Graphics representing the spiral of grief and the cultural competence continuum.
Inhale to embrace, exhale to release.
I’ve been sitting on this grief series for over a year. Waiting for the ’right’ time and knowing deep down inside that the time is always right. Between the latest US election results, months of live streamed genocides around the world, the recent execution of another innocent person here in the US, and the accelerated destruction of Mama Earth’s critica; resources, I am crystal clear that the time is NOW.
I hope this series offers nourishment and direction for individual and collective healing, understanding, and liberation. By aligning the spiral of grief with the cultural competence continuum, we will reinforce the necessary role that grief must play to restore a kinship worldview centering interconnectedness with all.
This series combines my expertise in cultural competence with my budding understanding of grief. My studies in cultural competence began during my international education masters degree at George Washington University. Early on, we were invited to define and discuss what we mean by culture.
What is culture?
Oxford Dictionary defines culture as “the customs, arts, social institutions, and achievements of a particular nation, people, or other social group.” Together, we examined the legal, regulatory, and unwritten rules of our institutions ranging from education to agriculture, to economy, to health. Comparing public education in the United States to those in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Norway. Examining who gets to decide both formally and informally. Intersection language, spirituality, rituals, and beliefs. Learning from people like Thomas Friedman through his work, “The World is Flat” (2005) which suggested that globalization in the early 21st century would level the playing field between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’ around the world including between countries, companies, and individuals.
Almost 20 years later, evidence suggests that this was not to be. Rather, what we have witnessed is the very opposite. The deepest inequities that we have seen in my lifetime when one examines the determinants of health. And yet, I am reminded again of the cultural competence continuum as the intergenerational journey. I tend to view the cultural competence continuum in two parts: (1) what we need to let go of and (2) how to cultivate what we need to build. Inhale to embrace, exhale to release.
Part I of the continuum includes cultural destructiveness, cultural incapacity, and cultural denial/indifference – we we need to let go of. This part of the continuum begins with cultural destructiveness which centers ‘us’ versus ‘them’ mentality – an absolute worldview and ends . A mentality that supports harm to others fueled by a sense of superiority. A harm we have already seen waving their hate flags throughout our communities. This phase is followed by cultural incapacity – a more relative worldview that seeks to maintain the status quo. Cultural denial/indifference is next in line which encourages not just the status quo but erasure of diversity in favor of a singular narrative. Phase one invites us to confront the illusion of rugged individualism – separateness.
Part II of the continuum includes Cultural pre-competence, cultural competence, and cultural proficiency. Cultural pre-competence is an effort to reclaim interconnectedness. A willingness to acknowledge and value diversity in all its manifestations – language, dance, music, spirituality, gender. A commitment to ensuring that all people, not just those who share your culture are worthy of the same rights to exist and the right to define the rights.
In the early stages of this part, there is still a patriarchal dimension which can present as savorist tendencies. Here I think of the Lila Watson quote, “If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.” This saviorist dimension is what differentiates pre-competence from the competence phase where the commitment has removed all hints of the savorist in favor of co-creating the conditions for self-determination and agency for all. There is also an active effort toward cross-cultural knowledge sharing with aligned accountability systems that understand that our water, air, and soil sentient beings do not recognize our human created nations and city-states. The final stage of the cultural competence continuum is cultural proficiency. At this stage, one centers a kinship worldview. Once that moves from absolute to universal. From separate to connection. From exclusion to inclusion.
In all my studies about cultural competence, I was never taught about the role of grief and its necessary medicine that facilitates growth. There is loss as we move through the continuum. A shedding of life as it was taught into life as it is lived. Though death has been around me since my first breath of life, it did not take someone close to me until I was in my 20s. I will never forget the day my grandfather died. My first father, protector, teacher, and advocate, my grandpa, my savior and our family patriarch died. After a long battle with cancer, the great King of our Adams’ kingdom passed away. He was the first person I knew who was as close to me as my own skin who passed away. I learned of his death while at Kripalu in Massachusetts attending a month-long yoga teacher training. I walked out into the forest and wrapped myself around a tree. I can feel its rough bark on my face, the earthy smell, and my warm tears rolling down my face like raindrops rolling down a leaf. I wonder if those drops are grieving too. I didn’t know about the spiral of grief at the time and its many ebbs and flows but I would over the next few decades since then. I have been lucky to be surrounded by nature and a loving community to move between the stages of grief – denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. In this personal loss, my heart opened wider to the universal truths offered in the cultural competence continuum.
It was not until decades later that I was formally introduced to grief practices. Eternally grateful to healers like Ekua Adisa. Ekua reminds us that “grief lives in the physical and subtle bodies. The longer it remains, the more harm it can cause. With practice, we can learn to release it as it arises.” With Ekua’s guidance and support, I have been able to hold regular spaces and time for grief to flow collectively and individually. Through music, movement, reflection, smell, touch, and ancestral presence, I can feel the changes in my levels of stress, anxiety, and frustration.
Honoring each stage of the grief spiral and the cultural continuum are necessary, valid, and important. As I reflect on this past year, I know I am a part of a huge shift and transformation away from our neo-capitalist systems that centers extractive or people and planet. An intensifying call from Mama Earth to stop using other humans, water, air, soil, minerals as resources for the short term comfort of a few. A culture that requires winners and losers through the illusion of scarcity and unhealthy competition. A culture that strips ethnicity for shades of Black, White, Yellow, and Red – a racial construct designed to divide and conquer. Join me as we walk the spiral of grief and its necessary role in cultural transformation.
The goal is to offer insights, approaches, and resources for the many purpose driven individuals, groups, and organizations who struggled with the application of these concepts. While working with and for the purpose driven, I have seen and experienced the spiral of grief. Grieving a consumptive, extractive culture that most of us agreed cannot go on. Grieving the real challenges we face from those seeking to maintain the status quo.
Over the next few weeks, we will walk through the spiral of grief honoring each stage while connecting them with the cultural competence continuum – raising awareness, knowledge, and wisdom as we co-create new worlds that restore ancient ways of being lost to greed and the illusion of rugged individualism.
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