Layla’s Letters
Weekly letters on Leadership & Liberation
(Re)claiming my space
It took me until I was 32 years old to claim that I was a writer. Today I know it's what I'm here to do.
How to avoid apathy and saviourism in social change work
While honouring yourself, and those you are here to serve.
DEI leaders of colour deserve better
And that starts with organizations putting their money where their mouth is.
This what changemakers need from their allies
This incident left me livid. But it also taught me an important lesson about the pitfalls of performative allyship.
The untold truth about imposter syndrome
Imposter syndrome holds so many of us back but we all have the power to grow beyond it, here’s how.
How my healing and change-making journey was transformed
This is the story of how I discovered and navigated one of the biggest internal conflicts I was struggling with — internalized racism.
This is NOT imposter syndrome
What if it’s not imposter syndrome? What if it’s leadership?
This is how I became a changemaker
Ten years ago, I had my first and only out of body experience. And it forever changed the course of my life.
How to overcome perfectionism and start making change happen
One of the primary questions I’ve been reflecting on is ‘How do I want to measure success in my next decade of life?’.
This is my mission for 2023
On the night before my 39th birthday, I shared 8 personal commitments…
This is why community is so important for sustainable change-making
We need each other. But we act like we don’t.
This is necessary for sustainable change-making
Because as inspirational as it is to become a good ancestor, we all know the path is marked by peaks and potholes.
How to Become A Good Ancestor
One night, completely at my wit’s end with lack of clarity, I grabbed a notebook. I had spent the last three years focused on what I did not want. I hadn’t taken a moment to tune in, listen, and dream of what I did want.
Boundaries for change-making
Being a changemaker is hard. Being a changemaker while trying to balance all of the other areas of our lives can feel almost impossible.
Science-fiction shows us how to build a new world
In order to build a whole new world, we have to imagine whole new ways of thinking and being.
What would a post-racist planet look like?
This is my framework for Becoming A Good Ancestor.
This is what we forget about doing the work
A couple of years ago, while preparing to teach antiracism classes, I sent out a survey to my audience with the following question: What are your 3 biggest questions on practicing anti-racism?
What does sustainable change-making look like?
I was in the early days of my work as an antiracist writer and educator, and I had come to the most depressing conclusion: In order for a single person with white privilege to ‘get it’, scores of Black people, Indigenous people, and People of Colour (BIPOC) had to be harmed (sometimes unintentionally, some intentionally) in the process.