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- Awareness Is a Systemic Technology: The Invisible Tool That Changes Everything
Awareness Is a Systemic Technology: The Invisible Tool That Changes Everything
From unconscious bias to power literacy—how seeing clearly becomes the seed of equity.
Jarell Bempong
April 09, 2025
In partnership with
A Mirror, Cracked but Sacred
We are told to be self-aware.
To read the room.
Adjust our tone.
Manage our impact.
But no one tells us the truth:
The room was built to silence you.
The tone was taught to make you disappear.
The mirror you’ve been handed is distorted by design.
Awareness, in most places, is framed as soft. Personal. Emotional.
But that definition is incomplete—and, in many cases, complicit.
Because real awareness doesn’t just observe behaviour.
It reveals the structure behind it.
It doesn’t stop at what you feel.
It shows you why you feel it, how you learned it, and what system trained you to stay silent about it.
This kind of awareness doesn’t whisper.
It interrupts.
It rewires.
It is the first architecture of justice.
And that’s what makes it dangerous—because once you see the structure clearly, you can’t pretend it isn’t there.
You can’t unsee a system.
From Dragons to Design
If you’ve been following this journey through The Intersectional Majority™, you’ll know that last month, we confronted two dragons.
The first was internal.
That whisper in your mind that says you don’t belong. That asks you to shrink. That labels your difference a weakness.
It haunts the racialised executive. The queer leader. The working-class visionary. The neurodivergent healer.
We named that dragon. And in naming it, we began to tame it.
The second dragon was external.
Systemic.
It shows up in algorithmic bias, “neutral” hiring policies, corporate cultures that reward sameness and punish dissent.
That dragon breathes fire through the systems we navigate every day.
We didn’t slay that one either.
We outgrew it.
Because what we thought was the fire meant to destroy us was actually preparing the ground.
We weren’t being buried.
We were being planted.
Like Japanese knotweed—resilient, mislabelled, pushing through cracks in concrete—we broke through.
We grew through what tried to erase us.
And now, in April, we arrive at what comes after the fire:
Clarity.
The moment when, in the ashes, you begin to see the pattern.
The design.
The mirror.
A Moment That Changed Everything
A few years ago, I was in a therapy session with a client—someone gifted, respected, outwardly confident.
But underneath that surface was exhaustion.
They looked at me and said something I’ll never forget:
“Every room I walk into asks me to leave something outside.
My softness. My story. My voice.
I’m praised when I’m quiet. But punished when I’m myself.”
As I listened, something shifted inside me.
They weren’t describing their experience.
They were describing mine.
Suddenly, the mirror turned back on me.
And I saw it.
I had spent years believing my burnout was a personal flaw.
That my sensitivity meant I wasn’t cut out for leadership.
That I was just “too much” or “not enough,” depending on who was speaking.
But the truth was simpler and more damning:
It was never about me.
It was about the system.
The script.
The silence I had inherited.
That moment broke something open.
It redefined how I understand awareness.
Because real awareness doesn’t blame.
It reveals.
It doesn’t ask: “What’s wrong with me?”
It asks: “Who taught me to survive by disappearing?”
Why So Many Change Efforts Fail
Most people want to do the right thing.
They want to be better leaders, better teammates, better humans.
So they sign up for DEI workshops.
They attend bias training.
They read the latest anti-racism book.
But nothing seems to change.
Why?
Because almost every model of awareness we’ve been handed focuses on individual performance—not systemic design.
You might be taught about microaggressions—but not the environment that normalised them.
You might be told to be inclusive—but not how inclusion is impossible in a system that punishes difference.
In short:
You’re told to change behaviour.
But you’re not taught to interrogate the structure behind the behaviour.
This is why many efforts fall short.
Good intentions.
Minimal results.
And often, more harm.
Because without structural awareness, we ask the marginalised to adapt to broken systems—rather than redesign the system itself.
So, What Is Awareness Really?
We need a new definition.
A better one.
One that actually works in the real world.
Awareness is not soft.
It’s not just empathy or kindness or being “mindful” at meetings.
Awareness is systemic literacy.
It’s power decoded.
It’s cultural consciousness in action.
It means you can:
Recognise the systems that shaped your beliefs
Understand how those systems reward some behaviours and punish others
Identify where your values and your actions are aligned—or in conflict
Choose responses that honour your truth, not just protect your safety
In my work, I call this Intersectional Cultural Consciousness™.
It’s the capacity to see, name, and interrupt systems—starting with the ones you’ve internalised.
And the good news is: like all literacy, it can be learned.
Practised.
Strengthened.
The Systemic Mirror™ – A Tool for Seeing What Was Never Named
We can’t change what we won’t see.
That’s why we created the Systemic Mirror™.
It’s a tool for naming the unspoken.
A ritualised practice that helps individuals, teams, and organisations reflect on what they’ve inherited—and what they want to redesign.
It doesn’t give you answers.
It gives you the right questions.
Here are three sample prompts:
“What system taught you to disappear in order to survive?”
“Whose comfort has your silence protected?”
“Where is your truth still waiting to be heard?”
When used over time, the Mirror reveals your internalised scripts.
Not to shame you—but to free you.
It’s not therapy.
It’s not coaching.
It’s a systemic lens for those ready to lead from awareness—not assumption.
Why This Matters—Right Now
If you're reading this, chances are you're someone who holds space for others.
You’re a therapist.
A coach.
A strategist.
A leader.
Maybe even all of the above.
You already know that systems shape experience.
What you might not yet have is the language—or the structure—to make those systems visible to others.
That’s what this Mirror is for.
It’s not a worksheet.
It’s a catalyst.
A way to interrupt inherited silence.
To make power visible.
To name what we were taught to suppress.
Because in a world where injustice often hides in “business as usual,” seeing clearly is a radical act.
🧠 Download the Systemic Mirror™ PDF
Inside you’ll find:
8 guided prompts
Instructions for using it solo, in teams, or in facilitated spaces
Ritual-based reflection practices
Design notes for applying insights to systems, not just self
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From Reflection to Redesign: How to Use the Systemic Mirror™
Seeing is the first step.
But awareness, without action, becomes aesthetic.
That’s why the Systemic Mirror™ was never meant to sit on a shelf.
It was designed to be used.
In coaching conversations.
In therapy rooms.
In team huddles and leadership retreats.
This isn’t a passive worksheet. It’s a diagnostic lens.
A way to rewire inherited responses, power scripts, and cultural assumptions.
Here’s how you can begin.
1. Use It Solo: Turn Reflection Into Regeneration
Many of us carry beliefs we never consented to.
Ideas about leadership, success, worthiness, voice.
Most of them inherited. Almost none of them questioned.
The Mirror works as a weekly ritual. A practice of coming home to yourself.
Here’s how to use it:
🌀 Choose one prompt a week. Don’t rush. Let it sit.
🕯️ Light a candle or set a time limit. Ritual helps rewire the nervous system from performance to presence.
🖊️ Write freely. Let memory surface. Let discomfort speak.
Try this:
Prompt: “Whose approval did you learn to prioritise over your own truth?”
Reflection: What system taught you that your value depended on external validation? Was it family? School? A spiritual community? A workplace?
The goal isn’t to judge your past self.
The goal is to see it.
Because what we see clearly, we can redesign intentionally.
2. Use It in Leadership Teams: Disrupt Group Scripts
If you're a manager, facilitator, or executive leader, here’s a truth you already know:
Culture is built in the moments we don’t script.
In the way silence is handled.
In who gets interrupted.
In what gets celebrated—and what gets ignored.
The Systemic Mirror is a powerful tool to use in group settings.
Especially when trust is fraying, burnout is rising, or inclusion feels stalled.
Try this process:
🔁 Set the Frame
Open with: “This isn’t about blame. It’s about seeing what we’ve inherited—and what we’re building next.”
💬 Use One Prompt per Session
Example: “What unspoken rules govern belonging in this team?”
Let people journal silently, then share in pairs or small groups.
📊 Surface the Patterns
Ask: What’s being protected by these rules? Whose discomfort drives our culture?
🎯 Move to Design
End with: “If we were building a culture from scratch—what would we centre?”
This process surfaces the invisible operating system behind organisational dynamics.
And once a system becomes visible?
It becomes changeable.
3. Use It as a Group Intervention: From Reflection to Systems Change
Many of the organisations I work with think they have a performance problem.
A culture problem. A retention problem.
But what they really have is an awareness gap.
A missing mirror.
The Mirror works as a facilitated group tool for:
Team offsites
Leadership development
DEI diagnostic workshops
Cultural design intensives
One of the most powerful ways to begin?
Silence Mapping.
Here’s how it works:
Ask a group: “What stories never get told in this space?”
Let the silence speak. Resist the urge to fill it.
Write down the themes that emerge (e.g., race, disability, grief, neurodivergence).
Reflect together: “What have we been taught it’s unsafe to feel here?”
This is where culture work becomes liberation work.
Not because we shouted louder.
But because we listened deeper.
Ko Sie: The Burial Before the Blueprint
In Bempong Pedagogy™, we talk about a sacred phase called Ko Sie.
It translates from Akan as “to bury.”
But this isn’t the kind of burial that ends in death.
It’s the kind that starts with rest. With release. With letting go of old scripts.
Ko Sie is the pause before power.
The moment when silence becomes soil.
When you realise you don’t need to hustle for worthiness.
You don’t need to bend your truth to be accepted.
You only need to see clearly.
And then—begin again.
Awareness is the beginning of Ko Sie.
It’s not insight.
It’s unlearning.
It’s the quiet work of uprooting what was never yours to carry.
And when practiced in community, this awareness becomes regenerative.
You no longer feel like you’re the problem.
You see the pattern.
You locate your power.
You begin to name the truth beneath the noise.
The Sting You Feel? That’s Your Soul Waking Up.
Many people experience a sting the first time they do this work.
They say things like:
“I never realised how much I’d normalised this.”
“It hurts to see how I’ve stayed silent to protect belonging.”
“Why didn’t anyone teach me this sooner?”
That sting isn’t shame.
It’s not weakness.
It’s not proof that you’ve failed.
It’s your soul saying: Now, we begin.
The Mirror is not here to expose your flaws.
It’s here to reflect your freedom.
And every time you return to it, you reclaim a part of yourself the system tried to erase.
🧠 Download the Systemic Mirror™ PDF
→ Download Here
Includes:
8 Ritual Prompts
Solo + Team Instructions
Reflection & Integration Guide
Systems Change Starter Framework
🖋️ Use it. Share it. Teach from it. Just don’t keep it in the dark.
✨ Experience This in Practice
If you want to go deeper—beyond reflection and into transformation—I invite you to experience this work with me directly.
We don’t just talk about systems.
We map them.
Unlearn them.
And then we redesign them—together.
📥 Book a session via ICC-AI™ Augmented Systems Psychotherapy & Coaching.
This is not traditional therapy.
It’s systemic, cultural, and liberation-aligned.
Built specifically for leaders, healers, founders, and equity workers who are ready to shift from surviving systems to reshaping them.
From Sight to System
Let’s return to where we began.
You were never “too sensitive.”
You were never “too much.”
You were never broken.
You were reacting—brilliantly—to systems that were never built to hold your truth.
Now, you see them.
And once seen, they can’t be unseen.
As the Ashanti elders say:
“Nkyinkyim nni baako a ɔrenyɛ yie.”
“One who refuses to change will never succeed.”
But when we see clearly—
When we redesign from truth—
We don’t just succeed.
We build something sacred.
This is your invitation to begin.
💥 3-Part CTA Trilogy (Braided Into Final Section):
📥 Download the Systemic Mirror™
Start your practice. Map your silence. Reclaim your truth.
→ 8 high-impact prompts for individuals, teams, and facilitators
🧠 Experience ICC-AI™ Psychotherapy & Coaching
This is where reflection becomes redesign.
For those ready to move from insight to strategy, from burnout to blueprint.
→ 1:1 immersive systems coaching that centres culture, power, and liberation
📩 Let’s Build It Together
Whether you're leading a team, guiding a community, or rethinking your own leadership—this is the starting point.
→ Reach me directly: [email protected]
🌀 Final Spiral Out:
Next week, we move from mirror to map.
From seeing the system to plotting your power within it.
We’re not just making meaning—we’re building models.
And the blueprint starts here.
The tools are ready.
The mirror is waiting.
The redesign begins—with you.
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I’m Jarell Bempong—founder of Bempong Talking Therapy™ and the creator of Intersectional Cultural Consciousness™, Soul Technology™, and ICC-AI™ Systems Psychotherapy.
As a Black, gay, neurodivergent therapist and liberation strategist, I’ve spent years supporting people to unlearn inherited scripts, reclaim their power, and redesign the systems that shaped them. My work lives at the intersection of mental health, cultural clarity, systemic truth-telling, and spiritual strategy.
This tool was born not from theory, but from lived experience.
I’ve used it in rooms where silence felt safest—and watched it open the door to something truer.
You can reach me at [email protected]
or explore more at www.bempongtalkingtherapy.com
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