As someone, the world would call a Black woman, and/or what I like to call myself a woman of the African Diaspora, living in the United States of North America. I’ve been in a plethora of personal and professional settings where I never felt nor knew I belonged. Belonging to as space, a collective, and/or a group of others is crucial to having a quality of life that is of ease, joy, love, pleasure, peace, and healing.
Doing my own love and healing work allowed me to come to terms with being in a body that society has been colonized and conditioned to treat harmfully and inhumanely. Learning what trauma is, how trauma manifests in DNA, and the emotional, mental, physical and spiritual bodies expanded and transformed how I love and heal myself and others.
Acquiring a law degree, yoga certifications, traveling for eighteen months during the COVID19 crisis, traversing the world without shoes for seven years, while coming from a family suffering from post-traumatic slave syndrome, learning and practicing healing and moving trauma in the body, and being the first in my family to traverse the world the way I do has shown me how imperative it is to know one belongs.
Cultivating a space of belonging is ideally having a culturally mindful, healing, and human-centered space. Curating space for all self-identifying women of the African Diaspora to know they belong has been the goal and impact of my work since 2015. Creating spaces of belonging, healing, and connection for self-identifying Black women aided in cultivating spaces to include people that self-identified with other groups systematically oppressed and ostracized because no group is a monolith.
There are self-identifying women that don’t speak English, communicate through sign language, are veterans, have allergies, are of different body sizes, are in the rainbow family, and have allergies. I learned that when women that self-identify as being of the African Diaspora and/or Black know they can be their authentic selves others are invited to do the same.
Love and Healing Work was birther by Brandis Rawls and myself in 2021 because we wanted to help take care of the people that take care of people and help mitigate the harm to self-identifying Black women in the not-for-profit and business world. We structured Love and Healing to consciously prioritize hiring self-identify women of the African Diaspora. We knew that love and healing is needed to exist within systems
Cultivating a space where as many people as possible know that they can unapologetically be themselves without fear, shame, and/or guilt is a space of belonging. Knowing one belongs in space means knowing that one will not be intentionally harmed, and if harm is caused then it is addressed with love and kindness. Three things that aid in cultivating spaces without harm and everyone knows they belong.
1. Consent: Learning how to be in a consensual relationship with oneself takes practice. Being able to think, speak, and act consensually with oneself requires listening to the needs of one’s mind, body, and spirit. Spending time practicing consenting with oneself allows awareness of what is being thought, said, and/or acted upon was done with the consent of all parties involved. The process of consent is a reflective process where people are invited to ask themselves questions, answer those questions and act in alignment with the answers they came up with to those questions.
A person cannot give others what they themselves do not have to give. Cultivating a Space of belonging begins with being in consent with oneself and then with others. People know they belong when they can consent to how they engage in the space they are in. Gaining consent is a process of asking questions. A space of belonging is a space where everyone feels like they can ask questions and answer questions consensually without shame, guilt, and/or fear.
2. Non-harmful Engagement Practices: It occurs when people are provided the space to consent to how they will engage in spaces with others. Non-harmful engagement practices are practices that do not harm the mind, body, and/or others knowingly. People will harm other people unconsciously due to conditioning and trauma.
When one learns how they can engage with themselves through a non-harmful lens, this creates space to them to do the same with others. Knowing how to engage in a non-harmful manner and how to address harm when caused creates a feeling of belonging. When one is harmed they tend to require space to be seen, heard, and acknowledged.
The non-harmful engagement invites people to take time to ask themselves and other questions about harm. When people are given an opportunity to express how they want people to engage with them and people engage with them in this way as to not cause harm, there becomes a deeper feeling of belonging,
3. Reflection: It is making time collectively and individually to consider how people can consensually engage in non-harmful practices. Reflecting on how one knows they belong sheds light on ways in which we have caused ourselves and others harm because we were not engaging consensually. Reflecting on ways to mitigate harm consensually collective creates a foundation for everyone to contribute ways to engage that create a space of belonging.
Love and Healing Work utilizes reflective questions as a tool to assist expand, healing, and transforming those that engage in our experiences. Cultivating spaces of belonging begins with knowing how one knows they themselves belong. That knowing can be grown through self-reflection. Below are questions that are asked to assist people to create spaces of belonging within their life, group, and/or organization
Self -Reflection questions:
When have I felt like you belonged in space? What were the practices, words, and behaviors utilized in that space that aided your feeling as I belonged?
When have I felt like I didn’t belong in spaces?
What do I need to feel seen, heard, and a part of the space?
Consistently engaging in these practices will assist create spaces where everyone knows they belong. You’re invited you give yourself grace while practicing being in a consensual relationship with yourself in a manner that does not cause harm. New practices and/or reintegrating former practices may take a few more seasons than anticipated that’s okay.
Harm may be caused due to engaging in the new practice of cultivating spaces of belonging. Give yourself some grace, show yourself compassion, and learn from the situation in a way that is expansive, healing, and transformative.
Thank you for reading. Drink water and please take time to provide yourself with what you need. We love you.
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