Decolonial Healing & Liberation: Thema Bryant
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Maurizio Benazzo: [00:00:00] Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Wherever in the world you are is a joy. Thank you. Thank you again. Welcome. Welcome. My name is Maurizio Benazzo.
Zaya Benazzo: My name is Zaya Benazzo.
Maurizio Benazzo: And we are speaking to you from the unceded territory, the cost Pomo, the Coast Miwok and South Pomo, indigenous people, and currently known as Sebastopol, California.
Zaya Benazzo: We tend to us sense the morning that's what we do.
Maurizio Benazzo: 18 years old of marriage does that to you. So thank you for being. Here with us.
Zaya Benazzo: And we are delighted to have Dr. Thema, Bryant with us. Such a delightful guest. And what [00:01:00] an honor to have you with us today. Welcome, Dr. Thema.
Maurizio Benazzo: And I wanna read a brief.
Welcome Dr. Thema.
Dr. Thema Bryant: Thank you so much. I am so excited, joyful to be with you all.
Maurizio Benazzo: Thank you. I wanna read a brief bio just to Okay. To start with that. So Dr. Bryant is a tenured professor of psychology in the Graduate School of Education and Psychology at Pepperdine University and an ordained elder in the African Methodist, the Episcopal Church.
Dr. Thema Bryant was the 2023 President of the American Psychological Association, a PA. Dr. Thema is the author of the recently released book Matters of the Heart, which is awesome, and the host of the op oncoming podcast, the oncoming podcast. So welcome welcome. It's a joy to have you with us. Thank you.
Dr. Thema Bryant: Thank you so much for [00:02:00] your artistry, for your capacity and willingness to hold space for the invitation and for being who you are. I am delighted for us to come and weave together.
Zaya Benazzo: Thank you. Thank you. And if we, I know bio doesn't give justice. If anything else feels important for you to mention about yourself and the way you introduce yourself, please do
Dr. Thema Bryant: sure. I am happy to add that along with being a healer, I am someone who has healed and continues to heal. I am the daughter of two ministers, and I am a mother of two by flesh, but many in terms of mentorship and teaching. And I am grateful to be at home with myself.
And hope to hold space in such a way where each of you [00:03:00] can be the fullness of yourselves.
Zaya Benazzo: Oh. We feel that. Yes. Yes. Thank you for that invitation.
Dr. Thema Bryant: You are welcome.
Zaya Benazzo: Maybe before we begin with the questions and conversation, if you would like to invite us to the here and now and if you have any grounding practice or anything that you want to share with us.
Dr. Thema Bryant: Certainly. Spirit is calling me to a higher place of praise.
Spirit is calling me to a higher place of praise. Healing is calling you to a higher place of praise. Healing is calling you to a higher place of [00:04:00] praise, wisdom. Is calling us to a higher place of praise. Wisdom is calling us to a higher place of praise. You are welcome and you are worthy. We are worthy of this space.
We are worthy of love, worthy of community, worthy of our own sacredness, and the capacity to see the sacred in each other. I practice body sovereignty, so everything I offer is by invitation. And I invite you to reflect when the invitation is made and decide if it is something you would like to do, and if you prefer not to do it, to honor yourself in that way.
A part of our healing. [00:05:00] And so I invite you one hand on the heart, one hand on the belly, inhaling in through your nose, exhaling out through your mouth.
One hand on the heart. One hand on your forehead. Compassion hold. Two, inhaling in through your nose.
Exhale out through your mouth.
Compassion hold three to embrace yourself. For some of us, it will be the first hug of the day. Inhaling in through your nose, exhaling out through your mouth.
You can shake it out if that feels good to [00:06:00] you, and scan your body to notice any place that you're holding tension. For some of us, it's the forehead or some the neck or shoulders, or some it may be your lower back or some of us. It's the jaw, wherever it is in your body to send your breath, to send your intention, to send your love as a message to your body, to come home, to find your breath, to find your ease, to find truth, and that truth being you are worthy of ease of wholeness and that in fact you already are whole and we are here to remember.
Inhaling in through the nose, [00:07:00] exhaling out through your mouth, and we pause in gratitude for those who paved the way for you to be here today. Whoever those persons are to you that came before you, and as a result of their intention, their sacrifice, their love, their wisdom, you are here. And so we give thanks. We give thanks that we did not just arrive. And we are also mindful of the generations that will come after us and our commitment to doing what we can to create a world in which they can flourish.
Inhaling in through your nose, [00:08:00] exhaling out through your mouth.
And I will say sa bona sa Zulu greeting, which means I see you. I see you. Thank you for seeing me.
Zaya Benazzo: I see you. Yum. What a beautiful arrival. Thank you for this invitation. Thank you. Ah, absolutely. Thank you. In a world that is so agitated and so fractured to know how to arrive within ourselves before we do or offer anything. Yeah. That is a gift that a practice and a gift.
Thank you.
Dr. Thema Bryant: That's right. So much trains us to be invisible and to not see each other, we have that routine ritual of How are you? I'm fine. How are you? I'm [00:09:00] fine.
Zaya & Maurizio Benazzo: Yeah.
Dr. Thema Bryant: And so to be present with compassion is a gift and a decision.
Zaya Benazzo: Yes. And that's truly seeing each other not oh, I'm feeling tender.
Oh, I'm feeling really overwhelmed. This is and I see you and thank you. Yeah. You are not alone actually.
Dr. Thema Bryant: Yes, that's right. That's right. That you matter. You presence matters in a very specific way in the moment, but also in the grander scheme of things that you walking the earth that matters is
Maurizio Benazzo: a way to build relationship, is creating a really, instead of just.
Confirming our individuality. It's me. Oh, are you fine? Because I don't even listen. Don't see. But if you tell me you're not fine. What do you mean no, fine. I don't give it.
Yes.
I am out of here. You fine. Okay. It's
Dr. Thema Bryant: that teaching of I don't want to be a burden, so I will give your script, which [00:10:00] keeps us from relationship and relationship is healing. Yeah.
Zaya Benazzo: Yeah. Or for many of us that are involved in things in the world oh, I'm, this is important and can, I can abandon myself to be of service, but then how can I be of service if I'm not at home here?
Dr. Thema Bryant: Absolutely. That we can also think about the importance of wholeness and wellness for activists.
For activists, for healers, for parents who are often told that if you're doing it right, you erase yourself for everyone else. Yes. And I like to say it's just unsustainable that if you want to be a world changer, like if we could fix everything wrong with the world in the next month, I would say okay forget about yourself.
Let's get it done. Let's get it done by November, we'll all be [00:11:00] free. But unfortunately, this is a long-term project. It's a lifelong project. And so to be sustainable and also to be human, for us to give ourselves the care that we so desperately desire for others to have. Yeah.
Maurizio Benazzo: Yeah. It is not even a lifelong generational project, right?
Dr. Thema Bryant: Yes. It's
Maurizio Benazzo: generational project. It started way before us. Uhhuh, way before us. We'll continue
Dr. Thema Bryant: long after us. Yeah. Because this idea,
Maurizio Benazzo: yeah. Individuality connected to our body. When I die, it's over. It's no. It's, we're part of a long chain. That's it. That's it. Of creature, of life, of relationship is not
Zaya Benazzo: I guess that's gonna be our first question.
Yes. If formula related question. This is so much nicer. We know that trauma is individual, but it's also not individual. It's traditional. Is collective [00:12:00] is historical. Yes. How do you, in your healing work, navigate those dimensions? So we don't bypass the Yeah. The individual, but we know it's also, it's never individual.
That's right.
Dr. Thema Bryant: That's
Zaya Benazzo: right.
Dr. Thema Bryant: So a part of it is, I would say as a therapist, asking those questions to get the generational story to know that the story doesn't begin at, with your birthday. And we inherit the gift is we don't just inherit ancestral wounds, but we also inherit ancestral wisdom.
And so discovering the story told and untold that has shaped our reality. So when we look at the intergenerational transmission of trauma, like how does it come to us? A part of that is biological neurological. That [00:13:00] trauma shifts the brain, shifts the nervous system, and we can see through our science, the ways in which that gets passed on.
But we also know we can break that cycle and that a healed nervous system can also shift our biology and we can pass that on. It is not only physical, but a part of what we, the ways in which we inherit the trauma is by observation. So how did you see the people who raised you navigating space?
How did you see them respond? How did you see them responded to all of those? Teach us lessons. Sometimes it wasn't direct. It was what we saw. What we felt in those spaces. So if you are raised by a survivor of enslavement, of genocide of Holocaust, if you are raised [00:14:00] by survivors of intimate partner violence, survivors of molestation, it shows up in how, what they modeled for you.
And then we also get that transmission of trauma by their direct teaching. What did they tell you? And often what they told us was their own survival strategy. So sometimes that survival strategy is don't trust anyone. Sometimes that survival strategy is always to emotionally mask. Sometimes that survival strategy is that you have to be excellent at all times.
And often that variation, we don't see, we see the impact of trauma when it looks like people have become undone, but we don't see it when it is covered in busyness, in excellence and productivity in chasing safety and security. And that's it, in that [00:15:00] therapeutic role beginning to uncover those generations.
And that wounding in our in my ministry work, it is with the storytelling. And that's also a part of, that therapeutic space because so many things we were taught to keep silent. And there is a gift in shattering silence and shattering shame in, we would call it narrative therapy.
What is your story? But here's the key for us to become central in our story instead of remaining in the margins of our story. Now, that's challenging If you live in a society that has marginalized you and so to survive, you may have learned to center other people and always to respond to them, to anticipate how they're gonna see you or what are they gonna [00:16:00] think.
And so to come home to myself for all of the censoring and adapting that my four parents had to do. It is a radical, revolutionary act for me to show up in truth, in the truth of who I am. Yeah.
Zaya Benazzo: Beautiful. And this is the healing that is, it's for me, but it is also for my ancestors that couldn't That's right.
Do that because they were maybe not safe enough
Dr. Thema Bryant: and Yes. And important to think about the things they did do right? To survive and to heal. Many times we. Or can easily see perhaps the dysfunction
Participant: yes.
Dr. Thema Bryant: Of the generations before us but to also see what we would call the resistance the ways in which they survived.
I can honor that without needing to repeat all of it. Yes, [00:17:00]
that's me. Yes.
Zaya Benazzo: Honor the way speed out.
Yeah. That's
how we made it. Yes. Because by rejecting it, we reject parts of ourselves. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And many of the therapeutic approaches, models are based on Western white Eurocentric assumptions about the mind, the self, the heart, the soul.
How do this framework are short intending to what's ancestral, what is intergenerational collective ecological as well? Because we are also native more than human relationality, and That's right.
Dr. Thema Bryant: Yes, that's right. So both intergenerational, ancestral, and spiritual. And both of those things often get left out when we talk about healing wellness, [00:18:00] wholeness and it is systemic and structurally left out.
So how does that look? Yeah. When people come in for mental health services, we start at it with an intake, and then in an intake are those initial meetings where you ask questions to get to know who you're talking to, and then from the intake you come up with a, they call it a case formulation, so you're understanding of what's going on with this person.
And then based on that you come up with a quote unquote treatment plan, and then you work on that plan. So what happens if None of my questions at the intake are about your family history, your cultural history, what happens if I never ask you about your spirituality or about your faith or about your religion?
If I don't ask it, I have sent you the message for you not to bring that up. 'cause this isn't the place for that. And so now it is not in my [00:19:00] formulation. It's not in my understanding of you. And then it's definitely not in the plan. 'cause I don't even know what to do with it if it was in the plan. And so then what we are offering is half healing.
And there is something to be said for partial healing. It can bring some relief.
Yes.
But it is not the totality of the person. And so we have to expand and deepen so that we don't require people leave parts of themselves out of their own process.
Zaya Benazzo: Yeah. And how do you, how, I don't like how questions, but maybe tell us
Maurizio Benazzo: it leads one.
Yeah. Like for example, maybe a moment in which you found yourself in front of the protocol and you decided to honor instead the story, the ceremony, your intuition. Yes. And what happened? What became possible
Dr. Thema Bryant: Yes.
Maurizio Benazzo: To share.
Dr. Thema Bryant: One example is when I was going through training, [00:20:00] which becomes, it's a challenging position for persons who are students or interns who show up with lived wisdom.
But they're supposed to be learning a protocol and and there is something to be said for, for what you're going to learn. Like the theories, the interventions, those are all can be, some of them are helpful. But there are also some things that, that are not yet in the book.
And I can remember I was as a graduate student a part of an intervention that was with quote unquote at risk African American children and their families. And this was this large multi-year study. They had these million dollar grants, all of that. And they were doing groups with the boys.
And I'm sitting there. So everyone in the [00:21:00] group are black boys and their parents. I'm there as like the assistant facilitator. The facilitator is a white male psychologist, very senior in the field. And we have this manual. And he's reading from this manual and says to the boys that if someone is bullying them or trying to hurt them, that they're supposed to say, please stop.
You're humiliating me. Oh my God. Oh no. Please stop. You're humiliating me is the script. And so immediately when he says this. All of the black parents turn and look at me. They're like, are you gonna co-sign this? Are you like, is this the program now? We didn't say in the introduction, I grew up in Baltimore.
And in Baltimore, that's not a sentence you would wanna say. You're humiliating me [00:22:00] one would the person even know? Would the kid even know what you're talking about? And two, if they did, it's likely it was their intention to humiliate you. And this you said when protocol meets life.
And so to make sense of the generational wisdom in the room while still protecting my status as a student intern, I said if you're talking to a kid who has been in this program, maybe you might want to say that to someone who's a part of this group, but let's open it up to the parents and find out what are some strategies that work for you when people want it to fight you.
We gotta, we have a circle of wisdom here, and this here, this is not written for us in mind. So many moments like that of coming to recognize the need for the interweaving of what this [00:23:00] protocol says and what we know because we have lifted Yeah,
Maurizio Benazzo: I love that.
That you said is not yet in the book, instead of saying has been erased by the book.
Dr. Thema Bryant: Yes.
Maurizio Benazzo: Yes. I love that is you have this, difference that Not yet in
Dr. Thema Bryant: the
Maurizio Benazzo: book.
Dr. Thema Bryant: Not yet. In the book, we, instead of Me, the gift is for us to continue to write. That's the gift of us doing the work, as opposed to just saying this isn't for us.
It is, we make it for us. That there are cultural adaptations, which means that you modify it or shifted it to try to make it work for a group. But then there are also healing approaches that emerge from community. And so for us to honor that and to recognize that and to document it Annise Sing and others [00:24:00] Dr.
Annise sing and others talk about decolonizing the curriculum. And this is. Necessary sacred work.
Zaya Benazzo: Yeah. This word decolonizing is used a lot. And I'm just wondering what does it mean to you? Do you use it? Yes. Many of our indigenous, the indigenous communities we visited, they don't like to center the colonial aspect.
Uhhuh, they're like, yes, we want to indigenize we, enough of, but again, a different context with which there is place for decolonizing Absolutely. In, yes.
Dr. Thema Bryant: So when thank you so much for the question. When I was president of the American Psychological Association 20 23, 1 of my initiatives was on decolonial and liberation psychology.
Yeah.
And I think it is important to consider. What are we [00:25:00] deconstructing? But that's not the end of the story. Then it's what are we building, right? So we say like indigenizing or liberation or womanist. That is the creating part. And a part of how we clear the ground to create it is the decolonial work.
Because to, to say I'm going to create it and just ignore that that works if you're not operating in systems that are dominated by it. But if you're in the education system, if you're in the medical arena, there is a system that's in place. And then we have to address that. Yes.
Participant: Yeah, we
Dr. Thema Bryant: have to address that.
But I agree that's not the end of our story. We are not just to be in reaction or in response or on the defense. That is, then we want to create Eve Insular. Who did [00:26:00] the Vagina Monologues? Yeah. She said all of the energy that women spend healing from the violence that is done to us.
Imagine if we had that energy back, what we could write, what we could create, what we could build. That is the same when we think about indigenous persons that a lot gets spent on self preservation and pushing back. But there is so much more to be done when we are free to, to bloom, to flourish, to create, to be,
Zaya Benazzo: yeah.
Yeah, exactly. And decolonizing, because Western approaches like, oh, let's treat addiction, let's treat suicide. And these are symptoms, right? That, that are instead of that focusing on the symptoms, really looking, the root, where did this start? [00:27:00] Yeah.
Dr. Thema Bryant: And I wanna say along with you all's the name of your organization around the non-duality, that I also don't believe in the false choice where people will say, it's not self-care, it's community care, or we don't need therapy, we need social justice.
Participant: Yes, people
Dr. Thema Bryant: create it like it's an either or if I go and protest, that alone will deal with my panic attacks. Now, I also don't believe mindfulness alone is gonna address justice, but I think we, as you all promote, have to go into that non-duality of all of the different streams. We need to utilize and embody because some people in activist spaces have been shamed about.
Taking care of their own mental health.
Yes.
. And I think that is [00:28:00] robbery.
Zaya Benazzo: Especially at this very moment when we are witnessing genocide in Gaza, genocide in Sudan. Many of the activists of that are involved feel like, okay I don't deserve wellbeing or I don't deserve. What is even wellbeing in the middle of genocide when our brothers and sisters are being killed? So that's a complex [00:29:00] ground to and I don't like the word complex, but it's multi-layered, so there are no simple answers.
Dr. Thema Bryant: That's right. Yet
Zaya Benazzo: what? Yeah.
Dr. Thema Bryant: Sorry, go ahead.
Zaya Benazzo: No what does it healing mean when we see livestream genocide on our screens?
Dr. Thema Bryant: Yeah. So one of the ways people have framed this as opposed to post-trauma is ongoing trauma, right? So when the term post-traumatic stress was developed, it was developed with veterans in mind, or at that point, enlisted persons.
So they go to fight, and then when they come back. We give them care. So what does it mean, when the trauma is ongoing, it's a very different experience. If I am providing care for someone who has escaped an abusive relationship versus someone who's still living with their abuser, both we can provide care for, but it's a [00:30:00] different arena.
Yes. And so I think the piece about wellbeing or mental health for change agents or advocates or activists, gets at your point about this not even just being a lifelong project. It's a generational project. So when I hold that in my mind to actually raise for people's awareness if I am not allowed to have any joy, as long as anyone on the planet is suffering.
I will never have joy a day of my life.
Yes.
We won't, it's like someone somewhere is suffering many people. Many people. So it becomes the balancing act of not having a cluelessness or a denial or I'm minimizing while I am also honoring the sacredness of this life. The [00:31:00] sacredness of this moment.
And also if we think about our joy or our rest or our pleasure as acts of resistance because various types of oppression are interwoven, are intersecting. And they are intentional. And they are intentional to dehumanize not only the direct targets. To dehumanize and leave everyone in a place of hopelessness and powerlessness.
Yes.
So then if I embrace that I must live the rest of my life with no love, no joy, no softness, no rest in thinking, that's in solidarity. Yes. Then I am actually in alignment with my own dehumanization and I refuse to cooperate with my dehumanization ness.
Maurizio Benazzo: When we were in [00:32:00] 2021 when you were in Palestine field where olive trees weep people.
We, we received, people were laughing, it was appalling. And then somebody told us, we asked, how do you, and they said, between two Martys funeral. You celebrate, we celebrate life. We celebrate life. Ah, and he was like, so
Dr. Thema Bryant: yes,
Maurizio Benazzo: always.
Dr. Thema Bryant: Yes. That it is it is a way of, carving out our humanity. I love the arts, so I have loved seeing the footage in Gaza of people dancing with the kids, teaching the kids dance and singing and storytelling.
That's a part of the wave of it. One of the examples that comes to mind for me in the US is when we know the realities of voter suppression and voter suppression, particularly targeting black and brown communities. And I wanna say this was in Philadelphia where they had systematically closed many [00:33:00] of the voting stations in the African American community, which meant the ones that were still open had these super long lines.
I don't know if like, where we are in California or well, where I am, the line is pretty short. Like I can go and vote. It's not a hardship. There are other places where, it is by design for you to give up. And you're showing this footage and this new story of how outrageous it is.
People having to leave work and being on these lines. And in the middle of all of this, say oppression, erasure, silencing. Someone showed up with a radio and the people in line started dancing.
They were, I remember. I remember, it's don't, you're being oppressive.
So we like, we need that. We need that. Both those who are witnessing and those who are in it, as it's a defiance of our joy. Yeah.
Maurizio Benazzo: [00:34:00] Yes. Oh my God.
That's not, take our joy from us, yes.
Zaya Benazzo: Yeah. And another aspect of kind of western psychotherapeutic approaches to like distress or grief to be.
Needed to be cured and traveling and meeting a lot of indigenous communities, like the way they work with grief and how grief is held in community. And that seems again, a big loss. Collective loss. In our, in the eternal song in our film, one of the elders says, those who came from Europe came from place where grief was banned.
Imagine having to suppress all the grief arriving here that got passed and imposed on the indigenous people of this land.
Participant: Yes.
Zaya Benazzo: So some, if you can say something about grief and not absolutely grief as well.
Dr. Thema Bryant: [00:35:00] I am grateful for the call in the invitation to talk about grief as I just last week met the one year anniversary of my mom's transition to light, and I honor her and to meet me is to meet her, to hear me is to hear her.
And so I am very much Reverend C's daughter. And I'm grateful. One of the ways in which. I feel her presence is in dancing. And whenever I dance, she shows up with me and in me. But to speak to your point last week last Friday on that, anniversary, I, put a post up online in honor of her.
And then I put a second post the next day. And by the time I put the third post, my phone was blowing up of people very concerned about me. I must not be okay because I am [00:36:00] celebrating my mother. So that is the context we're in where if you are, that memory is dysfunction, right? That two, remember to, they were okay with one post.
It's oh, you gonna talk about that? You're gonna do it again. You're gonna do
it.
And it's yeah, I'm gonna do it again. But I think about, even at, so I'm African American, but I lived in Liberia, west Africa for two years of high school. And I can remember at funerals there, people would wail and weep and lay in the floor.
And if you didn't do that, people would talk about you. It meant you didn't love them. And here it's the opposite, that you are to be very composed. And if you're too much emotion, take them out or they're just trying to get attention or, all those things. And we [00:37:00] amplify that When we think about I'll say both 9 11 and the pandemic.
The lack of collective grief spaces, right? The message was we're not gonna let them win. So go out and go shopping or just go on with your days. Or of course, what happened here with the pandemic is to this day, people who deny the numbers, right? So that's a way I don't have to grieve it, is just believe it's made up, right?
Oh, that's not true. That that it's unfathomable because if it were true, then what? And learning how to grieve and and the ways in which grief can disconnect us, as opposed to it being this thing that pulls us together when we're in these spaces with their judgment and timeline around grief.
It can cause people to be disconnected or to perform for each other.
Maurizio Benazzo: Yeah, [00:38:00] there is a, our friend Francis Weller we went to an event with him last week and basically he said very clearly, grief and joy are two poles of the same. If you don't let go into the grief, you will never be able to experience joy because, he,
Zaya Benazzo: not one without the other doesn't fit.
Does,
Maurizio Benazzo: there are two poles of the same. Of the same. The
Zaya Benazzo: more
Dr. Thema Bryant: we grieve, the more we have space, the
Maurizio Benazzo: space more. We have space for joy.
Dr. Thema Bryant: Aha. Beautiful. It's, some people call it either toxic positivity or toxic spirituality where there's only room for gratitude for you should be grateful.
You should just be grateful. And it's I'm grateful and I'm grieving. Yes. Exactly. Yes. Thank you. Exactly. That
Zaya Benazzo: is toxic. Yes. That's leaving ourselves behind parts of ourselves. Behind, that's right. Pathologizing the grief or Yes.
Maurizio Benazzo: Yeah. Yeah. [00:39:00] Spiritual bypassing,
Dr. Thema Bryant: Yeah. And a lot of times we get pressed for that.
That if you're I, it's like a wisdom a truth can get over applied. There's the concept of disengagement, not being caught up in things. That being so attached is what creates suffering. But then when that gets over applied, that I have actually disconnected from my humanity.
Yes. That I feel nothing for nothing. 'cause I don't allow myself to, 'cause I'm trying to protect myself from feeling, trying to collect, protect myself from disappointment, from grief. So now I just. Walk through the world, disconnected, but spiritualized that, or, the press to make people like, hurry up and forgive.
You just need to, and this especially happens to minoritized groups. Because people are so nervous about our outrage [00:40:00] that they pick someone from the community to come forward and tell people, don't be mad, forgive, without even allowing space for it. I see this also, violence against women where, there's this languaging around women who are quote unquote angry or have an attitude with no queer care or questioning of.
Where did the quote unquote attitude or outrage come from? That we're more upset with the emotions of the victimized than the thing they are grieving.
Zaya Benazzo: And pathologizing the emotions. And I think you speak also about sacred rage, like
Yeah.
And I'm curious yes. Rage and anger is sacred for myself, but when do I know that my anger might not be sacred?
Like, how do we distinguish Sure. Sure. That I have been, yeah. [00:41:00] Without like diminishing the why, the anger is there,
Dr. Thema Bryant: Yeah, absolutely. So one, I wanna give a shout out. A person who has written and presented a lot on this is Dr. Jennifer Milan. But then. Prior to that in my trauma training was the work of Dr.
Judith Herman around anger. And the way she frames it is constructive anger or destructive anger. I start from the standpoint of it is healthy to be outraged about outrageous things. That's a healthy response. Some outrageous things have happened. So if outrageous things are happening and you feel nothing, then that's some dysfunction, right?
There's something going on there. So it's healthy to be outraged about outrageous things, but then Judith Herman would say and so what do you do with that? Yeah. Constructive anger is often what has motivated [00:42:00] change agents. You know that I'm upset about what's happening in our community.
So I started Neighborhood Watch, or I'm angry that this happened to me and that's why I became a rape crisis counselor. Or, so it can motivate my action or, motivate me to seek justice or whatever those things are. Versus I am angry about what happened. And so I'm taking it out on my loved ones.
I spend my whole life seeking revenge. I am consumed by it and stuck by it. So then it's also eating me up. Now we would say we're not in a healthy place that I'm actually, when people say I'm giving myself poison, right? It is a healthy response. It's a human response. 'cause often when I don't have room for anger, some of the.
Research around women in autoimmune disease with suppressed anger. [00:43:00] That I'm not allowed to express it. So I'm holding it in and now that's eating me up. So it becomes not should I ever feel it is, how do I express it? How do I not turn it in on myself? How do I not displace it? Because a lot of times, you know who we o often we can't approach the people who actually harmed us, so we end up hurting the people who love us.
And that's a painful reality.
Yeah.
Maurizio Benazzo: Especially in the intergenerational.
Dr. Thema Bryant: Yes.
Maurizio Benazzo: Because the people who are us could have, could come. Yeah.
Right from entirely.
Dr. Thema Bryant: Yeah. I remember I used to one of the universities I used to work at, I was responsible for addressing sexual harassment there. And a student was wanted to make a complaint, so she came to meet with me first 'cause I coordinated the office. So then I went with her to the dean [00:44:00] to file her complaint.
And when the student left the room, the dean said, ah, she really has a chip on her shoulder. And I was like, what? That what I have found with a lot of humans, we are comfortable, I'm gonna say especially for women. We're comfortable with sadness, but never their anger. So I think if the student had been there weeping and looking at a kid, oh, I see what, then the dean would've been like, oh, let me comfort you.
But this young lady was, fear was angry. 'cause the, she was being stalked, she was, all these things were happening and she was mad about it. And we wanna think for ourselves, whose anger do I allow? And who is not allowed to be angry? Yeah.
Zaya Benazzo: Whoa, that was beautiful.
Dr. Thema Bryant: Yeah. Yeah.
And I say that to our students as well who are training to be therapists because often healers are [00:45:00] like myself, are tenderhearted. And so when you're tenderhearted, you may more naturally be comfortable with people's grief and sadness, but not have developed the capacity to sit with people's anger. It's really important that we develop that emotional muscle instead of trying to suppress it or shame it to let people express where they are.
Zaya Benazzo: Yeah. That's
Dr. Thema Bryant: difficult.
Zaya Benazzo: And start with children early. Yes. Don't, yeah. Let them express uhhuh. What do you do with
Dr. Thema Bryant: that? Yeah. How do you hold your child's anger? Yeah. The sentence I often heard, some people have heard it out of my community, but in, in my community, what I heard a lot growing up was this phrase, fix your face.
Yeah. And that's what they would say to kids if you're looking sad or mad. 'cause you're supposed to look pleasant, grateful, like a [00:46:00] child. A child is not supposed to look, oh fuck they're not supposed to have an attitude. So be like, just, you had you didn't say anything disrespectful, but if your face is looking a certain way, they'll say, fix your.
Maurizio Benazzo: Fix your face.
Dr. Thema Bryant: Yeah. Oh. So then we grow up as adults and then adults don't even know what they're feeling. So I'll have clients who are clearly mad and I'll say, oh, so you're upset about that? And they'll say, no, I'm not mad. It's that's what mad looks like.
Maurizio Benazzo: How are you? Fine
Dr. Thema Bryant: care? That's the big one with teenagers.
I don't care. It looks like you
care. It really looks like you care.
Zaya Benazzo: Yeah. Yeah. The disconnect. Yes. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. And
Dr. Thema Bryant: thank you Lisa, true of it being a survival technique that, many of our parents grew up in spaces where it was not safe to express what you feel.
Yeah. And so
they're like, so how dare show all those [00:47:00] feelings, move on.
Zaya Benazzo: Maybe just one question, last question,
how for those of us who might not have a community, where do we begin to create one and one that doesn't replicate the structures of injustice or harm? What? Yes. It's beautiful. Yeah.
Dr. Thema Bryant: Beautiful. So the first suggestion I'd make to people is to perhaps try to deepen the relationships you have.
Because sometimes we have these superficial connections where people might go to brunch or, they they talk but don't like talk from the heart. And what I have found is transparency is contagious. So like we all have that friend that'll say whatever. And usually if you're in the presence of that kind of friend, you'll find yourself talking more freely too, right?
[00:48:00] Because oh, we're leaving the script. So if we're all like, I'm fine, I'm good, what's going on? Nothing much. If we're doing that and then one person goes a little deeper and says, actually I'm disappointed because of this. Or actually I've been feeling anxious. 'cause are you watching the news?
Then people will meet them there. So sometimes people will say to me that they only have these like superficial or fake friends. I invite them to think about the one who tries to go deeper and see, some people aren't ready for it and don't want it, and that's fine. Now you'll know, but there are some people who are waiting for an invitation to be real.
Yeah. So that's one thing. Another piece is going to events or spaces that are in alignment with your interest. I love poetry. If I go to a spoken [00:49:00] word, coffee house, then like I already know my kind of people are there, even if I don't know them yet. So whether it is an activist space where people who are committed to the same issues as you, or a joy bringer space, something you enjoy doing and finding connection there.
And then we also have online, and I know sometimes people will, put down online connections, but depending on where you live, you might be in a space where there are not a lot of like-minded people. Or it's just been hard for you to make that connection. But online you may be able to identify and eventually, if they're close to you, even meet up with them in person.
So our own emotional availability, that's one of the things I talk about of the heart is that if all of my relationships are [00:50:00] one sided if I feel like I'm just always surrounded by selfish people or I feel like nobody gets it, but that's my script for everybody, it may be time to look inward.
There may be a way in which I'm co-creating that dynamic of surface connections and so to deepen our own emotional availability.
Maurizio Benazzo: I wanna read the question from Khalid Baraka. [00:51:00] The Yazidis people have experienced genocide and intergenerational trauma, and often within a context of culture and religious persecution.
How can communities like the Yazidis begin to move from collective survival to collective healing in a decolonial framework, how can the children of Yazidis survival be supported to process inherited trauma, especially when their parents are still struggling with their own recovery?
Dr. Thema Bryant: Yes. Thank you so much, and let me say, I am glad you are here. I am glad that your community is here. I am glad for you all outlasting and for your survival. And I appreciate your question. 'cause Dr. Maya Angelou says, surviving is necessary, but thriving is elegant.
Oh
no. It's a, [00:52:00] it's good to survive, right?
We wanna survive, but, oh, what will it mean as you're naming for the families and the children and the elders to flourish? To heal, to thrive? And so a part of the way that we do that is. Protection and advocating for their rights. So I appreciated the part of the question of how can people support and it is important for there to be support for the remnants or the ongoing realities of oppression to combat that and for it to not be you all just fighting that alone.
And then to facilitate safe spaces for the storytelling, for the truth telling for the kids, but also for the adults to be able to tell their stories. And that can [00:53:00] be facilitated. Just in community gatherings and collective gatherings in homes to talk about what we experienced and the ways in which we made it using culture.
I, I love this phrase from, indigenous perspective. That culture is medicine, right? So then if I recognize culture is medicine, teaching the children their culture, and that's the things the adults do know something about, right? So that there is more to us than what has been done to us and to understand like our stories, our artwork, our spirituality.
This is who we are, not just what we experienced. And that. Then leaves space for us to not just talk about coping strategies which we know like [00:54:00] the journaling or talking, those are coping. But resistance. And then post-traumatic growth, post-traumatic growth it helps us to think about what are the ways that I can flourish in the aftermath of this.
So some of those key principles are deepening my relationships, deepening my spirituality, a greater recognition of my own strength, and an appreciation for life. And so to be intentional about our growing, not just our surviving
Zaya Benazzo: beautiful. Our friend Netta from Palestine, how,
how would you define healing? Ah, you define healing.
Dr. Thema Bryant: Yes. I will define healing as holistic freedom. [00:55:00] So when I am free in my mind, in my body, in my heart, in my spirit, in my relationships, I have healed and I am healing. I also would define healing as being able to see the fullness of my story with grace and compassion and a sense.
That the rest of my story can be written by me and those who love me.
Zaya Benazzo: Yeah. Yeah. And perhaps under ongoing genocide, it's hard to perhaps even or not is it possible to talk about healing [00:56:00] in the middle of,
Dr. Thema Bryant: so then this would be the, and I wanna appreciate you being present and we can consider what are the aspects of healing. So it would be inaccurate for us to say.
A part of healing is healing in your body while your body is being subjugated, so then it is irresponsible to say, so you need to heal. What we would say is a part of that process, an integral part of that process is that every effort, every system, every institution that is designed and constructed to keep you bound, needs to be [00:57:00] removed.
Yeah.
Every system, every structure, every government that is designed to keep you bound, needs to be removed for, I would say the fullness of healing, but how can I have healing with ongoing trauma? I would say it will be partial. The partial is emotional and spiritual. So emotionally and spiritually tuning into the truth of your worthiness, of your sacredness, of your humanity.
So there may be displacement, there may be grief, there may be threats to your very physical being, but our soul can be healed in recognizing I am sacred despite it all. [00:58:00] Now, is that sufficient? No. I would say you and all of us deserve the fullness of healing and while we are awaiting and working for that, for your heart, for your mind.
For your soul to breathe in the truth that even though you are not being treated like it, you are worthy. Worthy of safety, worthy of care. Worthy of love, worthy of justice. And you are not alone. That there are a great cloud of witnesses around the world who are crying out your worthiness. Yeah.[00:59:00]
Zaya Benazzo: Thank you. Thank you for this. I think our, that's medicine. That's medicine. The world is, this is the medicine we need at this moment. You are.
Dr. Thema Bryant: So in terms of collective healing, yes it is possible. And when we think about liberation, I think it is easier for us to think about what does a free person look like as opposed to a free people.
And
so for us to liberation psychology calls for our imagination.
So for us to imagine what will it look like when our communities are free, and then begin working on the manifestation of those dreams and visions. And so it is relational. [01:00:00] How will we be with each other? What we can build with each other? What does a community that is whole and healed and free look like there's play.
Right? And many of us are in communities where kids can't go outside and play.
That there is love across the gender spectrum as opposed to women putting down men and men putting down women and non-binary not being acknowledged. And so what does it look like? What does even our creative space look like?
What do our schools look like? When we are whole healed and free. And that it, I like to say oppression, [01:01:00] marginalization, colonization are interdisciplinary. They attack us on every level. Likewise, liberation has to be interdisciplinary. There's liberation medicine, liberation psychology, liberation theology, which is the mother of all of these liberation movements.
It came first. And so yes to it is a colonial standpoint that can imagine an indi individualized liberation that's disconnected from the rest of the world.
Yes, we can. Work toward and actually embody collective healing and liberation.
Yeah. Yeah, definitely. And so that's an important part too. Be wary of hierarchy when people say this is [01:02:00] the way. Yes. The humility of this is one of the ways. So like me working in mental health is one of the ways, but I would dare not talk, against people who say the path is through education.
Wonderful. You do your work in education and some people will say, it's parenting. We gotta raise liberated. Kids do that. So that's the beauty of it. Is whatever lane we're in. I have another book with Dr. Edith Arrington called The Anti-Racism Handbook. And in that handbook we talk about knowing your sphere of influence and whatever your sphere of influence is, that's where you do the work.
And there's a term art activism, so using as activism one to either document what we see. So you can be an artist that reflects the times, or you can be an artist that imagines for us what could be.
[01:03:00] And both of those are needed and necessary. Art is an integral part of the path to liberation.
Zaya Benazzo: So many blessings. So I'm gonna read Khaled's question. How can I maintain my sanity and my heart from stopping when I'm watching my people being slaughtered in a daily Holocaust every day?
How can I keep my soul from not being consumed by rage towards those who are enabling it?
Dr. Thema Bryant: Yes. Yes. So I would say before we try to stop anything emotionally before you try to stop it, I would first want to say how beautiful it is that you still feel that is a gift. That the truth is sometimes people harden [01:04:00] and sometimes people disconnect and check out.
And I know when you're overwhelmed with feeling, you may feel like, I wish I could. But I wanna honor the depth of your feeling is the depth of your love, right? And the depth of your outrage is the depth of your clarity of the worthiness and humanity of your people. And so as opposed to, I'm gonna say stopping it, I would offer expanding your emotional diary expanding.
Your daily ritual. So if the daily ritual [01:05:00] is consuming death all day. 'cause sometimes we feel like my way to honor is to watch it all. And that's that if I'm not watching death all day, then I'm dishonoring and I wanna offer to you that's not true. That's not the same as people who are in denial or people who are pretending it's not happening.
And so to expand my heart is one to say as a member of the community, I too am deserving of care that I too am deserving of softness. I too am deserving of love in my life of some lightness in my day. And symbolically as I desire [01:06:00] to give it to them, I also will give it to me in the present. So it is almost a sacrament, a sacred spiritual offering for my community who may not in this moment be able to lay in a bed that I lay down.
So I te instead of I have to now sleep outside to be in solidarity with them. I get to rest in this, not from a place of guilt, but as a reminder to my very soul that this is what all of us are deserving of. And, I would say around the anger, it's what we spoke to earlier, the outrage is understandable.
And what we learned from like narrative or even indigenous, is [01:07:00] I want to be intentional that those who seek to dehumanize me don't become the center of my story. So I don't want to wake with them first on my mind. I don't wanna go to sleep with them last on my mind. And so I choose, it's like when, when they, when there are those serial killers or those mass killers who have like the manifesto and the media's making the decision of do we read this? Do we give you the whole life story of them and center them? And more recently, the media was making the decision of let's highlight the victims.
Let's tell their story. And so I invite you to give yourself that same permission that I will choose to center the stories of my community instead of centering the stories of those who are dehumanizing. [01:08:00]
Beautiful.
Zaya Benazzo: Wow.
Beautiful.
Yes. That's, this is again, your profound wisdom that our, self-care is also collective care. It's not like self-care is not selfish. That's also we being made to, yeah.
Dr. Thema Bryant: One thing I wanna add to that is I think we can feel the burden even more when we think no one else cares but me. And so to know that there are people who care. To help with that ur, that urgency about it and it's, it is still urgent, but it's not an urgent thing that I carry alone.
So when I carry it together and so finding community of people who care, it helps to lighten the load.
Zaya Benazzo: Thank you, Dr. Thema. Wow.
Maurizio Benazzo: Wow.
Zaya Benazzo: Your generosity and so much wisdom pouring and sharing. Yeah. Thank you. We probably have [01:09:00] time for one more
Maurizio Benazzo: question. Yeah. I love that they're always presenting in a twisted way that makes it so simple and profoundly touching. And he like make it in a way like, what? I didn't expect the angle.
And he goes through,
Zaya Benazzo: yum. What did he say? Be wary of
Dr. Thema Bryant: yeah. Of of hierarchy. When people think their way is the only way, it's just if they're, like, if you didn't march or you didn't post, and those are people who think marching and posting are the only way. The only way, or that's the righteous way.
That's your righteous way. Like someone else is doing it in their writing. Someone else is doing it through the therapeutic space. So I think a challenge we have is sometimes we get into policing each other.
Yeah.
Policing the movement where people can be as angry or more angry with people who are like-minded.[01:10:00]
Oh yeah, absolutely. They're doing it a different way.
And I get it. It's our desire to find, control. And it's also our way of of comforting ourselves and our own righteousness. That if I decide all of you are unrighteous, then oh, but not me.
Zaya Benazzo: Yeah. Oof. That's a amazing practice to work with.
Dr. Thema Bryant: Yes. Thank you. It is challenging because, I feel at the root of it, there is a care, a concern perhaps even an honoring of them, but also a hurt disappointment, frustration with the othering. And so feeling the tension between those and in terms of what we do with that [01:11:00] part is.
Relational and then a part is within myself. So relationally, I think it is trying to feel out where
Yes. So we can think about boundaries as a blessing and a gift, not only to ourselves, but to other people. I think sometimes the way we have been raised, we think about boundaries as I'm doing something wrong or that I'm rejecting, or that I am disconnecting in a way that is problematic.
So if we can expand it to think about that we are both, that collective beings. We are living souls within ourselves. And [01:12:00] so there will be times for me to nourish within me to preserve me. And that's not against anyone. It is simply an internal process. And then there will be times for the collective, for the community, for the conversation.
So that while I will do both, I won't always do both at the same time. And that's okay. It's more than okay. It is sacred growth that I am growing. Some people will celebrate your growth and some people will be bothered by it. And that's all right. Because if I need people's approval for. My boundary then it will never be set or never be [01:13:00] enforced.
Zaya Benazzo: Good gratitude for this medicine you've shared with us.
For your kindness, for you with. Generosity of heart
Maurizio Benazzo: and you do it with such openness and such a smile that makes the medicine, even the better med, better medicine, taste way better the way you present. So
Dr. Thema Bryant: Thank you so much. I appreciate that. I have just been grateful and nourished by our time together and I look forward to your next film and your next gathering and just staying in community with you all.
You too, as well as all of you who have gathered. So thank you and please and sound. I wanna give one recommendation to SAND around the a boundary resource who actually I believe is still on here, Dr. JAIYA. JOHN writes about the sacredness of boundaries. You can find him on Instagram or you can take a look at his books, [01:14:00] JAIYA. JOHN.
Zaya Benazzo: John, thank you. And of course the book, your book Matters of the Heart that it's yeah. I recommend to everyone. I listen in my car and it's always brings me home. Brings me home, thank you. And allows people that I didn't
Dr. Thema Bryant: know I had to come to. Ah, I'm so grateful. And what, you ought to check out The Homecoming podcast.
Yes. On YouTube, Spotify, SoundCloud, and iTunes.
Maurizio Benazzo: Thank you, Dr. Thema.
Dr. Thema Bryant: Oh, you are welcome.
Zaya Benazzo: These things, and thank you for weaving us together. Yeah. Good.
Dr. Thema Bryant: Yes. A great way to spend a Saturday. [01:15:00]
