Rest as Resistance: One Use of Restorative Yoga Practice

Presenter(s): Jameta Barlow, PhD & Maranda Ward, EdD

Rest as resistance is a contemporary movement to resist the capitalistic social pressure, or grind culture, to treat our bodies as objects, machines, and commodities. We have the right to rest and decide not to continuously fight against dominant cultural norms and macro social ills. The decision to rest is not acceptance or internalization of oppression, it is another form of resisting the systems of oppression that suggest we must always fight, struggle and protest. We will share our personal experiences in deciding how to balance our value-based life’s work with the need to unplug and celebrate Black joy and life. We will practice restorative yoga in this session as a coping mechanism for how self-care is a necessity to maintain our dignity, our selfhood, and our means of sustenance. This is important for spiritual, emotional and physical health.