As a kid, yoga brought me healing from the “toxic stress” of an abusive childhood home. As a dancer I had already found tremendous joy in my art but something about the rabid competition in the entertainment world led me to seek solace in yoga, not as a replacement for dance, but as a companion for life as an artist in the 21st-century. Yoga also accompanied me on many NYC subway rides and it was a land-based version of surfing my beloved oceans, whenever I am too far away from water. I am a water creature and yoga helps me cope with land based behaviors.
Ironically it seems that yoga has now become a competitive space in some social media and live places. LOL the joke will always be on us if we choose to worship disposable culture we will continue to be treated as disposable humans. There is so much more value in honoring timeless eternal values, we ignore our own inherent non-commercial value at our own peril.
As soon as I saw the “asanas” (yoga poses) from photos in hatha yoga books I knew this ancient body architecture was for me, especially when I found myself too far from the sea. Whenever I’d practice the meditative technique of dropping my mind into my heart space, I’d visit my voice box and I’d discover sadness but still, I was happy for no reason. Eventually I discovered my speaking and singing voice too.
Some people told me that I was being “phony “ if I was just generally a cheerful person. Those types of negative haters would tell me I was just “acting” because I’m an actress (fyi good acting is not lying ). Now that I’m sort of a grown up it’s easier to spot the negative types even from a distance. These are the people who will immediately criticize the lifestyles of others, even if those lifestyles don’t impact their own lives. They are the people who will immediately put down ideas they don’t understand, instead of asking questions, or opening up a moment of curiosity. Those who drive by something unique like a unique house, built in an unusual style, and they will immediately begin petitioning against it in order to destroy it. I’ve encountered these people often because there are several areas of my life where I don’t conform to norms whether it’s clothing or speech or lifestyle. Gentrification in Venice Beach, Los Angeles brought us into proximity with such ugly haters who actually attempted to take people’s homes away from them in order to suit both the empty-handed bullies and the billionaires who fund the bullying. In some cases, they succeeded but not when people united and stood up to them.
While it’s quite possible to learn how to fend off such rude, loud haters, and refuse to allow them to deter us, they can potentially waste our valuable time and affect our health, both of which are our most valuable resources. The bully’s intention is to throw a wrench into our peace and into our family’s sacred spaces.
That’s why fending off bullies should not be left to individuals alone. This kind of thing is mutating as the virus it always was, now encouraged by craven bestial whistles from public servants who mirror and goad outrageous, psychotic, sociopathic, behavior in places like school board meetings, and other places that are meant as civilized constructive public spaces. Their intentions are corrosive to healthy cultural societies.
We need public service announcements incorporating history lessons, showing the very simple trajectory from normalized public malevolence toward authoritarianism, which, is abuse.
Abuse of power is the same as any other abuse : child abuse, domestic abuse, sexual abuse, animal abuse, environmental abuse etc … In a democracy with rule of law, all abuse requires intervention.
Doing Nothing is not an option because the law requires protection of the vulnerable among us. These days that group is growing but we can turn this toward our mutual advantage by uniting against the bullies.
During my yoga practice, as a kid, I worked through the sadness in my heart, placed there by abuse until recently, I was able to practice the meditation technique of dropping my mind into my heart space, as taught by my first Thai Buddhist and suddenly a new journey began.
As a result of so much chaos in the world I reclaimed my meditation practice and recently I dropped my mind into my heart and a very funny thing happened – I felt so ticklish that I literally burst out giggling then, laughing as in “laugh out loud” until I realized that ticklish feeling is just plain bliss! That same feeling I get when I’m in the ocean! Pure bliss! From within. I was familiar with this feeling, but it never occurred to me to try to call it up consciously. Now it felt like a superpower.
The spiritual practice of meditation, whether it be in yoga or other disciplines, is a healing practice that re-aligns us to our internal compass and reconnects us to our natural born joy.
It doesn’t matter anymore if anyone thinks of this meditation joy or any other joy – female joy, black joy, multi-cultural joy, lgbtq joy, intellectual joy etc … You know, the joy that always seems to get on the authoritarian abusers’ nerves, is “phony “ or “acting “ (again, the art of a good actor is working from a sense of truth not a bunch of lying).
The lesson I discovered in meditative “bliss” is equivalent to the lesson we must all learn as we grow up. Remaining unperturbed or at least undeterred as result of abuse or criticisms & unreasonable cruel negativity expressed by others.
Unfortunately we live in a time when some of us condone, even encourage the kinds of abusive, even violent behaviors that would previously have caused most communities to unite and fight back together, in spite of political differences.
It’s time to unite.
As I’ve written elsewhere :
The 21st Century is “A Time of Useful Consciousness”
In my Oscars Contender “eVe N’ god this female is not yet rated” many images and concepts explore these themes, posing questions and positing hopes for healing.
I hope you will check it out and give us a good rating / review on any and all platforms including IMDB, Youtube Movies, Apple TV, iTunes Store Movies, Google Play Movies and Vimeo.
Lyrics to my debut album / original soundtrack “Cali Lili This Female Is Not Yet Rated” also explore these themes and can be heard everywhere music streams including Youtube, Apple Music, Spotify, Tidal Music, Pandora music, iHeart Radio etc…
And snippets of the songs can be found on social media sites like instagram, tik tok, tumblr etc …
As we work on the NEXT movie and album we so appreciate your positive likes and shares!
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