Day 7
My old therapist once told me that I have a lot of cognitive resources. She didn’t really mean this as a compliment. Or an insult, necessarily. Just an observation that the way that I deal with “problems” in my life almost always involves a largely cognitive component. I try to intellectualize my way out of suffering. Not surprisingly, I often fall short.
I hardened at the idea of spirituality almost ten years ago. At ideas about god. Or a universe that was maybe benevolent and moves in a way that can benefit all of us, if we might only get out of the way. Or in the idea that we are all more deeply connected than we could ever see on the surface. I was not interested in ideas like this.
This has changed a lot for me, because of Yoga and my commitment to working a recovery program over the last year. I now believe in a higher power. I don’t know if I call them god, exactly. That can still be a little cringe-worthy for me, depending on the day. But I believe that I am not the most powerful entity on this earth or in this universe. And some days, that is all I need to find something like contentment. There are powers greater than me. And some of them are benevolent.
And because of my return to spirituality, I am able to recognize the deeply spiritual nature of racism. I believe that racism is a spiritual problem. And that all the books and the money and the college lectures in the world cannot, alone, eradicate it. They have not yet, after all. The research and statistics that are meant to compel us to change certainly have their place. But they will not save us. Because what happens when a white cop presses his knee into a black man who has already stopped breathing, or when a white cop opens fire at a playground because the black child somehow “looked” threatening, is a spiritual issue. An interior issue. Not an intellectual one. Not a statistical one. It is a spiritual issue, when what we instinctively feel toward someone we don’t know, is fear instead of love.
A Practice for Today:
Consider your spiritual journey (or however you want to refer to the part of you that does not involve skin and bones). Consider the role of spirituality in your life. Consider your resistance to it. How is your spirit part of your story? How have you abandoned your spirit for intellect or cognition? How has this served you, or not? Whether you believe in something greater than you, or not, write about how you came to that belief; and how that belief informs your understanding of the world around you.
