by
Joseph Peters
| Apr 14, 2022
Welcome to The Voice of Counseling presented by the American Counseling Association. This program is hosted by Dr. S. Kent Butler. This week's episode is Holistic Healing and Mind Body Medicine and features Dr. Kellie Kirksey.
Welcome to The Voice of Counseling from the American Counseling Association. I'm Dr. S. Kent Butler. And joining us today is Dr. Kellie Kirksey. Dr. Kirksey is a lifelong practitioner of mind body medicine, a holistic psychotherapist and an expressive art therapist. She has facilitated globally in the areas of wellness, mindfulness, social justice and self care. Dr. Kirksey is the author of Word Medicine: Affirmations and Poems to Inspire and Support Our Journey.
And she is the owner of the nonprofit, The Create Wellness Foundation, which aims to create sustainable wellness initiatives. Dr. Kirksey also conducts mind body skills groups with African American men and women in the general population in conjunction with the Center for Mind Body and Medicine in Washington, DC. As a consultant, Dr. Kirksey facilitates workshops, keynotes and corporate trainings in self-care, mindfulness, anti-racism and sustainable wellness practices. Creativity, self-expression and authenticity are at the center of all that Dr. Kirksey endeavors. So here we are. Hotep. How are you Dr. Kirksey?
Hotep, Dr. Butler? I am doing wonderful and so glad to be here with you today.
I am so glad to have you here with me today. And I had the opportunity to hang out with you this past weekend and just talk and just hear you just share your journey. I've always been inspired by you when we met so many years ago. We can maybe get into that a little bit as we move forward, but before we even get started, one of the things you shared with me this past weekend was you wrote this book, and that there was a person who inspired you to write that book and get you started on this particular authorship journey. So can you talk a little bit about that, your book and what inspired you and how it came to be?
Okay. You took me to right there. And you took me back to ACA, a panel that I did at ACA with Dr. Gerald Corey, and Marianne Corey, and several other professionals in the counseling field. And the title of the panel was, Is There a Book Within You To Be Written? And I had been sitting on that panel at that point for at least five or six years every year, consistently, talking about just how you get inspired to write, how you create your writing practice. But I had never written my own book. So I was speaking from a perspective of being a contributor to Dr. Corey's books and other individuals. So I talked about how we collaborate.
So after one of the panels that on that particular year, the auditorium had emptied out and Marianne Corey came up to me, and if any of you know Marianne Corey, she can be a woman of few words, succinct, riveting, focused. She came and she stood in front of me. And she just looked with that look that she has. And she said, "Kellie, it's time for you to speak your truth." And I just felt the breath of that in my chest. And I knew that meant it was time for me to step up to that next level and create on my own.
So you had already been doing some things like journaling and other things, but it was, taking it to the next level means, okay, do I put this out into the public's atmosphere?
Right. Right. Because since childhood, at least since fifth grade, I've been a journaler. That's was just my whole way of expressing. I was a younger child, three older siblings, journaling was my best friend, that was my way. So I really contribute Marianne Corey to pushing me off the ledge and walking me into a deeper level of vulnerability. So this is the first book and this is called Poetry, Prose and Miscellaneous Musings. I didn't market the book. I told very few people I even had a book of poetry, but it was the act of exercising the muscle of my own creativity, of putting it out in the world and acknowledging and declaring to myself, "I'm a poet, I'm a published author. This is my book."
Your book. And guess what? It didn't get here in time but UPS is sending them to me. Or I should say, Amazon is sending them to me today. I'm supposed to get it before 10:00 PM. Both of them.
Oh, wow. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Yep. Yep. So that takes me back to the art of journaling. A lot of people may not understand what journaling really is and how to get the most out of it. You started really early?
And now I think about it from my perspective, I don't think I could pick up a book and journal. I do, do writings, right? I'll be doing something and I'll write something down and it'll be something, but I don't necessarily call out a journal. How can you to individuals how to really journal with purpose, if that's even a thing?
Okay. So what I'll say is that journaling is just the activity of allowing yourself to express what's on the inside in any form. A journaling time period doesn't have to be about writing, it can be symbols. It can be words. It can be pictures. It can be doodling. It can be opening up those pages and painting, coloring, anything that helps you to express, to release and to be as present with yourself as possible. I have journals all over, all over. I have different sizes for different purposes. I stick things in my journals-
What do you mean by different purposes?
So for example, this is a journal that I bought specifically to take to Egypt. It's small, it fits in my bag. It has a little pocket in the back that you can stick little things in, your ticket stubs. So when I travel, I want to take a specific book with me. But then on the other hand, if I'm working on a project, then a binder might be my journal. And I can type in it. I mean, I can put typed words in it, or just a larger space to color, to doodle, to express.
So when you're doodling sometimes, and when you're maybe coloring or whatever have you, you're also thinking, and you might be thinking of maybe words that you will put together sometime. Or you, you write poetry and so sometimes it's just going to the musings of what that looks like, and then putting that down into writing as well. How often do you go back and look at this stuff that you write?
Well, it's interesting, I go back whenever the mood hits me. In my hallway, I have a stand there and I have several journals just from different periods in my life. And I can look at the journal and just glance at it and say, "Wow, India was a good time. It was a powerful time. It was a spiritual time." And I can sit with that and it'll take me right back. Yeah.
And another interesting thing is that journaling might look like this. Okay? Journaling might look like little post-its. It might look like a matchbook, or a napkin.
You're siting somewhere, "Oh, I need something to write on. I need something to write on." You go grab a matchbook. Okay.
Exactly. And it's not about the thinking it's about the feeling.
Okay. And so a journal doesn't have to be long. It doesn't have to be an essay. It could be three or four words.
Three or four words, that's it. Three or four words. And it can look crazy. Like sometimes I do, in the book, the Artist's Way they talk about morning pages. And morning pages is just a brain dump. That when you wake up in the morning, you set your timer for about 15 or 20 minutes and you write long hand, three pages, not worrying about how it's spelled, grammar, whether it's upside down, sideways, but just getting that brain debris out so we can come into the day clearer, lighter.
When you say brain debris, that's an interest way of expressing that. Can you go into a little bit deeper, further about what that even is? How would somebody know that this is something that they need to clear out, so to speak?
We know we need to clear things out when it makes us feel heavy, when it makes us feel less than, when our own thoughts are invalidating to our reality, when our own thoughts are not supportive to our goals. And when we're being, self-critical, pretty much the opposite of self love, which you talk so much about. That's some of the trash that we need to take out to.
To take out, right. As you share this, and this is a very sad week, I'm hearing of different individuals who are in the public atmosphere, who are passing away, dying by suicide. And as you say, this brain dump or whatever have you, that people can be doing to clear their mind and free themselves of some of the pressure, this might be a very important way to tap into that.
Yes. I sat with that for a long time yesterday, when I heard about the newscaster, it is heartbreaking. It's heartbreaking. One of the fastest killers, one of the most silent killers in our society is loneliness and isolation. And not meaning that we don't have people to hang out with but that loneliness of how can I share the content of my heart, which is feeling painful.
Pain right now. Yeah yeah.
... right now. Yeah. And which can create that loop of negativity and spiral us into depression, anxiety. And then that fear of reaching out to say, "I'm feeling shame. I'm feeling depressed. I'm feeling-
And not being able to come out of it. Right?
I mean, it's like a spiraling thing and you just keep looping and looping and looping and you can't see any way out of it.
Yes. And it's very, very challenging because we can see people out in society, but society has taught us to polish yourself up, to put your fine clothes on, to put your smile on, to attach your mask before you leave your house. Don't let people see you looking down. So society has taught us how to hide our feelings and our pain so well that it's destroying us.
Yeah. I read something the other day that said, "I can still be lonely in a room full of people."
My father used to say that all the time. And so as a child, as a young person, I was witness to this man who was pretty much larger than life, always had people around him, but who can you be intimate with, if you can't be intimate about how you're feeling on the inside, then you will be lonely. But we're not taught how to express. We're not-
So you spoke about your father, right? So how did your upbringing contribute to your holistic healer identity that you have today?
It was so traumatic I had to find things to help myself be well. I had to help myself find ways to feel okay. Not great, but to feel okay. I grew up in inner city, Cleveland, a lot of trauma. I always knew someone was going to break in our house. Like that was just part of life. Like, somebody's going to break in. I hope they don't break in and steal my bike that I've hidden literally under my bed that I hope nobody finds that when they break in today.
And maybe it won't happen today, but it happened often enough that my older sister's job was to fix it, to fix the broken glass, to fix the broken glass of whatever entryway, someone entered into our home. There was a lot of violence. There was a lot of drugs. Music, dancing, riding my bike, sitting in stillness, sitting in nature, getting under my blanket, journaling, drumming, all of those ways helped me to survive what my life was.
Thank you for saying that out loud, because I think that there are so many people who don't express that, right? And again, here you are the expressive artist and don't know how to express that. And so in that they sit with that and that trauma continues to eat at and eat at that person until they have no more to give or they have no more to be with regards to that.
And so I think you stating that just now speaks to so many people who had the same type of experiences, which goes back to showing how the connectedness of who we are is all around. It doesn't matter what your ethnicity is or what intersectionality you are experiencing in terms of your identity, these things happen to all of us, and we need to find ways to bring voice to it.
Right. To find, places and people and pockets of community that feel safe enough where we can say, "I hurt. I'm sad. I'm tired. I'm exhausted," where we can say those things.
So you have your caregivers in your life, your parents, and you have your siblings and things along those lines, who were some of the other mentors, and I'm not telling you not to talk about your parents or anybody else who might have been mentors for you, but who were some of the other mentors in your life that helped you to find Kellie?
I had a woman in second grade, her name was Mrs. Flowers. She had traveled extensively in Africa. She would give us teachings about the continent, which instilled great cultural pride in me. I had a fifth grade teacher, I wasn't the best student. I was not a scholar. I didn't care about school at all.
You had a lot of other things going on in your life.
I was trying to live. I was trying to live. And this one teacher, Mr. Shapiro, he singled out the students that weren't doing well, that didn't turn in homework, that had poor grades. I was one of those students. He kept us after school. And guess what he did? He put us in a group. And he set us in a circle and we talked about what was going on. We talked about stuff and we talked about nothing, but we talked, but we had somebody that was a witness, an adult that cared enough to hear us.
Say that again, somebody who was a witness.
Yeah. Like somebody, he saw us. He saw us. He noticed that we were somehow slipping off the edge of life, there in fifth grade, we were already sliding down and he caught us. And our incentive to come to group was to go to Burger King and get a crown if we attended the groups.
Yes. That little paper crown
The paper crown, the gold paper crown. And that was very significant because being the number four child on the younger spectrum, I was the one that didn't get to go into the bathroom and have the big girl conversations. My three older sisters went, I was the one that sat by the door, wishing I could be in on the conversation. So Mr. Shapiro, he put me right in the circle.
Heard my voice. And there was another, there was so many people. I was so fortunate, so blessed because there were people that I can look at and I could say, "Okay, there's one teacher in my neighborhood and one social worker in my neighborhood, will I be a prostitute on crack or could I possibly be something like those ladies? Is that possible? Maybe."
And since you opened that door, I'm going to tell you about Pedro. Pedro was a man from Africa who came to spend some time at the church that was right down the street from my home. And Pedro would teach us how to make drums. And then again, we would circle up and we would drum. I'm not a master drummer, but-
No, but you know what's so funny, Kellie, and I don't want to stop you in this, but ever since I've known you've been this person who've been in circles and the drumming and all those other things. And we'll talk about the labyrinth at some point, too. But circles is your thing. Right? And for you to sit there and tell me that this man taught you how to drum, when I first met you in South Africa, you were drumming. And I was like, look at this person who can kind of get with this vibe, your history speaks to that.
Nobody knows that. Right? Nobody knows the stuff that people have gone through in their life to get to where they are. And so they see them in their present moment and think, "Oh my God, look how gifted this person is. Look what they bring to the table." But they don't know the struggle.
Right. Right. Because Pedro came and stayed with us. He stayed with us in a house that didn't have electricity or gas most of the time. I knew how to go outside, go to that electric box, take the little filaments out and turn our electricity back on.
I knew how to go out to the street with my mother at midnight, open up that lid to the waterline to turn our water back on. That's what I was doing. I didn't care about A's or B's or showing up to school almost at all. So it's...
Wow. Wow. Which speaks to why teachers need to understand why students may not get the A all the time.
I didn't care about the A.
Yeah. Yeah. I cared nothing about the A's. And when I became a college professor, the students that wanted the A's, I said, hold on, hold on to yourself because it is so not about the A's period.
It is so not about the A's. Oh my God. It's about being there and learning and understanding what you got coming inside of you so you can give it back to your clients. Woo. Have mercy.
That's right. I am fortunate because I'm here. I am here. I mean, my dad owned a bar. We had a bar in our family for years, for years, about 50 years. And I've stared down the barrel of a gun, and asking myself, "Oh, is this my last day? Is this my last day here in my dad's bar? Is this it? Or I going to go to the other side of this?" And that was when I was still in high school.
I wonder, I can't even imagine what life would've been like for you if you couldn't have found journaling, if you couldn't have found ways to express and release that. Because that's heavy for a young person to have to carry.
It was heavy yet that was the environment that I lived in.
But somebody invited you to see other possibilities. Was that a help?
Oh, tremendous. Tremendous. My parents were divorced so I normalize that to say, "Everybody's parents are divorced." But I had a very good friend and she's still my best friend to this day, since I was four years old and her parents was an intact couple, intact unit. I spent lots of days, nights, evenings, hot bath, showers at their house. And one thing Mr. Martin did for me is in high school, he said, "Hey, where are you going to college?" I said, "I'm not going to college. I'm going into the Army." He said, "Well, is there any college in Ohio that you maybe would like to go see?" And I said, "Well, I did hear about this school that they don't have classes on Friday. I could probably go there." I said, "I could probably do that."
The things that we muse about.
Right. "No class on Friday, I could deal with that." And so he said, "All right, I'm going to take off work on a Saturday and I'm going to take you." And that blew the door open. I was like, "Oh, I can go to college. Oh, I can get a loan. Oh, I... Huh."
Because you had a, you also had somebody in your life that wasn't so supportive. Right? I remember you telling the story of your guidance counselor.
School counselor, who was a block.
A huge block. She was a boulder that said, "You have great communication skills. You really should go downtown to the May Company and work at the sales counter. You would be great at that. You're not really college material." So. Hmm. Yeah.
It goes back to, we had a conversation about words and how they matter and how they can be piercing to a person's soul when they have all this to give and all you can try to do is help them bleed it out, as opposed to expose it to the world in ways that could be masterful, which what you are doing now is, right? You have in a phenomenal resource, not just to people of color, but to a lot of individuals who are hearing your words and are inspired, that you can have the journey that you had and still be willing to give.
Hmm. It's my hope that something in my story can help someone, support someone, help them see the possibilities, even in the challenge that can be our life. Because the challenges are always going to be here with us. That's why the expressive arts are so important to me.
Yeah. And at a time when you were younger, you didn't maybe have the language or the words for understanding what that was, but now it's a part of the gift that you give to others to find their way with regards to that. Before we go to the break, one of the things that I wanted to have you talk about, you shared that your mom in your writings was a very strong activist and she inspired you. What were some of those lessons that you learned? And then we'll come back and visit that again after the break. But what lessons from your childhood that are having a strong impact on who you are today, professionally?
Hmm. That putting in the work for change is important, is critical. That speaking up and speaking out and partnering with people that can assist you and moving forward and moving the community forward is critical. That we can't do it alone. She would have community leaders meet on our front porch. She would have church folks come and have church on our front porch. It was part of just what she did like breathing. She was a barber.
And barbers are political people. Barbers in the Black community are the hub of what is happening in the community. So she was that.
She brought that home. And I also set in on that so often.
So, wow, look at all the buried experiences that you've had, being in a bar, staring down the barrel of a gun, being on their front porch with church folk, talking about activism. That's wild. That is just, not wild, but-
It's wild. It's a little wild. And I really don't talk about it very often, but-
But all that is, are parts of who you are and how you now sign. Because if you didn't have those experiences, you couldn't be who you are today.
Right. And we need everything for our journey. Even when we don't realize we need it, we need everything that we encounter to unlock what's in our soul that needs to be expressed out in the world to make the world better. We need the heat. We need the pressure.
Yeah. You make me think of the song from Encanto, the Surface Pressure, drip, drip, drip.
Yeah. Right, right. It's so real. I love that movie. I love that movie. And it's so real that drip, drip, drip. And sometimes that drip, drip, drip is so intense that we feel like we have no other option but to end it, like some of these young people, older people are doing these days
Are doing these days, because we can't handle the drip, drip, drip. The constant dripping, pounding it becomes that just tells us there's no other way.
Yeah. I'm so glad that the drip didn't get you Kellie.
I am so thankful because the walk has not been easy.
And we all internalize it in different ways.
Yeah. Well, why don't we just take a quick break, take a breather real quick. This would be one of those... But this has been The Voice of Counseling and we're going to take a quick break and we'll be back with Dr. Kellie Kirksey.
Counselors help positively impact lives by providing support wellness treatment. We're working to change lives. We are creating a world where every person has access to the quality professional counseling and mental health services needed to thrive.
Welcome back to The Voice of Counseling. I'm Dr. S. Kent Butler, and I'm here with Dr. Kellie Kirksey. And Kellie and I have been journeying for quite some time now, I think we met in 2007, 2008 in South Africa. I got an opportunity to not only see the motherland, but to be with someone who helped me even experience it that much more, to create an opportunity for me to want to travel even that much more.
So I remember touching down and saying to myself, "Wow, I am in Africa." You had been there prior to that experience, but what was your experience like traveling back to the motherland? A girl from the inner city who may have thought she never would've been able to get there?
Yes. Yes. So the first time I had gone to the motherland was stepping into Morocco. Okay? Because I had been doing a study abroad program in Spain and just traveled down bus, train boat over the Strait of Gibraltar, into Morocco, stepping on the soil and really feeling like I'm back home. I am back home. And having people just yell out to me, "Hey sister, Hey sister." And just feeling that being on the continent.
South Africa was a whole different feeling. South Africa was a different feeling and I'll say this because even when I was in the airspace, going into South Africa, there was an energy around my belongingness in South Africa.
I had mentioned to you before that there was this Africana sitting next to me, and saying, "Where are your people from in Africa?" And I was like, "I don't know." And he said, "Oh, it's like you came from a unidentified black box." I was like, wow. So I get that earful that I couldn't even process, except for-
You couldn't even process it.
Super uncomfortable. I was a little mad. I was a little... Because don't take away my joy. I'm not going to give you my joy because I'm returning. I am returning.
Right. I had to grapple with that a little bit too, because when I first went there, I was like, "Okay, I'm going to South Africa." And I had to internalize, is that really Africa though? Is that really Africa? Because all the stuff that was going on with their apartheid. But I had to reconcile that and say, "It's still Africa."
Right. I'm still stepping my feet onto the ground, the soil of my ancestors. And so I had to think about that. But I also remember having this distinct, different feeling when I flew into Botswana.
Isn't that strange? That, I mean, like I had a certain feeling going in because I knew what I wanted to do. I knew I wanted to see where Mandela came from. I knew that I wanted to deal with where Desmond Tutu got to speak to so many from a spiritual space, but going to Botswana was different too.
And what I'll say about, for me, that difference between being in South Africa. Because we were there for a conference. I was speaking at a conference that ACA had created, right?
AMCD, a beautiful experience. But the energetic tone was still, this is the land of apartheid and there are people that are living under this brown code where they cannot express, where they are gagged and muffled. And there's a younger generation that they only know apartheid so they are not even embracing their own culture that they're putting... I mean, we were so sitting in a place that was like a Burger King on the highway on the way to safari.
There was a group of us Black women and this young woman, African woman came up, took all of our silverware and gave it to the white table next to us.
And I remember sitting there like, "Is this happening?" And I was looking at the ladies and I said, "Did she just take our silverware and give it to the white people next to us?" I got up, I followed that young lady in the kitchen and I said, "Young lady, apartheid is over. You and I we're from the same ancestry. You have got to look at me with love as you look at yourself with love. We're the same. We're the same." I said, "What you just did was disrespectful and painful."
So for me, energetically, South Africa was still suffering from apartheid and I could feel that in the air, but going to Botswana a land that did not accept anybody, any Africana that was fleeing after apartheid was abolished, they didn't accept the people and Botswana didn't have the bloodshed on the land so Botswana for me, felt sweet like honey. It felt sweet.
Wow. Do you have a sense of how she responded to that?
Oh, she looked at me with a blank face.
Oh wow. What gave you the gumption to go in and do that?
Rage and disrespect and sadness.
Wow. Wow. I'd never heard that story before and I was there with you. That is interesting, in and of itself.
So one of the things though I do recall about South Africa was the ability to sit and talk afterwards. After we'd gone out and we had done different excursions and been a part of different things. I look back at pictures all the time now and see what that experience was like, remembering what that experience was like. But those conversations that we had to kind of debrief were very powerful in terms of helping to stay connected.
Not only with you all, but where I was, because it's very easy to run away from that stuff. When we went to go see different things, it was easy to kind of run from that. I remember us going to the Apartheid Museum. And how heavy that was.
Yeah. To see what people had to live through. And then also connect that to what was happening in the United States for people like my parents who had lived through some of the same type of apartheid type madness. What were some of the things that you still remember from those experiences?
Well, I remember going to the Apartheid Museum and not being able to get out, not being able to leave that space because it was such a confusing maze and it was like this intentional psychological process. So you can feel how disconcerting it was during apartheid when people just show up at your door and say, "We're taking you out of here, because we're bulldozing your house today and taking you out to this township and you figure it out."
So how disconcerting? Yeah. I mean, I thought, well, am I going to have to live in the Apartheid Museum and feeling a desperation inside of me because I don't even see any other person from my group. So that was-
Yeah, because, right, right, right. Because we separated and did our own thing as we were going through it. And you're right it was heavy. I bought a poster there that I still have to this day that reminds me of... It was a beautiful poster. It was a very colorful poster that talked about South Africa. And it was a drawing of what apartheid was to this particular artist. But I remember leaving there, I remember needing to have space.
That was a very heavy debriefing that night. But I remember needing to have space because I sat down on a bench that was marked, it was an African, but it was, "White Black," it was a bench for white people and a bench for Black people, we had to, as a person wore in, you could only enter into a door that was not for you. Remember that?
And I remember not wanting to leave because I still needed to figure it out. But it was timed, we only could be there for so long. And I believe right after that, we went to Wandies and ate. And so it's like, it's such a disconnect. So how do you go from this heavy to having this wonderful meal? And wow. Wow.
Yeah. It was challenging on multiple levels because walking through that museum and like you said, connecting it back to what was happening in the US, what is still happening in the US, one of the things that struck me was watching the loop of Birth of a Nation and seeing how the people in South Africa learned apartheid from Jim Crow and from the model of the US, I was like, that made me so physically ill. The oppression that happened in South Africa, the genesis and the modeling came from the propaganda and the laws, the Jim Crow Laws in the US. That made me so horrifically sad. It still does.
Which goes back to why it is important to know our history. And why, when I hear people talk about CRT Critical Race Theory that it's like, you want us to not know what happened to us so that we can just be zombies in this place and just walk aimlessly without any purpose? The purpose that I have to be better than I was, wasn't because of what my family and my ancestors have gone through. But yet there's this desire by some who consider the dominant culture or whatever, have you to hold people back from their own destiny and promise.
Right. It's a very challenging scenario and it's not something that people of color alone will be able to lead us out of, that it will take a collective that has an open, loving heart for humanity.
Yeah. Yeah. That's what I say all the time, you talk about self love, you love yourself you can't help, but love others because there's no need for competition anymore. There's no need for you to feel this way or that way about this person, because you're loving them from your soul because you treat humanity like you would want humanity to treat you.
And we can't seem to get there. We can't get out of our own way in some regards in terms of how we treat each other because we think that we don't have our own gifts. It goes back to your story about the gifts. Right? So I don't have my own gifts so therefore I can't let you have one.
Right. Right. And it's true. I mean, I'll say there is fear in the soil upon which we walk. And that fear is what keeps us from working towards equality and a society where there really is a social justice, where there really is a universal thread of oneness. So that fear that's in the soil keeps us from oneness.
Yeah. I think this is an excellent time for me to ask you to read your poem if you would.
Oh yes. I certainly will.
I need that poem to be in the atmosphere. This touched me.
Thank you for the invitation to be here and to share this. So this is called Dear Friends Do Not Fall Back Asleep.
Although the days are short and the night is long do not fall back asleep.
If your heart still beats for humanity I beg you go find your kindling, reignite the flame within your heart do not fall back asleep.
Remember 401 years of terror for Black lives reaffirm your commitment to justice do not fall back asleep.
Remember we still can't breathe. Even though we find a way to keep smiling, laughing, drumming, crying, working marching, do not fall back asleep.
For me and mine, there is no option, we cannot step out of our Black skin and take a day off. There is no day off. Our ancestral melanated garment calls us to action every day. Do not fall back asleep.
My dear Ally there can be no peace in our land if the blood of Black people continues to flow in the streets. Stay awake. Do not fall back asleep.
Breathe on that. Breathe on that.
I talked with you the other day and you read that poem to me and it spoke to me then, and it speaks to me even more. Do Not Fall Back Asleep.
We call ourselves counselors and we wonder whether or not we should be social justice advocates, that we should just help people find their wellness. But this speaks to the fact that as social justice advocates, as counselors, we can't fall asleep. We can't send people back to broken systems.
We have to be about it. I have another poem I'd like to share if I could.
This now is not our undoing. This now is our crowning. This is our moment of transformational heart opening courage, courage to create anew. We're called to be the artist of our lives. We are called to touch and activate the beauty of our soul. We're called to give birth to the medicine our hearts requires for the elevation of our mind, our body, our spirit.
This is our now calling our invitation to compassionately embrace this reconstruction of life. And in the circle of our community, we faithfully rise up and answer the call. Now.
Going back to something I read in your bio, "creativity, self expression, and authenticity are at the center of Kellie." I appreciate you so much. Wow. You're just, you're the person, you are the epitome of what it means to go within and to provide to others the ability to find themselves and define their strength. That's beautiful.
We didn't get to the labyrinths. Maybe you can talk about the labyrinth as we get ready to close out of here. But there's a question that is here, that I wanted to just kind of read off because I think it's a funny question, first of all because I had not heard it like this before. But it says, "Are there any teaspoons of good medicine or final words to leave your listeners with today?" To me, I've not seen that question come out that way before. But are there teaspoons of good medicine that you can provide?
Is there also in the next couple of seconds that you can talk about is there anything that anybody needs to know about the labyrinth?
Yes. Okay. So two things, I like to say that the book Word Medicine offers teaspoons of good medicine for our hearts. So I said, "We can talk about the teaspoons." And so that I'm just going to open it to any random page. Or no, give me a number between 10 and 130?
54. Okay. So I'm just going to turn to page 54 and see what's there. All right, here we go. This is for you, Dr. Butler. "I give myself permission to move forward. Life is lived by engaging momentum and riding the wave of my beautiful passion." That's your teaspoon.
Nice. Nice, nice, good. Excellent. I'll take that. I'll take that spoon full of medicine.
That's right. So the labyrinth, I created a nonprofit called the Urban Labyrinth Project. And the labyrinth, the process is about spiraling into the center of yourself, dropping some things along the way to come back out a little clearer, a little more grounded. And my goal is to anchor these labyrinths these physical structures for meditation and grounding into urban centers so that the community has access to places to cultivate peace, to go, to express, to walk, to let go.
And particularly in areas that have been hit with trauma, murder, blight, let's beautify it with the labyrinth and be intentional about anchoring in these places where people can come home to themselves.
Thank you so much, Dr. Kellie Kirksey. This has been a phenomenal counseling hour to tell with you and to hear from you and to learn from you, to grow with you. And to get my page 54, I have to go and get the book. When the book comes in today, I'm going right to page 54. I don't even have to ask you to send me that in writing, because I have the book coming this afternoon.
And so thank you. This has been The Voice of Counseling. I'm Dr. S. Kent Butler today with Dr. Kellie Kirksey and I feel full. Thank you so much. We'll see you next time.
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