Vulnerability & Connection

I've been revisiting the work of Brenee Brown this week. If you don't know her, this TED talk is excellent. A shame researcher who studies human connection and vulnerability, one of her key points is that we humans have a fundamental need for connection to others, and suffer in many ways without it, yet, to connect deeply requires a level of vulnerability and relinquishing of control that can feel v uncomfortable

It got me thinking about this lockdown phase of our lives and how it has brought us closer together. Regular western social structures dictate that we are meant to be in control, have the answers, continually be happy, productive, and materially wealthy. For many, the last few months (even just these last two weeks) have turned all of that to mush: despair, fear, sadness, confusion, loss, inertia, humility. All of this can make us feel SO vulnerable because we're suddenly not so 'sorted' and we are made to believe that to let anyone see that would angle us perfectly for rejection. Which feels like the opposite of connection.

BUT we have an opportunity here: right now we have collective awareness of the illusory nature of control, we have collective loss and sadness and anger and confusion and this is SO beautiful because we have the opportunity for deeper interpersonal connection - if, that is, we are willing to own and admit to our vulnerability.

In an Instagram post this week I said that I've been feeling a bit useless. I almost didn't post it, because I worried that no one would want to learn from someone who hasn't got their shit together..! But I did, and a lot of you said you've felt the same and were glad to hear you weren't the only one. When we yoga on zoom, we let each other (and sometimes 20 other strangers, for you guys) into our homes: vulnerable exposure! Thank you. We need this mutual vulnerability because it offers mutual support. Yoga teaches us to be all parts of ourselves. Because all parts of us are valid as much as they are changing and impermanent. All part of us are natural; all parts divine. Courage is sharing that.

See you on the mat. Come as you are ;)

Anti-Racism Resources

Together, we have the power to change the world right now. IF we learn. Please do your bit. We are in this together. I hope compilation of resources I have had shared with me makes it easier. Big thanks to Rachael Welford and Psycle London for a lot of these.

WEBSITES

Black Lives Matter (Global)

The Black Curriculum (UK)

Colour of Change (US)

Equal Justice Initiative (US)

The Bail Project (US)

UK CHARITIES

Show Racism the Red Card

Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust

Runnymede

Stop Hate

MENTAL HEALTH RESOURCES

 Sunshine Behavioural Health

BOOKS

Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge

Me and White Supremacy by Layla F Saad

Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams

Policing the Black Man by Toni Morrison

Black and British: A Forgotten History by David Olusoga

Black, Listed: Black British Culture Explored by Jeffrey Boakye

How to Be An Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi

White Privilege: The Myth of a Post-Racial Society by Kalwant Bhopal

How Europe Underdeveloped Africa by Walter Rodney

Natives: Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire by Akala

Brit(ish) by Afua Hirsch

So You Want to Talk about Race by Ijeoma Oluo

Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America Ibram X. Kendi

Natives: Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire Akala

Born a crime Trevor Noah (recommended by Ruth - thank you)

Racism And White Fragility: Things That Make White People Uncomfortable Henry Moore

Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People Mahzarin R. Banaji

White fragility Robin DiAngelo

So you want to talk about race Ijeoma Oluo

Tears we can not stop Michael Eric Dyson

This will be my undoing Morgan Jerkins

Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? Beverly Daniel Tatum

I know why the caged bird sings - Maya Angelou

Sway Dr Pragya Agarwal 

BOOKS FOR CHILDREN

A is for Activist by Innosanto Nagara (ages 1+)

All Are Welcome by Alexandra Penfold (ages 1+)

Anti-Racist Baby (coming soon) by Ibram X. Kendi (ages 1+)

Mixed: A Colorful Story by Arree Chung (ages 1+)

The Colors of Us by Karen Katz (ages 3+)

Henry's Freedom Box: A True Story from the Underground Railroad by Ellen Levine (ages 5+)

Little People, Big Dreams (various) (ages 5+)

Little Leaders: Bold Women in Black History & Little Leaders: Exceptional Men in Black History by Vashti Harrison (ages 5+)

Young Gifted and Black: Meet 52 Black Heroes from Past and Present by Jamia Wilson (ages 5+)

What is Race? Who are Racists? Why Does Skin Colour Matter? And Other Big Questions by Nikesh Shukla and Claire Heuchan (ages 10+)

DOCUMENTARIES & FILMS 

13th - Netflix

American Son - Netflix

Black Sheep - Youtube

Dear White People - Netflix

Fruitvale Station - Netflix

If Beale Street Could Talk - Youtube, Amazon and Google Play

Selma - Youtube, Amazon and Google Play

The Hate U Give - Youtube, Amazon and Google Play

Time: The Kalief Browder Story - Netflix

When They See Us - Netflix (Find a learning companion here.)

PODCASTS:

All My Relations - https://www.allmyrelationspodcast.com/

Ruby Warrington - Are we addicted to privilege with Layla Saad

Pod for the cause - https://civilrights.org/podforthecause/

About Race Reni Eddo-Lodge https://www.aboutracepodcast.com/

The Diversity Gap https://www.thediversitygap.com/

Have you heard Georges Podcast -  https://haveyouheardblog.com/have-you-heard/ (Recommended by Ruth - thank you)

Podcasts about the black British experience https://www.bustle.com/p/podcasts-about-the-black-british-experience-race-in-the-uk-22949227 (via Adah Parris - thank you)

Layla Saad - Being a good ancestor https://www.thefutureisbeautiful.co/2019/11/28/e76-layla-saad-on-race-identity-and-self-reclamation-being-a-good-ancestor-me-and-white-supremacy/ 

INSTAGRAM ACCOUNTS

@blklivesmatter and @ldnblm

@jonelleyoga - a wise yoga teacher pal of mine

@gisellebuchanan - poet, artist, arts educator

@akalamusic - British rapper, journalist, author, activist and poet

@blackhistorywalks - Guided walking, bus and river tours focusing on London's 2000 years of Black history

@ckyourprivilege - Informative posts and ways to take action

@florencegiven - UK-based artist and author

@georgethepoet - British spoken-word artist, poet, rapper, and podcast host with an interest in social and political issues

@ladyphyll - co-founder of UK Black Pride

@laylafsaad - Author and teacher

@munroebergdorf - English model and activist

@rachel.cargle - public academic, writer, and lecturer

Cactus vs. Childhood Trauma: A Sacred Valley San Pedro Experience

So, I just got back from Peru...

...which was a first-time travel experience for me. It is now one of my favourite places on earth, or what I saw of it is (mainly the Sacred Valley). The retreat I was co-running with my wise and wonderful friend, Marta, included two full-day ceremonies working with a traditional South American plant medicine, San Pedro (Wachuma). I took part in both, plus a third a few days before the retreat started.

I'm not going to go into the ins and outs of what San Pedro is, how it works and whether you should try it (you can Google that stuff) but I will give a brief synopsis of my experience:
I WAS BLOWN AWAY.
I could leave it there, really, but I won't, because I want to say a little more about exactly what I mean by that. The thing is, I mean it almost literally; my sense of self was pulled apart and big chunks of it stared me back in the face, laughing, but kinda helpfully... 

My experience was not that unusual but it was deeply personal: in my first ceremony, I very viscerally released some long-held trauma from something that occurred when I was about nine years old. What did that look like? Over a period of about four hours, I witnessed (fully consciously) old, deep feelings of suspicion, anger, fear, distrust, distress, hurt and sadness manifest in my entire body as searing pain and a kind of delirious fever. Then, through the rest of the day, I lived through a torrential outflow of violent tears, abandoned wailing, vomiting, tremors to my core, jaw-wrenching yawns and slightly manic laughter. The whole while, my brain span me around in circles replaying thought patterns 9-year-old Kate came up with and subsequent behavioural choices in my work, my relationships and my self-patterning from the two decades since. It was -and I'm not just saying this- completely life-changing.

Afterwards, I felt exhausted (fair) but completely and utterly cleared  - physically, yes, fair; but also… emotionally; energetically. And I’ve felt that way since. That day I watched old, old stuck ideas of who I am in this world, what I deserve, what I want and what I have to do here on Earth just fall away, never to return. Speaking more plainly, I became aware that a certain incident in my childhood had brought me to believe that

A) my very strong gut instincts about other people are to be doubted, but also that
B) I shouldn’t fully trust those who love and support me because they will let me down and I will be devastated.

Those are the lessons 9-year-old Kate took from a way-more-complex family situation. Those lessons then infiltrated their way into Kate’s life values, self-worth and relationships ever since. Until now. Because now I see them so opaquely as what they are: concepts. And see that as concepts they are SO flimsy. And in their fragility they are dissolvable. And so now, every day, I am aware and able to keep on dissolving them if they arise out of habit.

An approximate equivalent of 6 years of talk therapy in a day - that’s what my first San Pedro ceremony gave me. The following two ceremonies were a blissful reinstatement that that particular childhood memory, and all of its long-fermenting residue within my body, was gone. I felt -and still feel- love. I know, it’s cliche. But cliches are cliches for a reason and all that. I feel love for myself, I feel love for others, I feel appreciative of life (all of it) and, really quite cute: I know to my depths that I’m going to fall deeply in love soon. Yet I feel in no rush and I have no idea who it will be with. Isn’t that interesting?

Right now, I’m more in love with yoga than ever because I have been shown (personally; kinda brutally) the terrible potency of trauma held in our bodies, and so I cannot herald highly enough the things that help us discover and release it.