Resilience
Resilience is…
In many ways resilience as a word has become less impactful in current language mostly due to co-option by those aligned with white supremacy and capitalism, (good workers are “resilient” to the stressors of capitalism and continue to produce, why aren't you “resilient” enough at ignoring your own dehumanization?). As a reclamation of the language, I think about resilience as returning to or allowing - I allow myself to flow around the rock, I allow myself to be held by the soil, I allow my value and worth to be defined in the ways that I choose not by how much I produce.
If you were to redefine resilience, what would it mean? In what ways can you practice resilience as a means to divest from systems of harm? How is your current understanding of resilience entwined with narratives of capitalism and white supremacy?
Nature reminds me that healing is natural. My body, spirit and mind want to heal and I need to create the space and time to do that
Andrea Quijada from Emergent Strategy
Healing and Resilience:
In many of the same ways as resilience, healing and the understanding of our intrinsic ability to heal has also been aligned with systems of harm. The idea of “heal thy self” has become a narrative of toxic individualism, “you and only you are responsible for your health, so if you just [fill in the blank with something like eat more kale or do yoga] then you would be healthy” and internalized ableism, “you are only a good person worthy of love and connection if you are healthy”. Which is a totally different thing than understanding healing as something intrinsic, that healing is a homecoming, it is a process of expansion, of creating more space, more possibility for all the parts of ourselves to exist together.
What if part of our healing journey is to continually unwind from the ways of capitalism, white supremacy, and settler colonialism? What if our healing journey is reconnecting with and learning from all sovereign beings both seen and unseen? What if becoming whole is to reconnect all the parts of ourselves, our bodies, minds, spirits, – the parts we like and the parts we don't like?
What would it be like to allow yourself to flow and split and reform on the path that is uniquely yours?
This is a record of my thoughts as I read Emergent Strategy by adrienne maree brown, I hope you learn something from this and read the book too. If you find yourself pondering these same concepts, connect with me through the next book club or through an individual appointment.