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Practice as Part of Healing with Care

Wellspringwords
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Season 4 Episode 2

In this episode of Wellspringwords: The Podcast, Nkem has a relaxed conversation with Care, a trauma-informed care practitioner, artist + doula. Care has been revolving their work around social justice, especially from powerful movements such as Black Lives Matter, which allowed their work to bloom. Care uses the term "cute spot" to tap into particular concentrations in their career based on Black interiority, somatic memory, and queer intimacy. Scroll below for the topic timestamps.

Diving deep into the "cute spot," Care speaks in-depth about the above three main passions throughout their career, mentioning that they base their work on social justice because they feel that there is no healing without it. Both Nkem and Care discuss their roles in cultivating somatic memory, remembering experiences of all connections, and finding ways to heal and thrive through their experiences — especially the creativity that comes from such embodied sensations, as opposed to more cognitive experiences. Care speaks about allowing the healing process to sit with the body and allowing a safe environment to be cultivated, since they emphasize healing in a secure environment. Queer intimacy is also discussed, and Care describes it as not just an identifier but a way of decolonizing our ways of thinking, such as the way we engage in relationships with ourselves and the people of the land we live on. 

Nkem explains creative abundance as shifting away from the theoretical and moving into practice in life in a world as the healed or healing being — or maybe just as a being. She speaks more about creative abundance through cultivating wisdom via connection with others and through her path, which has progressed from a surface-level awareness of creativity to delving under the surface and expanding her expression. We can look underneath the surface to find our true, authentic selves, which is where the somatic experience plays a huge role. 

"You can think about what might be wrong, you can talk about what might be wrong all the time, but if it's just stuck at the head and the body is not involved, there's just so much information and intelligence that's not part of the picture."

They move on to how societal and political systems influence our access to feeling holistically well, particularly regarding experiences of the body. Nkem and Care both agree and build on the idea that, regardless of external validation or acclaim, we may embrace our creative potential and express it in ways that feel real and rewarding to ourselves. We don't have to do things in a sure way to create because we're all creators in our own capacity. They share their opinions on separating themselves from what's shown on social media to become creative beings. This adds to their brief segue on trauma responses, such as dissociation, and how it is a normal embodied response to stress stimuli. No need to shame ourselves because of our stress or trauma responses. And then it all comes back to the act of creativity — when you're in survival mode, you perhaps don’t necessarily have the space to create as usual. It's normal (and encouraged) to take moments for ourselves just to put our minds and bodies at rest. 

This conversation is also full of astrology and tarot talk, for those inspired by divination and intuitive transmission. Nkem speaks about her Saturn’s return and shares how she has a placement of Saturn in the sign of Aquarius the 12th house, which has been a highly spiritual time for her these past couple of years. She speaks on the balance of spiritual dissociation from the physical present and the growing strength of her intuition because of her Saturn’s return. In her example, Nkem demonstrates how everyone's healing process and learning journeys are different. But still, we all share similar somatic experiences that we can transmit and translate to others, such as having a nervous system (regulated or not) and having access to our breath.

"Be able to create from a place of truth not from a place of comparison."

Tarot is a system of divination that allows users to tap into their intuition and psychic abilities to interpret meaning within their inner and outer lives. A lot is sprung up in this conversation on Tarot's historical background and specifically on the deck Care created for those eager to dive deep into intuition, creativity, and personal power. Care also details how they were inspired to create their Tarot deck, and how their creative process was. It’s always very interesting to witness an artist at work.

To conclude this episode's discussion, Nkem touches on how we might grow wisdom within ourselves, potentially through resilience and by using wisdom as a lens. We are in the process of developing wisdom as individuals, which brings inherent peace and enables us to be more conscious of our innate capacity for joy, growth, discernment, healing, and more. We all have this enormous capacity, but we often play small, keeping ourselves from expanding into greater energy. Being able to maintain greater knowledge of what we channel and create will allow us to engage in creative expression more profoundly.

Enjoy this episode in full and let us know if this conversation brought anything to mind or heart for you in a podcast review on Apple Podcasts or Podchaser, on Instagram, or via email at bewell@wellspringwords.love. Be well!

Topic timestamps

0:10 - Introduction

02:14 - How Care chooses to show up in the world

05:21 - Reimagining creative abundance

07:52 -  How social and political structures impact our access to our creativity 

10:41 - Owning your creative essence for yourself

13:36 - The influence of astrology on our journeys

23:33 - Let’s talk about tarot

30:04 - Accepting and honoring your trauma responses

31:54 - Care’s process of creating their tarot deck

37:42 - Intuitive connection and personal power

46:25 - Wisdom as a lens through which we create life

49:17 - Stay connected and dive into more

References and resources mentioned in this episode

Find Care here:

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