Ancestral practices are practices that have been passed down through generations, like traditions and customs. They provide structure for our lives and help us know what’s expected of us as we grow older and more mature. Ancestral practices may also include rituals like prayer or meditation that help us tap into deeper levels of ourselves.
In this episode, the podcast hosts, Dr. Norissa and Dr. Bukky, are joined by Cynthia Santhiago Borbon. Cynthia is a licensed psychotherapist, a coach, and a healer. Santhiago shares her insights about herself, the meaning of healing, pivotal points in her liberation journey, how she discovered her true origin story, and the meaning of ancestral reverence.
Timestamps
[00:41] How Dr. Bukky met Cynthia
[06:18] About Cynthia Santhiago Borbon
[09:25] The meaning of healing
[15:30] Pivotal points in Cynthia’s liberation journey
[17:44] How Cynthia discovered her true origin story
[22:16] Meaning of ancestral reverence
Notable Quotes
(03:52) “The salvation of our humanity is about having us all be seen.”
(10:39) “We don’t come to this planet with the perspective of I am less than.”
(11:57) “A liberate person is someone who is able to judge themselves separate and apart from the ways in which we are socialized to think about ourselves.”
(13:05) “We are always in the process of healing.”
(20:37) “We are not worshiping ancestors, we are remembering our ancestors, their legacy and who we come from.”
(26:06) “What we need in our healing process is to know we are not alone.”
(28:09) “When we know that we are not moving alone, we can feel more dedicated and commited to something.”
Relevant Links
Connect with our guest Cynthia Santhiago Borbon
Linked In: linkedin.com/in/cynthiasantiagoborbon
Radical Remembering Podcast
Website: https://radicalremembering.com/
Connect with Dr. Norissa
Connect with Dr. Bukky
Have you ever wondered whether your ancestors were suffering from oppression in their past lives? If so, you can learn a great deal by looking into how they lived. Radical Remembering is a podcast about the liberating power of ancestral memory, resistance, healing, and transformation. It's about working with the lessons of our ancestors to transform your life and community. Each episode will leave you with intimate knowledge of the liberation process, sprinkle a little healing magic, and leave you with wisdom for your journey. Thank you for listening to the Radical Remembering podcast! Listen to our next podcast and tell a friend about us.
TRANSCRIPT
Dr. Bukky Kolawale: 00:01
Welcome to Radical Remembering with psychologist
Dr. Norissa Williams: 00:04
Dr. Norissa
Dr. Bukky Kolawale: 00:05
And Dr. Bukky
Dr. Norissa Williams: 00:06
This is a weekly conversation where we explore the ways we've internalized oppression and consider what it really means to be liberated.
Dr. Bukky Kolawale: 00:12
Each episode will leave you with intimate knowledge of the liberation process, sprinkle a little healing magic, and leave you with wisdom for your journey. What's up you all welcome back to Radical Remembering. Today we have a special guest speaker with us, Cynthia Santiago Goodman, who is literally one of my favorite human beings in this whole wide world. And real quick, I want to tell you the story about how I met Cyn, I’m going to let Cynthia introduce herself. So I went to a workshop that was about racial trauma, by Christiana, and Dr. Kenneth Hardy was also in the room, a bunch of folks were in the room. And so you walk in the room, you meet folks. And for folks who are listening to us, Cynthia is breathtaking. So, you see her, and you're just like, who is this beautiful human being? And just you just feel her spirit right away. Anyway, we're in this conversation, and I can't even remember what had been activated, but there was one white woman, only one white woman in the entire space, all of us were folks of color. And I can't remember what this woman said, but I have never experienced live in person, a group of folks who don't know me from Jack get my back so hard. And, Cynthia, do you remember? I think she dismissed me in some way.
Cynthia: 01:48
Yeah. I can't remember exactly what she said.
Dr. Bukky Kolawale: 01:52
I think I asked the question and she dismissed my question, and was moving on, did something like that. From Cynthia, I cannot tell you about that experience. It was one of those moments where you're just like, I'm like this black genderqueer person who like literally, I walk into spaces, and I'm like myself, but I don't trust that people will have my back. I'm walking and I'm like, I got me. And that's all I'm always assuming. And so it was just such a nice, what's the word? There's a piece that feels like it was a healing experience for me. It is a restorative experience to walk into a room where people didn't have to know me, they didn't have to know anything about me, but to be like, we see what you just did this white woman, and that's not going to fly here. And called her in around it beautifully. So that was the first place where, and Cynthia went ahead, I was like, you would have thought I was one of Cynthia’s sisters for 25 years, the way she had my back. So that's my story of how I remember meeting you Cyn. I don't know what you would add, if anything to that.
Cynthia: 02:57
Yeah, I mean, I think when I met you, I just saw this big, bright light. And I was just so intrigued by who you are. And during that brief time together, I felt a really deep, quick connection to you. And thankfully, we moved on it. Sometimes you meet people, and you really connect, and then you don't do anything with it. And for whatever reasons, I always talk about it being divinely inspired, ancestrally inspired, that we stay connected and continue to grow and evolve our relationship. And I think the important piece here is that, in that moment where you were dismissed, what I always talk about, and being in connection to each other, and the salvation of our humanity, really is about having us all be seen. And when you got dismissed that way, it was really important to me to stand with you and not allow it. And I think that's how we show that we're really about each other. And I like to say we lovingly called her in. Because it wasn't that everybody attacked her. In fact, it was nothing like that. I think it was delivered with a lot of love, but it was important to help her see and recognize what she had just done to you. And it was an injury that many of us experience as people of color, as BIPOC, as women as not part of the status quo of heteronormative existence, that in fact we all have the right to be seen and heard and to be acknowledged and to not continue to cause injury to each other. And how do we not cause injury to each other except to help each other see when we are causing it?
Dr. Bukky Kolawale: 04:54
Yeah. Well, thank you Cyn, part of our topic today is this piece around ancestral work and the liberation process. And when Norissa and I were first just imagining the possibilities of being in this conversation around liberation, and I call it degemmification, we were talking about wanting to be able to show people different stories. And the piece that I've just always been impressed with Cyn is just the way that you really connect with your ancestral origins. And you bring that into work. And you have been doing that way before I even had consciousness around that. So, part of my hope today is, I think when we were talking about, when Marissa and I were just like, it would be beautiful to be able to have you come and bring perspective around that just to give people a map of what that looks like. And so I'm really, really glad you're here with us.
Cynthia: 05:51
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you both for having me. It's so good to be here.
Dr. Bukky Kolawale: 05:55
Norissa you want to kick us off?
Dr. Norissa Williams: 05:57
Sure, sure. Sure. So I would love to hear I mean, I'm trying to fine tune a question for you. Well, I'll start broadly so you can pick up wherever you'd like.
Dr. Bukky Kolawale: 06:09
I just remembered Cynthia didn't actually get a chance to introduce herself yet.
Cynthia: 06:13
Yeah, I thought that's where you were going. Yeah, so I am a licensed psychotherapist, I'm a coach, and a healer. I really own myself as a healer, because I believe that our liberation in the world is tied to our healing. I don't know how any of us can be liberated until we are working on healing. And I've had that component in my work for a very, very long time. And so I work with my clients, I work really a very diverse population at this point, in terms of race, gender, color, sexual orientation. And I think one of the beautiful reasons that's happened is because I have always, I think, since I come to this planet, come around the consciousness of social justice, and really have steeped my work in that. So, long before everybody was doing diversity, equity and inclusion, which I'm really happy to see, but long, long, long before, we're talking 20, 25 years back, that I was very much about empowerment, and about dismantling false narrative we've been given about who we are as people and why we're here and what we came to do. And so that meant that, I started out in working in typical social workspaces, I worked in agencies, and worked in a homeless shelter, worked in a women and children's program. So I did a lot of that kind of work for many years, and eventually ended up really feeling frustrated by the systems themselves which were supposed to be improving lives, but were actually in my opinion, just creating more of the same lack of liberation really, causing people to really I think even more injury. You go to a therapist because the therapist is supposed to help you. And what I was seeing is that particularly white therapists were often creating more injury by imposing their value system, their construct on to what our lives should look like. And so I've always been deeply steeped in dismantling systems, and dismantling oppressive systems in particular. And so my work’s been that way all along. And then, a few years ago, I decided to really liberate myself from the corporate enterprise of America, because even nonprofit is still part of the same engine. And I went off on my own and started my own business, which is called Dream Makers, but really focuses on again, the healing work of liberating our minds, our bodies and our spirits from this current construct and paradigm.
Dr. Norissa Williams: 09:15
Thanks so much. I love hearing that. I have two questions that come to mind. So the first one is when you say healing, what is that? Let's make it concrete for the listeners.
Cynthia: 09:26
So for me, healing is when we are in a process of the past and limitations that we exist under no longer directing our actions, behaviors and thoughts about ourselves. So we are free, consciously choosing how we want to operate and move in the world. So what does that look like? That can look like going to regular therapy, but it can also look like how do we free ourselves from trauma past traumas? How do we heal from past experiences of family trauma, racial trauma, intergenerational trauma, societal trauma? So, from that perspective of really looking at what is keeping me from living my best fullest life? And what is it that I believe about myself that's keeping me from doing that? And then where did I learn to believe these things about myself? Because one of the things I love the name you call your podcast, radical remembering. One of the things that I believe in my heart and in my spirit, is that we don't come to this planet from the perspective of I am less than, and that part of the healing process is actually remembering that none of us are less than, no matter what we've been taught because we've been all socialized and indoctrinated, especially BIPOC, to believe that we are less than in some way, because of white supremacy ideology, because of colonization. And I talk about this all the time, this happens across the globe, not just in America, like a lot of people like to talk about, oh, it's the United States. No, it's the entire planet, go anywhere in the world, and you will see plenty of the signs and remnants of the legacy of colonization and white supremacy. So when we look at healing, we have to really heal from indoctrination and socialization into a belief system that has taught us to think that we're not enough, we're not smart enough, we can't write well enough, we don't look good enough, we don't fit this model, the way we think about things is wrong. And so it's really about removing those self to us. And that's the way I think about healing.
Dr. Norissa Williams: 11:56
So it sounds like a liberated person is someone who is able to judge themselves separate and apart from the ways in which we're socialized to think about ourselves is not stymied, we're not having trauma responses based on other, we're very present and very mindful in our daily living and not held back by our personal traumas, as well as societal traumas.
Cynthia: 12:19
Yeah, and we're not letting our lives be determined by that anymore. So it's not that it doesn't exist. I'm not one of those people that's like, oh, it's not there anymore. No, that's ridiculous. The system's all around us. We see evidence of it every day. I mean, what just happened with Roe versus Wade. We're living in it every day. But what it really looks like is, that doesn't determine how I feel about myself, it doesn't determine what I think I'm capable of, and it doesn't determine limitations around what I think I can create in this world and do. And so that's really for me, and I don't think we're ever fully healed. I’m not one of the people like... No, I really believe we're always in the process of healing. And sometimes things will show up that we think we healed and suddenly they come roaring back at us. Like let's talk about racial trauma, I have tons of it. And there are times when I can see it showing up again. Now, in this point in my life, I don't for one minute believe that there's anything I'm incapable of doing. I'm like, Oh, I like that. I want that. Okay, oh, I want to do this or I want. But doesn't mean that I don't walk into spaces where there are all white people and I’m like, oh god. Because I kind of arm myself, for what might come at me. That's still a sign that I am healing from racial trauma. Because I had such negative experiences, such deeply harmful experiences in white spaces, that when I walk into white spaces, the difference between my more healed self is that I know I have every right to be there. And I am not going to diminish myself in any way to be in this space. You're in this space, I have every right to be in this space too. That's my more healed self. Does it mean the parts of me that are still kind of raw based on those experiences doesn't go? Okay, let me kind of arm up here in case something comes at me. So I think that's the difference. And that those past times where I might have literally shrunk before I was more healed, like try to be almost invisible. Try not to make too much noise. Try not to bring too much attention to myself. That instead of that I'm very present, very much authentically within myself, I wear my hair the way I want, wear the jewelry I want, wear the clothes I want. I am not determining my existence based on the past experiences where I was deeply harmed.
Dr. Norissa Williams: 15:12
Thank you. So you said that you've always been like this. And you also named one pivotal point, you said a few years ago, you liberated yourself from the corporate machine. Are there other pivotal times in your liberation journey that you feel comfortable sharing?
Cynthia: 15:30
Yeah, I think Bukky alluded to one a little bit earlier. For me, I think the greatest liberation came through my spirituality and my connection to my ancestors. And that was a game changer for me. This society in general, especially way back when I think we talk a lot more about ancestors now than we've ever did. But at least in this country, that's not something that we were really brought up doing. And so that's such a key piece, I think, to our healing, especially as BIPOC. Because the story we're given about our ancestors is that they contributed nothing to the world, that they had nothing to offer, the stories are savages and slaves. That's the stories. And so when I started learning the truth of who we are, and what I came from, that was key to my healing process. In fact, I would say that it was the most important part of my healing process, because it allowed me to see myself differently. If I actually came from this, and not what I was told I came from, then that makes me something very different. That makes my identity a very different story and conversation within myself. And for me, the key places that I made that connection with was my indigenous ancestors, meaning my Native American ancestors and my African from many countries, not just one, but from my West African ancestors, and learning those components of how they viewed the world, their worldview, and how they connected to the planet, and how they treated each other. And what they actually were before the colonizers came was critical in that healing process.
Dr. Bukky Kolawale: 17:35
Can you tell the story of how you actually even came into contact with discovering those stories?
Cynthia: 17:44
Well, it was really through my spiritual practice. And that's a long, long story, we will have to do another podcast about how that happened. Because that's an incredible story. But I was on a deep spiritual quest, I was deeply unhappy. I was in my mid 20s. And I was deeply unhappy. I was suffering from depression, I was actually in social work school, and getting my master's. and part of what was driving me to get my Master's was, again, I was mostly in white spaces doing social work. And I had all these white women telling me that the way I work was not appropriate to their model, except that my clients were getting major healing results. Because I was just operating from pure knowing the community versus coming with this outside view and imposing it. And I was also deeply connected to the community. So it was like just having a conversation like we're having now I'm really just empowering women to really look at, how do I get myself out of this abusive situation. And so I decided to go back to social work school because I was tired of them telling me I didn't have a master's. And so I went back to school. And it was during that process that I was really kind of struggling around, not my identity about who I was, but like what I was seeing in the world. And particularly at that time, social work school, you got one class in cultural competency that was total BS. And
Dr. Norissa Williams: 19:26
It was more than me when I was going to school.
Cynthia: 19:30
All of us, right? They’re doing better now, but man, was it bad back then. And so I was always fighting basically, with all my professors, fighting with my classmates, and fighting in the sense of standing up for what is our truth. What we were being taught was not true. And so anyway, I went on this internal spiritual journey, and I believe in God, and so I started praying to God I was like, God, I need a spiritual teacher, I need to understand myself better, I need to understand what's happening in this world, all of that. And eventually what was the combination of that was that I've met a priest, Shango, which is in the Yoruba Lukumi tradition, which comes out of Nigeria, and at West Africa. And I started studying with him. And part of again, like many ancient traditions, is that there is an ancestral reverence component. We are not worshipping ancestors, we are remembering our ancestors and their legacy and who we come from. And that sent me on a journey of starting to do things I had never done, talking to my mother about her ancestors taught at a time bless for me, all for my grandparents were alive. So I was able to talk to them and get all of their past. So I was able to go back about 3 generations as a result. And I started learning more about who my people were and where they came from. And then eventually, I personally chose I know, some people are not comfortable with this, but I actually wanted confirmation of what I think I already knew. But I actually did a DNA test and exactly what I thought, they came back from all the lines. They're like about four lines that come straight out of West Africa, a very large percentage that is indigenous. And those are the things that are connected with, and that's how I started healing. And I'm a person that practices ancestral reverence, so I have an ancestral altar. I pray to my ancestors every morning, meaning I have conversation with them. And I have a belief system that says they are still here, available to meet present energetically, that I can connect with them, and that I can be guided by them in some way. I truly believe that and so that's for me a big piece.
Dr. Bukky Kolawale: 22:12
Cyn you keep using this word, ancestral reverence. What does that mean?
Cynthia: 22:16
That means that I honor my ancestors, and I remember them. I distinguish that between what people call idolizing, because there's a lot of controversy of a lot of times around, oh but you're not supposed to be praying to anybody but God, and it gets all kind of crazy. And I'm not part of that. I really believe that energetically, we all have an imprint. Bukky has an imprint, Norissa has an imprint, we all have an imprint. And that imprint is our energy. And so what happens when the energy leaves the leaves the body? That's when we die. But where does that energy go? It doesn't disappear. It's still an energy. And so in this ancestral reverence, what we're doing is we're remembering those that came before us that are no longer physically present, but that energetically are still available to us. And that we can access energetically their wisdom and their guidance and their understanding of life. So that's what I mean by reverence, I honor them. I remember their names, I call their names I have been in situations for instance, here's where shows up very concretely for me. Believe it or not Bukky knows this story, but Norissa I'll share with you. I'm not a natural speaker. I'm not. I know that no one believes that. But it's true. Here's a perfect example. I have deep racial trauma for speaking, I had horrible, horrible experiences in college with white professors. The New York City kid from the lower east side, this little New York accent. And I used to get chopped apart, and it was horrible. And so there was this point where I just felt completely incompetent to be able to speak in front of anybody. And that's something I had to heal. Well, one of the ways I healed besides the typical things we do, like encourage each other that, of course, you can speak well. I tapped into my ancestors. And I did a prayer one day and I said, Listen, I know for a fact there's this inner knowing inside of me that some of were orators before me, that you were healers, and that you were teachers, and that you were great speakers. So help me to find the strength to be able to speak in front of people, because that's something I really felt called to do. It's not something that I even wanted to do, it's something that I feel called to do all the time. And just by doing that prayer, I can't tell you how many times that has helped me. That whenever I have to go in front of a large group of people to talk, that can feel very scary and overwhelming to me even to this day, that I call on my ancestral fellowship and say, Hey, you got me. You got me because I know you got me because you all used to do this, this is what you all used to do. I know it is. And I will feel an energy come up around me, literally an energy come up around me. And I will feel like I'm on the stage with an entire crowd of people with me, who've got my back, it literally will feel like I got hands holding me, like we got you. That is the connection with ancestors that I have at this point, that I don't feel like I do anything alone, that I don’t walk alone in this world. And I can't tell you how tremendously healing that is. Because oftentimes, what we need in our healing process is to know we're not alone. And so imagine, knowing that you have a whole team of people with you, instantaneously anytime you need it. And believing that and knowing that. And that's one of the things that got taken away from us in colonization, because our ancestors understood that relationship is eternal, that we have the ability to engage with each other, even when we pass on from our physical bodies. And yeah, that is one of the ways we have been most disempowered to think we walk in this world alone, when we don't.
Dr. Norissa Williams: 26:47
I love it. I love also the way that you are challenging us, because we've been so colonized to think idol worship, ancestral worship, and all these terms to make us turn away from it after having been taught through a Christian lens. And it's really so much more than that, ancestral reverence, veneration and central consciousness, this awareness. I was reading an article a couple of months ago that really spoke about having this extended relationship, we have the same impact as we do with our attachment figures. And so we should consider that an attachment relationship, because there are so many psychological and social benefits from that. So I love everything that you had to say. And I resonated with this, because I have moved through my life feeling everything that was, was struggle. Especially being a child of immigrants, and different things like that, I didn't have a lot of resources to move through this world. But also, they didn't necessarily have the capacity to be able to support me in the ways in which I needed to be supported. And it's with my own ancestral consciousness as well that I'm like, Wow, I'm not alone. And every day, it's like deep gratitude for this army that's with me. So thank you so much for sharing your story.
Cynthia: 28:06
Yeah. And here's the other piece, that when we know we're not moving alone, we also in many ways can feel not just more empowered and supported, but more dedicated and committed to something. There's something that I do all the time, when I get into my little pity parties and things that happened for me, and not that they're not justified, because we all have to grieve, and particularly with everything that's going on in the world, there are moments where we need our quiet or we need to go within or we just need to be with ourselves, or we don't want to do much or whatever. But then there are these other times where maybe I'm in that space where I'm kind of being a little self-centered about something. And it's not in a good way. It's not like me taking care of myself, I'm just getting stuck up in my head for some reason. And I will think about my ancestors and the sacrifices that they made, that I might be here today. I’m like, oh, get over it, keep it moving. And I don't mean that like, just get over it more. No, I mean, when it's not that serious, but maybe I've made it more serious in my head. And I remember in those moments, it feels like a little tap on the shoulder, almost like hey, you know you got it good, right? What it helps me to do is remember the joy as well. Because the way our ancestors moved through things, can you imagine? There are times I'm like, I can't even imagine how they managed to find joy and love and family and commitment to each other under the circumstances that many of them survived through. And if they could find that, then I sure as heck will keep finding mine. And not in this negative toxic positivity way, but in that real deep, you said it Norissa, deep gratitude, that wells up in your body and you can feel it. And you're like, Thank you. Thank you for everything you did that I might be here, liberated and free to pursue my dreams, to do my work, and to honor you all. You see everyone walking around with those T shirts on my ancestral greatest dream. My ancestors greatest dream. Yeah, that's it, because they lived on so that we could be here and make more conscious choices about the lives we want to live, and then go after it. And that's why we're so big about us going after our dreams. Because, in fact, their sacrifices made it possible for us to be here. And I never lose sight of that. So it's just so fulfilling to be able to look at life that way. And I just wish it for everybody. And I don't think it has to be a conflict with Christianity at all. I think it can actually enhance somebody's belief system if they are open to looking into that aspect of their lives.
Dr. Norissa Williams: 31:08
I agree, and one last thought as we close up too, just to build on what you were saying about Christianity. A couple of months ago, actually, I opened, because I felt led to, I don't identify as a Christian, although I have a history in Christianity, but I felt led to buy a Bible again. Because I felt like my ancestors were having me buy a Bible. And when I opened it in the New Testament, the first 15, 20 verses, they went back 15 generations calling ancestors. we've been taught to think that it's against Christianity, when in reality, if we were probably practicing it the same way it was practiced in the time it was written, I mean, before colonization came in as a force to separate us, and to disconnect us, which is trauma. So I don't know Bukky, Did you have any closing words?
Dr. Bukky Kolawale: 32:03
I have a lot. I feel like we have to have a second episode, a follow up episode with Cynthia.
Cynthia: 32:10
I feel like we've barely touched the surface, right?
Dr. Bukky Kolawale: 32:13
I'm coming into this conversation of the two of you, you all both have been in this journey around connecting with ancestors for like a minute, and I'm just newer to it. And Cynthia, one of the things I love when you talk, there's a way in which you talk about it, that literally, the way you were describing your story, it's like, I feel attracted, when you describe energetically, I can literally feel hands on my back. So I know that listeners like me, who are just like, Wait, can we slow down the story for a second and ask a bunch of questions around that? So Norissa, I'm wondering if our next episode, we bring Cynthia back, and we double click into some of these things. And so people can start to, and I think really more around for folks who are interested in wanting to start to remember their own ancestors, their own ancestral practices, how does one find their way to that? So I'd love to hear both of you. Because I feel like both of you have mad wisdom around this, to be able to share with our listeners.
Dr. Norissa Williams: 33:18
Definitely, definitely,
Cynthia: 33:21
I would love to. And I know that the goal of your podcast, in many ways, is around liberation, and Degemmification, which I love. And that ancestral practice piece has been so much a part of my journey and continues to be a part of it, right? And then there are times when people don't want to connect to ancestors. And how do you not do that? And depending on what the circumstances are, and I even hear BIPOC saying, there's some answers to that, I don't want to have no conversation with them, they did crappy stuff. And so, being able to distinguish between, even that can be really important for people. So yeah, I would love to come back. I'd be happy to.
Dr. Norissa Williams: 34:12
Definitely. Thanks so much for being with us.
Cynthia: 34:14
Thank you both. This has been so much fun.
Dr. Norissa Williams: 34:20
Thanks for listening.
Dr. Bukky Kolawale: 34:22
If you love what we've had to say, please subscribe on your favorite podcast platform
Dr. Norissa Williams: 34:28
I’m Dr. Norissa, and you can find me on IG at Dr. Norissa Williams.
Dr. Bukky Kolawale: 34:30
And I'm Dr. Bukky, you can find me on IG at the official Dr. Bukky.
Dr. Norissa Williams: 34:34
You can also stay abreast of our latest offerings on our website radicalremembering.com
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