Transforming Trauma: Episode 071

In this episode of Transforming Trauma, our host Emily is joined by Bayo Akomolafe, Ph.D. Trained in clinical psychology, Bayo now works as an author, speaker, and professor.  He is recognized worldwide for his thoughtful and unconventional take on global crises, trauma and social change. Throughout their conversation, Bayo shares about his journey and reflections on trauma.

Bayo starts off by sharing a proverb from his Yoruba people: “In order to find your way, you must become lost”. This leads to an invitation to being in the world in a different way.  Bayo describes himself as “standing at the crossroads…poised at the edges of the familiar” and working to actualize a different kind of global experience.

The convener of such concepts as “postactivism”, “transraciality” and “ontofugitvity”, Bayo leans into the outer ranges of thinking and consciousness in many directions. One of those areas is trauma.  He asks: “What if trauma is more than an individual phenomenon? What if it is even more than a collective phenomenon?” These thought-provoking questions are in service of expanding our understanding of trauma and its effects.

Bayo offers an alternative, non-pathologizing way to think about trauma and our adaptations to it. Instead of pathologizing what we are afraid of, he invites us to “lean into the cracks, the failures… and maybe by performing your way through those cracks, you may find other ways of being in the world.” Throughout this episode, Bayo offers a possible new vision through stories of transformation.

To hear more of their enriching conversation, we invite you to listen to the full episode.

 

About Bayo: Bayo Akomolafe (Ph.D.), rooted with the Yoruba people in a more-than-human world, is the father to Alethea and Kyah, the grateful life-partner to Ije, son and brother. A widely celebrated international speaker, posthumanist thinker, poet, teacher, public intellectual, essayist, and author of two books, These Wilds Beyond our Fences: Letters to My Daughter on Humanity’s Search for Home (North Atlantic Books) and We Will Tell our Own Story: The Lions of Africa Speak, Bayo Akomolafe is the Chief Curator of The Emergence Network and host of the online post-activist course, ‘We Will dance with Mountains’.

Learn More:

www.bayoakomolafe.net
www.emergencenetwork.org
www.facebook.com/bayoakomolafeampersand