The Healing Power of Reflection

Integrating yesterday, one year out from the Pulse Nightclub incident in Orlando. Listening to Spotify's "Pulse" playlist and just finishing reading an article on the need for culturally appropriate practitioners for trauma healing from the NQQTCN newsletter that showed up in my inbox. Such a wide range of ways to honor, remember, and resist. Some seemingly light and wrapped up in (I'm choosing to believe well intentioned) marketing ploys, and others steady calls for the bare minimum our communities need to just start to embark on the healing process. And wasn't this part of what hit our community so hard about the Pulse incident? It was an intersection of joy, gathering, and the hate that we're met with daily. It got juxtaposed with our country's ugly tendency to jump to any reason to justify its Islamaphobia. It reminded us that we're not safe even when we create our own spaces to gather. It was a lesson in the price of visibility.

I feel lucky that I reside in community places where these intersections and complexities were attended to, named, and called out. On top of outpourings of sadness folks in my circles called out for clarity and compassion. There was a general sentiment that you gave in the ways that you could. If you needed to share these offerings they were validated, if you needed to send them on quietly that was okay too. I know my household chose the latter. I'm finding this to be more and more my meter as I get older. We sent off a bit of tangible support, sent off as much love energy as we could muster, and then we hibernated a bit. We processed, shed some tears, and attended to some deep seeded adolescent anxiety that gets buried deep down when you're privileged enough to run into rainbow splattered Pride season gear at Target while buying paper towels.

Oh, right, this is what it still means to be a QPOC. 

I feel so lucky to be able to have a lot of the complexities of that last statement be validated in my day to day life. And even that statement gathers together such a huge group of people with so many varied experiences. It brought up the intense need for QPOC providers that this article names. It sets up the difficulty of healing when you're fighting so many other micro and macro aggressions and the heavy responsibility that's put on those that hold down those spaces. It's something that I can only try to understand as an API DFAB mental health provider where I might not be the majority, but where my identity is certainly in higher numbers than others. I often find myself caught in the struggle of feeling overwhelmed by this thought, and know that it's much more important that I attend to and move through it. 

I hope that over the course of the next few weeks, in between Pride events, and in the current state of the union, we all allow ourselves to lean into the simplicity of healing that comes with finding ourselves reflected out in the world. Whether or not you're leading the parade or can't imagine donning a feather boa in the summer heat simmer in the reflection that this time of year offers. Before you start a critical dismantling of capitalism smile at the rainbow section of Target. Before you analyze every lyric bop around to some pop music. We have so many complicated intersections to hold, sometimes we have to take the healing reflections even when they come in single dimension pieces. We can't pull back from the fight completely, this isn't an excuse for the blind eye that folks sometimes turn to intersections, there's so much more to be done, but we can allow ourselves simple retreats, access to joy, and healing in the reflections that exist so that when we re-emerge we can meet each other from more grounded places.

So one more offering of how to honor, resist and remember the atrocity that yesterday marks: Know that we have the right to access healing before we deconstruct it. We deserve to gather, dance, and lose our shit over a good DJ set. Never forget that joy has as much a place in our community as any other emotion. 

In joyous reflection,

Traci

#TDoV 2017

What I've found in my practice is that these identities that we hold-- TGIQ or otherwise, they don't have a causal relationship with our mental health challenges. However, the shame, stigma, and discrimination that we face on a day to day minute to minute basis-- those do. We talk about microaggressions, but can we really delineate micro from macro? Can our systems parse out little stressors that we tap into as we navigate the world for our safety from the big stressors of what could possibly happen if we read those signs wrong? We have intersections that become points of stress and strain compromising the foundations of our architecture. We suffer from the complex trauma of lives lived in a fight for our sheer existence.

We, of course, must continue to work to decrease these meeting points of stress and strain on a widespread systemic level. Until the time that the load on us lightens, one way that we can combat these negative messages out in the world is through having positive reflections of ourselves. This can range from challenging to impossible for marginalized communities where visibility and safety can sometimes be mutually exclusive places. This is why events like Trans Day of Visibility are so important and why we must work extra hard to see, be kind, and uplift each other out in the world. 

There are benefits to this, but it is also a hustle. How about today we respect and honor the existence of trans people and let them take a rest. Let them get back to surviving. They are existing in a world that doesn't always make space for them. 

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"How about today we respect and honor the existence of trans people and let them take a rest."

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I for one feel really grateful to be in a field of work and community where I get to witness the best of human resilience. None of us are entitled to this inspiration, but it's out there if we're ready to see it. 

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To my fabulous and fierce Trans Community (and those that have had trans experiences/journeys), whether or not you identify amongst our ranks, rest today.

Just be. Take care, take heart, and know you are seen.

That is so much more than enough. 

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COM|PASSionately,

Traci 

Mondays, Motivation, and Monsters

Returning to the discussion and exploration of shame as I prep for my upcoming offering to The Armory's Educational Series- Pajamas, Popcorn, and Porn: Slaying the Shame Monster Under Our Bed. It's an interesting thing to wake up on Monday morning and immediately start calling out the monsters that have been lurking around you. It's also a really powerful practice.

I stumbled upon this quote from one Brene Brown's Ted Talks on Listening to Shame: 

Jungian analysts call shame the swampland of the soul. And we're going to walk in. And the purpose is not to walk in and construct a home and live there. It is to put on some galoshes- and walk through and find our way around. 

This isn't a full offering but rather a note that I've been rolling over the intersections of shame and marginality in my head and am so excited to share it in it's full incarnation soon! In that work I certainly have had to "pull up my galoshes" and move around and through the work that I'm digging into. 

So just in case you're struggling with monsters, motivation, or just Mondays, here's a little help from the incomparable Anis Mojgani to Shake the Dust and move through the swamplands... 

Fear Part II: The Storm

Welcome to the New Year everybody! 

I'm a few days late which is probably a sign. Not a bad one. Just one that reminds me where I've been this year, and hopefully how to get to where I'm going. Oh, that moment in the middle, the "how to," that's what we psychobabble yoga hippies like to call "the present." That romanticized beckoning space that begs us to "be here now." 

The thing is the "here and now" is kind of a crap shoot right now. The past year, it's there, I see it, it wasn't all easy but hey, guess who's still kicking? I'll take that as a win. The future, eh, I'm taking some deep breaths. It's the right now that gets me. It's supposed to be quiet in the eye of the storm right? The thing that well known idiom fails to mention is that whether or not it's actually quiet in the eye of the storm depends on whether we're yelling at the top of your lungs and flailing your arms demanding that someone gets you out. 

So how do we defeat fear of upheaval? Fear of change? Fear of the storm ripping up our roots and twirling us around before hurling us back towards the ground? 

Enter a little New Year message from my new Slow Holler tarot deck. That's right! If you're a lover of all things queer and tarot you've probably been lusting for this little stack of magic for a few years when they left us salivating over their kickstarter page. In the dark days of The Collective Tarot being sold out with no sign of a new run, this little beacon of light from the south promised to give my poor well loved, but water damaged, pacific northwest deck a rest (oh, the irony). 

What should appear in my first few pulls but Kai Barrow's interpretation of "The Tower" or "Disaster"-- THE STORM. Part of the Major Arcana, the 16th card appears to remind us that we're powerless in the prevention of change. We can choose to flail in the middle of the storm, or we can pause in the quiet, to take a breath, regroup, and accept our inherent agency to move through transition. 

So 2016, I see you. It was a tumultuous year. In truth we didn't all survive it, but you and I, we did.

2017, you're coming whether we're ready or not. I choose to take the next couple weeks to sit in the quiet and take a breath. I choose to welcome in "the creative winds of destruction" and open myself to the "winds of renewal." 

Align with me?

COM|PASSionately,

Traci

Fear Part 1: Character Back Stories

There’s a lot to be done in this moment in time, but I’m not going to speak to you about politics or organizing. This isn’t because it’s not important, it’s just not my area of expertise. My very wise partner keeps gently reminding me that we all need to do what we can with what we have-- rather than more than is possible from theoretical resources-- which in all honesty is what I’m often inclined to do when I feel a bit lost. This has been a hard pill for me to swallow. It’s left me reeling a bit. I’ve built a life and practice on agency and resiliency, and in all honesty, I feel a bit low on both in this moment.

With that in mind, a small offering on people and fear, because it’s what I can do with what I have as a being that has been fortunate enough to have my life intersect at the crossroads of marginality and healing.

I spend lot of time in my office reminding people that I see them and that they exist. Before we tackle strategies or movement we pause to attend to whatever is right in front of us. Due to the way that we are taught to self-care (or rather ignore this fundamental human need) what is right in front of us is often the challenge, the blockage, the voice that tells us we can’t/shouldn’t move to the next step. Along with rightful outrage, frustration, exhaustion, and anxiety, what is currently looming in front of us is fear.

Here’s the the thing about fear, there is a “dramatic” nature to it, in that we all have a back story to our characters as they are presenting on the world stage at this particular moment in history. This goes for those of that who have jobs that actually put us in a place to face the international community on a policy level and those of us that are trying to decide how to take our place amongst the ranks of social media presence. We’re trying to figure out what our fear is and how it may motivate us, incapacitate us, or dictate our lives in the coming days/months/years.

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"We’re trying to figure out what our fear is and how it may motivate us, incapacitate us, or dictate our lives in the coming days/months/years."

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On November 7, 2016 at around 10:45pm PST I took a breath, closed my eyes, snuggled my pup in next to me, and laid my head down on my pillow. I knew there would be things to do the next day, but I tried to do what I thought was healthiest, what I would have encouraged my clients do. I’ve clung to this mindful and methodical temperance, in my healing journey and it has served me well. I’ve been lucky enough to live a life with a relatively low mental and emotional burden for someone with my inclination towards high context sensitivities and porousness to the pain of others. I tell you this to let you know the privileged spot that I’m starting at. I’m honored to bear witness to traumatic but inspiring stories of survival daily, and I still manage leave my house every morning with little internal struggle. I’m neither blind to hard things in the world nor have I been stopped in engaging with it.

I wish I could tell you exactly what time I sat straight up with a start, heart beating, breath quickened, as it would add to my drama metaphor, but the rest of the night into the morning was pretty hazy. Unintelligible screaming punctuated by cursing and “New World Order” poured in through the back window that we leave open to enjoy the tiny bit of seasonal weather SoCal musters in November, and by the time I could parse out that the screaming was in celebration not aggression my mind had already gone through the gamut of terrible things that might be about to occur. In that fearful state, we were faced with several decisions: Did I want to hear a neighbor scream back to know that we weren’t the only ones not happy with what just happened? Did we hope that everyone stayed silent as to not aggravate whoever was already in an amped up state? Was everyone hearing what we were hearing or were the screams specifically turned our direction? Do we close the window to drown out the noise, or should we leave it cracked so we could be more aware of what else might be happening in the neighborhood? Were we safer in the back of the house with the animals and us away from any street facing windows? Should we be in the front of the house since it seemed like the majority of the yelling was coming from behind the house? In these few moments should we head out of the neighborhood to a friend or family member’s house or do we just stay put inside?

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"Was everyone hearing what we were hearing or were the screams specifically turned our direction?"

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This decision making process was stopped only by the jarring explosions of fireworks. Again, very aware that from the privileged place that I sit I could manage to question and then ultimately feel safe that, in fact, fireworks were all that they were.

We ended up staying put, and nothing happened per se, but our sense of safety was forever changed in those moments. Since then, more decisions. Was it still safe to stroll around the neighborhood at 9pm at night for an evening walk after a long day? How about at 8am on a slow weekend? How many times had we strolled past where the yelling was coming from? Were we previously safe because while politically dissonant from us they wouldn’t ever physically hurt us, because we had never run into those neighbors, or because they weren’t previously emboldened to approach us?

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"Were we previously safe because while politically dissonant from us they wouldn’t ever physically hurt us, because we had never run into those neighbors, or because they weren’t previously emboldened to approach us?"

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If at this moment, you’re not scared, it’s because you probably don’t have to be. If you feel like others are being dramatic, maybe take a moment to put yourself in their back story. None of us who are currently navigating our fears want you to be scared as well, and we’d too like to believe that we are  being dramatic. The truth of the matter is though, that fear is real. Real because it is unfortunately being validated in the world events that are playing out around us and because we experience it whether the terrible thing that we’re fearful of actually happens or not. Remember that the fear that people are speaking of on this large scale level is not of politics and policy (although that is undoubtedly scary too), it is fear for the physical safety of ourselves and our loved ones. Remember that for the marginalized communities experiencing the most fear, this isn’t new fear, it’s just exacerbated and validated fear.

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"Remember that for the marginalized communities experiencing the most fear, this isn’t new fear, it’s just exacerbated and validated fear."

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If at this moment, you’re scared, you have every right to be. I don’t want you to be incapacitated by it, but I also don’t want you to ignore it/silence it. Let’s not bully ourselves in the same way that we have been victim to the bullies that make us fearful. Let us be the kind nurturing balanced caretakers that we may or may not have had growing up. Attend to your fear, find compassion for the requests that it is making. You may not be able to give it everything that it is currently demanding but you can remind your fear that you see it, that it is valid, that it exists, and that you’re going to move forward with the intention of you both being safe.

In love and safety,

Traci