How do I recognize internalized colonialism in my own thinking and choices?

Sor Juana spent her life in a system that told her certain minds—particularly women's minds, particularly Indigenous minds—shouldn't exist in certain spaces. She noticed the cage because she kept running into its bars. You do the same when you catch yourself apologizing for your own knowledge, deferring to voices that aren't actually wiser than yours, or believing that your way of understanding the world is less legitimate than someone else's. Start here: What beliefs about your own capability came from outside you? Not suggestions or feedback—I mean the deep ones. The voice that says your accent is wrong, your questions are too much, your family's way of doing things is backward. Write them down. Don't judge them yet. Then ask: Who benefits if I believe this about myself? That's the hinge. Internalized colonialism isn't about blame; it's about recognizing systems that were built to shrink you, and then deciding—consciously, repeatedly—whether you want to keep living inside them. Juana didn't escape this completely. None of us do. But she named it. That naming is where resistance actually starts.