"Without examining how power actually operates in these spaces, the conditions that enable abuse remain intact. If these dynamics are not understood, they are difficult to identify before harm occurs. Sooner or later, a new abuser will rise, protected by existing structures and structural silence; enabled by the same patterns that allowed harm to occur before."

Kendra Coupland, a Black yoga teacher based in Vancouver explores burnout and how activists can make their social justice work more sustainable by pacing themselves and being mindful

When our nervous systems are overwhelmed, we do not become more revolutionary. We become reactive. We repeat. We end up harming or recreating the very systems we seek to escape. We burn out. Movements fracture. Regulation is not about sedation nor is it about obedience and discipline. It is certainly not about pretending everything is fine. When I say “regulation” as a meditation teacher what I am referring to is the capacity to stay.

My Tantric practice has widened my capacity for nuance, teaching me how to love fully without falling into self-abnegation or abandoning boundaries. My practice has become my refuge, a place spacious enough to hold my hurt, my rage, and my fierce, sacred love, and all of the mysterious ways that grace arrives to me.

The popular association between each cakra and a color from the ROYGBIV spectrum (red to violet) isn’t found in the original yogic texts. These assignments came much later—popularized by Theosophists in the 19th and 20th centuries and cemented by authors like Anodea Judith in the 1980s.