00:00:01 Liz

So what I have learned over the years about trauma informed care is that we are equally responsible for creating trauma informed spaces, but then also equally responsible for understanding our own trauma history. Not because it’s our job to repair all the harm, but it is our job to understand how it continues to show up in our lives. What we react to, what are triggers for us. How it may change how I present or connect to someone else in response to their trauma, triggering my own trauma history. Over the years, I have continued to seek out different forms of healing, most notably through individual counseling. So the best framing that I have found that describes for me what it is like is having this spider web of trauma. And that over the years, I’ve gotten clearer on what has happened to me that is traumatic and the way that it has shown up in my life, the way that it impacts me and have done healing to try to let things go. And I think mental health supports are really valuable in helping us understand trauma and naming it and seeing it and understanding the why behind things, but not so good in helping us release that. And so I sought out other options, forms of shamanic healing, and had done some work in Compassionate Inquiry to help release the things that I was holding. Cause that has always been the missing piece. 

Rosemary: This is the Gifts of Trauma podcast stories of transformation and healing through compassionate inquiry.

00:02:00 J’aime
Welcome back to The Gifts of Trauma. This is J’aime. I’m here today with Liz Odongo. Welcome, Liz.

00:02:09 Liz
Thank you. I’m so honored to be here, to be in this space with you.

00:02:13 J’aime
Thank you, Liz. It’s so good to see you and have you here. I just want to share with the listeners that Liz and I have our relationship that goes back well over 2 decades now. Yeah. And along part of this road, we’ve been collaborators and co facilitators, co founders working in the area of collective trauma, trying to bring a collective understanding to sexual violence, intimate partner violence. And so when I was prompted to look for a guest to enter this space and talk about these subjects, I didn’t have to think for a second. So back in 2006, Liz and I formalized our relationship professionally. At this time, I was an intern with the World Health Organization working specifically on this big report that was published about the global scale and incidence and prevalence of domestic violence and multi countries. And Liz, you were working at the Academy for Educational Development as a program officer. So from the very beginning you were a trainer. That’s your education.

00:03:26 Liz
Yeah, I was in the Peace Corps. I think that really created spaces for me to start to understand that I liked being in community groups and talking about things with community specifically related to public health. And that guided me to a masters program at American University that specialized in this intersection of international education and training. And it merged these these sort of worlds and experiences perfectly for me.

00:03:54 J’aime
It was so apropos at this time, our world’s converged and you had this really beautiful training and this experience already under your belt. I remember the impetus for us to start this nonprofit organization called Public Spectacle came about because we were commiserating about how these great big global Millennium Development goal driving sort of initiatives were the impetus to create all this action to send people across other countries and doing programs and imposing in a lot of ways what we thought other cultures should be doing. And you’ve always brought this informed perspective of being really conscious that it’s always best to ask what people want. It’s always best to put the people that you’re trying to support and help at the centre of a solution of any initiative. That’s really something you taught me. And so as we were commiserating about this report and what’s it going to do and how’s it going to change people. And at that time, the report was showing that globally, one in three women will experience intimate partner violence at some point in her life. In the US at the time, it was one in four. Do you want to add anything to that?

00:05:13 Liz
Yeah. What you’re sharing sort of brings up for me these feelings that I was experiencing working in an International Development field, also around how in order for communities around the world to receive funding, they had to agree to certain parameters or present things in the way that the global west wanted to see initiatives work. There was restrictions around how programming worked and who was involved and it was so scholarly. It was the white supremacist cultural norms in operation through these these lenses of we’re providing aid. And it was so similar to your experiences. And as we were talking about the report and the way in which the report would talk about, you know, policies and systems, and yet it was this small programming student community theatre that seemed to have the biggest impact in India, or the women’s groups who would convene in Peru. Or it was the person centred approaches that were not part of systems that felt like they were most accessible. And so  I think that was really where we spent a lot of time as talking about how do you reach people in a way that feels like they want to be a part of something or that it matters to them, or that they have any say in any of it or any control over any of it.

0:06:33 J’aime
Right. I’m thinking about the South Africa and in Brazil some of the more provocative, more artistic. Yeah, I’m thinking about like the the Theatre of the Oppressed kind of approaches that really tapped in on that grounds level and tap the emotion. And also something about the expression artistically was able to alchemize and move and speak to this plague that was coming across whole countries in such a impactful and shocking and devastating way. I mean, the people that were at the grounds level, they were not reading reports, they were digging into the emotion. And that was what we founded. When we founded Public Spectacle, our mission was to really help people understand and expand what domestic violence and intimate partner violence is at the cultural level. We used guerrilla theatre, which was this impromptu kind of theatre approach that was really derived from all these best practices to help people tap into what it feels like, sounds like, looks like to be around. I thought it would be really fun for us just to share with the audience a little bit of how we did that. We weren’t assaulting and battering each other to show people and illustrate what it sounds like and looks like to be around. But what we did do is we created a short song, which was like a dialogue, and we performed this in a whole array of environments, anywhere from the World Health Organization Violence Prevention Summit down to walking into domestic violence shelters throughout Washington, DC, Sharing this song with the residents and then inviting them to do spoken word workshops together for them to also get into their experience, to alchemize their experience of what they were going through in that shelter, and then to share it with each other and connect. And to this day, one of those powerful things that I’ve done in my life.

00:08:40 Liz
Remember doing it on buses? I don’t remember doing just walking down the street. Oh, so fun.

00:08:47 J’aime
It was called 99 Ways to Please a Man.

00:08:50 Liz
99 ways to please a man.

00:08:52 J’aime
We got 99 ways to please a man. We got 99 ways to keep our minds in prison.

00:08:58 Liz
We got 99 ways to hate the bodies.

00:09:00 J’aime
We’ve been given we’ve got 99 ways to compete with other women.

00:09:04 Liz
That can guess on how we’re living

00:09:05 J’aime
I think it’s a sham brought on by 99 Ways to Please a Man a million fish out in the sea. I’ll have to keep them watching me. I’ll need 99 ways to keep my man with highlights streaking through my hair. Got a Brazilian wax down there. Down there and painted fingers. Mashed my toes. Just wish I had a smaller nose. But I got 99 ways to please a man man 99 ways to please a man I’m reading waster boost our sex. I hope I’m better than it is ex because she had 99 ways to please a man’s were her chicks the same as mine? We’ve all bought into this design. We got 99 ways to please a man a man 99 ways to please a man. I spend a paycheck on my clothes, all my credit cards, they’re frozen. Knows it’s hard for me to lease and keep his plan on buying 99 ways to please a man. But if I’m showing too much skin, he says I’m flirting with this friend. Jealous, possessive. It depends. I defend my plan using these 99 ways to please a man you know, it’s fraught with contradiction. He’s aroused, but with suspicion. And the deal these ads are pitching it, I think it’s a scam, selling me 99 ways to please a man. We got 99 ways to keep our minds in prison. We got 99 ways to hate the bodies we’ve been given. We’ve got 99 ways to compete with other women second guessing how we’re living. I think it’s a shame brought on by 99 ways to please a man. And it began with self seductions. It began with self seduction. Yeah, it began with soft seductions. Now I’m scared of rager rubbed, interrupted. And it’s hard for me to function. He keeps the upper hand. And I keep 99 ways to please a man. I got so many ways to please, but they all keep me on my knees. If I’m too sexy, I’m a squeeze’s virgin whore. Dichotomy. He’s got me caught in a jam. Jam trying with 99 ways to please a man. Now I got nowhere to confide. He says he’s sorry and he cried. But still he hit me right upside with an open hand. What of these 99 ways to please a man? Well, I would leave if I were you. I would leave him 5 or you. Yeah, I would leave if I hear you. Well, I would leave if I were you. Yeah, that’s just what I tried to do. And now my arms are black and blue when I tried to take a stand. He’s got 99 ways to keep the town. The way he treats you, it ain’t right, you know, it’s not that black and white. And it was more than just one fight. I’ve gotta get home safe tonight. Tonight I need 99 ways to leave this man. Don’t give me 99 ways to please a man. Give me 99 ways to take a stand and give me 99 ways to express who I am I am, and give me 99 ways to get out of this jam. Then give me 99 ways to write off this scam and give me 99 ways to fight off this bands man. You know I’m doing all I can, but you have got to understand that I need 99 ways to leave this man’s man.

00:12:14 Liz
That frame has shaped my entire career. I would say that looks like, sounds like and feels like because I think in this work we get so caught up in definitions and what wounds look like, not necessarily the impact they have on our well-being and who we are. And I can’t tell you the number of times I have said in a training, we’re going to talk about what domestic violence or intimate partner violence or gender based violence framing for the group that you’re working with, what it looks like and sounds like. Because until we can do that, the theory of getting involved, the theory of the work, only sits at the top right. It sits above us, it hovers around our understanding. But when we get into what it feels like, what it sounds like, it connects to who we are and our experiences. And it’s so much easier for us than to say I’m willing to be vulnerable in this space to connect with someone else who is navigating a really difficult situation.

00:13:15 J’aime
So much of what you’re saying right now, I just want to name is somatic experiencing. It’s tuning into the visceral felt sensations of what comes up for you. And it’s also attuning, being able to attune. And this is such a big part of compassionate inquiry. Are these considerations of what’s happening for me as I listen to what’s going on. And I think that was one of the big barriers that we both came across prior to our collaboration is that people shut down and people build walls whenever the idea of sexual violence, intimate partner violence is raised because it’s obviously an inflammatory subject matter by its very nature. And so there’s so much resistance and we were trying to break down some of those walls.

00:14:13 Liz
Say It too is about public spectacle. And one of the things that we really paid attention to is the way that our cultural normalizes violence. And that was in mostly it words and language. Like how many times have you heard someone say they’re going to take a stab at it or shoot an e-mail or what we centred around in terms of clothing and the term wife beaters to refer to men’s undershirts and the reframing, the desire to reframe language and to just reshape how we talk about things and remove violence, but also bring attention or to highlight how common that is. And it was done in the song and then it was done in sheet huggers, the undershirt that you have this incredible illustration of, instead of it being a wife beater of arms hugging herself to be a she hugger. And I will forever be proud of that. With the tagline on the back that said taking violence out of fashion, It is so etched in my mind I’m so deeply proud of it.

00:15:11 J’aime
And I feel it’s also really important to say that this was an initiative where we really wanted to find a way to engage men in the dialogue of stopping violence against women. Not a wife beater. So hug your mom, your girlfriend or your grandmother. It’s the.

00:15:28 Liz
She hugger not a wife.

00:15:30 J’aime
Beater take my lady on a date because I’m mad.

00:15:33 Liz
Lover, I’m up with the sunrise. 6:00 AM I head off to work, leave cookies for the garbage man. I’ll run my meetings and still swing by the store. I’m paying bills. That’s for real. Don’t know how I do more. Is this she hugger not a wife beater. So hug your mom, your girlfriend, or your. Only. The product but then the process of organic cotton produced in the United States being really mindful that violence is not only in language and fashion, but then the way in which we consume goods and the environment. The way that I think about to how I in that conversation and I want to say around the times we were sitting on a bus working on trying to find the word she hugger. What was it that we wanted to reframe it? But talking about the violence against Mother Earth and how profound was for me that connection between women and environment. I’m not a really scholarly person and that was one of the only ways in which I really understood what patriarchy means. This like gender based lens really came was visual for me.

00:16:39 J’aime
Absolutely, and I do love the way you’re drawing all those lines together because that connection between violence against women and violence against Mother Earth. That’s really why I was led to support Gabbers work. When I watched Wisdom of Trauma, they had this incredible scene where they’re talking about how it’s our trauma inside. It illustrates this frenzy of consumerism that comes from this blocked trauma, this unacknowledged trauma that we just go and we try to get more and we try to get more and it’s it’s ravaging the earth. Unacknowledged trauma are buried trauma that’s bringing us to unconsciously reinforce trauma in our language, in our relationships, to ourselves. She hugger the woman hugging herself has to do with self love. A huge part of 99 Ways had to do with when a woman doesn’t love herself, she’s much more vulnerable to attracting a partner that is going to be abusive to her in that same way she abuses herself. And where does that abuse come from? Well, look around. The message of consumerism is you’re not enough. You’re not good enough. You need this to be good. And that’s what abusers tell their partners is you’ll never be enough. They reinforce that inner feeling that is also culturally reinforced and so. Remember, our first tagline for public spectacle was Collective responsibility ends domestic Violence. So. Thank you so much for bringing that connection full scale into view and and also illustrating how long Liz, you’ve been at this talk about this mission, Liz, you’ve been on for the last two decades.

00:18:25 Liz
Yeah. So through our our work with public spectacle, I realized that being at an International Development was not the pathway for me. It was to corporate, it was too top down, it was too Western and just did not feel good in the work. And so I laughed without a plan. And I came across a position at the Women’s Centre in Vienna, VA, which is a counseling centre for men, women and children, for families. And they had a small domestic violence program working to support mainly patients who were seeking counseling that were also experiencing some form of domestic violence. And it was one of those things that happens where I had not had any specific client experience, but I did have the training background and education component to my work. And as I started to do the work, really understood that I had a background as a survivor as well. And I knew that in some ways I was a survivor of child sexual abuse. I was molested by a babysitter when I was about 5 years old for a couple of years. There was some unhealthy dynamics growing up with different relationships, family relationships. And it really started to learn, working with individuals navigating domestic violence, how the exposure to unhealthy and abusive behaviors sort of create this space in which we have a hard time trusting ourselves, we have a hard time making decisions that it’s compounding, right? There’s a term that we use of compounding trauma where trauma is happening in a cyclical way and so incidences of trauma don’t have time to. Heal before more. Trauma is compounded on top and that can be trauma in terms of physical violence is what we always often think about, but it also means times in which someone is putting you down. It means times where someone who’s keeping you from doing something that you want to do. Those forms of power and control that show up in unhealthy and abusive relationships. And so I started to working with other individuals who are sharing their stories about the situations they were navigating and the behaviors they were experiencing. I started to recognize my own history and that really that showing up as a survivor in the work helps me connect better with other people seeking supports. And so I worked at the Women’s Centre for a couple of years, not only providing individual support to survivors, but then also started to develop trainings and provide training opportunities to other domestic violence advocates, to community and church groups, to attorneys, to court staff and really found that in this space. I loved the conversations where we could talk about what domestic violence is and how it shows up and what we can do. So just before I left the Women Centre, I sat down and I counted. In a year and a half, I had supported over 1000 women and six men and justice, thinking about the sheer need and how survivors definitely need the support. But if we’re going to actually make change, we have to get it the systems level to shift things so that we’re not seeing survivors revolving coming through revolving doors, right? Because there were so many people I worked with that did what we would consider all the right things. They, you know, called the police, they went to court, they pursued Protection Orders. They got divorce attorneys. They did all the things that we say are the solutions. And yet the violence was as bad, if not worse. At the end of all. These steps than it was before they actually left the relationship. And so I wanted to I wanted to grow in this approach. And there was a couple of different projects I got to be a part of one being project piece that was based out of Arlington County. And that project brought together representatives from the courts and the hospitals and the prosecutors office and all these people coming together. And I can remember this captivity where we took red string and we tried to visually map out where survivors go for supports and what that means. And it was a room sized angled mess and it was just so reflective to me of this is not working. And so a colleague of mine reached out to me about a position that was opening U at the DC Coalition Against Domestic Violence as a training specialist. And it was exactly where I wanted to go. I transitioned there in 2009 and have been there for the last 16 years, growing within the organization and increasing. Different. Capacities and roles.

00:23:10 J’aime
Thank you so much, Liz. It’s such a visual span of history, as you told those different junctures still in the early part of your career and the observation of the red yarn being thrown around the room, making this tangled web. And from my own experience working in domestic violence shelters and seeing the exasperation of women being in crisis and having to jump through so many multilayered hoops and navigating so many different territories simultaneously, it’s still, it’s mind boggling to me. I’m wondering if we could go back a little bit. I think one really critical thing you mentioned is this acknowledging of your own experience as a survivor and how that wasn’t an immediate bridge that you built, it was something that came over time. And you said two really important things in there about survivors of sexual trauma, domestic violence trauma. You said they have a way of not really trusting themselves and being disconnected from themselves. And these are specific, again, characteristics of trauma that Gabor talks about, of not being able to trust your gut instinct anymore. And the reason why is because by sheer survival, you have to detach from yourself and from how much pain happens in that moment. And so I’m wondering what that was like for you when you go back to those years and you’re starting to realize and bring your full awareness around that you do have a connection, you have the deepest connection to these clients you were serving. Can you talk a little bit about what that was like for you?

00:25:01 Liz
Yeah, So what I have learned over the years about trauma informed care is that we are equally responsible for creating trauma informed spaces, but then also equally responsible for understanding our own trauma history. And not because it’s our job to repair all the harm, but it is our job to understand how it continues to show U in our lives, what we react to, what are triggers for us, how it may change how I present or connect to someone else in response to their trauma, triggering my own trauma history. And over the years, I have continued to seek out different forms of healing, most notably through individual counseling. So the best framing that I have found that describes for me what it is like is having this spider web of trauma, right? And that over the years, I’ve gotten clearer on what has happened to me that is traumatic and the way that it has shown up in my life, the way that it impacts me and have done healing to to try to let things go. And I think mental health supports are really valuable in helping us understand trauma and naming it and seeing it and understanding the why behind things, but not so good in helping us release that. And so I sat out other options, forms of shamanic healing, and had done some work in compassionate inquiry to help release the things that I was holding. Because that has always been the missing piece. Early on, I would say I learned to develop really effective forms of self-care, but that took time. It was not easy for me to turn off when I left work. The fear that was was coming up for me, for other clients with this sort of visceral reaction to the trauma they were experiencing. I can clearly remember 3 or 4 clients down to what they were wearing because what they were sharing was so scary and brought up my own experiences of fear in those being in those moments of of not knowing what to do. That whole idea of fight, flight, freeze or fawn, for me, I always froze. And it was this sort of paralyzing feeling that would get triggered in hearing some of these stories and not being able to shift away from thinking about them. I can remember some nights of not being able to sleep at all, hoping that they would answer the phone the next day. And what was my responsibility then to do something about that? And learning that we can’t rescue other people. I could not rescue anyone else, nor could I stop anyone else from being abusive. That it’s on an individual level that we make those choices. But that those choices being witnessed to those choices was really hard. And so I think there was clarity that would come up for me understanding when you can hear someone else share a story that connects to an experience you’ve had. It’s sometimes like the fog gets cleared a little bit, especially around earlier experiences. There’s so much that I don’t remember about my experiences of five year old or 6 year old, and I think there’s still a good reason for that. And what I’ve learned is that I don’t have to necessarily understand it to know that it happened and to then let it go, to not let it determine how I continue to live my life. But at the beginning, I felt like I had to understand it all in order to name it. It’s only later in my career that naming it is no longer important. It doesn’t define me. It is not who I am. It’s something that happened to me, not who you are, how you show up, or what’s wrong with you today.

00:28:56 J’aime
You’re really speaking about what happens inside of you.

00:29:00 Liz
Yes.

00:29:02 J’aime
I’m just feeling inside of me a lot of compassion and a little bit of sadness in my heart, just imagining you going through that and little bit of wanting to. Cry. How are you doing over there?

00:29:17 Liz
I think I was really, really lucky that people in my life along the way helped me in it deeply, right? And so when I was sexually assaulted during the Peace Corps and was removed from site, brought back to DC for medical care, and it was not medical care and reaction to violence, it was medical care related to my mental health and well-being because I was not OK. And so much of my experience was I was telling myself, well, I was there, I invited those people over, I stayed up late and was drinking. And So what did I expect, right. But I was not OK. And so I was not able to move forward. I was trying to just like I think. Probably as a as a kid. Of trying to just keep on keeping on, but things were not OK. And so having people along the way who stepped in and could reflect back to me of yes, you have unhealthy habits, that does not mean you deserve to be violated and harmed. That those are two separate things that impact each other. But you are not responsible for both of them. And given your experience as a child, it’s hard to even be responsible for the choices that you made because you have learned unhealthy patterns around connection and intimacy, and especially in relationships, intimate relationships. And as I was working at the Women’s Centre earlier in my career, I somehow had found this amazing partner who we struggled early on, as everybody does, but I was with someone who continues to value me as a person and is not unhealthy or abusive. And that’s not to say that there aren’t unhealthy habits. We all have unhealthy habits. But I had the gift of being with a partner who helped me actually unlearn the unhealthy habits that were contributing to spaces where I would be prey or was violated. And so I think when you ask me how I’m doing, what comes up for me is actually a lot of gratitude. That was a learning experience and not a life story.

00:31:42 J’aime
So beautiful. I think Liz, you have always been able to be this person who can reach in with this brightness into the darkest depths. And there’s something about your energy that’s able to mine and harvest the gold of these kinds of situations. And I feel from witnessing them that life gives you opportunities to even galvanized, alchemize these experiences even further into the collective. I mean, this is what collective trauma healing is about, right? What’s coming up for me is the opportunity. And I’m going to call it an opportunity, even though I know it must have been very frightening for you to do, but you did it to testify. And was it 2011 before Congress about that incident of sexual violence that happened?

00:32:35 Liz
Yeah, yeah. That was, that was a really challenging experience, not actually testifying at that point. It was just sort of that nervousness being in front of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. The process, though, was terrifying because I had to. And maybe I should own the fact that I chose to look as honestly as I as I could at what happened and write it down and put into words for everyone to read.

00:33:04 Liz
The full truth is I remembered it from as I experienced it. And so being honest with myself about decisions I made and putting them in paper, reminding myself that this is what happened to me, not that I made this happen. And that was a really hard thing to grapple with. So we wrote out the testimony. I submitted it as part of the number of testimonies that Peace Corps survivors submitted from around the world who had experienced sexual violence while in service. And then because I was local, was asked to come and share my story and it was challenging to put it into a certain time allotment. It was challenging to not necessarily understand the impact of what I was doing in the moment because I was still pretty young in my career and as a as a woman. And in hindsight, that was one of the things I’ve had to forgive myself for is I can remember one of the senators asking me why did I think that it had happened? And I wish that I would have had the wherewithal, the time to say, why are you asking me that question? But instead still found myself trying to justify and explain. And that in a nutshell for me is the field of gender based violence is we are still so focused on what did you do? How did you show up? What did you expect in these things that reinforce this cultural norm that we are responsible for what happens to us? I really had to grapple with forgiveness of myself in order to be authentic to myself. I’m authentic to me is vulnerable. I really believe in and not even, it’s not even that I believe because it’s, I feel, I feel like I am not my full self unless I’m truly authentically vulnerable. It felt good to be a part of something, to have an impact, to use my voice to have an impact, but it still didn’t quite yet feel like sharing my voice. It was just sort of naming my story. And I’m not sure if that makes sense, but for me, it wasn’t really like using my voice as a tool that it could see yet. It was starting to be part of something and understand that, really grappling with and trying to understand that it wasn’t my fault.

00:35:19 J’aime
It makes sense on a lot of levels. And of course, how can it feel like a complete process of vulnerability and exchange when you’re sitting behind a table with a microphone kind of in a, in a classic interrogation environment? I can understand how that wouldn’t be a really satisfying transaction no matter how, even if you would have said what you wanted to say right now, which I’m so glad you did say. And I do think is so important that you you shared that part because it does speak to the layer of nuance that we’re constantly unwinding when this conversation around trauma on both the individual and the collective level. It’s a turn of a spiral and even though you had come to a certain point in your understanding, there are still certain triggers or itches or sands that get into the shell that irritate and it takes a little while for the Pearl to come. That’s how I’m I’m seeing it in that question was like a piece of sand at the moment that you grappled with. And right now arises the Pearl. I’m feeling I’m have tears over here of gratitude for the way that you did show up in that time and gratitude that you are forgiving yourself.

00:36:39 Liz
Yeah, I think it was one of the things that comes up too, and is my dad came and I didn’t invite him. I think I told him I was going to do it, but I didn’t really invite him and I had not shared with my family that I had been raped. I had talked about the violence and the fear that I had in sort of a series of events. But that moment too, of realizing, oh, wait, that’s how I just looks to mind. That key piece of trauma informed care is helping people maintain control of their story, right? They decide who knows when, how they’re going to share that information and when that happens and what space. And there’s so many ways in which control is impacted, but that was another example of I totally lost control and I should have thought about it, but I didn’t, you know, I was so focused on. I think another thing that comes up from traumas is like narrow, narrow lens, this inability to sort of zoom out because we’re so focused on the immediate of the survival mechanisms that you need. It didn’t even occur to me.

00:37:46 J’aime
And how are you doing right now?

00:37:49 Liz
Go ahead. Yeah, good.

00:37:53 J’aime
It’s gonna take a moment.

00:37:56 Liz
Conversation always feels so natural and comfortable with you that I appreciate the space. It doesn’t feel uncomfortable or hard. Actually, it’s meaningful.

00:38:05 J’aime
Dialogue. Meaningful dialogue. The thing that we’ve always tried to create in this world, Huh?

00:38:10 Liz
Yes.

00:38:12 J’aime
Well, I’d like to take a take a cue from what you were describing just then about it not being a a real satisfying experience for you to get closure or speak out. And I’d really like to dig in a little bit to some of the projects you’ve done more recently that have brought you satisfaction. I was excited to discover I didn’t know this about you, Liz, that in 2015 isn’t this year Zawadi was born. Yes, I was really focused as your friend, as welcoming your beloved little girl into the world. And I did not know that you were initiating this incredible collaboration called the Domestic Violence Action Research Collective. I came across an interview of you speaking about it, and I’m going to paraphrase what you said, but when you were talking about bringing people together that were working separately, you said from operating in silos to collaborating, from putting on band aids to. Stopping the bleeding. What would you like to say about that experience and about what you’re describing?

00:39:25 Liz
So that was the sort of the brainchild of our executive director at the time, Karma Cottman, who is an amazing advocate. She currently runs UJIMA, the National resource centre in domestic violence in African American or black community. Super impressive person and she had been at a roundtable where there’s cross collaboration. And being in Washington DC, we are uniquely situated in a very small geographic area with 9 local universities. And in the at those universities, all of them have different researchers and departments that have research. And so we wanted to see if we could harness that expertise to help build evidence and evidence based around the prevalence of domestic violence in Washington, DC, and data that would help reinforce and help us tell our story. It was around the time where the government is really asking for evidence based curricula. Everything had to be evidence based and what we know in public health is and what we knew in 2006 from public spectacle is that evidence is formalized data. It is scholarly research. It is so far from being person centred work. And in DC there wasn’t local data that was specific to the prevalence of domestic violence. We knew what the information service providers they’re offering. We knew how many hotline calls would come in. We knew what the Police Department would share in terms of 911 calls. But we had no idea a general community prevalence rate. And so we reached out to this amazing woman who is a hero of mine, Doctor Nkiru Nauli Izzi, who is based out of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. She is phenomenal and she and I worked together to launch this project and she is a researcher by trade and in a professor. She centres community based participatory research and for her that really means connecting with survivors from the very beginning. So we work with survivors to develop study questions, we work with survivors to inform the process, we pay survivors for interviews to navigate to pilot a process and then turn around and inform what they think it should be like for survivors who actually participate in the study. And then pay survivors for participation in the study, but then also pay survivors that come back together, review the research that we found and help develop the themes and the codes and the key pieces that we want to lift up. And so all throughout the process, the work is done in partnership with survivors themselves. And not only that work, but then paying people for their expertise as survivors was monumental. Such a shift in how I understood the way that we do the work and the work the coalition does. And so I reached out to people at local universities that I had heard of or that we knew and asked if they would be willing to come. And we had eight or nine women from Georgetown University, Catholic University, George Washington University, UMBC, and I think that was it in terms of universities who came together and really had so much expertise. And we’re excited to be in the same room to talk about what do we know? And we have forever been and still continue to be collaborating to lift up data that is relevant to DC, to seek out funding opportunities for research studies, to conduct research studies. And it is a unpaid labour of love that all these years, Twitter, these original participants still show up almost on a monthly basis because we choose to be in that space together, because it is such a rewarding experience.

00:43:15 J’aime
And why do you think that that sort of initiative could go from slapping on band aids to actually stopping the bleeding?

00:43:25 Liz
The work of DVARC archives that help tell the story through data and research that advocates are lifting U in front of DC Council, in front of government agencies, in funding applications. We know anecdotally that intimate partner violence is extremely prevalent. We have survivor stories that speak to the depth and breadth of what people are experiencing. But until we have the number that is published, that is researched, that is supported by what we considered scholarly spaces or institutions, it is hard to get funding to do the work. People who invest in domestic violence supports want a return on their investment. And in a field in which it takes years for survivors to seek safety, every choice that a person makes is not a quick resolution. The numbers that we present to funders are not huge, rewarding, celebratory numbers. They’re small, methodical successes as a person’s navigating their safety. And so DVARC helped us start to think about and tell the story in numbers in a way that we hadn’t been able to do before.

00:44:43 J’aime
That’s really phenomenal. One thing that comes to mind is you’re describing this as something that I learned very early on in my service career. I think I was still in university actually, and I was at a shelter and somebody told me that in many, many sort of service nonprofit, especially kind of organizations, that kind of a, a common thing that will plague the advancement of a group will be that it starts to mimic the very problem that it’s out there to resolve in the 1st place. And I think I really saw that come to light when I worked. My first job was working in an alcohol and drug treatment centre. And the executive director was just an incredible workaholic and like raging workaholic and wanted us all to be the same. I thought this is what it is. This is what it looks like. And what I’m hearing you describe when you talk about these silos of people, great experts, working in their own little chambers and finally coming together to connect and to bring their resources together to actually stop the bleeding and arrive at this very critical number point so that funding can happen. I’m hearing you describing the antidote to that kind of plaguing Harris that does happen, and I’m seeing you shake your head yes.

00:46:00 Liz
Yeah. A couple of things that come up along those lines is what you’re sharing is so true of some of the efforts we’ve tried around Co location, right? Whether you put domestic violence advocates in a police district office or whether you put domestic violence advocates at homeless services locations, over time, you’re having people work in isolation of the culture in which the organization operates. And it is hard to maintain trauma informed lens as a slow person within a larger system. What also really resonates in what you shared was one of the beautiful things about DVARC is you had attorneys, researchers, domestic violence advocates, housing experts coming together to create research that honors all those disciplines. And so the cross collaboration and the cross training that happens amongst providers then goes and impacts all the way in which we all do our work in our silo separately too. So for example, in developing the research study, we had to be really mindful of the way in which we wanted to set U and schedule interviews with survivors. And so they would complete an intake form disclosing domestic violence or not. If they did, they would meet with an advocate who would tell them about the study. And then we would set up separate interviews because we recognize that asking survivors to then meet with us after this potentially 3 to 4 hour long process in order to access homeless services was not trauma informed. They were burned out. They had not eaten. Maybe they had their kids in tow. And so we developed a study that created a separate space for their survivor, decided they were ready, they had housing, they were stable, they had, you know, slept right in starting there. Or another example would be around confidentiality and how the domestic violence field has very strong protections to honor people’s privacy in order to protect their safety and researchers, they have to go through processes to get approval for research studies also, but they don’t have the same understanding of working with survivors. So it was emerging of our expertise, this collaboration, the cross training that happened that helped us carry forward best practices that we learned from each other into our own spaces and then expand our reach in that way in creating these trauma informed practices and programs.

00:48:31 J’aime
That really was a breathtaking. Summary of what is possible when the intention is a collective process. And so much of what we talk about in compassionate inquiry is that healing happens in community. Yes, yeah, we collectively heal in a collective setting. And also you’re talking about service works and operates fundamentally the best in a collective process and not alone. I remember reading that one of your life missions was to let a woman know or anybody who’s a survivor of sexual and or domestic violence, they are not alone and it is not their fault. So it’s feeling like it must be very satisfying for you to be embodying this idea in your work after this long Rd.

00:49:24 Liz
Yeah, I had mentioned the experience I had providing a training for violence interrupters. And so exactly what you’re sharing is why it was so amazing. It was probably the best, most rewarding experience of my career, and I was thinking about reflecting on why, and it’s because violence interrupters are people who have served time for crime. The experience of training grounds interrupters is something I want to talk about to everybody because it was such a different experience. It was like one of those moments where people chose to be there because they care about the work. They are respected people or citizens or leaders within their communities, and they’re working within their neighborhood, but a small niche within the city. So they’re connecting to the people that they know well that they may have seen for most, if not all of their life growing up.

00:50:12 J’aime
If we could back up just a little. Bit I want to. To be really clear that people understand the role that the violence interrupters played.

00:50:22 Liz
Their role is to respond when there’s escalation in the community, whether that person, a person conflict, whether that’s retaliation based on harm that’s been committed. So often do you see it’s in response to a shooting to reciprocate violence against another community or another neighborhood.

00:50:40 J’aime
You were able to help them develop the skills to recognize the warning signs, understand how domestic violence may actually be at the root of a conflict that navigating, and discuss what to do to support those perpetuating or experiencing harm.

00:50:55 Liz
When we added this layer of domestic violence being at the root of some of the conflicts, not only were they eager to explore how can they connect with individuals in a way that’s not going to escalate situations, that’s going to help their peers choose different ways in which to respond when they’re feeling enraged at an intimate partner or their former partner has a new partner and they’re jealous and there’s feelings of possession that come up.

00:51:24 J’aime
And if you talk through it more, quite often there is a domestic violence route.

00:51:30 Liz
In the training, the number of disclosures that happened from violence interrupters about the violence they were experiencing now, about their experiences in childhood, in their experiences growing up and in past relationships, there was layers upon layers of trauma and they’re simultaneously recognizing the impacts or. Effects of domestic. Violence in their own lives and their own experiences, while also trying to think about how to help others in similar situations. And it was one of those spaces where it was community healing by being able to put a name and a label to something that they had been navigating but hadn’t really understood as patterns of power and control in their lives. When someone disclosed and it brought up emotion, their peers were encouraging them to name what had happened without shame, without fear, knowing that they’re all carrying these traumas and bringing stories into the light. That alone can help release some of the hold that a traumatic experience has on you. So it was such a gift to be in that space because of who they are and the work that they’re doing, because of what they were sharing and their willingness to step towards this collective healing that was happening, to lean in to be a part of it. It was just such a gift.

00:52:54 J’aime
Bystander intervention was something that you began with even in public spectacle. Bystander intervention was the whole point of why we did this guerrilla theatre, to try to get people to feel invested when they see something going on around them, to take action and to not leave somebody feeling alone and that it’s their fault and to suffer by themselves and abuse. And so here we have this incredible example, not only breaking the cycle within the community, but working with people who were at one point some sort of perpetrator of a crime, breaking the cycle. Remember, our first tagline for public spectacle was collective responsibility ends domestic Violence. We were so sure of this. And everybody kind of scratched their heads when we had this logo and the slogan. What is it like for you, Liz, to be at this place? What is it like for you to see this happening?

00:53:55 Liz
It’s so interesting to have that reflected back and really affirmed the belief that I have given 20 years in the field. This belief that the community embodiment of it’s not what’s wrong with you, it’s what happened to you. So in the case of violence interrupters, in the case of public spectacle, this belief that we as a community can turn to each other and say what’s happening for you right now, right? We’re going to draw a line and say what you’re doing, what you’re saying, how you’re behaving is not OK. It’s not healthy. I can tell something is wrong. What’s going on, what’s coming U for you? Instead of some punitive response that involves law enforcement or some other form of first responder to remove someone from the situation. That collective responsibility is very much connected to community healing. When we as a group stand up and say to each other, that’s not OK, right? Or what support do you need right now? Or I can tell that you’re reacting to something that’s really coming up for you. And maybe it’s not using the words trauma, maybe it’s not using sort of the formal language around what we understand as trauma and trauma informed care, but truly that collective responsibility to name and support each other. Believe that from the beginning. And as I leave the fields in this capacity, it’s as true as ever. What are?

00:55:26 J’aime
You feeling right now in your body as you’re, as you’re sharing this with me, Liz.

00:55:32 Liz
I seal this hum of hope. And I think it is because there’s a sense. Of joy and pride in knowing that I was working in a way and through intention really rooted in community healing. That what it’s going to take to actually make an impact does not require billions of dollars. There are key components to investing in domestic violence services that are essential as people seeking safety. But when we talk about the behavior change of those who cause harm, it’s really about us holding each other accountable. And to me. That’s exciting because it’s something we have control over. We just have to make the choice. We have to be brave and courageous and of course there’s components to safety. It’s not always going to be safe to speak up or to intervene, but my body feels this sense of we can do this. We have to choose to do this, but we can.

00:56:29 J’aime
Yeah, I feel that too. I feel that hum of hope as well. You mentioned just a moment ago that you’re ending this path, this career. You’re really standing at the threshold of a new and very exciting career path. And I was hoping you could just. Share a little bit of thought that. With our listeners.

00:56:48 Liz
Yes, I’m very excited and a little bit nervous. You know, change is so essential and unpredictable. So I’m joining Koniag Government Services, which is a arm of my Tribes Corporation that helps generate funds to feedback into our community and provide benefits to shareholders and educational opportunities to youth. I’m going to be working on contracts that help provide technical assistance on how to evaluate and measure success for Office of Minority Health contracts. And I’m very excited to be able to put my energy and efforts into not only one of my communities, but a community that I have not been able to really stay in contact with as I lived on the East Coast. And as I’ve learned more about my own journey and my family’s ancestry, our identification as Native Alaskan and Indigenous, it comes with a lot of past harms and afraid to claim a name that part of our identity. So I’m excited to to stand fully in being a Supat descendant and be part of the energy to help grow and connect the. Sharing the catch which is a model. Of our tribe.

00:58:08 J’aime
Congratulations.

00:58:10 Liz
Thank you, thank you, thank you.

00:58:13 J’aime
So, Liz, one last question as you are signing off from this long journey that we really began together and I got to hear so much about what what was in between during this conversation today. I see you now standing on the horizon of this luminous path, getting ready to step into an expression and an offering and a service that is so core to your lineage and such an opportunity. We’re talking about collective healing. Wow, it’s just such an honor to see you so incredibly poised in this time. So I’m wondering, what would you like to leave our listeners with as you stand here on this brink, looking out into the horizon of possibility?

00:59:02 Liz
When we choose to live. Our life as we are, as we honor ourselves and who we are and how we show up in the world when we live from our values and we navigate challenges and spaces with our authentic selves and well-being. That that vulnerability in my experience so often I want to say always. But I know nothing as always but so often. Leads to love, leads to better, leads to connection. We are socialized to put up barriers to navigate spaces and relationships. There’s so many variety of indicators and informations that shape how we connect, but I am a firm believer and I wholeheartedly believe think that when we live from our authentic selves that we make choices rooted in our values. The path that we’re supposed to be on, the journey that is set for us, our connection to our core being glows it it becomes clearer. The things that. We’re supposed to do the way that we’re supposed to work, live in this world, what we’re supposed to contribute and what we can give. All gets brighter and clearer.

01:00:23 J’aime
Talking about authenticity right there.

01:00:27 Liz
Yeah.

01:00:28 J’aime
So beautiful was I thank you for being here with us and the Gifts of Trauma podcast. And I wish you opportunities to be expressing yourself creatively in this new path as well, because that’s what I feel is is part of what’s coming as you do bring more of yourself into the world. I’m so excited to see what you create here. Thank you so much for being with us today. I love you, Liz.

01:00:56 Liz
I love you too. The Gifts of Trauma is a weekly podcast that features personal stories of trauma, healing, transformation, and the gifts revealed on the path to authenticity. Listen on Apple, Spotify, all podcast platforms, rate, review and share it with your clients, colleagues and family. Subscribe and you won’t miss an episode. Please note this podcast is for informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for personal therapy or a DIY formula for self therapy.01:01:39 J’aime
Registration is now open for the Compassionate Inquiry Suicide Attention Training. This training is for therapists, health professionals, and people that work in educational, medical, or personal development professions who are looking for tools to recognize and support those in their communities experiencing suicidal distress. Registration closes on February 16. If you’re interested in applying or would like to learn more about this training, you can find the link to register provided in the promotional link in these show notes. Registration is open until Sunday, February 16th.