Today is my first day off since this new year started and I am excited! I hit send on this bad boy and it’s all cleaning, laundry, grocery shopping, art making, dog walking AND meditating with DuShaun on this really important prompt.
I am very excited for you to know DuShaun. She is a very special human.
Shannon Brags on DuShaun:
I actually had the hardest time writing this because DuShaun and I have so much rich history that nothing I wrote felt significant enough. I've written this three times now. DuShaun in a multitude. Fierce warrior. Tender-hearted healer. Indescribably amazing mother. Ever-evolving human. Generous spirit. Change-maker. I could go on. We met shit-talking at a social media scavenger hunt, and I have been blessed to celebrate her wedding to her loving and thoughtful husband, the birth of her second baby...who is beyond words perfect, and somehow the growth of her oldest baby into a TEENAGER. Shit that makes me feel old. Don't get it twisted, DuShaun gives me more shit than any other person in my life. LOL. It's like that. And I love her.
About DuShaun (formal edition):
DuShaun is a Registered Yoga Teacher (RYT-200) through the Yoga Alliance and was certified through Bloom Yoga Studio in June of 2020. In addition, she received her 95-hour Children’s Yoga Certification from Mission Propelle in the summer of 2018.
DuShaun previously worked in higher education, and is currently a community organizer in North Lawndale, a community on the west side of Chicago. Because of her former and current work, DuShaun is focused on bringing yoga to youth, activists, and organizers. She believes people not only need rest and relaxation, but resistance; yoga is a powerful way to tap into the balance of ease and positive effort. DuShaun teaches through the lens of equity and trauma-informed, hosting classes in “non-traditional” settings all over the city. She intends on taking down as many barriers as possible to bring yoga to those who are looking for calm and relaxed minds. DuShaun truly believes yoga is for all, and shares that throughout Chicago and beyond.
Today’s Inspiration:
Today as I guide you into this reflection, I encourage you to find a quiet, comfortable place to read this and have a pen and piece of paper or journal.
I encourage you to relax into the space you are in and start to feel your body in the space where you sit, start to notice your breath and start to slow down as you continue to read.
In Adrienne Marie Brown's book, Emergent Strategy, she says "Right now we are living inside the results of other peoples' imagination - People who couldn't imagine Black people being free, fat girls being sexy, disabled people being leaders. People who could only imagine their own power and dominance."
Take a moment and take this quote in. How does it make you feel in your head? In your heart? Write it down.
Now think of the activities, events, places you go, where you work on a daily basis. How do those people and places reflect living inside of a dream that didn't include BIPOC people/differently abled people? Write them down.
How does this list make you feel? In your head and in your heart?
Now take a moment and start to reimagine those places, those environments and imagine that they were made to include BIPOC people, to include Disabled people. What would they look like? What would they feel like? What would be different?
How does this make you feel?
Now I encourage you to take this list and go do something about it.
What can you change, in your workplace, in the places you shop?
I am working on dismantling the world that once did not include me. I need your help to do this in the spaces where you live, work, and breathe too.
Connect with DuShaun:
Watch DuShaun present at Pecha Kucha Chicago about her work.
I believe I grew up in a 'strange place'. My best friend across the street was also named Debbie. I don't think I realized she was Black until we got to school. My school, as well as my little street, was pretty much 50-50 because I grew up in a 'big city' - OK, big for Connecticut. When I moved to a more suburban city just before high school, I suddenly noticed just how 'white' everything was. It annoyed me then, it still annoys me now.
Do I have any prejudices? Of course I do. I'm human. But I try to overcome them. Do I always succeed? No. Doesn't mean I won't stop trying. I never understood why someone's skin color/religion/economic status/size was supposed to affect the kind of person they are.
I'm second generation here. I sometimes wonder if that's why - my grandparents were 'shunned' because they didn't speak the language. My mother didn't learn English until she got into school; my dad as well. I still remember my sister-in-law telling me the only reason her father agreed to my brother marrying her was because our 'people weren't here during the War'. (She's from the South. You can guess which war he was talking about.) I never knew if it was really a joke or if he was serious. Maybe a little of both. I do know I never found it funny.
We all live here on this planet. To survive, we have to help each other. As Jane Elliott said, the only race is the Human Race. It's the one we need to make sure survives.