respectability and the things that kill us
on the harmful pressures of respectability in wellness spaces
Welcome to 2024 with its assurance of new beginnings, a deep sigh releasing the past 365 days. The start of the calendar year is often reserved for setting resolutions and taking on new calls to action, but those of us in the northern hemisphere are still in the thick of winter and hibernation. We’re standing in the doorway between what was and what’s to come, which is an ideal time to reflect on previous seasons and prepare our garden bed for springtime; pulling up weeds, tilling the earth, and balancing planning with indulgent rest.Â
The last months of 2023 were tough on the spirit and spooned a bitter dose of reality down our throats. A deepened understanding of systemic violence in the world – both its existence and our roles as contributors and beneficiaries (and potential allies), sat heavy in our bellies. We saw that for far too many, truth telling and demands for justice do not come as easily as despair, indifference, and fear. Our collective garden bed is overgrown with weeds of respectability, the state of being proper and socially acceptable, that chokes all our potential blooms at the root.
I’ve always been keenly aware of the ways respectability trickled into my life but a recent conversation with a friend and fellow yoga instructor uncovered its depth and harm. An iconic video from 2008 of Iraqi journalist Muntadhar al-Zaidi throwing his shoes at then U.S. president George W. Bush was the unlikely spark of the conversation. I debated sharing this video on my instagram stories with the context that as a yoga practitioner who holds mindful communication as a high value, I also make room for expressions of righteous rage on our path to freedom. But I hesitated, worried that I’d be misunderstood or called a hypocrite for not holding a peaceful disposition above anger.
This moment of shoe throwing, like many historic and present day displays of righteous rage of varying degrees, confronted me with a recurring moral question: what is the role of violence in liberating ourselves against oppression? The answer always comes plainly to me as an inevitability under fundamentally violent systems, but both my friend and I shared the struggle to voice this perspective with our students, clients, and wellness/spiritual communities. She made several points that stuck with me during our exchange:
(1) being present with all of the feelings - including rage - is important, but especially righteous rage like this, which is where my politics kick in. (2) Western yogic culture wants us to pretend like we don’t have (valid) rage, so at the same time I feel my own hesitation because of the risk connected to being so deliberately non-peaceful. (3) The pressures of respectability coerce us to negotiate our authenticity.