I got questions for you and I started talking about this You do something that a lot of like academics and grassroots activist leftist activism particularly don't do.

I hear a lot of people when we t healing and transformation, they start with the structur and they say, they say we're goi you know, we're going to fix we're going to destroy capitali or we're going to do this thing, and then that'll create new cons and that'll allow us to have the kind of ability to imagine futures, which would then allow us to and so forth and so on.

And I sort of expected the book to go there.

I thought the book would be stru in that way.

It was refreshingly different.

Talking about the choice not to and why it was so important to yo to tell us to vision and heal, e before we even get to this world Stuff three, four, five chapters Yeah, that was a hard decision.

It was hard to figure out how to Because I do feel like the what individual healing and collective healing it is a kind of interwoven thing But I did it that way, in part because, yes, I also believe that conditions and conditions changing changes Right.

And, we are already shaped by those c the way that we our own interio the way that we feel about ourse and feel about others, is alrea by those conditions right now.

And so I've seen so ofte that people are taking that shap into their organizing work into their movement building wor but because they're focuse on the external, because we got you know, change conditions we lose awareness of and a sense of how much those s are already deeply embedded in u And we recreate them even when we don't intend to.

And so I was trying to convey bo which is, you know, you got to start somew you know what I mean?

Yeah.

So let's start with that v Yeah.

Because you say we need vision.

And we do.

What does that mean in a practical sense, especially I give you a concrete example.

I have a remarkable amount of conversatio about Bill Cosby.

Way more than I'd ever want to.

Part of it is I have this tattoo of my fathe who people seem to think it's li Well, people keep thinking this Cosby, I didn't realize until th it's mostly white people.

Like, my dad doesn't look like B but he looks how white people th Bill Cosby looks.

Yeah, yeah, I can see what I mea Yeah, yeah, I am so so I had to like I'm.

And so.

But then I end up in these really uncomfortable conversatio these awkward conversations.

And a lot of the conversation becomes about how, Bill Cosby was held accountable for things that, like other people who did harm, the Harvey Weinstein's of the wo And I often become really frustr by those conversations because it seems that our visio of what justice could look like and what a future could look li is not to have Weinstein held ac Yeah, it's to have Bill Cosb be as unaccountable as rich whit Right.

And so our freedom dream our radical imagination, is scal by patriarchy, scaled down by mi scaled down by rape culture scaled down by all of these thin And so when I think about how do I how do we get people one to engage in this nurturing of a vision and how do we keep it arm's leng all those things that have us just not having as ambitiou a freedom dream as we could have Yeah.

There's a couple roads I see and what you're asking.

And I really love that question, though I was surprise that we were gonna talk about Bi striking on the record, anticipa Yeah.

Sorry I was out.

No.

It's fine.

The first road I want to go down is that, you k I think the thing about vision that we often overlook is that it requires us to change It requires us each to change.

And sometimes we want a vision f I think that's why we get stuck like, I want a vision where I'm on top or I want a vi where I can be, you know, whatev Because we don't believe in our own ability to change and tr And so I think there's some part that necessarily you must change to enter it to enter that process.

And I think it's so necessary, you know, this work around vision because, you know as long as I've been in movement there have been extremely visionary moments.

And I can also feel at times where we've been reactive to what we're losing which is important because we ar I hate to break it to here, but You're losing a bit.

Yeah.

And there's a reaso why we're reactive to those thin But I think if that's the only p we take, our movements will shrink and shrink and shrink in because there has to be.

Unfortunately I think I talk about it in the b I think the right has don a job of articulating a kind of It is not one that is compelling But they are articulating a kind of vision.

And I think, you know, on the l we need more and more to be able to articulate a vision that is to people, that feels like life, that is like, not just tha we're going to patchwork this th but that something else really has to be possible.

And I think that will generate a kind of energy and commitment that I thin is really necessary for this mom So I think vision is critical, vision is also really hard when been hypervigilant, when you've lost so much.

That necessarily, in a way takes you out of vision.

If you're always scanning for sa hard to imagine what's beyond.

And so that's why I think spaces visioning, dreaming, imagining, cultivating that all the way is so, so critical.

And I, I've been saying this oft It's like I want to keep being s in this moment, I do.

I think we have to be strange to this world.

We have to be able to look aroun and come up with odd ideas and do weird thin And in our oddness, reveal the a of this current structure and way of being.

But that's part for me.

That's like experimenting wit the dreaming, experimenting with I think it's so necessary for us to shake off kind of what's already been ingrained in us.

What are the kinds of places, I your book is a great place to st Sincerely it is.

What are some other spaces, plac sort of source that we can lean on to help us g or stay strange to nurtur those those oppositional identit Yeah.

I think all kinds of, politicize healing spaces to me and, and pr that are doing that there's a lot of projects that a incorporatin transformative principles into t that are giving space to play an and do odd things.

I mean, you know, the impediment to my organization, Black Organizing for Leadership and Di where I also teach, I feel like in those space there are new things emerging.

It feels generative in that way.

But I think more projects, more organizations have to either take some aspect or also be in partnership with groups and space where we're working with that.

The not ye the possible, the unknown.

Yeah.

One of the things that often hap when we begin to resist is that the resistance itself gets co-opted.

Our political enemies, the powerful whatever you want to frame it, they will take the language and give it back to us.

I mean, watching right now, the language of defunding be used by the right, in very particular ways take the kind of teeth out of it And also to kind of animate certain kinds of struggl Right.

The language of healing, the language of self-care, the language of therapy.

I've seen it being used particularly in social media, in ways that sometimes reinforc patriarchy, in some ways reinfor neoliberal ideals and ways rein reinforce a kind of self-indulge And we pretend that it's self-ca And sometime it feels like selfishness to me.

Tell me if I'm wrong about that, but but more deeply, sort of, how in a in a world where everything is so individualized, how do we kind of use these lan and frameworks, or do you worry that they're going to get take or that they've already been tak Sometimes I worry a lot of times I don't worry about that.

I worry about a lot of thing that, that, that I think it's, in part because I'm, I get a lit on you, Mark, for a second.

Okay.

I'm prepared.

There's something for me, you know, the book and all the p and everything we do.

There's something else at play f me that I feel in my center, inside of myself.

Commitment, a conviction, whatever that the words, the words never could describe.

The thing that I'm talking about The words never could describe healing or center.

The words will always fall short And the words will be taken and people will use them.

But the, the feeling of, you know there's been poets and organizer and philosophers and everybody has pointed to this place of center of, internal sense of power, of comm That's the place I move from as the language changes.

Language changes.

I find another way to describe undescribable, the thing you can because I think that's the thin that we desperately need to surv Honestly, is connection with tha When we don't have connectio with that place in us and we don that, we're not cultivating that in relationship.

We're easily reactive.

We can lose connection to the path where we're going.

We can lose connection with each We can get caught in court, got But that's the thin I'm trying to convey with embodi is that there is a felt sense something internal that can be c a relationship with oneself that can kind of see through some of the more surface battles So I worry there's a part of me that worries like, oh, healing.

It's not going to mean anything.

Did you say that so much better Yeah.

But there's something that has meaning for me that I'l find a way to communicate.

And I think other peopl will always find a way to commun And will always find a way to ge And that is always the most important thing to me.

Do you see the book of Cry Deep?

Yeah.

Can you break that down?

Yeah.

I don't know how many of y'all and your parents would be like, me, give you something to cry about kind of thing.

And we're all like, Yeah.

Oh yeah.

Collective charm.

Everybody got that same one.

Did you get that one.

Yeah.

And so when I was littl I would, you know, start to cry and you hear that and it, you know, suck it back up, put i And even when it got to a point this is the thing about embodime how our bodies learn.

I didn't need anybody to say that to me anymore befor I could automatically stifle the And so when I grew up, I didn't know cry anymore.

And by cry, I mean like cry and like really and let the emotion move through I didn't know ho because I had so internalized th I didn't even hear it anymore.

I just there was a part of me, the story I told was I didn't cr yeah I came to this point where I rea that's what I was doing and I wanted to figure out how t And so I would go back in, okay, you get these heartless $15 an h private heart to.

Yeah, I don't know how much it c That was everything.

And I took a sad playlist.

I mean, sad it was like sad, a sore, real sa And I sat in the hot tub and try to remember how to cry, which was a whole embodied proce of permission giving, you know.

And I had th I would feel the contraction, th to keep relaxing, keep opening, keep opening, you know, catch and then eventually a whale came you know, like a real well.

And then I would go on these cr periodically and now I can cry, now I'll be crying, but I, I di I didn't know how to cry for a l And when I would cry, I would ti You know, I think I was crying something and I, I'd be crying a What is that?

Who.

Why are they But there was just so many cries I had stifled, so I had to, I say, relearn how to cry.

I had to remember how to cry.

I had to allow crying.

And that was really a healing pr for me.

And it helped me.

You know I say the other thing about heal in part it helps you arrive in this mome because a lo of our bodies and our beings get And other times.

And so your chest or your brow or some part of you, your stomac might be in a whole other time caught in another time, holding as though it's still happening.

And so healing for me is in part moving through those things so that you can actually mostly you can arrive here now, this journey you're talking abou this process, you talk about embodiment.

Because it healing has to be.

Embodied.

You said for years we have tried to outsmart our b override them and ignore them.

That feelings, that feeling that my clients ha of late and uneasiness, a discor I feel it myself, too, is an in that our best intentions and eve politics have not created in u the kind of change we long for a I hadn't thought about the inadequacy of our of our pol being linked to our bodies.

Yeah.

Again, and forgive me for these or egg questions, but as we're in the midst of these political struggles, how do we get to the I'm supposed to figure out what to do with my bod to get there politically, or vic And I was struggling to.

You gave me this brilliant analy of what to do, and I wanted I wanted you to help us think th like what the next step is.

Yeah.

I'm just going to go bac because I want to make sure we'r I mean, I imagine if you're her you've thought about embodiment.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I do tha But I think that part about the politics, it's like we can have an idea where we think we're showing up and then our bodies and our beha and our postures communicate something totally different, to the people who are in commun because we've embodied something And it's not just, stop doing that or do this but the body is actually, a living process that has a logi It's like, we don't do this because it's unsafe, or we do t because our identity is attached This is a way I have to be.

And so it's not just a thinking It's actuall something that has to be felt.

It has to drop into the tissue.

So I think, that piece is really important.

And how do we begin?

I mean, I'll say two things about that.

I think, you know, we begin through practice because you're always practicing something.

Right now you're practicing some Practice how the way you listen you practice how open you are.

You practice how closed you are.

You practic how you're always practicing som And there's a reason why you're and you may not understand it.

So you have to practice.

And there are quote unquot embodiment practices that you ca that are important and they're places to go to do t But I also think this, this thing for me is culture is embodiment practice.

To me it's the way that we train ourse you know, we're like this is the way we embody who we And these are the rituals that w in order to reinforce that embo and way of relating to each othe And our cultures.

And I will speak as a black pers from the South.

I think our cultures are both li you know, it's like, this is ho we got here, you know what you'r Like how how I got over is through our singing.

It's through our foods or our hu It's through our faith.

It's through all these elements that get us there.

And our cultures can be infiltra and co-opted and used for others gain in a way that it mimics the kind of embodimen aspect of cultures like our cult has been infused in embodiment.

There's a reason you dance for the seasons.

You dance when someone is born you eat something in particular.

When this happens, culture must be connected to the and the purpose and the the it creates connectio in the community for a reason, and it can be co-opted to serve someone else's gain.

We can we can adapt things int our culture that don't actually And to me part of the work is also looking at what we practice collectivel and being willing to go, okay, w we got to create, we are to do s got to remake something.

We had to bring something back.

We have to make something up.

I think this is a weird time because I feel like a lot of peo don't want to make up this.

What I mean about being weird an We gotta make some shit up.

And one of my mentors, Native Hawaiian, she's a facilitator.

She's, she's an activist.

One of the things she told me i when, you know, when the, Renais the Nativ Hawaiian Renaissance came about, she was, like, just coming int consciousness around her identit And she was like.

She asked her mentor, how do I create culture?

My ancestors created culture.

I don't know how to do that now.

And her mentor said to her, aren't you looking at the same w Do you have the same arms, legs, You know, she was specific about the kind of body part.

She was like, don' you have everything they had to And I think that's part of the this moment is like, we need new for this time.

We need new ceremonies for this And my partner will always say it's going to fee maybe a little weird in the begi You don't feel a little awkward, oh, do we do this or this?

But eventually you find the rhyt and the magic of it.

And I think it's so so necessary for us right now.

You said we and us a lot.

Yeah.

Who am I talking about?

You.

Well especially because you tell us t Are we?

Yeah.

Part of the book.

In the book, it's like expanding we from allyship to just reimagining community.

Who is we to begin with?

And then what does a bigger we l We for me are it's like, is it concentric circles?

You know, I feel like there's a where I'm situated and have been I think there's also ways that I feel related to I think, marginalized.

And I think all, all oppressed p But I also feel like there's a we that is beyond that.

And in a way, you know I talk about transformational ch in the book and, you know, in ou we talk about this to me.

We is everybody who's trying is my way, everybody who's willing to try i Let's go.

I think it has to be.

Is that time is that time?

We can have multiple way and different ways, but it's als that our ways includ everybody who's willing to chang Are there any conditions or what are the conditions maybe on making those, forging those connections conditions.

I think there's practice I think there's like I don't kno if there's conditions for me, but I think there's, there has to be a willingnes and a practice of accountability I mean, I talk about embodiment because when you are practicing embodiment, embedded in that is a practice of self-refl a growing self-awareness I can w I mean, we can work with each ot If if you are on practice at loo what can we do?

So if you have a practice that y something that you revisit that helps you and become both less and more a mystery to You know some of what's active i and you can be somewhat responsi for it.

I think that's part of it.

And that, to me is the root of accountability.

And I think, you know, there are other principles, I would say reciprocity, being able to feel for, what kind of, you know, because in par I want to say about expanding ou we it's not just said as many ti not just as holding hands.

And it's not going to all be gre Some some things have to move ar That's wha that's why I was going with the.

Oh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah.

Something's got to move around.

And I think if in part if we are in are quote healing in the way that I'm talk if we are in our own process, s will become clearer and clearer.

Oh, I can't actually be in alignment and hoarding.

It doesn't make sense.

It's not going to generate the f that we're talking about.

I can't be in alignment.

And also there is sufferin of whole people that I have some There's something I can do about that's not going to work.

I think it's going to compe us expanding our we requires us And by that, I mean changin both internally, but also changi that we relate to the world, wha how we share, and all of that.

It requires all of that.

And with all of that, things are still going to fall.

Yeah, things still ain't going to work We're going to still experience and pain.

Bad fortune, mistreatment.

Yeah.

What do we do when things fall a One know that is I think sometimes we don't kn And I facilitat a lot of conflict and movement s And I think part of i is that when we connect with eac we somehow expect that everythi going to be great, and we don't that we will inevitably break ea hearts or hurt each other or miss each other.

And that is a part of, relationship.

It's a part of relationship.

It is not even an aberration.

It's not like an abnormality.

It is a part of relationship to I used to when I, first became a therapist, my sup I don't know if this is goo advice or not, but I will tell y When he told m that supervisor said just someti don't listen as hard.

I know I don't sound right, but let me explain it.

He would say, just just pull ba your energy a little bit sometim because you have to leave some r for rupture, is what he would tell me.

Write that down.

For rupture, you have to leave some room for because you also have to leave r for repair, because part of what transforms also in therapy is to have the o to say, hey.

Where are you?

You didn't remember tha or I'm not sure this is working.

You know, I have a lot of people I don't kno if it's working with my therapis What do I do?

I think I' just not going to go again.

Tell