Episode 67: Race + What We Don't Say, Pt. 2
Guest: Celia Hilson
Lauren: You're talking about how do I take the nutrients of my legacy? Right? Well, not mine.
Celia: Hold on, I gotta write that down. That’s the title of a book. The nutrients of my legacy, what? I don't want you to lose your thought. Go ahead.
L: No, it's okay. It's the question that you posed, which is such a beautiful one. And of course, it gave me chills, because there was this clarity to wanting to honor the reality of the pain and untangle yourself from the trauma, or at least from repeating the trauma while keeping intact, the beautiful, radiant parts of your legacy, and that you called earlier wearing, you kind of wear as a badge or a cloak, the brilliance of your blackness.
C: I didn't think of that as beautifully. I love that you said cloak. Think of the word, the phrase robe of knowledge has been applied to me a couple of times in different ways. And when I think about that, I also think of legacy, of how did you put it, the nutrients of my legacy. So the word nutrients is about being nourished, it's being fed. And this is a time right now, and I almost feel like this uprising is a gathering of all of the nutrients that we have been deprived of for so long. This uprising is as part of feeding those lost parts. For me, there have been lost parts that I have through this process, process meaning since we've been quarantining, I've had to really look at those lost parts and look at them from a gender perspective, from a race perspective, from a class perspective, from a history perspective. So what you just said to me hits on all of those points. And I feel like that's, that's what this quarantine has been. It's been like anchoring back in that root. And seeing, you know, what, what, what is the strength of who I am, how do I draw from that to survive? Again, that's what the root is about survival, to survive the pandemic. In this current, you know, my pandemic is in my heart, too, it’s in my, the pandemic is almost like this, this fear, we're all being activated by that root right now, because of these atrocities that are happening, which I think is with a whole piece of where Black Lives Matter is coming from that, that root, what matters what Black Lives Matter, black bodies matter, but there was a time historically and still when they didn't fill with like that all over again. I again I will speak for myself listening to and watching everything that's been going on in the news and around me and being a mother of a black son is a re-igniting of something I know my ancestors experienced on a daily, and so I'm asking myself what is my responsibility to that now? What is the truth I need to be telling? What am I no longer willing to sacrifice to do that?
L: Yeah.
C: So where before I would, I'ma just say a blunt bluntly. I will keep my mouth shut. I would play nice, I wouldn’t make waves. I wouldn't say anything to offend anybody. And I've had on more than one occasion. And this is where I'm going to circle back to the distrust piece with white women. And me trying to unpack that and figure out how to, how to reconcile that being in touch with my own strength. The distrust would come from being in spaces and situations on more than once, where the script would go something like, I would say something, and it might hurt that person's feelings. And they will be, you know, it would take me a long time to even get to that point. And I remember one particular incidence, and this well actually, it happened more than once, but this one stayed with me. And I would say two occasions, very much like this, almost married each other where I spoke my truth in the space because I heard something that was said that I questioned. And then when I questioned it, that person was a white woman. In both instances, they were white women. In several instances, they were white women, questioned what I said, and their feelings were really hurt by that. And so I remember one time, I just got to a point where I was like, I'm not gonna apologize for this. I'm not gonna apologize. Well, you didn't hear a pin drop in the room. Everybody was tense. And now, all eyes are on me. And I'm the only black person in the room to begin with. But I remember this very gentle and nice conversation happening, to compromise, to make nice, and I remember, this person was sitting right next to me and she was crying. And it was, it was intense. It was deep. And she, she just cried and everything stopped and I remember getting angry. And I was like, why is everybody? Why is the focus on her? And the statement was, I remember this. She was talking about her child. And she was relating her child had said something. And they said, they sound that black just like you Celia. And I was like, wait a minute. What do you mean by that? So fast forward, something stayed in my mind. Because not only did that happen, she tried to apologize, and it just got worse. And then I felt small, but I was trying to find my place. And then she started talking about remembering the black children in her neighborhood and how clean they used to be, and how well dressed they used to be. And I'm sitting there and I'm going, no one is rescuing me here. Fast forward. What ended up happening in that scenario was I said to the facilitator in that group. Well, I'm just getting a charge now just talking about it. Wow, I haven't visited that memory for a long time. I said to the facilitator, I would really not like to talk about this anymore. Well, this woman grabbed me after class after I'd expressly asked her not, she did. And I remember she kept going. I kept saying no, and she kept saying, but I think this is really important. And I remember giving in just so she would leave me alone, instead of walking away I gave in. And that was an extra chip for me that said, I do not trust white women. And so the story there, what was reinforced for me was, we will sit here and listen to Jane cry, but we won't ask Celia how she's doing. In fact, that never happened. And I can't tell you how many of those situations I've been in.
L: Oh, yeah.
C: You know.
L: So the, the elephants were very plentiful in that room. C: Literally.
L: And you named one or two of them. And the discomfort that followed for sounds like it was a group of white women.
C: Predominantly white women. And there were a couple of white men in the group, but the group was white.
L: And that discomfort was aimed or associated with you. C: Because I played nice all the time. And Celia was, everybody loves me, adored me. You know, that didn't change. But what upset me and what I never talked about, and I'm disclosing now. I was so disappointed in the group because they quote unquote, love me and adored me, but no one came to my aid. Everyone was uncomfortable. So all the elephants were sitting around me in the circle. I just know I walked away with even less trust. And I can remember expressly reacting, because it was a core group of women that I had kind of become pals with. We were our own little sort of cohort in that group. And I remember after that, not engaging with them, at least not engaging in the same way. I didn't get personal anymore. I stopped sharing certain things, and I just kept it on the surface.
L: It had been demonstrated to you that it wasn't a safe place or group for you to be or certainly not for you to be revealing.
C: Right. There is a good point to the story, though. And I'm just remembering that happened a while later. I think that was the beginning in that group of consistence. Where in a sort of spiritual context, race can often get bypassed. And I think that happened in this group, even though people thought that they were woke. And what happened was, I told her after that conversation, you didn't hear me, you crossed a boundary. And I remember getting, I was shaking when I was talking to her because she was crying. And I said something like, I'm not going to take care of your tears. I don't, you know, cry if you want to. You take care of yourself. I'm not going to take, and it was something that rose up in me in that moment. And a couple of weeks later, I remember her coming to me and telling me she had joined the group, was getting books, to educate herself on her privilege and that incident had sparked something in her to address. Her racism really is what showed up with some of the other things that she had said. But none of those were addressed. No one said anything. I felt like I was sort of fighting my own battle. And I didn't want it to be a battle.
L: Yeah.
C: And then I was thinking, How do I save her? because it kept getting worse. She kept digging a hole. And I was like, What do you mean, black shiny children, that they were cleaned and well dressed. And what do you mean by that?
L: Yeah. C: And so that happens too in spaces where holes get dug, and it's like, do I go in and save this person? Or do I let them fall down a hole and I had to after getting angry. I had to just let her fall down that hole because it wasn't an option. I didn't want to do anything, you know, I was like she's gonna have to figure out how to get out of that.
L: The strength in your discernment of what your bandwidth was, is really pretty amazing. Like there probably was so much pull in you from the old patterning to glaze over, come to her defense, care for her, keep, quote unquote, things nice.
C: Yeah. L: Which keeps the elephants going, right?
C:Yeah. L: But the price for you is disassociating with your actual needs and yourself. And you asked for, you asked to move on. You asked to stop talking about it and that boundary wasn't respected.
C: Oh, I can't tell you how many times that's happened and still happens. They are fingernails on a chalkboard for me. So my go-to and this is, this is what I'm really working on Lauren because my go-to is to shut down. When someone crosses that boundary, I don't know if I have the strength to...Yeah, it almost feels like in those instances, I would have to justify my position. And while I'm justifying it also take care of that person. If they're not understanding, and it's, it's exhausting.
L: Oh. I mean, even just you retelling the story seems exhausting to have to revisit that energy.
C: It is, actually I didn't realize how much, but that's something I'm working on. It's, I do want the healing to happen in these spaces. That's why I'm grateful for the conversations that you and I have. It's not that you give me permission. It's that I feel safe enough to give myself permission to not have to do that work and feel free enough to say what I want and to feel strong enough in my alliance with you that nothing is going to fall apart that this is what the healing is.
L: Wow.
C: If I can say, Lauren, or if you ask me, Celia, did I get that right? And I could say, well, no, no.
L: No, yeah.
C: And it’s so freeing and easy, because I, I have a very few people in my life that I can do that with. you're one of those people where I can say, No, and just like that, no. And like, you're not going to fall apart. Right? That keeps the trust intact.
L: Yeah. So what helps you to feel that trust is that I am checking in with you to see if I'm truly seeing you.
C: Yeah.
L: And you get a chance to edit it and say, no, maybe a little here's what I would change. And you mainly it is that you haven't seen me fall apart as a result.
C: Yeah.
L: You know, as you talk about this story, what I'm identify with his a lot of different parts personally in your story, both of being someone who asked for a boundary to be respected and not having it respected, but also of being the not respecter, being the breacher, you know, and I can recall a time when I would be in the midst of social justice conversations about identity, and I would show up to the table and want to and want to be in it and, you know, help create change, and then a person of color would say something in a certain way. And that way that it was said, is what I would focus on.
C: Yeah.
L: Is it valid, that I didn't like how it was that? Sure, you know, it's I can like and not like, Whatever I do, and don't like.
C: Absolutely.
L: But then I would...It's interesting, because for those of us who work on social justice, we are justice minded.
C: Mm hmm.
L: But what would happen and this was an unconscious process back then, and now that I I look back at it, I say, oh, my goodness, is that I would take that justice lens and I would misuse it. Because what I was defending was something in me that wanted to be seen, which is fine. But I wouldn't let go of it. Because I felt like, hey, this group of people talking about social justice isn't seeing a mini injustice that just happened. But what I wasn't seeing was that the quote unquote, injustice wasn't part of a system of oppression. And I was ranking it above the history, and my like, not even recognizing my white privilege and kind of trying to assert that my worldview needed to be acknowledged in a moment. When it wasn't. It didn't need to be acknowledged as urgently. And so when I hear your story, I think, ooh I've been that woman, I have been that woman in the past. And I think it's really important to acknowledge that, that what you just described is the toll that you had to pay as a result of her, but I would call, or at least in me what it was, was my internalized dominance that I deserve to be heard.
C: Yeah.
L: And what that looks like is defensiveness.
C: Yeah. I wholeheartedly agree with you on that. We've got a lot of metaphors in here. The toll I had to pay driving through the Justice lane. No, yeah, driving through the dominance lane. What's on my heart right now, as we're talking about this is, and it's been sitting there since we've been in quarantine and particularly since the uprising has happened, and there's so much beauty coming out of that too. My concern is when I hear or when I experience white people fatigued or tired of talking about race, of talking about injustice or equality. My concern with that is, it's almost like, will the uprising piece be a fad, and then everybody goes back to the way they were? And then there's another part of me that says that the spirit of what's happening is so strong that it might not let that happen. That's my hope. And part of what I've been doing in the world as my contribution is consulting with managed care facilities that are white staffed, and already, I can hear, I can sense the fatigue that people have because they're quarantined, because, you know, we're not operating in the same way. But, you know, part of the, I don't know where to go with this. And my thoughts are a little disjointed, but it's almost like the quarantine itself is like if I speak about that from the perspective of being a black woman, I've been quarantined from behaving in certain ways, from saying certain things. I think, also what's happening for me as I step into my wisdom years, I'm less concerned about what people think. And yet, I'm also holding the fragility of wondering if I'm going to have to exert energy around maintaining my boundaries. So on the one hand, I'm feeling stronger. But on the other hand, how much of that strength Am I going to have to use to keep those boundaries up? If that makes sense?
L: Sure. Yeah. I mean, you're giving a lot of understanding, that context of this is a pandemic. People are fatigued, white people are, for some white people for The first time acknowledging racial injustice, or for many or most of us, it's the first time we're acknowledging it this much, this deeply, this consistently, this whatever, that you see that and so something comes up in you that says, well, is this just going to be a passing thing?
C: Yep.
L: Or is what your hope is, is that it's, it's rooted, it's not going away this fierce devotion to ending racial oppression will remain, right?
C: That's right.
L: And you're also like, Hello, over here. I've been living through a pandemic in my own way, which we haven't called that. But it's a, it's been a lifetime of living under what I called earlier, the weight of so many expectations, assumptions, projections, stories about who you are.
C: Absolutely.
L: Based on our history, and based on that, you know, this co-creation in our world of, I'm using a lot of words here but like this co-creation of re injuring racial oppression and trauma. You've been tired for a long time is what I'm hearing.
C: And acting like I'm not.
L: And acting like you're not takes energy too.
C: Yes. Which is why once George Floyd's killing happens, I, like so many people, was just laid. Just, I am not getting up off the couch. You know, I am in fetal position. I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to hear about it. I just went mute. Literally, I went mute. For some people that was hard. And, and again, this is where the boundary comes in. At some point, I'm going to have to talk about it but I don't want to talk about it right now with anybody. Well, let me put a let me put a parenthetical thought there where I did feel safe talking about it was with my family and with my son, and with people who are going to have a direct experience as a member of the black community. And that's not to say that, let me, let me reframe that because I have actually heard both in the black community say don't lump me in the uprising. So out of respect for those people. I will say by and large, my experience has been that many folks in the black community have been greatly impacted by all of the things that you just named, that compressed that helped to compress the feelings we were already having on top of the George Floyd murder. And it brings up all kinds of other traumas, you know.
L: Yes.
C: So, honestly, Lauren, that shocked me. Even as a therapist, I'm like, Whoa, is this really happening? Like I help other people do this. So I got to keep my own stuff together. But I am now more cognizant of how important that is as a therapist than I've ever been. Like that part is like the self of therapists Celia has to be there, no matter what. No matter with who, that part cannot become partmentalized because it happens in the therapy space too. We don't talk about race. My client roster was full of things of color because no one else would talk about well, I shouldn't say that. They didn't feel safe enough talking about it. So it has to change in our profession too. Right. So there's all of these things happening, man, not just one thing.
L: No.
C: Woo, we just opened up a whole box.
L: Ah, well, you're speaking aloud. Something that kind of bowled you over that, like you said, you were laid out, you're in the fetal position, you're in what I would call just getting, living through it mode, just getting through it. But when you say that when when I hear you talk about being sort of reigniting all the other traumas, in seeing this particular trauma and living through the trauma of this, George Floyd's murder, these white, this one particular white cop, who was right before our eyes and that it's playing out and there's videos and people are talking about it, and it's being reactivated daily.
C: Absolutely.
L: And you're like, Whoa, and it totally makes sense that you're turning to the folks with whom you don't have to explain much of what you're going through, cuz you're not in. I mean, I think of you having to explain the trauma to someone who doesn't get it as being like a tour director. That's a job. That's not a survival time activity, right?
C: Yes. That's interesting how you put it and that's exactly how I feel sometimes, actually. Yeah, but I don't get to say that. And that's the other part of the oppression is being afraid I'm gonna hurt somebody's feelings. And at the same time, also being annoyed that I'm gonna hurt.
L: Hey, I think that's important. Yeah.
C: That part has taken over lately.
L: Yeah. Well, it reminds of the different phases of human development where like, as an infant, the fear is that I'm going to be abandoned. So as the, as an infant, I just do what I can to keep getting love and food and shelter. And then my needs change as a teenager because it's like individuation. I rebel. I'm like, I don't need your love anyway, I'm good. I got my own thing. And there's a fierceness, right. And I think about what you described as I don't want to rock the boat, which I cannot relate to as a white woman racially, I can relate to it through my sexuality and some of my ability stuff that I feel the oppression differently from the place of I just don't want to be abandoned. I don't want to be turned against, it's a basic survival thing. But then the next phase is the teenage development stage, which is like to heck with that. You, like what you were just saying. I don't want to have to be worried about hurting people's feelings just so that I can freakin survive.
C: Right.
L: And that's part of the rules of how the Oppression works. And you're kind of saying, I'm done with that, or at least in a moment, me, you might be done with that. Like, I just don't want to keep tiptoeing around. That's what I'm hearing you say.C: Yeah. L: There's a fierceness.
C: And it goes back to that exhaustion piece that was sharing earlier. So Lauren, what would you say to people, to white people who are fatigued?
L: Mm hmm.
C: And I also hear complaints from some people about wokeness. Also about white people feeling like they have to tiptoe now. L: Yeah. C: You have any thoughts about that?
L: Yeah. In terms of the fatigue piece, we all have different bandwidths. But there is an overall trend or theme for myself and the white people in my life who, you know, for if we're really doing the work, it's impacting us on a soul level, one of the hidden ways that oppression hurts, racial oppression or any oppression, hurts people in the dominant position is through the dehumanization. And what I mean by that is for white people, we have this legacy of being bystanders or being people who commit violence, whether it's physical or systemic, whiteness in the United States has a history of detaching from spirit. Because when we're bystanders or when we're violent, we're not connecting with humanity, no matter who we're enacting the violence against. So this whole history has sort of taught me as a white person, to kind of be a bystander. My lineage is to not lean into the pain of that trauma because that's what enabled my ancestors to inflict it in the first place. Because when we lean into the pain of it, then we start to see it. It's, it crushes us. So, you know, I certainly have compassion for other white people who are really leaning into the pain of this moment and of this awareness that it's not just this moment that it's been going on for so long, that the depth of this pain I probably in this lifetime will still never understand fully. But that it is my job to avail my heart to it means I'm gonna get exhausted. And that doesn't mean that I shouldn't be doing this work. And it also doesn't mean that I should be turning to my bipoc friends to take care of me and that exhaustion. So what I would say, you're asking me what I, what would I say to white people is it's so important that we continue to stay in, stay in the conversation. And that we bolster ourselves so that we can refuel so that we can continue the work. I think one of the impulses is to step away from the work for self care, but then not come back, or just say, Oh, that was bad for my spirit. Yeah, well, racism is bad for your spirit.
C: Yeah.
L: So let's recognize that and even though we might not be consciously upholding this oppression, just because it's not conscious, doesn't mean we're not upholding it. So we need to be actively engaging in it. Right? C: Okay, yes. L: So I think this is the one of the confusing things for white people like me who believe in spiritual abundance and having an attitude of gratitude and of, you know, I need to change the stories in my mind so that I'm living in a way that's joyful and happy is for those of us like me, we use our emotions as a guidance system. And if it feels good, we move towards it. And if it doesn't feel good, we say, well, that must not be good for me. So we move away from it.
C: Yeah. L: So if anybody else can relate to that, what I would say is, it's a little confusing when we start doing the good work of social justice or we connect with that work, and we don't feel good. The pattern is to move away from it. C: That's true.
L: The pattern is, Oh, that must be a sign that I'm doing something that doesn't quote unquote, align for me. But I would urge more of a reassessment of what that emotional experience is.
C: Oh, so then what would you, what would you say to folks who say, why can't we move on, that that's what, what my ancestors did.
L: You know, I think we can move on when, when the oppression doesn't exist anymore. And I think that what I hear people saying so much is especially white people saying, if we stopped focusing on it so much, we would be able to, quote unquote, go back to normal, or we'd be able to just live happily, but who's the we? And essentially, if I as a white person and benefiting from the oppression of racism, then I, as a white person am responsible for dismantling the oppression of racism,
C: Even if you are a white person who's poor working class.
L: Yes, because being white and poor or being white and having a disability, or being white and being queer, is different from being a person of color and being poor and being a person of color and having a disability or being a person of color and being queer. I still have oppressed identities, and I still have work to do with my privilege identities. I'm doing it, I'm doing all the different in my own little way. And big and medium ways. I'm still doing work on my internalized oppression as a person with a disability, as a person who's queer. I've got my own experience of that, but it's not the same oppression. I mean, certainly they're connected.
C: Yes.
L: But it's not this, it, they don't cancel each other out. My whiteness isn't canceled out by my other identities of oppression.
C: But I think that gets very confused for people. And I'm glad to hear you say that because many people, you know, it goes back to that ranking you were talking about. Well, I'm just as poor as you are. Or I'm just as oppressed as you are.
L: And I would also validate people who say, for example, if someone were to say to me, Lauren, I am poor. I don't know what white privilege is because I grew up under these circumstances, I would first want to acknowledge the circumstances under which that person grew up and acknowledge that it's also true that their whiteness doesn't cancel out their oppressed identities. But whiteness does help in terms of social capital in terms of being trusted, in terms of not being, you know, maybe folks were judged based on other identities.
C: Mm hmm.
L: But probably not based on race.
C: Yeah, I'm with you. Those are the complex layers of the construction of race, of class, of division. One of the things I'm working with now that I'm kind of going back and looking at and reading some things about what happened to white folks before they were white.
L: Yeah.
C: And, and some of those histories. People sort of grab now, as a way to say, look, before we were this, and this is what I come from. And so they can also say we got that stolen from us. You know what I'm saying?
L: Oh, it is so complex. Absolutely. It's complex. I think it's important. This is really one of the things that I learned back when you and I were doing this work, however long ago, over a decade ago is, I tend to identify more with the identities that are oppressed, because I feel them more consciously.
C: Ah Hmm.
L: And so what happens in conversations with from what I kind of did a little research back then, was I connected with how, as a white woman in dialogue with black women, I would often default to how can I relate to your oppression through the lens of my other oppressions versus saying, oh, this is an opportunity for healing for me to show up and say, I see you. I hear you. I'm going to take that in. Right. C: Yeah. Wow. Wow.
L: If we keep sidestepping our responsibility and our privilege identities, there's not going to be healing. There's just going to be avoidance and this is in you know, I work with couples and this happens with couples all the time. Not because people are bad, evil have negative intentions. People are always trying to heal, I think. But the way that we go about it actually can recreate more trauma. And what how that looks in couples work is, you know, you didn't put away the dishes? Well, I put them away yesterday, you know, totally innocent. This is a very low stakes conversation for the purpose of example, but what would happen if instead of you didn't put away the dishes, pause, you're right. I didn't put away the dishes. Just sit with that for a moment right before moving into, and I did them for the last 10 days and you never recognize me right? But there's, we all have within us hurts from earlier in life, all of us. I really believe that. And how it shows up for us in the present day, as adults is often we're just trying to heal the wound of being misunderstood. Misrepresented, the wound of being unheard unseen, the wound of being mistreated, all of those things were trying to heal. And so when we get into conversations about oppression, especially, I would say for white people, when I get it as a white person, I get into conversations about oppression. My defensiveness is often coming from the places where I've been hurt in the past, but then I unconsciously, I'm using the ways that I have privilege to assert my deservingness to have that healed instead of just bear witness to what's going on for you. You as my friend or you as my partner, or whoever the you is that I'm talking to. So easy for me to default to my hurt places because those are the places that are calling out to me and that are scary.
C: Yes, you’re so brilliant.
L: Thank you.
C: I know you’re just an amazing couples therapist. And I and I love how you, how you aligned that with how you connected that, with the notion of oppression, and it gives me a better understanding too of the wounded piece, like coming from that place. I get that. And so I think where I want to be careful, is kind of going back to the story I was sharing about not holding that other person's wound without dressing my own.
L: That's right. Yeah.
C: And I think that's where the boundaries kind of get crossed. Because those wounds are coming up, they're coming up, they're coming up. And when they come up in such a big social way, everybody is scrambling. And so there's all these things going on at once, because they have to, and I do fully believe from my own personal value system and from that root that I was talking about, the return to that I fully believe that we are in this moment. In a great cataclysm, earth shattering healing process, we have many people a lot of and I want to name all the grief that people are experiencing on different levels, you know, from race to COVID to, you know, people's traumas coming up to people having to be quarantined, and in unsafe situations. So there's, there's all of these things happening. And we were talking about justice, and just defining and being justifiable and worthy. So I see this dismantling of the masculine energy. And for me, my ancestral lineage is very mired in, wired in the feminine energy. I'm speaking from a personal place, that nurturing, that giving and not just giving Like people, Native people, and whose land, I mean, we can we can do a whole podcast on that. I can't speak to native people and their experience, but I can speak to that sense of reverence and absence in also grieving that I have. Or people who, you know, that group of oppressed people were also struggling on top of this. It's kind of like the end of that movie Titanic where everybody's in these boats, and they're all kind of out there trying to survive. And we don't know where those boats are going to float to. There's been a wave of Exodus happening, of our loved ones, of our elders of equal lives lost in this, this great thing called Coronavirus and then people who are targeted because of that, and where it came from. So many people are getting scarlet letters placed on their back while we're also trying to heal. I'm also grateful to have this time that I don't have to be anywhere, necessarily or do anything necessarily other than what I'm choosing to do and where I'm choosing to be right here with you and not have to be encumbered by all of these other outside responsibilities. So I'm using this time to heal and to put forth my strength and energy and privilege. A space that I have to hold other people in my heart space that don't have those luxuries. So I'm holding the both end of my oppressive experience as a black woman, and using whatever privilege I have, like this platform that you've invited me to, to speak to and to share and, and to reflect back and to mirror. All my brothers and sisters out there. Understand that language. And I want to thank you too for creating this platform, not just for your community but expanding it to other communities to have these kinds of conversations in your not what I ordered platform.
L: Yeah, yeah. And you're welcome. And I just, I'm grateful to you for being willing to come and be and hang with me and share yourself and kind of like, not know the answers and still be showing up in public. Because I mean, my personal learning and spiritual longing is to bear witness to connection and to be part of connection. And I think I learned a lot more from hearing people in relationship than hearing a lecture or being told how to proceed. As much as I think a lot of us and a lot of white people right now are looking for guidance on here's what to do. I think there's a lot in us that's very capable already of healing and providing healing experiences in our communities. And actually, I want to speak to a vision and a positive, the opposite of what I just described about couples. And I love that you also identified that you said well, yes, let's have some context for where the wound comes from and why people act from the wound and try and defend themselves. But also, that doesn't mean people are off the hook. Right? For you know, enacting oppression and I, at least those are the words I'm using for it. I completely agree with you. The other end of that is, what is conscious relationship look like? And what it looks like is it's undefended. But it's not just that we don't defend ourselves, it's that we're actively protecting our beloved. And what that looks like in a relational context is I'm calling on my highest self to be present with you and your pain, whether it's you, Celia, or you, anybody, whoever the you is, I'm connecting with the part of me that can be a steward or a protector, or a guardian of your pain, your wound, the healing, your truth, even if I don't agree with it, even if I don't relate to it, even if it's the opposite of my world. To know that I can cross into your world for a while as a visitor and say, I hear you, and acknowledge you first and know that, there may be time for me to share about my world in my experience at some point, but the healing comes about when I can set aside my need to defend and prove who I am, prove that I'm the good white ally, prove that I understand, prove that I didn't have any negative intentions. And that I'm not the problem. If I can put aside that need for just even if it's like 30 to 60 seconds to just pause and say, how can I first acknowledge the pain that's in front of me and not make it about me and with our partners? We can do that too.
C: Yeah, that's work.
L: You know, it is work, but it's good work. And it's the kind of work that it comes across as, Oh, I'm doing this for you.
C: Right, right.
L: It's calling upon something in me that is capable, and in so doing it. heals me, because it doesn't heal me to defend myself. It doesn't heal me to be in a place of trying to prove something. It doesn't heal me to reject your truth. Even if I don't agree with it. It doesn't heal me. It just freezes the pain. It doesn't heal it.
C: Oh, say it, yes, I'm blown over here in the choir like yes. It makes me want to pull out this book I have, you might have read it or know about it's called undefended love.
L: I've heard of this book and I haven't read it but I think I have it on my bookshelf.
C: It might be because you specifically said that. I saw it in my mind. I said, Oh, I might need to pull that book out. But I love that metaphor of the application of that to whiteness, I think is really relevant.
L: Yeah. And part of what allows undefended loving I think is when we create relationships, where we no longer have to prove anything. Because we know that even if we don't agree, we know that our experiences will be held as sacred by the other. And we know that we will fiercely defend the right of our partners, of our friends to experience what they're experiencing without us trying to change it, disprove it, look for the holes in it, find an exception to it. Then when we create those relationships on a one on one level and on a community level. To me, that's what liberation looks like. We are protectors and guardians of each other's experiences. And there's a lot more to liberation than that. But that's in the relational realm. That's what I'm visioning.
C: That's beautiful, beautiful. I can get with that. Yeah. I love it.
*Laughter*
L: Thanks for spending this time together. And I know there's more conversation, too, I feel like we just did a little time capsule of where we're at in this moment in time.
C: Yes. A wonderful time capsule. Yeah.
L: Yeah. Is there anything that you want listeners to know? Any words of truth? Or especially for, you were mentioning, what would I say to white people about some of the instances that you've witnessed? I would say, what would you say to black listeners about their brilliance and who they are?
C: You know, it's almost like, the first part of me goes, I wouldn't even know how to begin to answer that question. And I think mostly because we've been addressed for so long. I would say be the author of your own story. Be the author of your own story and trust your story. You know, trust, trust your story of being valid enough. Trust your story as being you know, sacred, special. I think that first part I will, I would just underscore is trust your story because that's, that is at the base that is at the Root. Trust your story. And sometimes the story will change. So for me some of the memories I've had coming up, whereas before, I might question that story. Now I listened very closely, but I'm not just listening with my ears. I'm listening with my whole body. And so I know because we've gone through a lot of trauma, is if it's unsafe to trust your story in your body, find where it is safe to trust that story, and trust it, whether it's through writing, whether it's through listening to someone else, but the root is a place to be safe. So find your story. That's true for you and trust it. That's what I would say.
L: Thank you Celia.
C: Thank you, Lauren.
L: And until next time, until our next collaboration.
C: I look forward to it. Yeah, I look forward to it.
L: But thank you. And I guess I'll just say thank you to our listeners too, for joining us for the conversation.
C: Yes. Thank you, listeners. Thank you. So I'm bowing my hands and my heart to you, Lauren.
L: You too!