Welcome to Exiled and Rising.
You are seen,
You are heard,
And here you belong.
If you have been exiled from your own land,
Your country,
Welcome.
If you are stateless,
A refugee,
Undocumented,
Or waiting to be deported,
Welcome.
If you are indigenous to a land that was stolen from you,
Welcome.
If you are a survivor of war,
Genocide,
And forced displacement,
Welcome.
If you have faced the genocide of your dignity and identity because of your ethnicity,
Race,
Religion,
The language you speak,
The accent you carry,
Or your inherent value and beliefs,
Welcome.
If you have been exiled from your own home,
From your own community,
Your family,
And if you never had a place at the dinner table,
Welcome.
If you are an immigrant who arrived in a foreign country with just one bag and a few dollars,
Or if you made millions and still feel unworthy to take up a space,
Welcome.
If you have been exiled from a communist country or still live in one,
Welcome.
If you know what it means to live under surveillance,
Censorship,
In a culture of obedience,
Welcome.
If you have worked and labored in silence,
Exploited,
Underpaid,
And stripped of your rights while fearing retaliation or deportation,
Welcome.
If you were born into exile,
If you carried the trauma of a homeland you never knew,
And if you witnessed your father and your mother being silenced,
Being submitted,
And being invisible only to survive,
Welcome.
I am Anamail,
Host of Exile in Rising.
I survived three wars,
Statelessness,
Multiple displacements.
Today,
I work as a somatic therapist specializing in PTSD and trauma recovery.
I am founder of the Somatic Trauma Recovery Center.
For years,
I have worked with survivors of war,
Systemic oppression,
And complex trauma.
And I know this.
Trauma is not just something that happens.
It shapes how we breathe,
How we move,
How we take up space,
How we work,
How we socialize,
How we make money,
And how we allow ourselves to exist.
Let's begin.
So let's talk today about why healing needs justice.
And why doing the breath work cannot help.
Why going to one retreat to another retreat,
Going in the midst of the jungle,
Doing the plant medicine for 50th time is not working.
Healing needs justice.
So let's talk when the healing becomes a prison,
And why so confusing and so many clients,
People,
They just feel stuck.
So we will move way,
Way deeper here,
Especially for you who have internalized by spiritual communities,
By numerous self-help books,
By everything that's going on on social media,
Recycling the same content.
It's basically learning that healing is a solo journey.
It's all about self-improvement,
Self-healing,
Self-this,
Self-that.
Yes,
And healing cannot be done if it's not done in relational field.
And also,
If healing doesn't have a closure or receive a justice.
So you might be told,
Focus on your own energy.
You cannot control others,
Just do your own work.
Triggers are your responsibility.
Let go of expectations and just heal.
Oh,
This is all for higher good.
It's the frequency.
Forgive and you will feel better.
And maybe initially,
It can sound empowering.
But when you have lived and still living through complex,
Real,
Relational,
Systemic trauma,
So we are talking about complex trauma.
If you have been marginalized,
If you have been displaced,
If you have been living inside of the family,
Where you couldn't speak up,
Where you have been humiliated,
Shame,
Where your own human dignity has been harmed by family members,
By a community,
By a country,
By neighbors,
By friends.
Healing can only happen.
And healing can only,
In that context,
Healing needs justice.
Healing doesn't need the breathwork.
And fluffing the feathers or shaking the crystals,
My friends.
Because if you think your healing can be complete only between you and you,
That's another imprisonment.
That's a new level of prison you're living in.
So what happens when healing becomes only personal,
When you're told that healing is only a job,
When there is no mention of accountability,
Relational repair or justice?
You start to believe that your pain is a personal flaw.
When you don't start to heal,
Feel better,
And you already spent thousands of dollars hopping from one workshop to another workshop,
From one therapist to another therapist,
Reading all the books you could get,
You feel like you're not doing the work fast enough.
Good enough.
You start only to live in a relational field by comparison.
And then you might start to think,
Huh,
Why can I just let go?
Why does it still hurt?
Am I not involved enough to forgive?
Am I not now spiritual enough?
And that internalized pressure coming from outside,
Because the society you're living in,
Spiritual communities,
Families,
What they're offering you is everything but seeking for justice.
Actually,
It's,
It turns away a face from you seeking a justice and you need justice.
Your organism,
Your biology,
By default,
Wants justice and do not confuse justice with revenge.
Okay.
But there is something in our society,
How we live,
Is it's almost a flaw to seek a justice.
And this is not a flaw.
What is a flaw is having someone telling you to fluff the feathers and to meditate when you're deeply harmed.
So that's their work.
That's something they need to develop and they can feel shame about because of their own level of discomfort.
That's their discomfort.
It's easier to meditate.
It's easier to forgive.
You don't need to go so deep.
You don't need to talk.
You don't need to be in a space with your client.
Or with your brother,
With your sister,
With your parents to sit with the pain and harm,
What was done to you.
So there is nothing you need to feel guilty about or shamed.
Okay.
Because what's very common,
What I'm seeing,
We move then to internalized abandonment.
And what really happened,
You were hurt by someone or something.
That someone,
And you know,
Has a first name and the last name.
You know who is that someone.
Maybe it's your mother.
Even with the best intent she had,
But maybe your mother didn't do justice the way how she raised you.
She couldn't do better.
Okay.
That doesn't mean you will seek revenge.
But what it means is to speak up and to require explanation,
Even she doesn't have capacities to give you.
You have right to seek that justice for you and you.
Okay.
When the pain is not acknowledged,
That's your reality.
The pain and the harm is not acknowledged.
By police maybe,
By neighbors,
By system,
By school.
Who was there to protect you?
Next one,
The most confusing and the most harmful thing for psyche is you were praised for surviving it.
So I made a,
You can listen to a podcast.
It's called,
Do not call me strong.
It's an insult.
So that's the name of the episode.
Do not call me strong.
It's an insult because it is.
Because what happens when someone,
When someone comes up and say,
Oh,
You're strong.
Who are you to seek a justice?
Who are you to seek an answers?
Who are you?
You,
You're so strong.
You don't need anything.
Isn't that convenient?
That's very convenient,
My friends.
For them,
Not for you.
It's easy,
Done.
Brushing off,
Brushing off.
You were so strong.
What's a tiny little bit of injustice for you?
You survived statelessness.
You survived genocide.
That's just a little bit of injustice to forgive.
Also,
What might be confusing,
You being asked to heal on your own.
As that will put you on a higher level of enlightenment.
Here you come,
Now you're a Buddha.
So now even if you don't want to be a Buddha,
Your healing is used to avoid addressing the truth.
Right?
Isn't that power over?
You heal on your own.
Go in a silent retreat and you will heal.
Maybe they will even pay for it.
But they will not address and sit with you.
So you can tell your truth,
Your experience.
They might even say,
Oh,
It's all inclusive.
No,
It's not.
It's not all inclusive.
It's not.
It's not,
Shouldn't be.
Shouldn't be.
Shouldn't be.
You shouldn't be forced.
It shouldn't be forced.
If you have a workshop for person of colors,
Do they need to bend again so they have all-inclusive environment and have a white person as their facilitator?
Heck no.
No.
Absolutely no.
So no,
Not all things need to be inclusive.
And that doesn't mean they are not spiritual.
If I say not all things need to be inclusive,
That doesn't mean I'm not involved enough.
Actually,
I am very involved.
Because I know that person of color,
That black person doesn't need a white ass sitting beside them.
Is that clear?
Mm-hmm,
Yeah.
Sitting with the truth.
If we don't,
We have externalized abandonment layered on internalized abandonment.
Let me repeat this.
Externalized abandonment moves you into the place of internalized abandonment.
Because you have been shut down.
You're not questioning what's happening outside.
Healing is normalized that it needs to be on a very personal level.
When healing is personal and it's relational.
Relational between that someone who harmed you,
That one person or a family group,
Family system,
Community,
Your country,
Your job environment.
That's very relational.
And you can escape and you can go.
In 5,
000 retreats and yet your nervous system will still feel something is not right.
I'm still unsafe.
I'm still harmed.
And then you start to abandon yourself,
Making yourself feel guilty because something is not working right.
But what your nervous system also needs is a justice.
It's acknowledgement.
I am Anamail and I will meet you again in this space where we will together move from trauma to resilience,
From wound to resistance,
From exile to rising.
Until next time,
Stay well.
Thank you.
