Reader,

We’re still a couple of weeks away from the (Northern) winter solstice, but I can already feel the season shifting in my bones. Not in a depleted way this time — but in a settling way. A rooted way.

Some of you might remember that in past years , I arrived in late fall already wrung out. Exhausted. Carrying more than my body could hold.

But something different happened these last two years: I slowed down. Really slowed down. I honored what my body kept trying to tell me. And — if you can believe it — it’s working. Resting, pacing myself, refusing the productivity myth… it is changing me, slowly. It has allowed space for clarity, for steadiness, for being in this work in a way that doesn’t burn me to ash… knock on wood!

It is not all positive of course...
Do I still feel grief and sadness about the world? Absolutely.
Sad for this country. Sad for my country of origin. Sad for my country of passage.
Sad for all my spaces of belonging and what’s happening to them.
Sad for how long this last wave collective grief, harm, and violence has lasted.

But beneath the grief is a calm, assertive hope — a confident hope — that our collective resistance is not wasted. Every time we slow down, resist grind culture (rooted in capitalism, oppression, and perfectionism), unlearn the -isms, tend to one another, and keep showing up… we are planting seeds. Cultivating soil. Composting what no longer serves. Modeling that for clients and peers. Preparing something better for the next generation of therapists, healers, and space-holders.

This work is not linear and we may never see the “end,” but we are part of its becoming. And because slowing down has been my teacher these last two years, I’m honoring that wisdom again. I’m beginning my end-of-year wind-down — intentionally, not urgently.

I’m slowing down because my body asks for rest, warmth, and slowness.
Because minoritized bodies deserve rest, joy, and unhurried healing.
Because rest is resistance (thank you Tricia Hersey always and forever).
Because modeling that for my clients is part of decolonizing this field — we’re not meant to fight alone or to the point of collapse.

And because the more I practice living in alignment with my politics, the more natural it becomes.

As I settle into this slower rhythm to hibernate and be away from my computer, here’s what you can expect from me in the next few weeks:

Reciprocity (ayni):

1. From you: An important question coming next week.

Your responses will shape what I offer next year — whether that’s reviving Q&As, creating new live or self-paced courses, holding group supervision-style spaces (but expansive), a Voxer community (or similar) or something we haven’t imagined yet.
Next week I'll ask you to tell me what you are dreaming of; I’ll share what I have capacity for and where I feel most energized.

2. From me: My annual end-of-year resource roundup in the following weeks.

And throughout the rest of the year I’ll share the books, essays, thinkers, organizers, artists, and teachers who shaped me this year — and I want to hear what moved you, too.

I’m grateful you’re here. I’m grateful we get to do this work collectively. And I’m grateful that even as the world aches, we keep resisting, radically imagining, and tending to what comes next.

With warmth and conviction,

Silvana @ Decolonize Your Practice​

PS.​
If you want to decolonize your practice and yourself slowly and sustainably…
Come join me inside The Practice of Liberation.​
It’s my paid newsletter ($5/month) where we slow down enough to unlearn, name what the system conditioned into us, and practice doing things differently in real time... and where your learning is resourced, held, and supported.
When you join The POL, you get:

• longer reflections like this
• monthly liberatory practices you can actually use with clients
• prompts that help you shift from compliance → to liberation
• recommendations of extra resources for your liberation

​Join here and, as a thank-you for supporting this work before the end of the year, you’ll receive 30% off a 1:1 consultation session.
​(Regular rate is $240 — with 30% off, your session is $168 when booked before December 20.)

Read more about The POL here​

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