I Ran, For Me
Typically when people run from something, the assumption is that they are afraid or running from someone or something. But when I chose this time last year to run, it was for me. I was literally running for my life. For the life of my family and I simply couldn’t go or look back. I have not lived an easy life and yet, I know my life is full of privilege.
A year ago today, I made a difficult decision that would not only change my life but my family. After running a public facing successful business that was constantly being sought after to do the work I created for it for and navigating the world of more people and businesses seeing the value of the work we were doing, I reflected and had to get real with myself about what was happening. Summer 2020 ‘awakened’ a lot of people and organizations in Charleston. Suddenly I was being asked to teach and speak in spaces that may (or may not) have witnessed my work before. My DMs became a frequent space for “well-intentioned” white people to ask their questions, share their experiences of harm that most times they were unwilling to address or call out on their own and to seek wisdom or tokenization from me, a Black woman without having to publicly credit or honor where their newfound awakening came from or was being supported by and severely underfunded. White women in my industry (yoga and wellness) wanted me to teach them and guide them but had no interest in paying me for my work, they valued my work and my wisdom because I was BLACK but not enough to want to pay for it, at least not like they would be willing to pay for other ‘experts’.
The demands increased, suddenly every studio and studio owner wanted my wisdom or to share what my studio was doing or find a way to send their teachers to learn from me but not engage themselves because there would be no way some of them would show up in a space to learn from a Black woman or face their own embodied white supremacy. So I quit. I said no, I began turning down their opportunities to speak. I stopped sharing in our stories and started redirecting them to paid trainings where they could get the training they were asking for. Because not only did I need to be able to support my family, my community and more specifically the Black community was still suffering and navigating the public health crisis of systemic racism, death of Black lives, anti-Blackness and the pandemic. We needed desperately a place, a home to house our work, our healing and a place separate from those aligned with religion (knowing the nuanced relationship between the church, our belief, oppression and religion itself).
BUT my life and my family depended on my sanity. It depended on my regulated and grounded nervous system. I needed me before I could show up for anyone else. So I ran to what my heart called for and I didn’t look back. I can’t save anybody but I can be present and hold space for their healing but I have to process and experience healing myself, FIRST. I sold both of our homes. I closed my studio. I uprooted my family from everything we knew to be a foundation and headed for what felt right in my heart and soul.
There’s a something refreshing about fall in the sense it BEGS us to look at what isn’t working and what it is we can or need to let go of. The healing practices I teach and lean on are the same ones that have carried me and supported me through my own healing journey. If I leave you with anything, please remember that you are your’s before you are anyone else and we, collectively need YOU to be whole.