied things like psy ops, remote neural monitoring, and more for decades. Now with the advent of Neuralink and other brain-computer interfaces(BCIs), it is relatively easy to insert nanotechnology into your body and both view and influence your thoughts. This means that your innermost thoughts, desires, and insecurities can be seen and potentially used against you intentionally, to sabotage your sense of self and purpose, which was what happened to me.
3. Whether or not you have a chip installed in you, you are definitely being monitored, surveilled, and manipulated through your devices, phone number, and email and you probably have been your entire life.

The proof of this is evident when we actually take a look at the society we live in. One example is the division within our society. The fact that conservatives and liberals are not able to withstand eachother and seem to often have two different versions of reality, is because in a way they actually do. Thought patterns and beliefs can literally be manipulated to divide and turn people against eachother and block all possibilities for their communication.

What to do in this situation?

For me, learning to listen to myself over everyone and everything else has been paramount, first. In a world where we are always taught to defer to something outside of ourselves or to “how things are,” the most important thing I think we can do to fight all the noise and propaganda is to know ourselves truly, and validate ourselves. And furthermore for me, to create spaces where people who feel differently CAN still connect.

As an Indian woman who has suffered with depression and ADHD and has had all these things intentionally used against me in every way, it feels very important to me to share this story finally, to stand for my freedom and my right to my life, my son, and every wonderful thing I created in my life.

I believe that’s why my soul decided to be born in America, and despite all the abuse and manipulation I have faced here, I believe that is what this land truly wants from me. I suppose I will find out soon, if that is true.

“But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.” Declaration of Independence

Please find out more about YOUR RIGHTS to data privacy and security. https://www.aclu.org/issues/privacy-technology

In one sense, it is defined as “the attitudes and behaviors characteristic of a particular social group.”

Another definition of culture is the “language, religion, cuisine, social habits, music and arts of a group of people.”

In science, culture is defined as a verb- “to nurture in conditions suitable for growth.”

I define culture as essentially the “field” upon which something is cultivated and grown.

It is the foundation — of our personal identities, our work, and our larger society. It needs to be strong and rich for optimal growth.

Most of my work in change management consulting has involved culture, which often shows up as a root cause of dysfunction and resistance to change in organizations.

A Personal Example of How Culture Can Get Distorted

Culture has played a huge role in my personal life as an Indian-American born and raised in the US by immigrant parents. In spite of coming to the US in the 1970s, my parents were very connected to their Indian roots during my childhood, and so I received very different, sometimes dissonant messages, on how to live my life.

My parents’ region of India, West Bengal, is famed for its excellence across the arts and literature. It is also one of the more progressive regions of India, well-known for its freedom fighters, who fought for India’s independence from colonization as well as for the abolition of outdated, immoral social norms like Sati and child marriage. At the time, these were norms across India, and Bengal was a pioneer in bringing much needed change across the country.

Despite being born in the US, I was lucky enough to get to learn about Bengali culture from a young age through a Bengali language and culture school my father started in our community, as well as my parents’ insistence that my sister and I learn Indian music and dance.

This early influence ended up being more than a college resume padder as my parents thought. Instead of pursuing the medical school route they had laid out for me, I became fascinated with Indian culture and decided to take myself to India to learn music and dance from eminent gurus there, as well as work on my own music album.

After this point came some tough choices. My parents were not comfortable with me pursuing a career in music — after all, that was not “the way” for Indian Americans. We were expected to be doctors, lawyers, or engineers, and then to get married and have kids.

The culture that was based on freedom and thinking bigger than the status quo, had somehow changed. It had now become more about following the norm and playing it safe.

What I’ve realized from my own story is that culture can get manipulated or detracted from over time, especially during major change and insecurity. This happens when the essence of the culture itself is forgotten, the values upon which it is built get lost or get replaced. It is easy for this to happen at times, since culture is an intangible force that is usually not directly addressed.

How to avoid this happening? I think it starts with each individual, being brave enough to stand up for what feels right to us, even when it may go against the herd. To be the ones who speak up and act first, toward creating a reality that is more aligned with our true values.

Today, I apply my own journey with culture to help organizations improve theirs. To find the beauty and potential of their existing cultures, and also to amend and update the parts that are not actually serving their missions.

More and more, businesses of all types are finding that internal culture is an essential factor of external success. The energy with which people work everyday determines both the quantity and quality of work done, which is directly impacted by the culture.

I learn everyday from the work I do, both on myself and within organizations, and continue to be fascinated by how this unseen force of culture impacts so much of what we do.

When my parents came to the US from India in the 1970s, they paved the way for me to be my best.

Not to become a doctor, engineer, or IT person in my case. But to be able to explore and forge my own unique path in life — living as closely as I can to my values and what is really important to me.

As a result, I became a performing artist dedicated to fusing the beauty of my Indian roots with my modern, Western upbringing, blending old and new cultures to both preserve and innovate. I also started an organization, Shakti, dedicated to fostering cultural preservation in the US and honoring of different ways of being.

Over the years, I’ve seen many successes I never thought possible for myself. Because in addition to my identity as an Indian-American woman, I am also neurodivergent — which set me up to feel very different from other people throughout my life.

I feel it’s an important time to discuss mental health in our society, which is why I’m sharing this. My own son has been diagnosed with autism, and I hear more and more about adults and kids and mental health difficulties.

For me, neurodivergence has been a blessing and a curse. A blessing because I have discovered certain “superpowers” in myself:

• The ability to think independently often, from what society/media/family tells me
• The ability to see connections between things that others miss and integrate different viewpoints
• Creativity and out of the box thinking
• Adaptability and agility to novel situations
• Empathy and the ability to feel for others

The downside of the neurodivergence for me has been organizational skills, easy boredom, not fitting in often, and probably wearing my heart on my sleeve a bit more than I should. :)

There is nothing alarming about mental health difficulties becoming more prevalent, given the tech-driven, imbalanced society we live in. I would say it’s probably pretty normal these days.

My unsolicited advice for parents is to please try your best to celebrate these differences and find the beauty and gifts in them, in addition to offering the right external support, whatever that may be. Maybe your kid was born to go against the grain and do something different and totally awesome with his life, or maybe not. But I think it’s really important as parents to try our best to not limit what we show and tell our kids can be possible.

The celebrated actor Liam Neeson became unpopular overnight.

He shared a story in 2019 about one of his close friends who was raped by a Black man, and how it drove him into an irrational frenzy. He said he became so enraged hearing her experience, that for the next few days he felt he might have killed any “Black bastard” he saw on the street. Luckily for everyone, he didn’t come across any.

He explained how he was, to some degree, helpless against this feeling. His emotions took over his rational mind temporarily. However, it can certainly be argued that if he found out his friend’s rapist was White, would he be ready to kill any white man he saw on the street? Probably not. Because HE is white — so he knows for a fact that at least not ALL white men are bad.

For now, we live in a strange time post-coronavirus wreaking havoc on all aspects of our lives and careers.

Naturally, having to bear this trauma of fear, loneliness, and anxiety has had an impact on our minds. It has resulted in more isolation and separation, over-reliance on and over-trust of our electronics, and the erosion of trust of our fellow human beings.

The result of this separation is that the media that we consume has an even greater impact on us and forming our opinions. And our media is designed to spark fear and blame of the “other”, since fear sells.

We humans revel in being able to place blame. In the desire for power and superiority, it offers a feeling of satisfaction to be able to say that someone is wrong, so that we can be “right.”

That, and to conveniently put people in boxes based on anecdotes and very limited data — “if I experienced it, it must be the way it is in general, right?”

Judgment turns out to be very convenient by offering the ability to not need to think as much. Thinking takes up time and effort.

So traumatic imprint+ blame Game+ limited info= bias.

Our rational parts of the brain developed for a reason, albeit later in our development. The rational brain gives us some more options for dealing with challenges. It enables us to be creative and resilient.

Another Approach to Addressing Bias

The typical diversity training in the workplace prescribes a set of “dos and donts.” One way is right, the other way is wrong — there is no gray area or deeper exploration. These types of ‘rules’ do very little to address microaggressions and bias, which still manage to creep in stealthily.

In the workplace, storytelling can be a huge asset. I have personally led training sessions with storytelling that have led to huge, lasting impact on generating understanding and inclusion.

The biggest thing that separates us is the lack of first hand knowledge. We hear strange and scary stories in the media. We hear rumors all around of weird, alien practices, conspiracy theories, and more.

All of that makes it so difficult to trust someone from a different culture or context.

But we find, most times, that when we take the time to get to know someone’s personal story, those scary ideas and judgments disappear.

We start to see them as a human being, like us, who just had to deal with different life circumstances and challenges. Most importantly, they start to make sense to us and we can see ourselves in them.

And slowly, that understanding bridges us closer and eradicates discrimination and racism. We replace past thoughts with present experiences, which changes us and opens our minds.

So my call to you is to recognize and challenge your own biases and fears once in a while.

Find opportunities to interact with a curious mind with people you don’t know, who may seem very different from you, or who you may usually avoid for whatever reason.

Some questions you can ask:

- What are your thoughts on X?

-I’m wondering why you feel so strongly about x? I see things a little differently and I want to know it from your point of view.

-I’m curious why you said/did x. I just want to understand you better and feel closer/work better with you.

You may be surprised what you discover and how it helps you grow!

More at culturestrategy.io

Sometimes, You Can’t Address ‘Unconscious Bias’ if You Don’t Address Trauma was originally published in CultureStrategy on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The other day I met with a group of musicians to “jam,” or improvise together after a long time.

We had a guitarist, a Middle Eastern drummer, a jazz trumpet player, and two vocalists(one of them myself).

We had all never played together before. We were all talented in our own instruments, but learning how to play together in a rhythm and flow did not come easy at first.

For me, the lesson was deep. I had to remember again how to listen closely to the other instruments/voices in the room and adjust my responses based on the new input, and not just according to my own whims.

I had to relearn how to create spaces for the others to have their solo parts, whereas when practicing on my own, I had been used to singing nonstop.

I noticed how when we talked to eachother in between playing and exchanged ideas or direction, it improved the collaboration and understanding of one another.

Organizations are no different from an orchestra, jamming and improvising together.

Contrary to what we may believe, it does not necessarily take time together to achieve this synchronicity, though time can certainly help. Rather, it takes the intention to be open-minded and discernful, to achieve the rhythm that allows for organizational effectiveness.

Open-Mindedness

In musical jam sessions, we’ll often invite new musicians to come join. What we are inviting here is not just their instrument, but the new musician’s personality, their way of thinking, and their way of communicating. It is our job as musicians to try our best to adapt to this new energy for the duration of the session. And part of the fun of the process is this constant experimentation and learning together.

Similarly, organizations will experience turnover and new hires. They will need to adapt to new tools(instruments) coming in to help them become more effective. They need to be ready and willing to accept new ways of thinking and working into the fold.

This is where diversity and inclusion become so essential. Diversity includes and also goes beyond external characteristics, and trickles into how people like to think, communicate, and work together. Being open to adjusting to different styles is an essential competency that organizations need to adopt in order to be successful.

Discernment

It also takes a real capacity for discernment. For example, some songs don’t require all the instruments. If everyone tried to play, they would sound cacophonous. So, you need to know when it’s time for you to participate and when it’s time to sit back.

Similarly, there are some initiatives, decisions, and meetings that don’t require everyone to be involved. It’s essential to choose the right people as decision-makers, informed parties, etc. In tangible terms, creating a RACI of roles and responsibilities can be helpful. But often these decisions need to also be made intuitively.

In addition to parties involved, teammates must be able to discern work and communication styles in order to form the highest functioning teams. This requires going beyond the specific project itself to understanding the person: 1. What excites them about the work? What doesn’t? 2. How do they like to communicate?

Effective Communication

The most effective way to communicate is through multiple levels and modalities.

As a band, while we were playing our instruments, we communicated through our eyes and through our facial expressions and gestures to give eachother cues and important information on when to come in. This is similar to how a team may relay important information in real-time about the project or issue at hand.

However, in between songs, we shared our reflections through words on how we felt about how we were playing together. This communication was even more valuable, as it helped us to discuss HOW we were working together and what we could improve next time. It also helped us understand eachother more deeply.

Similarly, the organization is most effective when there are multiple forms of communication. Strategic communication, logistical communication, and process improvement-level communication are all essential to optimize the organization’s rhythm.

High-level Communication

This type of communication is meant for discussing and relaying a vision and strategy. As a group of musicians, we would decide the “feel” of the song and its purpose. Based on that, we would make decisions like the tempo, rhythm, and instruments and how and when they would be used. These decisions can be made after an initial “jam” session to generate ideas around the piece.

Similarly, high-level communication in an organization encompasses the vision and strategy of the organization and the individual teams, and serves as the anchor for all other work and communication that takes place. It is important to engage in this level of discussion with some frequency so that team members can remain anchored and driven towards a particular purpose, rather than simply working on autopilot.

Logistical Communication

This type of communication deals with day to day execution and “getting the work done.” This level of communication addresses the specific tasks, challenges, and decisions that inherently come up as part of completing projects. With a band, this would include decisions about what notes a specific musician should play at the interlude, or how the vocalist will cue the guitarist to come in for the chorus. This level of communication has to do with the details that make a piece come together to fulfill the vision.

In organizations, this is called project-level communication. The main purpose of this type of communication is to share information and make decisions related to specific tasks and daily activities.

Reflective Communication

This type of communication relates to how the team is working together. This level of communication relates to giving and receiving feedback and brainstorming on how work processes and communication can be improved. For example, instead of a weekly meeting between team members, it may be decided that a daily standup meeting for 15 minutes would be more effective for ongoing collaboration and idea sharing.

Adapting Effectively

In the old paradigm of work, time was the limiting factor of creating organizational effectiveness. The longer that teams worked together in stable and predictable conditions, the more efficient and effective they were. While this is still true to some extent, in today’s world of constant change, adaptiveness has become more important than time.

Adapting effectively means striking a balance. This is the balance between including vs excluding, between involvement vs sitting out, between managing vs enabling self-direction. When goals are aligned and in rhythm, the organization instinctively aligns and enters in and out of flow states, much like a band or orchestra does. From that point, it is a constant process of learning and adapting together to be able to meet ever-changing, dynamic scenarios.

Want to learn how to get your organization playing together like an orchestra? Check out our work in leadership development, culture, and communication analytics at CultureStrategy.io!

Originally published at https://www.culturestrategy.io on December 16, 2022.