The Origin
The underbelly: what lies beneath the surface, hidden and unspoken, has served as a compass throughout my life.
I grew up in the Southern United States, Memphis, Tennessee - where undigested generational trauma manifested in familial symptoms and called for our awakening. On a grander but as intimately affecting level, I sensed the profound consequences that haunt a city and its residents when the historical trauma and everyday reality of racial terrorism and structural inequality is left unattended and denied. I learned early on to track communication that reverberates below ground and has ties to generations before me. This way of listening has morphed into a practice of micro-attuning that directs me towards aching and necessary territory. My ever-evolving exploration of my white, Southern, Jewish, and queer identities and their legacies inform how I see and how I listen.
The Why
Within interpersonal, group, and family work, I have witnessed the most damage occur when people contract into younger states of self, block off access to vulnerability, and villainize “the other” as bad. In these triggered zones, we lose the capacity to reflect and think together. Additionally, the expression of multiple truths can be experienced as threatening.
When we learn to observe what is happening inside of us, in place of reacting to our emotions, we develop a self-reflective capacity. And in doing so, we reduce the potential to project our trauma and pain onto others. The deep work of establishing a practice of dual awareness is the developmental building block we need to interrupt the risk and act of othering.
This internal work affects communal well-being and is, therefore, political by nature. Unconscious enactments - those inevitable, interpersonal dynamics where early wounds play out - signal a call for light and a working through. They guide us. And, if allowed, they carry the potential for transformation, internally and collectively.