Waking

Waking

Part Three: Yoga, Bodies, and Baby Boys

Over time, it dawns on me--I am having flashbacks. Almost all of my physical trauma has occurred between the states of wakefulness and sleep...So often my trauma has come when my guard was down, when I was trusting the world, when I was taking a nap. (179)

This passage reminded me of my time at Life Pieces to Masterpieces (an after school program for African American male youth in Southeast DC) this summer during our meditation with the students in the morning. At the beginning of the summer, with new students being integrated into the program, it was difficult to get the boys to close their eyes. Besides the fact that they were young and easily distracted, few seemed to be able to close their eyes without grimacing or tensing their entire face. LPTM’s director, Miss Mary Brown, sensed their anxiousness and spoke, “It takes a strong black man in this neighborhood to close his eyes and trust that he is safe.” Miss Mary understood how all the trauma in these children’s lives have taken place between wakefulness and sleep, between alertness and distraction. That the students have been taught to be hyperaware, lest they allow trauma to sneak up on them again.

Through my time at LPTM, I can understand now how traumatizing it is to close your eyes and relax for many people. How even meditation can bring flashbacks of different traumas, whether being jumped on the way to school or the abuse of a stepfather. While it is hard for people outside of the trauma to see how rest or closing your eyes can be a marker of progress, sometimes it is the final purge of the trauma’s grip on a person’s body. Sanford learned to live without those imprints or body memories of his trauma, maybe impoverished children can learn to live without the triggers (or imprints) of pain in their lives. 

I am just amazed at how yoga/meditation/closing your eyes can have such an impact. This is a fascinating addition of knowledge to me as I am interested in early childhood development, especially in impoverished or violent neighborhoods. I see how meditation can allow a child to connect their mind to their body. There were so many of my students who had blackout anger problems, and were ruled by their bodies. The imprints of the trauma on their body were similar to the imprints on Sanford’s body, except for the fact that most of my students were incited to be violent or angry by their imprints. Meditation could allow their mind to control and purge the body of emotional triggers and move beyond anger into rational and complex thought. 

So basically, I leave this book excited and eager to find out more about yoga and the many ways it can impact lives!