Culture

This summer, I had the very strange but amazing privilege of being able to be a part of a cultural perspectives class for my counseling program and be a part of a book club that was going through a book about de-westernizing our faith. I do not think that it was mere coincidence that I attended both at the same time.

I had my cultural perspectives class Monday and Wednesday evenings, and then I had the book club on Tuesday evenings. Often, what was discussed in class would remind me of the book club, and what was talked about in the book club would remind me of class.

I think the main idea that my professor wanted us to walk away with was that every kind of counseling is multicultural counseling. Unless we purposely try to keep ourselves in a sociocultural, sociopolitical, socioeconomic bubble, at least one cultural/social/economic/political demographic will be different with anyone we interact with. There is culture at a grand scale, cultures within cultures, and personal cultures. Although some cultures may disagree with the beliefs and attitudes of another, they all usually come from a place that is understandable, if we would be willing to listen (does not mean we have to agree, though).

Something I have been learning from my book club this summer is that I cannot run away from the discourse on race, being a person of color myself. I used to get in very heated arguments with people about race, and it is still something I am definitely quite passionate about, but I have learned to pick my fights at this point. More often than not, the fights are not mine to pick, or the way I “fight” is not how I would imagine. Sometimes for my sanity I have to just brush things off, and sometimes I have to move through fear and stand up to racism – but either way, this is all part of the work I am doing. The main reason I reached out to my current therapist was due to racial trauma, and with this book club I am reminded that I do not have to work through this alone.

All this to say, it has been a very enriching summer thinking about race and culture as I begin my 30’s soon as well as progress in my work at a university, in my counseling graduate studies, in the disorientation & reorientation of my faith, and as I learn to be a more wholehearted human being.