Volume 2, Issue 17: On "Perfect"
Hi friends! In a startling turn of events, I did some yoga this week. This may come as no surprise to many of you, but I’ve historically been very anti-yoga, at least, American yoga. It has major cultural appropriation vibes and even if it didn’t, getting me to move slowly and deliberately and focus my thoughts instead of doing 10,000 things and thinking 10,000 thoughts all at once is a chore, to say the least. Well, in May I read Yoke: My Yoga of Self-Acceptance by Jessamyn Stanley and I was so inspired that I downloaded her yoga mobile app, The Underbelly. Of course, it has taken me 3 months to get up the nerve (and be sick of my own bullshit) enough to give it a whirl. Granted, I have only done it twice this week but so far I don’t hate it. Well, not completely. Okay, fine, I posted this on Twitter:
Also this week, Ijeoma Oluo posted a video on her Instagram about “Healing even when it keeps happening.” The yoga, this video, and my recent conversations with my therapist have had perfectionism weighing heavy on my mind so I want to talk a bit about it today.
In her video, Oluo mentions how it is impossible to fully heal from trauma when the trauma is ongoing. I agree. There is no amount of self-care, self-help books (or newsletters!), or therapy that will heal the ongoing traumas of white supremacy, capitalism, colonization, and the current pandemic. We’re putting band-aids on bullet wounds. Oluo also talks about how she would tell herself that she would seek out a therapist when “all this is over.” But the police violence is unending. The pandemic is still going. And I realize I, and so many of us, do this same kind of postponement of care, joy, and rest: