Episode 11: Collective Trauma and Recovery
Episode 11 of M3CS’s Contemplative Science Podcast saw Michelle Cassandra Johnson come on to the podcast to talk about trauma, spirituality and the whitewashing of yoga.
For the full podcast, check out the episode here.
In this episode, we cover...
The differences and complexities of individual trauma and collective trauma.
Practical tips for introducing mindfulness to alleviate trauma.
The issues with Western Yoga: appropriated, whitewashed and capitalistic.
Michelle Cassandra Johnson is an activist and social justice warrior, author, anti-racism consultant and trainer, intuitive healer, yoga teacher and practitioner. Her books Skill in Action and Finding Refuge explore social justice, yoga and grief, with a third book to follow in 2023.
Here are some of the key insights from the conversation...
Trauma affects our bodies in a powerful way.
”What I understand about trauma individually, and collectively, is that our nervous systems are in communication. The nervous system is trying to resolve that trauma in some way. And sometimes we'll replay the sensations and emotions connected with the traumatic experience over and over as a way to try to resolve it. And I think we see this collectively in patterns that people are playing out.”
How we react in certain situations is a product of individual and ancestral trauma.
“I think many people have this, like when we have this feeling of holding the breath, or we feel something in our gut or intuition and we're not sure why... we behave in a way that is unexplainable to us. I think a lot of times that can be rooted in trauma, and not just the trauma we've lived through in this lifetime, but I think ancestral trauma too - the trauma that we carry in our bodies.”
Western Yoga is extremely removed from the core principles of the practice.
“And in large part, people think about yoga as: are you going to yoga? And they mean: are you going to do a movement class... are you going to practice asana. Which is just one path and it's not the first limb of the eight limb path. The way that we think about yoga, the way we talk about yoga, the way yoga is taught, feels whitewashed and feels like capitalism.”
The best place to find Michelle Cassandra Johnson is here.
See you next week!
