Healing White Supremacy Through the WHOLE BODY
WOULD YOU LIKE TO BEGIN A JOURNEY THROUGH THE BODY TO HEAL THE PAIN OF WHITE SUPREMACY?
In 2009 I surrendered to antidepressant drugs. Five weeks later––when I was told the drugs would take full effect––I was in shavasana (corpse pose) at the end of a yoga class. I felt an overwhelming sensation that was very unfamiliar to me. It was joy. At that moment I wondered if I had not felt joy and a deep inner love since before I was twelve years old.
At the same time that I was labeled with a diagnosis of life-long major depression from a practitioner of talk therapy, I determined to journey into my bones and tissues to understand whether this was just chemical, permanently genetic, or possibly trauma stuck in my body-self. Two years later I weaned myself off the medication and continued the journey of profound healing through movement and body based awareness practices. Indeed, cognitive understanding of my pain could not go far enough into true healing.
In spite of being a life-long vocational dancer, I had to learn to move differently to release held patterns that were no longer serving my evolution. In the last few years, as I move and move and move again to (re)turn joy in the midst of personal and collective pain, I can honestly say that major depression is no longer a debilitating, broken-part of me––it was a teacher. I have been made whole through the journey. I experience an ever unfolding wisdom from listening deeply to my body-self and to the movements arising in me for transformation, knowledge, and love.
I was made whole through The Art & Practice of Movement. And a few years ago, I began facilitating this journey for others. You can read more about what The Art & Practice of Movement is here.
Also a few years ago, in addition to my personal pain, I recognized that I was overcoming the ancestral disease of white trauma; the disease responsible for white supremacy and the deep collective pain that harms people of color, degrades our environments, perpetuates systemic injustices and holds back healing and evolution in our nation.
Moving the body intentionally can evolve and heal us in ways we can't reach otherwise. I INVITE YOU INTO A JOURNEY OF HEALING THE WHITE SUPREMACY THAT AFFECTS US ALL.
I have been a student of Whole Heart Connection for five years and apply the body-based healing practices to my facilitation of The Art & Practice of Movement. Thea Elijah, the founder, has been a close mentor for three years. This year I was beginning a journey into her Whole Heart Whiteness work before the Pandemic and the murder of George Floyd.
Thea and I are collaborating on a Whole Heart Whiteness + The Art & Practice of Movement offering for white folx connected to the KSD community who have a sincere desire to get into their whole bodies for the real work of "me-first" healing for collective and cultural transformational healing in our nation from white-body supremacy.
IS THIS YOU? IF SO, PLEASE CONTACT ME: karinstevens@gmail.com
More on Whole Heart Whiteness from Thea and on racialized trauma from Resmaa Menakem?
If you are a BIPOC human reading this eblast, I would like to direct you to Whole Heart Connection for BIPOC workshops facilitated by BIPOC women trained in WHC.
I also offer one-on-one sessions in The Art & Practice of Movement to facilitate and support any evolution and healing in whatever physical, emotional, mental, or spiritual journey one is on. Before the coronavirus pandemic, anxiety and depression had already reached epidemic levels in our communities. All our mental knowledge about racism has not generated reparations, justice, healing and reconciliation. And our ongoing disconnections from the earth will keep us in patterns of destruction and overwhelm. IT IS TIME TO MOVE IN NEW WAYS and to (re)turn our ancient-future-NOW bodies to evolution, to each other and to the earth. Our body-self is the source for our overcoming, and becoming into more love, in the BIG LOVE MOVEMENT. Join me in this dance!
-Karin