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Welcome to the second of my two-part second post in the Crock Pot Series. When I concluded part 1, I was leaving to have a conversation with Yakubu, as he had an essential key that would offer the outlet to my future aligned self. I promised to be back to talk with you again soon. I am back having had a tête-à-tête with Yakubu. This part focuses mostly on this elder character you will soon meet and the impact he has had and continues to have on my life.

Please rewind to that season at Pangea World Theatre in Minneapolis where I acted in the play – “Not In My Season Of Songs” written and co-directed by a Nigerian playwright and US-based University Professor – Awam Amkpa. I was the guest actor, Yakubu – a cartographer who had a lot to say about the Nigerian condition and the impact of colonialism on his culture and psyche. It was a great acting experience for me. It’s impact has never left.

Yukubu was a successful Nigerian elder statesman who grew up with hopes and dreams for himself and his people only to be confronted by a paradox between his new-found “modern” life and the destruction of his cultural structures and constructs. Initially, he chose to ignore the tension and found himself face to face with deep questions arising from his professional life as a cartographer. For Yakubu it was not enough to be the obedient intellectual and professional he had become. In fact, those labels were what got in the way of his finding his voice and addressing his issues of internalized oppression and marginalization. Although Yakubu may not have known the concept or used it in any direct way, the only known path he could have taken was to do his “inner work.”

Yakubu has also become a metaphor for my life and a connecting point to my freedom. Being Yakubu in that play was the first time in my adult life that I was finally free. There was no filtering to what I had to say. There was no concern for my life or personal safety; there was no fear of retaliation or crippling emotional games people of rank play when exposed.

In the past fifteen years, I have been intentional in creating supportive experiences that nurture and ground me. Those have been amazing but not enough. In addition to designing and facilitating processes, I have embarked on a number of transformational processes, taken millions of photographs, biked thousands of miles, gardened almost yearly and done different forms of spiritual/meditative practices. Those have grounded me deeply, have numbed the pain but not adequately responded to the “beast” within my soul.

The experience that finally seems to get at the core of my needs is my current journey down the Process Work (Process Oriented Psychology) path. Through this process, I have explored my issues of rank, internal and external alignment through my primary and secondary identity. I have explored my edges as doorways into my secondary identity, which is where my place of greater potential lies. I have also learned about and engaged in different conflict situations – personal, two-party, group, global etc. In the process, I have become familiar with the use of group process as a resource for addressing issues of marginalization by inviting and including all voices and perspectives on any given issue. That is what is also called deep democracy or worldwork.

By far the biggest gift to me is not in the study of concepts and ideas but in having true experiences of my inner process and the need to finally listen to and include all voices and marginalized parts of me. Listen, I have. I was scared at first because most of it felt new and different especially being the trained private person I had grown to be. As soon as I got past that, the suppressed part I accessed felt just like a bubbling volcano ready to erupt. As I listen to the presumably “sane” side of me, the sense I get is that if I scream, I may never stop.

Yes, if I scream for the crippling impact of the apartheid rule on South Africa; if I scream at the reality that most of the world live in poverty on a planet with abundant resources to sustain all; if I scream at the impact of racial profiling and the toll it has taken on me; if I scream at the many times our parents were denied visas to the United States; if I scream at people who willingly have children, abuse them and condemn them to lives of pain and financial drain due to needed therapy; if I scream at the destruction of the fabric of my African people in the name of a God that cared and loved but in whose name Africans had to give up their cultural identity and think and act differently; if I scream at the constant rape of the peace Africa needs by the ongoing imposed fights and wars in the name of material gain and political interests; if I scream at the many examples of humans making God in their images and using those to destroy each other. I have a lot to scream for.

I feel like screaming. And yet I hear this voice. With the desire for professional and outer success wouldn’t screaming be ungentlemanlike, wouldn’t it be unpolished, wouldn’t it be a disruption of the order, just something no one who desires to be successful does? Wouldn’t it be… be what? It is true as the feminist theologian Beverly Harrison so clearly articulated, that one can be conscripted and unquestioningly join the “academic procession” – symbolic of the  acculturation process of the likes of the Ford Motor Company of old, where employees went in through one door as unique immigrants and came out another as fully acculturated American citizens. I hope and pray that’s not who I have become.

What is true for me is that because of the conscription and the conspiracy of silence, I have never talked about the percentage of times where upon return from an oversea trip, I was treated by my American immigration officials as If I was the “other”. I have never talked about the police stops just to make sure that the car I was driving was really mine. I have never talked publicly about direct racist statements and attitudes of marginalization that people in uniform have expressed in the line of duty. I have not talked about that one police stop and the inspection of the tint on my car windows only to be told that the factory installed window on a 1999 Dodge Durango I owned was not legal in Minnesota.

My awareness about where not to scream is that there is individual action and choice as well as systems imposed and enforced marginalization. The systems imposed ones are contexts where racial and other profiling are so embedded in the culture and yet so hard to prove its presence. So, when it is obvious to me that I have been pulled over because I represent a group that is “statistically” more likely to commit a crime, I know that the police officer in front of me is merely doing his/her job. Even when my lungs are full and I feel like screaming, I know without a doubt that it’s not the place to scream, for screaming will only result in handcuffs and jail and imprisonment. Going back to my young African-American male example from the last post, maybe there is sometimes not a right place to scream and one just has to scream, handcuffs and all.

Yet I must scream because the external marginalizing experiences have now created an internal marginalization. I must scream because it is the key to finding my voice, singing my song and speaking my language. Screaming is my path to finding and becoming Yakubu – to finally coming home to myself. I must scream because I can get my anger and frustration out and thus deepen my sense of self through inner work. Screaming will free me up to integrate the marginalized sides of me and make me fully available to hear and include all sides. I will then be able to go past the liberation theology imperative of God always being on the side of the oppressed and creating space for the oppressor to also be held and healed.

Just last month, I wrote a paper on “Why people become terrorists”. Of the four topics we were given, I knew this would be the one for me. I believed I had checked my biases at the door and was ready to give full non-judgmental attention to the topic of “terrorism” especially in a post 9-11 America and world where one cannot say or joke about the word terrorist without risking being accused of making terroristic threats or being on the side of the “enemy”.

In the process of writing my paper, I discovered that at the essence level, there is a “terrorist” that lives in me. In fact, in all of us because of the parts of us that have been marginalized. According to Arnold Mindell, “Those of us who have the privilege of living outside a conflict zone create terrorism by thinking people are crazy in places like Belfast…We have this condescending attitude because we are not conscious of our own terrorism.” (Mindell, Siting in the fire, 1995: 94)”.

I believe my next work is to incorporate the Process Work paradigm into who I am and what I do. In that unfolding experience, I will be able to help myself and thus help groups and communities “sit in the fire.” To do so, I have to call upon the metaskills of neutrality, fluidity, deep democracy and eldership. The key to that for me is in finding and claiming “Yakubu”.

Yes, Yakubu needs to be reengaged. Only this time, not on stage. I have to make the shift from acting Yakubu to being Yakubu. As hard and scary as it feels, I have to let go of the memorized lines and tap into the tattooed experiences in my heart. I have to become my “Yakubu” complete with eldership, anger, rage, passion, creativity, gentleness, compassion, resourcefulness, activism.

I have to show up with a determination to speak my voice and demand to be heard. I have to show up with a deep sense of love for self and the country, continent and world I love deeply. Just as in the play, becoming, claiming and inhabiting Yakubu will take time. But it’s a journey and a process whose time has come.

My commitment to my unfolding journey is to explore the full depth and breadth of my inner and outer resources and let it all out in service of my life purpose “to transform human consciousness and inspire purposeful action for the world.” I know who is going on this journey but I do not know who will return. From the experiences of these beginning steps, I am excited about who I will become.

I ask you dear friends:
1) Which cultural/ spiritual assumptions get in the way of your fully embracing your shadow side?
2) How have circumstances and obligations kept you from living your best life?
3) What do you have to scream about?
4) What is the extent of your commitment to doing your own inner work?

The quest continues for a place and time to really scream. The very exploration seems to take me further away from the very need that is in my soul. I find myself in a quandary. If I scream I may not stop. But scream I must, because to not scream is no longer an option.

As someone who has resorted to being a career stonewaller, I have been blessed to not pile on any serious psychological consequences. I am now committed to walking down another path. On my honor I promise that: I will scream in my coaching. I will scream with my family and friends. I will scream in my marriage. I will from now on scream in my program design process, photography, gardening, consulting and facilitation. I will not be silent any more.

I am due to begin spinning and kick boxing classes as screaming outlets. Those will now be integrated into all areas of my life. I can hear Stephen on my process work faculty saying to me “rather than trying to plan how Yakubu should show up, ask him what he wants to do and what he wants to say. Let Yakubu do what he wants to do.” I know Stephen is right. I need many voices like his around me, to hold me accountable. Without such voices, I revert back to my perceptions and behaviors that are determined by years of internalized oppression.

Inner work is not a spectator sport where one sits in the bleachers or stand and watches others work hard and sweat. It’s a transformational process that creates full alignment inside and outside. If we are going to have a chance to heal the planet and stop the wars and exploitation of others for personal, corporate, ideological or national gain, we each need to do our inner work. I will be on my inner work path until the day I die.

Hear me scream! Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooohhhhh!!!! AaasffggggxtfgchhhbbczsuhvxszznnbgffdddhxsijhvxxZhjbbbbjhdddooodklerrcjnnjuijnhsuiiifdgjncarhvbbiderazxvbujnjijmkohfeeyjbbnj!!!

Thanks for holding the space.

With love, respect and gratitude
Okokon

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