The Arc of Leadership | Part 8
Written by Tim Buckley, November 2025
The roadmap to maturity is influenced by events and people at different intersections in your life. We often don’t realize the importance of those intersections until later.
Whitney Contreras, now 30, can clearly see those times, and the people who brought focus, clarity and direction to her life. In her telling, those “ah-ha moments” have arisen from unexpected opportunities and from wrong turns. “My old self – fast paced, judgmental and unaware of my feelings – had to die in order that a new self could emerge,” she said. “It’s difficult to tear off the skin of self, to choose a new skin, and then to heal it.”
“My early years were weird,” Whitney said, “very unsettled. My parents moved back and forth between Mexico and Oregon. My dad was, and still is, a real estate partner, owning properties with his brother in two countries. He preferred the slower pace of El Arenal, a small town in the state of Jalisco, but we spent a lot of time with grandparents living 15 miles east, in Guadalajara. I’m the oldest daughter and second child of six,” she continued, “and the youngest is 12 years younger than me. There wasn’t much stability growing up,” Whitney added. “I was born in Salem but three of my siblings were born in Mexico. Neither place felt like home.”
In middle school, Whitney recalls being timid, driven by peer pressure and lacking confidence. “I was trying to be cool, fit in with a dangerous crowd living outside the box,” she laughed, “and my poor grades showed it! At home, I was expected to help my mom with the house and younger kids. And, while I enjoy that kind of nurturing, I felt resentful at the time because my mom said I ‘had to’.”
By the time Whitney graduated from North High School, in 2014, her GPA was above 3.5 – an academic turnaround due in part to career-focused classes and clubs in which she got involved. She went to Chemeketa Community College on a scholarship. When she was awarded an associate’s degree in psychology and early childhood, in 2018, Whitney was also a mother of two children, living in a house with her husband and mother-in-law.
“The public speaking classes I took at Chemeketa were life changing,” Whitney recalled. “We were trained to research and present a topic, and the professor coached us relentlessly about our speech, forcing us to remove ‘um’ and ‘ah’ from our language. The process really helped me slow down, learn patience, and to develop eloquent ways of thinking and speaking. I began to discover myself and, at the same time, became more confident.”
But by the time COVID began, at age 24, Whitney had given birth to a third child. “My marriage was rocky, and I was feeling suffocated. That’s when my older brother told me about his experience with The Landmark Forum, and then paid my way to attend while my sister helped me with my children. The training was illuminating, to say the least,” she said. “I began to see self-awareness and personal responsibility as goals unto themselves, a key to being able to truly be in service to others.”
The next leap forward came when Whitney was hired to help Eduardo Angulo form CBEL’s first neighborhood family council and organize the series of Fun Fridays at Northgate Park. She was also invited to join the We Flourish Together class at Catholic Community Services, developed by Jim Seymour and taught by Rick Newton and Kim Grace. “That’s where I learned about mindfulness meditation and Nonviolent Communication (NVC), which helped me slow my breathing and identify feelings that are underneath all my experiences. That’s where I found my community,” she added, “people who share the same values. Those skills also helped me to realize how frequently I analyze and judge others, instead of seeing them as people with feelings and needs too.”
“Practicing mindfulness and NVC thereafter had a stunning impact on my marriage in a positive way,” she continued. “It opened the door to more transparency between us and allowed a gentleness to take hold, realizing that we’re not responsible for how the other feels, only ourselves. And now my husband sees the benefit of that practice with his parents, too” she said. He told me, ‘My relationship with them has gotten better because I no longer go right away to problem-solving; first I empathize.’”
The principals of We Flourish Together have become infused in CBEL’s work in neighborhoods. Whitney worked as an interpreter in the first series of We Parents Flourish Together classes led by Rick Newton and Eduardo Angulo. Those classes led to the development of neighborhood-based Infant Toddler Play Group meetings in three of CBEL’s neighborhoods, where Whitney is now co-facilitating and interpreting. She started Blending Borders, a consulting company that provides interpretation services to individuals and organizations, “to help create seamless communication from Spanish to English and back,” she said.
Hannah Morrell, owner of the financial consulting company Pacific Stoa, was teaching financial literacy at one of the We Family Flourish Together gatherings a few years ago. That’s where she met and worked with Whitney. Hannah recognized that Whitney’s skills, conduct and philosophy were a perfect fit for Pacific Stoa, so she asked Whitney if she’d like a place in the company, where she is learning to coach other people and organizations to build and manage finances in a holistic way.
“I remember being immediately struck by the gentleness of Whitney’s presence,” Hannah said. “There was something unmistakably calming about the way she stayed attuned to the person she was supporting…steady, kind, and fully with them. Since then, she has revealed a rare gift for listening deeply and weaving together ideas that bring people clarity and comfort. Whitney shows up with honesty, diligence, and a vulnerability that is both brave and disarming. Watching her grow into her own ‘Whitney-ness’ has been one of the most meaningful parts of my work”.