Colonialism and Shadow Work in Wellness
Trigger warning: death, abuse, generational trauma, colonial violence.
This is the third part in a series on Colonialism, Racism, and Shadow Work.
To read Part 2, please click here. To Read Part 1, please click here. To read Part 4, please click here.
In our last discussion, we spoke to the way colonialism and racism sits in our bodies and minds, having been passed down through generations of colonial and colonized bodies. This week I want to speak to how this colonialism manifests in wellness spaces because of lack of healing and recognition of our racist and colonial shadows.
A village of people lives in balance with nature and one another. They sing spiritual songs together, and engage in healing ceremonies for physical and mental health. This village cares for each and everyone one of its members, from newborns to the elderly.
Then, a colonizing nation arrives. Their main goal is to siphon natural resources and wealth from whomever they colonized by any means necessary. They killed multiple members of the village, and exacted a curfew by threat of further force. The threat of force and the murders created a CONSTANT unsafe moment in the bodies of our villagers.
The colonizers put an end to any spiritual singing, the use of village languages, any healing ceremonies, and force the villagers to adopt their way of dress, religion, and language. Villagers who dissent are killed. A pregnant person in the village watches their partner killed in front of them. Children are not allowed to learn about their cultural histories, and as such, face a disconnect from their parents. Colonizers introduce alcohol and drugs into the village, and these items numb the villagers’ pain and trauma for a small moment. As they cannot practice their healing ceremonies anymore to lessen trauma, they begin to find themselves addicted to these items that colonizers continue to profit off of.
The villagers used to grow crops in their fields to feed themselves. Since the colonizer arrived, they are forced to grow inedible crops with monetary value for the colonizer. As famine spreads, colonizers will only help to feed the people who convert to their religion. Multiple villages convert to the colonizer religion for a handful of rice for their children. All the villagers now know that they must hold on to any item that falls into their hands - they begin to hoard odds and ends with the thought that they may need them one day.
Does the above sound familiar? That’s because it kind of is. The above situation has been repeated over many continents to millions of people by European colonizers. If you are from a colonial country in Europe, this is part of your ancestry. This white brutality has been a recurring theme in history. I share the research below, which is a mere snippet of colonialism:
The Portuguese Inquisition.
In the Goan area (i e Portuguese controlled India), natives accused of practicing Hinduism or other religions in secret were imprisoned, publicly flogged, and even sentenced to death. Hindus, Buddhists, Judaists (who fled the Spanish Inquisition) and Muslims were criminalized and prohibited from practicing their faiths. The Portuguese attempted to eradicate Indian languages, and banned the publishing of books in Konkani, Marathi, Sanskrit, and Arabic languages. The oppression and brutality of the Portuguese Inquisition, of which I’ve merely grazed the surface, occurred for a whopping two and a half centuries from 1560 to 1812. You can learn more about the inquisition here, also known as the Goan Inquisition.
Click the image above to read more about how British Policy also created the Bengal Famine of 1943.
The Bengal Famine and British Colonialism
British Colonization in India, in which the sub-continent was looted of 45 trillion dollars in value, includes poverty, malnutrition, disease, rape, famine, bloodshed, and more.
Indeed, The Bengal Famine of 1770 killed more than 10 million people under British rule. In times of drought or famine, Indian rulers would feed their people with the taxes they collected from them, and created irrigation systems to mitigate the effects of the droughts. In comparison, the British colonizers would increase taxes, or force farmers to grow crops with high British market value, but no edibility; think inedible indigo over paddy crop. This heinous practice was easy for the British as they saw Indian folk as objects for commercial exploitation and capital gain, rather than seeing them as people. How do you think the same objectification and dehumanization manifests itself today in the bodies of those descended from those involved in brutal colonial regimes?
We can see the effects of colonialism, racism, and the assumption of white body supremacy to own all things in the wellness industry. Many white practitioners use practices and knowledge from BIPOC communities, without doing the shadow work to question or understand why they feel they can be gatekeepers or owners of this practice. Thus, we end up with a group of practitioners who haven’t taken an intersectional look at the work they do. When the conversation moves to inequity, intersectionality, and inequality, the shadow self that sits unhealed in the body moves into discomfort. Without this healing, without facing this shadow, there cannot be meaningful discussion, understanding, or movement on anti-racist body work. Instead, there is fighting, fleeing, freezing, and a number of emotions associated with this colonial shadow.
The below experience demonstrates the guilt, shame, and fear that arise out of our colonial and racist shadows when we are unable to confront them.
I was served an ad on Instagram over the Summer by a ‘Wellness Practitioner’ here in the Toronto area. This person, in the middle of a pandemic and lock down, was looking to meet and engage with with other strangers in the wellness space without masks. This person is white, and felt that wearing a mask (what many of us see as a compassionate and communal act) took away from their freedom and practice. They were willing to advertise this opinion as someone who claimed to be a healer and shadow worker. So I asked them the below:
“Do you pull any of your practices from cultures or practices that are from Black, Indigenous, or People of Colour? Hinduism, Buddhism, Indigenous folk of Turtle Island, etc? BIPOC folk are most likely to be harmed by COVID because of the jobs they work and the intersections they have. If you pull from these practices, but are not supporting these folks in real life by making sure you wear a mask, you’re just taking to benefit yourself and others like you. Where is the spirit and compassion in that?”
My question was deleted, and so were those of others who had similar questions. The poster felt attacked and victimized, even though her actions could have dire results for BIPOC and white communities. She was unable to hold herself accountable for her response and couldn’t see the connection between the pandemic and our intersections - again, they chose to ADVERTISE this stance but was not willing to back it up. The poster used Indigenous practices in her healing, but did not think to advocate for the communities she took her teachings from.
In other words, a white settler/colonizer to Indigenous land felt a right to “Indigenous-based shamanism”, but could not do the shadow work to consider why their anti-mask attitude was racist, uncompassionate, and lacked intersectional understanding. I’d be lying if I said I was surprised.
In writing this piece, I myself feel and experience my own wounded shadow surfacing again. It demonstrates that healing from colonization will always be an ongoing process (are we truly ever decolonized in this tongue?). This is normal - and it’s okay. I just have to be willing to meet my wounds as they arise. To do this work, I have been looking my shadow in the face for years. I know how colonialism and racism has affected my communities, because I do the research, I look into the history, and I take a look at myself and how I feel every time I learn about or experience something involving racism. This doesn’t mean that I’m 100% healed, or 100% able to deal with my trauma. But this is the work that all folks need to do in order to understand how our colonial past has built our colonial present. Meeting our shadow will allow us to sit with more ease.
I have felt angry, lost, guilty, ashamed, sad, and confused by my colonial shadow. While these emotions still come up occasionally, like when I was doing research for this piece, I am able to meet them with open arms, and watch as they transform into greater resiliency. My sacred rage can transform into sacred resilience that I will pass down to my own children should I have them, and to those around me.
I believe that many minoritized folks are more sensitive to the nuances of intersectionality and our connection because we’ve been at the tail end of racism for most of our lives. However, there are still large groups of people who see police brutality and don’t bat an eye. We see young girls who want to bleach their skin because they’ve been taught their melanin isn’t beautiful. If you believe in connection then you know that all of this is truly related - and it won’t end until we can recognize that we as people must heal from the colonial trauma and supremacy that we’ve inherited from our ancestors.
Questions for Reflection:
Do you practice any Asian, Indigenous, or African healing medicine/practices?
If you have a teacher or guide, what is their cultural background and how does it connect to this practice? Do they have colonizer ancestry?
Were you taught the history of this practice by that guide? If so, did they mention where this practice originated and who the original and current keepers of this practice are?
If you carry colonized ancestry, how did it feel learning about that history?
If you carry colonizer ancestry, how did it feel learning about that history?
If you carry both colonized and colonizer ancestry, how does it feel to sit with both of those histories in your body?
How have you acknowledged these histories in your body, and how have you given yourself kindness in carrying them?
