Healing is Justice: Eriel’s Sabbatical and the Work of Healing in Climate Action
I have recently taken a huge step into leaning to my community by asking for support and generosity. I should start with a clear statement that I love my work and the relationships that I have formed over the years with activists and communities from across Mother Earth and I honor these experiences. However, I have come to a point where I need to take a step back and direct my attention inward and focus on how to do this work long term and sustainably.
To continue my work for climate justice and Indigenous rights I need to do my own healing. As many of us know, activism takes a toll on us mentally, emotionally and physically. Coupled with the stresses of our personal lives, this can create a toxic mixture that eventually leads to burnout. To be clear, burnout isn’t simply being tired, it has real tangible consequences to a person's overall health. In recognizing these signs in my own body I realized it was no longer sustainable for me to continue moving forward the way I have been.
“With the support of my team at ICA and my family, I have decided that now is the time to do my own healing - healing that is integral not only for myself but to continue my mission for Indigenous-led climate justice.”
My friend and co-founder of ICA, Melina Laboucan-Massimo, recently took a sabbatical after years of doing this work and experiencing severe burnout and debilitating health issues. Here are some words from her perspective on the importance of taking time to heal:
“The impacts of being an Indigenous frontline organizer are real and insidious. I myself have experienced this after 15 years of organizing where my body no longer could keep up with what was being asked of me and I became bed ridden for almost half a year. If we expect Indigenous bodies to take the brunt of trauma from being on the frontlines to stay in this movement for the long haul, we must support healing justice.
It is morally bankrupt to expect Indigenous youth coming into this movement to continue down this trajectory. The burden of trauma shouldn’t rest solely on the bodies of our people for the benefit of an extractive system that mines stories and our bodies with no real substantive change in how we show up in trauma informed ways in our movement spaces. This is why healing justice practices are incredibly important to make it possible to stay in this work long term.
In a system and society that actively targets Black, Brown and Indigenous bodies, with violence, oppression and terror, we must build movements that fight for and achieve justice for all people. This justice includes healing, well-being, and not only surviving but thriving. Resiliency and healing are strategic - we need everyone in our movements to have access to healing from trauma and violence as it strengthens all of us and all of our movements.
Healing justice is a framework that recognizes the impact of trauma and violence on individuals and communities and names collective processes that can help heal and transform these forces. We need our movements to be radically caring spaces that support healing from trauma. “
As an Indigenous woman, who has been supporting and advocating for my own communities struggles to protect our homelands, our people, our rights and our culture on the frontlines for decades, I know that the mind, body and spirit are connected and impacted. However, many spaces I have been in over the years do not recognize the interconnections and impacts - they mine Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge and time with little regard for the effects that it has on our health. Confronting colonization and oppression in various spaces both in so-called Canada and internationally, has very real effects.
“I recognize that being able to take a sabbatical is a privilege. It shouldn’t be, but under our current systems in which we view activist labor as disposable, it is. We should all have opportunities for healing our minds, bodies, and hearts. As Indigenous Peoples, we have experienced trauma - trauma that is passed down through generations - as we continue to grapple with the effects of colonialism, both in the past, but as an ongoing force that seeks to destroy our ways of being. ”
We’re also going to be creating a healing justice program for Indigenous Climate Action - a new resource that we will be able to offer our staff and people within our networks. To support this work, Melina will be stepping into a role as the Director of Healing Justice later this fall. This will allow us to interrupt the cycles of extractivism that are entrenched within many strategies for social justice and provide support to our people in continuing to do this important work. We also hope to serve as an example to other organizations as to the need to integrate healing justice into all the work they do.
During this sabbatical, I will be undertaking healing in different forms. I plan to begin therapy for both my physical health and mental health - to take time to recognize and to heal from grief, years of working nonstop, and trauma. I also plan to take a lot of time reconnecting with the land. All with the goal of being able to come back into this work that I love with renewed energy and connection - work that will continue to be carried out by the great team at ICA while I’m away.
To everyone who has supported both myself and Indigneous Climate Action over the years, mussi cho, I will see you all again soon.
— Eriel