10-Ways To Rise Above Ableism (even if you didn't realize you needed to)
By Laura Sharkey
Ableism: A series of ideologies, systems, institutions and economic and sociocultural practices whose oppressive nature is based on the arbitrary belief that disabled bodies are essentially inferior to those considered to be “normal”. (From Anti-Ableist Glossary of Disability Terms, Sara M. Acevedo, PhD.)
When I started my yoga practice about twelve years ago, I had the very common experience of feeling for the first time ever that I was at home in my body. I reveled in that, and began to befriend my physicality – an endeavor that would have never occurred to me as a possibility before. The sturdy and highly effective triad of asana, meditation and somatic therapy (which I became aware of through my favorite yoga teacher) provided me with a life-changing opportunity to integrate my mind, body and soul, and to develop tools that helped me become grounded and resilient to a degree that was simply not accessible to me through traditional talk therapy, or any other practice I knew about at the time.
I was exposed to many ways in which North American yoga culture not only sustains, but often amplifies, patterns of marginalization.
I had the good fortune of being in the honeymoon phase with yoga when I became chronically ill. My fledgling practice was a comfort and a resource that helped me immensely, and I relied on it to create this new version of myself, after every non-disabled attribute that I relied on to define my place in the world had fallen away from me. I was ecstatically grateful for my yoga community at that time, and couldn’t (and still can’t) imagine trying to navigate that time in my life without it.
But the honeymoon ended, as is inevitable. Several years into my practice, when I began to venture outside of the sanctuary of classes led by the first few teachers I knew, I was exposed to a much broader swath of yoga culture/community as it exists in the US (USYC).
I had no idea that the inclusive, grounded practice I had learned was not representative of how yoga is taught in the larger “community.”
For the first time, I was exposed to many ways in which USYC not only sustains, but often amplifies, patterns of marginalization that are embedded in dominant US culture.
As I ventured out into the larger USYC, I first became painfully aware of the body size bias that led many teachers and other students I hadn’t met before to assume that I was not a “real yogi” (in addition to the judgementally oppressive nature of this attitude, use of the term “yogi,” by the vast majority of US yoga practitioners is problematic anyway, because of how that appropriates the South Asian and African cultures from which yoga originated. For a detailed explanation of white/western appropriation of yoga, read How to Practice Yoga Without Appropriating It on Susanna Barkataki’s blog).
Teachers and other students assumed that I wasn’t a “real yogi.”
I became familiar with the routine of explaining, virtually every time I went to a new studio, that no, I am not new to yoga; yes, I have practiced before; yes, I am sure I have practiced before and no, I don’t want to go to the Intro to Yoga workshop you are hosting next week.
I suppose I should be happy with the small amount of progress we’ve made since that time; in increasing numbers, fat students have taken the risk of taking classes at studios, and I am no longer always the only fat student in the entire studio. But I am still quite often the only obviously disabled one, and I still often get the same round of questions when I walk with my limp and my cane into a new yoga space.
But the (slight) lessening of body size bias has introduced a new complication for people like me, who are not only fat, but also disabled. The still rampant fatmisia – as oppressive as it is – is no longer my primary obstacle. In fact, many of those advocating for fat acceptance have unwittingly joined ranks with the thin and inherently ableist majority of USYC. In spite of the protests of disabled practitioners, the “Just because I’m fat doesn’t mean I’m not healthy” sound bite has become a common mantra of yoga-centered fat activism, in response to tediously predictable and often fatmisiac concerns about fat practitioners’ health. Technically, the “just because...” statement is true. It speaks to a common (and erroneous) assumption that all fat people are unhealthy. But here’s the thing: while it’s true that fat doesn’t necessarily mean “unhealthy,” it also doesn’t automatically mean “healthy.” And, it implies that there is something inherently wrong with being unhealthy, in a way that requires the accused to defend themselves against such an accusation. So when I hear the “just because...” defense, I hear my fat and non-disabled cohorts distancing themselves from the disabled – and especially from those of us with chronic illnesses/conditions. While I’m sure that the distancing isn’t deliberate, it seems to be unconsciously intentional. If creating that distance weren’t important, the common response would be akin to “You cannot accurately assess my state of health based on my body size, nor should you because my health is none of your business.” In contrast, the “just because...” statement implicitly asserts the healthiness of the speaker, and the requirement to reveal one’s state of health. So instead of including the disabled in the scope of “body image” politics, many, if not most, non-disabled fat activists are casting us aside in favor of identification with the moralistic “healthy” ideal. And so the campaign against fatmisia is now solidly ensconced on a platform of ignoring the existence of “unhealthy” yoga practitioners, just as much as is the dominant, thin-bodied USYC.
Much more daunting for me than fatmisia is the ableism that encourages teachers and practitioners alike to assume they know better than I do what is important and necessary for my disabled body, as well as for my autistic and clinically depressed neurology.
The belief that yoga can deliver us from the unsettling, earthly reality that our state of health is impermanent and unpredictable is relentlessly and ferociously guarded.
That belief requires those that hold fast to it to perceive yoga as an all-purpose antidote to not only their own, but also my health-related challenges. The stereotypical assumptions and judgments required to support the belief are so ubiquitous and overwhelming that picking an example to share is like trying to decide which drop of water to point to in the ocean. Suffice it to say that it is not at all surprising to me anymore when someone I barely know foists upon me unsolicited advice about how I should ditch my mainstream medical treatments and pharmaceutical meds, and let yoga heal me instead (every chakra I have is, apparently, in need of some sort of balancing, which, once done, will cure me forever). US dominant culture is way too invested in the belief that all human traits or conditions that are not culturally approved as healthy and ideal must be cured. And cure, in and of itself, is a very troubling concept for many reasons, including the reality of who holds the power to offer, withold or mandate cure, and who is subjected to the whims of the dominant cultural ideals that dictate it.
It is not at all surprising to me anymore when someone I barely know foists upon me unsolicited advice about how I should ditch my mainstream medical treatments and pharmaceutical meds, and let yoga heal me instead. We are way too invested in the concept of “cure.”
In retrospect, it became painfully obvious to me how naive I had been to trust in the Utopian “we’re all one” rhetoric; I really should have known better, but I, like so many other practitioners, wanted to believe that a dedicated practice would make me impervious to the hardships of day-to-day life in the real world. But in spite of my wish to hang on to this faith in eventual deliverance, I was exposed to so many instances of people like me being routinely judged, silenced, ignored and exiled for the sake of allowing others to maintain the belief, that I had to let it go. In effect, we – the disabled, the “unhealthy,” – are deemed unworthy of inclusion because our very existence calls the dogma of yoga as the provider of perfect and perpetual health into question.
There is no way anyone can look at me and believe in the value of my practice without discarding the oh-so-comforting belief that yoga is a panacea for the hardships of life. Even if I keep my mouth shut, cultural assumptions about physical ideals will suggest to anyone looking at me that I have not transcended — and probably can not transcend — to a self-made reality where everything is as I would have it be. But transcendence is not my goal. I practice because yoga helps me ground and self-regulate in the world I live in. I want to live in this world and learn to be at home in this bodymind – in whatever form it takes in each moment of my life. That is, to me, the only viable path to being as present, connected and part of the world, as I can possibly be. I have no wish to transcend the world or my body.
Transcendence is not my goal. I want to live in this world and learn to be at home in this bodymind – in whatever form it takes in each moment of my life. That is, to me, the only viable path to being as present, connected and part of the world, as I can possibly be.
Many practitioners have the option of holding fast to the belief that an “authentic” and dedicated practice will someday soon bring them to a state of constant equanimity, free of suffering, where they will no longer be affected by the hardships and drudgery of day-to-day life.
I don’t have that option, because the belief’s bedrock is a fanciful and unrealistic faith in an escape hatch that is accessible only to the most finely tuned and perfected physical form. And how that perfection is defined supports and amplifies the biases against the conditions it is designed to escape.
So, here we are, back again at the discomfort non-disabled people tend to feel when confronted by the possibility that they will someday end up like me. As much as that is true in mainstream culture, it is raised to a pitch that, while mostly subliminal, is frantic and ubiquitous in USYC. It makes sense, really. Because of its uniquely blended focus on both physical fitness and spiritual transcendence (thereby blending the two into a moralistic imperative), USYC is a magnet for exactly those people who have a strong aversion to the reality that life is impermanent, and physical impairment is inevitable for anyone who doesn’t die suddenly at a relatively young age. While I in no way mean to imply that all US yoga practitioners are intent on denying the reality of aging and eventual death, the saturation of people who are is much higher than in mainstream culture. And so the biases and marginalization that support that denial are amplified. I, as a disabled person, am covertly discarded or censured because I am an unavoidable reminder that none of us are invincible and that we never have complete control over our destinies. Yoga cannot protect us from age and death, nor can it make us invulnerable to life’s precariousness. It cannot grant any of us immunity from the ever-present possibility of pain, injury or illness.
And so I will seldom be believed, or trusted as the authority on my own practice, because believing what I say about who I am and why I practice is not compatible with the needs of those who leverage their non-disabled, “healthy” privilege to deny the uncomfortable realities of life and death. One of the most insidious aspects of marginalization is that those who are marginalized are not to be believed; if you believe us, you have to acknowledge that the culture that supports you does so at our expense. In USYC, that means that we – the disabled – are collateral damage in the war on acceptance of life as fraught with uncertainty and some amount of danger. There is only one way out. For me to be included, accommodated, and respected, you, my abled friends, must be willing to confront the fear and anxiety – in short, the suffering so aptly identified by the Buddha – of knowing your eventual death is unavoidable. If you confront that fear, we will both be better off for it.
I know it sounds overwhelming. And t’s scary. But it’s really not as hard as it sounds. It’s a practice.
Here are 10-WAYS to embody that practice:
(Hint – they all require some amount of rigorous self-inquiry and critical observation of USYC)
Examine your beliefs and assumptions about the role traditional physical alignment plays in asana practice. Do you believe that there is an external ideal alignment, or can you allow that alignment should be adapted to the needs and attributes of the person in the pose?
Examine assumptions you make about other yoga practitioners based on how you perceive their physical grace or stability. Include tics, eye contact, “fidgeting”, gait and posture in your consideration. Also consider assumptions you make about typical body construction, eg, that all practitioners have two feet, two arms, a typically curved spine, etc.
If you are a teacher, don’t assume that all students want, or can even tolerate, physical contact/adjustments. Ask permission. Every time.
Examine your beliefs about the relationship between health, disability and physical appearance. Make sure to include any judgments you might have about people based on their physical appearance or your perception of their state of health.
Examine your assumptions and feelings about the relationship between culturally prescribed definitions of physical attractiveness and a person’s perceived state of health, including emotional/mental well-being and stability.
Examine assumptions that you make about the relevance, strength or purity of another’s yoga or meditation practice, based on their physical appearance, the ways they move, or their mannerisms.
Observe, in a mindful way, all the yoga-related imagery you see in one day, and think about who is missing, based on presumed race, gender expression, body shape and size, apparent age, clothing cost/style, or presumed affluence based on background setting/location. It’s just as important to notice your assumptions and inferences as it is to notice objective attributes (e.g., do you assume they are neurotypical? if the person is not obviously physically disabled, do you assume that they are not disabled?).
Get introspective, and practice sitting with the discomfort of contemplating how your life would change if you were to become disabled. Notice, also, the type of disabilities that come to mind when you do this. Do you think only of physically obvious disabilities, or do you include invisiblized disabilities and mind-based attributes or conditions?
Practice respecting the choices of yoga practitioners who say they take psychotropic medications, struggle with a mental illness/condition, or are neurodivergent. Notice if you see a correlation between your perceptions about their mental/emotional stability and your judgments about the quality or authenticity of their practice.
If someone tells you about a condition, illness, disorder, injury or disability that they have, do not offer unsolicited advice. Do not assume that they are looking for a cure or a fix, and do not presume to think that you have a solution to offer them that they just haven’t thought of yet. Err on the side of assuming they don’t need or want you to fix them, unless they ask for your input. Above all, do not suggest that yoga can cure them. Just don’t. Ever.
Laura is the Disability and Accessibility Advisor to Off the Mat. They are a fat, enby, neuroqueer autistic, multiply disabled, anti-zionist Jewish activist who left the corporate world in 2011 for health-related reasons and used the challenge of chronic illness as an opportunity to shift their focus to their life-long interest in social justice. They teach meditation and have participated in several of the Yoga and Body Image Coalition’s campaigns, including a spotlight in YBIC and Yoga International's "This is What a Yogi Looks Like" series and Mantra Yoga + Health's "Every Body is a Yoga Body" feature. Their most recent project was to co-facilitate, with Hala Khouri, a presentation on Trauma Informed Yoga and Neurodiversity for the 2020 Accessible Yoga Conference. They are passionate about working to make yoga and meditation more accessible and welcoming to everyone, with a special focus on dis/ability and neurodiversity.
Become Friends With Your Body ―Yoga For Body Liberation (New Online Course)
Become a Yoga in Action Facilitator
Meet: Beth Berila
In June, you can take a 3-session, online course offered by Off the Mat titled "Practical Tools for Talking with Other Whites about Racism" with Beth Berila. It will be a powerful and important class for those of us learning to be effective white allies in the work of dismantling racism. Beth has done incredible work in the field of social justice and we'd love for you to get to know more about her and what she's coming with in June!
OTM: How did you become a part of the Off the Mat community?
BB: I’ve known about OTM for quite some time—seeing advertisements of its trainings and hearing the “buzz” about their valuable work. I have taken a couple OTM online trainings with Hala Khouri, specifically around the trauma of injustice (which I will probably be referencing in my own course). I also have several colleagues in the world of yoga and social justice who are connected with OTM in a variety of ways, including being some of their faculty.
What I admire most about OTM is that it offers the tools for people to create positive change. Many of us want to make the world a better place, but may not know how. We may inadvertently reproduce common missteps if we do so without support. OTM trainings help provide participants with a social justice analysis and tried-and-true practices for creating change that are informed by that analysis. I am so thrilled to be a part of the team!
OTM: We often ask in our leadership trainings: what is something that breaks your heart? And, what unique gifts are you bringing into the world (& this course)?
BB: What breaks my heart? So many things. But one that keeps happening is when vibrant, strong, hopeful people have internalized or experienced injustices for so long that the wounds undermine their empowerment. This happens both individually and collectively. I see this happen in my Women’s Studies college courses. Strong, vibrant, talented feminists will be finding their voices and creating AMAZING community change, and still undermine themselves with toxic messages or become immobilized by the wounds of oppression. It is pervasive and heartbreaking. I, too, have suffered from that in some ways.
That observation is what initially motivated me to delve deeper into yoga and meditation. Those practices are what allowed me to hold my empowerment and my struggles in a more authentic, embodied, and compassionate way. They are also what sparked an exploration into how we can create more socially just ways of being with one another—how we can unlearn deeply oppressive beliefs and practices in order to create more honouring ones.
Doing so, particularly in the context of dismantling the aspects of whiteness that are so deeply harmful, requires sitting with discomfort. There are very common responses people have when white privilege or white supremacy are pointed out. These reactions are defense mechanisms designed to shore up racial injustice. So helping people learn to recognize them as such and sit with the discomfort instead of avoiding it is a critical step. In my online OTM course, we will learn some techniques for doing so. Because only then can we create alternatives that truly honor everyone’s humanity.
What unique gifts am I bringing? My insight into this work is grounded at the intersection of feminism, yoga, and embodied social change. It is informed by social justice activists and theorists. And it is tested in numerous classrooms and community sites.
OTM: What brought this course, Practical Tools for Talking with Other Whites about Racism, into being?
BB: I have been doing social justice and anti-racism work for over twenty years. Mostly, I do it in the Women’s Studies college classroom with students entering into the conversation with various degrees of interest/awareness and from various identities. That experience has honed my ability to meet people where they are in order to transform ways of thinking and being (in this case) about racial identity, whiteness, racism, and white supremacy. I have also worked closely with colleagues, both inside and outside academia, to do antiracist work.
This particular course builds on all that rich experience. I began thinking about it after the election of Donald Trump to the US Presidency in November, because I saw (and felt) heightened despair, along with urgent calls to “do something.” Actually, two days after the election I flew to a large mindfulness conference and was struck by 1) people who were desperately hungry to talk about the current state of affairs, and 2) people who avoided the conversation, and 3) people who had no idea where to begin (this third category pervaded both of the previous groups).
Let’s be clear: nothing in “Trump’s America” is new—the oppression that some people are just becoming aware of has existed for centuries. Many people have been around doing the work of trying to survive and dismantle them for years. But there did seem to be a heightened urgency. I also sensed a strong undercurrent of not knowing where to start. Many well-intentioned people wanted to make the world a better place, but did not know where to begin.
I figured one way I could begin was to “gather my people,” so to speak, and help cultivate the tools for whites to talk with other whites about racism. I know many people who want to do so but get stymied when the conversations (inevitably) get hard. My years of teaching students in a variety of places around the conversation, combined with my own (fraught) path (filled with missteps and learning), will provide the foundation for this course.
I am on this path too—I am not the “expert;” I have experiences and knowledge to draw on that I hope will prove useful, but this work is collective work. I envision the course as a collective learning process.
. . .
Beth Berila, Ph.D., 500-hr RYT is the Director of the Women's Studies Program and Professor in the Ethnic and Women's Studies Department at St. Cloud State University in St. Cloud, Minnesota. She is also a 500-hr registered yoga teacher and an Ayurvedic Yoga Specialist who completed her 500-hour Yoga Teacher Training program at Devanadi School of Yoga and Wellness. She is the author of the book Integrating Mindfulness into Anti-Oppression Pedagogy: Social Justice in Higher Education (Routledge). She served on the leadership team of the Yoga and Body Image Coalition for two years and is now a community partner. She works to make yoga accessible to every body by challenging the lack of diversity in the mainstream Western yoga culture. Her current projects merge yoga and meditation practices with feminism and mindful education to create a form of socially engaged embodied learning. www.bethberila.com
Leaders As Bridges
YOGA IN ACTION SPOTLIGHT! Celestine & Amanda Muhammad - Kansas City, MO
In 2016, Celestine Muhammad (A Peace of Yoga KC) along with her daughter Amanda Muhammad (A Peace of Yoga Dallas) hosted Kansas City's first-ever OTM Yoga in Action/YIA circle! Since Celestine's Leadership in Action with OTM in Minnesota, she had been intent on sharing the experience with her diverse community. She also thanks Kelli Austin and Nancy Bounds of Sunshine Yoga KC for having such confidence in her and for trusting in the YIA process.
Yoga in Action group - Kansas City, MO (2016), led by Celestine & Amanda Muhammad
Although the circle did not go as initially planned, once Amanda stepped up to the plate and the force of loving and curious community support could be felt, there was no turning back! What blossomed was a powerful and intense weekend with no time to spare.
For a community which is often marginalized, Stine and Amanda know first-hand the depths of keeping it together when everything else is falling apart. With on-going follow-up meetings, their YIA group unanimously voted to serve "Mothers In Charge," a group of moms who lost their children to violence in the streets of Kansas City. To help give back with love and support, the YIA circle decided to host an official Moms Day Off! The moms were brought 50 miles outside of the city to Paola, Kansas for a special retreat at The Motherland. After turning-off their cell phones and electronics, the day was spent in nature with guided walks to the pond, then it was back to the house for pampering with the ritual of foot-washing and facials. Lunch and candlelight dinner were served and pajamas were on before the sun even went down! The day was filled with love and soul.
Mothers in Charge - Kansas City, MO
Going forward, many in this YIA circle have committed to continue supporting Mothers in Charge and are now part of the newly formed "Volunteers in Charge." They offer support in monthly healing and support groups by simply holding space and showing up where needed during on-going street canvassing.
Yoga in Action - Kansas City, MO (2016), led by Celestine & Amanda Muhammad
Seane interviews Teo Drake: Compassion, Mindfulness, Social Justice
Check out this inspiring interview between OTM co-founder Seane Corn and OTM board & faculty member Teo Drake about compassion, mindfulness, social justice, and how these concepts will be explored and embraced during our upcoming Leadership Training Intensive Retreat in Santa Barbara, CA this Dec 8-11 at beautiful Pacifica Graduate Institute.
"My highest hope for this training is that it can be for folks who are seeing the world as it is right now during this painful time and don't know what to do and want some help to figure out what their piece is and how to do it in collaboration with others and how to do it in a way that doesn't feel paralyzing and soul-crushing. This training is also for folks who have been doing this work for a longtime but need to be in community with others to remember that they're not alone and particularly for folks who are experiencing crushing oppression themselves ." -Teo Drake
Make the Real World Your Ideal World
by Valerie R. Maloof
Imagine a place with no cellular service, no wifi (ok, really terrible wifi that’s not really worth using – so close) and where someone peering into their phone is a rare sight. Now add to that a bucolic setting that reminds you of the camp where you spent summers as a kid, but instead of tug-of-war games and bonfires, there are morning yoga and meditation sessions and evening concerts. That place is the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY- a place so silent that birds wake you up quite a bit before the sun shows up every morning.
At Omega, I spent five days with 30 or so women who I quickly recognized as my clan. All of us came together to participate in the Off the Mat Into the World (OTM) intensive, a five-day workshop led by yoga teacher/activist Seane Corn, yoga teacher and trauma/somatic therapist Hala Khouri, and artist/musician Suzanne Sterling, three friends and colleagues linked by their passion for social justice and healing. The week-long OTM workshop brings together yoga, meditation, and self-inquiry along with “practical tools for communication, organizing, and collaborating." The overarching goal is to help attendees combine the teachings of yoga with their passion for service and translate it into action for the benefit their communities.
Though I had wanted to attend the OTM intensive for at least three years and had read about it, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I had done several trainings with Seane before and had benefitted immensely from her ability to create a connection between yoga and where pain and trauma are held in the body. (I often credit Seane with jumpstarting a myriad of positive changes in my life seven years ago by putting me in pigeon pose and leaving me there to think for what felt like 150 breaths). I knew and respected Hala’s therapeutic work from OTM’s online trainings, but I did not know Suzanne at all. I figured the intensive would include yoga, deep thinking, and networking. Turns out I got that and much, much more.
Seane, Hala, and Suzanne have formed a powerful coalition (built on the feminist model of lateral management) that doesn’t just embrace differences – it celebrates them. Their friendship is as evident as their commitment to the work they have been doing together for over a decade (and long before separately). Under their tutelage, the women in attendance at the intensive started to slowly open our hearts to one another. I discovered the three OTM leaders truly know their craft: if Seane, lovingly nicknamed “the grim reaper of yoga”, doesn’t get to your heart through movement, Hala’s rational and gentle prodding does, and if both of those fail, Suzanne’s drum and voice finds the visceral pain that everyone inescapably holds inside them. It is practically impossible to leave the group on Friday without having delved very deeply into what hurts you, moves you, challenges you, needs to be changed in you, and ultimately having come closer to knowing what you are moved to change in the world.
I can’t recall the last time I was surrounded by more impressive women gathered in one place. Most attendees were yoga teachers who also worked in various fields of service including social work, art therapy, and non-profit leadership. As we got to know each other during the week, women shared their pain, joy, and what drove them to be a force for good in their communities. We practiced yoga, worked hard, sang and danced, created art, wrote, laughed, and—yes—cried together. It was impossible not to be moved as women generously shared stories of trauma, pain, loss, and longing with the group.
By far, the most moving part of the experience was the support these women afforded each other. It is a thing of beauty to find yourself in a place where you know you are not being judged by your looks, accent, interests, sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion, or any other of the myriad of things which we are routinely judged for as we grow up and inhabit the world. It was a wonderful and easy rhythm to move to.
After the workshop ended and I came home to my own bed and family, the re-entry into “the real world” was swift. There was the lawn to mow, six laundry loads to get to, and an empty fridge requiring a trip to the grocery store. There was my husband, back from the race track after his first Spec Miata event of the year. There were the girls and their 11-year old intensity focused on friends and soccer. On our first night together, one of the girls kept us up all night coughing, and the next day – a school and work day – we were all moving slowly while ticking off the to-do lists, making lunches, doing homework, and getting to soccer practice. And just like I had fallen into the rhythm of Omega, I easily fell back into the rhythm of my life.
Coming back home to my space, my husband, and our children was not difficult at all – I love my disorganized, messy, loud life very much. But returning from a week where so many people kept an open heart and mind and treated my intentions with love and patience, it was quite difficult to step back into the more challenging interpersonal realities in my life: the reality that I don’t see my girls every day, so I’d have to wait to hug them and ask them how their week at camp had gone; the reality that I’d have to wait to give them the tiny bead bracelets I had placed on our altar for my OTM clan to bless as we moved through one last practice together; the reality that not everyone sees other humans as people who are doing their best but instead see them as adversaries and enemies because they don’t practice the same religion or hold the same beliefs when it comes to raising children.
Returning from OTM, I wished the “real world” was more like the world we inhabited at Omega for one week. But I was also reminded that I can stay on the path to becoming a kinder person and improving my world by looking inward instead of reacting to the parts of my life which don’t go exactly as I want. And just as I had started to struggle with this, one of the women I now call my OTM sisters posted a meme which offered me a much-needed, sweet reminder. Her post may have only been a little meme, but it had the sound of Suzanne’s powerful drum and the singing voices of my OTM sisters behind it. I smiled and remembered that my clan is out there, and together we can indeed make this a kinder, more compassionate world.