On Being Whole, The Journey of Amy Cuddy’s Power Pose and Recriprocity
A poetry series
Monday: What does it mean to be a whole person?
My heart’s definition of wholeness
I am, we are whole complex people
with flaws and strengths, stories that bring us joy or pain, successes and failures.
To be a whole person is to taste the full spectrum of flavours, the sweet, sour, bitter and spicy (甜酸苦辣) of life.
Wednesday: How does other people only seeking certain pieces of me affect me?
My heart’s reaction to finding my pain but not my joy
When others only seek my stories of pain only ask questions about how inequality has affected me
without amplifying to the same degree the things I deeply love and connect to
it paints a one dimensional view of who I can truly be, monetizing my struggles and demoralizing my joy.
Friday: What if I am a whole person, despite what other people seeking only seeking certain parts of me?
My heart’s affirmation
It’s not what if but a certainty.
I am the serious moments of advocating for serious change; who is no different from the woman who wrote about the joys and fun of experimenting with food.
We can be all of those things at different seasons of our life, or even between different times of the day and still be wholeheartedly each thing that contributes to the complex human that we are.
This three-part poem is dedicated to Adrienne Gibbs for the brilliant question of asking me how I find the permission to have two “streams” of what I write — to write about race/ racism but to also create about food, poetry, art. Writing about racism is not all that I am, and I still stand by that.
Tuesday: Listening to the gut and forging ahead
Knowing your mission
Those first wobbly steps might be uncertain especially if they were done in absence of support.
You still took those steps and improved along the way learning from what you could to grow by understanding different perspectives.
The “gut” is thus formed from your personal failures, wins but also those gleaned from stories you read, an intuition that guides with wisdom and gentleness that allows you to move forward.
Author note: I value growing, learning, which is why “forging” can sometimes be too strong of a word for me. I do not want to forge if it means to pillage; I am not the spear that cracks the rock but the undulating water that smooths the crevices of those I come in contact with.
Thursday: Taking a warrior stance in life
The controversial power pose
The power pose risen to power in virality to share the message that we are as much in our heads as we are in our bodies; in bodily movement we find engendered experience.
Struck down from power with the weakness that strikes all psychology studies is the replication crisis finding no support for this idea.
Meta-analyses, aggregating findings from a myriad (N = 55) to be exact re-affirm the original story of expansive feelings when we embody our inner superhero.
In this, I learn that to be a warrior is not to attack and not to win, but to harbor the humility to know the weaknesses in research as much as what the data tell us.
That — to me — is the warrior stance in life.
Weekend: Staying Alert and Aware of The Cycle of Giving and Receiving
Reciprocity
Reciprocity is not the surface accounting of one to one actions;
there will be periods of life where one where someone needs help far more than we do and it would be unreasonable to expect them to payback every counted deed immediately…
it’s about noticing the pattern at a larger scale — whether on the whole you have supported them when they needed it the most and someone has ever shown up for you when you needed support.
if the answer is no I have learned not to shame either of us in the duo.
I’ve learned that perhaps in this period of life in which we overlap it wasn’t meant to be, as they had too much on their plate. or perhaps this is just who they are and part of it involves needing society to better accept people who are different and may have different needs
but that at that point given what I was going through that I could not have been there either for them.
it’s to learn that sometimes the fit isn’t right; and to build a system that is easier for people to find connection with those able to support them And vice versa based on our strengths
rather than force us to labour through weaknesses that cannot change just to fit a narrative of “what reciprocity should look like.”
Hi I’m Lucy Dan 蛋小姐 (she/her/她) and I want to thank Diana C. for these amazing prompts!
^ by Julia Appa
