Ep 82: Showing up for justice when life gets hard (Live)

This week, we’re bringing you our conversation from our live event on March 23. If we’re being real here (which we ALWAYS are), we know that many of us (especially in the Jewish community) are feeling overwhelmed, stressed, and hurt by the state of the world. April and Tracie (and a couple of amazing community members!) give us some helpful framings and tips for processing and moving through our hurt, process our emotions, and get through to the other side. And spoiler alert: you don’t have to suffer in order to powerfully show up for justice!

Check out our discussion/reflection questions for this episode:  https://joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-82

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director, and Tracie is a senior partner: https://joyousjustice.com/

Support the work our Jewish Black & Native woman-led vision for collective liberation here: https://joyousjustice.com/support-our-work

Read more about the book Conscious Community: A Guide to Inner Work by Kalonymus Kalman Shapira and translated by Andrea Cohen-Kiener: https://bookshop.org/books/conscious-community-a-guide-to-inner-work/9781568218977

Learn more about the Inside and Out Wisdom and Action Project: https://www.insideoutwisdomandaction.org/who-we-are

Transcript

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- [Tracie] In today's episode, recorded in front of a live Zoom audience, we take on the overwhelm that many of us are feeling right now, and it often goes with justice work. Listen in for some reframes and practices to help us marry our wellbeing to our pursuit of justice.- [April] This is Jews Talk Racial Justice with April and Tracie.- [Tracie] A weekly show host stood by April Baskin and Tracie Guy- Decker.- [April] In a complex world, change takes courage.- Wholehearted relationships can keep us accountable.- Okay, so I, you know, I think we were thinking, but I think you're defaulting to what we, our equity practice. (laughing) So we decided that Tracie was gonna open up the discussion, but I see Tracie defaulting, which I'm down for to also defaulting toward the liberatory mode of having the woman of color speak first to just contradict the notion that women of color consistently go second. So now that I have done that, Tracie, would you like to provide greater framing with your wonderful linear mind to get us off to a solid start?- Thanks April. So what I wanted us to talk about today is something that I witness in friends and in my communities. And I sometimes catch myself falling into it, especially lately, which is sort of an overwhelm, which then becomes an overwhelm and all of the hurts of the world that sort of demand our attention and that overwhelm, I know from experience, I'm catching myself and trying to like redirect, but I see it happening within my communities where that overwhelm kind of, it leads to an avoidance, an escapism or a numbing, all to sort of avoid these big feelings that are being demanded of us, yeah, that we're experiencing because of what's happening in the world. And so maybe it sounds like, you know, I'll reengage when I feel better or I'll reengage when things are calmer or I'll reengage when I know what to do, but whatever it is, it's sort of that delaying and distancing and sort of coming away from the work of actually trying to address the harms that is sort of the slippery slope. And I think conventional wisdom actually would endorse that idea that our happiness or wellbeing is incompatible with the awareness and action that it's called from, like we're I think conventional wisdom says that detachment is actually.- From suffering.- Called for that detachment from suffering and from the ills of the world is what is called for if you want to be happy, joyful, contented, whatever higher vibrational state, as you would say, which I still don't fully understand what that means, but I get the gist. And I know that you have been working to counter this conventional wisdom for most of your career. So I really wanted to invite you, like in this moment to help us think about a different way than that detachment as solution.- Yeah, and right now I'm also wanting to, before I do that, so I want you to remind you, before I do that, I'm also wanting to share in a way, sort of similar to you about how I'm experiencing this current moment of late for what it's worth, just to say that for me, I, and so I appreciate you saying, because in some ways a number of these things have been all my life, Tracie, and in other ways, a number of these insights that I've developed, I've been more in recent years were different things that were disparate in my own experience. But I was like over here I have, and I'm able to access joy and vibrance and wellbeing. And I see how, when I can get to that place, my leadership is more powerful and I have over here my counter oppressive healing. And at times for years I was holding and they felt, and eventually going into the more deeply I found at the deeper levels, they actually are profoundly aligned, but in my own lived experience at times, it felt like it was tearing me apart. And I, cause I couldn't quite figure out how these things coexisted and now I have. And for me, I'm interested in sharing that with others. Also being aware from myself as someone who is profoundly multicultural and has a multicultural frame, that the ways in which they click for me may not be the same for others, but I think it's possible to click for others, but it might look different for different people based upon the circumstances of their living and their needs and the narratives that are live and real for them. But I see in different ways that our different movements in certain spaces also kind of shun in different ways these dynamics. I've navigated a lot of different spaces in my life. And fundamentally I am the daughter of a man who was wrongfully incarcerated and had her family ripped apart when I was young and that guides everything that I do. And I'm in spaces now that are somewhat detached from that. But I've learned different things that feel relevant and true across different parts of my living. And I'm in a very active practice and process as a practitioner now, but there's something that's real and true here. And I see at times folks who I love and who I respect from whom I'm deeply aligned, some of my teachers at times, dismissing certain things that I've learned in healing and liberatory and black liberation healing spaces are key. And basically the metaphor I would use is like a stone, right, like self-love. And I see people posting things like self-love is toxic and I'm like, self-love is not toxic. If self love is used in the context of a white supremacist dude who's oppressing people and having them pay him money while he's not actually helping them get free, that's toxic. But actually, which is not the core, the theme here though, that's an undergirding element. That's not what we're gonna be mainly focusing on, but actually self love in itself is actually profoundly self- foundational to any liberatory practice, right? And like the metaphor I've been thinking about of late that I've talked about with you and Sarah is like a stone, like a stone is neutral. And the meaning that people take, that stones can be used to kill people, they can also be used to build houses and protection and to help people with healing modalities. And I notice people throwing out stones and I am very interested from a counter oppressive lens as well as from a lens of abundance and wanting choice and also someone who's coming from who that isn't in some way that isn't my reality. It's still very part of my consciousness comes from a raised poor and working class background that there some part of me that feels like I don't have the luxury to throw out different things. I need to find what is readily available to us now that helps us heal and helps us get free. Right. So I wasn't planning on talking about all of that, but I just wanted to say that. That's what's coming up right now organically. And then the other piece, in terms of matching back up with what you were talking about, Tracie, as you know, I have felt while the Black Lives Matter movement was happening and well before then, navigating different things around my father's wrongful incarceration, later in my childhood, him being beaten by the police. And this is what largely politicized me in my life because it helped me understand and still not fully And it took a few like another decade or two to fully get it right. That like part of how oppression operates is to make people think that they are the source of their suffering, but watching my dad's experience through my childhood helped me immediately understand that wasn't true because my father is a functional perfectionist. My father is gentle and loving and kind. He's a hero. He was a medic in the military because he wouldn't have to kill someone. So seeing him go through all of these things, despite even after going to prison, after being wrongfully incarcerated and being an early hire of intel, right? So there's also this roadmap that I got in my life around both seeing how tough things can be, and also seeing in my parents, them not at all denying the circumstances and them accessing healing and support around getting the healing they need. And my father would literally say to us, this has been hard and we're taking time to heal. And right now it's very important that we nourish ourselves spiritually, emotionally, mentally and physically if we are going to get through this, like basically my father gave me a blueprint around self care and joyous justice and still believed in the beauty of his dreams, right? And I think that there's a way in which toxic positivity is absolutely a real thing. And what I'm talking about could be mistaken as toxic positivity and it is literally the opposite. It's actually saying, no, we can fully feel all of these things, speak truth, speak of the truth and the realness in safe spaces that are worthy of our truths, that we determine on our own terms and get the support we need and still hold big visions and big dreams for our lives. So I think this is normally where I pause, let you talk. I wonder if I can squeeze in the one thing about coming back to where you are, which is what I meant to do. And then I went off on a diversion. Do you mind if I squeeze that in Tracie? Or do you wanna add something in right here? So what I've been feeling of late, the challenge that I feel of late in different explicitly Jewish spaces is that I've developed a profound resilience, like being a national executive leader during the height of some of the Black Lives Matter movement stuff. And because of Black Lives Matter success, the press was actually covering the daily fatalities of Black people. And I had to be in a space where, and most of the time people weren't adequately acknowledging that. And I had to learn to get resource and honor that, and still function, which was in an oppressive context, but I've taken that and developed liberatory skills around being profoundly resilient. And it was interesting because I found with some of my people that the survival strategies I learned to care for myself, and to still be able to function and be of service now creates a distance from us where they don't have any, or have not as much or the same musculature around being able to do that. And I'm ready to work with people and be present with them and mobilize and their kind of like, how could you, and then I feel like, well, how could you, I had to do this for years and had to find support outside of this space. And it leads to this distance, this chasm that I'm trying to bridge in different ways. And so that's where I am entering plus a bunch of other things that are the subtext of what's happening, Tracie.- The, so the metaphor that I've been thinking about that you and I have spoken about offline is actually a, it's spring, right? And the crocuses coming up, the first crocuses and daffodils coming up have been really helpful for me. I, because I would find myself slipping down into that overwhelm. And just like you said, April people have been taught, we've been taught that we are the source of our own suffering. And so I was like really down on myself that I wasn't the flower, right. That I was a bulb, which is when I actually put it into those terms, it's absolutely ridiculous. The bulb doesn't think it's less than because it's a bulb. It has the flower and the potential for the flower inside of it, it's just not the time yet, right. It's the time for nurturing and water and soil and all the things that bulbs need to get to the flower and reminding myself that the flower is actually compared to the other phases of the life cycle of a perennial bulb is actually pretty short. It's only, you know, and it is cyclical and all those other points on the life cycle of that organism are equally valid and authentic and true and important. And that has been a really important and comforting metaphor for me, because I think I, everything that you're saying resonates, that folks are like not there and they're blaming themselves for not being flowers and you're like, hey, come on, let's go be flowers. And they think you, they perceive what you are saying as what they're saying to themselves, which is not what you're saying, right. Like you're saying like, yeah, okay, let's get you what you need.- And what I'm asking is not actually for action in this time, but what happens as a result when folks aren't having, don't have different mechanisms to help them process is they entire really shut down. What I feel like I'm witnessing right now is an entire shutdown because there's no resource and support that they're getting. And it's not that I need people, but I can, but it's hard for me to reach for them or be in conversation because there's been too much stuffing down in alignment with what basically most of us are nearly all of us, but I don't like saying all cause there's diversity, but how a lot of us have been conditioned in the context of American society, which you just suck it up and deal. And even, even in certain survival contexts among different, from a different standpoint of people who have been targeted, right. But you, but actually that's not the actually the best strategy.- And I think that's specifically a part of what I find really wise in your approach, April is that I feel like the conventional wisdom is actually, if you're having big feelings, unless they're happiness,- That's the problem.- It's a problem. There's something wrong if you are having big negative feelings. That is what we've been taught as Americans generally speaking. And that is totally not like, can you talk more about like honoring feelings and moving through?- Yeah, so I think, I feel like something might be intrigued and some might be like, oh God, so I'm hoping to say this in a way that lands is relevant. But basically I just, I appreciate, I think I'll take it from a personal narrative point of view first, which is that my, I appreciated that I grew up with a father who with a big, large masculine black man who also believed that it was okay to cry. And when things were hurting him or when we were, he was sad or when something devastating would happen, he would cry and he wouldn't express shame around it. And I appreciated that, and even despite his, he wasn't consciously being liberatory. He just had figured that out on his own and noticed through his own journey of not having support from his parents who were two working class folks working to survive when he had trouble at some point between his late teen years and his mid twenties, when he was parenting us at that time, he realized that that was helpful for him. And basically I just, I think this ties to elements of the culture of capitalism. I think it's also partly patriarchy. There are different dynamics. To me, part of embracing the divine feminine in a more earth based strategy is embracing the fullness of human experience. And it's been several years of me practicing this and even still, my, I still have an auto default at times to block things. But I notice when basically it's just a process of shifting from viewing emotions as the problem, which in a, which is what happens in an oppressive context, as opposed to that being a pathway to healing and basically how I think of it and how I've learned to experience it is that I envision in my mind, this is a little weird, but hopefully it makes sense. And I recently was reading a book about Buddhism that talked about, I don't remember if it was in Buddhism or some other thing. Like there was a whole concept that I was like, that's basically what I was saying. It's not as like bogus as I thought or weird as I thought it was. Like this concept of Samskara, that when we experience emotion, that the we've been conditioned in society to think that if we ignore it, it goes away. And I think that like it's like energy is neither created nor destroyed and that is energy. That's created that's in our experience. And the way I envision it is like either in our heart or specifically our mind that like pockets of fluid develop in our mind where neurons aren't able to connect. Like if we don't allow it to move through our system, it shows up in different ways and continues to impair our capacity to use our full range of experiences. In the context of my spiritual work, it's not always said it's truth, but it indicates where things are landing for me. And it helps me without any external, although there's always external help, which I'm big on, but you know, but at times when that's not available, I can use that to help guide me. But part of the contract of that for me at least, is that is to allow space to honor that. And what I think is interesting is I'm in different spaces. And I often think at times people have a variety of specific modalities that they can be like real rigid about. I am more agnostic about that. I think it can look like a lot of different things. I think at times it can be extremely emotional and wailing and bodily movements. I think it can be writing and meditation and a walk. I think it can look like a number of different things. And I find for me and my experience as someone who is very, who has, who's an empath who has a lot of emotions that in spaces that are safe, I'm looking forward to us either accessing or creating spaces where emotions can be more freely expressed because people often, I think there's like this I experience this in practices that I believe in where I am with someone who is trained to help me with this. And I still need them to like, I'm like, no, no, no, no, don't wanna go there cause it feels like I'm facing the end. But it isn't the end. It's moving through it on the other side of that, especially with practice and time. I find that in a matter of minutes or days I have new access and insight that's available to me because I allow and like the way I envision it is like there are pockets in our brain of fluid, as I mentioned. And when we do that energy release, it releases parts of it and neurons are able to reconnect and fire. I'm not saying that's literally what neurologically happens, but that's, but that is how I experience it.- You taught me when we first started working together, you taught me the composting process, April. Which is.- A very approachable, less intense version of this.- I'll just briefly say what it is. So I was feeling very anxious about a facilitation that I was doing for a lot of people. And you said, try composting. And I was like, what's that? So you explained it. So basically you invited me to write down, I was feeling anxious. And so you invited me to write down all the things that were me anxious, all of my fears until I had exhausted them. That was, and that was the word that you used that was really, really helpful for me. And then once I had exhausted my fear- unedited, Got it all down. Then you invited me to write, I would love and then write the things that I would, you know, and it, the, I have to say that the very first time I used it was absolutely the most transformational. I've used it since, but that first time ever using it was just like, it was amazing to get to the place where I had exhausted my fears and then was able to just go into the facilitation, knowing basically knowing that I could handle it. Not that those things that I was afraid of wouldn't happen, but that I could handle them if they did it, I needed a place, I needed to actually feel them, which is to your point, like the only way through it is through it. I had to actually.- And by writing it, you were both expressing it. And to a certain extent, depending upon how you did it, also re witnessing it by reading what you wrote.- I was able to, so then.- It, like, it takes it outside of your self.- It acknowledged it and made it also, it made it finite by doing it until it was exhausted in a way that when I was holding it in my brain, maybe in that pocket of fluid that you're talking about or whatever the space that it was taking up, it felt much, much bigger than it actually was once I wrote it all down. And so that's, you know, I'm a much more sort of like, okay, what do I do next kind of a thinker, regular listeners to the show will know that about me versus April. But that's like a very concrete example that I've seen work in my own life of exactly what April's talking about, about sort of getting through it. And then the other side was fine. You know, it wasn't that those things were now impossible. Those things that were making me anxious, it's just that they weren't taking up space anymore. And that it, I just, that's my pragmatic specific example.- And I would love to add a few pieces on to that, which about that exercise that I usually like to say, which is that I would love for me. And I think different people will experience it differently. When I go to say that like the first part flows real easily. And I find when I take the invitation to be raw and honest, that it doesn't, I think it's gonna be pages, but if I'm being real blunt and not sugarcoating things, it actually doesn't take that long to be like, this is exactly what I think is happening right now. Like I think that this person like completely engaged in erasure and such and such. And when I speak to the truth of that, right. And then when I go to, I would love, it's a totally different energy around, like, I would love, you know, it's not like I recommend this and it's not, cause I'm like, oh, yay, like sunflowers and whatever. Like, no, I'm like, why would I usually start out with things that I can't control? Like I would love them to do this. I'm like, well, that's not so helpful. And then I move into like, well, what else would I, you know, and then I, and I, and as I start to work through it, it starts to be like, oh, oh, shit, like, oh, that's actually possible. Oh, that's, that is actually, and then I keep writing and it's like, Ooh and I feel much better. And I find for me as someone who engages in different modalities often that will completely resolve something. And at times it always helps and at times I'm like, this needs a heavier duty intervention, cause this is not fully sufficient it for whatever. But it also helps me clarify, like I need to reach for someone cause actually this isn't, this pain is too immense. And, or like something happened once at a former job where a program was canned without involving me in some, there was a whole, and I did this process and it both helped me feel better. And I was also like, I still want, I still need something outside of just me. Like I still need more support with this because I'm deeply pained and humiliated and there's some kind of tikkun or repair. And that helped me get to a point of clarity of actually, even if I, and even if I can't get it, I need to pursue to feel like I am in a right relationship with myself and my body of work. So I really like this tool because I find that it's contained within itself and or it also is in service of further clarifying. I need whatever kind of intervention I need to get closer to feeling at peace with this. And that to me is a part of this practice. And I think we're right about at that time.- Yeah, we're right about at time. So I wanna just finally follow up to say explicitly that what April's talking about, what we're talking about in terms of seeking healing, seeking release of these emotions that are taking up space in the brain is not separate from, it's not sort of compartmentalized from the work of engaging and showing up in the world. It's a part of it that it, it is it's married with the social justice engagement.- And more so than that, that our lot that these things are like, right, that the levels like I used, I often say and this can make more sense in this context, given what we've talked spoken about is that the four levels of change and oppression and love. I also like to add that they're also the four levels of love, power and healing of individual, interpersonal, institutional, and ideological and their variations on it that I often focused on the institutional change levels and things. Our lives are microcosm for that. And as actually it is profoundly it's because we think of it at times as selfish, but I actually think our lives are a key, not exclusively, but our key part of our leadership labs around actually fully prioritizing ourselves, and I thought you were gonna go in a different place, which is that what the things we're talking about. And this is part of where the work that I want Joyous Justice to further expand and get into is that in time, these are things ideally that we develop rhythms and spaces and or identify spaces in our lives where these things happen. Like this is not an overnight thing. And also we're living in a context of constant trauma and pain and suffering.- Should we move to the next section.- Yeah, I'm wanting to like tie it up. I don't know. Is there anything like specifically before we do just very, I know we need to move on. Is there anything very briefly that like would help any of y'all feel like, are you ready to transition into some reflection and peer discussion and chat, like.- I'm just excited to hear what you'd like us to talk about. I think I'm ready to roll. This is okay, great.- Okay, wonderful. Thank you. Well, I think we all just say is that there's way more. So I think if there are questions or different pieces, like this is a massive body of work, that is a core part of the work that Joyus Justice wants to do. And we've tried to get a slice that hits on different pieces. But if something is feeling incomplete, this is meant to be, I love how Evan Trailer refers with the law of unfinished business. We are very much engaging in the lava unfinished business. This is not to be an endpoint. It's ideally intended to be us authentically sharing where we are and providing some insight and nourishment and inspiration to help you continue on your path. And I could actually lay out a whole model which may be, will do in the future. But we specifically invited people to be invited, to come into a space of not feeling of feeling open and raw, so more to come in this conversation in the future. And so now with the time for us to be in conversation with each other. The floor is yours and Tracie and I are here as resources. And also we are especially interested in this being a dialogue around the questions that were asked and other things that arose that were coming up for you. So it's a intentional and fluid space. Yes, Rabbi Kolodny.- Thank you so much, April. It's great to be here. I wanted to return to the questions that you asked and the beautiful discourse that you had before you sent us into our dyads. I resonated with all of it. And I reflected with my partner, my dyad partner, that I remember that when I was 30, I went to a healer and who told me that my whole body was screaming,"I'm tough and I can take it" and that I didn't have to be tough and I didn't have to take it. And so that transformed me. I'm 61 now. And I've been on a over 30 year journey to find the practices and the healing modalities that allow me to feel it all, to take the time off when I need to take the time to rejuvenate and to be whole, you know, the pathway that you basically articulated. So I resonated very, very powerfully with everything you said. I wanna put a plug in for a Jewish practice if anyone has or hasn't read the Piaseczno Rebbe's, Bnai Machshevah which is often translated as conscious community. It could be read as children of consciousness. I unpacked from that, from that wonderful treatise that my friend, Rabbi Andrea Cohen-Kiener translated of a staged process of engaging God in building the capacity to be whole. And the first stage is pick a Psalm, any Psalm, recite it or sing it. And the second stage is bring whatever's huge, whether it's your grief or your pain or your sorrow, or your wound or anger, whatever it is and let it grow as big as you can, which is so amazing, cause it tracks with your practice, right? And then ask God- [April] It is amazing. To both support you and hold you with that. And if Yah has any guidance around what your next step would be, both those two pieces, right. And just let it go. So it's lifted off of you, right? And then thank Yah for the support and then close with a hatimah, with a sealing, close the process with another Psalm or the same Psalm, whichever you like. So that's a go-to practice for me. And I just wanna say, what I often say is that if Piaseczno Rebbe, who was the rabbi in the Warsaw Ghetto could support that community in living through hell, if that practice was good enough there, it's gonna be good enough for me now and anyone on the planet, right. I mean, and I'm so moved when I think about it because you know that this is from our lineage and it's fantastic. I've sort of taken absorb from so many traditions, but I love it when there's something here. And after that, I just wanna say, but what do I go into, what do I need? And concrete actions. I like, I need every activist to be trained in Joyous Justice or awakened to it somehow, right. So I don't feel like it's so non-normative, but I also feel a need as somebody who I can't even believe I'm saying this. It's like, it feels like in so many spaces, I'm an elder, you know, I'm a part of Tzedek Lab. And there's like the number of times that there's someone over 60 in the room or on the Zoom, it's like, there's three of us who show up, right. Something like that. So I wanna somehow create more intergenerational and normalize intergenerational work around all the things we care about- abolition and equity and everything, you know, all the things, climate, ending climate catastrophe, and. And have the environment be such where someone who's my age with who looks like me with this, like grayness, isn't perceived as out of touch or even worse by some as, because by virtue of my whiteness, like not a good enough, never capable of being a good enough ally because I've never had that experience in Jewish spaces, but in justice spaces, particularly west coast, never on the east coast, particularly on the west coast when I was the skepticism, if not downright hostility that I was met with was shocking after living 50 plus years on the east coast and having people just assume like, know my creds and know my commitment and know my willingness to put my body on the line and get arrested and this and that and the other thing, right.- Thank you for all of this. Thank you so much. Yeah, I wanna give space. There's like a multiple things I wanna say. And we are overdue to connect one on one, so we'll make that happen, but yeah. Do other folks wanna share things, all thoughts, vibes and feelings welcome. Yes, Nina.- Yeah, I met with a person who had to leave the call, but we were talking about what we both resonated with was the bulb and the flower metaphor. And for me particularly, it's very powerful because I often feel like the bulb under the earth wondering what I'm doing and am I doing enough and am I doing it right? And is this gonna be okay? And you know, that concept of and it fits with your questions because resonating with that, then what I came to to realize is that what I was challenged by is yes, like I know that it's really important to go through all the emotions in order to be able to get to the other side. That is the way, yet, especially in my racial justice work, I find that I resist, you know, and like, so now I'm like, okay, I'm gonna do this, and then I'm like, well maybe I'll just back up a little bit or maybe I'll wait or maybe I'll just see. And, so like, I need to be able to move through the knowing that I'm a bulb, who will eventually break through the surface and become a flower and that all of those aspects are wonderful. And that I have to constantly remind myself that the resistance is there. It's okay. And that I need to continue and not let myself get sidetracked by it. But when I feel it to be able to use it as a source of energy and power to know that there's work I have to do and keep going. So that's kind of where I'm at with everything that you've been saying. And it's been a wonderful time to listen to you guys. Thank you.- It's been so good to connect with you, Nina. We always love when you show up in our spaces. I, you know, I think I wanna respond, to what you said, I still wanna respond to it. How should I refer? I dunno to Rabbi Kolodny. I'm not sure how I should publicly refer to you. What's your preference?- [Rabbi] You can call me Deb.- Okay, Deb, all right, so I also still, so what I would say, Nina, I wanna quickly share toss out some things, and I think it's, will be well received. Is that what I would say is, especially at, and this is part of where the confusion is, especially with racial justice, Nina. Racial justice is violent and horrific, and we don't experience that in the day to day. But when we are engaging in anything around that, that is the broader context and our country and the weight of all of the unresolved trauma that our country, as a whole, there has not been a collective national reckoning with that. That is on our shoulders. So what I would say to you is that you are completely right to think that you need to have, to honor the seriousness and the weight of stewarding racial justice effectively. And because of the toxicity of it, it is sacred and important and holy and strategic for you to, especially in the right spaces and places, right? So not necessarily with your committee, with people you trust offline, maybe in spaces with us, in spaces that feel safe with people whom you can really, where you can give yourself space to break down and have a space with someone who knows you're gonna show up the next week, but who knows that you're gonna be there. And for you to say, I don't even know if I wanna do, or you have a space to like, which is a part of our Jewish tradition to temporarily release the vows and say, this feels too much and I need to process this. And what I would say in terms of your bulb moment that ties into this, is that part of what I'm interested in Joyous Justice is to say that it's not the right word. It's not gonna land quite right, but I can't like the word that's coming to mind is luxuriate is that if you actually let it be luxurious and say, not only am I going to rest, but this thing is happening in a few weeks and right now for days, or I'm actually not gonna think about this at all, because that is what my bulb needs right now. And that actually that is in service in time of things thriving. I'm reminded of when I went through a very, oh, I'll stop there. Please join in. I can, there's more can say, but I wanna hear other voices, please.- I just wanna, because the bulb was my metaphor. I wanna also add, Nina that part of the way I was making myself suffer in this bulb metaphor was that I had, I have been a flower before and I don't feel flower right now. And I had, I mistakenly think that it's sort of like, you know, you must be this tall or ride the ride. And once you get there, you'd never have to check again, like you were always, but that's not how it works, right? Like perennial flowers. They flower, they die back and go down into the bulb and then they come like it's a cycle. And my thinking of it as a, you will reach this state and then forever be there. I was causing myself suffering by having that in my mind. I also wanted actually to react. I'm going to be presumptuous and assume I also may call you Deb, but your, the practice that you were describing reminded me of, I recently participated in the Inside Out Wisdom and Action trainings with Rabbi David Jaffe and Yehuda Webster, where they invited the participants to think about their relationships with fellow people of color, and with like, with various folks themselves, and also Hashem, which is very, I get that learning from Yehuda Webster, every time I interact with him. And I think, especially for those of us who are, you know, sort of in the secular or in the Reform tradition, like we don't like talking about God, but the moment that Yehuda invited me to think about how my relationship with God shows up in my racial justice work, it like released a weight because I knew if I have that unconditional love at my back, all of the things that I face are faceable. And I just wanted to name that, that I was reminded of in what you described Deb. So thank you for that.- So the other thing I wanna just squeeze in for a moment. And also if anyone wants to share anything before they hop too, please interject, is that Nina, I would also add, like, I really like going back to this luxuriate thing. Like I've seen, like, from my vantage point, I think some of you others of you can relate to this in different ways. I really attribute my longevity in this field where I've seen a number of people leave the Jewish community and, or not be in a great place in different ways is because I make so, like, to me what Deborah said, I love what Deb said in terms of the Jewish tradition. And I also, to me, there's also other things to insert in that, like, I make epic playlists. I have this epic playlist that I created on Spotify called Healing Post Racist Betrayal. And I go through feelings. I would never likely, never share publicly, but I give myself space in my personal life to fully go there and to sob and listen to Beyonce. Like, why don't you love me? Like, I've done everything. Like why don't like work through whatever is coming up. Right, and like, I wanna burn it all down. And I fully, and I know in part of my mind, I'm like, I'm leading a thing tomorrow. Like I'm like, none of that is gonna show up in that space. I'm gonna give my bulb lots of space, whether it's betrayal or it's just rest. Sometimes it's not that intense. I'm not saying it's intense all the time. But if those, when those things arise, because the benefit of that is what I've learned over time is the more we give it space to fully clarify everything we feel about what we don't want, it gives us room on the other side of that to clarify with greater ease, what we do want and actually how those experiences clarify the actions that need to come. But I can't get to that place if I don't clear the energy of whatever is coming up and honor it and see it as sacred and as part of the work. I'm reminded when I had a really horrible experience in a leadership role and Yavilah McCoy said to me at that time, you know, I went through something similar as I was closing down, Ayecha and Julius Lester said to me that our rest and taking breaks is fully a part of movement work, and you deserve to do that. And I took that for a year and did that. And the whole time remembered, like this is actually in service. And because I did that, I am here, but I needed to take a full year of feeling like I can't do this anymore and that was now 12 ago. And now I do it in micro versions. And I think this is my movement work. Justice has different hats for different days. And when things get too much, I reach for help and have somebody fill in and I take a break and also see it, not as a departure, but in service of my long term work and also modeling what it looks like for us to be whole humans. And there's, to me, like I really am into, and I know we need to wrap up in just a moment, like I've noticed, I shouldn't spent much time with it, but to me, basically what Joyous Justice is lifting up, and Tracie has like different feelings about this, is basically like a divine feminine version of stoicism, is that actually we can survive everything if we are trauma informed and recognize that most of our feelings and suffering comes from traumatic experiences and societal dynamics that have set us up to not succeed, and also actually be trauma informed and also have emotional agility and actually be able to feel not. And that it's through the feeling that we actually can be stoic at times and have a full range of experiences. But it's something that happens over time through bit by bit. It's not something if you haven't been operating, it's like a learned thing that I think part of what Deb was saying spoke to is that this happens over years. But the nice thing is that as we start to move in this direction, it gets better. It's sustainable because you start noticing, like it's not fully resolved, but I am feeling I can breathe more now. And I still don't know what I'm gonna do here, but I feel like I might know.- [Announcer] Thanks for tuning in. Our show's theme music was composed by Elliott Hammer. You can find this track and other beats on Instagram @ElliottHammer. If this episode resonated with you, please share it and subscribe. To join the conversation, visit JewsTalkRacialJustice.com, where you can send us a question or suggestion, access our show notes and learn more about our team. Take care until next time and stay humble and keep going.