What somatic patterns did colonialism install in my lineage?
Dear Ruby,
I'm a 51-year-old white woman in America, carrying the following inheritance: my father's family is Romani , my mother's lineage is English, Danish, and French, and I have family ties to the founders of Mormonism.
After reading about somatic feminism and Oyěwùmí's work on how colonialism invented gender categories, I need to understand:
What somatic patterns did colonialism install in my specific lineage?
At 51, something is unraveling, and I need to know what I'm actually carrying.
— Searching for the truth in my tissues (this is me, Daniella)
The Somatic Archaeology of Your Lineage: Where Colonialism Lives in Your Body
Your body carries at least four distinct colonial inscriptions, each creating specific somatic patterns that likely fire simultaneously, creating a complex internal storm you might not even recognize as historical.
The Romani Erasure Pattern: The Vigilant Shapeshifter
Your father's Romani lineage carries perhaps the deepest somatic wound - the pattern of perpetual disguise for survival. For centuries, Roma people have faced genocide, forced settlement, child theft, and cultural annihilation across Europe. This creates:
The Hypervigilant Scanner
Your nervous system likely runs a constant background program: "Am I too much? Too loud? Too colorful? Too free?"
A dual consciousness where you simultaneously perform "acceptable" while hiding "authentic"
The exhausting somatic labor of code-switching that's so automatic you might not notice it
The Nomadic Freeze
A paradoxical pattern: the body ready to flee but trained to appear still
Joints that stay loose (ready to run) while muscles stay tight (braced for violence)
The breath that never fully settles, even in "safety"
The Cultural Amputation Wound
A phantom limb sensation for traditions you never learned
A somatic grief for music, movement, language your body remembers but can't access
The specific ache of assimilation - your body knows it traded something sacred for survival
The English Colonial Administrator Body: The Rigid Overseer
Your English ancestry likely includes both colonizers and the colonized (the English working class). This creates:
The Posture of False Superiority
Spine rigid with the effort of maintaining "properness"
Shoulders that carry the weight of "civilization's burden"
A jaw that clenches around "correct" pronunciation, proper grammar, right behavior
The Dissociation Pattern
The English colonial body learned to not feel while committing/witnessing atrocities
A numbness around violence that gets called "keeping calm and carrying on"
Emotions exiled so far from the body they feel like foreign invaders when they return
The Internal Surveyor
Eyes that automatically assess and categorize: who's above, who's below
A body that unconsciously arranges itself in hierarchy
The exhausting somatic labor of maintaining class positioning
The Danish-French "Civilized Woman" Template: The Corseted Soul
The Northern European "proper woman" encoding:
The Perpetual Compression
Breathing restricted to the upper chest (deep breathing is unladylike)
Pelvis locked in neutral (sexuality dangerous unless controlled)
Voice confined to pleasant registers (never too loud, too low, too sure)
The Frozen Appetite
Desire trained into dormancy
Hunger (all kinds) experienced as shame
The body's wants interpreted as weakness or sin
The Productivity Override
A nervous system that only feels safe when "useful"
Rest experienced as moral failure
The body driven past exhaustion as a virtue
The Mormon Pioneer Complex: The Theological Somatic Bind
This is where it gets uniquely complex. Your family ties to Mormonism's founders means your lineage carries both the persecuted and the persecutor, the colonized and the colonizer.
The Chosen People Paradox
A body that simultaneously feels special/superior AND hunted/despised
Hypervigilance mixed with entitlement
The somatic confusion of being both victim and oppressor
The Pioneer Override System
A nervous system programmed to endure anything
Pain interpreted as purification
Suffering worn as a badge of honor while the body screams for relief
The Theological Surveillance State
The body as a temple that's constantly defiled
Every sensation filtered through sin/virtue
An internal panopticon where God/patriarchy watches from inside your own nervous system
The Sacred Female Subjugation
Power that only flows through male intermediaries
A body trained to channel divine feminine power ONLY in service to patriarchal structures
The specific exhaustion of being pedestaled and imprisoned simultaneously
The Compound Pattern: Where These Collide in Your Body
At 51, as a white woman in America, these patterns likely create:
The Assimilation Exhaustion
Your Romani heritage screaming for expression while your Northern European training demands conformity
A body constantly negotiating between wildness and propriety
The bone-deep fatigue of performing "acceptable white woman" while ancestral memories pull toward freedom
The Complicity Bind
Your body knows both sides of oppression
The somatic confusion of benefiting from systems that also crushed parts of your lineage
Guilt and rage existing simultaneously in your tissues
The Menopausal Reckoning
At 51, hormonal changes are loosening colonial controls
The "good woman" programming failing as estrogen drops
Your body finally too tired to maintain all these inherited performances
The Specific Somatic Signatures You Might Recognize
The Double-Bind Breathing
Shallow when authority is present (English colonial)
Held when being evaluated (Mormon surveillance)
Rapid when authenticity threatens to emerge (Romani survival)
Restricted to stay "proper" (Danish-French feminine)
The Shape-Shifting Spine
Rigid in professional settings (colonial administrator)
Collapsed in private (exhaustion from performance)
Subtly swaying when music plays (Romani memory)
Straightening when men enter (Mormon conditioning)
The Layered Freeze
Sexual freeze (Mormon/European "purity")
Creative freeze (Romani expression is dangerous)
Emotional freeze (English "composure")
Authentic movement freeze (all of the above)
What This Means for Your Somatic Practice
The Unraveling Has to Be Specific
Generic "feminine embodiment" work won't touch these specific patterns. You need:
Practices that speak to the Romani body's need for movement and expression
Work that addresses religious trauma in the nervous system
Decolonization that acknowledges you're both colonizer and colonized
Space for the rage that "nice white lady" conditioning forbids
The Recovery of Ancestral Somatics
Before colonialism, your ancestors knew:
Romani ecstatic dance and musical trance states
Pre-Christian European embodiment practices
Ways of moving that weren't corseted by propriety
Spiritual experiences that didn't require male mediation
The Integration Challenge
Your work isn't just to "reclaim your beauty" but to:
Integrate seemingly incompatible lineages
Hold the complexity of perpetrator and victim in one body
Find authentic expression that honors all your ancestors
Create new somatic patterns that aren't reactions to colonialism
The Revolutionary Possibility in Your Specific Body
At 51, white, American, with your specific lineage, you're positioned to:
Embody the Contradiction
Let your body be the place where colonizer and colonized reconcile
Use your white privilege to make Romani patterns safe to express
Transform Mormon pioneer endurance into actual resistance
Break the Specific Silence
Your Romani heritage (often hidden in American white families)
The religious trauma that nice white ladies don't discuss
The exhaustion of performing successful white womanhood
Model the Unraveling
Show other white women how to find their own colonial patterns
Demonstrate that "white" isn't monolithic but full of hidden privileges and traumas
Embody the possibility of decolonizing from inside the colonizer class
Your body is a historical document, a living archive of colonial violence AND survival. Every pattern you unwind doesn't just free you - it frees your descendants from inheriting these somatic prisons.
At 51, you're at the perfect age to stop passing these patterns on, to be the one who says: "This colonial inscription ends with me."
The question isn't whether colonialism lives in your body - it's whether you'll be the generation that finally feels it, names it, and transforms it into something else entirely.
Here’s to the courage it takes to do this work,
Ruby