For black people hair is a really big deal, especially for black femmes. From an early age having beautiful hair or ‘good hair’ has always been illustrated as having straightened or permed strands. Socially, I was very much made aware that as a black child my braids, twists and puffs were inferior to a white girl’s long straight strands. At that age I had a strong desire to be … [Read more...]
Worth & Desire: 4 Emotions I Still Work Through While Practicing Non-monogamy
“Muriel and I talked about love as a voluntary commitment, while we each struggled through the steps of an old dance, not consciously learned but desperately followed … In those warm spaces of survival, love was another name for control, however openly given.” - Audre Lorde I return to this quote from Zami so often. It makes me think about the ways I have loved, do love, and … [Read more...]
Why Taking the Job Home Is Killing Us: Radical Ways to Break the Binary of “Work” & “Home”
Three years ago, I got my first job out of graduate school as a therapist working with at-risk youth and their families. Because this was my first job out of graduate school, I felt I had to give it my all. Not only that, I took a year off after school during which I hit my rock-bottom in my own drug addiction. A year coming out of my rock-bottom in drug addiction is when I got … [Read more...]
Political Parenting: 5 Lessons Resisting the Trump Administration Taught My Kids and I
1.The Face of Hate I’m walking my daughter home from the bus stop and she’s chattering about the elections. I’m glad she’s learning about it at school but I listen closely ready to pounce on any propaganda. While our town is pretty liberal, I’m not so sure about my children’s teachers. Suddenly my child asks, “Do you think my teacher is voting for Trump?” I wish I could say … [Read more...]
“You Deserve to Heal:” 4 Steps to Move Through Survivor’s Guilt
CN: sexual violence, abuse In many methods of healing from trauma, confronting shame is often central to the process. Free up shame, get out from under the blame placed on survivors, and healing is supposed to get easier. Yet when survivor’s guilt goes unaddressed, it’s easy to fall into the pattern of prioritizing other people’s needs over individual needs. Survivors … [Read more...]
Mental Illness is not a “White Person Problem”: 4 Reasons Mental Illness is Ignored in the Latinx Community, and Why That Needs to End
The “Angry Black Woman” or “feisty and fiery Latina” narrative- and Black and Brown men who fall under these tropes- stem from powerfully dangerous stereotypes, but are not examined through any further. My question lies with this: Why are Black and Brown communities deemed so angry? Moody? Even Lazy? These are traits that, if they were seen in a white body, would just … [Read more...]
Creating Community as a Queer, Black Muslim: An Interview with Kaamila Mohamed, Co-founder of Queer Muslims of Boston
A few years after I moved to New England, I decided that I was ready to start searching for queer Muslim community. This wasn’t something that I’d ever done before, but I was at a place in my life where I was feeling a desperate need for a spiritual and religious community where I could (potentially) be my whole self. I wanted to bring all parts of myself into a faith … [Read more...]
6 señales de advertencia de que tu amistad es abusiva
Las dinámicas toxicas no están reservadas solo para relaciones afectivas o sexuales. Cualquier relación que tengas con otra persona puede ser saludable: una fuente de positividad y empoderamiento mutuo. Cualquier relación con otra persona también puede por lo tanto ser no saludable: abuso emocional. Puede ser difícil reconocer el abuso emocional cuando viene de amigos … [Read more...]
Why Reproductive Justice Means Going Beyond Pro-Choice Politics
For as long as I’ve been politically aware, I have considered myself staunchly pro-choice. From a young age, I knew that I didn’t want to have children or start a family, and now in my mid-twenties, that attitude hasn’t wavered. More than that, the idea of having to carry a pregnancy—especially one I didn’t want—to term terrified me. So before I had been exposed to the concepts … [Read more...]
In the Age of Rising Anti-Semitism: What Being Jewish Means
When I was growing up, being Jewish meant to me that we ate challah on Friday nights, put on a Purim play once a year (in which I always got to play Queen Esther), and lit Hanukkah candles while the Christmas tree gleamed in the other room. I loved learning about Jewish history, reading the stories, and celebrating the holidays with all their delicious food. Synagogue was a … [Read more...]
From Brokenness to Breakthrough: 5 Questions to Ask Yourself to Authentically Redesign Your Life
The pressure to perform, to be strong and not break always ends up leaving us in tears when the spotlight is turned off and our thoughts become are only comfort. We hear countless stories that focus on gossip, relationships and women being compared to other women in the media, as cover ups to the reality of what we are actually facing. There, unfortunately, is not enough … [Read more...]
6 Warning Signs That Your Friendship is Abusive
Toxic dynamics are not reserved for romantic or sexual partnerships. Any relationship that you have with another person can be healthy: a source of positivity and mutual empowerment. Any relationship can also then be unhealthy: emotionally abusive. It can sometimes be harder to recognize emotional abuse when it comes from friends rather than family or partners. It’s talked … [Read more...]
10 Ways to Check Your Privilege With Fast Food and Other Service Workers
My brother is a service industry worker. He works at a hamburger restaurant doing all sorts of tasks, from taking orders from testy customers who want to order items that don’t exist on the menu, to cleaning up the messes people leave behind on their tables, to cleaning bathrooms and taking out garbage as swarms of flies buzz around his face. All for ten dollars an … [Read more...]
Learning the Language of Empathy: 6 Ways to Hold Space for Your “Strong” Friends
Empathy is the ability understand others and their emotions. It is also the ability to share the feelings of someone other than yourself. It is being able to look outside yourself and put yourself in someone else’s shoes. Being empathetic for the people you encounter in life is an important skill and we are called to feel empathy for our friends, family and the world around us. … [Read more...]
