Cultural Humility | Juliana Mosley, Ph.D. | TEDxWestChester

Key wellness / self-care / productivity-style takeaways (from the talk)

• Practice cultural humility as an “inner reset”

  • Use self-awareness to stay grounded in who you are while making room for other people’s perspectives.
  • View humility not as “being less,” but as yielding power so you can learn.

• Strengthen your “reflection muscles” (continuous self-evaluation)

  • Critically reflect on your assumptions, especially when you notice you’ve slipped into social norms or bias.
  • Treat mistakes as teachable moments (instead of shame), using them to adjust your approach in real time.

• Adopt lifelong learning as a mental model

  • Replace “I’ve learned enough” thinking with:
    • learning is infinite
    • you are a lifelong learner
    • you must revisit why you believe what you believe, based on your lived experience.

• Shift from “knowledge-based” competence to relationship-based humility

  • Focus less on having credentials or “book learning” and more on:
    • balancing power dynamics
    • viewing people as multi-dimensional
    • building mutual understanding through ongoing interaction.

• Build supportive partnerships (community resilience)

  • Prioritize advocacy + partnership over isolated self-advocacy.
  • In times of crisis, remember that helping others cuts across race, class, and ideology, reinforcing shared humanity.

---

Methodology / framework mentioned: Cultural Humility vs. Cultural Competency

• Cultural competency

  • Learning is treated as finite (courses/workshops).
  • Emphasizes book learning and can reinforce power imbalances (e.g., credentials taking precedence).
  • Often framed around self-advocacy.

• Cultural humility

  • Learning is infinite; requires ongoing critical self-evaluation.
  • Aims to identify and challenge power imbalances.
  • Encourages partnership and advocacy—learning about others and acting to support them.

---

Three things the speaker encourages (explicitly stated)

1. Consider learning as lifelong
   • Stay open, keep “learning seats” open, and learn from others while sharing yourself.
2. Shift and challenge power imbalances
   • Use humility to help everyone participate more equally in diverse communities.
3. Advocate and partner to level the playing field
   • Push systems/institutions toward equity so fairness becomes the norm.

---

Presenters / sources

• Presenter: Juliana Mosley, Ph.D. (TEDxWestChester talk)
• Source authors cited for the concept of cultural humility:
  • Dr. Melanie Tervalon
  • Dr. Jan Murray Garcia