In order to break out of inertia, Bonny Shade, lead speaker and educator at Bonny Shade Speaks, LLC, wants everyone to be human and be intentional within their community.
UWO’s Center for Student Success and Belonging held a Breaking Down Barriers conference on March 8 to encourage students to “[break] down barriers to your wellbeing.”
Shade had never planned on becoming a public speaker. She received an undergraduate degree in biology with a minor in chemistry and creative writing in hopes of becoming a veterinarian. While in school, she was heavily active in Greek life.
“I would joke that I was majoring in orientation or Greek life and biology was on the side,” Shade said.
After realizing she loved the college experience, she received her masters degree in college student personnel from Bowling Green State University.
During her studies, she noticed that college students needed someone to talk to them in a way that made them feel like adults.
“We often forget that the life struggles that you all are going through are things that we also experience as your professors, as your teachers, as your mentors and advisers,” Shade said. “And so from that, I just kind of started developing some curriculum and writing some things and figured out what I thought college students might need to hear in a way that did make them feel like adults.”
Shade said she wanted to make big topics feel digestible. Shade survived an experience with sexual violence when she was in college. That moment sparked her passion for speaking with college students specifically.
In a short group exercise, Shade asked the crowd to identify their community.
“What you’re going to do is you are going to turn to the person next you, you’re going to introduce yourself and say hi, and then I want you to tell them about your community,” Shade said. “Whatever the word community means to you.”
Shade said community can be a number of things – from where someone grew up to the interests they have – but, in finding community people can also become stuck.
“You just kind of trip, stumble and fall and you’re like ‘oh, cool here are my people,’” Shade said. “But if we want to do this differently sometimes we have to think differently about how we define community because it’s really easy for us to just kind of fall into this bubble, or fall into this thing, or do what we’ve always done to find community, right?”
That’s where inertia comes in. Shade focused her speech on Newton’s First Law: an object in motion stays in motion unless acted on by an external force.
“Friends, it’s really easy for us in our sense of community and our sense of belonging and our sense of purpose to just kind of do what we do,” Shade said. “What we’re going to talk about today is how you can be that external force, how you can be that one person that maybe challenged the status quo of that group.”
Caprice Swanks, a student, found community at UWO in the African-American Studies Library in Sage Hall. It was a safe space for her to be herself. After listening to Shade’s speech, she said she realized she needs to sit with her discomfort more.
“That is where growth begins, and to really allow yourself to sit with those feelings that you’re feeling, don’t ignore them,” Swanks said. “Let them soak in and muster. I feel like that’s what’s going to help you understand yourself a bit more…”
Kiersten Lewis, a former UW Fox Cities student before the campus closure, has struggled to find her place at UWO.
“I don’t know anybody here,” Lewis said. “I never did a tour here. I feel like a freshman that was just kind of plopped in here and it sucks.”
She felt like she reached a point where she was ready to meet people, and being alone was taking its toll. Her go-to spot to work on campus is the Hub in Reeve Memorial Union.
While Lewis was sitting in the Hub, Eliza Farrow, the student services coordinator, approached Lewis and asked if she’d like to sign up for the conference.
“I looked at it and I’m like, sure why not?” Lewis said. “To meet people? Solid, that’s the thing I’m desperate for. That’s how I found out about this and why I’m here.”
Shade said seeking community is daunting, but people need to be afraid and do it anyway.
“I want you to be human because oftentimes the world tells us that our fears are something we should not talk about,” Shade said. “I’m going to tell you this. Life gets a lot better when you stop letting other people ‘should’ on you.”
Shade shared the story of her first date with her husband Chris. In a moment of vulnerability, she decided to open up about the thoughts, feelings and fears that she had been holding on to.
Chris told her he was feeling the same way.
“I finally, for the first time in my life, felt seen, felt validated,” Shade said. “I felt like I was enough just as I was.”
She said “that is the life we miss out on if we’re rooted in our fear,” and when we are human together it’s a beautiful thing.
Shade said that a community might not always be equipped to respond, but that doesn’t change the validity of a person’s story.
“Keep sharing these things regardless of what that person on the other end’s response is,” Shade said.
Intentionality was Shade’s last lesson. Shade wants everyone to be intentional with their time, energy, words and community because that is how human relationships thrive.
Intentionality offers an opportunity to let go of fears and be human with one another.
“What I’m asking you is to pick one, overcome that fear,” Shade said. “Start talking about what makes you, you, or be intentional with the opportunity that you’ve been given. Try just one and see how it begins to change your trajectory of inertia.”
“My hope is to be who I needed when I was in college, to college students, to college men, to college women, just to people who are experiencing life,” Shade said. “Whether that be through the belonging piece, through the community piece or through tragedy. I want to be able to be the person that they need to seek.”
To learn more about Shade and her work, visit www.bonnyshade.com.
