food for thought: mainstreaming reconciliation, hope and healing

In December 2021, I flew for work for the first time since the pandemic descended upon us almost two years ago. When I was at the airport, I bought a cup of coffee and a picked up a couple of books to read: Tecumseh and The Prophet: the heroic struggle for America's heartland by Peter Cozzens and Harvard Business Review's 2022 10 Must Reads. I approached the readings holding space as an industrial anthropologist, as an organizational management consultant and as a leader-learner-leader.

The more I read, the more I reflected on pedagogy of inquiry, and the more I thought about that, the more I thought about the role of intellectual and cultural humility when walking with others, accompanying others, learning from and through each other, actively following others and/or leading others in our personal lives, social interactions, academic pursuits and/or professional environments.

"The concept of cultural humility acknowledges the enormous task of becoming culturally competent by encouraging curiosity about the context within which others live". Clabby JF. Enter as an outsider: Teaching organizational humility. Int J Psychiatry Med. 2017 May;52(3):219-227. doi: 10.1177/0091217417730285. PMID: 29065813.

Thinking about what walking has been for me, I went into memories within my lived experience with a loved one who had to 'learn' to walk again thanks to a very competent, compassionate and caring physical therapist. And thinking about that therapist in particular, I read an article called: Moving from Cultural Competence to Cultural Humility, where Joy Agner writes that:

"As the U.S. population becomes increasingly multicultural, occupational therapy practitioners must be adept at working with diverse populations. For the past 15-20 years, many occupational therapy scholars have recognized this need, and in response, they have promoted cultural competence training. Although cultural competence has provided an important initial conceptual framework for the field, I argue that it is time to move toward a practice of cultural humility, which is defined by flexibility; awareness of bias; a lifelong, learning-oriented approach to working with diversity; and a recognition of the role of power in health care interactions." Agner J. Moving from Cultural Competence to Cultural Humility in Occupational Therapy: A Paradigm Shift. Am J Occup Ther. 2020 Jul/Aug;74(4):7404347010p1-7404347010p7. doi: 10.5014/ajot.2020.038067. PMID: 32602456.

The Psychotherapy Institute in Berkeley, California seeks to "understand sociocultural influences to be inherent in lifelong development and well-being". Woven into its mission is the belief that "... awareness of these dynamics is essential to the theory and practice of psychotherapy." As I reflected on this, I wondered how applying cumulative lived experiences could help situate our healing as a nation. In The Science of Wellbeing, University of Cambridge Professor Anna Alexandrova and Dr. Mark Fablan of the Bennett Institute for Public Policy write:

"What measure would capture that which makes life worthwhile at the level of a nation? That it should include more than the traditional economic indicators is slowly becoming the mainstream view" (The Science of Wellbeing for the John Templeton Foundation; p. 24: February 2022).

What would national wellbeing look like if we were to consider wellbeing in public policy? Alexandra and Fablan state: "Our overview of the challenges of wellbeing policy and wellbeing measurement brought out the necessity of a more joined up and a more interdisciplinary conversation. Thankfully this is happening" (p. 30).

Yes!

Yes, I agree that we are mainstreaming wellbeing—in our individual lives, in our work and in our schools—and I believe that all of these conversations are building critical mass to consider wellbeing in our nation, as a matter of public policy. In January 2021, Dr. Ebony Hilton, MD, Medical Director and Co-Founder of GOODSTOCK Consulting, LLC Anesthesiologist and Critical Care Physician at University of Virginia called for the creation of a Secretary of Equity position within the Biden Administration:

"...the Secretary of Equity would provide strategic and programmatic leadership for diversity and inclusion initiatives that advance diversity as a critical component of federal and local policies. “This position will lead a team of Equity Officers that sit within these targeted federal agencies to assess the existing and potential disparities specific to that agency and its respective industries – greater than racial disparities and within all diversity dimensions." The Tennessee Tribune

Hafizah Omar and Joanna Carrasco of Living Cities write that "reconciliation and healing are vital in advancing racial equity". In my editor's notes I have always written about my hope for you to imagine a way forward from today. The power of imagination as a cognitive (and spiritual) input in our minds works.

In practicing radical imagination, Omar and Carrasco state:

"Practices steeped in hope, dreaming and reimagination have, for generations, continued to and will continue to push the American political landscape until the words written in the constitution guaranteeing life, liberty and freedom for all is true for all peoples in America. Radical reimagination refers to the “practice of creating purposeful and positive spaces and times for imagining together, and for debating and refining shared visions of the past, present and future.”

I was first introduced to imaginative contemplation through my spiritual director in 2007 during a silent retreat at the Jesuit Center for Spiritual Growth in Wernersville, PA. Back then, not knowing how to move forward after a life-altering event, I was losing faith and I longed to have it, to recognize it, to feel it once again, and how powerful faith had been to me, and for me, over the years in my trauma recovery.

Imagination is one of greatest gifts in life and it is free although it can come at a high cost when living in a censored environment or war and when imagining, daring to dream about and of new possibilities, can seem unattainable.

"Current conditions for Black, Latino, Asian American, Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native communities emerge out of generations of systemic racism, a multitude of lifetimes of limited opportunities and the weight of historical injustice". WH Equity Office Memo | Racial Equity Here

One pathway for reconciling with multigenerational inequity and trauma is to imagine a vision in collaboration with each other where we name psychosocial trauma in our language, and support fostering diverse, equitable and inclusive conversations.

This moment in time is continuing to challenge us.

This moment in time is challenging us to imagine a way forward from here.

This moment in time is moving us to consider new portals for humanizing each other.

Our collective imagination can serve as a practice for building an equitable, inclusive and more peaceful world.

What could it look like to imagine together a new way forward and how can reconciliation and healing be part of that ecosystem? One pathway is through leaning into grief-aware, trauma-conscious and healing-centered public policy... it is time.

This article originally appeared in the Winter 2022 edition of MappingOnward.