Ep 136: Trauma-informed vs Trauma-agile

In this episode (recorded as an Instagram Live before April's Kohenet ordination), April unpacks and examines the buzzword term "trauma-informed." Thinking and talking about trauma has become more and more common. While this is, generally speaking, a good thing, it's important--especially with something fraught, fragile, and potentially triggering--for us to be clear about what we mean, what is possible, and what is safe. April offers a new term, "trauma-agile," to  help make things clear. 

Discussion and reflection questions:

What in this episode is new for you? What have you learned and how does it land?
What is resonating? What is sticking with you and why?
What feels hard? What is challenging or on the edge for you?
What feelings and sensations are arising and where in your body do you feel them?

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Transcript

April Baskin: 0:00

When somebody says trauma informed, there's a spectrum of what that means. You're listening to the Joyce justice podcast, a weekly show hosted by April Baskin with Tracie Guy-Decker. in a complex world in which systemic oppression conditions us to deny others and our own humanity, let's dedicate ourselves to the pursuit and embodiment of wholeness, love and thriving in the world. And in our own lives. It's time to heal and flourish our way to a more joyously just future.

Unknown: 0:48

I've started to notice and it started to like, agitate me, which is interesting to notice, because separate lesson, but it's bringing up big feelings. So I can also explore within myself, why is it agitating me, when I see people talking about or inferring that they are trauma informed. And to me, it basically falls simply saying that on the surface level, and we're going to get into even more depth that when people are saying trauma informed my sense at times, in simpe, in broad strokes is that people are talking about trauma awareness. And, and from a place of like, trauma limited. That there is trauma, and therefore then we need to stop. That's That's it and or it comes up in a few other ways. Like, it can be a need for deep care, which in some ways can be very good. At times, it can start to move into sort of coddling and there's ways where I'm being intersectional if you're the simple version, and then there's more to it is, to me, when people say trauma informed I place it in two basic categories. And then actually, there's more there's like four levels of nuance of trauma limited, or trauma agile. And in short trauma agile implies to me or I'm seeing demonstrations of folks whose content is trauma agile, that it demonstrates that none of this in and of itself is bad, per se. But depending upon the way people are wielding or using, how they are inferring that they are trauma informed can be irresponsible at times, depending upon the context. But it's there's nothing wrong with different people being in different places of awareness or understanding. It's what they do with their positionality and how they leverage that. Right. But there are ways that people who are early and so basically, I guess, part of the overall headline of this is there's a there's a tremendous amount that one can learn and based upon the lessons and teachings that I had in 30 years of learning about healing, and specifically 10 years of learning, specifically counter oppressive trauma, healing, and learning from elders in this work and a counter oppressive international decolonize or endeavoring to continually decolonize community and network of practitioners that as humans, we have immense capacity to heal, and to heal from trauma. And there is a huge believe pervasive belief that side note or not side note, is deeply in support of keeping internalized and collective oppression and locked in place, and also is deeply in service of keeping systemic oppression in place because it's deeply in service of keeping people in a place of disempowerment. Right now, obviously, there's huge issues. I do not agree with multiple brilliant leaders out there who I don't disagree, excuse me, with multiple brilliant leaders out there who are saying, and I'm a part of that call for there to be greater trauma informed mental health services, and also communal support, and there's any number of way that trauma can be addressed. And there's a plethora of ways that it can be addressed. That's what the main point of this talk today, what I want to talk about is this trauma informed piece and kind of expand it out. Right? And so at times when I see people saying things, like, there's just specific incidents that I can think of, so I've seen different examples in a number of different spaces, where the basically the kind of memo is this person or I have trauma, therefore, that whole area of living the whole of it times like just intimate relationships, family connections, different. Operating in different spaces is no longer available to me. And what I would say is that they are at the level of trauma awareness that they have yet to learn about the other layers. errors. And so their posts convey a template even meaning to convey that like, Okay, well we're talking about trauma more now. But but now that there's trauma here, there's nothing that can be done, which is very different than someone who might post something similar. But in terms of nuance and sophistication and implication, it's is a vastly different message, right? If someone might post something similar, like this is a place around the history of trauma. So right now, I'm going to see some of my life or I'm not engaging in these different ways, right. And I'm by again, to be very clear here, just briefly, I'm not talking about, for instance, perhaps some extenuating circumstance where there's a specific person or a particular place that is especially bad, I'm talking about a trend that hopefully a number of you have also noticed. Now, hopefully, but perhaps a number of you have also noticed of folks saying, Okay, there's trauma here and so we can't do that, and there's the sense of disempowerment or, or just like finality, and that is so not the case, it would be as if like an equivalent, which I'm going to use a model for liberatory, I'm going to, in a moment, layer some of my understanding and what I'm proposing, here's a way of thinking about this about trauma with Professor Barbara J loves liberatory consciousness model. And he's sort of like if someone said, oh, there's, like, I'm learning about theirs, which is actually that actually happens to a ton of people, someone has been teaching about racial justice for 20 plus years of like, oh, there's racism. So like, there's nothing else to do, as opposed to No, there is a whole world of healing and multiple steps that we can take to empower and equip and resource ourselves and other people. Okay, and again, talking about this kind of simultaneously at some points more than another, partially as practitioners who bring a trauma informed lens for those of us who do, and also as individuals thinking about how we are trauma informed about the stories of our lives, and how that has different implications in our leadership, which is what I cover in much greater depth and specificity in my group coaching program grounded and growing among a number of other pieces that I think are necessary for the caliber of multi dimensional leadership that today's preponderance of adaptive challenges call upon us. And so the other piece about this too, is so that we have I talked about trauma limited a little bit, and then let's juxtapose that with trauma agile, which, when it's done well or, or someone who seems from my perspective, you know, classified as they have some trauma, agility, as a practitioner, as someone who's teaching or coaching or leading, which means they have an understanding, a greater depth of understanding about travel, and about people's capacity to heal, and about the reality that folks may be anywhere on that healing journey. But all people, including people who have experienced trauma are inherently brilliant, have immense capacity for growth, and have immense capacity for powerful leadership. And that in their talking, and in their discernment, and navigation. And when they're teaching and leading, there is profound empathy, and there is profound understanding about various sensitivities. And so they may weave in if they're working with any given population, either a multiracial group of people, or if they're working with a mono cultural or a mono racial group of people. Let's say I was working with black folks, I would be aware that in that space, because I'm informed about and I guess, I guess that's another layer of it, which I'm not going to get into too much. Because the other piece that I need to think about about this we can get into is when people are saying trauma informed. Are they talking about it just on the individual level? Or do they also have analysis about collective trauma and collective trauma patterns, that we don't want to get into stereotypes, but that we can see that there are useful but not universal trends that various groups of people who have been targeted for destruction and those who have been positioned in the dominant role have also been a part of systems of oppression and part of how when I teach about oppression one on one, which I've been considering doing a live here or like putting out a call, I weighed in trauma informed, basic levels of trauma informed and specifically trauma agile insight into that and so that we're not just talking about systems of oppression, but one of the things I say very clearly which I'll state right now, too, is that in any system of oppression, Cisco systems of oppression run fundamentally on dehumanization. And in any context, where anyone is implicated in dehumanization, there is likely varying degrees of subtlety to quite intense individual and collective trauma involved for everyone. There's obviously more trauma that the targeted group sustained In what an order, but when a group of people have been positioned to be in the dominant role, particularly over generations, which is what generally how the professionals and teachers and scholars from whom I've learned, and and who molded me in the way, I've been teaching this for 20 years, that's how in fundamentally we understand trauma, because it's not one negative moment or even several years of negative experience or targeting. It's, it's targeting. Typically, although there can be new forms of oppression, God forbid, but develop and so but that happened over generations of time over a sustained period, right, that hasn't qualify as a systemic form of oppression, right? So these are things that are happening over generations. So I wasn't even planning on getting into that. But that's something that we could also have a whole separate conversation about, and that in the context of my group coaching and Leadership Program grounded and growing, we take time to specifically talk about that. So yeah, so trauma Agile is ideally soulmate when I say trauma informed and all my work I am endeavoring to say and I want them to say explicitly here, that when I'm talking about trauma informed, I'm talking about as someone who as a practitioner, and in my own living from up from my own 30 Plus healing journey around extensive trauma is trauma agile. So I wanted to this might be a bit much for someone also juicy for others, so just hang in, hang in there with me. But so, okay, so basically, the trauma limited, I would say is when people are so when practitioners or individuals, in terms of understanding trauma are in more of the trauma limited, which doesn't necessarily have to be bad. Right, but but it there's just a limitation of what the trauma informed means in their case. And so as you're seeing posts from them, talking about what is or isn't possible for people with trauma, please notice, are they coming from a trauma limited place or limited awareness about about any limited trauma, some significant and meaningful trauma awareness, but also it has a limit? Right? So if we look at Barbara, so Barbara loves liberatory consciousness model talks about four levels that we need to establish some of y'all in this space are quite unfortunately, aware of this. Okay, people positioned as oppressors also carry in US trauma. Yes, that's exactly what I say. Yes. Being trained in Domination is a traumatic experience. Yes, and no child. Okay, fine. And I think, like maybe point 00 1% But most human children when they are born, do not, do not have a proclivity to oppress people. There's a sense we are a social pact species that we want to be connected and loving and connected with people across lines of difference share different things, right? That that is something so when people which most humans are from birth, and even pre birth for people, we're all humans, all of you. I'm getting up top there's so much I can talk about. But all humans are exposed fatally, to oppression because unless you were born in an incubator, all people were born in bodies of people with uteruses, and people with uteruses are highly oppressed globally, in this world. And as tech not Han teaches about eating our food, we're all deeply into human experience and energies are all deeply interconnected. So if we're being honest and realistic, and thinking more deeply than white dominant culture or white supremacy, culture has conditioned us to think we would know that even before we were born out, we're living in the body of someone who's been targeted by depression. But guess exactly what you said. Your sister yudishe Kate? Yes, yes, yes. So in Barbara loves liberatory leadership model, there are four stages. There's awareness of becoming aware of say racism, or any form of systemic oppression, then and so And at times, in terms of systemic oppression, some people don't even get to the level of awareness, right, but awareness is key. And people at times think awareness is all of this other stuff, sort of like people think trauma informed, or would automatically assume because one would think that, that, that all of these different things are a part of awareness, but awareness is just the first. There's lots of people say like in American society, on Turtle Island, and in many mainstream, still, like heavily settler colonial societies, which is most a lot of people don't even have an awareness of or much awareness of systemic oppression so that it isn't all of these steps are important, systemic awareness that the next natural step for most leaders and that's really important to get deeper is analysis, right. And the way that barber loves speaks about analysis is in a few different ways in the ways that I would sort of add limited add to it is to say that analysis, when we start to get into analysis, we are integrating that awareness and that additional increasing endless knowledge, but a certain key body of knowledge into the details and texture of our living, and into the contexts within which we operate. So how is this information relevant in these different spaces? How is racial injustice, or systemic racial inequity, or gender bias, or heteronormativity, or any of the various forms of or fatphobia, or any of the various forms of oppression, I can understand and start to understand it exists? And how it shows up? And how people who live in bodies of different targeted identities, what their experiences, but analysis starts to get into both system wide and also for a person? How does that start to shift and or add more texture and depth to the story of my life? How, how do I look at people in my life who have these different identities and start to think about, again, patterns and sociological realities that they were dealing with that weren't a part of the story I was telling about them. Right. And obviously, you don't have to do this entirely we can do this is something that we can do over time. But that's what we start to do when we get into analysis is thinking about the different implications and moving it through the fabric of our living. And that's true, also, too, with starting to get to a deeper layer of being trauma informed, right, so the first layer of people, so to me, when I have now look at something that says trauma informed unless I have other markers where I know that entity, my general defaults will want us to check it out, honestly, and see, but if I'm not seeing indicators that they are trauma actual, or have more sophistication, or little or around trauma itself, as well as if they've done any work around integrating, which ideally it should be, that's what how it happens in the world, integrating their understanding of systemic oppression with trauma, informed analysis, right? So I'm looking for those things that I can see. But I know that most things wherever they are, they're talking about it to what extent another, they're doing that because of trauma aware, right. Just like if somebody's talking about race initially, we can know that their trauma that they're racially aware, to a certain extent, you have racial analysis, I don't know, I need to just read what they're writing and see how they're showing up in the world, you know, all of those different pieces, right. And so then the next stage after that, so in Barbara loves model, there's four stages of liberatory consciousness in general, which is awareness analysis. And then there's two different models, of course, I've seen them flipped for racial justice, specifically, I like to have it in a particular order in light of my 20 years of experience working with different institutions. So in my version of it, it's awareness analysis, then accountability. And accountability is a word that can scare folks who are target, excuse me a non target identities and so the synonym or word that I like it to get the point of accountability across that doesn't feel as punitive is commitment. So in a person's living and also in the life of an institution, in what ways are their is their infrastructure, and systems in place to ensure commitment to values around advancing racial justice and equity, inclusion and diversity within their institution? is commitment. And accountability. Right, and when things go wrong, how are we holding? How are we holding each other? And this process? How are we ensuring that this continues? Someone wrote in the chat? Is trauma responsive? And okay, term? I think it can be right, it's more about like, okay, so I'm gonna be the rest of your question. So is trauma responsive enough? The term Sweden has no awareness analysis? Shrimati. I hear you, okay, I'm tracking that, etc. and trauma agile would be too complicated to even introduce and passing. I think that that might be too complicated to introduce. I mean, it may be that in various cases, to be honest with you, in the in the US, too, okay. would be too complicated to even introduce in passing is my belief as one of the admins Okay, so Shrimati, in my Jewish tradition, at times will say Shrimati, which means I hear you, this is a great question. So I think what what I'm saying so what I'm saying here, which is different than what's being said, because at times, don't use a certain term, I'm not saying what what I'm trying to do is bring like practitioner and consumer awareness Write of like, when somebody says trauma informed, there's a spectrum of what that means. And especially as someone who feels especially protective of my peoples and people who are adjacent to my peoples, so I am black, indigenous and Jewish, I remember of three different peoples who have been targeted for destruction, which would also, that's a separate thing. Like I continue to work on my trauma healing. And so I can get in my feelings at times, as a practitioner, when I see people marketing things that are trauma informed, say, like, trauma healing, like, come to this session about it to experience, I can't, there was something I saw once and I can't quite remember what it was called, was basically like Jewish trauma healing, and I don't think they meant but it kind of implied that the Jews attending that could heal their trauma, and it was one hour long. Okay, so I mentioned before earlier in the slide, but that I'm of the belief from the people from whom I have learned this wisdom who have been doing this work for decades and helps people globally, survivors of war, physical violence, I mean, many different things, loss, many different things, that it is deeply possible for most humans to heal from most of their trauma, if given the right resources. And over over time, through with the right resources in the right practices, some of which, when it's done in the right, safe container are relatively free, right, we as humans, were born with all the different tools we need to heal, but we've been socialized. Again, this is something that I teach my program grounding and growing, to stifle some of our foundational natural healing mechanisms, and in most societies, some of the ways that people naturally heal is heavily stigmatized. So back to what you're saying about trauma responsive, so part of that depends on the nature of what you're doing. So to me trauma responsive, which means that we're that's kind of similar to trauma agile, or maybe at least at the level of having some trauma analysis. So if you're doing a program where, based upon your knowledge and experience, you have a capacity to be responsibly, responsibly responsive to the population to a person within, you know, who is within a given population of as a diverse population or specific population that has specific individual and collective patterns. Like, to me that is, ideally what trauma responsive implies. And obviously, like, I'm not the arbiter of this, right, but but that when I'm looking at things like that, as a consumer at times, like I mostly have my needs met through different communities I'm a part of, but I also to also curious about what people are doing, or at times might see something, and like, oh, maybe that can also further help me on my ongoing trauma, healing for myself, or help me as a practitioner, and I'm looking to see different things that indicate that are indicators and how they're speaking. You know, if they have a laboratory, and robust sophisticated analysis, about trauma and the ways that it intersects with systems of oppression, in Barbara, those model, there's Oh, and then the final one. So there is awareness, analysis, accountability and action. And this is why I love Barbara love liberatory consciousness model, because particularly in some of the communities, I'm a part of one of the patterns that can show up in Jewish faces is a pattern called scared active, where there's fear and terror and, and ancestrally proven best practice for Jews over the centuries has been, there's an emergency. So we're gonna run, we're gonna go into urgency, because over millennia, for many different not all pockets of the Jewish Diaspora, running and urgency was something that helped people made the difference between life and death. Right. But in the context of working on a deeply entrenched adaptive challenge, and broad sweeping system of oppression, like racial injustice, urgency ain't helpful. It can be helpful a little bit to help move you in action, but it is highly counterproductive. And when folks are conditioned or position, you know, in terms of their identity, with identities that inherently if they don't work on their stuff can harm other people. Action move immediately moving into action ain't helpful. Right. And so awesome to like to kind of jump ahead, in terms of going back to the trauma piece, diving into action, you know, trauma informed action, again, or do you have licensure? Or have you been Have you spent years or decades have you been learning from people here if you're taking more decolonized approach? Are you steeped in accountability from multiple angles through relationship through ongoing training through different systems and structures that ensure if you are going to take the action and then area that you know what you're talking about here? Right, and it cannot be sustained. Hello burnout and further trauma potentially. Yes. That's what happens when people died into action. Thanks for that. Yes. Oh, thank you for capturing that. Yeah. Yes, Barbara, four stages awareness, analysis, accountability, such commitment. Action. Yes. Right. And so what that also means, and also about action implies is aligned for another aim for the when aligned action action that is in alignment with not only your awareness, with not only our analysis, but also accountability. And now we are all positioned for psychologically safe for intercultural greater, because because there's a greater accountability for to take action in ways that are more likely to be healing and productive. And in service of bipoc. And collective liberation. Yes, right. And so the paradigm operates a little differently. But based off of what that a phenomenally useful and robust model that barber love teaches that I use in any number of different ways. And my consulting and teaching is a similar model. around trauma, I would I would use similarly, some of this I just put together today. So I may edit this over time is like, it may continue. But things are always evolving, right? It's always in draft, you know, that from our movements, we continue to learn to get better, but is awareness, same thing, trauma, awareness, so when people make so to be the baseline that I know, I always know that when people are saying that their trauma informed that at the very least the trauma aware to some extent or another, they know that trauma exists, and that it's somewhere in the equation, right, versus having trauma informed analysis or trauma analysis. So they, which is a huge body of work. So there's varying degrees of that. Do they have trauma analysis about their own life, about the specific populations they're working with? Do they know what trauma that trauma analysis from black folks throughout in one specific country and also throughout the African diaspora? Do they have trauma analysis for Jews? To what extent is that? Do they have trauma analysis for predominantly Ashkenazi Jews, or also for Sephardic and Miss Rafi and Jews of color? Right to have similar and also different trauma patterns, right, we have analysis about the attitudes, the tails, and the specificity both for individuals and the collective. And again, tracking useful but not universal patterns, right. So like when I'm working with clients, I have, I feel my sense is, and my mentors have told me that I have a very strong trauma informed trauma, trauma, agile analysis of UNbuilding to Agile analysis overall. And I know as a practitioner, I have deep knowledge from 10 years of experience, about different identities that affect me, and ones that I'm adjacent to. So like, issues affecting women and also men in the context of oppression, gender non conforming, and non binary, folks, what are the ways that misogyny and sexism have patterns of collective and into individual trauma and the lives of people? Right, that's something that I have some meaningful trauma analysis around and some of the patterns that that that plays out, noting that I could deepen my specific analysis as a syst person, as a square person around some of the specificity of collective I know, some, I would say I have some analysis, but I'm not at the point of a deeper analysis in terms of collective trauma patterns at the level of depth that I have in other areas around non binary and trans folks, right, like I have a sense of, and I have way more than the average population, but depth that I like to be aware and work with, in the context of my private trauma healing work, as well as in more non non therapeutic work that I do with my clients in the context of growing and growing, where it's at awareness and giving coaching points, but then referring people to the specific trauma healing containers that they are using in their lives to go deeper, right, anyway, I'm getting off track here. But but there's, there's gradations of this. And it's something that we can steadily build over time and have both respect for what we know. And also keep in mind and track based on what's what's being taught in different spaces and also having a sense of humility, that there's a lot more that we can know. So I have a sense of like indigenous trauma and black trauma and Jewish collective trauma and the ways that that shows up as collective patterns as well as individual patterns that can play out and when I'm working with clients in different ways, and I'm building out my library in terms of branding and growing. If someone say has Muslim heritage, or Asian heritage right in part just because as a full practitioner and recipient of trauma healing, some of my learning comes from the education but also from being an affinity spaces. So for me, when I, when I'm speaking one on one about, you know, certain members of my community joining my community, I might say to them, I ask them to give me some additional insight, and then I can help them, I can identify for them and find a number of phenomenal resources that speak specifically to some of their people's patterns, right. And I have a sense of some of the collective and like going on rabbit hole here. So some sense of like collective trauma in the context of, of Turtle Island, and specifically, America. In terms of the lasting impact, right, some of the wonderful teaching and analysis of Dr. Joy grew around the ongoing impact and Dr. Joy to groose work around the US. And the impact that slavery have is really wonderful example of someone who has an understanding at the level of trauma, agility, post traumatic growth, and trauma agility, and also has woven in and is woven throughout that a deep understanding of systemic oppression, that those things are operating multi dimensionally are operating simultaneously, which is one example of what I mean when I'm talking about multi dimensional analysis, then the last two stages that are talked to in terms of trumping about different levels of common form would be Is this person a practitioner for themselves and or with the clientele with whom they work? Who works at the level of post traumatic growth, which when I'm saying trauma limited, they are not at the level of recognizing that people were that was the right tools, and there's a diversity of them. And there's some core things that are involved, that, that that can take shape in any number of different ways. But that there are various tons now of posts on social media, that, that I can tell that that person who's writing that either in general, or in that moment about that topic, because a number of us know, our understanding. And the way our mind and our being works is a bit like layers of an onion, I was recently reminded by my friend and partner, Tracy, that in pleasure activism, a metaphor is used by Otto Lord about mixing margarine and some of the yellow and leaving the yellow throughout the shortening. When they needed to make something that looks right. Let me make margarine. And so similarly, our consciousness is similar. So when I see this to be clear, again, there's a lot of nuance. And I want to be encouraging this more for different folks in different ways. That when I look on social media, when I see something, I think this is a trauma limited post, if I repeatedly see someone post, like a specific account posting this and I'd be like, like their trauma awareness is at the level of is that is, is is limited. There's all this other stuff. Right? Right. But in general, I just have a one off thing. I wouldn't necessarily ascribe trauma limited analysis to that person. But I would say this post that I don't have enough data, right. But I would say this post is, is in a place of trauma limited this mean that oh, there's trauma stop. You know, so like another example, I was seeing a popular coach, and she was saying, and she was having a internal coaching, Congress industry sort of conversation on her instagram about the nature of pricing, and how and pricing transparency or lack thereof. And she said something about how, you know, well, people who don't post their prices are not trauma informed. And, and there's like some lit, there's might be some legitimacy to that, but and she said a little bit more. But it really bothered me in that moment as someone who, at times, has experienced a number of forms of hardship as someone who has a substantial history of trauma, that in that moment, the way she said that and I think in retrospect as I've reflected on it over the past few months, I think she might have also been talking about herself. And there's a way where at times when people say I'm just weary I'm wary to be other signs of a trauma limited approach is when there's a sense of permanent disempowerment of those who have been traumatized which I do not subscribe to. I think people can obviously be temporarily a mechanism that can stem long term but it's not you know, but that can can experience disempowerment can be in a tender place need of care but and there's also in in this person in this poachers. what she was saying there was a sense to be a little bit of like Savior ism like part of me also was reading that she was part and part talking about, but maybe I don't think exclusively but the weigh at Red seems like she was sort of had like people of color in her mind. And there was a way where I felt like she was talking for me and for other people of color. And, and I just felt like this is a quite the way to be thoughtful about us. Like there was just ways where it was used. I think you know what I'm saying. But to me, the overall thing was like Tama limited. And actually, people with immense trauma and varying degrees of trauma, small trouble and big T trauma can be at any point of, of accessibility to any number of things like that's just not that's less sophisticated understanding of trauma. So trauma, awareness, trauma analysis, and then getting into something that's kind of equivalent to accountability and commitment is post traumatic growth is, and and so part of it is, is as a practitioner, is this person aware that there is potential for post traumatic growth, and is that reflected in what they're saying? That people can go through horrific things over the course of their lives, and that with the right interventions, and with the right supports, over time, through practice, there can be immense healing, to the point where it is profoundly empowering, and not that it ever justifies the original harm, or the thought that they can be in a much stronger and more empowered place afterward, if an intervention usually in community or qualified folks, which can be in a colonial traditional sense, and also can be in a decolonized sense, that when people who have been in deep with a community are collecting people who have been in practice for decades, collectively, around refining their practice and what they're doing right, and have other various forms of accountability. But that's, there's a capacity for growth, that something can happen and that through this healing, we can grow and not only get through it, but actually be stronger and have more insight. Right, but that is totally within the realm of possibility for humans. And finally, the final stage of that is agility. And to me what agility implies here, several other things, but it's an awareness of access, or awareness of an ability to access all these other stages. At any given moment, understanding having a sense of what's needed. And for a practitioner agility implies, it can apply a lot of different things, right? Like, I don't want to be overly prescriptive here. But it can imply a capacity to help individuals or groups of people responsibly engage in individual and collective healing. And part of the agility is knowing in what circumstances or context that is and isn't appropriate. And then there is an is isn't enough infrastructure, and accountability, and safety, and all of the different things that are necessary for there to be the conditions for responsible and protected and mindful opportunities for healing. Right. So there's like the levels of awareness analysis, post traumatic growth, and agility, so not so to me, agility also implies a repeating of the process and capacity, again, until they're very variations of as an individual that you're in a space where you have resources, to know agility to use is also implying, like a sense of awareness that I don't want to go through something horrible, but I have now gone through multiple, not just one, but multiple experiences of post traumatic growth. And or as a practitioner, I have successfully and responsibly led people, multiple people, various people in different contexts, through post traumatic growth. And again, as I was naming before about the analysis, it can be situational, right? So you'll hear different practitioners at times, being responsible stewards of their knowledge and their skill, and a time to say this is the population these are the issues. And these are the places in which as a practitioner, I am trauma agile, you know, and they will have integrity if someone comes to them, which doesn't doesn't happen in different spaces. To say, I have a lot of knowledge, and I haven't specifically worked with such and such rate. And in some cases, you really want to really need some of that material. And another case is because trauma and a number of ways has common trends, whatever the specific subject matter is, we are there's some elements of trauma healing that can can take place. So those are the four levels and just to kind of my shorthand for it, which I recognize, could in the wrong context, be misunderstood, or taken out and are used in a weaponized way which is not how I need to use it, but what I see a trauma informed and short term thing I'm looking to see is that are they tunnel aware slash trauma limited? Or is this a space where they are supportive of or aware of the capacity for post traumatic growth, and, and or have the tools to help facilitate that. And even better, if they are trauma agile, it's not always the offense to me. I'm also looking at the number of the amount of time or the level of experience, right, like, you know, I look at and consider if someone has been trained in this. So they may have some really solid awareness, that analysis, but if we just wanted to use it to this the depth and complexity that human chocolate human trauma can take, it's hard for me to imagine that someone was like, a really serious and you know, that, like, there's just, there's certain bars that I'm looking for. And some of that may or may not matter, and depending upon what they're offering, and what they are guaranteeing, are they offering actual trauma healing, which, depending if they're not licensed and or created a really powerful container, Eek, and or, you know, or are they doing something like that I'm doing where I'm saying, I am trauma informed. And my space and my programs are not therapeutic spaces. They're spaces in which I can help you cultivate awareness, and analysis. And they are spaces that are pro, post traumatic growth and pro and, and they're Trump trauma informed, like agility, positive spaces, enjoy asbestos land, but they are spaces in which I say right now, as the single owner with one additional staff person, you don't have the infrastructure right now. And there's just a lot of additional resourcing that we need in order to have this be an explicitly therapeutic space. So we're not doing that. But at times when I'm coaching people in a group context or in one on one coaching, one of my favorites is when someone has actually a trauma healing community or practitioner with whom they're working, usually therapist, and I can give them without eliciting the trauma too much I can give them different things that I know, from my counter oppressive practice, to say, okay, in light of what you're sharing your takes most, you know, here are some exercises that you can ask your therapist to do with you, since they're a person who's tracking you more closely, and they know more of the context than I have. But based upon what you're saying here, and what I know about the fundamental ways that trauma consistently operates for pretty much all humans, here are some places where you could do some of that deeper work. And here are some ways where you can access that visceral experience in a safe and licensed context. And or for some folks, if they're in a responsible, appropriate decolonize connected, you can use that you can bring some of these prompts to that context, and they can hold you in the actual trauma healing space. And then the trauma healing that I do do that I do practice, I practice within the container of a network of a private network that I'm a part of, and only in that context. So this has been on my test face for a while now. Thank you for tuning in. There's obviously many like there's various things that I touched upon. There's a lot more, but I wanted to toss this out there since it's so cool right now to always be talking about trauma informed that not all these things are created equal. And we got to be mindful consumers, and take note of what actually we're reading and what's the caliber of it. And because at times, people are saying, if I didn't really say this, people are saying to cut off ties with relationship. There's ways where I see not exclusively, we're either see a trauma, a traumatized mentality being touted as trauma informed. And there's a difference between traumatized and that's also a variation of the trauma limited and actual trauma informed and telling people to do things that in certain situations is appropriate. But as a general rule, just because you're engaging in conflict with someone, there's ways to be we're not exclusive, where, like sexism and white dominant culture and white supremacist delusion is like very subtly weaving in. And it's it's, it's encouraging people to isolate. Right where whereas when I've learned for people, nearly all people who are trauma agile educators, practitioners and healers, because that we want to be reaching for connection and that at different points in certain extenuating circumstances. Yeah, we need to set boundaries and over time as we heal more in different ways. Ideally, all people are deserving and have the capacity when we have the support or Ramadan we've had time to heal and I feel might be a decade. I'm not saying this is a weekend, or it might be over a long period of time, that we have the power of choice to reach for different relationships to rescript different things that we have immense capacity and power. So thank you everyone for joining. If this is something where you're interested in getting deeper support, or you would like some trauma, agile coaching and support, then feel free I have offerings right now to work one on one or do an intensive series. I can't remember how to do but I really do want to just contact me at Joyce justice.com and a contact form if, if you're interested in engaging with me, but none of the specific offers are the right fit or you want to collaborate. I'm really happy to collaborate with kindred spirits around this and much love and I think I want to end as someone who's soon going to be ordained as a Jewish priestess. I'd like to enter the Kaaba now a little bit of intention. And say, may it be Divine oneness, his will, that increasingly over time, all of us are able to gain access to empowering knowledge and information that supports us, and being aware that each of us individually are always and unconditionally, deeply deserving of love. And as members of societies and communities that have hundreds and 1000s of years of collective trauma, that nearly all of us have different patterns of allowing harm and or of causing harm. And it's my prayer and my intention, that through the many wonderful, brilliant minds who are sharing knowledge today, spiritually, professionally interpersonally that we can continually know and viscerally feel increasingly, that inherent goodness that is within all of us. And we can have increasing courage and support, to hold that inherent goodness, looking at the layers of hurt, and get support of hurt and harm, and get support around healing and mending those different dynamics in service of collective liberation in service of our join, and service of joyous justice. Thank you. So I'm hoping to start showing up live a lot more. I've been going through a really intentional, intense process, but really root level trauma healing over the past three years. And it's still ongoing, it's going to be lifelong when I'm getting to the other side of the huge body of work, and I'm going to be showing up more have been willing. So hopefully this will be one of many more opportunities for us to connect. You're so very welcome. I'm really glad this landed Well, I thought about this a couple months ago. And then I was like I want to nuance this well, because there's ways at times that things can be misunderstood. So I wanted to give it time so that it would land in a way that was of service to people, and not in a way that induce shame, but instead empowered us with more knowledge and more resource to advanced justice and our healing joy. Thanks so much. We'll collect again soon. Feel free to be in touch.

April Baskin: 48:45

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