
The Dharma Diaries
Welcome to The Dharma Diaries—the podcast where we find the humor in humanity’s awakening. Hosted by Christina Rusca, this laid-back, ad-free pod takes a playful approach to unraveling societal conditioning and expectations so we can become the most authentic versions of ourselves. No topic is off-limits, and no belief is sacred as we navigate the complexities of spiritual evolution in a refreshingly lighthearted and straightforward way.
The Dharma Diaries is a quirky blend of unrestrained narratives, anecdotes, and insights that challenge the status quo. If you're ready to question everything, laugh at the absurdities of life as well as at yourself, and enjoy some company on your path of spiritual awakening, welcome—you've found the spot.
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www.Wutzpossible.com
Music: DeLaurentis
Pavane – Time Variation
Disclaimer: All content is for entertainment purposes only. This podcast is not intended to provide medical, legal, or professional advice. Basically, don’t make major life decisions based on something I said into a microphone. Consult an actual expert for that.
The Dharma Diaries
A Kick In the Nervous System | Season 2 Episode 19
Race, conditioning, modern-day slavery, the hedonic treadmill, and navigating the complexities of waking up in today's cultural landscape.
www.thedharmadiaries.com
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About Christina: www.christinarusca.com
https://christinarusca.as.me
About Summer: https://linktr.ee/The.Summer.Channel
https://www.tiktok.com/@the.summer.channel
Cover Art: Justin Wutzke, Graphic Artist
www.Wutzpossible.com
Music: DeLaurentis
Pavane – Time Variation
www.thedharmadiaries.com
About Christina:
www.christinarusca.com
https://christinarusca.as.me
Christina@ChristinaRusca.com
Cover Art: Justin Wutzke, Graphic Artist
www.Wutzpossible.com
Music: DeLaurentis
Pavane – Time Variation
(upbeat music) - Okay,
well-- - Welcome back to the Dharma Diaries. - Yeah, we're back. Okay, guys. So today I wanted to talk a little bit about my adventures in the world. the world and how I've come sort of on the outskirts of my swamp of sadness to find a little bit of peace in the experience that I'm having right now.
So for folks, we've been kind of talking a little bit about like my work situation or whatever it's, and it doesn't matter, it's just a part, like corporate America in general is my experience.
But, But I've recently just been dealing a lot with seeing things through this lens of class and race.
And I've been working a lot on, as a white woman from the South, my own experience of race and how I,
like the conditioning that I'm becoming aware of in myself that is inherent. with just being a person who's ever watched any media in this country. Do you know what I mean?
And it's been, it's like an ongoing journey, right? I'm not somewhere where I think I can give a lecture. I'm not going to be like gather around other white ladies.
Yeah. And I think that's part of the problem is that we, when we, and that's why it's such a taboo subject and we don't talk about it enough. because when we are looking at something through the lens of like,
oh, I have agency here and how can I use that to be helpful? Often it comes across as being like. - Judgmental or condescending about the issue maybe?
- No, just like, it comes across as being like, who the fuck are you? - Exactly, and who I'm not. - And that's the thing. And so it's like, when we, like, we we have we are white women who have been raised in the south mm -hmm and we're both well traveled so we also have gotten that different perspective or whatever but it's like we see the disparity and we see the inequity and we see the struggle but we can't
speak to it because we see aren't, it's not our, I guess it's not like our story to, to, to share. And we, we desperately want to be of use here,
but we, but it comes off as like, Oh, here comes another white, white savior. Yeah. It's the whole white savior thing. Yeah. Yeah. And like, and I know that, that part of the answer is just like listening,
like shutting. the fuck up and letting people of color, women of color, tell their stories and just holding space for that. - Yeah. - But then it's like even getting into the container where that can happen.
- Well, but I think that that's part of what we're trying to work towards is, I anticipate the first people that will come to our dream weavers will be other white women like us. because I think that's who we're attracting.
Yeah. And of course, obviously, we want to appeal to everyone, but we're speaking to our experience. And so it's more likely than not, we'll resonate with other people who are demographically similar.
Yeah. And so that that space still doesn't exist. Right. So we're still trying to create just the space for us to have a safe space as women.
right? To even talk about our lives and the disparity in our, you know, our home, like the labor inequities.
Division of labor, yeah. Division of labor within the homes, which we were talking about on the previous episode. And just giving that space because it is about paradox because nothing is just one way.
This is why it's difficult to leave sometimes. an abuser because you love them, right? You know, it's like, I love my mother, I love my ex, my ex -wife, like, I,
I, I love them. They're wonderful, you know, like beautiful hearted people. I saw it, you know, I witnessed it and I saw in my mind's eye their potential, right? That's real for me.
What's also real is that you know, there's pain and that there's disharmony and there's wounding that needs to be talked about and healed and addressed and named and if we can't come to a space where we can air both things and say,
yes this and it sounds real bad, they did X, Y, or Z or I experienced X, Y, or Z at this person's hand, that sounds really bad. But, but also I love them.
And also I see their potential and their divinity, the holding paradox, holding paradox, teaching people how to find within themselves a posture of loving kindness that that receives others with with equanimity and with neutrality and acceptance.
It comes with being able to look at yourself with radical acceptance as well. And that requires a... a muscle of love and compassion for yourself that we haven't been taught to exercise,
right? So we have to learn that from each other. And that's part of what we were talking about in the previous episode about how we get aligned with one another, because we have skills that we can share and we can get experience embodying.
You know, I get to experience embodying that like fuck around and find out attitude that you have inherently as a part of. of who you are by being near you, by seeing how you move,
by seeing how you think, by seeing what things let you up. Because then I see that in myself. It's all just like mirror neurons. It's really not even that like woo woo. It's really just about seeing what resonates up,
what your behavior and your perspective and mindset resonates up in me and where that finds me lacking and looking at that with compassion. Yeah. So we have to get into those spaces first,
create that safety before we can even broach the topic of how we have been complicit and have experienced advantages on the backs of other people,
through the exploitation of other people, writ large for centuries. And that's for us to bear as well. That is our Swamp of Sanctuary.
to trek through Yeah, but we can do it and we can carry each other through it, you know We don't have to get lost there. We we do have to face it. It's our pain body,
you know, like we talked about We talk about that concept of pain the pain body of our society, which is ignored right mostly. Yeah, because we're still being told on a regular basis that if you just rise above it and be your best self and like strive and be happy and do things that make yourself happy,
like that's all such fucking bullshit when you're talking about centuries of pain. Systemic. Yeah. Yeah, like it's in our - Exploitation. yeah, like it's it's in our DNA.
Well, because it's so deeply sad to recognize where you've exploited and where you've been exploited. That's just a real hard fucking pill to swallow.
It's a kick in the nuts. It's a kick in the nervous system. It is a kick in the nervous system. And in order to take those kicks, you got to be prepared to hold that in your body and your energy.
you got to be prepared to love that, that part of you that was ignorant and unconscious in those behaviors who that believed and was that accepted the conditioning,
you know, that we weren't good enough or that we were better than, you know, it's not either or we're just exactly like everybody else, we're worthy of life just like every other sentient being.
and and finding the truth of that within ourselves is where our peace lives and it's where our harmony in our communities can grow from but to get to that means you have to fight your fucking way through the backlog of things you have shoved into your subconscious that you've perceived or that you're becoming aware of about the inequities,
about how your position has afforded you entitlement to access to things that other people by right should absolutely have access to too.
So it's a grieving process. And I think that we're meant to hold each other through that. And I think these small circles are for that because we used to...
to have these the concept of women crying In a circle and sharing each other's pain. Yeah, isn't it's an archaic Construct and we need that.
Yeah, and you know too like I just feel like it's so crazy how people Maybe because of the way that they consume information just aren't aware of certain things that are happening and we're still sold this bill of goods about you know like just worry about you and you know what you can control and all that stuff like we live in a country that is largely run on slave labor like the things that we're buying a lot of
them are being assembled by prisoners and we have the highest incarceration rate in the world per capita,
right? And that's not okay. I didn't know that. I did not know that. You know, it's like we're being sold. No, I just felt like this is new information for me.
I was like yesterday, years old. And so like the thing is, we're being fed this line about like, well, don't buy a shit from China because you know, child labor and you have 12 year olds making in fucking iPhones and Nikes and shit and they're treated poorly and they're not paid a living wage and yada,
yada, yada, meanwhile, you guys have, you guys are incarcerating people and then making them work for you for free. You're appropriating their labor by depriving them of freedom for some whatever the fuck and I'm not talking about,
you know, everybody's gonna be be like, or a lot of people are going to be like, well, no, she's kill people. Then I'm not just talking about that. I'm talking about, you know, the dude selling weed or whatever. Yeah. And as long as you get from the government,
it's fine. And how the government is doing the same fucking thing. Oh, but the markup is 300 percent, right? By the way, I know. It's like, OK, well, that's not all right. Like, like now we know that.
So we're like, OK, well, that's what can we do about it. that? And so like, yeah, like having the conversations, because again, like I did not realize that,
you know, like I did not know that in a for -profit system, which our prisons are, they are then taking people's labor - And selling it.
- And selling it, and profiting from it. - They're already profiting from having deprived. deprived them of their freedom. And then they're doubly or triply or whatever profiting from making them do shit to build,
you know, what a fuck ever, Keurig machines, whatever, I shouldn't even have used a name brand. - Oh, it probably wouldn't use them though. - But you know what I'm saying? It's like, look it up, this is not a conspiracy theory.
- Like you guys are contracting with companies, corporations, and you're like, okay, so we have a work for it. 2 ,448 people. How much is it gonna cost you?
Well, that's negotiable, but we can probably give you a really good deal 'cause we're not gonna pay them a fucking cent. - Yeah. - Like, what the fuck, what? - Did you ever watch Orange is the New Black?
- Yes, yes. - Okay, so at the, and I don't know that I watched all the seasons, but at the last-- - I watched every one of them, girl. - When I finally dipped out was whenever they started talking to me. more about like how they doubled the prisons because of the for -profit.
And I was like, I can't because it's too on the nose. - It is too on the nose. - I couldn't stomach it. - And like, that's the thing I'm saying, like, what, what is we doing?
- Right! - But like, I'm like, what is the way to rectify that? How do we rectify that?
And I think that step one always is, well, first let's talk about it. - Well, we gotta name it. We gotta name it what it is, which is green and slavery.
- It's slavery. And if you thought we were done with slavery in this country, we are not. - No, we've never been done. - That's a fucking problem. - It's just permutation. - It's a problem.
- How many people per capita? are incarcerated in our nation. That's one. And it's a problem that they're then being farmed for their labor without their consent.
That's a problem as well. The other problem is that as we continue to like disconnect from this system, I have a feeling that it might go like,
we gonna put all y 'all asses in jail then, in jail. about that? Yeah, I know. And I listen. And then what do you do? Because then you're just like, just be in jail, I guess. Yeah. And then you're like, that's that's what happened.
This is the end of the game. What a shitty fucking game. Well, it's just this game. Yeah. Right. Right. Yeah. And so the thing that I loved about Buddhism in general was just that they were like,
OK, how do we break this down for y 'all? Hmm. If this is all you're doing this. OK. Everything that you don't like, you're creating it. And it's coming from your own suffering, which is your own resistance to reality.
So it gets you right down to the root of it. All of this dissolves whenever we get off the hedonic treadmill, when we grieve what we need to grieve.
And we start to reach out to one another and to ourselves with compassion and love. - Yeah. - Yeah. - It just falls apart because you can't sustain a system that's inherently cruel when no one will participate in it because they understand it's inherently cruel.
- Yeah, so people have to start opting out 'cause again, like it reminds me of the scene in Barbie where Ken is like, "I can't even beach." Like, "I don't think y 'all are doing patriarchy right." And he's like, "Oh,
no, no, we're good." - "We're good when I got it." - Yeah, you know. And so, yeah, like I think we I think we just need to. And I don't think anything's going to be done like all mass.
That's the thing, too. It's like, it's going to take. Yes, it is going to be like popcorn. And the more of us who are like, yeah, this shit is fucked up and just don't participate anymore.
And but then but then, you know, my my ego says, girl, I'm going to pick you up in a paddy wagon. - And they might. - And that's the thing. It's like, that is the thing that's so scary is that you grow up in this country,
singing "My Country Tis of Thee" and saying the pledge every morning to the flag in your classroom.
And you're indoctrinated from babyhood, practically, to heaven. have this, like, sense of nationalism and national pride and everything. And then you're like,
"Oh, this is really bad." But then you still, because that's been so instilled in you from such an early age, usually in retrospect using fear tactics,
that you're like, "All right, well, this is bad." And like, ordinarily, I would say something, but I ain't trying to go to jail myself. Well, and that's where... where that's where when we were talking about race and like dealing dealing with the complexity of what it is to be a white woman because that's all I can really speak to at this point yeah um from the south and my perspective on race and now I understand
myself as an autistic woman as well so whatever that spiciness adds to it but neurodivergent but maybe for me the only the way that I think that my neurodivergency is,
is helping me even want to navigate this is that I can hold the paradox of like, okay, I'm okay with being wrong.
I'm okay with being because I can correct. If I get instruction, and it makes sense to me, it's not just, you know, like a command down from above. If you're relating to me with intellect and with compassion,
I can get in line with that. But, and I've been, you can see through where the contradictions are a lot easier because when you have an autistic brain or a brain with ADHD,
it's like you can't get lulled into a trance as easily because your brain is like bebop and all fuck over the place. So like, wait, wait, what? Wait, what did you say? - Wait, sorry, I missed that whole place where you,
and not to say, it doesn't work. Obviously, it works to can you can be conditioned. But I think maybe our brains are slightly more able to break out of that. That way of thinking,
because it's doing like 30 percent more processing of information than a neurotypical brain, which is hell. By the way, I'm not bragging.
Yeah. I'm just saying like. There is a lot going on. on in here. And I'm like, I'm like managing, you know, the wild animals in my head. But I do want to talk about race because I feel called to start speaking on it and inviting people to conversation about it as other white people,
because as we become more and more obviously impacted by the state of our culture,
our society and the world. The one of the first things that comes to your awareness as you start to acknowledge that like, oh, I'm getting kind of shafted as a woman. Right.
Then the next thing you realize is like all the other people in our society are being shafted and who have been being shafted, like from the very fucking beginning. And that's where all the grief comes into because it's like, oh, not just me,
but like all these. other people are just like bearing impossible impossible things to survive and and like to be in awe of that is I think is a good position.
Well and like how just knowing how I feel having had my own experiences to know also how much undisguised,
undiluted fucking rage I would feel in the face of some of these things, like the fact that this whole crack down on the crack epidemic that affected mostly black people in poorer urban communities.
communities, but then when the white folks started getting addicted to heroin, it's like if you look at the sentences, there's disparity there because you're talking about like more of a designer drug or whatever.
And it's like, what are we doing? - It does piss me off, but to be in that experience and to know like how fucking unfair this is is and that the only difference is,
like you're attacking my community, you're targeting my community, right? And we live in America. So like to have to sit with that and be like, and I'm a person and I'm one person.
And I, yeah, I could make this my life's crusade or whatever, but like, it feels like a starfish back to the ocean scenario. And this is my one life that I get to live for in this time.
Yeah. Do I want to spend it? You know what I'm saying? - I do. - It's like you feel so trapped and helpless and like you don't have any agency over the situation and like that, like I can feel in my body right now just talking about it and describing it like how fucking angry some of these people might be.
I mean, imagine being a mother who is working to provide for your children and and your child who is largely unsupervised because America,
everybody has to work all the fucking time. And then he makes some decisions or whatever and gets addicted to a substance and you're like trying to navigate that hellscape.
And then he gets arrested and now he's fucking thrown in jail for 20 years or whatever. And it's like-- what? - We're a high nightmare. - Right, and it's like no wonder people are pissed, I'm pissed, and I haven't,
that has not affected me. - I've been so, I want, let me just say this, that I wish to be more educated in this arena so that I can speak intelligently about it,
but the conversation that I'm having right now is really coming, I really would like to be more educated in this arena. expose the truth of the perspective that I have as a white woman now.
So I'm not going to come out of the gate with like all of the. You know, like I just did bullet point. No, no, no, no. I mean, like I don't want to I don't want to root it in that.
Right. Right. What I'm from from my perspective, because the thing that I'm trying to draw on is just like when I align myself with you because you're. such a badass in my view,
right? And I want to get that badassery. Like what I want to do is I want to humble myself and align myself with black women who have been working on this front for generations.
You know, there are just incredible, profoundly amazing, like blow your mind women out there in particular who are. who have been navigating this with grace and with compassion and with forgiveness.
I mean, the mind and the heart and the constitution, that's something that I aspire to. And I want to understand, what is that hack? How do you hack your way through the anger?
- And how have you managed to keep putting one foot in front of the other and showing the fuck up every day without falling into a victim loop and being like,
"Whoa, whoa, it's me. This is my lot in life." That's fruggin' tenacity. Mad respect for that. But yeah, again, that's the whole thing about the community,
because we've all been pulled out and put into our own little households. households and fed this diet of consumerism and capitalism and, you know, all of that bullshit. And like,
we don't talk to each other anymore. And we need to talk to each other. And like, because yes, like, I am not one of those people who is like-- - Why never owned any slaves?
- Like, no, motherfucker, that isn't the point. - It's not the point at all. - Yeah, the point is that we have this. this terrible trauma in the history of this country that has never been talked about.
And we should discuss it because if you, like you talked about the pain body earlier and like that's this density that you can feel in places when you go there.
And that's kind of like our clue. I mean, Jesus Christ. I we talked about this a couple of weeks ago. I know an author we should have her on, actually.
I know an author who was sharing about the this slave uprising where these slaves and this was here in Louisiana after the Louisiana purchase.
Because after the Louisiana purchase, the. the Port of New Orleans was going to be the port, like surpass New York, all of that, because of like the cotton trades and all of that stuff,
right? So, and I might be butchering this, but this was my takeaway from it. So there was this slave revolt and this uprising, and they were trying to get to the Port of New Orleans so that they could have that security,
security, because Haiti was free at this point, and they could see it. They're like, OK, if we take the port, and now we have a direct line to Haiti,
we can do this, right? And so they marched, they burned plantations as they went, and then the federal government came in and put down the uprising so fucking brutally.
brutally and I didn't know anything about this I have only ever lived in this country yeah I have a degree in liberal arts I took a lot of history nobody ever talked about this nobody ever talked about this and like they butchered these people they mutilated them they dismembered them they castrated them they pulled their intestines out they hung them,
they chopped off their heads and mounted them on spikes so that when the slaves had to travel River Road, they would see what happens if you don't comply.
And I was like, how have I lived here my whole fucking life and I'm just now hearing this story, I'm 45 years old. How have we never taught more about this?
Why are these conversations only happening in like, you know, guest lectures at select universities or something? - Because we can't hold the grief.
- We can talk about the rum running at fucking nauseam. Do you know how many lectures I've been really about like, yeah, bootlegging and rum running and all that? Like, who gives a fuck about your cocktail?
Did you also know that we must? mounted human beings' heads on spikes in America? In America? - We just, we need to grow our muscle to hold paradox,
to hold our grief, to hold our grief while we're giving ourselves compassion for whatever our part of that has been, however passive. - And that's what it is,
it's like, no, I don't feel personally responsible. for having Subjugated another human being, but I know that it happened and I believe in radical personal responsibility Right,
so like what do you need me to do work? How can I help you heal right from this? Because and I and how do I help myself heal because I also know that I cannot hurt another person without hurting myself That's right.
We need to all and I'm not and this is not one of those things where it's just like, let's just get in this like healing cycle where we just fucking heal, heal, heal, heal. But we haven't even fucking scratched the surface on this one.
I feel like I hope that that's what's happening is that as we are engaged in these individual healing practices that we don't just heal ourselves indefinitely.
We should figure out like, oh, this is what this feels like. Other people need this too. So yeah, let's bring online the compassion. Let's bring online the discomfort of sitting with someone else's story.
Yes. Hearing them talk about their story. Like, oh my God, like, do you remember? And this is going to make me sound like a, you know, typical fucking middle -aged white lady living in the South. But like the,
the movie, the help, and I've read the book, but it does have like this whole line of white savior in it. So I'm not saying I'm not, I'm not calling this out as like, we had. your pain, black ladies.
But like the, the part of that movie that really like stuck with me and that I still think about is when Abelene was talking about her son dying and how they just dumped his crushed body like on her doorstep essentially and he died.
That is the kind of stuff that we need to be talking about with each other. Like, I too want women of color to trust me enough to look past the fact that I am part of a system that has treated them abominably and know that as a human,
being, I'm them, they are me, like we're together in this. That's what needs to happen is we need to weave back in where it's like you are a person and I am a person and somebody has hurt you and they were people who looked like me and I,
it wasn't me, but I wanna take radical personal responsibility for that because somebody should. - Somebody should. - Somebody should. - But you deserve to be seen and heard and understood and your story is important.
- It's important. - I can give that to you. And I know that it's like 300 years removed and apologies for that, but we were still stuck in this unconscious bullshit.
- We've been traumatized too. - White women have been tools of the oppressors. - Right. - We have always been used as such. - And we've been used to police each other. - That's right. - And we've been used to police.
people who held less power than we do. That's right. They gave us just enough power to sweeten the to like, you know, like, you can't tell me what the fuck to do. But you can tell this slave what to do,
you know, or you can tell this, you know, in housekeeper what to do. Like, it's, it's a horrifying reality to look at that when we were in pain, we passed our pain on to others.
And it's just on the human level, something that we all have done, and that we can all relate to, and we can give each other, if we have it available,
forgiveness for it and hold each other with loving kindness. Because it's a vibration. It's a mindset. It's a way that we can grow our community by having this posture of loving kindness towards each other.
each other, but we can't generate that for others if we can't do it for ourselves and so the work is always to point yourself towards How can I how can I generate a feeling of love?
Yeah, and neutrality Because if you feel like you have been you have spent the past two -ish years doing nothing but living in deep introspection introspection and like fucking chasing your shadow so you could like sit with that piece of you or those pieces of you and finding forgiveness for yourself and others and healing,
healing, healing, fucking healing till you're like, "God damn, how much more do I have to heal?" I think that this now is the time where all of that now is gone. is when it is of use to you.
Now is when you get it. Now is when you're like, OK, because I couldn't have shown up this way if I hadn't done that work. That's right. Yeah. And it's a it's a gift. You know, we we work on ourselves so that we can be of service to others and so that we can have a better freaking life experience.
I mean, the reason that I'm doing any of my introspection work, I don't know about you, but it's. so that I can freaking survive so that I can keep suicidal summer happy and so that she doesn't fucking call,
you know, throw a flag on the play. Yeah, literally. So I'm this is and that's the beautiful thing too. They say even about Buddhism is that people get into meditation for selfish reasons because they're trying to ease their own suffering.
But on the path to either easing your own suffering, you can also ease the suffering of. others by demonstrating how you've taken a posture of loving kindness and compassion towards yourself,
even though you've done things that we've we've all been conditioned to have shame around. Yeah. And it's the human experience we we're not any one of us it's not on any one of our shoulders,
we're all in this together. And so I wanted to say because what brought this up was I was traveling this last week for work. and I was in the airport and I never really buy magazines,
but for whatever reason, well, I know the reason actually is Issa Rae. Issa Rae is a director, comedian, writer, actress from the television show Insecure on HBO.
And she's got another show, which I think is called Wrap Shit, which is kind of cool. And she was in Barbie. She was the-- president in Barbie. Oh, that's who Issa Rae is. Yeah.
Got it. Got it. So Issa Rae is having her moment and she's a brilliant up and coming director in my opinion. And I've always loved Insecure and part of my experience of consuming black media has been,
I've always been like watching myself like it feels like a space that I'm yes, invited to, to watch, to consume, but it's clearly not,
you know, it's or it wasn't designed with me in mind. But I'm so grateful to be able to see into that experience and to have the opportunity to get the experience of what their lives are like,
because I recognized all this conditioning in me. Like I think I was conditioned to think that like. like, people of color didn't have the same kinds of houses that we had. I mean, on the level of that kind of ridiculous fucking conditioning.
- Or like the stupid fucking fact, like I know whenever I was growing up in my household, it was like, not necessarily by my parents, but certainly, you know, one of my grandparents. When BET came out,
and it was like, "Wow, why do they have to have this kind of house?" their own fucking channel? I don't know cuz we have 49 of them what right and like we we just had basic cable cuz we was poor right,
but like you know I mean like yes If our they're all our they're all our channel. Why can't why can't any group have anything really like who the fuck are you? Why shut the fuck up? Why do you care?
Right? Don't look at it, right? But okay, so or or or or look at it and learn something well Well, you have to be in a position to want to learn. And that's unfortunately not the case.
Yeah. No. And it's very timely because we were just talking about the super black. But before we'll come back to that, because I wanted to say she was on the cover of Time and Essence. So Time Magazine and Essence Magazine.
And I wanted to buy the Essence Magazine because I thought it would probably be like kind of like watching in secure, like more of an honest, you know, this is the black experience. the black female experience.
And I'm I'm supportive and interested and curious and whatever, even though it's not my experience. But I bought the Time magazine because I was like, I'm a I really stood there in the airport.
I was like, am I allowed to am I allowed to buy the Essence magazine without looking like a fucking like you're trying to appropriate a culture? Yeah, I'm trying to signal my my answer.
anti -racist right and so it's like what do I I don't know how exactly to navigate and that's what this whole that's what this whole episode is about it's like what you know if we do have any listeners of color right like can you teach us and show us how to show up for you because we're trying but we don't know what we're doing and so we don't want to be disrespectful we We are cognizant of the times that you
have been disrespected and misunderstood and patronized, you know what I mean? Like we wanna show up how you need us to show up, not how we think you need us to show up because we don't fucking know.
- I know, but then I feel like, why are we putting the fucking onus on them to teach us? So it's, then I started to be like, okay, well, then I just need to read, right? Like I need to read more shit. Like I need to read more shit. Like I wrote, I read, I started reading.
I had to put it down because it was like so hard hitting. But like I started reading. Oh, the body is not an apology. Sonia, can you look that up on your phone?
Yeah, the body is not an apology. That book is all about racism and the patriarchy and how it has impacted how we view the body,
which I'm all about. because I'm like a fat woman, right? So like, and I do mean P H A T Fiat. OK, I'm not dissing myself. I really don't think that that is a moral standing.
Like, but right now on your Renee Taylor, Sonia Renee Taylor, the goddess. OK, the book is called the body is not an apology. And I got like,
like a tenth of the way in and I was like, I need to I need to. this and I'm giving myself the opportunity to ease my way into this conversation and into this knowledge because it has been given to us,
but it's like how fast can we consume it without it just shutting us down into like a fight, flight, freeze response to the fact that it's all around us. It always has been like people have been being exploited.
We've been systematically being exploited ourselves like where, you know, and so anyway, my, my whole thing about it is like, it keeps coming back down to my actions,
to my reactivity, where I can slow down my reactions, learn from my patterning, recognize my conditioning so that I can root it out,
cast it into the fire, call it name it and say, I'm not doing this anymore. And it has to start with how we talk to ourselves. So all of those voices that we've been conditioned into are in our minds are being used by us to control us,
right? To navigate. And to an extent, we need, you know, we probably feel like we need some of that to motivate us and to keep us in line. And like, we don't want to get hauled away to the right loony bin just yet.
We still got work to do, but. but it's all about shifting how we relate to ourselves and it will change how we relate to others.
And so I don't know. I mean, it's like, yes, I wanna make that call out and say like, please, please do. If you feel led and it comes from an overflowing cup. - Right. - Please do,
how about us? - Yeah, for sure. Like, it is not your... job or your responsibility. It's to take me to take me through that journey. No, but if you do have space and you see that,
oh, I can I can clarify something and she's receptive and we are. Yes. Yeah. Then that would be fantastic. It would be so great. Yeah. But I did want to make sure everybody knew like and it is weird that you were like,
am I allowed to buy the Essence magazine? Is it going to, you know, what is it going to say about? me? If I do? And then it's just like-- - Probably wouldn't nobody have noticed. - No, when nobody watched any-- - And we have to,
and that's the thing, like we have to just start doing the weird thing, the thing that feels weird pushing our own boundaries in that regard, seeing what it feels like to actually follow through and buy the Essence.
- Yeah, because I think that's what is happening is like all of these, like they, so if, if, it looks like we've been categorized and labeled and put in boxes for however fucking long up to this point,
I think that what's happening is like that that those boxes are just disintegrated. Yes. There isn't the energy to keep the labels in boxes and categories going. And so they're disintegrating.
And so now we're seeing each other and ourselves without all this stuff and it's all dissolving. That's the space that we're in. Yeah. And so like, I want my work in the world to be the continuation of that disillusion.
Yes. Where it's like, okay, now we're just all going to fucking come together. And we're going to remember our power, and we're going to remember where we came from, and we're going to remember how to love one another and like be there for one another,
regardless of all of the stupid labels and categories, because that don't make a fucking hella bean. - And you've always, the thing I love, and I mean, I'm telling you, when I say, "I respect this about you so much," you are very clear about your feelings about politics,
right? Like you've never been, like we say, you know, you know how to say what you mean. - And yet you have and maintain friendships with people who are absolutely on the other side of the fence,
and I've never understood, like I've been on the other side of the fence. so in awe of that. And what we were talking about the other day and that you said is that you've never had a hard time connecting with person,
like on the level of a human being to a human being. - Yeah, and I feel like that is the exercise. And that's what, and you know, that's what you have to remember is like, and I use the term they because we all do.
And I don't know who they are. - No. - And I want to like they. (laughing) (laughing) - Bye. like, they don't want us to see each other at that level.
They need us to stay in the boxes. They need us to keep up the labels and the categories because that's how we're being controlled. So yeah, like I have spent time with people who I know are like ideologically,
ideologically opposed to a lot of the things that I believe in and that are my values. - Yeah. - But I've had coffee with them and talked to them for four or five hours because like at a human being level,
like I'm saying one thing and they're saying something else, but if you strip everything away, we're saying the same fucking thing. That is what I recognize.
- Yeah. that's what I recognize is like Oh, we they just want to feel safe. Yeah, I feel safe exactly. I get it, you know, absolutely So like that's why I don't feel like Whatever is gonna happen to end this era is gonna be some major like Blow up,
you know, like where the military swoops in and like Armageddon like they're there, you know Keeping us tame because I just don't think that on a human level That you're gonna send troops in in whose people are them and they are you know what I mean like we're all they're gonna get it like these soldiers are like well no I'm not I'm not gonna fire into a crowd of civilians because why would I do that that's why it
has to be on the individual level because if we can all break down the conditioning that has been fed into us and we can see through it and stand on our own values, what's underneath that,
then we won't be able to be controlled to that end, you know? Right, and that's, I think that's what it all boils down to. And like, that is the purpose, well, not the purpose,
but like, that's the topic of this whole episode is like, how can we not meet each other while staying inside our boxes with our labels and categories attached.
Like how can we get out of that box? 'Cause we didn't put ourselves in that box. - Exactly, exactly. - You know, and yeah, there is the faction that is trying so fucking hard to stay in the box.
I'm talking to you boomers. You know what I'm saying? Like they're like, I like my box. I have tricked my box out. It's a nice box. box. - And I know all of the things about it,
and I feel comfortable here. - And I get that. - And I get that too, 'cause you just wanna feel safe and comfortable. I get it, but we're not doing the whole safe and comfortable at other people's expense anymore. And so that's where we all are.
It's like coming out of that, looking around and being like, "How can I show up as the most authentic person?" version of myself and also really honor my ideals and values and also honor your ideals and values because your ideals and values being what they are don't affect mine at all.
And so like my job then is just to see you as you are to ask you questions, to listen to your answers and that's where we find commonality and that's why why I've never gotten in a pissing match with anybody In real life now.
I mean, you know on the internet. Well, that is a different story That's why I don't engage there anymore That's why I don't engage there anymore because it's so easy to forget humanity, right? Yeah, and it's like would I say this to this Person's face.
I mean in my case. Yes, I usually would but like But like I'm not gonna change their mind They're not gonna change my mind and I think that's part of the labels and categories and boxes is that we've been trained to be.
It's like, you know, like, like this is one big fucking debate club. No, like, no, like, I don't I don't need you to believe what I believe and I don't need to believe what you believe, right? To meet you as a human, right? Being and like,
that's all we need to do with each other. I love that. That's so beautiful. I say we leave it with that, man. That was a good leave it on a high note. Hell's yeah. OK,
well. then, bye, y 'all. Bye, y 'all, love you. Love you, bye. Bye.