Ep 16: Ways of Knowing and Finding Ease

April and Tracie discuss different ways we process our experiences and knowledge: intellectual, emotional, physical, and spiritual. We notice the way, especially when those modes are out of balance, we sometimes make things harder than they need to be.

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

Learn more about April’s work at Joyous Justice: https://joyousjustice.com/
Read more of Tracie's thoughts at bmoreincremental.com

Resources mentioned:
April's program (with Catherine Bell) Whiteness Havruta
Mirabai Starr's book Wild Mercy
Institute for Jewish Spirituality and more on Hitbodedut
Tara Brach talks about her RAIN (Recognize, Allow, Investigate, Nurture) method in many of her resources (including her book Radical Compassion, referenced in our Rosh Hashanah episode) and on her website.

Transcript

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- [Tracie] As we look forward to 2021, we think about different ways of knowing and opportunities to invite more ease into our lives.- [April] This is "Jews Talk Racial Justice with April and Tracie,"- [Tracie] a weekly show hosted by April Baskin and Tracie Guy-Decker.- [April] In a complex world, change takes courage.- [Tracie] Wholehearted relationships can keep us accountable. So April, I was recently editing the "Whiteness Havruta Methodology" model video for you, and Catherine Bell, for the program that you're working on, and there's something that you all talk about in that video that I really wanna share with all of our listeners, and that was where you all talk about sort of the four ways of knowing and thinking, which, help me out, intellectual-- Processing.- Yeah, so, and there were intellectual, emotional, spiritual,- Physical or embodied.- and physical and embodied. Right, I think that it would be awesome for all of our listeners if you could kind of walk through those four ways of thinking because I think most of us mainly only think about one, maybe two at a time.- [April] Right, the idea here is in order for us to live our best lives, when we're tackling complex issues like internalized racial material or internalized racial oppression, internalized oppression more broadly, meaning the ways in which we internalize different messages and experiences or, at times, physical trauma or abuse, that our knowing doesn't only come from our mind and that intel or feedback that we can receive and process and help us elevate our thinking isn't only in our cerebellum, isn't only in our brain, right, (laughs) isn't only in our frontal cortex, it's also physiological and in our bodies, and so we invite the people in the program, and I think this is a really great thing to do right now, as we were saying before we hit the record button, as I forgot this, you mentioned, you know I mentioned in our Yom Kippur episode that I love to welcome many different opportunities for intention, so whether it's Yom Kippur or this, what, we're coming up on a Gregorian New Year. It isn't quite as spiritually heavy and intense for me as it is during the high holidays, during Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, but it is still meaningful for me and sacred because I choose to bring ritual and intentionality to that, and I've been thinking a lot about balance, and there's so much to say here. I, (sighs) I've been noticing personally for me, as we're approaching the end of 2020, which, whoo, has been a year. I'm not one, a number of people, and I'm not, and I don't mean to critique people. I'm critiquing the narrative a bit. You know, like really, because of different hardships that I've been through in my life that in some ways, at times, have been unjust and, at times, have also ultimately been a source of blessing or transformation, in different ways, I'm reluctant to condemn 2020. What I'm trying to say here is that as I'm reflecting in this year that, to me, was filled with transformation and tremendous loss and heartache and, hopefully, things that can be used in the direction of our dreams in spite of that pain, I'm spending a lotta time thinking about feeling, celebrating. I'm celebrating the parts of my life that are going incredibly well and also noticing of that medicine wheel, so to speak, or that four-quadrant circle, if I think of it as a wheel, where are the parts of, as the wheel turns, are things going smoothly, and when is there a sudden thud because I'm not, my body is, when I listen, it's telling me, "Girl, you gotta find ways to get up"? As I was having a much-needed reflexology session earlier today, and at times almost wanting to cry and noticing the places in my body that have, are in much need of attention and have been unbeknownst to me, or actually been known to me, but I haven't been able to figure out the balance, just been neglected and are now in pain when they're engaged, and so- I think I'm looking, I'm gonna look to you, Tracie, to provide a bit more structure, but I think the piece that I want to say that I'm very clear about and that in Whiteness Havruta, we really take time to support our amazing leaders and participants who are journeying through that experience of doing a deeper dive and really going in, and similar to kind of what I was just talking about, my body finding the places of, like, ugh, when I press this or when I engage in more rigorous material, I can hold to this, and other times, in people's living or experience, where they encounter new material, and it brings up all kinds of things to unpack, and having a programmatic and leadership development space, where there's patience to and mindfulness to actually slow down and say, "I need more spiritual nourishment," or, "I need more spiritual or divine guidance."...this is something where my body has a very visceral response that I want to listen to and journal about and unpack and just breathe into to see what messages that are nonverbal, that are nonintellectual within my living, or within a person's lived experience.- [Tracie] When I watched the video where you and Catherine went through these four, it really resonated for me. I definitely am someone who lives mainly in the intellectual mode of thinking, and that's not always to my benefit. I mean, the problem is, I often get rewarded for it, and so, it gets reinforced, but then, it comes back to get me (clears throat) because that means I'm tamping down the other ways of thinking and knowing, and sort of ignoring them: the emotional, physical, and spiritual, and so it really resonated for me. Right now, I'm currently working my way through the Institute for Jewish Spirituality's four-week course in Hitbodedut, which Hitbodedut, for those of you listening who don't know, is a meditative practice, a Jewish meditative practice whereby the meditator actually goes somewhere where they can't be overheard, traditionally in the woods, though I've been doing it in my living room, and speaks out loud directly to God for some set period of time. This course is recommending 20 minutes, and the first time that I actually did this for the course, when I sat down after everyone in my family had gone to sleep, and I sat in my living room, and I set a timer and started talking to God, and the first thing I said was, "This feels really weird, like, talking out loud," and within a few minutes, I was crying, I mean, just crying my eyes out about some things that I didn't even know I was carrying around, and I think that that's kinda what I'm getting at, like I'd been ignoring the emotional and the spiritual for so long that as soon as I opened that channel, like, all this gunk just sort of flowed out, which was very hard, I have to be honest, but also amazing. I mean, afterward, I just felt this sense of relief and ease that actually allowed my intellectual thinking also to improve, and so, that's part of the reason I wanted us to share this idea of these other ways of thinking with our listeners because it has been so meaningful for me in the past couple of weeks to really tap into those other ways of thinking and knowing, and I think I may have mentioned before in this podcast. I know you know, April, exercise also is extremely important for my mental health. I don't exercise-- [April] Mine too.- [Tracie] I don't exercise to be thin. (chuckles) I exercise because that's how I process some of the emotions. My body helps me process the emotions and the stress that I take on every day. So anyway, I wanted to share this...- [April] For me, it's helpful psychologically and emotionally, and it's helpful for me neurologically, just in terms of my literal brain function, brain chemistry, acuity, focus. As someone, as folks know, who, as an adult who has ADHD, when I exercise, it's not also just about my having an outlet for emotions and processing the emotions that come up for me in my daily and weekly work around regularly taking risks and meeting people where they are and going in deep with them around really difficult conversations. It also is helpful physically for me, in terms of my hardware. (laughs) You know, my biological hardware that I have.(April laughing)- Right, right. Yeah, so as we approach this, this milestone of the end of Gregorian 2020, I guess I just wanna invite folks to really think about these four realms of thinking, and you know, really recognize-- [April] The process, being process.- [Tracie] Of being, of processing, of moving.- [April] You used the cerebral, right.- [Tracie] Thank you. Thank you for nuancing that, yeah. And anyway, I wanna invite you to kind of recognize them. Allow them to be. Investigate them. With apologies to Tara Brach, I just named the first three steps of her RAIN process.- [April] Or a shout-out to her.- [Tracie] Shout-out, shout-out to Tara Brach, her RAIN process. R is recognize, A for allow, I investigate, and N is nurture, and so as Tara Brach invites you to do this, she asks you to recognize what is happening, what is actually happening, allow it to be, investigate where it comes from, and this investigation is more like a massage therapist than, like, Freud, although they are combined, and then nurture. Figure out what that set of circumstances needs, and try to make that available. So for me, for instance-- So good, I love that!- [Tracie] I know, she's really, she's really, really smart and thoughtful and insightful.- [April] Wonderful, can I, can I briefly interject on what you just said, you were about to give an example, talking about this? If you're feeling something, I've been yawning. I've been stretching and hearing different bones crack, so as we're talking through this, if you're starting to, in talking about this awareness, if you're feeling things come up, feel free to either pause the playback or the podcast, or just(inhales and exhales) take a deep breath and exhale and engage in some of those embodiment practices as we listen to Tracie. I'm, if you're watching this and you can see, and if you're listening on the podcast, which I think is our more popular form of consumption, free to just stretch or move your body. Tara Brach's RAIN model, I love that so much. You were about to say something about for you personally. I'd love to hear.- [Tracie] Thank you for the reminder. I was thinking about my kavana for 2021, as we approach these last few days in 2020, and it's gonna be about really trying to apply that RAIN model to these other ways of processing, and figuring out how to nurture and make room for other ways of processing. Especially for me, that will be the emotional and the spiritual. Those are the two that I tend to personally neglect, and I wanna try to bring greater balance to those two ways of processing. For you listening, it may be different. There may be others that you tend to prioritize, that you wanna maybe try and find a way, not to get rid of the ones where you feel more comfortable. For me, it's the intellectual. Just find greater balance. So that's, that's my wish for you and my invitation to you. April, what do you want to add to that, if anything?- For me, right now, I'm focusing on, I'm celebrating what's going very well and wanting to fine-tune some of that, despite my writing practices, a variety of different practices I have for processing, my body still holds on to energy or fears that I'm not even necessarily conscious of that gets lodged in different parts of my body, it seems, and then in my leg and the lower half of my body, as someone who spends a lot of the day working and seated, I just, and not exercising enough right now, my, having nothing to do with body image, my legs aren't feeling well. It's one of my physical indicators I've learned in my life'cause it's hard to explain, but it's, and there's like a subtle deadening that's happening, that I notice that, when I am more active, when I'm engaging in exercise, when I'm hydrated, when I'm getting enough nutrients, with making sure that my diet is whole and very nourishing, and so what's on my mind right now is I've been pretty good about the emotional. There's still fine-tuning of the intellectual and emotional. You know, I'm reading a lot of material and pushing myself professionally, regularly, and taking risks and doing a good amount of the work I need to do to process things emotionally, but I'm really, and spiritually as well. So the edges from year-round, I'm diving more into my spirituality, my intuitive spirituality through some of my kohenet Hebrew priestess training as well as through the elements of Buddhist mindfulness that have been helpful for me since my college years of, that often is about stripping away and just coming back home, and doing that a little bit more, and giving my physical body a lot of love, finding ways in my schedule to go get the produce I need that I know will help my body feel really great, and making sure that I'm getting enough hydration. So that's what's on my mind, is nourishing my well-being, and also, I had a thought. I don't know if others have this when you're engaging your body in different ways. Whether it's walking, I find lots of ways of engaging my body when I lovingly engage it, whether it's through walking or through someone giving me a massage or doing reflexology, that different insights come, and they're in my mind, but it feels like part of it's coming from my body. It's like mind-body connection.- For sure.- And, yeah, right, and one, I had a insight about my business that came through while I was having reflexology done on my lower back, and also, I was listening to a book at the time, "Wild Mercy,""Wild Mercy: Living the Fierce and Tender Wisdom of the Women Mystics." She was talking a little bit about mindfulness in Buddhism and the middle path, and some point in the midst of getting the body worked on while I was listening to this audiobook, I had this huge insight that I think that there are ways in my life where I bring immense effort, where I don't, where there's a way to achieve arguably more than I'm achieving right now if I can physically and spiritually embody more trust and still show up to work, but it's, like, am I looking for rocks to lift? Or am I, I don't know what the metaphor is exactly, or am I noticing that there is actually keys in the ignition of a lift next to me, and if I just paused enough to notice, there's resource right there, that rather than me trying to lift boulders, by engaging what already is and slowing down enough, and so I'm getting more into the process, but I just had this major insight, as I'm approaching this, as we're approaching this potential moment for reflection and intention of I'm wanting to, and I'm looking to you, Tracie, as a partner, a central partner of mine in this work around developing and advancing both our podcast and Joyous Justice more broadly. Another piece that came up is that I think that there's ways that whole parts of what we're looking to create could flourish, and I'm limiting. I have some limited thoughts that I'm not conscious of, that if I just released those thoughts, we could just start doing different things and bring a lot of resource and light to people without me having to lift,(laughs) these big boulders, you know, so I hope that landed for folks, whether you're in an entrepreneurial space or in another area of your life, of there's already so much that's difficult, and I'm not saying to be totally lackadaisical, but are there ways that I can breathe more into things and to trust in collaboration and the potential for divine influence? Back to our theme about the oil, Tracie, you brought this up when I was discussing this with you in our friendship time.- Like from our Hanukkah episode, yeah.- [April] Yeah, you know, like from our, that I think that that's, it's another variation of that, essentially, that I think that there is oil- Yeah, the oil.- [April] that I'm thinking, and so I'm preparing for other things, but actually, if I just breathe and actually remain present with something, and say, "You know, actually, what I did there was enough, and it doesn't need my active tending to and constantly build. These plants will just grow if I just water them and relax and then not constantly tinkering."- [Tracie] You know, the application of what you're saying that occurs to me specifically for our listeners is in an earlier episode, we talked about sort of the pressure that sometimes white-skinned Jews will put on themselves when they are approaching Jew of color, say after, you know, at the oneg after services or whatever, that they wanna say the exact right thing, and that's kind of what's coming up for me, is that, you know, you already have the oil that you need. You don't have to make something else up. It's the same thing that you would talk to anyone else about.- Shabbat shalom!- [Tracie] You know, about the sermon you both just heard, you know, or about the cookies that are laid out in the spread, and that precise example was coming up for me when you were just describing, you know, that you're, like, you're making more work for yourself than is necessary in order to achieve the outcome, yeah.- [April] For me, a lot of it comes back to relaxation, which again, I don't wanna conflate that with when something's hard or there's trauma coming from that. I'm not saying to, but I'm saying just in general that at times, we've been trained, and it's a part of white supremacy culture, actually, around the bigger, the more, the efforting, the, you know, like industrial, but actually, can we breathe and lean more into feminine-inspired wisdom and mindfulness wisdom around, and it's funny 'cause mindfulness is actually about not engaging your mind as much as actually about just presence, just about presence, about spiritually-tuned peace- Presence, yes.- [April] and presence, and so I love that comparison about, of weaving that back to racial justice stuff. It absolutely is applicable, so for me, so for people who are like me in one way or another, who are Jews of color, people of color who are advancing this work, and also white allies who are also advancing racial, the people who are taking on leadership. That doesn't mean we let go of it, but just how can we bring more breath and presence and appreciation for what we've done, and trusting just a little bit. Ease, it's not all of a sudden, it's not, but beginning to trust that other people are here and that other variables are also supporting our vision, and we don't have to do it ourselves, and then what you said, Tracie, that in different aspects of Jewish life and in daily life more general, it's important to be thoughtful, and part of what that is is just not saying the unhelpful things, and just being present with connection and what we're feeling. Separate from the intellectual and all those things is what's the energy that this person has? What's my energy? How are you doing? And not needing to assume where they are, but just kind of noticing and asking them, and allowing them to say where they are.- [Tracie] Yeah, yeah.- [April] And not needing to justify, and not needing them for you to justify who you are or who they are.- [Tracie] Yeah, you know, I just wanna name that I know that as we record this, most of the connections are happening the way that you and I are connecting right now, which is through screens, not actually in person, and I know that does make things more complicated, and some of the principles remain. The points remain.- Good point. Well said.- [Tracie] But I do wanna name that, that this mode of connecting,- There's not really oneg moment.- through Zoom or Google Meet or whatever, it's, yeah, the oneg moments are much, much smaller than they were when we were able to actually listen to the sermon all physically in the same place, yeah,- Congregate.- [Tracie] but this too shall pass, right. We will not always be only in Zoom rooms, but we will be in actual rooms together. May it come soon in our time. (laughs)- [April] Ken y'ehi ratzon may it be God's will, yes. 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 a suggestion, access our show notes, and learn more about our team. Take care until next time, and stay humble, and keep going.