Radical Humility

“Humility can play a role both in intimate alliances as well as serving as fortitude for those who participate in activism more publicly.”

As the call for racial justice takes hold of our nation, I feel the gravity of what is needed of me and I’m noticing that I continuously need to ground myself in a stance of humility to stay engaged in meaningful ways.  I think humility can be a valuable friend to white people and others who are trying to ‘do the work’ right now. Humility when taking risks to call someone into a deeper understanding and commitment, humility with oneself when feeling inadequate or insufficient, and humility when entering unfamiliar spaces and conversations with those who live and breathe the unrelenting work of racial justice. Humility can play a role both in intimate alliances as well as serving as fortitude for those who participate in activism more publicly. A stance of humility helps to maintain curiosity and radical non-defensiveness such that we can listen deeply to what is needed with enough left in the tank to move to action as well.

This is a stance familiar to many therapists, though challenging indeed.  As much as therapy offers ways of understanding self and other, it can just as easily harm the other without the active examination of implicit biases and racist indoctrinations on the part of the therapist. Conversations about race can evoke anxiety to the point where people can easily become defensive, shutdown, or avoid the topic all together.  I have heard some therapists rather cheekily suggest a slight dissociation can be useful when in an anxiety provoking conversation to make space for justifiable anger, rage, sadness, or other feelings that may be unbearable or unimaginable.  I might also suggest that leaning heavily into humility and letting go of the need to be knowledgeable, good, helpful, seen as expert or right can also be a protective factor against the internal emotional blows, often known as guilt and shame, that can ultimately be roadblocks to listening deeply. 

Recently, I participated in a listening exercise related to hearing some of the demands of the Black Lives Matter movement and I was struck by just how much my ability to listen can get clouded by my own self-judgement and anxiety about my capacity. Sometimes it is helpful to be aware of one’s own internal dialogue and feelings, and then sharing them can strengthen relationships depending on the level of intimacy already established. However, when attempting to be an effective steward of anti-racist activism, I find that being able to shelve those inner thoughts for examination later is key for listening more actively in the moment. This means humbly letting go of the importance of one’s own perspective and potential embarrassment at times to ask questions and understand what is being asked of you.

“The mental health field also has a long way to go toward detangling its roots in white supremacy and making the structural changes needed such that cultural competency truly percolates to the standard of care...”

There is so much to learn about where we have been as a country, as a people, and I know that given how deep the history is, it will take sustainable and enduring approaches to create real change over time.  We may be humbled by our limitations, but we must be careful not to let humility be a resting place for passivity, rather a place to recharge and know that we can survive our own inadequacy, and keep moving into the discomfort and tragedy of the work that needs to be done.

I know that I have a long way to go in terms of reckoning with my own privilege and with the white supremacist systems that I benefit from and operate within. This will be a lifetime of dismantling and fighting, and I hope to maintain humility along the way. If you are also on this journey and wanting to know more about organizations who are leading the way in inclusive and socially just psychotherapy, please consult the list of resource links below. The mental health field also has a long way to go toward detangling its roots in white supremacy and making the structural changes needed such that cultural competency truly percolates to the standard of care, and I hope that our field can embrace a stance of humility necessary to advance further.

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Therapy & Mental Health Organizations:

• The Loveland Foundation: https://thelovelandfoundation.org/

• Therapy for Black Girls: https://therapyforblackgirls.com/

• Inclusive Therapists: https://www.inclusivetherapists.com/

• BEAM (Black Emotional and Mental Health Community): https://www.beam.community/

Social Justice Organizations:

• Advancement Project: https://www.advancementprojectca.org/

• Embrace LA: https://www.embracela.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: 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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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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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.

What is Now

I know I may lose many of you while reading the following but here it goes…this blog post is about running.

 Still with me?  Okay.

While running may not immediately conjure up conventional notions of meditation practices, for me, running gets me in a meditative state.  When I run, sure I can do it for the challenge, the endorphins, or a time to tune-out and listen to my favorite Podcast or an artfully crafted Spotify playlist, but my most rewarding excursions are those when I take the time to mindfully engage with my body via its motion.

In contrast to sitting mindfulness meditations where sensations in the body often arise subtly, a moving body is interacting more with its environment and thus it inevitably receives more input and/or stimulation. Therefore, for many people, movement enables one to more easily be aware of their bodies. This is true for me.

“Rather than deny and move away from my discomfort, I use it as a support to my consciousness of what is now. ”

The repetitive movement patterns of my gate (its rhythm and pace), my foot strike on the ground, the stack of my shoulders over my hips and engagement of my torso, perhaps the tightness between my ribs as my body begins to crave oxygen for its muscles -- these are just a sampling of physical sensations I begin to attend to as I start my trek into the urban trailhead.

As I fall into embodiment, I unavoidably notice my mental patterns emerge and my mind begins to jump to the various “to-dos“ or a negative narrative about my sluggish legs which feel as though they’re made of cement. I allow it. I notice it. I kindly (without judgment) bring my awareness back to the present moment. Perhaps my way back in is through the sensation in those legs made of cement: heavy and cumbersome - struggling to lift away from their favorite cousin, asphalt.

Rather than deny and move away from my discomfort, I use it as a support to my consciousness of what is now. There is discomfort but there is not damaging pain. I move my mind closer to it, immerse my consciousness in it, and singularly focus on my legs of cement - so heavy and cumbersome. After several moments, I begin to notice the sensations change -- an energy moving in spirals up and down my thighs. The heaviness subsides and my pace quickens.  

Obviously in a running meditation I cannot withdraw my complete attention from the outside world. I have to maintain awareness of my environment if not for anything else than my safety. Because of this fact, I can also use running as an opportunity to practice externalized mindfulness.  So often runners traverse the same routes over and over and never actually notice their environment because they have turned inwards toward those mental patterns and become lost in thought. For those who identify, try having a gentle curiosity about the world around you. Whatever catches your attention, become interested in it and examine its qualities as fully as you can until the next moment/place/thing draws your interest to it.

However you decide to shift your perspective, whether you find an embodied practice or set an intention to convene with the present moment around you, running (or any other moving mediation) can be a great way to tap into both the physical benefits of movement and the mental and spiritual benefits of a divine meditative practice.

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Lauren Ziel, MSW is a Registered Associate Clinical Social Worker, ASW #76483, working under the supervision of Vanessa Spooner, PsyD. 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.

Women of Style: My Aunt Mia

Who: Maternal Aunt - Mia Evans

Wear: Style - Eclectic 70's; mix of the androgyny of Annie Hall, the glamour of Bianca Jagger, and the all-american classic of Lauren Hutton.

Why: My aunt Mia: a woman both of and before her time. A forward thinking feminist, classically trained harpist, ambitious lawyer, loving aunt and mother of Pugs. She is the kind of person that has always sparked my curiosity - so transparent and direct, yet full of quirks, stories, and talents that she alone could be the muse to spawn dozens of literary characters. To me, she is this shining example of how a modern woman can be so many things (and wear so many hats), while still maintaining her individuality and stand in it without pretense or explanation. 

Her clothes reflect this to a "T." She's always polished and put together, but in the kind of way you know it didn't take her more than 10 minutes to get ready because while she cares how she looks, vanity comes second to comfort and necessity. Pairing classic elements of style (like a beige trench coat or clean cotton blouse) with more distinctive and/or whimsical flare (à la red woven platform clogs and kitschy handmade jewelry she bought in some bizarre half way around the world), she always curates a balanced ensemble that at first glance feels chic, serious and sophisticated but upon a second inspection you realized it belies the humble levity of a woman that knows she has her shit together so she doesn't take herself too seriously. 

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

Give! Visit our Dressember 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 December. 

Share!  Help us spread the word. You can do this by sharing our social media posts or links to our Dressember fundraising page.

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Lauren Ziel, MSW is a Registered Associate Clinical Social Worker, ASW #76483, working under the supervision of Vanessa Spooner, PsyD. 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.

From Contradiction to Paradox

To survive, we must make instantaneous sense of our world. As such, it is an essential skill to be able to discern one’s surroundings and act in accordance with the demands of our environment. Our brain does an unparalleled job of this – it automatically makes critical decisions in milliseconds – what way to pull the steering wheel if another car is careening towards us on the highway; quickly making sense of that brown coiled shape seen out the corner of our eye. Is it a poisonous snake, or simply a discarded loop of rope or a garden hose? While decisiveness is paramount to our survival, this very ability also begets a tendency to seek certainty and understanding in situations which may call for much more nuanced circumstance. 

In addition to our inclination to seek a practical mastery of our surroundings, as humans (particularly in the fact-based, scientifically-validated culture of modern times), we are also conditioned to seek out singular definitive answers to many of life’s questions. Such reductionism can (and often does) curtail experience into a false binary; a straightforward yes or no, right or wrong, bad or good. This simplistic view makes for a sterile exactness that leaves no room for the messy alchemy we call human experience. 

When we become fixed within this black or white view, any deviation from this false self-imposed logic becomes a source of discomfort and we can spend much of our mental energy denying the contradictions that exists within ourselves and our relationships. For example: How can one simultaneously feel the need to seek comfort and connectedness among friends and loved ones whilst still needing to assert autonomy and separateness from others?

Seeking an answer or resolution to the existence of contradictions is like trying to swim upstream against a steady and powerful current – you will not get far before succumbing to exhaustion. Instead of fighting against two incompatible conditions by demanding yourself to choose one over the other, surrendering into a state of ambiguity and accepting not-knowing can open our hearts and minds to the all the possibilities of the human experience.

Acceptance of contradictions is the conduit for viewing the human condition as a paradox: a more fully alive, well-rounded, non-dualistic stance. Where contradiction is an unsolvable problem of logic, paradox is an enigmatic and awe-inspiring riddle. Tolerating, and then honoring contradictions allow them to shift from irascible nuisances of life into deeply intoxicating existential curiosities. These paradoxes are deeply mysterious and beg for thoughtful exploration. They open space for reconnection to ourselves and others and invite us to grow our capacity to discern more than bad or good, threat or friend…but rather the whole spectrum of possibility gifted to us in this existence.

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Lauren Ziel, MSW is a Registered Associate Clinical Social Worker, ASW #76483, working under the supervision of Vanessa Spooner, PsyD. 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.