The Paradox of Enoughness for White Women in the Racial Justice Revolution

Illustration by Chelsea Granger

A process for working through unworthiness to keep the inner and outer movement going.

This latest wave of the racial justice movement has brought us closer to change than perhaps ever before. It is an extremely potent time to come together and keep the momentum going. Whether you discovered what white privilege/advantage* meant a few weeks ago, or have been fighting against racism and for Black equality for years, I honor wherever you are on the path to collective liberation. No matter what stage of the process you find yourself in, I urge you to continue holding yourself and your community accountable. Keep moving forward, even when you may be feeling hopeless, apathetic, powerless, complacent, or, in my case, like you’re not enough.   

For me, social and healing justice work is at times transcendent and hopeful, and at others, deeply upsetting and difficult. Perhaps you can relate. It’s a privilege to engage in this work, and it’s also not easy—and it’s never going to be. Getting paralyzed or stuck is inevitable in this process—but still we must move forward. What White people contend with in this work is considerably less than what People of Color—and Black Americans, especially—face, and our privilege compels us to persist. But this fact doesn’t alleviate the stuckness. Often, it’s the guilt and shame itself that makes us want to shut down. But we must keep moving. 

I’d like to share with you one of the places I sometimes get stuck on my path in this revolution. It has to do with worthiness, something I’ve previously written about as it applies to the elevation of the feminine. 

One of the aspects of the dominant or patriarchal paradigm (ooh, is it even still dominant? It’s feeling a little wobbly, no?), is the projection of unworthiness. Countless generations ago, consciousness split and humans became separate from spirit. Our consciousness came to be defined by its binaries: man/woman, human/nature, good/evil, black/white, virgin/whore, worthy/unworthy, and so on. 

It is at this point that the dominant paradigm, the toxic masculine, rose into power. Any person and system outside of the White, male, able-bodied, heteronormative standard was considered less-than. Also, around this time, the dominator man-god belief systems also rose to authority. The tenets of these systems are: 1) we are born into sin; 2) the body is shameful; 3) women are the cause of man’s downfall; and 4) White people are more human than POC. Now multiply and proliferate these beliefs until they are steeped into all our cultural norms and social mores, add colonization and the dehumanization of BIPOC for hundreds of years, and you have a disastrous formula for unworthiness. The internalization of unworthiness has occurred in us all—more intensely in women, and most intensely in people and especially WOC.

White allyship/accompliceship won’t heal these divisions or solve structural racism—it’s just one element of many that are needed to create the changes that must be made both individually and collectively. Being a kind person, reading all the books, showing up to protest, having a strong reparations plan, donating money, etc is all imperative—but it’s important to understand that it will also never be enough. And yet, pushing through this fundamental feeling of inadequacy and helplessness is what is required in order to make the changes that must be made. 

We must simultaneously accept that the actions that we take will never be enough to “fix” thousands of years of oppression—and also we must still take those actions. 

The compounded trauma of multigenerational abuse has no simple solution. Here we must be in acceptance. White people must work to dismantle and repair, but as individuals, any one of us can’t expect to resolve things at the systemic level. Here lies the imperative of the inner work. Being in acceptance, holding all of the ancestral trauma of both being oppressed and being the oppressor, and moving forward with our hearts—this is a vital part of the solution. 

We do have choices in how we access our internal resources and how we activate our resilience, which is necessary to confront and push through the feelings of inadequacy and unworthiness. Here’s how I’m attempting to work with the paradox of “not enoughness” in this moment. 

• First, I’m naming what is coming up for me in this space. How does the unworthiness feel in my body? What do I notice? Is it ok for these felt sensations to be here? 

• I’m understanding this at the levels I can perceive: I feel this on a collective White-people level. I feel how this hits the feminine. I feel this conflating with my own personal trauma history. I also accept there are also places where I hold bias and unconsciousness, and can’t understand clearly. 

• I’m exploring the ways that I am guided to hold space for this experience within myself while supporting my nervous system. If there’s a decision to be made, I’m running that through my heart. This includes building up my distress tolerance, which is such an important piece to this work.

• I’m finding ways to move through the discomfort so I can focus on what I am doing to educate, connect, collaborate, donate, etc. Flower essences I have been reaching for include: Borage, Yarrow, and Aspen. 

• Lastly, I’m looking at actionable and collaborative ways to process this with my community. Along with a trusted colleague who has also been actively engaged in anti-racism work, I’ve started a group for WW healers in order for us to collectively process this inquiry and all the emotional content that will inevitably arise. 

There is no rulebook for these unprecedented times. And yet, I trust that we are the ones we have been waiting for. I trust that all the work we have been doing individually and collectively has led us here. There is a terrifying perfection in it all. While this time has no easy fix, I’m getting clear about where I have agency, and working within that space. I will keep showing up in all the rays of the rainbow to which I am called. I will continue to choose how to respond from an embodied, heart-centered place, even if that means I am learning as I go and sometimes need to course correct. I will continue to help others do this, too. 

What would it look like for everyone to answer the call of their hearts in this revolution? I hold to this vision of possibility, where all beings are liberated and free. I know that this is enough for me to work with right now.