Thanks for listening to Wellness, Community, Magic, a podcast with a pro-donut, anti-racist, Glenda-the-good-witch agenda. In this episode, Elizabeth Moore and Ashley Brooke James join Melissa Shah for a candid conversation about cultural appropriation and yoga. They talk about the power of representation and decolonizing yoga.
If you're a white yoga teacher or practitioner, you need to listen to this one.
Join us next week for a minisode check-in with our hosts.
Links:
Embrace Yoga's Roots: Courageous Ways to Deepen Your Yoga Practice by Susanna Barkataki
Full Transcript:
[00:00:00] It's like, yeah, like you can't change like the whole, you know, mainstream wellness industry, but you can make that choice to be like, okay, I'm going to step back and see what is my role here? And like, what work do I need to do as an individual because I can't control like what every single person chooses to do?
[00:00:20] That was the voice of Melissa Shah, an ...american yoga therapist who is in love with adapting yoga to individuals and studying ayurveda. She believes that yoga doesn't need to be stripped of its culture and history in order for it to be palatable and beneficial to others. She is deeply interested in the intersection of yoga and social justice and works to make feeling well accessible to all, but especially those who are often left out of the wellness conversation. Today, we are talking about the power of representation and decolonizing yoga.
[00:00:57] Hi everyone. We're your hosts, Ashley [00:01:00] Brooke James and Elizabeth Moore, co founders of TRILUNA and this is the Wellness Community Magic podcast, a podcast with a pro- donut, anti-racist, Glenda- the- good- witch agenda. We're here to take on diet culture by making self-care realistic, sustainable, and inclusive. So settle in, get cozy and join us on our journey to build community and redefine wellness. Let's get started.
[00:01:28] My lovely friend. We like to ask everyone when we start off, if you were a donut, which donut would you be and why? Um, I'm just going to say that I had the hardest time with this question out of all the questions you sent over. I was telling my husband, I was like, what donut would I be? And he's like, I don't know, you're gluten free. Like you don't eat donuts. And I was like, but if I could, I totally would. And that actually, I filled out everything else and then I was like so interested that that was the one that [00:02:00] I spend the most time on. Um, if I was a donut, I think I would be something with like chai spices, definitely that, because I love anything that is like overly spiced.
[00:02:14] Um, so I would have lots of chai spices and sea salt. Those would be like my TCS. Um, the reason why is because I've just been like really, really homesick. I haven't seen my parents in like almost 15 months, um, or my sister and, um, those smells like always remind me, always remind me of home. So I think, I think that's probably the main need I'm trying to meet right now.
[00:02:40] That's a great answer. That's the perfect answer to that question I think. That is, and I just kinda want to jump right in. Okay. The first time. I remember the first time that I saw you and didn't know you were a teacher at the moment. I don't remember where it was. Maybe it was a festival. Maybe it was [00:03:00] international yoga day, but it was a Brown girl doing yoga.
[00:03:03] And I was like, who is she? I want to find out who she is. I want to take her classes because at that time I had only taken Jo Jo's classes, which is, Jo Jo is a local teacher here in Nashville, and I was in search of other black and Brown teachers. And so I found you and finding you a found liberation.
[00:03:29] And I remember, I told Liz, I used to come to your Monday classes Monday or Tuesday classes. I can't remember which one it was. And I just really enjoyed your style of teaching. It reminded me of comfort. I love the way you had us get into our bodies and I just felt lighter every time I left one of your classes.
[00:03:53] And so Elizabeth and I know Melissa through the yoga community and [00:04:00] Melissa, I think it would just be great to just start off by like telling us your yoga story, your yoga journey and where you are now. Thank you. Um, I so miss, like seeing you in person. Like I actually, sometimes I'm like, what does that feel like?
[00:04:19] Um, I really appreciate that. Um, so a little bit about me. I started, I'm not really sure what age I really started practicing, but I guess we'll start with the age that, like, I was conscious that I was like doing yoga and my sister and I started practicing together probably when I was around like 11 or 12 years old.
[00:04:37] She's just 18 months older than me so we're grouped in together a lot into a lot of activities. And, uh, I had really severe asthma when I was younger. I got diagnosed at two years old. Like looking back on it now as an adult, it's like, Oh my God, I would never want any parent to have to go through that.
[00:04:52] And, um, I was diagnosed with asthma and I just had had it like all throughout my childhood, um, which for those who have had [00:05:00] asthma when they were kids, they can totally relate to this, but when you have asthma, you also end up getting a lot of like sinus colds and like chronic congestion, um, inflammation, like all that kind of stuff.
[00:05:09] And so that was just like a part of the norm for me when I was younger and like having to take like, asthma medication or having to kind of change the activities I was doing or how I was doing them because they would potentially like potentially have an asthma attack, um, in the middle of it. And that was just sort of my experience.
[00:05:25] I was kind of just used to that. My mom's side of the family, especially like my mom, my grandmother, and my grandfather and my mom's side were always very, very much into like yoga and ayurveda that, um, both of my parents, their ancestors are practitioners of the Jain religion and Jainism in its own right is basically a science.
[00:05:45] Um, and one of the central points to it is, um, practicing a himsa on there's a lot of like yoga, science and Jainism too. And so it's kind of just all like, like. Everything was just sort of like interwoven into and both of my families, but my mom's side of the family was definitely [00:06:00] like, um, more devout practitioners and kept a lot of these other elements, like ayurveda and holistic living as just like a part of life.
[00:06:08] And so my mom has always had that as a part of like who she was, but I didn't really get to see it until I was like sick. But at one point my mom was like, okay, you know what? Like, She had all the remedies and things like that. And she's like, what you really need to do is like a regular yoga practice.
[00:06:21] And I know that you're not going to listen to me because I'm your mom. And so I'm just going to take you to like a friend where they can teach you. And so my sister and I would go like several days a week after school to a family friend's house. And he taught out of his house, like a hatha, a hotha yoga class for adults. And we were just like kids that showed up and there was no like kids yoga, there were no games. It wasn't like, how do we make this really fun for you? It was like, you're just going to do this class and develop this discipline, like everybody else. And that's actually, that was my first like real, like I knew I was practicing yoga.
[00:06:55] That was like my first real experience. It was just very much like this really disciplined approach to [00:07:00] it. And yeah, my mom really started having me do that and my sister doing that mostly because of my asthma. And then also like whatever my sister did, I did and like vice versa. So we just, it was, there was, there was a strong sense of like moral support my family, like all the time, which was really nice.
[00:07:15] And then I just practiced, you know, all throughout like middle school, high school, whatever. And, you know, just like any other teenager, you don't know what you have until you're older. Right? Like you you're doing this thing, but at that time, like yoga wasn't cool. It wasn't trendy. People didn't wear leggings.
[00:07:29] Like that wasn't a thing in high school. I remember when people, like, I went to an art, a performing arts high school. And so I studied voice, but we had dancers and they all wore like tights and like leotards and everything. And I remember, I used to be like, Oh my God, they're so confident to be like walking around in like tights and like leggings all the time.
[00:07:47] I can't even imagine. You know? And now that's like, now it's just like I try to wear jeans so I like have a day of the week where I don't wear leggings. But, you know, you just like take these things for granted when you're younger because they're from your [00:08:00] culture, they're just like a part of your like regular life. And you don't really know. Or I didn't really know. Like I knew how it made me feel an unmade, my asthma better, but it really understand the full, like value of power of it until I met my teacher after practicing for a couple of years when I was 12 or 13. And I met my teacher that I had my mom and I, and my sister both like studied with for a really long time.
[00:08:19] And until he kind of like took me under his wing and was like, you're specifically going to learn these yoga creas and these brand new practices, like for your asthma, like, this is what you're going to do every single day when you're home. And we would go up to New Hampshire where my teacher and his wife lived and we would go there for like weekends and just do like an intensive all weekend, like stay at the house, just like how it was like kind of traditionally done all the time.
[00:08:41] But I didn't know, again, like, I didn't know any different, like I had never stepped into a yoga studio. I had never done a class of anybody else. So this was, yeah, just like my reality. And it was really cool. Um, and then in college, you know, I had my college experience where I definitely neglected my practice and again, didn't really know what I had, but in college [00:09:00] is when my teacher was like, do you want to start studying to be a teacher?
[00:09:02] And I was like, ah, sure. Like, why not? So me and my mom both started training under him and doing more like intensive study. And the nice thing about in these like traditional settings where you study with one teacher is like, you can stretch out your training for like forever if you want. And so for like four or five years, I studied with him.
[00:09:21] And then when I finished grad school is when I like did my like thesis for, you have to do a thesis for the, in this particular like lineage in school. And so I did my thesis and I did my exams and I got my certification and that's kind of like how I started teaching. I actually started teaching kids first, uh, when I was about like 20 or 21.
[00:09:40] And then after I got like my full certification, that's when I started to think about like, do I have the confidence to actually like teach adults? Like what does that look like? And it wasn't until I was in my mid twenties that I actually started going to yoga studios. Um, and I was in grad school in New York and I was totally broke.
[00:09:57] And so that was like the peak of like Groupon and living social at [00:10:00] that time. And so I was like, I'm just going to get Groupons and like fuck around to yoga studios and just take yoga classes because my cousin kindly let me live on her couch for most of grad school. Um, and which means that there wasn't a lot of like extra space for me to like be disciplined enough to practice.
[00:10:16] And so to my experience, going to yoga studios, and it was like this whole other world, because like words for poses like languaging, um, how it was marketed were just things I had never seen before. It was almost like, it's almost like it was like a completely different culture. I, in the lineage I had learned when I was younger, we didn't use props because you know, I like, props really came from like studying with like Christian Macharia and Iagar specifically, and this was a completely different lineage. I never like seen a yoga block or a yoga strap. And so they were like here, use this. I'm like, what is this? And I would just put it up. Like, I don't need that.
[00:10:51] Like, what is that? So it was just interesting, like how I started to see like, Oh, this is like what mainstream yoga is in a way. This is, this is like where everybody is when [00:11:00] everyone's like practicing. And that kind of led me onto a path of not being able to trust like what I learned when I was younger or like what I learned from my culture and being like, Oh, if I actually want to teach like a studio class was like, you know, that you were really teaching if you're teaching in a studio class or whatever.
[00:11:15] And I felt like, Oh, in order to do that I have to like learn how to teach in a different way otherwise like no one is going to be able to understand my teaching. Um, no one is gonna like respect it or anything like that. So that kind of led to this path of like taking trainings led by dominant culture.
[00:11:31] And just having like, you know, things from your own culture, just like repackaged and given back to you. But I wasn't that aware. It like made me uncomfortable, but I wasn't like fully aware of that at the time. I was just like, Oh, this is what I need in order to like be accepted. And so I'm just going to do it and, you know, find my own like way of teaching within that.
[00:11:48] And it wasn't until like five or six years later when I was living in Nashville that I met one of my teachers that I still study with now. And he teaches in the Viniyoga tradition, which is primarily [00:12:00] what I teach at now. And he teaches the viniyoga tradition and he like did not hold back on like using Sanskrit and be like, this is how it was, this is how he studied with Mistajar and he's like, this is how I learned it. I'm just passing it down to you.
[00:12:15] And it's almost like it wasn't like cool and trendy. And that like really attracted me to that because I'm like, Oh, There actually is a way, and there are people who are like craving something that, um, I don't want to say like more authentic, because like, what does authentic mean?
[00:12:31] But there are people who are looking to really understand these like deeper aspects of yoga that aren't really represented a lot of time in mainstream yoga culture. And he was like, that does exist and am I willing to like, basically let go of not being everyone's teacher? Even though, like I never was.
[00:12:46] Right. But am I willing to like, let go of that idea. And if I can let go of that, I can actually embrace like the path I'm like really supposed to be on. And whoever comes to that, like will come. So anyway, yeah. I basically have been like studying since [00:13:00] college and it's only like in the last like three or four years that I feel a lot more established and like the coming like full circle in a way.
[00:13:07] We appreciate you walking us through that journey because my next question was, and you kind of touched on it. I mean, what does it make you feel like now when you walk into a studio and you see how yoga is being represented? And we can reference, you know, the podcast that shook everyone and made people take a different look into their practices, which was "Yoga is dead."
[00:13:32] Yeah. The "Yoga is Dead" podcast. It, it woke up, a lot of us. Well, it woke, it woke up those who were willing to be awoken. Yes. Yeah. However we say that. Yes. But, um, so how do you feel like listening to that podcast? Knowing, being here in Nashville is only a handful of us black and Brown teachers. [00:14:00] And I've been wanting to ask you this. Hmm, but yeah. Tell me your thoughts. Like how did that podcast hit you and like how you feel right now?
[00:14:10] Yeah, it's a great question. Tejal and Jesal are awesome. I admire them so much and I really look up to them and, you know, especially when I'm like really digging in and just like reframing, like how I'm doing things. Um, what I always tell Tejal is like the podcast you both created.
[00:14:33] I'm like, it, it brought something out there that for a lot of us, like Brown folks, I'm like, we, it's like I always knew it. You know, when they were talking on a podcast, I was like, Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Now I was telling Tejal all the time. Like, but it's the language that, for me, it like, for my experience, it's the language that was like that missing, that missing piece.
[00:14:54] Like all these things you would feel like walking into these spaces, being asked to do things [00:15:00] like you're not totally comfortable with, having to, you know, cross that line between like meetings. You're like passing that or crossing that line of like meeting someone where they are and actually just like over accommodating in an effort to like make them like super comfortable. All of those things where like, Oh, yeah. Like that's been my experience for like so long.
[00:15:19] Um, but now I have like language and like a foundation on how to have those conversations with myself and then have those conversations with other people. And I feel like that's the, aside from all the topics they brought up, which is so great, that's been like the biggest thing for me.
[00:15:36] And it's so interesting when you're bringing up, like how it shook so many people, right? Or like people who are like willing to be shooken or shaken. It really brought up a lot even here in the yoga community in Nashville. And I think that was so interesting to see because you start to see a lot of the disparity of like black and Brown teachers.
[00:15:57] You know, a lot of us are like, Yup. [00:16:00] And then, you know, there are a lot of other teachers and practitioners that were like, mmmm I'm not sure, you know? And not to say, just because you hear something revolutionary that you're just supposed to, you're just supposed to accept it and like, not question it or anything like questioning is great, but it was more of all the language we have now that with this like resurgence of the interest in anti-racism and like the urgency of that.
[00:16:22] Like, there's so much language out there now that we can use to like explain those feelings of, you know, you hear these things and you just feel validated and you feel so seen, and then you have others with a lot more privilege in the wellness industry, not everyone, but you know, definitely people who are like, what if we looked at it from this perspective?
[00:16:38] And like, what about like the white teachers? And like, what about this? And like, what about that? And it's neither like good or bad to me. It's just like, okay. But is that actually like, what this conversation is really about? Like, is what you are saying like really like providing a sense of like utility and actually moving forward with these conversations? Like probably not.
[00:16:58] Like it's still your experience and you [00:17:00] are of course, like entitled to have it and you're allowed to feel, however you feel. It's just like, where's the most useful like space to express those things, I guess. And that was another thing that I started to just feel a lot more confident in because I would always feel like you know, like when you're like, uh, you're trying to like talk about these really difficult things but you just don't feel like there's any space to, or you're just so afraid that like, you know, I'm gonna lose my like teaching position or like the whole community is going to turn against me. Um, no, one's going to get it.
[00:17:28] Like, nobody's going to come to my class, all these things that you feel like define you as yoga teacher even though they really don't. You know, you start to like, at least for me, like started to have some fear of like, you know, what if I am more like outspoken about the stuff that like I always felt, but it always just was this like deep discomfort.
[00:17:44] I just like carried her with me around all the time. And by carrying around with me all the time, like never really saying anything it also perpetuates you know, dominant culture to be like, Oh, like, yeah, all this stuff we're doing is fine because if it wasn't like you would say something, right?
[00:17:59] Just like, well, there's [00:18:00] actually so much more to that because you're assuming that there's space for me to do that. You're assuming that I trust the relationship enough to do that. You're also assuming that like, you are open enough speaking to like, you know, especially like white cisgender, like people in yoga.
[00:18:13] You're assuming that I know that you're open and willing to hear this. And it's just so many assumptions there and we rely so much on black and Brown folks and trans folks to, to like, Be like, Oh, well, if you're you're uncomfortable, like, well, you should just say something, you know, you should just say something.
[00:18:26] And it's like, well, yeah, like more people are able to do that now because of podcasts like "Yoga is dead". It's providing like that feeling of like agency of like, Oh, there is something out there I can actually just like direct people to and be like, you should really listen to like episode number two.
[00:18:40] Whereas even though those conversations were happening here and there, it wasn't like on this like large scale in my experience. And I feel, I definitely feel like a lot more emboldened now than I did. Yeah, Melissa, your Instagram is like just a wealth of information and that's largely how I, I like follow and have gotten to know you and [00:19:00] watch your mom do yoga, which is such a treat.It is so special, she's so cute. But you talk a lot about decolonizing yoga and I, so Ashley and I are both yoga teachers and I have largely stepped away from teaching because I don't feel like I have done enough work to figure out how to teach yoga in a way that isn't appropriative.
[00:19:26] And it just doesn't feel like my space right now. So I practice alone and I practice by myself and I'm, you know, like growing that side of it, but I wonder what your thoughts are on how decolonizing looks like, what are the ways in which you're talking about that now and how can we all make steps towards a more decolonized yoga practice?
[00:19:47] Yeah, it's a, it's such a great point. I took this class this morning with my friend and colleague Avita bunchy. She teaches on this new platform called the connective co-op and it's basically a co-op of teachers [00:20:00] who all co-own this online studio and they're really committed to teaching classes to offer a yoga and movement and meditation in a decolonized way and in an anti-racist space. It's super cool. Encourage you to check it out. I'm just going to put a plug for her there. Um, but I go to her class now, like every Thursday and we always have conversations like this, like every morning before class. And one of the things she said today, I was telling her about an issue I was having, um, in a training I was in. She's like you know what happens so often is like, we feel like we can't change everything.
[00:20:30] And we can't like, we can't change everything, but that doesn't mean that we can't change something. And I think that overwhelm prevents like so many people, like myself included sometimes, from like continuing to do the work, but also still like showing up in those spaces. And I think that it's great that you're like you're having that introspection, right?
[00:20:51] That you're like, okay, I just need a pause. Doesn't mean that I'll never teach again, taking a pause because I want to do this in a way that feels intentional. And I think, um, I think that's [00:21:00] really beautiful. That's like, that's like what she said this morning. That's what I thought of. It's like, yeah, like you can't change like the whole, like, you know, mainstream wellness industry, but you can make that choice to be like, okay, I'm going to step back and see like, what is my role here?
[00:21:13] And like, what work do I need to do as an individual because I can't control like what every single person chooses to do? To me, like, that's a big aspect of like decolonizing the practice is like, it has to start from like the inside, whatever your background is. And that for me too, even though you know, I'm a first-generation American, like the daughter of immigrants, my parents also were born and grew up in like a neo-colonial era after India gained independence.
[00:21:42] And there's so much trauma whether like they, or their generation of conscious of, or not, there's so much trauma there as a result of it. And Susanna Barkataki talks about this a lot in her book "Embrace Yoga's Roots". It's like a lot about like post-colonial era and like neocolonialism. And it just really validated that feeling of like, yeah, like my parents are good [00:22:00] ujati Indian and those are my roots, but there's so much colonization there, there too, that they've held onto.
[00:22:07] And that like, other family members. My in-laws have held on to, by no fault of their own necessarily. Right. It's like the time that you're born into and it just like seeps through generations. And so I think even there's so many South Asian teachers out there that are doing that work within themselves too about like decolonizing their own mind and their own practice.
[00:22:26] And I would say like, that's another aspect of it is like it's an inside out job but if you grew up or are currently living on colonized land, or if your parents come from countries that have been colonized, like, just seeing how it's not just right now, like going back, like asking if you're able to, you know, asking your family about their experiences, trying to trace back to like your ancestors and like what their experiences might've been, I think is a huge part of it because our culture in like the West, or at least in the US it's very like individual.
[00:22:57] And we're seeing that so much now with COVID, right? How [00:23:00] like individualism, there's like a fight between like individualism and like collective care. And that collective care mentality is so innate to so many of us that come from countries like in South Asia and Africa, like that sense of collective care is like innate.
[00:23:15] It's like in our, in our blood in a way. And because of colonization, like in Western colonization over the whole world, like that gets, that's gotten lost so much. Um, so this idea of tracing back, what are your roots? What kind of, um, practices did your ancestors or your parents, you know, your ancestors do for that collective care?
[00:23:36] I think that's another thing that people can do. And, you know, Josie mentioning Jojo, Ashley, she did like an ayurveda workshop for women of color the other week and we talked about this so much about, she asked us to reflect on like, you know, what, what practices did you grow up with? Like for self care, you know, what did you learn in your household?
[00:23:53] Or what did your grandparents do? And it's interesting how even though my, my mom was so into ayurveda, but like, it [00:24:00] still took me a minute to think about, you know, just because like this idea of connecting with who came before you, it's not like inherent in our culture here. And I think that's a big part of like decolonizing is like, when you come, if you're a teacher and you're coming to your class to teach like first just acknowledging like, Hey, like I didn't, I didn't come up with this and that's okay.
[00:24:20] I got this from somewhere because someone taught me and someone taught them and someone taught them and learning about the lineage that you've studied in. Or if you're in a training that's kind of pulled from a lot of tradition seeing like, maybe there's the lack of that and what are the traditions that they pull from? And just acknowledging that with your students, like making that normal versus like, okay, like I came up with a really great class and we're going to do it.
[00:24:44] It's like first, like acknowledging where did these practices come from? They might not always be like India or South Asia, right? It could be from other places too but where did it come from? Like who did you learn from? And that decolonizing, I think another word that comes to me with that is like humility.
[00:25:00] [00:25:00] Yeah, I think in our culture here, this incentive individualism, there's so much importance placed on, you know, what did I do? Like how did I come up with this? And part of that is like really important and empowering. Right. But there's another part where I think like, it gets taken too far, you know, this is my brand.
[00:25:16] I copyrighted like these practices and it's like, well, yeah. I mean, no, no, no. And I get why people have to do that because that's our culture here. You know, you have to like protect yourself and like look out for yourself. But decolonizing too, I think is coming to your practice whether you're taking or teaching it with a sense of humility of like, you know, this came from somewhere else and it existed for a really long time. And it's important to know, like from where, and also being with that discomfort of like, I might not know, and I need to find out.
[00:25:49] I'm not sure if that totally answered your question. Yeah, it does. And you mentioned "Embracing Yoga's Roots", which is on my list of things to start decolonizing my own practice.
[00:25:58] Will you talk about that a little bit [00:26:00] about that book? Yeah, I haven't totally finished yet. Um, but I, I haven't been, I haven't been doing, um, have been doing a book club. We've met twice already. There are, I think, four sections in the book. So like each time we're breaking down a section, but yeah, I mean, it's a great, it's such a great book and resource that Susanna created.
[00:26:17] I think, I'm hoping that eventually it will become like a staple in like every yoga teacher training as like something you have to like read or at least outline before you even start taking the training. But yeah, there's this aspect of decolonizing. She actually talks about colonization before she even gets to decolonizing to be like, what, like, what has that looked like and how, you know, when we think of when we grew up in schools or at least I did like in New York and I learned about what colonization was, it was like very casual, right?
[00:26:46] Like around Thanksgiving, you learned about like what happened to native Americans? I went to this Catholic school when I was younger and we did like our feast, whatever, where everyone brought like a food from their heritage, which is so interesting. Right. We all have to bring a food from like our own culture, [00:27:00] but we had to dress up as pilgrims and native Americans.
[00:27:02] And I thought that was like, "Wait a second". And I was like seven at the time and even when I .was Seven I'm like, this is really uncomfortable but like, of course, like, I didn't know. Like this whole thing of like talking to your parents about what happened at school was not a thing for me when I was younger at all. Like school happened and then you came home and there was no like, mom, this really weird thing happened at school.
[00:27:22] I don't know if I should make cutout feathers and like put it on my head. Like you just did it. Yeah. And that's how I learned about it when I was like really young. It was like very stereotypical, really harmful generalizations and just very casual. That's like the one thing I remember is like, you know, this thing happened.
[00:27:41] Right. They like annihilated like an entire race and like, let's move on with the day. And it's like, wait, hold on a second. Why are we not like talking from at a young age, really ingraining in kids that like, Hey, this happened and it's like really, really bad. It should never happen again. It's happened like in so many countries [00:28:00] around the world, but like, this is why it's so terrible.
[00:28:02] And these, these are the ways that people can be harmed. People are harmed because of it, um, throughout generations and that's something Susana, like, at least from what I'm getting from it, she really addresses in the book is we were thinking about like decolonizing, which is such like a trending word right now.
[00:28:16] It's like, well, what does it actually mean to be colonized? And how would we think of it? How we learned it in school, it might be like, Oh, this Euro centered, like population came and tried to fix or civilize like black and Brown people in some way. We think of it that way as like, Oh, they cause all this harm and they took over the lens.
[00:28:36] It's like, yeah, like that is how it happened. And it still happens now. Like, but yeah, it can look in so many other ways that we're not even even conscious of, like when we teach a yoga class, but we don't even acknowledge, Hey, like yoga came from South, like these practices came from South Asia. We don't even, like, we're not even taught to even introduce that into a class.
[00:28:54] Like that's, that's like practicing at ratio and that's how colonization still shows up in our modern life. Yeah, [00:29:00] the white washing of history is harmful, is incredibly harmful. It's violence. So one of the ways we talk about actually doing the work of like real and true allyship is learning the history of what actually happened and not just from the colonizers.
[00:29:14] And that's really important aspect of the work for us. Yeah. Um, I'm sorry. I just, I'm kind of in a space when Melissa was talking, I actually kind of teared up because I miss this. I miss you. I miss JoJo. I miss like this community. I just haven't put myself in the space to talk about this. And you also said like for you, now that we have language, we can speak to ourselves before we hit the mat and how we present our class.
[00:29:50] And that's something that I've been doing. But I think because I, I've been trying to use my voice for so long in this space, like [00:30:00] being around people or having this conversation will just help me. It will help me with my practice. It will help me with my conversations around this because you're right.
[00:30:11] Like, this was taught to us, and now we have to go back and unlearn and put ourselves in positions where we're giving credit where it's due and that we're honoring the right people in the right spaces. So, I do get emotional. I, I mean, yeah, it spoke to me. But that's the power of community. I mean, that's why we talk about that so much.
[00:30:33] And that's what's been so hard about this year is like really missing community and being able to have those vulnerable conversations. You are such a, uh, an incredible influence on us and we are, we talk about you all the time. So it's been an honor to have you here. We are coming to the end of our time together.
[00:30:54] Any final question? I mean, you'll see me soon. Clearly, I [00:31:00] need you. I need the community, but yes, Melissa, thank you so much for being here. I mean, every time I see you, it's just this like sense of comfort. I immediately think of your practices. And I agree with Liz. When I'm not practicing, I'll look at you and watch you and like, yeah, I'm doing that with her in my head.
[00:31:20] So we appreciate you. We love you. And thank you and Liz, I think that's it. And that's all.
[00:31:30] Thank you for listening to Wellness Community Magic. This season is coming to a close soon while we work on some big projects, but you can keep up with us by following us on Instagram at TRILUNA_Wellness, or signing up for our newsletter at trilunawellness.com. You can also join our community on patreon at patreon.com/wellnesspodcast for early access to episodes, behind the scenes content and additional wellness resources, including a PDF [00:32:00] of our Downdog to Donuts workbook. Stay tuned for more updates and keep an eye out for us on clubhouse as well.