Dr. Beth Berila
A friend of mine calls me Sparkle Girl. She used it to describe how I learned, early in my childhood, to please others and to gain my self-worth through external approval. My family says that I used to come home from preschool crying and apologizing for getting my dress dirty. They never understood where I learned that I was supposed to be spotless and perfect, since they never cared whether my dress was dirty from playing. But, somehow, I had already absorbed those messages, constantly worried about other people’s judgment of me, certain I wasn’t good enough.
The cultural patterns in the media, my schooling, my family, and my community told me that if I was the “good little girl” I would get approval and be loved. Since I wasn’t traditionally pretty, being “good” meant being smart and caretaking. It was my unspoken role in the family to take care of other people’s emotions. To this day, I have to resist the tendency to be more aware of other people’s states of being than my own. Until I found yoga many years later, I often lived more in my mind than in my body, seeing myself through the eyes of others.
One day, probably in my sophomore year of high school, I set myself the goal of being valedictorian. One might admire the determination to achieve high standards, except the real motivation was to prove my worth. I was certain that once I achieved it, people would finally see me, and I could truly be myself. For years I strived for that goal, giving myself migraines, panic attacks, and depression, until I was finally named co-valedictorian. While my family was proud of me, it was a rather empty achievement. As with many of the external accolades I tried to earn to validate myself, they never worked. I wouldn’t understand why until I found feminism, then yoga, then learned to integrate the two into a deeply healing way of being.
Though I lived a very privileged and loving childhood, I deeply absorbed the sexist messages in the culture. Those messages told me that my worth as a girl and woman depended on people’s approval of me. They were amplified by the sense that something was wrong with me because of my queerness, though I wouldn’t discover that until my mid-twenties. To use psychologist Beverly Tatum’s metaphor, I breathed in the oppressive beliefs like I would smog, and it tainted how I saw myself and the world.6
Eventually, feminism would teach me that this is called internalized oppression, and here’s how it works: negative messages about women, people of color, LGBTQ+ folks, and other marginalized groups saturate US culture. Authentic, positive narratives about these communities are rare. So we begin to accept those beliefs about ourselves and others like us. We absorb them for so long and often over so many generations that these harmful messages erode our very identities. We begin telling them to ourselves, participating in our own oppression from within. Unless we can counter them with some empowering messages about our group, it is virtually impossible to unearth these toxic beliefs and come to a holistic, empowered sense of self.
Can Feminists Sparkle?
When I went to college, I found feminism and my world transformed. I took several courses on the feminization of poverty from the resident Marxist Feminist economics professor who rocked my world. The first actual Women’s Studies course I took was called “Decolonizing Feminisms.” We read Chandra Talpade Mohanty while watching the Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas televised hearings. I finally had a language to explain the worldview that had long lingered at the edges of my consciousness. My awareness of deep injustice grew exponentially. I voraciously read the fiction of women of color and informed myself about the oppression of marginalized groups. I was empowered, I was righteous, and I was passionate.
This feminist empowerment continued through my masters program and into my doctorate, where I became a Women’s Studies teaching assistant and completed a dissertation in community-based arts as a form of feminist social change. The central New York town where I earned my doctorate was also a hotbed of community activism, and I learned a great deal about community organizing. I came out as a lesbian during that time and stepped right into participation in the transmenace direct action group for transgender justice. I felt empowered and informed. I spoke out about injustice and educated myself and others about feminist social change.
Unlearning Internal Oppression
It was during my doctoral program that I discovered yoga. I was drawn to its promise of wholeness and peace, but for many years I could only sip its potential. I practiced with an Anusara (Hatha yoga) teacher, which hooked me because its emphasis on anatomy focused my attention on my embodied experience. I also loved that it helped me take the yogic insights to my life off the mat. But as hungry as I was for all of that, I couldn’t hold it. When I returned to my graduate work, I would quickly resume the life of the (judgmental) mind.
While I advocated for feminist empowerment, the ability to see power and oppression too often morphed into yet another way to beat myself up. Rather than accepting mistakes in unlearning privilege as a part of the process, these missteps convinced me that I was an awful feminist. This was more than the proverbial white guilt, because it was also a familiar, old narrative. It felt familiar in my body. One minute I would be righteously pointing out inequality, but the next, I would see a complexity that I had missed and that familiar voice of judgment would erupt again. I would disassociate, flush, and my body would contract. I would either want to run away or ramp up the perfectionism. Neither resulted in social justice or healing.
This judgment was intensified by graduate school, where we were taught to find the flaws in someone else’s argument before we looked for the contributions. We learned to tear down without necessarily bothering to create new, empowering alternatives. For someone who had internalized sexist and homophobic messages so deeply that I determined my self-worth by external approval, these patterns intensified one another.
The result was profound feminist strength that was consistently undermined by invalidating self-talk. Even as I write this, here is the external and internal monologue that is going on:
External: Sexist messages so pervade our culture that I learned, from a young age, that my self-worth is based on external approval and the degree to which I make other people happy. Feminism, while empowering, also intensified that internal critique, sometimes further demoralizing my already weak sense of self.
Internal Story Line: How full of yourself are you? Honestly, people in the world have REAL oppression—Syrian refugees who are barely surviving on rafts while fleeing horrendous violence, transyouth of color who are being murdered throughout the world, and many women of color who don’t get the luxury of this white, middle class, pityfest that you are having right now.
This cacophony played havoc with my sense of self for years. There is some truth to the critique in the internal narrative. The version of sexism and homophobia that I absorbed was indeed a white, middle class one. It is NOT the lived oppression that many marginalized groups face, which is, arguably, much more tangibly violent. That is the feminist wisdom of the internal monologue above. However, the shaming and dismissive tone in which it is delivered gets in the way of that wisdom. I wouldn’t learn to discern the difference until well into my thirties.
Several years later, after earning tenure, I returned to yoga. My heart and body told me that I needed healing or else. So I completed a 200-hour teacher training with Senior Anusara instructors. I delved deeper and deeper into my own practice and eventually completed a 340-hour teacher training in Tantric yoga and Ayurveda. Finally, I began to touch that deep yogic insight. I learned to listen for the inner voice that is filled with loving-kindness and acceptance. I began to discern that this voice is more expansive than the harmful messages. It helps me unearth them with fierce compassion, which the Buddhist teacher Sharon Salzburg defines as, “a potent tool for transformation since it requires us to step outside of our conditioned response patterns.” 7
Through my yoga practice, I have reflected very carefully on which parts of those inner monologues are socialized privilege that I have to unlearn and which parts are internalized oppression that I also have to unlearn. The line between the two is not always clear. But here is what I do know. While there is often some deep wisdom in these inner monologues, that insight is drowned out by the harsh shaming. What distinguishes the two is tone and effect: wisdom opens up possibility and resonates as truth in my gut. Internalized oppression demoralizes and demeans.
Yoga and meditation helped me reconnect to my body and begin to distinguish between embodied wisdom and toxic messages. They feel dramatically different. I now lead workshops on yoga and meditation for unlearning internalized oppression. Participants consistently say similar things. Internalized oppression, when it strikes, makes us feel small, threatened, and unsafe. We disassociate. Our hearts race. We break out in sweat. We flush. We want to hide. While different identity groups likely experience it in different ways, we can generally feel that something is wrong. Even if we believe the harmful messages, they do not sit well in our bodies and hearts. When we tap into authentic inner wisdom, on the other hand, it is not judgmental or invalidating. Even if it guides us toward change, it does so with compassion and a certainty of our worth.
Instead of allowing room for both the privilege and the internalized oppression—which would then allow me to dismantle BOTH—the demoralizing messages let me know, in no uncertain terms, that my experiences and feelings do not matter. And that, I think, is a deeply unfeminist and nonyogic message. Rather than leading one to a deeper authenticity and connection with other people, this message becomes yet another tool to bludgeon oneself into submission. The shaming devaluation of one’s own story is a tool of oppression. As the Chicana feminist Cherríe Moraga wrote, “If we are interested in building a movement that will not constantly be subverted by internal differences, then we must build from the inside out, not the other way around. Coming to terms with the suffering of others has never meant looking away from our own.” 8
Yoga As a Path to My Inner Sparkle
My yoga practice kept coaxing me toward a wholeness that I longed for. It kept showing me signs that my feminism could be more empowering and holistic, if I could become embodied and unlearn those toxic messages. It helped me see that turning toward the pain, reflecting on it, and moving through it would help me heal. My practice helped me learn how to sit with discomfort and make more intentional choices about how to respond to it.
But, as empowering as yoga was, it also felt restricted at times, especially when I felt pressured to shut off any social critique in yogic spaces. Though many of the people with whom I have practiced over the years would probably identify as liberal, feminist analysis about the yoga spaces themselves was often unwelcome. Raising questions about cultural appropriation, challenging racial exclusions, or calling out the economic inaccessibility of many programs were not popular topics. They were often shut down with the message that these spaces were for “peace” not debate.
As a Women’s Studies professor, I am no stranger to taking unpopular stances or to challenging people to reflect on their privilege when they don’t want to do so. But it is disheartening in spaces that profess to be about liberation. It is painful to hear language of personal reflection and transformation, and then see yogis refuse to engage power and privilege around race, queerness, class, gender, or dis/ability.
Reclaiming the Sparkle:
Cultivating Discernment on the Mat
Once I deepened my yoga practice, the inner critique would still happen, but it would be tempered by what one of my yoga teachers calls “the holy pause” that would keep me from traveling down the reactionary path before I even knew I was having reaction. My inner monologue would then look something like this:
Internal Story Line (said in a shaming, harsh tone): So you think you are a feminist change agent? Great. Why are you practicing yoga instead of doing social change? Pause. Breathe. Step back to downward dog. Turn inward. Soften. (Shaming voice resumes, now a few decibels quieter.) Do you know how many people can’t afford yoga, or don’t have the leisure time in their loves for yuppie “self-care” efforts because they have to work? The very fact that you are here means you are embracing your privilege—your class privilege and your white privilege (I mean really, do you see any people of color in this yoga studio)?” Ujjayi breathing, connect with my heart. Hear the wisdom but not the shaming. Imagine sending kindness and compassion into my heart, connecting with that which is already there. What does my inner wisdom have to say? (Now even quieter.) You should really be out there doing more … you are an imposter … Breathe, deepen, connect …” This is the story line. The one you have learned. Don’t feed it. Soften your heart.
The ability to cultivate this discernment on my mat translated to much more skillful practice off my mat. I started moving in the world with much more heart-centered energy and skillful discernment. This wasn’t a flawless process, of course, but yoga taught me that even the missteps were opportunities for transformation.
Eventually, I found my people: people who are, like me, integrating yoga and feminism in social justice work both on and off the mat. Organizations such as Off the Mat into the World, Yoga for All, and the Yoga and Body Image Coalition are spearheading some of this change. Studios are offering classes specifically geared toward supporting marginalized groups, including Queer and Trans Yoga, Accessible Yoga, and People of Colour Yoga. Moreover, a growing number of academics, myself included, are integrating feminism, yoga, social justice, and mindfulness, reflecting on both the possibilities of those partnerships and their limitations. These conversations mean that I no longer need to separate parts of myself. Yoga has helped me see that it is not really possible for me to separate those parts of myself and really show up to do good social justice work. Social justice movements need all of me. All of us.
Now when I come to my mat the story lines show up far less often. They are no longer the baseline. But when they do appear, they sound more like this:
Internal Story Line: (at a much lower volume, a much gentler tone of voice): You should really be doing more. You are doing what you can. Self-care is for the pampered and privileged. If you don’t care for yourself, you cannot do the work for the long haul, nor can you do it skillfully. Sink into your body. Feel how this downward dog feels in your back, in your neck, in your heart center. Breathe into that connection with your heart. Feel the breath link your mind and your heart, letting the mind be a partner rather than dominate your heart. These messages that you are never enough … they are learned messages. They can be unlearned. Breathe. Sink into your felt sense. Connect to your heart.
Until it is no longer just an inner monologue but rather an integrated sense of being. My whole self, as I am. Both my feminism and my yoga are practices in which the mistakes are as rich as any successes because of what they help me learn about myself, my role in oppressive systems, and my participation in liberation. On this journey, the inquiry has become: What does your inner wisdom, informed by both your feminism and your yoga, guide you to say, do, or be in this moment? What is your embodied wisdom? Extend that to your relations to others in your community. Your sparkle is your gift. Not a show to put on to please others … you are already worthy. Your sparkle is the unique light that each of us has to contribute to the world. Claim it. Celebrate it. Use it to fuel your social change work. Sparkle on. Hold here.
Beth Berila, PhD, 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-hour 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. Her current projects merge yoga and meditation practices with feminism and mindful education to create a form of socially engaged embodied learning. Author photo by Haley Friesen.
6. Beverly Tatum, “Defining Racism: Can We Talk?” in Women: Images and Realities, A Multicultural Anthology, 4th ed., eds. Amy Kesselman, Lily D. McNair, and Nancy Schiedewind (NY: McGraw-Hill, 2006), 386–390.
7. Sharon Salzburg, “Fierce Compassion,” Huffington Post, August 14, 2012, Accessed December 26, 2015, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sharon-salzberg/fierce-compassion_b_1775414.html.
8. Cherríe Moraga, “Refugees of a World on Fire: Foreword to Second Edition,” This Bridge Called My Back: Writings By Radical Women of Color, eds. Cherríe Moraga, Gloria Anzaldua ; foreword, Toni Cade Bambara (New York: Kitchen Table Women of Color Press, 1983), iii. Accessed December 26, 2015. http://monoskop.org/images/e/e2/Moraga_Cherrie_Anzaldual_Gloria_eds_This_Bridge_Called_My_Back_Writings_by_Radical_Women_of_Color-Kitchen_Table_Women_of_Color_Press.pdf.