Javier Omar Meléndez-Vega, LCSW

Decolonization isn't about shame or blame, it's about remembrance, reconnection, and return.

It's about restoring right relationship with land, lineage, and self in ways that honor our differences while recognizing our interdependence.

This isn't to equate different forms of harm, the material consequences for Indigenous, Black, and other colonized peoples have been devastating in ways white communities haven't experienced.

But recognizing how colonization has wounded everyone helps us move beyond guilt toward collective healing.

But colonization also wounded white communities in ways rarely acknowledged.

To become "white" (a category that didn't exist before colonization) European peoples had to sever connections to their own ancestral traditions, healing practices, and relationships with land.

For Indigenous peoples, it meant genocide and land theft.

For Black communities, enslavement and systematic oppression.

For immigrants, displacement and pressure to assimilate.

Colonization operates through division
It creates hierarchies that separate us from each other, from the earth, and from our own wholeness.

There's a myth that decolonization only matters to those who were colonized.
But what if the same systems that stole Indigenous lands also severed European peoples from their own ancestral connections? What if we're all living in the wound, just in different locations?

Understanding who decolonization is for helps us move beyond guilt, shame, and isolation toward collective action and healing.

None of us can heal in isolation—we need each other's wisdom, perspectives, and unique gifts. We need each other's medicine to become whole. 6/6

It's also for those who've lost connection to their own ancestral wisdom and healing practices—a loss with profound consequences. 5/6

Decolonization isn't just for Indigenous peoples, though their leadership is essential. It's not just for those directly harmed by colonial violence. 4/6

The truth is more complex: while our experiences differ dramatically, our liberation is bound together. The systems that harm some ultimately harm all, though in different ways and to different degrees. 3/6

Colonization thrives on making us believe we're separate—that our struggles and healing are disconnected from each other. 2/6

Can you name the lands and nations where your grandmothers were born?

The silence that often follows this question reveals a wound we all carry—though in profoundly different ways. This disconnection is at the heart of why decolonization matters for everyone. 1/6

Yet our ancestors knew other ways of being—and these ways still live in our bodies, in our dreams, in our deepest longings for connection.

The antidote to fear isn't courage—it's connection. When we face these fears together, we discover capacities for transformation we didn't know we had. 5/5

Perhaps the deepest resistance comes from the challenge of imagining alternatives—of envisioning ways of relating to land, to each other, to knowledge that aren't structured by extraction, hierarchy, and separation.

Colonial thinking has convinced us there is no alternative.
4/5

The fear lives in our bodies, not just our minds. For some, it's the discomfort of confronting historical injustices. For others, it's the pain of reconnecting with historical trauma and grieving what was lost.

In both cases, the body's resistance makes perfect sense—it's trying to protect us. 3/5

Resistance to decolonization isn't simply about defending privilege. It's about our human relationship with the unknown.

Decolonization asks us to question frameworks that have structured our entire understanding of reality. Even when these frameworks cause harm, they're familiar. 2/5

Have you ever noticed how your body responds when approaching the edges of what feels safe?

The quickened heartbeat, the tightened chest, the urge to retreat to familiar ground—even when that ground no longer sustains us.

This is what happens when we begin the work of decolonization. 1/5

This work isn't meant to shame anyone, it's meant to invite more freedom.

When we recognize how colonial thinking has shaped our perception, we create the possibility of seeing differently and reclaiming ways of being that support our full humanity. 5/5

Decolonizing the mind means developing "relational sight": honoring multiple ways of knowing, being, and healing.

It means reclaiming ancestral wisdom while remaining open to the wisdom of others. 4/5

For colonized communities, this manifests as *internalized oppression*: seeing ourselves through the colonizer's eyes and finding ourselves wanting.

For colonizing communities, it creates *internalized superiority*: the unconscious belief that colonial ways are inherently more advanced. 3/5

"Colonial sight" shapes what we find beautiful, what we consider intelligent, and what we value as knowledge.

We call Indigenous healing "alternative medicine", but alternative to what?

To European approaches positioned as universal, objective, and simply "medicine." 2/5

The most powerful prison isn't built with stone walls, it's built with thoughts that feel like our own.

Colonization's deepest victory wasn't taking land, it was convincing us to see ourselves through the colonizer's eyes. 1/5

"There will be no psychological health and well-being as long as we are at war with Creation. Our psychological health and well-being is inextricably linked to the quality of our relationship with Creation." - Arthur Blume

*A New Psychology Based on Community, Equality, and Care of the Earth*

When those protecting the Earth are discarded, we all feel the loss.
This free online support group on April 17 is for scientists and stem professionals who have been laid off, defunded, or disheartened by this political moment.
Come be held. Link in bio 🌍

#climatecrisis #STEM #scientists

(10/10)
What ancestral connections live inside you, waiting to be remembered?
What cultural or ecological threads were cut in your story?

Let’s listen.
Let’s trace the severed roots.
Let’s begin the restoration. 🌱

#Decolonize #LandLineageSelf #EutierriaTherapy

(9/10)
At Eutierria Connection, we don’t treat decolonization as a theory.
It is a remembering.
A return.
A reconnection to land, lineage, and self.
Not to escape the present, but to live in it with integrity.

eutierria-connection.circle.so

(8/10)
But if this disconnection was designed—then reconnection can be practiced.
Reclaiming isn’t nostalgia.
It’s ceremony.
It’s seed planting.
It’s listening for what still breathes beneath the rubble.

(7/10)
This rupture didn’t stay in the past.
It shapeshifted.
The same mindset that stole land now extracts oil.
The same systems that erased cultures now sell those traditions back as “wellness.”
The wound became structure.

(6/10)
But here’s what’s often missed:
Dehumanization ran in both directions.
To dominate, colonizers had to cut off their own empathy.
To control, they had to sever from their own ancestors, land, and soul.

(5/10)
And to justify the violence?
They crafted hierarchies:
🏛️ European as superior
📚 Western as knowledge
👤 White as human
🛐 Christian as sacred

Colonialism redefined reality—then demanded allegiance to the new order.