trauma – Katie Kearns

Asking powerful questions

My former graduate students have been stepping into their power, and I am delighted. They are keeping their fires lit. Meanwhile, I feel like my internal house has been burning down and left to ashes. I have been in my own stalled labor into elderhood. In the last five years, I have witnessed as an academic doula so many miscarriages of power and so much distressed and stalled labor among the graduate students I supported and staff I had the honor of walking beside. It hurt my heart and squashed my spirit to witness, to be a part of, and to not be able to prevent or cure. Almost a year ago today, I gave a keynote talk about professional crossroads at a national conference on grad and postdoc career development. To all of you reading who attended my talk, I’m sorry. It was my best at the time, but it was not the storytelling I am capable of when I am calm, anchored, and clear in the story that wants to be heard. I was definitely at a professional and personal crossroads. I was “knocked on [my] ass by the demands of leading,” from Jerry Colonna’s book Reboot: Leadership and the Art of Growing Up (Harper, 2019, p. 47). I had left a job just weeks before that wasn’t a good fit for my passions, talents, gifts, interests, and higher purpose. An interesting thing DID happen while I was at that conference that planted a delightful seed, that ever so slightly moved me out of the deconstruction and demolition phase. That’s when the therapeutic seed was planted that I wanted the skill of coaching.

This is fine

A cartoon of a yellow dog with big eyes, black ears, and black nose sitting in a chair. There are flames all around him. He has a red hat on. He's smiling. Below him are the words, "This is fine"

I am today years old in realizing the extraordinary self-doubt I feel in my capability to discern “this is fine” from “this is not fine.” I don’t believe myself to be a reliable narrator.

My dislocated toes: A thorough update

Cross legs, the left on top of the right. The toenails are painted purple. The legs are on a clay-colored sheet and blue fleece blanket. On the right foot (which is on the left-hand side of the image), the second and third toes are crooked.

I’m inviting friends to help me tend to my fears about pain, loneliness, and urgent need as best I can. I get to have new experiences of care from and with my friends. I get to expand my self-knowledge about what feels good to me. I get to learn more about the people in my community and what they like to do.

I am the snapping turtle

A loggerhead sea turtle on the beach heading toward the water

That late-summer evening in 2019, in cutting a snapping turtle free from lake weeds, I started the process of setting myself free from codependency and internalized oppressive mindsets.

The hats we wear, the masks we wear

A woman with a green surgical gown on holding a stuffed panda. She has a paper mask and a purple surgeon's hat with pandas on it. She's standing in a doorway.

We wear different metaphorical hats to reflect our roles, functions, and responsibilities with each other. To what degree do we also wear masks to manage others’ perceptions and to control our belonging?

Reminders during a Revolution

I’m offering this kindling in solidarity with our collective liberation from human supremacy, imperialism, white supremacy, ableism, capitalism, resource and labor extraction, patriarchy, and power over.

What I learned from Blown Away about my own learning communities

three people stand around a glass installation. there are two men next to each other on the right and a very tall woman on the left. There are glass bell jars over glass objects on the table

Graduate students have heartaches that need care and witnessing as well as successes and dreams. What can Blown Away teach about facilitation of graduate student learning communities?

Spread sunshine

A complex, tessellated, radiating outward pattern of dots on a square black background. The dots are white, yellow, orange, and red. In each corner is a flame pattern pointing inward to the middle

For much of my professional life, I have maintained an impossible, “I will enjoy myself and life when…” fantasy. But I was denying myself the rich life I was trying to offer and protect for others.

How was my leave?

In the foreground, a black backpack, pink water bottle. The lake is in the background. It's a gloomy grey day

I don’t think most people would have known I was having an internal experience of turmoil. I wear a happy, warm, reliable, productive, functional mask. The reality hit hard in March 2022 that I was in denial about my ability to continue coping with life-as-usual. My life had become unmanageable.

Grad student stress and distress

I am sharing this story because I want readers to know what graduate student distress sounds like. I want readers to be moved and affected by these graduate students and their peers.