I first met Ana Polanco in Coaching for Healing, Justice, and Liberation (CHJL), a 9-month coaching certification program led by and designed for movement leaders of color. Ana was a coach mentor and guided a group coaching session on surfacing the core needs and values of coaching clients. I remember entering Ana’s zoom room and seeing her larger than life presence on the screen. She wore a burnt orange tank top, a necklace of white shells and red beads, and her hair, short tight black ringlets, shimmered. Immediately, i sensed Ana as a person unafraid to take up space. She was warm, playful, and fierce interchangeably. By embracing the fullness of herself she called forth the fullness of everyone in the room.
In the group coaching session, each coach in training had an opportunity to coach a peer while Ana and our peers observed off camera. Following the observed practice, Ana and our peers gave feedback. After hearing the group’s feedback, each coach had a chance to reflect on their own practice. When it was my turn, I remember immediately focusing on the feedback that felt like the hardest critique and started to talk about the ways I would integrate it. Ana interrupted me and shared that we are at choice about how we receive and integrate feedback. Ana’s directness felt like loving protection which oriented me to my own power.
One of the requirements of my coaching program was receiving 6 hours of coaching from a leadership coach the program recommended. Spirit and my intuition compelled me to reach out to Ana. After an exploratory conversation, we decided to exchange coaching sessions and began a transformative journey that has fundamentally clarified who I am here to be and what I am designed to offer.
In a powerful coaching session where Ana was coach, she guided me through a short family constellation experience involving my mother and grandmother. (For those unfamiliar with family constellations, here is ana’s description). In the constellation, i saw myself as a 4 year old sitting on a carpeted floor playing with a toy while my mother sat on a couch behind me. Her body was pitched forward with her right elbow resting against her thigh and her head pressing into her right hand which covered her right eye. She looked unwell and so unhappy.
Looking at my 4 year old self, I could see that she seemed distracted in her playing, like she couldn’t enjoy it. Ana told my child self to look back at my mother. I saw my self do this and for a moment i could feel her taking in my mother’s heaviness. Ana then became my mother’s representative and listening deeply she spoke for my mother saying, “This is not yours. It is mine.” As Ana channeled the words “It is mine.” her mouth opened wide and she enunciated each word. Through her voice, Ana conveyed my mother’s desire to own her own experience and to create boundaries around it as a form of protection for me.
It was so striking to see my mother not pretending to feel anything other than what she felt while still having clarity that that was hers to feel and not mine. In that moment, she released me from a burden i had carried for nearly 50 years.
Our maternal lines hold so much. All of us living today have maternal lines that have survived, navigated, resisted, and sometimes broken through the repressive structures of patriarchy and colonization. To look at what the women in our lines endured takes courage. And to seek to understand how they endured opens us to choice about what we will carry forward and what we will lay down in the service of our own healing and our collective liberation.
This Sunday, July 28th Ana and I will be co-facilitating Awaken the Divine Feminine, a half day retreat that helps us access the stories and wisdom of our maternal lines supported by practices that connect us to our authentic voice. This will be an intimate space of healing, unburdening, and reclamation. There are still spots available. To join us, register here.
