Guest Blog Post by Dr. Dee
https://dayanaramarte.com
Women and girls of color are on the frontlines of social justice at the expense of their mental, physical, emotional and spiritual health. Enduring years of institutional oppression, historical violence, and intergenerational trauma and they are still leading the movement to create another world free from violence.
At the intersections of race, class and gender they are also the most highly impacted population of COVID-19 all over the world alongside indigenous and transgender women. And yet, the questions remain, how do they continue to do this work while having to constantly choose between their job, their sanity and their health? Is the funding available for health and wellness, self-care and healing justice enough for personal and organizational sustainability? How can organizations and the foundations who fund them align their practices to healing justice and center women and girls healing so they can finally bring their whole selves to the table?
As the world is asking all of us to wake up and participate, be creative and fight for our human rights, the reality is that many of the women of color that I coach, work and organize with are exhausted. While some have come out on the other side of quarantine and social isolation in hope and joy, many more are feeling tired, afraid, anxious, disconnected, defeated, depleted, disappointed, depressed , discouraged, powerless and weary. With each waking day bringing more challenges to their spiritual, mental, emotional, reproductive & political bodies there is no doubt that they are all concerned about their personal and organizational futures as well.
Over the past couple of months, I have been in over 100 conversations with people of color on the frontlines and they are all sitting with some of the same questions and concerns. I don’t know who I am anymore in this work? Or even why I am doing it and not just taking care of myself instead? Many are also sitting in this place of the unknown. Not knowing how to be still. Not knowing how to let go of the past, who they were or how the world use to be. Not knowing how to sustain, heal or be in this life anymore? Others are questioning the practices they used to heal in the past and do they serve a purpose now? For others life is not going exactly how they had planned it, their lives feel out of control and out of their hands. People of color are barely surviving and hanging on by a thin thread and yet they are transforming the desperation of the times into revolutionary rage.
However, revolutionary rage without healing justice will not be sustainable. Revolutions come out of desperation. A desperate people who like animals when put up against a wall and cornered, when stripped of all humanity will fight and will come together to organize. But will they come together to heal and sustain?
This time is calling on healing. This time is calling on centering healing justice. This time is calling on healing with accountability. But what does that mean?
What are we really asking for when we as social justice leaders, organizers and activists ask for justice? We are asking for some level of accountability from the state, the government, other organizations, and/or other leaders. We are asking for accountability to a person or institution or system that promised something or stood for something, and are not living up to their commitment.
In the same light, when we as social justice activists, organizers and leaders engage in healing justice, healing justice requires some level of accountability. Healing with accountability in social justice is when healing justice holds people's healing to account, so they can show up in integrity and authenticity to who they say they are, their stand in the world, their commitment to create the world they say they want to live in, and the healing they need to do to become the person who can live in that world.
These challenging and unprecedented times is asking us to commit to our healing now more than ever. And not the same healing as before or even in the same way we use to do it but a completely new one. A personal healing that is centered in organizational systems and organizational healing centered in personal eco-systems. A healing that includes practices that will develop us in the areas of our lives that we are underdeveloped. Practices that will expose some systems and thought patterns that no longer serve us. Practices that build our capacity to be big enough for who we need to be right now for ourselves, our families and social justice we belong to.
Healing with Accountability is a heart practice towards personal and organizational sustainability.
The thing no one tells us about healing is that it can be held to account. The question, is to who and what is it accountable to and for?
Healing in all its practices is accountability in action because personal and collective trauma has us create dreams, relationships, and movements we can’t show up for, definitely cannot sustain or be healthy enough to live in.
Ask yourself
- How does your healing make you accountable?
- What is your healing accountable to?
- What is your healing responsible for?
- How does your healing bring integrity to how you love, live, and lead?
- What is at stake and what is the cost for you and your organization if you don't personally and collectively heal?
You cannot take somebody where you have not been. You must become the person you want your community to be.
And yes, we have done it before, our ancestors did it as well, and we will do it again. We have the power and we will win. I have no doubt that we will overthrow and dismantle oppression and the systems that sustain it but if we do not participate in our own healing then we will surely create more of the same thing.