Flipping Healing On Its Head
You are not broken, the systems we live in are.
Dear Sippers of Life,
In my 30s, I couldn’t think about the future without feeling a deep sense of responsibility, urgency, and dread. The general tone was that I wasn’t doing enough.
My relationship with my body mirrored these feelings of insufficiency. My anxiety and depression were a problem to be “fixed.” Wellbeing was only possible by earning it through toil and diligence.
The promise (lie) of arriving at a better future, a hallmark of racial capitalism, kept me perpetually fixated on what wasn’t working as a means for maintaining a (false) sense of control. My negative thinking and comparison mind swelled as I chased after shiny things that I believed were the “key” to feeling better and improving my life.
Flipping healing on its head
I can hear the record in my head scratch upon my discovery of politicized healing. This approach, which regarded my body and feelings as sources of wisdom rather than deficiencies, suggested nothing was wrong with me.
Could this be true? My thoughts spun:
What if there is nothing to fix?
What if this doubt and anxiety are an impact of living inside of broken systems? Systems that have shaped not only me but my people?
What if healing is about recognizing what is working?
Internally, a battle was waged between this more profound knowing and my well-worn patterns.
“But, but, but,“ I could feel my mind protesting. ”But what about the weight gain? What about the sadness? What about those days when you can’t get out of bed? Are you trying to tell me that these things are not a problem? Don’t you want to feel better?”
A politicized lens reminds us that we can’t extract the human from the system.
Our healing efforts often reify the myth of an autonomous self. Rather than recognizing the power structures and institutions that rule our lives as forces intentionally designed to kill us, we believe we are the problem. We just need to meditate, go to yoga, eat better.
Imagine pulling an ailing fish out of a polluted pond, giving it such advice, and then throwing it back in.
When we see that the pain points in our lives are not simply due to our faulty wiring but rather the impacts of systemic violence and dis-ease, how we approach our wellbeing shifts.
Rather than believing we’re one self-care practice short of the promised land, we sense the importance of grounding in something more trustworthy. We ask, even in this turbidity, where is there respite? Where is resilience? Where is possibility?
These sites always exist.
Alongside the ache in our heart, there is also the strength in our legs.
Alongside our anger at the genocide being enacted against Palestinians, there is also the hope of Pachamama’s personhood.
Alongside our fears of impending civil war and apocalypse, there is also the steadying guidance of spirit and ancestors.
From “I am broken” to “We are alive.”
Locating what is working shifts us from the narrative of “I am broken” to remembering our place within something larger than ourselves. We meet the steady drumbeat of capitalism’s insistence on our deficiency with the ferocity of “we are alive.”
In the light of these life-supporting eddies, we make our home.
This isn’t about avoiding the dark places.
Nor is it a prioritization of our wellbeing before others.
We see the impossibility of personal wellness while in poisoned waters.
We know that what we build externally is an extension of what we cultivate internally. We also recognize that transforming what ails will require the intelligence of an inspired, centered collective.
We orient toward the light of what is working:
So we can practice recognizing our enoughness even in our shakiness.
So we can learn how to let in and viscerally receive what feels good.
So we may be reminded that there exists possibilities beyond what we can see.
As we continue to live in the shadows of systems of harm, we come back over and over again to the light of the sun. This respite is our touchpoint to life. It is where real wellness lives.
The world we deserve to live in can only be created when we build from this place.
With a splash,
k
p.s. What might this look like? See the practice below.
Practice: Feeling for What’s Working
Take a deep breath and let it out with a long sigh.
Let your shoulders come down away from your ears.
Let your jaw release.
Take another breath.
Notice your body.
What sensations are present?
Don’t worry about trying to find the exact words to describe what you’re noticing. If feeling your body in this way is new to you, it’s enough to simply say, “There’s something in my gut or my chest.” Or even, “I don’t know, but I’m here.”
Now notice: Is there somewhere in your body that you can say yes to? Most often, when we relate to our bodies, we focus on what’s not working. Instead, what is working in your body? Can you notice one place that feels enough?
Where do you feel settled?
Where do you feel available?
Where do you feel strong?
Check in with your hands, your legs, the tip of your nose, the back of your head.
Sometimes, the locations of resilience in our bodies are foreign to us. Because they aren’t paining, we think nothing is going on. This practice is an invitation to look at the larger picture.
We’re not looking for magic and sparkles (though that’s great if you notice that). When something feels “blank” or “neutral,” we might also say that place is settled.
What would it be like to build a relationship with your body from this place?
What’s Coming Up
We still have (a few) spaces left!
Root & Unfurl: June 18- 22
In Mi’kma’ki/ Near Halifax, Canada
Root & Unfurl is a retreat for women of color to explore personally and collectively how we might move toward a more liberated future. It’s a space to practice being free and feeling whole together. My incredible co-host and I are looking forward to offering heart-centered somatic and creative practices, nourishing food and ample rest in the farm and forest.
Join us as we collectively sync to the rhythms of the natural world and trust the magic that arises.
Just had to say I so appreciate the practice at the end of this newsletter, and I so appreciated this line: “Don’t worry about trying to find the exact words to describe what you’re noticing.”
It’s often quite hard for me to interact meaningfully with self care-ish content (for my own reasons!) and this practice really grounded me in your message.
I try to maintain a working ethic that radically accepts bodies in a world not made for bodies (as a person and as a parent), but I needed this reminder today. "What if there's nothing to fix?" helped me settle back into my body this morning.