Taylor Vacca

1 Cultural Journey - Inherit This: The Coming Into My DNA (Diversified Neoteric Agent) COUN 484-6 Cultural Diversity in Counseling Northwestern University Taylor Vacca AWAKENING MY SOUL OF DIVERSITY: The Coming Into My DNA 2 Cultural Journey - Inherit This: The Coming Into My DNA (Diversified Neoteric Agent) Abstract: Progressive Play on the Preamble The concept of cultural competency started out as a professional pursuit that quickly transformed into a rite of passage to instill diverse knowledge, perspective, and purpose for the ultimate inclusion of all. In a nation that has indoctrinated the expectations of “establish[ing] justice, insur[ing] domestic tranquility, provid[ing] for the common defense, promot[ing] the general welfare, and secur[ing] the blessings of liberty” surprisingly defines the highest law of our land, yet these values remain invisible throughout our federal, state, and individual fabric of humanity (The U.S. constitution: Preamble). The absence of these principles in power and personality of our people has resulted in maleficent oppression that has become inescapably interwoven into the intrinsic identity of what we call America. As the undeniable need for social and political reform has been unjustly suppressed, the public health crisis at hand will require not just I, but all, to create change. Introduction: My Rebirth The ongoing journey towards achieving cultural competency does not come easy. Considering the hostility of our current socio-political climate, the unwavering commitment to challenge, change, and create connectedness and compassion could not be more dire. The path that I have chosen, presented below, reflects the coming into my DNA (Diversified Neoteric Agent); a process marked by intense growth, transformation, and rebirth of self that constitutes a lifelong dedication to cease ignorance and promote awareness in the face of adversity. Past: My Previous Self The origin of self, delicate yet demanding, requires careful and critical critique to ensure and enlighten one’s awareness of relation to the many existences of life. One must excavate their AWAKENING MY SOUL OF DIVERSITY: The Coming Into My DNA 3 super-ego in an attempt to identify inconsolable injustices and reconcile the reform of the inclusivity of the id, which in turn restores the ego-strength of everyone. From my parents to peer experiences, my past of privilege proves prevalent within my person. Diversity, social justice, and inclusion has empowered my experience, yet those marginalized remain unnoticed within the content of these definitions, resulting in the daily detrimental discrimination towards people of color. Diversity can be defined as the process of encouraging the involvement of various components of intersectionality to co-exist within harmony. Social justice is the demonstration of equal access, opportunity, and utilization of privilege by all-encompassing racial, ethnic, SES, cultural, and spiritual realms within society. Inclusion represents the act of felt-belonging within the context of one’s internal and external environments (Sue & Sue, 2019). These three significant concepts have challenged and provoked the realizations of my concrete-conditioned cognitive coding, making previously invisible intrinsic-injustices visible within the origins of my socialization. My upbringing consisted of a homogenous sensemaking and socialization experience due to the lack of early exposure to diverse demographics. My insulated, isolated, and limited encounters with diversity restricted my capabilities of developing the awareness of structural and systematic limitations that prove unfortunately accustomed by marginalized groups. This evident form of status-blindness requires of me the seeking of knowledge and lived-experience- of and within- differing cultural contexts to combat the potential of fostering a counseling-climate microcosmic of the injustice, prejudice, and discrimmination faced by persons of color each day (Connery, 2021). The intergenerational patterns I have identified within my family of origin pose problematic due to the manifestation of beliefs, behaviors, attitudes, values, and relationships AWAKENING MY SOUL OF DIVERSITY: The Coming Into My DNA 4 saturated with oppression and privilege. My family system endorsed a rigid and judgemental perspective based on patriarchal practices that attached unjust-value to the identities of racialand gendered- people. This socialization of dominance-based systems reinforced dehumanizing and oppressive practices that conditioned low self-esteem, low compassion for self and others, as well as maleficent adaptation of suppressive internal belief-systems and social behaviors. In order to ensure appropriate and healthy case conceptualizations, in accordance with one’s social and political positionality, I must adhere to the constant obligation of exploring, reflecting, and comprehending my internalized- maladaptive influences (Maxey, 2021). The famous phrase, “You don’t know what you don’t know,” is all-too familiar and indicative of my previously lived-realities. The daily experiences of racism and microaggressions inflicted upon persons’ of color deem responsible for the demoralizing-social construction of skin colour, leading to the internalization of painful, humiliating, and damaging identifications of self-worth and significance (Uptin, 2021). In addition to these harsh acts of blatant discrimmination that exist, our nation reflects a long-standing history ingrained in ethnocentric monoculturalism, further exacerbating self-degradation, invalidation, and invisibility of experience and voice. This requires me to operate outside of my ‘invisible veil’ and look at system-reform, rather than reform-of-self, while counseling marginalized populations (Sue & Sue, 2019). Current: My New Presence The facilitation of growth begins by broaching our biases, recognizing our resistances, and allowing openness to operationalize our oppressionist ways. Once authentic awareness has been achieved, the construction of one’s cognitive-framework can begin. As the process AWAKENING MY SOUL OF DIVERSITY: The Coming Into My DNA 5 provoked great guilt, regret, and remorse, attributed to my Whiteness, the challenge of overcoming these defenses and accepting the advantages was worth the internal struggle. Understanding my interwoven, intrinsic interior to become the DNA I chose required both educational and experiential explorations of felt-empathy embodied by those identifying differently than I. My experience of White-fragility encountered early through the dissection of course content provided a felt-sense of insecurity and invalidation. These emotionally- and affectively- charged feelings surfaced and solidified a negatively-perceived academic climate. According to the “Teaching Through Interactions'' framework, my previously-conditioned positive-classroom climate enhanced my learning capabilities; the first-hand experience of what enthic minorities commonly encounter attributed greatly to the presentation of personal expressions of the elevated risks of underachievement and unfulfilled potential (Khalfaoui, 2021). Consequently, these felt- and lived-realities awoke in me a foreign feeling of inadequacy that was necessary for enlightenment, exquisite empathy, and the development of a healing-lens otherwise unknown. The educational experiences I subjectively participated in weekly of dissecting the many components of intersectionality were not only cognitively expanded, but empathetically-enriched due to the diversity surrounding such encounters demonstrated by the variety of cultural backgrounds my future colleagues embraced and explored openly. Research highlights the importance of encouraging diversity and inclusion practices within groups. Team interactions between individuals identifying within culturally different origins enhance both at the individualand group- level through the promotion of collaborative problem solving and opening further the ‘planes of possibility’ during creative-thinking due to the elevated exposure to alternative perspective and positionality (Zyl, 2020). These diverse-educational experiences motivate AWAKENING MY SOUL OF DIVERSITY: The Coming Into My DNA 6 mindful movement towards the future participation of team-, group-, or support- opportunities that promote diversity and the application of inclusion, as these personal and professional exercises of attaining cultural competency will increase my efficacy of case-conceptualization in practice, as well as nurture the therapeutic alliance and encourage prolonged client-commitment. As we continue to learn and develop our “choice of sight” capabilities, I can not help but feel intense gratitude towards the many other majestic messages derived from the memorable interview with Dr. S. Todd Yeary. The concepts of needing to think deliberately within the complete and complex contexts of our clients, understanding innate hesitancies within the biological make-ups’ of marginalized populations, conceptualization of clients through the four-lens of ontology, epistemology, axiology, and cosmology, how the implementation of oversimplification is the recipe for oppressive-practice, the list of insightful teachings would go on if I did not stop myself (Yeary, S. T, 2021, March). These wise words welcome an additional felt-sense of understanding perspectives within persons’ of color, and will remain ingrained-instrictically within my inner scope of reference and resource. Future: It’s OUR Time to Prosper The responsibility advocacy employs does not end professionally, it extends personally. An advocate embodies a soul striving towards the creation of conditions that optimize the maximum development of our client’s systems and self (Sue & Sue, 2019, p. 39). The work we must subject ourselves to, although coated in confrontation, conflict, and compassion, newly defines our eternal existence. It is not the client’s job to ‘integrate,’ it is mine (as counselor) to allow diversity-inclusion within the space. As I pose the question, how can we foster this essential phenomenon? I can not help but highlight the obvious, yet obligatory practice of professionally pursuing the continuation AWAKENING MY SOUL OF DIVERSITY: The Coming Into My DNA 7 of constant educational and experiential experiences that promote cultural-awareness, aura, and attitude within unlike- or unknown- individuals. As our colleagues of color often bare the burden of needing to educate others of their cultural communities and identities, the simple, respectful applications of regular engagement in self-educative culturally-focused practices is one-way of promoting not only client success, but team success (FARRUGIA, A., & ABOU-ARABI, 2021). As reading only goes so far, I will also make a professional promise to myself of not just allowing my mind to be enriched with diversity of experience, but I want to allow my body the same right and privilege. This act of acquiring body-based empathetic-evolution can be achievable through variety of lived-experience; as I continue to strive for this ultimate-understanding, especially now considering our current chaotic climate of social- and political- unrest, NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Health), the nation’s largest grassroots mental health organization, provides an abundance of opportunity to attend free group settings that facilitate support, growth, and the achievement towards cultural competence. ‘African American Focused NAMI Connection Support Group,’ for example, will be an online opportunity in which I will be able to continue to learn and grow with others (African American Focused Nami connection support group starts). I find it fascinating the secondary-post-traumatic growth I continue to experience through my professional journey of cultural competence; and this same post-traumatic growth positively transforms me personally, as well. I myself carry a past of trauma, and as it is generally seen across trauma‐exposed participants, social anhedonia is associated with less social network diversity (Olson, 2021). My personal past of experiencing a severe lack of pleasure in social settings, and having gained the awareness of the codependent relationship trauma and voice typically share, I personally promise myself to use my voice more, to verbally stand up in the AWAKENING MY SOUL OF DIVERSITY: The Coming Into My DNA 8 face of injustice and adversity, and to verbally stand for diversity and inclusion. This voice will not only provide others’ supportive purpose and passion, but will secondly account for the facilitation of possible-positive oral transmission of health-promoting advocacy throughout a variety of cultural-identities; a practice, the act of providing a ‘communication hotspot,’ in which I will personally employ to reduce the ever-existing barriers to healthcare for those identifying within marginalized populations (Burgess, 2021). Conclusion: It’s Not the End, It’s Only the Beginning The awakening of one’s all-accepting soul, although tedious and tenacious, brings us to the coveted brink of self-actualization. This journey cannot go without immense scrutiny of self, the possession of others’ perspective, and the experience of exquisite empathy. The exposures to distinctive demonstrations of diversity, imperative to my personal and professional development, instituted within me the rebirth of such rite of passage, now forever firing my altruistic-duty and desire of the passing of these practices, promises, and preconditions for peace. AWAKENING MY SOUL OF DIVERSITY: The Coming Into My DNA 9 References African American Focused Nami connection support group starts. (n.d.). Retrieved March 16, 2021, from https://namimn.org/african-american-focused-nami-connection-supportgroup-starts/ Burgess. (2021). Communication Hotspots: How Infrastructure Shapes People’s Health. Health Communication., 36(3), 361–371. Connery. (2021). Teachers making sense of undocumented status and their responsibilities to undocumented students: A critical perspective. Teaching and Teacher Education., 98. FARRUGIA, A., & ABOU-ARABI, M. (2021). From Research Outsider to Cultural Ally. ASHA Leader, 26(1), 10–11. Khalfaoui. (2021). 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Examining how African-Australian youth find living in a “post multicultural” Australia. Social Identities., 27(1), 75–91. Yeary, S. T. (2021, March). Religion versus spirituality. Interview conducted from Northwestern University, United States. Zyl. (2020). Examining gender diversity growth as a model for inclusion of all underrepresented persons in medical physics. Medical Physics., 47(12),-.