Reader,

If you’re feeling numb, tired, or even nothing in the face of so much violence around us... please hear this:

You are not failing at being a healer.

You are not apathetic.

You're eye rolls don't mean you don't care.

You are a human being whose nervous system is carrying more than it can process at one time.

And that matters.

When we acknowledge our numbness, our fatigue, our nothingness—we are not failing. We are noticing. We are honoring our body’s need for protection. For care.

And this noticing itself is a kind of healing.

Too often, we’re told that the right response to overwhelming pain is to “push through,” to keep grinding, to find the coping skill that will help us remain productive, efficient, and functioning... "decreasing symptoms is a good thing"

But that is not care. That is capitalism speaking through the language of therapy.

Decolonial healing refuses this.

It says: You are not here to be endlessly resilient. You are not here only to survive the next crisis (and teach your clients how to survive the next crisis) so you (all) can keep working.

Decolonial healing invites us to honor our limits, to rest, to stop normalizing the grind of productivity and coping as a measure of our worth.

And it asks us to model this to our clients, too. To say out loud: “This numbness, this exhaustion, is not brokenness. It is wisdom. It is a nervous system saying no.”

Because if we can learn to trust even the quiet moments of nothingness, we can begin to imagine care beyond productivity. And that is a powerful step toward liberation.

🌱 Reflection Prompts

1. What does my body signal to me when it has reached “enough”? How do I usually respond?
2. Where have I been taught to ignore or override numbness, fatigue, or nothingness in myself or others?
3. What would it look like to honor numbness as a request for care, not a failure?
4. How might I share this reframe with my clients, so they know their nervous system is not wrong?

🔥 Hit reply and share your reflections with me, I want to know what's happening in your world!

Here's to more decolonial care and less (none) performative healing,

In solidarity,

Silvana @ Decolonize Your Practice​

PS. Last call for 1:1 Decolonial Consultations at the current rate ($220-- price goes up in the fall).
⭐️ Do the work your clients actually need — without reproducing colonial scripts.​
💛 Hold space for systemic grief — without gaslighting yourself into “resilience.”
​This is where we dismantle the old rules and root into liberatory practice.
👉🏽 Book your spot here.

PPS. If someone forwarded this newsletter to you, you can subscribe here.

PPPS. And forward this email to a peer as well!

PPPPS. You can read previous Liberatory Letters here.

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⬆️ Let's connect!