Interview with Rev. Dr. Brooke Brimm
Editors’ note
When deciding to publish any blog post, we ask ourselves what our audience might gain from reading it. In our vision statement, CPY writes that we “envision a time when, through the deep transformative power of Christ, the Christian practice of yoga and contemplative prayer make a significant contribution to healing the divides in our lives and in our world.” To us, that means focusing less on our differences with each other and more on our common ground. In the following post, it might be easy to focus on the differences between Dr. Brimm’s theology and that of mainstream Christianity. However, what is most striking to us is her trust in Christ despite moving away from mainstream Christianity and its complicity in racism and racist ideas in America. Our common ground is trust in Christ and a common understanding of yoga as a healing spiritual practice.
Inspired by her words to continue our own reading and research, we’re uncovering more prejudice within our own Christian history, and we are awakening to how unexamined racist thought, when paired with economic and political self-interest, can become mainstream. We hope that Dr. Brimm piques your curiosity enough to commit to learn about and face Christianity’s role in racist thoughts and ideas. Christ-consciousness, by definition, cannot abide with racist ideas. Collectively and individually, we still have work to do.
Here are some books we are reading or adding to our booklist:
Stamped from the Beginning, by Ibram X. Kendi
The Color of Compromise, by Jemar Tisby
Interview with Rev. Dr. Brooke Brimm, Author of Love God Herself
Rev. Dr. Brooke Brimm is the author of Love God Herself: Yoga and Mindfulness for Black Women who Follow the Christ. This short book is “a love letter to black women,” inviting them into the healing practice of yoga. You can read about the impact her book had on our blogging team here, in “Rest for the Weary.” As a follow-up, I reached out to Brooke for an interview to give her book and work more visibility. Here is that interview.
Photos courtesy of Brooke Brimm.
Renee Prymus: You said in your book Love God Herself that being Christian can be a barrier to practicing for some black women. Can you elaborate? How have you seen this play out?
Brooke Brimm: Christians promote the idea that if something is not like their Spiritual rituals, then it is to be feared and shunned. For instance, David used his body to worship, but many Christians are wary of anything besides Liturgical Dance. Heck, when I was growing up, even that was shunned. I read an article about a popular Christian minister discouraging the burning of sage, but Christians and Catholics burn incense and candles in services often. The practice has to fit into the approved Christian box or else it gets labeled “unChristian” or even “demonic.”
Since slavery, Christianity is the religion Black people were offered as a Spiritual respite. It was used to manipulate us, and it still is. It instills lots of fear about the unknown. That fear is what keeps Black Christians bound to it.
In many ways Christianity does not support the mental, physical, and even Spiritual aspects of a being. This is mainly because self-suppression is encouraged in favor of depending on God. Of course we should depend on God. We should lean not to our understanding, and we should know that God made us in its image. Meaning that self-expression and self-exploration is how we connect with God. We have to remember that we were made to connect with our Creator. We are a part of our Creator and our Creator is a part of us.
Self-suppression is encouraged in Christianity instead of the belief that God lives in us and is a part of us. It is our job to access God by self-discovery. Believing in the Bible in a literal sense is demanded by most Christians. This puts God in a tiny box. Why do we believe that God is Spirit, while ignoring the living Spirit speaking to us? Why would God put all the answers to the whole wide Universe in one book written by one tribe of people in one space in time? The living Spirit who speaks to us on a constant basis will likely give us insights which diverge from the Bible in a literal sense. I believe this is what the Christian establishment most wants to suppress in us: the opportunity to form our own freedom through our personal relationship with the Christ.
Yoga definitely encourages self-discovery. It promotes finding that oneness with your Creator. It makes you your own little church. Once you know who you are, you know what you need for your own worship service and you develop your own doctrine. That kind of free thinking is scary to many Christians. It puts a lot more power in your own hands.
If you are unhappy, you have to make yourself happy. If you are racist, you cannot justify it with tribalism found in the Bible. You must deal with it through love. If you are afraid of same-sex relationships, you have to deal with that fear when you develop the doctrine of one. You cannot blame the darkness that you find within you on the devil. The kind of oneness that yoga extols is scary because it’s up to you to seek union.
Christians who have tried it sometimes run away screaming. My opinion is that they run away because when they explore themselves they find unpleasant things that they have been taught to beg God to remove from them. They find things that the DON'Ts of religion cannot fix. They are enticed with peace and harmony, which requires releasing some of what they have been taught is a relationship with God.
Other Christians who have not tried yoga are deterred by other Christians, even their pastors. The belief that yoga is some form of devil worship because it is promoted. When you google "yoga and evil," the results will produce many demonized beliefs about yoga from Christians.
RP: I once talked to a diverse group of seminarians about yoga as a Christian spiritual practice and the importance of bringing the body into worship. One of the black women in the group observed that the absence of the body in Christianity is perhaps a cultural problem, that the black pentacostal tradition most definitely incorporates the body; she sees the black church as incorporating the body already, and that perhaps they don't need yoga to help them reconnect the body to their Christian faith. As a white woman with little experience in the black church, I thanked her for that observation, saying that perhaps it was so, and she’d given me a lot to think about. I wonder what you would make of that statement, how you would answer her.
BB: The body has definitely been used in the Black church. It has been a form of shaking off the stress and burdens we carry. It’s a part of our Spirituality which existed in us before Christianity was given to us. However, not everyone “shouts,” as it’s called in the Pentecostal church. We certainly didn’t in the Seventh-day Adventist church, which is why I enjoyed attending church with the Holiness (Pentecostal).
However, this form of movement in the churches such as Baptist, COGIC [Church of God in Christ], AME [African Methodist Episcopal], and Apostolic is why I teach my yoga a lot differently than you would find in a white-led yoga class. I incorporate Mantra yoga in the form of the music I play. I incorporate movement and yogic dance for release. These are things that my students are used to in a Spiritual experience, and I make sure that they get it. My students at the county cultural center where I teach have called my class “church,” although I am not allowed to use religious music at all. What I have learned and have taught is that “church” is about connecting with Divine, and we are capable of doing that in myriad ways. I developed a yoga class called Inner Beat Movement Meditation™. It is less about yogic stretching and more about meditative movement. It definitely gives that “church” experience.
RP: I really appreciated that you shared with me a draft of an article you wrote for a white audience, the working title of which is “Being anti-racist is about self-exploration.” In it, you invite white people, particularly white women, to do the hard work of examining our own DNA for the impact of slavery mentality. Your call for self-exploration reminds me of the yogic practice of svadyaya, or "self-study." Do you see these things overlapping? How so?
BB: Yes, I believe that using that self-study practice will assist you with walking the Jnana yogic path. The path of questioning what we have been given. There is a question that we must answer concerning the origin of why we came to be here. I can’t know the specific question for you, and you can’t know mine. However, my professional work, as a Metaphysical Practitioner, starts women on the path of questioning by starting with self-study. I became a yoga instructor to complement my metaphysical work.
The more that we study ourselves, the clearer we will become on the question we must answer about our existence; that is the path of Jnana Yoga. Asking questions of the world and asking questions of ourselves, so that we can know what we are to do to evolve ourselves and this world.
RP: In your book, you write that you were raised as a Christian, and your familiarity with Christian scriptures demonstrates their influence on you too. Would you be comfortable sharing more of your spiritual journey here, being raised Christian, what drew your toward metaphysics?
BB: The question of whether I am Christian or not has been coming up. I run a large Metaphysical Black Women’s group on Facebook, and there has been a lot of discussion about Christianity and its role in white supremacy, slavery, and oppression as of late.
I facilitated a two-hour discussion on this subject because it’s worth discussing. We are Black women who are outside the big bubble of Christianity. However we are continuing to nurture and develop our Spiritual relationship. That journey looks different from most Christian journeys today. Although most of us have been raised either Christian or Muslim and acknowledge that both religions have been used to oppress African people, we still cling loosely to what we have been taught.
I am not sure that I am not Christian, as Metaphysics can be incorporated into any religion. I still listen to Gospel music. I still read and study the Bible, but not in a literal sense. I look to it, and many other things too, for Metaphysical lessons.
Despite what I’ve said above, my beliefs are probably not similar to what Christians believe today. I will not go into all the ways that we differ.
I follow the Christ. I believe that Jesus is the Christ, and that there have been other Christs throughout history. I believe that Jesus showed us the way to live heaven on Earth over these past 2,000 years, and that “wayshowing” is called living the Christ-consciousness. I believe what Jesus believed and I stand for that.
I was raised Seventh-day Adventist, but I also spent a good amount of time worshipping with Pentecostal Christians. Both were very restrictive religions. There was a lot of focus on the DON’Ts of religion. Once I had a discovery that God was real and personal in my life, which was around age 22, I tried hard to adhere to the DON’Ts. However, I longed for a more care-free Spiritual experience.
I am very familiar with various Christian doctrines, and I didn’t find that traditional Christianity fit me. If I were to revisit traditional Christianity, maybe Presbyterian would fit me best because it focuses on practical life lessons.
My voracious study of the Bible led me to Metaphysics. The more that I communed with God, the more that I knew that there was something beyond the doctrine that I was taught. I thought that I was alone on my journey, but Spirit led me to a Spiritual Center that taught very closely to how I believed. I have been New Thought/Metaphysical ever since.
You might know it as Unity/Religious Science/ Science of Mind. I don’t cling 100% to the doctrine of New Thought. I use my connection with Spirit to guide me. I am most closely aligned with New thought and Metaphysics, so that is where I got my Ministerial degree when I decided to become a minister.
I studied at University of Sedona. I liked my program there because it took a broad approach to religion while focusing on Metaphysics. I learned a lot about many religions while in that program.
RP: I’m really curious about your role as a metaphysical minister—what is that?
BB: Metaphysics is the belief that God is in EVERYTHING and EVERYWHERE. All the beautiful things of the earth are God, AND whatever looks evil, uncomfortable, uneasy, and unappealing is still God. God is ultimately good, and the process of leading us back to our Godself, the image in which we were created, can be a lot like a birthing process. It may be filled with screaming, blood, crap, fear, etc., but the end result is a beautiful baby that we have birthed. That baby, that rebirth, will lead us to what we are ultimately meant to do on earth. Metaphysics is about knowing that no matter how it looks or feels, it is all for our good and our evolution.
Metaphysics is about how the Mind, Body, & Spirit realms work together to lead you to your personal evolution while being on earth. It is also about how those things work together for the collective evolution on Earth.
Put simply, I usually say that I am a Minister of Mind, Body, & Spirit. It is easier for others to understand.
RP: The other barrier you described in your book is about how we as white women teachers of yoga might be creating mistrust for some black women. Can you say more about that?
BB: As a white woman reading a book written for black women, I can see you searching for yourself in it, so I guess that’s why you mentioned the “other” barrier as white women building mistrust. My book did not just mention two barriers. There were more than two, so “the other” does not really apply.
The question that you posed here and how it was posed is a teachable moment. What I mean is… you inserted yourself (as a white woman) into this conversation in a much more prominent way than you were written. I mean no offense here, but this is what white supremacy is about.
This book was written as a love letter to black women. It was written with empathy and concern for our struggle since leaving the shores of Africa. It was written to give us permission to expand our Spirituality by including yoga and mindfulness. One of the small points that I made about cultural appropriation/yoga being viewed as a “white thing” has been asked as though it is a centering thought. It was two paragraphs written among several cultural barriers to yoga.
It may seem like a small thing to a white woman asking the question, but it really is the crux of white supremacy. This idea that we are somehow always here for you. That you must be the center of our world. That we must assist you in whatever you may need. In this instance it would be to assuage your concerns about you being a barrier for us practicing yoga.
This is an example of white people having a slavery mentality. In this case, it is a gentle demand that if we have something, somehow you must be a part of it because you are our masters.
I will answer your question, but I wanted to mention that the whole question sparked something in me that felt wrong and out of place. Although white women play their part in the psyches of black women, in this book the mistrust between us is not a centering thought.
Black women are largely Christian. I think, since Christians Practicing Yoga may want to find ways to work with black women, you may be automatically trying to find ways to see what you can fix. I think you want to fix it, so that you can include this large subset of Christianity into your fold. That is a way that I construed this question. Fixing what you broke is honorable. However, how you fix it is where you need guidance.
In the past, white Christians have used what is considered “white love” to fix "non-white problems.” If you don’t know what that is, it is worth you studying. It has to do with good-meaning white people and the damage they do to non-whites in the name of “love.”
Love that non-whites must accept in the spirit, in which it was offered, while ignoring whether they need it or not. If not accepted with a smile and appreciation there are usually consequences of not accepting it. Think Sophia and what happened to her in The Color Purple.
I took a class on this subject while in graduate school for Professional Counseling and Educational Research. It was soothing to my soul to see that someone had written a book on it and developed a whole class on it, as I had lived through this phenomenon when growing up in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, with the Pennsylvania Dutch.
I guess in this way, black women instinctively know when something white is being offered to them in love and it does breed mistrust. Yoga is immediately dismissed as something that white women do. This dismissal of doing “white girl” things is probably not something that white teachers can fix, unless they are willing to dismantle the whole concept of whiteness and how it has eaten away at the black consciousness. I know that it is not an all or nothing process, and I acknowledge that having this conversation is a part of dismantling white supremacy.
In the book what I meant was this. As a means of survival and keeping a part of ourselves intact, black people usually separate ourselves from "white people stuff.” We are sometimes shamed within our own race for doing “white people stuff.” Yoga is definitely one of those things that Black yogis are shamed for within the larger Black community.
This is the reason why more Black yogis must be trained to teach yoga in a way that is approachable and accessible to the larger black community. I only teach yoga to black people. Mostly older black women. I don’t waste my time trying to impress them with Sanskrit. I bring yoga into their space, into their world, and into their comfort zone. I only teach yoga in black communities, at black conferences, retreats, seminars, and events. I see the need with my people and I spend my time serving my people.
I think White yogis who are interested in helping Black people learn more about yoga, should support Black Yoga organizations like Black Yoga Teachers Alliance (BYTA) or even my non-profit, Brooke Brimm Ministries, which incorporates yoga as a part of self-healing and self-discovery programs.
I am suggesting a model like the one that created the Historically Black Colleges and Universities. These institutions were created, and are still useful because the practice of shunning “white things” is one of many reasons why some Black students leave high school unprepared for college at a Predominantly White Universities. We need to learn from people we trust. We have been given so many reasons to mistrust white people and even other minorities who seek to use us that it is hard for us to truly accept what you give us.
I definitely think that white organizations supporting black organizations who know about the healing that needs to take place will dismantle the barriers to practice.
White yoga organizations need to support and allow Black yogis to teach yoga to everyday Black people. If not, the misconceptions about how it is useful to us and our community will continue to exist.
Yoga Alliance is actually doing a great job with this. They offered scholarships to Black yogis to attend the BYTA conference (which was a magical and life-changing experience for me). To gain that scholarship, I had to write a blog post for BYTA. That is how you found me, so the return on investment in bringing white and black yogis together seems to have worked.
Thank you, Brooke, for the gift of your words, your transparency, and your ministry.
You can learn more about Dr. Brooke Brimm and her ministry at BrookeBrimm.com.
