Lucretia Carter Berry, PhD • October 7, 2025
As I presented, I noticed him shifting in his seat — squirming, dodging, almost as if he were trying to escape the joy and possibility emanating from my words. I didn’t know what was going on with him. Maybe I was talking too long. Maybe he needed a potty break.
In my usual posture of joy and vision, I was presenting The Joy of Developing Cultural and Racial Literacy in Children — The ‘Hues of You’ Classroom to a room full of educators during Fresh Take, a conference by and for teachers. It wasn’t just a presentation; it was a glimpse into what’s possible when we co-create a future that doesn’t mimic the past but transcends it — a future that is brighter, freer, and more human.
Later, I learned that he, with all of his shifting and squirming, had dismissed my talk as “not relatable.” I know this because, during the workshop that followed, in a room full of my colleagues and friends, he sat complaining to his coworker and called my presentation — my research, practice, and proven approach — “BULLSHIT.”
Hearing that was like taking a punch to the gut. For days, I replayed his body language, his tone, that one brutal word — “BULLSHIT.” I mourned his reproach.
Constructive feedback doesn’t unsettle me, nor is criticism unfamiliar—especially when it concerns my mission to foster racial healing and cultural literacy. I knew, when I said yes to this work years ago, that it would demand courage, patience, and a tender heart. I knew that some would resist. After all, we have been conditioned to fear the very awareness and openness that hold the power to liberate us from dehumanizing one another.
But it took me a while to locate the true source of my ache. It wasn’t only his rejection of my work — it was his imprisonment in a mindset so entangled with the past that he couldn’t see beyond it. His imagination had been smothered by fear and familiarity. His capacity to dream had atrophied under the weight of certainty.
And I grieved that. I grieved a heart so rigid it could not bend toward renewal. I grieved a mind so preoccupied with surviving what was, that it had lost sight of what could be.
I thought: What if he had paused to wonder? What if he had held space for curiosity, even for a moment? Could a seed of possibility have taken root?
The Grace of Expansion
Real clarity does not grow in the soil of rigidity. It blooms in the space where we allow ourselves to breathe — to soften, to listen, to imagine again.
When we grip so tightly to what we know, we leave no room for what could be known. But when we loosen our hold, when we let curiosity rise like sunlight after a long night, we begin to rewire our inner landscape. We make room for growth.
Joy is not naïveté. Curiosity is not compromise. They are the quiet forces that birth renewal — the courage to see differently, the grace to begin again.
There is immense power in choosing openness over offense, imagination over indignation, compassion over control. Every time we release our need to be right, we reclaim our capacity to be whole.
If we are to heal — as individuals, as communities, as humanity — we must learn to expand.
Expand beyond the walls of certainty.
Expand beyond the reflex to resist an invitation to growth.
Expand into the boundless possibility that new awareness offers.
Because expansion is not the loss of who we are — it is the remembering of who we were always meant to become.
Becoming Co-Creators of What’s Possible
When we open ourselves to possibility, we become collaborators with hope. We begin to see that the future is not something that happens to us — it is something that happens through us.
Every time we dare to imagine beyond fear, every time we choose compassion over cynicism, we help rewrite the story of what humanity can be.
This is the sacred work of co-creation: to make space for new ways of seeing, new ways of being, and new ways of belonging — together.
Lucretia Carter Berry, PhD, is a distinguished author, educator, and speaker, as well as the visionary founder of Brownicity, a nonprofit dedicated to fostering education designed to inspire a culture of true belonging and justice for all. Lucretia was also a valued contributor to incourage.me, where she shared her insights and wisdom on topics of faith, resilience, and personal growth. Through her books, Teaching for Justice and Belonging – A Journey for Educators and Parents (2022), Hues of You – An Activity Book for Learning About the Skin You Are In (2022), and What LIES Between Us – Fostering First Steps Toward Racial Healing (2016), her impactful TED Talk, and her commitment to building just communities, Lucretia encourages meaningful engagement that transcends boundaries, fostering personal development, resilience, and the transformative capacity within each of us.
Recent Comments