Walking Each Other Home - July 7, 2022

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.

Transcript

Thank you for joining us,

For joining us,

For joining Project Sanctus and a few others that are part of Project Sanctus,

That make Project Sanctus what it is,

But for joining us for another walking each other home is what we call it.

Walking each other home,

Our embodied anti-racism mindfulness practice.

And we call it that,

You know,

As I say a little something each week when we do this practice because there's a lot of healing work to be done,

You know,

Within each one of us,

As well as out in our community.

And so we want to bring our,

You know,

As much as we can to whatever degree,

You know,

Is capable,

Our most noble self out into the world,

Right?

We want to,

We want to as best we can and with,

You know,

Practice,

Ongoing practice,

Not bring all of our pain and woundedness and trauma and sort of spew it onto the world or as the author and activist Resmaa Menekum calls it dirty pain,

Right?

So dirty pain is we sidestep our own hurt and woundedness and just sort of blow it out onto others.

And that's what we don't want to do.

We want to take care of our clean pain.

We want to,

Which means to acknowledge where our grief is,

Acknowledge where our pain,

Our woundedness,

Our suffering individually and collectively,

And be able to move through it to own it,

To describe it,

To feel it in the body,

To give names,

You know,

The emotions that we have,

What are the thoughts we have about it?

What kind of meaning making?

Any colors or images,

Right?

So an embodied anti-racism practice is,

And it's a little different every week,

But it's an invitation to bring ourselves settled and centered and,

You know,

Our attention and intention to ourselves and what's the experience we're having inside,

Right?

What am I holding onto?

What am I trying to go it alone with?

I think often in spiritual communities,

There is an unspoken,

Unwritten kind of assumption or practice of,

We may be in a community,

Whether it's a Sunday morning or a Wednesday night meditation or a class or,

You know,

Any kind of community gathering,

You know,

Being together and we may pray together,

We may do meditation together.

Often I think in my experience is that when things are really difficult,

When tensions and challenges and overwhelm and anger and frustration,

When those things tend to arise in spiritual communities,

We can have a tendency to go it alone,

Meaning we sort of hold onto it.

I don't want anybody to see me cry or I don't want to bring my upset to the group because then other people will be upset and it's a really,

It's not a healthy practice because we need each other.

That's why I call this,

That's why we call this walking each other home,

Right?

Walking each other home because we don't want to go it alone.

And just for clarity sake,

It doesn't mean there aren't things that we may process on our own,

But there's way too much that I believe we try to just go it alone.

We try to do it on our own.

We try to take care of stuff like,

No,

No,

I got it.

No,

No,

I'm good.

So today's practice of walking each other home,

I'm going to focus on that,

Of that idea of going it alone and not bringing ourselves to community and all of our glory and all of our messed upness and all of our brokenness and all of our fabulousness,

Like bringing all of it to the table.

So let's do,

Let's take,

Let's practice a collective act of solidarity,

Which is a breath,

Right?

Breathe in and breathe out.

Whatever pace is comfortable for you.

We breathe in and we breathe out.

And think of it as a collective act of solidarity.

A collective act of solidarity isn't always something that,

You know,

We hear the word solidarity and we may think,

You know,

Marching or protesting or being loud,

Which are great.

Those are fine too.

There are many collective acts of solidarity.

And I start with the breath so that we pause.

The breath becomes an act of actually locating ourselves.

Locating ourselves as a part of something bigger,

Bigger than just me.

Another inhale and an exhale.

We are learning to let the world in,

Not to consume us,

Not to be engulfed by it,

Not to be overwhelmed,

But to let the world in so that we might be in the world more grounded,

More settled.

So continue to follow the breath.

Maybe practice a big,

Big,

Loud exhale.

Sigh it out.

For breath is the bridge that brings us back into relationship with everything.

Breath is the bridge that brings us back into relationship with everyone,

With everything around you,

Every person,

Every experience.

The breath is the bridge because it demands that we just pause for a moment.

When we pay attention to the breath,

It is that bridge.

It is that connective tissue because when we focus on it,

We are required to pay attention.

When we pay attention,

We become more of ourselves.

We allow ourselves to just be at whatever starting point.

Be at the starting point within our minds.

Whatever that starting point is,

We don't have to make it up.

We just notice it.

So the breath is that collective act of solidarity because we pause and we rest if just for a moment and then we follow that wave as the breath then leaves us.

Breathing in,

We allow the world in,

Doesn't have to be all the world,

Just one little piece and we allow some of the world in because we know it will expand our capacity to bridge relationships,

To bridge conversations,

To have a bridge to our anger,

To have a bridge to our fear,

To have a bridge to our joy,

To have a bridge to our gratefulness.

So continue the breath and let's take some quiet and just as you breathe in and breathe out,

Breathing in,

Scan through the body from the head to the toes slowly.

With every inhale,

Move your attention to a different place.

And as you move throughout your body,

Through the neck and the shoulders,

The torso,

The hips on down the legs slowly and intentionally,

When you find a place of tension,

When you find a place that's numb,

If you find a place that's irritated,

If you find a place contracted,

Offer a bridge.

See the image of a bridge being laid down and walk across the bridge to be in relationship in that place of tension.

So just do that for a minute or so and we'll do that in the quiet with the breath in,

Scan the body,

Find the place of tension,

Build the bridge.

Don't have to fix it.

Don't have to change it.

For all of you is welcome here.

And then with the next breath,

Keep moving through the body in the quiet,

In the quiet.

And then with the next breath,

Keep moving through the body in the quiet,

In the quiet.

And then with the next breath,

Keep moving through the body in the quiet,

In the quiet.

And then with the next breath,

Keep moving through the body in the quiet,

In the quiet.

And then with the next breath,

Keep moving through the body in the quiet,

In the quiet.

And then with the next breath,

Keep moving through the body in the quiet,

In the quiet.

Let's do a collective act of solidarity and breathe together.

And this right here is a time and a space and a place to where we don't have to go it alone.

This is the practice of what Thich Nhat Hanh calls interbeing,

Interbeing.

And the breathing is a practice of bringing ourselves back into relationship with everything and everyone around us.

It is the practice that when we are stimulated,

When we are triggered or activated,

We can engage in that right where we are.

We don't have to go it alone.

We have an addiction in our country to self-help,

Self-improvement,

A radical individualism.

So the breath,

Right,

That space between stimulus and response is the bridge because every day more of what we know may fall apart.

No one is immune to uncertainty or fear or confusion.

Pull up your chair because all of it is welcome.

You are welcome in your community spaces exactly as you are.

Don't need to hide anything.

Don't need to pretend anything.

All of you is welcome here.

And if that adds a little discomfort,

Come back to the breath.

Build the bridge to the discomfort.

Have hope in you.

Have hope in your family.

Have hope in your friends,

In your community.

Have hope in the stranger.

There's always hope.

Even in moments when we think the worst is yet to come,

There's always hope.

We are that.

One more collective act of solidarity to affirm and confirm that you are all welcome here.

We don't have to agree.

We don't have to see the world the same way.

We just be willing to build a bridge when we can.

To appreciate the discomfort,

To know the resistance that we may push up against is ours to listen to because it's trying to tell us something.

We give thanks for our time together here.

The more that we are able to take the breath to be the building of that bridge which allows us to be with our tension,

Not against it,

The more it loosens its grip on me,

The more it loosens its grip on us,

The more we receive the wisdom of what is uncomfortable and yet necessary for our healing,

That is necessary for a world of love and justice and liberation.

One more act of solidarity.

Breathe in,

Breathe out.

Thank you for spending a little time with us.

Whenever you're listening to this,

Enjoy the rest of your morning,

Your day,

Your evening,

And God bless you.