ST Healing Love-IntoBalance October2022 - Flipbook - Page 13
We are not ahistorical or a-contextual- what is history and context showing us? Becoming aware of the
structural and cultural norms that upload different forms of oppression is key to radical self-love because
it helps us to interrupt patterns of self-blame. In this way, we can begin to reject the prevalent norms of
white supremacy, heternormative defaults, anti-Black and AAPI hate, and all other forms of socio-political
oppression. Awareness of structural and cultural contexts rooted in our racialized histories, leads to:
Humility
Authenticity
Doing our own shadow work
Bringing a Vision of the Future into Focus
What is love? How is love manifested? These are the things you would see if in fact love were centered:
• ALOHA principles: https://www.creahawaii.com/aloha
• Responsibility and accountability within a community of people practicing together, as bell hooks
described it in All About Love: New Visions
We will constantly be faced by the systems of oppression that will push us back into the default of
disconnection, isolation and alienation. Cultivating, discovering, nurturing connections is love in action. We
have to do it all of the time against the prevailing headwinds of “normalcy.”
The boldness of risk-taking and naming something counter-normative,
• If you are really creating change it will create a backlash, a whitelash that we as people of color are too
familiar with, unfortunately.
• It takes courage, but then when you say it’s courageous it makes it exceptional and doing the right thing
shouldn’t be exceptional. There are no trophies for doing the right thing. But at the same time, it DOES
take courage. And, it shouldn’t be exceptional to be courageous.
“Failure is not an option.” I can’t count how many times I have said this to myself when
I am about to embark on leading a new project or tackling a big challenge. But what I have
learned is that this perceived inability to fail is part of how we are oppressed as
BIPOC leaders. Systemic oppression creates narratives that I have repeated to myself
about not being good enough or missing the mark. I have concluded that the reason I
have failed was due to my negative character traits or inherent flaws within myself. If I
fail, I am a bad leader. If I fail, I am letting my team down. If I fail, I am irresponsible.
If I fail, I amincompetent. If I fail, I am a disappointment to our family and our community.
Internalizing these messages about failure keeps me from dreaming bigger, from
attempting to be more bold, and from getting up after I get
knocked down. When I look back, I can see that when I took myself out of the picture
because I was scared of failing, I played right into the hands of
those with power, without them having to lift a finger. For all of these
reasons, I find myself calling on my courage to embrace failure and see it as
part of my journey towards individual and collective evolution and liberation.
—Eveline Shen
Healing Love: Into Balance | A Brown Paper
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