BEYOND A FRAGILE SPIRITUALITY: THE PATH OF SACRED ACTIVISM

DR RICCI-JANE ADAMS

IN 2018, I DISCOVERED THAT I WAS A WHITE SUPREMACIST. FOR AN EDUCATED, WELL-TRAVELLED, SPIRITUAL AND SEEMINGLY LOVING PERSON, THIS WAS AS SHOCKING A DISCOVERY AS IT SOUNDS.

To keep it simple my awakening began with a woman named Layla Saad. Layla was educating white spiritual women to understand how our collective and individual behaviour was causing direct and real harm to black, brown, indigenous women of colour, through our white supremacy, privilege, fragility and exceptionalism. Layla offered a challenge on her instagram that invited white women to address their inherent racism. (This is now a best-selling book, and I encourage every white woman to buy it and to take the challenge https:// www.meandwhitesupremacybook. com/ especially if the terms mentioned above are new to you. It is our responsibility to educate ourselves). To start off, please know, I was deeply offended. I tried to count myself out of her accusations, and then I got angry. How dare she tell me that my spirituality was superficial, bypassing and violent? That wasn’t me. She must be talking about other spiritual white women. I was fragile!

I went through all the stages that I can see now were my ego attempting

to maintain its power and privilege. Then at some point as I kept reading, I could feel my resistance melting. I spent a lot of time talking things through with educated white women, whose patience and insightful reflection offered me a safe space to work through the things that I couldn’t resolve in my head.

Through this process of speaking my fears out loud I could see that I was afraid of losing control. I was afraid of looking foolish.

How could I have been so blind?

I recognised that as the leader of an Institute that claims to train women as spiritual leaders that I had no public policy, no plan of action, and no education in my programs in regards to spiritual activism, anti-racism, inclusivity and intersectionality.

More importantly I had not done the work of unpacking my white privilege. It had gone unnoticed by me because the systems of power in the world privilege me as a white person (and this is true for all of us no matter how ‘privileged’ our lives have been. It’s a vital distinction), and so I literally did not see what was in plain sight. We must look to our own subconscious biases, familial programming, our cultural conditioning, our inherited fear programs; and most importantly, we must meet our resistance to disrupting the status quo for fear of rejection by those around us. I was motivated to take action in my interior being, but I also had to take

I engaged the service of Sharyn Holmes (http://www.gutsygirl. com.au/), a Queensland based anti-oppression consultant. It is so vital that we invest in the work of Black, Brown, Indigenous women of colour (BIWOC) who are experts in this space. Sharyn conducted an audit of my Institute through the lens of anti-racism and made detailed recommendations. This led to our first ever anti-racism manifesto. You can read it here https:// instituteforintuitiveintelligence. com/anti-racism-plan/ I pulled my book, Spiritually Fierce, from sale and I rewrote to reflect my new understanding I studied with Eva Cruz Pena to understand inclusion from a spiritual perspective. I then engaged Eva’s expertise to offer her training in anti-racism and sacred inclusion education to my students in the Institute. Sacred Inclusion is now one of the core modules of the Third Level program The Institute now offers a scholarship for each intake of the Third Level program for BIWOC We considered how inclusive we are globally as an Institute and have a policy now on trans and gender diversity, ageism, socioeconomic access and we are working on the development of our disability action plan We lead with our values and are super proud of our Code of Ethics https:// instituteforintuitiveintelligence. com/code-of-ethics-andinstitute-values/ I won’t participate in panels, summits or podcasts which don’t demonstrate genuine inclusion in their invited guest speakers. If I can’t ascertain this easily, I straight up ask I keep showing up to this work, every damn day. There is no quick fix.

action in the world to correct the error. Here are some of the actions I took:

The immutable cosmic truth is that, yes, we ARE all one. Yet, that is not the starting point. We must earn the right to claim that truth. We must look to our own subconscious biases, familial programming, our cultural conditioning, our inherited fear programs; and most importantly, we must meet our resistance to disrupting the status quo for fear of rejection by those around us. We are here in this life to learn one-ness through meeting all the places within us that are in contradiction to that truth. It is the work of our lives to overcome the separation mentality and to embody the truth that WE ARE ONE. This is sacred activism.

Ricci-Jane Adams

Dr Ricci-Jane Adams is the principal of the Institute for Intuitive Intelligence. She trains women globally to qualify as clinically trained intuitive guides. She is the author of bestselling Spiritually Fierce, a handbook for the development of intuition beyond the trinkets and superstitions of the new age.