Awakening to White Privilege- more about Tekla

My name is Tekla, I was named because my parents knew it to be a Swedish name (and my matriarchal line is of Swedish heritage). I have since learned my name is Polish, Ethiopian, and other origins- it doesn’t really “mean” anything, though it originates from the Greek name Thekla, meaning “God’s glory”.

I use she/her/hers pronouns and I am raced as white. My heritage is of European ancestry, specifically Scandinavian and Irish. My ancestors benefited from the stolen land of the Anishinabe in the state now known as Michigan, where my family still farms the land. I was born and lived my first 26 years in Tucson, Arizona, the land of the Tohono O’Odham and Hohokam. I currently live on the land of the Ute, Cheyenne, Arapaho, and Dakota, known as Colorado.

I am currently in the position with my knowingness and awareness about myself that my journey has been one of privilege in many ways (white, upper/middle class, straight, cis-gendered, no physical or debilitating mental disabilities).

Over the past 5+ years, this white woman has been on a powerful journey of education by listening to podcasts like Scene on Radio’s Seeing White, reading books, watching movies, and taking classes to examine my white privilege with Building Bridges in Denver. Over the past year I have been part of a group of white women, which started as a book club reading White Women, and evolved into being coached by the incredible Dameda JoLynn, who focuses on somatic awareness and practices around internalized racism and how harmful white women can be to black and brown bodies of culture.

This journey has brought me to be acutely aware of systemic racism, and to work through my own white fragility and white guilt, so that I now speak about anti-racism through conversations in my classes, circles I lead, and with my one-on-one clients. Through my work, I am supporting people to release the energy held in the body from systemic racism and white supremacy, (you can find an eloquent explanation of this in Resmaa Menakem’s book, My Grandmother’s Hands). I am still a beginner, I am not the expert, and I am always learning.

I was raised and lived the first 35+ years of my life unaware of my white privilege, of the history of America, how it was built on, and has not healed from, white supremacy. My past includes playing the role as the “white woman savior” in Baltimore City. I had no idea at the time I was playing this role. Education, awareness, and energy healing are ways that I work to release my white guilt around this. I am wanting to stay aware of the pattern of “white women healers” culturally appropriating healing work like yoga, and energy healing like Reiki. I am committed to continued unlearning while also being of service in what feels authentic and has been helpful on my journey of healing and awareness. Though they may not be part of my ancestry, I am so deeply grateful for the support of Reiki, yoga and East Asian medicine. I am called to continue sharing while acknowledging the origins of these practices with honor.

As a woman of European descent in America, I did not grow up with a connection to the ceremonies and healing modalities of my ancestors until I was in my 40’s. Since traveling to Ireland with my Reiki teacher in 2019, I have become aware of my Irish and Swedish heritage and my connection to the Wheel of the Year celebrations, which are linked to the cycles of Mother Nature. My daughter and I have studied healing with herbs from the traditional Irish tradition, and we celebrate earth-based and seasonally-based Wheel of the Year ceremonies with our family. My connection to healing over the past decade has been a mix of other traditions and cultures, which I recognize and honor . I am committed to consciously recognizing and honoring the originating cultures of the traditions and practices that I share and teach.

Growing up in Tucson, I did learn a lot about the Tohono O’Odham and other Native American cultures. A big part of my elementary education was connecting with the Earth, and calling her Mother Earth. I was fortunate enough to have a teacher, Po Ha Ma Hepi, who was a Shohone Medicine Woman from Big Bear, CA. She taught me how to connect with Mother Earth. She influenced me and other classmates so deeply that we feel she inspired us on our life paths. I am forever grateful and honor her, and her teachings, as they have stayed with me since I was around 10 years old.

It wasn’t until I started studying at the Tai Sophia Institute at the end of 2008, that I connected a spiritual tradition to the cycles of the Earth in such a powerful way that it changed the course of my life. This was when I truly began my healing journey. Through my graduate studies, I learned about the ancient East Asian traditions of 5 Element Acupuncture, Taoism and using the I Ching, which all deeply resonated with me. This connection to the seasons and the cycles of the Earth was profound for me in relation to life, relationships, and my own wellness. Awareness of cycles and circles and interconnection became a main focal point.

To circle back to my healing journey, Yoga has also been part of my path to healing and I still practice because it is a source of great healing for me. I completed a 200 hour yoga teacher training, including Reiki 1, 2, advanced and Teacher training, in 2013-14. I have practiced yoga for over 20 years and have taught it, specifically for pregnant and postpartum women. I honor and respect the yogic practice of movement and breath, and especially the power of yoga to bring people together in community. I am grateful for yoga and I continue to practice regularly with awareness of the origin of yoga and continued awareness of cultural appropriation.

My Reiki training and journey is one that I like to discuss with as much clarity as possible- I am a white woman teaching a Japanese energetic healing tradition, based in the ancient Shinto spirituality in Japan, which, depending on who you talk to, has been westernized and has a lot of history and lineages over just the past 100+ years. How do I justify this? I didn’t plan on practicing, sharing, and teaching Reiki when I learned it! In 2021, I started questioning my Reiki lineage, how it was taught and what was taught, and I started diving into learning more of the Japanese history of Reiki. The past 5 years have been diving into more research and learning about the history of Reiki, so that I am appreciating and not appropriating the beautiful practice that saved my life over 10 years ago. I have been taking classes with various Reiki teachers and reading many books about Reiki- to understand it the best I can and represent and teach it with dignity.

My healing journey continued when we moved to Colorado in 2015 and I started studying intuitive training with Stacia Synnestvedt of Wooversity. I studied for two years with her, learning to trust my intuition, and learning methods for listening to my intuition. This was a time of deep healing and growth. This part of my journey is a huge part of my teaching, how I lead meditations, and look at energy. I am grateful to have these practices based on practices from the Berkeley Psychic Institute. and to be able to share them with others. Practicing how to listen to my intuition and continuing to see Reiki clients through that time led me to trust my intuition and psychic messages that come through during Reiki sessions over the past 7 years of practice. As I encourage my students now to trust how they receive information while sharing Reiki, I have my own tools that I use from years of practice and study.

My own healing work over the past 15 years has brought me now to a place where I am incorporating and highlighting the practices from all of the wisdom traditions that I have been blessed to learn, while continuing to be a lifelong student of Reiki and my own antiracism work.