Walking Each Other Home
Through mindfulness practices, focusing on antiracism, we increase our emotional resilience, recognize our biases, and make real our common humanity. "Walking Each Other Home" is a guided embodied meditation practice. Recorded - Dec 8, 2022
Transcript
Good evening,
Good afternoon,
Whatever time you are watching.
This is our featured mindfulness practice.
Our Project Sanctus featured mindfulness practice.
Every week on Thursday mornings,
I go live for us to have a time together to have embodied anti-racism mindfulness practice.
I look out my window right now and it's very foggy.
And when I looked at it outside,
I kind of had to chuckle a little bit because I'm feeling a little foggy inside.
I'm feeling a little foggy in my brain.
Feeling a little foggy with,
You know,
Next steps.
In this practice of embodied anti-racism,
There is very often we arrive at a place where we kind of say,
Well,
What is mine to do?
What's mine to do next?
What do I do?
And one of the responses from us at Project Sanctus,
Reverend Hogan Holder and myself,
Rev.
Kelly Isla,
Is mindfulness practices,
Which means,
And mindfulness and meditation are not the same thing necessarily.
Meditation has various,
You know,
There are a lot of different ways we can meditate.
And I certainly am a proponent and a fan and a supporter and a practitioner.
And then there's mindfulness.
Sometimes the two meet,
Mindfulness meditation,
But not always.
Mindfulness is just about bringing your attention,
Not just,
But it's about bringing your attention to what's going on in your world internally and how that interacts and kind of plays with our outside world.
So an embodied anti-racism mindfulness practice is a practice to do just that,
To be mindful,
To bring attention and intention to what's going on physically with my body.
Like,
Where am I holding my emotions?
You know,
My emotions themselves,
You know,
The physical sensations of the body,
You know,
Being connected to and kind of talking to the pieces of the body that grab our attention,
Our emotions,
Our feelings,
Like what's arising,
What's emerging,
Our thoughts,
Right?
What's going on in the mind in terms of at any given moment,
What's kind of popping up.
And sometimes it's a little hamster wheel going around and around.
And it sounds like the adults on peanuts,
You know,
Wah,
Wah,
Wah,
Wah.
Other times noticing it's much quieter.
And the purpose of a mindfulness practice is not necessarily to change any of those things,
But to notice them,
To notice them so that we can build our capacity to be in challenging situations,
To be in difficult conversations about racism and about other forms of oppression.
So being mindful,
Having a regular practice of noticing where our attention is,
Not to change it,
Not to get away from it,
Especially when it's uncomfortable,
But learning to notice,
Practicing,
Noticing,
Practicing about who and what you bring to your table,
Who and what I,
You know,
What aspects of me,
What parts of me are emerging that I bring to this altar of Kelly.
I invite you to take a deep breath.
And if it's not so deep,
It's okay.
Wherever you are,
Whatever you're doing as you're listening,
Just kind of find your seat.
If you're laying down,
Kind of just find yourself.
What do you notice about,
You know,
The comfort of where you sit,
Where you stand,
Where you lie down,
Where you kneel,
And then adjust yourself.
Like right now,
I find myself wanting to adjust where my butt is on the chair because I want to be comfortable.
I want to make sure I have the sense of support that I need physical support to then drop in to myself a little bit more,
To drop in and be able to just listen,
To drop in and just be able to notice without changing anything,
Without criticism,
Without judgment,
Without attachment,
Without expectation.
So take a minute and just,
If you need to,
Kind of wiggle the body around to just make sure you really feel supported so that we can be centered together.
The work of anti-racism is communal as well as individual.
So we are getting centered together.
And if it feels right,
You can close your eyes.
Probably many already have.
Or you can lower your gaze.
Lower your gaze,
Maybe there's something,
A sacred object in front of you.
Could be a candle.
I have a little carving of a soapstone object that is a carving of an Mzee,
M-Z-E-E,
Which is Swahili for old man,
But an elder.
And he's holding a little bowl as a reminder to bring all of me to this space and in time bring all of me to the space outside of me.
And now let's pause and listen.
Listen to your breath.
Bring your attention back to the breath.
Listen to it as it enters the body and listen to it as it leaves your body.
Just listen.
Don't need to change it.
But bear witness to it simply as it is.
That is a practice for us,
To bear witness to something just as it is.
So bear witness to your breath.
Listen.
Listen as you breathe in and it fills you up.
And then listen as it empties you out.
And in this practice today we're going to see if we can meet ourselves with some curiosity.
Meet ourselves with some curiosity.
Notice whatever expectations or assumptions you may have had coming into this space as you're listening.
Most of the time we kind of wander through our day in life with expectations and with assumptions,
But largely unconscious.
So just assert that we are bringing those into our experience and simply meet yourself as you are,
Riding with your breath as it fills you up and as it empties you out.
And as you stay connected to your breath,
Just notice your body.
Maybe move your attention as you breathe to different places of your body.
Notice the sensations that you're feeling and particularly notice where you're feeling them.
I notice I'm feeling in my shoulders,
Kind of down my the upper back of my shoulders,
And notice the quality of those sensations.
The quality of what I feel in my shoulders is some cramping,
Some soreness,
And heaviness.
So what's the quality of the sensations you feel in the body?
And noticing them without attachment,
Without judgment,
Just curiosity.
It is to continue to explore the body,
Maybe get curious about other parts that feel maybe a little more dormant or maybe even a little stuck.
Maybe other places of the body that be curious about.
Maybe they're forgotten or a little neglected.
Maybe we've gotten used to that just low-level soreness in the knees.
Could be a neglected or forgotten part of yourself.
Can you meet all of those parts of yourself with curiosity,
Just the noticing,
Not needing to change anything.
Just welcome it all to the table.
Welcome it all to your altar of you,
And also with compassion.
So continue being connected to your breath,
Noticing as it fills you up,
As it empties you out,
And also aware of all the different places in the body where you hold different sensations.
Then see if you can't settle in a little bit more into your center.
Into your center,
A place that feels like the location of your truth,
The location of your truth,
The location of your knowing.
When I say knowing,
I'm talking about an inherent knowing,
The kind of I know what I know because I know.
And it's not that it knows everything,
But it's a part of you that is just a place of inherent knowing.
It could be the heart,
Could be the solar plexus,
Could be anywhere.
It's also the part of you that doesn't know and knows that it doesn't know.
And we are curious and we welcome that part of us to this table.
It's the wisdom of not knowing.
We don't always have an answer.
It's the wisdom of not knowing and moving forward and saying something and being in action to dismantle oppression,
Even when we don't know.
The wisdom of not knowing,
Because it's the wisdom of wonder.
It's the wisdom of curiosity that guides us,
That leads us.
And again,
Follow the breath as it fills you up and empties you out.
It supports you in staying connected to your truth,
That place of truth that knows what it knows,
But not necessarily how I know.
It's also the place of wisdom of not knowing,
Place of being curious,
Of wonder that allows us,
Supports us and informs us.
It's a creative wisdom place.
And so let's expand the breath a little more.
And in your mind,
Imagine that expanded breath includes others.
They might be physically with you right now.
They may just see their face show up in your mind and in your heart.
And so you expand your breath to include those that have shown up in your heart,
That have shown up in your mind,
That have shown up for this conversation,
That have shown up for embodied anti-racism work,
That have shown up to be a participant in creating this world of love,
Justice,
And liberation.
Because as you notice who shows up in your mind and in your heart,
It's those that have made the commitment,
Just as you have made this commitment to the change that we would like to see,
Have made the commitment to equity,
Have made the commitment to healing communally and individually.
We all have places of trauma that need healing.
So can we acknowledge as we breathe together,
Expand our breath,
Can we acknowledge that we are not alone?
You are not alone.
I am not alone.
We are each all needed.
We are each all needed.
So I bring my attention back to one more time,
That place of wisdom,
That inherent knowing,
That place within your body,
The location of your truth,
Of knowing just by knowing,
No need to tease it apart.
And it is also the place of not knowing,
Of wonder,
Of curiosity.
Slowly as we emerge from the connection within ourselves,
From wherever that may be,
We come back to the surface of our body and yet stay with the depth of who you are.
Because we want to bring that forward as we move into our day,
As we move into our evening,
As we move into our tomorrows.
And if your eyes are closed,
I would ask you to,
When it feels right for you,
To open your eyes and then just look around your room,
Just look around the place that you're at,
So that you can reorient to where you are.
And you can tell your nervous system that you are here,
You are in this time,
You are in this place,
In a place of strength,
Of compassion,
Of knowing,
And curiosity.
So let's take three breaths together,
At your own pace together,
Feeling the breath come into the body and fill you up,
And feeling the breath leave the body to empty you out.
So I welcome you back to this space.
And take a minute with your eyes open to just look at the screen and say thank you to you and to all the faces that you can't see.
We give thanks for our time together.
We give thanks for what is emerging.
I give thanks for knowing that I am not alone,
That you are not alone.
And together we are creating a world of love,
Justice,
And liberation for all life.
So go emerge and make a wonderful day,
Make a wonderful evening,
Make wonderful tomorrows.
