Decolonial Wellness: Elizabeth Philipose
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Michael Reiley: Welcome back this is Michael Reiley. Today I'm in conversation with Dr. Elizabeth Philipose. Dr. Philipose has a lifelong passion for evolution and the expansion of consciousness. As an academic, she studies causes and consequences of violence and pathways to peace. As a spiritual therapist, she offers individual counseling and group programs in Decolonial wellness, and today we talk about that topic of decolonial wellness.
All today on the Sounds of SAND Podcast presented by science and non-duality.
Alright, I'm here with Dr. Elizabeth Philipose for the Sounds of SAND Podcast. Thanks for [00:01:00] being with us today.
Elizabeth Philipose: I'm so glad to be here. Thank you.
Michael Reiley: Could you talk a bit about this idea of decolonizing wellness?
Elizabeth Philipose: . I wanna start by just saying that everything that has come to us that we might call globalization or the sovereign state system, or global capitalism, that everything that has come to us in this moment comes through a colonial paradigm. And it's all, created and constructed through.
Euro Colonial and then Euro-American colonial and imperial interests. So there's a way that we don't really learn about a colonial framework. First of all, we don't see politics or the economy or international relations through a colonial framework. So we miss the fact that there is a structural condition and a systemic process that puts us [00:02:00] where we are, that locates us where we are, and gives meaning to our lives.
Where we are. So that's partly a kind of a silence or an absence of understanding that prevents us, I think, from seeing actually, what is it that causes us distress or unwellness or disconnection or separation, right? What is at the root. Of our malaise, and it's a collective malaise but also an individual malaise that shows up.
And so that's partly the idea of a decolonial framework for thinking about wellness starts from an understanding that colonialism. And Coloniality, the culture of colonial colonialism impacts us in very personal and intimate ways, right? We get concepts of race and scientific racism and racial hierarchies.
Through that process, we [00:03:00] get concepts of. We get concepts of gender and sexuality through that framework. So very intimate ideas about who we are and how we ought to live. And of course, all the class politics of capitalism that impact us right where we live, right? So in that regard, decolonizing wellness or what I call decolonial wellness, is starting from that colonial framework of understanding those, that structural analysis of modern forms of power.
And there's a way in which I. On one hand it illuminates, right? It removes the confusion around why things happen the way they happen, and at the same time, it creates a little distance. It impersonals that condition, right? It's not about me and my worthiness. It's a structure of power that locates me this way.
When [00:04:00] we're talking about wellness in the Western world, that's very absent from the conversation, that colonial framework of understanding for the most part, right? Unless you are in people of color settings, or unless you are in indigenous people settings, right? Where there's a consciousness about things like trauma.
So it's absent in yoga movements and meditation centers and that we can talk about the cultural appropriation of practices that remove the culture and just take the practices and all of that is a result of a colonial relationship, right? We're in a position of supremacy to do that.
But really what I want to get at is the ways in which we embody those colonial frameworks of understanding that it, you know, something like low self-esteem is racialized. It's gendered, [00:05:00] it has a social location. We can find it in that way. Things like procrastination things like childhood trauma that when we understand it right through racial gendered, sexualized ways, it has more we have more to work with, more to unravel, but also making sense of it as, oh, that's not about me.
It impacts me. It's not me. So there's a meat in here that's greater than all of that, and that's partly I think the the relief. Of approaching wellness through this way. And that knowledge is really important. And then the embodiment is really important, that then it's not just an intellectual knowing, it's, it lives in us, right?
It invades our embodiment. If you think about things like race or gender or sexuality, it's right on the body. [00:06:00] And it's a very intimate meaning making system, right? And so if you're walking through the world and receiving messages right on the surface of your skin upon appearance, right? That is informing.
Your nervous system, your brain chemistry, your gut chemistry that is creating a loop right of response to how you're being received. And it shapes a sense of self. It shapes a sense of self, and then we ourselves become the embodiment of that power. Unwittingly, right? And we should say, colonialism shows up in so many different ways.
Even if you think about something like grind culture, that you're not worthy unless you're, 15 hours a day. Grinding it out, and there's status attached to that. Grind culture and practices of extracting value from labor [00:07:00] come to us through colonialism and through slavery as technologies, right of extracting value.
So when we're the embodiment of that we're enacting it in our lives. We're to the exclusion right, of our health and wellbeing, and we're also expecting it from others, right? So we re reproduce those things unwittingly and because it's in our bodies, it's in our nervous systems, it's wired into us until it's not right.
Until we become aware of how those things live in us.
Michael Reiley: And so I just wanted to unpack a bit the idea of wellness, because people may hear that and have their own, what is wellness?
Elizabeth Philipose: Yeah. I think of I think of wellness as whole soul wellness, whole being. And I think of it also as moment to moment consciousness. Moment to moment mindfulness. About [00:08:00] how how I am composing with this life, right? I think of it as a kind of stewardship, right? So those things that you mention of eating right, or exercising or going to yoga, those sorts of things, those are all techniques and technologies we could add.
But the larger sense of wellness is a priority. Around being well with my soul, and so it's everything I do then has an anchor in the wellness of my soul and also a measurement. About how it's going. So it's a much more, I think, holistic idea of wellness than just some technologies.
It's an approach to life existence. And it's a, an approach that starts from this premise that we are more than the world [00:09:00] tells us. So how to be well in a world that's in crisis, right? Is not to the exclusion of the world, but a recognition of how that world invades us. And, coming back to the priority of the whole soul wellness part of whole soul wellness I think is also expressing our purpose. And, finding our path and being able to do the work that we're here to do. And, I often ask people how long do you intend to be in your purpose? And usually the answer would be, till I die, and then you need a long term. Sustainable plan to be in your purpose, to be delivering your gifts and your talents till the end.
Till you pass. You need to see it not as the urgency that we're trained to see it, right? It's to see everything as urgent or [00:10:00] rather, long-term sustainable investment, right? A lot of people I work with are, involved in social justice. They're feminists or, movement leaders or people that are engaged with that.
How long are you gonna be in that purpose? That's a long haul, right? You have to be fully for it, to give and serve, right? Something greater than you. So that's, I think, that's how I approach that concept of wellness and,
Michael Reiley: . Yeah. And I think one of the hallmarks of a colonial mindset is extraction. I. It's the idea of mining something for what you think is valuable and discarding the rest, and many of the, wellness or spiritual circles I've been in I've seen that. There's a, just a massive blind spot, I think in many practices , whether it's breath work or yoga or diet or cacao ceremonies or plant [00:11:00] medicine of just extraction and ultimately disrespect for the sacredness and the mystical of what the systems that we're benefiting from in some cases.
Elizabeth Philipose: I have a couple of. Thoughts about that? On one hand I'm really glad that. Westerners are practicing yoga and going to meditation and doing those things that reconnect us right to spirit or soul. There's something about yoga, for instance, that you don't have to know the philosophy.
You don't have to have a reverence for the sacred text from which yoga comes because it's a breath body. It's a breath body movement, right? And breath is the spirit in the body. And so just the fact that you're doing it does have a positive impact on you, even if you're thinking, oh, this is fitness and I look [00:12:00] good.
So I have a thought like that. And then I have been in a lot of different communities, spiritual communities, for instance. That, prioritize a certain kind of wellness, but are so appropriative of somebody else's culture. And when that somebody else is in your midst and you don't actually regard them, that's happened a lot.
So there's a highly problematic. And increasingly hostile I'm less interested in being in those circles because that's not really in alignment. Yeah. I, I know some people who are, yoga in yoga in the yoga world, and. Actively decolonizing yoga, consciously decolonizing it by recovering, a study of sacred texts but also recognizing the colonial framework that brings [00:13:00] yoga here.
And I think that's evolutionary. That's really important work that people are doing to draw our attention to the way that those practices are extracted. But I think the larger teaching though, is what you started with that. Our whole approach to everything, in this part of the world is extractive.
And so it, it applies then to all of our relationships. And I think if we wanna talk about, why people are dissatisfied in relationships, it has something to do with this transactional, extractive nature of how we connect with each other. So I, I think the larger, learning from what's happening in those circles is that just that condition that we're in that makes us do makes us extract from so many places, right?
And from each [00:14:00] other, so yeah, that's a a self-reflection I think that we're all called to do in different ways, especially in the world we're in right now. Which I think if, I just think climate crisis are extractive ways have brought us here. Clearly we can't continue in that way.
Michael Reiley: So when we talk about. Decolonial wellness and de colonialism in general. Do you think that this is a way that someone on the spiritual path, on the path of wellness can start to discover more about the larger systemic project of decolonization, which I think is, has to be part of the discussion as well.
It's not so much just an individual decolonization, but we need to have systemic decolonization as well.
Elizabeth Philipose: Yeah, definitely. I like to also think about a decolonized spirituality. [00:15:00] And and what that means, is a reclaiming. Reclaiming of an absolute intelligence, an infinite intelligence. It's about reclaiming principles, cosmic principles that bring us here that we're meant to realize in this life we're meant to discern through this life and decolonize spirituality that.
That we might call, unity consciousness. And a unity consciousness that recognizes our inseparability from the whole the inseparability from earth, from nature, from all of the creatures, from trees but our inseparability from each other. What colonialism has really taught us is to be separate to see ourselves as radical individuals to see ourselves as disconnected from earth and nature.
[00:16:00] To misunderstand that we are nature, that we can't be separated, and so that it's that inseparability from the whole, I think that. When we take that seriously, we start to see, and start to discern and start to investigate those connections that we have. That for me, that kind of spirituality, can't help but decolonize relations, right?
Because if I'm inseparable from the whole, that means every single person. Is a sacred connection. Every single person then has the same the same life force, right? The same worthiness. There's no distinction in that sense. And so I'm not saying, cut to unity consciousness, but no, it's a process.
Of coming into a greater and greater [00:17:00] understanding of our inseparability and that in doing that, we have to unravel the things that separate us. We have to unravel. Extractive practices, we have to unravel our implicit bias and our racial ideas. We, a lot of progressive people don't think they're carrying any kind of biases, but you cannot be, you cannot come up in this society and not have biases, right?
And so just being willing, being courageous enough. To take it on as part of, what I'm meant to do here as a spiritual person, as a person, living from this whole soul wellness, what I'm meant to do here, what I'm meant to achieve here, I. So I don't see it disconnected from systemic change.
Michael Reiley: I think decolonized consciousness gives birth to decolonized practices and institutions, right? [00:18:00] And so we talk about land back. As part of that. It has to be a physical decolonization but it comes through a consciousness. We can't get there from the consciousness of. Colonialism. We can't get there from the, from how we got here, let's say.
What you're illuminating in this conversation is that there's a. Flowering into a real interconnection when you are, have already been working on yourself and in your spiritual community through the lens of the decolonial to become [00:19:00] engaged and to take action and to try to change the systems that are perpetuating these inequalities.
Elizabeth Philipose: Yeah, I think it goes, two ways, right? I've been part of a lot of social justice communities that don't see spirituality. As part of social justice that don't see like a part of a decolonizing of consciousness that we reclaim spirituality, from these colonized religions, and so there it goes that way, and so talking spirituality in those communities also often seen as inappropriate. And I think that keeps us disconnected. In spiritual communities. Yeah. People are resistant to taking on what seems political. Oh, that seems divisive. People have said that directly to me, and I do think that, we have to consider, for instance, [00:20:00] that civil rights activist, civil rights movements, for instance, had wellness retreats.
They were secret, they were underground, they were, to sustain and support and nourish people on the front lines. They knew about wellness.
And the Black Panthers have wellness programs and, just an awareness, that social justice and spirituality go together. And our whole soul wellness goes together. I. So and so there, there is a certain kind of privilege that you're talking about, and then there's a certain kind of just a basic necessity of connecting spiritually in order to land something new on Earth, not just so I can feel better and feel.
Connect with transcendence and have the experience but so that I can be of greater use on the planet, that I [00:21:00] can land unity consciousness as my life. As how I move through the world, it's not a necessarily teaching everybody about unity consciousness. It's showing up as the embodiment and modeling it speaking as it walking in it, that starts to shift.
People, people wanna know what's, what is it that you are doing? Because I can feel it, right or sense it. I think that's part of it. But yeah, I think that the kind of spirit, the idea that spirituality is a transcendence of all relations, right? How we transcend is we go through. How I unravel any sense of separation in me is I go through it, I face it, I look at it, I, evaluate it.
I see how it works. I become aware of how a sense of separation shows up when I'm afraid. So we, how we [00:22:00] transcend is we go through, and so that's a practical mysticism, a lived spirituality and one that, if we land kind of unity consciousness on the planet, but it changes the world.
Yeah.
Michael Reiley: Yeah. And thank you for that. That's important to, to highlight that other side of, so often we hear about people burning out in social justice or activist circles and there's a really intense flame of. Wanting to change the world, but it can quickly blow out often if we don't have that grounded center.
And yeah, like you said, civil rights and Black Panthers. Having that spiritual center where you think about Gandhi and the resistance there, I'm sure there was, is yeah, just practices that grounded them and let them really, like you said, embody. Nonviolent protest in a unshakeable way almost that, that [00:23:00] unshakeable ness that spiritual practice can give us.
Elizabeth Philipose: Yeah. I think you know, what you say about burnout for social justice movements or people that burnout, I think comes from a disconnection from a spiritual understanding and a spiritual practice, right? If. Our movements are only about changing material conditions and a sense that all we are is material right.
Then we don't have anywhere to go from here. We don't have a greater expression of ourselves to connect to. It's hard to believe. I think a lot of burnout comes from. Belief system, right? So on one hand you have a commitment to peace on earth, and on the other hand a little slight disbelief of whether that could be [00:24:00] true, whether that could come true, what would have to happen.
And so there's a friction right between pouring all of your energy into something that you don't quite believe, and that's causes burnout too. The thing that, this and this was my experience is like I'm teaching and decolonial feminism and working with different movements and engaged in mostly peace was mostly what I worked with and actually feminism and anti-racism. Students would ask me, what will this happen in our lifetimes? Or Will this ever happen, these transformations that we're seeking? And I could never answer that. I just really didn't have a solid answer other than it matters how we live our lives today. And it matters that we're, in doing something meaningful with our existence today.
But it was when I started on an adult spiritual path and I heard about universal [00:25:00] principles. I. Right, so that a universal principle is peace. You know that nature is peace, that we are made of peace. Then suddenly I had an answer to the question, could we achieve this? Yes, because it is our nature, right?
It is the nature of all of us to be that. We have just lost touch with our nature and we're living in distortion. And so that was very helpful to solve, resolve the problem of belief and to trust that this path might not happen, in my lifetime, but it will happen. It has to emerge, right?
So that's I think what spiritual teaching did for me, and that's what I try to offer people. In the work, and sometimes, it's through just wellness practices, breathing practices that, start to connect you to something larger. [00:26:00] Sometimes it's by immersion in nature to recognize the connection, the similarity, the chemistry of being in trees and being in forests, things like that.
It has to, I think, sometimes come through the body because the mind is so resolved that's not for me.
.
Or, and then I think there's also a lot of I'm gonna say it like this old church trauma that, is the resistance a lot of times a resistance to spirituality as well. Last time I engaged in that was.
Harmful or patriarchal or did some damage. And so even just that, addressing the old church trauma that comes up a lot of times when there's this group of Muslim feminists who have around the world actively sought to reclaim Islam, reclaim the Quran. Through the lens of justice [00:27:00] in the lives of women.
And and they teach, do classes and teach women how to read their texts for their own, on their own. And so when you do that that what happens is that these these women start to reclaim God in their lives as their lives and reclaim their worthiness. Loved by God. And so they get to have that experience.
So what happens a lot of times when I teach that kind of material to students is that they'll be inspired oh yeah, I grew up. Catholic, but it never occurred to me that I could reclaim that 'cause it was so damaging, but there were parts of it that served me, that fed me, so they're inspired to do that.
It's really important to recognize and name, spiritual abuse, religious trauma. As the some things that we need [00:28:00] to get over and also reclaim 'cause it comes to us through exactly those systems that were challenging, right? Colonial, patriarchal systems that were challenging. Yeah.
I answer the question?
So yeah, just folks who. Are on the spiritual path, but aren't seeing that totality and that importance of why decolonize? If I'm on the spiritual path, what is, why? Why would I even bother with that? It's not part of spiritual awakening. What do you say to people that think that?
The civil rights movement in the US was informed very much by the black church and Christian teachings, and like you mentioned, the independent movements in India, they're highly political, anti-colonial, and spiritually based, right? At the basis of all of these [00:29:00] major religions is a concept of unity. One life is the concept there. And that to me is in a divided world, inherently political. It has to be a motivation for political action. How do you convince people? I tend to share what I share and let it land where it lands. And, people who find resonance with what I'm saying, might might take it on. I think that in within religious institutions, there are enough people, that see it that way, that wanna mobilize that way.
Elizabeth Philipose: Yeah. But convincing people, I'm not very good at that. And I would just say, because I know what I know. And it's [00:30:00] only, only if it lands with other people, can it mobilize? Yeah.
But I think it's really important to teach and speak and share that perspective. Because because I do think it. Not solves, but leads us towards solutions that we really need, and that to feel the significance of that teaching is not based in how, immediate people receive it as much as it is the consciousness that we keep alive.
And keep expanding, through the number of people you mentioned, all the people who just insist on seeing it that way. Keep it keep it alive, keep showing us what we're missing, and I. I think it has to be comprehensive, right? So I, I can, I know people who are maybe committed to anti-racism or, very [00:31:00] active around Gaza, but don't have a consciousness about about gender, right?
And so it's still think about women or have a concept right, of divisions between masculine and feminine, that needs to be part of it too. That, so it needs to be a comprehensive kind of unraveling, which is why starting with a colonial framework and seeing how through that structure, we, this is where we get all of these relationships, right?
They're intersecting, interlocking. And buttress each other right. Then we can start to work with that and unravel it. I would say, probably speaking about Gaza, just in general, there's so much prohibition, not just for spiritual people. There's so much censorship and so much deliberate confusion. That we [00:32:00] rarely talk, we're not allowed to talk about Israel as a white settler state, but factually political science facts, that's what it is. That just the, so much of the censorship around how we're allowed to frame that story, it's really impacts not just spiritual people, right?
All kinds of people. Yeah, which is why I loved your film where the olive trees was stunning.
Michael Reiley: What are some things that maybe you offer or that, that can help people recognize and deal with that?
Elizabeth Philipose: I have gone to different communities to speak and to teach, and I offer that from this perspective of Decolonial wellness. I work with individuals, in private practice and that's a lot of people who come to me are having, specific issues at which [00:33:00] there, the root of it is some sense of separation.
And so that's how we approach that. I've, I run meditation groups usually online, that are around Decolonial wellness and and so is some teaching and some practice that we do together. Yeah, those sorts of things. I'm available in that way.
Michael Reiley: do you offer like guided meditations that are a mindfulness practice, let's say, but a de decolonial mindfulness practice.
Elizabeth Philipose: Yes. That involves reconnecting to the body. It involves, coming, understanding [00:34:00] where separation lives in us. So some of the guidance will be to reflect on that, reflect on where it lives in us. I think that, when I talk or guide around unity or oneness, that I try to also infuse that with, kind of a material reality, right? Like how that shows up. So yeah, we do those sorts of things. There's a, I have a couple meditations on Inside Timer.
Michael Reiley: Cool. Yeah.
Elizabeth Philipose: Yeah.
Michael Reiley: Nice. And I guess that depends too on if you're working with someone who, has a ancestral lineage that comes from the colonizer or the colonized. I guess that kind of d determines the type of meditation, the type of work that they do. And I'm sure too, you run across communities obviously, that have both, that are rec trying to reconcile both.
Elizabeth Philipose: Yeah. Yeah. I think I think [00:35:00] it's been the case that any kind of racial trauma or thinking about I. Coloniality really has focused on mostly people of color or, and to the exclusion of white people. But, the coloniality lives in all of us in different locations and different expressions.
But for instance, privilege, the other side of privilege is oppression. Those two things go together. It's a relationship. And so it's important I think for everybody. I always say Decolonial wellness is for everybody. That it's important that for everyone to see it as, part of a deeper spirituality.
'cause that's what it is. If we're. If we're, spiritual people seeking to be integrated body, mind, spirit or spiritual people seeking to know oneness as our lives, [00:36:00] then it is through, the, those material divisions that our spirituality expands, that we grow as spiritual beings is through.
Through the material divisions of unraveling them, of facing them, of working. That's our, that's the evolution of our spiritual understanding. And then it's not just abstract, right? Because I think that spirituality to expand has to have an earthly use to, it has to serve. Society, it has to serve everybody's evolution.
Yeah. Somehow or another.
Michael Reiley: Beautiful. Yeah.
Elizabeth Philipose: So if we were, so for instance, if we were a society that knew ourselves to be inseparable, we would never go to war. We could never do violence to anybody else. We couldn't stand to see [00:37:00] someone deprived. Of basic needs. We couldn't live with that. We couldn't. It's not possible. And so that, I think that sometimes it might seem linear, like first we get spiritual and then we get political.
I think it's simultaneous that we see that social conditions need to be brought into alignment with what we say is true.
Michael Reiley: Beautiful. Thank you for that. And thank you for your. Offerings today and describing this sometimes complex. Concept for people. I've and also for sharing it with kind of kindness
but I feel like the way you're offering it is very genuine and very sincere and really coming from a space of, like you said, we are recognizing that the path of collective awakening has to go through this deconstruction of, and this letting go of [00:38:00] colonialism, patriarchy, capitalism, extraction that's really the only way that we're going to survive this, what we're going through right now.
Elizabeth Philipose: Yeah. Yeah. I think if I am, if my intention is to, know my oneness in a deeper way, I. Then that has to include everybody, all the appropriators, it can't be, it can't be from a place of I'm better than you,
Michael Reiley: Yeah.
Elizabeth Philipose: right? Because there's no basis of evaluation, I think for that.
I can also understand anger and fed upness. Frustration and, all those things too. And and, calling out, I think it's not a bad idea to just name places that are exploitative, not name the person as ex [00:39:00] exploiter, but the practice. Yeah. And to help people. Do better.
Be better if you know better.
Michael Reiley: Yeah.
Elizabeth Philipose: Yeah.
Michael Reiley: Yeah. Yeah. It's a process, as you said earlier, and that's part of the spiritual journey is to be on that process, to be on this mountain, discovering and traveling the paths together and to help people, if you found another, if you're further up on the trail to help people that are stumbling or lost a bit.
Elizabeth Philipose: Yeah, I think I don't talk like this, but I know there's, movements that really focus on shadow work and I would say decolonizing consciousness, decolonizing spirituality, would fit into, that's our shadow. That's our collective shadow. Yeah. To unravel.
Michael Reiley: Nice. Thank you for. [00:40:00] Being on the podcast today and sharing all that you share and we'll in the show notes we'll have ways people can connect with you and your website. And I wanna share some of your writings too on the website. You sent some really beautiful articles a few weeks ago, so we'll get this on the website at some point and let people know about your work.
Elizabeth Philipose: Oh, that's great. That's great. I should mention, I'll send it to you, but I'm I'm doing a retreat on the divine feminine yeah. At the end of May. So I'll send you the information for that and that will be this approach, of, unraveling reclaiming femininity from patriarchy, but also recognizing the larger framework in which the feminine is suppressed now.
Yeah. And it's for all genders. Yeah. I guess femininity is a universal principle.
Michael Reiley: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Nice. That'll be online or in person or hybrid?
Elizabeth Philipose: It's in person, [00:41:00] it's in it's at Essalaen
Michael Reiley: Oh yeah. Cool.
Elizabeth Philipose: the end of May.
Michael Reiley: Thank you Dr. Philipose for being on the podcast today and for sharing what you have shared with our community.
Elizabeth Philipose: Thank you so much for having me and, I'm happy to connect with the community in this way.
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