The Practice of Therapy

Gordon Brewer:
Well folks, this is a different episode. This is a hard episode. And I think as hard at for number of reasons, number one is that it's maybe a little different tone that I normally take with the podcast. There's a great deal of sadness with this podcast to some degree. But I felt that it was it was really time and probably long, long overdue that I no longer keep silent about the issues going on around us issues related to racism and bigotry and just white privilege in our country this past week, this past few weeks particularly with the murder of George Floyd and the outpouring of people demonstrating people, trying to make their voices be heard has I hope has made a tremendous impact on, on a number of us. And one of the things that I know that I've I've, I've, I've kinda made a pledge, not only to myself, but only also to others, just out of a, a deep conviction to want to help others to want to end a justice, to want to do something was for me as a white male, a white Southern male to no longer be silent and no longer kind of turned my head the other way.
Gordon Brewer:
I don't know that I necessarily have done that intentionally, but I have done it out of ignorance, done it out of just not knowing. And this week after hearing many, many voices, I've just kind of inundated myself with, with reading more with listening to podcasts, listening to the pain of people, talking about times that they have been hurt, particularly black and Brown people being hurt by things that white people say, you know, those dumb things that white people say I felt I could. It was just time for me to try to give voice and try to turn the ship if you will. I don't generally like to be political, but this is a topic that you have to get political about to some degree. And I know there will be some people out there that will not agree with me. It's okay. I'm not requiring you to re agree with me and I'm not necessarily requiring people to necessarily see it the way I see it, but I think we have to speak truth to what is going on around us.
Gordon Brewer:
And it's not just, I said, it's happening now. It's been happening for centuries. It's been happening over the of history. And I think where we are now is really the time for us to begin to really do what we need to do to change things. Unfortunately, I am not an expert on what we need to do. I'm not an expert on racism. I'm still a learner and learning it all and learning about how my own prejudice has, has affected me along the way, how my own turning a blind eye has, has affected other people maybe, maybe not directly, but indirectly, you know, one of the things that we have to be aware of as, as white people, and I'm just going to speak pretty, pretty bluntly here. And maybe, maybe I might, what I say might be a little offensive to folks, but who cares?
Gordon Brewer:
As white people, we do not know what it's like to go into a place and be automatically self-conscious to walk into a new place and be surrounded by other white people and the discomfort that we feel that they feel. We don't know that we've never experienced that I've never experienced that, but I have seen it happen. And I think the mistakes that I've made in the past is that I didn't do enough to reach out to maybe a Brown or black person that was in that situation to try to help me make them feel comfort, comforted, or feel comfortable. And so I think that's one thing that we can do as caregivers is to let people know that we are safe. We are safe person, and that we are person that maybe has a little more power at this point to be able to speak out against other people's injustices other people's prejudice out of the people's racism.
Gordon Brewer:
I just feel that it's time for us to be able to give voice to that, to speak out. And I think the one way in which we can speak out, maybe the loudest is at the ballot box. Again, I don't like being political on this podcast. It's not why it's here. It's here to provide resources and help to people. And so I want to give you some, hopefully some ideas and the resources I want to share here to bet really kind of understanding racism, but one of the things that I will say, and this is political, and I know it's political, is that the rhetoric and the talk that we've heard from our political leaders over the last three to four years is got to stop. It is doing nothing but creating more divide in our country. I don't care if you're Republican.
Gordon Brewer:
I don't care if you're Democrat. I don't care if you're libertarian, whatever you are. The rhetoric has got to stop. I'm a believer in free speech, but we also have to do that responsibly and understand that words do matter, and that words do count. And so we've got to end that we've got to stop this hate rhetoric and all of that. And I think, you know what I'm talking about when I'm talking about this? I think the other thing that we have an opportunity for in our professions is to use what we know our knowledge about psychology, about emotions, about how we are as human beings, behaviourally to teach people emotional intelligence, because all of this, all of racism is rooted in fear. It's fear of someone that might look different than us that might speak different from us. That might be somehow or another different on the surface, but there is no, they are them. It's all of us. And so we've got to get away from separating ourselves out based on economic status, based on what we look like, how we speak, the cultures we come from and get away from that.
Gordon Brewer:
That is, that is the old truth that is just going to have to change. As I said, maybe a little bit earlier, I'm not an expert on this. I'm not one that can really say too much other than just my own life experiences.
Gordon Brewer:
And I think when I became most aware of racism was when I was a kid. And I can remember as a kid in junior high school and us being all on a bus together, and this is in, this is in I grew up in Cary, North Carolina, outside of Raleigh, and I was on the track team and we were going to a track meet in Selma, North Carolina. And I remember driving on the bus and going into Selma North Carolina. And this would have been probably in the in the 1970s, I'm giving my age a year, but there was a big billboard there that said the KKK welcomes you to Selma North Carolina.
Speaker 2:
Okay.
Gordon Brewer:
And I remember noticing my black friends that were on the bus with us on the track team, the look on their faces when they realize what that sign said. And the thing that I recognized now that I wish I had known, I don't know if I could have known as a, as a, you know, junior high school kid was, that was something where we needed to provide comfort. The white kids needed to provide comfort for the black and Brown kids because they were frayed and we needed to make sure they knew that we were behind them, that we had their backs and that we were not going to let any harm come to them.
Gordon Brewer:
And I'm reminded of that story because that's what I see happening in our world now. And that we're finally speaking up against it and we need to understand, and we need to somehow or another get across that we have got to have each other's back and particularly folks that are discriminated against that are treated differently and we needed to step up and not let it happen anymore. I'm sorry from our ramblings here, but it's just been all my heart and mind all week. And I felt like I needed to just give it a voice. So some resources to think about, first of all, I've put together a PDF sheet that I'll share with you of just some resources that I went through and found that really kind of spoke to me. Some of them you might already have but I've got a PDF sheet.
Gordon Brewer:
And in the, in the show notes here, you'll find a link to where you can sign up and download that. I'll I'll put a let's create, I'm going to create this URL right now here on the fly. But if you'll just go to practice a therapy.com/racism resources that's where you can get the copy of the PDF that I put together of just ways for us to educate ourselves and learn more about racism and how to respond. And I'll say this, I'm not, I'm not even sure I'm responding in the right way, or what I'm saying is, is going to be helpful at all. But I just knew I couldn't be silent anymore anymore about this.
Gordon Brewer:
One of the things that we can do as well with our clients, particularly our, our clients that are people of color, as I think we need to be going above and beyond to reach out to them, just to say, listen, I'm here. I know that this has got to be affecting you. And I just want to let you know that I'm aware of that I'm also for us white folk, and this is something that I've, I've had to to be more and more aware of. And us, hopefully what I'm about to say will make sense as that I'm feeling a lot of grief and guilt around this as a white person.
Gordon Brewer:
I'm not saying that because I want somebody to give me some sort of absolution about that. But one of the things I'll say to my other white friends here be very, very aware of not trying to reach out to your black friends and your Brown fans to, to fix that for you or give you some sort of the Apple absolution over that. I'm thinking that that is not a way to approach this, but I think just simply being there for people I've shared with folks before on the podcast, that one of my, one of the other hats that I wear is I'm a, an Episcopal clergy person. I'm a deacon in the Episcopal church. And so I like to say I wear a funny collar sometimes, but one of the things I've learned about being with people and this not only carries over in my ministry work, but also into the therapy room is just the, just the, the importance of the ministry of presence of just being present with people and standing with them.
Gordon Brewer:
And so with our black and Brown friends and even the way I'm saying this now it's just, doesn't come out right in that. It's almost like I'm separating myself from, from those people that and I don't intend for it to be that way. So I apologize for that, but, but just being able to reach out to people, let me just say that, let me just say, let me, let's do a better job of reaching out to each other and understanding how racism is affecting those around us. And it's all affecting us in different ways, but I just want you to be aware of that. So I've got this resources PDF I put together again, the URL is practice of therapy.com/racism, resources invite you to download that. And if you find out other that you want me to know, know about, let them know, send them to me and I'll make sure that the folks on my email list get those and that we, I try to do a good job of getting those resources out there.
Gordon Brewer:
But anyway, folks, this is a little bit shorter episode, but I just felt like I needed to give voice to some things. So I hope that we can continue the conversation either online or you feel free to reach out to me by email. You can always reach me@gordonatpracticeoftherapy.com. And I'd love to hear from you and love to hear your thoughts on just how you're, how you're dealing with with all of this particularly my friends that are people of color. I want to hear from you. I want to, I want to know, know your story. I want to know what it's like. Even though I probably can never ever experience it in the way that you have experienced things in your life, but this is my call for us to come together. This is my call and my way of giving, as I've said over and over again, giving voice to something that's been silent too long.
Gordon Brewer:
And I do hope that you find peace and comfort among one another. I've just sent so many, [inaudible] so many stories of unity and solidarity and let's keep that movement going. Let's keep it going because it matters. We all matter. And we just need to do a better job of speaking truth of being able to reach out where we need to reach out and really, truly help one another through this, through this time through all that we're going through here on the in the middle of a pandemic, which has frightened us all. And that's the one other thing that occurred to me today day before I end is that I think maybe if there's a silver lining to the pandemic that we've gone through the COVID 19 pandemic, even though it's, this is really comparing apples to oranges because it's one thing to be afraid of another person, rather than to be afraid of something like a virus that affects us all.
Gordon Brewer:
And has disproportionately affected black and Brown communities, even more, is that we all know what it likes to feel fear. And maybe the silver lining in all of this is that we all have experienced fear through this. And so it makes understanding the fear of others much more relatable. We can, we can have more empathy for others through this. So take care of folks again, check out the resources I've put together. I'm just going to create a webpage that will have all of that on there. And plus the download the PDF that you can download from that page. And we'd love hearing from you about resources that you might know of, that I maybe haven't included. Certainly, there's there there's so much out there that I realize I, I don't know. And I'm so take care of folks, love one another show, compassion to one another, and we'll carry on and we'll turn this ship and do our best to and racism together.