How We Become Fluent In Radical Communal Care

Health
Written By Emily Race

Collage image of Oumou Sylla, surrounded by a gold circle and letters, a red “first aid” symbol, subway map, blue spiral, paper hearts, blue cloud, red star and the TIHWC symbol for “health”.

Emily Race-Newmark sits down with N. Oumou Sylla — creator of “Radical Mental Health First Aid”, an anti-carceral, consent-centered approach to responding to mental health crisis — to explore what it looks like when an entire community becomes fluent in care. 

Moving away from the concept of “communal care” and into the practical, we explore real-life scenarios and challenges that can come up, including:

  • How to respond to a mental health crisis unfolding in front of you with a stranger 

  • Navigating the nuance between when we feel “at capacity” and when it’s actually something else  

  • How we might move away from the “commodification of hospitality” back towards the village as our birthright 

  • Why cycles of burnout are commonplace for caregivers and change-makers and what we can do about it

  • An expanded, accessible definition for “collective care” to welcome those who feel most comfortable inside of a culture of “individualism” 

  • The limitations within the current model of 1:1 therapy and self-care 

  • The behaviors and skills we can model for our children to instill a culture of care into future generations  

If you long for a culture where care isn’t something you have to pay for, schedule, or outsource, this is an episode for you.  

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TRANSCRIPT

Emily Race-Newmark (00:10)

Welcome to This Is How We Care, a podcast that imagines what kind of world our children want to inherit and how we, the village raising them, can embody that world. I'm your host, Emily Race-Newmark.

Welcome, welcome. Whether this is your first time listening to this podcast or you've been on this journey with us for a while, I am so glad you are here. And I am especially excited to share this conversation with you, one that initially came about because of an Instagram post. Our guest, Oumou Sylla, had shared a post on her account that said something to the extent of "Is it lack of capacity or is it avoidance?"

I'm gonna let that land. Is it lack of capacity? Or is it avoidance?

At the time that I had read this, I was deep into exploring this question for myself. As many of you know, I'm a mother with two young children, and a lot of the community around me is also made up of parents with young children, where both the desire for community and support is high, but capacity often feels quite low. And I mean, honestly, life is really full, right? When you have to chase toddlers and babies around and really be responsible for their survival.

From this post, I knew right away that Oumou was someone I would find kinship with, and our conversation together proved this theory to be right. While we had never met before, I feel like this entire episode is a conversation with a friend.

We covered so much ground that it was hard to summarize into one episode title what this conversation is about, but the common thread that I can distill this down to is really exploring what radical community care actually could look like. Not just as a theory, not as like a this sounds good, but in practice.

We cover a lot of what-if scenarios in this conversation to really ground it in that practical. For example, we talk about how do you respond to a mental health crisis that's unfolding in front of you on a subway. Or what do we do when our friends cancel plans last minute? What do we do if we're the friend that wants to cancel last minute?

Here's a bit about our guest, Oumou Sylla. Oumou is a multi-hyphenate polycreative. She's a therapist-ish, zine-ster, writer, speaker, consultant, and strategic partner, and facilitator of spaces for radical learning.

Oumou is the creator of Radical Mental Health First Aid, which is a workshop series and training system that is slowly but surely changing the care and mental health landscape.

When she's not working, you can find Oumou eating sweet treats — me too, girl — watching cartoons, breaking small laws, and reinforcing the silly goose agenda.

As I mentioned, her Instagram @connectwithoumou is a great account to follow. You can also head over to her website, connectwithoumou.com if this conversation resonates with you and you'd like to work with her more or support her in some way. All of that is linked in our show notes.

Last tip for you, if you aren't already watching this episode on YouTube, check it out. You will be gifted with the most amazing Oumou reactions. This woman does not hold back, and honestly, I love her for that.

Okay, that's enough. Let's head into the conversation with Oumou Sylla.

Emily Race-Newmark (03:21)

I am SO excited and grateful to be joining Oumou for this conversation. We're going to talk about collective care and all things radical health and more. Thank you for being here, Oumou and rolling with this conversation.

N. Oumou Sylla (03:33)

My pleasure.

Emily Race-Newmark (03:35)

OK, so let's hear a story of how you got into the work you're leading in the world today, what shapes your view. Tell us a bit about your origin here.

N. Oumou Sylla (03:43)

Absolutely. So I am classically trained as a licensed marriage and family therapist. And for the first part of my career, that's what I was doing. A lot of one-on-one work with people. And in the year 2020 specifically, I noticed a lot of my conversations were focused on people wanting to practice care with themselves, but primarily with other people, while living in isolation, given the context in 2020 at the time, right?

And so I'm doing that work. I'm saying essentially the same thing to so many people over the course of many months and years. And I think to myself, what would it look like if I shifted how I was doing my work and brought it out into the world, especially for people that aren't able to access one-on-one therapy or they don't have like a therapist they vibe with or mesh with and all that.

It's very inaccessible for a lot of people for lots of reasons. So, there comes my Instagram page, @connectwithoumou, and I start putting out my little content things, my ideas; that grows a little bit, grows a little bit.

Then I'm eventually asked by one of my peers to create a “mental health first aide” type of thing for this small group of organizers and artists and blend of people.

And so I make it. And I realized, wow, this is the thing that I've been doing with all of my clients one-on-one, packaged into this really beautiful workshop. And so I do the workshop with this group of people and they're like, “we've been so hungry for this, this is everything we've ever wanted.” And I think to myself, should I do this again?

And then I do it again for the public. And then I get a lot of really great feedback. And I'm like, okay, there's something here. There's something here.

Eventually I host it over and over and over again. And now it's a training system that I'm able to offer to organizations and small grassroots people and schools and private practices. It's really helped lots of people, also systems, shift how they're relating to care, shift how they're relating to crisis response, shift how they're thinking about mental health and the reason why people experience the things that they experience.

Emily Race-Newmark (06:04)

I mean, what I love about that story is this iterative, almost organic way it kept growing and you just checking in with yourself like, Ooh, should I, what if? I love this like creative piece of it. So awesome.

Tell us, without, obviously we won't get the workshop in this podcast — I highly encourage people to go check that out — but what is the high level of what is happening? What transformation are you helping people through in that space?

N. Oumou Sylla (06:32)

Once people get into the workshop, because what I found is that during a crisis, or even non-crisis moment, a lot of people will tend to freeze, will tend to overthink, what do I say or fear like saying the wrong thing, so then they'll do nothing.

A lot of people will like end up in this “bystander effect” where they're hoping the other persons that are watching the situation will do the responding, but then no one does it.

So then it's the "no one's doing nothing effect, right? And so the workshop really is set up so that you not only learn the context by which crises and mental health things happened, but you also learn a beautiful six step action plan, that's fluid and circular and creative in its form that allows you to really respond to whatever's going on in front of you, or even to yourself, in a way that's more values-aligned, and a way that's more consent-centered and a way that's less fear-filled and more consent and capacity-centered.

Emily Race-Newmark (07:36)

What's striking me as you're sharing that, I'm like, OK, first of all— I’m laughing out of survival almost— but we're living in crisis upon crisis right now.

N. Oumou Sylla (07:45)

Yes.

Emily Race-Newmark (07:45)

So it's kind of interesting that what you're creating is a way for people to know how to be in relationship with crisis in a way that is responsive and not making it…

N. Oumou Sylla (07:53)

Yes, reactive.

Emily Race-Newmark (07:55)

Yeah, reactive.

Can you help us really ground in what this looks like? And maybe folks can start to think about where they may have seen crisis unfold directly in their lives. What are some examples of this showing up in practice, or what you'd like to see?

N. Oumou Sylla (08:08)

Absolutely. One example I love to give — because I lived in New York City for four or five years — on the train, on the MTA, there's constantly the strangest and most heartbreaking of things happening. And also, you know, sometimes it's beautiful too, but usually strange and heartbreaking are like the more prevalent things.

I noticed that oftentimes there are people going through things, you know, big and small. Like I used to be a really big crier in public. I'm crying on the MTA if I'm having a bad day at work, and I noticed that I was able to just cry in peace, honestly, because no one would look at me.

I don't know if it's because it's the culture of “mind your business.” If it's the bystander effect thing, what have you. But, you know, I'm crying in public and it's not like I want the whole train car to come in, you know, scarily like, Oumou are you okay?

But I do think it's interesting that I could cry for 45 minutes and not a person would, wouldn't even offer me a tissue. You know what I mean?

And, and so that's like one small situation, but I've also seen like a larger situation where somebody is potentially hearing or seeing things that I don't hear and see, and that's causing fear to some people in the train car, right?

And then, you know, the folks will potentially try to deescalate the way that they know how to deescalate, but it is actually an escalation. And so in those…

Emily Race-Newmark (09:37)

Say more on that. Can you say more on that? I'm assuming, but I want to hear.

N. Oumou Sylla (09:43)

The way that they deescalate is more an escalation.

So I've seen people walk up to those people and say, “There's nothing there. Like you're scaring us. Stop it.”

That doesn't help a person who is seeing and hearing things that we don't see in here. In fact, that makes them more scared. And so that's like a kind of like deescalation, right, that people think, “let me tell them that it's not happening so that they can snap back into reality”, but that can actually further escalate a situation and a problem.

And so I've seen that happen in lots of different kinds of ways where the ignoring sometimes escalates the situation. My hope is that with the work that I'm doing, this action plan that I'm sharing with people, the co-creating of spaces that I'm doing, that people are able to have a shared language and understanding for how they wanna show up in these spaces instead of just the automatic “do nothing,” the automatic “ignore”, the automatic “look away.”

And so in a situation where maybe I'm crying on the train car, what would it look like if it's like somebody next to me was like, “I've noticed you've been crying for 20 minutes. Do you want a tissue? Is there someone that could call for you? Are you gonna be on the train longer? Like, how are you feeling?”

And I could say, “I don't want to talk to you.” Or I could say, “Wow, thank you. I'm having the worst day of my life. Could you listen to me talk for five minutes?” And then like we go our separate ways. That's...

Emily Race-Newmark (11:13)

And that's consent piece.

N. Oumou Sylla (11:15)

That's consent piece.

Emily Race-Newmark (11:19)

Woo.

I do want to also add, I actually was at a coffee shop in the last couple of months, I was with my two kids, and I had a minor breakdown. I was just like… I lost it. I had no more patience. And I started crying.

And it was like an experiment, like, I'm going to see if anyone engages with me. Not from a place of like, “come save me.” But I want to see what happens when I'm not putting on some perfect show of parenthood.

And yeah, no one engaged. So I think you're naming it.

I'm curious, in some of these bigger crises also, I feel like the other way we show up is to call the police. Is that something that you address or have thoughts around?

N. Oumou Sylla (12:04)

Fantastic question, Emily. Yes, I have a million and five thoughts around it, but I'll probably share just the five.

And so the work that I do is really through an anti-carceral lens, meaning, I am whenever possible trying to decrease police involvement in how we're responding to crisis and community needs. But not only decrease police involvement, but decrease the policing behaviors that live within us.

Because many of us are also extensions of the state of the police in ways that we're aware of, but also sometimes not aware of.

And so the work that I do really tries to think about, If I need to call the police in this moment because of A, B, or C, whatever I've come to, how can I still protect the person who's in the crisis?

Because we know historically when people are in crisis, especially if they're Black, Brown, poor, disabled, if the police get involved while that person is in crisis, usually, probably, some type of traumatic thing is going to ensue, whether it's through how they're treated or some horrific thing that I don't feel the need to talk about because I'm sure… we all have imaginations, you know?

Emily Race-Newmark (13:20)

Yeah. That's what I thought of when you said escalation. I'm imagining that form of escalation, which we've seen before.

N. Oumou Sylla (13:25)

Yeah. Yeah.

Emily Race-Newmark (13:27)

Yeah. But I love what you're saying too. It lives within us. And I'm imagining there's so much unpacking and relearning — like sometimes we're just not even aware of that instinct. So really this is the word I was trying to say earlier, I'm like, you're creating a fluency or a literacy around response.

N. Oumou Sylla (13:41)

Ooooh yeah!

Emily Race-Newmark (13:45)

Wow. Amazing. Okay. And you know, what's so interesting, too, is like you have the lens from this therapy background, which also, I'm hearing has a root in some individual care. And you're looking at, “here's a gap to fill in the communal care piece.”

So this leads perfectly to my question around vision, which I always love to hear from guests, let's just dream big. Anything's possible. Paint with the magic paintbrush, what you see in our world.

And also like in a way of planting a seed, we have new generations being born now. We have an opportunity to actually start creating this, through what we model. So what is your vision for a world that could be here in a couple of generations or even now?

N. Oumou Sylla (14:26)

Okay, so this first thing is going to potentially sound so random and left field, but I feel like it has to start here before we even get to this other thing I'm going to talk about.

So one of the first things I would love to see changed in the world, is number one, minors being able to vote. And then the people that are not able to vote for whatever reasons, being able to vote. That's number one.

With number two connected to that, I would love to see a shift in how presidents are created this country, okay? And how people are able to get into offices and things.

Why am I talking about these bigger things? Because if we're thinking about money to be given to communities to create the things they wanna create themselves, that funding has to come from people and the systems that are values aligned. Otherwise it's just replicating more nonsense in my humblest of opinions, right?

So I'd love to see people and communities being able to practice this community care with more autonomy, with more conversation, with more creativity, with less stress, because a lot of the like grassroots organizations that are doing this powerful, juicy, amazing work are actually doing it with zero funding.

And all love and all care and then they burn out and they disappear and we never hear from them again.

And so all of these things that are being created that are so important are never sustained. And it breaks my heart to see because it just happens on the cycle over and over again because there's no ability to like sustain it on a larger, like DNA ground seed level. So that's one of my big, big dreams.

I'd love for Radical Mental Health First Aide to be this thing that's like talked about and taught and experienced everywhere. For librarians to know about it, for bus drivers to know about it, hairstylists to know about it, doctors to know about it, for grocery store attendants to know about it, for gardeners to know about it.

Why? Because crisis could happen anywhere at any given moment.

And if we're telling people to just like go to therapy to deal with whatever we see, guess what. Therapy takes calling a therapist, liking your therapist, going to therapy. And sometimes people just need that in-moment connection of being held while they're screaming versus us telling them “You're so resilient. I hope your therapist will help you.”

Emily Race-Newmark (17:04)

Whoa. Just the way you put that, I mean, it all makes sense within the current paradigm of individual care and self-care. It's like, “go pay this person over here.”

But what you're describing is a world where we are all equipped to show up in that moment, and we're also receiving that from others.

N. Oumou Sylla (17:24)

Precisely, yeah, my dream.

Emily Race-Newmark (17:26)

Okay, I also want to go back to the first piece you said, because I am very curious in this moment in particular, there is something that is ending, very clearly, in my view. We are ending something.

And then, what can we be creating or doula-ing?

N. Oumou Sylla (17:41)

Yeah.

Emily Race-Newmark (17:42)

And I think a lot of us are trying to find our way of, what is the next iteration of organization or government or the way that we can get civically involved.

So again, this might feel pie in the sky, but when you imagine a different way of that whole system working, the way people can get elected, do you have actually thoughts on what would actually serve or how that could work?

N. Oumou Sylla (18:03)

So I have some loose thoughts, some loose ramblings.

I will say that the mayor of New York City, the current mayor, Mamdani, is a case study to pay attention to. I would say that there's lots of other younger, some Gen Z kids. I'm a millennial, I think is what they call me. And some of these younger kids really have this like energy, this “we don't have anything so we're ready to lose it all” type of vibe that I think is really going to allow for the things that don't make sense to go away and for new seeds to be planted.

So I don't know exactly what that might look like, right? But I do know Mamdani being able to be elected — I'm Muslim, I never thought in my entire life that a Muslim man would be the mayor of New York City where the tragedies of 9-11 happened. That is blowing my mind. I remember Islamophobia was at a high for so long and now Mamdani is the mayor. That blows my mind.

And so if something like that is potentially possible and he continues to do the things for the people, I think that that could be a case study for other cities to be like, okay, how can we change what doesn't make sense?

Emily Race-Newmark (19:27)

Yeah, I love that it's like one pointing to like, OK, here's an example of what's already working or could work. Like, let's just watch this space.

N. Oumou Sylla (19:33)

Yeah, exactly.

Emily Race-Newmark (19:36)

And then also what I'm hearing in this is — I'm supporting a local nonprofit, a garden in my town, and they're like, “we're literally going to scrap the way we've been doing everything for the last couple of years and just completely do it new this year.” And that's like the death and destruction piece.

N. Oumou Sylla (19:53)

Exactly. Yeah, I'm definitely seeing lots of like “death cards” if we're into like astrology, right? We're gonna keep pulling the death card and lots of birth and doulaing like you mentioned is soon to come.

Emily Race-Newmark (20:08)

OK, so going back to the part of the vision that is collective response, consent-based response to the crisis when it emerges… which also, we're not imagining a world where crisis doesn't unfold. We are acknowledging that's part of the human experience, or what?

N. Oumou Sylla (20:23)

Exactly, crisis will continue to exist as long as we as people exist, right? Crisis, conflict, what have you. But what I think we can benefit from is upskilling so that we don't push people away from us when the crisis and the conflict happens.

Because many of us have lots of wounds connected to those very people that didn't have the skill to handle what was happening.

Emily Race-Newmark (20:50)

Mm-hmm.

And then with that in mind, that consent-based piece, you kind of modeled it when you were like — it was just so simple — “hey, I'm noticing this.”

So breaking that down. First, just observing, “I see you, or you're not invisible to me.”

N. Oumou Sylla (21:05)

Yes. Yes. Yes.

Emily Race-Newmark (21:07)

And that's not a problem, either. And I want to check and meet you where you are in terms of, you lead what you need, but this is what I'm offering.

N. Oumou Sylla (21:14)

Exactly. Exactly.

It's a little dance and it's not perfect. You have to pay attention to non-verbals, pay attention to what people are saying and not saying, and how they're saying it, the tone. There's just so many things. It's like an experiment of noticing.

Emily Race-Newmark (21:34)

Which, my god, I'll get on my soapbox in a minute about if we could just get off our phones when we're out in public so we have the awareness to notice.

I mean, I get the need for the phone at times. But part of me is like, it's so easy to hide behind this device. And especially when something's unfolding that makes us uncomfortable, like “I'm going to pretend I don't see.”

N. Oumou Sylla (21:53)

Yes, I've seen it happen time and time again.

Emily Race-Newmark (21:57)

So I do want to bring into the vision this piece around collective care beyond burnout. And you were kind of talking about it, like if we start funding and resourcing the caregivers and the organizers, that's a starting place. But even in this in-between, liminal space, how do we start creating a model that goes beyond burnout?

N. Oumou Sylla (22:17)

First things first, we recognize the wisdom of the caregivers, right? The people who have been doing this, laboring in this way, loving in this way.

And I think acknowledging wisdom looks also like reverence, looks like giving those people time off, looks like paying those people for their wisdom, right?

And so that's one part of what I think comes up for me.

Another part of what comes up for me is caregivers also practicing this really hard but important thing of sharing the load of the labor.

I know that for me that's sometimes really difficult, especially if I have a vision for what I think, you know, how things should go. Sharing that load can sometimes allow for me to rest in certain ways, even if the vision doesn't get executed in the way that I would execute it.

Emily Race-Newmark (23:15)

This just came up with someone I was working with. We were in that vision piece. Like “I want to share the load with others, but once I bring other people in, then it starts to change the vision.”

And I'm like— I use birth analogies a lot— It's like, okay, is this the thing you're bringing to the world in your body or out of your body? Is it like co-sleeping with you or…

Speaking of my daughter is coming in to get milk. So I'm going to nurse her while we finish this.

N. Oumou Sylla (23:37)

Perfect. Hi, baby!

Emily Race-Newmark (23:41)

So yeah, I want to hear your thoughts on that. How have you navigated that line of I need to release or actually need to hold tighter here on the vision in the service of something bigger being born?

N. Oumou Sylla (23:53)

It takes lots of self-reflection, what is mine, what have I forced to be mine, and can be somebody else's and can be delegated.

Because I think that “what have I forced to be mine” thing, like I'm not good at everything. That is the truth of it. And I don't have the skill or the knowledge set to execute all things that I want to be a part of by myself. That is the truth.

And so there are some things that I'm forcing myself to continue to be the leader of, when I can let somebody be in on the loop of responding to that thing who might have better skill than me.

And that could probably help me decrease my exhaustion because in that area, I'm more than likely overworking because it's not my zone of genius, to put it simply, right?

And so the first thing that I mentioned was that self-reflection, but then connected to that self-reflection is that being willing to delegate to someone who, once you do your vetting and your conversation and your prepping, more than likely has more skill, more experience, more willingness or desire to hold on to that aspect so that your time, your energy and your capacity can be freed up to continue to do the things that you're called to do and you have more genius in.

Emily Race-Newmark (25:13)

Yeah, that's bringing me back... this past year I've been really unpacking transactional versus relational orientations. You talk about vetting, for example, I'm like, okay, from a relational lens, what you're really talking about is “let's build relationship with each other first” to be like understanding, I guess, those pieces, right?

N. Oumou Sylla (25:33)

Exactly, because I'm not going to share the load with some random Joe Schmo that I don't know. There has to be a level of trust. There has to be this distress tolerance that I have to be able to hold.

And that's not easy with somebody that I don't know. My distress will be higher for a stranger versus maybe somebody that I've been able to form that relationship with, been able to be in experiments and conversations where we're figuring things out and I've been able to see how they respond to that. And they've been able to see how I respond to that.

And I'm like, “okay, I can trust that if this thing goes wrong, because it probably will, this person and I can navigate a conversation and it more than likely will look like this because we've planned for it in conversation or we experienced something already in real time that I have data points to reference.”

Emily Race-Newmark (26:26)

Yeah, I used to facilitate inside of corporate and in the co-facilitator relationship, that was such a part of it. It's like, “let me know what your trigger is, so that when this person or this archetype of a person says this thing, I'm going to know to step in, because you may not be present”.

N. Oumou Sylla (26:40)

Yeah. Exactly.

Emily Race-Newmark (26:43)

I'm curious, just taking that whole concept a step further in your vision of like how we might respond collectively to crisis when it's unfolding, you may not have a relationship with these people in a moment, but you all happen to be here.

Is there anything we could be thinking about when we're collectively responding to crisis with strangers?

N. Oumou Sylla (27:01)

Absolutely.

So when we're collectively responding to crisis with strangers, first things first is consent. I've probably mentioned this four or five times already today, but consent is the big, big, big piece of caregiving, care seeking, care receiving, right? And it's consent with self, consent with other, consent with context even, right?

And so consent has to be a part of it when we're responding to crises as a collective with strangers.

And then there also has to be this, how do I say? I don't know if you've ever been in like a camp situation where you were asked to do a trust fall with a stranger or something like that. But that's the visual that's coming to my mind. Being in a situation where we're all building trust for the first time with each other in real time.

And so we might practice with something silly, like a trust fall. “Hey, random person, I'm going to drop myself into this, but this is really vulnerable. I don't know you. I don't know if you'll actually catch me, but I'm hoping that you will.”

And so I either choose to do it or I choose to opt out and that has its own kind of consequence. And so the trust fall of it all, I think is really important with responding to crises of strangers being hopeful, right?

That it will land well and not being fearful that this is going to be a catastrophe upon like your involvement.

Emily Race-Newmark (28:30)

Yeah, thank you for bringing that all in.

The last burning question I have around vision is back to the children, the future generations here. What are the skills that we could be modeling? If you were to highlight them out, it's like “at the core, these are the skills that we're modeling for our kids.”

N. Oumou Sylla (28:47)

Brilliant.

I have active and intentional listening as one of them. Another one is consent. Again.

One example that I'll give; I have no children, but I have friends that have children. And so I really am a big observer of how parents are interacting with children. It's so interesting and fascinating.

And I can notice really quickly when a parent doesn't have, as like a parent, a relationship to consent, or doesn't believe that children deserve to have consent, that is very apparent in how parents parent their children down to like how parents may force their children into car seats when they're frustrated and want them to move on really quickly down to, you know, not offering options to allow for children to transition a little bit more smoothly. Like “we're doing this and that's it.”

So, consent is number two.

Number three, is nervous system support. If I had learned how to deal with the big feelings that I felt in my body when I was five versus learning at 25, I think I would have been better off, for sure, because I noticed that it was really hard for me to learn how to deal with like crisis and conflict because when those big emotions in my body would pop up as an adult, I would just shut down everything internally and really be unable to like have conversations about what I was going through because I couldn't even connect to what I was going through because I shut it down.

And so I think that's a really important piece, nervous system support.

Emily Race-Newmark (30:30)

Which actually lends itself to another piece that I'm interested in is like this co-regulation idea. How can we be co-regulating as a community? What are your thoughts on that?

N. Oumou Sylla (30:40)

I'm a big, big lover of co-regulating. Not all people are ready or willing to co-regulate with people for lots of reasons. Trauma, grief, isolation, medical necessities.

But I do know that co-regulating can happen between people and pets, for example. You can practice there. That can look like noticing the cat on your chest and feeling the purring and breathing along with the pet that's on your body.

You can co-regulate with the land. I've had people that I've supported where I'm like, find a neighborhood tree that you love that you find so beautiful, and when you take your walks, go and find that tree. Tell it your secrets. Give it a high five or a hug. Give it as much as it gives you every day because even when you don't know it's giving you something, it's giving you something.

And so there's co-regulating with, you know, like the earth, the land.

There's co-regulating with ancestors, right? And so sometimes I might invite people to like walk around with pictures of their ancestors, you know, in their wallet, or I have a screensaver on my phone where it's a bunch of my ancestors all collaged together.

And when I'm feeling particularly like stressed out or like my body is just like really like, I'll look at that picture and I'll connect to the emotions that the people in that picture bring up for me. It'll help to ground my body almost as if they were there with me in real time.

And so it doesn't always have to be like person to person, you know, doesn't have to be in person either. It can be virtual.

Emily Race-Newmark (32:19)

Right. In that it's almost acknowledging, what's co-regulating for you may not be what's co-regulating for me, in this moment.

N. Oumou Sylla (32:25)

Precisely.

Emily Race-Newmark (32:26)

But needing our understanding that, yes, we actually benefit from that co-regulation model.

I mean, again, my daughter's falling asleep on the nipple right now. But that was a mindset shift for me as I stepped into parenthood, where I'm like, oh, right, kids need to regulate off our bodies. So then how am I getting regulated? Because I can't…

N. Oumou Sylla (32:46)

Yeah, it's really hard.

Emily Race-Newmark (32:48)

Yeah. So yeah, the example of the tree is such a beautiful one. I actually have one in my yard that, I had a two hour cry a couple of weeks ago and that tree just held me. Thank you. Yeah.

N. Oumou Sylla (33:01)

Thank you, Tree Thank you. Yeah.

Emily Race-Newmark (33:04)

Beautiful. Okay. So there's a couple other things in terms of rooting us into definitions and worldview that I want folks to get at before we end this conversation.

One is this energy and spirit of Teranga Am I pronouncing that correctly?

N. Oumou Sylla (33:17)

Yeah.

Emily Race-Newmark (33:19)

I saw that somewhere in your work and I'd love to hear what is important about that for you and what's the origin.

N. Oumou Sylla (33:24)

Yes.

So, Teranga is a word in Wolof. I was born in Senegal, so I'm Senegalese. And in Senegal, there is this energy, this value, this way of being called Teranga.

The best English word translation that we have for it is hospitality. But it's way, way more than that. It is this way of relating to people, strangers, family, acquaintances. It's this way of caretaking and care receiving.

For example, my mom, one of the recent times she went to Senegal, she like... got lost, dirtied up her shoes, was just standing stranded looking for her Airbnb. And this young Senegalese boy like came up to her and was like, “Auntie, are you lost?”

She doesn't know this boy. That's not her nephew. And she was like, “I literally am lost." I don't know where I am.”

And so this young boy helps her find her Airbnb, and then also offers to wash her shoes. She doesn't know him. So she takes off her shoes, gives it to this stranger that she's never met. He goes and washes it wherever he went to and comes back and gives her her shoes.

That blows my mind. I don't see that kind of stuff happening here in the so-called United States, you know what I mean?

And so that's the energy of the Teranga. The same energy where, let's say I have a plate of food and I have unexpected guests that have come to my house. I didn't know that they were coming. I would share that one plate of food with those guests and we would all eat at that plate as if it was the largest plate of food made for… a million guests.

There's this sharing, this receiving, this “let's sit together, let's be with, let's communally join and spend time” and whatever little or whatever a lot I have it is meant to be shared and I'm going to receive from, it just flows.

Emily Race-Newmark (35:31)

Mm-hmm. Yeah, It's making me think of this idea of “it's enough” versus this scarcity, “I don't have enough, I have to hold onto it for myself or I'm not even gonna try. It's not enough for you.”

N. Oumou Sylla (35:40)

Yeah, exactly.

Emily Race-Newmark (35:42)

That whole term of hospitality is so interesting, that in the United States, really culturally we experience that through this commodification…

N. Oumou Sylla (35:51)

Isn't that interesting? We pay for hospitality.

Emily Race-Newmark (35:54)

Yeah. I speak a lot about revillaging, inspired by these conversations. It's like this idea of being the village again, but people are often like, “we just have to pay for our village”. I see like viral clips about that.

N. Oumou Sylla (36:08)

All the time. Yeah.

And I feel that way, especially about new moms.One of my friends, she's a new mom and I feel like she's so isolated in ways that just breaks my heart.

And you know, it's really tough because in this day and age, you have to pay for a mommy group. If you want to do a mommy and me class, you have to pay for it. They have like mommy memberships so you can meet other moms that you have to pay for.

What? What the heck are we even talking about?

Emily Race-Newmark (36:39)

I've like breaking this down. I've journaled about this. I'm like, “what is really going on here?”

And it's like, okay, it's also people in a system being like, “I need to make, find a way to make money. So let me make this into a revenue.”

But then I guess I have a question for you on this too. How do you hold the both? Yes, we need to kind of survive in a system that requires us to make money, to have our basic needs met. And maybe not everything has to have a dollar exchange. What are your thoughts on that?

N. Oumou Sylla (37:08)

Totally. One thought that I have on that is that I think that if more people had community building skills, they would themselves be able to create those communities that they want to be a part of for free. So that's one thing. A lot of people don't have those skills. Like this new mom I'm talking about, she's just trying to figure out how she's going to survive through the day with her baby. Right?

It's really hard to have that capacity to like think through creatively, especially if you don't have those skills already, to think through, “I'm a new mom. I want to hang out with other moms. Maybe I'll text, I can start a text group.” That can feel really exhausting. “Maybe I can make a post on Instagram and like tell people this is what I'm doing.” That can feel really impossible.

Like there's all this organizing that has to come with it and skill that comes with this community building aspect that a lot of people don't have access to. And so some of those people that do have access to that information, sometimes they'll like do the thing of creating the free thing that people can access.

But then some other times they're doing the thing of creating the paid thing that people can access because it costs money. It costs time. it costs what it costs.

Emily Race-Newmark (38:22)

Yeah, what was really present for me… I just came across one of those groups you're talking about. It was like, “we're going to be the village, but pay $35 to come to this group.”

And I actually started something, it ended up being like a parent council, where people just share what they're dealing with. And it's free. I intentionally was like, “This is free. We're going to play with a gift economy, meaning bring or don't bring what you have. You don't owe anything. Just come.”

And like really at the core, after doing that for a year, it really feels different because there's no transaction here.

N. Oumou Sylla (38:55)

We're just vibing. People show up. And now that it's existed for a year, I'm sure you all have lots of wisdom from what's worked and what hasn't worked, right? And what's felt like, “huh, maybe we need something around this so that this doesn't happen again” or whatever it is.

My hope is that when things like whatever you're talking about work, that kind of wisdom can be shared so that another mom in some other place can be like, “you know what, I think I'm gonna start a parent council like Emily. I learned about it from her. I think it's pretty chill.” And then that mom does it. That's cool.

Emily Race-Newmark (39:35)

Right, and it's a possibility model, and that's it.

N. Oumou Sylla (39:38)

Exactly.

Emily Race-Newmark (39:39)

Hello, Emily here. I can't help but pause this conversation because I want to share with you some of the resources that I've created that specifically address what Oumou's highlighting here.

For those who know my story, I have been on a deep community-building path ever since becoming a mother in 2022. I had recognized, like so many other mothers and so many other parents, how isolating motherhood can be and how you truly DO need a village to raise your children.

Thankfully, my skill sets in community building predate motherhood. I've spent years in corporate spaces building team cultures, facilitating conflicts, coaching leaders, managing organizational and cultural change. And all of this experience has really lended itself to transferable community building skills, when it came to creating community in my real life as a new mother.

I want to share those skills with you. One of the easiest ways to do that is to sign up for the Revillaging Path. This is a free resource I created. It gets delivered to your inbox over the course of a week, offering different concepts and prompts in a bite-sized format to make it really easy and digestible for you to start building the village around you without burning yourself out. Because again, I know what it's like to have limited capacity as a parent.

My offerings are always growing and evolving. I do support folks one-on-one and in group settings through coaching, mentorship, strategy, offering more frameworks. And so by signing up for the Revillaging Path, you can learn more about the work that I'm currently offering.

I'm also working on a new guide that you can hold in your hands, a tangible book that can support you in building a parent council, like the one I had built in my community called Moon School. So if that's of interest to you when you get on the mailing list, whether it's through the Revillaging Path or just by signing up for my newsletter, you will get alerted when that guide also comes out in the future.

All right, now that you know that resource is available, let's head back to the conversation with Oumou.

Emily Race-Newmark (41:36)

OK, so actually, I'm now brought back… we've talked about capacity a bit, and this is maybe the first post I saw from you, where I was like, “thank you for naming this.”

How do we honor when we're at capacity, basically, versus I actually need to like stretch my understanding of what being at capacity means.

There's a tension there. when we're thinking about collective care. So what do you have to say about that?

N. Oumou Sylla (41:58)

One of my favorite questions to have people think about when it comes to capacity is, is it that you're at capacity or are you avoidant? Is it that you're at capacity or are you fearful? Is it that you're at capacity or are you tired and could rest or build your spoons up or what have you so that your capacity could shift?

Because oftentimes a lot of people, due to lack of skill, due to fear, due to all of these things will say they're at capacity because that's honestly the easier thing to say.

And so I think that there's this like reality testing to think about when we're talking about capacity and to, you know, try to be as honest as possible with yourself about how do I define capacity? What does that mean for me? What does it look like when I'm at capacity? And what does it look like when I feel abundant and you know, overflowing with my energy?

And really have visual and imagery and all that good stuff for those two different ways of existing because oftentimes it's just this like theoretical at capacity that we're talking about. Like “there's things on my calendar, I'm so busy.” You know what I mean? And it's not like in actuality at capacity that we're talking about.

Emily Race-Newmark (43:30)

Yeah, I mean, how do you name it? The whole flakiness culture, like this whole sense of like, “I'm sorry, like I just can't come anymore.”

My husband's the chef in our family and we often host dinners for people. And he's like, “I hate when people just think you can cancel when I literally just was roasting a chicken for a full 24 hours.”

It's like, OK. But then also, honoring, sometimes people are really in a place where something came up and they can't come. So that's what I'm navigating in real life is like, how do I do both?

N. Oumou Sylla (43:57)

Totally, totally.

One of the things that I try to do with situations like that is I'm a big like “if I don't want to go somewhere I don't want to go somewhere, i'm not going to go”. But I’m also a big like if I’ve committed to something and I also know the intentionality and the planning that that person has put in the thing, I'm going to push myself to go even if I’m at low capacity, you know?

And so I think one of those things that has helped me is having conversations with some of my loved ones around this thing. If I've told you I'm going to go to something and you've now done a big hoopla about it, please tell me there's a hoopla so I'm aware of the full context.

Emily Race-Newmark (44:41)

I love that. I guess it all comes down to communication, but there's transparency around what we're putting into or what something means to us. And it doesn't have to be so black or white. We don't have to hide and mask what's going on. Yeah.

N. Oumou Sylla (44:54)

Yeah, absolutely. And you know, it's like, maybe, if I were to be invited to your home and your husband was cooking chicken, and I was like particularly tired and maybe I wanted to cancel, I might call you and say, “hey, Emily, like I still really want the chicken. Could I come over and no one talks to me? Does that work?”

Like we all maybe read in silence and we eat the food that your husband's made. I would love that.

And then Emily, you could say, “yeah, llet me check on my husband real quick. I'm sure it's fine.”

And then I still show up and I can honor the fact that I was exhausted today and I actually don't want to talk to anyone, but I still want to spend time. So let's do that in silence. Can we do that? And I can honor where I'm at and we can see how that feels for everybody else.

Emily Race-Newmark (45:41)

Hmm. Is that another example of consent?

N. Oumou Sylla (45:44)

Yes it is.

Emily Race-Newmark (45:47)

And I hear in that the co-creation quality too. It's not one person is going to dominate or dictate how this goes, but we can choose what it looks like together.

N. Oumou Sylla (45:55)

Totally, like artists.

Emily Race-Newmark (45:58)

Yes. Okay. So for the purpose of anyone — I don't think they'd be listening at this point, but maybe I can pull out a clip for that — the person who feels like collective care is a “nice to have” or community is a “nice to have”, but they're really entrenched in individualism. They can't really see past the convenience or the ease of not being vulnerable, all the things that keep us stuck in individualism.

What would you say? What is kind of your pitch for those people or what's the importance of communal care, that you really think we need to know?

N. Oumou Sylla (46:29)

One of the parts of it is, if you're a person who thinks that this communal care like means having 30 people that are all up in your business, overbearing and overwhelming you, community care could look like you having one to two neighbors that you know would shovel your snow for you if you broke your leg.

It doesn't have to look like a group chat message that now you're overwhelmed by. It doesn't have to look like this group of people that's, you know, making you do A, B, and C, and you don't want to do A, B, and C.

Emily Race-Newmark (47:10)

Well, and then what I would like pull out from there is, imagine a world where you are in a moment of need and you don't have to necessarily hire someone or find some person on, it's like, my neighbor right here has got it or we got each other. Yeah.

N. Oumou Sylla (47:24)

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Emily Race-Newmark (47:28)

Okay. Thank you so much. So I want to make sure that as we're closing out, people are super clear on the ways to support the work that you're doing to engage work with you. I want to hear with Radical Mental Health First Aide, you're working with organizations and teams. Can you just like share what type of organizations or teams are you specifically looking to work with?

N. Oumou Sylla (47:48)

Yes. So honestly, all of them. Technically, if my business owner hat is on and I'm talking about my client avatars, I'm looking to work with therapists, I'm looking to work with organizations that have front facing staff that have to work with clients. I'm looking to work with small grassroots organizations that are out there mobilizing and organizing.

But in the larger scheme of things, like I mentioned, I want librarians to have this kind of information and hairstylists and I want grocery stores to have this information and preschool teachers, like I want it everywhere. So literally anyone and everyone feel free to contact me. My email address is oumou@jokowellness.com and then my website is connctwithoumou.com.

Emily Race-Newmark (48:55)

And we'll link all of that. I just love that vision so much because I'm just like, yeah, that feels like very accessible guys. Like we can do this.

N. Oumou Sylla (49:04)

We can do it.

Emily Race-Newmark (49:05)

Start spreading this literacy, fluency, in our communities and whichever group of people you are a part of, you could work with Oumou to have this be a shared language and a shared practice.

So yeah, I just want to like really empower people that like you can be that organizer to just like make something like this happen and make this commonplace.

N. Oumou Sylla (49:27)

Totally. And then I also offer like public workshops and stuff every once in a while. And so my website has that information. My website also has my Patreon information and my Instagram information and my newsletter information. It's all there.

Emily Race-Newmark (49:41)

And then also I see that part of your way of providing resources and stuff is you have the Care Starter Pack, have zines, things like this. So I just want to direct people to check all that out.

N. Oumou Sylla (49:49)

Mm-hmm. Absolutely.

Emily Race-Newmark (49:54)

Okay. Oumou, thank you so much for this vision that you're holding and you're leading. And I really hope that folks just grab onto the pieces that make sense.

Let me just end with the same question I end with every time, which is, what is the one practice someone could put into place starting today to bring about the world you're talking about?

N. Oumou Sylla (50:12)

One practice…. hmmmm.

Let yourself try and fail.

Emily Race-Newmark (50:25)

You heard it.

All right. Yes. Thank you so much again for your time and let's stay connected. I appreciate you so much.

N. Oumou Sylla (50:34)

Yay, thanks, Emily.

Emily Race-Newmark (50:35)

Thank you again for listening to this episode.

If what Oumou shared resonated with you and you want to work with her in some way or support what she's doing, there's a few ways to do that. Again, you could follow her on Instagram or support her through Patreon. If you're in a position of power, you can hire her directly. Or get someone in your company or your school to bring her in for a project. All the links to connect with Oumou are in the show notes of this episode.

And if you are a mother, a parent, that is interested in finding the village that is your birthright, that you were meant to raise children within, check out that free Revillaging Path as an intro point to where to begin. That along with links to connect with me @RevillagingMama are all in the show notes at thisishowwecare.com.

I do not want to sign off before saying thank you, thank you, thank you for being a supporter of this show. Subscribing to our channels, sharing the episodes that speak to you, are really easy, simple, free ways to help build momentum around the visions that we are sharing here.

We know that we can create the change we wish to see by amplifying visions of what's possible.

Thanks so much for being here. Take care.

Emily Race
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How We Break Free From The Perfect Mother Myth