Reader,

One of the hardest truths about liberatory work is realizing that leaving is not always the only ethical option, especially when so many conversations about liberation frame freedom primarily through quitting. I am talking about:

• Leaving harmful systems.
• Divesting.
• Walking away.
• Building something entirely outside of institutions.

And honestly, sometimes that is the most ethical and life-giving thing we can do. But I also think there is another side to this nuanced conversation that does not get talked about enough.

Sometimes liberation work is staying.

Not because institutions deserve our loyalty or because burnout is revolutionary. And definitely not because suffering inside oppressive systems automatically makes someone “more committed” to the work.

I mean staying in the sense of refusing full compliance. Staying long enough to challenge harmful narratives, protect people where we can, redistribute access, create small disruptions, and quietly plant seeds inside systems that were never really designed for liberation in the first place.

I think a lot of you (us) therapists, healers, educators, social workers, and care workers are wrestling with this tension right now.

Because many of us entered these professions wanting to help people heal, only to realize how often institutions prioritize liability, productivity, professionalism, funding streams, or respectability over actual humanity.

And that realization creates real moral injury, and it lives in our bodies even before you fully have language for it.

Especially when you start noticing how often people are taught to adapt to harmful conditions instead of questioning why those conditions exist at all.

At the same time, I do not think every person working inside a system is automatically “part of the problem” in the simplistic way social media sometimes frames it. It is too black and white, it is not curious, and it lacks nuance.

• Some clinicians are surviving.
• Some clinicians are resisting quietly.
• Some clinicians are trying to protect others while also paying rent, managing disability, caregiving, exhaustion, debt, immigration realities, burnout, or simply trying to make it through the week.
• And some clinicians are doing deeply liberatory work inside institutions, even if that work never becomes visible enough to be celebrated online.

Because not all liberatory work is cinematic.

Sometimes it looks like asking harder questions in rooms where nobody wants to ask them.

Sometimes it looks like refusing to pathologize someone.

Sometimes it looks like helping people feel less alone inside systems that constantly disconnect them from their own humanity.

I think liberation requires people building outside systems and people resisting within them.

Both matter.

And maybe part of liberatory practice is accepting that we may spend years planting seeds we will never personally get to see grow. (thanks to Jessica Hernandez, PhD for this language). That does not make the planting meaningless.

So I’m curious:

Where in your life are you being asked to stay human inside systems that reward disconnection from humanity?

Hit reply and let me know. I may not always be able to respond immediately, but I do read and genuinely appreciate the reflections you share with me.

Resisting from within vs divesting is also something I explore inside my workshop:
​“Start Here: Move beyond overthinking and begin changing how you actually practice”. ​
​A workshop on Decolonizing Your Practice.​
Inside this live 90-minute workshop, I will help you examine where and how therapists and healers feel tension, misalignment, exhaustion, or contradiction inside your work, while also recognizing the very real systemic conditions shaping those experiences. Together, we explore how your identities, training, professional conditioning, workplace realities, capacity, and lived experiences influence the way you practice, relate, diagnose, intervene, and make decisions.

Rather than approaching liberatory practice through perfectionism, purity politics, or the pressure to overhaul everything at once, the workshop focuses on helping you identify where meaningful and sustainable change is actually possible right now.
We'll talk about:

• how to begin making shifts without self-abandonment,
• how to work more honestly with your current bandwidth, and
• how liberatory practice often happens cyclically, imperfectly, relationally, and over time.

You don't have to quit, you can resist from within:
Join "Start Here" a workshop on how to decolonize your practice.
On June 25th at 1pm PT / 4pm ET.
Sliding scale starting at $25

With liberatory care,

Silvana

​​Liberatory Letters | The Practice of Liberation | Decolonize Your Practice​

PS.
​The next Community Liberation Session will take place on:
➡️ BIPoC clinicians: May 28 — 2 pm PT / 5 pm ET
➡️ white clinicians: May 22 — 1 pm PT / 4 pm ET (replay available)
This is a virtual gathering space for therapists, healers, and space-holders practicing decolonization and liberation as a lived, relational commitment — not just a framework. Sign up here​

PPS.​
Join "Decolonizing Mental Health Therapy: Examining power, identity, and practice" on May 29th. It's a 3-hour CEU workshop in collaboration with Therapist To Therapists.
You can find more information here.

PPPS.​
See you at “Start Here: Move beyond overthinking and begin changing how you actually practice” a live 90-minute workshop on Decolonizing Your Practice.
Together, we’ll explore some of the current tensions and realities shaping mental health work — and I’ll guide you through my 4-step framework for beginning to shift your practice in more decolonial and liberatory ways that work for your current bandwidth.
​

​​​​

⬆️ Let's connect!