Can Solidarity Hold Difference Without Erasure: how might our values guide collective care?

Values show up when things get real: the job offer that looks good on paper, the conflict you keep avoiding, the moment you realize you’re exhausted from making the same hard choice over and over. 

We’re Tolu and Gitika, two licensed mental health professionals, and we’re back to talk about values as a lived practice for mental health, relationships, and collective care in a world shaped by oppression and survival-mode thinking.

We unpack why values can act like a North Star, cutting through decision fatigue and helping you build relationships with more clarity and less shame. Gitika shares what it means to be guided by love in an embodied way, not just as a concept. Tolu names her core values of collaboration, compassion, and curiosity. We explore how curiosity can slow reactivity and open up imagination, the kind we need for liberation and long-term healing.

From there, we name the five values that hold the Kinnected universe together: collaboration, coherence, compassion, curiosity, and care. We get practical about care through transformative justice “pods” and the challenge many caregivers face: receiving support. We also dig into coherence, unity that can hold difference without erasure, and why solidarity gets stronger when it can withstand honest conversation. We close by challenging the idea that anyone can declare a space “safe” and instead focus on building trust over time while honouring protective distrust.

If this resonates, subscribe, share with someone building a more caring life, and leave a review so more people can find us.

Thanks for listening, 

Tolu & Gitika 

You can reach us at kinnected.squarespace.com

Tolu is the Founder of Re-member Counseling & Gitika is the Founder of Pranh Healing & Wellness 

Transcript

Welcome Back And What We’re Building

Tolu 0:00

Welcome to Connected, the podcast that centers collective care in relationship to the Outlast Empire. We're your hosts, Kholu and Gitzika, two licensed mental health professionals in the so-called United States. So Gitzika, today we are actually let me back up. Sorry. How are you doing? How are you arriving to our podcast today?

Gitika 0:27

Yeah, today I am arriving, I think a little sheepish because I know we've been away from the podcast for a few weeks. Time is very fluid, and I know we've been like in this rhythm of recording podcast episodes, and then we suddenly went missing because we realized we had a few things to take care of and we couldn't find time to meet. So I think I'm arriving a little sheepish, but I do want all our listeners to know that we have not abandoned the podcast obviously because there is that concern about like after five episodes, people give up. We've not given up, of course, but Tolu and I have been working on something in the background. So I'm just arriving both excited that we are recording an episode again after a while, and wanted folks to know we never forget the podcast and we're working on something in the background. So that's how I am. How are you, Tolu?

Tolu 1:26

Yes, I'm excited to be here. I'm I've been doing well, I'm doing the best that I can. I've been having a lot of fun cultivating and deepening some relationships, professional relationships, personal relationships. So that's been really cool to kind of see that blossom in this new season of spring that we're in. As well, too. Yeah, there definitely has we've gone silent. We've kind of dropped off. Apologies. We're new at this. Well, I'm new at this. I'll speak for myself. So definitely about communicating with you all about the silence, the momentary silence. I hope it wasn't too long, but I hope you missed us. We're back. And we're excited to be here. So I thought today, Gitika, that we could explore the idea of values. I talk a lot about values in my personal work when it comes to my one-on-one sessions with my clients. I feel like values are a North Star. They help us in decision making, they help

Why Values Guide Everything

Tolu 2:28

us in relationship building, they help us in what type of job do I want to have or what type of employee do I want to work for. So values are that thing that feel like can impact all parts of your life. And the reason I bring up values too is because Gitaka and I are working on something in the background that has really important values that we feel like are really important when it comes to thinking about collective liberation, collective healing, right? These values are really important. So, Gitaka, yeah, like what is your let me ask, what is your relationship to values? How important are values to you? How do values show up for you in your life?

Gitika 3:13

Yeah, I think a few weeks ago in one of our episodes, I think we'd even spoken about how much I feel guided by love and how do I continue to feel something in my body when I'm doing anything. So

Values As Embodied Love

Gitika 3:32

it's not like intellectual importance alone, but it's that I want to feel it in my whole body that this resonates. This is this is a wholehearted love expression. So I feel for me, my values are what will help me create conditions for love to naturally arise. And how can I be a part of it? How can I be a vessel for it? Or how can I also be someone who leans into love more than other things? So I think for me, my values are that actions and gestures that come at the heart of it from a place of feeling love and trying to generate love.

SPEAKER_01 4:25

Well, I would say that's what it is for me. What about you? Absolutely.

Tolu 4:30

For me, values are really important in how I live my life. I have these three main values that in my personal and professional life, I can share this with my clients in my consultation. Like my values are collaboration, compassion, and curiosity. Yeah, collaboration

Collaboration Compassion Curiosity

Tolu 4:50

is so important. Like I said before in previous podcasts, the organizing principle of the universe is relationship, right? So by nature, like we're collaborative beings. Whether you realize it or not, like everything exists in relationships. We might as well get good at collaborating and being in relationship with one another.

SPEAKER_01 5:11

Yeah.

Tolu 5:11

And then curiosity is really important for me as well, too. I feel like curiosity invites openness, invites this. Curiosity invites us to soften and slow down. I I read this somewhere online, but I never actually really fact-checked it. But so you don't take this. I haven't really checked this yet. So don't take this like seriously. But I read somewhere, maybe it was like a thread or something, that curiosity actually does like a lot of good for us, our mental health and our brain development, because it creates a crease in the brain, like an extra like layer of like expansion, right? Like it's actually healthy to be curious. Now, I don't I haven't actually researched that for myself, so I need to go actually fact check that. But it makes sense, right? Curiosity is what keeps us sharp, it keeps us alive, it helps us like expand our capacity and our imagination to imagine a better future. So, curiosity, like I hold very dear, near and dear, and curiosity keeps us when it comes to like healing and when it comes to relational work, curiosity keeps us in it longer. It's more sustainable than like judgment or shame or doubt towards ourselves or towards other people when we're able to be curious instead of quick to judge them. Like I wonder why they did that versus why do they do that? You know what I mean? That completely shut it down, shut down maybe a conversation or a yeah, the conversation, right? So curiosity and then compassion too. Compassion not only reserved for other people but for ourselves. We live in a very difficult world. You know, there's a lot of beauty and there's a lot of like harshness and tension as well, too. And compassion helps us stay in it, because not everything lasts forever, right? So can we like move from a place of compassion not only for others but for ourselves as well, too? And those are just like one of the main, those are like the three big ones. Obviously, like values, like there's so many other values that I have, but values help us navigate the world and they help with like decision fatigue too. That's what I love values because it's such a hack. Yeah, an alignment with so for instance with love, right? Like, you're not gonna participate in something that doesn't have love or that that love isn't present or felt or embodied, right? Yeah, that's that's what's coming up for me around values, yeah.

Gitika 7:47

And I'm also thinking about how you know, like you were saying that curiosity, like I recognize that you also want to fact-check it so you don't want to necessarily talk about the brain science part of it without reading it yourself. But if we recognize from our own lived experience,

Curiosity As A Liberation Practice

Gitika 8:06

when there is curiosity, there is the opportunity to look at something and step back and say, I wonder, as opposed to react, react, react. So curiosity does allow the that expansiveness. So instead of that constriction that is necessary as you're about to take an action, curiosity is allowing you to step back and expand your mind and think about, I wonder why, I wonder what. And I'm thinking about this book I'm reading right now, where there are these children who are surviving genocide and they are asking questions, which really strikes me that those questions are highlighting their capacity to still dream of an alternative. So I start realizing how much curiosity lends itself to liberation because it keeps us in that state of not just surviving, but asking, is there another way of being? Why is it like this? So I feel like, yeah, just from lived experience, can we recognize like how how beautiful that quality is that you're describing, the value of curiosity. And I'm also thinking about that part you know you named about how we've been collaborative, and I'm also recognizing that even in the ancient times, there are so many stories of war, battles, people do fight, so it's not always been collaborative. The animal kingdom, you don't always see collaboration, you do see animals killing each other. Yeah, and I realize that when we center collaboration as a value, we are actually recognizing. Hey, is there another way of being that is not survival-oriented? War and battle have created survival and they've created competition. Who tells me I loved war? I mean, I'm afraid there are people who might think that, but oh, there are, there are, there are. There are so we have not always been collaborative, we still aren't always collaborative, but at the heart of it, that's what makes something a value, I guess. That the evidence has shown across time that what thrived was possible because there was some collaboration. Is the collaboration sometimes for the greater common evil? Unfortunately, yes. Yes, and again, it shows us like, okay, so it was the collaboration that facilitated evil, you know. So I think there is like that part of me that's recognizing as we are naming these values, we are actually naming them from the perspective of what will take us out of survival mode and take us into long-term sustainable living mode.

Tolu 11:16

Yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah. And I think with what we're building, that we have thought about what are the values of what we're building, right? I think it's important whenever you're building something or whatever you're trying to create, what are the values that are holding

The Five Connected Values

Tolu 11:34

that thing together? Right. And in general, for connected, right? Of our podcast and kind of this connected universe we're building out. We have on our website, if you haven't gone to it yet, we have a few values that we have identified. Now, I believe that everything is flexible and limbing, so these may change, but this is where we're at right now in the season of connected and with this podcast. And what we've listed five different values. And the first one is collaboration, the second one is co-the third one is compassion, the fourth one is curiosity, and the fifth one is care. Right? So those are the five values that we've listed for connected, and I'm curious about, and I like that they're all C's. You see what we kind of did there. So it's kind of a commonality or like a thread weaving in there with those different values that we've listed or connected. So as we're listing, well, I guess with the values that I've listed, right? Care is one of those values, right? Because I believe in order to have a liberated future or have an alternative future of what we what we're envisioning, care has to be in the center of that as well, too. But when you think about care and how how does that show up in the universe of connected that we're trying to build together?

SPEAKER_01 13:01

Yeah, I let it dispatch out, but we have about 10 more minutes-ish. Oh, okay. Okay, yeah. About care. You said care, right? Yeah, yeah.

Gitika 13:21

I imagine care shows not just imagine, but that's how I hope to continue to practice is the care that shows that you notice someone, you see them, and you

Care Pods And Receiving Support

Gitika 13:42

want their well-being, and you long for their well-being because you recognize that we can't be well unless we are all well. Yeah. How do we continue to foster that very genuine wellness? Some of that sickness is created by systems and oppressive ideologies, oppressive systems, and care is meant to be an antidote to that.

SPEAKER_01 14:13

Yeah.

Gitika 14:15

That's how I see it.

unknown 14:18

Yeah.

Gitika 14:18

It's meant to buffer against the damage that is constantly being created by harm. Yes.

Tolu 14:29

What I think about care, I think about the concept of the pods written by transformative justice is an organization, I think, based out of the West Coast. I don't remember the name of the person who created the the pods worksheet. Do you remember her name? Miamingas. Yeah, Miamingus, yes.

SPEAKER_01 14:46

Yes.

Tolu 14:47

And she has this idea of creating pods with people with different types of pods in your life.

unknown 14:54

Yeah.

Tolu 14:54

And I think the pods essentially what's being invited of you is to create, be able to identify when it maybe you are looking to build just like a general pod of less like support, right? Okay, who are five people you can contact in an emergency or if a crisis is happening, or you just need someone to talk to because you're having a rough time, or you want to celebrate something, right? Can you identify five people in that, right?

unknown 15:21

Right.

Tolu 15:22

So being able to identify who can I reach out to when I do need care as well, too. Right. I think it's important that we are able to build those types of relationships where we know that we will be cared for and vice versa.

SPEAKER_01 15:39

Right.

Tolu 15:40

And it takes time to build that.

Gitika 15:42

Yeah. And I think if you can also give yourself permission to accept care. Yeah. So many of us who are in caregiving roles, whether professionally or personally, in our family, we took on those roles, and then we continue to take on that role in like society or the communities we are in. Sometimes the caregivers can get really hooked to caring, but not receiving care. So it's something that I just thought about like, yeah, not only who you can rely on, but what is the internal work you're willing to do to accept care.

Tolu 16:21

Yes. Yes. And then we mentioned, and I mentioned earlier too, coherence is one of the other values.

SPEAKER_01 16:30

Yeah.

Tolu 16:30

And I know coherence is a word you don't hear too often, so I want to actually read the definition of coherence so folks of it. Coherence is the quality of being logical, consistent, and systematically connected, where diverse parts fit together to create a unified whole.

Coherence Without Erasing Difference

Tolu 16:48

I'll read that one more time. Coherence is the quality of being logical, consistent, and systematically connected. Where diverse parts fit together to create a unified whole.

Gitika 17:25

There's Tetris has a logic. And unified whole is the Tetris logic where everything is coming together in a in a wholesome way. What about you? How did you feel reading the definition?

Tolu 17:42

Yeah, I the part where it says where diverse parts fit together to create a unified whole.

SPEAKER_01 17:48

Right?

Tolu 17:49

Diverse parts come together to create a unified whole. Like again, kind of connected to connected, right? Like the global majority. We are all different parts, but coming together to be a unified whole, right? In my imagination for a better future, right? So yeah, I just love the word coherence. It is it just it does something for me.

Gitika 18:30

So yeah, you know, when you were also talking about diverse parts coming together to create a unified whole, and how you were describing it, I was also reminded of this uh teacher. She's an Ethiopian American Buddhist teacher whose name I'm now forgetting, but I insist on Googling this right now because I'm a little appalled with myself or how much she's contributed to me, and I'm forgetting her name. Sedine Selasi. And she talks about how things are not separate but not the same.

SPEAKER_01 19:17

Yeah. Yeah.

Tolu 19:21

Yeah. And it, you know, I think it that speaks to what we're trying to build with connected with like we acknowledge that we have differences, we have different life experiences, we have differences, right? But also to despite the differences, can we build the relational skills to be a unified whole despite the differences? Or even with the differences there still, right? Yeah, so yeah, like a good way to kind of because beauty and difference. Different is not a bad thing, totally, totally. I think colonization, imperialism, white supremacy has coupled difference or unfamiliarity with danger or enemy. Correct. The constant, yeah, yeah, that's to be feared. That's dangerous, right? That needs to be annihilated, it needs to be genocided, right? Because it's different, right? And I think what we're trying to build with connected is to we're trying to flip that on its head, right? Indifference is something that's not something to be feared.

Gitika 20:28

Yes, yeah, yeah. And we are not separate, we are not the same, you know, and like Ethiopian American Buddhist teacher Sevana Salasi talks about in her book. I'm gonna find the title of the book and link it in the show notes, but it also had really resonated with me when I first read it, because I had been going through this moment of deep insight around how much solidarity work sometimes ended up seeming like it demanded erasure. And for the greater common good, don't talk about this other stuff. Like, especially those of us who are BIPOC, global majority folks, there are things that we have dealt with internally that we have sometimes not been able to talk about with each other out of concern that in our bigger fight for liberation, things will get distracting or derailed if we try to address some of our challenges with difference. But in that process, like the solidarity was I fear that solidarity ended up being treated as this really fragile thing that could not withstand conversation about difference, conversation about hey, we are not separate, but we are not the same. How do we honor and collectively witness each other and build a stronger solidarity that has not demanded the erasure of specific ways in which suffering shows up for all of us? So I'm really naming how how much strength there is in holding coherence as a value and also not you know not trying to shortcut our way to coherence. Coherence takes energy, takes time, and it takes diligent action. It's a practice.

Tolu 22:22

It absolutely is.

Gitika 22:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:25

So yeah, practice.

Tolu 22:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:29

Yeah.

unknown 22:30

Yeah.

Tolu 22:30

I know we're getting, we're pretty much at time, but I wanted when you talked about what came up for me was that it takes time to build coherence, right? And that what came up for me was safety. Especially the therapeutic relationship. And we're taught to say, it's a safe space, it's a safe space. Like you can trust

Safety Is Built Not Claimed

Tolu 22:49

me, you can trust me. And that actually takes away from the client's agency and their ability to discern what is safe for them in an embodiment way, too. Like it takes time to build safety. Safety should not be assumed.

unknown 23:02

Yeah.

Tolu 23:02

It should be built. And we should honor the client. And I somebody had responded to that post online and messaged me. We should honor the client's distrust of us. Yes. There for a reason. Right. Okay, that makes sense. Safety's built. We don't we're not gonna assume because I hold this authority, right? Or I hold this licensure that I'm a safe person. There's a lot of people out there causing harm who have licenses.

SPEAKER_01 23:28

Yeah.

Tolu 23:29

With licenses. With licenses, yeah. You know, so we seriously like that's why it takes time to build that like coherence safety, right? To build that trust. It shouldn't be just assume because we all have the same political views that we're all automatically safe. No, no, we're not right. It takes time to build that. So I just wanted to mention that too because I was like, yes, that came up for me as well, too.

Gitika 23:57

Yeah, yeah. It does circle back to something we talked in a previous episode, you know, before we close, like I did want to like shout out to our previous episode in which we spoke about the fact that we don't ever want to shame people for holding the trauma responses that we hold. This not able to feel safe yet. That is a part of you that was guarding you, protecting you, and we need to honor it, respect it, and identify what is it telling us about the conditions it requires in order to find its way to safety. And maybe there are spaces that are safe enough, not 100% safe, but safe enough. Like, how do we continue to journey towards that together?

SPEAKER_01 24:42

Yes, yeah, awesome.

Tolu 24:49

Well, it was always a pleasure, it's always wonderful getting a chat with you. I feel like we could talk even more, but you know, we have busy schedules and we have other things that we have to do, and other commitments, but blue signing off. Thanks for listening and watching as well.

Gitika 25:04

Too absolutely, and this is Gitika signing off. Thanks

Closing And How To Reach Us

Gitika 25:08

everyone for listening, and we will be in your inbox in a few weeks. And please feel free to get in touch with us through our mailing function on our podcast. So we look forward to hearing from you. Look at our show notes for ways to contact us. This is Gitka and Tolu signing off.

SPEAKER_01 25:28

Bye. Bye.