WoC Summit Podcast: Constanza Eliana Chinea on Fear and Showing Up in the World
Welcome back to Season 1 of the Womxn of Color Summit Podcast!
The Womxn of Color Summit podcast came from a desire to learn from WOC about how they are stepping into their power and embodying their life purpose while dismantling oppressive systems.
Join your hosts Harpinder Mann and Irene Lo as they support BI&WOC on their journey of self-love and soul-care by highlighting speakers who can speak to creative living. We are inherently creative beings with unlimited potential but we can forget the spark within ourselves. Creativity is an act of bravery and our hope with the podcast is to inspire BI&WOC to own their power and pursue their liberation.
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https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/womxn-of-color-summit-podcast/id1531995133
In this episode, we cover:
Community work as a form of creativity
Dismantling subconscious fears when shifting to PoC-only clients
Racist experiences, yoga, and wellness as stepping stones to liberation
Why & how to stop internalizing oppression
Transcript
Harpinder: [00:00:17] Hi, everyone, my name is Harpinder.
Irene: [00:00:20] Hi, I'm Irene, and welcome to the Art of Creative Living Womxn of Color Summit. We are so happy to welcome Eliana as today's speaker. Before we get started, Eliana, do you want to let everyone know who you are and what you do?
Eliana: [00:00:37] Yeah. Happy to! Thank you so much for having me. So, who am I: My full name is Constanza Eliana Chanea. My ancestry and lineage is based in Puerto Rico. Borican, as we lovingly like to call our indigenous name on the island. I moved to the United States when I was about seven or eight years old, so English is my second language. I do have a little bit of an immigrant story, even though Puerto Rico is a colonized territory of the United States, so it's a complicated relationship.
But yeah, I got into wellness about 11 years ago. It was a very difficult time in my life when I found yoga and I found that yoga was a great liberation tool for a lot of the generational trauma that I had, and also a lot of the mental health issues that I was having. I was able to utilize my yoga practice very seriously. About two years into my practice, I decided to completely go sober from a binge drinking addiction that I had in my twenties, and I've been sober ever since. I've been a yoga teacher ever since, and I've been teaching for about nine years now. So, yeah, that's a little bit of the background of what got me into wellness. Currently, right now I do a lot of social justice work, particularly with anti-racism work, and I really utilize anti-racism and diversity, equity, inclusion and decolonization theory in my work to ensure that wellness becomes accessible. And it also represents the communities in which I come from, but also the communities who are largely underserved and underrepresented in the industry. So that's who I am! That's what I do.
Irene: [00:02:41] Thank you for that.
Harpinder: [00:02:42] Yeah! How are you doing today?
Eliana: [00:02:46] Today? I'm okay! You know, it's been a rough couple of weeks. And also, you know, the pandemic, we've been in the pandemic for about three to four months now. So, it's been a very interesting process to kind of watch the world go through this flux... to watch wellness become part of the front of the conversation around accessibility, particularly for the brown and black community. And then, police brutality has become a huge, huge issue in the last couple of weeks, as far as being in the headlines, even though police brutality, since the dawn of policing, being invented has been violent and brutal. And so, I feel very honored to be a part of the conversation as an activist and as an anti-racism trainer. At the same time, I'm still very, very emotionally affected by everything that's happening. I kind of take it every day, just the emotions come and they go, and also dealing with mental health issues is not always easy, especially as an educator, a facilitator, and a space holder. But I take my work very seriously, and so I'm doing a lot of personal self-care so that I can show up for community as best as I can, but it's also, you know, it's hard! It's hard, but I'm taking it day by day.
Harpinder: [00:04:26] Yeah, thank you for sharing. I know for myself, you've been such an inspiration. Both me and Irene, we're in— for anyone that's going to be listening to this— your thrive program. For six months, we really learned how to build and work within the yoga space without being in that studio space and not being harmed. I know, just learning from you, on ways to decolonize yoga and decolonize our offerings and how to really do that self-care, which is so valuable. So, we're so excited that we get to chat with you today and learn more about your background and the work that you have been doing. So thank you for sharing that. One question that we are asking to all our speakers is: What does it mean to be creative to you?
Community Social Justice Work as Creativity
Eliana: [00:05:19] Yeah, thank you. To me, creativity for a lot of people, looks like art, right? It looks like a painting or a manifestation of a thought or an idea. For me, creativity really comes by way of action. So, in the work that I do in yoga, in wellness, and peacebuilding, and facilitating creativity comes first as the thought process of, “I want to be able to serve my community as best as I can.” That might not seem like a creative idea or creative thought, but when you are serving community, it really does take quite a bit of creativity to be able to do that, and do it in a way that really serves the people.
So for me, it's the process of thinking, a thought that I really want to be able to serve the community right and then thinking of all the different ways in which I can do that. Whether it's finding a space; what will that space hold? What type of workshop or what type of event am I putting together? The ways in which I can produce something to elevate or help to impact somebody's life— that is creative to me. And that's probably my favorite part of being in the space. Being an educator, it's so linear, right? Like, we have the education, we have the shared language, everything is on paper or digital or whatever, and it kind of becomes second nature after a while.
And for me, the best part is in the creation of something new, something different and something that's going to be really, really impactful. You can't have that much impact or the greatest impact if you're constantly in a box. And so for me, one of the most creative things that I recently did was put together a virtual retreat-type offering, we called it a wellness experience, with a bunch of other women of color, specifically women of color. And that was a really, really creative process for me because it wasn't just linear stuff of the technology, and here's how we're going to do it, and here's the schedule and all of that stuff. But it was really like, we had to think outside of the box of how we are going to help people create an internal home environment that really serves them for that weekend, for three days. And because we weren't there physically with them, we really had to think outside of the box of how that is going to look for them and how we can, as facilitators that are not there present with people... how are we going to do that for them from the outside, from pre-recorded videos? So it was a really, really creative process and also a collaborative process.
I'd never worked with that many people before in my life, and so it was really great to hear everybody's ideas. What I was thinking may have been great, but what somebody else was able to add to the table just made it even greater. And there are certain things that I just had never thought of before. Then on the weekend that we actually held it, we did three live calls. So we did one Friday, Saturday, Sunday for four people just to continue that community aspect of it, right? Because we weren't there with them in person. And so that weekend was just so impactful for me,to be able to come in virtual community with people, very similar to what we're doing here, and hold space for people in a totally different way, in a way that had never been done before. It was so cool. So yeah, creativity can look so many different ways. But for me, it's mostly about stepping outside of your comfort zone and doing something that you've never done before in a completely different and new way.
Irene: [00:09:38] I love that. I love what you said about creativity. What I admire about your work is you're doing things that haven't been done before, you know, like Harpinder was saying, in the yoga world, we think, “okay, you only practice in a studio.” Well, let's think about doing it virtually and how would a virtual retreat look like. And so, I love what you said about that. Creativity isn't just art created in silo, it's community. The community aspect is so important, and I feel that now in this time of pandemic, a lot of people are now rethinking what creativity looks like to them and what community looks like to them as well. Right?
Eliana: [00:10:24] Yeah, I think one of the biggest things that I feel people hold themselves back on is that aspect of trying something new, and it does take a lot of mental energy to go there. It also takes a lot of practice because I think as somebody who had been a student for a really, really long time before I became a teacher, and I'm still learning from lots of different mentors, and I'm still very much connected to my own lineage and my swamis. I know how easy it can be to just be a student, to just absorb information and never actually do something with it. It can be a really comfortable place. It can be a really safe place. And so when we're thinking about stepping outside of your comfort zone or stepping outside of the box, it's the risk factor that people are afraid of, right? Any time that you're creative, you never know how other people are going to take it. It can produce a little bit of anxiety, but I think it's a muscle that you're building over time.
And the more you do stuff and the more that you decide to get creative with different things and different projects and stop pressuring yourself to make it look beautiful or make it look perfect. That is definitely something that I have noticed in my own career of just allowing myself to go there, allowing myself to think big and get creative about what that big is, but also getting really creative with, like, budgeting, right? Like, finances. I don't have a lot of finances to put a bunch of stuff together. And so, if I don't have the budget of like, a Yoga journal, right, that can put together a really great and fantastic event with goodie bags and all of this crazy stuff, that doesn't necessarily mean that my level of creativity will be any less impactful than their big, major budget, right?
I find that when you do step outside of your comfort zone and when you do stretch that creativity muscle, it's really, really rewarding. Even though you're scared shitless at the same time. You don't know what it's going to look like, but it's so rewarding.
Irene: [00:12:56] Yeah, and that perfectly segues into the next question we wanted to ask you, which are the roadblocks you may have experienced, if any, as a womxn of color on your path of creation. Love to hear you talk more about it.
Letting Go of Fears When Shifting to PoC-only Clients
Eliana: [00:13:11] Yeah, I mean, definitely living in brown skin has shaped a lot of the work that I do. When I decided to only do offerings for people of color, specifically womxn of color, it was kind of a no brainer, even though at the same time I still had this colonised mentality of, “but I really need white people, right? I really need to be inclusive to white people because... this, that, and the other,” right? They have the money, they have this, they have access, they have opportunity, right?
And so I think it just brings me back to those times where I had moved to the United States. I was learning a new language, learning a new culture and experiencing racism for the first time, and experiencing all of these different things that I just, you know, as a child, you don't necessarily know how to deal with, and it shapes everything that you do. Every action is a reaction to what the oppression is that you're facing. And it wasn't until I really decided to commit to decolonizing a lot of the experiences of being a brown immigrant in this country. It shaped a lot of the way that I chose to show up in wellness after that.
After I chose to really take a look at all of my experiences, it allowed me to move one step further and forward towards liberation. And true liberation! Because I think a lot of wellness— we care about self-care and all of these different things that we can do in rest, and how important that is.
But we don't ever hear about why that's important. And we practice liberation practices, but we never fully understand why we're practicing them, right? And because liberation is such an abstract thought, it's not something tangible that we know, oh, that's what liberation looks like. It can be kind of a little bit heady. And so, when I decided that my experiences as a person of color really served its main purpose so that I could hold space for other women of color and for other people of color, that was a completely transformational thought process.
So really for the last three to four years, I've been really committed to holding space for that. And I, it's been so rewarding to the point where I just don't want to stop, right? I don't. I've seen how impactful this work can be when I'm really, really committed to my passion and my purpose. I no longer look at the oppression that I face on a daily basis, but really the oppression that I faced when I was younger all the way up till now. I don't look at that as necessarily a burden anymore. I look at it as a lesson in life that was able to guide me to a place where now I can provide that same level of liberation to somebody else.
Yoga & Wellness as Pathways to True Liberation
And I can't give that to anybody, right? Like, I can't make somebody liberated, but I can at least give them a sense of relaxation, and rest and a sense of safety; relative safety, right? Because nobody can guarantee safety, but a sense of relative comfort and ease where they don't feel like they have to be anybody different.
As a person of color, I definitely felt like for a long time I had to be completely different. I couldn't be brown, I couldn't have curly hair, I couldn't speak in Spanglish, I could speak Spanish. I couldn't post my flag, my Puerto Rican flag because it was dangerous. And I was taught that it was dangerous, and I was taught that I was wrong for being who I was. But when I decided that all of those experiences were really leading me towards a place of liberation, and utilizing yoga and wellness as a stepping stone to get there, I realized I couldn't keep that to myself. I really, really felt strongly that I wanted to provide that for other people and specifically women.
And so, yeah, it's all of these experiences that I have faced and that I continue to face, right? Because racism doesn't go away just because you're like, OK, I get it. You know, I still face it, but now it's more so OK, I see you for what you are, right? I see racism or I see racists. I see you for what you are, and I'm no longer internalizing that. And this experience that I'm having in this moment, I can now bring that to other people and show them how to deal with the situation, and show them what has worked for me. And that is invaluable. That's something I never had before. So, yeah, I don't know if that answered your question at all.
Irene: [00:18:30] Oh, it did, It did!
Harpinder: [00:18:33] Yeah, that absolutely did. I think that piece where you spoke about even pulling back the curtain on [what] is racism, these are the systems that are in play, are so valuable. I think it was maybe the third week of the training that we had with the Thrive program, where you were talking about different levels of racism and different levels of white supremacy that I hadn't even known. And I went into my work where I do work with all white people, and there were certain things that were being done and I was like,” Oh, that's what that is. It isn't me, it isn't something that I'm doing wrong. It's the systems that are in play and microaggressions.”
And just even being able to pull back that curtain and be able to understand this is what's happening is so powerful as a womxn of color to not internalize it anymore; to not be like, “this is something that has been my issue or my problem, and I've been trying to change myself.” I think I really owe a lot of that, pulling away the curtain, that worked to you and through that program of learning about these are the systems that are in play that do keep us down. And there's a sense of liberation there where it's like, Oh, I'm not an issue, I'm beautiful the way I am! I'm great the way I am!
I think something so powerful in your work is creating the equity for teachers of color and really uplifting each other because that's so powerful when we begin to collaborate. And that's something that again, I just love so much about your work and that kind of segways into the next question that we had:
The Effects of Internalizing Oppression & How to Stop
What piece of advice do you have for a womxn of color that might be feeling weighed down by the status quo, by the patriarchy, white supremacy, capitalism? I think especially with all the stuff that is being brought to light now with COVID, with the protests that are going on, Black Lives Matter. We'd love to hear what you have to say on that.
Eliana: [00:20:53] I think any advice that I could possibly give is more so around understanding that, like you said, this is not a you problem. This is a society problem. As far as the oppression that you face, right? And we all have a responsibility towards dismantling anti-Blackness, especially if you are a non-black person of color. We all have a responsibility there and that does need to get dismantled immediately, because it feeds into colorism and it feeds into all sorts of other problems and issues that really need to be handled.
But as far as the oppression that you personally face as a person of color, the internalization of it is what's weighing you down. But it's not about you, and that's the ideology of oppression and prejudice and racism, is to try and get you to think that it's you that needs to change, but it really isn't. It's society that needs to shift their perspective, and there are ways in which you can help to shift that perspective. But really, it comes down to being embodied. And when you embody yourself as a liberated person, that sense of liberation is what helps other people of color to be like, Oh, I want some of that. Like, I want what that person has. I want to walk like they do. I want to talk like they do. I want to feel empowered, like they are.
When you walk and talk and behave in that way, in a way that looks to other people as confidence, but maybe not necessarily confidence is the right word for you, because confidence can almost seem a little bit cocky, right? But the confidence of just being real with yourself and authentic, and having a lot of integrity in the way that you operate, in the way that you move and the type of work that you do. No one can touch you when you're in that space, when you're in body. So that's the biggest piece of advice that I can give specifically to people of color in this process and really trying to unpack what is my identity, what are the experiences that I have faced. Because a lot of times we just want to walk that shit out. We don't want to think about it. It's in the past. It doesn't bother me, but it does. It follows you and also unpacking ancestral stuff, too.
When I decided to really start to unpack a lot of my ancestral lineage, where my people came from, who my grandparents, great-grandparents, great-great-great grandparents, where I realized that there was a pattern that a lot of the mental health issues that I was experiencing, actually, a lot of my ancestors had also experienced. A lot of the anxiety and the depression really stemmed from a lot of the unrest and wellness that my ancestors experienced. And I don't think enough people do that. I think we all really internalize and personalize things as an individual, and we don't take a look at the greater.
We don't live in this world alone. And we also didn't come into this world alone. There were thousands and hundreds of thousands of ancestors that had to exist in order for us to be here. And I think it's an indigenous thing or ideology that things get passed down and they don't go away for seven generations. And so if you haven't looked at those seven generations, you're going to think all of these issues and all of these problems that I have are mine and mine alone. And that's a very lonely space to live in. And I know that space because I lived in that space for a really long time.
So, yeah, the biggest advice that I can give people is you're not alone. Find community. Do this in a way, do this decolonization work in a way that really serves your liberation so that you can get that liberation to other people. And really trying to embody being a person that takes their liberation seriously, and liberation can look like any number of things. That's the beautiful thing about it is it doesn't have to look any certain type of way. Liberation doesn't have to look like financial freedom. It can, but it doesn't have to write like you can be in poverty and be liberated and be free. So it really just depends on you and what it is that you're more comfortable with.
Irene: [00:25:36] Wow, okay. I wish I had taken down some notes, but it's just a crash. Wow, beautiful. Yeah. Thank you so much, Eliana. I feel like we have covered a lot of ground in terms of hearing what the creative process looks like for you, how you've actualized it and your pearls of wisdom that you could share to everyone else that's listening. So thank you. I guess the final question before we wrap things up is how can people reach you?
Eliana: [00:26:15] Yeah, so they can find me on my website, embodyinclusivity.com is the website. You can also find me on social media. It's at @Eliana.chinea on Instagram and also the handle @embodyinclusivity on Instagram as well. That's pretty much where people can find all of the work that I do. I have lots and lots of different programs specifically for people of color, BIPOC, but I also do anti-racism trainings as well.
Harpinder: [00:26:46] Great. Awesome. Thanks so much, Eliana. For just such a wonderful interview! I feel like every time I talk to you, I just learn something new. I just feel like I walk away just feeling.. I don't know! Just feeling so much more connected and joyous with the spirit you have. And I'm just so, so grateful to have had the chance to speak with you again. I know everyone that tunes in will also find this to be such an enlightening and inspirational conversation. So thank you so much again.
Eliana: [00:27:20] Thank you. It's always good to be here.
Irene: [00:27:24] Thank you so much. Thanks as well.