Whats Love Got To Do With This And Rage Grief And Despair

what drew you to this conversation

it’s got this um idea of this this

thought question what’s love got to do

it at the heart of this

um this moment that we’re sharing

together what’s love got to do with it

and what about rage and grief and

despair

really what i want to share with you all

is a little bit of how

my work with mindfulness and bringing

mindfulness together with

um the challenging work of turning

toward

uh the suffering that is in our midst

even as we do the best we can to take

care of ourselves

attend to our own needs for wellness um

maybe in some ways rest on

a mindfulness practice to support us in

our individual efforts to

navigate this very challenging time the

question at the heart of my work is how

is it that

by not only exploring how mindfulness

can support each of us

right because that’s really important we

all need to be doing the best we can to

maximize our resourcefulness

our resources our ability to stay strong

and resilient

during this time but a real question is

as we do that

how how may we at the same time be

deepening our resourcefulness

for supporting one another and for

deepening our ability to help be a

positive part

of what wants to be born in the world at

this moment

this period in which we know we don’t

know exactly what’s going on

but we know something important is

happening in this

moment we’re we’re witnessing and living

through

multiple intersecting pandemics

so while we are trying to heal through

um

and from and bear up against the risk of

coronavirus we’re also bearing up

against the

heightened awareness of the pandemics of

social identity-based bias

racism and other kinds of isms and

schisms that separate us

i just want to share the thought that

mindfulness which is often

disseminated and offered as a very hyper

individualized personal practice for

well-being

can actually be a really important

technology if you will or support for

engagement in the world for working

together with other across lines of

real and perceived difference and for

doing the absolute best we can

with the moments we have in this

relatively short life however it is

long it is on this planet right it’s

gonna

you know we we all know that it’s the

human predicament that we

must do the best we can and then pass

the baton to the next generation

how do we make the most of this

opportunity to transform the world in

this moment of

radical transformation that we’re

already in the midst of somehow

can we be a part of the solution

and so mindfulness in my estimation

is a way of being a part of the solution

it can help us in the moments where we

are feeling disconnected from love

we’re feeling rage or enraged because of

injustices that we see

we’re feeling sadness and grief because

hidden and under under acknowledged

grief i think is one of the

the traumas of this time that we have

yet to even figure out how to deal with

mindfulness to me supports radical

emotional agility

being able to sort of be present to

acknowledge what we’re feeling

really allow ourselves to feel it but

also ask this radical question

what else is here so even as i’m feeling

anger even as i’m feeling sadness what

else is here is there also

a sense of warmth a sense of peace at

this moment

a sense of ha what is

working well within my body and spirit

and so inviting this capacious ability

to hold

a little bit more reality and flow

in and out of the things that trouble us

that’s called equanimity in some of the

teachings

mindfulness can help us in other words

with i think this

this invitation that we’re all trying to

listen

for or open ourselves up to answer which

is all about

how do we find ourselves more at home

together more at peace together

more able to work together on this

beautiful planet

for the healing and liberation of

all of us so i want to pause and say

thank you and invite gil and jack

into this conversation with me and all

of you

thank you so much rhonda thank you thank

you so much

i i don’t want to leave the campfire you

know i just

i just want to stay here and absorb

everything

i get the honor of the first question

and it’s not even on my list it just

came

from hearing you speak i want to know

from you ronda

what was the the catalyst that that

really

uh changed things for you to bring you

to the to the point where

part of the answer is going on inside of

you and you needed to focus and we

needed to focus

on what was going on inside of you i

would say

um that you know that the

my my evolution as a person who

is um both committed to doing what we

can with the systems that we have being

engaged in the world and certainly

law gives us an opportunity and a lot of

challenge

around how to be engaged with what’s

happening around us and

and try to work for change with others

so i was really aware from my own

experience of

what a difference law could make in

changing

and creating circumstances of

possibility

where there had been none before but

what i’d come to see was that there was

something missing

that there’s something about the

conventional ways that we’re trained

uh for leadership and and um

and for working to resolve conflict

using these traditional methods

something that was leaving out the heart

something that was leaving out a sense

of empathy and compassion

the one teacher that i saw manifest that

more than any of the others i had in all

of these different

you know wonderful settings for higher

education

and training and this and that was my

grandmother

a woman named nanny suggs who had been

denied the opportunity to get much

education at all born in 1906 and

segregated north carolina

whose life had been very difficult as a

black woman at that time

but what she had learned was how through

her own practices which for her were

basically christian-based centering

prayer

how she could begin every day with a

commitment to um

this discipline of her own inner work

and how that could be a support for

really making the most of whatever

opportunities might present

for making a positive difference in the

world and so there was a point

in which i realized i needed some

similar

modality or you know method for

grounding myself in the possible and um

you know it wasn’t going to come from

studying more law books it was going to

come from studying more legal opinions

and arguing with people about what we

might do

but that capacity to stay engaged in

those hard questions could be supported

by a commitment to personal practice

i’ll start out with us

with a phrase that we found in one of

your writings from a while ago it says

we live in the 21st century

a radically diverse world and yet we

have never developed the intentional

kinds of technologies

that address in deep ways what it means

to bring people together

across cultures so how do you talk

how do you help us in dealing with these

issues

and trying to reach across these divides

to bring people back together

you know all i can offer is what i have

been learning as i’ve been trying

you know learning as i

you know get up each day and accept

whatever um invitation i have on that

day

to you know turn back toward

this these hard questions of how do we

um connect rather than uh reinforce

the patterns and trainings and

separation

and segregation how do we instead find

ways to

reinforce that which wants to connect

all i can say is that we all know

something if we’re

willing to pause and reflect about what

it means to be included and excluded

disregarded or disrespected because of

what we look like

we also know something about how it is

that when we’ve been wounded

one of the ways we respond is pushing

people away and defending against being

vulnerable again

so in so many ways mindfulness can help

us

help me has helped me like recognize my

own woundedness and therefore be a

little bit better able to see when

somebody else is acting from their own

their wounds how do we get this into our

school systems at an early age

that it’s so crucial to future

development how do you feel

that we can get mindfulness into the

school system

is that even a possibility yeah you know

i mean i’m actually very excited to

answer this but just by saying

you know stay tuned and look around in

your neighborhoods

look in your you know local um

preschools even head start programs you

can surprise

um how much uh is happening and changing

out there

because we’re all recognizing that the

way we’ve been doing things

hasn’t been working so well i don’t know

if y’all have noticed

so we’re noticing that what’s been

happening in k through 10

12. what’s happening in higher ed what’s

happening in law schools

what’s happening all around us whether

in law

politics we need to do this differently

so there’s an opportunity being created

by these crises

as always happens and more and more

people actually are bringing these

practices in

um there’s a mindful schools program

there’s a piece in schools

and social justice initiative that’s

part of the mindful schools program

right now

and um i’m just just going to name these

things and

encourage you to sort of just be on the

lookout because you would be surprised

um one of my law professor friends

pointed out to me when i started

bringing mindfulness

into um the law school environment more

frequently after a few years she came up

to me and she said

i have to tell you i’m starting to you

know understand the power of this

because my little girls in their

kindergarten and elementary school

have been getting some mindfulness

training and so they’re coming to me and

noticing when i’m getting a little bit

tense and they are pausing and they’ve

recently said things like mom

i think you might need to pause and take

a breath you know

right so the kids are starting to learn

and we’re starting to understand the

importance of social and emotional

learning

it’s funny my my four-year-old uh often

tells my two-year-old when she gets

upset

let’s pause and count to four because

that’s the thing that we have to tell

him when he gets upset so it’s working

it’s spreading it’s spreading like a

rainbow

yeah absolutely is social bias caused

only by

persons with social bias and i think

you’ll see these questions are kind of

tied together so

part two is how do you distinguish

between justice and revenge

so who doesn’t have social bias i mean

are there people i don’t know

how could we having been born in a world

inherently embedded in a social context

is there a way we could have somehow

sealed ourselves off

from the trainings and embeddedness in

our culture every every human being has

different kinds of biases

and their bias is obviously around

social identities tied to

those identities that have historically

been privileged and subordinated

uh valued and dis disrespected in our

culture

we sort of don’t recognize how much

we’re up against around the

pervasiveness of

bias at our peril and there’s all kinds

of

resources out there to help us

understand how pervasive bias is

there’s online surveys the implicit

associations tests

you can go online right now and get a

sense for the different biases that

might

be part of what you’re working with but

we all work with them

um justice for me one way of thinking

about it that is

it’s what love looks like in public so

there are these more you know technical

definitions for justice

of justice but for me i lean heavily

into this idea of it being kind of

a version of love in action everybody

deserves a certain kind of

you know basic dignity and and security

in their person we all

deserve kindness we all deserve the

means to be able to thrive

and so um to me justice invites us to

figure out how we can work

more toward thriving um that encompasses

us all

and so it’s not about revenge in any way

for

me so i think it’s important for us to

have these conversations what do we mean

by justice

and so the invitation is to heal those

separations

recognize that everybody is entitled to

love and protection

and that actually does include all of us

and we are all suffering

no matter what our racial background

from the notion

that we’re somehow superior or inferior

what are

some specific ways that you have brought

mindfulness into your law practice

uh is it only personal are there ways

that you’ve brought mindfulness into

your teaching or

interactions with clients or other

lawyers yeah

so i think of another way i think about

um this work and the work of

transforming justice

is is to think about it as an ecological

project that includes our personal i’ve

already alluded to this without laid out

personal interpersonal and systemic

efforts

so the question of what can we do

personally individually what can we do

together and how can we change these

systems

it’s always a part of the projects that

i’m involved with

so yes personal practices of the kind

that i’ve alluded to including the stock

practice meditation practice loving

kindness practice

daily practices for me movement

practices

um of a variety of sort right we’re

sorts where we kind of

ground ourselves in the feeling of our

being well and

connected and belonging on the earth i

bring these practices into classes

into retreats for lawyers and social

justice advocates and

teachers of mindfulness and leaders and

business folks all over the world now

because we’re all in some way wherever

we are we can do

the work of justice this isn’t limited

to lawyers and law professors and law

students anymore

is there anything that you would want to

any uh parting words that you want to

leave all of us with

well i guess i want to invite us to just

take a breath pause together

and feel again the unrepeatable nature

of this moment

and be reminded that that’s true for

every moment of our lives

and that if we can ask ourselves what

else is here in those moments when we’re

feeling distressed

and try and turn toward what is well

within us and within each other and

in this experience of life from that

place i think we might be able to bear

up a little bit better every day

against the pressures of this time and

we need each other

to be as resilient and strong as

possible but we can do this

humankind has been in trouble before and

struggled before and we’ve gotten this

far

so every one of us can do what we can to

make the best of this

this time and i thank you all for doing

what you can in this moment and joining

us here

thank you so much rhonda thank you thank

you