Recovering Under Racial Capitalism
A 12 week somatic and intuitive journaling course for folks ready to recover ourselves from how racial capitalism harms our relationship to self and the world.
What does recovery under racial capitalism look like?
We have so much wisdom in our bodies, in our lineages, of how to cope with and survive under racial capitalism.
Racial capitalism: the system we currently live under, across the globe, where access to resource is impacted by race and class. The legacy of colonization, where the land, culture, and bodies of Black, Indigenous, and people of color have been turned into capital and resource, for profit.
It makes sense that our bodies know our society is inherently unsafe to be in. Racial capitalism has shown us that it will enact violence, extract for profit, dehumanize, enslave, and restrict access to our basic needs of food, shelter, clothing, access to nature, and connection if we do not conform to the power structures it upholds of ableism, patriarchy, racism, colorism, anti-Blackness, anti-Indigeneity, fatphobia. Our lineages and communities have responded to witnessing this threat with different coping and survival strategies, which for many of us, have manifested as struggling with substances, people pleasing, and perfectionism.
Many mainstream recovery, sobriety, and co-opted harm reduction spaces don’t acknowledge or respond to this connection of surviving under racial capitalism to struggles with substances, people pleasing, and perfectionism.
In this 12 week somatic and intuition-based journaling course, we will honor and hold with gentleness the ways we, our lineages, and our communities have survived under racial capitalism.
We will:
Build self-compassion towards how we have survived the weight of living every day under this system, including how that informs our substance use, people pleasing, and/or perfectionism
Identify the toll that racial capitalism has taken on our relationship to self.
Work towards letting go of judging and being mean to ourselves for the pressure racial capitalism puts on us.
Recognize how the day-to-day of racial capitalism impacts our bodies, so we can make decisions under racial capitalism that consider care for our bodies and being able to identify what they need.
Honor how much racial capitalism has harmed our lineages and communities and recognize where our approaches to surviving it come from the histories our ancestors and communities have survived.
Look at how we relate to others in a new light, as we understand how much racial capitalism informs what we think is possible in our relationships.
We will explore the complexity of looking at how racial capitalism is harming us while we still live under it, and dream into how we’d like to contribute to its dismantling, both in how we’ve internalized it, and in collective at large.
This 12 week online course will explore the complexity of looking at how racial capitalism is harming us and has informed what we seek recovery from while we still live under it, and dream into how we’d like to contribute to its dismantling, both in how we’ve internalized it, and in collective at large.
Let’s get into this!
Doors close: Wednesday, Nov 8th at midnight PDT.
Cohorts start the week of Nov 12th.
Hi, I’m Carolyn (they/them), the human running this course!
Some of the biggest lows in my life and recovery have been contending with:
“How am I supposed to continue to exist and recover under racial capitalism?”
I’ve wondered at times if I can keep living, knowing how much these systems have and continue to weigh on my life and threaten my survival, especially if I don’t conform to them.
The most freeing moments in my recovery come from recognizing how my body has been conditioned to survive leads me to judge myself deeply, and where I can instead view myself and the world with a freer lens.
I’m holding this space in hopes that we can recognize where racial capitalism is showing up in how we perceive ourselves and the world, and see where we can free ourselves and the collective up from this impact.
Who is this course for?
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You have experienced struggles with substance use, people pleasing, and/or perfectionism.
You don’t have to identify with any specific labels (i.e. alcoholic, addict, sober/sober curious/al anon/adult child of alcoholic) in order to be in this space (though you can!). We ask those without lived experience not participate (ex clinicians without lived experience).
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You want recovery practice that directly identifies the impacts of racial capitalism and doesn't bypass it or say that's an "outside issue".
You’re tired of hearing people say you have to just live “life on life’s terms”, where that means accepting these systems and how they harm us. You want a container that recognizes its harms, calls them for what they are, and supports recovery in navigating these systems. You know being exploited under these systems isn’t life’s default, or how it always has to be, and you want a container that holds that and believes in possibility and well-being beyond racial capitalism.
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You know you've contorted or hidden yourself for a long time to survive racial capitalism in ways that have been harmful, and you want to practice letting that go.
Racial capitalism asks us to suppress ourselves and our well-being in order to survive. In this container, we will look at how this has impacted our relationship to ourselves and others and see where we can recover our and the collective well-being.
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You've hit moments of doubting you can navigate life under the weight of this system's cost of living and been wanting recovery support.
Some of the toughest moments you’ve navigated in life, and/or in recovery may have been contending with surviving under these systems. This space honors that lived experience and aims to hold us all gently as we look at it together.
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You want to understand your lineage's history within the context of racial capitalism and survival and gain perspective and self-compassion.
Struggles with substance use may be part of your lineage, but there may not have been space to look at the ways that’s been in connection with surviving under racial capitalism. You’re excited to look at these things and see the perspective that can inform how you got here, and foster more compassion towards self and maybe the collective.
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You are ready to be self-accountable for your feelings.
This experience will likely be activating. Ideally you have collective support and other resources to support processing and care around what comes up.
Disclaimer
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This course is not a substitute for therapy or substance use counseling.
Carolyn is not a licensed mental health professionals or substance use counselor. This offering is informed by lived experience as a queer, non-binary, two-spirit, Afro-Taino neurodivergent person in long-term recovery from struggles with substance use, and study of systemic oppression, colonization, and somatics. If you feel like you need the support of a therapist and/or substance use counselor, we invite you to seek out other resources.
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This course centers queer, trans intersex, Black, Indigenous, and people of color.
We will be working around racial capitalism, which is informed by the history of colonization, colonial patriarchy, and ableism. These forces have shaped who can have access to resource, how, and, who is able to survive under these systems. We will have mixed race cohorts and in these spaces we will not center whiteness.
Let’s get into practice together.
Doors close: Wednesday, Nov 8th at midnight PDT.
Cohorts start the week of Nov 12th.
Course format:
The course will meet on Zoom for 12 weeks broken down into four parts:
Part 1: Racial capitalism and how it informs our relationship to ourselves and our bodies
Part 2: Racial capitalism survival in our lineages
Part 3: Racial capitalism and how it informs attachment
Part 4: Racial capitalism and recovering imagination and possibility
Participants will engage in live sessions facilitated by Carolyn Collado (they/them).
Course structure:
The course centers journal reflection prompts followed by discussion as a collective.
Journal reflections will support participants in identifying how these themes resonate in our lives, and in our bodies. Participants will then be invited to share their findings in collective. This will help participants to learn from each other and to help break the isolation of experience that racial capitalism reinforces.
The space will be emergent, shifting according to what comes up in the container and over the course of our time together.
Queer, trans, intersex, Black, Indigenous, and People of color and Two Spirit (QTIBIPOC2S), BIPOC, and mixed race cohorts will be offered for participants to select in what container they’d like to explore this work.
The cohorts will meet at:
Mondays, 8:00-9:30 PM EST | 5:30-6:30 PM PST (general cohort)
Tuesdays, 8:00-9:30 PM EST | 5:30-6:30 PM PST (general cohort)
Saturdays 1-2:30 PM (BIPOC cohort)
Sundays 1:00-2:30 PM EST | 10-11 AM PST (QTIBIPOC cohort)
What we’ll explore:
Part 1:
Racial capitalism, ourselves, and our bodies
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This week, we’ll honor and take a look at how we have survived under racial capitalism. What has been the story of how we’ve survived? What do we do every day navigate these systems? How does that connect to our recovery?
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This week, we’ll look at the ways our self-esteem, our self-judgement, have been shaped by racial capitalism. We’ll look at how we can beat ourselves up to try to keep us safe from these systems. We’ll look at what boundaries we can have in identifying where racial capitalism most impacts our sense of self.
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This week, we’ll center identifying where racial capitalism shows up in our bodies? How is our nervous system protecting us?
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This week, we’ll look at our relationship to rage, especially our rage towards racial capitalism. This week, we will center exploring expressing that rage in somatic practice.
What we’ll explore:
Part 2:
Racial capitalism survival in our lineages
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This week, we’ll look at how across generations, our lineages have navigated racial capitalism. What have been their strategies? What histories have they survived?
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This week, we’ll look at what has been passed down to us to survive racial capitalism that may cause us harm and inform what we need recovery from.
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In this week, we’ll sit with the wisdom of our ancestors in surviving these systems. We will reflect on the ways we can turn to and share these strengths as we continue to survive racial capitalism, and as we work toward its dismantling.
What we’ll explore:
Part 3:
Racial capitalism and how it informs attachment
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This week, we’ll look at attachment theory in the context of racial capitalism. We’ll consider how racial capitalism and systems of oppression influenced the availability of our caregivers growing up. We’ll consider how the ways we feel we can be in relationship have been informed by racial capitalism, and we will consider how this shows up in our recovery journeys.
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This week, we’ll look at our fears and desires in being a part of community and collective. We’ll look at the ways that racial capitalism poses challenges to these connections because they challenge its very existence. We will also identify the kind of nourishing connections we desire to cultivate.
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This week, we’ll consider the ways we can center disability justice in our lives, identifying the ways in which we have internalized ableism in our lives and lineages. We’ll look at ways that centering access for everyone, including ourselves cultivates space.
What we’ll explore:
Part 4:
Racial capitalism and recovering imagination and possibility.
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This week, we’ll look at how racial capitalism narrows what we believe is possible. We’ll look at how this has shaped how we view and have oriented towards life.
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This week, we’ll center orienting towards pleasure in building and believing in possibility. We will see how cultivating joy and pleasure helps keeps us well in the present and how we’d like to orient our future under a system that has attempted to limit our options.
Let’s resist these systems together!
Doors close: Wednesday, Nov 8th at midnight PDT.
Cohorts start the week of Nov 12th.
Sliding Scale Pricing
Struggles with substances has been an intentional weapon of colonization and empire-building across generations. The cultivation of alcohol and sugar in the Western Hemisphere created the Trans-Atlantic Slave trade. It is responsible for the enslavement of Black people and the genocide of Indigenous peoples and the theft of land and cultural practices used to exploit to this day. Mass distilled alcohol and the weaponization of plant medicines like cannabis and coca against Black people, Indigenous people, and people of color has threatened our communities and destabilized our homelands for centuries. Major institutions and families have built enormous wealth from their sale of, distribution of, and policing of alcohol and other substances.
Recovery under Racial Capitalism is being offered on a sliding scale in recognition of different access points to this course under racial capitalism. Please consider purchasing at a price where you are most able to pay, and if you have more resource, consider contributing at higher tiers to make more space available for those who need scholarship rates or to pay at the suggested rate.
Purchases in the higher tiers keep the lower tiers available and provide more access to create spaces and resources for queer, trans, intersex, Black, Indigenous, and people of color.
Take a breath.
Notice what comes up in the body as you consider the different price offerings.
Sliding scale credit to Worts and Cunning. Shoutout to Trauma of Money for this guidance of somatic reflection and trauma activation with money.
$150 total or $50 per month
Suggested Rate
This tier is for folks who have steady income, and can continuously meet basic needs such as housing, food, healthcare, child care, etc. This rate may be appropriate for those for whom paying this rate would be a sacrifice, but wouldn’t pose financial hardship.
Purchasing at this rate makes more spaces available at lower tiers and for work for queer, trans, intersex, Black, Indigenous, and people of color and disabled folks.
$300 total or $100 per month
Pay-it-Forward Rate x1
This tier is for you if you have intergenerational wealth and/or can comfortably afford this rate without sacrifice or hardship and want to make the space accessible for another person who could otherwise not afford.
$450 total or $150 per month
Pay-it-Forward Rate x2
This tier is for you if you have intergenerational wealt and/or can comfortably afford this rate without sacrifice or hardship and want to make the space accessible for two people who could otherwise not afford.
$600 or $200 per month
1:1 Monthly Coaching with Carolyn + Recovering under Racial Capitalism
This tier is for folks who would like to meet with Carolyn for monthly 1:1 coaching in addition to participating in the course.
$1200 or $400 per month
1:1 Monthly Coaching with Carolyn + Recovering under Racial Capitalism + Pay it Forward x1
This tier is for folks who would like to meet with Carolyn for monthly 1:1 coaching in addition to participating in the course and want to make the a coaching spot accessible for another person who could otherwise not afford.
If you would like to participate at a pay-what-you-can or scholarship rate, apply here.
No refunds will be issued for this coaching program.
Let’s do this!
Doors close: Wednesday, Nov 8th at midnight PDT.
Cohorts start the week of Nov 12th.
FAQs
Why is it weekly? Why is it so long?
Under racial capitalism, engaging with systemic oppression is short-term, bandaid solutions centered around keeping white folks comfortable. You can go to your job’s diversity, equity, and inclusion space and they can check off that they did surface-level work without changing what is fundamentally harming folks.
This course is intentionally designed where we are meeting consistently, across an extended period of time, engaging with the same folks on these topics to create a sense of safety to move through these topics that live in our bodies, that we have lived experience with, that can feel so challenging to confront.
It takes time to sit with these concepts and build upon them, and hope that meeting consistently for 12 weeks can help offer that time and space.
We hope that meeting consistently over time together helps create the conditions that can facilitate transformation and change, which is so needed when it comes to the intergenerational harms of racial capitalism.
Is it okay if I miss sessions? Will there be recordings available?
Yes! Recordings will be available for each session.
Is it okay if I miss sessions? Will there be recordings available?
What are the accomodations in the space?
We have captions provided by Zoom. If you have any other access needs, email info@recoveryfortherevolution.com
Let’s imagine possibility together.
Doors close: Wednesday, Nov 8th at midnight PDT.
Cohorts start the week of Nov 12th.
Carolyn Collado (they/them) is a coach, writer, decolonial dreamer, and founding steward of Recovery for the Revolution. They are a queer, non-binary, Afro-Taino, neurodivergent human in long-term recovery.
Carolyn believes recovery from a decolonized, liberation-centered lens can point the collective towards liberation. They name how intergenerational, historical colonial trauma and the pressures of racial capitalism impact our relationship to self, each other, the planet, and the divine. They believe bringing to light what we have hidden in shame and fear can bring about transformative healing and community.
Their facilitation is rooted in practice of returning to the body, of pause, of grounding in the wisdom of the ancestors, of deconstructing the ways in which academia and white supremacist notions of authority show up and highlighting the ways of wisdom of queer, trans, intersex, Black, Indigenous, and people of color.
Carolyn is not a licensed mental health professional or substance use counselor. This course is not a substitute for therapy or substance use counseling.
Lineage
Settler colonialism and white supremacy would have us erasing our sources, especially those of Black, Indigenous, and people of color.
Here are the lineages that inform this work.
Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love, and Liberation by rev. angel kyodo williams, dr yasmin sydullah, and Lama Rod Owens
Love and Rage: The Path of Liberation Through Anger by Lama Rod Owens
Radical Dharma Conversation and Camp hosted by rev. angel kyodo williams
Mindful of Race: Transforming Racism from the Inside Out by Ruth King
My Grandmother's Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Mending of Our Bodies and Hearts by Resmaa Menakem
Somatic Abolitionism by Resmaa Menakem
Post-Traumatic Slave Syndrome by Dr. Joy Degruy
Toi Marie Smith’s Business Beyond Profit presentation
The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander
Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds, by adrienne maree brown
Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good by adrienne maree brown
Saving Our Own Lives: A Liberatory Practice of Harm by Shira Hassan
The work of Dr. Jennifer Mullan and Decolonizing Therapy
The work of Dr. Rosales Mesa
In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts by Dr. Gabor Maté
“And Now My Watch Begins: (Almost) Seven Years Sober” by Golden Collier
The work of Jen Lemen.
Authentic & Impactful Speaking workshop by yasmin marrero and yasmin’s spaceholding badassery.
Embodiment Basics course by The Embodiment Institute
Slaying the Dragon: The History of Addiction Treatment and Recovery in America by William L. White
Lived experience in recovery from struggles with substance use and in struggles with others’ use.
Carolyn’s BA in Sociology from Yale University