When I began my journey of reconnecting to my body, it was from a quiet self-centered place. I don’t say that as a negative, though that is often how that term is used; unfortunate, given how much we can learn by coming back to your own center.
I just mean to say that I was in pain, I felt broken, and hopeless, and so me trying to figure out what was “wrong” with me and eventually finding my way into my body was just driven by wanting desperately to feel good again.
What I found inside my body was internal prisons. Conditioning about how to behave, what’s considered “good”, “productive”, “successful”; ways that I have learned to stifle my emotions, ignore my body’s signals, ignore my feelings and my intuition, and so on.
Some of that can be traced to upbring, to my childhood and my family, and to socialization of the community and country I grew up in.
At the same time, we, and those who raise us, are also socialized by larger contexts, the underlying collective consciousness and systems that pervade every part of our lives in invisible ways.
These dominant systems, like white supremacy, patriarchy, ableism, cis-heteronormativity, capitalism…ALL of them rely on the separation of the heart and body from the head; all of them rely on cutting off feeling for the sake of productivity and normativity.
These systems shape how we see the world, ourselves, and others. As Dr. Beverly Tatum puts it when speaking about racism, it is the air we breathe.
There is no question that at the core of racism is white body supremacy - the ever so subtle belief that white bodies are better, more worthy, more intelligent, more sensitive, more human. Any system you look at, whether it be criminal justice, healthcare, housing, or education shows us the same thing - Black, Brown, and Indigenous bodies are disciplined more often and more harshly, and taken care of less humanely.
This is not because all doctors, teachers, and social service workers are consciously racist. Consciously, their decisions are (often) not based on race. But, what we believe in our heads and what lives in us are two different stories.
This is true for all of us. Whatever system, whatever profession - it is ultimately made up of people; just everyday people like me and you who are not aware what we carry because we’ve been taught to live in our heads long ago; that is, until the unconscious becomes conscious, and then we have a choice.
Thankfully, we do have a choice, and there is a way.To really dismantle these systems, we have to look at how they continue to exist within us. We have to start listening to what lives in our bodies.
It’s not our fault that we are born breathing it, that we internalize it, and that it lives in us. But, it is our responsibility. As we get older, especially for those of us that have been racialized as white, it becomes our responsibility to look at how these notions of what is good, successful, worthy, proper, and right live in us, where we hold them, and how we can can begin untangling them from our beliefs of what being a valid human means.
How do we do this? We begin noticing. With honesty, curiosity, and compassion for ourselves, we begin noticing the subtle ways that these beliefs show up during situations and conversations, ones about race and also ones that are seemingly not about that at all.
Even if it’s just your own needs and how you treat your own body - start paying attention. Ways that we deny our own humanity are the same ways in which we deny those of others.
Start paying attention not just to your thoughts but the feelings in your body that accopany them - the tightening of the chest, the internal alarm, the stiffening, or the anxiety. And then, instead of backing away from the sensations, get curious about them; what’s the texture, the shape, the color.
What does my body need to be with it, even in the discomfort? Where does this live in me? Can I let myself feel it, without judgment, knowing that it can only shift once it is felt?
Can I journal about it, with complete honesty, even if it brings up guilt and shame? Can I find a friend or two to share this with? Can I find a community to practice this body-listening?
Can I make a little more space each time to be with what is instead of going up into my head (and if that’s what happens, not judging that either, and trying again the next day.)
Resmaa Manekem, author, psychotherapist, and teacher of Somatic Abolitionism, often talks about doing “reps.” The same way we get stronger by lifting lighter weights and then heavier, we build our nervous system’s capacity to feel and process racialized trauma and white body supremacy by the practice of coming into our bodies, being with it, and sharing it with others.
If you need a space to do reps with others, there are several Somatic Abolitionist and Embodied Antiracism Groups, both for white and BIPOC folks, if you do a quick Google search (or ask me!).
And, if you just start doing it for yourself like I did - paying attention to what lives in your body, where, how it feels, and practicing being with it - I promise that it will lead towards more space for your own humanity; and therefore always those of others.
If you want to talk more about this, need support, or just want to share your experience, please reach out.
I hope this Martin Lurther King Jr. day is meaningful and that you give your body and heart what they need, whether that be rest, reflection, connection, activism, or all of the above. And love, always love.
Irena
P.S.: There are so many ways in which race and racism live in our bodies, and these differ individually, as well as across and within racial, ethnic, and cultural groups. This blog certainly doesn’t cover or speak for everyone’s experience; it is simply my reflection, written today, given my own experience and inquiry and current understanding. I am always discovering more, both from within and from others. I am grateful to be in community with those doing the same.
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