5 Questions to Support Liberation
A friend of mine recently posted a video from Barcelona where someone was singing in the street at 6:30am. A person could have a myriad of responses to this depending on how much this situation impacted their need for sleep. My comment on that video was, “That’s what a free society looks like.” I’ll explain what I mean and how this can apply to our choices with food and our relationship with our body.
If you were to ask a crowd of 100 people, “What is liberation?” you might receive 100 different answers. And that’s probably part of freedom, right? In a liberatory space, the word can mean different things to different people. Liberation also isn’t something many of us have truly felt in our bodies; it’s a multidimensional concept that many of us have to imagine ourselves toward.
That said, I’ve recently come upon a definition of liberation that I’ve been trying-on in different contexts. This definition was given to me by Dr. Leticia Nieto in her Rupture and Repair course. It’s a definition that she extrapolated from the psychodrama practitioner, Joseph Moreno. And the definition goes like this:
“Liberation is the expansion of role repertoire for everyone.”
In other words, in a liberatory space you have access to behaviors and attitudes that you may be forbidden from holding in an oppressive environment. For example, in the 1950’s, people who identified as women were limited to the role of house-wife, domestic worker, or some other care provider. They didn’t have access to education or athletics in the ways men had. Liberation for these women meant they could still be women and consider different professions, different ways of behaving, different ways of dressing, etc.
One element of this definition that I appreciate is that it’s the same practice no matter the level of privilege a person holds. Liberation for a man in this example is still expansion of role repertoire. Looking back at the 1950’s, it means he wouldn’t have just be the bread-winner of the house-hold, he wouldn’t have to present as tough and impenetrable, he could express himself through fashion or attitudes in any way that’s authentic to him without it costing his identity and standing as a man.
Expansion of role repertoire for everyone.
Reflection Invitation:
Make a list of the social identities you hold. Consider the level of privilege and marginalization they hold. Pick one to focus on for this exercise and ask the following questions:
What are the behaviors, attitudes, and expectations stereotypical to those identities? What do you feel allowed to do or be as a result those social identities?
What are some behaviors, attitudes, and expectations off-limits to this identity? What are you not allowed to do, say, or desire without risking social repercussions that are allowed other identities?
Considering the answers to this last question, what would be at-risk if you did, said, or wanted the things forbidden to this social identity?
What if that risk didn’t exist, would it be like or feel like for you to expand your role repertoire and do these unexpected behaviors?
What spaces or conditions support your expansion of role repertoire? Where do you feel permission to be your full self? If this doesn’t exist, how can you create that?
EXAMPLE: One of the identities I hold is mixed-race.
1. Growing up in a predominantly white space, I learned to “get along to get by.” This lead to a personality that was laid-back and as many of my peers called, “Super chill.”
2. Speaking out against the standard quo or behaving gregarious was off-limits to me.
3. When I did speak out and not present as “shy” or “easy going,” I was kicked-out from my friend group and reprimanded for being obnoxious.
4. Expanding into the fullness of my personality and not-shrinking for the comfort of others feels playful to me. It registers as safety and reduces my hyper-vigilance of surveillance of self and others.
5. Spaces with a social-conscious awareness are helpful for this. When there are community agreements of body-autonomy, non-judgement, and consent. I feel this permission in movement spaces that center BIPOC experience.
Notice how much of this questions of liberation is rooted in our relationship to the people around us. Liberation is not an individual endeavor but a collective effort.
We can apply this inquiry to our relationship with our food and our body:
Which social identities are allowed to be large and take up space?
Whose experiences are normalized and who’s are label “diverse” or “divergent”?
Who is allowed to eat whatever they want?
Whose food habits are expected to be monitored?
What if we lived in a world where we could take up as much or as little space as we wanted? And everyone was free from food monitoring? In what small ways are you able to shift toward the world you want to live in? Most importantly, how do you respond when someone is expanding their role repertoire?
Circling-back to the Spanish street singers at 6:30am, what responses would support the role expansion of both you and the singers? Which one would honor your authentic yes? What response do you want to get better at and therefore, practice?
A lot of this is about our ability to imagine a new way of being in the world. If you’re interested in more, check out this older blog post about imagining beyond the constructs.
If you’d like individualized support to help you make small changes that lead to more liberation for yourself, I’d love to connect with you.
