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Through stories, insights, and reflections, this series will explore topics from our 6-session trauma-intensive course, Enhancing Trauma Awareness.
Enhancing Trauma Awareness is part 1 of a 3-part series that explores trauma’s impact, how to prevent trauma, and ways to address trauma-related needs.
If you are currently enrolled in our training, have taken one in the past, or are interested in getting a glimpse into what we offer, this podcast is for you.
It is our hope that, after spending a few minutes with us, you feel nurtured and inspired to continue your personal journey toward becoming trauma-aware.
Connect with us:
Website: https://lakesidetraining.org/global-institute/
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Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lakesideglobal
0:02
Hello and welcome to the third episode of Enhancing Trauma Awareness Podcast.
0:09
So in today's session we are going to be talking about racism and that racism is an adverse childhood experience.
0:21
And we are also going to be talking about the isms that are part of that as well.
0:28
So I feel, and it's an invitation to do a check in.
0:33
I know when I'm looking at this topic sensory wise, things do come up for me.
0:40
So I'm going to ask all of us to do what you feel is necessary is comfortable.
0:49
It could be just taking a few comfortable breaths.
0:53
It could be shaking it out.
0:55
I know for me to be able to get up and kind of shake out my body can help with that excess energy or what may be coming up for me to really think about yourself, care and what's needed in this time together because it can bring up some things that may be unexpected.
1:13
And we really do want to promote you taking care of yourself and being very capable of doing that.
1:19
So please throughout of our talk today to do that for yourself.
1:24
And we'll also be doing a check out as well.
1:28
Yeah, thanks, Michelle.
1:30
All right, So I know for myself when we talk about racism and thank you, Kathleen, for saying racism is a adverse childhood experience.
1:43
Often times when we think about trauma, we haven't always put that and written that down as as a trauma, right, a type of trauma.
1:54
And so even for me, having that being said really does resonate with me because I know although we have written the curriculum more up to date that I knew it was always a trauma, right?
2:10
I am, I identify as an African American, always know it was a trauma.
2:14
I remember back in 2014 saying why don't we have racism written down?
2:21
And so people just said because we don't, and I had to accept that, even though in my body, right, I live that and not, I'm not going to say in a negative way, right, because trauma is in ways in a very positive, very.
2:39
But that wait a minute, why aren't we writing this down so that we can talk about this and what this means?
2:45
So that's just kind of where when I think about how it started for me, it was a long time ago.
2:53
So when it was written, I'm like, great, long overdue.
2:57
And let's really talk about this.
2:58
And I know it start really started really in 2020 when the reckoning of of George Floyd and all that came where people started talking about that was what I call the tipping point, what many call the tipping point.
3:11
So you know, when I'm hearing just recent, I'd love to hear your stories too, of what that resonates for you, what it does in your body, what it looks like when you're hearing like racism as an adverse childhood experience.
3:27
I wanna go back to what you said about initially in the, in our writings, racism wasn't part of the list of traumas.
3:43
And so it was a relief to finally see.
3:50
And as we added other types of of traumas as well.
3:55
I want to acknowledge that when I think about my journey, my racial journey, if I might say that I go back to elementary school and I went to an integrated school and there's something about, I'm going to say I didn't necessarily see or feel a race, but there becomes a age when you are in integrated schools that race becomes an issue.
4:40
And it's like I'm in this moment now when I know that you are.
4:47
And again, I went to integrated school, so it was Asians.
4:51
There weren't a lot of black folks there, but we were some of them.
4:54
And it was majority white.
4:57
So it just all of a sudden, OK, I'm recognizing my blackness.
5:05
I'm also recognizing and becoming more sensitive to the conversations that are being held because at that time, you know, was Martin Luther King, silver rights, all those other kind of things.
5:19
And so there was a kind of awkwardness in mixed groups, although in my own ethnic groups there were many discussions.
5:32
I was fortunate in those discussions were positive discussions, but also understanding that there were many struggles that were going on.
5:46
So that's part of my racial journey.
5:51
Yeah.
5:52
And mine has been very different.
5:54
I can say that I grew up with color blindness, right?
5:59
I was taught not to see color or pretend it didn't exist.
6:03
And I've been unlearning that for a long time.
6:07
I think that really jump started with Michelle shared about 2020 and George Floyd and the racial reckoning that was happening at that time and that is continuing to some degree.
6:19
But that one of the pieces as we kind of I was thinking to Michelle, when you were talking about the journey, there's there's the personal and there's the professional.
6:28
Like there's been that personal awareness all of your lifetime.
6:31
And and for me, it has been not my whole lifetime.
6:36
It has been in these last more intense five years, even 10 years of trying to think differently and trying to unlearn things, but that their expenses growing up that I'm now understanding for myself were coming from racism, discrimination, bias in my household.
6:55
And so I think about the person, I think about the professional and how there's been a push, there's been a lot of effort in creating these changes and bringing this very not this knowledge, this understanding to to the light.
7:09
I think about, you know, the personal professional aspects of those.
7:12
And that when we kind of as a department started into the racial literacy kind of training and understanding and trying to come together with that piece, there was the term people of the global majority, right?
7:24
That came up.
7:26
And that was one of the biggest aha moments for me when I realized that's not me.
7:32
Like I've been trained my entire life as a white person to say that's me, right?
7:36
We are the majority.
7:38
But when you look at global and what that actually means that that does not include white people.
7:42
And that was eye opening to me.
7:45
And has it been a major reframe in my life?
7:48
Yeah.
7:48
I think we were thinking about just language sensitivity, even using the word minority.
7:54
We were just thinking about even adversely what that means when someone thinks, oh, I am less than and we know that minority is a word, but what does that mean when you're using that for a specific, when we think of people of color?
8:08
And so we're like, no, people of the global majority are in the world are just the majority and that is it.
8:15
It is a statement.
8:17
And so that looks a little bit different and I think that is just a fact.
8:22
And so when you look at it that way, we're not making anyone less than.
8:25
It's just a fact.
8:26
And so that's why we decided with our values, let's say people of the globe majority, I think it also goes along with paces and Aces, right?
8:35
We saw the information.
8:37
It also was being changed in 2020 and the fact that it's not just adverse childhood experiences, it's positive and adverse childhood experiences.
8:46
And what does that look like in terms of trauma and people being able to build resiliency and what it means when we're talking about children are not born resilient, but made resilient.
8:58
And I think that gave a power and a hope to this information too.
9:02
We can understand trauma, but we we also can do something about it and we can have the power with that.
9:08
So for me, that just was incredible.
9:11
And why wouldn't we put this in and we talked about language sensitivity, putting our glasses on and being sensitive with that.
9:19
Well, this became a reckoning, I think for all of us to say it must be in the curriculum.
9:26
It has it and that's OK.
9:28
But we're going to what what we when they say, when we know better, we do better, right?
9:32
Maya Angelou And if we're in the journey of learning again, we're going to go another inch in this and try to do this together.
9:41
So that is, for me, just incredible.
9:44
And so we're all on our personal stories, you know, personal racial literacy journeys as we can put that.
9:53
And I know for me, I began another one in 2020 and it was tough to really look and see what does it mean for me in the world that we live in and how do I have that hope and bring all of those beautiful positive right pieces to also understanding that it is an adverse childhood experience.
10:20
You were talking about the word minority.
10:22
And I know for me, the word minority is a trigger word for me and I would have a gut response to that because I'm aware of the messages and the things that we always reading about minority people.
10:42
And so as we look at the recent research recognizing those positive things for groups of people, it just added balance, if I could say to that, because that's not what I see.
11:00
I see positive in in my community.
11:04
And so I would say so often what I see often is discounted, is disrespected.
11:16
And it's like, do you see what I see?
11:19
Because there is wealth, there is joy despite all of the troubles, all of those other things.
11:27
And, and there's a tricky part when you talk about some of the traumas of racism.
11:37
Often as a person of color, I must try and say this gently if I can.
11:47
I sometimes worry about other people thinking all those poor people when you share the other side of it because it wasn't balanced in the beauty.
12:00
So almost feeling on guard because if we say this is what's going on, if you don't see things through the lens of resiliency, if you don't see things through the strength in the community, you will feel sorry for folks.
12:21
And I must say, don't feel sorry for me.
12:23
Well, and only hold that space.
12:25
And I think you're talking and we've talked about this a lot, Kathleen.
12:28
And so when you're thinking about trauma, you're only thinking about the negative.
12:35
But what has come out of that is being able to hope piece of saying this is my story and look where I am.
12:43
This is the strength, this is positive things have come out of this.
12:49
And we want you to see that because the resiliency and the love and the joy, all of that is intertwined.
12:58
And I think that's what you're really wanting to stress because people can be like, oh, and it's like, no, there is beautiful things in this.
13:05
We want you to understand, but we also want you to not separate.
13:10
That is joy and pain, all that can coexist for everyone, for everyone.
13:15
And it does and it does when you talk about that, I hear, I hear the the trauma and racism, yes, but there's life in being a person of the global majority.
13:33
Like there's just there's just life.
13:34
There's all of it.
13:35
The UPS, the downs, the insurance, the outs.
13:36
I appreciate that perspective.
13:42
I think what would be nice to even hear is how we all have embarked on our racial literacy journey.
13:50
And I'm thinking professionally because we're all in here professionally.
13:53
Yes, we have our personal stories as well.
13:55
But thinking about that, especially when we're talking about we change the curriculum and put that in.
14:00
So I know I would love to hear even more detail on our journeys and so people can resonate and kind of think about what their own journey has been as well.
14:14
Yeah, and I mean, I can share as you know, from the white person perspective of what I've, I've experienced in this is, you know, professionally, I, I saw the push and pull for a while in, in, in, you know, this needs to be included.
14:34
This is trauma.
14:35
This is information that needs to be presented if we're talking about trauma and the like, just kind of blankness on the other side of that, right?
14:44
There was no real response.
14:45
It just never happened until this kind of evolution that we're talking about.
14:49
And I know for myself in the professional space, you know, I started into trainings and the one of the first ones I took was white people confronting racism because I was like, that's what I want to do, right?
15:01
I want to do this different.
15:02
I don't want to pretend I'm colorblind.
15:03
I want to have language.
15:05
I want to figure out how to do this differently and show up differently.
15:08
And so that was one of the first pieces for me.
15:10
Even before like, you know, as a department, we went into kind of racial literacy training.
15:16
And that was an important step because I, I feel it very valuable together with white folks who are committed to doing things differently, committed to looking at racism, to looking at our own parts in it and, and doing something differently.
15:28
And so that was an important step for me in that piece I had mentioned before about in 2020, looking at things a lot differently.
15:39
And I know we were the pandemic, we were home.
15:43
So for me, I took a lot of classes.
15:49
I was on Zoom a lot and was able to experience settings in which it were just people of the global majority and also settings in which people were integrated together and a lot of work being done.
16:09
And so that was help for me because I needed to do it apart from work to really look at what was going on for myself and so many, many, many, many of those kinds of classes and then also being able to talk to people and then bringing that to work.
16:26
And I know also, you know, Sarah, Liz, we as someone who identifies as white and someone who identifies as person of the global majority, really talking about real things and bringing your authentic self.
16:39
And that became part of the work as well, as well as Kathleen.
16:43
We've had our conversations of just doing that together and then us coming together.
16:48
So I think that's been a lot of work.
16:49
And still we do that in terms of even understanding paces and building on that and continuing to have these constructive conversations.
17:01
I almost forgot.
17:02
We literally did one for everyone.
17:05
Kathleen, I don't know if you remember we did the was it construction con constructive conversations and we yeah, I almost forgot about that.
17:16
Who?
17:17
Yeah, that was that was a lot and also part of our learning experience of what to do and what not to putting a different kind of trauma lenses lenses on to figure that out.
17:31
Oh, I remember that list as you were talking that I wonder very few agencies might have had that list and had that authentic discussion that we had.
17:45
So I, I certainly remember, I remember that list that we compiled and I think it was an excellent tool and it opened up conversations that we hadn't had.
17:59
And it was like, what I'm really thinking, what I really see and how we really can handle it.
18:08
And if I could say, I don't think you know what you're talking about.
18:11
Let's, let's hear, let's hear the other side of this.
18:15
You know, of course, sometimes there's a backlash because no, you've been talking all the time.
18:20
Now I'm a talk and now you're going to listen to me.
18:23
And now we're going to write this thing down.
18:25
And now it might get a little tense, but we all need to grow.
18:31
So all, all of us, all of us, all of us.
18:35
So such a big piece of my unlearning has been and I'm always a listener, but like just to to listen, like listen to other voices and not, not all white voices.
18:48
Like that was a big learning curve for me.
18:50
And then the next step, like it was reading books.
18:53
It was taking in all the information.
18:55
The next step was then to speak, which is a much harder part for me, as you can both attest to, right.
19:02
But, and we had, I think when we had Michelle and I had spent a lot of time working on a curriculum and then we taught it.
19:09
And it was like, my motto was like, I'm going to show up shaking.
19:11
Like my voice might shake while I try to stand up and say the things I need to say.
19:15
But I'm going to say that we literally said you were going to have hats that said I'm going to be here and I'm shaking.
19:23
Like I'm going to show up shaking.
19:25
And it's going to be OK.
19:26
And we're going to show that vulnerability of working together and what that looks like.
19:31
Yeah, I mentioned a couple times this kind of racial literacy journey that we've been on as a department and as as leaders in that department.
19:40
And so just kind of thinking maybe we can reflect a little bit on what their our main takeaways or even stories that we have from that experience.
19:50
I can say for myself that one of the takeaways that I came from doing one of our racial literacy.
20:02
Workshops was to be my authentic self and the question that I was asked was have you ever been your authentic self in the professional setting?
20:19
And I said no, and then I was asked to be my authentic self and I did.
20:27
And it felt so bleeping good.
20:33
And I, it just, it was so refreshing and to realize that I was and have been giving people what they need to be comfortable in my space and that I didn't need to do that.
20:49
And so I've been working on that ever since.
20:51
And so, you know, that's that was that is my biggest take away and something I'm still working on and mine.
21:01
These were words of wisdom.
21:04
And as I discussed relationships and racism, the words that I received, the wisdom, my take away was when I was told it's OK to go it alone.
21:27
And as you do research and you present different things that are based on knowledge and information, sometimes folks will fight against it.
21:42
I would prefer that people go with me.
21:47
But the words of wisdom was sometimes you got to go it by yourself.
21:53
And I recognize in my life, there have been times I've had to fight, but I did it.
22:01
I did it on my own and I moved forward and it worked out.
22:08
Sometimes you got to do it by yourself.
22:13
Can I get an Amen?
22:21
What I can say is I'm just learning to get uncomfortable.
22:25
I have to lean into discomfort.
22:28
I and honestly, I can choose to, I, I have that choice and that in and of itself is just mind blowing.
22:35
But I have the choice and I choose to continually get uncomfortable and have the conversations that are hard and show up shaking.
22:43
Even in this in, in here, we've, we've, we've talked, we've had conversations and it's still hard and I'm still going to keep showing up.
22:51
I'm gonna take a nice breath and kind of do a check out in terms of just noticing what may be going on for you and your body.
23:06
Throughout our talk, I've noticed just many different things and the release that I need.
23:13
So please do what you need.
23:15
I'm going to actually take a nice inhale and a so if you like to do it with me, I'm going to take another inhale, kind of just shake out what needs to be shooken out.
23:46
Thinking about as we were going through this kind of what a call to action might be.
23:51
And I guess for my part, I just, I want to, I don't know how to word it, but I just want to invite folks into the discomfort of these conversations, even if it's listening to this again and seeing what pops out again.
24:11
Maybe it's looking for a couple resources, a book to read that could help you personally and professionally.
24:19
Just show up differently in conversations.
24:21
When we're thinking about adverse child experiences and racism, just maybe think about how we can do the inner work so that it makes a shift for the outer ripples that come forward from them.
24:35
Thank you for a greater good.
24:39
I'm just going to add one note for people of the globe majority fill the room.
24:44
Yes, fill the room, please.
24:48
Yes, please.