Planning the First @ReclaimYourVoice Event || For our first event, I decided to invite three speaker

Planning the First @ReclaimYourVoice Event || For our first event, I decided to invite three speakers to share their stories. I planned to share my own story as well because I couldn’t ask anyone to do anything that I myself was unwilling to do. I approached three incredible women I knew who had each experienced some form of abuse. Although I strongly believed in this idea, my nerves began to kick in when it came time to ask if they’d be willing to share their stories publicly. I was worried that my proposition might come across as intrusive or insensitive, but all three of them caught me off guard by immediately agreeing to share their stories.⁣
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@cher.bear8 was one of the women I invited to speak. I knew her through my photography work and had photographed her many times over the course of 10 years. Her excitement about speaking at this event surprised me completely. When I asked her why she seemed so eager to share something so deeply personal with a room full of people, she said that the only opportunity she’d ever had to share her story was within the cold and unfeeling confines of a courtroom while a defense attorney picked apart every detail of her disclosure and did everything he could to make her doubt herself. At our event she would have the opportunity to share her story―her truth―in a room full of supportive people without being interrupted, questioned or contested. I had a lack of knowledge and experience in this field, but Cher’s enthusiastic response to this opportunity strengthened my confidence in this idea, and started to give me a sense of how complex and multifaceted trauma and healing was.⁣
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I recalled a quote from Mother Teresa that said, “I will never attend an anti-war rally; if you have a peace rally, invite me.” I’d been learning more and more about the importance of choosing words that focus on the outcome one hoped to achieve instead of on what one did not want, so I made the decision that this event was to be held not in the name of the war against abuse, but in the name of peace and healing for all.