Communal Accountability Through Feminist Yoga
We live within a world shaped and largely influenced by many oppressive systems. These systems include, but are not limited to: patriarchy, colonialism, racism, sexism, ageism, and consumerism. These oppressive and overarching systems keep humans living within a limited perspective and world view that inhibits our ability to show up for life fully. The traumas and pain resulting from oppression tend to encourage a siloed style of living that stagnates us within our pain. While this is true, we should take caution against solely projecting blame outside of ourselves, and instead recognize “that all of us are capable of harm and complicity in systemic oppression, and so we all could practice taking accountability for our involvement in the perpetuation of oppression and violence.”[1] Women are the backbone of society, and I believe that as women heal, the world heals. Our healing causes a ripple effect that undoubtably influences those around us. There are many methods of healing that move trauma and pain out of the mind/body that also encourage self-accountability. One practice is yoga. Because of this, women hold the power to heal the world, and I am proposing the framework that supports their individual healing as a method of community healing. Therefore, yoga is a form of communal accountability that harmonizes the body, mind, and spirit of a woman in a way that empowers her to move through oppressive systems while integrating her experience to create space for authentic and whole connections.
Before understanding how yoga, can impact an individual woman and result in a collective shift, we must first understand what yoga is. Kishida et al. says “yoga is traditionally founded on a combination of breathing, physical postures, meditative components, and ethics, which together facilitates the union of the body, mind, and spirit for health and wellbeing.”[2] Beth Berila et al. suggests that yoga through a feminist lens “sees embodiment through the transformation of the mind-body-and-spirit occurring simultaneously.”[3] Both authors hint at the alchemical process that takes place within an individual that allows for them to show up as their whole selves. Full integration and alignment of the mind, body, and spirit is what it means to be in your power. When the traumas due to systems of oppression are stuck within the body and mind, we end up struggling to connect with others on a heart-to-heart level. In this state, the mind and body are preoccupied with the pains and traumas of living within oppressive systems, ultimately resulting in us reliving the past. To engage with the present moment in life, and choose from a place of power, it is necessary to find a practice, like yoga, to assist.
Yoga’s impact can be felt regardless of gender, but there is something profound that happens for women as they begin to engage in the practice. As a practitioner of yoga for 10 years and having worked with many mothers through their stored trauma and pain, I can validate the claims outlined above. I came to the practice of yoga from a need to manage daily anxieties during my undergraduate studies. My journey began with Bikram (hot) yoga which provided a physical challenge for me. The challenge presented to my body through the various postures and heat served as a distraction to my mind from the worries of school. I had my first taste of clarity, though brief, and it was through the utilization of my body. When I started graduate school, I continued my practice, but it changed from Bikram yoga to Vinyasa yoga. This new (to me) style of yoga emphasizes flowing with your movement. You move from one posture to the next in an eloquent sequence and rhythm. Through this type of movement, I became aware of my resistance to going with the flow in life and on the mat. I took myself and life way too seriously and I was always up tight about something. I needed to soften and open. I needed to relax and let go. I practiced Vinyasa for years, prior to my deep study and practice of Kemetic Yoga.
Kemetic yoga was founded by Dr. Asar Hapi and Yirser Ra Hotep in 1970s Chicago, based on images found in ancient Egyptian pyramids and temples. Through this slow and methodological practice which places a large emphasis on the breath, my ancestors, and my Self, I had my first glimpse of what it was like to be in my power. And as I mentioned before, I believe being in your power simply constitutes being clear, open, and aligned in your mind, body, and spirit. When in alignment, you are simply living in the present moment. I am an African American woman, therefore I write from that perspective and life experience . “For Black women, spirituality is power, and empowerment is the mobilization of internal power, spirituality, and agency to create healing from the inside out.”[4] Yoga did and does that for me.
Yoga, from a feminist perspective, is identified “as an awakening and spiritual transformation in the reconciliation process” that can be especially potent for indigenous women and mothers.[5] What is being reconciled? It’s the impact that systems of oppression have had on our nervous systems that shifted us from thriving to surviving. These longstanding impacts have been passed down from generation to generation and because we carry so much pain and trauma from them, they have impacted our relationships and ability to build community. Yoga helps indigenous (being a direct descendent or someone with traceable roots to a land) women participate in an internal alchemy with positive external implications. I know now that Yoga helped me to soothe my fight or flight response that contributed to me always feeling unsafe. I know that this was something passed down, but I also know that it was for me to shift. In agreeing to do so, I rewired my nervous system to rest and relaxation and increased my openness to life. Ultimately, I used yoga to harmonize my mind, body, and spirit which helped me clear pain and trauma in the body so I could be available to authentic connection that comes with being present for the goodness of life.
Everything discussed so far appears to be focused on the microcosm that is the individual, but we know that isn’t true. Everything we do impacts the macrocosm, the world as a whole. Therefore, I ask you to embrace this as a call to remembrance of our oneness. “Recognize the interconnectedness between “us” and “them” and “here” and “there”.”[6] We must remember our humanity that relies on and within others. We cannot do the work of changing the world alone, though that is where it starts. “Healing in community nourishes people’s resilience and resistance and our capacity for active participation in social justice movement building.”[7] Healing as a brown body in a white world is social justice work whether we choose to believe it or not. Healing is radical, especially when it’s easier to remain stuck. And it is this radicality that should motivate us to do it together. “We must view our self-awareness as a “collaborative, collective endeavor” rather than an individual one”.[8] This is the essence of community. Choosing to face what comes up as we engage with others from a fully embodied and love centered way. Community is a choice to be present with another when they need you and when they don’t. Community is choice to grow. Community is a consciousness geared towards seeing yourself in another and kindly allowing yourself to be seen in return.
Stephanie Evans writes that “yoga can be seen as a “union with the self,” or “journey to the self, through the self,” but it can also be seen as a liberation from self and, therefore, a union with other living beings and the larger universe.”[9] As I propose yoga as vehicle to feminine healing and communal support, I want to be clear that I am not talking about the type of yoga, as Amy argues, that undermines the roots of intergenerational yoga practices for individual and collective well-being rooted in indigenous practices.[10] I am not talking about the Westernized and whitewashed “yoga” that markets to white middle class women as the new fad. Rather, I am referring to yoga as the method of healing that it was originally intended. Yoga has a way of “bringing people together to nurture a sense of connection and community with others. This sense of community is indeed at the center of yoga’s philosophical underpinnings.”[11]
It’s true that yoga starts out as a personal endeavor. I argue that women come to it as a way to find peace within themselves. If they stick with it long enough, however, they notice the ways they are empowered through the practice. “Will power is the most important power for empowering women and yoga meditation plays an important role in increasing will power of human beings.”[12] And it is will power that encourages movement through any pain and trauma caused by oppressive systems. Once we have done this for ourselves, then our gaze can shift outwardly and we begin to notice the ways yoga has benefited us on a transpersonal level. “One route in which yoga may garner relational benefits is through the yamas and niyamas (the ethics of yoga practice), which act as guidelines for practitioners to be at peace with oneself, one’s family, and one’s community.”[13]
“A communal approach to accountability means that we build relationships and communities that can hold the inevitable conflict, oppression and difficulty that we will inevitably experience given the ongoing work of interlocking systemic oppression.”[14] This is exactly what yoga does. It increases one’s capacity to be with life. Yoga provides the tools for moving through discomfort within your own reality, and within your dynamics with others. It teaches you to remain present with what is, diving headfirst into transformation and growth. In my life, I have always been led to others of a similar vibration when I was ready. As I continued to work on myself, a community of like minded people started to surround me. I agree with Kishida et al. in the claim that “yoga first led to positive intrapersonal changes, which then, influenced one’s interpersonal relationships.”[15] They continue by saying, “through yoga, one was able to cultivate this non-reactive and compassionate nature in oneself, which often translated into their social interactions, as they were able to extend these ways of being towards others.”[16] Women as emanations and manifestations of the Goddess have healing power within them. Women have the power to transmute anything. But the work must first be done on oneself. Yoga provides a beautiful roadmap to wholeness that requires nothing more than an openness and commitment to self with a reward of communal accountability and connection rooted in self-awareness.
[1] Russo, Ann. "Feminist accountability: Disrupting violence and transforming power." In Feminist Accountability. (New York University Press, 2018), 19.
[2] Kishida, Moé, Scherezade K. Mama, Linda K. Larkey, and Steriani Elavsky. ““Yoga Resets My Inner Peace Barometer”: A Qualitative Study Illuminating the Pathways of How Yoga Impacts One’s Relationship to Oneself and to Others.” Complementary Therapies in Medicine 40 (2018): 215–21. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ctim.2017.10.002.
[3] Berila, Beth, Melanie Klein, and Chelsea Jackson Roberts, eds. Yoga, the Body, and Embodied Social Change : An Intersectional Feminist Analysis. (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2016), 232 http://www.dawsonera.com/depp/reader/protected/external/AbstractView/S9781498528030.
[4] Evans, Stephanie Y. Black Women’s Yoga History : Memoirs of Inner Peace. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2021. http://public.eblib.com/choice/PublicFullRecord.aspx?p=6499939
[5] Berila, “Yoga, the Body, and Embodied Social Change : An Intersectional Feminist Analysis”, 227.
[6] Russo, “Feminist accountability: Disrupting violence and transforming power”, 213.
[7] Russo, “Feminist accountability: Disrupting violence and transforming power”, 128.
[8] Russo, “Feminist accountability: Disrupting violence and transforming power”, 35.
[9] Evans, “Black Women’s Yoga History : Memoirs of Inner Peace”, 49.
[10] Argenal, Amy, and Monisha Bajaj. "Reclaiming spaces, reshaping practices: Yoga for building community and nurturing families of color." In Practicing Yoga as Resistance, pp. 38-48. Routledge, 2021.
[11] Berila, “Yoga, the Body, and Embodied Social Change : An Intersectional Feminist Analysis”, 270.
[12] Ojha, Rekha. "Role of yoga and meditation in the empowerment of women; an ethical perspective." IOSR J. Eng 3 (2013): 1-5.
[13] Kishida, ““Yoga Resets My Inner Peace Barometer”: A Qualitative Study Illuminating the Pathways of How Yoga Impacts One’s Relationship to Oneself and to Others.”
[14] Russo, “Feminist accountability: Disrupting violence and transforming power”, 213.
[15] Kishida, ““Yoga Resets My Inner Peace Barometer”: A Qualitative Study Illuminating the Pathways of How Yoga Impacts One’s Relationship to Oneself and to Others.”
[16] Kishida, ““Yoga Resets My Inner Peace Barometer”: A Qualitative Study Illuminating the Pathways of How Yoga Impacts One’s Relationship to Oneself and to Others.”
