Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Kyle Toon. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Kyle, thanks for joining us today. Was there a moment in your career that meaningfully altered your trajectory? If so, we’d love to hear the backstory.

During a 14-year military career, I began to question and interrogate my cultural identity, consciousness, and embodiment of African ancestral knowledge and wisdom. The more that I leaned into introspection, self-reflection, and interoception through the process of reading, creative and conscious writing, therapy, somatic practices, and reconnecting with ancestry – I started to experience a great dissonance and misalignment with the military. Unfortunately, after months of thought suppression and avoidance, the dissonance would not dissipate and became overwhelmingly pervasive that it negatively impacted my psychological, emotional, and spiritual health. Eventually, I discovered the language that spoke to this intense distress stemming from dissonance related to military service: Conscientious Objection. An empowering revelation that offered meaning, purpose, understanding, and psycho-spiritual harmony.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I was named Kyle by my oldest brother in 1991. I am of African descent, a father, husband, kinsmen, and US Army Conscientious Objector with close to a decade and a half of military experience, now pursuing a Master of Social Work from the University of Colorado Colorado Springs (Spring ’25). I am an avid reader of all books and reading material centered on African history, spirituality, ethics, Black liberation, Black Psychology, western colonialism and imperialism, and African American history. I believe wholeheartedly in spiritual connection with inner divinity, ancestry, the Supreme being, and nature. All of this informs who I am, what I represent, how I want to be perceived, my vision, aspirations, moral compass, and destiny. Pivoting from military intelligence into social work and mental health was a natural transition. After realizing how, while in the military I was manipulating, exploiting, dehumanizing, and contributing to the destruction of Indigenous people overseas, when I came into consciousness of this reality, I wanted to completely reform, reshape, and refine intellectually, morally, spiritually, and intra-personally. On the pathway to becoming a master’s level social worker is what I thought could rehumanize my orientations. While going through the program, something was missing. The perspectives, and experiences of African people and their descendants were non-existent. My social work education lacked African-centered consciousness. I decided to infuse intellectuals, educators, liberation leaders, historians, and African-centered warrior scholars into a social work education that did not speak to or illuminate my African history, heritage, or culture. Creatively, I began to explore different ways and means of transforming personal experience, social work education, African-centered consciousness, and my love for storytelling and poetry into a business that addresses the psycho-spiritual and mental health needs of African descendants. This led to creating a podcast, Gracefully Imperfect, writing a poetry book titled “The Depths Below” and creating Mental & Creative Liberation LLC as the creative and intellectual container vehicle for speaking, facilitation, consultation, and community-centered collaborations. Today, as a soon-to-be Liberation Social Worker, I offer nonprofit and grassroots program development and facilitation services, speaking and facilitation services with humanist entities, agencies, organizations, and corporations serious about Black mental wellness and psycho-spiritual liberation, and wellness coaching. Additionally, all independent publications are housed within Mental & Creative Liberation LLC. What distinguishes liberation social work from other mental health professionals is the complete investment in fostering the conditions necessary for the healing from racialized trauma, soul and spirit restoration, and transformation through self-knowledge. I offer revolutionary love and immersive empathy – two African-centered concepts that are rooted in Ubuntu ( a person is a person through other persons) and Sawobona (I see you). I put people and their environmental and cultural context first, and offer space for them to reclaim their personal power and dignity through courageous discussions and conversations, whilst being the culturally attentive lighthouse that guides them to truth, critical consciousness, shaping of a collective identity, and the untethering of the soul from White Supremacy and anti-Black Racism. I co-journey, I do not direct; I affirm, I do not dismiss; I empower, I do not disempower; I use life-giving language, I do not criticize or judge; I practice humanism and humility, not capitalism or material domination.

Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?

James Baldwin – The Creative Process (essay)
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. – Where Do We Go From Here and The Trumpet of Conscience (books)
Malik Hajj El-Shabazz – The Ballot or the Bullet (Speech)
Dr. Amos Wilson – Money and Global Power (Lecture)

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

I lost the desire and ability to dream. The military taught me how to be pragmatic, “realistic”, and goal-oriented. Dreaming became a far cry from adult reality – a distant, forgotten experience. The creative edge I exhibited in early childhood dissipated as the stressors, anxieties, pressures, mandates, lofty expectations, and rigid standards of the military system overwhelmed the process of thought, communication, and action. Change occurred gradually when I began to learn about the origins, history, and impacts of conscientious objectors within the context of geopolitical oppression and war. The struggle for military resistance reintroduced me to creative thought, storytelling, and poetry. The struggle for military resistance offered permission to introspect and confront the internal dissonance causing psychological distress and emotional pain. I relearned what it meant to be creatively free, just as I once was as a little boy – liberated from structures of external and internal oppression, and spiritually attuned to the highest expressions of self-Divinity: dreams, imagination, and visualization.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.embraceourimperfection.com
• Instagram: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kyle-toon-30ba22b6?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=android_app
• Other: Support the Podcast, Gracefully Imperfect
  

  Order self-written poetry book, The Depths Below
  

  Substack Publication, CREATIVIST.
  https://creativist.substack.com/?utm_medium=web

Image Credits

Kyle Toon, Mental & Creative Liberation LLC