The loss of our office did not stop the needs of our clients or community, so we immediately started providing free “Transformative Community Healing Sessions” in Minneapolis parks. These sessions were rooted in Restorative Work, but our co-owner, Jamil Stamschror-Lott, our resident Restorative expert stated, “as a Black person in America, there is nothing to restore…so we need to start calling the circles Transformative”. Over time we served hundreds of people in 2020 using this method and have continued to do so. Community Transformative sessions integrate elements of liberation psychology, ethnopolitical psychology, and intersectionality theory, Restorative Justice, Clinical Group counseling, and radical healing. This is not therapy but a usage of therapeutic and social justice oriented techniques to bring about racial healing to a community. This method is useful in building a positive community and healing from individual and communal pain.
I was both timid and determined to start, really start, the work of becoming an active antiracist. I knew, though, I had to reach outside my comfort zone. The buzz for white bodies was to start having “difficult conversations” around race. Oh geez, how do I do that? Especially since most of my friends, family, and community are white? I did it . . . one sit in the grass at a time. I showed up at Triangle park each week the summer of 2020 and sat in wholehearted, raw, real, generous conversation with others from the community who felt outraged and vulnerable in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder. And it could not have happened without the sincere and skillful guidance of Creative Kuponya’s fearless leaders, Jamil and Sara. They heard us. They guided us. They held us in a compassionate circle.
Research shows that 90% of successful therapy is directly correlated to the power of relationship.
