‘Unlearning and relearning my history’

“Context is important,” Kirsten Rees shares. “I am a white, middle-class, American woman. I grew up in the white evangelical Church, which is very much aligned with conservative Republican American political standing – Christian nationalism rather than the true origins of the Christian faith.” 

This introduction is important for Kirsten; she is aware of her privilege, and of the way her upbringing has shaped her worldview and faith perspective. She’s aware that, had she continued along the evangelical, Republican trajectory on which her early years were formed, she may have been another voice urging on the American political conversation against abortion and gay marriage; she could have been another woman voting in “the epitome of patriarchal misogyny, underpinned by white supremacy”, as she puts it. But life has taken Kirsten on a different journey, one that has opened her eyes to the nuances of God and the complexities of life; a journey that’s nudged her away from her evangelical Republican upbringing and towards a faith that says it’s OK to ask questions, to explore differences and embrace contradictions.

An evolving journey

Meeting Marvin at Eastern University, Philadelphia, in 2001 was a significant event in the maturing of Kirsten’s worldview. Both Christian, both passionate about the interplay of prayer and action in working towards social justice, the pair were also from different worlds. “My husband’s story is one of working class and race. We came from very different upbringings – economically, socially, politically, nationally different…Our stories joined, and so my story, my worldview, inevitably changed.” 

Kirsten chose to grapple with the very real life circumstances around class and race, politics and socioeconomic conditions that left the interpretation and understandings of her upbringing wanting. Her world continued to widen when the couple left the States to begin married life in the UK in 2005. “It was very positive to move out of my own country. I think it’s very easy to not be able to see things when you’re in it; when you’re in circles with people who think, look and act the same as you, it becomes this very narrow way of understanding the world…It becomes even more dangerous when you put spirituality into that.  

“As a white middle class women I didn’t want to perpetuate a system founded on inequality and injustice,” she continues. “My journey took me unlearning and relearning my true history, not the one that I was taught – that of an America founded on these wonderful Christian leaders, which just isn’t true. That’s the white man’s history.”

Politics from the inside

Leaving her American, evangelical echo chamber gave Kirsten the opportunity to immerse herself in perspectives that continued to challenge and broaden the ones she’d unintentionally absorbed growing up. She was also propelled into the unforgiving world of politics as Marvin began his first campaign for mayor of Bristol in 2012, eventually being elected for two terms in 2016, just after she’d given birth to their third child.  

“Politics is intense,” Kirsten states, speaking slowly and pointedly. She’s not just referring to how she’s reeling from the political, social and economic consequences of President Trump’s first 100 days in office, or the atrocities of the Israel-Gaza conflict, but also the intensity of being involved in politics from the inside. “You have no idea what it’s like until you’re in it,” she continues, referring to the past eight years being married to a mayor. “Brexit hit, then COVID hit, then the Black Lives Matter movement…There’s so much I’m grateful for but there were lots of ups and downs.” 

The ‘downs’ Kirsten refers to include multiple racially motivated threats on her husband’s life, and character, being the first black mayor of African descent in Europe who was, and is, passionate about tackling injustice. “I woke up on a Saturday morning in 2019, opened my daughter’s curtains, whose window sat at the front of our house, and read, ‘Marvin must die’ in white paint on the pavement. Thankfully, she was too young to read.” On another occasion, the family arrived back from holiday to a knock on their door from a counter-terrorism team who informed them that they had received intelligence that led them to believe Marvin’s life was in danger. “You have police in your house and your mind’s going on overdrive, thinking about what you should do and what to say to your children.” 

“The environment around politics is really toxic,” she summarises. “You need a deeper sense of purpose to keep putting yourself out there.” 

Re-framing our understanding 

Kirsten’s deeper sense of purpose has come through her spiritual journey, which hasn’t always been easy, but has ultimately left her feeling more whole – and has led to a shift not only in her worldview, but also in her understanding of herself. 

As Kirsten became fully immersed in the toxicity and stresses of politics, she was simultaneously nursing a newborn and nurturing her two young boys. “The pressures and the expectations that I put on myself were a lot,” she reflects. Kirsten had grown up in a culture that dictated – sometimes subtly, other times explicitly – that women should be able to do everything: be learned, with a career, alongside managing a home, supporting a husband and raising children (while, in Kirsten’s case, navigating political pressures and threats on their family!). “But, sometimes our bodies say other things, and we should listen to them.” Kirsten’s post-partum body began to feel the strain. “I found myself in fight or flight – surviving and functioning. I didn’t know how to ask for help or share my needs.” 

When you’re in circles with people who think, look and act the same as you, it becomes this very narrow way of understanding the world

Alongside the cultural demands on women Kirsten had absorbed through her upbringing, she also found herself readdressing her preconceptions on the topic of healing. Her body was suffering, and she believed in a God who heals: “but our involvement in this healing doesn’t need to be passive, as I might have once thought,” she explains. This took her on a journey over many years that ultimately led to her founding a wellness business: All Being Wellness. 

“The mind, the body and the spirit work together. Yes, we have a God who heals, but we also have agency to take part in that healing process.” There appeared to be no clear diagnosis for the symptoms of chronic diarrhoea, panic attacks and post-partum anxiety Kirsten was experiencing in the months that followed the birth of her daughter. Having seen up close the impact of cultural attitudes and faith ideals on those with physical and mental health challenges in her past, and the ineffectiveness of health systems in enabling their healing, Kirsten’s understanding of holistic health – embracing science and embodied experience – continued to evolve through her inconclusive post-partum symptoms.  

“At the time, I was already doing Pilates and personal training, and had started my nutritional therapy degree. But I needed a deeper understanding of how food is medicine and how we need to look at root causes of why symptoms are playing out.” Through becoming attuned and attentive to the significance of movement and nutrition and their interplay with body, mind, spirit and emotion – in a way that is specific to women, not treating our bodies as “little men”, as she puts it – Kirsten has discovered healing for her gut and for her spirit.  

All being well

Through her business – All Being Wellness – Kirsten provides support for others on a journey to heal, through personalised programmes that integrate thinking, movement and nutrition as tools to understand our mind and body as one whole system. 

“I’ve not arrived anywhere,” she shares, aware of the ongoing, ever-evolving journey of discovering God and ourselves, “but I’ve been slowly unpicking how culture plays out in our faith. It’s been a real active pursuit on my part to do the work; to understand how my upbringing has shaped my interpretation of the Bible and how that can play out incredibly dangerously and damagingly for other people and for myself.” 

When Kirsten reads the Bible now, she sees in its pages a God who is all about love, humility and grace. “I have found healing in my journey of wellness and the re-shaping of my worldview. I’ve learned more of who I am myself, apart from the culture I was raised in. And the more that I understand me, I believe the closer I get to my creator.”   

allbeingwellness.co.uk

Words by Jane Knoop.