What Was Taken, What Still Remains
Dr. Udim Isang, DPT, EdD, Mbia Idiong, is an award-winning educator, physical therapist, and activist specializing in indigenous healing practices, implicit bias in healthcare, and integrative wellness through movement and mindfulness.
I’ve been sitting with a grief that doesn't pass easily. It’s the kind of grief that isn’t always loud, but it’s persistent. It settles deep in my body. It speaks in quiet moments, in ritual, in stillness. It emerges when I realize that a sacred teaching, an Indigenous teaching, is being sold back to me, wrapped in foreign language, drained of context, and priced for the privileged.
I recently read Black & Buddhist. It offered a window into how Black folks are reclaiming peace, presence, and identity in spaces shaped by erasure. I found resonance in those stories. Like many, I walk with Buddhism, Daoism, Christianity, and Islam in my heart. These traditions offer me breath and grounding.
And yet, even as I practice them, there is an undeniable truth I hold:
I am Anaang.
In this life, I remember.
And in remembering, I grieve.
Because so much has been taken from Indigenous people, from my people, and then resold to us as if it were never ours. It hurts. It should hurt. Our cosmologies, our medicines, our rituals, our languages, fractured and stripped of context, then repackaged in workshops, retreats, wellness studios, and textbooks without our names attached.
But here's what I know in my bones:
No one can steal the remembering.
This pain is also a portal. A doorway. When I grieve, I also awaken.
When I mourn, I also reclaim.
I am learning to recognize what belongs to me, not out of ownership, but out of ancestral intimacy. I notice what makes my chest warm, what echoes in my dreams, what flows through my body like a chant I’ve always known. I choose to walk a path that feels like returning, not to the past, but to a truth that never left me.
And as I remember, I invite others, especially those whose lineages were interrupted by colonization, to do the same.
What have you always known without learning?
What whispers from your bones, even when the world is loud?
This is not about purity. It’s about connection. About knowing what’s yours. About loving what’s been handed down through spirit, even when the archive is silent. This is a call to name yourself before someone else does it for you.
Affirmation:
I am not lost.
I am not confused.
I am Anaang, and in being Anaang, I am also all.
What was taken is not gone.
It lives in me.
Read more from Dr. Udim Isang
Dr. Udim Isang, The (Em)Body Doctor & Nigerian Healer
Dr. Udim Isang, DPT, EdD, Mbia Idiong, is a Doctor of Physical Therapy and Executive Leadership Educator passionate about indigenous healing, mindfulness, and movement therapy. As a queer, trans, immigrant, and neuro-distinct individual, they/they/it/we advocate for bridging healthcare equity and inclusive wellness practices. Learn more about their transformative work integrating mind, body, and spirit at the intersections of identity and healing.
