Violence, Biases and Shifting Perspective - resources included

Yesterday Antwon Rose, another young black boy, was killed without justice. Every day families are being torn apart – and not just at the border. There is a history of black and brown babies being taken and separated from their families as old as this country itself. Can you pause and take that in?

I have just begun to wade through my own biases, racism, questions and grief around the violence that makes up the fabric of this country. I’ll be the first to say that I am not an expert by any means. I’m really a beginner, joining the party waaaaaaay too late (for that I’m sorry).

“But it feels too terrible. I don’t want to see any more violence. I want it to stop. I want to make it better. What can I do? How do we solve this?! What action can be taken right now? How do we course correct”?!

These questions and thoughts are useful to me in that they get me thinking. But they also serve to keep me in a pattern of top-down hierarchy. They keep my mind in a binary grip. And from everything that I know about healing trauma it doesn’t work on those terms.

Healing trauma is a non-linear process. It doesn’t follow your desired schedule. It works in a very feminine way, that’s to say that it moves freely and associates many things at the same time. Healing one part of you is connected to healing all the parts of you.

Just like our nation, our body functions as many small parts that are intertwined on the edges as well as connected through the center by communication networks. When one part is out of whack, it signals distress to the whole. That distress might look like something small or appear to be “nothing” at first glance. But the more we ignore our body signals (and the voices of uprising on a national level) the more dissonance we create. On the personal and the collective level.

I work via yoga and movement awareness to teach people to listen (to themselves and their bodies) in order to create and/or restore a compassionate relationship with themselves. At the end of the day, how we treat ourselves informs how we see and treat others. If we can cultivate kindness and pause individually, I have hope that we can slow down enough to feel collective pain and begin there.

If you are interested in shifting your perspective, I’ve compiled some resources on this page. It’s super personal and not exhaustive by any means. 

1.     Take responsibility for your own racial education! Google the history of chattel slavery and ask how that might relate to the current violence, oppression and injustice of black people in America today.

2.     Listen to podcasts that center voices of color, gender fluidity

3.     Sign up for a workshop, webinar, training, or conference where someone will help you see your implicit biases. I’ve been doing the Holistic Resistance counseling and can highly recommend it.

4.     Stay curious and open when someone different than you shares their experience.

5.     Donate your time and/or money! If you don’t have the resources right now, check this out.

 

Please reach out if you need more support. This kind of waking up work requires a lot of self care and support to maintain. Have heart. Use your imagination. What kind of world would you like to live in? How would that be possible from where we are today? You don’t need to know the answers, just allow yourself to feel into the questions.

 

Xoxo, W

photo by Monica Galentino