Walking Each Other Home - Sept 8, 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

Well,

Good morning,

Or you may be watching this in the afternoon.

So good afternoon or good evening.

Just pausing before we begin our embodied practice,

Before we begin walking each other home.

I'm just taking a breath to settle myself into this space,

Which is really how every embodied practice begins.

Every embodied practice begins with settling ourselves.

And settling ourselves,

Grounding ourselves,

Centering ourselves are all very similar words.

And what they mean is really what they mean for you.

That's the beauty of this,

Of embodied anti-racism,

The mindfulness.

Part of mindfulness is,

Not part of,

But I mean the central core of mindfulness is presence,

Being present.

Being present to you,

Being present to what's alive for you,

Being present to your body.

And that means,

And being present means showing up,

Being present regardless of what's going on around you.

It really is a pause.

It really is a giant pause when we talk about being present.

The,

Yeah,

It's really a pause.

It's the fundamentals of being able to then moving forward,

Be present to uncomfortable situations,

To be present,

To be open to.

And being open doesn't mean agreeing,

Being open doesn't mean that you're not uncomfortable.

It means you can be in it,

Right?

You can be in what's sticky,

In a sticky conversation,

In a sticky situation,

In almost anything.

And being mindful also allows you to know when it's time to disengage,

To know when it's time to,

Okay,

I've reached threshold.

I have reached beyond what I am capable of doing.

Sorry.

I realized I did not have my phone off,

Which means how can I be present?

So to mindfulness is,

Allows us to remain in discussions,

Conversations,

Experiences,

Memories,

Thinking about what's coming for the day.

So let's,

Today I'm going to do,

Often I pull embodied practices,

Mindfulness practices from the inner work of social justice by Rhonda McGee,

Excuse me,

Frog in my throat,

Being mindful to care for my throat if I'm going to talk.

So that's today's practice is just a very,

It's what she refers to as a portable practice,

A portable mindfulness practice.

One that you take with you,

And I often think of this practice as like,

It's sort of like a meta practice because it's good all the time everywhere.

And it's portable because you put it in your back pocket,

You tuck it into your shirt,

Put it in your purse,

In your wallet.

It's a practice you carry in your mind.

And the minute that you can feel a shift in,

If you feel contraction in your body,

If you feel the temperature rising,

Or you feel upset in the abdomen area,

If you feel the mind racing with responses.

And for me,

Sometimes it's even name calling the other person.

When I find myself in the most difficult circumstances,

When I am encountering good old fashioned,

I shouldn't even say good.

But when I'm encountering old fashioned,

Pure,

Just racism,

I have learned to bring this practice forward into my space,

Into the front of mind,

Which is being mindful.

And if for no other reason than just for my own sanity,

Self care,

Rest,

Restore,

Repair,

Resist,

Right?

We talk about in Project Sanctus,

Rest,

Restore,

Repair,

Resist.

If I am to resist what's outside of me that is not okay,

Like racism,

Like sexism,

Like being treated inhumanely,

Like violation of civil rights,

Like just plain old mean spirited people that we meet in every facet of life,

Including spiritual circles,

Including churches,

Including family.

So this practice is called STOP,

S-T-O-P.

And again,

It's to allow me to do that pause so that I can return.

It's the rest piece so that I can restore my sanity.

I can restore my wellbeing and I can begin to repair my own woundings and then resist.

Resist is not a bad thing.

There are times to embrace resist.

There are times to push back on things outside of me that are just not okay,

That really are harmful.

And it goes on a lot.

And so we can do this practice for our own individual wellbeing,

Because I said I do this for my own sanity,

But also for the collective.

So if you're listening in or you're watching,

You've probably experienced a couple of some of these mindfulness meditation practices.

And you can see how you can carry them around.

You can see maybe some hybrid versions that can support you in the moment,

In a difficult moment that just can arise at any point of the day.

And these four steps of STOP,

S-T-O-P,

You can practice.

You could take just a minute to do it.

You could take a few minutes,

15 minutes.

You can do it at your desk.

I've been sitting in plenty of Zoom meetings where I do it and someone doesn't even know,

Because it's a practice.

Practice become habits.

We want good habits.

So try this out.

So we're going to see how long.

We'll try it out for you.

We're going to do it here for a few minutes,

But then take it with you and practice it for longer periods of time,

Maybe shorter,

But put it in the pocket,

Put it somewhere that you can easily go,

Oh,

Wait,

I have that right here.

That can support you when you are encountering racism,

Sexism,

Power over,

Oppression,

Patriarchy,

Classism,

Inhumane treatment of you and others.

Humans were triggered watching others being harmed.

Let's do the collective act of solidarity,

Which is a breath.

Let's take a breath.

As I said at the beginning,

In whatever form grounds you,

Settles you,

Centers you,

Whatever works for you,

There is no one way.

There is no one right way.

And we begin with the S,

The S for stop.

And the S actually stands for stop,

Meaning just stop what you're doing,

Whether you're typing,

Watching TV,

You're reading,

Rushing out the door,

In a class,

At work,

In an argument,

Working in the garden,

In the grocery store,

I don't know,

Whatever you're doing,

Just literally stop,

Like stop the body,

Stop the mind.

Give yourself a moment to come to rest.

Give yourself a moment to pause,

To collect yourself.

So to collect yourself means notice what thoughts are racing through my head or just what thoughts are alive,

Whatever they are.

Maybe there's images.

What meaning making is going on for me?

I'm collecting myself.

Where in my body am I feeling,

Am I having sensations,

Whatever they may be.

What emotions,

What feelings are alive?

Remember we're collecting ourselves.

Imagine pulling all these chairs up to a table.

One chair is,

Oh,

Here's my emotions.

Grateful,

Lonely,

Joyful,

Angry,

Frustrated,

Lost,

Grief,

Compassion,

Satisfied.

Bring that chair to the table.

And the chair that sits next to it,

Where in my body am I feeling these emotions?

Collect yourself.

Bring that chair to the table.

What thoughts are you having?

What's the meaning making going on?

What's the mind doing?

Collect yourself.

Bring that chair to the table.

Give yourself a moment to imagine bringing these chairs of all these parts of you to this table.

Rest and to pause.

And then we move to the T.

S-T-O-P.

And the T stands for take a conscious breath.

So now that you paused,

You've collected yourself,

Take a breath,

A deep breath.

Or two.

Or three.

Allow yourself to feel your belly expanding as you inhale.

And then feel it contract as you exhale.

So T for in stop means take a conscious breath and notice the sensations with each breath.

Sometimes it helps to bring our attention to the bottom of our feet and how our feet are feeling,

How our feet are meeting the floor or the ground.

Whether it's carpeting,

Maybe your slippers,

Or maybe it's actually the ground outside.

And relax your breath.

Knowing that feeling your feet and what's underneath them is a simple and powerful way to just notice,

To take a conscious breath and bring your attention to you.

And with that attention on yourself,

We move to the O in stop,

Which stands for observe.

Observe what's arising.

We kind of did that some with the S when we stopped,

When we were collecting ourselves.

Now we bring more attention to the O,

To the observing,

Again,

Including thoughts,

Bringing our attention back to what's arising,

What's alive,

Emotions,

Bodily sensations.

Maybe there's a tightness in the jaw.

That happens for me.

And I stretch my jaw.

Maybe there's tightness in the belly as I think about the rest of my day.

So part of the O in stop,

Which is observe,

Is to also broaden our awareness.

Broaden our awareness to take in circumstances in our life,

Or even circumstances around the world.

But if you pay attention to one or two circumstances in your own life,

Notice how you can be in that situation without being ruled by it,

Without it having you.

And for added support,

If there is tension,

Give yourself large doses of grace,

Release the tension,

The stressful thoughts,

Offer yourself compassion.

By offering compassion,

By the T,

Taking a conscious breath,

The O,

Observing what's arising in us,

When we do,

It actually helps calm us down.

We can see things as they are.

We may be open to choices of how to move forward,

Of how to respond to something,

Choices we may not have seen before.

And then finally,

The P,

S-T-O-P.

And the P reminds us that when we are ready to close these moments of practice,

You simply proceed with intentionality.

So the P is about proceeding.

It's about practice,

Bringing the practice to a close,

But then proceed.

How do you move forward?

Intentionally,

Not just go blindly through the rest of the day or evening or whatever's in front of you.

But rather,

When we are intentional,

We take the next step in our day from the place of strength,

From the place of wisdom,

From the place of presence,

Because that's what we've been building with the S-T-O-P.

So this stop practice,

This S-T-O-P,

Comes in handy as you bring awareness to racism,

As you work with others,

As you bring awareness to the patriarchy,

As you see it,

As you engage with others in deconstructing it.

This stop practice is very helpful when you're distressed.

It allows us to create a space to tame our feelings,

Meaning not make them go away,

But shift the emotions from we have our emotions or feelings rather than they have us.

And it allows us to access deeper resources,

Our wisdom,

Our intuition.

And the more that we practice this,

The more we can recognize when we need to pause.

The stop practice develops our emotional intelligence.

It develops our resilience.

It develops our flexibility to be in challenging moments and difficult conversations.

There will be days and times when this stop practice will save you to move through intense feelings.

So S-T-O-P,

The S stands for stop,

Which literally means stop,

Pause.

The T is to take a conscious breath.

O is to observe what's arising with your thoughts,

Your emotions,

Bodily sensations.

Because remember,

All of these experiences live in our central nervous system,

Which means they inhabit places in our body.

And our body responds to things that are confusing and feel unsafe or uncertain.

Our body contracts.

We may have pain.

So S,

Stop.

T,

Take a breath.

O,

Observe what's arising.

And P,

Proceed intentionally.

Have clarity on your next step in the day from your strength,

From your wisdom,

From your presence.

So keep this practice in your pocket,

Close to your heart,

In your purse,

In your wallet.

It's tucked in your shoe.

Just have it always everywhere ready to go because you can do this practice in a minute or you could take,

Stretch it and be longer.

Doesn't matter.

It's portable.

That's the power of it is that it's portable.

We'll add that to the last P.

To proceed,

Remember that it's portable.

So thank you for being with us today.

Thank you for walking each other home.

Have a glorious day.