On the cost of speaking up

And October's theme and schedule!

Paid subscribers can join me on Thursday at 12pm -1pm ET for a peer support group regarding what is happening in Palestine, Lebanon and across that region. We will process our grief, discuss how our perspectives and lives and relationships have changed, and lean into community care and support. Scroll down to bottom to register.

Scroll down to see October’s theme and schedule of content!

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I have been taught that I shouldn't stir things up, or it's selfish to ask for what I want, or it's rude to advocate.

Speaking up and making it known that I am pro-Palestinian liberation as an anti-oppressive therapist has cost me some career opportunities. A small price to pay in comparison to all the Palestinian people have lost.

The stakes are at an all-time high — for our own sense of self-loss and self-betrayal, but also when others rely on or ask you to help. Now more than ever, we must use our voices to amplify multiple truths. You can experience personal joy and heartbreak. Use the pain to fuel you into action.

Over the years, I have learned to use my voice and to lean into the privilege I have that others may not have (even if it's hard or scary). I have learned to root into my values and focus on my own goals.

As more people speak up and speak out, it becomes less of a 'risk' for all of us. It can, over time, change the status quo.

Maybe using your voice won't change someone's mind, but you never know. We don't always see the ripple effects. Using your voice can also help you contribute to a solution and remind you that you have agency in a world that may try to take it away. Keep speaking.

This is a real journal entry from this morning when I felt so much weight and emotion about what this past year has been for me:

• One year of being more educated about a historical conflict that I was previously more ignorant of

• One year of speaking up about justice and collective liberation, and losing speaking opportunities and followers because of it

• One year of confronting what it means to live out my values of community care and collective liberation

• One year of navigating a complicated grief

Not complicated in nature. There is nothing complicated about grieving those lost ruthlessly and unnecessarily in a genocide.

The complication comes in when we have experienced moments of joy throughout this time of overwhelming grief. When the distance between us and the horrors means we only experience this pain as a secondary source. When we can bear witness to the atrocities, but can also turn them off. And through it all, hopelessness and guilt are ever-present. 

Here are some tips for managing these feelings:

Confront your cognitive dissonance: Cognitive dissonance is the mental conflict that occurs when you are aware that your behaviors and beliefs do not align. Or it can occur when you realize new information conflicts with the existing information you already have. Simply: It’s the incompatibility between your thoughts, values, actions, and/or beliefs

In order to create a sense of internal consistency, you can change your belief to match your actions or you can change your action to match your beliefs.Sometimes you can’t because of survival or need, so you are forced into compliance or have to pick between choices that don’t feel good to you. These can be how you speak up, how you engage in conscious consumerism, who you are in community with, and what you do in your free time.

For many of us who are trying to figure out how to navigate crisis — it may be uncomfortable to really interrogate our role and our responsibility, but I urge you not to avoid it.

Lean into community care: We cannot heal on our own. Collectivism and community are forms of self care! Lean into these values and ask yourself: How can I lean and root into my shared humanity? Who are the people I can exist and co-regulate with?

Take action where you can: Many people who feel helpless or guilty, start to feel powerless. Then comes the thought spirals of “I am just one person!” or “What change can I actually impact here?” or “Who is going to listen to me?”

If every single person thought this and then stopped acting, the world would be silent. Remember that you do have spheres of influence and those people/spaces have spheres of influence, and our voices, our power, our action have ripple effects. Plant those seeds. You don’t know what they can grow into for other folks.

Understand that self-care is also a form of community care: Don’t rationalize your exhaustion and helplessness with the fact that others may have it worse right now. Your privilege and ability to self care is not a result of a zero sum game. You did not benefit at the expense of loved ones or your community abroad.

Self care is not the antithesis of community care; self care is a form of community care. You are aching to be of help and service, but you do not have an infinite amount of resources. Take care of yourself so you can be a better community member.

Let yourself be angry: BIPOC folks have been historically gaslit and encouraged to bottle up their anger and package it away nicely. To swallow grief and pain for the sake and comfort of others. If we speak up, or use our voice, we risk being seen as threats, and scary, and too much.

Your anger is valid! Let your rage liberate you from the confines of oppression and oppressive systems. Consider what is deeply rooted under the guise of who you really are in a crisis and what holds you back — including yourself, systems, and so on.

Interrogate the stories you’ve been told about groups of people or places (Arabs, Muslims, Palestine, Middle East, Lebanon, Israel): What have you been told about these religions, people, places or populations? How have narratives been passed down in your family due to historical experiences? How have they taught you who is “safe” or what is “fair”? Who has power in the stories you have been taught in school or media? Who is even able to tell these stories?

As Hala Alyan said, indoctrination is storytelling threaded with fear. Be curious about, and interrogate, your assumptions, your bias, your prejudice, your history.

Narratives can and should often be rewritten. Unlearned. Questioned.

And remember to hold both feelings of hopelessness AND feelings of being energized by on the ground work toward collective liberation.

What you can expect in October

Paid subscribers who want to register for the peer support group Thursday can do so in this link below!