The Healing Hype: Recent Episodes
Nisha Mody
Hello everyone! Some of you may remember that I started The Healing Hype out as a membership with healing circles, an advice column, and more. Then I pared it down to be a little more simple. I chose the Substack platform for The Healing Hype because I enjoyed the audio accessibility as well as the paid subscription model.
After working a full year as a coach, consultant, and speaker, Iām realizing that having two email lists, The Healing Hype email list and a separate email list for updates and promotions along with facilitating 1:1 coaching, group coaching, and organizational workshops, was a bit much. Iām being asked to lean into ease and simplicity.
What does this mean?
This means that Iām moving The Healing Hype to be a blog on my website. I can add audio to my blogposts, so that accessibility will still be there! However, there will no longer be paid subscriptions or benefits like my Slack community or Nishaās Greatest Hits! Iād like to think everything I write is a hit anyway š
New seasons also bring about other changes. I will be retiring the name The Healing Hype, and a new name and theme will emerge in the new blogspace. I cannot wait to share it with you! This name encompasses how I feel about healing from an embodied and relational level.
What does this mean for you?
You will still receive my posts via email. The good news is, you donāt have to do anything!
In order to do this, Iāll add you to my email marketing platform, BUT you will not be added to my regular email list where I provide monthly updates (which includes kitty pics) and promotions for my (pretty rad) offerings unless you opt-in cuz consent is sexy. Youāll still receive an email when I publish a new blogpost.
So, the biggest difference will be how the blog looks. I will still provide longform content similar to what youāve already seen. Youāll still be able to comment and listen via audio.
If you pay monthly, your subscription will stop at the end of the monthās cycle. If you pay annually, I will refund you on a prorated basis.
If you love my stuff so much that you want to support me financially, please donate to my BIPOC Healing Fund. Iām dreaming to FULLY FUND the next Boundaries for BIPOC cohort for Spring 2023, and Iād love any support you can provide!
If you recently subscribedā¦
If youāre new to this newsletter, welcome! Here are some of my previous posts for you to get acquainted with my content:
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Self-abandonment, Capitalism, and You
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Is it emotional intelligence or emotional avoidance?
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On Joy and Resilience
How do I feel about this?
I feel such a relief moving into more simplicity in my life. My website is my digital home, and this change allows me to cultivate that home. Iām so grateful for this experience to see what worked and didnāt work for me, specifically in this space and overall in my business. Iām all about trial and error, learning and unlearning.
Lately, Iāve been considering my life, and the Earth, through seasons. After all, humans are just as much a part of the Earth as plants and ants. We come from the Earth, not to it. We all have seasons of shedding, growing, expanding, and contracting. And I love that this change coincides with the first day of fall and the beginning of Libra season.
Thank you so much, and feel free to reply with comment or questions.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thehealinghype.com
As I mentioned last week, I deleted my social media apps on a Saturday night after I was so overstimulated and underwhelmed with the projections coming at me. I was in a period of what I call apathy, but maybe also depressive, where everything in my life was quite amazing, yet I felt disconnected from myself. I intellectually knew it was āall goodāā¦but it did not feel that way.
I knew my period was coming on, which usually induces these feelings, but the mood was coming on a little earlier than usual. And then I got into āfiguring it outā, a mental cycle that is mostly not so useful.
Deleting my apps was not something I ever expected to do, especially because I use social media, especially Instagram, for my business. The decision to delete was instantanous, a gut instinct, and whisper of intuition. Whatever you want to call it, it had to go, at least for the next 24 hours.
Sunday, I felt like I was just coming down from this constant dopamine chase. Moving from what felt like being a mosquito to being a butterfly. I mentioned this in last weekās post. Later that day, on a walk, I saw at least six monarch butterflies. I truly never see any butterflies in my neighborhood, so if there was a sign to validate my decision (besides the tarot card I pulled), this was definitely it.
On Monday, I decided to only show up on social media through the browser versions. The Instagram browser is so clunky that constant scrolling just doesnāt happen. This just shows how systems and design are so influential over our behaviors. I posted something on my Instagram feed via the browser on Monday, and then I wanted to share that post to my stories but realized that Instagram basically forces you to go into the app to do this. I had two choices, re-download the app or donāt post to stories. Since I had a big shift in my program that I announced in the post, and because the algorithm is pushing Reels more than posts, I decided to re-download the app. I was a little scared, but I just did it anyways with the intention that I would delete it immediately afterward. I posted the stories, looked at a few posts and other friendsā stories, and I deleted the app!
Enter: Intention
For the next few days, I basically did the same thing. Used the various forms of social media only via browser and re-downloaded Instagram only for features I couldnāt use unless I had the app. Then I deleted it immediately. I decided that Wednesday would be a day to spend more time on it, be more present for my audience and to catch up on other peopleās posts. My dear friend Courtney Koester who is a beautiful teacher of energetics calls Wednesday a Mercury day, a day of communication and connecting. I recenty downloaded her digital calendar, and itās really helpful for me to calibrate my energy instead of being go-go-go. And yet, I still didnāt love having it on my phone, ignoring other things I wanted to do. So I deleted it by mid-afternoon.
This all leads me to intention.
When Iām asked āWhat is your intention?ā in coaching or support spaces, I often freeze up. Iāve had a hard time with this question. It has almost sounded like another languageā¦a cloudy yet magical idea that is meant to be some type of divine answer or whisk me away to another dimension. I usually answer very generally because, you see, I donāt like to focus on wanting one thing because there are so many possibilities! I donāt want to EXCLUDE anyone or anything.
But something made me delete the app, a desire to no longer engage, a desire to tend to tasks, and just pay more attention to the present. While Iāve connected with so many amazing people via social media, it can also feel very disembodied.
This past week, I was using social media with true intention: to share my stories and ideas, connect with others, and move on to the next thing. I used it for what I desired instead of letting it tell me what my next desire was.
Enter: Desire
It totally clicked. Intention is desire. Intention is deciding your desire. Intention is deciding. This can be a super specific or general decision. But Iāve noticed that for so many spaces I enter, Iām just excited to learn. And yet, thereās something else behind that excitement that Iāve been hesitant to name for fear of missing out.
James-Olivia Chu Hillman told me that the etymology of decide is āto cut offā. Deciding means knowing what you want, and that means saying no to other things. As Iāve been doing my Delight with Nisha in Nature calls, I was talking to someone who was sitting with a plant they have in their room. They were so proud to be with it and to have supported and tended to its growth, which required pruningā¦cutting offā¦deciding. Pruning makes space for growth.
Being intentional is knowing what you want or even what you might want, and seeing where it takes you. But knowing what we want can be really really hard - especially if you see yourself as a helper who just wants the best for everyone else. In my first year of business, Iāve learned that knowing what I want takes time, reflection, and constant refining. And thatās okay.
What often gets in the way of desire is fear of deciding, fear of what or who our desire can hurt, fear of missing out, fear of the unknown. So we allow all the leaves to crowd us instead of making space for our vision.
But itās so so important to try to desire, especially if you come from a marginalized background that was conditioned to constantly assimilate to what other people desired from you because that provided safety.
Enter: Enough
One beautiful outcome of pulling back from social media has been that Iām finally catching up on a bunch of emails Iāve put off because I didnāt feel like I had time or energy. What Iāve realized is that scrolling and sharing and posting and checking metrics depleted my energy and focus. One email I finally got to was from Hima Bataviaās Substack titled āon tiny kitchensā. She talks about the tiny kitchens sheās had in her life and how she longs for a big beautiful kitchen, but she realizes the beautiful and funny memories in those tinier kitchens and how, maybe, what she has is āenoughā.
Given that Iāve been thinking so much about intention and desire, it was really helpful to connect this to āenoughā. I believe āenoughā is very relative based on history, systems, context, and our individual selves. Itās hard to separate one from the other. Yet, thinking from this lens made me ask myself, āWhat is enough for me?ā
Now Iām not saying we canāt dream. But what I am saying is that if youāve had a hard time even thinking about what you desire, this can be a beautiful place to start.
I created a list of what would feel like enough for:
money
my coaching offers
home
my feelings
business support
I also think that ārelationshipsā can be a great one, however, thatās what I was thinking of when I included āmy feelingsā. Feel free to add others! I can also imagine āworldā, āsocietyā, āfamilyā, āintimacyā, and more.
For home, I wrote āhaving a washer/dryer in unit, making an altar space in my second bedroom, and maybe a third bedroom?ā Not super succinct but a starting point. Then I added a section called āBONUSā. This is where I wrote what would be extra nice for each of those categories as well. For home, I wrote āa nice outdoor spaceā. Now, two bedrooms, and maybe even one, might be enough for me. But since I have two bedrooms, this is where I started. This isnāt definitive or written in stone. Itās a practice and exercise.
So now when I think of intentions for each of these areas, they are moving in the direction of desire and enough. While it might seem contradictory, it feels like a breath of fresh air to me. A way to decide, prune, and see what will grow.
What is my intention? What is my desire? What is enough?
In the endā¦
Doing things intentionally can go in so many different directions. It can be about how you approach a task to your dream world to making a boundary. And itās so so so powerful. Now when someone asks me āWhat is your intention?ā, Iām ready to receive it - not because I always know the answer but becauase I know that a decision is a gentle opening, another way to tend to myself which helps me tend to the world as well.
Iād love to hear what you think!
If you like what I write, hereās how you can support me!
Like, comment, or share this post with a friend.
Donate to my BIPOC Healing Fund, Iām hoping to fully fund my next Boundaries for BIPOC cohort!
Schedule a Delight with Nisha in Nature call by donating at least $5 to my BIPOC Healing Fund here, there are TWO spots left this week!
Explore one-on-one support with me including a human design reading, 1:1 coaching, or a business consultation.
Follow me on Instagram and Twitter.
This is a public episode. If youād like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thehealinghype.com/subscribe
I never thought Iād need a social media detox, but here I am.
Last night, I deleted my social media apps. That includes Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, LinkedIn, and Clubhouse. As I type this out, I realize that Iām pretty active on 5/6 of those. Iām barely on Clubhouse but deleted it in case I felt compelled to go there to get my dopamine hit.
Iām self-isolating right now before an international trip to avoid getting the Vid. And I started seeing myself spending so much time scrolling, looking at notifications, and thinking about more content, that my brain finally reached overload.
I think social media is great. Iāve made so many beautiful connections that way. And, I started to feel like a mosquito. Seeing what I could prick and get. I donāt want to be a mosquito. I want to be a butterfly. I want to be a flower. Iād rather choose a rhythm that feels good in my bodyā¦and a mosquito is not it!
Almost immediately after I deleted the apps, I started to think of ways I can simplify how I communicate. This will be something Iāll be considering a lot over the next few weeks. At the time of deletion, I thought Iād be back Monday, tomorrow. Then I thought Iād just post content through a browser instead of the app. Then I thought Iāll just schedule posts ahead of time and only show up on Wednesday. But Iām going to just sit with this. Honestly, writing on this platform is something I havenāt done lately because Iām on social media!
So you might be hearing more from me here. There might be fewer mini hypes and more longform pieces. Iām already seeing that I can commit to one idea for longer when Iām not being bombarded by new ones. There are so many ways to be in the world without scrolling. I know people have talked about social media cleanses for awhile, but I never felt the needā¦until now.
I felt wildly validated in this decision when I pulled the two of wands this morning from my tarot deck. I try to pull a card most mornings and journal on them based on Kait Fowlieās definitions and journal prompts.
This is what it says for the two of wands (italic emphasis mine):
TWO OF WANDS
Mantra for the two of wands: āTake your world into your own hands.ā
Description: This card is all about launching into the world after a stage of personal discovery. You now have a firmer idea of what you truly want, what your unique talents are, and how you might want to āmake the world yours.ā Start putting together your plan for personal success. Have patience and stay focused. Invest in your growth and development. Be willing to step outside the familiar and explore your influence.
Journal prompts: How do you exercise your influence over the world around you? What does your āfuture selfā do on a day to day basis that makes them so badass?
The word āinfluenceā outside of the context of social media is WILD to me. My influence isnāt determined by the tool I choose, itās who I am and how what I share is received. And now I get to think about how I exercise it even more. As a small business owner getting myself off the ground, social media has been tremendously helpful. And it also has effects how I produce. While I donāt necessarily think of āInstagram reel ideasā, Instagram and TikTok allow me to share what comes to me as it comes. BUT, now Iām wondering what would happen if I wrote those ideas down, and connected them more. Maybe I could share snippets afterwardā¦or not. Since the tool is there, Iām using it. But it doesnāt have to be that way. How will the way I share shift by creating boundaries around these platforms? How can I be interdependent with them instead of codependent?
The short-form of social media has taken me away from writing in a way that feels more fully developed. So Iām taking the world in my hands to see where this takes me. This will mean boundaries of some sort, Iām not sure what.
So tell me, have you tried to have boundaries with social media? How did that go? Iād love any insight or ideas around this!
This is a public episode. If youād like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thehealinghype.com/subscribe
Hi friends! For the next few weeks I am self-isolating before an international trip, so I need to connect with nature more than ever. This made me think about how I can be with the Earth AND you! (FYI, you are not separate from the Earth, but you know what I mean āŗļø).
This is how I came up with a new offer Iām beta testing called Delight with Nisha in Nature šš³š»
I'm playing with a new way for my clients to feel PRESENCE through DELIGHT by connecting with the Earth and each other.
I invite you to be with your favorite form of nature while we respond to each other for 40 minutes about FEELING PRESENCE THROUGH DELIGHT š
If you want to be one of my special beta-testers, let me know! There are only 9 spots left until August 5, and a few people have the link to schedule, so time is of the essence. (Yes, I do talk about how to question urgency AND this is the boundary I have for this special playdate š)
All I ask is that you donate at least $5 to my BIPOC Healing Fund. Just $5(!!!) to try this out.
HOW DOES THIS WORK?
(1) Comment or reply to the email and say āI wanna delight with you!"
(2) Iāll send you a link to donate and book.
(3) At your scheduled time, you'll bring yourself to your chosen Earthy space, creature, and/or object.
(4) Nisha will give you a call and invite you into some delightful presence through conversation, sensory experiences, and somatics.
(5) We will DELIGHT š
Looking forward to connecting!
This is a public episode. If youād like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thehealinghype.com/subscribe
Hi friends! If youāre on my email list, youāve already heard that I am delaying my intimate group container/virtual hug space called From Work to Worth to begin on August 27.
I realized I needed a break this month, and this allows space for me to not be in urgency and to take an extra breath! A few spots are filled, and Iām looking forward to an intimate group of 8.
Maybe youāre feeling burnt out or donāt know how to detach from the spiral of never feeling enoughā¦this might also just be detaching your identity from your job. Maybe you intellectually know youāre worthy, but itās hard to embody that in a world that tells you, and everyone, otherwise. If this is you AND you embrace anti-oppression, Iād love to chat.
If youāve been peeking at the program, please do apply, and we can chat about what YOU feel is a best next step. I love to share myself with you, and I love when humans have the safety of choice.
This is a public episode. If youād like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thehealinghype.com/subscribe
Hi friends, during these global stressful times, on top of what you might be moving through locally and individually, itās hard to just NOT be stressed. The other day, I heard something from Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle by Emily Nagoski and Amelia Nagoski that reframed stress for me: āStress is not bad for you; being stuck is bad for you.ā
This reminds me about an analogy I once heard from Sarah Baldwin Coaching. She talked about how when a bird hits a window and falls, it is still. Most people would think itās dead. But eventually, it starts shaking and gets back up. It was just momentarily stuck.
So the stress itself wasnāt bad for it, but if it stayed stuck in that frozen state, that would have not been so great.
The same goes for us, especially when we get in freeze response or we dissociate. First of all, there is nothing wrong with you - you are not broken. Given everything that has been thrown at us in the last few years, it makes sense that dissociating and freezing helps us conserve our energy. Second of all, this doesnāt mean youāll stay there forever. What are some resources that get you unstuck? For me, stretching, playing with my kitties, pausing to breathe and feel where my body is in relation to the space Iām in, and REST are beautiful resources lately.
What about you? Hit reply or let me know in the comments.
Also, I still have some spots available for From Work to Worth. You can apply here.
This is a public episode. If youād like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thehealinghype.com/subscribe
Hello lovelies!
This month has been rough, and there are so many places to donate to. Local abortion funds, bail funds, gun control measures, and more.
I honestly didnāt even want to send this out because Iām just kinda tired of it all. But then I realized that we all have choices. You have the choice to not invest in The Healing Hype, and that is a totally acceptable choice.
And if you do decide to invest by tomorrow, June 30, Iāll donate 100% of your June contribution to Critical Resistance and LGBTQIA2S+ mutual aid efforts. AND youāll get entered into a drawing to win a 1 hour Human Design reading from me (bonus entries if you invest annually!)
Most importantly, I hope youāre taking care of yourself. I hope you have someone safe to talk to. If it helps to respond to this and express how youāre feeling right now, please do. Name your feelings, give it a shape and a color and a texture, and tell me what it is. Iām happy to be with you in this process. Because capitalism, patriarchy, and white supremacy arenāt here for our feelingsā¦they are here for control, power over, and hyper-individualism. Thatās not what Iām about, so please do share if youād like by replying or commenting.
This is a public episode. If youād like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thehealinghype.com/subscribe
Hello everyone. So this is a special Nishaās Greatest Hits because it is open for everyone to see. And I just want to remind everyone that Nishaās Greatest Hits is a cute little benefit from investing on The Healing Hype for $5 A month or $50 here and this month for the month of June I am donating all of my income from The Healing Hype to Critical Resistance which works to dismantle the prison industrial complex, as well as go toward mutual aid for LGBTQIA to spirit plus folks. So if you like this, and you would love for your whatever you pay for this month, whether it's $5 a month, or you pay $50 A year annually to go toward those causes. Please do invest. I will include a button at the bottom of this post for you to upgrade if you do not already subscribe. At that rate, I would love to be able to raise $500, so that is that.
So I wanted to talk about grasping for worth in relationships and if any of you follow me on Instagram, you may have seen that today I posted about this, about how my ex husband told me two things that made me kind of question my worth made me feel like I had to prove myself to be worthy of him or worthy to have him or whatever. So those two things that he said to me were that one my friends were really boring. And as a consequence, his friends were super cool. And to that I had no passions in life. So this made me really sad and it made me question like my own friends who let me tell you I have life long, amazing badass friends who I feel really safe with. And pretty much all of those friends that I've had from the time when I was with my ex husband, which was over 15 years ago to now um you know are still my friends and they're amazing and all is there for me but because he said these things I thought that like okay, well, I'll hang out with his friends. I would talk to my friends last or if I wanted to hang out with my friends. I feel like I'd be walking on eggshells to ask him or he'd get annoyed and see what losers they are or whatever. So instead of realizing that I have amazing friends, because I wanted to belong to Him with him, whatever you want to call it. I would see my friends less and hang out with his friends all the time. And the other thing he said was I had no passions or interests and at that time you know when I met him I think that was about 25 and 40. Now, I was really questioning and like felt really sad that I didn't know what my my one passion in life was, which itself is kind of like not fair, because sometimes we don't have one passion in life. Sometimes we'd like lots of things or sometimes we have more of a role in life. Like there are people like my brother who always knew what he wanted to do. And I was the person that didn't. And at the same time what I ended up seeing later on was that I definitely have a role in life and my different skills and qualities lend to that role. So anyway, that itself was something 15 years ago I you know, I wasn't there yet. So when he said that to me, it just made me super sad. And it kind of looks like confirmation bias for me of like yeah, I'm a loser who doesn't know what you want. So I will like everything that he likes. So I started getting really into all the life music he listened to. I even like he was like, why don't you take piano lessons then we can play together because he used to play guitar, or he plays guitar. I'm guessing he still does. Um, so I started doing all that stuff. And he took me wrong. I actually used to play piano when I was a kid, and I really liked it. And I also played saxophone lessons when I was with him and singing lessons. And I had fun doing those things. But the source of it, the source of my desire to do it was so that I could do it with him so that he could like me more or accept me more or I could be more there could be more of a longing in our relationship. I got super into every professional sport. I was even his fantasy football team manager and we like joked about it. I knew everything about the different basketball teams, baseball, everything, you know, I was so glued to it. Whereas now with my current partner like he'll tell me stuff and I'll listen and I like watching sports like I always liked watching sports here and there. But I was never as obsessed as I was when I was with my ex husband. Um, so yeah, and like I just started getting really interested in what he liked so that I could feel like one I could feel like that. That whole that I had about not having a passion was filled and and there was a double bonus that you know, I would be there would be more belonging that I had in our relationship. So this grasping energy, trying to feel prove myself prove my worth to him and also to myself was really shitty, honestly it did not feel good. And when I realized in the end that like my friends are friggin awesome, and that I have such beautiful qualities and so much magic within myself as Do you as just everyone it just looks different because we're different human beings and that's just how it is. I realized that like you know there there's a lot of there's so much I had to offer that I didn't need to prove. And in this Instagram post you're welcome to go to my Instagram and healing hype girl and look, I put some visuals to show what what this feels like. And the visual I put an Instagram post was post was that I'm like like this wind up doll like there's this one of those like wind up things but on my back and every time like he would say something in like, want me to do it like it'd be like take saxophone lessons like wind me up. Let me get wind it up and then do the thing that he liked. Right. And I would just get exhausted and like, you know, like windup dolls when you wind them up and let them go. They just go in whatever direction that's kind of how I felt like it was aimless. I was doing it. And it āworkedā but it really wasn't from my own fuel source. It was family, you know, doing the winding. Whereas afterwards when I realized like, oh, no, I have so much so much worth on my own as a person. The relationships I have with my friends are amazing. You know, I was so heart centered. I have this picture on that post of like, my heart and then this beautiful aura that's coming from within me. And also kind of you know, goes to the idea of the Care Bear energy that I talked about in my workshop How to Be Your Own Care Bear which you are welcome to purchase the replay. It's only $6 from my website or from my Instagram. It's like Care Bears know, the power within them and they just emanated out especially when they do it with their Care Bear people are Care Bear and Care Bear family. They hold each other's hands into the Care Bear Stare and their magic comes out from them. But in my marriage and just the whole relationship the time we were dating to that Care Bear energy was just dormant. It was just sleeping and I dismissed it and denied it really from from spreading it out into the world because I was told that it wasn't there and it wasn't good enough. And it just makes me so sad to think about, you know what I mean? That that was the case. Another metaphor you can use for that is like, like there's this carrot in front of me you know like that. That thing about like someone holding a carrot in front of you and you're just like, constantly chasing after but you're never getting it because someone is manipulate again, you know? And when I can just go to the store because I want the carrot myself. That's the other thing. Do I want the carrot or is the person telling you that I need the carrot right? Someone is you know trying to dangle in front of me and that's a problem. So anyways, I this is one of my longer Nishaās Greatest Hits. Usually these are only like one to two minutes. But I really wanted to talk about this concept because there's so many ways we can look at it. We can look at it as being the windup toy is the person dangling something in front of us? Capitalism dangling happiness and fulfillment in front of us if we keep making more money or get a promotion or get this job with this āwell knownā company or on a personal level, if we have kids or whatever, and I'm not knocking any of these things. I'm just saying that when society tells us this is what will make us feel fulfilled, and we keep chasing after it or keep being wound up by it. We might just be going in directions that are not true for us. So what does it look like when it's really coming from us? So um, yeah, this is also something I think a lot about and it's what drove me to create From Work to Worth, my four month group coaching container that starts July 9, so I will link it here in the post. So if any of you are listening to this, go to the post to check out my program. You can go to my website to nishaland.com and there's a From Work to Worth page. And yeah, I'd love to dive into more of this with you because this is not something that I figured out like on my own, you know, Namie and this is not something that I'm just like, Oh, I'm worthy. You know, this took therapy. This took my talking to my friends. This was like intense back and forth text messages with one of my friends. You know, and a lot of therapy and coaching that got me to this point of realizing that I have so much inner worth and we all do and when we are denying that worth in service to someone else or something else. We're really quieting ourselves and we're not letting the world see the beauty and magic inside of us. So I hope this was supportive to you and I would love if you invested in The Healing Hype. And oh, one thing I forgot to mention earlier is that if you invest in it, you are going to be entered into a drawing for a free one hour Human Design reading for me, so definitely invest. This will just be for the month of June. And thank you so much for listening!
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
This is a public episode. If youād like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thehealinghype.com/subscribe
Before we get into this mini hype, I wanted to remind you about my upcoming 4-month mastermind/virtual hug space/group coaching program, From Work to Worth. Click the button below to learn more and apply.
Hi friends! I wanted to bring a mini hype to you from my first post āWhat is intergenerational trauma? And how do you heal it?ā
I found this snippet from the piece:
So how do we heal intergenerational trauma?
The first step is always awareness. And with awareness comes learning and unlearning. We are all unique individuals. If you have a sibling who was raised under the same parental figure(s) as you, Iām guessing they reacted in ways that were different than you. Yet, there are similarities to your experiences.
This made me thinkā¦what if youāre the only one in your family or friend circle who seems to have this awareness? It can be quite isolating. You might wonder why youāre the only one who caresā¦but you also might be gaslit because youāre thinking about this at all. Maybe you get comments to just āmove onā or your awareness is minimized.
For me, most of my closest friends are absolutely amazing and open to talking about this. Thankfully, the friendships Iāve cultivated are with people who really reflected on life and had a high level of self-awareness. Though, this wasnāt always the case with my family. Iām grateful that Iām able to have more conversations with my brother around this, and sometimes even with my momābut it wasnāt always that way.
So Iād love to hear from you. What is your experience with this? Please let me know about your experience, challenges, and support youāve received.
This is a public episode. If youād like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thehealinghype.com/subscribe
Hi friends, I just wanted to let you know about my new four-month group mastermind, From Work to Worth. It will be my most intimate container Iāve facilitated yet, limited to 8 humans. I canāt wait to explore our relationships between work and worth and how we can shift them. Click the link below to learn more and apply. Now, on to making time your little (or big) spoon.
This weekend, my purse was stolen.
Saturday night, I went on a hike with my boyfriend. The last hike I took was in Denver almost a year ago for my friendās bachelorette party, and I was in a lot of pain after because of pre-existing lower back and foot injuries. As a result, I decided to do what I could to address it by getting stronger, being diligent about stretching, doing body work, and seeing a chiropractor, and it has paid off (yay!). So going on a hike was a big deal for me, and I was so excited about it!
Here is me before we turned around to head back to the trailhead. I was so excited that I was able to do this hike without constantly wondering how this could completely suck for me afterward.
We headed back to the trailhead where my boyfriendās car was parked. I went to the passenger side to get in, and I saw a bunch of glass on the ground. The window was bashed in, and my purse was gone.
My wallet, keys (home, car, and others), and glasses were in my purse. I felt so violated. For the rest of the night, shock, sadness, and anger swept over me. Andā¦gratitude did as well. I was grateful that my boyfriendās things werenāt taken. I was grateful he had an extra set of my house keys. Iām glad he could lend me some cash while I replaced my credit cards. I was so happy to have him with me, even if I wasnāt the best company. This is not something fun to deal with alone.
So what does this have to do with time being my little spoon?
While I was experiencing shock, sadness, and anger, my survival mind went to thinking about next steps: āWhatās going on for me next week? What will I have to cancel? Why do I have to deal with this now? Where might I need my driverās license? Which keys do I need to replace? Should I replace my deadbolt? I donāt have time for this!ā etc etc etc.
When something like this happens, we think about how it totally messes up the schedules we have for the following days or weeks. What was automatic and easy is no longer secure. The next morning, I remember just looking at people thinking āthey probably have their wallets with them.ā They didnāt have to deal with what I had to do. The time I thought was mine felt like it was stolen, too.
Iāve been listening to Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals (affiliate link) by Oliver Burkeman on audiobook at the recommendation of Hima Bataviaās post on her lovely Substack, afternoon dreams. Burkeman talks about how we often feel like we are running against the clock and never finishing our to-do list, which leads to feeling defeated or unworthy or unproductive. He says:
āThereās another sense in which treating time as something that we own and get to control seems to make life worse. Inevitably, we become obsessed with āusing it well,ā whereupon we discover an unfortunate truth: the more you focus on using time well, the more each day begins to feel like something you have to get through, en route to some calmer, better, more fulfilling point in the future, which never actually arrives. The problem is one of instrumentalization. To use time, by definition, is to treat it instrumentally, as a means to an end, and of course we do this every day: you donāt boil the kettle out of a love of boiling kettles, or put your socks in the washing machine out of a love for operating washing machines, but because you want a cup of coffee or clean socks. Yet it turns out to be perilously easy to overinvest in this instrumental relationship to timeāto focus exclusively on where youāre headed, at the expense of focusing on where you areāwith the result that you find yourself living mentally in the future, locating the ārealā value of your life at some time that you havenāt yet reached, and never will.ā
He continues:
āAt the end of your life, looking back, whatever compelled your attention from moment to moment is simply what your life will have been.ā
So, on Sunday, as I was mentally and emotionally hungover from what happened the night before, and as I called credit card companies and looked at my bank accounts and got a replacement drivers license, using my time in ways that I had not planned, I remembered this part of the book. I thought to myself, how can I be with time while Iām with this pain? How can I remember these moments?
So I didnāt feel bad as I just lazed around my home, felt my feelings, emotionally ate macaroni and cheese, and watched Fire Island. Then I went live on Instagram to talk about how to be with time and pain.
Given what Burkeman said, and how Iāve been reflecting about how joy can be with pain in this post and this podcast, I decided to reframe things. Instead of thinking that the week was ruined because of all the things I needed to take care of, I imagined how my pain can be WITH time rather than time being an enemy. I call this making time your little (or big) spoon. It stays with you and gives you comfort and co-regulation. While time might be ticking away, that isnāt what matters, it isnāt what you hear.
Hereās how I visualize it. Letās say youāre just going about our day, and youāre in your window of tolerance. Time is going as-is and your level of pain (or fear, discomfort, etc) is on par with it. Hereās how I imagine that looking:
But then, something happens. You hear bad news, someone steals your purse, you feel sick, you get into a fight with your partner. Your pain level starts to move in different directions, ways that you canāt really control. But the time on the clock keeps going as usual, itās not waiting for you to feel your feelings. Itās not pausing because you have other things to do. This looks like:
When it feels like the above, how can you make time bend with you? This is where you can imagine time as your little (or big) spoon while you experience the feelings and sensations that come up within your bodyāwhen clocks are not a priority and you allow yourself to be a measure of time. Notice that in the previous sentence I said āwhere you can imagine timeā not āwhen you can imagine timeāābecause I believe time has a location within us. As Burkeman said above āYet it turns out to be perilously easy to overinvest in this instrumental relationship to timeāto focus exclusively on where youāre headed, at the expense of focusing on where you areā (emphasis is mine). The visual below shows how you can allow time to help you focus on where you are.
Obviously it isnāt as easy as this when we have obligations and responsibilitiesāif it were easy, I wouldnāt be writing this. But if you consider this, even 10%, I believe that time doesnāt have to feel like itās the problem. Because the fact is, if you work against time, youāre working against your feelings. If you work against your feelings, they will catch up to you. They will show up when you least expectā¦and then time will feel like a thief again.
I know this all sounds very abstract, so here are some concrete ways I imagine making time my little (or big) spoon.
Sit somewhere comfortable and imagine a clockās second-hand slowing its pace to match your state. Maybe this is realllly slow, maybe itās just a little slower. Or maybe it has a totally different flavor. Maybe itās playing a song that goes with your mood.
Place your hand on your heart and feel your breath. Feel your feet grounded on the surface below you. Say to yourself: āMy pain is not a problem. Time is not a problem. I am not a problem. Time is my friend. Time is with me.ā
Lie down and literally imagine you being the big (or little) spoon to time. Imagine time as another sweet human or furry friend you cuddle with. Is it telling you that you are wasting it? Running out of it? That you canāt keep up with it? Or is it just hanging with you while you work with what your body is telling you?
Think of time in terms of how much you can do instead of how many minutes or hours a task takes. For example, walking to your nearest bus stop can take ādrinking half a cup of coffeeā or ātwo Donāt Stop Believināsā. This way if you get injured or sick or your capacity shifts for whatever reason, you can change your measure based on your joys and capacity rather than the standard measure of time.
Please let me know if you try any of these and how it went!
When I made time my little spoon the day after my purse was stolen, I did a few things I needed to do and then I sat with the opportunity of slowing down, listening to the heaviness in my body. It didnāt want me to speed up. This looked like sitting on my couch with my cats, having gratitude for the resources I had during this time, reflecting about how resources are inequitable, canceling a phone meeting I had scheduled, experiencing the joy of Fire Island, and allowing myself to not make this heaviness a problem.
Yes clocks are ticking, but priorities can shift when you no longer feel the need to pressure yourself, or allow others to pressure you. I always want to add a caveat that there is great privilege in doing this. Even beginning to think about this if you donāt know how to pay rent or put food on the table is a monumental task. This is why systems of oppression win because they donāt allow the most marginalized to care for themselves or to think of time differently. We are all capable of this until choices are taken away from us. Our nervous systems always want us to survive, and its clock is always at now-oāclock and not in a mindful type of way. This is why Iām so passionate about collective care. How can we, as a collective, do what we can to make life easier for those who donāt have access or capacity to make these choices?
One reason Iāve been considering time a lot lately is because I think itās deeply connected to our sense of worth. Our accomplishments and āsuccessā are, unfortunately, measured by time and meritocracy. The quicker youāre successful, the more amazing you are! Think about this the next time you see the 30 under 30 list (I was going to link this list, but nah.)
Our mortality can motivate us to do all the things while systems are shaped in a way that make that motivation a punishing force if we donāt do those things quickly enough or if someone else does it better or fasterā¦ahem hyper-individualistic competition.
And this is what I want to explore with you in my new four-month group mastermind called From Work to Worth. Time will just be one area we look at to reclaim our sense of worth and to look at work as regenerative and not just a way for capitalism to exploit us. We will also look at disability, nature, values, capacity, and money. I am elated about this program! It is a mix of group and one-on-one support. We start July 9!
Leave a comment if you have questions or comments about any and all of the above!
This is a public episode. If youād like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thehealinghype.com/subscribe
Hi everyone, so I would really really like to meet my goal of $500 to donate to Critical Resistance as well as mutual aid this month.
So I'm going to enter anyone new who signs up and invests in The Healing Hype in a giveaway to get a free 60 minute Human Design reading or a coaching session from me.
If you donate at the monthly rate of $5 a month you'll get one entry, and if you donate at $50, the annual rate, you'll get five entries.
So please do consider investing and I'm going to put the button below here, so if you're listening to this, head to the post to enter.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
This is a public episode. If youād like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thehealinghype.com/subscribe
It's June, and you'll probably be receiving all the rainbow everything from sales to coming out stories to hashtags and more.
Visibility matters and so does action. That's why I'm donating 100% of my June income from The Healing Hype to Critical Resistance, an organization that works to dismantle the prison industrial complex, as well as toward mutual aid requests from LGBTQIA2S+ folks. Iād love to raise $500 this month!
The Stonewall Riots were a response to police raids. And if we have seen anything this past week since the Uvalde mass shooting, we see how policing in this country is beyond problematic AND ineffective. I believe in abolishing the police. I believe in dismantling the prison industrial complex. So supporting this organization and these humans helps me steward my resources toward what matters to me.
If you invest in The Healing Hype, you get access to the following:
My private Slack community called The Sphere
Seasonal meetups
Nisha's Greatest Hits!
Private Slack Community
Anyone who has paid for The Healing Hype or has received 1:1 or group coaching from me is invited to my private Slack Group called The Sphere where we share healing resources, memes, gratitude, and more! It has felt like such a beautiful space for connection. I literally saw messages about how people have been able to take a step toward meeting a therapist because of the recommendations folks made in this space. There's also a private BIPOC channel.
Seasonal Meetups
Everyone in the Slack community is invited to Seasonal Meetups for community connection, to share what's happening with them in the present moment, and collective care. Each meetup will have a theme, and our first meetup, the Summer meetup, is this Sunday, 6/5! Since itās our first, it will be about introductions and openings.
Nisha's Greatest Hits!
Every now and then, I feel called to share ideas and connections that enter my head. When this happens, I audiorecord them and share it on The Healing Hype along with a transcript. I call these "Nisha's Greatest Hits!" because these ideas are intuitive hits I receive and share with you :)
Here are a few of Nishaās Greatest Hits! that are public.
Realizing your worth and the cycle of grief
Grief and birth are simultaneous processes
On Urgency: Whatās the desire behind the desire?
Want in? Subscribe below. Don't want in? Feel free to donate to Critical Resistance on your own!
This is a public episode. If youād like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thehealinghype.com/subscribe
Hi loves! Todayās mini hype is from my post āResponsibility as Liberationā.
Responsibility is autonomy as much as it is interdependent.
When I think about responsibility as freedom, I think about my role in relationships but not in a tit for tat way. I think about it in terms of interdependence and reciprocity. I think about it in terms of caring for others and caring for myself. What is my responsibility to my mind? Body? Soul? And how does that affect the collective?
In the wake of so much tragedy recently, how is this landing for you? What does responsibility feel like in your body? Is something in the way of you being able to feel it? What happens when you access it?
Let me know in the comments!
Also, did you know I have a new workshop coming up? Itās calledāHow to Be Your Own Care Bearā. Itās on Saturday, 6/11 from 11am-1pm PT/2pm-4pm ET, and it is as fun and cute as it sounds with a whole lot of softness as well.
This is a public episode. If youād like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thehealinghype.com/subscribe
Hi friends! I gave a keynote talk for an association on Friday, and I mentioned a quote from Tema Okunās White Supremacy Culture website in regards to the characteristic of āSense of Urgencyā. Several people either resonated with this or felt it was a huge takeaway.
In response to the fact that racial justice and equity is urgent, Okun writes:
White supremacy culture is not urgent about racial justice; white supremacy culture is urgent in the name of short-term power and profit. And white supremacy culture likes to engender a culture of urgency in those of us who are working to dismantle it because it knows that living with a constant sense that everything is urgent is a recipe for the abuse of power and burnout.Ā
(emphasis mine) I feel like this sums of the paradox we live in, that urgent matters like racial justice requires us to slow down and to address its very roots.
What do you think? What comes up for you?
This is a public episode. If youād like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thehealinghype.com/subscribe
I just finished the audiobook B*t Jobs: A Theory* by David Graeber (library), and there were so many great nuggets. I liked this one in particular:
āEveryday we wake up and collectively make a world together; but which one of us, left to our own devices, would ever decide they wanted to make a world like this one?ā
I let out a huge sigh when I heard this. Itās not the world I would make, yet here we are. When I think of the world Iād make, I see nature coalescing, neighbors sharing, and I see relationship to the land informing societal decisions.
When you picture the world youād like to make, what do you see? Comment below.
This is a public episode. If youād like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thehealinghype.com/subscribe
I pulled this quote from Self-abandonment, Capitalism, and You:
When self-abandonment is your default, sometimes you arenāt aware of any other way to be.
Your default response is a trauma response. People pleasing is survival. And assimilation is in the air you breathe.
How does this resonate for you?
This is a public episode. If youād like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thehealinghype.com/subscribe
Hi everyone! Lately, I havenāt been able to write as frequently here, so Iām introducing what I like to call āmini hypesā to post between my longer posts.
What are mini hypes?
I like to think of these as little remembrances.
I will share short quotes from previous pieces I have written, a snippet of something I read, a quote, a reminder to breathe, and other things along those lines.
Short, sweet, healing, and hype.
How hype are you about mini hypes?
š SO HYPE
š Regular Hype
š Not hype
Stay tuned!
This is a public episode. If youād like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thehealinghype.com/subscribe
A few weeks ago, someone in my Boundaries for BIPOC program asked a great question: āI make boundaries with my sons and partner (all men), but I just canāt hold or maintain them, why is that?ā
The following words and thoughts ran through my head: patriarchy, minimizing voice and values, freeze, people pleasing.
In that moment I thought of a Venn diagram of sorts I wanted to create that looked at socialization, the nervous system, and values as domains to investigate how we hold boundaries. After more thought, it turned into this series of images that I posted on Instagram in April 2022. And I thought Iād expand upon it more here on The Healing Hype.
First Iāll explain the four components of this framework and how they typically manifest. Then Iāll share another image to talk about how we can be empowered within this framework.
What affects your sense of self, boundaries, safety, and worth?
I decided against a using Venn diagram because I couldnāt really derive what would come at the intersections, AND I saw all of these concepts as deeply embedded within each other. The nesting circles made so much more sense because we cannot avoid systems or socialization. Even if we actively investigate them or take actions to challenge them, they are still there and affect us, especially when we might feel a threat, aka nervous system responses.
At first, I thought about socialization, nervous system responses, and values being the three components for this model. Then I started to discern systems from socialization. I believe systems end up socializing us from a universal lens of supremacy, yet they affect us differently based on identity, as well as our lived experience, especially if that experience includes (or excludes) adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). So this is why I also added systems as a fourth component because, while there is overlap, I see systems as global influences whereas socialization has more nuance.
Systems
Systems include capitalism, white supremacy, colonization, imperialism, meritocracy, heteronormativity, classism, patriarchy, ableism, religion, and healthcare. There are probably others, so feel free to add more in the comments. I thought to add education, but I felt meritocracy covered it.
No matter who you are, these systems play a role in your life. For example, you might notice a significant increase in refugees arriving in your city during a period of time. Or you could be part of the actual refugee family who is forced out of their home country due to imperialist-driven unrest. This eventually effects jobs, class, discrimination, housing, economics, etc.
The reason I included ableism as part of systems is because of its direct connection to capitalism. Productivity is often based upon our ability to produce and our efficiency. Increased productivity leads to more profit. In this world, having a disability or chronic illness, renders those who are unable to produce as much as less worthy humans. Systems assign value and worth to humans who are just as much part of this world as the grass outside your home or the birds you hear chirping in the morning. There is no āless thanā or ābetter thanā until we make it that way.
After reading Disability Visibility and Care Work, I more clearly see how concepts like ācrip timeā and creating possibility and ideas for all from a place of care can be so transformative. And yet, when systems do not cater to this (or when they cater to it in a neoliberal way), people who are less āproductiveā are deemed worthless. Moreso, who we are is based on doing rather than being.
Religion and healthcare can definitely fall under socialization. I find these systems, specifically at their intersection so pervasive in the development of many nationās norms - so much so that they are embedded in the ājusticeā system. When it becomes illegal to have an abortion, and this decision is something that is determined by the State, there are larger systemic forces at work. (I wrote this sentence two days before the leaked Supreme Court draft on Roe v. Wade. Reading it now gives me chills.) I added healthcare because, at least in the United States, healthcare access is so problematic that it is enmeshed in class and ability, limiting where someone can or cannot work or live.
When we talk about choice, values, and our nervous system, systems always have a role in shaping our baseline.
Socialization
Socialization is clearly affected by systems, yet it varies based on cultural background, geography, our role in our families, our personal identities, vocation, gender, or colorism. And, again, thereās overlap in here.
As shown in the image, the arrow start with systems pushing down to socialization, reinforcing these systems. As a Brown daughter of immigrants, I was the parentified mediator in my family and academic achievement was my top priority. The model minority myth lurched above me in subconscious and conscious ways, feeling like a failure if I got an A- (ahem, meritocracy). This myth has systemic origins, and it created a wedge between Asian Americans and Black folks.
Being a parentified perfectionist made me an expert people pleaser. Because if I wasnāt making others happy, did I even have any value? Did I belong? For me, the intersection of systems and socialization were crystal clear in my life. What about you?
Nervous System Responses
I talk and think about the nervous system A LOT. This is because after I learned about it, it was impossible to ignore. We have all heard of fight or flight, but it is often contextualized as an individual trait or response. When in reality, our nervous system responds to threats that are bigger than ourselves or our immediate environment. In fact, our bodies often response to perceived threats, signals that indicate to our nervous system (which doesnāt have eyes, nor does it know our age) there there is a *THREAT ***!
The next time we label someone who runs away from a social situation as āimmatureā or someone who gets into a fight as āviolentā, itās important to reframe this response from a trauma-informed lens. This doesnāt absolve someone of harm, bigotry, or responsibility, but it does help to explain how they are perceiving a threat, which can inform our response as well as larger systemic policy. Whether itās real or not (ahem, white folx being threatened by immigrants ātakingā their jobs and other BS), that response is true for them.
I define safety as āthe absence of threat and the presence of connectionā. (I wish I knew where I saw this definition so I could give the human appropriate credit, so if youāre out there and you see this, let me know!) I think safety is often just considered as āthe absence of threatā, so I love how acknowledging connection is also a reminder that human connection is necessary for humans to survive. We are not here to do everything on our own. We need each other.
So when forces like white supremacy and colonization disenfranchise BIPOC, when imperialism reinforces classism and economic inequality, when healthcare systems make people jump through hoops to get basic care, especially in some countries more than others, human survival is threatened. And as I explained in one of my very early posts, intergenerational trauma passes these survival and trauma responses to future generations. This image below by therapist Ayan Mukherjee, is a perfect illustration of how systems and socialization inform nervous system responses.
So considering the framework I illustrated, the forces pushing down from systems, socialization, and nervous system responses can literally take over our bodies. These forces, especially if you are marginalized, minimize your worth and, subsequently, your values. OR they might be so strong that you adjust your values to what is dominant. OR your value system aligns with values embedded in dominant systems. One way or another, these forces influence the values we choose to live our life by.
Values
If you have worked with me before, you know how much I valueā¦values. I also see values as offshoots of our inherent worth. Our worth exists because we exist in this world. And our values are an embodiment of our personal experiences, which are formed by systems, socialization, our nervous system, as well as our personality.
I like to talk about my values of curiosity & humility, vulnerability, compassion, connection, unlearning, and liberation because they are incredibly influenced by my lived experience AND my own Nisha-ness. When I have my clients determine their values, I often ask them to think of a story from when they were younger, or even recently, that exemplifies why a specific value is important to them. Without fail, they always have at least a couple stories to share for each value, if not more. And Iāve noticed how these stories always include a components of their socialization based on race, gender, sexuality, income level, ability, ACEs, etc.
Hereās the thing, sometimes our values feel so small, crushed by the weight of the world around us. Yet, they are also what sustain us. I think this is beautiful. Iām not trying to romanticize oppression and inequity, but what the world offers us is also what we respond to. Itās a sort of reciprocal response of our humanity and our relationship with the elements around us.
And this is why, I continue this framework to show how we can use our values to express our worth and impact the world. Yes it will be uncomfortable, and yes, change is possible because our worth and values are powerful beyond measure.
Embody your values, impact the world
Impacting the world, changing the world, and subverting systems doesnāt happen overnight and it doesnāt happen alone. This is something that will take generations. It will take solidarity, empowerment, community, care, and imagination.
This doesnāt mean we shouldnāt try. It means we are all capable of planting seeds. Like most plants, they take time to cultivate, tend to, and witness. And values can serve as the seed. These seeds are planted by your hands, which represent your inner worth. They sprout into stems and leaves and blossoms from the intention and care you plant themāand they are rooted for generations to tend to as well.
As you can see, the difference between this image and the one earlier is that the arrow starts with values and points out toward nervous system responses, socialization, and systems.
First of all, do you know your values? Oftentimes we have values that are driving us, but we might not know what they are. Or we express them inconsistently. I would say that I grew up with the value of equality. I wanted everyone to have a fair chance and be equal. This was a result of me seeing inequality, being indoctrinated into post-racial America after learning about MLK and Rosa Parks, seeing other people suffer, as well as being teased by white kids throughout my school years. It made me have strong feelings about inequality, but I didnāt understand a lot of nuance from a sociopolitical perspective.
For me, my value of equality subconsciously shifted to equity, and, is now liberation. This, too, might change. This shift occurred because I was exposed to more information in the form of political and economic ideology and witnessing and listening to other peopleās experiencesāespecially identities and populations I was never exposed to when I was younger.
Since Iām now much more aware and conscious of my values, I do my best to embed them in the way I move through the world. I think about them as the foundation of my offerings and creations. For example, when I started my podcast MigrAsians, which focused on the stories of creative and political Asians, I made sure that all of the creative work including the cover art, music, and editing, was done by other Asians. This was a more specific value for the podcast. As a coach, I do my best to come from a place of curiosity & humility (watch this video to learn why I pair these together as one value). I am not the person who knows all the answers. In fact, I know much less than my client does. My job is to ask questions and reflect from a place of curiosity & humility as well as share about my own life (vulnerability) while having compassion for my clientās story, identity, and intergenerational trauma. To me, it is very clear how my values are reflected in my life, play, and work.
What are your values? How do you reflect them in your life, play, and work?
When you start with your values and are committed to them, you are committed to what matters to you most. And this impacts how you perceive your nervous system responses and the feelings that come with it. Your anger or fight response shifts from feeling āout of controlā to feeling righteous. If someone makes a racist or sexist remark and you freeze, you might try to resource yourself instead of wondering whatās āwrongā with you. Or you can pause to remind yourself that the person or place isnāt a true threat, and your response is something that has been learned due to oppressive systems and socialization.
I think itās also important to get to know your nervous system and be with your nervous system so you have a better idea about your triggers and glimmers. I always recommend the book Polyvagal Theory in Therapy as well as My Grandmotherās Hands to learn about the nervous system from a systemic, embodied, and neurological perspective.
When I talk about being intentional with your values and your nervous system, Iām talking about healing being a return to yourself. And grounding in yourself and your truth is a form of de-socialization plus re-socialization. What radiates out will have an impact in your social circles. As a result, your socialization becomes a resource rather than a burden. For example, when you have a strong sense of your commitments, you create firm boundaries that may shift who you choose to be around or ask for help. This co-regulation is magic for the nervous system and puts you in a centered place to contend with your socialization.
And, dare I say it, I believe this has the power to challenge, shift, and subvert systems as they are. It wonāt happen tomorrow, or the day after that, or likely in some of our lifetimes. There will be resistance and there will be growth, pruning, and tending. I truly believe that the seeds we plant can grow into new creations, new legacies, and new ways of relating to the world.
In the end
This framework helped me to connect and contextualize systems with our personal values through a compassionate lens of safety. I hope it also helped you. If thereās one thing weāve seen this past week, we cannot ignore how systems make decisions that clash with our values, collapse our nervous systems, and make us question our worth. They have the ability to directly harm peopleās health and well-beingā¦or with solidarity, imagination, and practice, the tides can turn.
Iād love to hear your thoughts, so please leave a comment.
If you want to support reproductive justice directly, you can find more resources here: https://tinyurl.com/AbortionResourceKit
This is a public episode. If youād like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thehealinghype.com/subscribe
Iāve been sharing the following in different spaces today, so I thought to share it here too. While the question at the end is somewhat rhetorical, I also mean it literally. Iād love to hear your answer.
As I approach my dadās 10 year death anniversary, which coincides with me being in my 40s, I canāt help but think about how, while he didnāt show much emotion, he truly did what he could. Was it āenoughā? Maybe it wasnāt enough for me, but I feel like it was enough for him. And I canāt really argue with that.
I think thatās what was within his capacity after leaving his home and family (some estranged), getting married, moving to a new country, bouncing from job to job, finding a stable career with benefits in a nice suburb, buying a home where everyone had their own room, and building a sense security and financial stability so his family didnāt have to be in survival mode like he did growing up. I canāt know this for sure, but I feel like this took so much of his capacity and it was enough for him. Did I still feel trapped in that house and life while I was growing up? Definitely. Did he show up for us? Definitely.
When we say āPeople are doing the best they canā, we are also allowed to think āPeople can do betterā AND we can think of ways that ābetterā can look in our own lives so we can explore this and show up.
How can ābetterā show up in our values, relationships, and choices? How can ābetterā look with our emotional, mental, and physical health? How can ābetterā be meeting ourselves where we are at NOW so we can work with what we have? How can ābetterā be saying āI think this is enough for meā?
We cannot impose ābetterā on someone else, this has to be their choice and their will. But we can show up for ourselves and others in ways that exude what it means for us, while being a witness for them. This is collective care.
Have you ever just wished someone could do ābetterā? I definitely have. This is why I do my best (while allowing myself grace) to examine how systems of supremacy, socialization, intergenerational trauma, and lived experience have manifested within me - I get to look at how they show up in my anxieties, fears, joys, habits, pleasure, and pain. This is how I can show up, know my capacity, and decide whatās ābetterā for me.
How about you?
Iād love to hear your answer in the comments. And, if youāre BIPOC, Iād love to invite you to BIPOC in Bloom: Rooted, a seasonal series led by four BIPOC facilitators about ways BIPOC can bloom for the collective. In our spring series, we are hosting four workshops, lead by each of us, about ancestry, language, values, beliefs, and the land. This is for you if you find yourself wanting to connect and be in relationship with your ancestors, as well as with yourself, from a decolonial lens. Get tickets here.
This is a public episode. If youād like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thehealinghype.com/subscribe
I have exciting news to share: You can now read The Healing Hype in the new Substack app for iPhone.
With the app, youāll have a dedicated Inbox for my Substack and any others you subscribe to. New posts will never get lost in your email filters, or stuck in spam. Longer posts will never get cut-off by your email app. Comments and rich media will all work seamlessly. Overall, itās a big upgrade to the reading experience. This automatically turns off email notifications, so if youād like to also receive my posts by email, update the settings in the app.
The Substack app is currently available for iOS. If you donāt have an Apple device, you can join the Android waitlist here.
When I was in college, I did an independent study about emotional intelligence. Not only was I an academic overachiever who prided intellect, knowledge, and curiosity, I was also very interested in the ways we know our emotions. Looking back, I can see how much of this was influenced by being a parentified child, a counselor to my friends, and someone who loved to dole out advice. In many ways, none of this has changed, yet so much has changed.
After college, I learned about the terms empath and empathy, and it all made so much sense. I saw myself as someone who was able to be present for all the people in my life because I had these empathic skills, or at least I thought I did. What I hadnāt realized is that these āskillsā allowed me to take a lotta s**t from people, most notably my mom and the person I would marry. This all led me to two recent realizations.
Empathy with boundaries also shows empathy toward ourselves.
Empathy that leads to emotional avoidance is not emotional intelligence.
ADictionary of Psychology defines emotional intelligence as:
āThe ability to perceive, use, understand, manage, and handle emotions. People with high emotional intelligence can recognize their own emotions and those of others, use emotional information to guide thinking and behavior, discern between different feelings and label them appropriately, and adjust emotions to adapt to environments.ā
As Iāve been exploring what it feels like to feel my feelings in the past couple of years, while often emphasizing the importance of doing so to my clients, friends, and anyone who will listen, Iāve wondered if and where āfeeling your feelingsā belongs in emotional intelligence. According to the definition above, I would say that it qualifies under āperceiveā, āunderstandā, and āhandleā emotions as well as āuse emotional informationā. However, in our Western world, this is often in the context of knowing rather than embodying.
Recently, a friend told me how their partner expressed increased anxiety in the workplace to their boss, only to be met with a response that they should āhave more emotional intelligenceā and suck it up. Both of them were men. To me, this is emotional avoidance (plus just being a shitty boss), not emotional intelligence. And emotional avoidance is a hallmark of patriarchy and colonial ways of being. Is it a surprise that there are stereotypes about British people being emotionally repressed?
All of this made me wonder how āunderstandingā emotions from an intellectual perspective and āhandlingā emotions from an avoidant level is not actually that intelligent. The intelligence of emotions live, first, in the body. I love using tools like the Feelings Wheel to help folks identify their feelings. And with this tool, I ask them to move toward how the feelings they identify feel in their body - because until we truly feel our feelings, what exactly are we handling? And what do we make it mean? We might name that we are anxious, disappointed, or numb - but does that mean we are broken? That people wonāt want us around? Or that we are human beings living in oppressive structures that activate emotions that are asking us to listen? If we stick with strict intellectual information, we can often get stuck in ways this information is heavily influenced by a capitalistic, colonial, patriarchal, and white supremacist world.
This is not to say that people do not incorporate physically feeling their feelings with emotional intelligence, but I havenāt really seen that as part of the conversation. When I worked as a librarian, everything was about external knowledge, and while this has its place, traditional knowledge ignores what the body knows. I bring this up to consider the ways we might connect, or maybe disconnect, emotions and knowledge in the form of āemotional intelligenceā, essentially avoiding how the physical sensations in our bodies are a sort of library in and of themselves, asking us to check them out š
This has all made me wonder how my project on emotional intelligence and my relationship choicesāromantic, family, and friendshipsābuttressed my emotional avoidance. Growing up as the mediator in my family, I held a lot of other peopleās emotions in my body like I was velcro. And in order to hold them, I responded by being rational and stoic because it felt like everyone needed me to be manager. In my first job out of college I was even complimented on how I could handle a bossā emotional tantrums. I was told that it made me great for the job! If I took the time to create emotional boundaries based on knowing that my feelings also needed space to be felt and expressed, I wonder how that would have shifted my role in my family and other relationships.
While Iāve always tried to be empathic, Iāve had to reframe what this means for my own emotional health. Am I absorbing or am I observing? Am I velcro or am I a window? It can be very challenging to show up for others while showing up for myself, and vice versa. So Iāve intentionally created a practice to dig deeper into my feelings.
For me, this practice includes the following:
- Sitting with my feelings
Placing my hand on my heart and feeling the physical sensations of my feelings without judgment
Listening to my meditation about sitting with my feelings
Asking my feelings what they want me to know and what theyāre protecting me from
Discerning the stories I associate with certain feelings
Imagining the physical features, sounds, and movements of my feelings through visualization or drawing
Journaling about my feelings
Being honest with others about how I feel - sometimes I do this when I feel completely safe with others and sometimes I take a risk and do it anyway
Punching or screaming into a pillow
Being with āconflictingā feelings
Putting on a song that makes me cry
- Asking for help
Expressing my emotions to someone who is safe (and asking for consent first)
Finding a supportive therapist and/or coach
Getting reiki, massage, or another modality that moves around emotional energy
- Creating boundaries
Saying ānoā or ācan we talk about this later?ā when someone reaches out for emotional support and Iām not available
Examining and reconsidering relationships where I donāt feel reciprocity
Finding ways to communicate that allow myself space to process or wait to respond (text, email, etc)
Feel free to add other practices that have supported you in the comments!
I put āconflictingā in quotes above because we often see feelings as binaries: happy and sad, pain and pleasure, etc. The fact is we can feel many feelings at once even if they seem opposing. I believe that part of emotional intelligence is (1) knowing that feelings coalesce and co-exist (2) accepting this coexistence, and (3) sitting with this discomfort. This allows for humility, nuance, and expansion.
By keeping emotions in an intellectual and rational box, we might be avoiding the very messages they want us to know. Messages like āI want to feel safeā, āI donāt think I belongā, āIām not worthyā. Safety, belonging, and dignity āare inherent needs in human beingsā according to Staci K. Haines in The Politics of Trauma(affiliate link). Our body wants us to survive, yet we often avoid the conversation it initiates with us through complete avoidance and/or intellectualization. When a loved one approaches us with an emotional dilemma, is it more supportive to change the subject, rationalize their feelings, or be present for whatever comes up? In my experience, saying āIām hereā ends up being the most beautiful way to relate to them through my presence.
The thing is, we can be present for ourselves, too. Yet we often forget this while we are busy navigating a pandemic and the many other things the world throws at us along with the happenings in our personal and professional lives. So give yourself grace. I didnāt write this for you to judge yourself for not feeling your feelings. In fact, I hope itās the opposite. Because once we stop judging ourselves and our feelings while we make space to feel them, emotional intelligence can carry new meanings that shift personal and collective relationships in ways we have yet to see.
Thanks for being here.
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Happy 2022 my friendsā¦or has it been? For me, it has been exhausting navigating the sudden flipping science to the changes in COVID protocols, the high transmissibility of Omicron, and the continuous erasure of chronically ill and disabled folks as part of the narrative. Yet, or perhaps āandā, all of this leads me to thinking about joy. Because through all this, I have still felt joy.
I recently finished reading Disability Visibility edited by Alice Wong. (Please read this, especially if youāre able-bodied. Disabled folks work tirelessly to advocate for themselves, and they are typically erased in the process.) This book made me rethink responsibility, accountability, and my commitments - concepts I believe are liberatory. This book of essays from a wide variety of intersections of disability, race, gender, and sexuality not only addresses disability erasure and lack of access, it includes commentaries that discuss what joy looks like for disabled folks. One essay expresses the joys of someone unable to communicate āI love youā to their partner but still feeling the love between them in all the ways. Another narrates an astronomer losing vision, no longer able to see stars but discovering a way to hear them - they describe the challenges AND wonder of this transition. I also recently read What Doesnāt Kill You by Tessa Miller, her memoir of living with Crohnās disease, where, at the end, she interviews folks who have chronic illness and asks them what brings them joy, even on their hardest days fighting an oppressive healthcare system.
And, as you may remember, I ran a challenge for December called 30 Days of Joy where people shared their joy for 30 days - what I loved most about this were the ordinary joys people found: seeing a bird, taking a walk, looking at flowers, petting a furry friend. And it made me think about how even in COVID times, joy exists.
I recently listened to Luis Mojicaās interview with Meenadchi āNon-Violent Communication Through The Somatic Lensā on his podcast Holistic Life Navigation. Here, Meenadchi talks about joy being āa very expansive experience that can hold all emotions, I think of joyā¦as likeā¦a sense of bliss that doesnāt bypass life, it allows for all experiences.ā This description of joy BLEW. ME. AWAY.
Joy doesnāt bypass life? What a beautiful, holistic concept! Hearing this swept me to flashbacks of memories: driving around with my unemotional father, not saying a word to each other; a moment of laughter with my abusive ex-husband; the moment my father died; asking for a divorce.
While Iāve written about losing my father and my abusive marriage, I hope to also show everyone the JOY in both of these experiencesāthis might sound hypocritical or dismissive but hear me out.
Every time I donāt untie my shoelaces, I think of my dad who would get annoyed that Iād just forcefully stuff my feet in my shoes. JOY. I can feel so sad about how I never felt like I knew him AND I can laugh each time I put my shoes on (and I do!).
On a trip to New York City where my then husband yelled at me at a brunch spot in front of my best friend, we also had a blast singing and dancing with other friends on a different night. JOY. You might ask, how can I say that when he was abusive? Because I wouldnāt have stayed with him if there wasnāt joy. I cannot deny the joy I experienced being with him as much as I donāt deny the trauma and abuse. It does not excuse it, it simply observes it.
After listening to this episode, the first thought I had was: āmaybe we can reframe resilience and connect it with joy.ā Last year, I wrote an essay about how we canāt talk about resilience without talking about trauma. So often the narrative of resilience mirrors that of defying all odds and āwinningā at life, inadvertently shaming those who canāt meet those expectations. This completely dismisses those who, often due to systemic oppression and violence, donāt fit that āwinningā mold. And this is why I am even more enamored with joyājoy doesnāt ask you to win, it asks you to remember. It says, āThings were hard and things were beautiful, sometimes at the same time.ā
I donāt want to block out the times I wished my dad offered me more emotion or the eight years I was partnered with my ex-husband because these experiences gave me so much: I cultivated friendships, musical tastes, memorable evenings, emotional intelligence, and silent understandings that live in my heart forever.
I credit my ex-husband for helping me become a parallel parking queen, introducing me to incredible humans I still speak to today, and sharing musical concepts I never would have discovered on my own. When I think of these things I smile and Iām proud.
I credit my dad for teaching me to ride a bike, making sure I was financially literate, and fixing the exposed light switch that sliced my hand in our laundry room. These all came out of love, the way he best knew how to show me.
The fact is, if you look closely, joy is usually part of the story. Now I understand how access to this joy holds compassion for the people who didnāt give me what I needed. To me, this joy is whole and nuanced and complex and painful, just like life.
Because, letās be real, thereās no āwinningā at life. A healthy long-term relationship, perfect health, or massive wealth do not define anything except for how society benefits these statuses and, as a result, what we make them to mean.
Joy transcends colonization, patriarchy, the military industrial complex, voter suppression, neoliberalism, and worker exploitation. Joy transcends the resulting intergenerational trauma from all of this. Joy is certainly not an antidote to these issues, as Angela Davisā book Freedom is a Constant Struggle reminds us. But we can remember joy in a way that doesnāt bypass the very reason we strive for healing and liberation, the very reason we fight.
We move through this life WITH the pain we experienceānot instead of it, not in spite of it, not forgetting it. This pain transmutes as time passes, as we heal, as we grow, and as we forgive ourselves. Radical joy is the resilience that honors our full and messy stories, especially the stories of those who are silenced, erased, and marginalized.
How can you reframe joy and resilience for yourself or your community today?
*Book links are affiliate links to my Bookshop.org page
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This is the LAST public Nishaās Greatest Hits! of 2021. Upgrade your subscription to hear more in 2022.
So I've been thinking about how time and urgency and the structures that are created around them like capitalism, white supremacy, holidays, the calendar, all of these structures that are around that, influence our desires. So I had desires for how I wanted my January to look in terms of things I wanted to offer and how I wanted to work or what my schedule would be like. And then I started doing some stuff. I started doing Human Design readings, and I realized that I want to invest more time in that. So that's gonna shift my āurgencyā, right? And I realized that what my desire is has a desire behind it. So what's my desire behind my desire? If my desire is to get this thing out by January, like, whatever that might beā¦Why do I want to? Whatās the desire behind that? Because ultimately, when I start getting in process with something, I start seeing that oh, okay, well, when I'm in this process, I'm starting to look at this timeline a lot differently. So I don't think that there is anything right or wrong necessarily about saying like, āOh, I have to do this like then.ā I think it's more about discernment for when that timeline shifts, and how we might shame ourselves for when that timeline shifts, as opposed to just saying, āOh, hey, you know what, this works for me better.ā So I just wanted to talk about that because I think urgency really affects our nervous systems and really affects how we communicate with other people, how we project our urgency and our stress and anxiety on other people and how we also shame ourselves for a certain sense of urgency. So I think it would be really helpful for everyone ever to just reconsider this and think about the ways that we are, you know, imagining what we feel is urgent and what is the desire behind that urgency? What is the desire behind that desire to do something in a certain way? So that's all I got. This is the last public Nishaās Greatest Hits of 2021. If you want you can subscribe to become a paying member and hear Nishaās Greatest Hits, and support me and also join my private Voxer group. Thanks all.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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Hi everyone! I hope youāre staying safe as the year winds down. I know there is a lot of anxiety because of the ongoing uncertainty about the Omicron variant, and it really sux. I hope you have people you can reach out to, ways to find pleasure, and care for yourself ā£ļø
I have 3 quick reminders about The Healing Hype:
You can add The Healing Hype to your favorite podcast player (except Spotify, sorry).
Nishaās Greatest Hits! will become part of the paid subscription starting January 1.
If you want to chat more about healing + liberation, you can join my private messaging group on Voxer to hang out with me and others!
- Add The Healing Hype to your podcast player.
In order to add The Healing Hype to your podcast player, click āListen in podcast appā underneath the audio player within the post, as I screenshot and circled below. The platform will email you a link, and you can add it to Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Pocket Casts, Downcast, Castro, or Radio Public automatically, or manually add the RSS feed. Unfortunately, this is not yet supported by Spotify.
- Listen to Nishaās Greatest Hits!
Nishaās Greatest Hits! are my intuitive hits that I donāt quite want to make into a full post, where I apply the abstract to my own reality, and I dictate and transcribe it for you! These are short and sweet - at least I think so haha. Become a paying subscriber ($5/month, $50/year) to get access. Here are the ones Iāve done for free so far:
Realizing your worth and the cycle of grief
Grief and birth are simultaneous processes
Being recognized in order to be received vs expressing yourself
Emotional insecurity, perfection, and process
Hey Monday - or - Time is a cycle
Are we driven internally or externally to accomplish?
- Chat with me on Voxer!
Okay, I know this might seem a little intimidating or like not intriguing if youāre introverted, and thatās fine! Thereās no pressure here. Iāve really loved the conversations Iāve had on here so far ranging from teaching to bell hooks to celebrating the small things. Itās a great way to connect and release! Subscribe to get access. If youāre a paid member, hereās the post with instructions to join.
Thanks all! Sending you my best.
With love,
Nisha
This is a public episode. If youād like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thehealinghype.com/subscribe
Hello beautiful humans! I hope your weekend was lovely whether you were celebrating, grieving, or just being - or all of it!
With news of all the things, I think itās important to ground ourselves whenever we can. Iād love for you to join me tomorrow, Tuesday, December 28 at 4pm PST/7pm EST for a free JOURNAL HAAAANG. These are guided, themed, journaling sessions that I host every few months.
Tomorrowās theme is 2021 Reflections. Want to join? Sign up to get login information here.
Hope to see you tomorrow <3
Warmly,
Nisha
This is a public episode. If youād like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thehealinghype.com/subscribe
So the other day I asked my Twitter audience and my Instagram audience, if they felt more joy while they were in the process of doing something or after they accomplished and it was interesting that my Instagram audience actually felt more joy by accomplishing something. I also, by the way, added an option for both that you feel joy from both. So that really got me thinking about accomplishments and reaching a goal and finishing something, completion, which by the way, I also think that being in process can feel like an accomplishment. But that's neither here nor there. What I was also asking folks was, are you more driven internally to accomplish something or externally? Now I realize this is kind of a trick question because we are so driven as human beings by our subconscious, and our subconscious takes in everything from the outside. So even if we think we're driven internally, it might be because of what's happened in our lives. Whether it's external pressure, whether it's reacting to external pressure by internalizing it or reacting to it, because we don't want to internalize it because we know how problematic it might be or how harmful it could be for us. So I just wanted to put that out there. That we can think that we have internal pressure or drive to accomplish something that I honestly wonder if we really ever know.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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There have been numerous, beautiful in memoriams for bell hooks. I, like so many others, was transformed by how she described love in All About Love. I also read Feminism is for Everybody. I have so many more words of hers to read, and Iām so glad I can. A legacy of love and feminism and interdependence.
While I never read Teaching to Transgress, I started it, only to be sidetracked by grad school reading. However, I did devour Paolo Freireās Pedagogy of the Oppressed, who hooks cites on the dedication page for Teaching to Transgress:
" ... to begin always anew, to make, to reconstruct, and to not spoil, to refuse to bureaucratize the mind, to understand and to live life as a processālive to become ... " -Paulo Freire
Iāve often felt like I was educator adjacent. I worked as a speech-language pathologist in a couple of school systems. I worked as a librarian, doing instruction in higher education. While I was an educator, it wasnāt in the ātraditionalā sense, and that is even more reason why bell hooksā work felt like home to me.
When I read what she wrote, even if it was a quote, that adjacency diminished. I felt loved for how I wanted to teach, how I wanted to bring people together, how I wanted to pay attention to the humanity in an educational settingā¦and outside of it.
And thatās what I loved about bell hooks, how love and teaching were in the same sentence, the same curriculum. As tweets poured out the day she died, full of quotes from her many books, I saw two common themes: love and teaching. While, for some, combining these concepts makes sense, colonization has taught us otherwise. And, the bureaucracy of educational systems embody this colonization, even if they intend to embody love. After all, impact always overrides intent. When love and teaching are together, students are less intimidated to ask for help. Educators learn from students as much as students learn from them. Itās a cycle, a circle, itās reciprocity.
When I found out bell hooks died last week, I was in a brunch spot in Joshua Tree. I was floored and held back tears, thinking of how I read All About Love right after my divorce. Perhaps this sounds clichĆ©, but this book was an opening for me. She depicted love in expansive ways I hadnāt thought about. It was raw, interdependent, beautiful, and not a fairy tale - which I needed to read. I may have known this intellectually, but she helped me to begin embodying how love could be available for me and how I could be available for it.
I remember how she wrote about a relationship that felt so perfect for her, but the other individual wasnāt available. This broke my heart, yet, the way she spoke about it was full of hope and gratitude for what it was. Acceptance. This was radical for me to read after being in a codependent, abusive relationship. Though, Iāve never regretted my marriage because, to regret it, would be to deny who I was coming into it and my becoming after it. And reading All About Love helped me see beyond the shame society wants to cast on divorce, as if marriage was a destination, a completion, a settling. In fact, relationships, marital or not, are usually the opposite - they are a point in your journey, and they can often be unsettling in ways that can be regenerative or degenerative or both. Either way, relationships reveal to us who we are, whether we want to know it or not.
When I commented to my boyfriend how I couldnāt understand how she died so young, 69, the same age as my dadās early death which has its own jarring parallel, he said, āWell she carried the weight of the world on her shoulders.ā Indeed, Black women usually do, as we cannot forget.
So I will not forget, and Iām grateful her legacy of words, honesty, and the love she exchanged with so many of us, whether she knew it or not, remains.
Thank you, bell hooks, for opening my eyes, for your warmth, for leading me to love in ways that defied the rom-com fairy tale my subconscious yearned for. My life is so much better for it.
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Todayās Nishaās Greatest Hits is a little different. I'm actually just dictating what I wrote in my journal this morning on December 13, 2021.
And so it is Monday as the cycle goes, where we revisit the week again, but different this time. I wonder what might change in our actions if we looked at the weeks and months and calendar as a cycle? Cuz it is, instead of a linear timeline, as we see as a chronology. Would we say, āhey, Monday, it's you againā, instead of wondering how it came back? As this yearly cycle soon comes to an end, I think of this on a larger scale. What does it really mean that time actually moves faster as we get older when we see things as a cycle as opposed to feeling like time is running out?
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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Hey there! So Iāve been doing something SUPER FUN lately. It combines sharing my voice AND connecting with others - literally my two favorite things.
In the past few months, I provided a private Voxer group for the folks who joined my Boundaries for BIPOC container. AND I started a free Voxer group for people to share their daily joys for 30 days!
Okay, let me slow down for a secondā¦whatās Voxer? Voxer is a messaging app where you can send walkie-talkie like voice notes, messages, gifs, and photos - and you donāt have to share your phone number.
These Voxer groups have been giving me so much life with the interaction, care, resources, and HYPE people share even though most of them donāt even know each other - and you know how I love that connection š
Buuuuutā¦.the sad news is that Boundaries for BIPOC just ended and the 30 days of Joy will end at the end of December.
But alas, I thought of an idea š” Why donāt I have a Voxer group for those who pay for The Healing Hype?!?!
In this group, we can chat about whatever I post, offer resources, community care, and just have fun! This way the community care I write about also manifests for us. This is so beautiful to me. My highest intention is for this to be a supportive space where we can see the power of the collective!
So if youāre interested in being a part of this, subscribe so I can add you to the group. And remember, by subscribing, youāll also get access to Nishaās Greatest Hits!
After you subscribe check out this post to learn how to join the Voxer group.
Hope to see you there!
Love,
Nisha
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I've been thinking a lot about how I have, since I quit my job at the end of July, been trying to think of like the perfect program that I can do with a group, the perfect one on one coaching format, the perfect everything and I mean, the funny thing is not only is perfectionism a characteristic of white supremacy culture, it is completely out of alignment with my principles of, you know, thinking about process over product and not trying to find the answer all the time. Something I used to say to people when I was working as a librarian is that, you know, people think that librarians find you the answer, but really what they do is they help you find other questions. There's more unknowns than there are knowns. And it's interesting when I'm in this position where I have to honestly basically be an entrepreneur, figure out how I'm going to have consistent income going forward. Some of that stuff goes out the window because I'm just in fight or flight at times, even though I have a large sense of security. My mind still goes there, not for the financial security, but for the emotional security of saying, I need to have this controlled because you know, when I have a nine to five, I'm getting my paycheck. I have health insurance, like everything is like set in that sense and while I'm perfectly fine, not having that security, it suddenly feels like then what other security is there, like I have to have the emotional security to feel like I have a sense of control if I can't have the other one. So yeah, that's what I'm thinking right now on this Friday night. About how when I sense that my mind is spinning and spinning and spinning, thinking about the ārightā thing to do -it's actually not so much about that. It's more about the control and what that does for me emotionally and how that is also a persistent pattern that I've had in my life and many of us have to be honest, to repeat patterns from before in order to have a sense of control and the funniest part of all of this is that a huge lesson that I have from these past few months of working on my own is, everything is in the process. I've tried certain one on one formats, I know what works and doesn't work. So I'm going to switch it up and try and see what happens. I did a group program - now I'm going to switch it up and see what happens. And it's going to be a process of constant iteration. And it's something that I can easily tell myself now and tell you all now and I could easily go into a workshop and tell people but what when I get into that emotional insecurity, all of that goes out the window. You know, so, yeah, this is very much nervous system regulation, and very much you know, repeating patterns and our subconscious creeping up on us. Most of our behavior is based on the subconscious and when you have that awareness, it's easier to disrupt it. So yeah, that's what I have for you all for Nishaās Greatest Hits!
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
This is a public episode. If youād like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thehealinghype.com/subscribe
The other day, my dear friend and amazing writer Kelly Green sent me a Marco Polo. She said a smattering of things like āIām just sitting here obsessing over my facial agingā, āmy jowls are fallingā, āI was googling what happens in a face lift, how much does it cost?ā - and then a deeper sentiment emerged: āI feel like Iāve missed a boat of honoring the things I know about myself in the way I intended to while I was aliveā. She went on to talk about how wants to try comedy but doesnāt and how she doesnāt push her writing as much she wants to.
This idea of āmissing the boatā really stuck out to me. Missing the boat is a fear so many of us have, especially as we get older. Have we lost our youthful value? Do we have the will to keep trying? What if all that was meant for us is a thing of the past?
As my dear friend continued to elaborate, a thought jumped into my head ready to proclaim itself: āYou didnāt miss the boat. YOU ARE THE BOAT.ā
What is the boat?
The idiom of āmissing the boatā has its origin from the 18th century of quite literally being late for a scheduled trip via boat. This turned into the saying we all know meaning missing out on an opportunity. And while, yes, there are so many opportunities out there, why donāt we consider ourselves an opportunity?
Bootstraps and hustle culture asks us to keep seeking and obtaining the best opportunities for us to feel successful. Whether thatās writing a book or climbing up the corporate ladder or starting your own business - we seek out opportunities that help us get there. And yes, external opportunities can facilitate our direction. BUT, we forget to remember that we guide it. We donāt want to miss the boat because we believe the boat holds our enoughness.
When you are the boat, you are the one who is guiding your life. You donāt seek out that enoughness, YOU ARE THAT ENOUGHNESS. Yes, you are subject to things outside your control like the weather, which can be likened to the effects of systemic oppression and inequity. Your boat might have some dents which can be likened to personal experiences and wounds. Other boats might cut off your route OR help you get somewhere faster. Your boat is unique because you are unique.
How is your boat uniquely you?
Think about the following:
What is your boat made from?
Who built your boat? Who contributed to its appearance and shape?
Where did it come from? What is the history of that place?
Where has your boat gone (metaphorically and physically)? What were/are the effects from these places?
What are your boatās gifts?
Where is your boat in pain?
What brings your boat pleasure?
How does your boat deal with challenges?
This self-inquiry allows you to step outside of yourself to take a look at the beautiful imperfect boat YOU navigate. And your boat gets to do so much. It gets to ask for help. It gets to visit different places. It gets to rest. It gets to repair. It gets to be accountable.
Instead of wondering about missing the boat, what if we think about the pain we havenāt been allowing ourselves to feel? What about expressing your gifts? Basking in pleasure? Learning new ways to ground and navigate yourself? Accepting what you cannot change alone? Imagining the power of collective change?
Waves come upon us all. Again, this is out of our control. But we have choices in our boat, more than we might realize. We have tools ready for us to utilize, but sometimes we have to go to the depths of our boat to find them. It may have been scary down there because someone told us to stuff everything deep inside of us and to forget about it. So you might avoid it completely. But you canāt avoid yourself forever. The thing is, the more we grasp for and use these tools, the safer we will feel and the more we can empower ourselves with them. The more this empowers others as well. Because we are better together, not only in isolation.
The more we get to know ourselves, wounds and all, the more we learn what we need AND want. We see that the path we have taken has influenced othersā paths. Your boat has left a mark wherever it has gone.
When you continue to tend to your boat and allow it to raise its voice, you better understand which island to hop off and which to skip, which body of water to avoid because it will overwhelm you, and how to shift your sails or change speed when the wind wants to push you in a different direction.
This is intuition, inner knowing, authenticity - all of it.
The story of Nishaās boat
The question I perpetually sought the answer to while growing up was āWhat do you want to be when you grow up?ā My dad was an engineer and loved being an engineer. My brother knew he wanted to be an engineer since before he was a teenager. And my mom, while she didnāt always actively work as one, was an artist. Her art resonated from what she wore, how she decorated our home, in her cooking, and more.
Then there was me. The confused one who couldnāt figure it out.
When I was going to college, I obsessed over the course catalog and major requirements thinking that this will be the answer to my burning question. Ironically, I chose two majors Cognitive Science and Communication Studies. So my interest in the way people thought, felt, and expressed themselves hasnāt really changed. But the question lingered, what will I actually do with these majors?
I tried consulting, recruiting, voiceover work, speech therapy, and librarianship. I was constantly trying to find the boat that felt good to me. After I chose librarianship as career 4.5 (I count voiceover work as half a career, maybe even less), I was like, okay, THIS IS IT - I meant that definitively and exhaustively.
And today, I write to you as a Feminist Healing Coach and Writer and Facilitator. But, most importantly, I write to you comfortably from the helm of my boat. I used to wonder if I shouldāve chosen a different major, gotten my PhD, or started coaching earlier in life. My quest for my passion, my lifelong career, the answer to the question that plagued me was a quest for an imaginary boat.
When I gave notice at my job in June, I realized something. While Iāve had all these careers, the common thread wasā¦me. Because I am the boat. On my voyage, my boat picked up a lot of skills and experiences and friends and not friends. But I always brought ME to whatever I decided to try out. And thatās what people remembered.
In my new venture, I no longer have (as much) anxiety about what Iām doing. I donāt fret about the perfect coaching niche or program or Instagram bio. I see everything as a creation and process that will ensure that I keep tending to my parts. And, even better, I know I will change and shift. I know my boat might look and feel a little (or a lot) different.
This is okay when you embrace and accept the beautiful boat you embody.
In the endā¦
You can go on thinking about everything youāve missed out on. You can fantasize about being younger or more popular or skinnier. Or you can accept your vessel as is while remembering who and what told you that you couldnāt (ahem patriarchy, capitalism, white supremacy, ableism, and more). You can acknowledge the many conditions outside of your control. And with your acceptance, you can show the world who you really are and what your boat can do that no other can while ALSO caring for whatās around you. With your acceptance, youāll create a better relationship with and show up for your surroundings with all of your imperfect, authentic goodness. And the more ALL OF US do this, we can collectively shift tides and weather patterns and the ecosystem. This will help us remember that when we live in our truth, remember what brought us here, and embody our values and collective care, we have the power to change the world.
I promise you - you didnāt miss the boat because you are the boat. How will you enjoy your ride today?
This is a public episode. If youād like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thehealinghype.com/subscribe
So one thing that keeps coming up for me lately and when I talk to others is the idea of waiting to be recognized before speaking something. And this is really coming up because I have recently gotten obsessed with human design, which is a combination of astrology, the Hindu chakra system, the Chinese I Ching system, and the Kabbalah Tree of Life. And a lot of what is in human design are these ideas of projected channels or centers or being a projector type, which basically, long story short, means that it really helps to wait to be recognized in order to maybe speak certain things or to take certain action or to stand up for what you want, etc. And initially, this really bothered me because I thought, like, I don't need someone's permission to say something yada, yada. And really, it's not permission. That's one thing I'm realizing. I'm realizing that it's actually more receiving recognition so that what you say is received, and that is a way to conserve your energy. Which is a way to fill your cup. You know, but with that being said, I think from like a gendered perspective of being quieted when you want to speak up, and other intersections of oppression, this is kind of problematic. I don't have any solution here. Nishaās Greatest Hits! are not fully formed thoughts, as you know, but it is something I wanted to share, you know, this balance between being recognized by others so that what you say is received, and also just saying what you f*g think because it's important to speak up no matter what - it's also an expression of what is deep inside of you, and maybe that needs to come out and maybe the intention isn't necessarily for it to be received, but rather for you to express what's inside of you.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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Nishaās Greatest Hits! will be free until 12/31. Get a taste of my inner abstractions mutating into concrete thoughts aka get inside my head š
If you want continued access to Nishaās Greatest Hits! as well as access previous workshops, meditations, advice, and inspiration notes, please subscribe below.
Transcript: So I was just thinking about a post I made the other day. That was actually a tweet and I talked about, you know, grief opens up space for birth. And it made me think about how I often want to, you know, not make people feel like they have to constantly grieve forever but honestly, sometimes grief is a forever thing depending on what you are grieving or who you are grieving. And I think it's really important to allow ourselves to sit with that. But also know that while we are in that grief, there are things that are probably breathing around us that we may just not see because we are very much in our grief. And while I think it's super important for us to feel our feelings and sit with our feelings, because that can really open up things for us. I also think it's really important to think about what else is happening because while we're having our grief, there are so many other processes probably having in our body. There are so many processes happening in our lives. So how is that grief transmuting into other things while it continues and while it is iterative in some type of way. So that's what's coming to me right now. Again, not a fully formed thought. That's what Nishaās greatest hits are not fully formed, but just an idea about how grief and birth are very much simultaneous processes.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
This is a public episode. If youād like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thehealinghype.com/subscribe
Nishaās Greatest Hits! will be free for a little while, so you can get a taste of what this benefit feels like.
Remember, if you are a paid subscriber, youāll see a link below the audio player beneath the title to add this to your favorite podcast player.
Hereās my first greatest hit!
Transcript
Hello. So I'm going to do Nisha's Greatest Hits for free for a little while so you can get a taste of the stuff that pops up in my head and the intuitive hits I get. So this morning, in bed I was thinking about worth I've been thinking about worth a lot as I read on work won't love you back by Sarah Jaffe. Jaffe I think it is. And I was thinking about how, you know, there was a time where I really equated work with worth, whether it was intentional or not. And I actually realized today, how sometimes when you realize you're worthy, and you, it's like something new, you feel angry. And I kind of thought about why. And I realized, you know what, realizing your worth, it might be kind of like the five stages of grief. So first is denial being like, wow, I'm worthy, like outside of capitalistic productivity standards outside of, you know, how much money I make outside of who accepts me, like just, you know, like, wow, I cannot believe it. Like, I have denied this for so long, like, I'm so in shock to realize that, like, I didn't know this, and then that moves to anger, being really mad at society, and capitalism and colonization, for passing these ideals, you know, through our previous generations, that it's so embedded into our education system, our you know, work slash productivity system, every single system is like, you know, if you don't work hard, you're worthless, basically. And that's, like, very anger inducing, and it's also anger inducing, when it's like a parent, and a parent is denying your ability to do things, you know, saying you don't work hard enough, but then really, it's them denying you as a human being. If that happens from your primary caretakers, it's not surprising that that sense of worth has diminished from you, and that you feel like you have to constantly prove yourself and keep seeking outside of yourself. So after, like, you're angry about it, maybe venting, you know, to a friend, or even venting and reacting toward people in your life who think that way. I might move into bargaining. Not so much like, you know, trying to, you know, bargain worth with work or whatever, maybe, but also, like, bargaining is like struggling to find meaning in it like, okay, so then what does that mean? Like? Does that mean if I do nothing like that's okay. Or does that mean, I shouldn't work hard? Or what does this really mean? How can I balance my feelings of worth with my actual situation today, right? And so that also might mean struggling to find meaning and is really like figuring it out. It's more of a mental process of like, okay, well, then how can I make this work and thinking all the combinations and permutations, and this can lead into the fourth stage, which is depression, because you're just overwhelmed. And I feel helpless, like we're in a capitalistic society that does determine our worth by our work, sadly. So you know, it's it can feel really helpless. And that could be really, really depressing. And then the last stage is acceptance. And I'm not sure I feel like this is something that goes back and forth along this spectrum. And this is why I think we really need each other to talk about this. This is why we need to constantly re evaluate, you know, relationships in our life and the worth we feel in them or how someone treats us and if that is something that's conditional, because worth is not conditional worth is just something that we have that we're born with, we are born worthy. So that's one of nature's greatest hits. I hope you enjoyed it.
This is a public episode. If youād like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thehealinghype.com/subscribe
Hello friends! I announced the The Healing Hype will be completely free going forward, but the format will change.
But Iāve changed my mind. So please read ahead to learn what will happen next.
I woke up this morning and had what I like to call an intuitive hit. Itās an idea that comes into my head that I feel like I MUST do something with. Sometimes I feel like I need to make a long-ass post on Instagram about this idea, but I donāt always have the energy. Other times, I wonder if I will write about this idea here on The Healing Hype, sometimes I do, sometimes I donāt. Then I wonder if I can create a whole coaching program out of this idea!
This is a lot of pressure, so what I do instead is write these intuitive hits down in my Notes app so I donāt forget them.
This way, I can research these ideas more, make content about them, write about them here, or maybe just forget about them. What matters is that itās out of my head and stored somewhere.
But the thought I had this morning was something I really wanted to share right away. I thought about doing an Instagram story, but I had this urge to share it via audio because, well, since leaving my 9-5, people like you, and others, have taught me a few things about myself since including:
You like the soothing sound of my voice (admit it, you do)
Iām able to apply the abstract to real life
And what Iāve learned about myself is:
Every thought that comes into my head doesnāt need to become a long-ass thing. I donāt need to make a whole course or write an essay about everything that pops into my head.
Process > Product. As much as Iāve enjoyed the end result of pieces Iāve written, coaching containers Iāve held, and courses Iāve taught - I get the most JOY from the process.
This has all coagulated into the followingā¦.
Announcing: Nishaās Greatest Hits!
Like I said, I have intuitive hits I want to share without having to create longform pieces. With this in mind, Iām going to keep the subscription model for The Healing Hype and share these thoughts, which I call Nishaās Greatest Hits, with those who want to:
Listen to the soothing sound of my voice
Get a behind-the-scenes look into my mental processes (if you dare)
Hear how I apply the abstract into reality
For $5/month or $50/year, you will get:
Audio recordings and transcriptions of Nishaās Greatest Hits
Ability to add The Healing Hype to your favorite podcast player
Access to all previous paid-only posts (advice columns, meditations, inspiration notes, workshop recordings)
Oh, and youāll also be supporting a South Asian American woman! If you donāt really feel called to join my coaching programs, this is a beautiful way to support me.
And if you feel the desire to have a 1:1 chat with me once a year, along with the benefits I just stated, subscribe as a Super Supporter!
If you already pay for The Healing Hypeā¦
(this was updated after posting)
I have refunded you a prorated rate based on your monthly or annual billing cycle, since this platform wonāt make an automatic change. Disregard the previous wording below. Please resubscribe if this resonates with you! Iāll be sharing some free Nishaās Greatest Hits! for you to see if you love it :)
(Old wording)
Your subscription will drop to $5/month or $50/year during your next billing cycle. If what I described does not resonate with you, feel free to cancel! No hard feelings.
I appreciate you!
Thanks for being here while I truly go through my process, learn what works for me, what works for you, and what just doesnāt work. I appreciate you so much, and I look forward to having you here, whether you wanna hear Nishaās Greatest Hits! or not :)
With love,
Nisha
This is a public episode. If youād like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thehealinghype.com/subscribe
If I ever see a red circle with numbers on it over any of my iPhone apps, I immediately investigate, as if a mosquito is buzzing all around my phone.
WHAP! go away email!
WHAP! no more notifications!
As much as I like to make it all go away, I also love knowing that someone is inviting me to receive something, even if itās another Groupon that Iāll never buy or use. (How are they still in business?)
My point is, I do not like to have ANY notifications on my phone longer than necessary, especially emails. That doesnāt mean I answer emails right away. Sometimes I doā¦other times I just flag them or skim my email to see what I havenāt responded to yet. At least this is what I used to do until a couple of weeks ago.
I made the decision to keep emails unread until I was ready to thoroughly read and respond to them.
This made me feel like something was always lingering. I felt this pressure to pop 5 unread zits on my face. The unread emailed beckoned me with a call āOpen me! Open me! Hurry!!!ā
What does this mean on a deeper level?
I feel a lot of pressure to get to things immediately, even if I donāt need to respond. Itās like I need to get it out of the way so I can get to the next thing.
If someone needs me, I have to save them!
Uncertainty is a threat to me.
These three points are hard for me to swallow. I call myself a Feminist Healing Coach, but that doesnāt mean Iām healed. Iāve worked through codependency, but that doesnāt mean I never people please. I know urgency is a characteristic of white supremacy culture, but that doesnāt mean Iām immune to it. Iām not always zen or chill or namaste.
Iām a person who is constantly getting to know herself better.
And as I get to know myself, I have to feel the sensations that come up when I mark an email as unread because Iām not ready to respond to it.
What are the sensations that come up for me? I feel a lingering pain in my chest. I feel like the other shoe is going to drop unless that email is marked as read. Itās like a spot on the counter that I have to keep staring at and am not allowed to clean.
Except, I am allowed. Iām allowed to leave things be. To let them sit there until I can fully receive and respond to them. Responding in urgency, reading in urgency, and flagging in urgency do not come from a place of care. These responses come from a place of fight or flight. Itās my nervous system telling me that when someone wants my attention, I must respond. Because if I donāt read it or at least look at it, I might not survive.
Am I connecting unread emails to my sense of worth and literal survival? Yes. I. Am.
I am worthy of unread emails, I am safe.
One of the best things Iāve learned about the nervous system is that by knowing how my body responds to different inputs (read: new email), I can shift from feeling unsafe to saying to my body āyou are safe.ā
Whether we know it or not, feeling worthy feels safe. Feeling unworthy means we donāt belong, it means we wonāt measure up, it means people wonāt like us. And this can feel very scary. We are social beings, we need each other, and if anything threatens that, we will fight for our survival.
But now I have an opportunity. I can practice marking read emails as unread. I can hold my hand over my heart and say āyou can respond to this email later, youāll be okay.ā
As Iām writing this, Iām imagining so many people pointing and laughing at me. They are appalled at how Iām equating marking an opened email as unread with actual survival. It kinda goes like this:
But this is exactly why Iām talking about it. Something this small can trigger my nervous system to a point where leaving an email unread feels incredibly unsettling in my body.
Hereās how Iām re-associating it with safety:
Awareness: Reading and responding to emails ā my worth.
Reframing: Leaving an email unread is an invitation for me to respond when Iām ready.
Embodiment: While placing my hand on my heart, closing my eyes, and breathing, I say āI will look at this when I am grounded and have capacity.ā
Non-judgment: Laughing at myself, remembering I am a human being living in a capitalistic and colonized world that wants me to constantly respond to it, and telling you all about it too :)
An exercise for you
First
Think about something small that feels like a threat and might be disrupting your life. Here are some examples:
Looking at your phone first thing in the morning
Procrastinating on a simple task
Moving quickly through a task
Scrolling on social media
Responding to text messages
Second
Decide what behavior you want to shift for the above.
Third
Use the framework I indicated above to support you in the process:
Awareness: Journal about the story that comes up with this behavior or circumstance. For me it was āif someone sends me an email, I must open it immediately because someone needs me and I donāt like uncertainty.ā
Reframing: Reframe this story into one that is safe and empowering.
Embodiment: How do you feel safe in your body? Through breath, movement, physically grounding into nature? Visualize or embody this when shifting this behavior.
Non-judgment: Remind yourself that thereās a reason we have certain habits or reactions. Our nervous systems want to keep us safe. Talk about this with someone who feels safe. And laugh at yourself! There is no right or wrong here :)
In the endā¦
Not sweating the small stuff isnāt as simple as it sounds. When we do sweat the small stuff, thereās big stuff happening in our body.
These little things have a bigger message. When we notice these little things, we can recalibrate our sense of safety and move bigger next time. Micro leads to macro. Small is mighty.
Share this message with someone you love and let me know how this created any shifts for you.
This is a public episode. If youād like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thehealinghype.com/subscribe
For the rest of November, all posts on The Healing Hype will be free, just so we can get the ball rolling with the upcoming changes. As a reminder, if youāre a paying subscriber, you will not be charged again after November 30, 2021.
My group container Boundaries for BIPOC starts tomorrow! I have 10 humans who joined, and I cannot tell you how blessed I feel to be with them for 6 weeks!
AND, Iām tired. Launching a program is tiring af. Even though I hired an amazing virtual assistant who kept me on track, scheduled emails, and supported me through the workflow, launching is a lotta work!
As a Feminist Healing Coach, I tell my clients that rest is key. Listening to your body is magical. And I would like to practice what I preach! So while I could have made a massive last push to post on my Instagram for more enrollments, Iām choosing to create the content for the program instead.
Capitalism wouldnāt like that. It goes against all the marketing ārulesā. While I donāt think sending emails at the very last minute is coming from scarcity (I have purchased at the last minute for events, items, and programs and appreciated the reminders), I also want to honor my capacity. And doing that means potentially sacrificing more income so I can be in my flow, in my integrity, and more connected in general.
This is one of my boundaries: I want to spend my time doing what feels genuine, so I wonāt do what I think I āshouldā do.
Aside from honoring this boundary, and taking mid-day Downton Abbey + ice cream breaks, this has really made me think of how often we are out of integrity by violating our own boundaries. How often does doing what we think we āshouldā do take more precedence? This isnāt a fault or a time to blame or punish ourselves, that defeats the purpose. But I do think as the year winds down, as Scorpio season beckons transformations, and as more and more returns to ānormalā, this is a lovely time to reflect.
Reflection for you:
Think about one relationship (person or setting) in your life and journal about the following. It might be helpful to start with a relationship that is relatively positive or neutral to get the hang of it:
How do you honor this relationship?
What feelings do you generally associate with this relationship?
Think of a specific time this relationship felt misaligned. How did your feelings shift?
Which settings or contexts do you feel in tune with this relationship? Which settings or contexts do you feel out of tune?
What stops you from being in integrity in this relationship? Because of systemic inequities or conditioning? Is it easier to keep things the same? Are you afraid to shift larger relationship dynamics that live outside of the relationship? Is it not safe to make a change (Iām talking about true life threats here)?
Somatic Connection
I enrolled in a membership for wildbody somatics last month, and itās already been so valuable. The other day, we did an exercise where we mimicked our body speeding up into a hyperarousal state and then slowing down into a hypoarousal state. Then we were asked to create an image of what that felt like. I drew two representations of this exercise:
A few people commented about how it was hard to slow down. And while this was true, what I also noticed was that, even though this was a voluntary practice, I built so much momentum speeding up into hyperarousal, that it almost felt like I couldnāt control it. This made slowing down challenging because of all the energy I expended to speed up.
Either we are forced to slow down because we have burned ourselves out. OR we can slow down with awareness and intention.
So what does this have to do with being in integrity?
When our body is used to a certain type of arousal or momentum, which can look like responding or reacting and doing what weāve learned we āshouldā do out of habit, slowing down is HARD. Making change is SCARY. Even though we may not want to adhere to these patterns, the other options require a lot of intention and courage. This can bring about a lot of discomfort.
Discomfort is not always a terrible thing. It tells us that there might be danger, AND it tells us that change is here. This is where we can invite ourselves into courageous discernment and brutal honesty.
Is the change youāre making going to bring you safety because youāre creating a boundary, aligning with your values, and staying in integrity? Or will that change be too dangerous? What are some other choices you have, maybe smaller steps, that can move you in the direction of your desires, your integrity, your boundaries?
In the endā¦
Iām sure you can think of a time when what you did wasnāt really what you wanted. Iām not saying itās a-okay to be self-centered without regard for others or the collective. What Iām saying is, if youāre worried you might be too self-centered, itās probably because you were taught that caring for yourself was bad, not because youāre a ābadā person. What Iām saying is, what about regarding yourself? What about the voice youāve always quieted because somehow its voice was quieted through direct and indirect messaging?
Itās okay to want things. Itās okay to desire. Itās okay to not abide by external expectations and norms. Will you lose relationships with humans, institutions, or finances because of this? Itās possible. Do these relationships matter? Of course. But what about our relationship with ourself? That is your responsibility, no one elseās. And when this responsibility translates into boundaries, new worlds open up.
Iād love to know what came up for you with the reflections. Let me know!
This is a public episode. If youād like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thehealinghype.com/subscribe
Hello my loves! As Iāve stepped into being a full-time Feminist Healing Coach, Iāve been doing some re-evaluating for what I want to share with you, how I want to share it, and how I can say aligned with my values without feeling overwhelmed about all the things.
Iāve come to the conclusion that I want to keep The Healing Hype as a completely free resource, however, the format will shift.
I plan to hibernate a bit in December, so I can think about how The Healing Hype will look going forward.
If youāre a paid subscriber, I will pause billing at the end of November, so you donāt need to take action to make these changes. If you paid annually, I will refund you for the months you did not subscribe. I will have to figure out how to do all of that within this platform, and if Iām unable to, Iāll be in touch with you via email.
Thank you SO MUCH for being a part of this experiment. Iāve learned so much, and Iām excited for The Healing Hype to evolve <3
This is a public episode. If youād like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thehealinghype.com/subscribe
As I am in the process of offering my new group coaching program āBoundaries for BIPOCā, a 6-week group container for Black, Indigenous, and/or People of Color (BIPOC) looking to set and hold boundaries, Iāve been thinking about the different contexts we consider boundaries in our lives.
According to Nedra Glover Tawwab, the author of Set Boundaries, Find Peace, there are 6 types of boundaries: physical, sexual, intellectual, emotional, material, and time - with 5 different contexts we might encounter them: family, work, romance, friendships, and technology.
I wanted to take this a step further into the macrocontext of these contexts which ultimately are the systems we live, including U.S. empire. What goes along with U.S. empire is colonization and capitalism, massive wealth accumulation and massive wealth (and health) disparities. A land that allows healthcare and utilities to be privatized. And one that has an extractive and detached relationship to the land, juxtaposed with Indigenous peoples who see the land as kin.
So this makes me ask the question: does U.S empire and its associates have boundaries? Or walls?
First, I think itās important to define these terms. Boundaries, according to Tawwab, are defined as āexpectations and needs that help you feel safe and comfortable in relationships.ā On the other hand, ā[w]alls are rigid boundaries through which you intend to protect yourself by keeping people out. By offering very little flexibility in your boundaries, you keep out both harmful and positive things and people. Walls are an unhealthy way of protecting yourself from abusive or dangerous situations, as they are rigid and indiscriminate,ā Tawwab writes.
Basically, walls keep people out and boundaries show how you can have a relationship with someone.
Does the U.S. put up boundaries or walls?
While itās not exactly the same, we can apply these definitions to how nations relate to each other, while not forgetting how power and control are critical factors.
Given that both Obama and Trump built a literal wall at the U.S.-Mexico border makes me think the latter for the United States. This wall was intended to keep people out, people who were deemed to be ādangerousā, instead of recognizing the deep history of Mexican immigration to the United States.
Walls often avoid issues and gaslight others into thinking they are the problem.
Is the U.S. embargo on Cuba a boundary or a wall? Is not allowing trade from the U.S. to Cuba a way to have a better relationship and encourage safety, or is it a way to punish a population by withholding food, clean water, and medicine from them? Is Cuba abusive or does the power of U.S. empire make us think so?
What about redlining? What about blockbusting? Who are we keeping out and who are we keeping in? And is there a more relational approach that addresses the āproblemsā we feel make it necessary to employ these tactics?
It seems that creating these walls also makes someone an āAmericanā or a āpatriotā - people who enjoy claiming the United States is the greatest nation on Earth. By deeming we are the best, someone has to be the worst, or at least worse. And in order to be the best, relationships are destroyed at worst or politicized at best, land is exploited, and labor must be made cheap.
The U.S. military apparatus is itself the greatest tool of U.S. empire. One example of this is the United Statesā relationship with Afghanistan, a country where we had a close friendship with Osama bin Laden, once providing over $3 billion in military training and weapons to him and the Afghan mujahideen before deciding he was an enemy. A brilliant, dear friend of mine, scholar on Islamophobia, and author, Dr. Nazia Kazi, writes about this and the other connections to U.S. empireās global reach, including in the Middle East, in her book Islamophobia, Race, and Global Politics. She writes:
Iraqās history is marked by meddling by foreign powers (British and American, primarily)āmeddling that involved disrupting democratic movements, establishing dictatorships, and arming unsavory characters, in large part to enrich themselves (for instance, through the extraction of oil wealth). When the United States was reckoning with the āthreatā of Iranian power in the Middle East, Iraq (and Saddam Hussein specifically) had served as a key ally to the United States. Hussein received handy support, even when acting as a brutal dictator, when he was protecting US interests in the region. Eventually, though, he would stop acting on behalf of the United States. In 1991 the United States went to war with Iraq after Hussein ordered an invasion of Kuwait. Two separate UN humanitarian coordinators resigned from the post after declaring that the civilian costs of US and British bombing campaigns in Iraq were unconscionable. What followed that war was years of sanctions that left a whole generation of Iraqis to suffer malnutrition, hunger, and poverty. While President Clinton officially issued these sanctions as a punishment for Saddam Hussein, their impact was on ordinary Iraqis. When then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright appeared on a 60 Minutes news segment in 1996, where Lesley Stahl asked about the Iraq sanctions, āWe have heard that half a million children have died. Thatās more children than died in Hiroshima. Is the price worth it?ā Albright replied, āIt is a hard choice, but we think the price is worth it.ā
My students are stunned to learn of the close relationship that existed between the United States and the very Saddam Hussein who was later dubbed the ultimate threat to US stability. This historyāof alliances, destabilizations, sanctions, and invasionsāhas left an Iraq so devastated, so destabilized, that it seems almost natural that a group like ISIS should form. ISIS took hold in the midst of a toppled Iraqi state and the desperation of a population that had lived through far too much trauma. Today, many in the United States have a vague understanding of ISIS as the ābad guyā in the region, but very little historical understanding about how this militant Sunni Muslim group rose to power on the global stage.
The borders of Iraq, Afghanistan, and the many places U.S. empire wants to mold in its hands were and are in service to U.S. interests. Those ārelationshipsā were about resources, and when these resources were no longer available, sanctions or embargoes or some type of punishment get enforced. Sanctions themselves are defined as āan action that is taken or an order that is given to force a country to obey international laws by limiting or stopping trade with that country, by not allowing economic aid for that countryā, and, ultimately, it is about control and power. When an abusive person wants to control the person they abuse, they put up a wall, withhold their attention, and gaslight in order to have power. Is this much different?
Iāve only given a few examples of the gravity of punishment and control exercised by the United States. Asking if the U.S. puts up boundaries or walls was probably a bit leading of me, but when American exceptionalism only desires relationships based in supremacy, not in reciprocity, which harms the people within and outside the country, itās hard not to be leading.
Indigenous erasure and sustainability
Indigenous erasure within the U.S. is another example of figuratively and literally bulldozing land to create borders that served the state rather than the peoples who lived on it, the peoples who knew how to relate to it, and the peoples who granted it safety, not extraction. It is not a made up Thanksgiving story of happy and communal relationships.
As Howard Zinn said in A Peopleās History of the United States, āNations are not communities and never have been. The history of any country, presented as the history of a family, conceals the fierce conflicts of interest (sometimes exploding, often repressed) between conquerors and conquered, masters and slaves, capitalists and workers, dominators and dominated in race and sex. And in such a world of conflict, a world of victims and executioners, it is the job of thinking people, as Albert Camus suggested, not to be on the side of the executioners.ā
The binaries Zinn speaks ofāmasters and slaves, capitalists and workers, etcādonāt allow much room for boundariesāof knowing your values and taking responsibility for them while loving others in a way where you can also love yourself. Colonization and U.S. empire is dominance, spite, and control, not a mutual love fest.
And as Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz said in An Indigenous Peoplesā History of the United States, āEverything in US history is about the landāwho oversaw and cultivated it, fished its waters, maintained its wildlife; who invaded and stole it; how it became a commodity (āreal estateā) broken into pieces to be bought and sold on the market.ā
Itās clear that the way U.S. land is now stewarded has rapidly increased a global climate crisis, whether it is through resource extraction, continuing wars in service to American imperialism, food insecurity, and more than I can even list here.
Speaking of climate change, I often hear about āsustainabilityā when it comes to the topic of the environment. Itās become a sort of buzzword that has validity and, like most things, gets co-opted by capitalism. Sustainability is about how the environment and humans can co-existāabout our relationship and interdependence with each other. Itās about creating personal and community boundaries in order to honor what the land gives us, be it water and land use, how resources are distributed, and more. But this is not a personal responsibility. Sustainability is wholly possible when the land can be governed and guided in a way where policies and consequences are created to extend the life of the land, nature, and humanity. Or it can be governed and guided in a way where loopholes are made for corporations and pushing for global renewable resources is an uphill battleāthis seems to be the choice made by empire, capitalism, and white supremacy culture. The wall that has been put up to prevent true sustainability is fierce and designed to minimally yield, and only to the structures that created it, merely changing its shape or material but, nonetheless, standing mighty and tall.
Systemic walls trickle down
Just like the effects of colonization, empire, slavery, war, and poverty are transmitted to future generations through epigenetics and intergenerational trauma, the historical walls that have been built by U.S. empire, colonization, and capitalism, trickle down into our everyday lives. It looks like sacrificing our bodies and health for the sake of a corporation or institution, labeling others as ābadā so we can be āgoodā, reinforcing toxic codependent behaviors by staying in harmful relationships, and being more concerned with someone elseās sustainability while we donāt even know who we are.
So who are we?
We are individuals, in a collective, living in an ecosystem during the Anthropocene. Boundaries arenāt easy, but do they have to be this hard?
Note: Links to books are Nishaās Bookshop affiliate links
This is a public episode. If youād like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thehealinghype.com/subscribe
Hello loves!
I love talking about nervous system regulation. But hearing ānervous system regulationā can be very daunting! Itās as if we are being asked to change our own volume or rewire our brain. And, in a way, we are. But the way we go about it doesnāt have to be this intense! Everything starts incrementally.
Here are 10 things you can do intentionally when you find yourself in deep anxiety or feeling hypervigilant.
Self-holds - head to this website to see some examples.
Take a deep breath and exhale with an audible sigh.
Put one hand on your heart and the other on your solar plexus (right above your belly button) and notice your breathing.
Splash cold water on your face.
Inhale for 4 seconds and exhale for 8 seconds - do this a few times if youāre able.
DANCE!
Journal about how youāre feeling from a place of observation, not judgment. Example: āIām noticing my heart is racing and Iām pacing. I keep thinking about how I feel like I need to be in a hurry, even though there isnāt a deadline.ā
Take a nap if your body is feeling tired.
Cry if you find yourself holding tears back.
Remember that thereās nothing wrong with you. Your body is always trying to keep you alive. Have compassion for yourself. Blaming yourself or telling yourself to āstopā will not only increase your anxiety or hypervigilance, it is basically telling your body that it doesnāt know what itās doing when it totally does!
Even if you just do one of these things for a few seconds, it will make a difference and serve as a reminder that you can always take a pause and care for yourself.
Love you all!
~Nisha
This is a public episode. If youād like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thehealinghype.com/subscribe
Okay, so āReparenting Your Inner Child Through Trauma-Informed Careā sounds soooo buzzwordy extra! LOL!
But I promise you that this will be amaaazing :)
This workshop is free to members of The Healing Hype! It is on Saturday, 9/25 at 10am PST/1pm EST.
So what is this workshop all about? Well, it all starts with her:
Here's a story I shared on Instagram about this photo:
This little girl wanted to make her artist mama happy, so she would make her mama paper pillows. She made them by stapling handwriting paper together and filling it with more paper, then stapling it shut. She was so proud of them, so she gave these paper pillows as gifts for her mom, one after another after another, so joyful in her creation! But then her mom told her to stop wasting her time.
This little girl was me. After this denial, I was scared to make anything, thinking that it would never really be creative. Later in life, I would ask my mom to help me with art projects, hoping she could help me be more creative, but she just took over. And while I appreciated her help and her incredible ability to create beauty from nothing, I had this script in my head: āIām not creative.ā
Sometimes we think that being creative or being good at anything has to be perfect, especially when compared to others. Because that is how colonization, white supremacy, and capitalism has conditioned us. We think we are in some type of Olympics, with othersā¦with ourselves. But we really just want to be seen. We want to hold up our paper pillows and say āI MADE THIS!ā
Have you ever felt dismissed today for what was subtly (or not so subtly) taught to you years ago? You deserve to be seen for all that you are and all that you feel. You deserve it because you exist and you are unique and because YOU BELONG.
I want this for you so badly. I want you to have pride in all the things you make! I want you to tend to your inner child, teenage self, and all the beautiful parts of you. But you have to be gentle with yourself.
This is why I created āReparenting Your Inner Child Through Trauma-Informed Careā. Because tending to our wounds requires attention and care. You deserve to say āI MADE THIS!ā with all the pride and excitement in the world.
Did my mom's denial of my pillow cause me trauma?
I don't know, but that's not the point. Being trauma-informed is about care, not questioning memories, memories like this, that are etched into my brain and my heart.
Reparenting ourselves is essential when we stop ourselves from taking action based on a story we tell in our head: āI'm not creative.ā āI'll never be good enough.ā āI don't belong anywhere.ā
Trauma-informed care is there for us to see us. To be gentle with us. To offer us choices. To empower us. And to meet us where we are at. There is no judgment, only flow and understanding.
If you think this will be supportive to your adult self, I'd love to see you! You can join as a member of The Healing Hype ($12/month) or you CAN join as a non-member for $22.
This will be recorded as well!
This is a public episode. If youād like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thehealinghype.com/subscribe
This is just a reminder that my next workshop, āReparenting Your Inner Child Through Trauma-Informed Careā is on Saturday, 9/25 at 10am PST/1pm EST. This is free for members and $22 for non-members.
You might see the title of this and be like, WHOA, did Nisha become an economics expert? No I have not, nor is that part of my plan. BUT, I have been thinking about the concept of a cost-benefit analysis, or even a simple pros/cons list, lately, especially in relation to making life decisions. And Iāve been thinking about what they often miss: expansive possibility.
So I decided to research and learn more about the cost-benefit analysis. According to Investopedia:
A cost-benefit analysis is a systematic process that businesses use to analyze which decisions to make and which to forgo. The cost-benefit analyst sums the potential rewards expected from a situation or action and then subtracts the total costs associated with taking that action.
And THEN I saw how these analyses add in opportunity cost: āOpportunity costs are alternative benefits that could have been realized when choosing one alternative over another.ā Essentially, this is similar to the expansive possibilities I was thinking about.
So I decided to take a look at the cost-benefit analysis and see how it would stack up for a recent decision I made.
My decision to leave my 9-5
Letās use a big decision I recently made to leave my steady 9-5 job (where I just got a pretty great raise) and do a cost benefit analysis, with opportunity cost. For the purposes of this example, costs and benefits include tangible and intangible costs/benefits or resources. Opportunity cost includes the what ifās/possibilities.
Leaving My Job
Leaving my job would have the following costs:
Forgoing my pension
Higher cost health insurance and other benefits
Not having access to a flexible spending account
No direct access to books or other scholarly materials
No longer having a steady salary, along with my increased raise
Losing the opportunity to grow in skills/leadership at the organization
Leaving my job would have the following benefits:
Moving beyond the salary scale
Pursuing my passion and aligning with myself and better mental health because of it
Having more time to think and create in a way that my body is driven toward
Creating a whole product/offering suite for people
Supporting more peopleās healing and life journey
Working remotely whenever and wherever I want
Not having to work with people who have a toxic hold over the organization (see: mental health)
Leaving my job would have the following opportunity costs:
Less collaboration and social contact with people in the field I admire
Leadership in the field in general
Editing or writing an information science related book
Not being able to innovate new projects and structures in the organization
Staying at My Job
Staying at my job would have the following costs:
Limit in salary range
Limited ladder for leadership experience
Less time or capacity to work on my āside hustleā
Mental health costs for not pursuing my passion when I was ripe and ready to leave
Staying at my job would have the following benefits:
Save more money so I could pursue my passion with more financial security
Rise in leadership
Not stress about consistent income
Access to low-cost health insurance and other benefits
Access to my pension
Continue to support and advocate for an anti-oppressive and trauma-informed approach at the organization
Staying at my job would have the following opportunity costs:
Never knowing the possibilities of how amazing I could be working on my own
Investing time and/or money in opportunities outside of coaching such as writing a book, collaborating with others, etc
Not having the time to know how far my side hustle could go, even expanding into public speaking, group experiences, and expansive collaborations
Unknown creative and activist opportunities including writing, art, and advocacy
This list isnāt exhaustive, but itās what I thought of initially. The typical process of going through a cost-benefit analysis is to identify the costs and benefits, tally it up (assign dollar amounts the best you can for intangible and opportunity costs), and make a decision.
A clear limitation of this is that itās nearly impossible to predict dollar amounts of opportunity costs. If leaving my job meant I could speak around the world and travel or write a bestselling book, itās hard to say what that could mean in terms of money (and mental health). I also see āopportunity costsā as a limiting term as well. Itās almost as if itās saying, āThese things could happen, but who knowsā, as opposed to āWow! These things could happen!ā I supposed Iām biased here, and maybe thatās just how Iām reading it. However, this is why I like āexpansive possibilitiesā - it allows for faith.
I also feel that the cost-benefit analysis fails to measure safety for each. This includes all types of safety but especially emotional safety. And this includes safety related to identity. As a woman of color, moving to Mississippi has a higher safety cost to me than staying in California. Again, this is challenging to put in dollar amounts because safety is actually priceless. The common variable seems to be whatās unknown, the joy or pain we feel in our bodies, the quality of relationships we create with new and existing people, the context that surrounds us, and the expansion that knows no limits.
This doesnāt mean this isnāt a useful tool, but I feel like itās a tool used when there is aversion to risk. To me itās justā¦.boring and limiting.
Where to start
How else can we start when making a decision, especially a life altering one, if not using a cost-benefit analysis or pros/cons list? I think itās important to discern how much fear is playing into our desire to make a change (or not make one). And it also starts with feeling into our alignment and imagining expansive possibilities that can result from being in alignment and experiencing joy.
I know āalignmentā might sound like total BS to someone who is struggling day-to-day and is constantly in fight/flight/survival mode. I donāt want to minimize the challenging and harsh consequences of capitalism, extreme wealth inequity, mental health challenges, disability and chronic illness, or food and housing insecurity.
While anyone, regardless of their situation is capable of taking action, the conditions some people are in because of systemic structures and the narratives we hear about working ourselves to the bone and our worth being tied to our work greatly hinder our ability to move forward.
But when you have the ability and capacity to look inwards, observe yourself and your behaviors, create boundaries, connect to your body, and ask for help, alignment is closer than you might think. We are all on different timelines for this. However, fear can keep us in risk-averse mode, telling us to ignore our body and coming up with reasons something wonāt work. Having faith in expansive possibilities is scary because you have to believe in the unknown.
When you feel more aligned, youāre in flow. When you feel more aligned, you better see evidence that you have succeeded. When I left this job to pursue entrepreneurship, I had zero evidence of how this might work for me because Iāve never run a business on my own. BUT I had evidence of losing my father shortly before I got divorced and thriving afterward. I had evidence of getting published in an esteemed literary magazine and making leaps and bounds on my healing journey after moving across the country for a job where I was just going to make ends meet. I had evidence of speaking up after keeping myself small for so long as a result of parentification, emotional abuse, and gaslighting.
The evidence is there, but our bodies and nervous systems want us to remember what might go wrong because it wants to protect us. I love that it wants to protect us. But when we allow ourselves to trust and believe in what else we can do, so much opens up. Sometimes we might see that the costs and benefits just donāt have to factor in as much as we thought. And this is the opportunity cost of the cost-benefit analysisā¦we might never know what weāre missing.
Iām not saying every decision needs to be made this way. Sometimes it makes sense to not take that leap. But the hardest thing about making big life decisions is the discomfort that comes along with change and the fear of not just the unknown, but the fear of not knowing how those expansive possibilities will change our lives and make us grow in ways which we are unfamiliar.
And thereās something very Western and colonial about only looking at what is known and can somehow be measured. The unknown or immeasurable carries immense meaning. How does someone measure the relationship they have with the land? How water nourishes them? How the body gives them information about their emotions and mental health? Not only is it hard to measure, itās hard to quantify the impact.
In the endā¦
In the end, we can make decisions in ways that take all the costs and benefits into account. And maybe this is a way to also see how it is limiting and there are other ways to make decisions. Of course, in certain settings, the cost-benefit analysis might be just what is needed.
If anything, experiment with doing both and see how you feel. Notice what fear comes up. Notice the joy that comes up.
I write this so we can begin and continue to question traditional modes of measurement and analysis, especially when it is steeped in capitalism and ārational thoughtā. The opportunity costs of a cost-benefit analysis can cost you immeasurable growth, immeasurable possibilities, and an immeasurable YOU.
This is a public episode. If youād like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thehealinghype.com/subscribe
Hi friends! Iām celebrating my 40th birthday this week in the Redwoods, taking some of the advice I gave to get grounded in my Virgo Inspiration Note. Iāll be back with some goodness from The Healing Hype next week.
I have a Birthday Special from Monday, 9/6 - Friday 9/10. If youāre interested in hearing about it, sign up for my mailing list and follow me on Instagram <3
With love,
Nisha
This is a public episode. If youād like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thehealinghype.com/subscribe
Hello friends!
I am sooo excited for this next workshop. Iāve done a lot of reparenting work, and Iāve taught about trauma-informed care, so Iām LIT UP about combining these concepts.
Save the date for the next workshop Reparenting Your Inner Child Through Trauma-Informed Care on Saturday, September 25, 2021 from 10am-12pm PST/1pm-3pm EST.
This is free for members of The Healing Hype. Become a member by clicking the button below:
If you donāt want to commit to a membership, you can register for this workshop only for $22.
Thanks and have a lovey weekend!
Love,
Nisha
This is a public episode. If youād like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thehealinghype.com/subscribe
The first time I heard that responsibility could be associated with liberation is when I heard AndrƩa Ranae Johnson say this on the Fierce Authenticity podcast. When I heard that responsibility can be liberatory, I shifted in my seat and squinted my eyes. I was skeptical but intrigued.
How is responsibility liberatory? I was raised to think about responsibilities as another way to feel stuck, to be another cog in the wheel: work, paying rent/mortgage, taking care of elders/kids before caring for yourself, unexpected bills, running errands, saving for retirement, etc. I guess this is what I saw most people do, just grinding through life and wanting freedom FROM responsibility.
Yet lately, when I try to find clarity for myself and for the collective, I find myself asking, āWhat is my responsibility?ā This question makes me feel so free. It is curious. It is empowering. It is clear. It is kind.
Words have so much power, and āresponsibilityā is one that has been shaped into feeling pinned down.
The Oxford English Dictionary has a few definitions of this word (bold emphasis mine):
Capability of fulfilling an obligation or duty; the quality of being reliable or trustworthy.
The state or fact of being accountable; liability, accountability for something.
The state or fact of being the cause or originator of something; the credit or blame for something.
The state or fact of being in charge of or of having a duty towards a person or thing; obligation. Frequently with for.
This word, responsibility, essentially bundles up the ideas of obligation, duty, trustworthiness, reliability, blame, and accountability - all of which have their own nuances.
I think responsibility is typically used to talk about obligation and duty. And, in a way, I think these can also be looked at in a liberatory way. The main difference I see is that one perspective is transactional and one is reciprocal.
And we cannot forget how systemic injustices and disparities make responsibility look different to all of us. We do not all have the same choices, privileges, bodies, or resources. When the Nap Ministry calls for safety and rest for Black folks, it takes these inequities into account.
Responsibility to use your privilege to dismantle white supremacist systems as a white cishet man looks different if you have a different social location.
Responsibility is autonomy as much as it is interdependent.
When I think about responsibility as freedom, I think about my role in relationships but not in a tit for tat way. I think about it in terms of interdependence and reciprocity. I think about it in terms of caring for others and caring for myself. What is my responsibility to my mind? Body? Soul? And how does that affect the collective?
Iāve thought about this a lot while Iāve been in Disobedience School, especially when I think about controlling others. Just thinking about the ways I tried to change my ex-husband (and change myself for him) makes me cringe.
I remember buying him a GMAT course without his permission because he said he wanted to apply to Business School. He wasnāt doing anything about it, so I took it upon myself to purchase the course for him. I also became his fantasy football team manager so we could feel like a team. One could label this codependence because it was codependence. But when I think about it from a perspective of responsibility, this is how I see it:
It was not my responsibility or my business if he went to business school. While he may have thought going to business school as a benefit to our partnership, it was his decision to make. My purchase without his consent had to do with my desire to control his outcome, but his outcomes are his responsibility. By taking on HIS responsibility, I ignored my own, which resulted in feeling upset at his sour reaction to my purchase.
In order to be compatible with my husband, I needed to adjust myself to what he liked. Ultimately, our compatibility wasnāt natural. One of the things I did was stay up-to-date with his fantasy football team to the point where I became his āmanager.ā In adjusting to his joy, I was ignoring my joy. Yes, we can always do things for the ones we love, but I was extending myself to the degree where I replaced my joy for his joy. My joy = my responsibility. I donāt remember if he asked me to be his manager or I offered, but, either way, I made that choice. This is not self-blame, I understand the power dynamics in the marriage were toxic. And when power and privilege comes into play, it is even more important to discern how conditioning is influencing what we perceive as our responsibility. When I started prioritizing my own responsibility to my autonomy, my joy, and my well-being, I noticed that our relationship had no flow or compatibility. Eventually, I asked for a separation and divorce, and my divorce was one of the most freeing decisions I made.
When we think about responsibility as self-trust, accountability, respecting others choices, asking for what we need, and clearly communicating how we feel, we can feel that liberation!
I just started listening to How We Show Up by Mia Birdsong, and this quote stuck out:
We have a responsibility to each other to ask for help when we need it. Instead of listening to the fictitious lone wolf in us, we must listen to the wolf in the pack and tap into the impulse that moves us to co-create opportunities for mutuality, opportunities to care for and be there for one another.
I bring this up to show that responsibility is as individual as it is collective. Our responsibility to ourselves, our community, the land, all of it, is reciprocal. My marriage wasnāt a co-creation, it was codependence, it was control, it was forced compatibility. In participating in this relationship, I was blocking myself from community that would benefit from my principles and qualities and vice versa.
Responsibility considered through the lens of reciprocity doesnāt only apply to human relationships.
Lately, Iāve taken to the practice of being more mindful when I brush my teeth. I literally say to myself, āMy teeth GIVE me so much. They let me chew. They make it easier to swallow. They give shape to my smile.ā So flossing and taking time to brush my teeth doesnāt feel transactional or like a burden because I have a beautiful responsibility to care for them. After all, look how much they give me!
This metaphor can be used in so many contexts. What does the water give us? What do our loved ones give us?
When we ground responsibility in our autonomy and in reciprocity, we start to see things differently.
Mia Birdsong continues:
The way Iāve come to understand it, freedom is both an individual and collective endeavor, a multi-layered process, not a static state of being. Being free is in part achieved through being connected.
I think true liberation means liberation for all. And I think that starts with us individually. When we honor our unique self, the collective benefits. In knowing your responsibility to yourself, you find your people, your environment, and your way of moving in this world.
As Audre Lorde said, āI am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own. And I am not free as long as one person of Color remains chained. Nor is anyone of you.ā
Thereās often the top-down vs bottom-up argument when it comes to making change. But Iāve always seen it as a sphere - similar to the sun and planets. Thinking linearly gives linear outcomes. Thereās no supremacy in spheres, only locations.
What is your responsibility given your location(s)? Your social location? Your physical location? Your digital location? Your relationship location? Your heart and soulās location?
These are lifelong and ever-evolving questions. Thereās no urgency to answer them. But there is a responsibility to answer them :)
How is responsibility liberatory for you? Iād love to know.
This is a public episode. If youād like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thehealinghype.com/subscribe
Hi friends!
A friend of mine who is also part of The Healing Hype membership brought something up that is really important: justice and care work can be so exhausting.
My workshop, āConnecting to the Land, Connecting to Ourselvesā this Sunday, August 1, gave her some pause. This wasnāt because she didnāt care about it, itās because in this capitalistic, white supremacist, and extractive world, we get tired. Sheās tired. As individuals, caring about justice can feel like 2 steps forward and 5 steps back. Maybe 20 steps back.
Iāve been experienced this too. Climate change alone is freaking me out enough to make me lose hope. And now with more news of surges in Delta variant COVID cases, itās hard to not throw up my hands. This is all aside from existing systemic racism, sexism, transphobia, homophobia, fatphobia, and ableism.
My friend told me that sometimes she doesnāt want to think about these sad things, especially on the weekends. Thatās when she wants to experience joy!
So I just wanted to pop in here to say a couple things:
(1) Itās okay if you get tired from justice and care work. We need space away from it in order to refill our cups. So watch that trash TV show, hang out with your friends, lay in the grass. Do what you have to do to experience joy.
(2) When you are someone who is very principled about equity, humanity, liberation, and justice, you will come back to this work. It is in the fabric of your being.
(3) My workshop, āConnecting to the Land, Connecting to Ourselvesā will be a celebration of ourselves and the land. It will be imaginative and creative. So I hope this is something that ends up lighting you up, not bringing you down. However, I also understand that thinking about the land and what has happened to it because of extractive forces can be a lot to absorb. So please join if you have the capacity. And if you donāt, you can always watch the recording later <3
Thatās it!
If you want to come, just subscribe to be a member.
If you are a member, Zoom information for Sundayās workshop will be emailed out tomorrow (Saturday, July 31).
Thanks!
With love,
Nisha
This is a public episode. If youād like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thehealinghype.com/subscribe
I didnāt used to be into the environment too much as a kid. I knew it was important, but I didnāt see how it connected to my life. I had what I needed at home: food, water, shelter. As the daughter of Indian immigrants living in the suburbs of Chicago, my family and I used to go to Devon Street in the city of Chicago to get a huge haul of Indian grains and spices. This was when I was in elementary school. But by the time I was in high school, there were several South Asian grocery stores and vegetables just around the corner from us. I had no idea about supply chain or how food was harvested, I just knew that I didnāt have to worry about getting car sick on the way to Devon Street.
There are some kids out there that love bugs and playing in the mud, but that wasnāt me. It wasnāt until I moved to California in 2017 that I realized how much I didnāt know about the land. Chicago was flat and boring but California was bumpy and luscious! I knew so little about it, so I started asking questions.
Here are some questions Iāve asked:
Where does my water come from?
Who were the Indigenous Peoples here?
What did the Indigenous Peoples eat?
How were the Indigenous Peoples dispossessed?
What make a high tide high and a low tide low?
What is the bioluminescence?
How long is the beach?
What kind of tree is that?
But what about that other tree?
Why do the pine trees in California look so different from Chicago?
Will it ever rain?
What way does the wind usually blow where I live?
Where does my garbage go?
Is the recycling ever really recycled?
Will I be able to see California poppies this year?
What part of nature was destroyed in order to make freeways?
Are palm trees native to California?
What is that purple flower?
What makes lemon trees smell so good?
What food is grown most in California?
What questions do you ask about your land? Leave a comment or hit reply and let me know!
Remember, if you are a member of The Healing Hype, youāre invited to my upcoming workshop called Connecting to the Land, Connecting to Ourselves on Sunday, August 1 at 10am PST/1pm EST (it will be recorded). Register here.
This is a public episode. If youād like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thehealinghype.com/subscribe
Hello!
Iām flying on a plane tomorrow for the first time since the pandemonium began. Iām going to celebrate a dear friendās bachelorette party, so there wonāt be a public post this week.
BUT, we do have another workshop coming for any of you who are in The Healing Hype membership.
Iām really excited about this workshop. One of the biggest realizations Iāve made on this journey is that I have been so disconnected from my body. I realized this because I finally started to connect with my body in intentional ways. But what was even more incredible was how my body felt when I connected with the land around me.
I know this all sounds pretty abstract, and I want to talk to you more about it! Thatās what we will be discussing in this workshop:
How has white supremacy and capitalism disconnected us?
What does it mean to reconnect with our body?
What does it mean to reconnect with the land?
How do we honor the Indigenous Peoples who were the caretakers of the land?
How can we connect to our body more by also connecting with the land?
We are not just part of the Earth, WE ARE THE EARTH. We are not separate. So letās talk about it.
This will be on Sunday, August 1 at 10am PST/1pm EST. It will be around 2 hours and it will be recorded. I hope to see you there!
This is a public episode. If youād like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thehealinghype.com/subscribe
I posted an unsuccessful TikTok the other day where I asked people to Stitch a question. For those of you who are not on TikTok, to āStitchā means that someone crops the part of my video where I ask a question or state something, and then they respond to it. The question I asked was, āWhatās a phrase or saying you both love and hate?ā My answer to this question was āPeople are doing the best they can with what they haveā.
Do you agree?
I love this saying because I think we all are at a certain capacity at any point in the day. We all come from a lineage of ancestors who endured and/or inflicted trauma - trauma that is undoubtedly passed down to us. We also might identify with an oppressed identity or identities. We may have personal losses. And on top of it all, we are living in capitalism which thrives off the divisions of class, race, gender, and ability. It has erased Indigenous ways of knowing and disconnects us from our bodies.
So yes, I think weāre doing the best we can with what we have.
But then there are people like Donald Trump or racist or abusive or misogynistic or you-name-it people who I donāt want to say are doing the best they can because they are shitty jerks. They harm people and laugh about it. They donāt care about giving up their power. They gaslight and bully. They are literally responsible for killing people whether thatās denying them healthcare or funding the police or defunding education or killing the ecosystem, amongst other injustices. This is murder, the insidious kind where the murderers can easily deny responsibility. My heart gets fired up and panicked just thinking about it.
So, I hate this. I hate saying that these heartless, greedy, white supremacists are doing the best they can with what they have.
But, the thing is, I believe it.
I think the problem with this saying starts when people use it as a crutch or use it as an excuse to skirt responsibility and accountability. This is not okay.
We are all accountable to ourselves, our communities, the environment, and the universe. This is not a choice. What we do affects everyone else. If someone wants to yell āget off my lawn,ā many effects are produced. It can create anger for the lawn hoarder and the lawn lounger. It creates alienation and supremacy. It informs law and policies. Itās a perfect storm of interdependence ignored in favor of false independence. Yet, it creates an interdependent rupture in relationship, community, and care.
So while the lawn hoarder might be doing the best they can with what they have, that doesnāt absolve them from trying to do better. That doesnāt mean they cannot create self-awareness, understand the source of their anger, and question their belief systems.
āDoing the best you canā is an origin story of sorts. Origin stories arenāt always clear-cut. They are usually filled with pain, joy, mistakes, and remembrances. Oh, the remembrances. How we remember things isnāt always the same as others. Recently, in family therapy, Iāve learned that my mom doesnāt remember critical moments in my life where I felt very harmed by her. But at the same time, she has brought up parts of her life I was a part of, and they do not ring a bell at all to me. Our remembrances are filled with the ways we made meaning in different contexts and relationships. And they can only be addressed or reconciled if they are shared. But sharing requires vulnerability and vulnerability requires safety, and this all circles back to doing the best we can.
The thing with origin stories is that they donāt determine the future. They say, āThis is why it was the best you could do.ā They do not say, āThis is how youāll always do.ā They do not say, āYou never caused harm.ā But they do say, āWhat will you do now? What is within your capacity for your responsibility? How can you be accountable? How can you ask for help?ā
Coming to the realization to take a look at your origin story with a critical and conscious eye doesnāt happen for everyone. For those of us who have this conscious and critical awareness, itās hard to even understand why someone wouldnāt want to venture in that direction. Ultimately, we are a mirror for others. When we hold a mirror up, and there is a clear retraumatization that arises from that relationship that shows the other personās harmful and severe self-protective mechanisms, we start to protect ourselves too! So no, we donāt want to think theyāre doing the best they can, even if they are, because we need to save ourselves. We donāt have the energy to enter a relationship with that person and have compassion. So we donāt have the space to see that theyāre doing the best they can with what they have because the best theyāre doing is f*g you up.
Obviously, this is not okay. But what this shows is how you have started, and continue, to be aware and heal. Your awareness, your lack of tolerance, and your ability to know that you can do better than the best youāve done before are shining through. And you see it on a collective level too. Oh, how beautiful that is! This isnāt romantic, itās messy, but you can still nurture messy.
And you can find community that gives a loving nod to their origin story and finds ways to be in solidarity. You can learn how to be grounded so that the harm from others doesnāt penetrate your energetic bubble. You can do the best you can do with what you have. And do it again.
Iād love to hear what you think, even if you strongly disagree!
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Did you also watch The Brady Bunch reruns all summer long when you were a kid? Did I just get the theme song stuck in your head right now? Heheheā¦
Saying my name
Last weekend, I posted a Reel on Instagram about how, going forward, Iām going to pronounce my last name correctly. My whole life, Iāve pronounced it as āMo-Deeā with a hard āDā sound as in ādogā. But really, itās āMo-dheeā where the ādā sounds like the āthā in ātheā.
Check out the Reel to hear what I mean.
Am I a hypocrite?
As a former speech-language pathologist, I used to help people reduce their accents so they would sound more āAmericanā - I would get so annoyed that people who were very intelligible, and who knew multiple languages, were trying to make themselves sound more āAmericanā because that was more āprofessionalā.
Of course, I wasnāt annoyed with them, I was annoyed with colonialism. I was annoyed it was rarely someone from a Western European country who wanted to sound more American. But it made senseā¦why would someone with a British accent want to sound more American? Even if they might be hard to understand, it takes away from the āprestigeā of their accent. Yet plenty of people from South Asia, East Asia, Africa, and Eastern Europe seek out this help.
At the same time, I was pronouncing my last name wrong the entire time! I assimilated, but I thought it was so minor. Soā¦I just ignored it.
Did that make me a hypocrite?
I donāt think so. I think it means that I was taught to assimilate. I was taught to not want to bring ādirtyā Indian food to school because it smelled. I was taught to make sure I closed my door when my mom fried food so I wouldnāt smell like pooris. I was taught that boys wouldnāt be interested in me because I was too dark and not āAmericanā enough. Thatās what this world taught me. It said āpeople wonāt accept you as you are, so you have to do these small things so you can fit in.ā So in the large scheme of things, saying āMo-Deeā instead of āMo-Dheeā felt pretty minimal.
In the workplace, my dad never pronounced his first name correctly either. His name was Himat, pronounced like the pronoun āhimā plus āmuthā where the āthā sounds like the āthā in āthreeā. Yet, he told his work friends to call him āHIā (like hello) plus āmittā: HI-mitt instead of him-muth.
His name means courage, yet American assimilation still pushed him down.
I AM THE ANSWER MY ANCESTORS NEEDED.
I often say the following to anyone who will listen:
YOU ARE THE ANSWER YOUR ANCESTORS NEEDED.
I type it in ALL CAPS, I say it in ALL CAPS, and I mean it in ALL CAPS.
But, most importantly, Iāve learned that I need to say this to myself because I AM THE ANSWER MY ANCESTORS NEEDED.
Somehow saying this to myself resulted in the realization that, while I wonāt ever know everything about my ancestors, I could honor them by no longer assimilating my name to U.S. Empire.
As a former speech-language pathologist, Iām fully aware that not everyone has the ability to pronounce every phoneme or sound. However, that doesnāt mean that they canāt try. Also, my last name and my dadās first name can easily be pronounced by Americans. Yet we still changed them to sound more American-like.
The more I think about this, the sadder I get. I am sad because my father came to the United States for more opportunities and to support a wife and his soon-to-be family. He tried to follow āthe rulesā, which meant he had to adjust, assimilate, and Americanize. All of these speak to adhering to power. It was as unspoken as it was spoken.
After all, Theodore Roosevelt said:
In the first place we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the man's becoming in very fact an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag, and this excludes the red flag, which symbolizes all wars against liberty and civilization, just as much as it excludes any foreign flag of a nation to which we are hostile...We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language...and we have room for but one soul [sic] loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.
American nationalism has always been quite the phenomenon. I think itās a pretty disgusting one, but whatever your position, it is powerful. It is pervasive. It is pure EXCEPTIONALISM. And, by nature, exceptionalism is exclusionary. Exceptionalism is supremacy. Exceptionalism is assimilatory.
Exceptionalism wants you to dismiss your ancestorsā¦or at least hide them. And the only way out of this insidious expectation is to remember them. It is to be their answer. To be their answer means to honor them, remember their names, acknowledge their pain, imagine the ways they were harmed, and to hold that trauma that was passed down to you with the most gentle, loving, care that you can.
For me, this means that I will say my name with the best Sanskrit pronunciation I can. To honor my ancestors, to honor my dad who is not here anymore, and to honor all the days I assimilated growing up.
The (phonological and political) power of assimilation
Ironically, thereās a term in phonology called āassimilationā. According to Wikipedia (and my degree):
Assimilation is a sound change in which some phonemes (typically consonants or vowels) change to become more similar to other nearby sounds. A common type of phonological process across languages, assimilation can occur either within a word or between words.
Essentially, one sound meets another and melts into it. An example of this is when you say āwould youā - Americans commonly combine the ādā and āyā sounds into a ājā sound. It sounds more like āwoojyuā. That is phonological assimilation, and it occurs because of the power of the sound after it. We donāt say this for āwould itā or āwould Iā. There are more examples on the Wikipedia page too.
So, essentially, mispronouncing my last name is where phonology meets power: social power, economic power, and political power.
And, to an immigrant, survival in a new country with new languages and norms, is everything. This also reminds me of how often women in South Asian cultures are taught to āadjustā to patriarchy. For me, this word āadjustā has so many cringeworthy connotations. By adjusting, assimilating, and Americanizing, you can more easily obtain power. Practically speaking that means owning a home, getting a raise, getting more education, and securing retirement.
So I cannot shame my dad for mispronouncing his first name, and I cannot shame myself either.
In the endā¦
Since I made this Reel, I have pronounced my last name correctly out of conscious choice and incorrectly out of habit. Every time I mispronounce it, I shame myself a bit. But then I remember that I was subconsciously taught to do this because colonization and white supremacy have powers that are not always conscious. This is a very, very small example of how it pervades and invades our lives every damn day without even realizing it.
I talk about this in a tweet that I embedded in an Instagram post. To think about these invasions consciously is trauma, yet itās traumatic to ignore it. This is what it means to live in the belly of the beast.
I donāt want to end this ānegativelyā, but I want to be realistic about what we all face. We face a reality where the carceral state incarcerates police officer, Derek Chauvin, for using carceral force on George Floyd. I have trouble calling anything justice when this will definitely happen again. As an abolitionist, it makes me feel numb. This past week unveiled more unmarked graves of Indigenous Peoples at a residential school in so-called Canada. Assimilation literally kills. It kills culture. It kills languages. It kills connections.
All I can do is try to reclaim as much as I can within my capacity and care for others who wish to do the same. We cannot do this alone. After I posted this Reel, I received SO MUCH support from others, and it made all the difference.
Remember: YOU ARE THE ANSWER YOUR ANCESTORS NEEDED.
What will your answer be?
This is a reminder that there are 3, three, THREE days left for trans and nonbinary folx to get The Healing Hype for free for life! Share this post. Click the button below. Do all the things <3
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Feel free to share this with others! This newsletter is near and dear to my heart, and Iād love to share it with more trans and nonbinary folx who feel it would support them. Until June 30, they can subscribe below to get lifetime access to The Healing Hype.
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Hey everyone, this is my first Inspiration Note! Going forward, Inspiration Notes will be for members only, but Iām making this one public so if youāre interested in joining the Healing Hype Community, you can get a taste <3
But WAIT, if you identify as trans or want to share this with someone who is, you can get a free subscription to The Healing Hype foreverrrrrrr.Substackās anti-trans actions really upset me. I wasnāt sure if I should exit the platform or do something else. I looked at my options and many donāt provide what Substack provides, especially the audio accessibility. I also worry that other platforms will also submit in this way (letās be real, most of these platforms are not created by anti-capitalists.) So, Iāve decided provide free subscriptions for the month of June for trans folx. Click the button below to get it!
And if you donāt identify as trans, you can still subscribe here:
Happy June to you! As we enter this month with Gemini energy combined with eclipse energy, Mercury AND Saturn retrograde, itās really time to look inward. Iām not an astrologer, but I feel like Iāve been listening and learning about it a lot lately. So Iām taking that information and adding a dash of Nisha :)
I really feel like June is bringing about something that is leading to an emergence, and itās so important to allow yourself to turn in so the emergence can turn out.
This contraction and expansion is a cycle of life. Itās reciprocity with yourself. We often forget that relationships are not just with other people. We also have to nurture the relationship we have with our former selves and current selves because this relationship shapes our future selves and everyone we are connected to. How are you giving to yourself so you can give to the world?
It already feels like the world has taken so much from us in these first five months of 2021. It started with white supremacy raiding a US federal government building, the Capitol, which was built by slave labor. Then there was the vaccine rollout which has been severely inequitable, murders of Asians in Atlanta, the verdict of the Derek Chauvin trial, CDC guidelines to remove masks, injustices in Colombia, more ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, and South Asiaās COVID crisis. And Iām probably forgetting things because Iām blocking them out. Yet, this feels like more than enough. Itās enough to bolster the cloudiness within us too. Though, it is in this murkiness that we can fold into ourselves and find clarity. So inhale deeply so you can exhale even more. This is actually one of my favorite breathing techniques. Inhaling for four seconds, holding your breath, and exhaling for eight seconds. Letās do it together three times.
Inhale 3, 2, 1. Hold. Exhale, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.
Inhale 3, 2, 1. Hold. Exhale, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.
Inhale 3, 2, 1. Hold. Exhale, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.
How do you feel?
Now, think about your cup. The cup that you can control filling up. We canāt control everything, we canāt control what capitalism and inequity extracts from us. But we can work on our capacity individually and collectively. Can you see the cup in front of you? What is it made of? And how will you fill it with capacity? Start with small things because the small things start opening it up. The small things help you build that reciprocity with yourself.
Capitalism, patriarchy, and white supremacy want to extract and reign over us. So take a momentā¦or twoā¦to sit and notice the room you are in. Sit and notice the sensations in your body. Sit and hold your heart with compassion. Observe yourself and remember, as explained so well in this TikTok video āyou are not in your mind and body, your mind and body are in you.ā
Self-observation can be feeling the space within your vessel, learning more about your roots, slowing down, stopping to hear how the birds sound in your ear, journaling about your feelings and the stories you tell yourself, or taking note of the moments you feel intuitive. Because June can be a month for you to TRUST YOURSELF. Listen to your body. Say NO when you feel like saying NO. Bellow out YES when you want to yell YES from the rooftops. And trust that this will guide you in your path. Because listening to your insides, to the little whispers, to the feelings of exhaustion or delight, will create the space for expansion. This isnāt an expansion of quantity. It is an expansion of integrity, faith, and joy.
I have heard that Mercury retrograde is a time to do all the things that start with the prefix āre-ā: review, remember, reconsider, renew, revisit, restore. Alsoā¦.REST. This is all inner work. And itās cyclical like the seasons, like the sun, the moon, and all the planets. Why wouldnāt we be cyclical too?
How will you align with this cycle? I remember my mom used to watch the soap opera As The World Turns, and it really had me visualizing the world turning as the drama of our lives unfolded :) So just think about if youāre moving with cycles or against them. This doesnāt mean that we submit to harmful ideologies that pervade our lives. In fact, there is nothing cyclical about patriarchy and capitalism and white supremacy. There is no contraction or expansion. So what is the ecosystem you will flow with?
I think this is a beautiful way to finish out this first half of the year, with inner knowing, inner growing, and inner showing.
Thatās my June inspiration! Let me know how this resonates. Happy June!
Love,
Nisha
This is a public episode. If youād like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thehealinghype.com/subscribe
I like lists, do you? They are digestible and finite. They spark ideas and help us explore. So hereās a list of things have given me life during capitalism.
All About Love by bell hooks
this scene in Black Power Mixtape
my cats
The Strokes
art by Charlotte Edey
please love me
this quote by Audre Lorde
getting my first tattoo
this tree
Good Girls Marry Doctors edited by Piyali Bhattacharya
Human Design
the On Softness zine
BTS Tiny Desk Concert
Har meditation
lofi hiphop
my new website!
my fave mac and cheese recipe
this art print thatās in my living space from Hatecopy
planting rock purslane
Beautiful Chorus
this gif
What gives you life while wading through capitalism? Comment or reply to me :)
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I typically record meditations just for The Healing Hype community, but this week, and previous ones, have been especially painful on a global level.
There is pain in South Asia. There is pain in Palestine. There is pain in Colombia. The pandemic is not over. Global pain touches all of us, whether we are connected to these lands or not because we are all interconnected, no matter what. And for some of us, these pains hit closer to home.
Please listen to this meditation to provide you some grounding during this time of global pain. And remember, by feeling grounded, you can be more present for the cause through amplifying silenced voices, providing mutual aid, educating others about boycotting efforts, and centering the stories of the oppressed. When you feel grounded, you can support the collective.
Just take a moment to move to a space that feels soothing for you. A soft space. A gentle space. Maybe this is on your bed. Maybe youāre sitting next to a furry loved one. Maybe youāre just in a quiet room where you can find solitude. If it helps, have some pillows around you or have some water or tea nearby.
Just settle your body into this space, close your eyes or keep it at a soft gaze. Start to feel your breath. Just notice your natural rhythm of breathing. Are you breathing through your nose? Your mouth? Just notice.
Now take a minute to shift your breathing to become a little more conscious. Inhale through your nose and exhale through your mouth. Letās do 5 breaths like this together.
Inhale through your nose, exhale through your mouth.
Inhale ā¦ exhale
Inhale ā¦ exhale
Inhale ā¦ exhale
Inhale ā¦ exhale
Now place your hand on your heart. If youād like and itās accessible, place both hands on your heart. Do whatever feels best for you right now.
Feel your chest rise and fall ā¦ gently with each breath.
Just keep feeling this and listen to my voice.
The pain of the world is a constant. At least it feels that way quite a bit. And while there is so much pain, there is so much joy. There is both.
There are children playing on the sidewalk while others are being murdered by state-sanctioned violence.
There are people falling in love with each other and there are families being torn apart.
There is joyous, liberatory solidarity and there is tear gas.
Both exist and itās okay to be angry and joyful together. Itās okay to sob uncontrollably at the injustices of the world one minute and offer gratitude the next. Itās okay to have complete and utter bewilderment that the world just goes on amidst atrocities, and itās okay for you to be one of those people.
Being conscious, experiencing this pain, and feeling helpless means that you grasp this interconnectedness. It means that you put people first.
Keep your hand on your heart and, with me, take a deep breath in through your nose and out through your mouth.
Deep breath in ā¦ deep breath out.
We will take 3 more deep breaths. But this time, with each inhale, bring in gratitude, peace, and love and exhale tension, oppression, and supremacy. Together nowā¦
Deep inhale of gratitude, peace, and love ā¦ exhale tension, oppression, and supremacy.
Deep inhale of gratitude, peace, and love ā¦ exhale tension, oppression, and supremacy.
Deep inhale of gratitude, peace, and love ā¦ exhale tension, oppression, and supremacy.
Now just notice how your body feels. Do you feel more relaxed? More tense? More sad?
However you feel is valid. However you feel is okay. However you feel is how you feel. Remember, you are always enough and always worthy, and your feelings belong in this world too.
Now I want you to imagine yourself in a cave. Itās dark and a little dusty. But you can see a little of the outside world through a crack. You feel closed off and alone, but you know thereās a way out. There is more space for you, and you know that you will be there soon.
But how? You have nothing with you. No one with you. But somehow, in your heart, you know there will be space again.
As you imagine yourself in this cave, I want you to take your arms right now, and wrap them around your body. Hug your beautiful and amazing vessel.
Now while you hold yourself, take a solid yet gentle breath. As if youāre welcoming yourself to your body. Keep breathing and keep holding yourself.
Now let go.
You notice that the crack looks a little bigger. Thereās more space for you to see!
So now you start swaying your body from left to right. Or forward and backward, depending on how youāre positioned. If youāre able, sway your body. Having gratitude for your movement. Soothing your body and feeling the Earth around you.
Keep swaying. If youād like, gently brush your arms while you sway. Offering the medicine of your skin touching.
And you notice again that the crack is much bigger. Itās not big enough for you to get out, but itās close!
Now you decide to use your voice. Feel free to keep swaying or stop. Take an inhale and let out a sigh.
Inhale ā¦ sigh. Ahhhhhh.
Letās do it 5 times.
Inhale ā¦ ahhhhhhhh.
Inhale ā¦ ahhhhhhhh.
Inhale ā¦ ahhhhhhhh.
Inhale ā¦ ahhhhhhhh.
Inhale ā¦ ahhhhhhhh.
You look up toward the crack, and itās not a crack anymore. Itās completely open for you.
What do you see outside? Do you see a meadow? Do you see the ocean? Whatever you see is your happy place. I want you to go to it. Bring yourself to this happy place. A space that all humans deserve. A realm that is yours to celebrate yourself and all the beings you love.
Is anyone with you? Are you alone? Just allow yourself to feel that joy either way.
Think about how it smells around you. Think about the temperature. What colors and figures are you seeing? How does the ground feel beneath your feet? What are you wearing?
Now as we close out, I just want you to walk slowly in this environment. Taking every piece in. Because in this world, time isnāt a thing. You are in a timeless world where urgency isnāt even a word. This is a space for you to play and rest and create without any worry.
Now place your hand over your heart again to feel your gentle breath.
Inhaling and exhaling.
In and out.
Gentle, gentle, gentle.
And whenever youāre ready, open your eyes or lift your gaze.
Thank you.
This is a public episode. If youād like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thehealinghype.com/subscribe
One of the most powerful things I do with my clients is an Inner Child Meditation. You can take a listen here if youād like to experience it. If you havenāt done an Inner Child Meditation before, just know that it might be pretty intense. And thereās a reason for that. Meeting your inner child as an adult, if you never have before, helps you remember yourself. It reminds you of what you needed then, and you discover how what you needed then is closely related to what you need now. So in the vein of honoring my inner child, I listened to the meditation. Hereās a letter I wrote to her in response. I hope it inspires you to do the same.
Dear Nisha,
Hello to you my love.
You look so quiet and shy, but I can see how much youāre looking for a friend to play with. You want to be creative and talented. You want to be passionate, but you just donāt know how. You donāt know how to find your way because you donāt know if youāre doing it ārightā. But you deserve to just try things and enjoy yourself. Itās okay if you just want to dance in the aisles in the grocery store! Itās okay if you donāt draw perfectly. Itās okay if you donāt practice piano perfectly.
I know you always do your math problems perfect, but that doesnāt mean you have to be that good at everything. Itās okay to just play! I promise you that you are enough and you do enough. I promise you that itās okay for you to be mad. Itās okay if you donāt want to follow the rules. Itās not about being good or bad, because you were born with beautiful and deep goodness. I know you get scared about getting in trouble because youāre not one of those kids. But I know youāre still so kind and gentle to those kids because you also see their beautiful and deep goodness. You see the possibility in everyone because you have such a good heart. You love your friends and they love you. And it is this love that makes everything so joyful!
My little Nisha, you have so much possibility and you love so many things. Iām so glad you love so many things! I know youāre worried about what youāll be when you grow up because you think you love too many things and you canāt make up your mind. But you donāt need to know now. You donāt even need to know in 30 years! Because guess what? All you have to be is YOU. As long as you are your kind, giving, and playful self, all the happiness will flow to you. Everyone will see the joy you bring and they will want to have that joy with you too! It will be so fun <3<3<3
I am with you now, and Iām so glad youāre with me. I will give you lots of hugs and play with you and explore the world with you. Letās go on adventures together and laugh when someone catches us doing something silly. Weāll take naps together and not care about when we have to wake up. Because itās okay to sleep in, work can wait. Letās draw and color and just see what happens because thatās what creativity is about. When you are just you, you are the best thing for the world.
Iām here for you always. I understand you are scared and donāt know if what you have to give to the world is enough. Being light-skinned enough or American enough or smart enough doesnāt matter. This is all made up. No one is better than anyone else. I know sometimes you think you just need to try harder and be like other people. You feel like something is always missing. You get scared that you wonāt be number one and that means youāre broken. But thatās not true because thereās only one you. You are THE ONE.
I love you so much, never forget that no matter how messy your hair is or how much you fall and scrape your knee or drop food on your clothes, youāre still the best Nisha girl out there.
Love,
Me
This is a public episode. If youād like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thehealinghype.com/subscribe
I had such a wonderful time chatting with Dr. Jennifer Mullan of Decolonizing Therapy aboutā¦.decolonizing therapy! We chat about her journey, the importance of sacred rage, and her dream decolonizing therapy world.
Feel free to read the transcript below or listen to the audio! The transcript will truncate on Gmail, so click the title at the top of the email to read it all.
Nisha Mody: Hello, everyone. This is the first interview I will be doing for the Healing Hype and it will be with Dr. Jennifer Mullan from Decolonizing Therapy. So, I'm just going to talk a little bit about Jennifer, who goes by Jen. Is it, right?
Dr. Jennifer Mullan: Yeah.
Nisha Mody: Yeah. So affectionately nicknamed, āThe Rage Doctorā by peers and clients, Dr. Jennifer Mullan, she/her is a clinical psychologist, ancestral wound worker and healer, who seeks to unpack the oppressive legacy of modern health mental health practices, particularly for Queer, Indigenous, Black, Brown people of color, and other marginalized populations. Dr. Mullan believes that dialogue is an essential component in addressing the profound effects of systemic inequities and ancestral and intergenerational trauma on people's mental health. Through her collective group healing work and Decolonizing Therapy practice, she creates safe spaces for people and organizations to heal and guides people from all walks of life to unpack the oppression that has been unconsciously passed down inter psychically and socially and continues to live on in our bodies today.
With over 18 years of experience in clinical practice, higher education and teaching, Dr. Mullan is passionately committed to work that effectively addresses inequities based on race, gender, class ability, gender identity and sexual orientation. Her professional research and clinical interests include complex and intergenerational trauma, group psychotherapy, LGBTQIA wellness, spirituality and mindfulness practices, racism as trauma, healing and therapeutic settings, self-love as a revolutionary act, and the process of decolonizing mental health is a vital element of her current practice. Dr. Mullan believes it's essential for mental health professionals to question the relatability of the mental health industrial complex, ultimately to reassess their education and whom they are serving. To further advance this worked out Dr. Mullan felt founded Decolonizing Therapy LLC in 2019, and since has built a significant social media platform, including over 131,000 Instagram followers and growing. Dr. Mullan earned a Doctor of Psychology in Clinical Psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies, a masterās degree in Counseling and Community Agencies from New York University's Steinhardt School of Education, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology and Elementary education from New Jersey City University. Thank you so much for being here, Dr. Mullan.
Dr. Jennifer Mullan: Thank you for having me, Nisha, it is a pleasure. And I love that both of our cats have made appearances.
Nisha Mody: Yes, me too. Oh, my gosh. Hello, Isis. Yes. I'm so excited. I found your account probably a couple of years ago, I'm guessing, and Decolonizing Therapy was just so appealing to me, because I feel maybe the idea of decolonizing anything probably has come to my mind fresh, maybe in the past four or five years. And mental health being something that's so personal, and especially if you are someone who is of a marginalized identity, I really saw how Decolonizing Therapy was important. So how did this idea of Decolonizing Therapy come to you? And why do you think it's important?
Dr. Jennifer Mullan: Yeah, great question. So, I think to be real, through my own experience, as a clinician for the past, I think now, maybe it's like 18, 19 years being in therapy and receiving and giving therapy, just realizing that something was not quite it. Like, it wasn't hitting on all of the cultural factors that I always felt that we had to make a case, right? For why it was different for this particular young black male or why we were not receiving what was needed for this particular family. And so, really, it was through my own process of being deeply frustrated with that system and every other system that was like feeding it and corresponding with it. So, with that, I also came to the realization that these waters that we were swimming in are not only problematic, but theyāre also systemic, they're violent, that most of us can become very burned out. And even if we take a break, and we take five, six weeks off, and then we go back into the fray, we're feeling that level of burnout again, because every you know, social workers, psychiatrists, nurse practitioner, counselor, is just feeling deeply worked to the bone and holding a great amount of enormous trauma. I would frequently ask myself, why am I so exhausted? Why am I so exhausted? It started to become my, like normal state. And it's not that other people weren't working long hours, and I had friends in other communities that were working long hours but those of us in the helping profession roles, and particularly therapists and social workers, weāre just sort of like at wit ends, we're just like falling apart.
And so I say this to say that Decolonizing Therapy, it's multiple fold, right? It is holding these systems accountable, and saying, hey, this doesn't work and being part of the movement, kind of abolishing things, abolishing, like how things work only for certain people with certain identities with certain amount of money in their pockets. But the other piece of it, I think, is the important part that I really love is the return home, with a capital H, which I talk about very often with people that I work with, and in presentations and workshops, is really about returning home, to our indigenous ancestral ways of knowing, getting curious about who we are, if we don't already know how our people first healed. And it's not to say, of course Nisha that we're going to go back and do exactly what was done. That probably would not work at this day and age. But getting curious and I use that word a lot in this work about where we are and where we're located, and how have we benefited right from white supremacy, or we haven't benefited from it. And most of us have at least a bit, if not a lot, then, you know, how are we also continuing to uphold and maintain it? How are we continuing to uphold and maintain a very, like medical model way of doing therapy? And then the other piece to it is it's not just about the practices, but it is understanding that there is a deep connection to a lot of the ways that our indigenous people and ancestors did work, right? and indeed engage with each other and hold each other and community.
So, I really think that it's important to look at giving land back, you know, but also across the world. I think that sometimes we you know, up here in North America have this view, like it's just US or Island, which just native indigenous people or First Nations and of course, we want to honor that. And of course, many of us are settlers on that land, including myself, but I'm also indigenous part of my people are indigenous and Panama, right, as well as African. There's indigenous identity all over the world and what are the ways that that has been exploited? And can we really do good therapy and good healing work, without having a frame without understanding where all of this is held, right? And that's a pretty crummy crux, if you ask me.
Nisha Mody: Yeah, I mean, it's really messy, but it's a necessary mess to go through it sounds like. I'm actually reading or listening to Braiding Sweetgrass on audiobook right now. And it's touching my heart so much. And it's making me think of everything you're talking about, like you said, we're not necessarily going to go back to how things were but in terms of from that point to now, gosh so much has happened, so much trauma has happened, that we sweep under the rug, and I'm like, okay, well, what am I going to do today? What's the next thing instead of really, having the space in the first place to even dig into anything. And I think that's the biggest challenge, especially in capitalism is even having the space to do it. And I feel like that's a huge part of what decolonizing work is, right?
Dr. Jennifer Mullan: Yeah. How do I say this? I tell like a lot of the therapists and folks that I work with like you have to work on yourself first. There's no other way around this, there is no model, theory and that's something that I try to push back against because I do notice, which I'm sort of supportive of and yet not. A lot of therapists now saying like decolonizing therapists and this and that and I'm just like well, have we done the work, have you unpacked some of this in community, it isn't just like oh the new thing, this isn't synonymous with social justice.
Nisha Mody: Right.
Dr. Jennifer Mullan: This is a practice. This is a way of living and this is constantly being willing to put our work and our jobs sometimes, and our friendships on the line to really look at new ways of creating. And so I feel like it takes decolonizing therapy is about the past and the history, like intergenerational trauma, historical trauma, how we've been affected, as well as the future, how are we going to cocreate this? What was what will this look like? Are there bartering systems? What are the ways that we can imagine outside of boxes that have been, like, socially constructed for us?
Nisha Mody: Yeah, wow. And one thing that you had said earlier, too, was about how burnt out you were. So, I see decolonizing therapy is multifaceted, where it's about therapists themselves, and what they're dealing with, and the way they're being taught, and how much the caseload they have, and how that's facilitating their everyday lives or not. And then there's also how you go about therapy with patients or clients or whatever. And I feel like that itself must be a kind of cocreation, right? And if it's kind of done in this way, where it's surface level and not digging into those roots, it's like, essentially harm, I mean, that's what it sounds like.
Dr. Jennifer Mullan: Yeah. I would say that I've done a lot of harm prior to even knowing, right? even as a person with a colonized history, racialized person, I think that most of us have. And the other piece to it is that I would dare say that a lot of harm has been also enacted on us, on me, on each other, there's been a great deal of harm and so my goal is for us to not just see it as a form of therapy, because I actually don't do therapy anymore, right? Like kind of like you Nisha, I'm just like, you know and coaching doesn't quite I don't know, if you feel like this as well but coaching doesn't always quite encompass the work that we do, either. Like, it feels good, but I feel like there's another term that needs to likeā¦
Nisha Mody: Like a largerā¦
Dr. Jennifer Mullan: Yeah, that I haven't quite pleased to my finger on because I feel like I'm trying to undo myself from just being a therapist, because it's no longer that I'm also bringing healing in. And the way that I was trained as a psychologist is, okay, we know what you're going to do, these are the steps, you're the people that you listen to you, don't talk too much about yourself, don't act too blank, blank, blank and blank, it's very sort of neutralizing and hurtful and icky, right? And it's also very medical model.
Nisha Mody: Yeah.
Dr. Jennifer Mullan: So, it's super, super about, like treatment, and procedure, and even social workers have boundaries. Yeah, so part of the work, I think, is that we wanted to colonize, health for everyone. And so, part of this work is the emotional mental health stuff needed in order for us to have a new world, right? And like, how are we dealing with all of the pain and the suffering from what has happened in the past? And how do we move forward? I don't know if that makes sense.
Nisha Mody: Yeah, no, definitely. And I think what you had said, especially about not sharing things about yourself. As a coach, I find it very hard to not share things about myself, because it's like you chose me, to see me and there must be something that you resonated with in terms of my energy and how is there an exchange, if I'm not sharing parts of myself with you? Yes, I can have boundaries, of course, like about what I will and won't share and whatever. But I feel that it kind of removes the relationship in a way to not to have just that simple, okay, I'm going to have this diagnosis, and this is the treatment and it really kind of dehumanizes it, I think.
Dr. Jennifer Mullan: Yeah, I would agree with you completely and I think that what also happens in the dehumanization process is this hierarchy. Iād like to see myself as like a steward into healing somebody like inner depths, right? Like in returning like unwrapping themselves and I mean, the people that I generally work with now are usually folks that are in the front line in some way, shape or form of DEI work, right? And thinking wait I thought this was going to be different? I thought I was going to be able to come into this city agency or this organization and really do this more than DEI work, right? But like this real like unearthing and this decolonizing, and instead, they find themselves faced up against a lot of internalized oppression, sometimes from their own peers that look like them, feeling very disconnected, burnt out sick. I'm working with a team right now of eight people, we have individual as well as group gatherings and sessions to talk about what's happening and there's only two people left, the rest are all leaving, were on leave, or have recently had a break of some sort, it's not sustainable the way that it is now. And so yeah, I think decolonizing therapy falls on this line of spirituality, because that's a large part of it as well, like ancestral work and ancestry, politicization, like understanding what is happening politically and in our environment, as well as the psychological.
Nisha Mody: Yeah, definitely, integrating all of that definitely seems important. I was wondering, so for people out there, especially those who may identify as QT BIPOC, who are interested in becoming therapists, what do you say to them? Especially given what you've experienced and what you know, about the field?
Dr. Jennifer Mullan: I would say, to really think it through. No, I would like for people to get to the root, to get to the root of is it that you want to do healing work, and it's not seen as accessible? Or you know, possible at this time, or that your family won't approve? Is it that you have a deep interest and a love for helping others? Do you want to do therapy? Whatās really coming up? And what do you really want to do, and if therapy, social work, counseling, psychiatry, any of those are it. I say under the process, fine, go to these programs and know though that you have to take care of yourself know that building community with your fellow students in the classes are essential, in order to survive. Know that you are not going to get everything you need, from a program, a doctorate, a master's degree, and know that nothing is going to teach you more than maybe doing a little bit of grassroots work, getting your hands a little dirty in the trenches, with other people and learning of course, with boundaries and guidelines. I know also that most of what you're going to be taught has probably been from some of your peopleās history and assimilated and cultivated and watered down and it's going to feel enraging many, many times. So, I don't tell people not to do it and I wouldn't do it differently. I think that the journey was a billion times more essential than what I learned. The journey of being broken apart, being heard, I had my program, my doctorate program, they will tell you, weāll sue you for slander, how is this slander? Prove that that article and what you showed us with a no context is not racist, you can sue me for slander, and you will get nothing because I have student loan debt.
Nisha Mody: You can pay that off if you want, yeah totally.
Dr. Jennifer Mullan: Right. Yeah, I think that therapy is super helpful. I'm not saying that therapy is not. But I do think for many Queer, Indigenous, Black, Brown people of color, there's also a limit. There's also like a sort of place where it's like, okay, and I have white ally therapists, friends, they've been with me for like a year and a half, but now they're starting to talk about ABC and D, or they're starting to talk about lineage or identity or things that I could speak to, but just through word of mouth, they probably want to sit with somebody that has some level of understanding of the level of microaggression or racial trauma that they're going to. And so some really great white therapists will refer out, or will say, like a connected connection and I'm doing that with a client now, who I've worked with for four, five years, but knowing that she's really coming up against a lot around colorism, right? And I'm a light skinned woman of color, and connecting together, there's this realization, and I said, so and so, what would it be like to be sitting in front of someone virtually, right? All this and I can speak of this. This must be enraging to have to constantly look at me and be talking about feeling not as pretty lighter skinned black women, and so on and so forth. And so, I think that we have to know where our points of privilege and oppression are at the end of the day and if we don't, what are we doing? And how are we really helping, in this process?
Nisha Mody: Yeah, I really love that because I think we don't even realize how violent something like that can be and of course, it's not intentionally violent but it is, because when that person, does sit down with someone who has darker skin, and then suddenly has a different feeling within their body of comfort and safety, then you know, what was happening before? And again, itās positionality, you know? So, I think that that's a really great point and it's a really important piece of awareness to have that in a world that wants us to be colorblind, and all types of like, neutral. Itās so problematic and I really do think it's really important, going back to your point about honoring the process, I really appreciate that because I myself I'm on like, my third career, and I'm doing my coaching on the side, I'm divorced, like from an emotionally abusive marriage, like I don't regret any of it. I am where I am and I'm really happy where I am, and it is that process, that kind of led me to where I am, and no one was going to convince me to not marry this guy, it wasn't going to happen, you know what I mean? Like no one could have so that's where I was then, right? So and all of the things I did, I'm a very good self-convincer of myself that no, this is this is what I want, so we have to go through it and we continue to go through it and I think that's also really important as if there's not an endpoint necessarily.
Dr. Jennifer Mullan: No, no there's not and I'm with you on that, as somebody who's also happily divorced as well. Yeah, that journey was essential, that 18 years, whatever it is, like that was essential for me to be in and it was also essential for me to get out of and be like cracked open and sit with all the good, hard s**t and honestly, probably, I wouldn't be here talking to you about this, or really have been able to birth along, of course, with ancestors, mentors, everybody that has supported this process and big and small wave, I don't think I would be here because maybe, I don't know, I think that my energy, my space, my mind would be somewhere else.
Nisha Mody: Sure.
Dr. Jennifer Mullan: Yeah, but to your point, there was also something else you said that I thought was really fascinating, when we talked about the journey. I'm also thinking to myself, thatās part of what colonization has done for us to in a negative way, it has stripped us of trusting our inner voices and ourselves. And so I get a lot of what do I do? I'm in this program, how did you get to be where you're at?
Nisha Mody: Yeah.
Dr. Jennifer Mullan: And these are moments where I'm like, okay, I should do a training program. I don't want it to be a training, right? Oh, well, I should do this. But I don't want it to be like this kind of structuredā¦ So, I constantly talked myself in and out of things. Like, it's like one of my that's why I need to, like always bounce it off to someone else. Because, okay, people need this. But I don't want it to be in this like Eurocentric structured capitalistic way. And so, I say this to say, I think that we need to just get back to the basics, like, one on one. And what I believe I excel at is helping people like emotionally decolonize and that's where I reside, right? And yes, in that emotional decolonization, then we can, you know, deal with the ramifications of what happened in the past, then we can work on policy and giving land back, but if we're still internally, deeply, right? Embedded and these structures telling us, what is beautiful, what is not, what is healthy, what is not, taking away from our people's ways, structures of doing things, not giving us access to teaching about our own ways of being, I think it's problematic and violent. Yeah. And so I feel like it's kind of emotional first aid, so to speak.
Nisha Mody: Yeah. That's a great point, I mean, I definitely consider myself a political person and like you said, like, we have to understand how these things are politicized but it's even like a struggle with me where, yes, I think we need policy, we need all that top-down stuff, right? I mean, structure is extremely important and that's ultimately what is causing so much oppression and it's making us disconnect from ourselves, but at the same time, we have to reconnect to ourselves, so it's like this vicious cycle, but an important one, right? It's the work that needs to be done, but I think the inner work has to happen, because I even think of people who are like investigative journalists. and not just investigative journalists, but truly from an anti-capitalist lens. And I look at them, and I'm like, Oh, my gosh, how is their mental health? Like, I cannot imagine doing this work, this is very important work and that's just one example or someone who's in community or a community organizer or something like that and while I think that work is extremely important, I feel that that isn't my forte and I'd like to see how I can stretch into that. But those individuals really need that support, right? So it's really kind of, yeah, seeing how all of it can be married in some type of way and that that inner work happens, because ultimately, no matter what type of work you're doing, you're still capable of harm.
Dr. Jennifer Mullan: Absolutely. Yeah. And I think there's the importance also of community, right? My community like other communities, it's so important that's why I want to continue to support all of these different ways that healing happens, right? Like, your work is a form of healing other people's and everybody kind of knows what they need, right? You're not saying, okay, yeah, I'm a therapist because there are certain things that may need a very specific cognitive behavioral therapy, or whatever it is, but even then, I urge us a question, as I'm writing a chapter on the history of mental health. I'm like, wait a minute, mental health originally was seen as a very spiritual-religious issue, right? Initially, it was treated, like curanderos and shamans, and healers. All of our cultures, every single one of our cultures, including people that have come to be known as white, had natural healers in their lineage and so at the more that I'm reading about it, the more I'm just thinking to myself, mental health has been co-opted, right? And again, what would that look like to bring it back to the roots and to allow people that kind of work amongst the divine feminine and I don't mean this in like a male-female way. I mean, more of the energy of the divine feminine. What would it look like to not have all this structure around healing? What would it look like to have more days off for family members to care for their loved one who's in crisis?
Nisha Mody: Yeah, definitely.
Dr. Jennifer Mullan: What would that look like for us when we're exhausted? To have a bunch of mental health days to just say, hey, I want to have lunch with my friend today. I want to walk to the park. I just want to lay on the couch and watch Schitt's Creek, whatever it is. Why don't I have the right to do that? And then what about folks that don't have, right? Like days off?
Nisha Mody: And can't afford to do something like that.
Dr. Jennifer Mullan: Right.
Nisha Mody: Yeah, definitely. It's like I see that all is like the challenge and the gift, right? To come to that awareness and to realize, like, wait, no, this is b**t. Why am I doing all this stuff? Or, like, how much of myself am I pushing down? I think that a lot about my parents who were immigrants and how they didn't have the space to think about that stuff, and now I have been gifted all the space because of their hard work in so many ways. I mean, I feel like it's such a stereotypical immigrant story, but it's true but at the same time, now my father's passed away, but he was a very emotionally repressed person and I look at my mom too, and it's just it's hard to see that they have not had that space, and they deserve that, we all really, really, really deserve that. And how much of our humanity has been stripped away from these colonial structures, that put them in a position to not care for themselves and to be also stripped of their community. I think of my parents who left India and I feel that even when my mom goes back to India, she doesn't feel the sense of community she felt as a young child or I think of how she did build a community in the United States, but it was built on making food together in a way also to save money and share. But it was also built on dropping off coupons at people's places to get everything on sale. And there was something very beautiful about that. But it was also something that was also vary based on a scarcity mindset, right?
Dr. Jennifer Mullan: Yeah.
Nisha Mody: Yeah, it's fascinating to explore. I feel like I got away from whatever point we were talking about, but it just totally reminded me of all this.
Dr. Jennifer Mullan: Yeah you brought it alive because that's exactly what the focus would be, right? And how is that like scarcity mindset, then? How does that show up in our lives? And where did where do we feel that in our bodies, where do we feel that in our spirits, how does this show up and how we work? You get me excited because that's exactly what I would go with it, right?
Nisha Mody:.Yeah, and you had mentioned rage before and I watched your honoring of your sacred rage workshop and it was excellent. I want to watch it again because it provides so many perspectives and lenses to unpack and I can see, especially when their idea of anger management. To me, maybe four or five years ago, that's a good thing for someone who's angry. But that does not honor anything about what that anger is for that person, right? And even if an angry person, might piss us off, we're just like stop being angry, that's still not actually helpful for them, right? To work through that. So I just wanted to talk to you about this idea of rage and it is sacred and what that means and for anyone that might think it's counterproductive, what does this all look like?
Dr. Jennifer Mullan: Yeah, no, I love that and I thank you for watching it as well. So, my relationship with rage is ancient. And my lineage and my belief systems do go into past lives and so I just deeply identify but bringing it in into this lifetime. So does my paternal family line there's just so much rage there and the rage is not only that ahh, like scream and curse, although I grew up in that because my father is very much a very externally, viscerally overwhelming, verbally violent person also, he's 6'9. So I grew up with an intimidating presence in my household, and I would frequently be like, well, I'm not scared and I was scared as a kid but I learned being the older kid is me and my brother, that being fearful would get me bullied more, by the bully in my house.
For some people, they would go the opposite way, right? And I think that's natural as well as to like, move away from it and as I got older, I would have what I call, rage outbursts. These are like moments, I felt it building, all week long and like building all month long, maybe all year long, depending on the year, the month, the situation, and then the wrong person at the wrong place at the wrong time, or sometimes a very well deserved time would wrath, right? And I also grew up in the early 90s, so it was just an intense time. It was violent, yet I also have to say, I think that hip hop and hardcore rap, saved a lot of our lives, too, because there were like stories to tell about what a lot of us were experiencing and I can say that for myself. So all of that to say, I got into my 20s I'm in a doctoral program in California. So somehow my rage kept me out of prison, right? Or I kept myself and my rage out of prison, rather and my teacher, mentor was an amazing black woman, was a very peaceful person. She was like, a [inaudible 00:34:27] in the 70s. I was an [inaudible 00:34:29]meditating. I wasn't out there in the line, but we were bringing peace another way and I'd be like, oh, f that, that's not me. I had a very hard time sitting still, they would be like, oh, you're the east coaster, like you're from the east coast for sure because I was always just like, what's next? what's happening? Let's go, faster, better, more, let's go, like competitive and just and not meaning to just like everything that would come out of my mouth was just like, boom, right? And she recommended me to read Ruth King's book, Healing Rage: Women Making Inner Peace Possible, and anyway I attended her rage retreat and it f** me up in a good way or not whatever it helped me to really understand that rage was not just about like flipping something over, hitting something or throwing something or just screaming at someone and then feeling whether there was a connection, right? There was a connection to trauma, there was a connection to our childhood trauma, there was a connection to the ways in which we use maths, right?
Unconsciously and Ruth talks a lot about six disguises of rage, which she's given me the permission to review this work and so on because I've lived it and because I teach it and having worked in an inner-city and lived in one and live in one for 12 years and plus, the realization of everyone I'm serving in some way shape or form, even if they're dealing with anxiety, or grief is sitting on a whole lot of f** rage. And I don't think we think about not just the individual but the collective rage. That is also happening. The rage people are dying, the rage at all this anti-Asian violence, the rage at what's happening and what happened to us when we were kids, right? I learned that I intellectualized it, years of therapy intellectualizing it, but did I drop in and embody what was taken from me, right? Or, like the ways I was scared, or I would pee on myself? Or like what happened? Am I able to access that now? So I believe that rage is the love child of ancestral and current trauma and childhood trauma, and shame because with rage comes a lot of like, tail between your legs, I shouldn't feel like this. This isn't blank-like, and I was told all my life, girls don't cuss the way you do, girls don't get into fights the way you do, girls don't blah, blah, blah, blah and I'm just like, okay, what are you trying to say? Why am I genderized this way? I didn't understand that as a kid, right? But it was just such a confusing message. And so, I believe that ancestrally but as also currently and politically, people have such a right to be enraged, tt's not just anger, right?
Because there's an ancestral component because it reminds us of the colonization, that we can't verbalize, but that our bodies feel, that our energy fields, it reminds us of the genocides that some of our people went through, the levels of control and telling you what to do and I think what's happening because intergenerational trauma is alive and well and I talk about that a great deal. How do you not experience what our parents and grandparents have not processed in their bodies, right? How do we not? And so as there are murders and terroristic American attacks that they don't want to identify, right? By white assailants, Ahmaud Arbery being murdered, and George Floyd, we know the trials going on now. How do we not feel deeply activated and triggered? While also knowing that that could be someone you love? Or wait that did happen to my cousin or that feeling of being jarred, like disjointedness and so I think that rage is healthy, I do. I think it's understandable and I think it's part of our collective shadow, you know, as a country that want to feel it.
Nisha Mody: Wow, collective shadow, I've not heard that. I've heard of the collective and I've heard of shadow work. I think that's amazing because if we look at systemic oppression, yes, it's a fricking collective shadow. It's interesting, I've gone to therapy for probably eight years, relatively, versus my dad died eight years ago, basically, that's when I started my therapy and which was right before I asked for a separation, so it was like, kind of everything happening and I'm so glad, it was so so helpful for me. But it wasn't really until last year that I ever talked to a therapist, and it was a therapist [heard?] coach, actually, about embodiment, and the nervous system and now I can describe what's happening in my body so much more easily now and like literally breathe into it and I'm not saying, talking and intellectualizing, I mean, I was such a nerd, I was all about intellectualizing. I still am a nerd but we are not nerds in and about our bodies, we're not taught to be, right? And it's amazing. I think so much about wow this stuff we learned in high school that was so useless and what about relationships? What about understanding our bodies and like you were saying early earlier, being connected to ourselves, listening to our gut, listening to our intuition, that is embodiment, right?
Dr. Jennifer Mullan: Yeah it is embodiment and I feel like that's what I'm moving toward. Thank you for saying that, Nisha, because I'm with you. I've been in therapy since 19, 20 because of a pure education group I was in that saved my life in college. And I'm not saying I didn't do any kind of emotional work. I'm not negating that. But I think it's only the last five or six, seven years, yeah, that I started really thinking about embodying and feeling some of the trauma and not just talking about it and I just also want to honor anybody that might be listening, reading to this that knows all about their trauma, right, of course because we're the experts on it and can talk about it, but almost like it's happening over there like it's not me. And just think about the ways that your body may be shouting at you that it needs to like address, what is happening? And I think that that is what rage is. And so I often will say that rage, needs to be honored, it is sacred. First of all, it's a normal emotion, it's healthy, it's relatable, whereas anger is more about like, oh, somebody cut me off, hey,...
Nisha Mody: Right.
Dr. Jennifer Mullan: Usually we're getting over it in a day or less, right? Usually, like we might tell someone we care about, like this idiot just cut me off, nearly hit my car, but you move on, right? Or there's a sense of like, my boss really pissed me off. But you know what... and then it kind of moves on. Rage is often an experience of feeling like we're out of our bodies and not everyone has experienced it, I just want to say. Where sometimes it's so under, depending on our rage disguise right? It might not be appropriate or safe to unleash it. And I've worked with people that have like, Oh, no, no, no, no, I can't get angry, if I get angry, I don't want to hurt your office, I wouldn't hurt you and I get what they're saying, they feel like they wouldn't be responsible because they're not fully there if they really let it all out. What would that even look like? And so that tells me that, we have just been raising and being socialized to be these sort of, little containers, these little volcanoes and I think that's super dangerous. And I think it's also contradictory to healing and decolonization and I think that rage goes with it, part of decolonizing work is honoring all those shadowy emotions, right? The underbelly of things, right? And to own it and take it back so when everything has been stolen, right? And not that we want to walk around with this on our heads, oh, I'm this wounded...no, but I think that we need to acknowledge it, look at it, feel it, to deal with it, and heal it. Right. So I'm thinking generation three after us, Nisha, they don't have to maybe be dealing with this. They won't talk about there being historical trauma because they're like, oh, my great auntie, right? Or my mom, my dad, right? My second cousin, blah blah blah, they were talking about that a lot and they were working on this stuff and so now I know, I'm not going to blah, blah, blah. I'm going to go kickboxing when I'm really enraged. I'm going to punch the heck out of pillows when no one's home when I'm enraged. I'm going to talk about my feelings more in the way that my ancestors did not because they would be lynched or murdered or hung or... So, I think that also rage gets a bad rap and that they think that it's like telling people that they can just beat someone up or never, no, that's never okay. Well, maybe I can fix it. No, just kidding. But usually, that is not the good case. But what is is honoring that there is something sacred within us, that is a barometer that is like, hey, you need more rest, and the more you say yes to things you want to say no to, you're going to get resentful, you're gonna take it out on people in your house. It just grows within us until it's obese and there's been situations where people I love dearly, again, not harming anyone, but just snapping, like just finding myself like, ahh, or even cry rages, which I think are also acceptable and understandable. And it's our body's way of releasing control, I firmly believe. I hope that answered your question.
Nisha Mody: Oh, yeah, definitely. I think that especially that rage, one it being the ways that it can be disguised, I think that's very, very important and that it's not just yelling at the person who cut you off. And it's so much deeper. And I think also thinking about it and intergenerational way forwards and backwards, both and I think especially thinking about forwards, breaking those cycles. I feel like I keep thinking about my ancestors and I don't always think forward, but it isn't even necessarily my bloodline, it could be someone who's just exposed to me that I'm here talking about this and they're like, oh, because we're all exposed to so many types of people, but definitely within our immediate ancestors, our family line even more so because especially if that's who raised us, etc. So, yeah, that definitely answered the question and I feel like I've been having, so many feelings in my body where it's like, you could just feel how much trauma there has been. And I feel like I sometimes see that oh, people are just calling things trauma and I don't know, I'm curious what you think about that because, if you feel like this affected you to the point where you're having this behavior because of something that happened that you don't even actually deeply understand. If you want to call that trauma so that you can heal from it, do it but I'm curious what you think because I think language is powerful and it's important and it should be used in a way that's useful and meaningful. So yeah, I'm just curious what about your thoughts about that?
Dr. Jennifer Mullan: Yeah about trauma, right?
Nisha Mody: Yes.
Dr. Jennifer Mullan: I have mixed feelings, too. And I try to manage it on a situation-by-situation basis, and how I feel about it, to be perfectly honest with you, because, I feel like it is beautiful that people are reawakening, to the history, to our ancestry, to things that have happened. And I think that intergenerational trauma is now finally getting some attention. I was writing my dissertation in 2012, all around the soul wound and intergenerational trauma. And it was like crickets, nobody cared. It was like what? Now we can understand how like epigenetically, how our DNA, gene expression, changes and shifts based on our environment, and based on what is passed down to us. So I'm talking this out loud because I'm thinking in that way, how wonderful to pay attention to that. But on the other hand, with anything, when we talk about it so much, it sometimes loses its value and it's kind of feel that about decolonizing, too, right? I see all of these people saying it and I'm like, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute.
Nisha Mody: Like how are we all talking about it?
Dr. Jennifer Mullan: First,let's acknowledge all of our indigenous people that have been talking about colonization and decolonizing and another part of me, if I could zoom out even more from the storyline, knows that it's kind of like what you were saying before that if our parents, our grandparents, they didn't have the luxury, the time, or maybe even the emotional bandwidth or capacity to understand and process what was really going on, right? There was just like survival. What do I need to do to get through the week? What do I need to do to make sure my family had food on the table? What do I need to do to come to this country or to get out of this country and get out of persecution, get out of colonization and forced migration and everything that's happening around that and I truly firmly believe and not in a watered-down way that those of us alive at this time, I will just say it that way because it's not just one generation, are tasked with the emotional labor, right? I think that we are given this emotional labor because we're moving more into this like feminine space again, not having to do with binaries per se, but just like the energy of the feminine of it, less structure, less rigidity, and more time to feel.
Nisha Mody: Right.
Dr. Jennifer Mullan: I also strongly believe that you know it's that thing where it's like someone's like me too, I've been feeling that s**t. I feel like some of that happens, sometimes, especially with like Instagram and social media where folks are just like, I felt that.
Nisha Mody: Yeah. They feel seen.
Dr. Jennifer Mullan: Yes, exactly, you feel seen, heard, you're verbalizing something that has been so guttural and so in my body that I have not been able to look at myself in separation from, these things and so yeah, sometimes I get a little annoyed. And sometimes it feels too heavy and I just take breaks and I pull back and I'm thinking okay, well, three, four years ago, not everybody was talking about trauma, you know? And so, as exhausting, and as like, oh, do you really know what you're talking about? Are you really about this? Now everybody is using this, there's another part of me that feels like, well, this needed to come up, because we're clearing out the shadows. This needed to come up and there needed to be this big expansion, for what next and that's part of I think what decolonization is too or in the way that I hold it anyway, that emotional decolonization is also reclaiming, right, and receiving that joy, right reclaiming what was taken and what was lost. And so if that's the case, in order for us to get to the place of joy and lightness, and not having to talk about the heavy st that happened to us. I think we need to feel like st for a while.
Nisha Mody: I mean, yeah, be in that shadow, right?
Dr. Jennifer Mullan: Yeah.
Nisha Mody: I definitely agree. And yeah I feel like it's interesting and even social justice used to be this radical terminology and I feel like now, Toyota is talking about it, like what? it's just stuff like that, where I'm like, I don't know about this, it's just getting really co-opted. And yeah, that can be a whole other podcast. But I'm just curious, it just popped in my head and I'm curious what you think about this because I feel like, for me, it's been useful to understand and I'm not I'm not in competition with other people's trauma. I'm just learning my own stuff, and how it affected me, and I think that that's also really important. Like, we're not here for that, right?. So this has been so amazing. I feel like this is so validating, and I've loved how you framed all these ideas, and hearing your own story behind it, I think that's so so important to make those connections. And I know so much of what you talked about is community and imagining things together. So, while you've been doing this work, and kind of working with others, and thinking of things on your own, what kind of your future utopia of a Decolonize Therapy or world or whatever, what would it look like? Even if it was maybe just one area? Potentially?
Dr. Jennifer Mullan: Yeah, Well, one would be that managed care gets out of our healing spaces, right? I don't believe it belongs there. And I don't think that we need to share our diagnosis or wounding with corporations, because that's all they are, right? Healthcare industrial complexes. I don't think that they have a right to know that. And so I would completely remove that. And of course, it takes time, energy, effort and I would also really look at licensing boards and licensures. And really look at how we can really bring together rather than say, oh, that's this, and that's that and these are separate. How can we really like work together? I see a lot of social workers will say like, well, oh, yeah, yeah, well, at least we have more training than psychologists do on this. And then psychologists will say, no, I want to work with another psychologist, not a social worker. it's all this dividing and conquering and competition and I would really love for everybody to go to like an untraining and uneducating. Everything you think you need to know, what if you know nothing and what if none of us really know nothing other than what our bodies are capable of doing? And how our brains and our vagus nerve how everything is so amazing to be able to help heal us and restore. So I also think that a really large problem within the mental health complex is licensing. I think it is huge. I have decided to opt out of it, right and still say no, no, I'm a psychologist, like I have hundreds of thousands in student loan debt to support that s**t. I have written articles that I've done everything you guys and people have asked me to do sort of disemboweling myself like what else do you need? I'm not even just using that, literally traumatic the process had been especially as a black woman, it was just brutal and so I would like for us to revamp this healing field, I'd like to bring healing back into it. I think that therapists, psychologists, social workers, counselors, psychiatrists, all could benefit from learning from healers, right? Inviting healers into spaces.
So I would imagine that they would be more not clinic centers, like sort of community hubs, like pods. And it's not about a one-stop-shop, It's more about literally meeting families and people where they are, you know, so it's not just like, oh, I need help. But I need help and here's my best friend and here is so and so and this is what they're noticing and here is how we need to do. They're telling me I need to do it differently. I don't know how to do it. Can they come into sessions with me? That's something that therapists don't do, right? And so, maybe there's like a central person, maybe it's peer support, that comes in first, right and so maybe peer-coach support comes in first. And then I would like to see group work that's just not exactly group work. I'm really good at that, making it sneaky. It doesn't feel like group we're over here sharing it all.
Nisha Mody: But here we are.
Dr. Jennifer Mullan: Yeah. But here we are like oh, you go through that s**t too.Yeah, there's times that I hurt myself because I don't feel and I'm dissociated, starting to talk about these things and then maybe some people would benefit from shaman work and that's part of their culture and a lineage, even if they're not aware of it and that's something that would work for them. At that time, they're also getting education and they're looking at their culture and lineage. So it's almost like if they wanted to come in seven days a week, they could, but they're receiving different forms of therapeutic healing support. I don't know if that...
Nisha Mody: Yeah. I love it. Yeah. It. It's integrative and not and not in a way where integrative and even that word kind of ends up kind of sounding like managed care. But yeah, it literally integrates these different healing modalities, just the term managed care sounds so silly, it's like I'm going to manage this, it's like, wait, is it care? Or is it managed care? Just the term itself is very yucky to me but yeah, I think that sounds beautiful, Jen. It's really interesting, professionalization with class analysis, I think is really important to investigate and judge, grade up and in race analysis, there are direct ties to what professionalization is, and I am still licensed as a speech therapist, that was my career before I was a librarian and yes, I definitely feel that there were things I learned in graduate school that I was not going to learn unless I went to graduate school. But I think that just the idea of professionalization, in the context of the world we live in and everything get it can be very, like, well, I know better, as opposed to, can we learn together? You know? So I think that it's just also knowing, you know, it's the idea of knowing and needing to know more, as opposed to what about knowing what's within ourselves and that's something as a librarian, something that's all about knowledge that a lot of work around decolonizing librarianship is about indigenous ways of knowing, not always feeling like we have to be to the written word, this is it, it says it right here. What about oral history? Look, what about all that stuff, everything is knowledge, and our bodies have knowledge, too. And I'm a librarian, but our libraries are empty without our bodies and we have to, look into them. So that's something I actually gave a talk at a library symposium the other day, about listening to your body. And I kind of put a trick question I'm like, hey, everyone names a resource and it's like a bunch of librarians naming all these resources and I was like, what about ourselves is resources? That we are our own resource, and we often forget it, especially within our profession and there's nothing wrong with external resources, I think information is important.
Dr. Jennifer Mullan: Yeah, I resonate, and I think it's important to also say that, as you've been saying too, therapy, as it stands, can be very helpful for some people. But I find that for people that are relegated to the margins of society, right? At a certain point, nine times out of 10, 10 times out of 10, something shifts, and we need more, right, we need more. And I think that that's why people are hungry for this idea because a) it has been violent in some of our grad schools, particularly for people of color, particularly, we also have to call a spade a spade, especially for probably Latinx or Black folks that are not seen as the model minority myth with the model minority myth of like, oh, you're good at school? I can't tell you how many times after a presentation, youāre articulate. And I one time told my professor; do you want to pat me on the head?
Nisha Mody: Yeah, totally.
Dr. Jennifer Mullan: Or, you write so well. but every so often this boys in the hood comes out of you, in grad school, the whole class and I just shrink, right? And so when I think of this and I think of what you're saying, I resonate so deeply, because it's also like yeah, some of us even in my vision of the future, there are certain things that we gravitate towards some of us love mathematics, that is not Jennifer, some of us love mathematics and technology, that is not Jennifer. And then so we need you, right? And then yeah, get better at that, learn more, tinker with it, study it, you want to write about it? Great and can we also make space for like, the youth that are like organizer activists, that contain just all about neoliberalism, can teach us all about what happened in the last right 300, 500,000 years, in terms of war and people's resistances, I've learned so much from people that have been seen and discarded as like, not academic enough, right? Not an institution of higher education. And I have to say that being kind of organized, getting that education, and getting that re-education also influenced decolonizing therapy and my rage of work and helped me, let out some of my rage because I had an analysis, I started understanding, oh, wait a minute, this isn't all my fault, this isn't [inaudible 01:02: 58] and there's something to be said about that and I do think that that shift is what's happening in this world. So we're hearing it everywhere, right? And it gets watered down but what's important, I think, as we were both agreeing with is the embodiment, is the practice of it. and so I would like with for that to happen, though, I think things need to slow down significantly, right? I mean, we're all doing too much and too fast.
Nisha Mody: I couldn't agree more.
Dr. Jennifer Mullan: Not having as I told you my full-time job right now. So what I still have multiple things throughout a day and so somebody that's supporting me is like what would it look like to reimagine your day the way you want to? What would it look like for everything not to get done? And I'm like what? If it doesn't get done then everybody's going to think I'm a flake or if I reschedule then I'm not blah blah blah blah blah. It's like contending with the Eurocentric, kind of, like collective socialization in our bodies, minds, and spirits and...
Nisha Mody: ā¦and your Virgo placements, too. I'm a Virgo sun, so I get it, yeah.
Dr. Jennifer Mullan: I'm a Virgo rising? North node, Mars, and Venus, all Virgo.
Nisha Mody: Yeah, that plus Eurocentric notions of productivity and deadlines and time, just time itself. Like, yeah, I hear you. I think that's a beautiful question. Like, how would you shape your day? And it's a scary question when our whole lives have been on some type of schedule, you know? And, yes, freedom sounds great. But then you walk into it, and you're like, what do I do with all this space?
Dr. Jennifer Mullan: Yeah. And so we fill it because we think we're supposed to say yes to everything or be productive, or we're going to miss that great big thing, whatever that is. And it's like, we're the great big thing. We're missing the great big thing all the time.
Nisha Mody: Yeah, Right.
Dr. Jennifer Mullan: You're the great big thing, I'm the great big thing land when I sit or when I walk in nature when I slow down when I hike, then I'm able to hear when I'm listening, but otherwise an inspiration doesn't hit because I'm forcing it to hit on this rat race on other people's time and the way that they see fit. So I would say, I would really like to also see a future without so much policing of all sorts. And I'm not just talking about law enforcement, although they're definitely included, but just even the police inside of us and our heads, the way that we police each other, or the way that we know, we've been taught to like tattle, and kind of be busybodies and I'd really love for people to just like really be rooting for everybody. I frequently I'm just always just like, yes, yes. And that's how I think, years ago, I just started reposting people's things on my stories, because I realized, like, it didn't need to be all me, me, me, me, you know that. Like, there's healing that Nisha does that I cannot do. There's healing that I do that others cannot replicate, right? So it's like, there's nothing that can be stolen, right? Well, some things.
Nisha Mody: Yeah, no, I completely agree. I am all about community over competition and I think that there is a damn good energy to that, and yeah. Wow, this is amazing. Thank you so much, Jen. I'm just like, so full of like ideas and wonder and unknowing and unlearning as unlearning is like a huge value of mine and I feel like we're always trying to know more when I feel like we need to unlearn all the structures t that are just like literally around us, like in us and, take over our bodies. So I think that's super, super important. So thank you so much. I cannot wait...
Dr. Jennifer Mullan: Thank you. I'm so grateful.
Nisha Mody: ā¦for everyone to hear this. So yeah, thank you.
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Hi everyone. I wanted to do a meditation for the Community this week about slowing down, in line with ourĀ Community Coaching Call on Sunday, but this week has kicked my butt with several crises plus menstruation.
To honor myself, what Iām advocating, and my mental health, I will not have a meditation or other content this week. I really hope to see you all Sunday so we can process together. A reminder will be sent Saturday morning.
If you are not part ofĀ The Healing HypeĀ community, Iād love to see you there. Join by clicking the button below.
Thanks for your understanding always.
With love,
Nisha
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I have never worked in the publishing industry. But I do know that the publishing industry looks extremely different today than it did even 10 years ago, and even more different than it did 20 years ago. Publishers have laid off journalists left and right and many have been left to fend freelancing for not so great rates.
Substack, the platform I use for The Healing Hype, was one āsolutionā to this challenge. It offered paid newsletters for writersāno ads, just loyal readers and faith. I loved this idea, and many others did too. This is why I chose this platform for The Healing Hype, because I knew I could write here and provide a community too.
A few weeks ago, Substack posted a piece on their blog called āWhy we pay writers.ā They revealed their journey, how they make ābusiness decisions, not editorial ones,ā and how they have a select group of individuals, who they will not reveal, that were chosen to write for āSubstack Pro.ā They provide writers a salary for security. Substack writes:
In return for that financial security, a Pro writer agrees to let Substack keep 85% of the subscription revenue in that first year. After that year, the deal flips, so that the writer no longer gets a minimum guarantee but from then on keeps 90% of the subscription revenue ā which, if weāve made our bet well, will be a larger overall dollar amount. We like this structure because, while some who get these deals are already well off, it gives financially constrained writers the ability to start building a sustainable enterprise. We take most of the risk for them. In return, their work contributes to the quality of the Substack ecosystem and they become long-term customers.
Feel free to read the full article if youād like. Andā¦feel free to read the comments.
TL;DR? Basically, this sounds all good, but I learned from other writers and this piece that Substack has chosen some right-wing and transphobic writers for their allotment of chosen Substack Pros.
The point of this isnāt for me to get into what happened because itās already happened. The point of this is that a part of what you pay, if youāre a community member of The Healing Hype, goes to Substack, this is how they sustain the platform. I had no problem with this as I really enjoy the functionality and ease of use Substack provides. But now that Iāve learned this information, I feel differently. Whether youāre a paying member or not, Iām guessing this bothers you as well.
The only alternative platform Iāve heard that provides similar functionality is called Ghost. Iām definitely going to research others, and Iām planning to speak to other Substack writers in similar positions. My fear is, whatās stopping from others from not being in integrity while we live in capitalism? And what others sacrifices do we make (i.e. shopping at Walmart, Amazon, etc) for the sake of cost and convenience. There are also so many fantastic writers on this platform too. And whatās to say Ghost wonāt turn that way too? Itās hard to have faith.
So, where is the line? And what factors, including my fear of change, move the trajectory of that line?
I feel this is a very relevant subject for the purpose of this newsletter. Because nothing is neutral, even if Substack wants to say it is. They claim that because they arenāt a publisher and donāt make editorial decisions, that these decisions are valid for the sake of sustaining their business. In the process, I wonder about how much gets swept under the rug. I wonder if this is the cost of āprogress.ā I donāt want it to be, but Iām not the one making those ābusiness decisions.ā
I donāt have the answer. Iām in the process of trying to determine my options. And, I ask for your patience as I want to be intentional about the decision I make. As a perfectionist, I have to remind myself that there will be drawbacks to probably any choiceāI think this is the hardest part, to live in the muckiness of it all. That doesnāt mean there arenāt better options, it just means I need to get clarity about what those are and what they will cost, financially, emotionally, and humanly. And, of course, I want to know what you all think, especially if youāre a paying member.
Some options others have suggested, and I have thought of are:
Switch platforms to something similar like Ghost.
Switch the non-written community components to a platform like Mighty Networks (which basically has Facebook group-like community components and more without having to be on Facebook) and have my written pieces elsewhere (maybe on Medium or through my regular email newsletter, etc) for everyone to see.
Give free memberships to trans folks.
Stay on here and see if something changes
I will probably formally poll my The Healing Hype community members, but Iām open to everyoneās thoughts.
This whole situation makes me think of harm and power and how itās so intricately tied to capitalism aka ābusiness decisions.ā I know we are all capable of harm, but I also know that Substack has choices, and they arenāt willing to admit that thereās anything ultra conservative or transphobic about these writers. It feels like it might be at an impasse, and they are willing to lose people in order to keep up these relationships to support this model.
Relationships. This is a word Iāve been thinking about a lot, especially as Iām listening to Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer. Relationships are literally what sustains the world, locally and globally. And the value of relationships have gotten lost, colonized, detached, and disconnected as capitalism and colonization killed the idea of reciprocity.
Iām only beginning to unearth what reciprocity meant to my ancestors generations ago. I canāt even know, as India was colonized in 1858, though their territoriality was spawned much earlier. I can only imagine how the land and people were treated and how the business of business was forever altered. Because the way we share ideas and goods with others, also called an economy, is an integral part of relationships. It says so much about power, capacity, desire, and worth. And this changes how we view and treat others.
I always say that we all have unlimited worth because we do. But in the context of economies, suddenly we find ourselves hearing terms like āhuman capitalā and ācharge what youāre worthā and we find it hard to believe in whatās already within us.
Honestly, with Asian murders, vaccine apartheid, the Derek Chauvin trial, and pandemic melancholy, this is another sad thing for me to wrap my head around. Iām still contending with this sadness and what all of this means on a larger scale.
I want to be transparent with all of you, I canāt imagine it any other way. In my transparency, youāll always find vulnerability. So thank you for being here, and thank you for your patience.
If you have any concerns or suggestions, feel free to reply or leave a comment <3
Sending love to you all.
This is a public episode. If youād like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thehealinghype.com/subscribe
Hello friends <3
Thereās so much outrage and sadness and hopelessness right now, especially for those in Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities.
I write this with AAPI folks in mind and for allies and accomplices to witness.
Everything feels exhaustingā¦and itās hard to just take action when you might not even feel whole. The weight of the pandemic, an intense election, an insurrection, and anti-Asian violence is heavy af.
Iām here to say that itās okay to be tired, itās okay to be scared, itās okay to be mad. ITāS OKAY TO BE YOU. You deserve to exist regardless of your gender or class status or occupation. The most recent Atlanta murders were also murders against sex workers, and we cannot forget what this means in a larger global context.
The purpose of this post isnāt to dive into those details but to hold space for you. If youād like, feel free to read about it here and listen to or read the transcript of Democracy Now!ās interview with Connie Wun, the co-founder of AAPI Women Lead.
You deserve a chance to pause and breathe and grieve, if you havenāt been able to do so. To let your nervous system move through the states it needs and provide community in case you need a listening ear (seriously, please do email me back if you need).
Community is critical to healing. It is the glue that fills the spaces and the pain. Because while we are already whole, wholeness looks different depending on who we are. Wholeness is not a math equation, it does not equal 100% Wholeness is knowing that all you need is already within you, and because of injustices and trauma, itās often covered up with the remnants of what we āshouldā do or who we āshouldā be instead of who we already are.
Before taking action, sometimes we need to pause to process. Rage is sacred, as is sadness, as is space, as is safety.
In order to move through, we have to be with ourselves. Pushing pain away brings us further from truth. Sometimes doing this takes time, so please allow this for yourself. Take a sick day if you can. Call a friend if you need. Donāt take phone calls if that serves you. This is a time to embrace, not abandon, yourself and any community that feels supportive for you.
Thank you for being here <3
Here are resources for anti-Asian violence including statistics, updates, where to donate, where to report incidents, mental health resources, and other actions you can take: https://anti-asianviolenceresources.carrd.co/
This is a public episode. If youād like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thehealinghype.com/subscribe
Before I dive into Take 1, I wanted to let you know that our Spring Healing Circle is this Saturday, 3/20 at 10am PST/1pm EST. The theme is: boundaries related to the nervous system! This is basically a follow up to the Mapping Your Nervous System workshop. Want to come? Weād love to have you! Click below and join the community to get the details.
Thanks for all your feedback for what I should write about in this post! āHealing and capitalismā was the winner, and I feel like I can address this intersection from many many angles. So this is Take 1! That means Iāll have more takes as more frameworks, lenses, and thoughts present themselves to me.
As I mention in this IGTV video and on my website, I see healing as a return to ourselvesāso thatās the lens this post will be about.
What does it mean to return to yourself?
Through intergenerational trauma, lived experiences, individual trauma, and systemic injustices, massive conditioning has been placed upon our minds and bodies. A. LOT. And capitalism is certainly a part of this. It is extractive and exploitative, and it requires āthe havesā and āthe have notsā in order to thrive. When people say the system is ābrokenā, Iām one of those people who say its operating exactly how it's designed, to create and maintain divisions and supremacy, specifically white cishet patriarchal supremacy.
And this ultimately causes trauma, anxiety, uncertainty, and not enoughness. For some it leaves you in precarious financial situations. It places others in privileged positions. And it also puts some of you in positions where your parents have to give you a talk about what to do when the police pull you over.
Capitalism isnāt a natural phenomenon. The only relationship it has to the land is to take from it. All of this conditioning, depending on your identities and experiences is part of what makes you who you are, but it isnāt wholly who you are. Itās the muck on top of you, the parts that, when shed, is a way to return to yourself.
This seems like a monumental task, to peel back the layers of exploitation, generational wounds, bullying, settler colonialism, racism, industrialization, and a unequal access in all of its forms.
So how the f*ck can we return to ourselves with all this in the way? Donāt we have to smash the system first?
This is the ultimate question. I do think we need to smash the system, but I also think we can become more and more aware to help give us resolve to not allow that muck to be layered on again. It is possibleālittle by little, my love.
You can start healing within yourself, locally, and in community. This process will be messy. Think about a strained relationship you have and then extend it exponentially, like a lot. There are so many strained relationships within this world which is also within extractive systems: it will be messy.
In order to return, you have to examine yourself with as much compassion and acceptance as possible. Remember to meet yourself where you are at first and foremost. Itās okay to be confused, itās more important to start. And here are ways you can do it:
Return to your body.
This can be through meditation, somatics, yoga, reiki, attuning to your nervous system, EFT tapping, and probably more! You donāt have to do all of these (in fact, I recommend you start small), but start tuning into what your body is telling you. There is no tool that is perfect, but these tools allow you to start digging. Your body has so much wisdom that you probably ignore. Iām not saying that critically. Iām saying that capitalism has not only disconnected us from the land but from our bodies. We push ourselves to burnout, we stay up late when we need to rest, we stay seated instead of moving, we donāt drink water when we are thirsty, we starve ourselves because of body image.
Meet your ancestors.
Learn about your lineage. Talk to family members. If you do not have access to this, read about it from a decolonized perspective. Imagine the ways that trauma may have shown up and been passed down. If your ancestors were colonizers, find out where they colonized. Who did they historically exploit? What was their career, trade, or profession? If your ancestors were colonized, learn those stories. In my case, my ancestors were upper caste Hindusāso they were both colonized by the British and oppressive to lower caste Hindus, Dalits, and Muslims. I sit in the middle of these identities, oppressed and oppressor. This information will help you notice how this manifests within you and your community. It is not information to judge you, it is information to support you.
Learn about colonization, decolonization, and Indigenous relationship to land in general. Some of my favorite podcasts for this are For the Wild, All My Relations, and The Indigenous Futures Podcast (feel free to comment or reply to me with more!) And read about it: The Wretched of the Earth, Braiding Sweetgrass, Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples.
Befriend your feelings and the things you donāt like about yourself.
If you took my workshop about feeling your feelings, youāll know what Iām talking about here. We have to dive into these shadow parts of ourselves. We have to be with our feelings. If we push feelings down, we can never move through them. Notice, I do not say move āpastā them. Because moving past them feels like they were a problemāyour feelings, as crappy as they might feel, are not problems, they are signals that support you. They are physical sensations that give you a message. I do not say move āforwardā because I do not wish to assign a false, linear trajectory for your healing and your life. When you move through, that means you touched your feelings, it means you cradled them, and you offered gratitude.
Create boundaries.
When you create boundaries, you can decide what energy has permission to enter your field. As I showed in this venn diagram, you can only give what is at the intersection of what others want from you and what you want for yourself. You have limits, and that is okay. Honor these limits. Honor your capacity.
When the energy that doesnāt serve you is no longer around, it is so frigginā liberating! Initially, this will be hard. You might experience the desire to ease up on your boundaries because you were used to a specific relationship dynamic (even if it was harmful). Or the person(s) you made the boundaries with might get upset with you. Just remember that either of these situations means that the boundary is effective. You are not meant to feel the same way afterward! Eventually, youāll notice a sense of peace, and youāll start to see who you really are without all that energy in your sphere! This doesnāt mean that your boundaries cannot change, but sometimes you need to make these so that you can return to who you really are.
Find community.
I know this is easier said than doneāand donāt forget, you can always join The Healing Hype community (wink wink). And there are so many other beautiful online communities out there as well. Think about different types of communities youāre a part of, and do this Pod Mapping exercise to examine your relationships through a new lens.
There are also great IRL communities, especially local ones! In Los Angeles, I discovered Trauma-Informed LAāIām not in constant contact with them, but I tune into their podcast and have chatted with a few people in the organization. This is a budding community for me.
COVID has made community difficult and isolating. But if you can find ways to embrace local community, it can help you relate to the land. At the same time, sometimes we donāt always mesh with our local community, and I understand this. Where we live is sometimes out of survival, not preference. Perhaps there is somewhere you prefer to be, try to make connections there. Again, this is a process, so be soft with yourself throughout it.
And remember that your community can also be with your ancestors, with nature, with animals, with other parts of the Earth.
Return to yourself, rediscover reciprocity
Returning to yourself means you are connecting with your body and to the Earth around you. This is inherently defying what capitalism wants. It wants you to think that you and your body are not enough and that its relationship to the Earth is one-way.
This is false, relationships are reciprocal.
If we relate to our bodies, the land, and each other with reciprocity, we start to redefine and reframe the world around us. As Ella Noah Bancroft talks about in For the Wild in the episode āThe Intelligence of Our Intimacyā, āour [current] belief system is embedded in an economic structure rather than an environmental one.ā As we know, this takes away rather than returns. But that doesnāt mean we canāt take steps toward it in order to embody its importance.
Iāve recently become obsessed with the trees in my neighborhood, and, slowly, Iām learning their names, where they came from, and how their journey may have been. I live in California, so there are so many trees from so many places. In the act of researching a tree, I connect to the land around me. In the act of reaching out to a relative, I connect to my lineage. By deciding to not be around my mom for more than 48 hours, I honor my energy and honor myself. It is always a return.
Reciprocity in human relationships can be challenging and so messy. But that isnāt a call to stay away from it. Thatās a call to look at the roots of the mess, if you have capacity. We canāt go back, but we can be aware and move in small ways to possibly repairāeven if itās allowing grace, maintaining boundaries, or forgiving ourselves.
In the endā¦
Whether you are a rich white man or poor, Black, disabled, trans, and queer, everyone experiences trauma in capitalism. (Read My Grandmotherās Hands by Resmaa Menakem to learn more about this.) The world certainly high-fives the former, but through its divisiveness and supremacy, capitalism places expectations on everyone to conform to white cisgender heteronormative patriarchy. This isnāt good for anyone.
But that doesnāt mean you cannot heal. We all will have very different healing journeys. There are so many ways to return to ourselves, and these routes will contain obstacles. However, the more you notice your true self and how it relates to others, the more resolve you will have to keep returning.
Thanks for reading! Let me know how much this post will help you heal in capitalism by clicking an emoji below.
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Iād love to hear from you! What has helped you heal in capitalism? Hit reply or leave a comment.
This is a public episode. If youād like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thehealinghype.com/subscribe
Hey there! I have a few topics in mind for my next public post, but I want to know what YOU want to read about.
I included some ideas I have below. You can upvote and downvote them, and you can add your own ideas too!
This is a public episode. If youād like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thehealinghype.com/subscribe
I just wanted to send a quick reminder to get locked into $8/month or $80/year before I raise prices at Midnight CST tonight.
Thanks!
This is a public episode. If youād like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thehealinghype.com/subscribe
You read that right. Prices go up tonight at midnight CST (because Iām not waking up at midnight PST - rest is revolutionary amirite???)
I loved the takeaways from the Mapping Your Nervous System Workshop yesterday! Iām just ššš about all the feels I had!
Here are the bigger themes that came up:
It takes time to come up with strategies to move out of the dorsal vagal nervous system state. Since itās a space of shut down and/or freeze, sometimes you truly just need to rest and take time to allow your body to recharge.
By knowing how to move out of the dorsal vagal and sympathetic nervous system states and stay in the ventral vagal state, you can begin to create boundaries around certain situations.
That boundaries one is BIG, I might even have to make another workshop about it!
If you want to know what Iām talking about with all this āvagalā talk, Iāll be sending out the recording, slides, and more resources to everyone soon! So you can still access this workshop later if you subscribe :)
It is my mission to have an accessible space for you, my loves. A space that provides all types of ways to heal with liberation through healing circles, workshops, advice, monthly coaching office hours, and posts. WITH COMMUNITY.
When I think about my own story, I think about how much Iāve grown, but I also think about the supportive family and friends who carried me through! I could not have done this alone.
Community care is transformational.
If you want to know how much value this provides, hereās an IG live I had with community member Maia where she talks about about how this is WAY more value than Netflix, which I think is kinda the best testimonial ever, IMO. She also talks about how The Healing Hype is a beautiful complement to therapy. I love how she saw it as a curious space where ideas stay with her between my posts and community activities.
One of my personal favorite things about The Healing Hype is that it helps me give back to BIPOC through my BIPOC Healing Fund. I spoke with community member Alex about this during this IG Live.
Giving back to those who canāt access my services fills my heart and soul, and your investment helps me do this.
Sooooooo, get locked in TODAY at $8/month or $80/year foreva!
Iām increasing prices to $12/month or $120/year because of the added workshops and coaching office hours? But I believe in loyalty and commitment so Iād love for you to get locked in at the lower rate - or give it as a gift to a friend!
Thanks for being your beautiful, awesome self. I totally understand if this community isnāt for you and the free posts are enough! Iām still so glad youāre here! Sending you love always.
<3<3<3
Nisha
This is a public episode. If youād like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thehealinghype.com/subscribe
Hi everyone!
Tomorrow is going to be a special day because itās the first time Iām holding The Healing Hypeās Monthly Coaching Office Hours!
So what does this mean?
This means that tomorrow at 12pm PST/3pm EST, you can come into a Zoom room, which will be sent tomorrow morning, and share whatās been going on with you on your healing and/or justice journey. Or you can even talk about other things! This will be in community, so youāll also be able to provide insight to others because we all have things to learn from each other.
I imagine this will last at least an hour, maybe more depending on how many people join.
I love this concept because while 1:1 coaching is valuable, groups and community are so nourishing for the soul!
If youāre interested in trying it out, subscribe to The Healing Hype community for $8 a month, you can cancel if it isnāt worth your time :)
Here are some things that The Healing Hype community members are already saying about being in Healing Circles together.
Maia C. says:
I value how Nishaās Journal Hangs and Healing Circles hold space for both connection with self and with other. I come away from these events feeling heard and seen and with insights to think through and bring to my day to day life.
M.G. says:
I love the Healing Hype community because it's helped me understand what it means to give myself space, grace, and compassion at a point in my life where I constantly feel the impulse to abandon myself. Something I really appreciate about Healing Hype posts/discussions is the emphasis Nisha places on really being with our feelings and our bodies, two things that I (read: we) have been trained to escape, dismiss, and talk down upon. With the help of The Healing Hype, I am beginning to recognize these two things as powerful tools of guidance, that when tapped into and fully appreciated, also help us think more critically of the broader structural sources of our deepest wounds. Thanks to this community, I am no longer intellectualizing my pain and getting lost in my analysis, but feeling my way through my ups and downs for the better. <3
I hope to see you tomorrow!
This is a public episode. If youād like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thehealinghype.com/subscribe
Helloooo!
I just spoke with The Healing Hype community member, Maia on this IG live! We talk about the audio and financial accessibility of The Healing Hype, about the workshop tomorrow, and about how this community has provided her an unfolding in her day-to-day life.
If you want to come to the Mapping Your Nervous System workshop tomorrow AND get locked into the $8/month rate, joinĀ The Healing Hype communitytoday.
Prices go up Monday to $12/month.
You can always try out the workshop or the live coaching office hours on Sunday and see how you like it! You can cancel at anytime at the monthly rate.
Subscribe now to get the information to join (you can also get access to the recording!) Or give The Healing Hype as a gift to a friend!
This is a public episode. If youād like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thehealinghype.com/subscribe
Hi everyone!
As I mentioned in my last public post, this weekend is my first workshop, Mapping Your Nervous System, and Iād love to have you! Itās on Saturday at 1pm PST/4pm EST. For those of you in the community, thank you!
If youāre not in the community and would like to join us, get locked in at the $8/month or $80/year rate. Prices go up Monday, March 8, to $12/month or $120/year.
In the workshop Mapping Your Nervous System, youāll come away with a map of what puts you in fight or fight, what makes you collapse, and what brings you glimmers āØ We will talk about all of this Saturday <3
And/or if youād be interested in live coaching, join me for the FIRST Coaching Office Hours on Sunday, March 7 at 12pm PST/3pm EST. This is basically an Ask Me Anything space where members can ask for advice and guidance, and Iāll be happy to provide insight. And you can provide insight to others too! Because this is what community is to me - a generative space where we can always learn from each other.
Zoom links will be sent to community members the morning of each event.
This is a public episode. If youād like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thehealinghype.com/subscribe
Wheee! Iām sooo excited for this yāall! Yes, I say āyāallā when Iām really excited even though Iām from Chicago lol.
I know this goes without saying, but this pandemic has been ROUGH. And, at least for me, itās been especially tough lately. I feel stagnant. Iām hitting that pandemic wall. I just wanna cry sometimes and tears are not coming out, UGHHHHH.
Guess what makes me feel better?
OTHER PEOPLE! I can be feeling so blah, and then I talk to a friend or a work colleague or my boyfriend or my therapist and my heart feels lighter. My edges soften.
Community helps me feel better <3 And community care is essential to thriving.
Thatās why Iām making some changes to this community, to foster more connection and care!
Whatās changing in The Healing Hype community?
Change #1: All of my workshops are included!
Thatās right! All of the workshops I lead (at least 3 per year, if not more) will now be included in the community. Initially, it was one per year. But I love when I see your beautiful faces more often, so thank you MORE PLEASE!
This means that if you want to attend a workshop, all you have to do is join by clicking the button below. If you sign up monthly, you can cancel at any time.
The first workshop of the year, MAPPING YOUR NERVOUS SYSTEM, will be on Saturday, March 6 at 1pm PST/4pm EST. Soā¦
Change #2: Monthly live coaching office hours!
I am so lit up when I connect with people. I can have the longest day at work, and the second I connect with someone, especially when itās about wellness or the evils of capitalism, I feel so energized.
During these office hours, you can ask questions, share your healing challenges, transformations, hacks, anything! This will be a communal space for us to chat.
The first session will be on Sunday, March 7 at 12pm PST/3pm EST!
How much is it again?
Multiple people have told me my prices are way too low, but Iāve been committed to offering healing resources to honor those who cannot access community and support otherwise.
I am raising prices because of these new features, but not until March 8!
So get LOCKED IN to the super low rate of $8/month or $80/year for life becauseā¦
ā¦on Monday, March 8, prices will be $12/month or $120/year.
So what Iām saying isā¦
orā¦
What else do you get?
Umm, these are not the only features in The Healing Hype community. You ALSO get to come to healing circles (including some BIPOC-only healing circles), access to my advice column, special meditations, AND 15% of what you invest goes back to my BIPOC Healing Fund, so I can offer my healing offerings to BIPOC at a lower rate.
So to summarize, for $8/month or $80/year (until March 7), you get:
All workshops led by me
Monthly live coaching office hours
Seasonal healing circles (and additional BIPOC-only healing circles)
Special meditations
Advice column
Healing + justice content
Audio-accessible posts
15% return toward my BIPOC Healing Fund
The word on the streetā¦
Here are some things people have been saying about The Healing Hype communityā¦
MG says:
I love The Healing Hype community because it's helped me understand what it means to give myself space, grace, and compassion at a point in my life where I constantly feel the impulse to abandon myself. Something I really appreciate about The Healing Hype posts and discussions is the emphasis Nisha places on really being with our feelings and our bodies, two things that I (read: we) have been trained to escape, dismiss, and talk down upon. With the help of The Healing Hype, I am beginning to recognize these two things as powerful tools of guidance, that when tapped into and fully appreciated, also help us think more critically of the broader structural sources of our deepest wounds. Thanks to this community, I am no longer intellectualizing my pain and getting lost in my analysis, but feeling my way through my ups and downs for the better <3
Alex says:
I've learned so much from the information Nisha has shared about trauma! Also, her meditations are fire. ;) Also, I love that a part of my support for this community goes toward BIPOC healing.
Maia C says:
I value how Nishaās Journal Hangs and Healing Circles hold space for both connection with self and with others. I come away from these events feeling heard and seen and with insights to think through and bring to my day-to-day life.
Reading these honestly almost brought me to tears, thatās why I do what I do!
To those of you already part of the community, THANK YOU!
Got questions? Leave a comment here or hit reply! And feel free to forward this to anyone who might love it :)
(Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash)
This is a public episode. If youād like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thehealinghype.com/subscribe
Have you ever exited the car with your seatbelt still on? I have. The other day, my boyfriend and I came back to his place after grabbing some food, and I went to open the car door before taking off my seatbelt.
I exited and said to him, āThatās so on-brand for me.ā
And itās true, if this were a Jeopardy clue, the answer would be: Who is Nisha Mody?
I say this to make fun of myself as much as I say it to investigate myself. And I think both of these are important: to find humor in our behavior as much as we find wonder in it.
So whatās the deal?
This could just be a proverbial case of putting the cart before the horse, but I like to think beyond this.
My mom always says I do everything ātoo fastā - this includes talking, eating, cleaning, etc. And as much as Iāve rolled my eyes at her, Iāve also had a lot of punitive inner dialogue about the matter.
(My 4th grade teacher also taped over my pencil eraser because I erased what I wrote too frequentlyāIām not sure if she wanted me to be more or less perfect. Or maybe neither, I think she just wanted me to stop the behavior. Perhaps my thoughts were racing past the pencil, but this does pop in my mind when I get ahead of things.)
The comments from my mom donāt send me reeling as much as they used to, but I do wonder about this deficit. Am I just careless? Why canāt I just slow down? Am I being too fast? Or am I just to fast around her because she is annoying and I just want to escape from her.
Iāve noticed that this behavior is pretty contextual. Iāve realized that I eat faster when my mom is around because I grew up wanting to leave the dinner table and retreat to the safety of my bedroom. I skip steps sometimes because Iāve somehow convinced myself that I can cope by doing the next thing. And on my healing journey, Iāve noticed this through meditation and mindfulness. Iāve noticed how I want to escape the current instead of sitting with the process.
Iāve noticed sensations in my body when I stay still. I notice that taking a deep breath and putting my hand over my heart soothes me in that moment and allows me to stay with it. And noticing is an antidote to that punitive inner dialogue. Itās being aware and without judgment. And in my noticing, I come to a place of compassion, humor, and grace. And in these places, I start to make choices about if I want to shift this behavior, what support I need to shift it, and how to further notice this shifting.
I did say āshiftā, not āchange.ā Because I think shifting behaviors allows more grace. It says āletās see where this goesā instead of āstop rushing.ā
I think thatās what I was trying to do as I lunged my body against the resistance of my safety belt to pull on the car door lever. I was exiting because I always want to see where things go, and I can get a bit antsy about it. Iād like to extend the metaphor further by saying that I wanted to see where things go safely because I kept my safety belt on, but that might be pushing itā¦
Or maybe I will push it. Why not imagine and tease these possibilities? Isnāt it in these possibilities that we find space and wisdom instead of judgment and punishment? Multiple realities instead of binaries? Whether these realities are true or not, itās beautiful to stay curious and open.
I recently subscribed to Catherine Andrewsā The Sunday Soother, and this past Sundayās post was about why itās so hard to trust yourself. One of my favorite lines from this essay is āAnd so, that is the knowing I lean into now: that trusting is not a destination but a choice to walk the path over and over again.ā I loved she positions trusting yourself as a choice rather than extra labor or a deficit to overcome.
Itās funny because I always saw eating fast or skipping steps as a symptom of anxiety. I never saw it through the lens self-trust. Perhaps in times of transition, I donāt want to trust the present moment because Iām conditioned to think it wonāt give me enough or feel safe. Yet, when I do find the wonder of presence, whether itās staring into my catās eyes or noticing tingles going down my legs while meditating, I have the biggest sense of satisfaction.
As I type this, on my laptop, while sitting on my couch, Vera is making biscuits on my leg in between the laptop and my body. What is the seatbelt in this case? Vera or my laptop?
It used to be Vera. I needed to remove her so I could keep typing. But now, I tend to either put my laptop away momentarily and entertain her kneady needs, or, as Iām doing currently, attempt to do both. Of course this is all relative and context-dependent. This situation doesnāt necessarily have an expected order of operations like the seatbelt car door situation. However, Vera can get in positions that prevent me from navigating my laptop. I just see this as an opportunity to decide what is important to me and also decide what drives that importance.
There is no right or wrong. So, what is there? There is noticing what is possible. There is how Iām feeling in my body. There are the ways I can feel constrained.
Making the abstract not abstract
Besides the note on self-trust, I wasnāt really sure where this post was going. What I do know is that exiting the car without undoing my seatbelt felt like a metaphor for my identity, for life, for escape.
Itās usually in the writing process that I find direction. And, Iām starting to see the power of choice and consequences in this example. Choice isnāt always conscious. Obviously I went to open that door in a not-so-conscious way. But in noticing, I became more conscious of this habit. And in becoming more conscious of it, I also see its conditioning, its gifts, and its consequences.
Writing this post is a conscious practice in itself. It reminds me to be more conscious of the choices and consequences of my habit of rushing or escaping or disconnecting from the moment. Writing about this small moment is a gift to myself, and I hope it is for you too.
I also wrote about choices and consequences in a Medium article titled āYour Hobbies Donāt Have to Be Your Hustlesā where I talk about making choices about whether to monetize your hobbies. I related this to capitalism and how we can potentially exploit the things that bring us joy. So much comes down to awareness, the perceived choices that we have, the actual choices we have, and the subsequent choices we make from this contemplation.
We can also be highly aware of the consequences of rushing or escaping and continue to rush and escape. After all, it feels easier to let our engrained habits continue. Or we can make a small shift. Perhaps I take a breath between my bites of food or I can journal about what is literally and figuratively holding me back when I rush to open the metaphorical car door.
By slowing down those moments, a lot can happen including noticing, shifting, integrating, grieving, communicating, and more.
The more I learn about trauma-informed care, the more I see how prescribing solutions kills nuance and creates boxes. As I said in my video āHealing is a Return to Yourself AKA Why I Donāt Call Myself a Healerā, I am not here to heal you or anyone. I can guide, facilitate, and mirror back what Iām seeing within you so you can notice, make the next choice, and see what happens. You can have the sovereignty to make decisions AND you can have community to support your process. This is the beauty of community care.
In the endā¦
I might forget about my seatbelt being fastened again. And I might not ever look at a pencil eraser the same way again. Metaphor is powerful, and it is freaking comical.
Metaphor makes me wonder in ways that help me shift, transform, and determine whatās important to me.
My decision to make a shift has nothing to do with your decision to not make a shift. There is no hierarchy.
So when you notice yourself criticizing or forcibly disrupting a habit or process, try to discover the wisdom it has to offer instead of forcing it to go in directions it isnāt ready to travel. Thank it for protecting you. And remember that punishing a behavior is only that, it likely wonāt acknowledge the root of it.
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The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) described self-abandonment in a blog post:
Essentially, self-abandonment is when you reject, suppress or ignore part of yourself in real-time. In other words, you have a need or desire you want to meet, and (often on the spot) you make the decision not to meet it.
I canāt tell you how many times I have abandoned myself in the present and past. Even mini-abandonments, like saying yes to doing an activity with a friend when Iād rather not, have deep roots. I vividly remember the first time I abandoned myself with my now ex-husband, convincing myself that his gaslighting was actually him āhelpingā me. Iāve abandoned myself in professional settings by dismissing microaggressions and assimilating to whiteness. As a child, I didnāt want to abandon myself, but conditioning, critique, and the pressure to know āwhat I wanted to be when I grew upā made me live in a world of āI shouldā instead of a world of āI amā.
Can you relate?
There are a lot of ways Iāve seen self-abandonment described from different schools of thinking, frameworks, and contexts. Iāve seen it described as a defense or coping mechanism, a trauma response, people-pleasing, cultural norms, patriarchy, heteronormativity, and assimilation to whiteness.
With all of these come capitalism, an insidious force we are told āis just the way things areā and we just have to get back to the āgrindā, concepts that are teased and inadvertently reinforced by the media in TV shows like The Office, comic strips like Dilbert, and oh so many memes.
It didnāt take me much effort to do a quick google search to find these memes. These were just two amongst a plethora of evidence to prove how we laugh at the ways we push ourselves to overdo and underspeak. Because if we do, we might be risking our livelihood. And for some people, this is literally survival.
Iāve been listening to Jenny Odellās How to Do Nothing on audiobook and she talks about the privilege of having capacity to refuse and consequences if you do so in a capitalistic system. These consequences can be dire for those with marginalized identities, especially if you are low-income. Or it can place you in a position where your refusal drops you to a lower-income bracket because you are no longer āhireableā. Sadly, being a cog in the system means keeping your mouth shut to keep it going. And since capitalism is everywhere, we participate in it whether we refuse or not. The consequences will look different, and many (understandably) arenāt willing to take the risk.
How does self-abandonment start?
Learning to abandon ourselves starts young. In school, we follow the rules, and we are punished if we donāt. Iām sure we can all remember the ābadā kids in our elementary classrooms, whether we associated with them, didnāt associate with them, or were them. I wondered what was wrong with the rule breakers when I was a kid, but as Iāve grown older and learned about trauma-informed care, I have a new lens on obedience and punishment. Iāll save that for another post, but my point is that I have a respect for people who refuse. Sometimes this is a function of trauma, but other times itās a function of self-respect (sometimes itās both). You can call this boundaries, integrity, or principles. You can also call it staying true to yourself, the antithesis to self-abandonment.
Self-abandonment is also familiar within family systems. My parents were loving and gave me a secure home. But so many of my actions were met with criticism and perfectionism. One time when I was about 6 years old, I made a bunch of paper pillows for my mom. I partially stapled two pieces of paper together, stuffed it with little papers, and finished stapling it all around. I offered it to my mother as a genuine gift. And then I offered anotherā¦and another. Perhaps my mom likened this to a cat bringing its owner a dead mouse, and I can understand. But the last time I ever made a paper pillow was also the last time I offered it to my mom because she yelled at me, told me it was stupid, and told me to stop making them. This might seem like a minor example, yet I remember it vividly. My psyche learned that the things I made were not cute or appreciated. I learned to abandon something that truly made me happy from creation to gift. And I doubted so many things I did ever since.
From family interactions to school bullies, from racism to homophobia, self-abandonment lives on many levels. While compliance with systems is easier if you are white, heterosexual, able-bodied, middle or upper class, and identify as a man, and refusal isnāt punished as much, that doesnāt mean you are immune to abandoning yourself. However, having other lived experiences from these normative identities likely defaults you into self-abandonment. Read that again. When self-abandonment is your default, sometimes you arenāt aware of any other way to be.
Your default response is a trauma response. People pleasing is survival. And assimilation is in the air you breathe. Self-abandonment can feel so normal that it feels like itās a part of your personality. You canāt find the line from where āyouā started and ānot youā takes over.
Now what?
None of this is to say that there isnāt a way to work through self-abandonment. Of course you can. But first, itās important to identify the forces that place you in this position. Look at global systems, social systems, and your family system. Identify traumatic events in your life, ones that happen once and ones that happen over time, especially in the context of systems.
Process these with a trauma-informed therapist, coach, or a trusted friend or family member who has the capacity to be present for you. Find community. Identify where you are in your process, have compassion for yourself, and accept your reality. There is nothing wrong or broken with you. While society might say you donāt belong, you do belong. You belong because you are here.
Learn about the nervous system and start identifying what triggers you and what brings you glimmers. These are the stepping stones to living your truth.
You may have to make decisions that arenāt in your truth for the sake of your survival. I cannot tell you what these decisions might be because we all have so many different identities and life circumstances. But as you learn to stop abandoning yourself, you will also start to trust yourself. And as this happens, youāll feel more authentic in the decisions you make.
In the endā¦
Abandoning yourself can look so many ways. Lately for me, it has been saying yes when I mean no for little things that are mostly inconsequential, yet still significant. Other times itās loosening a boundary because I donāt want to make the emotional effort to enforce it. This happens to me, and it will happen to you. We are imperfect beingsāletās keep it that way. Remember, you can always make a different decision next time.
While capitalism, racism, sexism, and ableism will continue to have its way with us, that does not mean you donāt have power. Instead of resigning yourself, ask yourself the following questions:
What is my responsibility to myself? To society?
How is my responsibility liberating?
What small step can I take to harness my power?
Who can I trust in my community?
How can I stay true to myself this hour? This day? This week?
Dig deep, think big, and start small.
If you resonate with this, feel free to comment on the post or reply to me! I always love to hear what you think.
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Hi everyone,
This is just a reminder about two upcoming events. If youāre on my regular email list, you might have already received these, so excuse the duplication!
The BIPOC Healing Circle about navigating injustice is on Saturday, January 30th at 1pm PST/4pm EST. This one is free through The Healing Hype and is open to all Black, Indigenous, and/or People of Color (BIPOC). Register for the BIPOC Healing Circle here.
Iām moderating this AMAAAZING webinar with six AMAAAAZING South Asian therapists about about family obligation AKA filial piety on Sunday, January 31st at 12pm PST/3pm EST! This will go 90 minutes, and the cost is $25. Register here. This will be recorded if youād like to view it later.
Thank you friends!
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Iām going to stop making promises about exactly what Iām writing about next here. For me to talk and write about something well, I have to truly be inspired. I always want to give you my authentic perspective. So I can promise that I will talk about self-abandonment in a future post, but the timing will be TBD :)
In the beginningā¦
I was in a beautiful Clubhouse room with Lauren Elizabeth, a compassionate and curious justice-informed business coach, where we talked about imposter syndrome.
I actually did an IGTV called āImposter Syndrome is the Imposter, Not You!ā back in July. And I talk about how a colleague and friend of mine, Nikki Andrews, wrote about imposter syndrome as related to librarianship, however, a lot of it can be applied in any context. What is incredible, is that the researchers who coined the term in 1978 were incredibly misogynistic in their description of how women use their āfriendliness, charm, looks, humor, sexuality, and perceptivenessā to win people over; they discuss this in the context of women seeking validation and mentorship. Andrews astutely concludes that many of these qualities are also known to be empathy, something that requires a lot of emotional labor. Additionally, the article completely ignores institutional sexism and racism, especially in academia.
My point is that imposter syndrome isnāt often discussed in the context of systems, itās usually seen as an individual problem. And then these individual problems are somehow devoid of oppressive structures. Does this feel weird to you too?
What does being an āimposterā feel like?
As someone who has had multiple careers, the feeling of being an imposter is a familiar one. Ever since I was little, I struggled to answer the innocuous (but actually harmful IMO) question, āWhat do you want to be when you grow up?ā As a child, I internalized this question as a destination I needed to reach like: THE FUTURE WHEN I COULD FINALLY BE WHAT I WANTED.
But that was the problem. I felt like there was some mythical passion or career out there that was waiting for me, I just had to figure out what it was. I went to all the career counselors and took all the tests and still jumped around experimenting. Iām glad I tried new things, but the process that made me jump around came from a feeling of lack, not fullness.
So how does being an imposter feel? It feels like I know some things but not enough. It feels like I need to carry more weight. It feels like Iām small and will never be big enough. It feels like Iāll never get it right.
It doesnāt feel good.
Enough is enough with this not enoughness! Who told us this? Who taught us this? Rather, what ideology encourages this?
Itās capitalism thoā¦
Is it always capitalismās fault? I meanā¦yes? I will never say itās the one and only thing, but to not question the ideas that exist within a global and pervasive economic system that has direct implications about class and resources and clear implications for race, gender, and ability, would just be silly.
For capitalism to exist, competition needs to exist. This creates a rush to do better and be better. If we just accepted who we were, capitalism would have nothing to sell us, would it?
If we just take this class online and get this degree and exercise 5 times a week (with these exercise programs) and get on this diet, everything will be great!
The fact is that the land gives us everything we need, and we have created all these solutions in reaction to the system that created the need for these solutions. You can call it ironic, or you can admit that it was designed this way.
In the same vein, capitalism asks us to be hyperindividualistic. It says that you and you alone need to have it all figured out. It asks us to compete. We start comparing ourselves to others. For me, it started with grades and how smart I was. Iāll never forget the timed math quiz I took in first grade where I got one question wrong after always getting 100%. I still swear that the teacher called time early on purpose! Yes, as children we are a bit more ego-driven, but we are also caring and empathetic. The academic system is, of course, going to cater to capitalism because that is where it delivers us. Grades turn into resumes, resumes turn into bigger resumes, which turn into LinkedIn profiles, and so on. The value of community is not measured.
We all have different roles to play.
Lauren mentioned something during the Clubhouse conversation that really resonated with me on multiple levels. We all have different roles to play. We donāt have to be great at everything. We donāt even have to be good at everything. Itās okay to hype up your gifts, admire those who have other gifts, and laugh at your imperfections. Because that means youāre a human being. And that also means you can collaborate with others who have similar and different gifts as you.
She also mentioned Deepa Iyerās Social Change Ecosystem map from the Building Movement Project, which I learned about through a workshop I attended about understanding your role in activism with Irene Morning and Margeaux Feldman. Between going through this exercise and diving into Human Design, I feel so confident IN my imperfections. And Iām eager to meet others who complement me instead of feeling like I have to be in a competition with them. And if thereās something I really admire about someone else, I try to embody it in my own way, not their way.
We all have something to give to each other. We are not imposters, we are divinely created beings who evolve. And we evolve even better with community support. When we are only out for ourselves and calling ourselves names like āimposterā, we are making ourselves small instead of expanding what we already have. Trying to stop being an imposter means erasing who we are in that moment. This comes from a deficit mindset.
And the funny thing is that the places we donāt feel enough are actually beautiful and tender places that give us wisdom. They are the shadows that we can nurture out of love, not punishment.
The more we accept ourselves and meet ourselves where we are at, the less we realize we need to reach for the elusive āmoreā¦.or elseā. Or else what? Or else youāll keep thinking youāre not enough when you are whole part of a whole universe?
A bird flies because it has that gift. A tree stays rooted because it needs roots to survive. It reaches out for the sun for survival too. But does the tree try to fly away? Or does it try to have long and beautiful branches for birds to make a nest and take rest?
Community over competition
Forget imposter syndrome. Wellā¦maybe donāt forget it. But acknowledge how it is trying to play you. Professions are created. Yes, professions have functional purposes, but the values, certifications, and advancement of many professions are created to serve problematic systems. Professionalism itself seems to want to delineate itself from being too āpersonalā - I write about this here. Do we want to put ourselves in a box or do we want to be ourselves, full out?
When we take a look at a community where people have different roles and needs are fulfilled based on love and reciprocity, we start to see that āneedā is relative. We notice we already have enough, and the rest can just be expansive imagination. We can ask for help, we can reach out to someone else who is safe, and we can build ourselves up instead of tear each other down.
Have you ever teared up watching one of those videos where a couple writes their wedding vows to each other and reads them out loud? I have. What affects me the most is the radical acceptance each person has for each other. They know they are both imperfect, and they still relish in their unity.
In the endā¦
When someone first brought up imposter syndrome to me, I completely related. I didnāt say this out loud, but I might as well have: āWait, you donāt feel like youāre enough too?ā
We are humans who cannot do everything and we wish we could, and this has been pathologized into āimposter syndrome.ā
Maybe a job or hobby or whatever isnāt right for you. Thatās okay! It doesnāt mean youāre an imposter, it means youāre trying to find your way in the world.
Give yourself grace. Feed yourself compassion. And remember that, at minimum, Iām here to remind you that you donāt have to do it all alone. I promise you, you are enough.
And also, watch this TikTok video :)
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Hello! This is a quick message to say that I will hold the first BIPOC-only Healing Circle on Saturday, January 30th at 1pm PST/4pm EST, so save the date! The theme is "Navigating Injustice.ā
Typically, The Healing Hypeās healing circles are for the community only.
However, I feel that for this first BIPOC Healing Circle, it would be really supportive for BIPOC to have a space, whether you are part of the community or not, given everything that has been happening lately. So, if youāre interested, register by clicking the button below.
AND!
If you are not part of the community, you can win one year of The Healing Hype if you make the call live! This call will be recorded, but you must be present to win. This is thanks to my BIPOC Healing Fund.
Of course, if you want to join The Healing Hype community, you can start a free 30-day trial by clicking the button below.
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Last weekās events at the U.S. Capitol were horrifying. I will say that while Iām not surprised, I was still affectedāvery affected. My emotional reaction made me emotional. It made me reflect on my privilege. It made me confused and angry and sad. It made me tired.
I learned of the news from my boyfriend, and I immediately ignored it. I talked about this trauma response, and how it was similar to when I heard about 9/11, in this TikTok video:
Some commented that it was delayed processing, someone else said that they shielded themselves from it, and others said that they dissociated. You can also say that avoiding this news was a coping strategy or mechanism. I think the language you use to describe this response relates to what youāve heard from others, how you feel in your body, and how youāre relating to it. For example, if you say you ādissociated,ā thatās what happened in that moment. But if you say it was a ātrauma response,ā this describes a pattern of behavior when your body senses overwhelming information. Calling it a coping strategy or mechanism describes the ādissociationā as what you did to avoid the news, but it doesnāt necessarily connect it to a traumatic pattern.
I think itās important to understand the language we use when we describe our emotional and physical reactions to news we didnāt really expect.
Our privilege, personal identities, lived experiences, community influences, humility, vulnerability, and critical thinking all contribute to how our bodies and minds react, respond, and process this information. This guides the language we use, the people we turn to, and the decisions we make.
After I decided to accept this news, I couldnāt look away from the reports, live footage, and social media reactions. It was a lot to take in. It was the middle of my work day, and I could barely respond to emails. My body was exhausted. I stopped my day at 4:00 p.m. and took a nap. Iām glad I listened to what my body needed instead of burning myself out.
But the thing is, Iām still overwhelmed by this display. Because the thing is, it takes more than one nap and more than a few days to just āmove onāāespecially when we are expected to work through and āmove onā on from systemic injustice. This is just not viable, and itās not fair. What happened in Washington, D.C. is a result of centuries of enslavement, capitalistic industrialization, patriarchy, heteronormativity, and white supremacy, that separate the haves from the have nots.
I think what frustrates me the most is that the world gives us so much, there isnāt that much more to have. Yet, greed and the desire to be supreme, masked as āachievementā is a natural byproduct of capitalism and itās the process that feeds it.
So I donāt plan to āmove onā from this. This has given me more resolve to embody my values of equity, anticapitalism, community, vulnerability, unlearning, and compassion. It makes me more curious about transformative justice work. And it helps me see why abolition is more important than ever.
Some say that the āwokeā are pushing the right toward extremism. But I say that their reaction is fueled on the fear of change, whether itās real or not. This is what happens when you hold your boundaries. This is what happens when you stay firm. You make the abuser, the violator, and the gaslighter uncomfortable. No matter the counterargument, if our actions are rooted in decolonization, community care, and justice, you will find your trajectory.
Our reaction and our resolve is valid. Whether you rested, whether you mobilized, and whether you crawled into a corner of your room, your reaction is valid. Just as we are different people with different experiences, we will have different reactions. And we also have an opportunity to make a decision. What will your decision be?
I am deeply committed to mutual aid, looking at relational frameworks, trauma-informed care, and learning more about transformative justice while working with others to attend to their nervous system and connect to their bodies. Collective and individual action work in concert, always.
How have you been moving through this week? What decisions will you make?
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Welcome to my first ever official advice column post! I am thrilled that todayās advice column is available for everyone to see. Going forward, this will be a perk for those that are part of The Healing Hype community, so subscribe monthly or annually here if youād like to get and read more advice!
Dear Nisha,
I feel small and shameful after expressing a feeling that someone doesn't respond to well. Then I feel like I should hide and that Iām not not worthy after we make up. Can you help?
Thanks,
Hiding Myself
Dear Hiding Myself,
First, I want to commend you for expressing your feelings to someone who seems to matter to you. This is so very important, and it is so very hard when we live in a world that values our output more than our well being, our highlight reel more than our struggles, and our obedience more than our needs.
People have literally been burnt at the stake for expressing their feelings. Some have been murdered, abused, and so many are gaslit every day. To state your feelings and your needs can be revolutionary. And, for myself and other people who call themselves people pleasers, to state what we need feels like lifting up a volcano that is also erupting. It feels hot and shaky and heavy af. But you know that if you donāt say how you feel, the eruption will compound inside until a super-duper-mega-monstrous eruption is unleashed and nearly turns your insides out. And when this monster is unleashed, you get the idea that it is better to not stuff it down, no matter how hard it is to speak up.
I want you to remember one thing, Hiding Myself: how you feel is always the truth. If someone says you āshouldnātā feel a certain way or that you simply donāt, they are saying how they feel, which has nothing to do with you.
Iāve been guilty of this. Iāve said, āYou shouldnāt feel _______,ā because, like so many others, Iāve been taught that ānegativeā feelings like sadness, anger, shame, and jealousy is ābad.ā But to believe this is to deny our humanity. It erases the function of feelings. Our feelings are literally physical sensations that exist to save us. If someone disrespects you and you feel mad, your body is making sure that you know you are worthy. And if you feel shame even if you āmade upā with someone after youāve expressed your feelings, this means that your shame has a place and comes from a place. The other thing about shame is that it grows when itās a secret. So thank you for sharing your shame with me and with this community. Thank you for letting it shift outside of your being so we can hold it for you. You deserve that, we all do.
The problem is that even if we know that we need to express ourselves, sometimes we still feel bad about doing it. This is especially true if we grew up in environments where we were the peacekeepers, and we kept the peace to the point of not knowing our own peace. To the point of losing sight of ourselves. And patriarchy says that those of us socialized as women are seen as ātoo emotionalā so even if we express our needs, patriarchy says we shouldnāt need those needs.
So I want you to dig deep Hiding Myself. I want you to look beyond this relationship and think about another time you felt this way when you were with others. Maybe this is with an old friend or with a family member. When were your feelings denied? Who gave you a signal that you were unworthy? Which systemic structures confirmed this? How did you hide?
While you think about this, Iāll tell you about how I hid myself. When I was little, all I wanted to do was ābe good.ā I know this because I found a worksheet from first grade that says it. On this worksheet, there are three questions where I talked about it:
Is there anything youād like to change about yourself? My answer: Be good.
What do you like best about yourself? My answer: Being good.
Did you ever wish you could be someone else? Why? My answer: Yes, so I can be really good.
Aside from being kind of cute, this also made me kind of sad. Actually, it made me very sad. Was I good? Did I want to be good? Would I ever be good? I wasnāt even seven years old, and I had completely lost confidence in my goodness. My guess is that I would, at any expense, try to alter myself to be good. Because, if I did this, it meant that I was accepted and liked and rewarded. And if I was accepted and liked and rewarded, then I had worth.
To achieve this worth, I would hide how I felt because how I felt wasnāt always believed. If my needs didnāt fit a scale of goodness, then I guess I didnāt need them. And this didnāt stop in first grade.
When I met my now ex-husband, he helped me move my IKEA dresser and broke a piece of it in the process. I expressed my shock when I saw the broken piece, and he proceeded to call me materialistic. He yelled at me and told me that I cared too much āthings.ā And I believed him because to be in a relationship with him, I had to twist my reality to fit his reality. And I did, for eight years, even though my body screamed otherwise. To ābe goodā in this relationship meant that I should subscribe to his philosophy. I shouldnāt have feelings about a āthingā being broken. In that moment, I hadnāt even wondered if he thought he was āgoodā after breaking someone elseās property. Someone being upset with me meant that I did something ābad.ā I didnāt question his goodness because my goodness was deferential to everyone and everything else.
I let others measure my worth instead of realizing that I was born worthy. You were born worthy too, Hiding Myself. But at some point, someone or something told you that worth was something to be earned. And to earn it, you had to follow arbitrary rules that probably adhered to patriarchy and heteronormativity. And these rules have been passed down from one generation to the next, so we believed them.
Even though you expressed yourself and even though you made up, thereās a part of you that still has the āfeel badsā for doing it, Hiding Myself. Maybe, even though you āmade upā with this person, they said or implied something to diminish your worth. Maybe they didnāt, maybe they acknowledged their reaction, repaired it, and vowed to continue to improve. Maybe your āfeel badsā are so conditioned that all the āfeel goodsā in the world wonāt take them away. I donāt know which one it is, Hiding Myself. Maybe itās both. That is for you to figure out.
All I know is that when you hide yourself, the world isnāt seeing this beautiful being who has so much to offer, especially when they talk about their feelings. Expressing your emotions and your needs is your responsibility. Yes, we need other people in our lives because we are social beings. But those people, the ones who try to see you as your already worthy self, and the ones who already do, will show up for you. If they canāt, if they wonāt, or if they donāt know how, thatās okay. Because, Hiding Myself, you have the power to understand your needs and your feelings. You have the power to express them. You have the power to release your shame, expand yourself, and see your worth. You have the power to fill your life with humans who amplify your truth.
But it isnāt about arriving at this destination. Itās about understanding what has blocked you from moving past the āfeel badsā and into the āworth its.ā Itās about discovering this conditioning, unlearning it, and deeply knowing that to ābe goodā is to just be you.
I hope you can be you, Hiding Myself. I hope you can look in the mirror and say, āTo be me, is to be whole. To be me, is to meet my needs. To be me, is to be free.ā And I hope that if someone asks you if thereās anything youād like to change about yourself, you laugh and answer that to change yourself means you feel bad about yourself, and while your answer might have been different before, you have nothing to apologize for anymore.
With love,
Nisha
This is a public episode. If youād like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thehealinghype.com/subscribe
For those of you in the community, the Winter Healing Circle will be on Saturday, December 19 at 10am PST/1pm EST. Check out this post for the Zoom information! The theme of this healing circle is intergenerational trauma. There will be meditation and space for the community to share experiences.
If you arenāt part of the community and would like to join, even if you just want to try it out this month, you can subscribe here:
I first heard about intergenerational trauma through this illustration by therapist Ayan Mukherjee:
When I saw this post, it was like š¤Æš¤Æš¤Æ!!! I was grateful for the South Asian example because, while I was aware that India was colonized, I hadnāt yet internalized what this meant for me.
According to article āThe legacy of trauma: An emerging line of research is exploring how historical and cultural traumas affect survivorsā children for generations to comeā by Tori DeAngelis:
One of the first articles to note the presence of intergenerational trauma appeared in 1966, when Canadian psychiatrist Vivian M. Rakoff, MD, and colleagues documented high rates of psychological distress among children of Holocaust survivors (Canadaās Mental Health, Vol. 14). Since then, researchers have been assessing anxiety, depression and PTSD in trauma survivors and their progeny, with Holocaust survivors and their children the most widely studied and over the longest period of time.
This is also the topic of the text The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Traumaby Bessel van der Kolk M.D.
When I imagined the impact of colonization, slavery, assimilation, and other types of disenfranchisement on humans generation after generation, as illustrated by Mukherjee, it recontextualized how we carry the wounds of our ancestors before us.
And the DNA strand taught me that this trauma literally lives in the body through epigenetics.
What is epigenetics?
According to the CDC, āEpigenetics is the study of how your behaviors and environment can cause changes that affect the way your genes work. Unlike genetic changes, epigenetic changes are reversible and do not change your DNA sequence, but they can change how your body reads a DNA sequence.ā
I wouldnāt be a good librarian if I didnāt say that there is debate about intergenerational trauma, also referred to as transgenerational trauma and inherited trauma, and how its oversimplifications in popular media can be misleading. The article āThe Public Reception of Putative Epigenetic Mechanisms in the Transgenerational Effects of Traumaā (2018) states (emphasis by me):
Terms such as āinherited traumaā also obfuscate rather than clarify what is being transmitted and howāindeed, how can an experience be inherited? It is clearer to frame the discussion around how the impact of a trauma occurring to the parent can affect the offspring. Thus, the term āintergenerational traumaā is misleading because it is meant to refer to the intergenerational manifestation of the effects of parental trauma.
It continues (emphasis by me):
In some ways, the presence of epigenetic marks associated with preconception parental trauma seems to imply a kind of blameless and predestined legacy. Perhaps the widespread reception of this research speaks to a cultural fear of powerlessness and lack of agency, or reflects a cultural moment in which objective evidence of a trauma-induced alteration seems to validate suffering that has been dismissed or trivialized. Regardless of the explanations for popular interest in the research, the determination that epigenetic mechanisms provide a potential vehicle for the intergenerational transmission of parental trauma effects does contribute meaningfully to the social and cultural narrative.
I appreciate the differentiation between predestined trauma and the effects of parental trauma on children because this shows that if we heal our traumas, we can reduce the chances of projecting the effects of trauma transmitted to ourselves upon others.
The tricky thing about research is that all of it uses language that is invested in Western Eurocentric ways of language and thinking. It doesnāt consider collective ways of being and living, and so much medical research focuses on White men. It cannot measure what it means to feel connected to or disconnected from your ancestors. And then there is just general scientific variation.
In the research article āEnvironmentally-Induced Transgenerational Epigenetic Inheritance: Implication of PIWI Interacting RNAsā, Casier, Boivin, CarrĆ©, and Teysset (2019) write (emphasis by me):
One stress may cause multiple epigenetic changes. Among these changes, some of them are probably independent, whereas other modifications work together. Nature is a combination of numerous stressors including temperature, pressure variations, pollution, starvation, drought as well as competition for food, social stresses, and so on. It is unlikely that one stress can act only on one biological process, but even if this is the case, we can expect that the addition of all these stresses will impact several important pathways.
A balance between transgenerational epigenetic inheritance and epigenetic reprogramming occurs at each generation, and these processes are tightly regulated during development. Several factors are capable of tipping this epigenetic balance toward transgenerational inheritance, notably after stress exposure.
I think itās hard to argue that if someone goes through serious trauma, it doesnāt affect the people around them. And if the people who raised you were on the receiving end of these effects and were not able to heal these effects, then wouldnāt that affect you? While genetic changes are not reversible, epigenetic changes are possible.
So when I talk about intergenerational trauma, this is what Iām talking about.
What about systemic trauma?
Did I just make up the term āsystemic traumaā without doing any research? Yes. Do I feel bad about it? No.
I think itās important to understand how current ā-ismsā and oppressions like racism, capitalism, sexism, ableism, classism, the gender binary, and heteronormativity can have traumatic effects, especially if you identify from a marginalized population.
While ancestral and intergenerational wounds matter, we also have to acknowledge present effects. We still battle day-to-day global challenges of White supremacy, food insecurity, geopolitical conflict, climate disasters, lack of healthcare access, and, now, a pandemic. (Hot take: these are all related). And while we think these donāt all affect us directly, that isnāt true.
Take the recent farmer protests in Punjab India. Maybe you think this doesnāt affect you, but India is also the largest producer of cotton in the world. Global movements have effects - you can read more about this here. And this is just one example.
This systemic trauma, combined with the effects of historical oppression, puts us in positions to just SURVIVE on a daily basis. Unless you have expansive generational wealth (and even if you do) capitalism asks us to compete and it disconnects communities from each other and from their land. As a result, social and racial divisions emerge. This is a recipe for feeling burned out, unworthy, shameful, and powerless.
So how do we heal intergenerational trauma?
The first step is always awareness. And with awareness comes learning and unlearning. We are all unique individuals. If you have a sibling who was raised under the same parental figure(s) as you, Iām guessing they reacted in ways that were different than you. Yet, there are similarities to your experiences.
So while this is a personal investigation, itās also a collective one. Here are some ways to get started:
Discover your ancestry
You can do this formally through one of those DNA tests and/or informally by talking to family or recounting stories (verbally or written) about your familyās history. I also suggest doing some research about your ancestry through books, historical texts, oral histories (SAADA has some great collections for those who identify as South Asian), and old letters. I always recommend finding resources that have a decolonized perspective, which greatly differs from what we learned in traditional history classes.
Find community
We are social beings who need connection with others to feel safe. 2020 has shown us how social connection is so important.
This is why finding communities that you can identify with in terms of ethnicity, race, sexuality, gender, age, and/or ability, is so important if you want to be held and supported in this process. (This is why The Healing Hype has a community component.)
While social media can be a scary place, it can also be a nourishing place that contains multitudes of communities. Iām part of several Asian and South Asian communities, communities of writers who are POC, communities of librarians who are POC, and communities of podcasters who are POC and WOC. Iām also a part of various mental health communities. It can be overwhelming, but I try to allow myself to be available when Iām ready to be.
Get in your body
Iāve been slowly reading The Body Keeps the Score by Dr. van der Kolk, and my point is in the title. Trauma reshapes the body and the brain. That doesnāt mean you canāt do anything about it. It means that your body holds a lot of power to transform in so many ways, including through your breath, through movement, with social connection, and through neuroplasticity.
So often we think that we have to āfixā our mind, and we donāt even think about our body! First of all, you are worthy and you are not broken. You might be able to describe the thoughts in your head when you feel anxious, but are you aware about what happens in your body? Does your heart race? Do you feel tight? Hot? Does your stomach feel queasy?
Everything is connected, and our body feels trauma first. Doesnāt it make sense to get to the root?
And this brings us to the nervous system aka polyvagal theory. When we experience trauma, our body engages to protect us. It offers a fight, flight, freeze, or fawn response (Iāll get into the details of polyvagal theory in a future post). When we are able to recognize how our body reacts to something that triggers our trauma, we can take steps to heal it. Iām not exaggerating when I say that this has literally changed my life. I hope it can help you too :)
Of course, seeing a therapist who is trauma-informed and culturally sensitive is so important. This isnāt always easy to find as there are many therapists who adhere to more traditional forms of therapy, but the field and perspectives are growing!
How have I healed from intergenerational trauma?
I need to put my money where my mouth is, right?
First of all, what is my trauma? Not only did I experience emotional abuse and sexual trauma from my marriage, but so much of my people pleasing tendencies that showed up in that relationship were birthed from my relationship with my parents.
As I mentioned in Part 1 and Part 2 of āWho am I to talk about healing and justice?ā, I hadnāt realized how the colonization of India was deeper than my personal experience within my family. India became independent from British rule around the time my parents were born, so I figured they didnāt have experience with it. Yet, I forgot that their parents and their grandparents and generations before them lived through insults and oppression from British colonizers.
Hereās a recount of the imperialist strategy of divide and conquer (emphasis by me):
The British Empire adopted the age-old political strategy of divide and conquer throughout their colonization of India. The occupiers used the strategy to turn locals against each other to help them rule the region. Whenever the British felt threatened by Indian nationalism and saw it growing, they divided the Indian people along religious lines.
In 1905, Viceroy of India Lord Curzon partitioned Bengal dividing the largely Muslim-dominated eastern section from the Hindu dominated western part. But the strategy didn't last long as Bengal was reunited in 1911. After oppressing India for 200 years, draining its wealth and filling their own coffers, the U.K. ripped the Indian subcontinent into pieces just before they finally left. The partition of 1947 that came along with Indiaās independence left nearly one million dead and 13 million displaced. Billions of dollars were lost in property left behind.
Not only did learnng about this history help me have compassion for my parents, but it made me wonder how it shaped them into the people they were. But connecting with my ancestors has always felt challenging to me. My father passed away 8 years ago, his parents died before I was born, and all his siblings are gone too.
It can be challenging to talk to my mom about family without it somehow turning into judgments or criticisms of me. Iāve learned how to better protect my energy, but I also have to have some boundaries. Itās always feels like a catch-22. I want to understand her perspective and experiences, but those experiences get blocked.
But thankfully, Iāve been able to talk to other family members and listen to other South Asian immigration stories. Iāve also tried to learn more about the colonization of India and freedom fighters like B.R. Ambedkar.
Iāve found so much community through getting in deep conversations with friends who have a similar backgrounds, finding those digital communities I mentioned above, and by having conversation with other Asians on my podcast MigrAsians.
Iāve also learned about how my nervous system is triggered and how to better navigate my body. Iām so much more aware of the perfectionism and anxiety that Iāve mimicked from both my parents, and now Iām able to take a few extra breaths, meditate, go for a walk, or hold myself.
Iāve also seen a therapist consistently for 8 years, and Iāve made so many breakthroughs because of it. Even when I think I have nothing to talk about, I surprise myself.
In the endā¦
Healing intergenerational trauma, like all healing, isnāt linear. Once you dive in, it will be ongoing and present itself to you in different trajectories. One day youāll be digging into the colonized and/or colonist history of your ancestors, and the next day youāll dance it out because your nervous system needs it. These might seem like separate ways to heal, but they arenāt.
The fact is you have the power to break generational cycles of trauma. This is as exciting as it is overwhelming.
When itās too much for me, I take a deep breath and break down the tasks at hand. It starts with one conversation, reading one sentence, or taking one breath.
So hold your hand over heart, close your eyes, and say āI am the answer my ancestors needed.ā
This is a public episode. If youād like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thehealinghype.com/subscribe
My first post talked about the what and why of The Healing Hype. In todayās post, Iāll be breaking down the question: Who am I to talk about healing and justice?
But before I get into it, I want to reiterate that I am always learning and unlearning. I know things, I donāt know things, and I donāt know if what I know is the only way to know it. Do you feel me? This newsletter is for those who want to learn, unlearn, and constantly question because there is never one ārightā answer - decolonize amirite?
Who am I?
Iām Nisha (she/her), a cisgendered, heterosexual, divorced, South Asian American, woman. I am the daughter of Indian immigrants. Iām also a sister, a friend, and a lover. I donāt really identify by the religion I was raised, but itās a part of me. Iām an upper caste Hindu, though, I didnāt realize this until I interviewed The Fat Sex Therapist on my podcast MigrAsians. For those of you that donāt know, the Hindu caste system divides people up into professional and social classes. Originally, it was divided by profession, and it was also a way to maintain a social hierarchy. Now itās more of the latter, which has led to plenty of violence and disenfranchisement, especially against Dalit aka Untouchable women.
I was born and raised in the unceded land of the Kickapoo, Peoria, and Potawatomi, also known as the suburbs of Chicago, and I lived in Illinois until a few years ago when I moved to unceded Tongva land, also known as Los Angeles, for a job as a librarian. Yes, I work as a librarian and I fit the Venn Diagram of the librarian stereotype.
Before I was a librarian, I was a speech therapist, a voiceover artist, a recruiter, and an IT consultant. But Iāve always been a writer, and now Iām also a Feminist Healing Coach and podcaster.
I value compassion, curiosity, storytelling, community, humility, and equity. I believe that the world isnāt ours to take - we are part of the Earth and the Earth is in us. I get frustrated on a daily, sometimes hourly, basis about how most of society treats the land as if it is theirs to exploit instead of just being with the land.
I am deeply curious about how we relate. How do we relate to the land? How do we relate to our ancestors? How do we relate to family? friends? ourselves? Lately, I have been diving into this more and more, and Iām delighted, confused, and frightened about what I discover. Of course, I can save this for another post :)
Who am I to talk?
Yes, I like to talk. And people seem to like the sound of my voice, so I guess thatās a good thing! I was on the speech team in high school, I love giving presentations and teaching, and I have a blast on my podcast MigrAsians. Even if I feel insecure before speaking in public, I somehow get a rush of adrenaline that lights me up while Iām doing it.
And itās not just a one-way thing. I love to moderate and facilitate.
When I was a speech therapist, I started a stroke and brain injury support group, and even though I wasnāt paid for it, it was my FAVORITE thing to do! I loved observing how conversations flowed and watching new relationships bloom before my eyes. And most importantly, I cherished facilitating a venue that gave voice to people who were isolated and felt like nobody could relate to their struggles.
I have always been passionate about language. I majored in Communication Studies and Cognitive Science in undergrad, which integrated my interests between how people think and how they communicate. I got my Masterās degree in Speech-Language Pathology because I have always been fascinated about language and the brain. And then I got my Masterās in Library and Information Science because I love teaching people about information and how itās not as neutral as we might think. Oh, and, as I mentioned, Iām a writer - I write memoir and essays. Here are a few of my favorite essays, so take a read and let me know what you think :)
Why I Brag About My Divorce - an essay about my divorce
The Currents Can Change - an essay about my dadās death and the pandemic
Facts Alone Wonāt Destroy Fake News - an essay about how facts arenāt always the solution
I love how a simple sentence can conjure up memories and how a phrase can make you feel a familiar feeling as if it were new.
As you can see, communicating, connecting, and creating is near and dear to my heart.
Who am I to talk about healing and justice?
This is what you came for right?
One reason that I want to talk about healing and justice is because it wasnāt important to me until after college. I never used to see myself as āpolitical,ā but I grew up always trying to understand why people did the things they did, and...well, Iām still figuring that out :)
My junior year of high school, I did a project about how we could all walk the path to happiness - I got called āthe happy girlā because of it.
But was I happy when I was 17?
I had loving parents, a secure home, and I never worried about food on the table. But at the same time, my parents were immigrants from India who constantly lived with a scarcity mindset. Technically, we were secure, but they still wouldnāt take any risks that seemed to threaten that security. So while my parents, especially my mom, admired people who took great risks, and encouraged me to do the same, they also asked me to quit activities that I loved. Itās like they liked the idea of risk but were too fearful to experience the consequences because of the other struggles they had before I was born.
This fear was deeply embedded into my being, resulting in overwhelming perfectionism, shame, and people pleasing. So happiness was helping others, a role that I fell into, but not by choice. At the age of 11 or 12, my mom would dump her issues with her family and my dad on me. I became parentified before I even got my period.
From The Developmental Implications of Parentification: Effects on Childhood Attachment by Jennifer A. Engelhardt (emphasis by me):
The term āparentificationā was first utilized in depth by Boszormenyi-Nagy and Spark (1973) to describe a common component of relationships whereby parental characteristics are projected onto an individual. Within the parent-child relationship, this process is often seen when the child performs chores or occasionally offers emotional support for a parent, and is believed to be healthy for the child as he or she begins to see the potential for him or herself in an adult role (Boszormenyi-Nagy & Spark, 1973). However, when the responsibilities become too burdensome, or when the child feels obligated to take on the adult position in order to maintain a balance in the family system, parentification can become pathological (Hooper, 2007a, 2007b). This dysfunctional aspect of parentification is most commonly addressed in the literature, and is described as:
a disturbance in the generational boundaries, such that evidence indicates a functional and/or emotional role reversal in which the child sacrifices his or her own needs for attention, comfort, and guidance in order to accommodate and care for the logistical and emotional needs of a parent and/or sibling. (Hooper, 2007b, p. 323)
Whew, can you relate?
It has taken me time to reconcile this. Iāve often wondered what my mom was thinking when she sought this support. Was she consciously seeking this from me? Did she think so highly of me that she thought I could handle it?
The fact is that seeking out mental health support in the South Asian community is very stigmatized. Iāve had to grapple with how my mom felt she had nobody else with whom she could divulge these issues, while also having compassion for myself.
By the time I was in high school, not realizing how I was molded into this role of an advice giver, I found myself extremely interested in philosophy and I dove into the Hindu scriptures. I never cared for the rituals my Hindu parents did for daily prayer or religious events, but I loved interpreting and discussing scriptures like the Mahabharata and The Bhagavad Gita. It offered me a connection to my culture and an avenue to find the ārightā path in life. And while I donāt really look to these scriptures anymore, thereās one that specifically sticks out and has always followed me.
From The Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 2, Verse 47:
You have a right to perform your prescribed duties, but you are not entitled to the fruits of your actions. Never consider yourself to be the cause of the results of your activities, nor be attached to inaction.
When I first learned this verse, I hated it! If Iām not the cause of the results of my activities, who is? How dare you take away my agency?!?!? But after what Iāve learned on my own healing journey and about systemic injustice, I have some huge takeaways from this verse.
Trust the process. All I can do is my ādutyā - for me, it is my duty and responsibility to align with my truest self. This verse is also in the context of Hindu caste (i.e., you are obligated to your duty in X role defined by your caste, in this case, it was being part of the warrior caste). I donāt believe in caste, but I have reclaimed ādutyā to mean connecting with my intuition and nature instead of external validation. I have to fall in love with the process because the outcome is not in my hands. Not being āentitledā to the outcome is different than enjoying or not enjoying the outcome. Essentially, you did what you can, and you canāt change things because...
You do not cause results. Let me give you an example. I just started The Healing Hype, and I really want it to flourish. But all I can do is write, research, and provide the best quality possible - what happens as a result is not always going to be up to me. Someone may not be able to pay for it, they might get support from somewhere else, it might not align with their values. This is out of my control. I donāt mean this in a way where you cannot work toward a goal and achieve it. Sure you can! But I mean this in a way that considers systemic and other external factors, ones which are out of our control. This is the same reason that a rich White man is privileged with more human rights than a poor Black queer woman. Neither of them did anything more or less to deserve these rights - systemic racism and capitalism creates obstacles or a lack thereof.
I bring this up because staying in the present, being mindful, and acknowledging our intersections of oppression and political histories are crucial to how we navigate our lives.
But for a long time, I used to only think about myself as an individual and not the world around me. But things started to changeā¦
I started to make connections between parentification, seeking out toxic relationships, and linking this to patriarchy and colonization. Iāll get into detail about what I discovered in Part 2, which is for those who have invested in The Healing Hype - so subscribe below if you havenāt!
Did you always make the connection between healing and justice? Reply and let me know!
This is a public episode. If youād like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thehealinghype.com/subscribe
Iām Nisha (she/her), a Feminist Healing Coach, a writer, a librarian, a speaker, a podcaster, and a speech therapist - most importantly, Iām Your Healing Hype Girl!
What is The Healing Hype?
The Healing Hype is a newsletter and community where I explore healing, in many forms, and justice, in many forms. Here are some topics I will explore:
Abolition, Afro-futurism, Anti-capitalism, Anti-racism, Anti-oppression, Anxiety, Art, ASMR, Astrology, BDSM, Body Image, Breathwork, Collective and Community Healing, CPTSD, Decolonizing all the things, EMDR, Emergent Strategy, Epigenetics, Feminism, Gender, Human Design, Inner Child Work, Intergenerational Trauma, Intuition, Journaling, Meditation and Mindfulness, Mental Health, Pleasure and Play, Polyvagal Theory, Rest, Restorative Justice, Tarot, Transformative Justice, Trauma-informed Healing, Trauma-sensitive Mindfulness, Writing, Yoga, and more!
And I will explore these topics in these ways:
Written reflections about my experiences with healing
An advice column!!!
Conversations with decolonizers and healing helpers (I prefer not to say healers, because I believe we get support from others to heal ourselves, but WE are the magic)
Research about different types of healing (trust me, Iām a librarian ;)),
Recorded meditations
Theoretical frameworks
Seasonal Healing Circles
BIPOC-only Healing Circles
Registration to a workshop!
More I think of along the way
The Healing Hype is a newsletter and a community. If you choose to invest in The Healing Hype, you will have more access to my support, my writing, and others who are curious, passionate, and searching for healing and justice. Keep reading to see what the hype is all about and the community you will receive.
How is healing āhypeā? And what exactly is the āhypeā?
When I say āhype,ā I mean it in the way a trusted friend makes you laugh your ass off, the way someone or something can lift you out of a shitty funk, and the way you feel supported after being raw and vulnerable. Thatās me, Your Healing Hype Girl. And this is my newsletter and community for you.
Iāve been this girl long before I started this. But I hadnāt stepped into it until recently because, well, Iām a brown woman who learned to people please and be deferential to others, who was taught that nothing I did was ever enough and that I didnāt know how to ālisten.ā Is it surprising that I sought out what others desired of me instead of listening to my intuition? That Iād engage with dysfunctional because I wanted to heal dysfunctional, even though the dysfunction was being volleyed back to me?
I didnāt understand it then, but it makes so much sense now. Iāve experienced sexual trauma, physical trauma, and emotional trauma, and it fing sucks. But here I am, moving and healing through it. I believe we are all on a healing journey, but itās not to some promised land. Itās a return to ourselves.*
While listening to an episode of Divinely Human by Jas, the Moon Mother, I fixated on her talking about how we cannot keep chasing healing. We just have to remember what the healing feels like. We have to align with these healing vibrations.
I couldnāt agree more. Easier said than done? Probably.
So thatās why Iām here - to help you align. To provide words and community support. I continue to heal from my own trauma from being in a physically and emotionally abusive marriage, gaslit and constantly critiqued as a child and as an adult, experiencing anxiety about any decision Iād make, and dealing with a mix of denigrating and exotifying racism. Then thereās the intergenerational trauma on top of it all - colonization, migration, assimilation. Hereās a graphic I posted on my Instagram about it:
I was able to create this graphic because I have personally experienced and witnessed these forms of trauma in my family circle.
And through it all, I found a way to heal by understanding (1) my body (2) my wounds, (3) my lineage, and (4) the systems that have shaped my life AND the world around me. Because my wounds reflect universal wounds. As Audre Lorde said, āI am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.ā - this is true for all intersections of oppression.
What are my (and The Healing Hypeās) values?
Compassion, authenticity, vulnerability, community, curiosity, justice, transformation, and unlearning.
Who is The Healing Hype for?
It is for decolonizers, those who identify as healers, coaches, therapists, guides, artists, people who are beginning and continuing their healing journey, people pleasers, trauma bbās, polyvagal theory nerds, restorative and transformative justice advocates, activists, emergent strategists, educators, and anyone curious about or interested in trauma-informed healing, and how healing can be connected to justice and vice versa.
Iām going to say something vulnerable here - I am not a healing or justice expert. I donāt like to call myself an expert in anything because I am constantly learning and unlearning. But, I AM: a Feminist Healing Coach, a writer, a librarian, a speaker, a podcaster, and a speech therapist who has worked thousands of clinical hours and facilitated so so so many groups with people of all ages and abilities. In all of these roles, listening, questioning, and counseling have been foundational. I am compassionate af AND I hold my boundaries close. So, while I wonāt know everything, I will do my freaking hardest to try to ask questions, be inquisitive, and refer you to other amazing people. So trust that. Trust my intention and trust my curiosity. After all, I am Your Healing Hype Girl!
What is included in The Healing Hype?
The Healing Hype is more than a newsletter, itās an exploratory and intentional community.
If you choose to provide an exchange for The Healing Hype, not only are you supporting a BIPOC writer, but I commit to offering 15% of your investment toward my BIPOC Healing Fund as well as other organizations supporting transformative justice efforts. I use this fund to provide scholarships and discounts to BIPOC. And here is what you get as part of this community:
Access to ALL posts
Ability to ask for advice through an advice column
Invitation to Seasonal Healing Circles - where we will hold space and heal based on current events and/or themes, plus additional BIPOC-only Healing Circles throughout the year
Registration to 1 workshop each year
Ability to like and comment on posts
AND I will always provide an audio version of each post for your accessibility and convenience.
One more thing šš¾ there is also a Provider plan! If you identify as a coach, guide, healer, therapist, or just generally someone who supports others, you get all of the benefits above, plus group support to help with client and mentor relationships, navigating being a provider while living in capitalism, and other challenges!
I plan to have at least 1-2 posts per week for paid subscribers and 2 per month if you subscribe for free. As I add more content, I will likely increase the cost. But whatever you pay now will ALWAYS be your price. Your investment will not change even if I have 4 posts a week or add more community events and features. Because I value your trust, loyalty, and faith in my work and in community care.
What do you think?
Most importantly, what do YOU want to know more about? I want this to be an organic newsletter that evolves and takes shape because thatās also how healing happens.
The forces that keep us in a capitalistic trap ask us to follow formulas and strategies instead of listening to our intuition, and I am NOT here for that.
So here I am, putting out The Healing Hype in full confidence. I trust that this flow will find its way to your inbox and can be reflected in your life.
This is a public episode. If youād like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thehealinghype.com/subscribe