People say love is blind because they do not know what love is. I say unto you, only love has eyes; other than love, everything is blind. ॐ ॐ Osho ॐ
The phrase 'it takes a village to raise a child' originates from an African proverb and conveys the message that it takes many people ('the village') to provide a safe, healthy environment for children, where children are given the security they need to develop and flourish, and to be able to realize their hopes and dreams. This requires an environment where children's voices are taken seriously ... and where multiple people (the 'villagers') including parents, siblings, extended family members, neighbors, teachers, professionals, community members and policy makers, care for a child. ☥ ☥ From 'It Takes a Village to Raise a Child: Understanding and Expanding the Concept of the 'Village'' ☥
Pluralism A state of society in which members of diverse ethnic, racial, religious, or social groups maintain and develop their traditional culture or special interest within the confines of a common civilization. ☥ ☥ Merriam-Webster Dictionary ☥
Why We Need A Community-Based Ecosystems Approach
In his thesis, Dr. Lesiba Baloyi “redefines psychology and psychotherapy from the viewpoint of the African experience.” He asserts that “the dominant Western paradigm of scientific knowledge in general and, psychology in particular, is anchored in a defective claim to neutrality, objectivity and universality because it obstructs Indigenous and pluriversal strategies for healing.” This assertion is crucial to accurately support the need for a community-based ecosystems approach to promoting the health, wellbeing and healing of our village.
At the Association of Black Psychologists’ 50th anniversary convention, I surveyed the work of Dr. Baloyi and other psychologists of the African diaspora. They grappled with ways to promote and share their research to facilitate healing in Black communities. As I discovered that these challenges repeatedly surfaced during Black, Indigenous and Pacific Islander convenings, I decided to infuse their research into my work with Boys and Young Men Of Color (BYMOC) populations. My enthusiasm for helping children to realize their potential began as a teen mentor. During the summer I spent tutoring a young Black male, I discovered that emotional trauma was the root cause of his academic challenges. Since that time, I have worked with BYMOC communities in various capacities, including talent recruitment, mentorship and wellness training. My collaboration with nonprofit organizations began in 2009, when I was invited to be a keynote speaker at a Transformational Leadership retreat. I created an interactive experience for the retreat called “Transformational Leadership from the Inside Out,” based on strategies (for healing the mind, body, emotions and spirit) that could be used to improve the personal and professional lives of its grantees. Although the organizers asked me to focus the presentation on nutrition, I firmly asserted that it was important to address unresolved emotional trauma and present it as a deep underlying root cause which, unless properly processed, would sabotage the success of BYMOC leaders and prevent them from thriving.
My affirmation is based on my research and personal experience. I was seven years old when I witnessed a traumatic event. Shortly thereafter, I developed Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), an incurable respiratory illness. After 27 years of enduring the negative side effects of prescription medication, I discovered that true healing begins with my ability to take care of myself in between doctor visits. I began to practice an ancient Indigenous form of medicine called Ayurveda which, when translated into English, means “the science of living.” The Ayurvedic remedies prompted the processing of suppressed and repressed emotions and mental health into its healing strategies. Within three months, my 27-year bout with COPD came to an end. This experience convinced me of the need to acknowledge and diligently work to heal trauma, inspiring me to study holistic health and become an advocate for Radiant Health Strategies.
When I met Dr. Daphne Watkins, it was as if I was speaking with my twin. We both shared a deep love for the healing and restoration of our culture, and our work was centered around reversing the effects of the all-assault attack on Black ☥ Indigenous ☥ Immigrant males. We kept in touch on social media for years before we finally connected through a program that was facilitated by Johns Hopkins University. I visited the University of Michigan several times and thoroughly enjoyed presenting to and meeting her staff as well as other faculty members. She connected me with Dr. James Smith, an Australian professor, who had traveled to the US to learn more about wellness promotion for Black ☥ Indigenous ☥ Immigrant males. At this point, I wondered how many twins I must have out in the world, because our missions were so aligned. Dr. Smith was spearheading a book in collaboration with Dr. Watkins at the University of Michigan and Dr. Griffith at Georgetown and invited me to contribute a chapter. After I agreed to participate, I lobbied for the inclusion of the National Compadres Network and was delighted to learn that they would be writing chapter as well. I'm thrilled to announce that the book has now published.
Health Promotion with Adolescent Boys and Young Men of Colour: Global Strategies for Advancing Research, Policy, and Practice in Context is the first global text of its kind that curates research and practice in a single volume and is appropriate for policy makers, students, practitioners and community leaders. The publisher set up a website for the book that generously offers the Table Of Contents, Abstracts and Notes from each chapter. La Cultura Cura and El Joven Noble: Culturally Rooted Theory and Practice Formulations for Healing Wounded Boys and Young Men of Colour in the United States, written by The National Compadres Network, can be found in Chapter 10 of the book.
Everyday you have to fight so that love for humanity can be transformed into concrete deeds, into acts that set an example, that mobilize. ☥ ☥ Che Guevara ☥
The publishers allowed me to make my chapter available, so I created a visual report that would help to bring our years of research and practice to life. Journey To Radiance: A Community-Based Ecosystems Approach For Promoting The Health, Wellbeing And Healing Of Boys And Young Men Of Color is my pictorial redesign of Chapter 3 of the book. Please share this blog. Both projects were a labor of love for me, but phyllishubbard.com needs funding to develop and sustain this healing work. Your support is greatly needed and appreciated. We often don't give because we think that our offering is too small to make a difference. Small businesses have a litany of "small" expenses that truly tax business operations. If everyone gave their version of a small amount, no one would over burden themselves and we can continue to do our work. Often times, we wait too long to give and then are saddened when a business we love ceases operations. I know how important it is to provide open-source information, but I also need your help to keep the information flowing. If we want to co-create a better world, then we have to do our part to dismantle the systems that fuel suffering and prevent the dissemination of wellness information. Phyllishubbard.com is my offering to the world, and it was created with vision, diligent work and the faith that those who benefit from my work will invest in and support it. I've carried the baton as far as I can on my own, but there is no phyllishubbard.com without you. Please visit our Ujamaa page to support and sustain our dissemination efforts, and know that when you give from your excess, though it may show up in a variety of forms, that same energy is returned to you.
Why Dissemination Of Information Is Vital To Healing Our Village
The conquer, then continue to divide and conquer tactics designed to keep oppressed people disenfranchised have become so insidious through social programming that we are often oblivious to the many ways that it shows up in our society. The tragedy of this unfoldment of embedded psychosis is that it is based on and driven by antiquated value systems that no longer serve us. Examples of how it shows up in our society vary greatly, but I'll offer a few to help us wrap our minds around the pervasiveness of its existence so that we will take self-corrective actions in our thoughts and behaviors. The dissemination of information fuels our ability to heal ourselves, our communities and our world. It enables us to elevate in consciousness which sparks innovation in every area of our lives.
Social programming relies on the fact that we remain unaware of the invisible yet omnipresent constructs that drive how we think and act. The first and most vital step to breaking down these harmful constructs is to learn and then disseminate what we learn to as many people as quickly and accurately as possible. As we go through these examples, we may feel tempted to throw our hands up in despair because they are ubiquitous. However, we must also remember that our colonized societies are rooted and grounded in these tactics.
We can turn to liberators such Harriet Tubman for ancestral and spiritual guidance, because as we study their lives, we see that they did not allow any force to get in the way of their vision of and for freedom. Many of these freedom advocates had limited or no resources, yet their ability to disseminate information often rivals ours which speaks volumes about the power of modern day social programming.
I'll call these examples "fallacies" because a fallacy uses pieces of truth in order to substantiate and perpetuate its existence. I initially intended to end the blog before I wrote this paragraph, but as SPIRIT is moving through my fingers, I would suggest getting comfortable and grabbing those delicious healthy snacks. Although some of my digressions may seem unrelated, I invite us to hang in there through to the end of the blog so that we can better understand how these concepts are connected.
The "We Don't Support Each Other" Fallacy
You don’t react to [fear]. You don’t repress it. You embrace it: 'What am I afraid of?' If you look deep enough with deep sincerity, you’ll see that there is a lie acting as a law in your life. But as you embrace it, that shadow becomes a gift. The lie becomes transformed, and you become gifted. The darkness transmutes itself into an activation of something that is latent within you ready to burst forward. ☥ ☥ Dr. Michael Bernard Beckwith ☥
We are going to take our time examining this fallacy. If we believe in it, then we must meticulously study Red Summer, including the events that led up to the massacres that occurred across this country. When I say study, I mean gather multiple sources of information on the issue and then look for the universal pattern. Sit with the facts and meditate for clarity. The truth will reveal itself even if it is hidden within a bad source of information. Remember that colonizers dominate the curation and dissemination of most sources of information, so it is imperative that we learn how to trust our inner wisdom. If something doesn’t feel right, we must investigate until we find a resolution. It’s true that our own prejudices may be the obstacle, but if we do not investigate, how will we know? Our ability to trust ourselves and each other is strengthened as we follow through with our determination to discover the truth. I have been seeing a very disturbing pattern, but let’s not take my word as truth because I am a human with plenty of healing left to do. I don’t want to be an unwitting obstacle to the truth because of some subconscious trauma blocking my vision. This awareness keeps me in a state of relaxed alertness while I continually question my thoughts and level up my behavior. That said, the pattern seems to be that every time Black ☥ Indigenous ☥ Immigrant People come up with an idea that is profitable and support it, colonizers show up to water it down so that they can understand it enough to gradually take over the idea, present it as if they produced it and capitalize off of the idea while simultaneously exploiting the people who created it. The pattern is insidious and often influenced by economic factors (i.e., by putting systems in place to ensure that they are the only options we can go to for growth capital). Red Summer was obvious, so the current ways of creating the same effect is to meticulously create and sustain the illusion that Black ☥ Indigenous ☥ Immigrant People don't support each other. Because our attention is focused on survival and the pattern shows up in many different forms, we are continually fooled by the deception.
What is so frustrating about the pattern is that we forget how much we supported each other before the colonizer snuck in and crafted a strategic marketing plan with systems of support that manipulated our perceptions. This programming has been refined over many centuries, so it is seamlessly woven into our lifestyle to the point that we cannot recognize it without a deep level of self-awareness.
Daily social programming is designed to keep us distracted away from our inner wisdom which sustains our faulty perceptions even if it goes against our common sense. We are the common denominator in the pattern, so we are the ones who have to increase self-awareness and change our behavior in order to break the pattern.
Though this pattern seems to benefit colonizers in the short term, it is not good for them in any way. Our climate change issues are headed in a catastrophic direction. What we think of as a catastrophe may actually be the entrance of Set ☥ God Of The Chaordic. To gain a deeper understanding of why we believe in the "we don't support each other" fallacy, we'll need to understand some life lessons from Set. When Set arrives, he tears down what was no longer serving us so that we can rebuild from a solid foundation that is based on truth. Set is the Kamitian (Ancient Egyptian) God Of The Chaordic, and he is often confused with Seth who is depicted with the head of an unknown animal and can best be described with my current understanding as the God Of Defense. I need more study time with the hieroglyphs because most written sources merge Set with Seth. However, I will share my current understanding and will update this section after I’ve had more study time in Egypt. Set came to me in a meditation and led me to create an image that more accurately depicts him. He is much more than the image I provided, but what I’m sharing is what I was led to share about him for now so stay tuned. I’m just as excited to learn more as those of you who are on this adventurous journey to radiance. I got the distinct feeling that Set is more than fed up with the misrepresentation, so I did my best with pictures until I’m led to sketch.
Set is as close to his actual name as our current understanding of hieroglyphics, the study of which has been defined and manipulated by the Ancient Greeks, and the English language will allow. We must realize that no matter how much money colonizers pour into researching us objectively, they cannot know more about us than we know about ourselves. They have stolen what they believe to understand about our history, revised it to benefit them and presented it as validated truth to the world. Their validation is based on their monolithic view and definition of scientific research and is tainted by their desire to present themselves as superior. Because they control the dissemination of research and information about our history and culture, we have to access the truth using pluralistic methodologies. Set and the other Gods ☥ Goddesses have been reaching out to us through our intuition, but our unresolved trauma and social programming has prevented us from accessing the wisdom embedded within us and applying it to novel situations in order to transcend the manipulation of colonizers. If we don't acknowledge and work on our weaknesses, they will continue to be exploited by colonizers.
You need either to create something or to discover something. Either bring your potential to actuality or go inwards to find yourself, but do something with your freedom. ॐ ॐ Osho ॐ
When I'm writing, I'm listening to something ... ☥ ☥ James Baldwin ☥
When I left the big city and moved to a rural area, I didn't realize some of the challenges I would face. I spent my childhood summers in the country with relatives and figured that it would be an ideal temporary hold up spot for writing and recovering from the injury. However, one big city comfort that is a must for me is internet access. First, I tried satellite internet, which was sort of like dial up, but slower. I ended up settling on wifi hotspots, which works fine some of the time, but there are moments that truly test every ounce of patience that I have. During one such moment, I was working on a project. First, the project wouldn't save. It kept looping through asking me to save it and then kicking me out. Then, in the middle of typing a sentence, the cursor would jump to a different paragraph and mess up the formatting, causing me to refresh the page and start over again. Just when I thought I had a handle on the problem, somehow an entire section highlighted and deleted, forcing me to restore a previous version which looped me through the save and kick me out cycle again. That is when I lost it: "SPIRIT, do you want me to do this or not?!!!? I'm up here trying to do this work, and I'm being blocked at every turn. Seriously!!!!?????" When will I learn? Of course, it got quiet for a while and then SPIRIT responded, "Why are you having such a strong reaction? Is there some hidden trauma that needs to be healed? Why are you rushing through this project? Do you have somewhere that you need to be?" I was bedridden and on crutches, so I had nowhere to be. SPIRIT continues in a very loving manner, "If this is all that it will take to cause you to give up, then what chance do you stand against the forces of colonizers who have been studying, manipulating and treating you and your ancestors like lab rats for centuries? The emotional knee-jerk reaction is a weakness that they continue to exploit because you do not recognize how easily even the most spiritually minded of you can be seduced.
This is not playtime. You are being prepared for game time, and you cannot allow knee-jerk reactions, which can show up covertly, or setbacks to throw you off your game. Drop judgment and see the love that drives your training.
In Qigong, you teach people how to be the eye of the storm, a sea of calm regardless of your surroundings. Is this all that it takes to cause you to lose your center? Your tests are becoming more subtle to match the deceptions of colonization that, until now, you have been unable to discern. You are being summoned to level up so learn, practice, then teach and repeat this process until you can 'see' the deception coming from miles away."
At this point, Set arrived into my consciousness and downloaded some deeper meanings behind the wisdom of the chaordic from a historical perspective. Our ancestors keep nudging us to grow because they have succumbed to and watched us become deceived by many forms of psychological manipulation with great sadness. One of the most damaging tactics is the manipulation of our emotions and wearing us down through fatigue. Because most of us no longer engage in meditative mind ☥ body practices such as Qigong and Yoga, our efforts can easily be derailed. Even people, such as myself, who teach these practices to others are not immune and require continuous training to stay sharp. I had to sit with this download for a long time. Set, continued to reveal that upon realizing that we were losing our freedom to the Ancient Greeks, the Kamitians had to shift their approach in order to live to fight another day. They allowed the Ancient Greeks to understand and record just enough information to help us displaced African diasporans find our way back to Kamit. We have to keep this in mind as we heal and rediscover the true essence of who we are as a people. I am to be patient while continually training to increase self-awareness and emotional balance. The internet incident was honest feedback that shined a light on a blind spot and served as a lesson in reverence for self-care so that I overstand the purpose and importance of cultivating focus. As for our stolen legacies, once we get more healed Black archeologists studying our history and culture, the picture of who we truly are will perpetually become more clear.
We cannot claim that our results are scientifically verified if our process is monolithically derived.
Reverence for self-care is vitally important for us to embody as we are rediscovering the pieces of ourselves that have been suppressed and denied. Set was dropping some mad game on me during this meditation, so it will take a while to figure out how to communicate it all. I got the sense that we must readjust our perceptions of the chaordic so that we can see that it is driven by a deep love for our wellbeing and disrupts our lives by removing something toxic/dangerous that we are attracted to (like taking a grenade away from a baby). I can best describe Set as a lighter-skinned Black man with very balanced masculine ☥ feminine energy who ascended as a deity from the Northwestern region of Africa. Menkaure, who commissioned the building of the smallest Giza Pyramid, is a very dark-skinned man. We had multiple skin tones before colonization (without the self-hatred), so it is important for us to embrace a more complete and multidimensional understanding of ourselves (most of our current ideas of ourselves were marketed to us by European colonizers). Modern day Egypt has borderlines that were drawn by colonizers. What we now call "Egypt" was once a much larger geographical area called Kamit which means "Land of The Blacks." It encompassed Northern and parts of Eastern Africa including the region of the Aksumites (Ancient Ethiopians) and the Nubians of Sudan. Set ☥ God Of The Chaoridic came from the region now known as Algeria, and Seth ☥ God Of Defense came from the region now known as Mali. The history of Africa needs to be studied and shared by people of the African diaspora who have healed from the psychological manipulation of colonization. Colonizers use money, weapons and deception to force their versions of our history on the world. Set is the resistance in us who beacons us to investigate the truth for ourselves, strategically reclaim our stolen legacies and learn ancestral lessons.
I’ve seen this practice of using forced narratives to drive perceptions in every area of life. For example, if a health practitioner doesn’t know how to solve a problem, they will say that the problem cannot be solved. If you go to my Àṣẹ page, you’ll read a story about a woman who was told that, for some unknown reason, she couldn’t have children. She adopted a child and 10 years later when she met me, she became pregnant after working with me for less than 6 months. To this day, we cannot figure out how she found me because I didn’t know anyone that she knew. She said that one of my fliers ended up on her desk and she knew she had to contact me. We lived in different cities, and I didn’t send any fliers anywhere near her. That is how SPIRIT works. I share these insights because every aspect of our lives has been dominated by a people and culture that is foreign to us, but that we were forced to adopt as our own. To find the truth, we have to question all thoughts and behaviors and follow our intuitive prompts until we reach a resolution. We will know when we get there. The purpose of my research is to uncover the truth so that we can heal, even if it is painful to accept or doesn’t make me/my people look good. This practice includes continually revisiting what I believe the research is presenting based on new information and novel situations. I have no desire to present us as superior because that would keep us from seeing our blind spots and removing self-sabotaging behaviors. To become stronger as a people, we have to learn from past traumas and protect ourselves from repeating harmful patterns. The truth will help us to trust our innate knowledge over the programming that we’ve been subjected to for centuries.
Set comes to refocus us squarely on our own business. He comes when we have neglected something that we need to pay attention to, and though his presence may seem destructive, he is helping us to prevent something much worse. He is like the carpenter who remodels our home. Though we may be focused on the cosmetic appearance of an object, once it is removed, we are surprised to discover mold or some other problem. While we are focusing on the extra cost, we fail to realize that Set is helping us because if we waited any longer, that mold would have made us sick. He shows us what lies beneath the surface that we didn’t see and then behaves like the cleaning crew who carries away the rubble. Because we have emotional attachments to things that don’t or that no longer serve us, we tend to mourn and fear Set’s arrival. However, without Set, we can’t get from where we are to where we want to be because the stuff that Set comes to remove is what is standing in our way.
The behavior of colonizers puts them on a journey that leads them directly to Set. Because animals are one with nature, Set can direct them to protect, destroy or chase something or someone away from us. Set’s reach is unlimited and can include reptiles and insects. As I was searching for an example of how Set brings the chaordic, SPIRIT led me to a story about a homeowner who burned their $1.8 million dollar home to the ground in order to get rid of a snake infestation. The homeowner got the money and the house, so they thought they were in the clear until Set arrived. If I were a colonizer, I’d do a 180 degree turn in my thoughts and behaviors, because when Set comes to clean house, nothing of the old will remain. Set often shows up as the weather, and because the greed of colonizers created the climate change issues that we now face, we have to break away from their behaviors even though it may seem costly for us to do so up front. Set’s arrival enables us to discover a truth, and he can show up in a way that appears to be overtly disruptive or as a subtle realization of truth. I’ve learned to focus more on the “order” in the chaordic that Set brings. If I look deeply enough, I’ll connect with a divine intelligence that helps me to see that Set is committing a great act of love by removing something that no longer (or may never have) served me. I also learned that the removal would not be painful if I take actions WHEN SPIRIT prompts me to act. Set’s arrival can often be a last resort that occurs after many nudges, warnings and promptings from SPIRIT to change our behavior or take an inspired action. Sometimes we lose something that was for us because we didn’t take action. In those cases, it may return to us after we’ve learned the lesson brought by its removal.
Now that we have a greater understanding of the life lessons brought to us by Set ☥ God Of The Chaordic, let's journey to Part II and examine how he works through the realization of truth to help us recognize ☥ understand ☥ transcend sneaky social programs that promote the 'we don't support each other' fallacy.
☥ॐ☯
☥ॐ☯
☥ॐ☯
☥ॐ☯
☥ॐ☯
Copy/Paste Version Of A Full Citation Example:
Hubbard, P. S. (2020, September 27). A Community-Based Ecosystems Approach To Healing Our Village. PHYLLISHUBBARD.COM. <https://www.phyllishubbard.com/post/a-community-based-ecosystems-approach-to-healing-our-village>
☥ॐ☯
Comments