Reader,

Content warning: The message below contains a racist slur and sexualized language. I’m sharing it because I want to talk about what can happen when people receive messages like this, including the ways the harm can extend beyond the person being directly targeted. I also want you to have as much information as possible before deciding whether to continue reading.

The next letter in this series comes with a content warning. This person, whom I couldn’t confirm was a therapist (unlike the people in my previous emails in this series), decided to be more… insulting? Controversial? Not politically correct? Who knows what was going through this person’s mind when they decided to send me this message. Maybe they felt threatened by something I said or by the work I do. Maybe they simply wanted to provoke me. I don’t know, and honestly, I don’t need to know in order to recognize the harm.

I also want to be clear about why I’m including a content warning. I’m aware that some research suggests trigger warnings generally don’t prevent distress, but I still want to give you as much informed consent as I can before you keep reading. This person used a derogatory racial slur against Black people and sexualized language in a way that was neither affirming, life-giving, nor consensual. It was language that demeaned something that can be pleasurable, identity-affirming, connecting, and, at times, life-giving.

I received this message through my website, not by email. The same sender also subscribed to my newsletter using the same derogatory name. And this is where the situation became even more concerning.

The email address included in the website message, which was also used to subscribe to my list, belongs to someone else, a person of color. From what I could tell, this person is Māori. So, had I not compared the messages in my website inbox with my new newsletter subscribers, this second person would have received an email from me addressing them by a name that was meant to insult and demean. Whoever sent the original message may have intended to harm me, but the consequences could have extended to a third party who may have had no idea their email address was being used without their consent.

Honestly, I don’t think I could have met this sender with empathy if a version of this had happened in person. This would have been a call-out, not a call-in. And if something like this has ever happened to you, I hope you give yourself some grace.

I can imagine this being one of those moments when the magnitude of the harm is so shocking that you don’t know how to respond. You might freeze, feel angry, feel disgusted, or simply have no words. And that is okay, too. If you have ever found yourself unable to respond in the moment, that doesn’t make you a bad ally, an ineffective advocate, or someone who isn’t assertive enough. It means you were on the receiving end of something harmful, and you were responding with the bandwidth you had at that moment.

This is the kind of situation where I think we need to give ourselves permission to choose our response based on the bandwidth we have. You don’t owe someone a thoughtful educational response when they’ve just directed racist or demeaning language at you. You don’t have to turn every harmful interaction into a teaching opportunity, and you certainly don’t have to make yourself available for more harm in the name of being compassionate, understanding, or politically principled.

At the time, I remember choosing not to share the message because I didn’t want to spoil your day by subjecting you to such language. But now, looking at the other side of that decision, I also feel the importance of sharing the lengths some people will go to in order to harm others. I want to remind you that you can fight back or retreat, depending on your bandwidth. You can call something out, disengage, block someone, document what happened, or ask for support. There isn’t one correct response that applies to every person or every situation.

What I do hope is that you don’t feel you have to absorb the harm alone, or that you have to manage it in a way that makes everyone else comfortable. Sometimes doing something about it means speaking up. Sometimes it means protecting your energy and walking away. Sometimes it means making sure someone else isn’t inadvertently pulled into the situation, as could have happened here. The important thing is that you get to make that decision rather than feeling obligated to perform the response someone else expects of you.

So here’s a question I’d genuinely like you to answer: Have you ever stayed quiet, walked away, or chosen not to engage after receiving a harmful message because you simply didn’t have the bandwidth? And what stories did you tell yourself afterward about the way you responded?

With liberatory care,

Silvana

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

PS. If you’ve been thinking about how much our healing is shaped by the conditions around us, that’s part of what I explore in Widen the Frame, my free email series introducing the 12 conditions of a healing ecosystem. Our capacity to respond to harm isn't just an individual matter; it's shaped by our relationships, community, material circumstances, identity, and the systems around us. Widen the Frame invites you to look beyond the individual and the therapy room and consider the many conditions that shape healing, care, and what becomes possible. If you're curious about Healing Is An Ecosystem but aren't ready for the full field guide, this is a place to begin.

PPS. Healing Is An Ecosystem takes the idea of widening the frame much further. The field guide is for clinicians who are ready to look beyond the therapy room and consider the conditions surrounding a person’s healing: material circumstances, community, culture and ancestry, spirituality, relationships, the body, identity, creativity, ecology, politics and systems, and more. It asks you to consider not only what you can provide as a clinician, but what else might belong in someone's healing ecosystem. You can think of Widen the Frame as the doorway, and HIAE as the place where we spend more time exploring what we find once we walk through it.

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⬆️ Let's connect!