Chudier Chuol
Matthew Davis
Effective Communication 1
2020
1: A Seat At The Table
April 16th, 1997. Here I am glued to my mother’s hip with a snotty nose and big dark brown eyes, confused by the many colourful faces that surround me in this crowded airport. We finally arrived to the promised land: America. I’d been crying for hours and nagging my mother for milk, cranky at the fact she wasn’t tending to my needs. I was three and couldn’t process the change in scenery. My only concern was with filling my belly. To the left of me stood a nappy-headed boy who was probably in a daze just as much as I was, gripping a handful of our mother’s wool sweater that hung like the tail of my father’s cattle, he was my brother. In front of us was a skinny little eight-year-old holding two bags that outweighed her by at least ten pounds; it was my sister. She was old enough to assist my mother, but the unfamiliarity of the new place limited her aid to entertaining two little rascals and dragging bags around.
My mother looked frantic and began to grow desperate as we shuffled across the airport. She spotted a woman with a complexion that mirrored ours at baggage claim and assumed she was one of us, a migrant from South Sudan who, too, was relocating to the States. She let out a sigh of relief before rushing towards the stranger. Here we are, a family of four, bombarding a lady with foreign language and raging cries of hungry little children, hoping she could help us. Less than 24 hours ago we were amongst loved ones, singing church hymns and drinking the finest Ethiopian coffee. Suddenly, we are standing in front of an oversized woman, speaking in a tongue she can’t comprehend. We couldn’t tell if she was overwhelmed by the appearance of loud Sudanese immigrants or my mother’s frustration with her inability to respond. For the first time in my life my mother looked defeated, tired, alone and helpless. She was a fish out of water where everyone looked different, and spoke different. This is the world we had to adjust to. America definitely wasn’t as comfortable as they spoke of back home.
I subsequently grew up in southeast San Diego, a block down from Four-Corners, short for the Four Corners of Death. It was the infamous hood landmark that bridged four crossways at the intersection of Imperial and Euclid. It was given the name Four Corners because it is where the territories of rival gangs merge, surrounded by poor minority communities, mainly black and brown, that differentiated by the colours they wore, if it wasn’t the brown paper bag test. The brown paper bag test was a principle used for entrance in clubs or social groups. If a person was lighter or the same colour as the bag, he or she was admitted. People with more melanin in their skin tend to be left out the margins. Blacks and Latinos didn’t really get along and were always up at arms, but the internal conflict of colorism was a silent plague too. Lucky for me, I was a dark skinned; African immigrant caught in the crossfire of two dominant racial groups, street gangs, police cruisers, and beauty trends that I had to assimilate into. It reminded me a bit of the ethnic clashes we had back home in Sudan, except; I didn’t have a tribe to identify with here. I didn’t know much about the logistics of neighbourhood affiliation, but I knew red meant Bloods, blue meant Crips, and to stay away from street corners. My siblings were much older than I was, so I relied on schoolmates or the local kids for companionship. I usually had to earn the association by fighting my way into cliques or sharing a bag of hot Cheetos as a collateral.
My father was among the many Sudanese that moved to the U.S in the early 90s as war refugees. He was an elder at the local Sudanese — American Presbyterian Church here in San Diego, and my mother was a deacon. They grew up in a world completely different from the world I was growing into, so they were oblivious to the complexities of living in between two cultures. They didn’t have as much in-depth understanding of cultures outside of their own as the people standing on the other side of the fence, which resulted in me having a perpetual identity crisis. I’m ethnically Sudanese, but my family and I migrated to the states when I was three years old; I am American too. As Atong Atem states, “You’re almost forced to confront your identity as an “other” immediately[online].”
Moving to a new country can be challenging. The customs, traditions and culture were very different in Sudan. My parents continued to hold the beliefs and principles from their upbringing, and this influenced me in many ways. Although my family and I lived in the U.S, we had strict expectations to maintain our heritage and identity as Nilotic people of Sudan. I’ve always been very introspective and free-willed but children were raised to be obedient, and submissive. To be outspoken, curious, and sensitive was radical.I couldn’t talk about things that pertained to my own personal experience.
My parent’s view of integration was different from mine. They were less engaging with American society, and living alongside a mesh of different cultures. I wanted to hold onto those aspects of my mother’s culture that nurtured me, but I also wanted to forge my existence into new experiences beyond my borders. In the midst of this whirlwind, I felt a state of perpetual displacement.
2: Psychophysiological Coherence
Tight jaw, bad nerves, steamed ears, clenched fists and sharp tongue. Without any other necessary context, we can all assume that this is clearly a person ready to attack. This is me on defense and these are just a few of the very mechanics of my energy in motion (emotion). When these bodily changes and behaviors are triggered within myself, it consumes mental capacity. It evicks consciousness, throwing off equilibrium as it springs me forward with eyes closed pushing this volatile energy outward. Basic research at the Institute of HeartMath shows negative emotions, such as anger or frustration, are associated with an erratic, disordered, incoherent pattern in the heart’s rhythms (16).
In what direction does this energy emit itself? I can’t be certain but I do know it always returns. It seeps right into the same pores it has spilled from, completely filling me with chaos and incoherence. The heart deciphers this energy as dysfunction and it amplifies. Continuously feeding me to grow in size, expanding from an initial singularity, taking shape. My erratic energy transforms into its own entity and begins to interact with the world around me. As Rollin McCraty states, “the heart’s field plays an important role in communicating physiological, psychological, and social information between individuals” (17).
Very young, it wasn’t uncommon to express myself overtly. It was a means of self preservation in hostile environments. I pound my chest to reinforce boundaries when subtle communication wasn’t effective. However, by developing my emotional awareness, I’ve unraveled my own projections. I meditate alongside the fierce beating of my heart, and I ask questions cause only she exceeds me. I must be attentive if pieces of me can be detected outside the human body, experienced between people, and shown to correlate with rhythms in the natural world (33). Transmutation of my emotional state when erratic is necessary if I want to live in greater love and wisdom. Denise Taylor says, “To turn our attention to the movement of our bodies is an act of love, in the sense of self-regard” (113).
In vulnerable moments when I feel provoked, I will reposition myself from the periphery of my consciousness towards the center of time and space. I will not just react impulsively. With this new placement in this web of relativity, there’s less projecting. It’s a chance to be still. Autonomous order of my own psyche is how I can best put it to words. A Completely objective process but personal. It will allow me to adhere to my blindspots and render my thoughts a lot more clearly. This will enable new ways to look at things and through that, it’s given me a chance to recognize the different avenues and mediums in which I can engage, express and expand, allowing me to step into a new level of experience. Leonardo Da Vinci says, “Discovery is made possible by simply opening your eyes, turning on our brains, tuning in, and paying attention” (22).
Works Cited
McCraty, Rollin. “Shift: At The Frontiers Of Consciousness.” Dec 2004-Feb 2005, pp. 16
Morris, Steven. “Achieving Collective Coherence: Group Effects on Heart Rate Variability Coherence and Heart Rhythm Synchronization.” Alternative Therapies, Vol. 16, NO.4, pp. 62
Herman,Amy. “Visual Intelligence: Sharpen Your Perception, Change Your Life”. HMH Books, 2016, pp. 113
Taylor, Denise. “Ordinary magic : everyday life as spiritual path.”
Shambhala, 1992, pp. 22