If you don't see colour you don't see me_part II

on vulnerability and the pain of being unseen

This week, I met with my Ensoulment wisdom community, a circle of credentialed coaches, interplayers, practitioners, and artists involved in soul care and spiritual companionship using creativity and body wisdom.

**The Wisdom of the Body**

Drawing on *The Art of Ensoulment* playbook, we walk, play, dance, and pray out the work of pioneer and author Cynthia Winton-Henry. We have moved away from the West's fixation on the mind as the domaint way of knowing into the body and soul (thus Ensoulment). This is sacred work.

In this session, led by Cynthia, she briefly talked about our little and big body spirit. In a nutshell, it reminds us that taking care of the little spirit body (think ordinary) is essential to sustaining the (larger than life) big spirit body.

We were asked to share what was coming up for us in relation to this work, in breakout groups. I reflected on my recent weekend away:

Oh, I do like to be beside the seaside...

I went "up North," to the East coast of Yorkshire, to spend time with friends (for context, they are white). Even though I had known "Stephen" for 30 years, I had never crossed the threshold of staying at his home. I was used to meeting him for lunch or dinner in different cities. He traveled for his global corporate job, and I traveled for theatre work.

The story of how we came into each other's lives is one that we have always cherished. All the better that he decided to retire early and leave the bustle of the city to take up large residence by the sea. We had a god time, ate lots, laughed, chatted, walked on the beach, enjoyed fish and chips, visited galleries, and had quiet time. It was leisurely; beautifully stage managed. To the point of them managing expectations for ‘next time’ - that they’d host and go out of their way this time but not to expect it on a return visit. ‘Welcome!’

Photo by Tinashe Mwaniki on Unsplash

I made myself vulnerable, shared hopes and dreams—always aware and well-practiced in spaces where I am in the perceived minority, even with 'friends.' On the day of my departure, over brunch, "Stephen" made an observation. He started off by telling me that I was a smart woman (facts!), then proceeded with, "You have a confident shell...but it doesn't run deep." I guess he hadn't quite shaken off the Human Resources part of his role, as he offered the assessment as though it were an appraisal. He actually told me this as though he were offering insight.

No sh*t, Sherlock!

I didn’t bat an eye lid. I am that practiced.

If he had seen me in context over all those years of lunches and dinners, he would have realized that his observation was only a revelation for him. I have been masking dyslexia; I have not come from a stable infrastructure of support emotionally or financially. When we met, I had just started out as an entrepreneur as a fresh 'college' grad. He was gifted to me as a financial advisor by the Prince's Youth Business Trust, and I was also homeless, working from temporary accommodation.

I am a Black British woman of Windrush heritage, born in the early '70s and subjected to the same rubbish that my friend can only read about in books. I have had to navigate this alien slave territory called whiteness all of my life, and the rules of success have always been elusive. Subjected to an education that has mostly lied about my history, the same history that tells my Caucasian friend that I am 'less than.' What did he expect?

You can only be truly confident in this system if you have sold your soul….

Want proof? The whole world is either deconstructing right now or trying to decolonize (our minds, bodies, spirits, curriculum, theology, etc.)! We have been living in a big web of lies.

Photo by Jennie Razumnaya on Unsplash

I'm very self-aware, and I know that my little body has not had its needs properly met.

The night before, I had shared the fact that people seemed to be enamored by my gifts, not my person. People wanted to interact with the big-bodied version of me; the authentic, charismatic pioneer that speaks truth to power. Always expecting me to be ‘on’. They were less so curious about the little-bodied spirit, ordinary me. According to Erving Goffman, the sociologist, we all have a presentation of self as a part of life in different contexts. I am not talking here about the false self or ego.

Stephen had placed himself as superior because of the status society had given him due to his class via grammar school education, his station in life, gender, and whiteness. I responded that, of course, that's the result of not being supported long-term. I played this out exceptionally well, with the fact that I probably wouldn’t be visiting again at the back of my mind. It would require far too much compromise!

As Cynthia points out: the big body is only sustained by care and attention to the little body. The ordinary. Do we think Billie Holiday was always abounding in confidence when having to face segregation and Black bodies swinging on Poplar trees? (And yes, I did just compare myself to that greatness!)

Black women are complex human beings too...

Given that the latest discoveries on epigenetics show us that we hold generational trauma in our bodies for seven generations, why are we surprised? Why do we continue to deny our full humanity?

For a highly sensitive (I mean in the intuitive, mystic, wounded healer sense), open and giving person like me, it feels like there is a spiritual intravenous drip attached—but it's not feeding me. Instead, hungry, entitled forces draw nourishment, and it's non-stop, like blood-sucking hounds, hungry for fresh blood, new ideas, innovation, creativity—NOW!—without investing, creating a supportive infrastructure, or pouring into me. Not even inquiring how big-bodied me is being sustained.

It's easier for the dominant culture to be less inquisitive, to willfully ignore the impact of historical and present exploitation because it doesn't impact them. So who gives one the right or authority to make an assessment when they don't even know or see me?

Wisdom speaks, and the body keeps the score.

My little body is feeling this. It's manifesting in back pain that tells me to pay attention. I can override it with spiritual bypassing, but only to my detriment. I have long craved a more embodied way of doing theology, being creative and following this vocation. In Ensoulment I have found that path.

This is not just my story.

A confident outer shell but vulnerable beneath is what it is to be human, nuanced and real. Black women are strong because we have to be not because we want to be.

Don't be enamored by a fleeting moment with my big spirit body.

And likewise,

Don't be surprised if you come across my vulnerability.

Instead, reflect on your life,

Then see the fullness of my humanity

Expect no free gift from me

There’s no more compromising

Just believe me,

When I say I am in pain.

And try not to default to dismissing me

Or brushing the ‘problem’ away

Because

It will only return with a vengeance.

I bleed like you.

So,

Let me be

Human.

Just let me

Be!