Dismantling Traditional Therapy
Based on an episode with Luis Cornejo 🇬🇹🇲🇽🏳️🌈
Welcome to Latinx in Power, a podcast aiming to help to demystify tech, the way we do that is by interviewing Latinx and Caribbean leaders all over the world to hear their perspective and insights.
We talked with Luis Cornejo (he/him), a natural entertainer who enjoys making others laugh and feel inspired. As a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist, Luis works tirelessly to support the LGBTQ+ and BIPOC communities. He is the founder of PsychoSocial Media, a mental health platform providing mental health articles and resources. He is also an Indigiqueer model who has a deep passion for fashion, visibility, and self-expression.
In this episode we talked more about Luis’ journey into self expression and mental health.
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What does it mean to be a Latinx to you?
The word Latinx is so interesting because it’s something that has gained traction over the last few years. Most people don’t know this, but it was actually a term that was coined in a university, I believe, in Puerto Rico. Basically, the premise behind it was really to use the word as a way to unify all the collective different cultures that came as a result of colonization and all-over Latin America and the Caribbean, including Afro-Latinos and folks with indigenous roots. It definitely is very controversial. I will say that obviously, people identify in very different ways when it comes to their identity and the terms that they use. For me, the reason why I use Latinx is because I do like the inclusivity and especially the neutrality. When it comes to gender, I do identify as queer, and for me, gender sexuality is very explorative and fluid. I like the fact that it includes that.
I know a lot of people have different opinions of whether it’s easy to pronounce, and not everyone uses it. A lot of folks in Latin America don’t use it and actually have a bit of a disagreement with the use of the word. I know it’s different for everyone, but I also identify as Latine, Hispanic, Latino, but I do like the word Latinx just because it does encompass different genders and different ways of reshaping the language.
Spanish is obviously something that was given to folks in Latin America through colonization, and it has shifted and changed and been adapted. I’m not a big language person who feels like we need to make everything perfect. I mean, language is the way we communicate. For me, being Latinx just means being connected to other people who share a similar history, a similar background, and including folks who don’t abide by gender constructs of male-female, but are arranged. I think it makes me feel very connected to all groups in very small ways, but also very big ways.
The language is evolving. It has changed over time. I mean, a lot of us, we’re still trying to figure out how our identity is going to be labeled because even if you look at the US census, they don’t have Latino or Latina. They have very separate options and a lot of this is very historical. I think as we start to really solidify it and exchange ideas and really come up with ways to identify, it’s going to be different, and it’s going to change.
Most folks identified as Hispanic and many don’t. Now, people, they go by Latino and Latinx, there’s power in words. I think as part of this revolution and also this more empowerment phase for a lot of our communities, there’s definitely more intention around wanting to acknowledge and really pay attention to the existence of all people within our communities, including Afro-Latinos, indigenous folks who don’t identify oftentimes, or at least indigenous folks don’t identify as Latino or Latinx. I mean, they’re indigenous, but, we, most of us do have, such as myself, who also comes from indigenous communities but has lost a lot of the language and knowledge and historical and cultural aspects of it.
For me, it just feels like this is something that allows me to be multiple things. Well, I’m still trying to figure it out, because like I mentioned earlier, I identify as Indigenous and queer. Latinx oftentimes, like I said, does not sit well with a lot of Indigenous folks. For me, it’s time to also navigate that.
How did everything start?
I’m originally from Los Angeles, born and raised in a very religious, conservative home. My parents are both immigrants from Mexico and Guatemala. They got here when they were about 13 and 15 years old, respectively when they moved. They built a life here, bought their home, raised me and my two younger brothers. A lot of what really led to my career as it is now is the fact that I didn’t have any type of conversations with my family or people that I knew about mental health or what that meant. I saw folks in my family struggle for a lot of reasons. Mostly systemic, whether they were immigrants and were undocumented or whether they were going through relationship issues. We didn’t really talk about them. They weren’t really named; there weren’t things that we discussed.
My parents never said, “This is depression, this is anxiety.” They used a lot of religion, and that was their focal point for everything, whether talking about mental health from the perspective of this is the devil challenging us or trying to take us a certain route. So that was their mentality. I remember how much that really impacted me. Now I’m starting to realize that I did deal with a lot of religious trauma growing up, and a lot of the things that I experienced were often labeled as more religious than they were mental health. It was more about your moral character. My soul, was I a good person or not? Versus I’m a human being that’s struggling with the way that things are, whether it’s financial, my parents being poor, or whether it was being queer and coming out. I mean, all of these things that were normal were not explained to me in that way.
When I went to college, I set off with the intention of wanting to be someone that was helping others. That was always a big thing for me. I saw my parents as Christians helping people all the time, whether it was bringing them into our home or feeding them or donating or whatever it was, they were always helping people. That was a big value that was instilled in me and that I really loved about my parents in general when it came to the things that they taught us, it was helping others. I went into college and I thought, “I’ll be a pediatrician, I want to work with kids, I want to help families.” Just started taking some bio classes, chem classes, and I was like, “Oh my God, I hate this, this is not at all what I thought it was going to be.” I was thinking more of people and conversation. I didn’t know about therapy then, so it wasn’t something that I thought, like, “I could be a therapist.” It was more like, “I’m going to help people, I’ll be a doctor.” I looked into law, “I’ll be a lawyer.” I was like, “I hate this, I don’t like this.” It was going back and forth, just figuring out what it was that really was calling out to me.
Eventually, I had a friend who was also a bio major, and she said, “Hey, I’m looking at this other major. It’s called Child and Adolescent Development. You could be a teacher, working in administration, and you’d be helping families.” I thought, “Okay, this sounds a lot more aligned with what I want to do.” I remember after taking a year off, coming back and deciding, “This is what I want to do.” I started taking classes and immediately I fell in love. One of those things where it felt so natural and felt right for me. I was learning about human development, psychology, the education system, the impact of the government, and the family system, all of these amazing concepts.
I remember that was the first time that I started getting straight A’s. I fell in love with what I was doing. Towards graduation, I started thinking about what it was that I actually was going to do. The biggest thing was, I can be a teacher, that’s something that I think I could totally do. I ended up teaching and doing more research too, and parent work early, not a head start, it was a development center. I worked with children from zero to five years old, and I loved it. I was there for about three years. I did a lot of observations and talked to parents about developmental milestones and psychology and thought about the long term, like, “This is great, I love this, but I also want to do more work individually.” Working with parents wasn’t the biggest part of my role. It started to become something that I loved, and I started to look at different careers.
I was exploring and thinking, “What can I do? What’s out there?” I had a coworker who was a teacher who was also going to graduate school, and she was telling me, “You should think about social work.” I was like, “Social work? What is that?” For me, when I thought of social work, I always thought of the people that took kids to foster care, did something that was like agents of the government. I was like, “Argh. I don’t know if that’s what I want to do.” I started researching that and then I noticed that they had a lot of other titles and fields out there that were very much aligned with similar values to social work, but we’re more about an individual, one on one family work. I started to look at getting a masters to become a psychologist, or a licensed professional counselor. I saw the LMFT, which is a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist title. It really spoke to me because one, it included all these different modalities that I really wanted to work with, which were, like, children and parents and couples and individuals. The more and more I read about it, it was very focused on doing the work that I was really setting out to do.
As I was thinking about applying, I was still living in San Francisco, I was with my partner. We were together for about four or five years at that point. I told him, “Hey, you know what? I think this is what I want to do. I think I’m going to apply.” He was like, “Yeah, go for it, where are you thinking of applying?” The only school that I really liked that spoke out to me was in LA, where I’m originally from. At that point, I had been living in San Francisco for a few years, so I was dreading the idea of going back home to LA and all of this stuff. I told myself, “You know what? I’m going to do it. I’m going to apply. If I get in, that’s a sign, and I’ll go.” I’m not one for magical thinking or like, “Oh, it happens, luck,” or whatever. I think I told myself, “I’m going to allow myself to just be hopeful, and if it does work now, then I’ll do it, and if not, I’m fine as a teacher.”
I applied, and I told myself, “I’m going to let it go, because I don’t know if I’m actually going to get in.” These are very competitive programs. This was a great school with a good reputation. I sat back, didn’t think about it, and then I got a call, and they told me, “Hey, you know what? We got your application. We got about 350 applications. We’re only interviewing 50 people, and we want to invite you to be one of the people.” I was like, “Oh, my gosh.”
I remember telling my partner, “Oh, my God, they picked me, they want me to go interview.” We were both so excited. I remember telling my parents. I was the first one in my family and extended family to go to undergraduate and finish and get my four-year degree. I was going to be the first person to get a master’s degree if I got in. It was a lot of pressure, but also excitement. I remember telling my parents, “This is my interview. I’m going to be in LA.” They were like, “We’re going to go with you.” My parents are those people that are very supportive and very traditional, but they’ve always shown up for me. They’ve always been there. I remember picking them up, and they dressed in their church clothes. It’s like they’re going to church, and they’re like, “Let’s go to this interview,” and I’m like, “Okay.” We drove there.
I’m sitting there, I’m the only one with their parents. It’s like I’m this little kid with a little briefcase just sitting there, I think for me, that was always something that was very powerful was my “cultura” and at least my upbringing. There was a lot around the family being supportive and helpful of one another. Obviously, that comes with a lot of other things. I think one thing I will say is that my parents, they’ve always shown up for me in that way. So, they got there, we’re sitting there. I went into my interview. I was so nervous. I remember, just a couple of questions wanting to get to know me. The biggest question that they asked that I almost felt like I messed up was, “Why do you want to be a therapist?” I remember sitting there thinking, “I want to help people.” They’re like, “Well, what’s your experience with mental health?” Like I mentioned earlier, I had never talked about it. I wasn’t exposed to it. In my head, it was like I heard the word. To me, it was like I didn’t understand them to that degree.
I thought the same as many other people do now, “Oh, it’s all in our heads. It’s just about our attitude,” yada, yada. At that point, I remember sitting there thinking, I just really want to help people, I’ve had friends who’ve struggled, who have talked to me about their disorders, whether bipolar or having depression, and I’ve seen how it impacts them. I want to learn more, and I want to be someone that can be there for other people because I didn’t have anyone who was there for me when I was growing up. I left thinking, “Okay, yeah, I messed it up, they’re not going to call me.” I went to San Francisco, and maybe, a couple of weeks later, my parents visited us, and we took them out to eat Chinese food in downtown San Francisco.
I was sitting there, I got a call, and it’s an unknown number, and I told my partner, he’s sitting with my parents, and I’m like, “I’ll be right back.” I walked outside, I answered the phone, and it was a woman. She goes, “Hi, Luis, I am calling from so and so, and I just wanted to let you know that we had a very competitive pool of applicants this year. We had 350, we only interviewed 50 people, and we’re only going to take 23 people. I just want to let you know that you’re one of them.” I started to cry. “Yeah, we want to let you know that you got accepted, and we want to know if you’re coming?”
I think I sat there crying, and she was asking, “Are you okay?” I’m like, “Yeah, I’m okay. I’m okay. Yes, I’ll go.” And she was like, “Okay, great. Well, we’ll send you stuff to come for orientation.” I’m walking back into my partner’s, he asked “What’s going on? Are you okay?” He knew I was waiting to hear from the call, and so I think he didn’t know why I was crying. I sat down, and I still had tears in my eyes, and I looked up at my parents, and I told them in Spanish, “I got it.” I just remember my mom being so excited and crying, and she was very misty-eyed, and my dad was a typical man, “Oh, I’m proud of you, I knew you could do this.” I gave him a hug, and my partner was really excited, and off I went to grad school a couple of months after, and that was the first time I was exposed to therapy, and it was because part of the requirement was that I needed to go to therapy.
I remember being in therapy for the first time and thinking, “This is what I’m going to be doing,” and also feeling so much anxiety about talking to a stranger. I was very fortunate that I worked with a Latina woman as my first therapist, helped me so much and really was very patient with me, but also challenged me a lot around the things that I thought that I knew and that I believed about myself, about my family. I’ve been to at least four therapists since. I’m in therapy now. I’m a big believer in it. I think that we use it and need it at different times in our lives. It’s not something that we have to always be in, but it is something that can help us. That’s where everything really changed for me and shifted. It was through getting through grad school, loving it, getting straight A’s, and getting a scholarship after I finish. I mean, those were all signs for me. “This is where I need to be, at least academically.”
As I ventured out into the world, I ended up working with families, which was really difficult that first year. I almost ended up telling myself, “Maybe I made the wrong choice.” I was on call 24/7. The system was definitely not very well equipped to support people with mental health issues, especially in the foster system and foster families. It was a bit of a hurdle my first year.
I remember my supervisor telling me, once you get past this year, you are going to be able to handle anything. Everything since then has been, I think, a stairway into what I’m doing now. I’ve worked in hospitals, I worked in nonprofits, I work with different populations. Now I’m in private practice. I’ve seen the clients that I want to work with who also are very well-intentioned in terms of what they want to do in therapy, who understand a lot of the nuances about how the work happens and understand that it is a process. I do specialize in working with queer and BIPOC folks. That has been very rewarding for me. I think all of those little things really led to that part where I’m at now.
Owning my own business, being the first generation, being bilingual, being queer, and then also taking the time to make this role, something where I love the work I’m doing, but I’m also paying attention to other parts of myself. I am a model. I’ve done modeling for a few designers in San Francisco. I’ve walked a couple of shows. I’ve done photoshoots for a big company for some of their own internal stuff that they do. That was my first paid job last month, it was very exciting. I’m continuing to find opportunities and really put myself out there. All of that has been thanks to the work that I’ve done, because for me, being a therapist is not just about a career or a profession. I don’t like to hide behind the idea of being a therapist. I like to show up as an authentic person who is also dealing with their own stuff, who’s also working through their own things. That’s why I specialize in helping people with self-expression, with forming their identity, coming to terms with some of their limiting beliefs, and dismantling that.
I work from a lens of really decolonizing and moving away from traditional therapy where it’s very much not just we’re talking, but I’m here for you. We’re two human beings. I’m also someone that is living out of the world, and how do we co-create space together, rather than you coming in and me telling you, “These are your symptoms, you’re sick. This is what’s wrong with you.” To me, it’s just not what I do. For me, it’s really about co-creating and using myself as a human being in someone else’s healing. It’s an art, and it definitely takes time, but that’s where I’m at now, and I definitely love what I’m doing at the moment.
I love how you often talked about how the media plays a massive role in the way mental health is perceived and understood. I would love it if you can talk more about that with us today.
In terms of the media, for me, I love entertainment. I’m someone that grew up with different shows that meant different things to me and music, and someone where most of the information we got was from watching the Spanish channel news in the evening. Something that I’ve learned over my career and just over my lifetime is that the media is extremely powerful. They influence so much and give so much information and so many people rely on it. It has been shifting over time, especially when it comes to LGBTQ+ and BIPOC folks and our identities and our stories, but they have been very slow. There has definitely been a lot of resistance. When I think of the media, I really think about how it is an opportunity for people to really be responsible and accountable and share correct information and also dismantle a lot of the oppressive views that we’ve held.
When it comes to mental health, many people for a long time thought that when you saw a therapist, you were crazy, you were on medication, you were in a crisis, you were unstable because that’s what we saw on TV shows, that’s what we saw novellas, in the news, mental health was often used as an escape go by the media. Over the years, it’s definitely changed where there’s more awareness and an understanding of how mental health plays a role, but yet, it’s still not enough. We still see a lot of use of mental health for dramatic aspects of movies or the news. Whenever there’s a shooting, people talk about mental health. I mean, there’s confusion around how mental health impacts us, but also people who are expressing that they’re struggling with mental health issues.
The reality is that we all have mental health. This is not who’s struggling or who’s not. We all have it. Mental health is just like physical health. We all experience different illnesses at different times, whether it’s anxiety and being extremely worried and not being able to sleep for weeks, for months, to depression where we just feel so heavy and tired and have negative thoughts and low self-esteem and inability to focus. All of these different things that happen to us, that are for prolonged periods of time, whether it is short-term, a few weeks, or long-term years, we all deal with mental strain at some point or another. The media is now, I think, realizing that people are normalizing going to therapy, they’re normalizing talking about their mental health challenges, they’re normalizing the understanding that we are impacted by systems, the government, financial, political, all of these different things that they do affect us.
I’m also discussing more about our identities and taking into account our intersectionality, our gender, our background, our age, all of these different things, and our ethnicity. It is shifting. The media definitely has a lot of responsibility in how they not just give out information, but also how they normalize these things. We’re seeing more and more. I’ve actually done a few media appearances on Telemundo, which is a big Spanish network where I talked a bit about different mental health topics like anxiety, LGBTQ issues, something that I definitely love to do. It’s important to share information, but also to help folks dismantle a lot of that shame, or at least understand where the shame is coming from and learn to really navigate. Being able to ask for help.
The other part to this too, with the media shifting and being a lot more open, but also more aware of how this is helping people, it’s bringing up a lot of the other issues, like accessibility. Most of the time I hear people tell me now, “Well, now we know that therapy is good, now we know that it’s okay, but it’s expensive.” “I don’t have insurance.” “I can’t find a therapist in my area.” “I don’t have someone that is queer or a person of color.” “How do I go to therapy now that I know it’s good?” It’s bringing this up, but it’s bringing awareness that now we also have a very flat system. People don’t have access, people cannot afford it. I’ve met many wonderful therapists and also myself who are doing their best to try to find ways to accommodate and help. At the same time, this is our livelihood. I mean, we have to live from what we make doing this work. While it is important and very helpful, I think that it also speaks volumes to the way that the system is flawed, that us as therapists, may not be able to sustain ourselves, but we’re so expected to sacrifice ourselves for people.
For me, I struggle with that a bit here and there, just really trying to grasp how a lot of this is way bigger than me being able to offer cheaper fees or what is it, a sliding scale. But that it’s really more systemic, that even our medical insurance companies, it’s awful here when we talk about medical insurance and even to get that help for physical, more visual stuff, in mental health is even harder.
For me and other folks that I’ve met, I was mentioning earlier, we offer a sliding scale, we offer other opportunities like groups. We do things where we try to work with clients and give them lower fees until they can get back on their feet. But it’s not enough. I think it’s important to acknowledge that this is a systemic problem. This is something that is still affecting all of us because the lack of accessibility and the lack of focus and importance being placed on mental health is still not where it needs to be.
The media can play a big role in that and really bring attention to the disparity in mental health access and really showcasing that mental health is not just about people being in a crisis or suicidal, but that it’s people struggling with work stress, people dealing with relational stuff because all of those things are going to impact us. For me, that’s my thing with the media. It’s also the reason why I’m moving and aligning myself a lot more into doing more media work, whether it’s using social media, whether it’s doing the news, whether it’s venturing into modeling into all of these things to talk about how we’re all impacted in different ways.
For me, modeling and fashion was something that helped me heal and really learn to love and express myself and work through a lot of my own body issues that I also experienced and had to let go of, and it’s allowed me to feel empowered. That’s why I do a lot of these things, not just for myself, but also to showcase that.
We are human beings, we need creativity, we find healing in so many different ways, while at the same time also advocating that. We need to change the accessibility. We need to talk more about therapy for folks who are not in crisis or suicidal, and we need to normalize this on TV for the people that still don’t have that knowledge or who are still watching something and thinking, “I’m not going to therapy, that’s for crazy people.” I’m not taking medication, that’s for crazy people,” and instead seeing people who look like them and who don’t look like them, but still saying things like, “Hey, I struggled too and I had postpartum depression after giving birth.” “I’ve had anxiety, dealt with trauma, and how do I find help for it to be available?”
When we talked before this episode, you shared how self-expression can help your mental health journey.
Self-expression is a very powerful word to me because growing up, I often felt like I didn’t have that opportunity. I shared earlier that I grew up in a very religious home, and so a lot of the things that were expected of me were very conservative values. The way that I dressed, the way that my hair was, and the way that I acted and presented myself, it was very, very scrutinized but also very micromanaged by my parents, understandably so. I think for them, it was really about keeping me safe and helping me protect it in that way, where I was respectful, whatever young man and all this stuff, and that was the mentality. What that did for me was that it really kept me from shining and showing myself and being myself. I often felt I couldn’t like the things that I liked or be interested in the things that I was, like fashion or even my hair styling or anything like that because it was not okay.
Self-expression, to me, means so many things. It’s not just about clothing. It’s about our personality. It’s about who we are. I did feel for a long time that was very at bay for me. I wasn’t allowed to be funny the way that I wanted or to do a lot of the things that I wanted because it was considered inappropriate or it was just something that I think was a lot of conditioning. As I grew up and started to really fit with myself more, I struggled a lot with trying to figure out who I was, what I wanted in life because a lot of it was anxiety that was from my upbringing and my parents and their own anxiety about how I was supposed to be and show up in the world.
It wasn’t until about three years ago, almost maybe a little bit before the pandemic, that I remember starting my private practice, or at least planning to start it, and telling myself, I don’t want to do this anymore, where I’m showing up to these places, these professional spaces or whatever, and being something that I’m not.
I don’t feel comfortable in the clothes I wear. I don’t feel comfortable in the way that I talk. I don’t feel comfortable having to code-switch and talk like I’m just whatever and feel shame and guilt when I mispronounce a word or when I share an idea that people don’t understand. I told myself, “If I’m going to do this and I’ll do my own business, I need to do this my way and I need to show up for myself.” It was really the idea around not being able to find a space at the table and creating that for myself, by creating my own space and saying, “I’m going to finally give myself a chance.” I took the risk. I remember I woke up one day and I told my partner, “I’ve always wanted to do more with fashion.” He laughed because when we started dating, I would make shirts for him. I would design “shirts,” and I would make them. My partner used them, which was really sweet. Now when I look back, some of them weren’t that cute or anything, but he was so supportive that he would wear them. I remember him telling me, “You’ve always been creative. You’ve always been someone that wanted to express themselves, and you did it in little ways, but it was always through other people. I noticed you’ve always wanted to do that for yourself.” And that really resonated with me and it really hit me hard because it was one of those moments where I was like, “You are right, that is who I am.” I’ve held it in so long because I didn’t think I was good enough because I didn’t think I was thin enough, because I didn’t think I was attractive enough or light skinned enough or whatever it was, all of these things. That moment for me was so revolutionary because it gave me an opportunity to sit back and think, “What are the things that I wanted to do?”
I remember telling my partner that same day, “I think I want to try makeup.” He looked at me, he was like, “Yeah, you could do it.” I asked him, “Can you go to the store with me today?” I remember going to the store for the first time. It was a M.A.C makeup store. I was standing there, and I saw all these lipsticks and all these things, and I’m sitting there like, “Oh, my God, I know what these things are, but I’ve never used them. I’ve always been curious about using them,” and not because it was like, “Oh, I want to do this,” blah, blah, blah. It was because I always found that to be such a magical thing for people to be so creative, to express themselves in color. Something that’s even historical, because even in Europe, monarchs, kings use makeup, blush, powders, all this stuff.
I told my partner, like, “I want to try it.” We were there, and I was looking at lipstick, and he was helping me put it on. I remember one of the ladies coming over, I was like, “No, I’m just looking.” She’s like, “Oh, I have a good color for you.” That feeling of being welcomed and not questioned or looked at weird, it was so nice to me. It was this moment of, “Oh, my God, these people, they’re not looking or judging me, they’re like, let me help you.” I remember leaving with a few things and finding out at home, and I was so messy at first. I was like, “Oh my gosh, I’m never going to get the hang of this.”
My partner was like, “Look it out, reach out to one of your friends that does.” I had a lot of queer friends who were already doing their makeup. I remember reaching out. It took a bit of time, but I ended up starting to really like it. Now I know what I like, what I don’t. I don’t wear a lot of express makeup like I did when I first started, but at least it allowed me to explore that so I could decide I didn’t like certain things. Now I’m more like my natural self, I like more skin tone stuff because it makes me feel good, and so I wear that. At the same time, I was also exploring fashion.
I’ve always been one of those people when they set their hearts out to something, they do their best. I mean, they give it their all, and if it doesn’t work out, fine, but if it does, obviously it was part of that work that you do. I started to pick out clothing, and I had a really hard time because, for much of my life, men’s clothing never felt comfortable to me. A lot of it just really felt very plain, but also just felt like I was being constricted. I remember thinking, maybe I can try more feminine or women’s clothing or whatever. There was a lot of shame for me in opening up to it because I kept thinking, like, “What does that mean about me? What does that say about me?” This was also a process that I went through myself. I started to shop and try things on, and it was a lot of experimenting.
There was a point where I was like, “Okay, yeah, this is definitely not something that I would wear. This is definitely something I would do.” I started to really show up for myself. I think the biggest change was that I actually didn’t do this at home. I was going out. I was like, “I’m going out with my friends. I’m going out with my partner,” and I was dressed that way. My partner has always been extremely supportive. He was one of the people that made me feel so comfortable that he always would just, “You look great,” or, “Oh, let me fix this for you,” or, “Oh, you know what? I didn’t really like that, what about this one?” But always so supportive in that way. That was my biggest worry at first. It was like, “Oh, how’s my partner going to feel seeing me change after almost 13 years together? How is he going to feel?” I remember that level of safety was so motivational for me because it made me feel like I’m doing some healing work here. I’m with someone that loves me and cares for me, and they’re saying it’s okay versus what I had when I was younger. I was like, “No, don’t walk like that, don’t dress like that, don’t use this.” And so, it was a big change.
I’d say that even with clothing, I experimented so much, and eventually I landed on styles that felt good to me that I consider more nonbinary than men’s or women’s clothing because honestly, at the end of the day, they’re clothing and people can look great. I used to hate when people would say, “Oh, that’s for women, though. I can’t wear that.” It was like, “But you look so good in it.” “And what is it that makes it women’s clothing?” “Oh, the material is too soft.” And I’m like, “Okay.” Places like Versace, like Gucci, they use a lot of these silk stuff. I mean, this is stuff that, unless you’re really wealthy, you’re not exposed to, a lot of people feel like “Ugh” with fashion, it needs to look a certain way of your male, be rugged or be like, very thick material. I was like, “I hate that. I want to feel something soft. I want to feel good in what I’m wearing.”
I started to find things that were mixed between all of it, and that was something that was definitely a big game changer for me. Now, I show up for myself, I do professional things in clothing that feels comfortable for me. I express myself in other ways, too, because of the fact that now I’m not worried or scared because I’m like, “Well, people see me, I have nothing to worry about. I’m going to say what I think.” It also led to me expressing myself verbally more, sharing my ideas. If you were talking to me three years ago, I probably would have been really anxious right now talking about these things. I probably would have not been able to express what I’m trying to say. I had a lot of imposter syndrome, but because I really learned to let go of those things by allowing myself and giving myself permission to go through this process, which was not always easy, I feel a lot more in my body. I feel a lot more in my mind, and I definitely feel free. That’s why I think I’m in a place now where I can share this and talk to people and encourage people when it comes to self-expression.
I don’t mean we have to go out and have all these colors on a dress or whatever. What I’m saying is, “How can you be yourself and show up for yourself and feel good about yourself and your body and your skin and who you are and even culture? Whatever it is, but showing up in all of these spaces and bringing that with you.” It’s something that has made a difference for me. I think self-expression is not just clothing, it’s everything. It’s the way that we show up.
What does it mean to be professional?
All of us deal with that because we live in a system that does reinforce this idea of what professional and worthy means, that we need to dress a certain way and act a certain way. Yes, many of those things, while applicable, obviously our behaviors at work are important. I’m not going to be a therapist and sitting with someone on my phone. That’s obviously non helpful. What I’m saying when I talk about professionalism and dismantling, that is really the idea around feeling we need a token switch, which is really the idea around how we are in real life right around the world, and then how we show up at work and having to speak a certain way and be aligned with certain things. And that’s often not helpful. I know, for me, I discovered that there were so many moments where I didn’t understand certain things or I didn’t really know how to ask for something.
I felt like, “Oh it’s the professional thing?” I shouldn’t say anything. I need to keep quiet and figure it out on my own or it’s going to make me look a certain way where I switched that and thought, “If they want me to do my job, I want to do a good job. I need to be able to ask questions. I need to feel safe enough to be able to express myself and also give my opinions and my feedback when I offer it. I also need to not worry about the way that I say certain words.” Sometimes people need clarification, I can explain it to them, but not letting myself fall into that shame, if I need to be quiet because I’m going to sound stupid or I’m going to sound like this or that. And acknowledging that it’s amazing that I speak two languages and I’m going to mess up here and there and that’s okay.
Moving away from a lot of those things dress-wise as well, the idea of dressing up and being uncomfortable has always bothered me. I think a lot of places, especially tech places, have moved away from that, very much so where a lot of businesses are still very much like suit and tie or you have to dress what is the business casual or whatever. A lot of people are great with that. There are many of us who don’t feel comfortable in that. I’m talking specifically also about folks who are nonbinary or who don’t fit into those areas that are often forced to have to dress a certain way or have their hair a certain way. Black women dealt with this for a very long time when they were told that their hair needed to be a certain way of professional presentation. Now it’s like, no, that’s not something that keeps us from doing our job, it’s something that allows us to show up and let our natural traits be shown. I think for me also, that is a part of it, how we show up.
The other bigger part of really moving away from professionalism is a lot of what’s instilled the values, the competitiveness, the secrets around salary, the policies that are often rooted in patriarchy, around the way that women are paid and the way they can express themselves and the way that men move up in the professional ladder. I mean, all of these little things that are not good for us, they keep us from allowing people to be able to do this work in a way that makes more sense. People who may not have had the privilege of going to a lot of these big universities but are still very intelligent, very creative, it dismantles a lot of those systems that do continue to oppress people even in the professional world. I’ve dealt with that myself as a therapist as well, applying and working in certain companies and places where there was a lot of emphasis on how we were supposed to present ourselves and things that we could say and not say.
Most of my career I was told, “Don’t talk about yourself. Don’t share anything with clients. Don’t be very erm. You’re a blank slate, you don’t react.” For me, that was always one of the hardest things, thinking like how am I supposed to have people coming in, being vulnerable for the first time, wanting to find a space where they can talk? I’m sitting there looking like someone that has no problems, that is telling them what’s wrong with them and then telling them what to do. It just didn’t make sense to me. The idea of healing and therapy are very old, old ideas that we have been doing as a society forever supporting one another, having people that we talk to doing rituals and cultural healing practices, whether it was Native American practices or practices in other places across the world. For me, it was like it didn’t make sense. You cannot professionalize something that involves people in this way where we are not showing up, you’re not being seen.
Moving away from that was really important for me and letting go of it. Obviously, it doesn’t mean that I threw everything away. I still abide very much by the law and ethics of my practice. At the same time, I’ve also found a way to say artistically because I think it definitely takes time for you to find your way and find your own process, but you find moments and opportunities to shift away from a lot of these things.
For me, one of the biggest things was diagnosing folks. I’ll tell them, “I will give you a diagnosis if that’s what you need. If it’s insurance if you need to hear it. But I’m not here to tell you that there’s something wrong with you. I’m not here to tell you that you’re sick. I’m not here to tell you that I’m going to fix you, because you’re not broken. I’m here to sit with you, process these things, give you information, give you the ability to use the things that you already have without those blocks, without the self-limiting beliefs, without the uncontrollable anxiety, the things that are standing in the way.” For me, that has been very important. If I had stayed on the whole professionalism route, I don’t think I’d be doing the work or supporting my clients in the best way possible. I think this is applicable to all professions in different ways, but at the same time still very relevant.
Which resources helped you in your journey?
A couple of books that I love. One is The Body Keeps the Score, which I’m sure a lot of people have heard about. Yeah, I love that book. I want to make sure people know about that book. Look it up if you haven’t heard about it. I think it’s a very powerful book that really helps make that connection between mind and body and how it impacts us, the experiences we go through.
Another book is called The Velvet Rage, Growing Up Gay in a Straight Man’s World. It’s a really wonderful book. There’s not a lot of books out there about the gay experience or even the mental health aspects. I really love that book because it helped me in my journey as a gay man, but also really leading up to move away from identifying as gay into queer because it talked a lot about the experiences of being a boy growing up in a very patriarchal system and how that affects us and a lot of the things related to that relationship, sexuality. That’s another really great book.
In terms of podcasts, the Latinx Therapy podcast is a wonderful one. It’s run by one of my dear friends, Adriana Alejandre, who talks about so many different topics as well, ranging from the Latinx perspective, to mental health, so that’s a great one.
I hope you enjoyed the podcast. We will have more interviews with amazing Latinx leaders the first Tuesday of every month. Check out our website Latinx In Power to hear more. Don’t forget to share comments and feedback, always with kindness. See you soon.
Additional Reading Mentioned in the Interview
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