What does being professional mean to you?

Who gets excluded by the concept of professionalism?

Do the standards of professionalism allow you to show up as your full self and bring your full humanity into your work and business? If not, just who is really benefiting from ‘professionalism’?

These are just some of the questions I'm diving into in today's episode. Let’s go.

Links, resources & mentions

• Needy podcast with Mara Glatzel

Episode Transcript

Laura Jean

Hello, and welcome to another episode of The Dietitian Values podcast, I'm talking to you today about something that definitely is a bit of a something that I like, like is not the right word, like, I'm talking to you today about professionalism, about being professional, quote, unquote. About what that means, who benefits who gets excluded, and just want to plant a seed really around how you think about professionalism, and how you think that you need to show up as a professional and where perhaps that might be limiting you from showing up as your full self. So let's dive in.

So professionalism. So close your eyes for a minute, not if you're driving, or even just whip out your phone and do a quick Google and Google professional and see what you can't, what comes up with images. I did it before I jumped onto record. And it's people in suits, you know, power suits, business suits, even the word power suits, its people, gosh, they look so fake. Actually, if you look at the stock images, which you know, I mean, stock images can be tricky to get a bit of natural energy to anyway. But professionalism is like a uniform. It's like a caricature of this whole sort of way of showing up. You know, it's, it's all of these social and cultural, so called norms that are pushed upon people, it's uniformity. So it's actually removing individuality. And Surprise, surprise, it's dehumanizing us it's cr..,. it's taking away our very parts of us that make us human to show up in that way. So because who wears a suit on the weekend, who wears a suit to go meet up with their friends, there probably are some people out there that that is actually how they like to dress and what they like to wear, which is great. It doesn't look that way, though, when everyone else has been forced to do it. So actually benefits people who like to dress up as a quote unquote, in the professional look, if we can reimagine it.

so who benefits, who benefits from this whole concept of what professionalism looks and acts like? People with power, people who have money to purchase the clothes and all the trappings and all the things that allow them to show up professionally, people who, who made the rules around what professionals are supposed to dress. the people who already were there, and wanted to keep everyone out? Because newsflash, the whole concept of professionalism and professional dress is to exclude. it is to make it clear, I am Here I am in this group, and you are not. That's the kind of, you know, origins of it. Well in my my opinion, and you can disagree if you like. you know, it's all those cultural social norms around to, to what's the word, to deliniate between people who were quote unquote, cultures and cultured, and people who were considered who weren't. So it's a system of oppression, it's another tool of the systems of oppression that we live in. And why do I always bring this up? Why does make it you know, does it seem that I'm always bring it back to this, because it always comes back to this, this is the reality, this is where we have found ourselves. And if we want to make change, if we want to change, things make things better. And if we want to create spaces of inclusion, we need to look at all of the elements of this. So for instance, in our profession as dietitians, there's been some great movement and great talking great action, around diversity, not by our professional organizations, always, but definitely by grassroots, and people who are in less resourced groups pushing for that diversity, which is great. And one of the ways we get more diversity. And one of the ways we have spaces where people can show up as themselves, which, you know, that I'm super passionate about, is by allowing them to show up as themselves.

So who benefits? the people who are already in the group, you know, the people who already have the power, they'd benefit from this whole concept of professionalism? Who gets excluded are people who don't have it, people who can't afford to people who have less resources which are typically less resourced and marginalized groups. And I'd like to ask a few questions to get you to consider. Because you might be thinking, and you might be having a little bit of a visceral reaction around this. Or you might even be sort of thinking 'oh laura, like, you still have to look professional, you still have to do x y, Zed'. And I just want you to just get curious. What does looking a certain way? What does that, What does that show? If we we do turn up looking a different way Does that discount all of our experience? Does that discount all of our professional training does that discount all of the compassion and humanity we can bring to our role? The current system would like us to think it does, that we won't be taken seriously that we can't fit in, if we don't show up a certain way. And again, who benefits from that? It's the people who are already there, the people who already have the power, the people who are never going to be pushed, will always have a seat at the table, always have a space at the table. So if we want to create a space that is different than that, than we need to start questioning.

I'd really invite you to think about what are some things that you hide that you don't consider professional? Or have you done? So in the past, maybe you don't do it anymore. But I often talk about this over on IG @dietitianvalues And the couple of times Ive brought it up, I've had some amazing conversations in my DMs with people around around this around how how it has impacted. So one dietitian was telling me about how she only ever wore long sleeve shirts to work because she felt she had to hide her tattoos, because that wasn't quote unquote professional. Another person more recently, was sharing with me about how they had shaved their head recently. But they were still continuing to wear wigs to work and within spaces. Because they Yeah, they hadn't really thought about why but you know, that sort of made them sort of stop and think around what was going on there. And so that's really what I would like to invite is for you to get curious, are there parts of your way of showing up in the world or the way you show up in your personal life that you don't bring into your professional life? Now, I know that if you work in certain spaces, there can be policies and procedures around that which, which make it hard to actually do, which is bullshit, of course, but you know, it is the water we're swimming in. So for some people, I know, it's not as easy as just, you know, throwing off the the bra and popping the trackies on and heading off to work. But what would it look like if we created spaces where we could do that?

What would it look like if we created spaces where being a professional or being a you know, being a competent and professional dietitian was actually about providing Human Centered Care, around treating around believing and listening to what people share with us around incorporating the lis.., and what if it was based on how we incorporated people's lived experience into our work, versus, you know, showing up in this facade of professional attire. So I know we're not going to change this overnight, I know that it's not realistic for everyone just to walk out tomorrow and go to their jobs in their trackies with their hair, you know, bed hair, or whatever it might be, or to necessarily show up with, with tattoos visible or with a shaved head or with colored hair even. So, we do still have a long way to go. And I know for some people, spaces aren't safe to show up as themselves. And I really want to acknowledge the privilege in being table to do that. And this is why I'm so passionate about supporting dieticians to create their own values based businesses or their own values based career path and find if you know maybe the business routes, not your thing, but finding jobs and finding places of employment that align with their values that allow them to show up as themselves. Because the more we show up as our selves, we give other people the benefit of going first we we i heard a quote today on a podcast, I was listening to Mara glatzel's Needy podcast, if you haven't heard of that one, it's a great one around self care. But she shared 'permission likes company' or permission invites company um, gosh, I should have written it down. Anyway, the premise was is by by by doing something then it invites, it creates a space for other people to do the thing. So for us, if we can show up in ways that are our full selves in ways that just pop the whole idea of what professional professionalism is to the side, and just think about, well how do I want to show up what's comfortable for me what allows me to be myself and to be comfortable and to live to my values like, Who am I as a human being? And how do I want to bring that into my work.

And part of that can be about how you physically show up, like what you're wearing, how you act, you know, another part of professionalism. I know I'm focusing a lot on the visual part. But another part of professionalism is how we speak. And again, who benefits from having rules and regulations around language is the people who make the rules and regulations about language, who is gets excluded people who have quote, unquote, uncultured language, you know, in the eyes of the dominant culture, the, you know, so yeah, so one part of being professional not being professional, you know, an example around words and language is swearing. And if you've listened to any of my podcasts, or hung around, @dietitianvalues, Instagram page, you know that I'm partial to a swear word when it's required. I've got no problems with swearing, I swear, sometimes in client consults, if it is warranted, like I'm not just necessarily dropping f bombs every sentence. But if that is how you speak, then that is how you speak. The thing is that when we have these rules, it excludes people it excludes, you know, it upholds that whole supremacy culture narrative that certain people or certain ways of speaking or certain ways of dressing is better than others. It also forces the humans that have to perform this to be allowed into these spaces to hide parts of themselves. So maybe it forces you to hide who you really are to speak in a way that's not natural or normal to you, to enable that you you know, quote, unquote, fit in in these spaces, or that you're even allowed access. Again, I want to acknowledge the privilege that we can't just all show up in our workspace, dropping swear words, and still keep our job. And again, it's why i'm passionate about us all creating our own spaces where we can do that. And also where we can show up that way and hopefully continue to create spaces so that other people can show up that way, other people can show up as themselves not necessarily wanting to show up dropping f bombs, but maybe showing up within your own diversity may be showing up with their with, you know, with their tattoos visible with their, with their shaved head with their purple hair, whatever it might be, that allows you to be showing up in your humaneness.

The other really big part of this is, it creates a space where the humans who we want to work with, can connect to us and our humaneness our humanity, when we are stuck in the whole professional facade, you know, it creates this barrier, and it creates a hierarchy in that so that we were so for instance, if you picture yourself in a clinic, you know, and if you're dressed in you know, quote unquote, professional attire, and someone comes in to see you and they're, they maybe aren't it already, based on these standards that we're putting in place, it can create this hierarchy straightaway, it feeds into that whole expert whe're the expert kind of narrative. And so when we show up as ourselves in not only allows other dietitians to not only create our professional space to be less, less, exclusionary, less exclude, exclude people less, it also creates a safer not necessarily safe, because we can't guarantee that but maybe a more comfortable space, maybe more welcoming space, maybe a more connection space based on connection and belonging to the humans we actually want to work with. And this is particularly true if you want to work with less resourced groups, or groups that are that that are typically excluded based on this whole professional, kind of ideals and trimmings and trappings because people want to work with people who look like them, who act like them who talk like them who have their values, one of the most powerful tools for connecting to the humans you want to work with is through your values and how your values show up is in how you show up. And so if you are, in our profession, we have this whole idea that we are have to be like, you know, in suits or in like this quite particular type of clothing and particular type of hair and you know, that kind of things, then we aren't necessarily creating a space where everyone feels welcome. Where and that's other dieticians but it's also the humans we want to work with as well.

Unknown Speaker 14:22

So I would love to hear your thoughts on this. Really, I think the whole concept around professionalism, the whole standards of professionalism are yep supremacy cultural tools. They're there to exclude people with less resources and quote, unquote, you know, people who have been considered, you know, quote, unquote, less cultured. So they're in place for that. And they're also in place to maintain the status quo for the people who already have the power and the status to maintain the power and the status and for people who don't, to not be able to get it. So that is on the overarching level at our professional level as dietitians. It just stops you from showing up as you. I mean sure if you love to wear power suit, and that says, hey, this is me, I wear a power suit even when I'm gardening, I wear a power suit. I mean, not that you have to wear the same clothes all the time. But you know if you know if nothing says your personality like a power suit, then please rock on, get the shoulder pads going, like really embrace it. But if that is not who you are, that is not how you show up and that is not how you want to show up. Then maybe it's time to think about what how do you want to show up? What kind of space Do you want to create for the humans you're working with? It doesn't have to be the same as how I might show up or another dietitian. It's just really about you. So this episode is really just to invite you to think about what standards or concepts of professionalism maybe in how you how you dress how you talk a show up in your work? Do you uphold? Do you want to be upholding them? Do they allow you to be you do they allow you to move towards your values or not? Because I have a bit of a sneaking suspicion because I know a lot of dieticians suffer from burnout. And I know that a big part of burnout, I feel is when we work in spaces that aren't aligned to our values. And that is around how people are treated, how clients are treated. It's also about how you're treated to and all these expectations that create that make you show up as a version of yourself. That is not true. And that's exhausting, bloody exhausting, and it's not sustainable. And so that can often lead to part of the whole burnout scenario.

So some thoughts for you, of course, always more questions than answers. I'll leave you with that. And I would love to hear your thoughts on this. If you would like to come over to @dietitianvalues on Instagram and let me know what things you might be thinking you have to perform or show up as to be considered professional, or perhaps ways that you have challenged that status quo. I would really love to do that. Okay, I look forward to chatting to you again soon. Bye for now.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai