Worn With Intention: Armor, Agency, and the Art of Discernment

Dr. Shawnte Elbert
Feb 5
4 min read

I’ll be honest—I’m a few days into February, and I’m just now pressing publish.

Not because the reflections weren’t ready. But because this kind of writing deserves intention, not urgency.

This Black History Month, I’m sharing a four-part reflection series titled: “Worn With Intention: Armor, Agency, and the Art of Discernment”: An emotional intelligence reflection series rooted in lived experience, survival, and choice.

This series was born out of my work—training, facilitating, listening, and witnessing—particularly in spaces where emotional intelligence is discussed as a skill set, but rarely honored as ancestral knowledge. As a Black woman, I’ve come to understand emotional intelligence not as something I learned in a textbook, but as something I practiced long before it had a name.

Reading rooms. Measuring safety. Knowing when to speak, when to soften, when to shield, and when to shine.

That wisdom has often been mislabeled as masking, code-switching, or inauthenticity—without ever interrogating the systems that made those strategies necessary.

I want to say this plainly: I didn’t write these reflections to persuade anyone to change who they are.

I wrote them to create space—space to pause, to notice, and to reflect on how we show up in the world, why we show up the way we do, and what choices are actually available to us in the systems we navigate every day.

This mini-series emerged from years in training rooms, classrooms, and conversations where emotional intelligence is framed as an individual trait—something you either “have” or “lack.” But what I’ve witnessed, again and again, is that emotional intelligence is deeply shaped by context.

By access. By safety. By history. By what we’ve been taught is possible—or permissible—for people who look like us, live like us, or carry what we carry.

As a Black woman, I know that how I show up has never been neutral. I’ve learned when to soften, when to shield, when to perform competence, and when to withhold parts of myself—not because I lacked authenticity, but because I understood consequence.

That understanding is often mislabeled as masking or code-switching—again, without ever interrogating the environments that made those strategies necessary.

This series is my attempt to slow that conversation down.

Not to romanticize survival. Not to shame people for how they’ve learned to cope. But to ask better questions.

What beliefs have we inherited about professionalism, safety, confidence, and worth? Who gets to show up fully—and who pays a price for trying? How do our choices, policies, and assumptions impact people who are less resourced, less informed, or less hopeful than we are?

And perhaps most importantly: How do we expand people’s agency to define what thriving actually looks like for them?

Worn With Intention is an invitation to examine the armor we wear—not to strip it away, but to understand it. To reflect on the lenses we use to judge ourselves and others. To recognize that what looks like resistance, distance, or disengagement may actually be discernment.

Over the next four reflections, I’ll explore masks, code-switching, inherited armor, and agency—not as abstract concepts, but as lived realities shaped by power, access, and context. My hope is that this series gives readers the opportunity to reflect honestly on their own identities, assumptions, and influence—especially for those of us who hold decision-making power in classrooms, workplaces, and communities.

This is not about telling people who to be. It’s about making room for choice.

Because thriving should not be reserved for those who already feel safe. And emotional intelligence should never be used to police humanity.

How This Series Will Unfold

Over the course of this month, I’ll be sharing a set of reflections that build on one another—each one naming a different layer of emotional intelligence, survival, and choice.

The Mask Was Never the Problem: Emotional Intelligence, Before It Had a Name A reflection on discernment, protection, and the wisdom many of us practiced long before it was formally named or rewarded.
Code-Switching Is Not a Character Flaw: Because Authenticity Without Safety Is Not Freedom An honest look at the ethics of forced authenticity and the harm of demanding vulnerability in spaces that have not earned it.
When the Mask Was Given: Inherited and Earned Armor A reflection on the armor we didn’t choose, the lessons passed down for survival, and the weight we’ve carried with purpose.
Choosing What I Carry Forward: Agency as the Goal A closing reflection on reclamation—deciding what still serves us, what can be loosened, and what thriving looks like on our own terms.
I’ll close the series with a final reflection— What We Carry, What We Learned, and What We’re Taking With Us— to honor the insights, conversations, and collective wisdom that emerge along the way and to intentionally transition us from Black History Month into Women’s History Month.