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Season Recap with Tiffani, Kenjus & Jewell
77 Plays6 months ago
In the final episode of Season 2, our host Tiffani Marie sits with Kenjus T. Watson and Jewell Bachelor for an extended Mic Check...1,2,3! round table segment to recap some of the topics and ideas explored in this season of Drawing From The Well.
Drawing From The Well is hosted by Tiffani Marie.
The podcast is co-produced by Tiffani Marie and Jon Reyes with music by Jansen V.
DFTW is supported by Community Responsive Education.
Continue the conversation at youthwellness.com
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Drawing from the Well'
00:00:01
Speaker
Drawing from the Well is a podcast series from the youth wellness movement. We are educators, researchers, healers, parents, and community members striving to repurpose schools to address the critical wellness gaps in our youth's development.
00:00:19
Speaker
Founded by Community Responsive Education.
Hosts' Introductions and Season Reflections
00:00:35
Speaker
Welcome to our year in review, really just our season review. I'm Mike Check 123. I'm here with Jewel Kendis and I'm Tiffany Marie. How y'all feeling?
00:00:46
Speaker
I made it, man. I'm alive. I made it. Lord. You had that 19, right? You had that 19? Wow. Wait, was I not supposed to tell people that? It's no secret. It's not secret. I'm just not going to brag about First of all, I just need to step up my health regimen.
00:01:07
Speaker
And I don't know how other folks responded, but my response was intense migraines. Couldn't see, couldn't walk, couldn't really talk good. And yeah, I'm just thinking about that.
00:01:21
Speaker
And I'm like, I made it. And I don't take that for granted. I don't take it lightly. We glad you're here. Yes. Glad you made it. I'm you know doing okay.
00:01:31
Speaker
It's a cloudy day here. And always appreciate those times when there's a bit of cover. It's cooler. And yeah, you know doing all right. Blessed.
00:01:43
Speaker
How you doing? I'm great. I'm feeling good. Y'all know this ah last few months gave up sugar, gave up white carbs. I'm down like 20 pounds as of ah The other day, my runs feel a lot better.
00:01:56
Speaker
feel pretty good. Grateful to be healthy, to be on this side a life in experiencing a lot of greatness. So let's get this party started.
Favorite Episodes and Guests' Insights
00:02:08
Speaker
We had a lot of guests this season. And I want to know from y'all, what was your favorite episode? That's such a controversial question, you know? I'm going to take the non-controversial way out and say that they all had aspects that I love and appreciated.
00:02:24
Speaker
Each guest that we had a chance to sit with while we were both recording the sessions and then hearing the way that all of that came together with the openings for each episode and the hearing from the young people that went alongside.
00:02:39
Speaker
I feel like they offered us a pathway, the podcast Drawing from the Well, right, which... invites us to both go and return to the teachings of water, the wisdom of water, and also the life-giving principles of water, while also imagining and enlivening our wellness, each guest brought that to the space.
00:03:03
Speaker
I appreciated from the jump, hearing from Stove talking about really his culture that he was being brought into and using as both weapon and protection and reflection space in Chicago.
00:03:16
Speaker
i appreciated the reflections from Brother Cam around what it means to have cultural relevance, moving to some of the discussions we have with Sister Maisha on the possibilities and problems and also promises of restorative justice practices to the interviews we have with the young people.
00:03:37
Speaker
as well as the discussions about land with jazz and Theo and other people. It's been like a journey, I feel like, this podcast around pathways towards more freedom. And I'm just appreciative to have been able to bear witness to these different spaces.
00:03:54
Speaker
No hate on the people I didn't mention. i mean, if i was one of those people and I was listening, I would... I love all y'all. I mean, the thing is, as beautiful as that flowery response was, it was the wrong answer. so?
00:04:10
Speaker
Because your favorite episode should be the one with your entire family on there, or at least the ones with your mama or your child or your niece. like You didn't even name those. What's that about?
Jewel's Reflections and Inspirations
00:04:23
Speaker
That's post-traumatic slave syndrome. Joy DeGru. I don't want nobody to think that they're special and then take them away from me. you know Wow.
00:04:36
Speaker
Jewel, what you think? What was your favorite episode? I have two favorite episodes that are present with me now. And the first one is Candace.
00:04:48
Speaker
I think what it really brought up for me is I don't know if I was always encouraged to like critique and hold people accountable, people who may have positioned themselves in power.
00:05:01
Speaker
And my late professor, o she would be ashamed to know that I got my master's in ethnic studies, I have to say.
00:05:12
Speaker
Professor Head will always say, like no one is above critique. No one is above critique. And I took that very serious until I didn't, until I got into spaces where i felt like everybody knew you know more than what I knew.
00:05:27
Speaker
And maybe I didn't hold people accountable. Maybe I didn't ask enough questions. And I felt like that episode with Candice had me ask some questions. you know And it had me in my own personal life, not just like based off the episode, but based how I've engaged with people off some of these like principles.
00:05:47
Speaker
I've felt encouraged to hold people accountable, even if there is someone that is close to me or that has been a mentor or whatever statue of hierarchy I have positioned on them.
00:06:02
Speaker
um'm letting it go And that episode, yeah, it helped me like take the pedestal off of people. So really liked it.
00:06:12
Speaker
Definitely made me uncomfortable in a certain parts. And I like that. I like being stretched. The other one was with Theo though. It was hard not to brag about Theo because i went to his farm.
00:06:25
Speaker
And so it was hard to do the episode without like just bragging about him. But I also think I did brag about him. But
00:06:34
Speaker
Because it's a real reality, so many of us feel distant from land. so many of us feel distant from being self-sufficient. And Theo just three years ago was working a corporate job like most of us. you know And three years later, he has constructed four to five sites of homes on his land you know while also cultivating and being in relationship with land and learning how to grow different crops.
00:07:04
Speaker
And he's just genius. He's really pretty magnificent. And anytime I get a chance to brag about him, i do. I've introduced the OTA to about five people now. <unk>s Because I'm so amazed at you had a chance at life. You had a chance to take your time back. And this is what you did.
00:07:23
Speaker
You created more community and more spaces for your children to be free. And i really love that. In my own personal life and in my own personal perspective, i don't see i don't see Black men loving and nurturing like that.
00:07:41
Speaker
And so to me, Theo represents something that I've never seen before, like a true impossibility. And i love it. I love being proven wrong.
00:07:52
Speaker
So I didn't know that that's what was happening when I met Theo and was interviewing him and continued to introduce him to people. But i feel that now more in my gut.
00:08:05
Speaker
He's like a Black man that I never thought existed. And he's just like a magical fairy loving on land. and for so Well, I don't have a favorite episode. I think that would be ridiculous to have a favorite episode.
Mike on Guest Diversity and Conversations
00:08:21
Speaker
All the beautiful, powerful people we've had, I could never choose. And in some ways, I'm judgmental of you all for doing that. But I'm grateful for everybody that came on and and blessed us.
00:08:34
Speaker
It was intense because i mean I don't think a lot of people know that we did all the interviews in one month. And so that was really hard. both organizing and kicking it out. And at some point I was really like worried. and I was like, this is about to be whack. But I think sometimes when you get in the motion of things and listening, it just seems so much more about production.
00:08:53
Speaker
But the guests really brought it. And I'm grateful for them. I'm grateful for the energy that y'all brought to it. And then I'm interested in like what exactly folks are taking from some of this.
00:09:07
Speaker
like I've done two talks in the past week. And there's the content that we put out there and then how it lands, I think is sometimes very different.
00:09:17
Speaker
And then going past the like being excited or tantalized, tickled, like, you know, you go to black church and you feel a whole lot and then you go and eat.
00:09:29
Speaker
stuff that's going to kill you and then you're talking crazy to people. you know like But like the feeling that comes in the moment with the message, you're looking at me, I can say stuff like that because I'm beginning.
00:09:41
Speaker
Continue. I'm not trying to play nobody. I'm just talking about experiences that I've had where you're sitting in there and you're just like, ooh, that was moving. And then you don't really always apply that message. It just feels good in the moment. I had two talks in the past week and I was tripping because one of them Folks was like, they was ready to get out of there. i felt hella weird because they invited me.
00:10:03
Speaker
was like, what's going on Y'all ain't like, I asked you to come here. then I had another one, folks had masks on. And you know being from the Black church and a lot of the foundations of my public speaking, I need people to talk and i need expression. And I was struggling, as folks would say. How y'all feel like people taking or receiving these messages?
00:10:26
Speaker
The first thing that comes to mind is when people tell me, you know, that they've heard the show, it's never critique. People are always like, oh, such a good episode, you know, kind of, you know, a very vague, shallow brush over.
00:10:42
Speaker
the other part of me is like where there's a totally different response where I don't know what people are really feeling and thinking, listening to the show, but I know that I've seen a lot of examples of us working in schools, not just Black folks, but brown folks working in schools or working with young
Challenges of Implementing Wellness in Schools
00:11:03
Speaker
people. And there's just so much unaddressed harm.
00:11:07
Speaker
so while we're having these real life conversations, there's like, you know, real life experiences that I'm witnessing or I'm seeing. Of course, I don't know if those folks are like listening to this podcast, but it makes me think about the content of the podcast. We talked a lot about healing. We talked a lot about wellness and cultural response. All of these words, all these keywords that we all love to use and working in schools and working around a lot of hurt people.
00:11:41
Speaker
makes it hard to stay in schools and being around a lot of hurt people. Because there's a lot of us with good intentions, with good words. We know the words. We know cultural relevancy. We know how to teach about asagej Shakur, all the things.
00:11:56
Speaker
We don't know how to always apologize. We don't know how to address our harm. We don't know how to call out men who are harming women and girls.
00:12:08
Speaker
You know, we just keep them in the community. And that's what's been coming up. It's been bothering me It hurts my feelings because I know there's been times where I haven't said anything or I'm like, see, that's why I never said anything. Because even if you did believe me, there's nothing real you would do besides...
00:12:31
Speaker
Talk about goddamn cultural relevancy and wellness and healing. don't know what it looks like in real time. so that's i don't know how people are receiving these messages, but there was a lot of accountability that was happening through these episodes.
00:12:47
Speaker
People either address the harm they've inflicted upon young people themselves and schools, you know, just learning And so accountability, accountability, that's a word that we've been using, that I've been using.
00:13:03
Speaker
And I would just like to see it in practice, especially when it comes to Black men, especially when it comes to brown men, especially when it comes to the harming of women. I would like that to be taken a lot more serious in the communities where so many of us love to talk in.
00:13:21
Speaker
and hold space and do ceremony.
Accountability and Healing in Wellness
00:13:23
Speaker
And I'm not above critique. you know I'm going back to Hay. I'm not above critique. And I believe that I am in a community and I know that I am around people that holds me accountable.
00:13:35
Speaker
And i just wish that men can say the same And I don't know if men can say the same because there's too much harm happening.
00:13:46
Speaker
and they just continue to teach. They just go back to the school and teach. like Nothing happened. A lot of what you're saying reminds me of this new Kendrick album. Have y'all heard it? No.
00:13:57
Speaker
I have been challenged to listen to it by one of your folks. And I said, okay. One of my folks. I'm just saying. Oh man, that's rough.
00:14:09
Speaker
I listened to it twice when it came out. It's a very unpopular opinion. won't even share that about Kendrick Lamar. There's a lot of really great music production going on that album.
00:14:21
Speaker
And I think it's intense because he attempts to take on a lot of issues. I think there's an attempt to take on misogynoir.
00:14:34
Speaker
There's an attempt. I think there's an attempt to take on transphobia. And I appreciate it was this video I see on Instagram. I appreciate the video because the video kind of laid out three different types of people, which I think are three different responses, which I think are also maybe representative of like how some folks may be taking our episodes as well and the content within it and our attempts really. Because some folks might be listening and being like, I can't believe they tried to do that. And that's all they said about it. You know i mean?
00:15:03
Speaker
All of it, I think most of what we do is an attempt at something. But the video was saying like, For some people, I listen to his content, particularly this album and those attempts that he made, anything he does is widely celebrated and applauded.
00:15:18
Speaker
I don't know, maybe because of who he is and what he's overcome. And then there's another group that hears it and is just like, it's messy, but it's necessary because there's a demographic of people who will benefit from that.
00:15:32
Speaker
And so we'll take the messiness of it and the complexity of it because these are generating conversations that have not been had before or they have not been had via this particular platform.
00:15:45
Speaker
And then there are some folks who are just like, i don't need to be a part of the messiness of you trying to process your privilege and how you make sense of these issues in real time.
00:16:00
Speaker
I think that's complex. And i thought it was a really great argument. I think it's similar, I think, with a lot of our content. It's an attempt, you know what mean, to address issues, to engage them.
00:16:12
Speaker
Controversial issues, some would say, and our approaches sometimes our scene is countercultal or are or radical. And I hear that idea that you're saying about folk in community and and around accountability.
00:16:26
Speaker
And then there's attempts at people attempting to be accountable. And so i'm I'm interested in, maybe I'm leaning toward what does it mean for us to hold the messiness of people's attempts to be accountable, to be transformed. I agree with you. There was a lot of modeling of that this season.
00:16:49
Speaker
particularly from men and there were women and queer women who led the way around using their bodies, their experiences to provide pathways and roadmaps for what that could look like.
00:17:01
Speaker
But yeah, i'm I'm really interested in like what we do around the messiness. Cause I feel like a lot of people don't like to get dirty. Yeah. You know, Tony Bambara in Salt Eaters, where she says, are you sure sweetheart that you want to be well?
00:17:17
Speaker
I think she goes on to say that you know wholeness is no trifling matter and there's a lot of weight when you're well. And i feel like that's a powerful reminder of the invent invitation.
00:17:32
Speaker
It's a reminder and an invitation to really sit with what we're up against. I think that what we're up against is intergenerational. It's immediate in our life.
00:17:45
Speaker
It's also past, it's our own childhood traumas and harms, which we spoke about on this. And it's the, there's a space between the capacity to take accountability, to imagine accountability as an actual tangible practice in a world that is, has no accountability to anyone or anything, except for its own survival, which means and spells and has only meant our doom.
00:18:14
Speaker
even like the conceptualization of what it means to be a man, like what we know of that comes from complete and utter harm and trauma that we have not yet really addressed or healed from.
00:18:26
Speaker
So it's like we're trying to heal a deadened and beaten to death way of being and then saying, well what can we excavate from that? What is the man anyway? What is cisgender man anyway in a body that was holistically for others? And then try to construct things around that with embers of what we maybe were or what we hope to be.
00:18:46
Speaker
And so I've been thinking a lot about this as we've had these conversations going back to the first one we had with Stove. I do remember him saying that about like, faculty members need to stop helping your students.
Personal Toll of Working in Education
00:19:00
Speaker
I even know that that was like a practice coming into higher ed, that that was something that goes on. And then there's gaslighting around that. And to your point, Joel, to hear some of these very same people get up and say all the things that we say about whether it's critical race theory or feminism or whatever, and then have that be hand in hand with the very truth of harm that continues to go on.
00:19:23
Speaker
And I just don't know, Tiff, to your question, like how people are taking it I don't know how many of us or what collective of us are in a space where we're really committed to the whole reality of what it means to be well or to try to engage wholeness.
00:19:38
Speaker
What that would actually mean for what we need to let go of, what we cannot continue to do and hold at the same time. So I don't know. you know It's very difficult to track that. It's like you can say a thing,
00:19:52
Speaker
And have that be very clear, you know? And then I do wonder how people go back into school after we say what we say. i wonder that by myself, you know? And maybe that's too controversial to say here, but there's a question that's begging us to say at the very root of all of this, why do we continue to do any of things that we're doing, knowing what we know?
00:20:11
Speaker
Give up sugar and white carbs to, like, we know this shit gives us cancer. We know it. We have evidence. We've lost people yeah in our life.
00:20:22
Speaker
And I'm still probably going to have a hamburger. you know So there's like these decisions that we make to kill ourselves a little bit, to kill our communities a little bit, maybe because we don't have really solid alternatives yet.
00:20:37
Speaker
Or maybe to your point, Jewel, solid examples of when we see men or cisgender folks or heterosexual folks or whatever you know taking responsibility or accountability for harm.
00:20:50
Speaker
Maybe that's why we continue to engage in the bullshit. I don't know. feel like there's enough matches with our podcast for True Fire to be lit. I'm just wondering, like, what will be the result?
00:21:03
Speaker
Joe, why you go to school? why are you still working in the school after the podcast episodes? Not to call anybody out. mean, I'm still a shit. Hey, hey, hey.
00:21:13
Speaker
I'm okay with being called out. That's the difference between me and other people. I'm okay. I'm good. Okay? I can have a conversation. i could be challenged. Well, one, I'm a respond to the whole school thing, but I'm going respond to the food thing.
00:21:28
Speaker
Y'all be making jabs at the food, and I just want to say, yes, some of the food be killing this, but this is how we be surviving. And I would like us to challenge our tone around shaming and how people survive.
00:21:42
Speaker
And if people eating hamburgers or however it looks for them, They live in they choose in a different life. They choose in differently than maybe how you would choose.
00:21:53
Speaker
It don't make it bad. It could be many impacts on the body, but they're also choosing to live by eating. So I just want to say that because I don't like food shaming. It makes me very uncomfortable. know by shaming.
00:22:07
Speaker
I love hamburgers. Just get you a lettuce wrap though. I just wanted to provide more context for listeners, but also working in schools is hard. But honestly, just working as a Black woman.
00:22:20
Speaker
i mean, just thinking about the mass shooting that just happened. And there were multiple, but the one in Buffalo, New York, particularly targeting us. And Black people are just expected to go to work after stuff like that.
00:22:35
Speaker
And that's what disrupts me. Working in general. None of us should be working. This is... This ah extreme trauma. We like get to see it on the primetime news, your trauma. And then they're like, go back to school, little black kid.
00:22:51
Speaker
Because once you get that piece of paper, that's the part that disrupts me. That's the part that disrupts my spirit. And because I'm in schools, I hear that kind of language and rhetoric more personally and up close.
00:23:04
Speaker
As black adults, if we don't even take time to grieve, we know our children aren't. Mm-hmm. And that's what concerns me about working in schools, that I'm participating in the just go to school, knowing that it's breaking my heart.
00:23:24
Speaker
I can't guarantee if I can keep my children safe because of how this world is set up. And I know there's no safety. There's no guarantee on how you could protect your children. But Being Black and being expected to work just in general, i feel like that's traumatizing enough.
00:23:42
Speaker
Yeah. To offer context, because I think to what you were saying, Jewel, I don't mean to offer shame or judgment about the apartheids that we live in and what we're offered. I think I'm trying to say to your point, too, that it's poisonous to us, right? The world that we live in.
00:23:58
Speaker
if I live in a poisonous environment, if I take a sample of that environment, doesn't matter where I stick the thermometer in, I'm going to get the same readout, right? Including the lack of food sovereignty that we have and the pathways that they've given us to survive and to the shootings.
00:24:13
Speaker
I mean, to have that hit this week, which is unfortunately mundane in my life from my renderings, it's like that was, what was that? A ah Thursday or Friday? i don't even remember what day it was, you know?
Systemic Issues in Black Communities
00:24:26
Speaker
And then, you know, last night to see the tax returns of BLM leadership last night and to see the ways that Black death, which has always generated, Black death and life has always generated energy in the form of currency for the country, but to see other Black people relishing in that, you know, who were really called upon to be stewards, maybe for calls for accountability or recognition, even though I think that's odd in our world to try to seek that, but even still, right, recognition of our lives mattering and to see the ways that that, at the very same time as you have this mass shooting, you got like
00:25:03
Speaker
the collective energy in response to mass shootings being utilized to, I don't know, help people live luxuriously and lavishly. Again, that is what America is, right? Luxurious living off the reality of Black death.
00:25:18
Speaker
But just to see the levels of it, it takes me back to this question of what are the conversations that we're having rendering? What more do we say than Black people are dying and being killed and just uprooted And that's not okay, right? I don't know how what ways we could say that more powerfully than what has been shared through the last few years by BLM.
00:25:39
Speaker
And then what's the outcome of that? The outcome is folks you know toasting on the anniversary of George Floyd's death champagne, right? And that's a heaviness that I think we're called to, if not deal with, maybe that's not our issue, but like to just name that and then move forward knowing that that is a possible outcome for any of the work that we do, you know, from its most pure intentions, that is a possible outcome.
00:26:07
Speaker
What's accountability in a world like that, you know? Are there any paid gigs outside of our work in relationship to Black suffering? The currency of this world is not going to pay us for anything outside of that. That's I thought. So no, again, maybe people are taking this as me shaming those folks, but I think that what we heard from our podcast were these offers for alternatives. What else is available?
00:26:31
Speaker
outside of the ways that this world frames our relationality with each other, with currency. How do we show up and support each other with the needs that we have, food, shelter, clothing, and otherwise care that are not holistically dependent upon, you know, the ways we have to curtail our work towards capitalism.
00:26:49
Speaker
I work in schools and i work around education because that is the pathway to more survival for more people until and if there's an alternative available. And I know that people have trying to enliven alternatives and they get killed for that, you know, or they get undone for that. So it's not like it's just people are lazy and haven't gotten to it.
00:27:09
Speaker
i think that there's very real consequences for attempting it. The question is, does the the podcast provide catalysts for those practices or possibilities? Or do we say, well, maybe we can get paid more for caring for Black people and less for being the sort of witnesses to Black suffering?
00:27:30
Speaker
ah That's so good. i want to say that when entering in the space of education, when I was entering in in my 20s, a lot of what I had seen, i don't want to say like it was performance, but it was about knowing the language, knowing how to say the right things.
Integrating Educational Theories in Life
00:27:50
Speaker
and I was really interested in integrating the beliefs into like how I actually interacted with my family.
00:27:58
Speaker
And that's why a lot of my questions throughout the season was like, okay, so you got your master's in ethnic studies, you started teaching, wonderful. How did this apply to like how you treat your daughter? Because I'm always curious like how this applies in real time.
00:28:13
Speaker
And I want to be totally transparent that I was fishy about that, especially when I was getting my master's degree. big Because if you want to actually finish your thesis on time, you are required to isolate yourself, which is a very white hegemonic way of learning.
00:28:34
Speaker
And it's very violent. And i wasn't considerate of my mother. And I wasn't always calling and checking on her in the PhD process. I mean, it just made it so much worse.
00:28:45
Speaker
So there was so much undoing I had to do and that I'm still doing. I'm being honest with myself. Probably going doing this for the rest of my life. Not because of how school traumatized me per se, but how school taught me how to love the investment of these ideologies versus actually bringing this into my life. you know And so now that's why I'd be so serious about ceremony work, but with my godchildren, because they can't pay me, baby.
00:29:15
Speaker
Can't get rich off kids. And a ceremony ain't cheap if you're doing it right. you know You got to hire all these, because I'm essentially a curator of the space. So I'm bringing all the things together But that's why I started doing it, because I was really interested. i have a lot to say about men, and in particularly Black and brown men, and how they continue to, in my perspective, like not operate within our communities productively and healthily.
00:29:45
Speaker
So I was like, oh, I have to take this anger, this belief that men can do better, and I have to actually invest it in the people that I'm raising. Again, it doesn't mean that I'm not above critique because I'm like a hot mess in most of my life.
00:30:00
Speaker
What I am curious and seeing more of us do is like, how do we invest you know these principles that we learn within ethnic studies, Africana studies, critical race theory? How do we actually apply that within our lives, with our children, with how we talk to people, with how we treat people?
00:30:19
Speaker
I'm curious to see that cultural shift. where it doesn't become you're trying to get paid $10,000 to speak at an event about racism or whatever, but where it comes, you're actually having conversations with your children about how to love themselves in a world that's not going to love them and creating celebration just based off of them being.
00:30:45
Speaker
I'm curious to have that shift for us culturally because so much of what we are trying to do is survive and that means going after money. But if you know everything you do in Africana studies or ethnic studies or whatever, all of that is solely connected to money,
00:31:03
Speaker
I'm not convinced that what we're teaching is what we're going to see a result within our communities. and don't think it starts there for most people, it being about money. I think most of our investment in a lot of this work, whether it's being in these programs, being in classrooms and teaching a certain way, i think it's about being seen and having a sense of belonging. I think that's for a lot of us where it starts.
00:31:27
Speaker
And our society is so fast paced, like you're always moving. It's radical to be able to slow down. It's super weird to me now, but it wasn't before. I saw people who were doing that breathing stuff and people who were... I was like, they're a heck of weak. That's why they're poor. like That's kind of how i used to see it. like What is you doing, bruh?
00:31:55
Speaker
Of course, it's different now, but like I thought those were the failures, you know and that was the work they chose to take up, was that weird stuff, because that was a space for them. But I think in my journey, the mentorship that I received, it felt very good. It felt like I was back in the Black church. It felt really, really good.
00:32:13
Speaker
And I wanted both to feel that more, so to lean in toward that mentorship, and I wanted to help other people feel what I felt. That's why I entered the profession. I felt so seen and moved by a lot of my mentors.
00:32:27
Speaker
And they were mentored by folks who were existing in a very fast-paced society.
Professional Recognition vs. Genuine Action
00:32:31
Speaker
And so I think the performative part of it, you kind of just got to get there. a lot of my talks initially were I've you know prepped for weeks, not months ahead and prayed and put all this energy in. then you start getting all these talks and you start getting all these invitations and the celebration that comes with that, like you're killing, right?
00:32:55
Speaker
There's still that sense of being seen, of belonging to a community. I called you in. Then you just insert you know all the mess that comes with that. And if you are in that space that long, or you you know as Maya Angelou says, you don't pick it up, you don't put it down.
00:33:12
Speaker
Because if you start picking that up, it's really hard to put it down when the toxicity emerges. It's really hard to let that go. But so many of us come from spaces of not being seen, validated,
00:33:24
Speaker
placed in exile because of our identities and our realities, that that feels hella good for people to see you in that way. And then there's, I think they're ignoring of a lot of our traumas that come forward. So you talk about folks sleeping with people.
00:33:38
Speaker
I mean, if you got people in your face, celebrating and praising you, and you have been socialized to believe that that is means you're powerful, that means you're valuable, I can see people leaning into that.
00:33:51
Speaker
You see people taking on gigs that pay them $15,000 to talk for 20 minutes. I don't think it starts that way, but at some point, we start putting monetary value to our time.
00:34:06
Speaker
to our energy. And in some ways, it's I've heard people are justified like, you know how hard I work? you know I mean? I earn that. Like, you know how much they pay so-and-so? They pay this person $100,000. I can take my 10 and it starts it just starts getting hella weird.
00:34:23
Speaker
I appreciate you, Jewel. appreciate the episode with Cindy and Chanel And that slowness and the reflection to be able to see our society as just one subset of life.
00:34:37
Speaker
Because I think if you don't get that time to see this investment as an option, it is the norm. It is what you do and and you play these rules.
00:34:48
Speaker
But I also think that when we were talking about accountability, it's like everybody in some sense yeah I'm not gonna call you out, Jewel, but you said some things about your wellness and our work that we got this weekend where you were like, you know you you felt like a hypocrite in some ways.
00:35:05
Speaker
All of us got that. All of us have these ways of being in some way that would really confuse some of our biggest fans. of like, why are you moving like that? Why are you leaning like that?
00:35:17
Speaker
I understand that part. And then the alternatives that Ken just was talking about that were presented here, I think the alternatives that we present sometimes, I just feel like sometimes we talk about apocalyptic air, we talk about right abolition. It's like, well, this is the way to do it. Here's how we do it. this is And I think for a lot of folks, they got understand we're about to fall down this hill. We're about to fall down this hill. It may be an alternative, but...
00:35:43
Speaker
It ain't going to look the way you thought it was going look. Yes, yes, yes. It's going to hurt. It's going hurt. No one said healing had to feel good. I never remember hearing that it was going to feel good.
00:35:57
Speaker
Right. i Don't feel that. But folks being out there making it, it's great. I think parts of it do feel really good. ah think parts of it, I'm very grateful and and feel very soothing and amazing. And then there's also the tension that I believe that we're taught to avoid.
00:36:14
Speaker
I think parts of it needs to look good for some folks to access you know money. It does feel good to know that you can be in self-reflection with yourself and hold yourself accountable after you've done harm or while you're doing harm or whatever.
00:36:31
Speaker
Those parts is like, oh, I got me. I'm self-aware enough to see myself in the moment and catch this and apologize, do better, whatever I need to reckon with.
00:36:43
Speaker
But the consistentness of that, of messing up, whatever you feel that is, you know, that is what's hard because you're always returning to that source of trauma that you're trying to like heal, you know, and you're always trying to forgive yourself for that same pattern, same habit, whatever it is.
00:37:04
Speaker
So healing is good because you have the power to be in reflection with yourself. You don't need a Bible, a person, a priest, and nothing for that. You got that.
00:37:15
Speaker
It does not always feel good because it is consistent. And it does feel like you are failing sometimes because you're doing the same thing and you may not be getting better results. Right. But it doesn't mean it's not good for us.
00:37:28
Speaker
Yeah. People have been mistreated. People have been harmed. We've been really just, if you just go to school, you're getting abused, you know, let alone what else goes on around you. And so what you were saying, Tiff and Julia, like hits me, right? Like it is exhausting because not like the harm stops. You continue to get hit and harmed by so many of different ways in life.
00:37:51
Speaker
you know And then to be called in, i hate being called in. I hate it. I hate it. Say more, man. Say Your cup is already being emptied by the world. It's like what it means to live in this space.
00:38:10
Speaker
And calling in, it's very difficult to distinguish when someone's trying to empty your cup, which is ah having survived domestic violence, abuse in schools, et cetera, surviving police encounters, all these things, right?
00:38:24
Speaker
And just general violence from other people. It gets blurry. I think that's part of trauma, right? Like you blur the lines between what is actually the violence and then what is someone who's coming to you asking for you to be actually in relation with them in a caring way, it's hard to know, first, if you've been hit so often, it's hard to know what is a slap and what is not a slap, right? Because you get numb to it.
00:38:51
Speaker
And then if you get aware of that, which is what I think ethnic studies, all these things do, gives us critical consciousness of how you've been hit, I'm looking out like, is this a hit? you know And to something Isaiah said, like you become the hurt that happened to you. So you don't even know you're walking around messy. So for me, and when I'm asked to move in a way that is not harmful to women, I mean, in own family, I'm asked by my daughter and my son all the time to move in a way that is not reflective of the harm that I endured as a child.
00:39:26
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. That's like immediate now. like And I'll be thinking, damn, like I'm tired. I got all this other bullshit I'm dealing with. And I'm supposed to look you in the eye. You're two.
00:39:37
Speaker
I got to look you in the eye. And I got to calm my breath. and I can't make a face that is almost automatic, it looks like my dad's face. You know, like, that's a lot.
00:39:49
Speaker
yeah
Releasing Material Attachments for Growth
00:39:50
Speaker
Those are people who come from me, right? Like, I had somewhat of a choice in helping those people manifest in this plane. When other people are asking me, saying, hey, let's let's do this, it's like, wait, are you trying to empty me again?
00:40:04
Speaker
Like, I don't have much left. And I think that's a major blockade. I feel like all of this though us, I feel like falling in love a bit with the problems because I feel like the solutions how we move through that are very much available. but Maybe it's the same way. it's like requiring us to just envision and live in this other world.
00:40:25
Speaker
If we had more care for each other, if we had really sincere systems of mutual or direct aid, if we yeah centered Black women and femmes and babies and our elders, we're talking about really rebuilding or remembering our villages, then It becomes easier. It's not about money, right? If we have these other needs met, why do we need money? Then it's just about releasing. Tiff and I have a friend, Anthony, who I remember him taking pictures of Thomas the Train, and he's just posting these pictures on Facebook.
00:40:59
Speaker
What is this? And he's like, I got this when I was two. My grandma gave it to me. It's one of the last things I have from her. Right. and I'm like, Anthony, what are you doing? He's like, oh, I'm just releasing all of these things in my life.
00:41:11
Speaker
His goal was to live with no more than a backpack of stuff. And that was such a hard way for me to envision moving because I'm surrounded by and life is about trying to get enough stuff maybe to fill up the places where I've been harmed.
00:41:28
Speaker
Letting that go. not ready for that. Yeah. But I know that that's what's needed. All of it, letting all of it go is what's needed. Yeah. on our restorative justice episode, Maisha was talking about. Oh, that was so good.
00:41:43
Speaker
Which I think came actually after we stopped the recording about how poverty can be so agitating.
00:41:53
Speaker
Kendra and I, for me, it was like one of our most transformative experiences when we created a retreat together. where I had been experiencing like so much, I was like overwhelmed. I was super overwhelmed.
00:42:08
Speaker
I didn't know how to convey that to Kendris and Erin. I was trying really hard and I just couldn't, from my own stuff, my notions of like what that means to not be able to do something and its relationship to love. and i finally like shared it with them one day and I was just like, I'm under capacity and I feel like I'm doing this, I'm doing this, I'm doing this.
00:42:30
Speaker
and then Aaron was just like, I'm sorry. i don't even know if he knew what he was apologizing for, but he knew just if a black woman is saying this, just apologize.
00:42:44
Speaker
And then Ken just, he didn't say nothing. and think we were on Zoom. So he was just like looking at me. was just like, what is that about? like And that really messed me up because Ken just didn't say nothing. That's my brother.
00:42:56
Speaker
And I needed him to say something. And so that messed me up. And we had... this retreat later that we had, you know, was already in the works and Ken just led this really powerful session where we were, what were we identifying our ah values?
00:43:15
Speaker
Right. And all my values were like timeliness, organization, follow through. And as I was saying them, I was like, I'm such a sucker. Like it just felt weird for it to come out of my mouth.
00:43:28
Speaker
And we did work in that session, though, about why those are our values and like our childhood experiences that have informed those values. And for me, I was making connections to my mom working hella hard.
00:43:45
Speaker
through us being poor and me trying to prevent as much agitation as possible. I told them the story, like I would time it when she was coming home and I would like clean the house and
Healing and Accountability in Education
00:44:00
Speaker
vacuum at least, you know, i would I would wait till like 10 minutes before she was supposed to come home. So the lines were still in the carpet, you know i mean? And I would see how happy she was.
00:44:09
Speaker
And so I began to, at a very young age, connect productivity to love very, very early on. And I, brought that energy into a lot, but especially my relationship with Kendra and Aaron.
00:44:22
Speaker
And so much so that when folks were just experiencing life and were not able to be present in certain ways, or for me, I'm like, oh, you don't love me. You don't love this work we're doing in the same way that I do.
00:44:34
Speaker
And then Kendra shared some things that that's not for me to share, but he shared some things about his values and what came up for him. But also what was powerful just now to hear Kendra say like, he cool off being called in, right?
00:44:47
Speaker
Because he shared some really beautiful, powerful reflection with me about childhood and what that means when you feel like you're being called in or or how that gets blurry.
00:44:57
Speaker
And I just remember like, bro, that healed, I would say like a solid decade for me. You know what I mean? Of relationship, of trauma and relationship with family, particularly with men.
00:45:14
Speaker
And so I hear you saying like, oh, you cool off of it, but that was super powerful for me. So I'm grateful for that. oh I mean, I'm grateful for the invitation that you were asking us, Tiff. And I think when you said what you did, my response was around...
00:45:35
Speaker
what if we did this or would it feel like this? and I was trying to offer solutions to fix it because for me being called in part of what I was trying to say is that that came literally for me, it came with hits.
00:45:50
Speaker
You know, it literally came with actual physical hits. And so there wasn't a line. Like my accountability talks, sitting in the room with my dad after whatever went down at school, you know, because bullshit happened at school, but then I'd go home and you'd get the other talk about what you did and didn't do. And some of those really profound, important conversations, right? About values and ethics and what it means to, especially as we had this conversation with folks in the podcast, right? Like healing from the guilt that comes with a, for me, Christianity, church, school, we're all the same place.
00:46:25
Speaker
So healing from that, but being very adept at it. i would quote scripture back at my dad, you know, and it would be like, okay, cool. But that was a test. And how I performed on that test determined the intensity of the hitting.
00:46:42
Speaker
Sometimes. Sometimes. And a lot of times it didn't align with it. I did very well in responding to why Mr. Tobias sent me to the principal's office. It really was Renee talking.
00:46:58
Speaker
Right. And I decided not to push back against it because I knew Renee had had a rough month, but I'm going to go anyway. I would say that and my dad would be like proud of me. But then he beat the shit out of me.
00:47:11
Speaker
Right. And it didn't matter if I had said the right thing and did the right thing and offered up all these really powerful examples. And so i think that in a small way, that's what I'm trying to say is that there was a blurring.
00:47:24
Speaker
of what it meant to be called into spaces of accountability. And that's my one experience with former domestic violence that I know my dad had also was dealing with and had never really, so you know, healed from, which is why he was continuing the practice.
00:47:39
Speaker
But I know that that is how we all are beat metaphorically in some way by our world. And so I just don't know where the spaces are. And I appreciate you so much, Tiffany, because our relationship has been healing to me to lean into those spaces of accountability that are really premised on you know love and care.
00:48:04
Speaker
And not that people need to be treated gently all the time, like some shit is just bullshit and it needs to be said as much, but that to come from a place of care and not be accompanied by ah hit has been really game changing. So I wonder if we offered that to other I don't wonder, I know as we do that, some work with our group of Weight in the Water with our men's healing group, or we do that with some of other spaces that I'm blessed to be in, we see these other sort of outcomes.
00:48:30
Speaker
For me, that moment was intense because what a great awareness to have, you know, like, I was making those things just about you and I, when it's never just about the two people or the three people. if it's two people, it's at least four people involved in the situation. It's us and our inner children that are operating. And in that moment, you know i mean? Like to hear that, like when I'm called in,
00:49:01
Speaker
It's hard for me to decipher right if I'm in trouble or if I'm in danger. That's game changer for me. And that type of space, I think, gives way to accountability. I think when we talk about how cishet men are socialized in our society, you know grab her, smash, right best's you hear these messages all the time.
00:49:22
Speaker
right You're indoctrinated with this. And I think with the Me Too movement, folks are like calling people out. And then folks are seeing what happens to people when they are called out.
00:49:36
Speaker
Right. You're placed in exile. You go to jail. You are hated. No one ever talks to you again. But if you're a cishet boy or man and you've been socialized in a society that teaches you to do these things and now there's a movement that calls you out and that is what it looks like.
00:49:54
Speaker
I'm not coming forward either. I'm not talking about it. If that's the reception on the other end. if This is... I hear it. I don't think you're wrong. I'm also like, that's such a cop-out because survivors like relive trauma all the time and there's so much choice that we don't have.
00:50:15
Speaker
and so I'm not trying to defend anybody. I'm just saying. No, I know. I know you're not defending. I'm just saying what it feels like, but I'm very aware that feelings aren't fat. I'm very aware. I just know how it feels in my body.
00:50:28
Speaker
And I'm like, Me sitting in the house this past week, I have not been reading. I've been binge watching all kinds of things. And every time a rape scene or something I've experienced closely to comes up, I can't watch it I'm skipping past it. This is an everyday living reality. So I hear you though, Tiffany. And I firmly believe that we cannot move in...
00:50:55
Speaker
And the language and the practice of accountability can't look like mirroring what our oppressors, how they have punished us just for being Black. It can't mirror that.
00:51:06
Speaker
I'm very aware of that. I don't have the next step solutions, but I also do know that in my living body, there are so many times when I am reminded of how safe I am not because of what has happened to me.
00:51:19
Speaker
And so for people to be like, well, I don't want to be held accountable because you're not going to like me. Yeah, we're not going to like a rapist. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry that we're not allowing this person who does not honor female bodies.
00:51:35
Speaker
There's just so much leeway that I feel like cis men are given. There's just so much permission. i feel so many things saying this because I know that I'm raising two Black boys.
00:51:48
Speaker
And I know that I'm doing everything in my power to allow them to see all these different versions of what your life can look like. But if there is no accountability, if there is just none because you're scared someone's not going to like you and not considering how survivors have to live our lives, I'm sorry. It's just, it's not good enough. It's it's not a good enough excuse to just, to not say nothing.
00:52:14
Speaker
All these people are being harmed. But I think that's a trauma response, Jewel, because that's not what I said. What I'm talking about is the space, the options that are there for when people come forward.
00:52:26
Speaker
the spaces and options that are there. And what I'm saying is those are underdeveloped. Yes. We are very much responding. and And we can take this in the context of folks who have cis body, folk who have harmed people, but I'm trying to make a larger message around what it means to be called in and that there's not a home.
00:52:45
Speaker
Yeah. There's not a space that is, and that's why I was talking through what Kendris and I were talking about is those spaces are super rare. So by no means I have taught Children who have harmed other people.
00:52:59
Speaker
I still have to deal with them. I still have to create space. i have had to create space for them and practice on my own, really, because a lot of other people were like, okay, expulsion is an option.
00:53:13
Speaker
I mean, that's the only option. Or they go to jail or they go to prison. So little kids, right? no yeah yeah What I'm pushing back against is If a society has curated these motives, these ways of being, and we are attempting to be countercultural, it's not about, you know, there's no accountability. What I'm challenging is what it means, the space that is there and what accountability looks like besides people being disposable.
00:53:44
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. it reminds me of the conversation around abolition and the fact that we are called as much to build something different as we are to dismantle what is. And i feel that like double consciousness all the time. It came up this past weekend with the murders of those black elders and other folks in Buffalo.
00:54:05
Speaker
And I saw the pictures, right? The meme of this murder, right? Was taken in unharmed. These other people, were unarmed and were killed, right? They compared the murderer to black people who unarmed and been murdered.
00:54:20
Speaker
And like, okay, so does this mean we wanted to kill them? And there's no judgment around that. Like, again, maybe think about taking it out, but I'd be like, yeah, if your culture of survival and autonomy requires that those who do those sort of realities of unmitigated, unprecedented harm are exiled or killed, then that is the culture that you developed.
00:54:42
Speaker
I don't know what our culture that we're developing is. What's our culture of survival and autonomy outside of what's around us, this carceral enclosure that we find ourselves in?
00:54:53
Speaker
What are the opportunities of something that we want different? ah Exile might be a good alternative. We imagine people going to jail. Many of us are prison abolitionists, but we still want people to go to jail for a sense of being held accountable, even though that that's not actually a system of accountability that can meet what the cause is. And so I'm always thinking about that, that that's where our true responsibility lies as culture keepers or creators or rememberers is to re-enliven. And then because shit ain't dead, we can't just do what was done
00:55:24
Speaker
in the past, I mean, what are we going to do going forward that attempts to address that, right? That ongoing harm of all the ways that people show up and harm other people or the planet or other non-human life.
00:55:39
Speaker
Mm-hmm. It's really challenging and it's messy. That's the work. I think an entry point is thinking about ah very specific types of harm. But you know last season we had Jari on and that was so vital because harm takes place in a myriad of ways. And we are very specific and hegemonic about what harm is in our society.
00:56:02
Speaker
what it looks like in schools, what it looks like in our interpersonal relationships. And it's not to like minimize or flatten right ah assault or sexual assault by any means, but it is to complicate the narrative that in so many ways, what it means to grow up in a US settler colonial society means to know more about exploitation, rape, genocide, then you do know about slowness, about love,
00:56:30
Speaker
about creating sacred space. Those things are modeled, just like what I talked about with CISET boys. Those things are modeled for us and they're really subconscious.
Challenges to Systemic Educational Views
00:56:40
Speaker
And some of the moments where that has come in front of me were with people, young people especially, who have called me out.
00:56:49
Speaker
No, they call me out. It's been hard where I have all the tools to and people to say, no, that's not true. You're a great Tiff. Look at all the stuff you've done with kids. And I've had kids that were like, yo, that was really abusive.
00:57:04
Speaker
which That was really harmful. But I'm like, not under the performative aspects that I've been mentored under. That's tough love. That's how you show up. You beat the hell out of, teach the hell out of, beat the hell out of.
00:57:16
Speaker
young people so that the outside world can't. right That's some of the mentalities behind that. So the first part of our season, I think, was doing the ethnic studies, the critical race. And that work, I felt like that's what I was doing in a lot of ways.
00:57:32
Speaker
And I think those ideas, those theories, those frameworks need to be placed in conversation with the second half of our season. And they need to be practiced.
00:57:43
Speaker
And to your point, ritualized collectively. And I actually believe that we are some of the last people who need to be leading this work. you know i was on a call the other day that was saying that, like and Glenda, who's on here, she was talking about intuition and folks aren't necessarily using that language anymore, but Some of the folks on the call were like, we don't get it. Like that doesn't translate. That doesn't make sense to us. How does this apply to ethnic studies? How does this apply to critical race theory? And she was just like, maybe we should just move in a way where you we're okay if we don't see the connection. And if we don't use that language, what if we're learning how to unlearn what we think it takes to do this work, what we think it looks like, what does it mean to be people
00:58:31
Speaker
boys, for men, for educators, for who what does it mean to be so courageous to not know? and To not know. Yeah. yeah It brings up fear and fear is this counterweight to love me.
00:58:49
Speaker
counterweightit to love you know for me and something was brought to me about how these different practices, ethnic studies, critical race theory, all these things, and even the accolades that come from having some ah ability to understand and share about these things or teach about them is that they're vehicles, right? This is a vehicle that gets us from one place to another place, but they're not our destination. They're like the car or the bus.
00:59:22
Speaker
And at some point, Well, I'm being called to ask, okay, are we here? Like, is it now time to exit and go towards the destiny? They got us to a place.
00:59:33
Speaker
But then what's next?
00:59:36
Speaker
They did get us to a place and it's not about throwing those away or saying that they're not valuable. That's why I said to be in a classroom and say, we're going to read about healing modalities. We're going to study. We're going to just isolate the mind and focus on these things. And then what we were seeing when we were actually in the natural world, when we were outside of these dead spaces was fundamentally different and we didn't have to even have the same type of curriculum. like Young folks were free in a way that I hadn't seen to engage in a type of experiential learning that to me is why I entered the profession in the first place.
01:00:20
Speaker
And it's not about Well, maybe it is, but I'm not necessarily suggesting that people just go let's get out of this place. Let's get out of schools. Let's not call it ethnic studies. Let's not call it CRT.
01:00:33
Speaker
As much as I'm suggesting that we are invested in what an embodied experience of these ideas looks like and how it's manifested and what the outcomes are.
01:00:47
Speaker
Yeah. The best way i can respond is i will know I've done what I was sent here to do based on how my godchildren morphed to be.
01:00:58
Speaker
That'll be one of the biggest indicators because that relationship is really important to me, but it's also taken my belief around celebration and ceremony and ritual and it's being applying it within a family dynamic that wants to live like that.
01:01:17
Speaker
Because a lot of my family do not want that. That's okay, too. That was a hard pivot. I appreciate this pivot.
01:01:28
Speaker
I think a lot of the reflection it still very much grounded in so much of this season that started with the new direction of schools. And it took us a minute to even talk about that, you know going all the way to closing off with land-based schools.
01:01:47
Speaker
pedagogical approaches, right? What a journey. What were these experiences like for y'all to be a part of these conversations? To me, it pulls me closer to like living out my beliefs.
01:01:57
Speaker
I started to get really good about talking about land stewardship at my job. And then I was like, you don't know about this shit about soil? Like, I don't know about nothing. Started taking this permaculture class during the process of us even doing the interviews.
01:02:15
Speaker
And I just don't know nothing. And i think being outside, going to that class every single weekend, being on a Black woman's three acres of land on Ohlone land, it's it's just really sacred. That was the only time in my life where I didn't know nothing and I was okay. like Even when I was extremely uncomfortable, i was okay.
01:02:40
Speaker
okay being okay with not knowing things and being around all these land stewarding people, beekeepers, folks who specialize in soil and water. I mean, like I'm a director of it doesn't even matter.
01:02:57
Speaker
And being in the land class, I was like, your job doesn't matter. like You don't know how to collect water. you know like So I'm able to have this real basic conversation with myself around what is important. And it reminds me of what Ken just was talking about with y'all friend who you know got down to a backpack. I'm like, I get it Now, I'm not there yet. I'm still like, listen, I am not there.
01:03:26
Speaker
But being in the land class and doing this podcast is bringing me closer to living a life that I really believe and that I don't just want to be a good person that can talk about things that I don't know about.
01:03:39
Speaker
Yeah. Along the same ways, there's a this person we reference a lot, Sean Wilson, indigenous scholar who talks about how research is ceremony. And he has these steps about what ceremony is. And the first step is live a congruent lifestyle.
01:03:56
Speaker
I feel like we had a month of ceremony every Saturday, you know, and we couldn't show up, I think, because we honor, I'm talking for myself, I'm trying to honor this work and honor the organizing that you've done, Tiff, and that so many folks from CRE have collectivized to do to honor our guests, to honor my family and Jewel.
01:04:18
Speaker
And that meant that had to be as close to possible of a congruent way of living with each week's conversation. And the one week I wasn't here to have the conversation was with our birth and death doulas, which ironically, you know Cindy was the doula for our daughter.
01:04:37
Speaker
And I wasn't able to be there because I was at a funeral and life celebration for my uncle. And I think it was this, the month where we were doing these podcasts, I think, when I felt like all the learning and gathering that we were doing had really solidified as an invitation to do different kind of work.
01:04:55
Speaker
So for me, that meant attempting to step away from academia, from the work of formalized education in this system. and into maybe similar work to what y'all doing, Jewel, in this soil class of doing some work around indigenous and earth-based home building and having that be the center grounding of my work.
01:05:14
Speaker
And that is scary, but then same time we're having these ceremonies every weekend about why that shouldn't be scary. So the conversation with Theo and Jazz was... game changing for me too.
01:05:25
Speaker
It was life affirming. And all the other conversations were really about moving away from how trauma has almost forced me to do things that I don't want to do. Like the one we have Candice and Maisha. It's like these have been really important ceremonies for me.
01:05:41
Speaker
And I'm grateful even if I'm still a little bit afraid about what is possible or what's going to occur with money, with life. Like that stuff is scary, but I'm grateful for these conversations because they've been life changing and life affirming.
01:05:58
Speaker
One of my favorite scriptures, I think it was in Mark. I guess it's not a favorite scripture because I can't tell you where it's at. It said, I believe God, but please forgive my unbelief.
01:06:13
Speaker
One of my favorites. moved so quickly, y'all too know this, moved so quickly that i was not always grounded coming into these episodes.
Podcast as a Tool for Growth
01:06:28
Speaker
I was focused on certain organization recording and and what was so profound about this community that we have gathered for this season was that I could be sloppy and I had to get it together.
01:06:47
Speaker
And so such an important reminder. i liked it because it was like a personal trainer for me. because even when I think about working with my real personal trainer, sometimes I'd be like, don't need to be spending no money on this. This is ridiculous. I can do this by myself.
01:07:04
Speaker
And then I'll go like three weeks and I won't schedule nothing with him and I won't do none of it. So I was really appreciative of these episodes and these ceremonies and the grounding that came with it because it was like my personal trainer is reminding me and my body what we need to engage in, what we need to think about.
01:07:27
Speaker
And I had to sit down for two hours sometimes and really do engage in that work. I used to do that when I was teaching too. like i would I would assign books that I wanted to read that I just wouldn't create the space to do myself. And I'm like, I'm not going to have kids read something I'm not reading.
01:07:46
Speaker
So we read it together. was the same kind of milieu that was happening here. It was like it was supporting me and doing the work that I didn't have the courage or ah capacity maybe seemingly to do on my own. And I think that's the next step in what we're talking about and the work that we're asking people to engage in is to lean into something that for many of us we've never seen before.
01:08:12
Speaker
And i see this season two as again, its own personal trainer for not just me, but other people. i get lots of text messages and I'm super grateful. Emails and folks actually listen and are like,
01:08:28
Speaker
sharing their favorite part. I'm like, that's made it. You know me podcasts out there? And people don't have to listen to you. And so when folks are like, yo, I mess with y y'all and this part spoke to me, like getting texts like that, that's so humbling and beautiful. And I'm grateful for that. And we try to get it out at like seven something in the morning because folks be listening to it on their way to work on Fridays and I think for a lot of people, it's that space where you get to slow down and be reminded and engage your own memory about why we entered this work in a society that moves so quickly that we easily forget.
01:09:03
Speaker
We easily forget why we signed up for this, why we wanted to work with young people in the first place. ah Last season we had episode, Carissa was talking about she would knock some hot chips and soda out of her kids' hands if she saw that. And she had an energy drink right next to her ah wa while we was doing it. yeah And so we need those reminders. we need Sometimes we say we're in this for youth.
01:09:29
Speaker
We can't do this in sustainable ways for them if we're not investing in our own wellness. And so... Super grateful for everyone who has listened and taken us somewhat seriously. And before we get out of here, i wanted to ask y'all to share what's some parting words that you might want to share with listeners.
Parting Messages and Gratitude
01:09:50
Speaker
I'll share this. And it's just prayer about and tomba <unk> cokuandi kuten kou intanmbe and it's just a prayer about the possibilities of flight to transcend the calamities that we find ourselves in. that That flight is not only possible, it's necessary and it is inevitable.
01:10:15
Speaker
And I just wanna send the folks who share time and space and community with us that message and my love with it and my appreciation and my hope and belief in that reality for everybody who's engaged in this work.
01:10:31
Speaker
Well, since we doing that, I'm going to share what got me through COVID, which was a prayer. i was on the hospital bed, y'all. I said, oh, Lord, you can't even find the vein, lady. I was talking mess while sick.
01:10:47
Speaker
And when the lady found the vein and I started to get a little high off their Benadryl, my body was really like it couldn't rest. And so I started saying this prayer, which was extended to me.
01:11:01
Speaker
And it's a prayer that I use when I'm feeding my E5, but also it' it's just a good prayer. It's the prayer that I taught my godchildren that now, coincidentally, they don't remember, but it's saying Yoruba. And so excuse me if I mispronounce some words, but I said it over and over and over again.
01:11:20
Speaker
And I swear by this prayer. Every time I say it three times in a row, it really did change my life. And so this was the medicine that I used through my process of being sick,
01:11:30
Speaker
Now, I don't remember the translation for everything. era ela era ajay ere a yeah coii coiaum cosier be koi ashale i don't remember the translation for everything But I remember most of them.
01:11:52
Speaker
And it's basically like blessings for life, blessings for children, blessings for abundance, blessings for a long life, blessings for partner, blessings for abundance. And then the COSI is like keep away sickness, keep away death, keep away um you know negativity, that kind of thing.
01:12:10
Speaker
And I swear to you, every time I did it through this process, I would do it three times in a row. And I will feel better. And that's what I leave with the prayer that I'm continuing to teach my God children and myself.
01:12:24
Speaker
say peace in there, too. You had prayer for peace in there, too. I say yes. Yes. A lot for you. A lot for you. Yeah. Well, it's been an honor and this constitutes the end of season two of Drawing from the Well.
01:12:39
Speaker
All right. We appreciate y'all. We'll see if the gunnet let us have season three. All right, y'all. We out.
01:12:54
Speaker
Thank you for listening to this episode of Drawing from the Well, brought to you by the Youth Wellness Movement. I'm your host, Tiffany Marie. This podcast is co-produced by yours truly and John Reyes, with music by my boy Jansen V. Drawing from the Well is supported by Community Response of Education.
01:13:15
Speaker
Continue the conversation at youthwellness.com.