“There is nothing more powerful than to clearly articulate our intention to the universe and trust boldly in its desire to not only deliver but to also unfold itself before us as our path to enlightenment. What is your intention?” - The Grave Woman
“My intention is to alleviate unnecessary suffering in the world. Suffering is a spectrum; it doesn’t mean that we are in crisis and that that there is something wrong with us or that we are in a clinical space. The ways in which we are experiencing the world right now and the sickness of the unhelpful darkness is something that because of its consistency and exacerbation of our societal collapse causes me to ask the question what remains? What do we have that is ours? For me, I choose to hold on to my joy.” - Dr. Crystallee Crain Ph.D.
In this installment of The Death and Grief Talk Podcast I had the honor of connecting on a soul level with Dr. Crystallee Crain. Crystallee Crain Ph.D. (she/her/hers) is an interdisciplinary public health scholar and human rights activist. She has academic roots in sociology, political science, and psychology. She specializes in exposing the layers of institutional inequality while supporting communities to shift ways of being and practice to improve life chances by bridging the worlds of academia, healing, and activism.
During our time together we discussed the difference sleep has on our perspectives and experience in the world, the importance of not allowing our realm which is full of adversity, struggling and suffering to steal our innate ability to experience and posses joy, the importance of personal agency as a method of self-preservation as well as mental health, and her personal journey with navigating grief caused by loosing a close friend during to an accidental drug overdose and how she intentionally holds space for joy in her grief and profession.
Crystallee’s body of work represents a collective need to strengthen our responses to violence through transformative means, the need for liberatory practices, and a focus on healing as a revolutionary strategy for change. Crystallee holds an academic appointment with California State University – East Bay (Department of Political Science). She’s also the elected board chair of the Seeding Justice Foundation (PDX).Crystallee is the Founder & Principal Consultant of Prevention at the Intersections an organization that works to prevent violence and other forms of harm through community-based research and people-centered projects. At Prevention at the Intersections, she publishes two open-access journals CATALYST and The Beauty of Black Creation. The 2nd Edition of her textbook - A People’s Primer: Dispatches on Politics & Social Change (2022) came out this year. https://amzn.to/3jOTv5C
Dr. Crain facilitates trainings with an emphasis on trauma, prevention science, and community capacity-building. She has worked with organizations across the country to support them in actualizing their values in the development and implementation of their mission and vision.
You can learn more about her at www.preventionagenda.org, www.bestlifecoach.co and at www.crystalleecrain.org.
Connect with Dr. Crain on Social Media
LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/crystalleecrain/
Twitter: @crystalleecrain
IG: drcryscrain