Healing with Heart: Reclaiming Wellness Through Radical Connection

Is empathy an antidote to oppression? This month, "cultural edge walker" April Easter shares her unique journey and the wisdom she's acquired over 20 years in the field, including her pivot from criminology to radical compassion. This candid discussion sheds light on the indispensable role of community in the healing journey, highlighting the profound impact of empathy and inclusivity on individual and societal transformation.

About April: April Easter is a licensed clinical mental health counselor supervisor and licensed clinical addiction specialist based in Asheville, North Carolina. With over two decades of experience, she's committed to meeting people where they are, regardless of the door they walk through to seek help. April blends the neurobiology of trauma, attachment research, and somatic psychotherapy to offer transformative care. She is extensively trained in modalities like Somatic Psychotherapy, DBT, EMDR, and Expressive Arts Therapy, specializing in working with individuals facing complex trauma, substance use challenges, and those seeking profound life changes. April is deeply committed to fostering systemic change within mental health practices. She excels in family systems work, helping families worldwide to heal intergenerational patterns and achieve sustainable change.

***ALSO! Don't miss our special guest, Story Hoeben, who shares her 7-year-old insights about equality, kindness, and courage.

April's insights challenge us to reconsider how we define healing—not just for ourselves but for our communities, emphasizing that real change happens through radical connection. Catch the full episode now!

We'll see you same time, same place next month. Until then, peace.

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:04

We're profoundly, profoundly interconnected. We don't always live that way, we don't always acknowledge it.

Speaker 2 0:09

But if we're going to heal, we have to live it, experience it and create institutions that celebrate it. Can we create a we?

Meet April Easter

Speaker 1 0:18

where no one's on the outside of it. Welcome to the Uplift with Zedek Real talk for real change. Before we jump in, a quick reminder of why we're here and what we hope to achieve. We're here to build authentic community relationships and help fuel social transformation in Asheville, North Carolina. We believe collective liberation is not only possible but probable as we share, listen and learn together. We're here for the process. However, the views and opinions expressed in this program are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any entities they represent. Hey, welcome to the Uplift Real Talk for Real Change. I'm Michael Hoban, the Director of Communications at Zetik Social Justice Fund and your host. Today. You are in for a treat because we have my friend and our building neighbor, April Easter, on the couch. April, how are you doing?

Speaker 2 1:05

I am doing well, thank you. Good to be here in the office space.

Speaker 1 1:08

April, thanks for hanging with me today. Can we just start off with maybe telling us a little bit about yourself?

Speaker 2 1:13

Yeah, my name is April Easter. I'm a licensed clinical mental health counselor supervisor and also a licensed clinical addiction specialist. I have been doing my work for a little over 20 years currently in private practice, but I have a history of working in all levels of mental health and addictions care. I've been dually licensed since the beginning of my work, and so I am sort of diagnostically agnostic when it comes to care for people. I think that there is no wrong door to walk in to get help, and so I endeavor to meet people where they are when they get to me.

Speaker 1 1:47

So what brought you to this work? Oh gosh, that's a very long story.

Speaker 2 1:51

Yeah, 30 minutes 30 minutes, I can do it in five. So I had initially hoped to do work in criminology. I had initially hoped to be Jodie Foster from Silence and the Lambs. I was going to profile serial killers. I was fascinated with criminal psychology. Then I got through my undergrad degree and realized that I couldn't be a part of a system that was so broken and injured every single person who comes into contact with the criminal justice system system. And so I got to my junior year.

Personal and Professional Identity

Speaker 2 2:27

I'm a first generation college student, and so I was very, very intimidated by the idea of grad school. But I got to my junior year summer and realized that my dream of being Jodi Foster would mean literally trading my soul. And so I met the person who ran the counseling program at Appalachian State in a dance ensemble, and within two weeks the universe put me in position to be able to have a grad assistantship and do the counseling program. And from there I've just sort of been, you know, trying to do the next right thing when it came to doing good in the world and trying to honor the privilege of my position. Even though I'm a first generation college student from a you know farm in Southern Appalachia, I'm a first-generation college student from a farm in Southern Appalachia. I'm also a white woman. College was an experience of me of being awoken to so many layers of oppression in our culture. At that point I felt really motivated to have my work in the world be helping that in some way, in whatever way I could.

Speaker 1 3:23

So how is that showing up in the clientele that you're working with today? You know you mentioned the identity piece of being a white woman, but there's more to you than that. Yeah, Are you comfortable with sharing a little bit more about yourself, your family?

Speaker 2 3:35

Sure, yeah, I'm a white woman, but I'm also married to a white woman who is also a therapist. We have a daughter who is absolutely a dream and a challenge, great teacher, I understand that.

Speaker 2 3:48

Yeah, yeah, yeah, we're a little familiar. I've had the experience of being that sort of cultural edge walker and really what's the word I'm looking for? Really being radical when it comes to doing different things than what I was raised to do? My community very much did not agree with the choices that I made in my life and still doesn't. There's still a lot of closure in that community, so I can both recognize the privilege but also recognize the ways that you know disadvantage is there, well, yeah you're part of the fight too, right?

Speaker 2 4:20

Yes, yeah, I'm part of the fight, yeah, and, and you know, really trying to to not sort of fall into that white savior mentality of something I, you know, try to be really thoughtful about. But but also, being a person who does see the inherent flaws in our system and the inherent bias in the way that we try to help people heal, I do feel like it's my feminist killjoy responsibility to be consistently naming that in my work. I'm consistently naming the harm that's done by mental health practices, by psychotherapy, by our system which is based on white supremacist ideals, that I've been harmed by that. In my training I harmed other people as a tool of the system that I work to make amends for all the time. You know your initial question was how system that I work to make amends for all the time. You know your initial question was how does that show up now? You know it shows up now in that I'm in private practice. I don't take insurance for many, many reasons, some of those being my own neurodivergence.

Speaker 2 5:16

But my approach is to work with people who are, who have really been harmed by the system, who have done eight or nine rounds of treatment right, who have gone to residential treatment programs, who have had 10 therapists who've done lots of other work, and to be able to help them make meaning of that journey. And I don't philosophically think that's possible in a vacuum. I don't think that one person alone can do that. We all exist within the context of our community. Sometimes that means family, sometimes that means our chosen family, sometimes that means the people we work for and our neighbors. But healing in community, whatever that means to an individual, has been a real mission for me.

Speaker 2 5:54

At this point, my work often looks like working with an individual around their trauma. Whatever it is that they are saying is a struggle for them. We create a conceptualization around that. We figure out ways to work on it. We work on remedying, to whatever degree that they can, their individual piece and then we're going to look at how that impact your system around you. Who can we connect you to?

Speaker 2 6:15

Okay, now that you're healed, who do you have to bring to your healing so that your healing will stick right? Because if one person gets well and the system stays sick, that person is not going to stay well. You know, so much of the work is about getting that person to a place where they can be in themselves, often having that integration period where they're like I finally feel good and I'm sleeping and I'm doing well, and then, okay, now I have to have a conversation with my partner. I don't feel like I can go forward without healing with my children. I don't feel like I can help my father die until I have had amends with him around these things that happened for us.

Speaker 1 6:47

Right, right. It's like one thing to be healed in a room. When you're in that space, you feel like alive and plugged in, but then to take that out into the world, yes, it's a whole, nother challenge.

Speaker 2 6:56

Yeah, absolutely. And also to like heal within a chosen community. Right, I may like the person I am when I'm a leader in an organization and I may like the way people interact with me in that space and feel really competent and healed in that space. And then, as most of us know, then you go home for the holidays and you feel 14 years old and completely incompetent again.

Speaker 2 7:16

Right and rage yes, rage and competence, like all the wounds, are right there for you to just visit and like try on for a little while and many people find a lot of peace, living outside of the context that created whatever injuries that they're working on, and that is totally valid. And then a lot of people find places where they need to lean back into that pain. It's the privilege of, frankly, most white people in our culture that they can heal in isolation, right. They can have enough money to create a new family, to move to a different town, to like remake themselves right, or to like use the psychobabble concepts to feel good about who they are. I mean, how many rom-com movies are there about like having to go back home and then figure out who you are with your big city dress, and now you have to go back and figure out how to also be the girl from Alabama, right, or the dad's dying and you're back on the farm.

Speaker 2 8:06

Exactly. Why do you sound like that? Right yeah, Lost my Southern accent quick hey. I haven't heard that before oh yeah, really, you never I thought, well, yeah, it's there. But I learned in grad school that people don't take me seriously when I talk, like the people where I came from. So I learned code switching really early on.

Speaker 1 8:25

That's a great point because I'll be honest, if I'm asked what are my biases A Southern accent, I've had to work on that it's either ignorant or a threat, like a real threat. You talked about whiteness again, so I'm going to ask the question, but a little differently.

Speaker 2 8:40

I'm just going to ask it your clientele are we talking about diverse people or just a lot of rich white people on the couch? There's more diversity than you would think, but it's Asheville right.

Speaker 1 8:50

Yes.

Speaker 2 8:50

It's Asheville diversity. I think we're number three most gentrified city in the country. It's pretty bad. There's some diversity, but not as much as I would like there to be. It's bottom line there.

Speaker 1 9:02

Do you think any of that has to do with identity, looking for another same identity, or do your values and who you are and how you are like do those translate?

Speaker 2 9:10

I think it comes. I think it's a couple of layers. Part of it for me specifically, is that I don't advertise a lot. I have a tiny little landing page, but really in order to find me you have to know someone who.

Navigating Healing and Community Dynamics

Speaker 2 9:23

Gotcha to know someone who got you. You know, again, my neurodivergence has meant like I've bought three different website domains and like have never executed one because I get busy doing the work that shows up at my door. You know, I think there's a angle of that that's like could be sort of toxic positivity, that like, oh, you know, this is where I'm supposed to be, but I think it's also like a privilege, like I just haven't had to do that. Marketing, right. Having said that, I think the other angle is that and this gets us into a bigger social justice issue around healing and around psychotherapy right, there are so few therapists of color. There's so little diversity in the field. I think the other piece is that when I think about you know who people go to for their work. When someone comes to me and they are of a different ethnicity or they are of a different background, I have a conversation with them about that explicitly. From jump the very first conversation, I'm saying hey, I am a white woman. I know that people who look like me are not safe. For people who look like you, how is that going to work? As we get into your trauma, is it going to feel safe for you to work with me with my accent, with the way I present, with my particular accoutrement in the room. Do you have discomfort with gay people? Yeah, maybe I'm not the person right. I have that conversation up front, really explicitly, because I would want someone to have that conversation with me. Same If people you know didn't think that gay women could lead organizations, right, like I don't want that person being my therapist. And if they have that bias, I want to have that conversation from jump because I want the ability to make that decision and as the therapist in that situation, I see it as my responsibility to call out hey, this is who I am, this is my identity, and I recognize that, as a black person, a white person may not be a safe person for you to have groundedness in your body with. If I'm going to be helping you work on somatic healing and you end up needing to work on racial trauma with a white person, perhaps I'm not it.

Speaker 2 11:18

If your abuser looks like me, am I the person to sit with you, and so I think that's a real part of it. You know, that's the individual layer of the work, and then I think there's this other layer, that's bigger, systemic question, right, like I joked earlier and I do this a lot that I'm diagnostically agnostic. That's a quippy, fun way to say it, but I really, really mean it. I will only give a diagnosis if someone asks for it and the diagnosis that I give is only going to be in the context of their decision.

Speaker 2 11:44

Because they are so weaponized and they are so used to control people. There's so much harm done in our system and it is by far done more to people of color. It is used to control, it is used to manipulate and I think there's so many layers of what is systemically problematic that you can really see from that situation right. So if you're a Black person and you think, god, I've got some trauma, I need a therapist. If you're needing to do work around you know police violence in our culture you're probably not going to pick a white therapist to do that with you. So I think there's a few different layers there.

Speaker 1 12:19

I love the balancing of like vulnerability, you offering up yourself, like that's a hard thing to do. Yeah, because there's a power dynamic right In that therapeutic relationship which can be really powerful. When someone gets to know you, your secret self, and then they get to help you kind of move through that, it's a lot of power, and using that power in the context of, we'll say, white on white work is actually really powerful. What's your experience been like working with those who maybe could be, you know, be more part of the problem than the solution?

Speaker 2 12:49

Part of which problem Generally, generally, I always start from the place of whatever problems that people are coming to me with. They are a part of their own problem and a lot of times my work is in saying how are you looking at your, your work in this? What's your blind spot around this situation? What's the way that you may not be seeing the way you're impacting people right, Like I think about folks I've worked with, like taller white men who just kind of have a bigger build, right we're talking about, hey, when you know if you have thought disorder, if you have psychosis, right, People see you as big, they see you as scary.

Speaker 2 13:25

So you know, no-transcript, really enjoy that part. And I feel like it's my responsibility as a white woman in the world to be talking to other white women and other white men and saying, and I'm talking a lot about whiteness but like other people, like other white gay people, like having this conversation about what is your privilege in this situation and what is our blind spot and how do we, how do we honor this and how do we not come from a place where we're talking over or taking up?

Speaker 1 14:30

space while still holding their own wounding. That's hard work.

Speaker 2 14:40

Yeah, and like aggressively compassion with their own wounding, because that's the only thing that heals is being able to, like, have that softness and that tenderness with the ways that, oh man, I didn't realize that was happening. Every time I go to the coffee shop and the girl runs away from me when I'm just trying to talk to her, it's because she's intimidated by me, like I had no idea. And so they're experiencing this deep vulnerability of like this girl won't talk to me and telling a whole story, because we all do that. We all tell a whole story about what that means and I'm here saying like hey, like, let's look at it from her perspective. Let's let's figure out what the empathy is that can help deactivate the pain that you're having, because empathy can be an antidote for so many things.

Speaker 1 15:20

So we talked a little bit about. You mentioned kind of that relationship between individual healing and community healing, or community well-being and community healing is a part of Zedek's mission. Is it possible for community healing to exist without us all doing our own individual healing work?

Healing Through Community Connection

Speaker 2 15:32

I think that is such a culturally relevant question. It's interesting if you look at the work of narrative therapy of Judith Landau. Who's this amazing person who developed this intervention approach called Arise Interventions, which is invitational interventions? Right, it's not the gotcha intervention that you see on TV. It's not like hey, you thought you were coming for pizza, but actually you're going to rehab, right, it's really about, hey, every conversation we're having, like, we're going to get together and talk about how your pain is causing pain for the rest of us and you should come to that conversation. We love you and we want you to come to this conversation.

Speaker 2 16:04

And she did this really cool research in South Africa around these folks who were living in supported housing, who had been kicked out of their family homes. They were pregnant, they were, you know, really struggling, and it was in the middle of the AIDS epidemic. What they found was that these women were making risky choices because they were so separated from their origin, from the narrative of how my people, the person that I am and the people that brought me into this world, how we solve problems, that we're resilient as my group of people, and that connecting them to whatever community that is. If it was the community of the house or if it was the community of their origin. But like creating that narrative about recovery and about healing and about how we're strong, helped them to make less risky choices because there was then, this narrative of this is how my people get through this is how we do it.

Speaker 2 16:58

This is how we do it. Now there's a story of how we get through it, wow. And so when you ask, is it possible for the individual to heal separate, I would say that the dominant Western culture would tell you. And God knows, if you go on any of the social media, there will be meme after meme about how you have to heal yourself first. Before, and my experience has been that that you really have to heal yourself in tandem. If you are just healing yourself, you are probably not going to stay healed, and that it is your obligation and need to bring people along with you or go along with them. Both things are true to bring people along with you or go along with them. Both things are true. We all have our own responsibility, and that healing and community is how human beings are what we are.

Speaker 1 17:40

So that's really interesting. In your experience, what happens when that individual is involuntarily removed or excluded from that community?

Speaker 2 17:50

It's a trauma every single time. Sometimes communities would say it's really necessary for safety. You know I talked earlier about how earlier in my career, I know that I did harm right. I worked in community mental health. I did crisis assessments. I filed petitions for involuntary commitment early in my career and was taught to do it right, that it was the only thing that had to do.

Speaker 2 18:11

And you are explicitly you know as a therapist. You are explicitly trained and this is one of the only fields where this is the case right. You are explicitly trained that you are culpable for your client's dangerous behavior if they're mentally ill. Right. Like if I'm sitting with someone and they tell me that they feel suicidal and then they leave my office and they take their own life. I am culpable for that is what my profession says, and legally I can be taken to jail. That's heavy Right.

Speaker 2 18:43

How many places is the white supremacist paradigm so explicitly informed that you will have consequences on your career and your freedom and your livelihood if you don't behaviorally control these other people? It's pretty intense. I have not hospitalized anyone and have not participated in that in over 10 years and the last person that I had any role in that in literally tried to harm themselves in front of me. So I had to intervene because I couldn't, in good conscience, as a good person, let them pass right in front of me. But I, the conversation that I have with you know and I'm saying this you know to be published in the world, right. So I'm sure that one person will call up and say that this is not the case. But the conversation I have with most of my clients is to say we're going to do everything, absolutely everything we can to stay at the hospital. There are ways to do that, there are ways to manage it, and sometimes that means I have to be a little more uncomfortable, but your freedom and your healing is more important than my comfort.

Speaker 1 19:41

So what's community's accountability and inclusivity when I'm talking about toxic people? Take LGBTQ people, for example. Does community have a responsibility to be inclusive and to embrace, because there are real potential harms and traumas caused from that exclusion?

Speaker 2 19:56

I mean, I think so, and I think that in most indigenous cultures there are traditions of this. You create space for people, you wrap around them, you help remind them of. This is how we handle things. This is how we do it.

Speaker 2 20:09

Now there can be places where that gets too self-referential right and where that people people meaning an individual can become sort of like not helped by the thing that we do as a people, right, there are certainly stories like that, but I would also say that what I have seen be the most healing for people when they're really struggling with these things is a very visible but also wide container. I think about this example we used to have to take this training program whenever you worked at a state hospital or a state-run facility or state-licensed facility. You have to take this training program about physical restraint and de-escalation right, like how to keep people from ever needing to get there, and I did work at a state hospital once, and so we learned all the physical restraints, which was a really horrifying process, and I'm lucky that I never, ever had to use one of those. I would argue that that's because I'm pretty good at de-escalating situations, because I certainly had situations where it could have gotten there. But where I'm going with this is that the memory that I have of the most effective intervention was a young woman who was in a full alternate reality, right Like what you would call psychosis, and was in a really dangerous place.

Speaker 2 21:16

And this was in a residential treatment center and they were like throwing things in the dining room and so the staff that was hanging out with them just kind of created a loose circle around them because they weren't throwing things at people, they weren't trying to hurt anyone, they were just needing to get it out of their system and not in a shared reality. So when people tried to redirect them, they couldn't hear it and so they started 15 feet out from her and then just slowly moved in and we're saying like hey, hey, we're here when you need us. And then they just slowly moved in until they were arms reach from each other in a circle around her. She was able to look around, she knew they were there all along and she was able to calm down and then go for a walk with somebody.

Joy Hack: A Walk of Awe

Speaker 2 21:55

In any other context, that would have been a person that the police would have been called. She would have been physically restrained or killed and there would have been a trauma perpetuated and damage to her trust in the system. But because of the nature of the space that was held, she had the room to sort of get regulated, and so that's a beautiful example of what's ideal when it comes to people suffering. It's like I see you suffering, I can't let you hurt me, I can't let you hurt yourself. But that willingness Right, but that willingness to tolerate and move through with yes, that's really beautiful, to be present to it without feeling like I need to fix it, that's a really. That's a big challenge for us in our culture.

Speaker 1 22:35

Okay, what's your number one go-to joy hack tip for tapping into daily joy?

Speaker 2 22:48

Tip for tapping. So I'm a big fan of a walk, of all. I'm a big fan of like taking a walk and really noticing something. Usually for me it's something small, like the beauty of a flower, the like a little fairy glen in a light ditch. Like the beauty of a flower, the like a little fairy glen in a like ditch on the side of the highway where there's like some moss and like, oh, that's a modern fairy hole right there. So like finding something that that reminds me of how insignificant my socks fitting the wrong way is. You know, something that like gives me that oceanic feeling of awe and wonder and how beautiful.

Speaker 1 23:17

it is A little stepping out of self into beauty.

Speaker 2 23:20

Yeah, and just into the wonder of this world and this situation that we're in. Yeah, this is pretty, it's pretty magical this life we get to lead Pretty wild yeah.

Story Hoeben Shares

Speaker 1 23:32

April, thank you so much for joining me today. Beautiful people, thank you for joining us. You know where to find us Same time, same place next month. Until then, peace, please hold, for a very important message. All right, asheville, you are in luck. Today I have the legendary, the one and only Legendary, the one and only Story Hoban. Tell the people how you're feeling today Happy, happy. And how old are you?

Speaker 3 24:01

Seven.

Speaker 1 24:02

Seven. Alright, so I'd like to talk a little bit about your family. Is that cool? Yeah, that's cool, Okay. So let's start first with who's your daddy.

Speaker 3 24:12

Michael Hoban.

Speaker 1 24:14

Michael Hoban yeah, what do you know about him?

Speaker 3 24:18

Tell us something funny about your dad. He likes to watch love shows and see people smooch kiss.

Speaker 1 24:23

Oh, my goodness, okay, so we got Michael Hoban, who likes love shows and smooching kisses. Nice, true, also got to love the love. What about your mama?

Speaker 3 24:34

My mom's named Mylia.

Speaker 1 24:37

Your mom's name is My-ela.

Speaker 3 24:40

My-ela.

Speaker 1 24:42

Ooh, my-ela. All right, tell us something about My-ela, tell us about your mama.

Speaker 3 24:48

So she's not like that. She doesn't really love losers. But one thing I do know she likes is drawing pictures.

Speaker 1 24:56

Mommy's an artist, huh.

Speaker 3 24:58

Yes, my mom's an artist.

Speaker 1 25:00

So what about you? Let's hear a little something about you.

Speaker 3 25:03

I like the draw. I also don't like smoothies. I like to sing and I like Did I say I like that already? I think I did? I want to be a billion dollar list. I like did I say like that already? I think I did I want to be a baby and dad with this. I like to play games and watch shows and movies while snuggling with mom and dad.

Speaker 1 25:25

Do you have any pets?

Speaker 3 25:26

Yeah, his name's Benny, only name's Benny. No last name, no middle name, no nothing.

Speaker 1 25:34

Just straight Benny.

Speaker 3 25:35

So what is Benny A cat.

Speaker 1 25:38

So Story. Can we talk a little bit what it's like to be part of this family?

Speaker 3 25:42

Yes.

Speaker 1 25:44

How would you describe our family?

Speaker 3 25:46

Um one of a kind.

Speaker 1 25:49

Hey Story. What's one thing you can think of that you feel like our family really strongly believes in.

Speaker 3 25:54

Having everyone treated equally Mmm.

Speaker 1 25:59

How do you know that?

Speaker 3 26:01

Well, my dad works at a place. That's basically about that. What does it mean to you for everybody to be treated equally? Equally to me is like everyone having a same amount of love and it's unfair, nice, if you don't. Some people get like me, get together, good. If people don't have that same amount of love, yes, it could mean that someone might try to kill them if they're like gay or something like that, and it makes me nervous and it gets me nervous a lot sometimes.

Speaker 1 26:40

You get nervous that something's going to happen to me or Mommy because of who we are. That's a lot for a little one to hold. Huh, okay, what else are we about in our family? What about kindness?

Speaker 3 26:54

I thought you were asking. I was answering them, you are. Then why did you say that?

Speaker 1 26:59

Okay, I don't like your answer. What else are we about in our family? What's our one family rule? It's be kind, my love.

Speaker 3 27:08

I never knew that because I'm too kind, but I never knew that was a rule in our house. Our family is too kind. I never knew there was a war in our house. Our family's really kind and sometimes I'm a little kind to some new kids. I feel like, do you like your job?

Speaker 1 27:25

Do I like my job? Wow, that's a great question. I love my job. I love the work that I do, I love the creativity in the work that I do and I love the meaning. I think it's a really important work that we're doing, so I feel really lucky and privileged to be doing it. I'm done. Hey, can I ask you something and then we'll wrap this up with you here in a minute. This is your chance. Tell the world what's your message.

Speaker 3 27:52

Do you mean by message exactly?

Speaker 1 27:54

Like. What do you want to share with the world? What's your?

Speaker 3 27:56

message? Do you mean by message? Exactly Like, what do you want to share with the world? Be loving, be kind and be brave to stand up for people.

Speaker 1 28:04

That is beautiful, my love. Until next time, peace, peace.