Living in Oppressive Systems, Loving in Community

In this episode, Dani and Marion welcome Natasha Aruliah – a therapist, counsellor, and psychologist who has shifted from traditional one‑on‑one clinical work into what she calls JEDI work: Justice, Equity, Decolonizing, Diversity, and Inclusion. Natasha shares how it began to feel unethical to “patch people up” only to send them back into systems that continuously harm them, especially people experiencing racism, colonization, and other forms of oppression. Instead, she now works directly with organizations and communities to confront the structures that create and sustain that harm. Dani and Marion reflect on this through their own experiences as Indigenous women inside systems that were never designed with them in mind—from healthcare and academia to nonprofit and governance. They talk about the toll of constantly having to prove their humanity, whether advocating for family in hospital, navigating biased workplaces, or confronting the fact that MAiD (Medical Assistance in Dying) is overwhelmingly accessed by white people. Together with Natasha, they ask hard questions about agency, dignity, and what justice in healthcare would actually look and feel like, especially for Indigenous communities living with medical racism and the legacy of residential schools and “Indian hospitals.” The conversation moves between personal story and systemic analysis: Natasha’s experience as a Tamil woman whose family fled colonization, apartheid, civil war, and genocide in Sri Lanka; Marion’s sense of being in exile from her own nation after leaving for education; the grief of being disconnected from land, language, and grandparents; and the deep, embodied work of finding home within oneself when belonging to any single place is fractured. They explore how racism is not only an individual attitude but a systemic structure that benefits some while harming others—and what it means to practice anti‑racism and decolonization in everyday choices, workplaces, and relationships. Throughout, they return to the power of vulnerability and authenticity: the strength it takes to cry, to admit “I was wrong,” to let loved ones challenge us, and to show up in public as whole people rather than fragments. Natasha insists that this kind of justice work is not just a job but a calling that asks for your whole heart, and that real change happens through relationship and ongoing conversation, not checklists and slogans. Marion and Dani end the episode processing how triggering and validating the discussion was, recognizing that healing is lifelong, deeply intersectional, and always communal. At its core, Living in Oppressive Systems, Loving in Community is about holding two truths at once: that we move through violent, oppressive systems, and that we can still root ourselves in love, community, culture, language, and story. The episode invites listeners to honour their own grief and anger, to notice where they hold privilege and where they carry wounds, and to keep imagining and building a future where self‑care is mandatory, healing is shared, and our hardest conversations become doorways into deeper connection. Content in this episode includes frank discussion of racism, medical racism, colonization, residential schools, genocidal violence, intergenerational trauma, and MAiD (Medical Assistance in Dying). Please listen at your own pace and take care of yourself as you do. **Health Resources:**  **Suicide Crisis Line:** 988 988.ca  **Hope For Wellness Hotline:** 1-855-242-3310 https://www.hopeforwellness.ca/ **Wisepractices.ca** **Chapters:** **00:00 –** Arriving in the Space **05:40 –** Meeting Natasha **13:00 –** When Therapy Meets Oppressive Systems **22:00 –** MAiD, Race & Medical Racism **32:30 –** In Plain Sight **41:30 –** Justice, Agency & Anti‑Racism **52:00 –** Humanizing Workplaces **57:00 –** What Real Change Looks Like **01:10:00 –** Privilege, Power & Representation **01:20:00 –** Belonging, Exile & Diaspora **01:40:00 –** Hope, Grandchildren & Future Worlds