7 months ago today, I left my full time staff psychologist position at the VA to pursue my solo consulting business in the areas of anti-oppression, equity, inclusion and liberation.
I grew up professionally at the VA, spending the last 4 years as staf and the 3 years prior as a trainee, predoctoral intern, and postdoctoral fellow. Working as a psychologist in the VA is not for the faint of heart; words can’t describe how grateful I am to the colleagues, mentors, supervisors, and peers who trained me, molded me, challenged me, laughed with me, cried with me, and loved me.
I owe an even greater debt to the Veterans: tough, witty, challenging, loyal, frustrating, funny, scarred, kind, lost, found, sweet, and brave, brave, brave. Brave enough to enlist and go, and then brave enough to sit and share with a young woman they’d never met before. So many lessons learned and even more which, I have a feeling, have yet to be revealed to me. Thank you.
The decision to leave was not an easy one but I got quiet with myself one day last winter and realized it was time. The social and political events of recent years and the predictable yet sickening oppressive backlash to social progress made it perfectly clear to me that my work needed to shift from my values of social justice — working within the system — to liberation: dismantling the system to build a new one.
Thanks to a referral from a dear colleague (shoutout Dr. Candice Nicole!), I started with my first consulting client at the end of last year, running healing from racial trauma groups with their ethnic minority employee resource groups. Since moving into consulting full time, I’ve continued my work with the same organization in both a learning & development and advisory capacity, and have also worked with additional corporations, non-profits, an elementary school, and most recently and very interestingly, an out-of-state historical association. The learning curve is steep on one hand and on the other hand: people are people. Psychology reminds me of that.
As a psychologist, I know what makes us tick and hurt and shut down, but I also know what motivates us to keep going. As an expert in equity, diversity and inclusion, I know why organizations remain exclusionary for too long, and how to support them in authentically and truly giving everyone a seat at the table. As a consultant, my goal is to support orgs in re-imagining and building the inclusive workplace culture they want, so that they eventually no longer need me.
My offerings are a culmination of 22 years of school, 1 year of post doc, a lifetime of reading and curiosity and unlearning and decolonizing and speaking up, my lived experience as a light-skinned biracial Black woman with many many privileges, years of therapy (on both sides of the couch), spiritual healing, dream work, somatic work, language learning, abroad living, conference attendance, podcast listening, writing, meditating, intentional (and not so intentional) engagement with social media, activism, advocacy, governance, and finally, humor as my very best medicine. This is my life’s work.
I realized recently what a loss it is that someone has to be a part of some type of company or organization in order to experience this aspect of my work, or similar work done by my colleagues. So one month from today I will be offering a FREE webinar on all things anti-oppression, diversity, equity, inclusion and liberation. Consider this a primer, a foundation, an invitation to deepen your anti-oppression mindset, and support you on your journey to liberation.
This is about spreading the learning and ideas I’ve been privileged to receive and form, and about co-creating an experience of learning and imagination in community.
I truly truly hope to see you there.
Let’s get free.