CW: This next bit is about AI. Please take care of yourself. You don't have to read this. Your wellbeing is much more important than this stuff anyways.

 

 

Is it just me or have institutions been changing their sense of speed to match that of what a machine-learning AI would be? 

The world around us have been fear mongering and warning us that "AI isn’t the future, it’s the present."

 

And as AI becomes more prevalent in our daily lives, it has influenced our expectations and standards for ourselves and how productive we need to be. 

 

Do those ‘not enough’ intrusive thoughts show up for you?

It's definitely been biting me this entire year and I'm so sick of it.

Collectively, it's being felt and it's a lot on our nervous systems, on our communities, and on the way we operate in our daily routines.

It's like adjusting to a pandemic with permanence, coming in fast at us.

This reminds me of the same intense charge race and yt supremacy has on us, and all the other -isms have on the oppressed. 

When it comes to this charge, we tend to override and not look at the impulse, or flight responses our body has tempered for us.

Our bodies KNOW what this is. 

As a therapist, my role is to support and protect our nervous systems (think of it as leaning into our experiential wisdom and presence as we move through the world). And embracing our humanity.

We need to listen to the artists and humans when working with AI. We need to center in our humanity and protect our communities. 

We need to remember what is indispensable about you.

That is what will save us.

If you are in need of a few moments, please stay here and tune into your body. Your breath. The speed of you reading and taking this in. Slow down. Literally go take a break if you feel compelled to.

Play around with your tone of voice as you repeat these words with every inhale. If you're more of a visual person, try imagining an image of each of these mantras… here it goes…
 

I am not a machine. 
PAUSE.

My humanity is vital for life on Earth.

PAUSE.

I am not replaceable. 

PAUSE.

I am indispensable. 

PAUSE.

I am enough just as I am.

PAUSE.

I have ancestral wisdom.

PAUSE.

I am part of creation itself.

PAUSE. And exhale……… 

How is your body doing? 

Can you orient to something supportive around you? 

Let's go with that…

I have been reflecting how from the outside…

social justice-work,

work by creatives or

those who want to make change in the world,

…have become romanticized.

It's the work that drives us to go around what's been already mapped out.

It can be deeply healing and rewarding, and can also be gritty, hard work.

So, what does social justice-oriented care look like? It means that we are committed to providing care that is anti-oppressive and rooted in social justice principles. This means that we work to identify and challenge systems of oppression. We aim to practice being in accountability and collective care with one another. We know that social change is a slow and difficult process, but we are committed to the long haul.

Here are some justice-oriented practices we, as a group therapy practice and as therapists, are committed in doing:

1. We are committed to the unlearning, decolonizing and working with values rooted in the principles of anti-oppression/anti-capitalism, anti-imperialism, racial justice, gender justice, disability justice, and HAES alongside you. We are also committed to examining our relationships to whiteness, white supremacy, colonialism, patriarchy and cis-heteronormativity as we talk to folks who come across our practice.
   

2. We aim to organize and redistribute wealth as much as we can. We reflect and actively work through a scarcity and charity mindset to one that is in solidarity and in community. After all, this work is survival work.
   
   

3. We aim to uphold anti-carceral care towards nuanced experiences and mental health cases we work with. Aka fighting for a world free from policing. Consent is highly prioritized in our work with folks. We are continuously reflecting on what the therapy field does that may perpetuate harm and power dynamics in and out of the therapy room. 
   

4. The effort to flatten hierarchies in systems. We work from a horizontal decision making structure in our team where we have as many people and members make decisions as possible.
   

   
   Note: We get that many of the folks we work with are struggling with or don’t work in settings where they can advocate/speak up for their values, are acknowledged, and are feeling stuck. In therapy, we may be brainstorming ways to support you in these oppressive spaces and find ways to name out what is going on more clearly.
   

5. We aim to support people in most dire conditions and center in marginalized folks and voices that are most impacted first, always.
   

6. Generative conflict and communication. Dean Spade’s book Mutual Aid discusses how conflict can be reworked into something positive and generative rather than something to be avoided and left to fester. This can look like clear decision making everyone is trained in.
   

7. We are committed in our own healing. Because some of us have been through similar stuff like the folks we work with and part of their journey speaks to parts of us from different points in our life that we are still working on. This is probably a big reason why we want to do this work alongside you.

We want to work together with you to end oppression in all of its forms. When we say "with you", we mean it. Everyone has a role to play in social justice, whether it is big or small. Because social justice in therapy can support folks to be heard and felt.