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Healing Black Bodies with Resmaa Menakem · Deeply Well with Devi Brown

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Speaker 1: M from grandmothers who whispered in their baby girl in
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Speaker 1: two fathers on dimly lit street corners, instructing young soldiers
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Speaker 1: to always keep their eyes open. You be queen, you
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Speaker 1: were fired. You will pass through centuries on the hands
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Speaker 1: of your daughters. They called you wisdom. Proverbs on the
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Speaker 1: backs of diamond eyed school children who growing into hymnals
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Speaker 1: recited by amethyst holding urban philosophers who recited neighborhood commandments
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Speaker 1: out of the windows of restored Alchemedo chariots. To keep
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Speaker 1: the warmth of their blood. Be wise, be smart, being black,
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Speaker 1: Opal Brown courts bloodstone and prayer. Be every form of
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Speaker 1: jim se King told, scribe, scribe, told son, son, told wife,
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Speaker 1: wife told her daughter, and daughter told the ass is,
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Speaker 1: and the ancestis told me that you would come to
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Speaker 1: give wisdom. Thousands they said you would come, Dropping Dropping
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Speaker 1: Gim Welcome back to another episode of the Dropping Gym's podcast.
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Speaker 1: I'm Debbie Brown, and this is my show. We explore
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Speaker 1: all things higher consciousness, spirituality, and most importantly, make them
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Speaker 1: applicable to our day to day, moment by moment life
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Speaker 1: in service to our liberation. Radical healing, radical self acceptance,
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Speaker 1: radical self love. Today's episode is I am certain, going
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Speaker 1: to be a very expansive and perhaps emotional show for
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Speaker 1: many of us that get a chance to hear from
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Speaker 1: my very esteemed guest. We're gonna be talking about somatic
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Speaker 1: abolitionism today. I've referenced on the show quite a bit
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Speaker 1: importance of somatic practice. I do not believe that it
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Speaker 1: is possible to reconnect to our wholeness, to reconnect to
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Speaker 1: our highest selves, to reconnect to our highest vision, or
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Speaker 1: to do the deepest healing possible for ourselves or for
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Speaker 1: our family lineages without somatic experiencing it has been a
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Speaker 1: revolutionary part of my practice. And today's guest not only
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Speaker 1: is an expert and an innovator and a visionary in
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Speaker 1: this field, he is someone who has been doing some
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Speaker 1: of the deepest and most challenging healing work possible, facilitating it,
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Speaker 1: creating it. For thirty years before conversations like this were
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Speaker 1: happening anywhere. He answered this calling on his life and
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Speaker 1: showed up in powerful service for so many. So I
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Speaker 1: am so excited about this show, and I want you
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Speaker 1: to feast on his full bio. Um So I will
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Speaker 1: very very um reverently share all the details about my
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Speaker 1: special guest today. Resma Menicum is joining me today on
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Speaker 1: Dropping Jim's. Resma Menicum is a healer, a long time therapist,
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Speaker 1: and a licensed clinical social worker who specializes in the
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Speaker 1: healing of trauma. He's also the founder of the Cultural
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Speaker 1: Somatics Institute, a cultural trauma navigator, and a communal provocateur
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Speaker 1: and coach. Resma is best known as the author of
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Speaker 1: the New York Times bestseller My Grandmother's Hands, Racialized Trauma
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Speaker 1: and The Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies, and
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Speaker 1: as the originator and key advocate of thematic abolitionism and
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Speaker 1: embodied anti racist practice of living and culture building. He
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Speaker 1: is also the author of Psychology Today's Somatic Abolitionism blog.
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Speaker 1: For ten years, Resma co hosted a radio show with
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Speaker 1: former U S Congressman Keith Ellison on km o J
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Speaker 1: FM in Minneapolis. He also hosted his own show, Resmon
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Speaker 1: the Morning on km o J. Resume has appeared on
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Speaker 1: both The oprah Winfree Show and Dr Phil as an
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Speaker 1: expert on family dynamics, couples in conflict, and domestic violence.
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Speaker 1: He has also been a guest on Charlottagne, The God's
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Speaker 1: Comedy Central TV program The God's Honest Truth You Gotta
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Speaker 1: Watch That, and on I Heart Radio is The Breakfast
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Speaker 1: Club with Charlottagne, The God and angela Ye and d
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Speaker 1: J n B. He currently hosts the Guerilla News podcast
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Speaker 1: on the Amplified Voices platform. Resman has served as the
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Speaker 1: director of counseling services for Tebman Family Alliance, a domestic
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Speaker 1: violence treatments center in Minneapolis, the behavioral health director for
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Speaker 1: African American Family Services in Minneapoli List, a domestic violence
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Speaker 1: counselor for Wilder Foundation, a divorce and family mediator, a
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Speaker 1: social worker from Minneapolis Public Schools, a youth counselor, a
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Speaker 1: community organizer, and a marketing strategist from Resuma. Was a
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Speaker 1: community care counselor for civilian contractors in Afghanistan, managing the
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Speaker 1: wellness and counseling services on fifty three U S Military basis.
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Speaker 1: As a certified military Family Life consultant, he also worked
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Speaker 1: with members of the military and their families on issues
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Speaker 1: related to family living, deployment, and returning home. Resume helps
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Speaker 1: people rise through sufferings edge. His work focuses on making
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Speaker 1: the invisible visible. You can learn more about resume and
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Speaker 1: his work at his website Resuma dot com that's r
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Speaker 1: S m a a dot com, and on his Instagram feed,
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Speaker 1: which is Resumaum. Wow here he is, good lord, So
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Speaker 1: welcome to the show. Rest Uh, this is good. I've
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Speaker 1: been I've been looking forward to this. Uh ever since
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Speaker 1: we met, I've been looking forward to shitting down and
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Speaker 1: just chopping up with you. So I'm uh, this is uh.
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Speaker 1: I'm I'm I'm I might be more excited about doing
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Speaker 1: this than you are. I actually feel like I'm about
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Speaker 1: to cry. So I'm gonna take the I'm gonna take
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Speaker 1: the crown for that one, because you know, my God, Okay,
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Speaker 1: let me get rooted and anchored in the present moment um.
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Speaker 1: I really want to start this conversation with you by
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Speaker 1: first and foremost saying thank you, thank you so much
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Speaker 1: for the work that you do, and thank you for
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Speaker 1: doing this work for so long, because that's the thing
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Speaker 1: that I think is so striking to me when I
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Speaker 1: explore your work, When I explore this moment in human history,
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Speaker 1: you know, the rest of the world is just just
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Speaker 1: starting to not even catch up, just starting to open
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Speaker 1: their eyes to the idea of trauma to the idea
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Speaker 1: of the importance of somatic healing and somatic development. And
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Speaker 1: you have been doing this work for decades for so long,
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Speaker 1: and to answer that call when other people don't understand
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Speaker 1: is just such a next level of courage and the
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Speaker 1: next level of anointing and purpose from God. And I
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Speaker 1: just want you to know that I recognize that, and
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Speaker 1: I am so grateful for your life and I'm so
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Speaker 1: grateful for the depth of work that you have shared
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Speaker 1: with the world. Mhmm, yeah, you know, m um. So
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Speaker 1: when when I'm when I'm working with people or doing
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Speaker 1: trainings and stuff like that, one of the things that
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Speaker 1: I say to people is that you know, you I
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Speaker 1: the level of brutality that happens when you're trying to
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Speaker 1: tell particularly brown and black and Indigenous people that they're
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Speaker 1: not defective, even when you don't really even have the
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Speaker 1: words to describe it yet. Um, all you have is notions.
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Speaker 1: All you have our our sensations that who some something
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Speaker 1: is off here, or something is not quite right, or
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Speaker 1: there's more. And I the way that I think about
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Speaker 1: this is that the brutality, the viciousness, the attacks that
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Speaker 1: actually come from people that look like me Um, all
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Speaker 1: of those things are are are reps, are conditioning, are temperings,
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Speaker 1: um to to cultivate a container that could actually withstand
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Speaker 1: what you're trying to bring forth. And UM, I don't
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Speaker 1: like all of the all these thirty thirty five years
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Speaker 1: of doing this work, I don't. Um, I wouldn't. I wouldn't.
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Speaker 1: I wouldn't give up any part of the process. There's
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Speaker 1: no what people saying, you know, all kinds of stuff
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Speaker 1: just you know, and I wouldn't. I wouldn't change anything.
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Speaker 1: And so thank you for saying that. You know, Um, Um,
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Speaker 1: that's starting to happen, is particularly it's starting to happen
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Speaker 1: more and more. We're particularly black women are saying that
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Speaker 1: to me. Um, it's just really you know, you know,
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Speaker 1: black dudes or give me some dap and and and
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Speaker 1: and you know, like Charlemagne woll sit with me and
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Speaker 1: talk with me a little bit. But it's the black
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Speaker 1: women that I'm starting to hear this stuff from a lot, Like,
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Speaker 1: you know, thank you, and and you gave me words.
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Speaker 1: I already knew this stuff, but you helped me kind
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Speaker 1: of um articulated in way and in context that is
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Speaker 1: that soothes me. And so for me, you know, because
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Speaker 1: for me, black women are the start of human creation.
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Speaker 1: When I hear that, I'm like, yeah, that's you know,
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Speaker 1: I'm doing all right, So thank you for saying mm hmm.
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Speaker 1: It's an honor for me to share that with you.
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Speaker 1: And I think, you know what, some of what you
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Speaker 1: just touched on what I recognized as the leading force
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Speaker 1: of my work when I first started down this path
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Speaker 1: of being a healer and being a teacher was really
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Speaker 1: like for me, the driving whisper in my ear was like,
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Speaker 1: we need more emotional depth more in our communities. That
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Speaker 1: that was one of the first ways that I found
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Speaker 1: this path and why I knew I wanted to use
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Speaker 1: my voice and speak in the way that I do
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Speaker 1: because and and you know, and that will lead me
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Speaker 1: into the understanding of the body. But it's like if
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Speaker 1: we if we don't have more we used to understand
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Speaker 1: ourselves and to understand our feelings and to explore it,
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Speaker 1: we stay culturally in this loop of down pain and
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Speaker 1: we forget the history of the pain. We forget we
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Speaker 1: don't have the language because we weren't allowed it. We
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Speaker 1: forgut the context. That's it, Yes, that ship what we
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Speaker 1: do is so there's this thing when I do by train.
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Speaker 1: There's this thing that I talked about called hip h
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Speaker 1: I P P right, and is the way that I
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Speaker 1: talk about when we when we watch a like like
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Speaker 1: when we watch a black body being destroyed, right, like
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Speaker 1: we we we we there's there's a level of collective
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Speaker 1: anguish that happens throughout our community, right, and we we
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Speaker 1: what happens is we take we take that collective anguish
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Speaker 1: and we make it personal anguish. Um because we because
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Speaker 1: it's happening to us personally, so so we don't so
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Speaker 1: so the weight of it both weathers and weathers us right.
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Speaker 1: And so when we're sitting there and we're trying to
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Speaker 1: handle a communal horror with individual strategies, it's not enough.
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Speaker 1: We have to develop we have to develop these communal ways.
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Speaker 1: Just like what you're doing, like you're rocking, you're you're grunting, right,
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Speaker 1: those are affirmatives for me, right, those are okay, rest
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Speaker 1: when you move in the right direction. Right. We don't
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Speaker 1: even understand that that is a literal intelligence. Mm hmm.
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Speaker 1: That's that is a that that is not that when
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Speaker 1: when I'm laying when I'm sitting in my grandmother's left,
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Speaker 1: my dad is going in out of prison, my mama's
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Speaker 1: gotta work twelve and thirteen hours a day, and my
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Speaker 1: grandmother is watching her shows, General Hospital and My Life
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Speaker 1: to Live. She said, yeah, stories, Uh, we're just sitting
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Speaker 1: there and and and my ear is to her chest
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Speaker 1: and she humming right when she's doing that. That is healing.
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Speaker 1: And what we have to do is because all of
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Speaker 1: that stuff, all of those particular pieces tried to be
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Speaker 1: stripped from us, our role as black and brown and
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Speaker 1: indigenous people in this moment, in this time is to
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Speaker 1: reclaim those pieces and cultivate a containers. So when joy
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Speaker 1: shows up, I don't reject it because I don't know it.
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Speaker 1: Well always shows up. I'm able to tolerate it. Most
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Speaker 1: people want good ship in their lives, but they can't
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Speaker 1: tolerate it. That's not a personal defect. That is the
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Speaker 1: design of the structure. The structure was designed particularly for
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Speaker 1: black women. Think about this as we come from a
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Speaker 1: people that were legally raped for two hundred and fifty
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Speaker 1: years just cause of this. Yeah, like like like like
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Speaker 1: legally raped. So there is a certain amount. I don't
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Speaker 1: use male and female energy. I use projective and receptive energy.
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Speaker 1: There's a certain amount of projective energy that black people
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Speaker 1: must put out in order to keep the system from
14:26
Speaker 1: ripping our hearts out on the daily desk. Right, So
14:31
Speaker 1: when we when we are navigating and you you run
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Speaker 1: up against those pieces, we think it's a personal thing,
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Speaker 1: it's personality. But but but but but our survival depended
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Speaker 1: on us not having our heart available to a rabbid,
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Speaker 1: feral system. And so so now what we have to
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Speaker 1: do is reclaim those pieces that were shattered and and
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Speaker 1: and and pushed out. We have to actually reach and
14:56
Speaker 1: reclaim those pieces and say no, that is real, that
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Speaker 1: is important. And now I'm in a in in in
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Speaker 1: in somewhat of a safe enough situation in my house,
15:07
Speaker 1: and I'm saying that tentatively, I mean somewhat of something
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Speaker 1: that I could begin to condition my body to be
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Speaker 1: able to whole joy in a way that's much more expansive.
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Speaker 1: I don't I never beat up my people. I understand
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Speaker 1: that some of the strategies that we use are hurtful,
15:25
Speaker 1: are not good. Our our massage, noir, are homeful, all
15:30
Speaker 1: of that different type of stuff, And we have to
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Speaker 1: reclaim those pieces that they try to beat and rape
15:38
Speaker 1: and kill an urgent out of us God, God, God.
15:49
Speaker 1: So the hip. So let me say this. So hip
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Speaker 1: is my way of saying, when something happens when you're
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Speaker 1: watching something in your personal in the personal realm, where
15:59
Speaker 1: something happens in the personal realm, but the energy of
16:02
Speaker 1: it feel, the energy of it has an experience of
16:05
Speaker 1: more charge and weighted than than maybe the experience. The
16:10
Speaker 1: experience itself would suggest that that's not crazy. That what's
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Speaker 1: happening is you're both dealing with the historical, the intergenerational,
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Speaker 1: the persistent, institutional, and the personal stuff all at the
16:24
Speaker 1: same time. That's why that's why you feel not not
16:27
Speaker 1: necessarily depressed, but suppressed, right, is because it's because those
16:33
Speaker 1: those energy pieces are happening all at the same time.
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Speaker 1: It's not because something is wrong with you. It's not
16:40
Speaker 1: because you don't have an adequate amount of of self
16:43
Speaker 1: care techniques. Is because it is, but your self care
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Speaker 1: techniques are inadequate to deal with the communal horror, the individual,
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Speaker 1: the historical horror, right, the intergenerational horror. Your individual strategies
16:59
Speaker 1: are not gonna you have to hold that has to
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Speaker 1: be held with other bodies dropping. There are just endless
17:11
Speaker 1: pathways that I want to go down. But the thing
17:13
Speaker 1: coming forward for me right now, and especially because this
17:16
Speaker 1: is a spirituality podcast and people that come to this
17:20
Speaker 1: show come for deeper understandings of higher consciousness and application
17:24
Speaker 1: of them. You know what you're speaking to, what you're
17:32
Speaker 1: speaking to is exactly also why I believe so much
17:36
Speaker 1: of the wellness industry is unsafe. Come on, come on,
17:41
Speaker 1: come on, come on, you get ready to get your
17:44
Speaker 1: damn podcast canceled? Do you get ready to get cancer?
17:50
Speaker 1: But you know because and I'd love to share with
17:53
Speaker 1: your resume like one of the one of the things
17:56
Speaker 1: that made me even really understand that. And sess stural
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Speaker 1: healing is the path and sextral healing is the calling,
18:03
Speaker 1: and we have to formulate joy outside of this industry standard.
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Speaker 1: We have to find our healing and indigenous practice. It's really,
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Speaker 1: you know, everything that I would do, everything that I
18:17
Speaker 1: would do for the last couple of decades, anything that
18:20
Speaker 1: I was into, I'd always be the only person by
18:23
Speaker 1: far that looked like me in everyone room, always be
18:26
Speaker 1: the youngest by far. And I think a lot of
18:29
Speaker 1: us have have gotten used to saying that. In expressing
18:31
Speaker 1: that as part of our story that yeah, it was
18:34
Speaker 1: so rare, was so different, but actually understanding the trauma
18:37
Speaker 1: that real reinforces within us when we're in those rooms
18:42
Speaker 1: trying to heal, and it seems it seems subtle, or
18:46
Speaker 1: it seems like you can come into a place of
18:48
Speaker 1: just yeah, but on the spiritual level, we're all one,
18:51
Speaker 1: and we're all And I get into battles with people
18:54
Speaker 1: when I'm speaking places because I speak in rooms of
18:57
Speaker 1: people that look like me, and I killed how speak
19:00
Speaker 1: and teach in rooms where no one looks like me.
19:03
Speaker 1: And people always want to come back and say, yeah,
19:05
Speaker 1: but we're all one, and we have to look past
19:08
Speaker 1: it and we have to get on, you know, because
19:10
Speaker 1: we're all equal. Yeah, Okay, as a soul, yes, I'll
19:14
Speaker 1: give that to you. If I'm in if I'm in
19:16
Speaker 1: the you know, the fifth dimension, if I'm in the
19:18
Speaker 1: twelfth dimension. But for sure, we're all these little chunks
19:22
Speaker 1: of God floating around in this place and this wild,
19:27
Speaker 1: crazy battle ground that is Earth. And I remember I
19:32
Speaker 1: remember in one of the in one of the programs
19:35
Speaker 1: that I'm in UM, one of the one of the
19:37
Speaker 1: certification programs I did, I stood up and I was
19:40
Speaker 1: sharing that I was experiencing immense, NonStop grief around how
19:46
Speaker 1: I was relating to my child, and that I couldn't
19:49
Speaker 1: sleep and I felt like it was going to kill me.
19:51
Speaker 1: I hadn't slept for over ten days, and this was
19:54
Speaker 1: soon after my son was born, and I was having
19:57
Speaker 1: NonStop anxiety. And I remember I stood up in class
20:01
Speaker 1: to share that, and my teachers, my my multiple PhD
20:06
Speaker 1: holding have been doing this work for fifty years, beautiful
20:11
Speaker 1: people in many ways, but my teachers can still only
20:14
Speaker 1: see and heal to the capacity of what is known
20:17
Speaker 1: to them. And when I stood up to share what
20:19
Speaker 1: I was walking through, I was shamed. I was shamed
20:22
Speaker 1: by them in front of two people, and I was
20:25
Speaker 1: shamed then for weeks by the rest of the class
20:27
Speaker 1: who would come up to me and they were saying
20:29
Speaker 1: things like, well, maybe you're co dependent, maybe your helicopter mom,
20:34
Speaker 1: maybe this you know, you have to get out of
20:36
Speaker 1: your own way, you have to do these things could
20:39
Speaker 1: have made me come up with such an immense amount
20:43
Speaker 1: of judgment around myself, or it could have made me
20:45
Speaker 1: drop out of the program. And it took me and
20:48
Speaker 1: I knew not to believe any of that. I knew
20:50
Speaker 1: to just keep moving forward, but it took me almost
20:53
Speaker 1: a year to really wrap my mind around what had
20:57
Speaker 1: taken place in there and what it really was. And
21:00
Speaker 1: the fact is it's like ancestrally, Yeah, of course I
21:03
Speaker 1: have anxiety around my black child being safe in this world.
21:07
Speaker 1: Of course, as another that is experiencing a depth of
21:10
Speaker 1: love this intense for the first time in my existence.
21:14
Speaker 1: I am frightened because there are no black men in
21:17
Speaker 1: my family, because all the black men I know in
21:20
Speaker 1: my life have had awful things happen to them. Because
21:23
Speaker 1: this is a child in a very unsafe place that
21:26
Speaker 1: does not value black men and young black boys. And
21:31
Speaker 1: I have experienced so many of close black male friends
21:35
Speaker 1: to me being murdered. And it's like when people walk
21:38
Speaker 1: into these rooms and they want to just say, I
21:41
Speaker 1: don't see color, I don't see race. You should not
21:44
Speaker 1: teach you are not safeing in those rooms. People have
21:48
Speaker 1: complex trauma that they walk around with, and we are
21:51
Speaker 1: doing such a disservice to their psyche, such a disservice
21:55
Speaker 1: to their soul by not pushing ourselves out of our
21:58
Speaker 1: comfort zone to study and learn your work, to study
22:01
Speaker 1: and learn other experiences. Yes, Can we pause on that?
22:08
Speaker 1: Can we just pause on it? I just I want
22:29
Speaker 1: to I want you to hear me say something um
22:38
Speaker 1: um um if you, I want you to hear me
22:46
Speaker 1: say this to you. And that is, I'm sorry that
22:50
Speaker 1: that happens, that should not have happened. And you are
22:59
Speaker 1: not defective. You are not defective. The structure is built
23:11
Speaker 1: on the white body deeming and deems itself the supreme
23:17
Speaker 1: standard by which all bodies shall be measured. Mm hmm.
23:24
Speaker 1: It deems and deems it deemed and deems itself the
23:29
Speaker 1: supreme standard by which all bodies humanity shall be measured.
23:36
Speaker 1: So bringing a black body into existence, of course it's
23:44
Speaker 1: going to have some anxiety. That's not that's not you.
23:48
Speaker 1: That's not craziness. That is you literally being tied to
23:53
Speaker 1: creation itself and and and not having the conditioning at
23:59
Speaker 1: that point to be able to suss out what the
24:02
Speaker 1: intelligences are, what, what's what's being community. So it's so
24:06
Speaker 1: it comes out or or lands. Remember the body is
24:10
Speaker 1: both a receiver and an amplifier, and so when it
24:15
Speaker 1: lands in you, it lands as anxiety. Because that's the
24:19
Speaker 1: only the only pathway that we know to explain that energy.
24:26
Speaker 1: But in reality, this is what I say, there are
24:28
Speaker 1: set there are there are seven intelligences, and we as
24:32
Speaker 1: a people, as black people, as people of African descent,
24:35
Speaker 1: as as as as as people underneath this this this
24:39
Speaker 1: this pigment ocracy that we have. That there is a
24:44
Speaker 1: vibe and vibratory intelligence that has to be cultivated at home.
24:49
Speaker 1: There is an image, cognition and thoughts that have to
24:53
Speaker 1: be home. There is meaning making and shift back and
24:58
Speaker 1: forth and discernment that have to be home. There's behavior
25:03
Speaker 1: and urges that have to be on. There's affect and
25:07
Speaker 1: emotionality that have to be honed. There's sensation that has
25:12
Speaker 1: to be honed. And then there's imagination. I call it EMBOSSI.
25:15
Speaker 1: There's imagination that has to be honed. And what ends
25:19
Speaker 1: up happening is we have either been relegated to only
25:22
Speaker 1: thinking about it from the cognitive place or from the
25:26
Speaker 1: emotional place. But there are so many more intelligences that
25:30
Speaker 1: if we hone both individually and community, we could have
25:34
Speaker 1: access to language willing, then that language will start to emerge.
25:38
Speaker 1: So when you start to begin to um to to
25:42
Speaker 1: have this experience, if not contextualized in a personal defect,
25:48
Speaker 1: MM hmmm, I and I feel like plugging in right now.
25:57
Speaker 1: Reism is say you are not broken. There's the concept
26:01
Speaker 1: of trying to fix something broken is not real exactly
26:07
Speaker 1: what you are. One of the things I say to
26:09
Speaker 1: people is that you not only are you not broken,
26:14
Speaker 1: the system is not broken. It is operating exactly the
26:18
Speaker 1: way it was designed to operate. And that is to
26:21
Speaker 1: grind your body, your black body, your indigenous body into dust.
26:27
Speaker 1: That's the design. That has always been the design. And
26:31
Speaker 1: so you said something earlier about about how you you
26:35
Speaker 1: stand up in these in these organisms or in these places,
26:38
Speaker 1: and people say, well, aren't we all human? We're all human?
26:42
Speaker 1: So you know I don't see any you know, they
26:44
Speaker 1: do that ship right. And here's what I want to
26:46
Speaker 1: say to you is that and I don't need to
26:49
Speaker 1: tell you this, but those people are dangerous. That is
26:58
Speaker 1: when somebody does that, don't just take it as oh,
27:02
Speaker 1: you know, they don't really get it and if they
27:04
Speaker 1: had more information that did Uh. When I hear that,
27:08
Speaker 1: I think that's vicious. That is violent for you to
27:15
Speaker 1: use spiritual bypassing m HM and racial bypassing to marginalize
27:23
Speaker 1: my vibratory experience, my image experience, my meaning, making experience,
27:28
Speaker 1: my my imagine, initial imaginal expect right for you to
27:32
Speaker 1: use that move speaks to the see. This is why,
27:36
Speaker 1: this is why I say white white bodies. The idea
27:40
Speaker 1: of privilege, I think is a non starter. I don't think.
27:44
Speaker 1: I think the term privilege does is not operational enough
27:49
Speaker 1: in terms of what if, what actually is happening to us? Right,
27:53
Speaker 1: what actually happened? What is actually happening. I don't say
27:55
Speaker 1: white privilege anymore. I say white advantage. And the in
28:00
Speaker 1: a society that's predicated on the white body being the
28:03
Speaker 1: standard of humanists, it is an advantage, not just a privilege,
28:10
Speaker 1: not just something you can use or not use. It
28:13
Speaker 1: is a dispinct advantage for me, for you and me
28:17
Speaker 1: to be walking down in the street together, it is
28:19
Speaker 1: a distinct advantage when a cruiser comes past for you
28:23
Speaker 1: to be in a white body. That is an advantage,
28:26
Speaker 1: not a privilege, an advantage, and those things are built
28:32
Speaker 1: into the structure of white body. Supremacist is built in.
28:36
Speaker 1: And so when somebody when you set up and say
28:39
Speaker 1: this is the reality that people walk around, people that
28:43
Speaker 1: look like me walk around in what they're trying to
28:45
Speaker 1: do is get you. They're trying to gas like you
28:48
Speaker 1: and get you to buy into the spiritual bypassing people.
28:51
Speaker 1: Let me let me give you another people. Look, white
28:53
Speaker 1: white folks love absolutely and you can bleep this out,
28:59
Speaker 1: but it's just the way I cut I just cussed
29:01
Speaker 1: a little bit, right. White bodies fucking love to yoga,
29:07
Speaker 1: to God, to everything. They will they will, they will
29:12
Speaker 1: use yoga to get around everything racial. If you this
29:20
Speaker 1: so so so race, the concept of race, which white people,
29:25
Speaker 1: white bodies developed lead, white bodies developed in and poor
29:28
Speaker 1: white bodies eight in with handfuls. The concept of race
29:34
Speaker 1: in and of itself is a is a concept that
29:39
Speaker 1: I believe um mix it is. It is immature. Off top,
29:45
Speaker 1: the concept that you can look at a body and
29:49
Speaker 1: say that is closer to human or not closer to
29:51
Speaker 1: human based on pigmentation is a crazy concept, but it
29:57
Speaker 1: has four hundred years. Here's what I want to say,
30:01
Speaker 1: four to five. That concept had four to five years
30:05
Speaker 1: of charge to it, right. That's why, that's why when
30:11
Speaker 1: you begin to when you begin to talk about race,
30:14
Speaker 1: the charge feels the room before intellect does the charge.
30:20
Speaker 1: White bodies think that their niceness and kindness is inadequate
30:24
Speaker 1: to deal with the feral nature of white supremacy and
30:27
Speaker 1: white body supremacy. They think, as long as they're nice
30:31
Speaker 1: and they don't call me the inn word, and they
30:34
Speaker 1: and they look out for me and they send me
30:36
Speaker 1: thinking like like those things are inadequate response to the
30:40
Speaker 1: brutality of white supremacy and so but what they can't
30:44
Speaker 1: but they have not developed the culture, a collective culture
30:47
Speaker 1: that can hold the charge. That's why they break upart.
30:50
Speaker 1: That's why they start crying when you speak your truth.
30:52
Speaker 1: That's why they lose their f and mind when Colin
30:55
Speaker 1: copperate Keepernick just kneels on the football field quietly, when
31:00
Speaker 1: when what sister Soaker says, I'm um, I don't want
31:05
Speaker 1: to do the press thing, and they they they, they
31:08
Speaker 1: they try and rip her heart out right. That's because
31:13
Speaker 1: that's because that charge they they have, they don't have
31:16
Speaker 1: a culture that can actually hold it. They don't have
31:19
Speaker 1: a living, embodied anti racist culture. They have strategies. I know,
31:25
Speaker 1: I know, I just went off, but I just know
31:28
Speaker 1: this is so powerful. You they and let me say,
31:32
Speaker 1: let me just say one more thing. So I'm sorry,
31:34
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, no state things. So so let me say this,
31:39
Speaker 1: all of your genius and all of your beauty and
31:43
Speaker 1: all of the and what I mean by beauty is
31:45
Speaker 1: what you bring to the try and bring to these things.
31:48
Speaker 1: Let me say this to you. And I don't know
31:49
Speaker 1: how you're gonna here, but I just gotta say it.
31:52
Speaker 1: Don't let these people retrofit your genius into their bullshit.
32:00
Speaker 1: M m m hm. They will take little chunks of
32:09
Speaker 1: everything that you're doing and try and retrofit in. At
32:11
Speaker 1: the moment that they do that, they they they they
32:15
Speaker 1: they they thwart and retard the emergence that's possible. This
32:20
Speaker 1: is one of the reasons, like I was born and
32:22
Speaker 1: raised Baptists, but that religion and religion can't hold black
32:30
Speaker 1: people in this in the way, in this emergent generative
32:34
Speaker 1: way that I'm talking They can't. It's Liam can't do it,
32:37
Speaker 1: Joga can't do it. It can't hold it because they
32:42
Speaker 1: are already parameters and containers around it. What I'm talking
32:46
Speaker 1: about is an emergent generative uh connection between us and
32:52
Speaker 1: so don't when you're when you're laying these jewels out,
32:56
Speaker 1: don't let these folks take it and then tea years
33:00
Speaker 1: from now, you'll have somebody using your and your words
33:04
Speaker 1: and your you won't be able to recognize it. Vibratorially,
33:08
Speaker 1: you won't be able to recogn Don't let them do that.
33:11
Speaker 1: And that's what they do. It is a it is
33:13
Speaker 1: a it is a colonization of ideas. Don't let them
33:17
Speaker 1: do that without being checked. It's rocking check. So the
33:29
Speaker 1: first things first, I would like to have a podcast
33:31
Speaker 1: that's just me and you that meets once a week
33:34
Speaker 1: and we're gonna figure it out. We're gonna figure something out,
33:37
Speaker 1: because my god, I mean right now, literally resume, there
33:41
Speaker 1: are one hundred different conversations that I want to have
33:44
Speaker 1: with you. There's just so many pathways available. Um, you
33:50
Speaker 1: know where I would like to I would like to
33:54
Speaker 1: go backwards for a second. There. I want to speak
33:58
Speaker 1: to this piece about being able to open your body
34:03
Speaker 1: to joy, being able to actually know what that feels
34:08
Speaker 1: like when it's being felt by you inside. Because I
34:11
Speaker 1: think for so many of us, I'm someone that I'm
34:15
Speaker 1: a natural I've always been really this kind of natural,
34:18
Speaker 1: enthusiastic person. It's my natural programming, but also a byproduct
34:24
Speaker 1: of just forced resilience. And I didn't realize how disconnected
34:30
Speaker 1: I was body, even as someone who was practicing meditation,
34:35
Speaker 1: doing yoga, doing all I mean all kinds of processing
34:39
Speaker 1: for well over a decade. Cognitively, everything made so much
34:44
Speaker 1: sense and I was I healed what I could heal
34:47
Speaker 1: with that ability. It wasn't until the last couple of
34:52
Speaker 1: years resume that I actually came into the understanding that
34:56
Speaker 1: I did not live in my body. I actually was
34:59
Speaker 1: not press and in my body, and it led me
35:01
Speaker 1: to dig deeper and even know like there were actually
35:04
Speaker 1: patches of my body that were numb that I couldn't that.
35:07
Speaker 1: I was just like, even when I get a massage,
35:09
Speaker 1: like no, can you go harder? And I'd have these
35:11
Speaker 1: massage there is telling me I massage men five times money,
35:18
Speaker 1: don't this hard? You know? Like, and I was like, really,
35:22
Speaker 1: I barely feel it. And that is and that was
35:26
Speaker 1: shocking to me to get that feedback that it was
35:28
Speaker 1: not natural to ask someone to like abuse you damn you,
35:31
Speaker 1: you know. And I couldn't feel it and I couldn't
35:34
Speaker 1: get relief in my body. I suffered from chronic pain
35:37
Speaker 1: for almost twenty years. I couldn't get it out of
35:39
Speaker 1: my body, and about two two to a half years ago,
35:45
Speaker 1: I really started to look at what is enthusiasm, what
35:50
Speaker 1: is excitement, and what is actually embodied joy, what is
35:54
Speaker 1: a felt joy in myself? And it led me on
35:58
Speaker 1: this journey of kim lately stripping my life, redeveloping my
36:02
Speaker 1: my spiritual practice. I haven't watched television, movies anything in
36:07
Speaker 1: two years. I dedicate every night to dancing, literally dancing
36:13
Speaker 1: with myself, going through ritual um even learning. I taught
36:18
Speaker 1: myself how to massage my myself, how to use different
36:21
Speaker 1: sugar points, having you know, routine ceremonial baths, like doing
36:27
Speaker 1: deep deep meditation. It literally has changed me in a way.
36:32
Speaker 1: Last night I broke down in tears at the thought
36:35
Speaker 1: of it, and I said, I don't recognize my life
36:37
Speaker 1: at all. What a blessing, What a blessing? And it
36:42
Speaker 1: was a life I thought was pretty damn good. Yeah,
36:45
Speaker 1: and I don't recognize it at all. And I am
36:48
Speaker 1: so grateful. I am so grateful to have found my
36:52
Speaker 1: body in a way that I don't I still don't
36:54
Speaker 1: even have language around what that actually means and how
36:57
Speaker 1: I feel it. But it's a it's the deepest level
37:00
Speaker 1: of liberation possible in life. That's it. That's it. This
37:06
Speaker 1: is you just said. The last piece that you just said,
37:08
Speaker 1: I think is very profound that this work, this work,
37:12
Speaker 1: this this embodied work is liberatory. It is. It is
37:17
Speaker 1: a liberal it is it is it is about liberation.
37:21
Speaker 1: Is that? Um? Um? So so let me say this.
37:27
Speaker 1: So it is a relatively new occurrence, relatively new, sister DEVI.
37:32
Speaker 1: That mean you could be on a call like this
37:34
Speaker 1: or talking like the way that we're talking and be
37:37
Speaker 1: somewhat sure that there's not a lynch party waiting outside
37:40
Speaker 1: our doors. That's a new occurrence. That's new, that is
37:46
Speaker 1: not old, that is new, okay. So so so so
37:53
Speaker 1: when I hear you talk about rest and re re
37:58
Speaker 1: re re re reform in your life and going and
38:01
Speaker 1: noticing numbness and all that different type of stuff, you
38:04
Speaker 1: think that that's well, sometimes we think that that's okay,
38:07
Speaker 1: that yeah, that's self. But but but it really is
38:12
Speaker 1: revolutionary for a black body to even begin to explore
38:18
Speaker 1: the parameters of rest. Think about that, that is, that's
38:25
Speaker 1: that's that's new. Right, And so you know the idea
38:31
Speaker 1: that the beautiful part about you saying that we are
38:34
Speaker 1: parts of your body is you didn't even know we're numb.
38:38
Speaker 1: I want I want to just reframe that just a
38:40
Speaker 1: little bit, and I want to say that your body
38:43
Speaker 1: had protected parts of your body, your your the self
38:47
Speaker 1: had protected parts of yourself that did not that could
38:51
Speaker 1: not at the time be available to the rest of
38:54
Speaker 1: the world or even to yourself, because because had they been,
38:59
Speaker 1: they wouldn't might have in parts of you that I
39:01
Speaker 1: might have been lost. And what I want to say
39:03
Speaker 1: to you is that that that is not a defect,
39:07
Speaker 1: that's protect I always say, you know, uh birds bird
39:11
Speaker 1: man says, put some respect on my name. When I said,
39:14
Speaker 1: people put some respect on protect, right, put some respect
39:18
Speaker 1: on it, right, And when you're ready two in the
39:22
Speaker 1: other pieces that some of the parts of the body
39:25
Speaker 1: that that didn't or could not show up at the
39:28
Speaker 1: time may have not just been able to show up
39:32
Speaker 1: because of things that have happened to you in your
39:34
Speaker 1: own personal experience, but they may actually be what I
39:37
Speaker 1: call um um traumatic pass downs. Right that if you
39:43
Speaker 1: come from a people, no matter which line, but you
39:46
Speaker 1: come from a people whose bodies they could not be
39:50
Speaker 1: present with their bodies because to do so would bring
39:53
Speaker 1: so much horror and anguish that they might not have
39:55
Speaker 1: survived when you're getting raped for two and fifty years,
39:58
Speaker 1: you better not be in your body. So what gets
40:03
Speaker 1: passed down over time is this constriction because as that
40:07
Speaker 1: body is dealing with the brutality, there are also younger
40:11
Speaker 1: bodies that are connected to that that can't feel that body.
40:15
Speaker 1: So then that gets passed down as personality, as culture,
40:20
Speaker 1: as But it's actually how we organize around the trauma.
40:23
Speaker 1: So what I want to say to you is the
40:25
Speaker 1: reason why you need to respect it is because the
40:29
Speaker 1: numbness may not only be yours, but it may be
40:32
Speaker 1: your ancestors. Yeah, that's why you have to slow it down.
40:37
Speaker 1: That's why you have to respect it. That's why you
40:40
Speaker 1: have to That's why you have to grieve and cry
40:43
Speaker 1: and rock and well not know where the funk is
40:45
Speaker 1: coming from, right, That's why you have to do that,
40:49
Speaker 1: because this stuff has charged to it. It was not
40:55
Speaker 1: safe for you to be in your body. For for historically, intergeneration,
41:00
Speaker 1: persistent instructionally, black people and brown people, Indigenous people do
41:04
Speaker 1: not suffer from post traumatic stress disorder. We suffer from
41:09
Speaker 1: pervasive and persistent traumatic stress disorder. It's different. God, Joy,
41:23
Speaker 1: let me say just the joy pieces. The joy pieces
41:27
Speaker 1: is that we're so busy looking for loud joy that
41:30
Speaker 1: we can't hear faint joy. We haven't conditioned our bodies
41:35
Speaker 1: to hear faint joy. We haven't conditioned our bodies to
41:38
Speaker 1: hear and understand the faintness. That is a conditioning process.
41:43
Speaker 1: If I told you that I was that I was
41:45
Speaker 1: thinking about running a marathon, and you said, okay, brother, yeah,
41:48
Speaker 1: that'd be cool, La la la, And then and you said, brother,
41:51
Speaker 1: when you're thinking about running this marathon, and I told
41:53
Speaker 1: you tomorrow, you don't need to know a whole lot
41:56
Speaker 1: about me to know that there's a lot of pain
41:58
Speaker 1: coming in my future. Why because I have a condition
42:02
Speaker 1: and prepped to be able to withstand the amount of
42:05
Speaker 1: brutality that I'm getting ready to put my body through.
42:07
Speaker 1: This is the same thing you have to get reps in,
42:10
Speaker 1: you have to get invited, You have to rep and
42:13
Speaker 1: condition your body to be will be able to withhold
42:16
Speaker 1: and withstand not only the charge of of of racialized trauma,
42:22
Speaker 1: but also the charge of joy. I do I even
42:24
Speaker 1: know what soft faint joy is? How do I understand
42:28
Speaker 1: the experience of it? If I don't begin to to
42:31
Speaker 1: to and in small doses get chunks of it, so
42:34
Speaker 1: I can let that my body metabolize it over time,
42:38
Speaker 1: and then I take a little another little chunk and
42:40
Speaker 1: metabolize over time, so over time I can recognize what
42:44
Speaker 1: big joy is through my process of understanding faint joy.
42:50
Speaker 1: Oh my God, resume. I wanna. I want to sink
42:53
Speaker 1: in right now and offer practice for everyone listening. What
42:57
Speaker 1: you just said is um. Not only is it so powerful,
43:00
Speaker 1: but it's such deep confirmation for me and things that
43:04
Speaker 1: God was really breadcrumbing and whispering to me over the
43:08
Speaker 1: last few years. Um, because that piece is really what
43:12
Speaker 1: even started the rest of that journey I described to you.
43:15
Speaker 1: It was like I was like, okay, find tiny joy
43:18
Speaker 1: every day, find something tiny and something free that you
43:23
Speaker 1: actually let yourself savor. And that turned into for me saying,
43:28
Speaker 1: oh wow, I love the way sunshine feels in my
43:30
Speaker 1: skin every time I noticed that the sun and I
43:33
Speaker 1: are connecting in some way. That's that for me is God.
43:37
Speaker 1: That for me is joy. And as you shared, it's
43:40
Speaker 1: like it it peppered me, it seasoned me. It prepared
43:47
Speaker 1: really that grander like deeply authentic joy. I think a
43:51
Speaker 1: lot of times in our community because there would be
43:54
Speaker 1: so little opportunity to celebrate, so little opportunity to be unbound.
44:00
Speaker 1: Did that it became about more grand celebrations. Every day
44:05
Speaker 1: that wasn't a grand celebration was more of like an endurance.
44:09
Speaker 1: And so we're only used to like, yeah, let's set
44:12
Speaker 1: each other, oh go go way to do it, you know,
44:15
Speaker 1: like in these in these bigger things, or in holidays
44:18
Speaker 1: or in the you know, family gatherings, reunions. But sometimes
44:24
Speaker 1: that day to day depth it laughs in our households
44:27
Speaker 1: and in the communities that did a witnessing of one another,
44:31
Speaker 1: and all of the smaller ways of overcoming or the
44:35
Speaker 1: smaller ways of embodying we don't always have the chance
44:39
Speaker 1: to sink into. And so that is also one of
44:41
Speaker 1: the barriers of why sometimes life doesn't feel like enough
44:45
Speaker 1: even to a point with other healing where maybe it
44:50
Speaker 1: should or you think it would. You know, it's some
44:53
Speaker 1: of those kind of background things that are that are
44:56
Speaker 1: happening and running, those apps that are running in the backroom.
44:59
Speaker 1: That's right, there's a so so so um so in
45:06
Speaker 1: my trauma work, um in my office. So so i've
45:10
Speaker 1: i've i've sometimes like for a while, all that was
45:15
Speaker 1: coming into my office were black women with um with
45:20
Speaker 1: vaginal fibroid issues, chronic pain type stuff, right yeah and um.
45:28
Speaker 1: And one of the things that I would talk with
45:30
Speaker 1: them about because a lot of times when they would
45:33
Speaker 1: come into my office, it would be like almost this
45:37
Speaker 1: shame and grief and anguish around why you know, why
45:42
Speaker 1: is this happening to me personally? Right like this this this,
45:46
Speaker 1: this piece is so um um um. You know, you know,
45:52
Speaker 1: my mama had it, my grandmama had right like the
45:54
Speaker 1: like these why do we have these things? And one
45:59
Speaker 1: of the things that that I used to work with
46:02
Speaker 1: them on is this piece that I called scaffolding, right,
46:06
Speaker 1: because a lot of times people come into my office
46:08
Speaker 1: and they want they want an answer to a problem.
46:12
Speaker 1: They want they want to know why something is happening.
46:16
Speaker 1: And one of the things that I say with with
46:19
Speaker 1: people is that let's begin to construct a scaffolding so
46:23
Speaker 1: as the answers emerge, they can actually be held as
46:27
Speaker 1: opposed to blown away or put aside. Right like you
46:31
Speaker 1: you It's almost like the like you know, when you
46:34
Speaker 1: get a vaccine, they give you a little bit of
46:36
Speaker 1: what might make you sick in order to to to
46:39
Speaker 1: stir the bodies um immune response, right, and so that
46:44
Speaker 1: that's a level of scaffolding. Right. If they give you
46:47
Speaker 1: too much, you'll get sick, you could possibly die. If
46:49
Speaker 1: they don't give you enough, it's not it's not effective, right.
46:53
Speaker 1: But the scaffolding in terms of in terms of our
46:57
Speaker 1: people and healing. I think a lot of times we
47:00
Speaker 1: we we give scaffold we we we think we're helping
47:04
Speaker 1: people by giving them answers, but what we're not doing
47:08
Speaker 1: is holding the scaffolding holder to container, holding the the
47:15
Speaker 1: experience so as things begin to emerge up out of it. So,
47:21
Speaker 1: so let me say so. One of the reasons why
47:23
Speaker 1: we have to work with trauma, historical, inner generation, persistent,
47:26
Speaker 1: institutional and personal traumas is that trauma is not primary.
47:33
Speaker 1: Trauma is an energy. It is a thwarting energy. It
47:36
Speaker 1: is a thwarting energy that's designed to protect right and
47:40
Speaker 1: so it is a constrictive energy. It is a shutting
47:45
Speaker 1: down energy. We have to work with trauma individually and
47:50
Speaker 1: communally in order to in order to work with the
47:54
Speaker 1: loosening of it, realizing that there is protective that it's
47:57
Speaker 1: going to come back and slam in what we do.
48:00
Speaker 1: A lot of times were healing and say let's get
48:02
Speaker 1: you open, let's just release everything, and let's just right.
48:05
Speaker 1: And we don't realize that the protective parts of our
48:07
Speaker 1: body won't allow that to won't allow that to stand.
48:11
Speaker 1: So when people slam back, then we start saying ship like, well,
48:15
Speaker 1: something there was must have been an underlying issue I
48:17
Speaker 1: didn't know about or something we didn't get to, so
48:20
Speaker 1: you need to tell me more of your secrets. What
48:22
Speaker 1: we start to put the blame inside of the body
48:25
Speaker 1: as opposed to understanding that this is how it works.
48:28
Speaker 1: So the reason why you have to work with it
48:30
Speaker 1: over time is because as it loosens up, now what's
48:35
Speaker 1: really primary, and that is joy, love and connection can
48:39
Speaker 1: start to emerge. It's already there, but it starts to
48:43
Speaker 1: emerge as you loose it. But you also understand that
48:47
Speaker 1: it's going to shut again. There's nothing going wrong when
48:51
Speaker 1: that happens. Is part of the process, and that's why
48:55
Speaker 1: you have to keep getting little pieces of it. That's
48:58
Speaker 1: that builds the staff holding, that builds it, so overtime
49:03
Speaker 1: you can begin to receive it more and then other
49:07
Speaker 1: things began to a phone You go, oh, I thought
49:09
Speaker 1: I already dealt with that shire this ship come back
49:12
Speaker 1: around again, right, there's nothing going wrong when that happens.
49:15
Speaker 1: That is that's how that's how creation works. Wow. And
49:23
Speaker 1: that you know what comes forward when you say that
49:25
Speaker 1: as well, the reinforcing of holding yourself as sacred, especially
49:33
Speaker 1: as you are seeking out your healing and seeking out
49:37
Speaker 1: your teachers and seeking out the modalities that will get
49:40
Speaker 1: you there, because that's also speaks to you know, there
49:45
Speaker 1: is a spiritual science to healing. There's a spiritual science
49:52
Speaker 1: to holding a container for others for yourself. And it's like,
49:57
Speaker 1: you know, I don't believe. I don't believe in those
50:00
Speaker 1: um spaces that are the style of yelling at someone
50:05
Speaker 1: to heel, yelling at someone to get them out of
50:07
Speaker 1: their limiting belief. Something that I've always loved that Deepox
50:12
Speaker 1: says is that motivation is the lowest form of human inspiration.
50:16
Speaker 1: And it's like trying to get someone to it's not
50:19
Speaker 1: a bar like this idea that you that you're going
50:29
Speaker 1: to motivate somebody or or speak to them like a
50:31
Speaker 1: drill sergeant in a way to get them out of
50:33
Speaker 1: their own way. No, no, no, not for black and
50:37
Speaker 1: brown bodies. Perhaps the fucking lutely not not. You have
50:41
Speaker 1: had an ancestry and a history into the hundreds and
50:46
Speaker 1: the thousands of years of the entire world treating you
50:50
Speaker 1: like that. Everything you need and what you deserve is softness.
50:56
Speaker 1: What you need and what you deserve is a gentle flow.
50:59
Speaker 1: It is a gray east. It is a tenderness of
51:02
Speaker 1: learning how to tend to self. You know, how to
51:05
Speaker 1: be with self, how to touch self in every aspect
51:09
Speaker 1: of the word. And it's like that space that you
51:11
Speaker 1: were speaking to is another one of the ways that
51:15
Speaker 1: I think we, without realizing it, become really unsafe in
51:19
Speaker 1: our healing. Be careful who you allow to spend your life.
51:23
Speaker 1: Be careful who you allow yourself to work with, because
51:27
Speaker 1: who put you, who put their hands on you? Right,
51:31
Speaker 1: be careful who put their hands on you. You know,
51:36
Speaker 1: I say the people all the time. You know, sometimes
51:40
Speaker 1: we're so one of the primary rubics of white body supremacy.
51:45
Speaker 1: One of the primary rubics rubrics is urgency. Right. That
51:53
Speaker 1: is a that get it, do it fact but fast right.
51:56
Speaker 1: That urgency has been interwoven so so one of the
52:01
Speaker 1: things that happens is that we confuse vocation with virtue.
52:11
Speaker 1: We think because somebody is a damn guru that that
52:14
Speaker 1: automatically makes them virtuous. It does not. Police officers are
52:24
Speaker 1: not virtuous. You bring virtue as a virtue emerges from you.
52:32
Speaker 1: It doesn't happen because you put on a uniform. Wow. Yeah, right,
52:37
Speaker 1: we get those things confused. And I think when you're
52:41
Speaker 1: talking about communal work, right, a lot of the work
52:47
Speaker 1: that I do with people communally is an emergent work.
52:50
Speaker 1: It is not okay, you do this, you do this,
52:53
Speaker 1: you turn around three times, you stretch this, you know,
52:55
Speaker 1: you do you know, upward dog downward, whatever you do right,
53:00
Speaker 1: you know, whatever, whatever it is right that there will
53:05
Speaker 1: be things that come to you that if you're if
53:09
Speaker 1: you that if you can only receive it in this
53:12
Speaker 1: particular way, that thing that is supposed to come to
53:16
Speaker 1: you will be truncated. Right, And so you have to
53:21
Speaker 1: go slowly with this. You have to listen to when
53:25
Speaker 1: that vibe comes up that I have a teacher, but
53:30
Speaker 1: something's off. You don't automatically go to override in order
53:36
Speaker 1: to in order to you know, we we go to
53:38
Speaker 1: override a lot, well, override what's happening for ourselves, right,
53:42
Speaker 1: our experiences, in order to stay in contact with another
53:45
Speaker 1: human being. Right, it's what I call it's what it's.
53:48
Speaker 1: It's a form of dirty pain. Right. In my book
53:50
Speaker 1: I talked about clean pain and dirty pain. Dirty pain
53:53
Speaker 1: is that pain that when stuff shows up, you override
53:58
Speaker 1: it and move through it. You override it and get
54:01
Speaker 1: around it. And clean pain is the pain as adults,
54:04
Speaker 1: is the pain that you get when you say, I
54:06
Speaker 1: don't know what I'm gonna do, but I know I'm
54:08
Speaker 1: not doing that no more. That's cleaner, is still painful.
54:14
Speaker 1: As adults, we don't get a choice between clean and dirty,
54:17
Speaker 1: and so we go between pain and no pain. We
54:19
Speaker 1: get the choice between clean and dirty right at each moment,
54:23
Speaker 1: you know, the motivational So so the motivations did there's too.
54:27
Speaker 1: So when I was in Afghanistan, you said to think
54:29
Speaker 1: about softness, and I came from back from Afghanistan. One
54:34
Speaker 1: of the things that my wife told me, um I
54:38
Speaker 1: think it was. It was right around June, teams with
54:40
Speaker 1: me and her were talking was giving to take the
54:42
Speaker 1: kids someplace and uh we had I had been back
54:46
Speaker 1: from Afghanistan for uh maybe two years, and she stopped
54:54
Speaker 1: me and she goes, you know, before we go out
55:00
Speaker 1: I just I gotta say something you And I'm like,
55:02
Speaker 1: what she says, ever since you've been back, I can't
55:06
Speaker 1: feel you, Oh wow. And I was like, what are
55:12
Speaker 1: you talking me? You can't feel me that you know.
55:15
Speaker 1: Of course that turned into a thing because you know,
55:18
Speaker 1: and then and then and then um, she goes, you
55:21
Speaker 1: are not there's no softness to you anymore. And you know,
55:30
Speaker 1: I was like, and I knew it because you know,
55:33
Speaker 1: I had when I got back with suicidal stuff, all
55:36
Speaker 1: this stuff that um and uh, the idea of cultivating
55:43
Speaker 1: softness at that time when I was going through it
55:46
Speaker 1: is a non starter. It wouldn't have like if somebody
55:50
Speaker 1: as people were talking, like as people were talking to
55:52
Speaker 1: me about softness, it was a nonstarter. And I'm glad
55:55
Speaker 1: people were talking to me about softness, right, you see
55:58
Speaker 1: what I mean? Like I couldn't there's nothing I could
56:01
Speaker 1: do with it at that time at that time, right,
56:04
Speaker 1: but the table it was available in the buffet. That's like,
56:11
Speaker 1: that's exactly right, that's exactly right. And so I so
56:15
Speaker 1: one of the only way and this is gonna sound
56:17
Speaker 1: different to you, the only way that I was able
56:20
Speaker 1: to condition myself to be able to kind of get
56:23
Speaker 1: to a place to where I could invite the idea
56:26
Speaker 1: of more softness of vulnerability, and was to listen to
56:30
Speaker 1: motivational tapes. Like I was so hardened that and for
56:36
Speaker 1: some of us, that's what has to happen. You're so
56:39
Speaker 1: hardened and you're so you're so protective, right, that softness
56:46
Speaker 1: ain't gonna be able to get in. Softness comes on
56:48
Speaker 1: the back end, not the front end, right, and so
56:51
Speaker 1: and so for me, like people like CT Fletcher and
56:55
Speaker 1: people like David Goggins and and and and Inky Johnson
56:59
Speaker 1: and Eric you know, the hip hop like people like
57:02
Speaker 1: that I had, they were so like right that that
57:09
Speaker 1: was the only thing that I could take. That was
57:11
Speaker 1: the only experience that And then but I had enough
57:14
Speaker 1: to me and enough people around me that would say
57:17
Speaker 1: the soft things that as I began to loosen a
57:20
Speaker 1: little bit, that maybe that the a little bit of
57:24
Speaker 1: the grass blade could come up just a little bit, right,
57:27
Speaker 1: And I could tolerate that for a period of time,
57:30
Speaker 1: keep listening to my motivational tapes. But but people think
57:33
Speaker 1: that motivational motivation and motivational tapes are end all and
57:37
Speaker 1: be all. They are not for across Yeah, yeah, Yeah,
57:41
Speaker 1: that is a hundred percent a piece because motivation. We
57:45
Speaker 1: have to we have to motivate ourselves to be willing
57:48
Speaker 1: to change. That is a necessary part of the spiritual curriculum.
57:52
Speaker 1: But we can't stop at having him turned on a little.
57:56
Speaker 1: We can't stop, you know. It's like you have to
58:01
Speaker 1: you have to keep going into the peace where the
58:04
Speaker 1: only way radical change, the only way cellular healing come
58:10
Speaker 1: it is from the deepest level of inspiration. God is
58:14
Speaker 1: God is inspiration. When I say inspiration, I mean the
58:17
Speaker 1: experience of God in yourself and in your life. That
58:20
Speaker 1: is the only way that that will actually be an
58:23
Speaker 1: embodied change. Start. Motivation is a powerful to You gotta
58:27
Speaker 1: get up. You got to get up out of the
58:31
Speaker 1: proverbial bay and eat on the ground and go that's it.
58:35
Speaker 1: To sustain it, to sustain it, to transform it, to
58:39
Speaker 1: alcimize it into that that's it. It has to get
58:42
Speaker 1: moved to that depth of inspiration. That's it. That's it,
58:44
Speaker 1: and that takes time. People think that you go to
58:47
Speaker 1: a damn workshop and that's it. There are things you're
58:54
Speaker 1: gonna learn about yourself. It's what I call the suffering's
58:57
Speaker 1: edge that you gotta get sometimes you gotta get is
59:00
Speaker 1: the suffering's edge before you even know what life is. Yeah. Yeah,
59:08
Speaker 1: I'm sitting in my car, you know, got a new,
59:13
Speaker 1: brand new car back from Afghanistan. Bills are paid, doing good,
59:17
Speaker 1: and I'm sitting in my car with my glock nine
59:20
Speaker 1: millimeter or my nine millimeter, sitting in the any other seat,
59:24
Speaker 1: just like in the parking lot. And um and I'm
59:29
Speaker 1: a and I'm a trauma therapy right and I'm and
59:33
Speaker 1: I'm sitting there like that that you better, you better,
59:38
Speaker 1: You better learn how to slow it down and work
59:43
Speaker 1: with the slowing down and work with the uncomfortableness of
59:46
Speaker 1: slowing it down. Um uh. And that involves getting to
59:51
Speaker 1: your suffering's edge, getting to those places that you have
59:54
Speaker 1: been unwilling is what I call rug therapy. Rug therapy is,
59:59
Speaker 1: you know, when you're in a relationship with somebody, you
1:00:02
Speaker 1: sweep a lot of ship under the rug. Right, rud
1:00:05
Speaker 1: therapy is going up underneath it and actually looking at
1:00:08
Speaker 1: all that shift you just slept. Lets use that's right theory.
1:00:15
Speaker 1: Rod therapy is not for weak people. The only thing
1:00:19
Speaker 1: that makes you ready for long term relationships and marriage
1:00:22
Speaker 1: is marriage and long term relationships anybody that tells you
1:00:26
Speaker 1: any different. They try to sell you some snake oil.
1:00:29
Speaker 1: This this you marriage and long term relationships are people
1:00:35
Speaker 1: growing machines? Oh wow, yeah yeah yeah, so divine marrying yea,
1:00:45
Speaker 1: So I I have one million more talking points and questions.
1:00:51
Speaker 1: I actually did not even get to my first question.
1:00:55
Speaker 1: But we are out of times, alright, alright. That just
1:01:02
Speaker 1: means we gotta do this again. Oh my brother, we
1:01:06
Speaker 1: have to. I my god, I am. I am so
1:01:11
Speaker 1: grateful for you. Everyone, everyone, everyone, Please do yourself this
1:01:18
Speaker 1: high act of service and spend time with resumes work.
1:01:22
Speaker 1: You can connect with him on Instagram. His New York
1:01:24
Speaker 1: Times bestselling book that will change your life is called
1:01:27
Speaker 1: My Grandmother's Hands. It is available everywhere. Get it next
1:01:31
Speaker 1: day delivery via Prime on Amazon. You can be reading
1:01:35
Speaker 1: this by tomorrow, um or anywhere else that you get
1:01:38
Speaker 1: your books. But this and spend time running this episode back.
1:01:44
Speaker 1: I want you to write down any terminology we brought
1:01:46
Speaker 1: forward that isn't clear in this moment, and spend time
1:01:51
Speaker 1: looking it up. You know, really, spend some time investigating, adding,
1:01:56
Speaker 1: adding somatic, experiencing adding this somatic practice will change your
1:02:01
Speaker 1: existence and will change the existence of your lineage, the
1:02:05
Speaker 1: children that come from you, the children that come from them.
1:02:08
Speaker 1: So take a little time google it, look some things up,
1:02:11
Speaker 1: and as a little soul work. This is what I
1:02:14
Speaker 1: like to give everyone. At the end of the episode,
1:02:17
Speaker 1: um and resume. I would love to invite you to
1:02:19
Speaker 1: share some soul work and embodied practice of somatic practice
1:02:24
Speaker 1: or an observation of self that everyone can spend some
1:02:28
Speaker 1: time with today or over the weekend. Well, we've we've
1:02:33
Speaker 1: been actually doing it through the whole episode, through through
1:02:37
Speaker 1: this whole thing, and that is pause. Just pause. You
1:02:42
Speaker 1: don't have to do it. You don't even have to
1:02:44
Speaker 1: hold the pause for longer than than three seconds. Just pause,
1:02:50
Speaker 1: but do it consistently for from now. Just notice yourself
1:02:57
Speaker 1: pausing your name. Be curious about what emerges as you
1:03:01
Speaker 1: notice there is a when we pause. One of the
1:03:05
Speaker 1: things that we have to contend with is the vierial quaking.
1:03:12
Speaker 1: That's why most of us don't pause. And I'm not
1:03:14
Speaker 1: talking about I'm not talking about meditation. I'm talking about
1:03:17
Speaker 1: literally pausing just for a second or two or three,
1:03:22
Speaker 1: and keep doing that throughout your days. Just that I
1:03:27
Speaker 1: don't here, I don't need to tell you nothing else.
1:03:29
Speaker 1: If you do that and begin to notice what starts
1:03:33
Speaker 1: to emerge or what constricts right, that's the practice. I
1:03:39
Speaker 1: talked about it as practices, not as not as exercises,
1:03:43
Speaker 1: as practice practices. Yes, yes, yes, yes, and people can
1:03:50
Speaker 1: People can reach me at resume dot com or E
1:03:53
Speaker 1: S m a a dot com dot com. Everyone spend
1:03:58
Speaker 1: time there. Take a moment after you do your pause
1:04:01
Speaker 1: practice and journal a little bit and perhaps use the
1:04:05
Speaker 1: prompt of how do I relate to my body? And
1:04:09
Speaker 1: see where that takes you. If you started journaling there
1:04:12
Speaker 1: and you you create the intention of having an awareness
1:04:15
Speaker 1: around how do I relate to my body? That will
1:04:18
Speaker 1: lead you to understanding how am I using my body?
1:04:21
Speaker 1: How do I experience my body? How do I feel
1:04:23
Speaker 1: my body? How do I share my body? And just
1:04:27
Speaker 1: start to observe and the answers will start to pour
1:04:30
Speaker 1: in resuma dot com. My grandmother's hands available everywhere Resma.
1:04:36
Speaker 1: I am I am so, so, so so grateful for
1:04:43
Speaker 1: your life. I am grateful for your wisdom. I am
1:04:45
Speaker 1: so grateful that you answered your divine calling and you
1:04:50
Speaker 1: answered it when you did. Oh my God, thank you
1:04:53
Speaker 1: for your life's work. Thank you for your healing. Thank
1:04:56
Speaker 1: you for your commitment to your own healing which allows
1:04:58
Speaker 1: you to help all the rest of us on our journeys.
1:05:02
Speaker 1: I love you, my brother, I am and not wait
1:05:06
Speaker 1: to be with you again. Big love. Hey find me
1:05:13
Speaker 1: on social Let's connect at Debbie Brown. That's Twitter and Instagram,
1:05:18
Speaker 1: or go to my website Debbie Brown dot com. And
1:05:21
Speaker 1: if you're listening to the show on Apple Podcasts, please
1:05:25
Speaker 1: please please don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe and
1:05:31
Speaker 1: send this episode to a friend. Dropping Jim's is the
1:05:34
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio and The Black Effect Network.
1:05:38
Speaker 1: It's produced by Jack Queas and me, Debbie Brown. For
1:05:41
Speaker 1: more podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit the I Heart
1:05:44
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1:05:47
Speaker 1: favorite shows.