There are not enough BIPOC healing arts facilitators and this is a ginormous problem.

A white, western approach to therapy is never really going to help those in need and BIPOC folks in current professional practice and in school are often trained or being trained to adhere only to the colonized approach to mental and physical wellness instead of incorporating wisdom from their cultural roots and traditional approaches to create and maintain wellness for themselves and others.

It’s being intentionally erased from curriculum. No, that’s wrong. Traditional beliefs outside of mainstream religion, vetted psychology and “modern medicine” has never been taken seriously enough to be included in any “respected” institution’s curriculum at all.

You know what though? BIPOC folks need different care than is available for most of us here in the US. We need therapists and practitioners who are able understand how an individual’s cultural beliefs and genetic makeup factor into their lived experiences, reactions to trauma and traumatic events and can contribute to returning to whole health.

We need therapists to combine aspects of western psychology and “modern medicine” with a connection back to our ancestors and the medicines of the land we have roots in.

We need to remember that some old traditions still hold important medicine for our respective people and that we, as the new generation of practitioners, facilitators and medicine people, are bringing in NEW ways. These new ways will connect those who feel lost, unwell and misunderstood back to themselves and their bloodlines. The new ways will honor and compliment the old ways, updating and modernizing them for our evolving people. The new ways will combine what was with what will be. This will lead our people back to their personal power, helping them to evolve with greater ease. To heal with rapidity and grace. And take back that which was given away or taken from them.

The current and future generations of BIPOC practitioners, therapists and healers have a responsibility to address this issue. To reconnect with the traditions that are a part of their bloodlines and ancestries. To bring this wisdom, contained within our cellular makeup, forward through our own healing and transformation and weave it into the fabric of our professional practices. In this way we co-create new, integrated approaches and understanding to a currently sterile and distant approach to healing and wellness.

We owe it to ourselves and each other… It will be a difficult challenge to face our daemons in the name of insight gained through release, transformation, and growth. But what we do for ourselves, ultimately, we do for others. That is the discipline of the Warrior Sage/ Medicine Person/ Healer Facilitator.

It is time.

Who is with me?