Today is Cultural Diversity Day and we are also halfway through Mental Health Awareness Week 2020 with the theme “Kindness Matters”.
I want to share my thoughts on diversity and inclusion in the yoga world.
This is a photograph of the diverse group of incredible people who dropped into my free Wednesday morning yoga-therapy-for-anxiety class. People who come from very different backgrounds and walks of life come together to move, breathe and connect to themselves and each other.
Creating an inclusive environment in Mindwalk Yoga classes is a priority for me. This means empowering people by encouraging them to have their own experience, whatever that is, because it is subjective, and it belongs to them. The style is nurturing mindful breathing, moving and connecting, with understandable, easy-to-follow language. Breathing practices are a big focus: there is no yoga gymnastics in my sessions.
In an unfair biased world, diversity doesn’t just happen, it needs consideration.
The East London Buddhist Centre has an entire section on their website dedicated to people of colour and host retreats, especially for PoC. This has resulted in some of the most diverse drop-in lunchtime mediation sessions I’ve ever seen. I always feel very at home at the East London Buddhist Centre. They acknowledge the inequity and respond with empathy and consideration. I remember mentioning this to a London yoga studio owner as she asked me how she might get more people of colour in her classes, I was the only person of colour that had attended two of her courses. She said she couldn’t possibly create a people of colour section on the website or host-specific events. She simply didn’t have the space to listen and until she does she will continue to have no diversity in her classes and courses.
Kindness matters, listening matters, taking on board a response to an asked question matters.
I want to leave you with one word: listen. It’s something I struggled with for many years - to truly listen to what is being said, by whom, in what way, what are they trying to make you understand. If you start here you are on the journey towards understanding what diversity and inclusion might be for your situation.
