✨ I Didn’t Fully See the Racism Until I Was 50
At 50 years old, I finally caught up to something my body had known for a long time.
I’ve been deeply impacted by racism.
Not in a headline.
Not in someone else’s documentary.
Not even in the ways we usually talk about it — police, politics, or policies.
I mean impacted in the quiet, daily ways.
The subtle devaluing.
The missed opportunities I thought were just “bad timing.”
The way I’ve been carrying pain so long I forgot to call it pain.
And most of all… I mean emotionally.
🖤 The Emotional Pain Body
Before I could even think about healing my physical body — the hurt in my back, my chronic pain, the weight of surgical recovery — I had to meet my emotional pain body.
😫 What Is the Emotional Pain Body?
The emotional pain body is the part of us that holds unprocessed emotional experiences — grief, rejection, abandonment, shame, trauma, and sorrow — especially the kind we were told to ignore, suppress, or “just get over.”
🌱 Why It Matters
If we don’t acknowledge our emotional pain body, it will rule us from the shadows.
It’s the foundation of so many of our patterns — people-pleasing, overworking, perfectionism, numbing, fear of rest, fear of joy.
But here’s the thing:
💡 The pain body doesn’t need to be feared. It needs to be felt.
💡 It doesn’t need to be fixed. It needs to be seen.
When we give our emotional pain body a voice, we start the process of transformation — from trauma to truth, from survival to liberation.
🧘🏾♀️ Nichiren Buddhism Perspective
From a Buddhist lens, we chant not to escape the pain — but to reveal the Buddhahood within it.
To alchemize our pain body into wisdom, compassion, and action.
Nam-myoho-renge-kyo becomes the frequency that dissolves numbness and reconnects us with our true nature.
✊🏾 Bottom Line
Your emotional pain body is not a weakness.
It is your lived experience asking to be honored.
It lives in the body.
It lives in the breath.
It shows up in silence, in survival mode, in triggers, in tension.
It’s the aching part of us that remembers the wound long after the moment has passed.
📌 When your heart races even when there’s no danger?
📌 When you snap at your loved one and don’t know why?
📌 When you feel exhausted but you’ve done “nothing”?
That’s your emotional pain body trying to speak.
I had to sit with her.
I had to listen to her.
She had been screaming at me for decades in silent shouts.
This kind of work isn’t easy. But it’s necessary.
And it started when I stopped trying to make sense of why I wasn’t “further along” in life — and began to ask different questions.
🎭 I Was in the Room — But Still Locked Out
I went to one of the best theater conservatories in the world — the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. I was talented. Sharp. Deserving.
I was in rooms full of mostly white boys, and I thought we were all the same.
I thought we were buddies. Colleagues. Equals.
But now?
They’re multimillionaires.
And I’m still fighting my way through poverty.
It’s taken me years to admit it wasn’t because I wasn’t good enough.
It’s because racism is a thief.
It steals clarity, confidence, and currency.
And if I’ve been this impacted by racism…
Then I’ve also been impacted by slavery.
Because the legacy of one feeds directly into the other.
🌍 This Is Not Just My Story
I’m not alone.
My friend from TikTok, Qstir, is doing her own reflection work. We come from different lives, but we’re on a tandem trek.
If you’re reading this — and it feels too familiar — I want you to know something:
🖤 You’re not imagining it.
🖤 You’re not broken.
🖤 You are not the reason why things haven’t “clicked.”
We carry so much invisible weight.
We’ve been told to push through, smile anyway, “be grateful.”
But now?
Now we name it.
Now we feel it.
Now we wake up and win — anyway.
💬 LET’S TALK:
Have you had a moment like this?
Are you just beginning to trace the roots of your emotional pain?
Do you feel like the systems were designed to overlook you?
Drop a comment. Start the conversation.
Tag a friend. Share your story. Or just breathe deep — because you're not alone anymore.
This is our healing.
This is our resistance.
This is Woke Up Winning Warrior™.
🪷 The Win Is in the Wake-Up.
You did it. I did it. We did it.
What did we do?
We woke up winning.
Erica
Warrior Bradshaw
