234 [Healing Series] Positive Racial Identity
/Haley Radke: This podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Nothing stated on it either by its hosts or any guests, is to be construed as psychological, medical, or legal advice.
(upbeat music)
Haley Radke: You are listening to adoptees on the podcast where adoptees discuss the adoption. I'm Haley Radke. This is a special episode in our healing series where I interview therapists who are also adoptees themselves so they know from personal experience what it feels like to be an adoptee. Before we get started, I wanted to personally invite you to join our Patreon adoptee community today over on adopteeson.com/community, which helps to support you and the show to support more adoptees around the world.
Today we are talking all about developing a positive racial identity and links to everything we'll be talking about are on the website, AdopteesOn.com. Let's listen in. I'm so pleased to Welcome to Adopetes On, Dr. Abby Habserry! Welcome Abby.
Abby Hasberry: Thank you for having me.
Haley Radke: I would love it if you would start. This is the first time you've been on and in our healing series I always love for folks to get to know the therapist a little bit. So would you share just a little bit of your story with us?
Abby Hasberry: I am a transracial adoptee, adopted in 1971, so in the baby scoop era, I am a black adoptee adopted by a white family who already had three biological children. So I was the only black child in my family.
I have lived all over the place, all over the world, all over, the US and the world, and have had a lot of experiences just with growing and learning and just becoming the person that I am now. To include, I'm also a birth mom. I was a teenage mom in 1988 and placed a child for adoption there. I consider myself a victim of adoption coercion in that instance. I am also in reunion on both sides of my biological families and with my son as well. I'm a trained educator, former principal, and now a therapist, and I work predominantly with adoptees and specifically have a kind of a special niche for transracial adoptees who are working on racial identity development and working through racialized trauma,
Haley Radke: Which is so needed. Oh my word. How many adoptees have come to me and been like, I need a therapist who gets, who gets me, and, have you heard this before? I have several friends that have said this to me in private, transracial adoptees, black and otherwise even will say "I feel white. I look in the mirror and I see a white person."
It is very hard to, just get back to, or they feel like they're appropriating culture if they do any sort of exploration into racial identity work. I imagine you have folks saying that to you too.
Abby Hasberry: Yes That is actually the exact reason why I decided to switch from education and become a therapist. I was doing some work in just some of my own healing in adoption groups and on Facebook and Instagram, and just kind of introducing myself to the adoptee community, and I started to have black transracial adoptees, specifically females, approached me and asked how I was so confident in my racial identity. They talked a lot about feeling like they were uncomfortable around other black women and uncomfortable in their own skin and didn't feel like they fit in in the black community, but also recognized that they didn't fit in completely in the white community.
And so that is exactly why I decided to become a therapist, because I realized that there was an increased need or just not an increased need, but a need, a huge need in that field, especially with transracial adoptees. And so when I sat down to support them and talk through them and trying to see what was there, what was there for support, there were just weren't many, if any, black racial identity development trained therapists who really understood adoption as a trauma.
Who understood what it means to really identify racially and be proud of your racial identity, who have done that kind of work. And it just so happened that as an educator, my PhD was on the experiences of black teachers in predominantly white and affluent private schools. And so my work was around identity development before I even came into therapy.
And it was around feelings of tokenism and feelings of invisibility. At the same time being highly visible, the heightened visibility of being the only one. And so it just kind of happened that that unicorn space was something that I was able to fill once I went to school and, and got that, got a degree in marriage and family therapy.
Haley Radke: Can you go back a little bit to your junior high, high school years, because I've listened to several interviews and appearances that you've done and, and read some of your writing, and I found it really interesting how you, in those age ranges, you were seeking out black friends and then going home and putting on your, like assimilated- into- white- culture voice and going back to that and like living two different sorts of identities at the time.
Can you talk about that? Because I think it's probably a pretty common experience and also not. I think a lot of folks don't even realize that they could experience that too. So I'd love to hear more about that.
Abby Hasberry: Sure. So I think it even goes back further because we moved so much, I grew up from first to third grade in Egypt, and my primary identity at that time was as an American.
My mom taught at private schools where my, my family and I all attended, my siblings and I all attended, so I never had an adoptee identity at that time. And just growing up, because everyone always knew. So it wasn't something I talked about or anything I even explored because I was just Mrs. Madera's daughter and everyone knew who my family was.
And so there was never that kind of question of reintroducing myself or any of those questions because it was such a small expat community in Egypt. But I was very aware of being American in a different, a different country. And so in middle school, when we moved to Miami, Florida, I still attended the school where my mom went.
So that identity was still, my adoptee identity was still something I didn't really explore, but all of a sudden I was black in America. So I really started to explore what that meant to me. And I think the thing that stood out the most to me was that there was a whole culture that I could see on BET specifically, as that came out, like Black Entertainment Television came out in the eighties and I started to really realize that there was a whole culture that I had not been introduced to and that I did not have any access to. And so I kind of kicked the door open and decided to find my own access, which meant going to the mall and meeting black friends and going to black teenage clubs and going to the roller skating rink and places where I could meet kids who were outside of my school because I was the only black kid in my grade for many years.
Other than that, there was one girl who was Haitian who identified as Haitian, not as African American, and there was another African American girl who really identified more with her white adoptive parents and I had to kind of go out and find that identity on my own, through music, through tv, and just through social interactions.
And then I had to come back to my school, to my family and really code switch backwards. So when you think about code switching, usually that is someone who's in a minoritized position going into white society, whether that's professionally or in school or whatever and switching to standard English, Standard cultural norms.
And I did the opposite. When I went outside of my community, outside of my home, that's where I felt more comfortable. That's where I felt more me. That's where I explored my racial identity. And when I came back home, I code switched back to kind of that white community, white norm white feeling. And so that just became kind of part of who I am and, and even today, I still see myself do that when I go to family gatherings or spend time with my adoptive family. I still feel myself doing that switch and my kids will actually tease me about putting up my white voice around my parents.
Haley Radke: Oh, that's so interesting. And I think I, I thank you for explaining that. I've heard, you know, as I work through my white anti-racist education pieces for myself in the last few years, I've heard so many things from transracial adoptees that as far as code switching or, or being, being in the workplace as a person of color, they have to put on that identity and, and there's no safe place at home to go back and, you know, be who I really am. And so I find it really interesting I remember, I remember when, when I heard you first say that I would just like, something like went on in me, and I was like, oh, that's really different. That's very interesting.
Can you talk a little bit more about what you think led you to do that? I, I, I'm struggling to ask you those questions because I think it's unusual and as a white person, I don't necessarily understand. I just, I just, I don't know. I just, I don't understand how in a person, in a black body can't realize that they're black?
Like they're, they're not safe enough to realize that. And so for you as a young person to go out and seek out your own cultural people, it's just interesting as a young person to do that, cuz I feel like the most folks I've talked to don't really kind of do that until their twenties or mid twenties because they're still in the white household of adoptive parents at home and they wanna make sure they're, you know, kind of falling in line and don't feel safe to do so.
So do you think there was anything different about you that you were able to kind of do that exploration?
Abby Hasberry: Yeah. So I think that, as I mentioned, the fact that I started to explore my black identity in adolescence as opposed to in elementary school or earlier, I think that that has one that's part of it.
But while I kind of give, like, take credit away from my mom for a lot of the decisions that she made, I have to give her credit for the fact that when things happened in our environment that involved race, she discussed them with me and gave me really great perspectives on my identity as a black person in the world.
And so there was this weird dichotomy with my mom where I am very aware that she wanted me to be a, just part of the family, a brown, a darker skinned child with the same norms, the same culture. And she did not, she was not aware of kind of what I needed to identify as a black person. However, she was very aware of how society would look at me and how I would interact with society.
And so she gave me that. So I remember there were times when people would look at our family differently and my mom would say, that's their ignorance. You know, just, just look at it as their ignorance that has nothing to do with you or, or who you are. There was a time that I often talk about where I was invited to a country club to go swimming with friends in Miami and then disinvited or uninvited the night before because the country club didn't allow people of color to come and swim on the weekends there. And my mom reacted to that by first telling me the truth. She was honest with me, even though I think I was probably like 11 years old, but then also saying to me that my friend was allowed to come to our house and do whatever, you know, hang out with me as often and as much as I wanted to, but that she no longer was allowing me to go to the friend's house because she did not believe that it was a safe environment for me if my friend's parents were okay being members of a country club that was exclusive in that way. And so giving me that perspective and that love of understanding one, that things are taught in that, you know, you can't, you can't hold people, I couldn't hold my friend and their values to, to question just because of what their parents were doing. We were still allowed to interact and have that, have her at my house, but that I also needed to hold the people accountable for their own actions. And so therefore, like my mom was like, yeah, this isn't a safe environment for you.
And so, there were plenty of times like that when I was pulled over, while, while driving my car in high school and questioned about who owned my car. It was late at night. I was dropping a friend off and the police was follwing, the police officer was following us for quite a while, about 10 minutes or so before he pulled us over and called for back up, after separating us, bringing me to the back of the car, and my friend of the front of the car and the officers questioning about like my name and where I lived over and over and over and over again.
I finally realized it clicked in my head that they knew that the car was registered to a white male, my dad, and they were questioning why I was driving it. And so when I went home kind of flustered from that, my mom was just so angry and talked about like perceptions and how people have narrow minds and can't, you know, my, my, my license had the same last name.
I kept giving the same address, I kept giving the same story. It, it was, there was no reason for them to continue to question us. And so she really talked about, you know, other people's ignorance and other people not understanding and how that wasn't something that I should take on as part of who I am and how I should still proudly go into spaces and be my authentic self.
So she really instilled a lot of that self-esteem, that identity awareness just as, as me as an individual. And then I then was given the freedom to then explore further my racial identity, because that is something that she, that she, she failed in. I did not have racial mirrors. She, they didn't have any friends of color all the time that, that I, that I was, you know, part of the family.
They did not frequent black salons, black doctors. They didn't do any of the things that we know are super important, but she did instill kind of that sense that it was okay to be me, and that I should be proud of who I am and that other people will never define who I am.
Haley Radke: Okay, well good job, mom. Now.
Abby Hasberry: Yes.
So what I'm hearing is there was a sense of safety that exploring these things was okay and probably, for the thing people I'm thinking of, there wasn't necessarily that sense of safety, and so there was more of a focus on just trying to fit in in the adoptive family and trying to, you know, act as though you were born to the adoptive parents. So for folks who've had that experience and are now coming into their twenties, their thirties, their forties, and are looking at identity, and are, a racialized person, whether in America or anywhere. What are some of the things that you're seeing with your clients or what are some of the things that you tell people, some of those first steps, like I mentioned earlier, people can be afraid that their culturally appropriating their own culture.
Haley Radke: Can you speak to that?
Abby Hasberry: Absolutely. So, so first I wanna say, I don't think that my environment was safe to identify my black identity. My environment was safe to explore my identity as a human being, but not my black identity. There were times where my mom definitely felt threatened by the fact that I was exploring this identity, and she made that very clear so that it wasn't safe necessarily for me to explore my blackness.
Haley Radke: Okay.
Abby Hasberry: I just was so safe to be me, that I didn't care or no, I don't wanna say I didn't care, but I did it anyway. I did it anyway. But as far as like, one of the things that I always tell my clients is there's no way, one way of being anything, there's no one way of being black. There's no one way of being American.
There's no one way of being a female. There's no one way of being. . So as far as appropriating something, that is who you are. You are a black person. I am a black woman. There is no one way for me to be black. And so there is no appropriating. If I think about like the culture of an African American culture, there is not one way of being black.
Black people are everything on the spectrum. And I talk a lot about my own children, who, I have a son who is a swimmer and a skateboarder. I have a daughter who just got married this last weekend, who was married to a man who is, he's half Vietnamese and half white. I have a daughter who is a soccer player and is absolutely in love with Billy Eilish.
There are, is no one way for my kids to be black, although though they are raised by two black parents, they are just on the spectrum of any teenager, any 20 something. And so I think that that's kind of step one is just accepting there is not one way of being anything. There are black cultural norms that you can learn, that you can feel comfortable with, but regardless of how you adopt those or not, your identity as a black person is your identity as a black person, and there is no one way to do that.
Haley Radke: Mm-hmm. And you know, I'm sort of asking this very broad question, which probably really the answer is it takes a very long time and there's not just like this switch to flip, but when you're going into that, what is, what are some of the first steps? What, what do you see people kind of doing? What do you see as most helpful?
I know you work with people to do this, and I imagine that some of the, the roots are really deep and there's psychological trauma there from internalized racism from white family members and just living in a white culture where white is, you know, the standard of beauty and making all the decisions and all of those things.
There's so many things being raised in, I'll just say North America's, cuz I'm Canadian and we have the same problems, so. Can you talk a little bit about kind of delving into that and if people are interested in it and because it's a big process right?
Abby Hasberry: It is, it is, it's a huge process. And I think safety in, in who you are is kind of the number one thing. And I am a marriage family therapist, so of course relationships for me are, are step one, finding relationships where you feel safe. Finding relationships where you can explore those, just those parts of your identity. Finding racial mirrors and people who can nurture and love and, and understand you, right?
That, that's number one for me is, with my clients, is kind of starting with, A) who are the people in your life who are representative of your culture and your identity that you are close to? And you can start to really talk through things with. And if there aren't any, which often there aren't, with transracial adoptees, I often become kind of that person where we are talking about identity and we're a safe place to talk about, safe space, to talk about racial identity and just all of the cultural things that people are uncomfortable with.
We often start talking about music and we start talking about stereotypes and stereotype threat and just all of the things that, for one, in or in order to normalize a feeling, an identity, a behavior, you have to give language to it. Because once someone understands that the things that they're feeling are things that other people are feeling, it kind of helps normalize that experience and make it a little bit more safe.
And so that is one of the things that I definitely try to do is, is talk about terms, talk about phenomena, talk about kind of what, what people are experiencing and how this, this experience is more broad than just you. And then connecting adoptees with other adoptees, with other adoptee organizations, with support groups.
All of those things are, are part of that constellation, part of that support group. Part of that kind of getting back that sense of belonging and identity that that is lost. And then also definitely name, naming the trauma. Naming the racialized trauma. Naming the adoption trauma. Naming the trauma in your life that we've all experienced as adoptees.
Haley Radke: I had another therapist teach us a little bit about the experience of having internalized racism and how painful that can be to untangle and come into a place of confidence and happiness and joyfulness in who the person is. Have you seen folks do that sort of internal work and can you talk about that? I think it's probably really difficult and challenging because it's like core identity work.
Abby Hasberry: Yeah. So often as transracial adoptees, one of the things that is taught in internalized is that you're different from whatever group you belong to. You're different because you're raised by a white family. You're different because you speak differently.
You're different because you have gone to a school with people who don't look like you. And so removing that label from yourself and, and seeing yourself within a group that has been othered by your own family, is very, very painful, very difficult. I see it with my clients, but I also experience some of that myself and seeing yourself no longer as separate from that group, but included is just so important to doing that work and internalizing now your new identity because it is a new identity, although it was one that you were born into. I often use the, the language with my clients, the person that you were born to be, like, who you were supposed to be when you were born, and who, that was changed because of your adoption, your adoption experience.
And so when we talk about it in those words, it helps them to understand that like, it it un- others, the community becomes their community because this is the community that you were originally beloned, born to, that you originally belonged to, and you were taken from that community as opposed to the belief that I'm different and somehow almost better from the community because I was raised by this white family who's told me that I'm different.
It, it's painful work. It's undoing lies. Seeing your parents as human beings who may have had flaw ed perceptions of the community that you were born into. All of those things are very, very hard to do, but super important.
Haley Radke: How do you work with someone who is moving towards that but still feels like, I'm gonna use the word imposter because visibly, if you've, if you've been able to cultivate a group of peers who you're similar to, and and like you're all eating out at a restaurant, and I look over and I just see, um, a group of happy, say Koreans, who are all excited to be together and are enjoying a meal together, but there's a Korean adoptee at the table who is raised with white parents and feels internally like, an imposter like, well, I'm not a real Korean. Have you seen that? What does it take to move towards feeling, like accepting that about yourself and and to a place of full inclusivity?
Abby Hasberry: Yeah. So definitely, and not only in adoptees, you can see it also in some second generation, immigrants, especially if their parents in the, in the kids were taught not to speak their language and not to, um, identify with their culture, but to assimilate as much as possible.
You can see that also with people who are removed second, usually second generation removed from immigration, then going back and now trying to find your authentic self and feeling like an imposter because you don't speak Spanish because your parents didn't teach it to you, even though you were raised in a, a household that is a Spanish speaking.
That imposter syndrome surfaces in so many places in our lives, not just in our, our identity, our racialized identity or our ethnic identity, but it can surface in our professional identities. And so that is kind of a universal syndrome that I think most people can relate to. I, I relate to it when I, you know, first got my PhD and just was waiting for the first couple weeks afterward for them to call and say that I missed a course or I didn't do something right.
Because just identifying myself with different group is, was really hard for me to even understand that I had earned that right. And I think that the thing to do is to understand when it comes to your identity as a ethnic racial being, there is no earning your right. You are that person just because you are that person, just because of, of your, your blood, your dna, and that's something that we talk about in counseling and therapy a lot, is that how can I be in a imposter of black identity when I have black skin?
I need to learn more about black culture. Perhaps, you know, I need to identify more with my black identity. Yes. That all of that could be true, but I am still a black person and deserve the, you know, full rights respects and all of that as being identified as a black woman. I do think it was a, it has been easier for me because I did start that process so early and so it from around 11 or 12 years old, it's always been part of my black identity and I've been code switching for forever.
But regardless of the age, it's just claiming who you are and standing in your space and being authentically yourself. One of the things that I love to, one of the phrases that I love to give my clients is to take up space. Whatever that space is, whatever that identity is, just take up space and and know that you belong.
And then the other phrase that I really love to give to them is don't defend yourself. Define yourself. So decide who you are and be that person and don't feel like you have to defend being any part of you. Just live in who you are and just have that define who you are.
Haley Radke: Without breaking confidentiality, what are you most proud of some of the clients that have been doing this work with you? What are you seeing that you're just like, oh my gosh, I'm so excited I get to help folks walk through this?
Abby Hasberry: I think when clients have that kind of aha, self acceptance moment, I think that when I see them all of a sudden, drop their shoulders and relax and feel confident in who they are and feel safe in who they are.
Those moments where it's like, okay, everything that I've experienced is normal. I hear you saying that other people have experienced it. There are terms for it, and just kind of that realization that everything's going to be okay because I'm going to be okay like I am okay. Just that moment of accepting themselves for who they are, accepting themselves for their experiences, for everything that has happened to them and by them.
I think I'm most proud when I see a client just step into their identity and take up space and just be kind of fully present and fully themselves.
I know
Haley Radke: when people start to get into identity work period, because it's at the core of our, our being and can be very world shifting, it can be really challenging, deep, painful work. It's hard work, like so much hard work. And I see some people offering like coaching and stuff like that online, and I know that you trained to become a therapist, so you would have more tools and skills to help folks do that. Can you talk a little bit about the importance of having a therapist guide you along this deep internal work versus maybe someone that is not as credentialed or trained in doing some of that stuff.
Abby Hasberry: Sure. So trauma is, is complex. Trauma is deep. Trauma runs in all the spaces in our body that we try to hide it in. And if you have someone who is working through trauma with you, who is not understanding and respectful and really just kind of aware of, of trauma and how it impacts the brain and how it impacts the body, that can be re-traumatizing.
You can actually have trauma from working with someone working through your trauma who does not have experience or knowledge of how trauma affects the brain and the body, and just the physical parts of you, as well as the mental parts of you. When people ask me about the difference between coaching and therapy, the one thing I try to impart on them is when you see someone who is working as a coach, that person should only be working from where you are now to where you wanna go in the future.
And so if you think of like a professional coach works with your professional identity, whether you be a teacher and you want to be a principal, and let's work with the leadership skills and the skills that you need to get to the goal that you want to be. Whereas as the therapist works back from your trauma to untangle the things that are affecting who you are right now in order to heal those things so that you can then move forward.
And I think that that is the thing that you should be thinking about when you're thinking, deciding if I wanna see a coach or a therapist, is what are your goals? Are your, is your goal just to move forward from where you are to that new thing? I had a professional life coach who helped me when I decided to step down as a principal and then move into different realms of my professional identity.
And she talked about my why and my passions and my motivations, and we did lots of work on that and my personality traits and all of those things. But when I needed to do work on myself as an adoptee in the trauma that I've been through and as an a victim of childhood sexual abuse and all of the things that I had to work through in order to be more whole, then I looked for a therapist who could do that work and understand how it has affected my health both physically and mentally.
Haley Radke: Oh my gosh. Great answer. I love that. It's so illuminates the differences. I appreciate that. Thank you. I would love to hear you just talk about any strategies you think are best for specifically transracial adoptees or black adoptees in starting on this journey.
Whether it be things they can do on their own or if they're looking to work with like a therapist like you, if they're lucky enough to get an appointment. Any steps you wanna share as we're wrapping up any other thoughts that you have for, especially our folks in our community who are racialized and who have grown up in white adoptive families.
Abby Hasberry: So one of the things that I definitely love to do personally and have done for a long time, and that I suggest to my clients to do is when you read a book about trauma, about adoption, about anything, when you see a movie, when you listen to a podcast and you have a question come up or something is like an aha, write that down on the top of a first piece of paper and then something else comes up, turn the page, turn the page and write whatever that is on the top of a piece of paper and just have a notebook of things that kind of spark your curiosity or hit you to your, your core or just make sense or don't make sense and you wanna question it. Write those things down as on the top of a piece of paper and then go back to them in your kind of sacred, safe, reflective space and write your responses to those things. And, and that's just kind of the start of journaling.
It's almost kind of making your own guided journal. I do that often when I hear, so for example, when I first heard this, the someone say, don't defend yourself, define yourself. That just struck me in the core. And so I wrote down that; Don't defend myself. Define myself. And then I wrote about like one of the times that I've found myself defending myself, one of the times that I've felt good about defining my space, what does that mean to me? And so I just then just took that one thing that I wrote down and a few days later went back and journaled through that. And that was me doing my own work and really thinking through those things that hit me to the core or questions that I think I didn't understand, or questions that just peaked my curiosity.
Um, I would suggest listening, reading, watching all of the things that have to do with whatever it is that you're working through, whether it's racial identity, adoption, trauma, just trauma in general. Just listen to people talk and when someone says something that strikes you, write it down and then go back later and journal about it.
Haley Radke: That's a great first step. Love it. Okay. On a personal note, I'm curious how you take care of yourself in this space. When I imagine lots of questions you're getting are from white adoptive parents who are trying to do better, but they want you to do their work for them. And folks like me asking you about these hard racial issues and, they're like, oh my gosh, sure, I'll talk about this again. How do you best take care of yourself in our community and in the work you do as a black woman who's a professional, highly credentialed and is still being asked lots of deep things about herself to, you know, be in space?
Abby Hasberry: So I am very, very, set in some of my boundaries. For sure. So, and I think that's something I didn't learn until after my forties, is that, first of all, I can say no just because I wanna say no, and I don't have to have a reason or an explanation or an excuse.
If I don't feel like doing something, there's a reason and just say no. So I think definitely establishing boundaries around my time. That has been, that has changed my life. Deciding when I will work and how long I will work, and that's something that's been afforded to me over the years. I definitely could not have been in this space 20 years ago where I say like, I'm only gonna work three hours today because what I'm doing is heavy.
I, I just, I wasn't in that space before, so that has been an amazing gift to me to be in a space where I can afford to just kind of claim my time. But also really staying grounded and centered in my why. And so I had an experience where I was around a, a lot of transracial adoptees and their parents, and their parents wanted a lot from me.
They were taking a lot from me, and I had to reground myself in the fact that I'm doing this for their kids. For little me to think about the experiences that I went through to hope that they don't have to go through some of the same pitfalls. I have to constantly reground myself in my why and and in my passion, and that's something I definitely learned as a principal.
I, I always told myself it's whatever's in the best interest of kids. Any decision I made any hard days, I just kept regrounding myself in that. And so as I've transitioned to this work, I had to find that same kind of grounding, that foundation, my why, and it's for transracial adoptive kids, adoptees in general.
Adult adoptees. It's just for adoptees, like that is my kind of my why, why I do this is because I've gotten to a space where I feel like I've done my work and I just wanna reach back and help other people do their work, whether that be adoptees or their parents to provide a more safe environment for them to do their own work.
Yeah, just, just that and then also spending time with my family, reminding myself of kind of who loves me and, and where, where I get that sense of just home.
Haley Radke: I love that. I was picturing all the needy parents you had to deal with as a principal and now they're just all adoptive parents. You were really trained. You practiced. Oh my gosh. Wow. I'm sorry. My kids go to a Christian school and our principal gets lots of calls. So yeah,
Abby Hasberry: So many calls.
Haley Radke: So many calls. Oh my gosh. Thank you so much. Is there anything I did not ask you about that you wanna make sure to mention before we talk about where folks can connect with you?
Abby Hasberry: So we didn't talk about my, my identity as a birth mom, and so I just kind of wanna mention that as well, just for those who are listening. That while I do a lot of my work for adoptees, I also do work with, with birth moms and kind of their, their ability to, to heal their own trauma and to understand what happened and their experience with the adoption system, the adoption institution as well. Um, so yeah.
Haley Radke: Okay. Thank you. So good that you're well, it's not good. It's not good that you lost your son to adoption. I'm sorry that happened. But you're a multi- experienced person in all of these different areas, make you really a tremendous resource for the community.
So if folks do, I've listened to you and are like, oh my gosh, I wanna work with Abby. Are you taking new clients? And how can we connect with you and tell us all the things?
Abby Hasberry: Sure. So I am taking new clients in Texas. I'm taking a couple more and I can be reached at dearabbycounseling.com. Abby is a b b y, so dear abbey counseling.com is where I can be reached and social media and Instagram, all of those places, I think that we will have kind of linked to this as well. Because I, while I am taking new clients in Texas, I am also open to just kind of speaking with people as well. And I do do some coaching as well too. So, and coaching is national, although therapies only in Texas at this moment.
Haley Radke: Yes, but you're a trained therapist, so, yes. That's amazing. Yes. We will have all your links in the show notes, so people can follow you. And I love some of the things you're sharing on Instagram and they make me think and, so yes, I think there's great value there and hopefully you'll come back and we'll talk about something else and that'll be awesome
Abby Hasberry: Absolutely.
Haley Radke: Okay. Thank you so much, Abby. Such a pleasure to talk with you today.
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Haley Radke: All right, it is time for our annual holiday break. I take about a month off to spend time with my family and prep shows for the new year. So we will have brand new episodes starting back in January, on the 13th of 2023, and I'm really excited to announce our first episode will be with Dr. JaeRan Kim, who is a amazing adoptee researcher, and we are going to be talking about the newly launched paper that Dr. Kim and four of her adoptee academic colleagues have written that is about the adoptee consciousness model. I cannot wait to share that with you. We had such a great conversation. Coming soon. Coming soon, January 13th, and in the meantime, if you are looking for more Adoptees On content, I would recommend going back through our Healing Series episodes to look for surviving in the holidays and those conversations with Leslie Johnson if you need a little more support in that area. Or if you're a reader, you can listen to some of our book club episodes over on Patreon. We have so many conversations with fabulous adoptee authors and we will be talking more about that in the new year as well.
So you can join us there. You can go to AdopteesOn.com/community to find out all the ways to support the show and access our book club and other weekly podcasts with myself and fellow adoptees. Love to have your support. I hope you have a wonderful holiday season, whatever you celebrate, and as I reflect back on 2022 and all the exciting milestones that I have been able to accomplish, only with the support of the community. I remain most grateful that I can support fellow adoptees in a myriad of ways of looking at other people's experiences, so we know we're not alone looking within ourselves to know what things we should be working on and looking at our history and becoming more knowledgeable about the systemic injustices and inhumane practices that continue to this day in the adoption industrial complex.
And I feel really fortunate that on that hard journey, I can do that alongside of you. So just know I'm always learning along with you. I, I am no expert because every single conversation I have, I'm always like, oh, I never thought of that. Oh yeah, that's so right. Like, I'm absorbing just as much from these conversations and I hope they feel supportive and helpful for you too.
So I'm grateful you're in this world. I hope that if the holiday season is a difficult time for you, that you are still able to find some sort of connection or something that you love to do to take extra care of yourself in this season. And I will be back with regular episodes starting January 13th in 2023.
And thanks for listening. I'm so glad you're here and let's talk again very soon.
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