Embody to Build Power
Embodiment practices such as breathwork and pilates are not only wellness or fitness– they build power.
The power of staying connected to your body through challenges and joys. The ability to care for your nervous system so you are not stuck in unhelpful protection responses. Feeling the physical power of your body, breath and voice.
Gathering attention in a high-speed world, where awareness is often heartbreaking. The power of presence.
Connecting to your full complexity, all of the wild aspects you were taught to tame, the mistakes and questions. The power of relationships of exchange, not extraction– with yourself, loved ones, collaborators and community.
When anyone cultivates this kind of power, it undermines systems and relationships that rely on another concept— power as domination, control and abuse. When a person belonging to oppressed groups embodies this power, the possibilities are boundless.
I dream of a world rooted in compassion, and always return to this key teaching from Audre Lorde: “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.” In this essay Lorde calls out that when our approach is rooted in separation, and inherently patriarchal and racist, “only the most narrow parameters of change are possible and allowable.”
When I turn this teaching towards my body, I ask—what would it mean for compassion to be my foundation, the way I go about my own growth? Shame is so pervasive in my sense of self, my worldview, my relationship patterns; there is a part of me that fears I would do nothing if not driven by shame.
What would happen if I truly included all of my parts, all of my past? What if I let myself be messy and uncontrolled? How would my capacity for connection change?
I envision a world filled with connection and complexity, rejoicing in the diversity of our beautiful multicultural, multi-gender, multi-faith, multi-everything existence.
For this we need power rooted in connection, not separation. Embracing uncertainty in and around us with curiosity and creativity, not fear and control. Appreciating complexity and difference.
Building power for a compassionate future. This is my purpose, permeating everything I offer in subtle ways. If this resonates, explore my current offerings— a new weekly breathwork group, and I’m offering the Nervous System Balancing workshop again.