Reflections on Belonging and Community during the COVID-19 Pandemic

“During this time, I’ve been finding myself at the intersection of two mostly opposing feelings: concerned and hopeful. ”

It has been quite interesting to witness how others have been responding to the COVID-19 pandemic as well as to notice things about my own process through it all. I find myself having different feelings about our new “normal.” During this time, I’ve been finding myself at the intersection of two mostly opposing feelings: concerned and hopeful. I have also discovered the many layers of what social distancing has looked like for other people (sometimes it’s not so bad — thank you social media!). However, I am also aware how it has been particularly isolating and difficult for some. Perhaps living alone is bringing on your own sense of loneliness and disconnection or your living situation isn’t the safest option during social distancing. There might be some grief and loss of the things you have had to cancel or miss like the trip you would have taken, the conference you were supposed to attend, or the job you looked forward to.

For me, there’s a sense of eeriness and sometimes groundlessness to this whole experience. And that’s when my need to feel a sense of belonging and community really comes into focus. In order to regain a connection to myself and to a more grounded reality, I have been FaceTime-ing/video calling people whom I love dearly. I find myself craving to slow down and rest. In that slowing down – I’ve been reading Braving the Wilderness by Brene Brown and All Along You were Blooming by Morgan Harper Nichols. I am delighted to have found new communities like #readyourbook (check it out here) and Sister Insider Club, a new and interesting reading community I have joined. Finding different communities in the midst of all these changes can be critical in feeling connected and like you belong.  

words by Jamie Tworkowski, founder of To Write Love on Her Arms

In Braving the Wilderness, Brene Brown writes about the meaning of true belonging. In her signature mix of storytelling and research, Brown shares how we can journey back to ourselves and to one another in order to connect more authentically. Feeling like we belong is critical. It is a “deep sense of belonging that we are hardwired to crave” (Brown, 2017 p. 51). Reading about belonging has brought me a sense of grounded-ness. Poems by Morgan Harper Nichols have brought lightness and positivity amidst of all the unknown.

I was curious to hear how others were staying connected to their community or how they were finding community, and how they were managing social distancing and still feel like they belong. So, I asked people in my life the following question: what are you doing to stay connected to your community and feel like you belong?

Almost everyone responded with reaching to someone outside of their home like family, significant other, and friends whether it be through text, video call, or phone call.  Additionally, going on walks has brought some peace as it provides the ability to greet neighbors, of course, making sure they are 6 feet apart. Others have continued to feel connected through constant interactions with co-workers via Zoom meetings.

I have also noticed something beautiful, a coming together of sorts to help others in the community. Some examples I’ve witnessed have been people asking their neighbor if they need anything from the grocery store, supporting small business via online purchasing, and neighbors within their building asking each other if they are in need of anything. I have taken note about how some small business have shifted in times of crisis to protect and provide for the community. I have been in awe of how we are coming together to help others. Places like Hail Mary Pizza are incredibly inspiring; they are providing free cheese pizza pies to all service industry workers (during specific times) who have lost their jobs as well as donating pies to hospitals.

The shift in our daily routine has us figuring out how to do life without going into the office/workplace, going out for a dine-in meal, or going to class. In this shift, I’ve noticed the attempts our collective community has taken in order to stay connected. There has been virtual dance parties, mini concerts by musicians, enjoying dinner virtually with friends, and virtual hangouts. I hope you are finding ways to stay connected in your community and that you are reaching to people that make you feel like you belong…because you do.

Image by Morgan Harper Nichols

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Paloma Franco, MS, is a Registered Psychological Assistant #PSB94024942 working under the supervision of Gabrielle Taylor, PhD, PSY# 22054. Paloma is a bilingual (Spanish & English) therapist who works with individuals, couples, and families to address a variety of issues, including anxiety, depression, trauma, relationship issues, and cultural challenges.

Reckoning with Racism / Turning To Love: An Interview with Manon Voice, Poet & Activist

“....coming into my own blackness has been such a journey. And it’s been such a trying journey. It’s been a difficult journey that the process of decolonizing your own mind from living in a society where white is the norm, where blackness is seen as deviant, where blackness is seen as inferior, the journey and the courage that one undergoes to reclaim their sense of identity – so me as an African American woman reclaiming my sense of identity that has been systemically and very intentionally in this country oppressed, that has been dismissed, that has been erased, is such a revolutionary act of courage. ”

— Manon Voice

Taz Morgan: I’m so delighted to be speaking with Manon Voice. She is a poet, hip hop emcee, spoken word artist, and social justice activist from Indianapolis. She’s also a friend to MHT. She joined us at our first annual retreat last October and basically performed for us one night and led us through some exercises to help us get reflective about love and community. We thought you’d be a great person to interview. We kind of want to continue the conversation around race. In December one of my colleagues Chelsea interviewed a psychoanalyst Dr. Lynne Jacobs. She writes a lot about whiteness in the therapy world. And we thought you, Manon, would have, I don’t know, just help us make this conversation interesting. To continue the dialogue. So yea, I guess we’ll start from there!

Manon Voice: Thank you for having me. I am very grateful to be a friend of MHT, the group there. I was very delighted to be among you all and begin a beautiful relationship – so very, very glad to now be reconnecting a couple months later. I had such a good experience with you all in the beautiful mountains of Idyllwild, California. I had some very transformative experiences there. Even as I was sharing with you all, there were things going on within me, that I’m even just unpacking in my own journey and in my own life. So yes, I’m very, very grateful for that experience with you that just began a beautiful relationship and friendship. So thank you for having me.

TM: Yea, thank you. So I guess I’m curious about how your work, or how you see poets contributing to changing narratives, changing conversations on race. We, MHT, is a predominantly white practice, white women. And you know, we’re trying to contend with that. I think it can feel, you know, I can feel nervous, like I don’t want to make a mistake. I’m thinking, how can we make the next best step in addressing privilege. We really value poetry at our practice. Just wondering how your work intersects with these ideas or these questions.

MV: So, I’ll sort of start with you had asked me about poetry. The poetic lineage, which I always like to pay homage to, is that of African American poets in this country and they start as far back as Phyllis Wheatly who was actually a slave.

TM:  Did you say Phyllis? Phyllis Wheatly?

MV: Yes…and she actually published a book of poetry and then was taken to trial for it because they couldn’t believe that she could actually write as well as she did. But she eventually bought her way to freedom because she was so profound and her poetry was beautiful. So, we can talk about people like that. And also people like Paul Laurence Dunbar who has a famous poem We Wear the Mask and The Caged Bird - Maya Angelou borrows from that poem. He was living during the Reconstruction Era and talks about the realities of African Americans struggling through post-slavery society. And then we can go a little further up to the Harlem Renaissance, and we can talk about poets like Langston Hughes and James Weldon Johnson and they were expressing the realities of what it felt like for African Americans at that time to be living at a time when there was such intense racial upheaval, especially living in Harlem at the time, and there were the race riots that were going on in 1919. So they were talking about the brutalities of what African Americans were experiencing at that time. And what it was like to feel like a second-class citizen. We can go a little further up to poets like [Gwendolyn] Brooks - her work talked about the migration of 20 million African Americans from the south at that time; who traveled north and west and east to make better lives for themselves. Then we can go a little further up and talk about the Black Arts Movement, right alongside the Civil Rights Movement. These poets were Nikki Giovanni and Sonia Sanchez and Amiri Baraka and they were talking about that time of also racial unrest. That time where they were willing to take a different stand. They were willing to claim their own power. They were willing to celebrate blackness in this new kind of riveting way. And they were also activists. They spoke the language, but they also walked the walk. And that took them expressing themselves through the art was a vehicle of revolution. It was not separate. It was something that was very integral. And I look at my path as also being very, very similar to those poets who I consider my ancestors who I credit my journey and the work I’m doing now to the blueprint that they left. Audre Lorde, a beautiful black feminist queer writer, talks about how poetry is not a luxury - especially for African Americans, but particularly for African American women. And that’s who she was talking about. The use of language and how we reckon with what’s going on in the world through words, through art, is a powerful medium. It’s a powerful medium that helps us stay grounded with what we know to be true about who we are when we live in a world that wants to denigrate that, that wants to despise our existence. It is a way of staying sane, of looking in the mirror and claiming our own identity, claiming our own sense of blackness, our own sense of queerness, our own sense of womanhood. And then it is also a way to speak truth to power and to confront the systems and to confront the systemic problems that we are faced with. I do view my art as activism and that’s not separate. The ethos of my work...I always like to say that I consider myself a little bit of a poetic journalist, if I can say that. Really looking at the issues that we face, looking at the past, the present, and the future, and looking at the issues that we are being confronted with, especially when it comes to social justice issues. But also thinking about who we can be. So I want my work to always have some hope and to be holding out for hope about who we can be. This is where we are...we have to be honest with ourselves if we’re going to make changes. We have to be able to face what’s uncomfortable, what’s ugly. (Audio disrupted) One of my favorite writers, Toni Morrison, and I’m paraphrasing this genius of a woman, she basically says “This is no time to crouch in fear.” And then she says “We do language, and that’s how civilization heals. That’s how we keep moving forward.” And so I see my work as being in that kind of schema.

TM:  There’s just a... I don’t know...there’s humility in what you speak of in paying homage to this lineage...this love for the people who came before you or your ancestors.

MV: Absolutely, yes. 

TM: That just seems like an important element of your activism, or that idea of an artist being an activist – knowing where…how you got to where you are, where you come from. My introduction to you was through watching your video where you’re performing Dark Matter. Could you just talk a little more about that? You know, “Blackness is a Miracle” is a line that’s repeated. I’m so curious as to how you birthed that, how it came into being, what it means to you.  

MV: Sure. Well, it’s definitely and unequivocally a celebration of blackness, an elevation of blackness. There’s a lot of, I think, probably mysticism that is also sort of threaded through there as I’m talking about how everything starts, right, the world as we know it, or the world as we comprehend it, how everything sort of began in darkness and the world was formed from that. So I’m sort of using that as this theme about everything comes from the dark womb, how everything comes from blackness, and how civilization as we know it began in Africa, right? What we call the mother country, the mother home, that’s where the cradle of civilization began - somewhere in Northern Africa. So we have started with blackness, we have come out of the darkness of the universe, being a dark people, and how we have, in this country particularly, when we talk about whiteness there is the contrast, this illusion that has been created to benefit one group of people over another. The premise of that was that darkness, dark skin was demonic, was of the devil, was bad, and that white people, just for having white skin, a white complexion, that they are superior. That white people are superior based on just that, which is just a huge and a grave deception. Living in this country as a black person of African descent, who, you know I think about - I think I talked a bit about this – my great grandmother being a sharecropper and being from Mississippi, and Mississippi was one of the states that was one of the worst record keeping states. In fact, there were people in my family who thought that their birthday was one day, and then maybe found out later. So, I’ve been cut off from a lot of my history. From my own personal experience, coming into my own blackness has been such a journey. And it’s been such a trying journey. It’s been a difficult journey that the process of decolonizing your own mind from living in a society where white is the norm, where blackness is seen as deviant, where blackness is seen as inferior, the journey and the courage that one undergoes to reclaim their sense of identity – so me as an African American woman reclaiming my sense of identity that has been systemically and very intentionally in this country oppressed, that has been dismissed, that has been erased, is such a revolutionary act of courage. And it’s a necessary and revolutionary act of courage that every day, when I see myself, when I look in the mirror, that I reclaim my own identity. That I reclaim my own beauty. That I reclaim my own lineage. That I reclaim my own heritage as a black person in this country. And that that blackness is beautiful, that that blackness is brilliant. What I do know about where we come from as African Americans is a history of genius, and it’s a history of exploits, and it’s a history of miracles, and it’s a history of people making contributions to history, people making contributions to civilization in ways that we are still studying and trying to figure out. So that poem really came out of that, that blackness is a miracle, to live in this country every day and to survive it as a black person is miraculous, I feel. And I don’t think that I’m alone in that sentiment. When you exist within a system where there is, not only just a threat of physical violence, but there’s the psychological warfare that’s going on everyday.

TM:  Yeah, it’s psychic warfare too.

MV: Yeah, it’s been necessary to look at the physical violence and the physical brutality, it’s been so necessary to look at that, but what really cracks, I think, at the soul, even beyond the body, is the psychological warfare that is endured day to day to day to day, the microaggressions that are endured. You know, at this point in my life I have worked many many jobs. And I’ve worked for people who claim to be liberals and claim to be inclusive and culturally competent who had no idea of some of the distasteful language that they were using around people they deemed other than them, and the way that we survived that, and the way that we endured that, and the way that we sometimes feel like how much – the way we have to make daily decisions about what do we fight or what do we not. 

TM: Right.

MV: Yeah, and so it’s like, what do I put my energy into fighting today because my coworker just said this, or my boss just said this, and even though it hurts, but I still have to keep my job, maybe I have children at home, I have bills due so I can’t quit…

TM: Right, or the taxing nature of being like “I’m becoming the representative of everyone that looks like me.”

MV: Yeah, and you know sometimes it can just be, aside from that, that people have not reckoned with their own sense of othering others, you know?

TM: Yeah.

MV: And so, you know, they don’t realize some of the harmful things that they’re saying, they don’t realize some of the harmful practices that they are carrying out that are really harmful to the spirits of people of color and of marginalized people. And I’ve existed within that. I can tell you I have two friends that don’t know each other - this is really interesting because they worked for the same organization and they were in the same role as the person who was responsible for diversity and inclusion, and these were two black women, and both of them left. And both of them when they told me why they left, they really had almost identical stories. Like how they were sort of used as puppets for this organization to appear that this organization was diverse and inclusive, but when they challenged some of the decisions, some of the policies that were going on within the organization, then the powers-that-be refused. They just wanted to kind of look diverse and look inclusive on the face, we wanna put you on the flyers, and we’re gonna have you at the events as the black face, but we really don’t want to do the root work, you know?

TM: Yeah, yeah.

MV: So, we’re coming up against, and the challenge that we have is the performative justice vs doing the actual root work.

TM: Right and I think that’s why at MHT, we’re trying to ask ourselves what that work -  real work - would look like. That’s what we’re trying to ask ourselves internally at this point. I don’t know. I think some of what you were saying earlier about having the courage, or to kind of get out of these illusions, I mean some of what you were saying reminds me a little bit about the courage to start going to therapy - to kind of face things about yourself that feel scary or ugly or whatever. I’m trying to put words to, I don’t know, we’re just trying to figure out what kind of conversations do we want to be having, and how to walk the walk and not just think just in general. There’s this movement in the psychotherapy world to take stands on social issues – whether it’s therapists or an organization saying separating kids from their parents at the border has detrimental effects or whatever. 

“I truly believe that love is the strongest force in the universe. And I know how love can sound like a cop-out when we are facing really threatening issues. Everyone wants to talk about love. But I don’t cheapen love. Real love challenges us to grow. It challenges us to transform, to change, and to live up to who we can be as human beings. And I believe in that.”

— Manon Voice

MV: And I think that we’ll have to talk about who, because you know we also have to reckon with access to mental healthcare. 

TM: Yeah!

MV: Talk about who in this country is able to use mental health resources and the hierarchy of who we believe deserves it even. I think that’s a conversation that we have to have, and quite unfortunately we are still wrestling with the fact that there have been a lot of people that have benefited from the system within mental healthcare services, and you know, I’m not an expert, but I do have friends that work in these fields, and I’ve also gone to therapy for years, and I know that just like very profession deserves, it has its rank in as far as how long a person has gone to school, but there’s also this conversation about so many people being left out of receiving mental health care services because of poverty, and poverty is systemic. And it’s a vicious cycle because the people who are most traumatized in this country, and are the most marginalized in this country, often feel like they don’t have access to mental health. And that is really unfortunate because of the amount of trauma that one endures day to day to day. And even when they do go to see a mental health professional, they feel like “you can’t understand…”

TM: Yeah! They feel the compounded trauma of being othered in a space where theoretically you’d be understood.

MV: Yep. I have a friend who just had a general practice where she was just sort of seeing whoever would come. And then she changed and she decided to focus on – she said “you know what, I want to make my practice focused on the most marginalized – people of color and people who are queer,” because these are the people who are undergoing a lot of trauma that is very specific to their sense of identity in this country, and who also feel marginalized when they go into their normal therapist’s office who is probably white, who they feel like can’t relate to what they’re going through. And so I do feel it is important for therapists, for white mental health practitioners and clinicians, to start having these important conversations. I am glad to hear that MHT is taking steps towards understanding that. Like I really am. And I think the tools, I think that we have tools. I think it’s a personal and it’s a spiritual journey, and it’s also a practical journey – sort of undoing your own bias, your own racism. 

TM: Yeah!

MV: There are implicit bias classes that at least give you an access point to know that this is some biases that you have. I know where I’m from, Indianapolis, we have an undoing racism course that I know it used to be free where it’s like anybody could come. Whether that’s the board of organizations or that was just a person who just walked off the street and was just sort of interested in taking that journey. And so...I was looking at the last interview that was done with the doctor…

TM: Yeah, Lynne Jacobs, yeah.

MV: And I saw the list of books and resources that were there at the end, so there’s a lot of knowledge out there, and there are a lot of ways for people to kind of get started on taking that journey. 

TM: I know on Instagram there were a lot of people following Layla Saad who did the Me and White Supremacy workbook. And I think she now has a book. White followers were going through this course...it was about implicit bias. There is a real self-reflective thing that is being called for. 

MV: Yeah.

TM: What you said about language...giving voice...really naming things also resonates with my idea of psychoanalysis or psychotherapy...is the idea of “speaking the unspeakable” and giving voice to things from the unconscious. Also, you were saying that your work is hopeful. There’s hope in it, too. To close our conversation a bit....How does hope...I don’t know...What do you envision for the future of this country? Gosh, that feels like such a BIG question!

MV: We’re in a deep time of reckoning. What we are seeing and what we are experiencing....we talk about polarization and this intense socio-political climate that we’re living in where folks feel so divided; feel more separate from each other. Honestly,  I look at that because... As psychotherapists, you do the work of taking people through the journey of the subconscious, through the ego...of getting through that deeper sediment that blinds us all. And we have to get through all that ugliness sometimes. Right? And I’ve been in therapy…

TM: Right, you generally feel a lot worse before you start to feel better. 

MV: Miserable!

TM: Yeah, miserable. (Laughs).

MV: It can take a long time. You feel miserable. You are confronting your shadow. In this country, we have not done a good job. We have wanted to jump these steps when we need to go back. And we have to really….I use this term “repentant.” [We have to repent.] I know it’s gonna have a religious connotation. But when I look at the root meaning of that word, it actually means “to turn.” 

TM: Oh, wow.

MV: Yeah, making a turn. The only way to do that is to reckon with what’s been done. And we don’t want to do that as a country. Some of us do and some of us can’t help but live in that reality. The white majority in this country….the systemic oppression and the problems we have in this country stem from this idea of superiority, colonialism, and “white is right” and through that belief there were Native Americans that were decimated and displaced; there were Africans that were stolen and brought here for free labor and who built this country for hundreds of years and who are still second class citizens. We have to start from the very beginning and go back and say “Wow, this has been done. And we have been responsible.” If I’m living today, I feel like “Oh no…”

TM: Right, that idea of “it has nothing to do with me.”

MV: I think white people have to reckon with the fact that they have benefitted from a system. That reckoning has to happen. It can start small. It can start within an organization, within a church, within a neighborhood. It’s not gonna trickle down. Looking like our government now, it’s not gonna trickle down. Maybe it will make its way up. I think that sometimes….I know for sure what we are seeing is a result of what we have not been willing to deal with. There are so many of us asking: How did we get here? Why are we here? Why are things so divided? Why are things so intense? And doing that [the work of reckoning with our racist history] means doing the long, deep shadow work and that’s where it has to start -- taking that long, honest look at what’s been done and who has benefited and who has not benefited. And so, I was getting to the hope in that….

TM: I was thinking about that...Yeah, hope can be so loaded. I’m thinking of this interview that Stephen Colbert did with Ta-Nehisi Coates. Where Colbert asks Coates what he is hopeful about with his divide and polarization [in terms of race relations in the US]. And Coates said “I don’t have any hope.” I was thinking “Gosh, hope is such a loaded term. ...I love the language of repenting and turning. And I think your poetry...it’s like….there’s delight and joy and pleasure in it, too. 

MV: Thank you for that reflection. That’s honestly so important for me, Taz. It’s important for me to also be a part of beauty-making.

TM: Yeah, it’s so moving and so beautiful. It’s aesthetically beautiful. 

MV: Thank you. I truly believe that love is the strongest force in the universe. And I know how love can sound like a cop-out when we are facing really threatening issues.  Everyone wants to talk about love. But I don’t cheapen love. Real love challenges us to grow. It challenges us to transform, to change, and to live up to who we can be as human beings. And I believe in that. The reason why I get up... If I get up in the morning...existing in this world, as tragic and disheartening as it can sometimes be...The reason why I walk out my door and say hello and good morning to someone that I don’t know is because deep inside, I want to believe in the best of humanity - that we all have something divine; that we all have something in us that is truly, truly good. If we can get through this shadow energy; if we can reckon with ourselves...if we can do that true repenting and that true reconciling, then we can create a better world. To call myself a social justice activist or advocate, but then not believe it could get better, I feel like it’s counterproductive. I’m working for a future that I want for generations...when you and I are no longer here...like in 7 generations...I want them to be so further along in this conversation. All of us can commit to that day by day...whether we want to call it hope or something else. The truth is that when we work for change, that’s exactly what we are doing - we are working to create something better. Even if I don’t see it in my lifetime, Taz… I want my grandchildren’s children, children, children... to be able to see; to live in a better world; to see a world where they are not threatened; where have a sense of belonging. If I want it for them, then I have to truly want that for every human being on this earth, no matter what color they are. I have to truly want that for every human being. In my deepest heart of hearts, I really do want that. And that’s where that hope, that beauty comes in. So, at the same time I’m speaking truth, it’s also undergirded with love and hope that we can really do better as human beings. Every day we are being called to do better and to make those small decisions. It can start in your neighborhood, with your friend, with your co-workers to have those conversations that allow us to heal these deep rifts that we have. I believe it’s possible. 

TM: That feels like a good place to end, too. Again, that’s so moving. Affectively….ahhh...I can keep going. What you were saying about waking up...Like, Why wake up everyday and just be an adult?...it’s for the love of humanity. That was very moving. I wondered if you had any closing thoughts for now. Anything else on your mind?

MV: I live among beautiful people who are doing things everyday to move the notch forward. While it’s so easy to look at the news and be discouraged, you can also just look around and see….There’s a no-questions-asked food pantry in my community that just celebrated their 1-year anniversary of providing food to people without needing to ask all these questions about where you live, how much money you make, and if you deserve it. I have a friend who is doing that. And I have friends who are challenging policies that are harmful to the most marginalized. I have friends who are talking to city officials about responsible policing. I have friends who are running after school clubs to mentor young people. I have friends who are using their art to provoke dialogue around issues and who are using their art to beautify neighborhoods. My best friend is a brilliant teacher. I look around in my world and I do see the good. I think the good is contagious. The bad is too (Laughs). But the good is contagious. We can all do something. If we can look at the turning...I do see some important dialogue. We can argue about how late we are. But I do feel like we are having more dialogue about race relations in this country, at least  from my purview and my experience. And about all kinds of other issues about who benefits and who doesn’t. I think that the turmoil is part of the process. I think if we stay focused on that...I think that focus has to be really intentional, not just complacency. All of us can do something. I just want to encourage others to be part of the change and to also look around at your community to those that are doing the work and trying to help. I see you doing this...or I see you started this non-profit organization where you’re helping the homeless...Can I join the board? Or can I help spread the word? Or help in some way? Seeing the good, valuing the good, and coming alongside the good!

TM: Those are helpful, small, actionable things. I love that idea of a turn - a turn to love, a love turn. Thank you so much for your time. And for your energy and your mind and your heart.

MV: I’m happy just to share. And grateful for the work that you guys are doing there. Let’s keep healing. Let’s keep at it!

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Manon Voice is a native of Indianapolis, Indiana and is a poet and writer, spoken word artist, hip-hop emcee, educator, social justice activist and practicing contemplative. Manon Voice seeks to use her art and activism to create a communal space where dialogue, transformation, discovery and inspiration can occur.

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Taz Morgan, MA, is an Associate Marriage and Family Therapist, IMF #99714, working under the supervision of Gabrielle Taylor, PhD. She has trained in Depth-oriented psychotherapy and works with adolescents, adults, and couples. 

Dear White Therapists: An Interview with Dr. Lynne Jacobs

Chelsea Small: Dr. Jacobs, in May you came to Michelle Harwell Therapy (MHT) and gave an excellent training on whiteness. In your article "Learning to Love White Shame and Guilt," you speak about the assumption of whiteness and white-centeredness. I am wondering if you can speak a bit about your experiences with white-centeredness in the therapy world. 

Dr. Lynne Jacobs: One thing I have noticed about white-centeredness in the therapy world is how ignorant white therapists are about what their whiteness means—both in the world and in the consulting room. Many white therapists seem to suffer from the “white fragility” of which Robin Di Angelo [a white academic and lecturer] writes. They feel personally insulted/assaulted by being asked to take a look at how whiteness functions in society (and therefore, in the consulting room). They take it personally rather than understanding that we are all caught up in whiteness, whether we like it or not. 

Lynne Jacobs, PhD

Aside from the sense of fragility and/or defensiveness that may inhibit necessary conversations, it also leads to a defensively organized disinterest in learning the history that can help one broaden their understanding of the differing contexts that we each bring into the consulting room. I am sometimes surprised and dismayed, I must admit, by the ignorance that some white therapists have about what it means to be a perpetual “other,” in most contexts. They don’t know much history of white supremacy and white privilege, and some seem uninterested.

I have also met many white therapists who ARE interested, and in fact, eager to learn. In that case, I recommend they start with DiAngelo’s “White Fragility” writings (and her talks available on YouTube), and then go on to find blogs by people of color, and also turn to books that can open their ordinary ideas about our history. 

CS: Do you have any suggestions for how we can begin to make this field more welcoming and inclusive to both clinicians and clients of colors? What conversations can we be starting in our work and other communities? What can we pay more attention to? 

LJ: This question reminds me of the remarks that one of the few people of color at my psychoanalytic institute said. She asked us to imagine what it was like for her when she came to the institute for the first time, walked into the main room, and found photos of our twelve founders on the wall. All white men and women. It concretized for her that she was going to be hyper-visible and pretty much alone in a white space.

While she was a candidate, some folks formed a “racism and homophobia task force.” They have put on some educational programs over the years, and they are sparsely attended. So, what this tells marginalized folks is that the institute is not willing to do its homework, not interested in doing the work of inclusiveness. When people wonder what they can do to make their groups more inclusive, I say, “Begin with self-study.” If that feels too difficult or time-consuming, then admit you don’t want to do the work, and just live with whatever guilt you might have about settling for what is easy.

I co-teach a now-required class on “diversity, power and privilege.” We have the candidates write a brief essay on contexts in which they are centrally socially-located and contexts in which they are marginalized. The essays are fascinating because it turns out most everyone has experiences of being “in” and being “marginalized.” That helps everyone get more interested in the complexity of all our contextual positions, and helps the candidates think more sensitively about the process of “othering.” This is another aspect of self-study.

In my gestalt institute, we have now set aside training scholarships for people of color, and that is bringing more diversity into our program. The faculty is all white, but that will change as people of color come up the ladder, I hope.

Anyway, you ask about conversations…the important conversations to start with, are conversations among white folk about what they need to learn, etc. Word will get around, if that starts to happen. Another thing is to do guest lectures at schools and colleges with people of color in them. 

Since our demographics are changing so much, people of color are going to be more present in the lives of whites, and the more self-study you (whites) do, the easier you will find it, to have conversations about race and ethnicity. 

CS: You mention shame and guilt in the title of your article. Can you speak a bit about how shame and guilt tend to show up in conversations about race and how they can be worked with?  

LJ: Theses feelings show up often when someone of color points out the difference between their social position and the position of a white conversational partner. The white person can suddenly feel the wash of guilt and then shame. A more direct experience of shame happens when the white person is confronted because of racially insensitive remarks they have made. Then, what often happens. is the white person either slinks away in shame, or visibly collapses, and either tries to explain themselves, or beat themselves publicly with their badness. This is the fragility Di Angelo writes about.

I recommend that we white folks develop a different practice. First, don’t make the conversation about you! Your guilt and shame are better addressed elsewhere. What is needed at such a time, is simply a straightforward recognition of your insensitivity, and an apology, and if you don’t understand what you did, and then ask (with curiosity), so that you can learn something.

If you focus on your badness, your guilt, your shame, you are adding insult to the injury you already caused, and you are burdening the other, who now is feeling the pressure to take care of you.

I have developed a strategy. This may sound like cheating, but it isn’t. It is a useful tool. When I find myself being confronted about my insensitivity, or my hurtfulness, or a racist or prejudiced idea I have, I can feel the rush of guilt and shame. But I immediately dissociate a bit. I can feel myself separate my guilt and shame from the rest me. I tuck it away my back pocket, to be dealt with later, and it frees me to be genuinely interested in the exchange I am having. 

This is the same thing I do when patients confront me. Whatever rising guilt or shame I feel gets tucked away for later so I can stay in the conversation. I hope this doesn’t sound too crazy. Because it does work. Then, when I get home, those miserable feelings come roaring back, and I try to learn from what happened, and I also try to explore how it is that I came to make the “mistakes” I made, I try to explore my ignorance, and explore how it is that I have been so ignorant. What am I not-seeing? Why? I do that exploration by myself, or with a trusted other white person.

CS: In your article you mention working with race and racializing your whiteness in your work with patients. Could you share an example of how you do that?

LJ: The more comfortable I become with “race talk” in generally, and amongst people of color and white folk, the easier it is to talk race with my patients, regardless of color. I bring it into the conversation pretty early. When working with a patient of color, I may be the first person who asks if what they are talking about as they describe a scene has anything to do with race, as in, “and was that critical boss an angry white person, by any chance?” Once I break the ice like that, race discussions can flow freely. When a patient of color hesitates in describing a race-based humiliating situation—getting stopped by cops, for instance—I look for signs that telling the story to a white therapist adds to the humiliation. I will often ask.

But let me provide something from my first article I ever wrote about working as a white therapist, because it shows my beginning awkwardness. The article is called, For Whites Only, and I included snippets throughout the article about my work with a black patient:

….

…. I found myself wondering why she had chosen to see me, a white therapist, rather than one of the many black therapists who practice in the LA area. I wondered if she knew of the availability of African-American therapists, if she purposely chose a white therapist, or if the fact of our race difference was unimportant to her. That last thought embarrassed me, confronting me with the reality of how her race WAS important to me, and I felt vaguely guilty, as though I ought not be having any awkwardness or discomfort, or to be thinking of her as, among other things, a “black” woman. I was being bitten by a common bug in our culturally diverse and racially divided country, and it is an element of the subjectivity of most white therapists. I call it white anxiety. I shall discuss it further at a later point.

“Many white therapists seem to suffer from the “white fragility” of which Robin Di Angelo writes. They feel personally insulted/assaulted by being asked to take a look at how whiteness functions in society (and therefore, in the consulting room). They take it personally rather than understanding that we are all caught up in whiteness, whether we like it or not.”

...At any rate, back to my story. You can see from what I have written, that I made the usual white background assumption that unless I picked up evidence to the contrary, the woman I was to meet would be white. Joyce is a sociologist with a particular interest in racial consciousness, and racial experiences in LA. When I did ask her, in our second meeting, if she had given any thought to finding an African-American therapist, she said that she had gotten my name from a colleague she trusted (a white sociologist whom I had seen for therapy a few years earlier), and the referral was more important to her than color. My question also seemed to raise her level of defensiveness slightly, and I knew that she was already quite embarrassed that she was seeking therapy in the first place, so I did not inquire further. 

Several weeks passed and the therapy lurched along with few references to her race, and none to mine. She would occasionally mention a difficult interaction or situation, and in the process of exploration I sometimes asked her for the race of the person with whom she was struggling. She would appear relieved and identify the person as white. At that point we would explore the possibility that the difficulties arose in part as a result of the racial prejudices or ignorance of the other person. But I always had to initiate the race-based discussions. 

I continued to be uneasy that we had not overtly acknowledged our racial difference. I could not see that she was uneasy, but I was. I became tangled in doubts of almost obsessive proportion. The doubts took my thoughts in various directions. I was reluctant to impose a figure into her process of talking about her own interests if that figure was an enactment of my anxiety. I wondered if perhaps I wanted to offer an African-American therapist so that she would leave and relieve me of my anxiety. Or, I wondered, perhaps I wanted the overt acknowledgment of our racial differences so that I could establish myself as different from “those other” whites. Then again, I wondered if perhaps I needed the acknowledgement of our racial difference because I was not as developed, in terms of my racial consciousness, as I thought I should be. On the other hand, I hoped that maybe, just maybe, such an acknowledgement might be helpful to Joyce, who might need me to take the initiative. 

One of the striking “symptoms” of my anxious self-doubt is the harsh tone of self- doubt and self-criticism in them.  This is a not uncommon experience for other whites who are racially sensitive. This may be a manifestation of white guilt, something I will address at a later point in the paper.

…. 

“I recommend that we white folks develop a different practice. First, don’t make the conversation about you! Your guilt and shame are better addressed elsewhere. What is needed at such a time, is simply a straightforward recognition of your insensitivity, and an apology, and if you don’t understand what you did, and then ask (with curiosity), so that you can learn something.”

One day Joyce started talking about the details of a study she was conducting. She mentioned that she always had to allow twice as long for interviews with white people than with other interviewees. She said it took the white interviewees an extra hour or so become comfortable enough with her to speak freely and openly. They had to overcome their anxiety over whether they would make a racial faux pas, and their worry of being harshly criticized by my patient. She said that the whites in her study lacked a vocabulary for addressing multi-cultural themes, whereas the other participants were highly articulate. 

I was reminded, as she spoke, of my first few awkward sessions with her: my anxiety, confusion, twinge of self-conscious shame, not knowing how to acknowledge our racial difference, not knowing how much it “ought” to matter. I decided to tell her what I was thinking. I described the tangle of doubt and confusion I experienced in not knowing whether I was being more racist by mentioning race, or by not mentioning race. We both had a good laugh, and the atmosphere between us underwent a palpable change for the better. I believe that this was a signal to her that we could talk about the effects of racism on her life, but also, and perhaps more importantly for the development of our relationship, that we could also talk about my “whiteness”, and my racial consciousness, and how both of these factors influenced our work together. We have both been looser, freer with each other since then.

My point in sharing this, is to say, awkwardness may haunt you until you get more practice. 

CS: What would you recommend to someone wanting to learn more about this topic and about themselves within the racist system? Any books, articles, podcasts, workshops, exercises you have found helpful? 

LJ: There is so much good material now.

• If you haven’t read Peggy McIntosh’s White Privilege: Unpacking the White Knapsack, it is a must.

• Also DiAngelo’s White Fragility.

• A terrific article online (originally in The Atlantic) by Ta-Nehisi Coates, called The Case for Reparations.

• Also by Coates, Between the World and Me.

• Kendi - How to Be an Antiracist.

• There is a blog site called Medium. You can set it up to pick out articles on race.

•  A good, short video on what it means to be a white friend.

• Another video featuring a poem entitled “Black Privilege”

• A Poem for My White Friends: “I Didn’t Tell You”

• You can find stuff I have written on being a white therapist by looking me up on Academia.edu. It is free!

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Lynne Jacobs, Ph.D., lives in two psychotherapy worlds. She is co-founder of the Pacific Gestalt Institute and also a training and supervising analyst at the Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis-Los Angeles. She has written numerous articles for gestalt therapists and psychoanalytic therapists. She has a private practice and is involved with the Soldiers Project in Los Angeles.

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Chelsea Small, MSW, is an Associate Clinical Social Worker, ASW #78503 working under the supervision of Saralyn Masselink, LCSW # 28617. Chelsea believes in the wisdom of the therapeutic relationship to ignite transformative growth. She has extensive experience working with people impacted by trauma, domestic violence, and the effects of emotional dysregulation.

Home: Gravy and Biscuits

This November, MHT is participating in the Miry’s List Friendsgiving Fundraising Drive. The money goes to programs that support refugee families that have been resettled in the United States. In tandem with these efforts, our clinicians are writing posts reflecting on what home means to them.

As I was reflecting back on what Home means to me, I continued to go back to memories of my mother cooking in the kitchen or teaching me how to make one of her specialty dishes. Homemade cooking was a very important thing to her as a Southern woman. This value has been passed down from generation to generation. Both my mother and grandmother (“mamaw”) take pride in their scratch cooking and believe in the merits of working hard to prepare a homemade meal. This value was passed down to me. Home to me means home-cooked meals. Home to me is waking up to the smell of homemade buttermilk biscuits and sausage being cooked for gravy.

One of my mother’s specialty dishes is her gravy and biscuits. This recipe has been passed on from my mamaw. What makes this dish so special is that it is made by hand and from memory. There is no recipe. My mother has always taken pride in her perfectly fluffy biscuits and creamy gravy. She has taught me over the years that the art of perfecting the biscuits is how you lightly handle the dough so that the it stays airy — this is what makes it fluffy. The trick with the gravy is to slowly stir until it is at its perfect consistency. Neither process can be rushed for it to turn out right.       

Thinking back on this memory as a child, I think about how much the process of making gravy and biscuits is similar to therapy. If we rush the process of therapy we will not get the result we desire. It can take time to move through the process of understanding ourselves and to remember that taking our time and being mindful is important so that we don't miss an important ingredient.

“Both my mother and grandmother (“mamaw”) take pride in their scratch cooking and believe in the merits of working hard to prepare a homemade meal....Home to me is waking up to the smell of buttermilk biscuits and sausage being cooked for gravy. ”

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HERE'S HOW YOU CAN PARTICIPATE IN FRIENDSGIVING WITH US:

Give! Visit our Miry’s List campaign page and make a donation. It's that simple and no sum is too small. Truly.

Follow! Be sure to follow us on Instagram and our blog throughout the month of November. We will be reflecting on what it means to be welcomed, received, and known.

Share!  Help us spread the word. You can do this by sharing our social media posts or links to our Miry’s List Friendsgiving Fundraiser page.

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A little about Miry’s List:
Refugee families come to the United States seeking a safe haven from violence and persecution in their home countries. They leave behind family and friends, as well as virtually everything they own. Many Americans, seeing these families in their communities, wonder: What can I do to help? Miry's List provides a mechanism for people to directly help new arrival refugee families with the things that they need to get started in their new lives – from diapers to beds to cleaning supplies and toiletries. To learn more, visit miryslist.org.

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Eryn Lewis, MA, is a Registered Associate Marriage and Family Therapist, IMF #186959, working under the professional supervision of Gabrielle Taylor, PhD, Psy #22054. Eryn works with individuals, couples and families on a broad range of issues including anxiety, depression, parent-child challenges, trauma, sexual abuse, and marital issues.

Home: Family

This November, MHT is participating in the Miry’s List Friendsgiving Fundraising Drive. The money goes to programs that support refugee families that have been resettled in the United States. In tandem with these efforts, our clinicians are writing posts reflecting on what home means to them.

“Home is where you find your heart, over and over again. Maybe in new ways, maybe in familiar ways, maybe in challenging ways…”

“Family” came to me most strongly as I first associated to the word “Home.” Recently, several family members and friends were evacuated from fires in the middle of the night in Los Angeles. Experiences like these have a way of heightening our senses and awareness and bringing crystal clarity to what we value, what we cherish, and what is most important.

Family has become the people in my life that I love, that support me, and who I support - the people that surround me; made up of blood relatives, friends, colleagues, and sometimes even an unexpected stranger where one of us meets the other and there’s a need or maybe a shared meaningful experience or a joy.

“Home is where the heart is” as the saying goes…I had a strong sense of home as a young child – very strong in fact. And for me home meant the physical home I lived in, my parents, my close neighbors, teacher, a few very close friends, school and our kitty furball at home.

Over time there were some big changes and my sense of home had to be expanded to new places, new people and other new loves. As much as I loved my first home, and wow, did I love it there!  – the grass outside, the canyon with the blackberries, the sunshine, and sunken living room with the music playing…it needed the people, the community, and the belonging within context to really locate me as HOME.

It was again clear more than ever that home is where you find your heart, over and over again. Maybe in new ways, maybe in familiar ways, maybe in challenging ways…

I am blessed to have a location to reside – a place I can go that is safe to live and to call home. I have a container for the experiences of my life in my dwelling, and in the dwellings of those I call family. And these places root me and provide memories that root me as well, in the neighborhoods, the stores, the familiar sights, sounds, smells of the blooms as they come and go, the rain, and, of course, food - the associations I have learned though the day to day, week to week, year to year living.

Miry’s List has a specialness in its mission in that it looks at home in all the ways we as humans need to feel we are safe - to feel like we have a sense of belonging; located in space and time with people that care and that we care for as well. Miry’s List goes beyond the obvious to what we all know constitutes real home. HOME is where the heart is…and our heart is housed in a body in space and time with an intricate working system to support it, keeping it pumping happily, resiliently, and strongly.

“Miry’s List has a specialness in its mission in that it looks at home in all the ways we as humans need to feel we are safe - to feel like we have a sense of belonging; located in space and time with people that care and that we care for as well.”

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HERE'S HOW YOU CAN PARTICIPATE IN FRIENDSGIVING WITH US:

Give! Visit our Miry’s List campaign page and make a donation. It's that simple and no sum is too small. Truly.

Follow! Be sure to follow us on Instagram and our blog throughout the month of November. We will be reflecting on what it means to be welcomed, received, and known.

Share!  Help us spread the word. You can do this by sharing our social media posts or links to our Miry’s List Friendsgiving Fundraiser page.

******

A little about Miry’s List:
Refugee families come to the United States seeking a safe haven from violence and persecution in their home countries. They leave behind family and friends, as well as virtually everything they own. Many Americans, seeing these families in their communities, wonder: What can I do to help? Miry's List provides a mechanism for people to directly help new arrival refugee families with the things that they need to get started in their new lives – from diapers to beds to cleaning supplies and toiletries. To learn more, visit miryslist.org.

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Michelle Levy, PhD, is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist. Dr. Levy’s clinical interests focus on parenting practices, attachment, child mental health and developmental concerns as well as the effects of trauma on youth, families and communities. 

Home: Ducky

This November, MHT is participating in the Miry’s List Friendsgiving Fundraising Drive. The money goes to programs that support refugee families that have been resettled in the United States. In tandem with these efforts, our clinicians are writing posts reflecting on what home means to them.

“This sculpted mass of cotton and fluff became a soft and portable vessel where my sense of home resided. He allowed me to take that sense of security with me wherever I went.”

His name is Ducky. Not exactly the most creative choice, but it’s a fitting name considering he is an eight-inch tall plush-animal duck. His simple name aside, Ducky was my first best friend.

Now, many mature adults may think Ducky is just the sum of his parts: Cloth and stuffing. But if you were to see how I carried him with me as a child, I assure you, for a fleeting moment, you too would understand how real he is (*cough cough… I mean, was). This sculpted mass of cotton and fluff became a soft and portable vessel where my sense of home resided. He allowed me to take that sense of security with me wherever I went.

As it turns out, I am not alone in this attachment phenomenon. Many other children develop similar attachments to inanimate objects. In fact, by eighteen months of age, 60% of children form some kind of attachment with a soft object (e.g., plush or blanket). Researchers theorize inanimate object attachment allows a child a secondary secure-base to explore; in other words, the child projects their felt sense of security with a primary caregiver(s) onto another non-living entity and thus utilizes the secondary security object to increase their range/capacity to explore and learn from their surroundings.

Ducky definitely facilitated many of my exploration efforts. There were many times when I accompanied my mother (a physician) to the hospital when she made rounds. A hospital can be a scary and overwhelming place for anyone (let alone a young child) and I always brought Ducky with me to help pass the time. While I was normally shepherded to the doctor’s lounge to play on the wheel chairs and feast on what seemed like a neverending supply of doughnuts…. on one particular occasion, I was left at the nurses’ station. With Ducky on my lap, I patiently waited. I counted the number of times red lights flashed over patient doors and I tried to psychically incept a page for Dr. Evans over the hospital intercom.

What seemed like hours passed. And just as all sense of novelty began to wane… a jar caught my eye. Within the jar, there were what appeared to be small-ish brown boogers wiggling through the water. My curiosity overwhelmed me. Manipulating Ducky’s stubby arms around the lid, I proceeded to open the jar to investigate its contents further. As it turns out, those “boogers” were medical leeches and it was not until I had placed half a dozen onto myself, Ducky, and the desk where I sat waiting, that a nurse discovered my innocent transgression and released one of the most awesome screams I had ever heard to date.

While it’s arguable if the leech fiasco enhanced my overall understanding of the world around me, it did give me an experience that I will never forget. If I hadn’t brought Ducky with me that day, I probably would have never opened that jar. In fact, if I did not have Ducky, I probably would not have done a lot of things.  I probably would have been more shy on my first day of pre-school; I might have taken longer to learn how to ride a bike; or maybe I would not have made my bed every morning so Ducky could have a neat place to sit as he waited for me to get back from school. Having a separate entity like Ducky (to both rely on and provide for) enabled me to venture out in my environment where I was tasked with maturing intellectually and emotionally.

“Once the object that housed my burgeoning (but yet to be self-avowed) curiosity, Ducky now lives as a symbol of home – that intangible place I can come back to when the world around me gets scary. ”

Looking at Ducky now, he is tattered by love. Long gone is the bright yellow fluff that lined his body; now just grey porous cloth, worn ragged by the thousands of nights I held him as I went to sleep. His right foot is only a crudely stitched stub – a battle wound from the great dog-chewing incident of 1991. His beady plastic eyes, once lost in the yellow down of his face, now bulge from his threadbare fabric as if to see and know me more clearly than ever. Once the object that housed my burgeoning (but yet to be self-avowed) curiosity, Ducky now lives as a symbol of home – that intangible place I can come back to when the world around me gets scary. He reminds me I am brave, and competent, and am safe enough to remain curious because there is always some kind of home to come back to... even if that home is inside yourself … or in my case, a duck. 

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HERE'S HOW YOU CAN PARTICIPATE IN FRIENDSGIVING WITH US:

Give! Visit our Miry’s List campaign page and make a donation. It's that simple and no sum is too small. Truly.

Follow! Be sure to follow us on Instagram and our blog throughout the month of November. We will be reflecting on what it means to be welcomed, received, and known.

Share!  Help us spread the word. You can do this by sharing our social media posts or links to our Miry’s List Friendsgiving Fundraiser page.

******

A little about Miry’s List:
Refugee families come to the United States seeking a safe haven from violence and persecution in their home countries. They leave behind family and friends, as well as virtually everything they own. Many Americans, seeing these families in their communities, wonder: What can I do to help? Miry's List provides a mechanism for people to directly help new arrival refugee families with the things that they need to get started in their new lives – from diapers to beds to cleaning supplies and toiletries. To learn more, visit miryslist.org.

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Lauren Ziel, MSW is a Registered Associate Clinical Social Worker, ASW #76483, working under the supervision of Saralyn Masselink, LCSW . Through the use of movement and mindfulness, Lauren develops specialized treatment for anxiety, depression, eating disorders, challenges in life-stage transitions, relational difficulties, and identity/intrapersonal development.

Home: A Process

This November, MHT is participating in the Miry’s List Friendsgiving Fundraising Drive. The money goes to programs that support refugee families that have been resettled in the United States. In tandem with these efforts, our clinicians are writing posts reflecting on what home means to them.

“That process of coming home to my inner world and to an expanded vision for my self in the outer world was one very much marked by stumbling and meandering.”

There was a process of coming home to my self that I was immersed in during the time that I ‘discovered’ the stack of books in my photo. I use quotations here for discovered because the books all somehow found me - through recommendations from trusted people in my life - more so than I found them. Each of their authors helped me to get in touch with my desire to become a psychotherapist after traveling along a much different career trajectory for years. That process of coming home to my inner world and to an expanded vision for my self in the outer world was one very much marked by stumbling and meandering.

I was (and will always be, I think) enamored with the idea that so much about the human psyche is unknowable - and yet since childhood I have had a hunger for knowledge about what makes us tick, grieve, or love. How does one become a person? What does it mean to be alive? What makes this life so painful and yet so rewarding at the same time? Many open-ended questions! These four books scratched some itches, but moreover, they initiated me into a deeper dialogue with ideas that had been swirling around in my head without much of a home to play in. It was a moving experience to encounter others, either from the past or present time, that were contending with these questions in such nuanced ways. It’s that sensation of finding something so right and so precise — it’s almost uncanny. Or the feeling of making a new friend when you have a moment of “No way, you too!? Wow, I thought I was the only one who _____.” Somehow the language that I found in these books reflected to me that I wasn’t alone and helped me remember that my mind was in relationship to other minds. They articulated things that I knew to be true in my gut, but unable to name with language before. This is what home signifies to me: it is a series of movements informed by resonance and reciprocity. And it’s a place to be known and understood - a place to be in dialogue - a place to be in process in a way that allows space for us to get to know ourselves and others over and over again. 

Taz’s Library (left to right):

-Quiet by Susan Cain

-Far from the Tree by Andrew Solomon

-Radical Acceptance by Tara Brach

-We’ve Had One Hundred Years of Psychotherapy and the World’s Getting Worse by James Hillman and Michael Ventura

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HERE'S HOW YOU CAN PARTICIPATE IN FRIENDSGIVING WITH US:

Give! Visit our Miry’s List campaign page and make a donation. It's that simple and no sum is too small. Truly.

Follow! Be sure to follow us on Instagram and our blog throughout the month of November. We will be reflecting on what it means to be welcomed, received, and known.

Share!  Help us spread the word. You can do this by sharing our social media posts or links to our Miry’s List Friendsgiving Fundraiser page.

******

A little about Miry’s List:
Refugee families come to the United States seeking a safe haven from violence and persecution in their home countries. They leave behind family and friends, as well as virtually everything they own. Many Americans, seeing these families in their communities, wonder: What can I do to help? Miry's List provides a mechanism for people to directly help new arrival refugee families with the things that they need to get started in their new lives – from diapers to beds to cleaning supplies and toiletries. To learn more, visit miryslist.org.

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Taz Morgan, MA, is an Associate Marriage and Family Therapist, IMF #99714, working under the supervision of Gabrielle Taylor, PhD. She has trained in Depth-oriented psychotherapy and works with adolescents, adults, and couples. 

Home: Kailua Beach

This November, MHT is participating in the Miry’s List Friendsgiving Fundraising Drive. The money goes to programs that support refugee families that have been resettled in the United States. In tandem with these efforts, our clinicians are writing posts reflecting on what home means to them.

One of the most frequented places of my childhood and one of my favorite places in the world is to be sitting on the sand staring out at the ocean on Kailua Beach on the island of Oahu. With the trade winds blowing and the steady force of the movement of the Pacific Ocean while sitting on an island that is a bit Eden-like, I experience a sense of knowingness and consolidation. On a concrete level, I am home -- this is the town I grew up in, so it is no surprise I would feel this feeling of being at home when I visit. On a more symbolic level, this external landscape resonates with the dynamic terrain of my internal world as I have come to know it -- the magnitude, the depths, and the beauty. Because of the places I have been able to go inside myself, with the help of my own psychotherapy and psychoanalysis in robust relationships, I have found more solid, peaceful places to stand inside myself, regardless of where I am. This is what home means to me – an at-one-ness or at-home-ness with myself.

“These foreign places did not feel so foreign to me, which I think has been a direct result of getting to know the foreign, unknown parts of myself. I have felt more at home in the world because I have felt more at home in myself.”

As I have gotten older, I discovered that I could feel connected to myself, wherever I was on the planet, regardless of differences in ethnicity and language, culture and religious traditions. I have traveled to many places around the world, all over the US during different seasons – harsh New England winters and unforgiving heat in desert Summers. I’ve walked amidst the beauty of the dramatic edges of Western Ireland and through the rolling hills that surround quaint towns in Southern Spain, to name a few. In all of my travels, I have learned that I could easily fall in love with the beauty of the natural world and ancient history of our human experience, in all its unique expression, and still feel at home. These foreign places did not feel so foreign to me, which I think has been a direct result of getting to know the foreign, unknown parts of myself. I have felt more at home in the world because I have felt more at home in myself. Through my own growth and development, which has truly been a pursuit of my own sense of feeling whole, I have grown sturdier and more at peace in my own mind and heart. This has made risking my vulnerability in relationship a truly meaningful encounter, offering me a sense of love and connection to all of life.

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HERE'S HOW YOU CAN PARTICIPATE IN FRIENDSGIVING WITH US:

Give! Visit our Miry’s List campaign page and make a donation. It's that simple and no sum is too small. Truly.

Follow! Be sure to follow us on Instagram and our blog throughout the month of November. We will be reflecting on what it means to be welcomed, received, and known.

Share!  Help us spread the word. You can do this by sharing our social media posts or links to our Miry’s List Friendsgiving Fundraiser page.

******

A little about Miry’s List:
Refugee families come to the United States seeking a safe haven from violence and persecution in their home countries. They leave behind family and friends, as well as virtually everything they own. Many Americans, seeing these families in their communities, wonder: What can I do to help? Miry's List provides a mechanism for people to directly help new arrival refugee families with the things that they need to get started in their new lives – from diapers to beds to cleaning supplies and toiletries. To learn more, visit miryslist.org.

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Dr. Gabrielle Taylor is a licensed clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst who serves as Clinical Director at Michelle Harwell Therapy.

Home: Of the Earth

This November, MHT is participating in the Miry’s List Friendsgiving Fundraising Drive. The money goes to programs that support refugee families that have been resettled in the United States. In tandem with these efforts, our clinicians are writing posts reflecting on what home means to them.

Meditating on what “home” means to me stirs up a lot of feelings - sadness, pain, grief, fear, disappointment - just to name a few. Having moved homes frequently throughout my childhood and into adulthood, I always felt a strange knot in my stomach when someone would ask about my home or where I'm from; like there was so just too much too explain. As I’ve come into more stable footing and appreciation for the lessons I have learned through all of my moving around, I realize that to me home has always been a place within me. It’s a place that I often find through my connection to the Earth. When I am feeling at home within myself, my body literally feels connected to the ground beneath my feet, and I will imagine all the layers and elemental compounds of the Earth all the way to it’s core, while also tuning in to the shimmering rays of light or the movement of the air, all the way up to feeling the life that I am given by the sun. I come to feel at ease and grateful in the comfort I can take in my own breath and my own aliveness. I feel safe within myself and more eager to connect with the other earthlings living on this beautiful planet.

I trust in nature’s wisdom even through its death and destruction. As storms pass and seasons change, maybe even climates change, I am reminded of how complicated and tumultuous a place called home can be. Amidst the chaos and uncertainty I take solace in knowing that I am a person of the Earth and that I belong here. I hope we can all stay attuned enough to the moods of the only home we really have in this universe to do our part to conserve what we can for future generations of earthlings.

“When I am feeling at home within myself, my body literally feels connected to the ground beneath my feet, and I will imagine all the layers and elemental compounds of the Earth all the way to it’s core, while also tuning in to the shimmering rays of light or the movement of the air, all the way up to feeling the life that I am given by the sun.”

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HERE'S HOW YOU CAN PARTICIPATE IN FRIENDSGIVING WITH US:

Give! Visit our Miry’s List campaign page and make a donation. It's that simple and no sum is too small. Truly.

Follow! Be sure to follow us on Instagram and our blog throughout the month of November. We will be reflecting on what it means to be welcomed, received, and known.

Share!  Help us spread the word. You can do this by sharing our social media posts or links to our Miry’s List Friendsgiving Fundraiser page.

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A little about Miry’s List:
Refugee families come to the United States seeking a safe haven from violence and persecution in their home countries. They leave behind family and friends, as well as virtually everything they own. Many Americans, seeing these families in their communities, wonder: What can I do to help? Miry's List provides a mechanism for people to directly help new arrival refugee families with the things that they need to get started in their new lives – from diapers to beds to cleaning supplies and toiletries. To learn more, visit miryslist.org.

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Erika Mitchell, MA, is a Registered Associate Marriage and Family Therapist #109385, working under the professional supervision of Michelle Harwell, PsyD, LMFT 50732. Erika specializes in helping her clients bring mindful, attuned awareness to their sensations and emotions.

Home: That Feeling of Comfort

This November, MHT is participating in the Miry’s List Friendsgiving Fundraising Drive. The money goes to programs that support refugee families that have been resettled in the United States. In tandem with these efforts, our clinicians are writing posts reflecting on what home means to them.

“I was struck by something Miry [Whitehill] shared with us at Michelle Harwell Therapy when she came to tell us about how Miry’s List works: the importance of the color of the sheets.”

I was struck by something Miry [Whitehill] shared with us at Michelle Harwell Therapy when she came to tell us about how Miry’s List works: the importance of the color of the sheets.

Miry’s List helps families get set up with essential household items, like sheets and towels and backpacks. All of these kinds of things are necessary for getting life started - but Miry reflected with us about the way little details, like getting to choose a familiar color of sheets, can sometimes bring back a breath home. And so Miry’s list partners with each family in a very individualized way to create household wishlists, complete with these kinds of details, that will help families get started with making a new home here in LA.

This resonated with me and I thought about how much sensory kinds of things contribute to my own sense of being at home. Smells and flavors and familiar objects contribute to this sensory-texture of home.

These socks, in particular, I love to wear at home. To me, they represent comfort at all levels - they are cozy and happy and sorta weird. There is a kind of internal rest and safety I step into whenever I pull them on.

This Thanksgiving season, as we fundraise with our new neighbors in mind, I am grateful for the small but mighty contributions of little details, like familiar sheets or socks, to give us a sense of being where we belong.

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HERE'S HOW YOU CAN PARTICIPATE IN FRIENDSGIVING WITH US:

Give! Visit our Miry’s List campaign page and make a donation. It's that simple and no sum is too small. Truly.

Follow! Be sure to follow us on Instagram and our blog throughout the month of November. We will be reflecting on what it means to be welcomed, received, and known.

Share!  Help us spread the word. You can do this by sharing our social media posts or links to our Miry’s List Friendsgiving Fundraiser page.

******

A little about Miry’s List:
Refugee families come to the United States seeking a safe haven from violence and persecution in their home countries. They leave behind family and friends, as well as virtually everything they own. Many Americans, seeing these families in their communities, wonder: What can I do to help? Miry's List provides a mechanism for people to directly help new arrival refugee families with the things that they need to get started in their new lives – from diapers to beds to cleaning supplies and toiletries. To learn more, visit miryslist.org.

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Allison (Allie) Ramsey is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist Therapist. Allie works with individuals on a broad range of issues, including anxiety, depression, relational challenges, faith integration, divorce, and aging.