Gratitude as Medicine

I was inspired and motivated earlier this week, as I read an email from Erin Heaney, the Executive Director of SURJ (Showing Up For Racial Justice):

“We’re going into this new year in community. 2025 will require us to dig deep, renew our commitments to justice, and keep our eyes on the long-haul vision. We’ve got big plans, and we’re ready to get to work together.

Today, January 6th, renews our commitment to our mission: we must go find our people and give them a better offer than white supremacy.”

We must go find our people and give them a better offer than white supremacy.

Whew, what a big YES I feel to this!

I’m feeling so grateful for the compelling work SURH is up to, and inviting White people into.

I, too, am here fighting to co-create//find//build//offer something much more compelling than white supremacy.

The radical right has been incredibly effective in creating a sense of belonging, home, purpose, community for white folks feeling hopeless and isolated.

How can we offer a more liberatory, more compelling anti-racist alternative?

One approach I have found incredibly helpful is Tema Okun’s (et al!) antidotes to White Supremacy Culture.

Think of antidote as medicine. And medicine with the quality of, say, a plant medicine that is nourishing, gentle, whole, healing.

Working towards unraveling white supremacy does not need to mean grueling, punishing work (although it can definitely be hard and uncomfortable - let us not shy away).

But the antidote//medicines also include things like gratitude to counter our fear and scarcity, and centering interdependence and community instead of fierce individualism.

These are the qualities I want to embody, and that draw me into deeper community and relationship.

And, there can still be a question of how. How do I actually cultivate these medicinal qualities, these antidotes? How do we build communities and relationships rich enough to compell us all in?

There are many answers, and, there are simple ways we can all start right now:

Slow down for a beat.

Take a breath. Maybe three. Just notice where you can feel your breath - maybe some expansion or movement in your lungs, maybe air coming in and out of your nose or mouth.

And then notice three things you’re grateful for. Maybe even try on saying them outloud.

How does this feel? What shifts or changes in your attention, body, energy, mood?

What does tuning into gratitude as medicine make more possible? How does it compell you?

As I type, I’m moving through the practice with you. I notice an immediate slowing of my breath, and a settling into my body. I feel warm honey in my belly and my feet on the ground. My vision feels wider. I feel wider. And more connected.

This is just a start, but it’s a medicinal practice you can continue, keep carrying with you, cultivate in your communities.

And if you are looking for more opportunity to deepen into practice of the antidotes to white supremacy, and to do so in community, consider joining us in Unraveling Whiteness: Introduction to Embodied Anti-racist Practices.

Together, we will practice the antidote of being community together over the course of five weeks, trying on a variety of other practices and learnings to deepen into our work for anti-racism.

As Erin from SURJ reminds us, “2025 will require us to dig deep, renew our commitments to justice, and keep our eyes on the long-haul vision. We’ve got big plans, and we’re ready to get to work together.”