EP 17: Why it’s so hard to get free Pt.1

[INTRODUCTION]

[00:00:00] NV: Sawadee ka, and welcome to the Come Back to Care podcast. I am your host, Nat Nadha Vikitsreth, a decolonized and licensed clinical psychotherapist, somatics and social justice practitioner, and founder of Come Back to Care. Adopt connector, norm agitator and lover of liberation. 

If you're on a journey to transform your daily parenting into a social justice practice that nurtures your child's development and promotes intergenerational family healing, I am so glad that you're here. On this podcast, we explore how social justice, child development science, parenting, and family systems intersect with one another. If you've been looking for ways to align your parenting with a social justice values, you're in the right place. Together, we find our way back to our true home. We come back home to our body and the goodness within. We come back to our lineage and come back to care together. So come curious, and come as you are. Let's move at the speed of care, and let's do this.

[EPISODE]

Welcome to episode 17 of the Come Back to Care Podcast.

This episode is part one of the Why it’s so hard to get free series. In this episode, you and I are going to unpack some of the reasons why unsubscribing from the social norms of white capitalist patriarchy can be so hard even when we know they’re not built to uphold every body’s humanity. Then, in the next episode, we’ll also explore how these challenges are mirrored in the family unit by talking about why breaking family cycles can be so difficult even when we set firm intentions not to pass down hurtful family patterns to our children.

This work of getting free -- whether from oppressive and violent social norms or from our outdated intergenerational family patterns -- is daily and lifelong. That’s why I believe it’s so important to talk about what makes practicing social justice and re-parenting our inner child so hard. Because once we know why it’s so hard, we can use this understanding to let go of our shame and instead re-ignite our commitment to this daily and lifelong work. If that sounds positively uncomfortable already, I got you. Let’s get started.

Some reasons we love norms: belonging, survival, and efficiency

Humans have mastered the art of belonging. We shape shift to blend in and belong even when we have to hide parts of ourselves. We expertly adapt to the norms of whatever unit or group we’re in whether it’s a big unit like society or a small unit like a family. For example, in a society where business-as-usual means “rise and grind” and “sleep when you die”, you might have been training yourself to overwork, drink coffee to stay productive, and take melatonin pills to sleep at night. I mean everyone’s doing it so you do it too. Or, in a family unit whose business as usual is to always respect the elders, you might have been training yourself to be quiet, never talk back, and never be too assertive. I mean you’re a part of this club so to keep your membership active you have to play by the rules, right?

Our human need to blend in and belong is so strong. Our hunter-gatherer ancestors needed to find food together and live together as a unit to increase their chance of survival. If they cheated and took an unfair portion of the food that the group foraged together, they would be kicked out of the group. Fast forward to now, we’re in a modern and Western society where domination, competition, exploitation, control, and coercion are the norms. We exploit other people’s labor to gain profits, get ahead, and come out on top. We extract resources from the land and hoard material things to gain social status and power over others. To adapt to these norms written by white, capitalist patriarchy, we numb out our connection to our body so we can keep trading labor for money. We dissociate from our human nature of interdependence, collective care, and community building. We accept that “oh yes, it’s normal to work three jobs but still have to pick if you want to get groceries or pay for gas.” We change our hair and adjust our accent to look and sound professional. We code switch to blend in with white supremacy because our survival literally depends on it. The material consequences of not having food on the table or roof over our head are real if we don’t play by capitalism’s rules.    

These material consequences are an external punishment from society. But there’s also an internal punishment: we shame ourselves for failing to meet the norms and we tell ourselves “I’m flawed and not good enough.”  Shame acts like self-policing that keeps us in line with the status quo, making it so hard for us to even imagine a culture where everyone has what they need and shares the rest with one another. Or to image anything besides domination, exploitation, and coercion.

Then, we’re stuck in an endless loop of shameful comments in our head like “I don’t work hard enough. I’m not good enough”. We don’t discern further and ask “wait, but good enough for whom?” I don’t know about you but I don’t dream of getting gold stars from the oppressors, namely white supremacy, patriarchy, colonialism and capitalism.

To add salt to the wound, when you see someone being free, live their full and wholesome life beyond the identities or scripts that society assigns to them, you may have some reactions. Do you know how I know? Because I have them too. The other day I saw that my friend posted a GoFundMe on Instagram. A moment of radical honesty here. The first reaction I had was “ugh, baby why don’t you work harder instead of asking people for money.” It was pure judgment. And I know this person. She’s my friend. Yet, I immediately shamed her for failing as a human. So my decolonization work is catch these judgments, pause, slow down, and bring in some discernment. When I did that, I could see that my friend wasn’t failing as a human being. She simply couldn't keep up with capitalism’s definition of what a nice, responsible adult should look like.

Another example was a conversation I had with a male identifying person who told me how much he just hated trans women. After our conversation, we both realized that he didn’t really hate me personally. He hated the idea that my existence challenges patriarchy’s norm of masculinity and colonialism’s norm of gender binary where male and female should be the only two options. And I kinda mess with those neatly organized gender binary boxes for him.  

Those judgments and eyerolls you may have for people who deviate from society’s norms can be reframed as your nervous system’s fight, flight, freeze, people please reactions.

My judgment of my friend’s GoFundMe was certainly my fight reaction where I’d rather tear my friend down instead of tearing down the system that is capitalism. This kind of behavior is what Jane Middleton-Moz, a renowned author and professor of social work at the University of Toronto, called lateral violence. Middleton-Moz wrote quote “when a powerful oppressor has directed oppression against a group for a period of time, members of the oppressed group feel powerless to fight back and they eventually turn their anger against each other. End quote https://www.middelton-mozinstitute.com/

You might notice this lateral violence gets weaponized when femme identifying individuals tear other femme identifying individuals down instead of working together to disrupt patriarchy. Or when Black and Asian communities come head to head instead of joining together in solidarity to dismantle white supremacy.

It’s as if it was easier to fight one another than to fight systemic oppression. And that’s another reaction, right? Flight. It’s when you feel like “oh tearing down the whole system? I don’t know, that’s too big for me to solve. It’s above my paygrade. Why bother?” A lot of times, in flight mode, we check out and we go along with the norms. We fly on autopilot and perhaps unknowingly perpetuate these oppressive norms.

Whether you react with fight, flight, freeze, or people please, there’s no shame whatsoever. Your nervous system is doing what it does best which is protecting you. Meanwhile you’re doing what you need to do to put food on the table and keep a roof above your head. A lot of time we turn shame inward when we’re complicit in these oppressive norms. I believe the heart of decolonization is about not letting this survival become all of who you are. That means as a decolonized parent, you discern when you need to do what you need to do to survive. And when you feel safe enough, you can take 10 seconds to let your nervous system know that it’s okay to put that armor down. And replace the pattern of protection with connection so you can connect with yourself, your ancestors, your child, and the land wholeheartedly. The heart of decolonization is developing the agility and discernment to know when to protect and when to connect; when to survive and when to thrive.

Another reason why unsubscribing from oppressive social norms is so hard is because white supremacy, patriarchy, colonialism, and capitalism all work together to indoctrinate us into believing that domination, control, coercion, extraction, and exploitation are natural. That they’re “human nature”. Or worse, that they’re morally right. And everything from economics to education to politics to media all reinforce this idea that all these forms of oppression are “natural”. It’s so efficient to not reinvent the wheel and just go with what the norms say. And for parents like yourself who don’t have structural support like universal childcare or paid parental leave, efficiency becomes necessary just to get through dinner, bath time, and then bedtime routine in one piece.

What I’m saying is going along with the norms, even though you know they’re far from being equitable, is forced upon you. It’s not like this coercion will go away if you adjust your attitude to think positively- love and light- or fortify your habits of time management with a new app. And I know you already know this but I’ll say it again:  surviving systemic oppression isn’t the same as freedom.

Examining Your resistance to change

Alright, a quick recap. So far, we’ve covered how we’re force-fed these oppressive norms, and how rejecting them can literally leave us with nothing to eat. We’ve also discussed how we have to deal with shame and our fight and flight reactions that show up to keep us from violating the norms. These automatic reactions want us to align with the norms, to never ruffle any feathers, and essentially aspire to be as white, cis, hetero, and able bodied as we can.

Now let’s look at one way we can hold ourselves accountable for fiercely unsubscribing from these norms.

Lisa Lahey and Robert Kegan raised a series of questions to help us uncover our own internal resistance to change in their book Immunity to Change. Two of those questions are “What are the things you do, or fail to do, that work against your goal?” and “What do you think you would be most worried about if you try to do the opposite of what you just answered in the previous question?”  

Shall we put these two questions into context?

What’s your response to the first question: “What are the things you do, or fail to do, that work against your goal of equity, justice, and liberation?” Answers I often hear from people when I facilitate workshops for organizations include 1) people engage in in-fighting or lateral violence where people would rather give critiques than find solutions and 2) people numb out, saying things like “it’s impossible to change the system. It’s too big and too complex. Why bother?”

With these two responses in mind, we paraphrase the second question of Lahey and Kegan: “What do you think you would be most worried about if you try to do the opposite of lateral violence or numbing out?” To say it another way, what would you be most worried about if you actually direct the fight for liberation towards systems of oppression like capitalism, colonialism, patriarchy, and white supremacy? This question is really hard, right? Because it requires radical honesty especially from well-meaning social justice allies and accomplices.

The response I usually get is that people are worried that to actually put in the work, they have to get off their own knees and get free…which means they have to work on their baggage like implicit biases in order to actually practice anti-oppression. Or, they- well, we, because I’m in the same boat too- have to be accountable for doing what we said we would do and not just shout “we demand accountability” from the rooftop. We have to be about liberation instead of just talking about it.

What I really appreciate about asking about the worry we have when we actually roll up our sleeves and do the work is the depth of this question. Especially when we specify the worry in terms of the things we have to give up to practice equity, justice, and liberation. So I’ll ask it again with this reframe: “What do you think you would be most worried about giving up if you try to do the opposite of lateral violence or numbing out?”   

For many of us, the thing we have to give up when we look at systemic oppression in its face is the comfort we hold so tightly in the illusion of safety and control. It feels better to be a good member of society than to be a trouble maker who’s pointing out how violent capitalism is, for example.

For me, living freely and thriving beyond the gender binary of male and female means I have to give up the illusion of safety that comes from passing as a cisgender woman. Giving up this cis passing privilege is deeply uncomfortable and depending on where I am it can be a matter of life or death.

Compassion check: Both-And Surviving and Thriving

This is a great point for us to pause so I can re-iterate that the heart of this decolonization is developing discernment to know when you need to survive and when you can thrive. It isn’t about giving up the protection of your fight-flight-freeze-people please reactions. I honor what you need to do to put food on the table while wearing that armor of protection. Decolonization means discerning when you have to protect yourself and your child by playing the game. And when you don’t have to protect so you can take the armor off for a second and connect. This is especially important for those of us who have been othered by the dominant norms. We survive, survive, and survive so much that sometimes we forget that surviving doesn’t mean we’re living, let alone living fully. But we don’t have to limit ourselves to survival. With enough practice over time and in a community of trusted co-troublemakers, we can develop the agility to know when to put the armor on and when to take it off to heal our inner child, honor our ancestors, and connect with our children. You can also use this agility and discernment to get a new set of armor that’s perhaps three sizes bigger so you have room to breathe and thrive while surviving too. Because we’re going to be doing this liberation work for the next 7 generations and I don’t want to do it wearing a thick heavy armor. I want you and I to still have the protection we need while being nimble and looking cute too. Alright?

[In-Out-N-ThroughTM]

If you're a social justice curious and conscious parent who's ready to:

+ Stop erasing yourself only to contort, conform, and perform a "good parent" script written by capitalism, colonialism, and white supremacy.

+ Or who’s ready to re-parent your inner child and heal your old-but-still-raw childhood wounds.

So that you show up fully as the parent you know you can be and pass down a legacy of compassion and liberation for your child...

So that you can practice social justice through your daily parenting while promoting your child's development...

So that you can heal your inner child and honor your ancestors while raising your child with equity and liberation in mind...

I'd love to invite you to join the In-Out-N-Through™ Program. An online 6-week, cohort-based Parenting and Re-Parenting program to explore both your inner child and internalized oppression wounds. Please visit comebacktocare.com/learn for more information and registration. It's comebacktocare.com/learn.

Alright, back to the episode…

Ah, I have one final scenario for you and if you’re a people pleaser like me this one might resonate deeply. To the question “What are the things you do, or fail to do, that work against your goal of equity, justice, and liberation?” you might observe that some people want to keep peace and keep the community together by not ruffling any feathers. That makes a lot of sense and I love when people get along and work together towards a shared goal too. But when this community mindedness is out of balance, it becomes another trap that keeps us in line with the oppressive and violent status quo. So, let’s consider the second question: “What do you think you would be most worried about giving up if you try to do the opposite of trying to keep peace in the community?” The response I often find is that many of us are worried that we would lose people or get kicked out of our social group. You might imagine hearing comments like “wow look at Mara 2.0, she’s so woke that she’s too big for her bridges now,” or “who do you think you are, coming in here trying to make changes?”

Along your journey towards liberation, you’ll lose familiar identities about yourself, familiar scripts you say about the world, and even familiar faces. All because your values may not be aligned with those people’s values anymore. It can be scary to lose your footing on what used to be familiar ground. But sometimes when these old familiar identities, scripts, and people no longer fit, your heart knows when it’s time to let them go.

Resmaa Menakem taught me that the people you start the journey with aren’t usually your people. It’s the people who stick with you until the end of the journey…those are your people.

So to unsubscribe from the status quo means to grieve the loss of the comfort you used to get from conforming to the norms. To grieve the loss of predictability and the illusion of control you used to get from flying on autopilot. Because now you have to work with others to re-imagine the society you want to live fully in and raise your child in.

It’s so hard to grieve and heal while trying to survive the daily, systemic, and intergenerational oppression that we face because of our intersecting identities. We have to grieve and heal in a community that holds space for us to hear and trust our inner voice. As the 14th century Persian Sufi poet Hafiz wrote quote “I wish I could show you when you are lonely or in darkness the astonishing light of your own being.” End quote.

I’m excited to continue this topic in the next episode. We’ll explore why it’s hard for us to break free from outdated family cycles even when we set a firm intention not to pass these patterns down to our children.

Thank you for being here together. For more information on the In-Out-N-ThroughTM Program Fall cohort that’s starting from Aug 31st to October 5th, please visit www.comebacktocare.com/learn. I’ll leave the link along with all the references and resources in the show notes for you too.

As always, in solidarity and sass. Until next time, please take care.