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Resistance requires resilience
Last week was tough. The week before that was tough. If I’m being totally honest, shit’s been tough since I started to recognize and own my identity as a woman of color, acknowledge my privilege, and do the work to understand how I uphold white supremacy in my own life while simultaneously trying to extricate myself from the tangled web of unconscious capitalism.
But this past week in particular reminded me of my resilience. It reminded me that my community has been doing this work for decades collectively and individually. It reminded me of how far I’ve come, how much about who I am and what my life looks like now has been a work in progress since birth. It reminded me, above all, that we are not the sum of our traumatic experiences, and that our ability to build despite the abuse we may have experienced is our true superpower.
I used to believe that I had to be strong at all times and move through the world without showing signs of weakness. I thought that resilience meant letting things roll off your back, or pushing harder to reach your goals despite setbacks. In my eyes, resilience meant blind ambition, it meant I didn’t need anyone else to succeed, it meant I could handle it all myself.
I’ve learned over the last few years that resilience is letting people in. Showing your soft underbelly to a world that expects you to be hard, angry, and fed up. Assuming the best intentions of those that you’ve chosen to be part of your world. Resilience is unearthing trauma, working through it, and eventually healing on your own terms without the permission of someone else.
The only way we can continue to make progress, whether in our fight for racial justice, our relationships, or our individual fitness goals, is to admit that we need support, and follow through on finding it. Resilience is only as strong as our collective resistance to the status quo.
Q: Where can you invite vulnerability into your resistance practice?
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