Diversity is about becoming our best selves, speaker says

The AVMA convened a first-of-its-kind veterinary summit this November that saw academics, practitioners, and leaders from across veterinary medicine come together to discuss the importance of making the profession a healthier, more inclusive one, and strategies for making that a reality.

Among the speakers at the AVMA Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Wellbeing Summit, held November 8-9 in Atlanta, was sociologist, comedian, and best-selling author Bertice Berry, PhD.

"When I saw y'all were combining DEI and wellness-I was like, 'Oh, you people get it,'" Berry said. Through her expert use of humor, story, and insight, highlighted the power of gratitude, the need for authenticity, and the value of belonging.

Bertice Berry, PhD, sociologist and author, emphasizes during her keynote address at the AVMA Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Wellbeing Summit that personal authenticity is essential to one's wellbeing, and wellbeing thrives in supportive communities. "The thing that takes more energy than anything is you not being who you were born to be. It drags you and drains you and sucks the life from you," she says.

"Diversity is about becoming our best selves," she told the audience, asking them to see diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) as a journey of self-discovery and community.

Our shared humanity

She recounted a recent conversation with an Uber driver who emigrated to the United States when he fell in love with an American. The driver met his wife when she was vacationing with her family in his native Jordan. Despite their differences, including him being Muslim and her Catholic faith, they fell in love and married. Thirty-three years later, they are still happily together.

Their secret? "I don't ask her to change, and she doesn't ask me to change," the Uber driver said. "When you look in someone's eyes with love, all you see is their soul," he added, the lesson being that when we respect another's uniqueness and recognize their authentic self, a powerful bond is formed.

Berry told audience members not to ignore the mind-body connection, which is very real, and encouraged them to make a daily habit of letting go of negative emotions. Left unaddressed, these emotions are harmful. She likened it to the filter in a clothes dryer that collects lint, dust, and fibers from drying clothes. The filters must be cleaned regularly, otherwise the debris builds up so much that the heat from the dryer can ignite it.

We're the same way, Berry says, each of us has a filter that collects the emotional energy of our daily disappointments, hurts, and frustrations.

"The filter is there to pull your negative experiences away from your house so you can look and learn from them and not repeat them," she explained. "If you don't clean your filter, your house will catch fire. So, you must clean your filter on a daily basis."

We clean our filters through self-reflection and spending at least three seconds every day remembering the gratitude someone expressed for us, she said.

"Just take a moment and remember when someone came to tell you, 'Thank you.' Let that just seep in. We're always thankful for what everybody else does, what we do for everybody else, or what you have, or what you see. But just take a moment and take in people telling you 'Thank you,'" Berry said.

She also advised for people to stop looking at each other in judgement.

"The same way I'm judging your story is how I'm judging myself. I got to let it go. I got to see bigger than that," Berry said.

Authentic connections

The belief that diversity is "helping those poor people over there" is often the wrong way to think about it, Berry said. She explained that people can't talk about diversity unless they really mean diversity, which does not mean everyone talking or looking alike. Rather, it's about learning and appreciating the unique connections between oneself and others.

"Sociologists say the self is social," she said. "I'm a product of everything and everyone I come into contact with, and the more I come in contact with, the more I evolve.

"I need your diversity to become me."

At its core, DEI is about making marginalized people less marginalized, according to Berry, who expanded that category to all of us, saying that at some point in their life everybody has been marginalized. "When we begin to see through the eyes of love, you see that our internal diversity is so much greater than the external, and you begin to connect."

"For me, belonging is you get to be you, I get to be me, and together we become so much more. It is the opposite of fitting in. If I have to fit in, I don't feel like I belong."

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