5 Things I Re(Learned) as a Therapist and Human in 2022

This is an annual reflection practice I do at the end of each year. Check out the full essay for 2021 and the Instagram post for 2020. You can also share this year’s post on Instagram or Twitter.

1. Compulsory monogamy

Unlearning compulsory monogamy and relational hierarchy liberates us toward creating more abundant sources of intimacy, care, and love through community-oriented relating, which also helps resist the commercialization of care and pedestalization of therapy.

2. Liberatory world-building

Rather than only focusing on what we're resisting, it is also important to explore generative questions for liberatory world-making. If I'm rejecting whiteness, what am I leaning towards? If I'm resisting cisheteronormativity, what am I cultivating and practicing?

3. On my becoming

So much of my becoming is shaped by the conversations with client community members and it is an absolute joy to share some of my transformations with them, given their influence on my explorations of gender, sexuality, and ancestry.

4. Disability Justice

Anti-oppressive or justice-oriented practice too often neglects abled supremacy as an axis of marginalization despite claims to value intersectionality. Disability Justice is crucial for collective liberation in a world that is experiencing a global disabling event.

Read: The Need for Disability Justice in Mental Health Care

5. Daily embodied practice

It's easy to critique the state or systems of power; it takes commitment to embody our values in our everyday decisions and interactions. And it takes courage and deep care to invite and be invited into loving accountability when it feels easier to conform to norms.