#i myself am not an immigrant but i work a lot with first gen youth | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

thewestmeetingroom · 4 years ago

Text

The West Meeting Room: You Are Enough As You Are

Broadcast September 28, 2019

SPEAKERS Saba, Aisha, Ruvimbo, Tony, Chemi, Gen, Nermeen, Carly

Saba Hello and welcome to The West Meeting Room, a new weekly show from the Hart House student podcasting team. Today we are broadcasting live from the CiUT Map Room Studios at Hart House. And we are grateful to live, work and study on Dish with One Spoon Territory. I'm Saba and I'll be your host for today's episode. Today on The West Meeting Room we will be featuring one of a series of conversations we recorded over the summer centered around peer to peer wisdom exchange. U of T can often feel like a difficult and isolating space to navigate. So our podcasting team spent this past summer gathering conversations with students and recent graduates to find out how they cultivate self care in their lives. These students and recent grads invite us into their conversation about taking up space, building meaningful relationships and how to take care of yourself while navigating systems of oppression.

Aisha My name is Aisha and something I'm proud of that I've started doing in particular, in my fourth year of study, which I just finished, is I'm living a more balanced life. I think my first three years in particular, I was taking - I was kind of in a go go go kind of mindset. Everything was focused on how can I dedicate the most time possible to my academics, to the extracurriculars, to all the research and the activities that will get me into grad school. And my priorities were very much centered there. But somehow, I don't quite know how I had a bit of a mental shift, where I realized that, you know, I may have had certain accomplishments on paper, but I wasn't feeling as fulfilled as I would have been had I been spending more time with family and friends and on my spirituality, and kind of living in the moment a bit more. So I'm proud that I think I've achieved a more balanced lifestyle without necessarily giving up what I was doing before. So my life just feels more holistic right now. Okay,

Ruvimbo My name is Ruvimbo. And something I'm proud of is just being more self aware and more self conscious. Reading this book, very popular best selling book called The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. I highly recommend it. I'm reading it with my workmates and as a team and we're all just going through it chapter by chapter. Aach one of us taking a chapter and kind of breaking it down, dissecting it and seeing how it could be best applicable to our lives. And so by reading that book, I think I'm becoming more sensitive on myself. Like me as a person, but then how that's impacting my relationships with other people. And so I'm really proud of the fact that I'm able to kind of take ownership of myself, my flaws, my faults, and all the good things, good things and bad things that come with me. And just working on being a better person for myself and for others. Yeah.

Gen So, um, I kind of don't want to answer this question, because it's kind of hard to find something I'm proud of. Because in past months, I've done a lot of, or not something that I've done is, I did not achieve a lot of things I should be proud of. But I think the one thing that I'm proud of this month is that I got my willpower back, which is very, very difficult I realized. I didn't know until I lost it and I mean, they're just days I just want to wander around at home doing nothing. But I, I believe that my personality is driven by willpower. And without it, I felt like dead. I mean, some people, they're really relaxed because they like that kind of, you know, environment. But for me, I always thought, oh, there must be a reason, there must be a purpose. And once I lost that purpose, I can't do what I do. So I'm, I'm proud that I changed that perspective. There's so much more to just, you know, aiming for one purpose, so I'm proud of that.

Chemi We’re glad you're here too.

Tony Thank you for sharing. Hi, everyone. My name is Tony. And something I am proud of is I've been thinking a lot about tenderness. And I've been reading this book called On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong. And there's this line he writes, where he says, “sometimes being offered tenderness feels like the very proof that you've been ruined.” And this line for me, hit me so deeply. And I've been thinking a lot about how I seek tenderness in a lot of ways, and how that relates to a lot of things that I've been working on and healing from. And how, for me, it's just like thinking about how I also felt like I needed to believe that I deserve tenderness and also that I can show myself that tenderness rather than seeking it from other people. While I always appreciate it from people that I love. I think right now, it's like, the ways that I can show up for myself and be tender with myself. And doing that is like, can be really hard work. And so I'm proud of myself for coming to that and also just like being a work in progress. So yeah.

Chemi Alright, tashi delek everyone. Hello, my name is Chemi and very grateful to be sharing this land here. I know that it belongs to the original stewards, the Indigenous communities, the First Nation, Métis and Inuit folks. So grateful in any space that I take up because I come from stolen land myself. So the dynamic is always very interesting. And something that I'm proud of, you know, it's always hard question for me as well. And I would say overall, my identity, who I am as a whole, specifically my rich Tibetan Buddhist traditions. So that's something I'm very proud of, although it is something that I had the privilege of inheriting at birth. That is where I find my strength and keeps me going every single day. And yeah, I think the concept of my people is very interesting because it reminds me the teachings of impermanence, that it's forever changing. Right. And that was, for me, that sort of experience came along when I came to university because for me, my people had always been my community, my Tibetan community. And I'm a community organizer and an activist in that sort of space. And, you know, had experiences organizing rallies for over 2000 people and stuff like that coming into university. But when I came to university, my people became just the athletic society where I played sports. I played competitive sports, tri-campus and things like that. And that was sort of my people. And then I would come and take neuroscience and biochemistry the first few years. So I was like, Okay, I didn't belong here. But this is sort of my clique. But then moving forward in our third year and fourth year, I realized that many of the sort of challenges and issues that my community faces, specifically the youth, when it comes to, you know, being an immigrant family, being most oftentimes the first generation to access higher education, coming from low income families, gentrification happening in their communities. All of these sort of challenges and issues that my community was facing and I was trying to address was the same thing in Scarborough. And I realized, oh wow, there's a whole lot of other communities. They're all just like me or they're all just like my siblings that need that help. And then I thought to myself that maybe this is my chance to go beyond my own community and rejig what I mean by “my people”, because oftentimes, people are brought together through similar sort of experiences of pain and suffering. So in that sort of space, I realized that wow, like, if I can be useful here, why am I exhausting myself in only one community when I could be helping my other Tamil brother or my Tamil sister or Tamil either or, right. And so yeah, I started there. And then I started getting involved and I realized that the work was really just the same and hence why now I’m much more involved on campus along with my community.

Ruvimbo Thank you, Chemi. It was really interesting how you mentioned how you wanted to go beyond your particular community. And you were seeing similarities in other communities that may be not necessarily where you were from, where you're rooted in, but you saw a need there to support those same things. And I was just wondering if we could maybe, if everyone's comfortable, we could go into that discussion.

Aisha That question I find really, really interesting, because when I was listening to the question and thinking of community, I was thinking of community in terms of maybe kind of the ethnic sense or the national sense or the cultural sense because of your, Chemi's, earlier answer. And my experience on campus was very much not having found that kind of community at all throughout my entire four years here. And so when I, when I think of kind of supporting my community and the issues that I've personally find very important as like kind of a Muslim Canadian, as a hijab wearing woman, the issues that are important to my community are things that I've had to kind of bring up independently. And it's been very, it would have been very difficult within the spaces that I inhabited on this campus to find other people who maybe had similar perspectives. If I'm thinking, particularly if I'm taking the example of like Islamophobia, for example, I think in my first year in residence within my college, I was the only person there who were a hijab. And to my knowledge, I was the only Muslim woman in the residence or that I was interacting with on a daily. I'm sure there were others who probably didn't want to bring it up. So it was less an experience of finding community in other kind of related groups and more of trying to share pieces of my community with other communities. So one thing that I found really useful was talking about my own experiences and kind of personalizing Muslims to people that maybe you hadn't interacted with them before. Or writing in the college's magazine and kinda drawing people into my community. Like putting Henna on them, letting them try on my Pakistani clothes, and things like that.

Ruvimbo Thank you for sharing that.

Tony Thank you for sharing that Aisha. I think there's a lot of things that you mentioned that really resonated for me. I think it's tricky navigating academic institutions where I think oftentimes there can be a sense of loneliness, when there isn't kind of that access to a community. And I and I do, I really appreciate that you talked about kind of sharing those pieces of your community to communities. Also recognizing it's a lot of work and it's a lot of labor. It's a lot of, not just like physical or like emotional labor that sometimes is expected. And I wish sometimes that there was kind of this more mutuality of like, folks also doing the work and getting to like, you know, any forms of like, discrimination. It's like it's something that is wrong but oftentimes gets normalized in very subtle ways. And I think that's part of like, where allyship for me is a little bit - there can be a lot of tensions just because there's a lot of ways that folks may claim to be allies but it can be very performative. And I think what I mean by that is like without kind of that mutualness of like working, making the effort to like really dismantling the very things that make people feel lonely in the first place with like - because I think like communities can also consist of, you know, folks of different backgrounds for sure. But there needs to be like, I don't know, this idea of mutualness, I think it's really, really important. And I'd be, and I would love to hear kind of like other folks like, thoughts and ideas kind of around I guess a couple of things - whether it's like - I know for me, it's like navigating kind of that sense of loneliness. When, you know, that sense of community isn't always obvious and also like, what it means to have other people also show up for you while you're trying to shop for yourself. So now there's like a couple things that I'd be interested in hearing more about.

Ruvimbo So a piece of advice that, I've actually recently heard this and I've been trying to practice it, is to focus on your circle of influence and not your circle of concern. And just to briefly kind of explain what that means is that there's so many things happening in this world around us in our lives that we're concerned about. But there's not many things you can change. So to focus on your circle of influence is to focus essentially on yourself. Because you're the only thing that you can change. And by focusing on yourself, you can then influence other things around you to change. And so that's something I've been trying to do. I carry my own weather within myself and then not letting outward things affect me. And by doing that I'll be able to have a more positive influence on those things.

Gen Sorry, I just, I just thought of like a star trek quote for it. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be all nerdy. It's just some - it's kind of difficult isn't it though? Because some people might think the needs of the many outweigh the needs of you. And every time when you try to put yourself ahead of everything people might find you, you know, like, selfish? Or, I mean, I think it's very important to self care and I have been having trouble because I'm always afraid of what other people think of me. So, what makes you, you know, go for that?

Ruvimbo So it's not so much as being like selfish in the sense of just focus on you. It's you. I can't change you, but I can change me. Right? So rather than, Yeah, it's rather than “it's all about me and I don't care what's happening outwardly” it's, I” can always change those things because they're not me.” The only person I can change confidently is me. So I think that's why I've been going for that often because if someone is upset, having a bad day, I can't make them not have a bad day because if they're having a bad day, that's them. But I can change how I approach them with regards to the day that they're having and not let it then affect me to the point where now both of us are having a bad day.

Tony I think my – the wisdoms that I’ve received has been, kind of related. I think it's believing in the positive intent of human beings. This idea that it's okay to make mistakes, as long as there is a willingness to be accountable and also like a willingness to repair the harm. And I think a lot about this because I think sometimes making mistakes is part of learning, but also understanding the impact that sometimes our mistakes can have. And that it is really important that when we're able to like to really repair the harm, and it's not necessarily like our self worth, that's on trial when someone tells us like, “Oh, actually, this thing that you did was not okay.” And then just like to learn from that and I think the positive intent comes from, like knowing that we can change and you know, that we don't repeat the same mistakes in the future.

Chemi Yeah just jumping on that. I think the truth of suffering is that everyone suffers. And then when you acknowledge that you get to see the human side of the other person. And then other pieces of sort of wisdom is that you're not alone. I think a lot of people need to hear that. And when you know that, you know a lot of people are subjected to suffering - not a lot - everyone is subjected to suffering in one way or the other. I think you realize that you're actually not alone. And then the last is that you are your own savior. I think that's something that has really helped a lot when I was growing up, and because of the sort of things that came in order that you know, suffering is part of life and you're not alone allows you to be the bigger person and then actually strive for wisdom and the eradication of ignorance.

Aisha So one ritual that I started this summer is just carrying a journal with me everywhere. So every single time I think of something that I think is wise or I learned a lesson or I reflect on a day or a conversation that's been particularly impactful, I just write it down. And I find that writing it into permanence and as something that I can look over later, has meant that those lessons are things that I'm carrying with me in the days ahead. And I like to think that it's helping me improve as a person and just generally how I'm going through my life.

Gen Definitely, the commitment that you’re actually putting it on paper really changes like oh you’re storing it up in your brain and you might remember it later, but then I guess drawing it out or writing it out really, really means that you respect that memory.

Aisha Right.

Gen That's beautiful.

Chemi Being intentional with your mornings, or just being intentional in general. So today, I'm going to smile at one person, or - you'd be you'd be surprised how often days go by without you realizing how much you've actually done things intentionally,right? So intentional mornings are great because knowing what you're going to do, accomplish today. I'm going to, before the day ends I'm going to, I don't know, buy a coffee for somebody- whatever it is. And then the other is when you're going to sleep, things that you're grateful for. So having a grateful list is always helpful.

Tony I love that, by the way. Being intentional. That's not something I thought of before. And I think for me, kind of similar to what you're both saying around like reflection, I started scrapbooking. Which started off as being like a joke that like I may get married one day and I have to give something to my wedding planner. Something that's like - I've been reading Bell Hooks All About Love and thinking about like, oh, romantic love shouldn't be at the top of the hierarchy. Like that's ridiculous. Like there's so many different forms of love. And so my scrapbook is about my friends and my family who like give me the most beautiful cards and then I just like scrapbook them and then we take photos I put in there and it's a really good reminder for me that there's so many ways to feel love and then, and I'm being taught how to be loving just through like all these different ways that love is showing up in my life. So yeah, scrapbooking. And as a way to you know just like redefine love has been really good for me

Gen I was actually going to comment on your habits. I'm not saying they're similar, but I think that we're actually making an effort to move away from the digital world. Like we're doing like physical things. We're trying to interact with real people trying to interact with nature and I feel like we're moving towards an age where these things can be replaced by I don't know taking a picture and posting it on Instagram or something like that. And I don't know what kids do these days, but I feel like a lot of people don't do physical things for personal reasons anymore because, simply because they can't share it. Like it's, not like you're recording where you're going and then you post it online, or you're not really scanning every page of your scrapbook and post it online. I mean, you might share it on your wedding day, but yeah. It's beautiful. So, um, I find it, I really appreciate that we're always trying to move away from being replaced by these robots or artificial intelligence and we're doing it for ourselves. So you're doing things for yourself and other people. Yeah.

Tony Thanks for sharing that. I think it's a really, you bring up a very like complicated, like, some complicated relationships that I definitely feel around like, the way that we navigate like technology, social media, and also feeling validation and like intimacy and it's really tricky. And it's like, and not to say that folks who post on social media is like, you know, an issue - it's just thinking about being more critical about our relationship to that. And, and like, sometimes I know, I just like, put them together. But sometimes I need to work in like just handling them apart. And that requires work. Yeah, it's it's complicated. It's Yeah. So thanks for bringing up those nuances.

Nermeen So mine is kind of something that I started in the summer as well. But I've just been making myself be outdoors every single day. Because I feel like when you're busy especially, it can be a tendency to just be going from place to place and coming back and forth. But I tried to give myself like, half an hour to an hour where I will go outside like while it's still light and do like -you're just going to sit, you can do what you want. Like, I won't go on my phone though. I’ll like either read, like journal or something like that. But I just try to do that to just be in nature a little bit. And I think, I don't know, like it's - I feel like it's helping my mental health a lot just because it gives you that moment where you decompress, and you can just like process things. And I really like that.

Aisha So one lesson that I've been trying to carry forward with new relationships I’m forming or as I'm getting closer to other people, is setting those boundaries proactively either with your words or with your behavior. So that I'm always keeping my own well being in mind, even when I do want to support others.

Ruvimbo That's great. That's good. I think that's important. And having those boundaries set up, up front, like you're saying, is so important because - and I see this quote often - you allow, you, I guess the essence of it is you are giving people permission to treat you a certain way. So if you have boundaries from the beginning, they know this is acceptable. This is unacceptable. This is, I can't cross this line because the other person just cannot handle this. I think that's very important. But as you were talking, one thing I was thinking about as well is understanding the way that you yourself give and receive love. So I've never actually read the book, The Five Love Languages, but I've done like the quiz and read a little bit about it. And I think it's been super helpful because then you can even communicate with people - and again, this goes for all relationships, not necessarily just romantic. Just to say, hey, this is how I receive love. Secause we are more inclined to give love in the way that we want to receive it. So if you are someone who values quality time, and I realized that that's me, my priority is to spend time with people and to be there like physically. Like let’s have this time together. But someone else might value words of affirmation, and the quality time may not necessarily even be top of their list. So me being there for them but not saying anything that's affirming to them isn't really doing much for them. So, and I think that comes with knowing yourself too and assessing yourself and realizing what do I do? How do I want to be loved? And inversely How then can I understand other people's love languages and how they receive love? So I think all of it yeah, it goes to loving yourself, as you were saying earlier, Tony, and just self love is important. And I think if you don't have enough self love for yourself, it's really difficult to then be able to give back to anyone else because you are depleted. You're working from a very empty source. So yourself should be the first kind of basis upon which you're working. And then you have more resources to give, more love to give out to others.

Nermeen Like what you're saying about setting boundaries with people, I find myself often in the same position of being someone who cares a lot. And I think with love languages as well, like I know mine is acts of service. So if I, if there's something that I can do for people, like I will always do it, even if it means like, I'm not going to sleep. I'm not going to like, be able to finish my own work or whatever. Like I will always try to support people. But I find that that leads to me feeling drained and feeling depleted sometimes. And so I was just wondering if, in general with your own experiences of like setting boundaries if you have any tips or like, anything that you do, or like for yourself or even with other people like what would you say or do to set those boundaries?

Aisha Sure, I'll jump in, just because this is definitely fresh on my mind. One thing that I found myself doing more and more during my degree was I'm a scheduler, so I like to schedule my days. And if I see myself, it applies to not only self care, but every, all my commitments in my life and I consider a commitment to self care to be one of my commitments. When it comes to academic commitments. If I'm stressed about a certain class, I'm putting a two or three hour block of time in my schedule for the next week to study for that class. Or if I'm feeling drained, where I have in my schedule, like go for a walk with my friend, I'll extend that from one hour to two hours, and just kind of think ahead. But in terms of communicating it, to answer the second part of your question, I found that it's a lot scarier to think about than it is to actually do if someone is genuinely friends with you and you tell them, Hey, I'm feeling really drained. I think tomorrow I'm going to take a self care day. I'm going to go to Harbourfront, get a beaver tail, and I'll see you like on Monday. They're going to, if they're a person who does care about you as much as they probably should, they'll be supportive of that.

Tony Yeah, I want to say, thank you for sharing those insights. Especially like, I like boundary setting as a way to show that, (what I've been reminded), I care about the relationship and also caring for ourselves, too. So I really like the things that you brought up. Yeah, you know, just opening it up.

Gen But it's difficult to set boundaries, because Are you saying we're too close? Or I mean, I, I just think I would definitely feel that way. If I were them. I'll be like, Hey, are you saying we hang out too much? Or are you saying that our relationship has gone to the deep end, like in a negative way? So how do you acknowledge or how do you clarify these boundaries with them?

Chemi Miscommunication is so undervalued I think, in any sense. There is no such thing as perfect communication. Because the moment, like even this moment right now that we're sharing, very grateful for it, first of all, is that whatever words are coming out of my mouth, you folks will interpret it in a different way. Right? Because you will understand it based on your understanding, your experiences from different parts of the world, and all the things that had to come together for you to be here today. Right? So acknowledging that in the first place, like really helps because you know that there's miscommunication in every single place, right? So it's bound to happen, whatever you're like sharing right now is being miscommunicated or misinterpreted in many ways, right? And understanding the nuances of it. So if it's a friend who knows you for a really long time, it is expected that they know, they share many memories with you or they share some experiences so they better understand that you, but, again, better understand you to some degree. But never necessarily the same way that you want it to be. Right. So just understanding that takes one whole like weight off the shoulder because you're like, like, you know - they're not actually receiving everything I'm giving them already in terms of information. And then the other thing is doing, like practicing what you preach basically. What do you need? And actually starting to practice that with your friends. I've seen a quote where it says, before I ran to my friend, for the first time a friend asked me, “wait, like, are you mentally and emotionally sort of able to take on the rant right now?” Just checking in. Like, quick check ins always helps. Right? And that really helps because I do that with my friends. Or I'm just like, I'm ready to burst because politics is politics. And I come into a room just like “hey, like, Wait, are you ready?” And then they just like, yeah, and then, right? But then there are some days where they’re just like, Nah, I'm actually tired. And I'm like, Okay. And then I'm, all of a sudden, I realized that even I, my rant, just kind of calms down. And it's like a conversation for later that I save. If not, if I really need to rant then I call somebody else. And right, like, it can be done. And then I feel like the next time my friends feel the need to rant and I'm like, drained, these questions are like organically coming where they're like trying to ask me whether or not Chemi like, are you okay? And I'm like, Oh, it worked. On the inside. But on the outside I'm just like, yeah, I'm ready.

Ruvimbo I like that you do that with your friends. And I think it builds like the system that you've built based on honesty as well. Like, if you're not ready, and they say, I'm not ready, you respect that and that allows them to be able to do the same thing for you. And I think that's the essence of it. Just you have to be honest. If you teeter around, like, you know, this is okay some days, whatever and you're not really communicating it, it's easy again, for that miscommunication to come about. I mean, it's always going to be there, like you were saying to me, but I think it's more apparent if you yourself are not confident in what you're saying. And saying, like No right now. I honestly emotionally cannot take this on. And I'm not saying that what you have to say is invalid. I just don't think I'll even be able to support you if you tell me, and I don't think you want that either. For me to be half hearted. You’d be like Yeah, okay. Oh, wow. So bad.100% Listen. And I think people appreciate that. We underestimate how much people do appreciate honesty, right? And just want you to be authentic and tell them what's up. And it may be hard. I think in the beginning, you might not always get that response. But I think like Chemi was saying that if they're really your friends they should be able to understand where you're coming from and to know that you're coming from a good place and it's not every day that you're saying I'm not ready, and I think that's there's something valuable in that.

Chemi Yeah. And start doing it yourself. I like if you do it, then your friends will start to do that to you. Right, like you can be the sort of the stone that goes in the water and has ripple effects and it comes back. The karma does come back. Something that I've been thinking about lately is ambiguous complacency. Or being complicit, but there's a lot of ambiguity around it. Because there's always like, I've always been sort of clear cut with wherever I say because I do a lot of thinking inside, where I'm just like, no, this isn't right - like a lot of analysis type of thing. Or like fighting with myself. So with that, I've always been like, Okay, if you're not part of the solution you are always part of the problem. And so like I’m always about like, social justice terms and have grown up in a space like that, because every Tibetan that is born after 1959, which is when we lost freedom is an activist, is what we say in our community. So, but this whole concept of ambiguous complacency has come along a lot along a lot these days. Because, you know, you could be in solidarity with certain communities, but you not speaking up in so many spaces is very violent, right? That violence that has the impact it has, like, as leaders and community, are we ready to take the blame? Or like own up to it? Like in certain spaces. But then in some spaces like you have to find the boundary of again? Like, am I emotionally able to take on that labor to educate this person when I really cannot do it? Yeah, was more like around a bit, they just kind of -y'all can jump in and share, please or give me tips because I'm like in that space right now.

Tony Thanks for that question. I think it's a really, it's a really hard one. But it's also a very important question to ask given the political climate that we're in. Um, I think in a lot of ways, like navigating complacency and like, also like in the context of what it means to negotiate when you're in, caught like in these different relationships of power and balances and negotiating personal safety, but also like what your values are? It's an ongoing question without necessarily answers to. Yeah, it's, but it's bringing up a lot of things. And I think, how do we unpack that? Not even just a complacency, but also the ambiguity around it is kind of what I'm still trying to process.

Nermeen Um, I think that this is something that like, I do think about often as well. And I think that um, I think it's kind of interesting that it's oftentimes people who are already involved in activism who feel like a greater sense of responsibility. And I think being kinder to ourselves is like really important, because otherwise, I do feel like burnout is real, and like feeling like you can't solve - well, like you want to solve as many problems as you can, but also knowing that that's like physically impossible, and there's so many things in the world that like, even if you were working on like causes that you care about 24/7, there would still be 100 things that you were like, I haven't even addressed this or like done that. And I think that, like, I've definitely experienced having that kind of feeling of being like, even if I'm applying a certain amount of my time and something that I care about, like I - it's not really making an impact, or like thinking that like I can, you know, like, just to give the example of climate change - you can be like, okay, I'll stop eating meat and like, switch to metal straws or whatever. And at the same time, like knowing that there's like, I think there's like 100 companies that are responsible for like 70% of carbon emissions. So like, knowing that statistic, you're like, nothing that I do is ever going to make an impact. At the same time, I do think that it's like acknowledging that no matter what work you do, it has value and that it's making the world a better place even in a small way. And like, allowing that, like the smallness of the action to be big, I think is really helpful. And so I think like it's something that I'm trying to practice more with myself, as well as just being kinder and like, okay, I'm not perfect. I'm not like the perfect activist or like the perfect leader, but at the same time that like, as long as I feel like I'm better today than I was yesterday, I think that's all that matters, like in the long run, because it's all that you can control. Yeah, I don't know if that helps.

Ruvimbo But also to feel like you don't have to. It can be exhausting honestly, to try and explain and educate over and over and over again why people should be caring about certain things. And honestly, I think I got to that place as well. Where I was like Why on earth do I have to keep telling you this? Google it! Dang. It's not like this is stuff that you can’t find if you just didn't, if you literally typed in something on Google. But yeah, I don't think, first of all, you can't solve all of the world's problems. Just by yourself. But as a person, you can make a step towards helping. And I think that's what I've had to consciously tell myself. So just for context, I work in international development, and particularly on the African continent and because that's my background and my kind of positionality, that's a community that I was familiar with and grew up in. But, you know, some of the questions that come my way, or some of the things that people say, especially in this political climate, where the President of a whole country is quoting countries like mine, I won't repeat it because it was a very unkind to say, but - and then having to go around just, you know, just like dispelling all of that and trying to break down all of those things. It's it's emotionally exhausting and just can be traumatizing at times. Because it's like, Why don't you get it? Why don't you get that like, I'm just trying to live? People like me. I just want to live. People in places like mine are just trying to live and why do I have to constantly tell you and validate my, my living my life?

Gen Or prove yourself.

Ruvimbo Exactly, exactly. And it's not fair. I think it's hard because you feel like as an activist and social justice champion, that you should be the one that's telling everyone. If you miss a beat, you failed. But you haven't failed, you haven't. All of the efforts and everything you're doing is valuable, is worthwhile. And don't discount it at all on a comment or the two or three times where you just didn't have the strength to say anything. Because, again, you are not responsible for someone else learning something that they could have easily gone somewhere else to learn. So don't put that kind of pressure on yourself and don't feel like you should be the one solving everything because, yeah, again, it's impossible but you're doing enough and acknowledge you're doing enough. Believe in yourself.

Tony I oftentimes feel like an imposter when I'm like the only, not just the only like personal color in my class but also like the only queer person of color in that in a class and I feel like an imposter because I forget about how imposter phenomenon is very like symptomatic of like the different systemic issues. I'm like, Oh yeah, academic institutions are built on capitalism, white supremacy, colonization. Calling it all out here. And you know, but, but it's important because I like again, like I think imposter phenomenon, again, is very situated in the individual level. And I think sometimes that can be very like, we blame ourselves but I'm like, I don't know. I think there's like other larger societal structural forces that make certain - not to say that no way like only certain people feel like imposter phenomenon - I, from my experiences I know, like, there's particular, you know, folks in the community that it's very consistent and that feeling kind of like failure and not belonging. And I think that's not like a coincidence. So, yeah, anyways.

Aisha I think I echo that. So a lot of the time if I'm the only person of color in a space, and I do, since I did kind of grow up in those spaces, it is something that sometimes I'll be used to it. But whenever a mindless comment is made, that kind of triggers a memory and then I'll take a scan of the room and be like, Ah, that's why I'm feeling off. Like, I see. I see. Now I remember.

Gen I think identity, like what do you look like and what you act like is, often there's like a discrepancy between the two and you feel like an imposter. I feel like, I feel like my whole life is being like an imposter, basically, because I grew up in one city and then I was born in another, but I spent equal amount of time. And, and it's I didn't know how it's happened. But it is possible. Because I'm 22, I’ve been 11 years in one city and there has been 11 years in Toronto. And in a way I feel like I am making up false memories just to fit in. And in a way I'm enjoying it myself. And that is why it is a positive problem, because I do remember back in high school people were bringing up there's this power outage in Toronto back in 2003. But I wasn't even here. I'd never even heard of this city back in 2003. But I kind of lied and went along. I was like, Yeah, I remember, I was there. My house flooded, blah, blah. But in a, in a terrible way that I'm enjoying because I felt like it meant I'm in espionage and I don't know if you guys have the same feeling when you're hiding yourself because there's some sort of mystery within you that you felt that you can pretend to belong.

Tony It's really vulnerable to share that. And I think it's, it's absolutely relatable and not to take away from the experience. Yeah, I felt that when, when I was little I would lie about, like just growing up low income. Like I would always lie about what my parents did. Yeah, it was like a sense of shame, but also that desire to want to belong, right. And so, thanks for Yeah,

Gen And the worst part is that you start to enjoy it, right? You're not like, Oh, I'm so alone, but you start to be like, Oh, I fooled these people. I can actually put up a facade.

Tony I don’t think there's anything wrong with that, you know. Part of creating those fantasies, there's a reason for that. I think it helps us to like, cope or to feel it, to feel something that we don't necessarily need to justify. So, thanks for sharing.

Ruvimbo I think I felt imposter, the imposter phenomenon in academia actually. And particularly when I was in academia at this institution, again, I was one of, I was the only person of color in a lot of my classes. And so I felt like I didn't really belong there. And that maybe they had made a mistake when they sent me my acceptance letter. So I spent my entire masters year just kind of feeling like, wow, when will I mess up? When is the ball going to drop? And when are they going to find out that this is the worst decision they ever made? And then there was one particular class that actually kind of drove home the point because I was sitting in there and I just didn't, I never understood what was going on. And I would look at everyone giving their contributions and be like, well, I, this confirms it. I was never meant to be here in the first place. And so yeah, and so I think now I've had some, I really want to go and do my PhD, but I'm hesitant about it because I'm concerned that I might not be able to, to live that facade for five years of my life and feel like an imposter the entire time. So that's a little bit about where I felt it.

Nermeen So I'm Pakistani, but I have never lived there. And so I feel like a really strong sense of imposter syndrome whenever I either go to visit Pakistan where my family lives, or if I'm interacting with people who are Pakistani, and who have like, grown up there. Because there's always this thing of like, Oh, yeah, like you're, you're Pakistani, but you're not funny enough. Like you, you can speak the language, but you can't speak it properly. And I like, I won't get references or things like that. And like, and yeah, because I grew up in the Middle East. And so even over there, like my, a lot of the kids were from South Asian backgrounds, but their parents like either lived in like the US or the UK. And so they would, they would often say like, Oh, yeah, we're not like Brown or we're not Pakistani or Indian. We're British or American. And so I used to kind of like, I would say, as well, I was like, Oh, yeah, I'm Canadian. Because I lived here for three years. I'm not from Pakistan. And so I think like having that weird relationship to my own identity. It is still something that affects me now, even though I've tried to improve the way that I think about my culture and like where I come from, and like my ancestry, it's still something that is, I don't know, it's just weird to me.

Gen Do you find that imposter status is amplified by how they treat you? Like, do they put you on a pedestal and be like, you don't belong?

Nermeen Definitely. I think it depends on the context and the people that I'm interacting with. There's times that I will hundred percent feel that way or people will make a comment, like, oh, it doesn't count like what you say because like, you don't really get it or like you're not really Brown, like you're not brown enough. And I find that like to be quite frustrating, but like, what I do think is that I think the narrative is changing, or a lot more people who come from these kind of like third culture backgrounds, where their like, their parents are from somewhere and they have grown up in a very different culture. Like they're getting to, like have more narratives, and they're in movies and things like that. And so like, I feel like I find myself reflected more there. So that helps me, yeah.

Chemi Similar feelings. Very existence for me, I think is always resistance. Never seen home. I've never been to Tibet. My parents haven't been. So there is like three different generations of just like moving around different countries. Very interesting. Ahen I was 22, last year actually, before this March, I spent half my life in South India, and half my life in Toronto. Yeah, so when you're saying I was just like, yo ringing bells. Same thing, same thing. Oh, yeah, I remember that every - I wasn't there. But yeah, I remember it. I went to that school too, but I didn’t. I think a lot of that comes from like a lot of internalized pain for everyone. And so when you do see that from someone else, doing you know the same thing, faking it til they make it, I think sharing that pain and knowing, letting them know that you know, it's a safe space for them to not feel like they're an imposter. And then, something that has helped me is self deprecation humor. So, of course with confidence. Now, I'm not saying you beat yourself up in certain spaces, but acknowledging that you are like a whitewashed Tibetan, in Tibetan spaces where people have lived their whole life, you know, with the disadvantages of society. Whereas I was privileged enough to get an education in the West, right. So when I'm there, I'm like, Yeah, I don't get that reference. You know, I'm the white washed person, but teach me about it. Tell me about it. Right. And because of that, I've been able to immerse myself in certain spaces where I'm like, wow, these people don't cut me out. They’re like yo come through. And you know that this is all, like I'm seeing the results or the benefits, reaping the benefits of that sort of understanding in the past few years. So now I'm starting to see it like, inclusion everywhere. And I'm like, not scared to wear Indian clothes when I'm outside. Because I was born there, and I like to rep the culture. But I also know my place. It's not my place to be in, you know, places where Indian folks are leading and organizing. And that that's when I take a step back and make sure I'm an ally and a meaningful ally. Yeah, so definitely helps when you ask those questions and do like a little bit of humor here and there. Just understanding yourself.

Carly So what what's a kindness you would say to a young self?

Aisha Just to keep it short and sweet is that you are enough as you are.

Tony Okay. What I would say to my younger self, is something that a friend that I love once told me - is that this will feel, it will make old wounds feel loved and lovable again, and it's just that idea of like, knowing that, I think, you know, being my younger self, figuring out my queerness and what it means to be racialized. I think there were a lot of things that I was taught not to love about myself, and that I carried with me and that carried a lot of pain. But knowing that actually, you'll know what love is when you, when it's either that person, that place or a thing makes you feel like all those things that you can love about yourself are in fact lovable. And I think that is something that is very healing and powerful. Just knowing that, yeah, love is being able to know that all the parts that you were taught, weren't lovable are in fact lovable. So yeah.

Ruvimbo I think I would tell my younger self You are sunshine. And you are, something my best friend said to me, and I had to look at it, You're graceful and spicy. You can exist together.

Aisha I love it.

Nermeen I think mine that I would tell my younger self would be, what's meant for you will never miss you and what's not meant for you, and no matter how hard you try to hold on to it or grab onto it, is never going to be yours. And I think that that like applies for me personally to like a lot of relationships. Places that I've lived or wanted to stay, just changes that have happened and like economic, like making peace with the changes would have I think saved me a lot of heartache.

Chemi Identity is fluid. I there's two parts to it, one that you form, the one that others will label you as. But you are what you make out of it.

Gen I'll just say that the end is not, well the end is the beginning. That's what I'll say to my younger self. Because I had this whole philosophy wrong because I thought the end isjust, you know, the end, but apparently, it opens other opportunities. I just have to be the one to grab them and actually get back up. Cuz there's no definitive ends. But if you don't work on them, then yeah, goodbye. Like, I mean, I'm not saying people won't help but you need to let them help you. Instead of closing it off and just yeah being alone. So the end is just the beginning.

Chemi And you are up. You’re here today. And the other thing I wanted to say was to you (Ruvimbo). You can do your PhD. Please like why would you ever question? You’re a smart Black like spicy individual. You just said that earlier. And if you feel like that space isn’t in there, I know that there are those spaces that are there specifically for, you know, strong black women that are out there. Who are like in my spaces that would love to, like, connect with you to just be like, you go mama. Like you do what you gotta do, like - and you are there, right? There's - you'd be surprised how many people in this world outside of this space don't actually question themselves as much as we do. Right. And many of the filters and questions that we have for ourselves is we think it's just us in our bubble, but it's not. It's very systemic. And it comes from this sort of world that we live in, right. So that's why I like, I really appreciate the space and thank you all for you know, sharing the space with me.

Ruvimbo Thank you for the encouragement and the wonderful discussion.

Gen Thanks for this platform.

Aisha Thanks so much. This was really lovely

Saba Thank you to Aisha, Chemi and Gen for sharing their time and insights with us. And thanks to Tony, Nermeen and Ruvimbo for creating the safe space for this meaningful conversation. And special thanks to Carly Stasko, Braeden Doane, and Day Milman for their help in producing today's episode. These conversations were recorded as part of the Peer Wisdom Talking Walls exhibit. The West Meeting Room is a production of Hart House Stories. Our music was produced by Dan Driscoll. To find out more about our team and the Talking Walls exhibit, please visit harthouse.ca and be sure to follow us on Instagram @harthousestories. I'm Saba-Sadat signing off as your host for our first broadcast of the West Meeting Room. Thanks so much for listening and we'll see you next week.

0 notes