healer guiding questions
harriet tubman teaches us….
that we can use healing to support individuals AND we can acknowledge and shift the conditions of power and oppression that violently impacts our people.
Her legacy invites us to constantly ask ourselves….how can healing help us transform the impacts of oppression on individual, communal, and systemic levels? How can healing help us be more accountable to our bodies and our communities? How can healing teach us how to show up with more integrity with our people?
From the moment we are born, we are all taught how to be racist, capitalist, white supremacist, patriarchal, transphobic, ableist… As we do this sacred work, it is our duty to do the LIFE LONG work of disrupting these systems within ourselves and in our larger society. It is our sacred task to further more liberation and less harm to no harm on Black bodies.
These are some of the questions that guide our work at Harriet’s Apothecary. Questions that move us closer to being more skilled and competent rather than perfectionists. Questions that hold us accountable as people trust us with their bodies. Questions that move us out of individualism and into collective transformation.
What systems of oppression impact health, healing, and safety for Black people? How do you internalize these systems? How are you transforming them?
How have you internalized heteronormativity, transphobia and ableism? Where does it show up in your healing work? How are you transforming this?
How have you internalized anti-blackness? Where does it show up in your healing work?
Are we the right/appropriate people to serve in this way? How is this as
How do you know you are competent in your healing modality? Where are the places you are not competent and how might they cause harm? Where can you grow?
In what areas of political analysis do you need to grow so you can deepen your understanding of power, oppression and priviledge?
How do you gauge and communicate your capacity?
How do we maintain the legacy and integrity of our practices and not fall into cultural appropriation?
What does it look like when you are burnt out? What practices restore you?
What are your strengths and growth edges around follow-through on commitments?
What are your strengths and growth edges with conflict?
What is your relationship to boundaries? How do you listen to them? How do you communicate them? How do you practice them?
How do you practice consent?
How does class shape how much you charge for healing services?
What do you have to unlearn about power, Blackness, sexuality, abundance?
What privileges do you hold and what are you doing to dismantle it?
What further learning do you need to grow your skills as a healer?
Is there ever a time in which you’d call the police on Black people? Cauuussse errr we dont fuck with 12!!!