healing justice

At the foundation of my work is a commitment to social justice. For marginalized folks, healing (as self-defined, not ‘cure’) is a revolutionary act, and self-care and collective care are part of liberation work. Healing justice is an anti-oppression framework recognizing the ways that unjust structural systems of ablism, racism, transphobia, homophobia, fatphobia, anti-Blackness, colonization, imperialism and patriarchy shape our lives and our health. For Black, Indigenous, and people of culture (BIPOC), historical and intergenerational trauma shape our experience, but so too does our ancestral resilience.

My approach to healing is rooted in my ancestral Mexican folk healing traditions, uplifting the inherent brilliance of the body in all of its myriad manifestations and  acknowledging the multidimensional aspects of health (physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, ancestral, relational, institutional, cultural). Being in right relationship with medicines from the natural world (herbalism, food, water, fresh air, movement, touch) can help restore our connection to our own ancestral healing traditions. I aim to create a brave, safer space for whole person care, centering BIPOC and 2SLGBTQIA+ folks, with a commitment to disability justice.  In my work, I see my role is not as an expert or authority on any body, but rather to offer affirming presence and tools that can support a person in their healing, as self-defined.  This is a co-creative process rather than directive; my aim is to support empowerment with information, resources, the therapeutic relationship, and the modalities that I offer.

The conventional Western medical concept of 'health' is a fundamentally ableist construct that pathologizes difference as divergence (from the able, neurotypical, white, cis-male body). The medicalization and pathologization of people based on skin color, body size, gender expression, neurological functioning, sexual orientation and mental health status has done great harm and resulted in medical trauma for many, leading to mistrust, adding barriers to access and exacerbating health disparities. The alternative and natural medicine industry as a branch of the medical industrial complex is a capitalist enterprise, and perpetuates ableism, racism and other systems of oppression (elaborated on in Mia Mingus’ Medical Industrial Complex Visual). I am committed to disrupting these systems in my work and am accountable to the communities I am in service to for feedback on how to continue to learn and do better.