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 falsley 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 that into a circle of trust.
AYA Educational Institute
Challengers - Healers - Creators
852 Brafferton PL
Stone Mountain, 30083
e: wekesa@gmail.com
f: 404.201.2356
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-deprication, 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 buring torches. This river can tranfrom 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.
Baba Wekesa O. 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 taylored 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 other’s stories about us for so long that
we often tell stories about us from THEIR perspective – as if we are posseessed by a alien who 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
inequatible and unjust power
relationships. It will take
individual action at all levels to
stop PEOPLE, POLICIES, and
PRACTICES from agressing
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 oppressions
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