i’ve been sitting with something that won’t let me go. a pattern i keep witnessing. a trap i’ve fallen into myself. and i need to name it with you.
exploitative ass shit is everywhere.
e.a.s.e.
we’re all caught up in it. even when we’re trying to build something different. even in spaces that claim liberation, healing, and transformation.
when e.a.s.e. shows up
i was invited to a meeting of scholars who study what i study. day one, i share insights from my lived experience. concepts i’ve been developing, language i’ve been refining. day two, i overhear a white man integrating those exact concepts into his model. no citation. no acknowledgment. just absorption and repackaging.
evidence that e.a.s.e.
i just returned from a three-day interview for an academic job. each day i was ready to go at 8:30 am. each day i came home at 8:30 pm to find emails waiting from folks i’d met that day, people who wanted to keep the conversation going despite the fact that i would see them again tomorrow. people who needed me to spend the next five hours before bed reading their materials so they could get their ego boosted the next day by me acknowledging their work.
before the interview, i wrote four lengthy documents. during the interview, i lost work time, sleep, and any semblance of ease. i understand the need for depth and rigor. but this? this is an exploitative practice that produces stress for everyone involved. stress that could be greatly reduced.
and maybe i’m salty because i didn’t get an offer from them. they said i wasn’t a “fit for their data-driven department.” essentially they dismissed qualitative and community-accountable data. they want big quant numbers even if detached from people, with no theory, and no actual impact beyond a journal.
that’s evidence that e.a.s.e.
in healing spaces, from liberation courses to somatic workshops, i watch leaders and practitioners and their followers quick to call on God or ancestors. but where is the actual space in the practice and after the practice for the honoring and reverence that is required? you know this, don’t you? we invoke sacred presence but don’t create conditions for sacred relationship. we want the blessing without the reciprocity. we want the spiritual credibility without the spiritual accountability.
yeah that’s evidence that e.a.s.e. too. and it’s particularly insidious because it blocks the flow of the actual ease our God and ancestors want to provide when we are in right relationship with them.
the fallacy we’re living
here’s what i keep seeing: we all want ease. but somehow we think we’re going to get there by exploiting the next person or this earth.
that’s the fallacy.
we think if we extract a little more labor, maybe from graduate students, we’ll finally have time for our own writing. we think if we underpay facilitators, maybe finally we’ll be able to pay ourselves. we think if we absorb someone else’s ideas without credit, we’ll finally be seen as the expert. we think if we make the job candidate prove themselves through an exhausting gauntlet, we’ll finally make the “right” choice, the “right” hire.
but exploitation doesn’t produce ease. it produces more exploitation. it produces systems where everyone is stressed, depleted, and performing productivity while calling it rigor. while calling it excellence. while calling it standards.
i got caught up in e.a.s.e.
and truth be told, i’m not exempt from this. during my time in academia as a professor especially, i got caught up in e.a.s.e. too.
sometimes i gave short deadlines. deadlines that were real to a publisher but not real as compared to the light bill being due for a student collaborator who wouldn’t see payment for a publication. urgency is necessary sometimes, but in academia i fell into urgency for academic matters that were not actually that deep beyond academic space. and i’ve had to sit with that, i’ve had to heal from that, i’ve had to take accountability from that.
toni cade bambara said in the salt eaters: “if your house ain’t in order, you ain’t in order. it is so much easier to be out there than in here.”
i was so busy being out there. managing deadlines. responding to emails. producing publications. meeting metrics. my house was not in order. i was participating in systems that extracted from students and colleagues because that’s what the structure demanded. i told myself it was necessary, that everyone goes through it, that this is just how academia works. i tried to rationalize the benefits that students would get from completing said tasks.
but really, i was caught in the same fallacy. believing that if i just worked within the system well enough, i’d eventually arrive at ease.
this is why i had to leave academia and that position. i couldn’t exploit research participants to meet metrics. i couldn’t exploit research team members to meet metrics. i couldn’t participate in a system that promised me “ease” after tenure while requiring me to reproduce harm to get there. nah.
leaving cost me secure income. health insurance. a 401k. i was solid and i pivoted into a consulting career centered on black wellness and wholeness, training folks to provide culturally mindful teaching, mentoring, and healing services.
and then this administration defunded that work.
so now i’m pivoting more fully into my coaching practice, which always existed alongside the consulting work but which i didn’t even have to charge black clients for because the consulting work was giving me ease. now i’m seeking positions that don’t force exploitation and allow me to build my coaching practice with ease, not e.a.s.e., simultaneously. i’m building the coachng practice of my dreams but i need to do it slowly.
i’m scared though. doing it the aligned way is time-consuming and it may take a while to get me the stability i had at uf.
but my spirit is at rest. my community respects me. and i am maintaining my dignity. all of that is true ease.
take a breath here with me. sit with these questions:
when have you gotten caught up in e.a.s.e.? what forces were weighing down on you? how did you push down on those “below” you to try to get more ease for yourself?
i’m not asking you to shame yourself. i’m asking you to see clearly. because we can’t interrupt what we won’t name.
where real ease lives
toni cade bambara asks us in the famous line from the salt eaters: “are you sure, sweetheart, that you want to be well?” she later follows with this warning: “take heart to flat out decide to be well and stride into the future sane and whole.”
deciding to be well is a decision. it requires heart. it requires us to flat out choose it and then move toward it with intention.
and what that means is: getting your house in order.
getting your house in order means doing the work to understand who you are. not who you’re supposed to be, not who the institution needs you to be, or your family needs you to be, but who you actually are. what you value. what you need. what you’re not willing to compromise.
getting your house in order means doing the work to understand where you are. not just geographically, but relationally, structurally, spiritually. what systems are you embedded in? what are they asking of you? what are they taking from you? are you in alignment or are you performing alignment while living in contradiction?
getting your house in order means doing the work to understand what is going on in the world around you and how you fit into it. how you’re contributing to it. are you reproducing harm or interrupting it? are you extracting or reciprocating?
this is the work. and it’s not easy. but it produces ease.
the ease of knowing you’re not betraying yourself. the ease of being in right relationship with your values. the ease of moving through the world with integrity intact. the ease of building with people who see you and care for you and aren’t trying to extract from you either.
the ease i’m building toward
you want to know what true ease looks like?
true ease is being able to write this piece at 9 am on thursday with my cup of tea. after my altar work and before my first client of the day. choosing to do what is aligned for me, using storytelling to heal, versus chasing security through exploitation. that’s ease.
i’ve felt it in circles where everyone’s labor is valued and compensated. where we name what we need and trust each other enough to ask for it. where we move slowly because we know speed often signals extraction, exploitation, escapism even.
i’ve felt it in my relationship with God and my ancestors when i stop rushing through invocations and actually sit with them, slowly and deeply. when i honor them not just with words but with my choices, my time, my presence. when my house is in order enough that i can receive what they want to give me.
i’ve felt it in my own work when i stop trying to be everywhere and instead commit to being somewhere. fully. with my whole self.
this is the ease i’m building toward. the ease that comes from alignment and community care. the ease that’s available when we refuse to participate in exploitation, even when refusal costs us access and opportunity and approval.
we’ve all done this, haven’t we? i’m not alone am i? we’ve participated in systems that demand extraction. convinced ourselves it was temporary. told ourselves we’d change it from the inside. promised ourselves that once we got to the other side, we’d do things differently.
but here’s what i know now: there is no other side. there’s only the choice we make right now about how we move through the world. about whether our house is in order. about whether we’re willing to do the work that produces actual ease instead of chasing the fantasy of ease that exploitation promises.
before we move forward together, i want you to ask yourself:
what kind of ease do you want and need most? what does ease even feel like to you? have you tasted it before?
here’s what i want you to know: if you’ve gotten toward real ease, even once, even for a moment, that deserves celebration. honor that. remember what it felt like in your body, in your spirit, in your relationships, in your conversations.
and if you’re still doing the work to get there? that deserves compassion. the work of getting your house in order is not small. it’s not quick. and it’s sacred.
so trust that you’re not behind. you’re exactly where you need to be.
look, exploitative ass shit is everywhere. that’s the reality.
but so is the possibility of something different.
so is the possibility of us choosing each other over systems that demand we choose extraction. so is the possibility of us doing the work to be in right relationship with ourselves, each other, this earth and the sacred. so is the possibility of getting our houses in order, despite it being hard, despite the costs, despite our fears.
because ease, the real kind, requires us to stop believing the fallacy that we can exploit our way to freedom.
ease lives in the decision to be well. in the work of alignment. in the practice of integrity. in the commitment to community care even when it means we move slower, earn less, risk more, take longer.
ease lives in choosing what’s aligned over what’s available. in honoring our values over chasing security. in building our houses with intention instead of participating in structures that were never designed for our wholeness.
that’s where ease lives. not at the end of the exploitative path, but in the choice to walk a different one.
right now. today. with your cup of tea and your altar work and your integrity intact.
what does real ease feel like to you? where have you found it? and more importantly, what would it take for you to choose it, even when it scares you?
if i can support you as get toward more ease, alignment, and wholeness please don’t hesitate to hit me up at www.wholewayves.com. take good care beloveds. see you next time.
