Week One: Understanding Identities, Communication Styles, and Bodily Responses Vocabulary: Intersectionality Positionality Ayurvedic Doshas Fear Responses
Readings: • • • •
“Race and the Body: Why Somatic Practices Are Essential for Racial Justice,” Kelsey Blackwell “When White Women Cry,” Mamta Motwani Accapadi “Healing From Within: A Life of Somatics,” excerpt from adrienne maree brown’s Pleasure Activism “Practicing New Social Relations, Even in Conflict,” Dean Spade excerpt from Toward an Ethics of Activism, ed. Frances S. Lee
Concepts: Intersectionality: Intersectionality is rooted in Black Feminist Thought. The term was coined by legal feminist scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw and also theoretically articulated by the Combahee River Collective in the 1980s. Intersectionality offers a way of understanding how each of our individual identities overlap with and inform each other, especially marginalized identities and our relative access to social power
Our social identities include: race, gender, class, sexuality, ability, nationality, ethnicity, religion, education level, etc. Some of these identities are visible, and others are not. Some of these identities change throughout our lifetime, and others do not. Some identities we are born into, and others we adopt. These various identities shape and inform how we understand ourselves and how we interact with our world—they are the lenses and filters that we see through. For some of these identities we are granted unearned access to social power and material resources. This is what we call social privilege. For others we are denied access to social power and material resources. This is what we call oppression. This is what Michele Foucault calls “biopolitics,” or the process through which some lives are deemed more socially valuable than others.
This can lead to people who have unearned social privileges, or those with dominant identities, not seeing how life is experienced by those who are denied these privileges. This can result in a lack of empathy and understanding. It can also result in unconscious or conscious feelings of superiority. This is why understanding our individual and collective histories and ancestry is so important. It is hard to understand who we are if we do not spend time thinking about how our social landscape impacts our experience of being human. When people are consistently rewarded for their social privileges, they also become dependent on these outward understandings of themselves. They can feel scared and threatened as these social categories and conditions begin to change because they have never had to connect with their inner selves to understand who they are outside of these categories.
Positionality: Many of us have some dominant and some marginalized components of our
identity. For instance, we might experience class and gender privilege, and experience marginalization due to our race and sexuality. We also have a choice for how we embody different components of our identity such as our political views. This is what we call our positionality, or how we consciously choose to inhabit our social identity. Positionality allows us to engage with our intersectional identities in more nuanced, conscious ways. Our intersectional identities and positionality can play a large role in how we communicate because these identities are shaped by familial, social, and cultural norms within the communities we grew up in.
Ayurvedic Dosha: Ayurveda is the twin science to yoga. It understands that all of the elements in nature—earth, water, air, fire, ether—are also in us (because we ARE nature!). It also understands that we are never “broken,” we simply come out of balance sometimes and we can draw upon the wisdom of the body to bring ourselves back into balance.
Each of us has our Prakruti, or our constitution that we were born with, and also our Vikruti, or our current imbalance. What this means is that when we go out of balance, we tend to become imbalanced toward a certain element. There are 3 main Doshas: Vata, Pitta, and Kapha. Vata is air, Pitta is fire, and Kapha is earth. There are also combinations such as Vata Pitta, Vata Kapha, Pitta Kapha. It is also possible to be Tri-doshic, which is thought to be the most balanced state and a goal on the yogic path.
Fear Responses: Some people call these our “trauma responses,” but I simply understand them as fear responses—our unconscious, knee jerk reactions to things when we are in conflict or feeling unsafe. In order to make ourselves feel safe, our younger selves developed these coping mechanisms to create the illusion of safety. As a result, these fear-based, survival responses have now been “hard wired” into the body. In order to move into higher consciousness, we want to rewire these responses so that we can move into our awareness body. First, we need to identify our predominant patterns—though most of us will exhibit all four responses at different times. I refer to these as the 4 “Fs”: Fight, Flight, Freeze, Fawn: • Fight is a fire (Pitta), defensive response that can include physical and verbal aggression, a closed off posture, and is a protector response to perceived threat
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Flight is an air (Vata), avoidant response that can include physically leaving a situation, avoiding a conversation, and using distraction (OCD, pleasure seeking, compulsive busyness) as a way to stay feeling safe and in control Freeze is an air/earth (Vata/Kapha) response to feelings of overwhelm in a situation. This is a “deer in headlights” response when the body becomes rigid and the sense become flooded and overstimulated. Avoidance, detachment, shutting down, sensory overload are all ways in which Freeze is expressed. Freeze is the body’s way of conserving energy in the face of conflict. Fawning is an earth response (Kapha), and also a trauma response. Fawners become hypervigilant to make sure that the needs of everyone around them are met so that they can remain safe. This can lead to codependence and compulsive accommodating. Their own needs are put on the backburner to a point of martyrdom, peacekeeping at all costs, and even forgetting what their needs are.
Journaling Prompts: Our social identities and Ayurvedic doshic constitutions often piggy back on and compound our fear responses. Sometimes we can watch ourselves have a reaction and have no idea why we are responding in a certain way! This week’s self-study involves reflecting on how these concepts play out in your own life with an invitation to examine how they interact with each other. 1. Spend some time with the concept of intersectionality: • Watch some of these videos on intersectionality and come up with your own definition/understanding of the term. • Make a list of your own social locations. What are your sites of privilege? What are your sites of marginalization? How do you think these social locations have affected your consciousness and beingness in the world? • What are some of the contradictions and paradoxes that you find in your list? What are some of the unlikely ways that dominant and marginalized identities converge? • What social locations in your list feel primary and central to your sense of self? What social locations feel peripheral? What social locations do you feel confident expressing? What social locations feel more tender, or like you have some more work to do around? • Consider your positionality, or how you come to engage with the various social locations that make up your intersectional identity. How did you come to occupy this posture? Why have you come to occupy this posture? • Think of a recent experience where there was a messy confluence of different social identities at play. This could be a personal experience, or a cultural event on the larger social stage. What social locations seemed to be bumping against each other? What histories and power dynamics were playing out through this exchange? How did you feel participating in or witnessing the event? What questions do you have about it? 2. Keeping in mind your tally on your dosha quiz for deciphering your ratio of Vata (Air), Pitta (Fire/Water) and Kapha (Earth/Water), and looking at the handout on the doshas: • What do you think is your Prakruti (original blueprint)? Why? • What do you think is/are your primary dosha imbalance(s), or your Vikruti? Why?
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What symptoms do you see showing up in your life physically, energetically, and emotionally? • How do you think your Ayurvedic constitution affects your communication style? What examples illustrate this for you? *Keep in mind that we all exhibit characteristics of each of the doshas, but that generally people will have one or two primary imbalances. It is the ratio of elements that create our unique constitution. 3. Spend some time recognizing your hardwired fear responses to conflict (fight, flight, freeze, or fawn). Ask yourself: • What are my “go to” fear responses? • Do these patterns differ in different areas of my life? • How do they manifest themselves? How do they feel in my body? • When/where did I learn these patterns? Are they serving me? • Have I been taught that any of these fear responses are “good” or “bad”? 4. Let’s put the pieces together. Revisiting the personal experience or cultural event you worked with above, consider: • What seem to be the Ayurvedic doshas of the social actors involved in this interaction? How do their doshas seem to be expressing themselves and interacting with each other? • What seem to be the fear responses at play? How do you know? • How are the intersectional identities, doshic constitutions, and fear responses of the players involved creating a complex energetic web? How are these components affecting how each person is communicating? How do these components affect how each person’s actions are being received and interpreted by the others? • What seem to be the areas of communication breakdown and misunderstandings? • What, if any, adjustments could be made from all parties to mitigate these different communication styles and responses to conflict? 5. Sit with your communication style. Consider: • How much of this intentional? • How much is based on inherited familial, social, and cultural programming? • How much is rooted in fear? • How do you want to be expressing yourself and communicating across differences and in conflict?
Practices: Becoming a Participant Observer: •
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This week observe your responses, reactions, and communication styles and stay curious about where they are coming from. Ask yourself, is this how I want to be showing up and communicating? Instead of going into judgment, see if you can stay curious about where a behavior is coming from, take in the data, seek to understand it, even sending it compassion. Begin to observe other people’s responses, reactions, and communications styles as well. Before moving into judgment or going into a fear response, see if you can stay curious about
where a behavior is coming from, taking in the data, seeking to understand where it’s coming from, and even sending them compassion.
Breathwork: Practice 2 types of breathwork practices during the week, noticing how they affect your body and mind. You can try setting a timer to work with each breath for three minutes at a time. Try practicing with them at different points throughout the day: morning, afternoon, and evening.
Ujjayi Breathing: Come into the ujjayi breath by creating a slight constriction at the back of your throat. You can think of it sounding like the ocean, or imagine the act of fogging up a mirror. Ujjayi breathwork is often easier to begin with an open mouth, moving into close mouth. This is a full diaphragmatic breath. As you breathe imagine the breath moving through you like a wave. When to Use: Ujjayi (oo-jay-ee) breath is thought to conquer fear and illness and to steady the mind. The purpose of the ujjayi breath is to bring your awareness to each breath. It aids in opening the throat chakra and opening yourself to a practice of allowing. Belly to Chest Breathing: Come into a comfortable seat and place one hand on the belly and one hand on the heart. On your next inhale, breathe deeply from the belly up to the chest, with a slight constriction at the back of the throat, holding here until your body wants to release, and slowly exhale from the chest down to the belly, taking a slightly longer exhale (open or closed mouth). Inhale to the count of 3 from the belly to the chest and “hold” in the chest, then exhale from the chest down to the belly to the count of 4, releasing all the breath in the belly. Take a few rounds here and then as you are ready begin to add on time: 3/4; 4/5; 5/6. When to Use: The deep breathing and slightly longer exhales work to calm the body down by stimulating the parasympathetic nervous system. This is a staple breathwork practice to use whenever you are experiencing anxiety, nervousness, ungroundness, or feeling scattered. Works to bring Vata and Pitta into balance. Alternate Nostril Breathing: Come into a comfortable seat and find your dominant hand. Bring your ring and middle finger to the spot between your eyebrows (third eye) and pinky and thumb to either nostril. Begin by pinching the left nostril closed and breathing through the right. Hold the breath between the eyebrows then slowly release the left nostril and exhale, keeping right nostril closed. Inhale through the left nostril, hold breath between the eyebrows with both nostrils closed, slowly breathe out through the right. Repeat. When to Use: Alternate Nostril Breathing is a versatile practice that can be used to calm or energize the body depending on how quickly or slowly you practice it. Slow alternate nostril breathing calms and grounds the body, which is good for balancing Vata and Pitta. Fast alternate nostril breathing energizes the body by stoking fire, and is good for balancing Kapha. At either speed it enhances clarity and focus. Kapalabhati Breathing (Breath of Fire): Come into a comfortable seat and bring both hands to the lower belly. On the exhale, contract your lower abdominal muscles to force the out breath through the nostrils, followed by a passive inhale. If you have trouble isolating this muscle group
you can make two fists with the hands to press against the lower abdomen as you exhale. If you are familiar with the Mula Bandha (root lock located at the perineum) you can work on constricting this muscle as you practice kapalabhati breathing. Beginners will want to start out slowly, gradually increasing speed. The inhale is an automatic “rebound” response to the active exhale. Try taking a round of 25, coming back into a regular breath, and then taking another round of 25. You can increase the speed and number of rounds as you become more familiar with the practice. When to use: Kapalabhati breathing, or “skull-shining breath” works to energize the body and cleanse the body of toxins. It can be helpful to visualize a clearing out of the skull with each exhale. It increases energy, focus, and stamina. Kapalabhati breathwork can be a very powerful way to start the morning. It is an important practice for balancing Kapha and bringing the energy upward in the body. Pittas will want to be careful not to overdo, and Vatas can find themselves overwhelmed and dizzy by the amount of upward energy it creates in the body.