[SA] Embodying Spiritual Activism

Embodying Spiritual Activism: Sovereignty & Liberation through Holistic, Somatic Practice Dr. Trish DeRocher 2.16.22

Right Relationship The concept of Right Relationship is widespread in Indigenous cultures and earth-based practices. It is to understand and embody reciprocity, interdependence, care, and sustainable, just modes of being within the web of Creation. It includes deep listening, intimacy, and presence. It includes our relationship with ourselves, each other, and all sentient beings.

The principle of Right Relationship is an organizing logic for us this semester as we consider what Spiritual Activism is, means, and looks like, from various perspectives and points of entry.

Spiritual Activism is about relationships. Relationship(s) with ourselves, each other, and all sentient beings. Somatics offers a pathway.

Relationships as Embodied Heart-Practice “Every mass movement, every collective effort, is made up of relationships that exist between members of the larger group. Around friends old and new, somatics helped me begin to gauge what I truly wanted and needed from connections, from political space.

I got clearer on what I could offer . . . Yes is an embodiment. Yes is a future. . . If I listened to the no, if I honored it and set boundaries, it made more room for my yes . . . We can learn how to say yes from the inside out.”” ~”Healing From Within,” adrienne maree brown (my emphasis)

What is Somatics?

“Somatics is a path, a methodology, a change theory, by which we can embody transformation, individually and collectively. Embodied transformation is foundational change that shows in our actions, ways of being, relating, and perceiving . . . . somatics is a practice-able theory of change that can move us toward individual, community and collective liberation.” ~Generative Somatics, “What is Somatics?” (Referenced in “Healing From Within” in adrienne maree brown’s Pleasure Activism)

Structures of Oppression Oppression is rooted in a dominance model—power over. Oppression operates through artificial hierarchical social structures through the creation of social narratives that in time become naturalized, weaponized, internalized, and upheld by individual behaviors, attitudes, and actions, as well as enforced through laws, policies, cultural representations, language, and institutions.

Interconnected social systems that currently impact our relationships with ourselves, each other, and the Earth include: Colonialism Patriarchy Capitalism White Supremacy

Biopolitics The ideology (cultural belief system) that some people’s bodies and lives are more socially valuable than others is a form of what Michele Foucault calls “Biopolitics.” Biopolitics refers to a system of rewards and penalties for different forms of physical embodiment that become upheld within and across social groups, as well as within and through ourselves.

When we subscribe to oppressive ideologies (belief systems), we dehumanize ourselves and others. Whether it’s racism, sexism, classism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, ableism, ageism, etc. Whether society tells us that we are “superior” or “inferior” is based upon these fictitious, insidious, weaponized premises.

Biopolitics is a management of bodies.

These social narratives give way to material realities—embodied realities.

Oppression as False Separation If we have internalized that we are “superior” or “inferior” based upon our embodied traits, it does not place us in right relationship with ourselves or each other. It creates an illusion of false separation, and does not allow us to hold the “multiplicity in Oneness” that Zenju Earthlyn Manuel speaks to.

In other words, these cultural scripts come to distance us from ourselves and each other. They lock us out of our own hearts and bodies.

This is intentional. The more we are conditioned by these social scripts, the easier we are to control. These cultural scripts are illusions that prevent us from maintaining our inherent, innate power and Sovereignty (inner will).

Oppression as Cultural Trauma These oppressive scripts are inherited patterning.

They are old and deep. They are energetic.

They are intergenerational. They are multigenerational. They are ancestral.

They are individual and collective.

They are in our bodies.

They disconnect us from our bodies, ourselves, each other, and Earth.

Liberation Through the Body “The only way out is through” Trauma leaves us disconnected from our own bodies. It tells us that our own bodies are not safe. Our bodies are just trying to protect us! Intentionally reconnecting with our bodies can lead to trusting and learning ourselves more deeply, which through skillful practice and time, can lead to deeper, more authentic relationships with others, personally and collectively.

If oppressive structures maintain control over our emotions, minds, hearts, and bodies, by separating us from ourselves (inner knowing) and each other (reciprocity), then coming back into our body can offer a way of unlearning, and undoing, to relearn, to re-embody, and to heal, individually and collectively.

Somatic Abolitionism “Trauma in a person, decontextualized over time, looks like personality.

Trauma in a family, decontextualized over time, looks like family traits.

Trauma in a people, decontextualized over time, looks like culture.” ~Resmaa Menakem, My Grandmother’s Hands

Somatic Alchemy Menakem uses the language of “metabolizing,” or processing the emotional residue of the collective trauma of White Supremacy and Colonialism (these histories are living inside of us as vibrations, history is literally in the present).

As a result, our bodies and nervous systems are constantly being triggered and retriggered through exchanges with each other.

With practice and skill, we can alchemize “dirty pain” (compounded pain) into “clean pain” (tender woundedness).

Inner Flows Outer Somatic practices offer us a way of coming to a place of inner Sovereignty (Solar Plexus/Willpower): If I can’t change the outside world, how do I shift how I show up to meet it?”

If we take the invitation in The Way of Tenderness to see the path of liberation as through the body, in the presence of “tender woundedness.” then it makes sense to begin with our relationship with ourselves, and our own body.

By clearing our inner house, we become more intentional with the energy we are bringing to our activism. This is the energy we are building new worlds, networks, and social webs with.

The Quiet of Creation As we become rewired, the noise of the outside world begins to dial down—we can more readily be with the “what is,” we can see it and know it and be called to service, while showing up from a place of deep inner quiet to greet it.

We have increased capacity to meet the discord with clarity and stillness.

From this more centered space, we have more command over our actions in the world instead of being pulled out of our energy and truth.

We are able to stand in our sovereignty in the presence of disparate truths and paths. We nurture a deeper capacity to be in right relationship with ourselves in the presence of others, and what we need to be resourced and safe.

Vision Grounded in the Body “The body does not lie. We may do all the work in the world to conceptualize a more inclusive way of being in relationship, but until that vision is grounded in our body, our dreams will continue to reside in a fantasy world.” ~Kelsey Blackwell, “Race and the Body: Why Somatic Practices are Essential for Racial Justice”

The process of coming into right (embodied) relationship with ourselves allows us to become more present and authentic.

We become more inwardly aligned. This inward alignment naturally flows outward. We have increased capacity (in our bodies and nervous systems) to hold more compassionate space for ourselves and others, and it changes the energy attached to our actions in the world.