Latest / The Trauma Therapist / Guest Host Series Jan Winhall interviews Marika Heinrichs

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Guest Host Series Jan Winhall interviews Marika Heinrichs · The Trauma Therapist

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Trauma Therapist Podcast. My name is gymickperson.
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  Speaker 1: I interview incredible people who've dedicated their lives to helping
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  Speaker 1: those who've been impacted by trauma. A big thank you
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  Speaker 1: to our sponsors and our guests who are supporting this show.
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  Speaker 2: Hello everyone, I'm here as a guest interviewer for the
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  Speaker 2: Trauma Therapist Podcast. What a lovely invitation. I've been a
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  Speaker 2: guest with Guy McPherson several times over the years and
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  Speaker 2: love the Trauma Therapist Podcast. I think it's well it's
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  Speaker 2: one of the most important ways that we really connect
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  Speaker 2: with each other as trauma therapists, and Guy has offered
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  Speaker 2: so much over the years. So when I saw this
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  Speaker 2: invitation to be an interviewer and invite somebody, I thought,
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  Speaker 2: I'm going to invite my daughter. So I'm jan Wyin
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  Speaker 2: Hall and I'm the creator of the Felt Sense Polyvagel Model.
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  Speaker 2: I'm an educational partner with the Polyvagel Institute, and last
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  Speaker 2: year i started the Felt Sense Polyvagel Model Institute. And
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  Speaker 2: I'm here today with Marika Heinrix, who, amongst many other things,
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  Speaker 2: is also my daughter and the creator of the Embodied
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  Speaker 2: Ancestral inquiry model. So Marika, we chat lots about what's
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  Speaker 2: going on in not only our own personal lives, but
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  Speaker 2: also what's happening in our professional lives and how they overlap,
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  Speaker 2: and what a gift that is to be able to
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  Speaker 2: do that with one's child. It's amazing. So do you
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  Speaker 2: want to say a little bit. I always like to
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  Speaker 2: invite people to introduce themselves because I think it gives
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  Speaker 2: you an opportunity to share what's important to you rather
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  Speaker 2: than just listing awful lot of things.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah. Thanks.
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  Speaker 4: I always find when I introduce myself that I say
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  Speaker 4: something different every time. I'm Marica and I'm a sematics practitioner,
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  Speaker 4: and I'm a writer and a teacher slash facilitator slash
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  Speaker 4: space holder, and I co founded training and methodology that
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  Speaker 4: is called Embodied Ancestral Inquiry. I'm also a former psychotherapist
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  Speaker 4: and I work as a body worker. And my lineages
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  Speaker 4: and semantics are pretty varied. I've come through lots of
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  Speaker 4: different kind of paths and bodies of work, but really
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  Speaker 4: influenced by developmental trauma work Aileen Lapierre and neuro effective
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  Speaker 4: touch and biodynamic cranio psychotherapy is also really dear to
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  Speaker 4: my heart, and then I've done lots of other kinds
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  Speaker 4: of sematic trainings over the years, and.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, in kind of.
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  Speaker 4: Connected but steprily to that part of my life. I've
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  Speaker 4: been an activist and organizer in kind of different ways
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  Speaker 4: for about the past twenty years, and.
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  Speaker 3: In twenty twenty.
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  Speaker 4: I sort of brought those worlds together in the first
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  Speaker 4: iteration of a course that I taught that I was
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  Speaker 4: kind of trying to bring together somatics and embodiment and
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  Speaker 4: kind of ancestral intergenerational trauma work with racial justice and
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  Speaker 4: really looking at and working with the embodiment of whiteness
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  Speaker 4: and supremacy in ourselves as white people. So getting underneath
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  Speaker 4: just like the kind of intellectual analysis of racism and
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  Speaker 4: race and really starting to work through with, you know,
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  Speaker 4: the intention of unlearning a lot of the unconscious patterns, habits,
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  Speaker 4: behaviors that we can and that we embody and that
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  Speaker 4: we enact as people who have inherited this kind of
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  Speaker 4: form of power within a really racially segregated and organized culture.
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  Speaker 4: And so that's that's the work that we do in
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  Speaker 4: Embodied Ancestral Inquiry, which we call EAI for short.
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  Speaker 2: We all have our short forms, Yes, And I think,
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  Speaker 2: you know, I often think about your trajectory and how
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  Speaker 2: you've grown into who you are, and I think it's
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  Speaker 2: really interesting when we look at the roots, you know,
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  Speaker 2: of how you grew up attending downtown school in Toronto
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  Speaker 2: with forty three different nationalities, and how it was just
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  Speaker 2: a part of your life to be surrounded by people
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  Speaker 2: that didn't look like you. Yeah, and I think that's
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  Speaker 2: you know, that's I like to think that what happens
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  Speaker 2: often when we are connected and in intimate relationship and friendships,
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  Speaker 2: especially early on developmentally with people that don't look like us,
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  Speaker 2: that it produces people that are doing the work you're doing.
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  Speaker 4: I think there's a few other ingredients that went.
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  Speaker 2: You also grew up with me and your dad and
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  Speaker 2: your stepdad, who were all psychologically focused and in the business.
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  Speaker 4: The values in our family were also you know, reflective
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  Speaker 4: of thinking about and kind of deconstructing power dynamics.
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  Speaker 3: But certainly.
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  Speaker 4: Our earliest intimate relationships have so much shape so much
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  Speaker 4: of who we are and our outlook on the world.
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  Speaker 4: And I well, I don't think that like a kind
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  Speaker 4: of like a multicultural sort of environment is enough to
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  Speaker 4: be anti racist necessarily. I think it can provide, especially
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  Speaker 4: in childhood, such an important foundation for just one of
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  Speaker 4: the ways in which white supremacy really shows up is
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  Speaker 4: through this kind of like segregation and like fear of
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  Speaker 4: difference and othering.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's hard to other when you're four or
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  Speaker 2: five years old and your best friend is brown and
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  Speaker 2: you're white, and you're in your little world together having fun,
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  Speaker 2: it doesn't matter, right.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean that's really the process through which I
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  Speaker 4: think so much of what becomes you know, racial or
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  Speaker 4: race based oppression later on is like it's taught to
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  Speaker 4: us as children, and that is inevitable as well. It's
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  Speaker 4: inevitable for all of us, but it's inevitable in a
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  Speaker 4: certain way for white children for sure. But there is
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  Speaker 4: something else that also gets in when you know, I hope,
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  Speaker 4: when you know and love and are and are in
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  Speaker 4: intimacy with people from different cultures and backgrounds and identities
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  Speaker 4: in all sorts of ways, and yeah, there's a kind
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  Speaker 4: of something that gets into the body. You know. Alongside
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  Speaker 4: what is absorbed around entitlement or distancing or whatever else
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  Speaker 4: kind of shows up, there is also this kind of
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  Speaker 4: but but you're my friend and of course I'm going
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  Speaker 4: to like fight for you and defend you and protect
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  Speaker 4: you and think about ways that I might be unintentionally
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  Speaker 4: hurting you because you're.
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  Speaker 3: My friend and I love you, and like really it's
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  Speaker 3: that simple.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you feel things and you get hurt just
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  Speaker 2: like I do.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, boy, it's so interesting. How did we get here? Well,
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  Speaker 2: I guess because you know so often I've done so
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  Speaker 2: many podcasts and that the often the first question they ask,
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  Speaker 2: which I think is great, is like, how did she
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  Speaker 2: get here? So we're kind of I guess I was
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  Speaker 2: drawn to that too, and I've thought about it, of
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  Speaker 2: course as your parent, like how did my children get
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  Speaker 2: to where they are? Because your brother is doing similar work.
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  Speaker 2: So yeah. So one of the things that we've been exploring.
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  Speaker 2: I love talking to you about this because you help
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  Speaker 2: me to take different parts of things and stretch them
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  Speaker 2: out in ways that I might not have always stretched
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  Speaker 2: out or thought about. And then sometimes we both do
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  Speaker 2: that together and that's really fun, very nerdy and fun.
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  Speaker 2: One of the things that we got pretty nerdy about recently,
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  Speaker 2: which we said this would be a good thing to
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  Speaker 2: have a podcast about, is how so much of the
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  Speaker 2: work that we do with trauma is focused on survivors,
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  Speaker 2: victims survivors we call them, and that there's really a
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  Speaker 2: whole other piece there that has to do with really
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  Speaker 2: helping people who are perpetrators of trauma and violence, and
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  Speaker 2: that we don't spend nearly as much time or enough
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  Speaker 2: time really focusing on that work, and that for you know,
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  Speaker 2: a couple of reasons that's so important. So first of all,
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  Speaker 2: victim people who end up hurting other people a lot,
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  Speaker 2: because we all hurt other people, you know, unintentionally most
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  Speaker 2: of the time, but absolutely, you know, we when we
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  Speaker 2: get stuck in that rage cycle, and because of patriarchy
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  Speaker 2: and racism and all of those things systems of oppression,
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  Speaker 2: people can end up, you know, being the cause of
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  Speaker 2: a lot of pain for other people. And you know,
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  Speaker 2: when that happens, it's not because they grew up in
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  Speaker 2: some great way, right, They grew up in pain. So
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  Speaker 2: it's a feedback loop and so they are also victims
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  Speaker 2: of abuse, so they need help too. And also the
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  Speaker 2: very real thing that none of it will stop and
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  Speaker 2: people who are just on that receiving end will not
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  Speaker 2: get better and heal and live in a good way
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  Speaker 2: if we don't look at the whole picture and spend
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  Speaker 2: really spend time working on not just how to help
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  Speaker 2: people that hurt people a lot, but well not just
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  Speaker 2: about their journey, but how do we do that inside
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  Speaker 2: ourselves right, get to a place where inside ourselves we
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  Speaker 2: can be with both. They did these bad things and
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  Speaker 2: they're human beings who have also been on the receiving
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  Speaker 2: end of a lot of pain. And holding those two
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  Speaker 2: things together, the both and which is a big step
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  Speaker 2: for our culture that likes to divide and make these dichotomies.
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  Speaker 4: And really, I think to varying degrees, but that's true
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  Speaker 4: of all of us, that we've all caused harm and
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  Speaker 4: we've all been harmed. And one of the most damaging
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  Speaker 4: and unhelpful kind of binaries in sort of Western, white dominant,
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  Speaker 4: sort of eurocentric culture is this, you know, division between
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  Speaker 4: this idea that you're either guilty or innocent, or good
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  Speaker 4: or bad. And while certainly different people and different groups
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  Speaker 4: of people have caused much more harm than others, and
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  Speaker 4: you know, have different access to power or kind of
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  Speaker 4: that capacity, that ability exists in all of us. And
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  Speaker 4: I remember hearing Kai Chang Tom, who's a brilliant practitioner facilitator, coach,
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  Speaker 4: writer who talks a lot about her kind of approach
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  Speaker 4: to this work is called loving Justice, And I remember
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  Speaker 4: her hearing her talk years ago about like, part of
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  Speaker 4: being human means that you will cause harm. It's it's inevitable.
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  Speaker 4: But when we get sort of stuck in these, yeah,
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  Speaker 4: these really rigid binaries, it doesn't really help us to
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  Speaker 4: transform these conditions in a kind of wider way. And
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  Speaker 4: I've you know, I've learned a lot from you about
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  Speaker 4: why that, you know, the initially the kind of like
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  Speaker 4: field of trauma therapy, which isn't that old, but why
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  Speaker 4: the kind of first you know, wave of it was
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  Speaker 4: so focused on working with survivors for good reason, and
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  Speaker 4: we live in this like incredibly abusive culture towards so
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  Speaker 4: many people, and the importance of recognizing and acknowledging that
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  Speaker 4: was initially really important. There are all sorts of limitations
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  Speaker 4: to how that's happened, but that was to sort of
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  Speaker 4: break the silence around that was and continues to be
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  Speaker 4: incredibly important. And there's this kind of conversation that I
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  Speaker 4: think people who do transformative justice work, people who work
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  Speaker 4: with people who've caused harm, are also saying, which is
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  Speaker 4: like the other half of this whole kind of story
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  Speaker 4: is you know, what's going on for the people who
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  Speaker 4: keep causing harm, who keep inflicting abuse, Because that doesn't
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  Speaker 4: seem to be slowing down.
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  Speaker 2: No, no, it's escalating.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, And I think there's a lot of ways in
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  Speaker 4: which the kind of like trauma paradigm has really fallen
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  Speaker 4: short around understanding that. And you know, it's this funny
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  Speaker 4: thing where like out there it's really valorized to be
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  Speaker 4: more in a dominant role, to be like I'm the
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  Speaker 4: one who's like inflicting things, I'm the one who's making
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  Speaker 4: things happen. But within the kind of healing sphere, there's
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  Speaker 4: almost this like you know, over attachment to power, under
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  Speaker 4: to the ways in which we like.
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  Speaker 3: Don't necessarily hold hold power.
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  Speaker 4: And so that means that we like can really miss
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  Speaker 4: looking at the ways in which race and class and
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  Speaker 4: gender and all of these different pieces are also part
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  Speaker 4: of the story.
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  Speaker 2: And sometimes when you slow that down a little bit
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  Speaker 2: more and say that again in a different way, so
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  Speaker 2: you're saying that our culture tends to lean towards people
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  Speaker 2: that are dominant or sort of or this is how
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  Speaker 2: we're supposed to be like the masculine.
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  Speaker 4: Is that what you're the mascolw within like a patriarchal
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  Speaker 4: society sort of strength and perseverance, yea individualism. We have
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  Speaker 4: a lot of contempt culturally for people who are victims
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  Speaker 4: of harm and abuse.
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  Speaker 2: The hyper masculinity.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, and really like showing any kind of vulnerability,
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  Speaker 4: which really is a sign of our like interdependence and
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  Speaker 4: that you know that we can be impacted, that.
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  Speaker 3: We're not invincible.
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  Speaker 2: Oh, this is a point I really love about, you know,
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  Speaker 2: polyvagel theory in Steve Porge's work is he's saying, you know,
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  Speaker 2: we are wired to co regulate with each other's nervous systems.
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  Speaker 2: This is how we are wired to be, and we've
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  Speaker 2: ended up in this culture that really has contempt for that. Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: and it's getting it's growing as we speak. Yeah, rather
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  Speaker 2: than recognizing that nobody's going to get out of here
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  Speaker 2: okay unless we're all okay yeah.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: I mean COVID should have taught us that.
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  Speaker 4: It briefly opened a window into that learning.
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  Speaker 2: And how you know, in white rich countries you could
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  Speaker 2: get a vaccine m h yeah.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah. Our access to kind of individual protection and control
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  Speaker 4: is h is a really in so many ways that
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  Speaker 4: kind of foundation for what for what we've been taught
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  Speaker 4: culturally is safety, which it would be very different from
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  Speaker 4: what a polyvagel perspective on safety would teach us. Yes, exactly, yeah, yeah,
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  Speaker 4: And I think in this you know way, that those
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  Speaker 4: are the external conditions that we're moving in.
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  Speaker 3: When we.
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  Speaker 4: Turned towards looking at and working with harm for reasons
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  Speaker 4: which and I really want to be clear, I don't
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  Speaker 4: think this is a bad thing.
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  Speaker 3: There is so much.
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  Speaker 4: It's because that's the world, that's the those are the
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  Speaker 4: external conditions we need somewhere that we can go and
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  Speaker 4: have the impact of that acknowledged. That's so incredibly important.
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  Speaker 4: It's not about one over the other. But what I've
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  Speaker 4: sort of found, as you know, a therapist and a
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  Speaker 4: student of all different kinds of therapy and a teacher,
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  Speaker 4: it's like, oh, there's way less books about understanding what's
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  Speaker 4: like the kind of psychology and like trauma history of
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  Speaker 4: a perpetrator. And where I really started to learn about
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  Speaker 4: this was when I was when I was studying to
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  Speaker 4: the kind of like beginning of my career as a
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  Speaker 4: as a therapist, I worked with kids and in studying
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  Speaker 4: to work with children who were adopted and had come
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  Speaker 4: from really complex trauma backgrounds. There was this space in
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  Speaker 4: those in that world to understand the behavior of children
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  Speaker 4: who caused harm within their context as an adaptive response.
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  Speaker 4: And there was so much like love for these kids
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  Speaker 4: in some in those things, not all the time, but
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  Speaker 4: no certain teachers that I that I really learned so
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  Speaker 4: much from, like Dan and Hughes.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, they're around attachment, around attachment is struck about
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  Speaker 2: such a good that's let's pause there. It's such a
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  Speaker 2: good point that where we do have some compassion for
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  Speaker 2: those who cause harm is when they're little. Yeah, yeah,
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  Speaker 2: when they're children, and we can say, oh, well they're
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  Speaker 2: children and it's not their fault because their parents are
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  Speaker 2: all screwed up for whatever it is. You know. Yes,
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  Speaker 2: that's true. That's so true. And now we have to
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  Speaker 2: extend that because those children grow up and they become adults,
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  Speaker 2: so they have those little children inside them.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, and oftentimes they are you know, still being really child.
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  Speaker 4: I mean this is true of all of us, but
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  Speaker 4: really like run by their child parts, and we're you know,
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  Speaker 4: forms of protection and coping that they learned as children
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  Speaker 4: and and you know, in like the kind of foster
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  Speaker 4: care system and like child's mental health, lots of those
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  Speaker 4: kids are also really dehumanized and really dropped. So I
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  Speaker 4: think it was even an anomaly in that world to
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  Speaker 4: receive this kind of training in a way that was like,
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  Speaker 4: let's get really curious about like what's going on behind
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  Speaker 4: this behavior and such a commitment to like not pathologizing.
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  Speaker 4: And you know, in Dan Hughes's kind of body of
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  Speaker 4: work is called dietic developmental psychotherapy and they have this
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  Speaker 4: like saying connection before correction.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, very polyvagal.
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  Speaker 2: This is very polyvagal.
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  Speaker 4: And so I think that really like helped me. I
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  Speaker 4: found this. There's like I had so much appreciation for
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  Speaker 4: this kind of like reverence of like, oh, they're just
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  Speaker 4: trying to survive. And when when you look at a
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  Speaker 4: behavior that can be like pretty horrific in the context
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  Speaker 4: that they're in, it totally changes your perspective on it.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, this is this is very polyvagal, right, because it's
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  Speaker 2: all about the nervous system. Their nervous system is wired
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  Speaker 2: to adapt to that threat environment and so then therefore
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  Speaker 2: the way the behaviors are going to be translated are
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  Speaker 2: going to be from dysregulated states.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, And what we point fingers at and punish and
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  Speaker 4: shame and pathologize, which then only makes it worse in
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  Speaker 4: its context, makes perfect sense.
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  Speaker 2: Perfect sense. This is golden. This is what I say,
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  Speaker 2: I teach every day that this is the gift of
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  Speaker 2: coming into the body understanding the primacy of safety as
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  Speaker 2: the food for presents, right, Yeah, for being able to
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  Speaker 2: be grounded and to show up and connect with other
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  Speaker 2: people and be compassionate.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, So you know what we give to some give
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  Speaker 2: to children, like especially in that kind of family therapy field.
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  Speaker 2: That's where I started training, and it was gorgeous. That
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  Speaker 2: work was amazing in family therapy. Yeah, Virginia setiar and
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  Speaker 2: minution and all these wonderful communication theory. Yeah, it was
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  Speaker 2: just wonderful. So, yeah, we can understand it in little children.
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  Speaker 2: But of course those little children, they could become adult bodies,
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  Speaker 2: but they're still very, very driven by just as folks
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  Speaker 2: who end up appeasing a lot are stuck in that
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  Speaker 2: place of really you know, well, that's an interesting nervous
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  Speaker 2: system state that we've done a lot of work on.
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  Speaker 2: Stap Porges has been working on a lot you know
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  Speaker 2: that sense of like hovering knowing how to manage that
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  Speaker 2: perpetrator so that you can avoid being attacked or killed
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  Speaker 2: or shamed in some way or another. And then you
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  Speaker 2: know then as if that isn't bad enough, but then
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  Speaker 2: we shame people for doing that too.
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so you can't win.
• 22:51
  Speaker 4: Nope. It's really interesting to think about because like the
• 22:57
  Speaker 4: work that I do now is so much about bringing
• 23:01
  Speaker 4: together kind of looking at systems kind of culturally, politically,
• 23:09
  Speaker 4: spiritually as well, and how those systems really shape and
• 23:14
  Speaker 4: inform the kind of culture, the different ways of culture develops,
• 23:19
  Speaker 4: and trauma therapy has developed within a cultural context. And
• 23:27
  Speaker 4: there's like something about I mean, I don't know, like
• 23:31
  Speaker 4: I this is actually.
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: A question that I have.
• 23:36
  Speaker 4: That I get the sense that there's more you know,
• 23:40
  Speaker 4: room for kind of understanding and really like humanizing the
• 23:49
  Speaker 4: experience of appeasement or or you know, being.
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: Being in a power under position, but much less so around.
• 24:02
  Speaker 4: The kind of and I don't we don't even have
• 24:04
  Speaker 4: to necessarily be talking about like the most you know,
• 24:07
  Speaker 4: frightening kinds of perpetrators, just like anger and rage and
• 24:10
  Speaker 4: fight as a nervous system response.
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I that's just as common.
• 24:17
  Speaker 4: It's just it's just as common as all these other,
• 24:21
  Speaker 4: you know, responses, and I think we spend a lot
• 24:26
  Speaker 4: less time trying to understand it and have compassion for
• 24:29
  Speaker 4: it as a response. And that might be because a
• 24:31
  Speaker 4: lot of those folks don't show up in therapy as
• 24:34
  Speaker 4: much or you know.
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: We're afraid of them.
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: We're afraid of them.
• 24:40
  Speaker 4: But I think there's any.
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: Or it can be gross, yeah, and really turn us off.
• 24:47
  Speaker 4: It can, but I also think people can have a
• 24:49
  Speaker 4: lot of contempt for like helplessness and like, yes, absolutely,
• 24:53
  Speaker 4: but there's something I think culturally in the kind of
• 24:57
  Speaker 4: like trauma therapy kind of sphere, Well.
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: Don't you think that's the hyper masculinity?
• 25:08
  Speaker 4: I mean, I wonder, I don't know.
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: I think that like you mean in the sense that.
• 25:17
  Speaker 4: We don't see that kind of behavior as a problem
• 25:20
  Speaker 4: because it's reflective of like.
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: We might see it as a problem, but we don't.
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: Most therapists are women, and I think a lot of
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: problem that happens in therapy is that we can end
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: up appeasing as therapists and that the dude that walks
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: into your office who's going to give you a hard time,
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: you have to be really grounded in yourself, especially if
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: they start flirting with you as a way of you know,
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: playing the power game, or or they're hurting their partner physically.
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: That's very scary too.
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: They don't hurt you.
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: There's a lot in all of that to unpack, right
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: about how young female therapists manage a powerful, aggressive daddy
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: figure in the room. And I think it's we as
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: women have to do some work around that to be
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: able to feel our authority and our assertiveness in commanding
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: the room in the sense of protecting those safe boundaries,
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: not in the sense of controlling everything, but in that way.
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 26:37
  Speaker 4: Absolutely, I think my curiosity is like that part that
• 26:45
  Speaker 4: kind of again is like part of the culture of
• 26:47
  Speaker 4: how psychotherapy has developed, is that it's a lot of
• 26:49
  Speaker 4: like middle class white women who do this job. And
• 26:55
  Speaker 4: there's a whole kind of history to that in the
• 26:57
  Speaker 4: helping professions, which we can have a whole other podcast
• 27:01
  Speaker 4: episode about and the kind of you know, figure of
• 27:05
  Speaker 4: this sort of selfless helper and how that's tied to
• 27:12
  Speaker 4: gender and also like religion, it's very tied to kind
• 27:16
  Speaker 4: of like Christianity and missionary work and you know, being
• 27:20
  Speaker 4: a kind of savior something we all have to really
• 27:23
  Speaker 4: watch on ourselves who do this work. But I yess
• 27:26
  Speaker 4: that's also part of the question for me is like
• 27:29
  Speaker 4: why did that become the culture that it's so sort
• 27:31
  Speaker 4: of And I think some of it for sure has
• 27:34
  Speaker 4: to do with those gender dynamics. I guess I'm maybe
• 27:39
  Speaker 4: rather like there is a part of me that that
• 27:42
  Speaker 4: also wonders if it's like there's something about not wanting
• 27:47
  Speaker 4: there's like a kind of disowning of those parts of
• 27:49
  Speaker 4: ourselves that can be angry, that can be more you know, dominant,
• 27:55
  Speaker 4: that can cause harm at all. We really really struggle
• 27:58
  Speaker 4: as a culture to be the fact that we can
• 28:00
  Speaker 4: cause harm.
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: And when it's so.
• 28:04
  Speaker 4: Over in someone's kind of survival strategy, it's really easy
• 28:08
  Speaker 4: to be like that person is bad and scary, and
• 28:10
  Speaker 4: like they can be really scary.
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: I'm not diminishing that, but.
• 28:15
  Speaker 4: You know, and it may or may not be helpful
• 28:17
  Speaker 4: to know why, but I think it's a shortcoming that.
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: I certainly feel.
• 28:26
  Speaker 4: You know, it's really interesting because in a lot of
• 28:28
  Speaker 4: the work that I do now is working with people
• 28:31
  Speaker 4: who really see themselves as this kind of like power
• 28:34
  Speaker 4: under helper and helping them to find where they're also
• 28:38
  Speaker 4: maybe unintentionally enacting a kind of power over sort of
• 28:42
  Speaker 4: like control domination, where that also exists in US because
• 28:49
  Speaker 4: as white people, and I work mostly with white people
• 28:51
  Speaker 4: around these very questions, there's no way for that not
• 28:54
  Speaker 4: to be in us.
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: It's just going to be there.
• 28:58
  Speaker 4: And it's really interesting how that like organizes our kind
• 29:01
  Speaker 4: of sense of identity when it's I'm.
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: Not like that, I'm not like that, yeah, and.
• 29:06
  Speaker 4: Our ego defense around like not wanting to see that
• 29:11
  Speaker 4: is so powerful.
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: It's so powerful.
• 29:16
  Speaker 4: And it's also when you can get to the other
• 29:18
  Speaker 4: side of that and when you can you know, really
• 29:21
  Speaker 4: accept and integrate I am capable of causing harm and
• 29:27
  Speaker 4: the way and there are ways that I can do
• 29:29
  Speaker 4: that unconsciously or consciously that I've like learned and inherited
• 29:34
  Speaker 4: and you know, all of that. When that can be
• 29:36
  Speaker 4: an integrated part of how we see ourselves, it's so liberating,
• 29:42
  Speaker 4: partially because it actually doesn't have as much power over
• 29:44
  Speaker 4: us because we're not denying it, and it's like we're
• 29:48
  Speaker 4: not yeah, we're not so afraid of that truth that
• 29:51
  Speaker 4: we kind of have to you know, organize ourselves in
• 29:54
  Speaker 4: this way that avoids, I know, accountability conflict. It's it's interesting.
• 30:04
  Speaker 4: I think a lot of the time, our fear of
• 30:06
  Speaker 4: that and other people is really showing us something about,
• 30:10
  Speaker 4: you know, the parts of ourselves that might be similar
• 30:12
  Speaker 4: that we don't want to look at either.
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It's like a projection.
• 30:16
  Speaker 4: H Yeah. And in no way am I sort of
• 30:20
  Speaker 4: saying or suggesting, just to be really clear, that we
• 30:23
  Speaker 4: should just go and start befriending dangerous violent people, know
• 30:27
  Speaker 4: what I'm saying, But we all have a little drop
• 30:30
  Speaker 4: of that in us and so.
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: And those people their only hope, their only hope, those
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: scary people in healing and stopping their violence. However that
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: manifests is if somebody can attach with them, and they
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: can attach with somebody, yeah, yeah.
• 31:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and someone We need people who are willing to
• 31:04
  Speaker 4: take that risk with you know, boundaries and all of
• 31:10
  Speaker 4: those things.
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: And skill, a lot of skill, a lot of skill,
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: and a lot of embodied presence and confidence. Yeah, because
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: you know, so often the person that is out of
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: control around raging is scared of themselves. Yeah, and they
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: want somebody that can hold a safe space, you know,
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: and simultaneously hear them and also make the boundary. Yeah,
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: it's really, you know, incredibly hard work that we do.
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: This work is really it's not for the faint of heart.
• 31:55
  Speaker 4: I often, you know, think about one of the reasons
• 31:59
  Speaker 4: that I saw retired from private practice was I was
• 32:03
  Speaker 4: I loved the people I got to work with. I
• 32:06
  Speaker 4: loved the clients that I had. There was so much
• 32:11
  Speaker 4: about about them and working with them that I loved,
• 32:15
  Speaker 4: but the whole kind of overall structure was just not
• 32:17
  Speaker 4: sustainable for me. I was really getting burnt out. And
• 32:21
  Speaker 4: I love teaching and I love working with groups, and
• 32:25
  Speaker 4: so over time, as I you know, built up this
• 32:29
  Speaker 4: other thing and was able to kind of step into
• 32:31
  Speaker 4: teaching more, I was ready to let go of one
• 32:34
  Speaker 4: on one work.
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: But my thing was always like.
• 32:36
  Speaker 4: Oh, it's trauma therapy is so intense. It's so like
• 32:40
  Speaker 4: it just exhausting, and it's so intense. And I mean,
• 32:43
  Speaker 4: I like intense things, but it was there was some
• 32:45
  Speaker 4: you know that was kind of my it's just really
• 32:47
  Speaker 4: hard and yet that I've chosen that I think about
• 32:52
  Speaker 4: the work that I'm doing now, which is also wonderful,
• 32:54
  Speaker 4: and I love that I get to work with the
• 32:56
  Speaker 4: people that I do, but it is so much of
• 32:58
  Speaker 4: what you just said, is this really like loving firm,
• 33:03
  Speaker 4: you know, strong back, soft belly, Like, no, that's not
• 33:07
  Speaker 4: We're not going to do that here, That's not what
• 33:09
  Speaker 4: this is about.
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: But you still get to be.
• 33:11
  Speaker 4: A person, and you still get to receive care, and
• 33:13
  Speaker 4: you still get to belong and.
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: Well until there's a point where you can yeah, there's
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: still boundary because yeah, and that's that's a hard one.
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: It's so hard and why in your path.
• 33:31
  Speaker 4: But I think that part of what I have come to
• 33:33
  Speaker 4: really understand. You know, I'm also like ten years older
• 33:35
  Speaker 4: now than I was when I was you know, kind
• 33:38
  Speaker 4: of doing that work initially or much you know that
• 33:41
  Speaker 4: was a long time ago. Is like, this is a
• 33:45
  Speaker 4: very helpful and important skill for us to have as
• 33:47
  Speaker 4: people who care about social change and care about confronting
• 33:53
  Speaker 4: systems of power. Is like, we have to find within
• 33:57
  Speaker 4: ourselves that that capacity to stay in connection and also
• 34:04
  Speaker 4: have kind of have boundaries. And I think we get
• 34:09
  Speaker 4: really good at staying in connection or we get really
• 34:11
  Speaker 4: good having boundaries, but to do those things at the
• 34:13
  Speaker 4: same time, this is a real skill and it takes
• 34:18
  Speaker 4: a lot of practice.
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's really another really important piece staying in connection
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: and having clear boundaries. And often what we work with
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: our nervous systems that either have rigid boundaries or very
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: permeable no boundaries, and you know that's often the appeaser,
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: and then the really rigid, controlling boundaries of the person
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: stuck in control and rage.
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, and.
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: You know how to yeah. And so teaching is another
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: whole piece, and writing is another whole piece where we're
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: stepping back and we're reflecting on what is the process
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: that we do this nebulous process of talking not just
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: talking about these things, but how do you teach them
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: to people? Right?
• 35:16
  Speaker 4: Yeah?
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: And so much of it I've started to really delineate
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: in the teaching is, you know, is a very clear
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: kind of two step process of embarking on your own
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: embodied journey, your own somatic, embodied, felt sense journey of
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: your own life, and you know, learning about all those
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: wonderful models and concepts out there and developing your own
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: organizing kind of framework where you're playing with those concepts
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: and finding your people in your community and breaking these
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: things down. I think is such an important part of
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: being able to then communicate about these kinds of things
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: that you know, we don't talk about everywhere you're waiting
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: for somebody with the bus. These are real little rabbit
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: holes we go down into, right, and yet they apply
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: to humanity. It's all a world we're talking about. Is
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: belongs to everybody. How do we take care of ourselves
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: in the world, and how do I take care of
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: me and at the same time take care of meeting
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: your needs? And yeah yeah.
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, protection and connection.
• 36:43
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I love that connection before protection, connection before correction,
• 36:50
  Speaker 4: connection before correction, which is like specifically in the context
• 36:57
  Speaker 4: of parenting, right.
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, what I was thinking was connection creating safety
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: before going into the need to get into stuff and protect.
• 37:11
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so yeah, similar, I mean I think it's that
• 37:16
  Speaker 4: piece of connection before kind of everything.
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and.
• 37:27
  Speaker 4: Yeah, which you know I've been thinking lately too about
• 37:31
  Speaker 4: even about how we can is there a way to
• 37:34
  Speaker 4: still be in connection even when we're not in relationship, Like,
• 37:39
  Speaker 4: is there a way to be connected to one another's
• 37:41
  Speaker 4: mutual humanity even when it's not possible to be in
• 37:45
  Speaker 4: relationship Because sometimes we can't be in relationship.
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: It's not safe, it's not possible.
• 37:50
  Speaker 4: We just can't do it, or we can't do it
• 37:51
  Speaker 4: for a period of time, But can we still see
• 37:54
  Speaker 4: the humanity in one another and that kind of like
• 38:01
  Speaker 4: inherent sort of interdependence, Like, you know, you're out there,
• 38:05
  Speaker 4: You're a part of this web, and I'm a part
• 38:07
  Speaker 4: of this web. And we might not be able to
• 38:10
  Speaker 4: be in direct relationship, but can I like hold you
• 38:14
  Speaker 4: in in some kind of way that allows you to
• 38:18
  Speaker 4: still be fully human and and not need to kind
• 38:23
  Speaker 4: of like turn people into objects and dehumanized.
• 38:27
  Speaker 3: Villains and villains?
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, yeah, Well that brings us to more of
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: the kind of real intimate relationships too, Like when we're
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: you know, going through a separation or divorce, you know,
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: can I still see this person as a person and
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: not vilify this person and make them the object of
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: all of my whatever that is, Because then that turns
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: it into a kind of rage that may simmer underneath,
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: but it's still problematic. Yeah yeah, And it rips kids
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: apart in families when that happens too.
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: I think, you.
• 39:11
  Speaker 4: Know, I've just finished recording a season of my own
• 39:14
  Speaker 4: podcasts that I'm hosting, and this this question has been one.
• 39:18
  Speaker 4: It's called it's called Lost Together, Lost Together, Love It,
• 39:23
  Speaker 4: and it's about really about how do we stay in
• 39:25
  Speaker 4: relationship in times of change and upheaval. And the kind
• 39:33
  Speaker 4: of question we ask is, you know what if we
• 39:35
  Speaker 4: stopped focusing so much on solutions and fixing things and
• 39:39
  Speaker 4: just sort of learning how to find each other, just
• 39:42
  Speaker 4: just finding each other in the midst of it, maybe
• 39:45
  Speaker 4: that maybe that can be the kind of the path
• 39:49
  Speaker 4: to whatever the answer is or the whatever repair might
• 39:53
  Speaker 4: look like. But this question, you know, of like, how
• 39:59
  Speaker 4: do we navigate all of this stress and fear and
• 40:05
  Speaker 4: the moment that we're living in politically, economically, culturally in
• 40:09
  Speaker 4: so many parts of the world just being so much
• 40:13
  Speaker 4: more unpredictable and dangerous for so many people, and then
• 40:18
  Speaker 4: also so many of us watching horrific things unfold on
• 40:21
  Speaker 4: our phones and feeling powerless and having all that energy
• 40:26
  Speaker 4: of like you know, fear and anger at injustice and
• 40:31
  Speaker 4: grief and hopelessness, like not having anywhere to go other
• 40:34
  Speaker 4: than kind of outside ways at each other. And so
• 40:37
  Speaker 4: how do we navigate this huge pressure on our nervous
• 40:42
  Speaker 4: systems and not fracture and fragment in our relationships? And
• 40:49
  Speaker 4: you know, we're just a lot, it's just a lot
• 40:51
  Speaker 4: of conversations about how do we do that? And I
• 40:54
  Speaker 4: think one of the things I sort of has really
• 40:57
  Speaker 4: come through in those conversations is how much we don't
• 41:00
  Speaker 4: get good training, We don't learn how to have those
• 41:04
  Speaker 4: kinds of relational skills, you know, most of the time
• 41:07
  Speaker 4: in this kind of dominant culture at least, that the
• 41:11
  Speaker 4: ways that we learn are like, you know, you're either
• 41:13
  Speaker 4: with me or against me, or there's you know, you're
• 41:16
  Speaker 4: dangerous and so now I need to like cut you
• 41:18
  Speaker 4: out and like to perfect myself from you and to
• 41:20
  Speaker 4: humanize you, or I need to kind of take care
• 41:22
  Speaker 4: of you and appeace to you. But we really really
• 41:25
  Speaker 4: struggle to like be in conflict in a like generative way.
• 41:29
  Speaker 4: And one of the people I interview is a conflict facilitator,
• 41:33
  Speaker 4: and she really talks about like conflict nothing changes without conflict,
• 41:38
  Speaker 4: and conflict is also transformative, Like it can be transformative.
• 41:42
  Speaker 4: It can actually one of the best things that can
• 41:44
  Speaker 4: happen to a relationship. Yes, if we can stay in
• 41:48
  Speaker 4: it coming out into better.
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, did you think, Wow, that person stayed with me
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: through that they didn't leave, and that feels really trust
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: building and that you know that person better now, Yeah,
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: And that you've both shared something about a wound and
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: then how to be vulnerable and receive the care from
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: that person that wounded you. And yeah, it's way better
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: after because it's real. Yeah, and you think, wow, if
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: they stood with me there, maybe they'll stay with me
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: the next time I kick off a steinkabout something totally.
• 42:30
  Speaker 4: It really deepens intimacy because so often conflict is like
• 42:34
  Speaker 4: I don't want you to see this disgusting, horrific thing
• 42:37
  Speaker 4: about who I am, so I'm going to just you know,
• 42:41
  Speaker 4: work really hard to Yeah.
• 42:44
  Speaker 3: And then or I don't agree with you.
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: I have a need that isn't your need, and maybe
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: you don't care. Yeah, but if you do actually do care,
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: you can see me instead of just a reflection of yourself,
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: which as to narcissism.
• 43:01
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, we can let our I mean really, it's like, yeah,
• 43:04
  Speaker 4: we can let ourselves be seen. We can have needs,
• 43:07
  Speaker 4: we can have limits, we can have desires, we can
• 43:11
  Speaker 4: have you know, examples of ourselves being imperfect, and can
• 43:17
  Speaker 4: we still be known even in all of that? And
• 43:21
  Speaker 4: can we still be in connection? And so many of
• 43:24
  Speaker 4: us learn conditional, learn that relationships are conditional, and so
• 43:31
  Speaker 4: when a thing that we maybe have learned, I can
• 43:33
  Speaker 4: never let anyone see that, because it will compromise connection.
• 43:36
  Speaker 4: When someone we love can see that thing and still
• 43:40
  Speaker 4: be in connection with us, that's one of the most reparative,
• 43:43
  Speaker 4: powerful things that can happen really in our lives. I
• 43:49
  Speaker 4: think it's why we're so drawn to this work, right,
• 43:53
  Speaker 4: It's like.
• 43:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, of course.
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And so if we go back to so there's
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: something about, say, with appeasement, where you're you know, caring
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: too much for other people and not yourself, there's something
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: that's almost can feel a little kind of heroic about that,
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: you know, self sacrificing markets halo. Yeah, they can also
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: feel like get a backbone. But there is that other
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: quality if we go to the other side of it,
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: the person that is being controlling or mean or abusive,
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: they have to own their own selfishness. So there's the
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: self lessness which gets a little halo among a lot
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: with other things too. For sure, like you wimp, especially
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: if you're a guy and you're female identified, that's really hard.
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: But for the guy that is stuck in raging or
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: controlling or you know, who feels like there's this lack
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: of capacity to loosen and really love, you know, and
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: like it's it's me.
• 45:05
  Speaker 3: It's me.
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: I gotta take care of me here. I'm not my
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: needs aren't gonna get mad, and there's nothing kind of
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: haloy about that. So that's like having to really say, well, yeah,
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: you know, I'm selfish. I want my own way. I
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: don't really think about what other people need very much.
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: This is very hard to own that.
• 45:33
  Speaker 4: It's very hard to own that it's not. I mean,
• 45:36
  Speaker 4: it's funny because I think that appeasement is also about
• 45:39
  Speaker 4: getting your own needs met and trying to have control.
• 45:41
  Speaker 4: Like it is, we're still trying to influence other people, so.
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: We're trying to sort say, we're trying to stay safe
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: at all ends.
• 45:50
  Speaker 3: Ends.
• 45:50
  Speaker 4: Yeah, but one is more like valorized I guess culturally,
• 45:54
  Speaker 4: and one is I mean again, it's one of these paradoxes, right,
• 45:57
  Speaker 4: It's like we live in an inherently selfish and visualistic
• 46:00
  Speaker 4: culture like white supremacy, which is intersect with capitalism and
• 46:08
  Speaker 4: patriarchy and all the things, and is not the only
• 46:11
  Speaker 4: example of a culture that has ever been supremacist, but
• 46:14
  Speaker 4: it's the one we're really in now. Is like based
• 46:19
  Speaker 4: on this, like, you know, I need to be exceptional, individual,
• 46:24
  Speaker 4: superior and like out for myself. That's you know, even
• 46:29
  Speaker 4: when we pretend like that's not what's happening. That is
• 46:34
  Speaker 4: that is so much the kind of unspoken or depending
• 46:38
  Speaker 4: depends on where you are, sometimes it's overtly spoken, but
• 46:41
  Speaker 4: it's the kind of unspoken. And so there's this paradox
• 46:45
  Speaker 4: of like we're sort of all swimming in that, you know,
• 46:50
  Speaker 4: get your like buy all these things so that you
• 46:53
  Speaker 4: can like have all the things and be beautiful and
• 46:55
  Speaker 4: have the status and look this certain way. And it's
• 46:58
  Speaker 4: so kind of like individualistick and go centric, but we
• 47:02
  Speaker 4: should never acknowledge that. No, no, I'm out here like
• 47:08
  Speaker 4: you know, being kind of controlling and bossy and like
• 47:13
  Speaker 4: exerting power to take care of myself and to stay
• 47:17
  Speaker 4: safe and conditions where that's what I've learned is the
• 47:19
  Speaker 4: only way I'm going to survive. But I should definitely
• 47:22
  Speaker 4: that should never be pointed out or acknowledged. So it's
• 47:25
  Speaker 4: both like that is filled and idealized and completely denigrated
• 47:29
  Speaker 4: and we should never acknowledge it.
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: Completely crazy making it's so we're all running around figure
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: this all out.
• 47:37
  Speaker 4: It's like become a perfect little healed individual and be
• 47:42
  Speaker 4: so good. That's actually incredibly narcissistic if we really think
• 47:47
  Speaker 4: about it. I'm so special and so unique. I've done
• 47:51
  Speaker 4: so much work on myself, you know, like I've been
• 47:53
  Speaker 4: that client. I'm going to get so good at healing
• 47:59
  Speaker 4: because this culture teaches us that exceptionalism as we will
• 48:02
  Speaker 4: make us safe if we're better than other people. And
• 48:05
  Speaker 4: that's not my fault, but it's in me.
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, would be really and I'm sure you can speak
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: to this a bit. What are the things that white
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: supremacy culture teaches us? Would be really cool to like
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: write them down. That's one of them, that's for sure.
• 48:23
  Speaker 4: Well, there's a really wonderful list called white supremacy Characteristics
• 48:28
  Speaker 4: of White supremacy culture that we should link in the
• 48:30
  Speaker 4: show notes that we've written. I'm forgetting the names of
• 48:34
  Speaker 4: the people that wrote it, but it's incredibly informative resource
• 48:37
  Speaker 4: that we should should totally link to. And some of
• 48:41
  Speaker 4: the things on that list are really about perfectionism, individualism, defensiveness,
• 48:56
  Speaker 4: and what I think a lot. When we teach about
• 48:59
  Speaker 4: this AI, we teach about those qualities, but we teach
• 49:02
  Speaker 4: about them alongside the characteristics of Christian hegemony culture, which
• 49:07
  Speaker 4: are very similar and really speak to some of the
• 49:12
  Speaker 4: kind of underlying values that shape white supremacy. And so
• 49:16
  Speaker 4: we really look a lot at love within a theology
• 49:22
  Speaker 4: of dominance. So love comes from like the father down
• 49:25
  Speaker 4: to the wife, down to the children. It's like a
• 49:28
  Speaker 4: hierarchical and we you know, it happens through obedience. And yeah,
• 49:38
  Speaker 4: kind of worthiness or deservingness, a lot about like innocence,
• 49:43
  Speaker 4: purity as being kind of the conditions that make us lovable,
• 49:47
  Speaker 4: that make us good, and a kind of sense of
• 49:52
  Speaker 4: time that is like linear and progress oriented rather than
• 49:57
  Speaker 4: like cyclical and like multifaceted complex. Uh. Yeah, So so
• 50:03
  Speaker 4: there's I would encourage people to also look into Paul
• 50:09
  Speaker 4: Kivell's work around Christian Christian hegemony and how those sort
• 50:14
  Speaker 4: of different frames really explain a lot of the context.
• 50:20
  Speaker 3: But yeah, a.
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: Lot of work in uh tracing a lot of this historically.
• 50:27
  Speaker 4: Yeah, because I think, well, in Paul Kvel's interesting because
• 50:30
  Speaker 4: he also does a lot of work around patriarchy with
• 50:32
  Speaker 4: men and how those things interesting Kivel k I.
• 50:35
  Speaker 3: V e L.
• 50:37
  Speaker 4: We can put all of those in the show notes. Yeah.
• 50:40
  Speaker 4: I think for me, you know, I'm one of those
• 50:41
  Speaker 4: people who's really drawn to like getting to the roots
• 50:44
  Speaker 4: of things. And so it's like you know, I've I've
• 50:47
  Speaker 4: said before another podcast, like I had I spent all
• 50:50
  Speaker 4: these years kind of immersed in.
• 50:54
  Speaker 3: Racial justice work.
• 50:55
  Speaker 4: In activist spaces and really like receiving such a found
• 51:00
  Speaker 4: kind of education about race in those spaces and also academically.
• 51:04
  Speaker 4: But but I would say it was more so than
• 51:06
  Speaker 4: the kind of grassroots sense and really like getting to
• 51:09
  Speaker 4: a place of being so clear about how I didn't
• 51:13
  Speaker 4: want to show up and all of the ways in
• 51:15
  Speaker 4: which wayness was so harmful, and thinking about things like
• 51:19
  Speaker 4: that list, you know, superiority, entitlement, the kind of like
• 51:24
  Speaker 4: valorizing of like cognitive intellectual knowing over the body.
• 51:28
  Speaker 3: Those are just more examples from that list.
• 51:30
  Speaker 4: But but after a while I felt like this is
• 51:34
  Speaker 4: to just not be something isn't really enough.
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: We need to be something And how did we.
• 51:40
  Speaker 3: Get to be this way?
• 51:41
  Speaker 4: And you know, using my kind of trauma therapist brain
• 51:42
  Speaker 4: and my like child trauma therapist brain, well, if everything
• 51:46
  Speaker 4: is an adaptation to something, if everything's taken care of
• 51:50
  Speaker 4: something in certain contexts, then how did this emerge?
• 51:53
  Speaker 3: What did this emerge?
• 51:54
  Speaker 2: How did this emerge as an adaptation?
• 51:57
  Speaker 4: Constantly have justified this way of being. I think it's
• 52:02
  Speaker 4: a cultural trauma response. Yeah, we just don't talk about
• 52:07
  Speaker 4: the conditions that it developed in, which is this.
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: Is very important and it really needs to get out there.
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: And I'm so proud of you for this, Like it
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: needs to get out there. I know you're working on
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: a book, but like really needs to get out there.
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: Why don't we talk about this more? The roots of
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: white supremacy. I mean that's a real trauma response, you know.
• 52:34
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I think you know a lot. For a
• 52:42
  Speaker 4: long time, we weren't even talking about the realities of
• 52:46
  Speaker 4: racism and so and I mean we still want to
• 52:50
  Speaker 4: talk about it in a lot of places enough of
• 52:53
  Speaker 4: the time. But in order to acknowledge the kind of
• 52:58
  Speaker 4: trauma behind a power group, we really need for their
• 53:02
  Speaker 4: first to be like an abundant, you know, loud space
• 53:08
  Speaker 4: for the trauma of the more oppressed groups to be
• 53:13
  Speaker 4: to be named, like you know, just like so clearly
• 53:15
  Speaker 4: and directly, over and over again. And we're still in
• 53:19
  Speaker 4: that and we'll be in that.
• 53:20
  Speaker 3: For a long time.
• 53:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah, And by we, I just mean like the collective
• 53:24
  Speaker 4: that centering and forwarding those voices is like and I
• 53:29
  Speaker 4: think also, you know a lot of like I think
• 53:32
  Speaker 4: specifically about like kind of like black feminist tradition. Lots
• 53:36
  Speaker 4: of those women were writing about white people and and
• 53:39
  Speaker 4: about whiteness in like really beautiful, powerful, like bad ass ways.
• 53:44
  Speaker 4: They were some of the first people that I read
• 53:46
  Speaker 4: that helps me to understand whiteness. Janet Helms wrote about
• 53:49
  Speaker 4: white racial identity development, which is a black woman, well.
• 53:53
  Speaker 2: When you think about too, like in where we're Canadian,
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: and in Canada, I mean the real of immigration. When
• 54:01
  Speaker 2: I was a little kid, there were there was oldly
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: white people basically I mean generally speaking, and the difference
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: in the population now that diversity is like, it's you
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: can't recognize it as the same city in Toronto. It's wonderful.
• 54:22
  Speaker 2: I love it. But that's really a short time. I
• 54:26
  Speaker 2: mean I am seventy two, but still that's not a
• 54:29
  Speaker 2: long time. That's in my generation. It's changed like this.
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: And there was a period in maybe back twenty thirty
• 54:41
  Speaker 2: years ago, twenty years ago where June Collwood ran was
• 54:49
  Speaker 2: it a rape crisis center or and there was a
• 54:53
  Speaker 2: real obsurge of black women who complained bitterly and angrily
• 54:59
  Speaker 2: of about racism and that was the first kind of
• 55:03
  Speaker 2: in the feminist community. We'd all been white before, so
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: it's not long ago in Toronto anyway. Different in the States,
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: in the Southern States obviously, But yeah, we're really seeing
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: this emergence right of this awareness now and getting underneath whiteness.
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: And I think you're right. It needs a long time
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: for people of color to vocalize, and for neurodivergent people
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: to vocalize. That's now coming too, which is wonderful to see.
• 55:42
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think it's it's like all these voices have
• 55:47
  Speaker 4: been there. But it sort of comes back to what
• 55:51
  Speaker 4: we were saying earlier about part of the whole picture
• 55:54
  Speaker 4: being understanding and working with those who are causing harm
• 56:00
  Speaker 4: and having that like be a part of the story
• 56:03
  Speaker 4: and how we understand the whole context, and that if
• 56:08
  Speaker 4: white people aren't doing our own work around unlearning domination,
• 56:14
  Speaker 4: then I don't think that that means it's not possible
• 56:19
  Speaker 4: for that system to end, But I think it will
• 56:21
  Speaker 4: be much swifter for it to end if we're like
• 56:28
  Speaker 4: collaborating with that project, you know, and if we're like
• 56:31
  Speaker 4: invested in our own liberation from this horrible way of
• 56:34
  Speaker 4: living that's so disconnected and and for me, doing this
• 56:39
  Speaker 4: work with myself and you know, my people is an
• 56:43
  Speaker 4: act of solidarity. It's indirect support with movements for liberation
• 56:49
  Speaker 4: amongst people of color and black and indigenous people, and
• 56:55
  Speaker 4: so they're all, you know, we're interdependent, we're connected. Yeah,
• 57:01
  Speaker 4: if you know, I just like I really see this
• 57:03
  Speaker 4: as like, can we start to sort of pull pull
• 57:07
  Speaker 4: down some of the power structures that are held up
• 57:10
  Speaker 4: by people who look like me and you and you know,
• 57:15
  Speaker 4: helped to make the way for that like way of
• 57:18
  Speaker 4: being to die out and to clear space for something
• 57:21
  Speaker 4: new to come through.
• 57:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, something fresh, As Jendleen would say, yeah, something fresh. Yeah,
• 57:29
  Speaker 2: he would say, well, we're we're pattern makers and we're
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: making a new pattern. Yes, that we're doing that right now,
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: beautiful Jean Jendlin mm hmm. Yeah. Well that's a wonderful
• 57:42
  Speaker 2: place to kind of pause and round it off. And
• 57:46
  Speaker 2: I'm just thinking how great this was, and we should
• 57:49
  Speaker 2: do more of these. Let's be guessed on each other's podcast. Sure, yeah,
• 57:55
  Speaker 2: you've been online, but not on your own I think.
• 57:58
  Speaker 4: No, well I didn't have one until very recently, but yeah,
• 58:01
  Speaker 4: next things, you've.
• 58:02
  Speaker 2: Been on mine, but not on your own. I think, oh,
• 58:05
  Speaker 2: by myself, maybe with Stevie.
• 58:07
  Speaker 4: I think it was with Stevie, who is my partner
• 58:09
  Speaker 4: in crime, my cohor and teacher and the AI, yeah
• 58:14
  Speaker 4: and a loved friend.
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, thank you so much. And I'm sure that
• 58:19
  Speaker 2: the Trauma Podcast people are going to enjoy not only
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: the wonder of your the work that you're doing, but
• 58:26
  Speaker 2: also there is something that I think will be enjoyable
• 58:29
  Speaker 2: for people to see the generations in our work together.
• 58:34
  Speaker 4: Right, Yeah, I think we need so many more conversations
• 58:37
  Speaker 4: across generations.
• 58:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah's work and I feel really lucky that I get
• 58:43
  Speaker 3: to do that with you me too.
• 58:46
  Speaker 2: All right, thanks, thank you so much