You’re receiving this pre-scheduled message while I’m deep in rest-mode (yes, actual rest; yes, again).
So if something major is happening in the world right this minute, this email won’t reflect it — but I’m still holding you with care across whatever landscape you’re in.

Reader,

Every December, the world speeds up for one last sprint just as our bodies are asking us to slow down.

The emails roll in:

Get your end-of-year discount.
Set your intentions.
Take one more training, on sale.
Map your goals.
Become a brand-new you.
Here’s what you accomplished — or failed to.

And suddenly, the gregorian calendar becomes yet another tool of productivity culture, measuring our value by output, achievement, and “results.”

But here’s the truth (whispered quietly beneath all that noise):

Years are relative. Achievements are very personal. Decolonial healing is not linear. And liberation is cyclical.

The "new year" is not a moral checkpoint.
It’s not a performance review.
It’s not “evidence” of whether you tried hard enough.

But the pressure?
The pressure can feel very real — and very punishing.

Especially for those of us shaped by systems that taught us to self-surveil, self-critique, and collapse our worth into what we produce.

Because according to capitalism and colonialism, rest is regression, slowing down is failure, and goals are the only language that counts.

I’m not interested in that story anymore… no thank you. Instead of asking yourself what you did or didn’t achieve…
I invite you to ask:

What did you reclaim this year — and what will you reclaim next?

Because reclaiming is inherently decolonial and liberatory.

We’re reclaiming what we lost — and what was taken.

If you’ve been with me for a while, you’ve heard me say this again and again: systemic oppression is trauma.

Not metaphorically. Not theoretically.
Literally — trauma.

Trauma that disconnects us from:

• our bodies
• our cultural practices
• our inner knowing
• our lineages and ancestors

This is why liberatory healing requires us to tend to these.
Not as extras.
Not as add-ons.
But as the center of the work.

Because reclaiming what was taken from us — culturally, spiritually, interpersonally, historically — is both resistance and healing.

Reclaiming says:

You belong to something bigger than the harm you’ve lived through.
Your story holds strength and memory that dominance culture can’t erase.
Your body remembers. Your people remember.
You get to remember, too.

So again:

What did you reclaim this year — and what will you reclaim next?

I’ll begin…

This year, I reclaimed my relationship with time.

I slowed down in ways the old versions of me couldn’t imagine.
I let myself rest without earning it.
I let myself say no to urgency (and I'll admit it's hard.)
I let my body — not capitalism — set the pace.
And in that slowness, something opened.

Clarity. Steadiness.

A kind of rooted presence I didn’t know I was allowed to have.

I reclaimed time as belonging — not scarcity.
Time as spacious.
Time as cyclical.
Time as mine.

Not something to chase, manage, extract, or squeeze dry… but something to inhabit.

Next year, I am reclaiming my action.

Not the action defined by productivity culture — the grind, the hustle, the endlessly optimized self. But action that is cyclical and wild and deeply honest.
Action that knows its own rhythm:
Sometimes a slow burn. Sometimes a fast ignition.

I am reclaiming action that follows energy, not policing.
Action that honors the pulse of my body, my identities, my politics, my ancestors.
Action that moves when it’s time to move, and rests when it’s time to rest.

Because my work — and yours — does not fit neatly inside the linear arc of a single calendar year.

We are not machines. We are ecosystems.
And ecosystems move in circles, in cycles.

Your turn:

As the world urges you to race into a “new you”…
I invite you into something slower, deeper, more liberatory:

• What part of yourself did you reclaim this year — even quietly?
• What part of yourself is asking to be reclaimed next?
• Where did your body say “enough,” and where did it say “yes, more of this”?
• What are you ready to stop measuring — and start honoring?

You don’t owe the new year a performance.
You owe yourself truth, belonging, and reclamation.

I want to know what surfaced for you. Reply to this email and I'll be reading your answers when I'm back from hibernation.

With care, slowness, and conviction,

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

PS.
​If reclaiming what was taken — your own decolonial journey in the form of rest, joy, space, cultural knowing, embodied truth — is work you want more support with, I created The Practice of Liberation for exactly that.

For $5/month, The POL offers:

• monthly liberatory letters rooted in personal experience, not just professional practice
• invitations for extended reflexion and embodied practices
• space to unlearn colonial conditioning in yourself, not just in your practice
• book recommendations and other resources
• support for staying aligned when the world keeps trying to scatter you in the form of (feedback, holding, problem solving, you choose what you need from me, I share what I have the space to offer)

​The Practice of Liberation is for therapists, healers, and space-holders who want to root themselves in justice-centered practice — not just theorize it.

If you want a container to hold you as you reclaim more of yourself:
​come join The POL.

​​​​

⬆️ Let's connect!