Therapy Is Not Neutral: Jennifer Mulan & Iya Affo
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Maurizio Benazzo: [00:00:00] Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Wherever in the world you are. Such a joy and an honor to have you with us. Thank you, my name is Maurizio Benazzo.
Zaya Benazzo: My name is Zaya Benezzo and we are delighted to have you here today. We are speaking today from the traditional and unceded territory of Ramson O people where we were visiting, last night, and we had a beautiful film screening of the Eternal song.
For those of you who haven't seen our last film, the Eternal Song featuring our host Iya Affo we had the privilege to share with the matriarchs of Lon people [00:01:00] and receive their blessings and their feedback on the film. So we are speaking today from the traditional lens, and I also want to open the space in reverence of.
Our ancestors, the ones we carry, their names, and those who have been as erased. So we see this conversation as a conversation, but also as a collective remembering what was healing before it was institutionalized, before it was professionalized, we used to heal together in community with the lands, with the waters that supported life with the ancestors.
And it feels like this remembering is coming through now. And we are together in this. Yeah.
Maurizio Benazzo: So let's move into the, into the thick of the woods and introduce you to [00:02:00] Iya Affo. Thank you, Iya, we love you. So let me, so grateful for you. Grateful for you to be here. Thank you. Thank you.
. Iya Affo is a trauma specialist and founder of Healing Historical Trauma, whose work blends cultural wisdom and modern understanding to support collective and ancestral healing. Thank you, ia. It has been a joy to meet you and we are so honored to have you in our film, as we said, and look forward to this conversation.
Zaya Benazzo: And please feel, introduce yourself the way Yeah. More feels light aligned.
Iya Affo: That was, that is perfect. And, um, I'm happy to be here. I love you guys so much. I love the work that you're doing. And you know, I have just deep and great respect for. How you move in our indigenous lands and how you treat our indigenous peoples and the respect for the ancestors.
And no one does it quite like the two of you and, and your team. So thank you so much. Um, it's a [00:03:00] pleasure to be a part of any and all things that you're doing. You know, anytime you ask me Lisa, ask me, I'm like, yes, yes, yes. Whatever they're doing, yes, I'm there. So this is, um, a great joy for me. Thank you. Um, I super, super, super, super excited to bring on our guest today.
The work that this brilliant lady is doing absolutely speaks to my soul. I was a, a person struggling for so long with depression, anxiety, and different things, and never aligned with talk therapy, but. That was what everybody acted like you were supposed to do. And you know, if you're not aligned with talk therapy or you're not aligned with medication, then there's no healing for you.
And so I spent years and years and years and years [00:04:00] truly fighting this di debilitating mental health stuff until I got secure in, in knowing that I could lean on my traditional ways and traditional, um, healing methods. So to have this brilliant lady bringing this work to the forefront, it's just a deep, deep honor.
It's personal to me to be here with you. And so let's everyone welcome Dr. Jennifer Mullan author of Decolonizing Therapy. Thank you so much, Dr. Jen.
Dr. Jennifer Mullan: Thank you. Thank you ea thank you for your work, for your indigenous remembrance and for your embodied, your full embodiment. And thank you everyone else for having me here as well.
Um, particular Maurizio and Zaya for consistently carving out spaces where mysticism and science and trauma healing and indigenous wisdom meet. So thank you. Thank you.
Iya Affo: [00:05:00] Yes. I wanna jump right in because there is something that is so fascinating about the work that you're doing and that, and, and the things that you're bringing to the forefront.
And I'm certain that people who don't understand this work have certain questions and we're gonna get right to it. Yeah. Um, Dr. Jen, you write that therapy. Is not neutral and never has been. Mm-hmm. How did you come to this truth in your own practice and was there a moment of rupture or realization or how did you get there?
Dr. Jennifer Mullan: Oh, such a beautiful question. Well, you know, especially being in a body of culture, which I'm sure you know a lot about, ea you know, there's this realization almost immediately that nothing is [00:06:00] absolutely neutral, right? Everything has a charge, an energetic charge, an emotional charge, a cultural charge. But especially being a clinical psychologist, everything was about pathologizing and everything was about putting something neatly in a box, trying to figure it out, check it off.
Where do we put people? Where do we put symptoms, air quotes, where do we fit in? And there was this realization, um, and I'm gonna be honest here, there was this realization midway in, because I deeply loved my work, right? Like a lot of therapists and practitioners do deeply loved being there for others healing, working with, but I was always hiding parts of myself.
All right. I was always hiding. This more, this bigger personality, these other ways of knowing. With a capital KI was always sort of in these closets, spiritually, [00:07:00] somatically, energetically. There were rules and regulations about what we're able to talk about, what we're not what we have trainings around and all along, a lot of our people, many of our people's indigenous medicine and histories are being co-opted, are being appropriated without honor, without reverence, and without permission.
And so this started weighing on my spirit. Um, this weighed on my physicality. This weighed on the type of work that I did, and I found myself doing all the right things for self-care, right? Working out and meditating and acupuncture and this and that. Drinking a gallon of water a day. And there came a point in the realization you're laughing because you see right, the truth of that, right?
The self care, this myth of self care and this is what it looks like and sell this to people in this manner. And I realized, wait, I'm doing like the jobs of seven people, right? I'm [00:08:00] not just doing therapy in this university counseling center, but I'm also teaching grad courses and running a peer education program and, you know, running a co and co-facilitating an L-G-B-T-Q-I-A support group and grants and this, and, and within this realization and, um, entering the shamanic practice, you know, coming back to my peoples and my medicine within a week of having this activation, um, which I didn't know was an activation at the time, I ended up in the hospital with dehydration.
And what's pretty fascinating about that is that I, I was drinking more water than I ever had in my entire life. And as I was laying there, I thought, well, actually I heard, felt, received, right? This is a soul dehydration, you know? And, and the questions that I [00:09:00] kept writing out for myself is, where's the joy?
Where's the reclamation? Where is your full expression of authenticity? You know, where is your voice that we have given you? And I believe that was my ancestors speaking. You know, really, you know, we've given you this voice and this honesty and this little bit of childlike wonder and ferocity. So where is that in speaking to the fact that this work is not in fact, neutral?
Right? There's nothing neutral about not having clean running water. There's nothing neutral. Right. About not having your pronouns utilized. There's nothing neutral about taking really big reactions to grief and rage. Yeah. And pathologizing them and just constantly medicating them without getting curious about the root of the dis-ease and the separation with self.
Iya Affo: Yes. Wow. So much to unpack there, but I get a [00:10:00] chuckle when you start talking about self-care because even the term self-care clinches me. You know, you know what I mean? So it's it, you know, this idea that it, there's something other than living in harmony or something, you know, other than just, you know, living in balance, right?
Yes. We need to get a massage or we need to, you know, do these little things and it's so cliche and it's, you know, yeah, I really, really identify with what you responded to. And with that being said, then, what does it mean then, Jen? What does it mean to decolonize therapy? Yeah.
Emotionally, not just politically or theoretically. How do you sense when it's happening in a room or in a relationship or in yourself? What does that mean actually?
Dr. Jennifer Mullan: Yeah. Yeah. It means that we are willing to. Go underground, [00:11:00] right? Meaning that we're willing to go to the root. We're willing to get curious about the ways that our people survived and thrived and reclaim some of that.
Um, I believe that we are, we are very much connected to land, that we are not apart from land. So when we think of this process of our lands being taken, utilized, um, desecrated in some way, shape, or form, that also has had, without a doubt, an impact on each of us, right? It's had an impact on how we think about ourselves, our relationship with one another.
It has an impact on whether or not we feel we're well. And a society that consistently more and more does not quite feel so well and makes many of us that are on the margins feel like, am am I the problem? Am I bonkers? What's happening here? So the invitation in decolonizing therapy is to see our bodies as living [00:12:00] archives, right?
Is to see our neurodiversity, our other ways of knowing as living archives and really moving back. I have this framework, it's the four pillars, and it's honoring the past aspects of the political, the psychological as well as the people. And in that, what we mean is the past, as you know, the historical trauma.
What has happened? What are the ways that our people have not been able to grieve? What are the ways that our rage is masked and pushed aside and not also loved on and given a stage? What are the ways that trauma is transmitted? How, why and how does that land in us? What does that look like today? And when we get to the political, we're not talking about, you know, parties or Democrat or Republican.
We're talking about who has access. As I mentioned before, you know, who has access to care, who has access to community, to nurturing the [00:13:00] psychological is how the impact of colonization has impacted our psyche, our wellbeing, our soma, and our nervous systems. Right? There's such a focus on nervous systems these days.
That's because there's so much activation, right? And the, and the invitation is that maybe that activation isn't the problem, right? Maybe that activation is curious. And we need to get curious back. Maybe that activation is activating other places, spaces, ways of knowing so that we can be even more of ourself.
And this all lands with a little bow of the people, you and me. Yeah. You know, everybody else. Um, how are we in relationship with one another and in community, even when it's messy and gnarly and sticky and rough. And so it really, decolonizing therapy at its root is getting to the root of us and where we have [00:14:00] been displaced in some way, shape or form from our true, highest form of self.
Iya Affo: Wow. So then I have to move to because I'm sure that we have people that are watching this or that will eventually watch this. And there's, they're gonna then say, well, how do I know? If I have a therapist that is able to decolonize therapy and see the therapeutic process from this decolonized lens.
So how do you integrate that in your practice and what can people who are looking through, I mean we only have one Dr. Jen people, so we can't go around looking for, looking for Dr. Jen, but how do we know right, when we are connected to therapy or when we are connected to a therapist, how do we know that that's a therapist that sees things through this decolonizing lens?
Um, and, and how are you integrating [00:15:00] that into your practice?
Dr. Jennifer Mullan: Yes. Great questions. Well, I would say the first thing is. You know, being willing and receiving this space of reciprocity. So I think that one of the first things that shows up traditionally is, again, with this neutrality, pull back, don't be too much of yourself.
Don't, don't overshare. What is oversharing? Have boundaries. Well, what do boundaries look like, right? And what kind of boundaries and what framework are they Highly Eurocentric or Western, right? All of our cultures invites different levels and layers of boundary. When I'm working with a Muslim woman, that is going to feel very different, right.
Than a trans Baptist person, you know? Right. Like, so the boundaries it, it, it's a fascinating word, and I think it's a way that it tries to keep us in these very highly Eurocentric Western boxes. Right, right. Not really thinking about all the ways, [00:16:00] when we think of healers, helpers, Eros, imams, shamans, right.
These perhaps we're getting were some of the original helpers, caregivers. Therapists, there was a constant connection to spirit, to source and this attempt at science in some way, shape, or form. And when someone came back from battle or war, or there was loss or death, the helper or healer didn't just go home, you know, they were there sometimes for weeks, for months.
And, and I understand that we can't do that today. And I, and I'll get into it in just a second, but there was, I just wanted to set up this frame of understanding that what we're also asking of practitioners and therapists is a bit unrealistic this day, shape and form in the way that it is set up. People are needing more than ever.
People are needing for us to meet up with them more in where they are more than ever. And therapists are [00:17:00] extracted from more than ever under-resourced, underpaid, and oftentimes really disconnected from themselves and their body. So part of the beautiful pieces back when and in many indigenous communities still today, is that also the healer and the helper was cared for, right?
Food was brought to them care, right? Maybe shelter, housing. And so yes, this looks completely different today, but I'd like to just set that framework up so that we can be in a place of remembering that also some of the work that we do is and is allowed to be sacred. Right, that we weren't told that we were here to heal, we were told that we were here to treat.
Right? And, and, and I would like to shift that a bit and say, what does that look like to heal and reclaim some of our ancestral [00:18:00] pathways? Right? And what does that look like To really, really ask ourselves what else is possible? That's like one of my favorite questions. Like, what else is possible? And so to answer your question super directly, I do think it is deeply, deeply personal.
But the things that one does want to look out for, and having someone that is embodying, not just intellectualizing, as you've said, a decolonized perspective, as someone that will answer your questions before working with them, right? Asking the questions, how do you hold space? What does this, what can I expect this work to look like?
You know, if I need to connect with you outside of these walls, boundaries, what might that look like? Our session limits truly limited, right? And, and can we possibly go to 90 minutes? What might that frame look like? [00:19:00] What would the frame look like, right? If we co-created it rather than this expectation that it fit again, with these boxes, these boxes and the ways they tried to lock us in.
And so oftentimes what therapists come to me and ask, it's like, well, how do I do this? Like, like, show me tick off the boxes. And I gently laugh and I say, this is wonderful. And the ask and the reminder is that instead we start getting comfortable with being uncomfortable. That we start getting curious about our people's histories just a bit.
We start really diving in, we start looking at the ways that we hold forms of privilege and impression and how that shows up in the therapeutic container. And that we start realizing that perhaps we are not the only experts and that we also need to involve [00:20:00] other healer helpers and space holders as well as our, you know, wise and well ancestors if that is how somebody works, into the spaces with us.
It's like dating.
Iya Affo: What, what, what strikes me is, and it's so funny 'cause you keep using these words that have been triggers for me. In the therapy space, right? And so it seems that every issue that I've had in finding help before, I totally relied on ancestral ways of being. You have hit each one.
Right. I, I said something about self-care. Well, now my other big trigger, funny you bring it up, boundaries, right? Like the word boundary in and of itself triggers me because sometimes I feel like people use that as an excuse to have bad behavior. This is my boundary, and so I [00:21:00] get to behave like this, right?
So that's one part of it. But the other part of it is when I'm in that therapeutic space mm-hmm. When people, I decide what my boundaries are supposed to be. So for instance, I'm an indigenous tribal African woman. Mm. The most important thing to me in my world is making sure that my children and grandchildren and my ancestors, my descendants, are cared for and taken care of.
So then in a therapeutic space, however, someone is imposing. Their boundaries on me and saying maybe you're doing too much. You have to have boundaries with the kids. You can't always watch your granddaughters or you can't always do this. Wait a minute. Those are your boundaries. Those are not my boundaries.
Yes. Right. What gives me peace and sense of mind and regulation is that my grand girls are [00:22:00] taken care of. That my, that I can step in for my children. So I can't have you decide what my boundaries are. So if we enter into this therapeutic space together, I need you to be ready to hear who I am, what my value system is, what my boundaries are.
And then maybe you can facilitate wellness with me from that collaborative space.
Dr. Jennifer Mullan: Yes, [00:23:00] exactly. Um, the lack of collaboration is pretty violent. On many of, of our bodies, psyches spirits, you know, um, the lack of collaboration, I think in general leads to this chronic dis-ease, you know, this con chronic disconnect from ourselves.
And I think for myself as well as many other practitioners that I've worked with, there's this feeling of this heartbreak, to be honest. And I, and I've been talking about this lately, like many therapists get into therapy because we've already been the caregivers at young ages, right? We've already been those that been juggling, translating, giving, needing, balancing that raft right of, of the family system or systems.
And this feels natural. Of course it does. It feels natural because, girl, I've been good at this since, since day one. And then what ends up happening is [00:24:00] we get into this space thinking on some level, even if we don't admit it to ourselves on some level, this is gonna help me that this, this social work program, this psychology program, this counseling program, this psychiatry that in some way, shape or form, it is going to plug this hole somewhere in this space and this heart-centered space that it's going to heal me, fill me, get me right, and show me how to be there for others, um, to be there for my grandchildren, for my descendants.
Seven generations after me. And then there becomes, there hits this like realization of weight. These are, this feels toxic. It's like a toxic relationship in some ways, right? And, and, and I don't have freedom to fly. And these boundaries really feel like shackles. And on some level, and I've heard this maybe thousands of times, and each times I get little goosebumps.
So everywhere folks will say, these sh [00:25:00] these shackles or these chains or this, this confinement. I think it reminds me of experiences that my ancestors or my people have gone through in some way, shape, or form, right? Like being, not being allowed to fully be embodied. And really one of my hopes and my goals are that all people in invited in doing this work and this historical work is that we're creating new futures together.
You know, that we are building and co-creating the kind of care, the kind of therapy, if it's still called that, you know, the kind of work that we are moving into. And we are acknowledging that this is not just my timeline. That a lot of what I'm feeling might also be, compacted by the timelines of other people in my lineage because they weren't allowed to feel, they weren't allowed, many of them, [00:26:00] you know, to grieve, to wail, to, to, to keen, right.
So when we have these big feelings coming up, I'm often reminding folks that on a daily basis that we are ingesting this like pain body to quote echo or this, you know, this trauma burger. Yeah. Right. And the middle of that Patty is current day stress, oppression, overwhelm, um, the stuff that you and I and all of us deal with, right?
The bottom of that bun is your personal childhood, you know, adolescent trauma, stress, losses, experience. And the top of that bun is all of the unseen, but often epigenetically and intergenerationally felt. Historical and ancestral trauma and wisdom with that that we might not know how to decode yet.
And so on a daily basis, even if I'm working with teenagers, I'm like, let's take a breath and think [00:27:00] about that trauma burger that we're accessing. Let's think about all the ways that even the collective pain might be impacting us as highly sensitive individuals. And oftentimes I find that even having that other little bit of understanding that, wait, maybe this isn't all me, and maybe this is like the original ai, the original ancestral intelligence, right?
Right. Like maybe this isn't bad that I'm having these other ways of knowing come up in my body. Maybe this is intelligence in a deeper, larger, more expansive form. I hope that makes sense. It does. Absolutely.
Iya Affo: Absolutely. And so then it, it, it, then we have to move into, since many clinicians are taught to see therapy as neutral, apolitical, or strictly personal, how do you help them begin to understand that therapy is deeply, uh, political, [00:28:00] historical and systemic by nature?
Dr. Jennifer Mullan: Yeah. What do we do? Yeah. Well, the first things that we do, and again, it sounds super easy and intellectualizing it, we can Oh, that's easy. I got that. I've done that. But the first part is really asking ourselves, you know, how has our field, and this is crunchy, how has our field or feels harmed? Like, I think the first step is right, right.
I know it's crunchy for me to this day. Like, oh no, I'm in this to help. What do you mean? No, I'm the good, I'm the good person. I'm the good guy. Right? And, and it's like, yes, our intentions are everything. Yes, there are tons of us doing amazing work out there without a doubt. And do we know the ways in which our fields have harmed people?
And is there any work there internally that we might need to do? Is there, is there [00:29:00] any awareness that we need to bring into every space? That we co-create with our therapy participant, right? And, and sometimes what comes up, and what I mean by that, I'll give a personal example as well. Um, you know, there's asylums, there's histories right there, there's so many histories of harm draped mania, where on plantations and what is now known as the United States enslaved Africans who flee or attempted to flee were then brought back and diagnosed with draped mania.
Like, how dare you think that there, that this is not a safe place. There's something wrong with you. You are certifiably insane since you're trying to get away from this plantation, right? Mm-hmm. Our, our beloved DSM has had queerness, right? And homosexuality within the DSM. So the first place is not just, oh yeah, that was history.
That's not us that many of our people in our families. Have also [00:30:00] experienced that oftentimes there can be a mistrust and a distrust between us and our lineages and so-called helping professions. So that might be the first step is to start to get comfortable with the ways that we consciously and unconsciously have harmed on a macro and on a personal level, and to bring this home.
Um, on a personal level, I have worked in prison systems. I have worked with juveniles and adolescents on partial care units, residential centers, and I think about all the ways that I may have harmed when I got to decide who is allowed to exit a prison system, who needs to continue to stay.
Before I had an analysis of power, before I had an analysis right of poverty, simple questions of like, why are people poor? And, and if anyone's response is, oh, [00:31:00] you know, they have to work harder or Poor people are some of the hardest working people I've ever met in my life. I think most of us feel that way.
Right. You know, so just to break it down, I've had to sit with, Ooh, okay, I've made some decisions. You know, I've made some decisions when, when I didn't know better. And now that we're here, what are we gonna do with what we know and what we have to bring? More wellness and healing and expansiveness. How do we shine a light on something that can be so beautiful?
But be honest with ourselves. Because as we know, when we try to hide history in any field, any place politically, energetically, when we try to hide what has happened, not get stuck in the history, but when we try to hide it, it grows. You know, it gnaws at us and, and it be makes us unwell. So that might be one first part of it.
And a second part of it is beginning to find yourself [00:32:00] people that you can unfurl with. Does that make sense? You know, where can I be more of, Jennifer? Where can EA be more of ea and how can we form this beautiful weaving tapestry Yeah. Of accountability that is not based on, oh, you're wrong, you're right.
You didn't do it by this book. But acknowledging that we've learned some great things through therapeutic context, right? We've understood some aspects of ourself and that much of it is not always relatable to people who are in deep states of trauma and are still being traumatized by systems, policies, and people that are supposed to keep us safe.
Right. So how does a nervous system, how does a person, how does a body get to a place where we are grounded, centered, ish, while we are also living amongst [00:33:00] so much harm? And so, um, sometimes it's also speaking to therapists about what they believe, you know, because some, there's a lot of therapists out there that when someone says to them, well, I don't feel safe in this world, or, I feel like my son or my daughter or my child could get killed at any moment that they couldn't get pulled over and frisked.
I can't tell you how many well-intentioned right therapist. Well, let's use a little bit of, maybe you're magnifying, right? Let's use CBT. You know, you know, maybe this is magical thinking. Maybe you're feeling a bit paranoid, but that's not paranoia, unfortunately. Right. That that's many of our daily experiences and realities.
And so the invitation is to start to become bridges to folks. The invitation is not to just swallow, be sin eaters and just take and take and take [00:34:00] until we explode or pass away. 'cause somebody else will replace us within a month. But really for us to be well as well as possible and for the people that we're serving to be well, and for there to be a level of reciprocity.
Not that I'm sitting there saying, oh, I got divorced, I you, no, no, this is, this is their space and session, of course, but also to bring in aspects of ourself that will expand and crack open. Some of that healing where someone can go, ah. And I've seen it thousands of times. It's such a relief for hear to hear you admit that Dr.
Jen. It's like a relief to hear you say that like you have been on this path too, that you've had darkness of the, of the soul that you've had dark months of the soul. Yeah. And these are some of the ways that you manage that you know, and that makes me emotional. I want us to disrupt in that way. I want us [00:35:00] to make healing and big emotions and being a bit vulnerable, sexy again.
Yeah. Does that make,
Iya Affo: I hope that, oh, that it's so brilliant and it, it lying. I'm telling you everything that you're saying, and I'm sure other people are gonna agree, but everything that you're saying is just touching my soul. I did a lot of work in, um, Gila River Indian, the Gila River Indian Community, and a few other Indian communities, and you have a lot more leeway when you're in sovereign land and you have a lot you know, you have other ways of being.
So in those communities, the door is open for you to share that part of yourself, right? Again, not take over someone's session, but say, yeah. I and, and I always talk about it in sacred Circle, so I always say, oh no, you know, everything is in this sacred circle. 'cause we're sitting arm to arm and thigh to thigh, leg to leg, [00:36:00] foot to foot baby, toe to baby toe.
We are here. I'm here with you, holding space with you. I'm a mother. You are a mother. Here are some things that I experienced. Tell me some of the things that you experienced. Mm. How do we work together to help your situation or, you know, I've gone through this too. You've gone through, you know, so you have this ability to be human and sit with somebody together.
When I train police officers, yes, same thing. Yes. Yes. They could circle ideology. What would happen if you as a police officer are part of the community instead of on top of the community or, uh, you know, accosting the community or controlling the community. What if you're shoulder to shoulder? Imagine the work that you can do.
So I love, love, love I love what you're
Dr. Jennifer Mullan: talking about. Thank you. Thank you. And as you were speaking I also realized, and I thought to myself, one of the [00:37:00] ways that we can be really conscious of. Colonization impacting us. I, I call it this colonial soul wound, and I draw deeply from Dr.
Maria Yellow Horse Bravehearts work. Um, yeah. You know, on, on historical traumas, I, I know you do as well. And just enfranchised grief as well as Roberto and Bonnie Duran's Soul Wound. And it is this realization, right, that there is an aspect of ourselves that has been lost and many people come in feeling like there's something wrong with me.
Like, fix me. Yeah. And how beautiful to shift that dynamic on its head and really choose to see instead that, oh no, darling, you have always been completely whole. And that there are mechanisms and systems and policies and practices that perhaps. Perhaps benefit from you not being and seeing your wholeness and totality.
Right? And that we don't do our [00:38:00] jobs as well, right? When we are feeling like we're constantly like, ah, something's wrong with me, something's wrong with me, I'm not good enough. And so I think that not good enough. There's that psychological component, but there's also this like chronic disease or dis-ease as a colonization pattern, as a colonial pattern, right?
Because when com communities lose land, they also lose medicine, right? And we also are understanding when we lose language, we lose our nervous systems map of belonging. When we lose ritual. And that goes for all people from Ireland to Maori peoples to Hawaii to Puerto Rico, right? When we lose ritual, we lose ways of metabolizing and learning how to be, metabolizing and processing our grief.
So this chronic disease in some way, shape, or form, that can manifest into disease because trauma leads to inflammation as we [00:39:00] know, right? This mental, emotional, physical inflammation. I deeply believe as part of the core wound, this colonial core wound, which is the aftermath, the impact of that historical trauma that colonization, that separation from self and land.
So when folks are their most depleted, including myself, I'm like, which of my lands do I have? The time, the money, the effort to go back to can I get my body back in sync? With those rhythms. Yeah, with that energy, with the air, with the weather. Um, maybe waking up with the roosters. Right? Right. Like, like how, and so I, I, I think deeply that this reclamation of ancestral pathways, it's reclaiming, it's, it's not just like, oh yeah, we're gonna reclaim pathways, right?
Because sometimes we see these things. We're not an understanding that this is slow work because time is a colonial concept. Yeah. And, and [00:40:00] capital. Let's go more, make more, do more. You know, there, there is this, this grand belief that we are only as good as our labor. And certain bodies also have this belief that I'm only as good as how smart I am, how many degrees I have, um, and all of that.
And so this invitation is ritual as nervous system repair. Storytelling in circles. Um, so often we are trained, not all of us, many of us to do individual therapy. And it's highly individualistic. And many of our cultures are highly collectivistic. You know, and so having group therapy or circles is another way that a, we can start to position ourselves right as the holder of maybe a space, but also they're learning from others.
They're seeing the universality of some of pain, of some of the loss. There's a sense of weight. Even if Dr. [00:41:00] Jen steps away, this community, this circle, this, you know, this, this diage, this little pod can still function. We can still be here for each other without the expert. And so that does take a little bit of also addressing of the ego.
I know it did for me, and it still does sometimes, you know, we are needed. But I think that it would be so much more gentle in our nervous systems if we're not feeling like we are the only, you know, that we are the expert at all times. Right?
Iya Affo: [00:42:00] Girl, you need to get outta my brain because let's share together.
Yes. So much of what you're saying, it's in my mind. . You answered a little bit, but I want us to go into it a little bit deeper. I want to ask you, so who is this decolonizing therapy for? What about people that are non bipoc people, you know, what does that look like for people outside of people of color?
Dr. Jennifer Mullan: It's for everybody, right? Because colonization has dehumanized us all.
Whether that is our people having deeply harmed and not have been able to take accountability, whether there's a lot of shame. And we know that shame can lead to a great deal of dis-ease, [00:43:00] whether it is understanding the ways that other countries, places, and spaces have taken on land. And so, of course, always, you know, I'm thinking of folks of color who are often invisibilized marginalized, relegated to the margins.
Stories often pushed to the side but the dehumanization creates even more harm. Yeah. And in my studies and my organizing and the work that Spirit and Ancestor has done on me, in me, through me and continues and will continue until my last breath, I am really quite clear that many of us, many of us feel disconnected from this home with a capital H right?
And that that's not always a place, but I think that it's deeply a space. It can be a place, but it's also a deep space inside of us. And so, um, oftentimes I do like to do work separately, initially, so [00:44:00] people's nervous systems can attune, right? I often have help so that there's not a lot of burden on me to consistently and constantly always hold space, you know, for people who have been, come to be known as white.
And, um, because sometimes there's a lot of pain and shame that initially comes up. And what we would like to say is welcome. Welcome home. Welcome it. Let's get comfortable with that crunchiness. Let's get comfortable with the needing to unlearn for a little bit longer. Let's get comfortable with all of the ways that some of our peoples have helped and have been allies and some of the ways that we and our peoples may have not, you know, and may have deeply harmed.
And again, there is something about coming face to face with that which we have tried to bury because of survival. You know, plain out survival. That not only I think is some of the best work we can do in our lives, but is [00:45:00] some of the most needed work for collective repair on a larger level.
Yeah. Um. Yeah. And, and this work is for, you know, queer bodies, non-binary bodies, you know, for people that have other ways of knowing the beautiful vastness of neurodiversity, which is intelligence and hearing, seeing and knowing on multiple different levels. Um, so yes, this work is an in invitation to return home and to stop harming
Iya Affo: beautiful colonization has affected everyone.
Affected all of us. It's so important that, um, so important to get out there. We only have a few more minutes, um, but thinking, I know, but thinking about trauma, is not just individual, but it's collective, it's historical, it's intergenerational, it [00:46:00] lives in bodies, communities, land. How do we approach healing across these layer dimensions?
Dr. Jennifer Mullan: Yeah, great question. So one of the first things, um, an elder had asked me after my dehydration hospitalization was, when is the last time you were in relationship with land? And, um, I sobbed simple. It felt like a simple question. And I thought, I have been looking at screens. I have been digesting all this 5G, you know, I have been overworking, I had been overgiving.
Yeah. Which is really common for a lot of us. A constant like giving out and having a really hard time learning how to receive. And so I, I've really step one. Is being in relationship yet again if you're not already with land, you know, on a very deep level walking and speaking to trees, banking them, [00:47:00] um, definitely knowing the trees and then the greenery and the shrubbery outside of where you reside.
Um, getting to know the people of the lands that you're currently on. Right. So like my indigenous people were of the Kuna Indian of Panama. But I am not currently in Panama due to vast forms of historical trauma and colonization. Yeah. And so what is fascinating to me is when I have been able to set foot on that land, there is this tension you between who I have become and these layers of.
Likely who I once was or who I could have been if not having all these sort of colonial boxes, rules and regulations. And so part of that I think for me, each time I go back is a sense of how do I carry home in my body? How do I bring it with me wherever I am? How do I honor [00:48:00] my people and the people, the Lenny Lenape people of the land that I'm currently on and what is now known as Northern New Jersey.
And so I think land and lineage is one piece. And again, that's not a checkbox. It's a, they, they're sort of woven together and intergenerationally. It's starting to get clear about our family stories. Is there a scarcity mindset story? Why, what was happening? Is there a mindset around if I get angry, I will, air quotes, lose it.
Is there a story in our family around I don't do relationship, I'm not good at it. Is there a story right around some of us are different and we have to hide that difference or shine or knowing whatever you wanna call it. So I believe, I, I help people craft this soul somatic trauma timeline that I talk about in my book that helps us look at the areas where there has been [00:49:00] hurt and harm in our own life, as well as our families if we know it, and as well as our lineage and histories, as well as, were you born in the middle of the Nicaragua war?
Were you born in the midst of like, what, what was happening when you were conceived, when you were brought into this world? What was happening all around you. But along with that, it's also the glimmers. Who are the people that got you out of that dark hole? Who threw a rope and a flashlight down there?
What practices did your people engage in? Was it stomping? Was it twerking honey? Was it, was it singing? Was it wailing? Was it, um, tending to the fire? You know, what, what, what was it? Swimming and being in water. Huge one for me and my people. Fish and water, as well as my further ancestors in Benin, you know, and Ghana, right.
Water is a huge cleansing source. And when I'm depleted, my good [00:50:00] friends will say, when's the last time you gave yourself a little baptism? I'm like that's right. Thank you. Right. We interweave this ability of knowing yourself. Paying attention to these storylines and clearly being able to see this lineage or line where this may have also showed up in a different way, in a different shape, in a different form, but clearly thematically also with your people, it's sort of like a expanded genogram.
And that could be a spiral. It could look like a nautilus shell, it could be a straight line. And then we add in the glimmers and the wisdom. Right? What have you learned from your wisdom keepers? Do we have, do you have wisdom keepers? You know, and even if they're not blood lineage ancestors, uh, have you read Octavia Butler?
You know, is that a wisdom keeper for your lineage? You know, have, do you sit with you know, I don't know, uh, Paul Re's work, [00:51:00] you know, who, who are your wisdom keepers? And help people kind of recreate their ethos, you know, their own sort of personal mission statement, if you will. Wait, this is the kind of good trouble I want to be right.
This is the kind of good disruptor, you know, down with the binaries of good or bad. But you get the point like, this is, this is the kind of good medicine that I want to be, and how can I be a voice and of my people and their messaging, how can I embody that? And then in all of this, in this embodiment for practitioners, we are so much more able to show up with comfort with an open heart and chest, with an open, full center and crown chakra.
Really able and willing to see the full totality of the person in front of us and not fearful that we're stepping on, you know, Eurocentric mainstream psychology or social work [00:52:00] toes. We become. The post, the stake, the that in the ground. And I think that this is I had someone say to me, this feels like ancestral intergenerational shadow work.
And I thought that was really fascinating. And I think that I have been learning along with the people that I lovingly serve and participate in this work to always bring joy in, right? Because that's what really at our core kept us alive. You know? When was the last time you played Jennifer? That was the second question of the elder.
When was the last time you played, when was the last time you danced? Even if horribly, when was the last time you sang with your whole chest out? And all of this made me cry because it was like, oh yeah, this is all of our wisdoms. Yeah. But a lot of what these, the systemic harm, what it does is truly strip away, as you know, so well are humanity.[00:53:00]
And are fun. Yeah.
Iya Affo: Beautiful. Beautiful. Given the state of the world today, right? In fact, I'm in Kenya speaking at a conference that's focused on how do we heal while conflict is happening, right? So what does it mean to speak of healing while genocide is happening?
How do we hold space for trauma in Gaza when the violence is not his? Is not historical, but unfolding in real time. What does that look like?
Dr. Jennifer Mullan: Yeah. Um, I think that looks like, I know for myself and many people around me, I think that looks like making sure that we are clear and centered, that this is and can be a form of collective trauma.
Yeah. That this is in fact [00:54:00] collective harm. That this activates that trauma burger, you know, this activates that soul wound and this activates often, and for many of us I know in myself included this sense of feeling unsafe, not feeling cared for well enough, or a remembrance of, oh, I, I rem this happened in some way, shape, or form to my people.
Yeah. And for many, we might want to go into this, you know, freezing, we're frozen, we're unable to think, um, as I like to say with the kids, you know, for any of us that know a bit about somatics and neurobiology in the brain, you know, that frontal lobe is flipped up, you know, that we had that reptilian brain is going right.
And there's often this sense of, I, I just gotta take care of me and mine like that panic comes in. And so I would say the first piece is, and what is essential for all of us is to acknowledge and to make space for the grief and the [00:55:00] rage. Yeah. Is to make space. Um, and I would define, I do a lot of work with rage.
Rage is my best friend, my lover, my bouncer. And that's because I've built a relationship to it. Right. And I think that sacred Rage is a love child. Of ancestral trauma, shame and suffocated grief. Yeah. And that, that rage deeply wants a way to be expressed. And that doesn't mean that we go around cussing folks out or, you know, telling off all of our loved ones.
'cause they're often the easiest, we're the most comfortable getting mad irritated. But that does mean, and I do invite everybody to make space as you would your workout or feeding your animals or your children or yourself making space to go to your grief, rage, sacred corner altar. How, however, wherever you'd like to call it.
I have one and I'm, I'm looking at it right now. And to make [00:56:00] space, to bring medicine. Yeah. To make space, to cry to punch pillows. You know, to scream it all out if you can, if that's safe enough, where you live and where you are. Um, because a, I think that that would allow for us to not just push it down, you know, in a really physical way.
It allows for us to acknowledge that this is deeply dire, that this is violent and that this is genocidal. And it also allows for us to get really clear within our bodies and nervous systems that we are here now. And what can I do with what I have to be the best assistance to my siblings across the globe that are in deep pain.
Whether we are talking about Sudan to Gray, you know, Palestine, right? Like how can I be of best clear use to my. Brethren across the world, and for some of us that if you have funds that might look like financial support, for some of us that is [00:57:00] look like, you know, putting together different campaigns. For some of us that looks like marching in the street.
For some of us, it is a great deal of energetic work for some. You know what? I think that we are all needed. All needed. All of our gifts and abilities are needed at this place and space and time. And so I think that means that we need to resource ourselves, even if it's five minutes a day, you know?
And I ask myself, sacred rage, what would you like me to know today? You know, I give myself some breaths, I align myself. And then sometimes with grief, deep grief, how would you most like to be expressed today? You know? And, and oftentimes we find that we receive that answer. And that wisdom and not that it makes it go away, I don't think any of us have this.
There is no magic spell. And, and we, we, we shouldn't just spiritually bypass either, right? We don't want it to just go away. It's certainly here and [00:58:00] has been happening in many places and spaces. And so now that many, not all of us are waking up to the truth of the level of absolute dehumanization and violence, we get to consider what else is possible and what can I do with these shines and gifts that I have and how do I help to make other people well?
Iya Affo: I know it was such a fruitful and delicious conversation. I'm so sad that we're, we're having to end. I wanna thank everybody for joining us. Um, hopefully we can pick this up again at another time where we are able to expand upon, um, this topic.
It's such a hot topic. It's something that there's so much energy generating around. Dr. Jennifer Mullen, decolonizing therapy, oppression, historical trauma, and politicizing Your practice is her [00:59:00] book. If you don't have it, go out and get it. There's more of her fantastic nuggets that she drops in the book.
Thank you so much Dr. Jen. Um, it was just a pleasure having you.
Dr. Jennifer Mullan: Thank you so much ea for your work in the world. I thank your ancestors for you and for all the knowledge you bring. Thank you for beautifully holding this frame and making me feel safe and calm and grounded as well. Um, thank you to everybody on the backend, um, Lisa and others who made it possible tech wise and Zaya and Mauricio, deep bow of gratitude for this medicine that you continue to feed us so beautifully and gently and just expanding our concepts and understanding of pain and trauma.
So thank you all for having me. I'm deeply appreciative. [01:00:00]
