Racism has been a thread tightly woven through the fabric of our culture since the first settlers set foot on these shores. It has been brought to light over and over again in conversation and behavior, but racism has never been resolved. Have things gotten better over time? To some small degree, yes....but the issue remains deeply embedded in the foundation of our culture. Like a crack that appears in the foundation of a house, if not addressed completely, the foundation deteriorates and collapses. This is how our culture has handled racism.
So with this understanding, we want to address racism from the perspective of our work utilizing the energetic point of view, coupled with psychoanalytic processing.
Racism is deeply embedded in the generational subconsciousness of both Black and White America. Behavior is driven in the deep, subconscious part of our mind and it is also the subconscious mind that rules our life. This is where we bury our guilt, anger, shame, frustration, victim thinking, unworthiness, self-loathing, and resentment. We are not consciously aware of this, but in times of extreme stress or anger, these subconscious beliefs can reveal themselves. How many times have you blurted out something while emotional or acted in a way that was hurtful? After the fact, you asked yourself “where the hell did that come from?....that is not me!” In shamanic terminology, this is referred to as our shadow, the part of ourselves that we do our best to keep hidden. However, the shadow will always reveal itself.
The first settlers to reach this country were driven by the desire to have a better opportunity. In many cases, they were trying to escape from some form of oppression in order to achieve a better life. One of the things that came with those settlers was their subconscious perception of oppression and so as a result the very circumstances they sought to escape were replicated here. Immediately, indigenous people were perceived to be a threat. Because their culture was different and they looked different, they were judged to be a threat. From the subconscious shadow of their own experience of oppression, the settlers then became the oppressors and systematically applied this until the indigenous people were completely eradicated.
This generational shadow expanded out and was expressed again through slavery. Black people were deemed to be “inferior” and white people, who deemed themselves to be “superior”, perceived it was justified to forcibly remove them from their homelands and oppress them through slavery. Black people became property and thus were perceived as less than human. They could be treated like animals, abused, beaten, raped, deprived of education, deprived of the family unit, deprived of their cultural heritage, hunted down if they attempted to escape their oppression, and killed if they did not obey or even for no reason at all. Even those whites who may have not felt good about that would feel forced to comply because that was the accepted norm and to speak up would put them at risk. This sowed the seeds for the subconscious beliefs of shame, guilt, denial, and self-loathing. These subconscious, shadow beliefs for both blacks and whites became directly imprinted on a DNA level and thus became generational subconscious beliefs. This generational pain creates energetic distortions and attachments. Generations of blacks are impacted by the subconscious victim archetype, which creates the energetic wounds of anger, hatred, distrust, grief, self-loathing, feelings of obey or suffer, and feelings of unworthiness. Generations of whites are also impacted by the subconscious victim archetype of oppressor/oppressed, which creates the energetic wounds of guilt, shame, denial, self-loathing, the fear of speaking out, the fear of that you must obey or suffer consequences.
To this day, we can say that equal opportunity is available to everyone and that there is equal justice under law, but the stark reality is that this has never been true. In order for us to move forward in unity, both blacks and whites must deal with our subconscious shadow selves which drives behavior.
To begin the process of healing these deep wounds, White America must initiate the immense process of apology to Black America. Black America will need time to believe and receive this apology as genuine. This process will require consistent efforts to listen, hear, validate, and honor the wounds of 400 years of oppression. We have to feel it to heal it: we cannot just talk the talk, we are required to go deep into our own woundedness, neutralizing the energetic distortions that have driven the generational perceptions that have kept us separate. Trust must be earned and White America must work to earn that trust. Once that process has become truly consistent, White America can begin to address the process of self-forgiveness for treating other human beings like animals and property.
We are energetic beings; the biggest part of who we are is energy. We believe that Integrative Energy Medicine work coupled with psychotherapeutic processing is healing work as it directly addresses the individual energetic distortions that were created by this generational curse. As this energy is moved, change begins to occur. Shifts in our thinking, our beliefs, our expectations begin to take place. These shifts can be processed psychoanalytically. This combination can result in real and permanent change. This change shifts us out of a low vibrational frequency. If like attracts like, low vibrational frequency attracts low vibrational experience into our life. The object of the game of life is to expand our energetic frequency so that we can attract to us the things that we really want in life....and most importantly, we want to attract something that is not a thing at all: PEACE. We must become the high energetic frequency of peace in order to experience peace. This is not easy....this will take time....but this is possible for us.
We are Atlanta Psychotherapy & Energy Medicine. We are ready and committed to being in service to humanity to address this critical issue.
Namaskar,
Alison Brooks, N.D., IEMP and Jim Harger, M.Ed., LPC
www.atlantapsychotherapyandenergymedicine.com
image by Tumisu @pixabay.com