I came to work with BIPOC and embodied and transgenerational trauma by accident. In working with Veterans and the embodiment of combat trauma, I began to see there were differences in the typical and predictable patterns and responses in the body. I was aware of the subtext that didn’t have a way of entering the room. Just as Veteran’s bodies respond differently that civilians, black bodies respond differently as well. 

We don’t just have bodies, we are bodies.  Our bodies are not inserted into a particular culture.  Our culture is embedded in our DNA.  We embody our culture. We embody our generational trauma. As such, culture is not just a consideration or a lens, it is the way we participate in being human.

I was the only female in my class to complete fire school and the first female Marine to serve on my duty station. I never liked the specifier female Marine. Once, after a training exercise, our Warrant officer praised me, referring to me as “the female Marine.”  I was amazed by the deep pride I experienced for doing the same thing each of the men around me did. I had not done something better, just equally well. I became acutely aware of normativity as I determined where to embrace standards and be “like a woman” and where to deviate and be “like a man.” After all, I was not celebrated for being strong for a woman, I was commended for being strong like a man.  

I was not only interested in what was normative, I was intrigued by diversity. Bootcamp strips individuality from recruits of all backgrounds and creates a new collective system unlike the dominantly individualistic American culture. Still, I was impressed by how this uniform environment did not stop the different backgrounds from informing the diverse manner in which individuals experienced, expressed, and processed powerful emotions like rage, terror, and grief. Most interesting was observing the culturally-informed permissions people received, or didn’t receive, to express these emotions and the ways these emotions were demonstrated. This interest led to completing a Master’s degree in Intercultural Studies, but my diversity awareness stems more so from my intentional intimate relationships with people who are different from me. Wisdom and insight gained through my intentional relationships with people different from me offered me critical insights into my work with BIPOC. This is critical as someone raised, trained, and educated with in a white hetero-normative system.  

Without insight into culturally-bound assumptions and privilege, BIPOC individuals can be encouraged to spend time identifying distortions based on normative realty—the provider’s reality—which often does not bring about truth or a safely livable outcome. It is an ongoing discipline to offer culturally-informed care, increase cultural humility, and further wrestle with my own privilege, identities and judgements. 

1.)  Much of the time thoughts include cognitive distortions and unfortunate realities that are true for some people even if not true for others.

2.)  Often, emotions are a blend of misguided and justifiable reactions to realities, truths, and perceptions.

3.)  Feeling safe in a body is a privilege.

4.)  We experience a tension between unpermitted, healthy aggression—required for developing and maintaining appropriate boundaries—and the reality that displaying healthy aggression could be socially— even physically—dangerous

5.)  Bodies hold memories of past trauma— our own or inherited— and anticipation of potential experiences that need to be validated, untangled, and legitimized.

This uncovers unfortunate truths:

Working with the body highlights the differences in realities and the cultural gaslighting that exists within traditional, western society. Who gets to be the arbiter of reality? Who gets to determine safety?