It is open. I feel deep love and gratitude for each of you for simply being here. Yes, all of you. I do not want yesterday's events to create or further separation in our own beautiful community. Yoga teaches us that we're all part of a collective whole, we are not separate beings, even though it may feel like it sometimes.
Yesterday happened. In the first hour I felt my own anger clouding my mind and left the room the first time, thinking that a cup of tea would soothe my rage. We left a second time for the same reason. There was a group of us out there, and we committed to going back to this room, quite bravely. We breathed deeply, gave hugs, and said we just wouldn't say anything.
Well... we all know what happened. I said something.
Injustice, racism, ableism, cultural appropriation, telling us what we should do with our bodies, the challenges we should push ourselves through, forced participation in call and response, asking people to identify their injuries to sit against the wall... None of that is okay and something needed to be said.
This was my truth yesterday. And in speaking it, I was told that it was my attachments that were the problem and that I should leave if I felt unsafe. Fuck that. Too many times, people speaking their truth have been shamed out of their communities, told that they are the problem and that they are no longer welcome. That they are not whole and that is why they feel a certain way. Fuck that.
And then something magical happened. The story changed. Nuri spoke, then Ramona, then suddenly half our class was outside. What I felt then was almost indescribable, an outpouring of love, a physical manifestation of power, that what we say and do matters, that no person can take away my voice, my ability to care for my body, my ability to act.
We are powerful beyond measure when we act from places of love.
Yesterday during Yoga Nidra, Alex asked us to make commitments to ourselves. I decided on:
I will act in love for what is right. I will not turn away from suffering out of my own fear. And in this way I will rewrite my own stories of trauma (and free myself from karma).
I am not powerless, I am powerful.
I am not silent, I have a voice.
I am whole, sufficient, and worthy of love just as I am.
Thank you all for helping me re-write the stories of my past, for seeing me, for holding space, for all of the hugs and love.
We are not powerless, we am powerful.
We are not silent, we have voice.
We are whole, sufficient, and worthy of love just as we are.
Namaste.
