Solidarity is a Practice

The body is a raw place and now more than ever, the world can feel incredibly scary. The recent murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery highlight that black bodies are far more vulnerable to the dramatic violence of police brutality and mass incarceration as well as smaller daily violence, like little cuts, of social and economic discrimination. 

I feel deep grief and anger in the face of a political and economic system that creates so much suffering in our name. I also feel hope. 

While these deaths are a horror, they are catalyzing change. I’m committed to being part of that change in the yoga, meditation and fitness world of which we are a part.

As a white yoga teacher I‘m waking up, with humility, from a naive slumber. We are all responsible, however unconsciously, for the perpetuation of structural oppression. I’m clarifying my commitment to healing with the intention of following Black leadership in co-creating a world where humans live in harmony with themselves, each other and the land. 

Until Black bodies are free, none of us are free. 

Until Black bodies are safe, none of us are safe. 

Solidarity is an action. Actions speak louder than words and activism is the rent we pay for living on this planet (Alice Waters). But in the midst of donating, signing petitions, calling legislators and educating myself around white privilege I’m reminding myself that its a marathon not a sprint. Structural change happens from the inside out as much as the outside in.

As I’ve been listening to powerful Black voices I’m inspired by the repetitive theme of rest as resistance to a paradigm that relies on individualism, perfectionism, urgency and quantity over quality (see the awesome Dismantling RacismWeb Workbook for more).

While we all know that this is the world we live in- do ANY of us want it?

Rest is a radical threat to the system that feeds on the grind of urgency…. We are living and participating in violence via a machine level pace of functioning. Anyone who goes against this pace is living as an outlier and a risk taker. It is warrior style resistance to push back to disrupt this reality.

- Trisha Hershey from the Nap Ministry

In order to dismantle a violent culture, we need to rest, rejuvenate and regularly drop in to our intention to create a world where humans live in harmony with each other, themselves and the land. In the words of Bayo Akomolafe, "These times are urgent, let us slow down.”

I acknowledge that the majority of yogis in the US are white. 

To my fellow white allies, I stand humbly alongside you as we listen, learn and take action together. This is not work we do as a ‘service’ to certain people but to reclaim the fullness of our humanity, to liberate ourselves by getting more and more intimate with our unconscious shadows. 

To wake up. 

To pull back the veil of illusion. 

This is work I believe we must do for ourselves and for our ancestors- to rectify their existential suffering and the suffering they inflicted as a result, to get to the root of intergenerational trauma, disconnection and domination in our own heart.

As a white yoga teacher I commit to a lifetime practice of decolonizing my body-mind and my teaching, not just during crisis but as a lifestyle. I commit to using my embodiment and my privilege as a pathway to a world where humans live in harmony with themselves, each other and the land. 

In Humility and Solidarity, 

Hayley

White Yogi Weekly Practice

Instead of providing yet another extensive resource list I’d like to share some simple ways I’m connecting the dots this week.

In the midst of information overload I was INCREDIBLY GRATEFUL to come across the work of Resmaa Menakem, and his incredibly well produced, informative and heart opening free course on Racialized Trauma that illuminates how white supremacy lives beyond the mind, deep in our nervous systems. Listen to his engaging and informative interview with Krista Tippett in On Being.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

I’ve purchased Resmaa’s book "My Grandmother's Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies.” Stay tuned for our next edition of Yogi Bookclub for White Allies. ⠀