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Therapists have you struggled to find your voice? There are so many ways I have been silenced that at moments, phases, and seasons in my life I forgot what it sounds like. Stuck in survival mode I would try to hide behind my ability to gauge what people want and need. It looked like people pleasing, erasing cultural self, hiding my thoughts and feelings in order to make it through a day. I am a desi (south asian) female who identifies as she/her living on Powhatan land. I walk with some marginalized (cultural/ethnic/racial) aspects of my identity and also walk in some privileges (racial/gendered/sexual) aspects of my identity.
I try to voice my concerns about racism, colonial mentality, and social justice whenever possible. As a counselor in training I have vocalized my concerns in classes, sites, and in supervision. I have had grades unjustifiably knocked down/failures, have experienced social isolation and disengagement from my peers and higher ups, and have even been told to “stop kicking a dead horse” in class. I didn’t grow up here in the States so sometimes it takes me a bit of research to understand an American idiom. I believe what was meant was that race, ethnicity, multiculturalism, affirming stances were being talked about too much.
As I sit and reflect these experiences of how power and control in the academic setting, in the publishing setting, and in the supervision setting are exercised by those in authority I am stunned by the paradox of too much. How could I be talking about it too much when I happen to be the only one who brought it up in class? Is it too much if it is more than an ancillary question at the end of an assignment “how can you apply this to diverse populations?” or “what is the multicultural implication?”
Adjusting research, interventions, approaches, or theories to BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ populations is reduced to a simple pivot where the framework based on white people remains the standard and is simply edited slightly for the unique needs of marginalized identities. This assumes the human standard of whiteness and all others a slight perhaps standard deviations from the norm of white centricity.
Trying to navigate finding my voice in the place of consistent dismissiveness and invalidation has been part of the difficulty of developing a counselor identity and voice that reflects myself. I often beat myself up when I self-silence in order to make it through, I often beat myself up for not saying it the “right” way for this perspective to be relevant and impactful, and worst of all I beat myself for the exhaustion I feel. On the one hand I work to dismantle colonial mentality in myself and my contexts and on the other I want to be in a place where I hear myself in others and do more than deconstructing, I want to be building and creating.
Finding community where I can practice my voice, where I can make mistakes and know that my colleagues will help me grow, where I can learn and grow in relationship with those engaging in this work of social justice is vital. It is in amplifying others and vocalizing values of equity, justice, and belonging that I am able to remember what my voice sounds like. We have been so siloed by individualism, competition, scarcity and hierarchy where those of us who live our full selves in the margins, in safety of our homes, communities, and curated safe spaces struggle to trust not only others but our own voices.
The healing we can offer to others is directly correlated with the healing we offer ourselves. What is your salve for those punctures in your soul? Is it reaching into the wisdom of your ancestors? Is it the work of creativity harnessing the power of the pain you have experienced? Is it reading the works of others that have not only navigated oppressive systems but in whose resistance we become visible?
If we are to offer decolonial therapy, the search for your own voice against imposter syndrome, gaslighting, and minimization is a quest like none other. I am digging into the gifts of my ancestors that look at all life as interconnected and interdependent. Therapists who support each other’s growth with content and conversation breaking our silences and finding our voices in solidarity become a formidable community.
Image description: This is an image of a high rise brick apartment building with the words “How are you really?”
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