Acceptance is Not Giving Up with Carissa Singh

Carissa Singh is a sounding board for me. There aren't many folks at the intersection of mental health, collective liberation, and what I would call spirituality, but has many other names. Carissa is a therapist based in Seattle, and one of my favorite practitioners.

 

Carissa is also a bridge. She is three-heritages-in-one-body, and had to learn how to navigate being many-things-at-once from childhood. Since 2017, she has had a chronic invisible illness. She stands with one foot on either side of the chasm of an unfair system of labor, and in general thinks boxes are just too small for us. Not fitting in one place, specifically since her illness, has provided her with a wealth of discomfort that she has been able to use to liberate herself.  She says: "Although I never would have asked for this experience, and, I don't know if I would have done things differently if I never could have had my [illness], it is a gift in that sense."

 

In this episode, she talks about how these experiences helped her validate herself, and that to gain more self trust, she had to accept that we aren't ever going to be the same person we are before our wounds. She says "I had to accept, to be more liberated, to be where I am now. We can accept and still keep fighting".