Tool: The Superior/Inferior (S/I) Line | Skill: Ditch the 4 D’s
Unwittingly, we bring to our relationships and conversations a sense of who’s superior/inferior - not just in skill or possession, but in worth. Conflict ensues! Denying it won’t make it go away. Compromise and clichés only hide the S/I script, the damage to ourselves and the damage it directs us to inflict. Disobey: When dealing with those falsely projected as our “betters,” disobey the line’s instruction to discount ourselves and defer to them or their culture. When with those projected as “less-than,” disobey the line’s instruction to discount them, and/or dominate them.” Circle The Line: The goal is not to either crawl on top of the S/I line, or maintain others below it. Rather it is to use authenticity to bend the Superior/Inferior line into a circle of trust.
AYA Educational Institute
Challengers - Healers - Creators
852 Brafferton PL
Stone Mountain, 30083
e: afiya@ayaed.com
f: 404.532-9958
Tool: Feelings As Messengers
Skill: Crack The Code
Crack The Code - to unlock the emotionally-coded script that causes unwanted conflict and deep distrust. Oppression is coded into our learned emotional responses. We need to crack the code to learn to feel and communicate authentically. Historic oppression, family habits, school and media socialization conspire to falsify our emotional responses - even to ourselves. False: I read and respond “38-hot” when I’m actually feeling sad. False: She cries when she’s feeling angry. In either case we “read” and send the wrong emotional signal to ourselves and each other. Hence: Our behavior is misguided. Our reactions are inauthentic. Trust is eroded.Tool: River of Touches
Skill: Solve The Riddle
Solve the Riddle - “Babies cry for it; grown men and women die for it!” What Is it? Solving this mystery is the first step leading to an understanding of the Flow of Recognition or River of Touches. Learn to manage the awesome power of this river, and how to defend against its misuse. In oppression’s hands it creates self-deprecation, and hurt, while in our skilled hands this river’s touches stimulate personal growth, confidence, creativity, peacefulness, cohesive relationships and joy. Too often our words are burning torches. This river can transform those touches into healing touches. It is one of the best defenses against the psychological attacks and ploys that manipulate us to collude with oppression.
Oppression is @ The Root: The CHC Journey
Mo! Warrior-Healer-Builder (WHB) workshops, seminars, tool-sets create and are explored in a racially and culturally “safe place.” Over more than 21 years, WHB has served the African and African-Diasporan community. Many of those participants work and live in “contested” spaces. We were asked to help them bring some of those tools to help them more successfully navigate those spaces. Challenger-Healer-Creator (CHC) workshops, seminars, tool-sets were born. Some tools retain the same name, some do not. Context means everything. CHC = Challenging oppression, Healing the wounds caused by oppressing and being oppressed, Creating equitable and healthy living and working environments. Wekesa and Afiya Madzimoyo has years of experience working in contested spaces and facilitating authentic communication and conflict resolution within those spaces. CHC is more a goal than a title; it’s something that you learn to do and the execute - with skill. After years of research and training in communication (intra and inter-personal), history, psychology, and education, and after years of clinical experience in the area of personal and leadership development, Wekesa learned that this three-sided traingle (CHC) provides the balance, depth, self correction, and protection against oppression’s scripts that misdirect thoughts, feelings, and actions away from creating authenticity and community. Many scripts are unconscious and are seen as just personal habits, or well-intended traditions. No matter. CHC is not about arguing the terminology. It’s about a personal, interpersonal, institutional, and cultural journey of action - countering these psycho-social scripts to create healthy living and working environments.Wounded
A reflection: “Wounded by years of oppressing and being oppressed, my daily efforts are compromised. Wounded, when I try to make friends, they too often become enemies. When I try to build with people, they fail me, or I fail them. My efforts at love often bring pain or failure, or both. Putting my best foot forward is rarely enough.” To heal oppressions wounds we need a combined Challenger-Healer-Creator response.Challenger-Healer-Creator Response
AYA CHC Training Options
Weekends Retreats. One-Day Sessions. Half-Day Sessions. Online Classes. Online Support. Individual Coaching, Couple Sessions, Group Sessions. There are many options to learn the concepts and develop the CHC mindset and skill set. Training Contact Information below. Sessions are tailored to your situation.CHC Seven Skill-Set
Tool: SIO | Skill: Tellin’ Our Story From the Inside-Out
The power of story is legendary. While entertaining us from the corner, to the screen to the stage, stories heal the past and determine the future. They establish our values and direct our actions. Just ask advertisers and our adversaries. Missing and distorted stories about our past and about each other manipulate our consciousness and our possibilities. We used to be the storytellers, now we are the consumers and repeaters of other peoples’ stories. We’ve heard others’ stories about us for so long that we often tell stories about us from THEIR perspective – as if we are possessed by an alien who conjures us to speak and walk to serve them - at our own expense. To counter, we’ve developed SIO - steps to help us tell our stories from the inside-out. Time to use stories to help us Challenge Oppression and injustice, Heal from the wounds of being a perpetuator or viction of oppression, and Create equitable and just relationships and environments.
Skill #2
01.
Challenger
Knowing the intricacies of “institutional oppression” can obscure the fact that people’s actions make and sustain inequitable and unjust power relationships. It will take individual action at all levels to stop PEOPLE, POLICIES, and PRACTICES from aggressing upon historically oppressed communities. While you can choose your weapons. You can’t choose the war; you are already a player in it. Challenger or agent? Which will it be?02.
Healer
Old wound are passed down through our family habits. Being shaped to oppress or to endure oppression inflicts wounds that are refreshed daily. Clearly, we need to become skilled healers - turning fear into confidence, emotion into intelligence, conflict into trust, destruction into stability and creativity. Skill: healing ourselves of oppression’s wounds and turning our everyday interactions with each other into healing touches.03.
Creator
While we challenge and heal, we are also obligated to create new: • Families • Organizations • Businesses • Institutions • Traditions that nurture justice: Forging trust- bonds, where oppression has induced distrust in self and others.
CHC: Mind-Set | Skill-Set
Tool: The Superior/Inferior (S/I) Line
| Skill: Ditch the 4 D’s
Unwittingly, we bring to our relationships and conversations a sense of who’s superior/inferior - not just in skill or possession, but in worth. Conflict ensues! Denying it won’t make it go away. Compromise and clichés only hide the S/I script, the damage to ourselves and the damage it directs us to inflict. Disobey: When dealing with those falsely projected as our “betters,” disobey the line’s instruction to discount ourselves and defer to them or their culture. When with those projected as “less-than,” disobey the line’s instruction to discount them, and/or dominate them.” Circle The Line: The goal is not to either crawl on top of the S/I line, or maintain others below it. Rather it is to use authenticity to bend the Superior/Inferior line into a circle of trust.
Tool: Feelings As Messengers
Skill: Crack The Code
Crack The Code - to unlock the emotionally- coded script that causes unwanted conflict and deep distrust. Historic oppression, family habits, school and media socialization conspire to falsify our emotional responses - even to ourselves. False: I read and respond “38-hot” when I’m actually feeling sad. False: She cries when she’s feeling angry. In either case we “read” and send the wrong emotional signal to ourselves and each other. Hence: Our behavior is misguided. Our reactions are inauthentic. Trust is eroded.Tool: River of Touches
Skill: Solve The Riddle
Solve the Riddle - “Babies cry for it; grown men and women die for it!” What Is it? Solving this mystery is the first step leading to an understanding of the Flow of Recognition or River of Touches. Learn to manage the awesome power of this river, and how to defend against its misuse. In oppression’s hands it creates self-deprecation, and hurt, while in our skilled hands this river’s touches stimulate personal growth, confidence, creativity, peacefulness, cohesive relationships and joy. Too often our words are burning torches. This river can transform those touches into healing touches. It is one of the best defenses against the psychological attacks and ploys that manipulate us to collude with oppression.
Oppression is @ The Root:
The CHC Journey
Mo! Warrior-Healer-Builder (WHB) workshops, seminars, tool-sets create and are explored in a racially and culturally “safe place.” Over more than 30 years, WHB has served the African and African-Diasporan community. Many of those participants work and live in “contested” spaces. We were asked to help them bring some of those tools to help them more successfully navigate those spaces. Challenger-Healer-Creator (CHC) workshops, seminars, tool-sets were born. Some retain the same name, some do not. Context means everything. CHC = Challenging oppression. Healing the wounds of oppression. Creating equitable and healthy living and working environments. Wekesa and Afiya Madzimoyo have years of experience working in contested spaces and facilitating authentic communication and conflict resolution within those spaces. CHC is more a goal than a title; it’s something that you learn to do and the execute - with skill. After years of research and training in communication (intra and inter-personal), history, psychology, and education, and after years of clinical experience in the area of personal and leadership development, Wekesa learned that this three sided traingle (CHC) provides the balance, depth, self correction, and protection against oppression’s scripts that misdirect thoughts, feelings, and actions away from creating authenticity and community. Many scripts are unconscious and are seen as just personal habits, or well-intended traditions. No matter. CHC is not about arguing the terminology. It’s about a personal, interpersonal, institutional, and cultural journey of action - countering these psycho-social scripts to create healthy living and working environments.Wounded
Wounded by years of oppressing and being oppressed, my daily efforts are compromised. Wounded, when I try to make friends, they too often become enemies. When I try to build with my people, they fail me, or I fail them. My efforts at love often bring pain or failure, or both. Putting my best foot forward is rarely enough. To heal oppression’s wounds we need a combined Challenger-Healer- Creator response.Challenger-Healer-Creator
Response
01.
Challenger
Knowing the intricacies of “institutional oppression” can obscure the fact that people’s actions make and sustain inequitable and unjust power relationships. It will take individual action at all levels to stop PEOPLE, POLICIES, and PRACTICES from aggressing upon historically oppressed communities. While you can choose your weapons. You can’t choose the war; you are already a player in it. Challenger or agent? Which will it be?02.
Healer
Old wound are passed down through our family habits. Being shaped to oppress or to endure oppression inflicts wounds that are refreshed daily. Clearly, we need to become skilled healers - turning fear into confidence, emotion into intelligence, conflict into trust, destruction into stability and creativity. Skill: healing ourselves of oppression’s wounds and turning our everyday interactions with each other into healing touches.03.
Builder
While we fight and heal, we are also obligated to build. We must build: • Families • Organizations • Businesses • Institutions • Traditions Trust-building, unshakeable faith, creativity, and organization are the strengths of the builder. Skill: Forging trust-bonds, where oppression has induced distrust in self and others.
AYA CHC Training
Options
Weekends Retreats. One-Day Sessions. Half- Day Sessions. Online Classes. Online Support. Individual Coaching, Couple Sessions, Group Sessions. There are many options to learn the concepts and develop the CHC mindset and skill set. Training Contact Information below. Sessions are tailored to your situation.CHC Seven Skill-Set
