I want to take a few minutes to share my story and give a personal face to what the D&I Committee believes we’re here to do and perhaps some context for our desire to include words like anti-racism in our focus as an organization.
I have been an Ayurvedic practitioner for eleven years and a member of NAMA for nearly as long. Like many of my NAMA colleagues, I serve communities composed primarily of white women between the ages of 40 and 60. Women who, in many ways like myself, move through the world with a degree of privilege that allows or compels them to make wellness a priority in their lives. Having grown up in white middle class neighborhoods, been to the best schools, traveled extensively, and worked for a time in the corporate world, I recognized these women’s struggles in myself and didn’t think much about the intersectionality of who I am and what it meant to be a Black woman in the world of wellness.
And then came the murder of George Floyd in May of 2021, and the world erupted again at the blatant inequity, abuse, inhumanity. A long overdue and much needed global spotlight was placed on the bedrock of racism and injustice that this country was built upon, perpetrates on a daily basis, and quietly operates from on all levels.
For me, a Black woman living in the middle of a very white Australia, married to a white man, serving primarily white clients and students, and yet living with the memories of being the target of all manner of racial slurs growing up in Southern California, the global spotlight served to illuminate my personal blind spots. Owing to my own personal experiences of privilege, I, like many of my white friends and students, had thought that racism was a much smaller issue, that it barely impacted me personally and that we, as Americans and as growing global community were moving swiftly toward overcoming racism and every other -ism that it empowers. But the truth is, we’re only just beginning.
This most recent experience of social unrest is only a nudge toward a state of awakening. I’ve lived my whole life subject to and limited and defined by a collective understanding that shapes my choices, my beliefs, and my potential for well-being and self-realization without fully seeing it. As the proverbial fish who doesn’t see the water. It’s the social conditioning that Ayurveda and yoga invite us to transcend, and yet so many of us are tempted to hit the snooze button and drift back to a comfortable sleep.
But now that I clearly see the water, I can’t unsee it. I recognize that the communities that I’m actually here to serve are those women and people of color who, because of the water we swim in, have felt disempowered and unworthy of self-care or well-being for that matter. Who are tired, unaware, and unsure of how to experience and create wellness and support others in their communities to do the same.
I am here to serve the folks who show up to my classes and courses and who want to learn about, practice, and teach Ayurveda because they see someone who looks like them, like me, doing it, living it, and being it and because they rightfully see Ayurveda as support for taking their power back.
I’ve chosen to volunteer for this committee because I believe in Ayurveda’s vast potential to serve marginalized communities who are disempowered and disenfranchised around well-being. I also believe the opportunity exists for NAMA to embrace and support these communities by becoming an organization that truly sees the water we’re all swimming in, recognizes the challenges of marginalized people, and commits and openly works to create a safe and welcoming space for us where we can grow and thrive.
Chara Caruthers, ERYT-500, C-IAYT, CAP, is an international teacher, speaker, author and women’s wellness mentor. Chara has studied and practiced Ayurveda in the USA, Australia and India. Her work focuses on sharing these ancient principles in a modern context, empowering people of all backgrounds and cultures to live juicier, more connected lives.
