My love letter to therapy.
January 2023
2023 is a good year to go to therapy. Believe me when I say, therapy looks good on everyone. Offering yourself the gift of self-reflection, acceptance and accountability, not only creates capacity to show up for yourself, but for everyone around you. From my experience, processing and being undeniably honest with my past trauma, has allowed me to be more authentic.
Therapy has changed my life. When I began in October 2021, a year after my grandmother passed away, I was in a very dark place. I was grieving and trying to find a way to live in a world without my grandmother, fighting my inner demons, trauma and struggles with my mental health, while maintaining my job and relationships.
What I’ve learned is that life is difficult.
And existing in a society that was built by oppressing people, is like living in a nightmare that you cannot wake up from.
“White supremacy culture is inextricably linked to all the other oppressions - capitalism, [systemic racism], sexism, class and gender oppression, ableism, ageism - these and more are all interconnected and intersected and stirred together in a toxic brew that is reflected in our devastation of the air and water and land and living beings we have and are destroying and disregarding in the name of profit and power. This brew is a cancer, a dis-ease, an addiction, an infliction and it infects everything with and without our awareness. The miracle is that we have survived as well as we have, the miracle is our ancestors who have fought to remember who we really are, the miracle is the earth and wind and water that restores itself in soft and fierce determination to keep us all whole.”
I struggle with defensiveness and perfectionism. And I encourage you to dive headfirst into finding what white supremacy characteristics, you struggle with as well. As a creative I’ve been taught to be the best advocate for my work and when I’m struggling with burnout, it is difficult to show up without pushback. I have to actively create space during my workdays to check-in with myself. I write these things down, because without reflection, there can be no awareness. We’re all doing the best that we can with what we have, until we aren’t. It’s on me, and you, to make sure we sit with what is coming up and why, in order to work against systemic racism. When we celebrate our rest, we dedicate time for reflection. With reflection comes awareness, acceptance and creates real ways to live out accountability. The never-ending to-do lists and the 300+ emails don’t need to be tackled right away when your body is in desperate need of rest.
Capitalism creates an unhealthy burnout culture that I (and many other folks who work within the non-profit industrial complex) know too well. When we don’t stop to rest and really truly relax, there is no room for clarity. There is no room to listen. There is very little mental, emotional and physical capacity for us to show up. You can cause real harm to everyone around you and to yourself if you aren’t conscious of how white supremacy characteristics are showing up in your life, because racism hurts us all. It is imperative that we pursue anti-racism. As a white cis-het woman, it’s my responsibility to understand the white supremacy characteristics that are the framework of our society and actively unlearn them.
“Racism is intricately linked with capitalism and I think it’s a mistake to assume that we can combat racism by leaving capitalism in place.”
-Angela Davis
White supremacy culture hurts everyone. Racism hurts everyone. Capitalism hurts everyone. Self-reflection is one small step to making lasting changes to how you show up in every space. I encourage you to read books like I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness, a memoir by Austin Channing Brown, any of Jemar Tisby’s three powerful books, Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, any and all of Toni Morrison works of art, and the list goes on and on and on. The point is, learning is not linear. We are not a monolith as a people, we have to give ourselves the grace to learn, understand and make changes each and every day.
Therapy has helped me understand who I am and the type of partner, friend, daughter, sibling and colleague that I want to be. It also has given me the gift of knowing who I am, which empowers me to have agency in my own accountability.
My therapist likes to tell me, you are where you are and that’s okay. Life isn’t easy, but when you have built a foundation of truth and accountability, you can do all things. You can dream, establish habits and goals, and prepare for your future in a way you may have never had the means to do so before.
I say this as a reminder to you, and for myself, that when life gets chaotic, take a deep breath, go outside, reflect on where you are and protect your energy. That in itself is an act of defiance against white supremacy culture.
