For many people of color, the fight for racial justice and equality is a lifelong struggle . . .
. . . but the effort required to constantly work toward social change can easily consume a person – especially when they continue to witness traumatic acts of injustice.
So in the video below, Eboni Webb, PsyD shares how she worked with an overwhelmed and exhausted client who felt the pressure to be involved in social activism. She’ll walk us through the exact language she used to help her client see how rest and self-care can be a form of protest.
Have a look.
And during the pandemic, we’ve also had so many cases like the George Floyd case. So many people of color brutalized, and she would come into sessions just completely overwhelmed, completely exhausted and not sure how she felt. Just worn out.
There was a part of her that really was like, “Should I go downtown? And should I protest? But is it safe to protest?” There’s just so much flooding. And, “I just don’t know how to feel about this. I don’t know how I should do this.” And then, just deep sessions of almost apathy.
And so we just took a moment. And this is what’s so important with this group, is that for so long when they have been disconnected and numb, and for many clients of color that are constantly being bombarded with things that we have been crying about in our community for decades, it becomes too much. It’s just this critical mass that really creates collapse. And that’s what I was seeing with my client. She was collapsing.
And so what we started to talk about was the need to rest, the need to not go into protest, but the need to practice self-care. As Audre Lorde, a really amazing black feminist would say, self-care in it of itself is an act of resistance. An act of protest. And I really wanted to ground her in this sense, that for so long as a people of color, we were not given the space to rest, and that our protests ultimately often ended in our lives. Perhaps what if the gift of our ancestors is to have the space to rest?
And I said quite practically, “How about instead of going for the protest, let’s go take a nap?” Let’s nourish ourselves. Let’s feed ourselves. Let’s hydrate ourselves. Let’s feel the goodness of our body that has cost the people behind us. Right? That we are afforded the ability to rest.”
That’s a lot of what I do with many of my clients that have been just kind of bombarded and overwhelmed, that are trying to get to activation, but just are so checked out and numb in their lives to just take time for deep self-care. And that self-care in and of itself is an action of resistance.
If you’d like to hear more about helping clients of color heal from the wounds of racial stress and trauma, check out The Trauma of Racism: Expert Strategies to Help Clients Heal.
It’s a new trauma training that’s free to watch – you just need to sign up here.
Co-hosted by Thema Bryant, PhD, this program features Shelly Harrell, PhD; Daryl Rowe, PhD; Beverly Greene, PhD; Howard Stevenson, PhD; Usha Tummala-Narra, PhD; Kevin Nadal, PhD; Anneliese Singh, PhD; Joseph Gone, PhD and other experts on treating racial trauma.
Again, it’s free to watch (you just need to sign up).
Now we’d like to hear from you. How might you use Eboni’s ideas when working with clients of color who feel overwhelmed by racial trauma? Please leave a comment below to let us know.
I have been hoping to start a PhD on this very concept of Protest itself, being a form of Self-Care that adults could not engage in when they were young, less agentic and struggling inside family stuff and societal positions and frames around them – so protest is a chance for push-back. It came out of me asking a protester here in NZ. They had made a choice and joined the protest against Covid-19, and in so doing – had found a space and purpose for their talents.
I asked , “So, can self-care, be, a form of protest?” To which they wholeheartedly answered “Yes, it CAN!” And I realised they has put the emphasis somewhere other than where I had put it….this was in Feb 22 and it has stayed with me all this time….
AND then here is this very topic here….thanks for the light shining into this subject from a racial point of view….I was thinking of the childhood harm/neglect/ abuse and high ACES point of view. I was also thinking about ADHD as a contributor.
The Nap Bishop has been saying this for years. Check her out on Instagram. Props to my BLM therapist who clued me in to this when I was completely wiped out by the events of summer 2020 / George Floyd etc.
Thanks for delivering that fine message of self care. For effective activitism, for effective work and family life, self care is essential! The message is clear, timely and relevant for now and always.
I second what Barbara said below. I am hopeful to have my soldiers and retirees restimulated by recent world events take better care of themselves. Leslie Weitzel-Nicoll, LCSW-C, certified IMAGO relationship therapist, EMDR therapist and Polyvagal informed therapist
I think there is a powerful message here and the principle I believe can be transferable to other current events causing massive anxiety and a sense of protest within us which can lead to overwhelm and breakdown. I think in particular of the events in Ukraine where we see terrible things on the news at the moment on a daily basis. The notion that self care is the antithesis of all that is happening can in itself be a deliberate and positive act of challenge that asserts our beliefs in a different way and more importantly curtails the wider harm.