Decolonized Healing

Sarathi Sakthivel, a South Indian trans woman born and raised in New York City, spent years trying to become the person she thought she was supposed to be.

Growing up in a home that rattled her peace, Sarathi learned to survive by moving with the chaos: achieving, producing, perfecting, and chasing the ever-changing expectations placed upon her by her family and society.

Until eventually, the chaos consumed her hope and left her depleted. She describes this state as “rock bottom,” sharing that the pain she experienced at this point in her life acted as an invitation to discover who she really was. In the silence and stillness of rock bottom, she began questioning which parts of herself were truly hers and which had been shaped by family, assimilation, capitalism, and colonial systems.

In Forgetting Self, we investigate whether stillness can help us rediscover a self buried beneath the expectations of the world around us. Through Sarathi’s journey toward her inner voice, we explore how colonialism and capitalism shape our relationships with productivity, safety, and self-worth; what psychology says about mindfulness, technology, and our ability to think for ourselves; and how spiritual traditions ask us to become quiet enough to remember who we are.

This episode contains discussions of childhood abuse, trauma, disordered eating, and suicide, including a personal account of a suicide attempt. Please take care of yourself while listening and step away if you need to.

Grace Go, a Korean American college student, educator, and activist, thinks she has cracked the code on why our communities are still bleeding.

Colonialism left a wound. Intergenerational trauma and systemic violence now act as fingers, constantly tearing our historical injustices open. Despite the best efforts of liberatory movements, the constant triggering of our lived experiences makes marginalized peoples feel like it’s impossible to heal from our past.

In Forgetting Grace, we explore Grace’s argument that colonial wounds are persisting because we keep picking at our trauma, not giving ourselves air to heal. Assimilation, achievement, and the promise of economic success are Band-Aids that people of color place over our festering pain, hoping that if we become successful enough, respectable enough, or close enough to whiteness, we might finally feel safe. Grace argues that until we learn to forget; to let the wound close and fill our hearts with something that doesn’t leave us sick; we will keep bleeding.

Through Grace’s experiences with racism, her Korean American identity, her relationship with her family, and her work teaching Asian American history, we explore how colonialism and intergenerational trauma can cultivate learned helplessness and how wounded people can unknowingly pass their pain down to those they love.

Islamic philosophies of tawakkul, surrender, and divine trust, as well as early developmental research on shame and control, help ground her ideologies in evidence-based, well-known practices.

Join us in Episode 2 of Decolonized Healing as we accept what we cannot change. As we discover that true control lives in our relationship with the outside world, not in fearful attempts to avoid being dehumanized by people who don’t consider us to be human.

Who were you before the world made you become someone?

Rowena Federico Finn, a visual artist, mother, teacher, and longterm-community organizer, spent years trying to become the person she thought she was supposed to be.

Until one day, her love for her daughter wrenched her away from needing to meet the expectations of a post-colonial society. As Rowena’s daughter struggled with their identity, Rowena noticed she had similar questions; and suddenly, her growing disconnection to her Filipino roots and the dreams that had been forgotten with time felt impossible to ignore.

In Forgetting the Dream, we investigate whether who we used to be as children is truly the key to unlocking our happiness. Through exploring Rowena’s journey back to her art and ancestry, we investigate how colonialism and assimilation shape what children and adults believe is possible, what science says about childhood dreams and adult happiness, and why Islamic and Buddhist philosophies ask us to return to the truth we once knew.

Special thanks to Aaadarei, Maryam Mustafa, Priya Patel, Tatianna Kalanioff, Gabrielle Panelo, Joanna Ye, Anika Bjupatiraju, and Julia Cai for their work on production, writing, and research of the podcast.

This episode explores how fascism and capitalism function not only as political and economic systems, but as methods of psychological control. It examines how the instability of late-stage capitalism pushes people into survival states that make authoritarian order feel soothing, even at the cost of autonomy and critical thought.

Audre Lorde shows how fascist systems rank human worth. This episode explores why profit depends on someone being labeled disposable.

Fascism did not appear out of nowhere. This episode traces its roots to colonialism, slavery, and state violence.

Violence is not random. This episode explores how fear is used to control behavior now and in the future.

This episode explores scapegoating as a political tactic used by governments to redirect blame during times of crisis. Using metaphor, it examines how fascist systems target marginalized communities for social failures they did not create, while avoiding accountability for structural harm.

When people challenge power, fascist systems respond by silencing them. This episode explains how suppression works and why it is so effective.