Finding Kinship & Connection in an Increasingly Divisive World with Dr. Jennifer Young
In this episode I invited my friend and colleague, Dr. Jennifer Young, onto the show to share her thoughts on staying connected and cultivating kinship in our communities as well as the nonprofit she recently started to support refugee mental health. Dr. Jennifer T. Young is a licensed clinical psychologist, certified EMDR therapist, and intercultural psychology consultant. She is the founder and president of Kin-nection, a nonprofit building community among mental health and language professionals to serve vulnerable, displaced populations.
In this conversation, we discuss:
Becoming a psychologist, despite immigrant parents not understanding
Being the only Asian American in the room
Finding your voice when the standard doesn't look or sound like you
How to stay connected to one another even when the world is pulling us apart
How to remember a sense of kinship and cultivate it in our communities
Why human compassion will be the thing people are searching for 20 years from now
Why we can't rely on AI to do the work that requires human connection
What our ancestry and lineage has to do with the work we feel called to do
Dr. Jennifer Young: I think there's something to be said about learning to stand on your own two feet in a room where it feels like there's no one else like you. That is a life lesson in and of itself, in its own right. It's very uncomfortable for some people. It's terrifying for others. But to learn how to not be swayed and not have to adapt to the point where you you lose yourself, to stand in a room where people are staring daggers at you, maybe, and to still be to be able to feel the ground underneath your feet, that is a lesson that's hard to learn, and if you learn it, that's going to stay with you your whole life. But we're also going to need someone who can validate our experience and who understands it and won't make our experiences seem like such a novelty that were othered. And people who have experienced something similar can validate you and help you keep your two feet on the ground. I think what we're talking about is a real hyphenated experience.
Listen to the full conversation on the InnerCalling Podcast here.
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