body

Creating Sanctuary

| Sheree





*not so mush a trigger warning but saying it anyways!


I am worthy of consent.
I am safe.
I can heal from sexual trauma. –  Lyvonne Briggs

I’m writing. Or is it rambling? I’m not sure. It’s just that I’m reading at the moment. I’m in my cave (bed) hibernating and I’m reading so many different books. Fiction, non-fiction, poetry and there’s a cross over with what’s happening within my life with my reading ( Does that happen to you?). There’s an echo or a reinforcement for the things that are causing me grief at the moment, worrying the wound as I read and rest. 

So writing things out, going long is a way of making sense of it all in the moment. It’s a way of gaining some kind of clarity for now. Not thinking of the future but thinking of gathering the threads at this moment to made make a something out of this mess of yarns.

My mum died when I was 27 years old. I’d just become a mother the year before. I’ve been hearing about the ‘mother wound’ lately. I’m not sure if I understand it completely. But when I hear it, I don’t jump into definitions and theories. For me it’s simply means when my mum died and left me to cope alone. Selfish I know. But I feel as is she left a gaping, bleeding wound that festers and hurts when I worry it. When I press on it, inspect it with my touch.

This morning, following my morning routine, in bed reading (with coffee skipped ahead this morning) I’m reading Sensual Faith: The Art of Coming Home to Your Body by Lyvonne Briggs. I’m reading a section called ‘Surthrivors’ a term Briggs created to try and capture how she was feeling, living after male sexual violence. She felt ‘survivor’ was too flat to describe/ define her experience when she was living/doing what she loved studying theology and religion, in community with loving people and was an acclaimed spoken word and slam poet. “I wasn’t just surviving, I was thriving!” Briggs wrote, hence pointing the more accurate term, ‘Surthrivor’. 
I love it when we Black women bend and twist language, divest from the standard to better express/ more fully express our feelings and experiences. That’s creative fugitivity for you (thank you Dal).

Briggs goes on to talk about how she got into the ministry so she could change how the church handles sexual abuse, not very well,  as there is a silence around it. Or they blame demons instead of the actually men. I’m not here to talk about male sexual abuse. I’m not her to talk about the church. I’m not a religious person. I was brought up saying my prayers. I remember a black bible, creased leather, brought from Trinidad and Tobago with my dad when he stowed away to England. This black bible sat toad-like in the teak sideboard of my childhood living room. West Indian style living room, I may add. 
I gave up believing in a ‘God’ when my daddy died when I was 9 years old. I’ve now come around to the idea that we are Gods/ Goddesses ourselves, inside us. I’m spiritual rather than religious. So I’m not sure why I’m reading this book. 

I lie. Yes I do know why I’m reading Sensual Faith. I followed a trail to this book left by Christina Cleveland and God is a Blackwoman. But also because of the subheading of Sacred Faith: The Art of Coming Home to Your Body, is a journey I always seem to be on. 

Anyway. Back to the reading this morning which went on to discuss the worship centre in a church is called the ‘sanctuary’. When you the word ‘sanctuary’, does anyone else think of Quasimodo? ‘Sanctuary, sanctuary!’

A ‘sanctuary’ is a safe or holy place. I wrote a poem titled ‘sanctuary’ and it was about my mum. My mum’s home, body, arms. When she was alive, it was her I went to for safe harbour.  I didn’t realise until she was gone. It has come a way for me to practice mothering my own children, through sanctuary for them. Once my mum died, I lost who and where I could return to for safety. I lost my home, my sanctuary when she died and I suppose I’ve been searching for sanctuary ever since, looking outside myself, looking for it in others ( husband for one!)

I don’t how long I’ve been in battle with my being, with my body, chastising her for not being enough. But also for being too much. Too fat. Too broad, too Black. But over the last few years, eyes open, something has been changing or shifting within me and how I view, treat and talk to my body.
.
Maybe that’s where my mum did me a disservice and where I’m making amends with my kids. I’m not sure she taught me how to find sanctuary within myself, within my own body.

Monday nights I dread. 
Not always. Just the last few months as I complete my level 3 diploma in counselling skills. I’m not jesting that I hate turning up for this course. And I never use ‘hate’ as a word usually, always thinking it’s too strong a word for a feeling. Too final without any redeeming features. But this is where we’ve got to with this course. 

And it wasn’t always the case. I could blame the dark, cold nights I have to turn up for 3 hours of lecturing and talking in an empty, sterile office block. I could blame the electric fluorescent lighting that flickers and buzzes and can give me a bad head. But I would be lying. I’m here to be wide open and honest. So here goes!

This course is taking away pieces of my soul, week after week. And I’m not ashamed to say that I have contemplated dropping out week after week, researching for alternatives. I  even enrolled on a supplementary course, decolonising counselling, that would tend to all the damage this course is doing, but I had to withdraw from that due to costs and timings. 

If you’ve ever studied counselling and therapy, you’ll know that everything; theories and tools and practices are all taken from dead white guys. Dead white guys acting like Gods (and I don’t mean the internal Gods I’m just mentioned). White male, usually heterosexual and middle class theorists who pontificate that they know everything about what’s happening in everybody’s mental health. They have the solutions to make us feel/ do /be better. As it’s always the individual’s fault and can be traced back to their childhood, their mother? Bullshit!

It hurts to be fed this shite every Monday. In the beginning I pushed back and attempted to decolonise the teaching, the theory, the responses. Bringing in other theorists and arguments. Being the only Black face in the class, girl has to represent. 

Until we got to week 9, we were exploring different types of power within the counsellor and client relationship. Power roles within the counselling arena. After a discussion, we were being presented with a list of ‘Further key aspects of power or perceived power’. And yes the list was not an exhaustive list and things could be added, the tutor said. This list did not include ‘race’, ‘ethnicity’, ‘culture’, and I voiced it as such. My comment was laughed at and dismissed as, ‘there’s always one’. 

Always one who has to comment on what’s missing from the list? Or always one who has to bring up race? Who knows! I just know how this comment made me feel.  Know your audience I say or was I being put into my place? This response indicated to me that this input, which a fundamentally the way white supremacy culture wields power through the hierarchy of the races. It’s the sea that we’re swimming in and to not mention is the usual state of affairs.  This interaction indicated to me that this was never going to be on this course’s agenda. Me continuing to challenge the whitewashing of counselling and therapy, me constantly remarking on the culture that we’re operating in wasn’t enlightening my fellow students or suggesting that they become more aware of their ( and my own) unconscious biases.  I realised I was just creating issues where they never saw issues. Problems where there are no problems.  As race and racism is only a problem when there’s a Black person in the room. It’s Black people who have an issue with race as whiteness isn’t a race, right? Whiteness is a given. 

After week 9, and tonight was week 15, I’ve silenced myself. I’ve disengaged from the course, no longer contributing. I turn up and get my attendance and keep my thoughts and comments and feelings to myself. I’m not giving anything of myself anymore to the group, to the course within the face to face sessions as I’ve received the message it’s not welcome, it’s not of value, it’s not relevant. I do not intend to waste my energy and heart and soul on this experience. 

This hurts me.
I’m making sanctuary for myself. I’m making this experience safe for myself. I’m keeping myself safe within myself, within my body as being in that classroom is no longer safe for me. And to explain that to them, I wouldn’t bother, as they wouldn’t get it. The can’t get it and it would also involve them listening to me, and me being heard, which ain’t happening.

I’m creating sanctuary for myself, within my body and its a practice. I’m using a self-soothing approach, self-talking, loving compassionate approach when I experience something that is harming, hurting, traumatic. I’m letting myself know, like that little girl inside me who needed to be loved and kept safe, I’m stroking my own chest over my heart and saying to her, saying to myself, ‘ You are love, Sheree. I’ve got you I understand why you are feeling unsafe. But I’ve got you. You’re dafe now.”
I’m mothering myself. I’m making myself safe. I’m making myself sanctuary.


How might we divest from the human?

| Sheree

I’ve been reading. When I read, I feed my wonder and imagination. When I read, I fill up with ideas and dreams and plans.

Reading expands my mind and expands my understanding of the world I navigate.

I cannot stress or emphasise enough how much my world has been rocked or even burnt down since my reading and continued reading of Fugitive Feminism by Akwugo Emejulu.

This isn’t like anything I’ve read before because it goes against everything I’ve been trying to do for the last 50 years; to prove the humanity of Black people, of myself so we can finally be accepted and loved.

But what if we’ll never be accepted? Never be accepted as human beings because who gets to claim humanity is bound up with whiteness, bound up with white supremacy culture?

What if being a human is a construct and is defined by those with the power and was never constructed to allow us, people of the global majority to be as such?

So if I claim non-human what are the possibilities for my being?

This is where I’m heading. This is the space I’m navigating now. I’m making changes from the inside out. In a cellular level this speaks truth and blessings to me. How I {BE} is changing and it includes a whole more ‘fuck offs’. Well that’s how it’s shown up my so far!

Capitalism Fatigue

| Sheree

No amount of pampering can cure or stop that slow soul death I experienced being part of the system. Being a secondary English teachers within capitalism.

I was indoctrinated early to believe my worth was equal to how hard I worked. Even with a young son, I world get up early drop him off at nursery early to get into school extra early and be unpaid. I would work the full school day and stay late and be unpaid. And not complain. To then pick up my son late and spend very little time with him before bed and then I would work late into the night, marking and creating schemes of work and again all unpaid. And then repeat it all again for days, weeks, months and years.

“This is a Eurocentric, deeply white supremacist way of thinking and it is straight and ableist. It does not consider someone’s mental, physical, and emotional capabilities. … It does not consider offering space to dream, create, or simply partake in a longer lunch or even a nap.” Jennifer Mullan, Decolonizing Therapy.

I would do extra work, take on extra responsibilities, make sure I was seen being the ‘good’ teacher and look how good I am at handling pressure because I believed this is how I could prove that I was enough, I was good enough.

And there wasn’t just those internal pressures but there was also that external pressure that would flatter and coax and demand and make me feel that I wasn’t doing enough or that I was needed even more and only I could solve this problem or issue or be the one to stay late and sort it out.

I couldn’t rest and I shouldn’t rest and if I was feeling burnt out it was my fault. I should learn to manage my time better, eat better, do less and take care of myself. But how can you do that within a system which doesn’t allow it? That just keeps on rolling and takes you along with it through desire or force? I couldn’t afford to work less, to drop responsibilities as I needed the money to keep the roof over our heads, food on the table and clothes on our backs. Earning just enough to live from one pay check to the next. I felt trapped. I was trapped. Until I broke.

I got sick. Took time off. And stepped away. Self-care wasn’t the cure for burnout but it helped for a time as it gave me the time and space and clarity to realise that I wasn’t the problem. My burnout and breakdown wasn’t my fault. The problem was deeper than me. The root of the problem was the school, the education system, the businesses, the organisations, the media, the policies, the rules and expectations that kept me working to exhaustion, stressing about not doing enough, tired and struggling and giving more of my time and energy and heart to strangers than my own son.

“You cannot self-care or self-love your way out of systematic oppression.” Jennifer Mullan, Decolonizing Therapy.

I agree, however, I would argue that leaning more into self-care with slowing down and rest and learning to love myself through my reconnection with nature, did and continues to do so, provide the space and time and energy to question my conditioning, to agitate the ways things have always been done within capitalism, colonialism and patriarchy, to recognise the dehumanising, extractive and exploitative systems that are fixing to kill us and attempt to do something to stop it.

I continue on this path of decolonisation by starting with myself.

Gratitude for my body

| Sheree
Whitley Bay, 12 December 2023

I’ve spent decades hating on my body.

Too big, too fat, too black for most spaces, places, people. So I thought or was lead to believe.

I’ve spent decades trying to get rid of my body.

Make it smaller, make it thinner, make it whiter. All the time knowing I was wasting my time, energy and money. But that didn’t stop me.

I was hard wired into chasing the perfect body, the ideal standard of beauty. Which just wasn’t me and my body.

Slowly, with care, self-love, mindset changes and practice, I’m learning to appreciate my body and all the spaces and places and people she takes me.

Through my body I get to experience this world and all its terrible beauty. And right now, as that’s all we can depend on/ should focus on/ breathe into, I’m loving on my body from the inside out.

I’m offering her grace and compassion as she continues to move me through this world. Allowing me to be here, {being} myself in all my fucked up glory.

And isn’t that fucking awesome!

Today my body walked me into the sea to remind me to feel again. To remind me I’m alive again. To remind me that we are only here for a short, brief time so shouldn’t we try to squeeze all the feels, sweet and not so sweet, out of it while we’re here?

My body supports me in this mission.

Every. Single. Moment.

Thank you x

End of June Reflections

| Sheree

How do you practice self-care?

Visual Journal May/June 2023

As we near the end of June, I near the end of my current visual journal. This beauty has seen me through some ups and downs these past two months, as I’ve navigated major life changes and shifts.

Being able to keep coming back to the page in order to work out my shit, my internal shit, before I meet all the external shit is a gift. Is a massive gift I take for myself in the name of self-care.

Before visual journaling came along, I did keep a journal but it was maybe a lined notebook sometimes plain paper and pen. Simple and effective and got me through a lot of life’s changes.

But when 2015 came along and my life changed forever, words on the plain page would never be enough again. Could never be enough to express all the turbulence and upheavals within my life. I needed more and I also needed to feel safe.

So paints and images and quotes and collage and photography and text came together, merged and played off of one another to provide the time and space and safety I needed to have an ongoing, developing and becoming conversation with myself.

I feel blessed now to know I get to do this / {BE} this daily. I give myself the opportunity to get off this merry-go-round of life and take deeper breaths, while being in communion with myself, checking in on myself, making sure I’m okay and if not what I need to do in order to get back to being okay. But all in good time and a few visual journal spreads later.

This is one of my self-care practices which I am truly grateful for.

I’ll be sharing some more spreads, images and reflections on this process over the summer as this practice is multifaceted in terms of all the goodness of offers me. I gain insight, clarity and love in the present moment of the practice. But I also gain a lot of joy in the looking back over pages, reliving the feelings within my body of the practice. I also gain pleasure from sharing this practice with others.

Check out further posts to come.

Not quite wild yet

| Sheree

The heat has been on for the last week or so and then today a downpour that didn’t seem to want to stop. But it was needed. There needs to be some kind of release.

I’m in the thick of organising house moves and exhibitions and lectures and just writing them gives me a headache never mind completing it all. And complete it I will do as that’s what I do. But at what cost to my health and sanity?

Today I’m resting for some and then doing/ working for some. Breaking up the rests with work instead of the other way around. And it’s working. I feel better, lighter and more productive but never doing more than I can handle.

I have loose ends that need to be tied up which are sapping my energy but some things are just out of my control. So I’m sitting with these uncomfortable feelings trusting in the ancients that they will allow things to turn out for the best for me.

I have to believe it when I get lost in the mix or start to doubt the path I’m on. That the universe has my back. That these things happen for a reason. I just wish sometimes things where a bit easier for me.

How to feel better

| Sheree

It’s been a few days (weeks?) since I’ve been here. And I do hate it when I don’t turn up here because I’m missing out on opportunities for connection, with self and you, at the same time as the longer it goes in between posts the harder it is to get back here.

But I’m back and it was something I wrote on my journal last month that spurred me on to turn up. And I wanted to share it with you as it inspired me to feel better.

And these aren’t my usual activities which I go to to feel better but looking over the list this morning, I can honestly say I’ve been leaning into them the last few weeks without knowing it’s been so. I love when we get the chance to take a step back and reflect and see our journey. I’m so grateful for that.

So what has been making me feel better:

1. Cleaning my space. Be that handbag, bedroom, side table or whole house. I’ve been reaping the rewards of moving my body in cleaning/tidying up and then having the satisfaction of sitting down in a decluttered clear space. It helps the mind to gain clarifying also.

2. Eating something healthy. I’ve been deep in essay writing mode and have been living on toast and crisps and wine! But when I take the time, a break from the grind, to make a salad, or stir-fry and sit and eat mindfully, my body is not only fuelled with the good stuff but I’m resting in a space of joy. I enjoy my food and have the double whammy of knowing I’ve just given myself health.

3. Playing some good music. I’m known to have the tunes blasting in the car, especially as I’m using a friend’s mini convertible. Roof down, tunes high and I’m singing along. But I forget I can do the same within my home. Okay maybe not as loud as when outside. But putting on the mini speaker linked to my Tidal music account, I can move throughout my house listening to the music I love. Music that inspires. Music that I can’t help moving my body to. Music that brings back good memories. And bad. But still manages to get a smile out of me.

4. Lighting a candle. This is a simple act. One I’ve been doing more and more recently as I have candles in every room of my house. I’ve been having them on repeat as I attempt to create a welcoming ambience for anyone viewing the flat. Yes the landlord is selling the flat we’re renting so we have to move. So more people are flowing through the space and having candles glowing is my way of keeping the air clean and scented. It reminds me to take deep breaths and trust that everything is going to turn out for the best. Vanilla, cherry, cinnamon and lavender are my favourites at the moment.

5. Drinking water. Oh my. Now this one is a game changer but I admit I forget it. Daily. Water. I love water inside and out but when I get buried under tasks and emotions, I forget to drink water. That feeling of cold liquid journeying down my throat through my chest to my gut is refreshing, revitalising and a blessing. It only take a moment but still obstacles get in my way. I’m carrying a gallon sized bottle around with me as a means of getting more and enough water. It’s a practice and I’m leaning into it.

6. Sleep a little ( or more). Maybe it’s my age. Menopause. Or the time of year, or my body and mind and soul is just racked with anxious vibes but sleep has been evading me of late. But I’m not going to make it an issue. I’ll take sleep when it comes. And if I can help it, I’ll nap when I feel tired and stay in bed that extra hour if my body calls for it. I rest in other ways too. Be that zoning out in front of the TV, reading or an evening walk. All are a rest from ruminations and allow me to switch off.

7. And finally BREATHE. Yes yes yes. We breathe all the time as it keeps us alive. But how deeply are we breathing? It wasn’t until I picked my meditation practice up again did I realised how long I’m been breathing in the shallows not having the utilising the full capacity of my lungs. Living in the shallows means I’ve been panicking, being on edge, anxious, living on scraps of air when I could have been taking and enjoying big juicy expansive breaths that calm and recalibrate my whole body. I’m breathing deeply. I’m stopping what I’m doing/ being at times to take a few deep breathes. They reoxygenate my body and give me pause for gratitude. Gratitude for being alive in this moment.

I hope you find some inspiration in these practices and try a few. They make me feel better and sometimes we all can do with a reminder of what does make us feel better so we can lean into them more often and more deeply.

Update – Mamathon

| Sheree

As I was saying over in the introduction to the recent episode released from The Earth Sea Love Podcast, apart from the year flying by, May was the month that kicked my butt. It’s officially going down as the worst month of 2023, so far for me. But hey I’m still here to tell the tale and I’m grateful for that.

I have to give some credit to still being here and getting through the trenches down to my walking practice of May. I completed the Mamathon as hosted by Girltrek and clocked up 53 miles. Of course I did more walking than that in May but these are the miles that were recorded with my Garmin watch. Just trying to keep everything recorded so I knew when I hit the miles, I knew I was banking them towards this challenge.

I’m so glad I took up this task. I started it with Miss Ella and finished it with Miss Ella yesterday afternoon. Even though she was full of cold she joined me to mark the occasion. I also went over on my right foot again. Same place / same injury as the one that stopped me completing the West Highland Way last year. But I’ve been icing and elevating it as well as walking on it today. A bit swollen and bruised but okay to walk on.

And I’m pleased about that as I would be most upset if I was out of action again just when I feel as if I’ve gotten into some kind of walking routine. Girltrek are running their Black History Bootcamp podcast this year again, which entails 21 days of meditations of Black stories are shared. So I’m just gonna keep on walking in June to the sounds of this podcast and clock up some more miles.

The West Highland Way is on again this year. Birthday week with dear friend, Alex, we’re walking the way together. More details to follow. Already excited about completing it. See what I did there? The power of positive energy. It usually get’s me through. Got me through May. Thank you very much.

Happy June.