What if anything is possible?
Welcome to our August Newsletter.
I hope this email finds you safe and well: restored, restoring or looking forward to restoration. Or, like me, pausing and slowing down while others are away. Yes, I will sneak out for a mini-holiday (a longer weekend away at a local seaside location, really), and I am taking two weeks off from counselling work. Rest is a mandatory requirement in this line of work. Although to be honest, I sometimes think we need to re-think the idea of pausing for one month and working under a lot of pressure for the rest of the year. I write about this a lot. Let’s roll out a four-day working week instead and learn to work effectively and softly so that the stress doesn’t build up in the first place. What if it’s possible?
This is the question I am encouraging you all to ask this month: “What if…” instead of “why…” because when we start the sentence with “what if…” it creates an opening, an opportunity, the invitation for hope and possibility. I have a friend who says, “Anything is possible”, and I wonder how our kind would look like if each of us lived this way. Hopeful in times of despair may sound a little bit foolish, and still, I wonder: can we be cautiously, foolishly hopeful to move forward from and through the crisis of our moment in history?
For now, I will leave it at that. To me, this approach feels liberating.
At Voxel Hub, we are here, posting and planning our next year. It will be all about re-connecting with our geek friends and new networks too. We will collaborate, share, invite and visit as many of our old and new friends as possible. We will expand and look for new openings to heal and empower thriving. So yes, we are feeling hopeful.
I have made an executive decision (apologies for a serious term there;)) to focus our emerging counselling practice on social justice and liberation work. We cannot offer liberation if we do not practice it, so we will be releasing more free counselling slots in autumn. I hope this way, we can give back to the community that has remained ever so supportive of us over the last few years. So stay tuned for more news on that.
I wish you a soft and peaceful rest of the summer and a smooth transition into the darker, more sublime autumnal moods soon!
My favourite topic this month
This month, I am expanding my understanding of the roots of liberation psychologies, but I am also including some of my recent reads more loosely connected to decolonising and deconstruction of mental health support:
- Philosophy of Liberation by Enrique Dussel
- Liberation Psychology: Theory, Method, Practice, and Social Justice (Cultural, Racial, and Ethnic Psychology Series) by Lillian Comas-Díaz
- Liberation Practices: Towards Emotional Wellbeing Through Dialogue by Taiwo Afuape
- A People’s History of Psychoanalysis: From Freud to Liberation Psychology: Clinical, Social, and Cultural Contexts : From Freud to Liberation … Clinical, Social, and Cultural Contexts) by Daniel José Gaztambide
- Critical Community Psychology: Critical Action and Social Change by Carolyn Kagan
- This Bridge Called My Back, Fortieth Anniversary Edition: Writings by Radical Women of Color by Cherríe Moraga, Gloria Anzaldúa
- Uprooting: From the Caribbean to the Countryside – Finding Home in an English Country Garden by Marchelle Farrell
- Mad World: The Politics of Mental Health by Micha Frazer-Carroll
If you have any recommendations on the topic, please let me know! Thank you!
Resources & Offerings
Events, events, events. While many of our friends are slowing down, we have been busy this August planning the next year of our free and affordable offerings. Today, we can share two of them.
Introduction to Liberation Psychologies for Social Justice – free
As a follow-up to the incredible Emmy Van Deurzen, I will be joining the Therapy for Social Change Network to collectively explore the importance of liberation psychologies for social justice. It is, of course, just a small introduction to connect with fellow practitioners, so if you are working in this area or happen to be curious about it, please join us.
Introduction to Virtual Reality Therapies – self-selected fee
This event sits so close to my (geek) heart! We will look at the theory and landscape of Virtual Reality therapies to open up the discussion and collaboration on this ever-so-innovative and still incredibly underresourced way of healing and thriving. We will dip into the Spatial.io virtual world and play, too. Join us!
Thank you for reading our Newsletter. Talk to us online, check out our blog and let us know what else you would like to see here in the upcoming months.
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Photo by Paula Hayes on Unsplash
