Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] If you have been exiled from your own land, your country, your family of origin, welcome.
[00:00:09] If you are undocumented, stateless, refugee, or fearing deportation in this moment, welcome.
[00:00:20] If you are indigenous to a land that was stolen from you, welcome.
[00:00:28] If you have faced genocide of your dignity and identity because of your ethnicity, your race, your religion, the language you speak, the accent you carry, welcome.
[00:00:46] This is excellent rising. I'm Anna Mail, somatic experiencing therapist for PTSD and trauma Recovery.
[00:00:54] I am a founder of Somatic Trauma Recovery center here in Toronto, Canada.
[00:00:59] So let's explore your right to accountability as someone who carries this history of being exiled, being less off.
[00:01:13] Let's begin.
[00:01:16] We have confused healing with tolerance.
[00:01:21] And we have mistaken endurance for maturity. Uh, and in doing so, we have let harm go unexamined.
[00:01:34] And not because we forgave it, but because we were taught that asking for accountability makes us difficult again. We get to be labeled as we are the one who others feel uncomfortable about, right? We are the one because someone quote unquote above us feels uncomfortable around us again.
[00:02:13] And this is how trauma becomes a moral issue, not only psychological one or somatic one. It is a moral issue because when a person or a system m refuses accountability, they are not just avoiding blame, they are denying you and your humanity and your dignity.
[00:02:47] And spiritual bypassing is pandemic. Now, with this goes very well known, forgive.
[00:03:02] It's spiritual to forgive.
[00:03:04] But behind this, uh, need to forgive, it's the same storyline as someone saying, you, you're a strong one, you're resilient one.
[00:03:17] When someone tells you, oh, just forgive again, we have a place of someone who doesn't want to take accountability.
[00:03:28] Spiritual bypassing, okay, it's not coming if it's coming from the place.
[00:03:36] Let's take accountability, let's grieve.
[00:03:42] And then only if you find between you and you a space to forgive, you'll choose to do that, right?
[00:03:54] But when it's done with the quality of forgive and let's just move on so that side avoids taking responsibility, that's not okay.
[00:04:06] That's denying of your humanity. That's minimizing of what is done to you.
[00:04:13] And when it comes to resilience, we know this resilience, it just means you survived, right?
[00:04:23] If you have been a soldier, if you're a victim of trauma, of neglect, that means you're resilient.
[00:04:34] But look at this.
[00:04:36] Someone who is abuser can also be resilient.
[00:04:42] But not all are accountable.
[00:04:47] So resilience cannot be our highest value.
[00:04:51] It's really used buzzword now don't fall on that because this is not your highest value.
[00:05:01] Without accountability.
[00:05:05] Resilience is amoral and it can coexist with injustice.
[00:05:16] Perpetrators are also resilient people m people who committed genocide and crime, they are very resilient, right?
[00:05:32] So we have this theme now just look at the social media and who is using this word resilience. When a uh, society calls it wounded strong, it removes or resilient, right. It removes this ethical responsibility to change the conditions that cause the wound. And that's not healing, it's abandonment. And you know that place and it's disguised as a narration. It's very insulting.
[00:06:12] It's almost like insulting your intelligence as you are not able to assess and see through.
[00:06:23] And we know, we who survived war and genocide, displacement, being ostracized from own family.
[00:06:32] One thing you know is to how to read people and to assess, right?
[00:06:38] Hmm. Hm.
[00:06:39] It's almost like you cannot see what's behind it.
[00:06:43] Well, actually you can.
[00:06:46] Okay, so accountability is not humiliation, it's not endless apology and it's not revenge.
[00:07:00] Accountability is a moral relationship to the truth, to what was done.
[00:07:11] It means acknowledging the impact of harm without deflecting, minimizing or spiritual bypassing it.
[00:07:27] So accountability and collectively they are declining by the speed of flight.
[00:07:38] In accountability we are losing our moral values.
[00:07:44] And accountability is this moral relationship to truth and just uh, not just acknowledging the impact of harm.
[00:07:56] Even your sometimes intent can come from the best place and still the harm can be done still.
[00:08:14] Right?
[00:08:16] And also what it means, the one who caused harm or benefited from the structure that caused it participates in repair not through guilt, but through responsibility.
[00:08:32] And accountability says you are still human, but so am I.
[00:08:43] And it restores symmetry to relationship that trauma made unequal.
[00:08:53] It restores that, it restores that in day to day living. You know that place, you know when you just do something that's not right by a partner, by a friend, and you own, you own your doing, you just own it. It's so simple because uh, it steers you up from inside. It doesn't sit well.
[00:09:30] And that symmetry, that accountability is the foundation of dignity.
[00:09:36] And people can just say, okay, who walks with the dignity, with honor, people with accountability, who can own, who can own their mistakes, who can sit down and face the truth of the impact what they did.
[00:10:03] And in trauma therapy we talk about safety, we talk about regulation, we talk about regulated nervous system grounding.
[00:10:13] Before all of that there is something more important and so basic.
[00:10:20] The right to be treated as a full person, the right to be treated as a full person, as a human.
[00:10:35] And healing is not some luxury, it's a human right.
[00:10:45] And when the world tells you to move on, it violates your human right because you cannot move on from something that is still being denied or minimized or labeled as you are so strong and resilient.
[00:11:12] Accountability is therefore a ah, human rights issue.
[00:11:18] It affirms that you are not invisible and it asserts that your pain matters socially, politically, in relational field and morally.
[00:11:35] And to heal without accountability is to teach your kids, your community to submit again.
[00:11:48] And that pain has no witness.
[00:11:52] It teaches them only way is to resign.
[00:11:57] And that is how cycle of violence continues.
[00:12:05] What I'm teaching here is for you really to land that you have the right for accountability because it's your human right.
[00:12:18] And you call people on their actions, you seek for that accountability.
[00:12:28] It's requirement you require.
[00:12:33] And it can be so simple as saying to your partner, I require accountability in this relationship from you or I will end this. It will not work for me or your co worker or collectively as a minority from the system where we live.
[00:12:59] Who is going to repair those wounds? Who is going to be accountable?
[00:13:05] That's your right.
[00:13:09] So accountability begins personally with ability to say yes I caused harm or yes, I benefited from the silence.
[00:13:26] Right? It begins with this on um, the personal level for a person who needs to be accountable for their wrongdoing.
[00:13:37] And then it must grow collectively without systems of accountability, right? In families, in government, workplace and cultures, healing is only for privileged ones. M right.
[00:13:57] And this resilience, it's almost asking us to do impossible.
[00:14:05] It's easy way out for people who don't want to take any accountability.
[00:14:10] And this accountability, it's almost distributes the labor of repair.
[00:14:17] It helps you out, it helps you out to heal.
[00:14:22] It needs to be relational.
[00:14:26] And this isn't self pity, this is ethics. These are the moral values and ethics we need to embrace and be fully aware of. It's almost like we forgot to live by moral values and ethics.
[00:14:43] And when we have this accountability, dignity rises up.
[00:14:53] Because to be accountable is to recognize another person worth it, says you deserved better, you're not disposable.
[00:15:06] How would you feel when that someone who harmed you or the system who would fully take accountability of uh, yeah, this was done this way, you deserved better, you're not recyclable or disposable.
[00:15:30] Right.
[00:15:34] That will not diminish your wounds by its restorative.
[00:15:44] And it allows us right survivors to stop performing this resilience, the strength and start Existing again as a human being.
[00:15:59] Because when this truth is named, then the nervous system can finally rest. Then we can do the nervous system repair.
[00:16:10] Not because it's over, so, no, no, no.
[00:16:14] But because it's seen, it's recognized.
[00:16:20] Dignity needs witness.
[00:16:26] It needs witness, not some admiration and applause.
[00:16:33] So resilience helped you to survive the war inside your body and outside you had to face.
[00:16:45] And accountability helps rebuild the world outside of you, Right?
[00:16:57] Resilience is just saying, I lived, I moved through.
[00:17:01] Accountability is saying, I matter, I matter, I deserve. This was not right.
[00:17:16] And we don't need anyone who will build this archetype of heroes around us because we survived this big trauma.
[00:17:29] But we need this dignified apology with full accountability.
[00:17:35] Because healing without accountability is not peace, it's silence.
[00:17:43] And silence has never been the same thing as safety. You know that. And also you know when someone is taking accountability, fake accountability. We know those fake stories.
[00:17:56] One thing PTSD survivors, trauma survivors have in the system is detector for the bullshits.
[00:18:06] You can listen episode trauma James Bond, where I describe in satirical way enormous intelligence around assessment and hypervigilance. And oh boy, we absolutely can assess dishonesty and lie.
[00:18:28] We just learn to be quiet.
[00:18:31] So in your healing, as I close this today, in your healing and in your living, you need to require other person accountability, regardless of their intention. If the impact is harmful on your soul, on your heart, on your humanness, you request accountability and you don't allow that praise of you are so strong and resilient to shut you down and then collectively right, we need to move this. How can we, how can we restore our human rights and justice?
[00:19:29] Because resilience is just survival. It's just survival.
[00:19:35] It's a place where you didn't have a choice. We know that.
[00:19:40] So I talked about this in the previous episode.
[00:19:43] Being strong as a, uh, burden.
[00:19:47] Resilience is a choiceless place.
[00:19:52] Many people have resilience and many perpetrators have the same quality.
[00:20:01] And to praise someone as being resilient is just not okay.
[00:20:06] And accountability is the return of humanity.
[00:20:12] So we need to reclaim the right to accountability and let go of this resilience and strength label or archetype, right?
[00:20:28] If this speaks to you, please support and donate.
[00:20:34] All the funds are going introduction of this podcast and also to help many who are seeking help and support through Somatic Trauma Recovery Center.
[00:20:47] The link is in the show notes. Please check all the programs I'm running.
[00:20:53] I'm Anna Mile.
[00:20:56] This M is excellent rising and until next time, be gentle with yourself.
[00:21:06] Be proud of yourself and reclaim all your rights.
[00:21:14] All your rights.
[00:21:17] Until next time.
[00:21:19] Much care.
[00:21:21] Much care.
