The Joyous Justice Podcast
The Joyous Justice Podcast
Ep 113: How to proceed in the overwhelm of it all
We’re sensing that for many of you, the present moment is filled with overwhelm and despair. In this week's episode, we’re sharing some insights for how to navigate it all. We talk about acknowledging the state we’re in, determining the level of intervention we need based upon the oppression/danger scale, and engaging in the important rituals of emotional honoring and release. Tracie also shares some of her own experiences around her own conditioning and how these lessons have applied to her life.
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Discussion and reflection questions:
- What in this episode is new for you? What have you learned and how does it land?
- What is resonating? What is sticking with you and why?
- What feels hard? What is challenging or on the edge for you?
- What feelings and sensations are arising and where in your body do you feel them?
We're sensing that for many of you. The present moment is filled with overwhelm and despair. In today's conversation, we share some insights, tips and validation to help you navigate what's going on within and without.
April Baskin:This is us talk racial justice with April and Tracie,
Tracie:a weekly show hosted by April Baskin and Tracie Guy Decker.
April Baskin:in a complex world, change takes courage,
Tracie:wholehearted relationships can keep us accountable.
April Baskin:Hi, Tracie. April. Hi, listener tuning in. Tracie, I was just kind of drawing a blank of what we might talk about this episode, but you had a few different ideas. So I'm happy for you to set the frame for this. And I think it's good because I think it might draw out some other questions or ideas and hopefully slash definitely be helpful for our beloved listener who is tuning into this episode.
Tracie:Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, I'm thinking about I've had more than one person in my orbit. Recently, I express either publicly or privately this sort of overwhelm, and despair about the state of the world, about the the sort of the what feels like many catastrophes, all happening all at the same time, from, you know, rising anti semitism to rising sea levels, to you know, some of the politically in, in this country in the US, with the folks who are election deniers who are on the ballot, folks who are espousing some of the most radical and really frightening aspects of Trumpism, but are much more polished, and therefore more dangerous than the sort of buffoon who gave his name to the movement. Anyway, so I'm seeing more than one person in my orbit kind of being like, the world is just on fire. And I don't know what to do, I don't know where to focus my attention. And so I'm not focusing in anywhere, and I feel like I'm not helping. And I, I just, I'm, what do I do, and they're just sort of like running around, like, you know, the sky is falling. And anyway, I, this, that sort of feeling of like, being completely I
April Baskin:want to add to the tornado, before you bring pull it all together of like, different things that you've also listened to, and that were other I'm also seeing to around the drawing back of different civil liberty, civil liberties and things that are happening with the Supreme Court around reproductive justice or reproductive injustice, as well, or even
Tracie:just the Supreme Court, like kind of seeming to betray their trust in the ways that like, Justice Thomas is being manipulated by others. It's like, yeah, yes, sorry.
April Baskin:Yeah, no, no, no, please. No. I'm just I'm just offering. So yeah, and I think, many, many other dynamics.
Tracie:Yeah, sort of pick your poison. There's lots. So anyway, April, I have I have that feeling of sort of being distracted by fires everywhere, are metaphorical, and in some places, literal, fires everywhere, and just not knowing how to proceed and feeling stuck in that overwhelm of the world's brokenness. I have seen you coach people through that. And I thought it would be a great opportunity for and maybe welcome from our listeners, for you and us to share some of your wisdom that I think you are uniquely suited to, to convey now and always,
April Baskin:yeah, and I love this. I think it's a really great bridge conversation as we find our way through our transition of the podcast from Jews talk racial justice to joyous justice. And I love this as a prompt for us to talk about and for me to initially respond and then engage in conversation with you. Because this very framing is the inspiration and foundation of why I created joyous justice to begin with. And, and what I would say is that you know, you mentioned and so there's many there's like 12 different angles, I could take around this it comes to some of our core teachings and some of our core teachings that We've been teaching for the past three, four years as a joyous justice has evolved as we've been partnering for to and some that are ones that we've just now started to teach publicly, in our programs in our grounded and growing program. And in the next iterations of the work will be doing yay, that will be launching in December and inviting people to begin to learn about and experience in the coming weeks. So there's a lot of different things we could say here, I'm just going to pick a few. One for me that's really foundational. And so this may super resonate with you, beloved listener immediately and or it might be a bit agitational. And so I want to invite you to breathe through it. So before I do that one is just in general, it's really helpful for us to get clear on what specific activities and practices can soothe us somatically. So if we are in fact, in a moment of significant physical, spiritual, emotional, mental distress, what are different tools, we have to calm ourselves, whether that's different embodied, often it is embodied practices, whether it's having situational awareness, so but the thing that I first wanted to say, which I realize, if you are not somatically, soothed, you might want to pause and get somatically, soothed, if you're in a place of acute distress is for me, and it goes back to both things that I've been learning over the past 20 years, and also my childhood and my specifically about black and Indigenous ancestry of I have this image that you mentioned a fire's. And for me, the key thing here is practicing a form of mindfulness, where we where we become really aware, okay, there are fires. Fact, there are fires right now. And even if I'm not quite there, in this moment, the best opportunity that I have to put out these fires to navigate these fires, is for me to be well cared for, and to navigate it because that is, in fact, the reality. And I think, you know, one of the things we teach in our programs is about balancing aspiration, acceptance and aspiration. And the more I think about it, the more it becomes a two step process, where in order to aspire and shift things, we need to first come into awareness that this is what's happening right now, it doesn't mean that I approve of it, it doesn't mean that I want to be complacent about it, maybe slightly in the sense that I need to understand it first and accept it because it's overwhelming my senses. And it's bigger than me and honestly, needs to involve multiple people. And one of the best things I can do that strategically, positions me and others to most effectively address some of these things, is just to fully acknowledge, yeah, it's this bad. And for me, the blackness in me, and also, like, my things I've learned over the years, says, My people, and I, and everyone I know and love, which is basically all of humanity. We deserve to thrive, whatever is happening, we deserve. And obviously, like if we're in an acute moment of actual injury, or something that we need to sue that injury, but things are as they are. And we need to find a way through, which is not the somatic comforting piece, which is a place more of a little bit more of a Phoenix style approach. I remember as a kid, and I thought about this a lot in high school, and specifically in my college years, I personally identified with the burning bush, I'm going to be a bush that burns that is unconsumed. There are going to be difficulties around me. And I'm going to make it through my ancestors have made it through and I'm going to make it through by resourcing myself at that time it looked like therapy in a range of different things. And I was honestly figuring it out then one step at a time what that looked like finding different books. But yes, there is fire, but that doesn't mean that it's all over. And over time I can start to notice what needs to burn here. What can I offer up as tinder that I can release in this moment? And what am I actually making sure is sacred and protected. And then I'm nourishing and hydrating, even as fires are raging because some of these fires are going rage and that doesn't mean that we still can't take care of ourselves organize and work to turn the tide. And then I want to go even broader. So I want to go even broader, even more meta and then bring it back home with some specific first steps and techniques. And then for me in more recent years in the past 10 to 15 years or so. I've been really cultivating within my consciousness, which will be one of the tips with is that depending upon where you are in this conversation and where your awareness is, there are a number of things that we can recommend that are quick things that can support you. And also, it may be a bit of a journey, like there might be a lot of momentum around operating in a particular way that has made sense and is supported you and your survival to date. And we might be offering things that over time, you can start to weave in and start to have a different way of operating, that can give you a greater sense of agency, and clarity and power, even in the midst of chaos and confusion. So the broader so my first thought is, yes, there are fires, and even if there are fires, like, like, I want to be someone and through my ancestral lineage, who whatever is happening, like poopoo, like, I don't want my house to be on fire. And if my house is on fire, as much as I can, I need to make sure that my kids can get out, and that we're going to find a new home like it, that is happening. And so whether it's in that moment, and also this is what I'm saying is based on a foundation of years of therapy, and getting support around working through these things, right. It's not a times like some of these things are highly traumatic, and we need to navigate them. And for me, there's a couple different think pieces where we need to navigate them. And as someone who which I'm really excited for us to start to build this out and share this with folks and dive even more deeply in our programs. You know, in terms of the emotional thermometer versus oppression scale. My sense is with what's happening in the world. I remember and I'm sure y'all might remember, like people were bemoaning 2016. I mean, I can't even if they were if it was 2015? I don't think so. But a number of people have been saying it's been really rough. And it's been getting progressively rough. And I think that that can change. I'm not saying that I think it's going to get even worse, although it might. But for me, regardless of what the conditions are. I know I want myself and my beloved's and the issues we care about to survive and thrive. Yeah, so as someone who has been in my own life, and who comes from peoples who, where it's been that visceral and real. I've had a lot of practice around, how do I stay calm and keep my humanity. And then the broader frame for me, which is really helpful is and maybe a stretcher might be comforting is, you know, I've shared before I think we may have it that like my shorthand for what I'm about to say is babies and brilliant leaders are being born, flowers are blooming, the sun is shining, that is my shorthand, it could look like a lot of different things of actually noticing and trying to, in aggregate holds a more balanced perspective, to contradict the new cycle to notice actually, that there that movements right now that there are amazing movements that we know and that we don't know about that are being formed right now. In our neighborhoods, right, there are already your assets that already exists. Well, that already exists. And I actually think that are likely in formation and seedling form right now that they both already exist. And there are also newer, better iterations of movements to come that beloved comrades are working on right now. There's no press about it. Yeah, I think that's that's one of the things that I'm thinking about as, as you're talking in it. From my experience like that, that feeling of like, oh, my gosh, there are so many fires, like part of that overwhelm, is I just became aware of that fire. Yeah, right. And so in my mind, it just started. But in fact, it's been burning. Many of us have been burning for a long time. And there's a whole there's a whole, like, ecosystem of firefighters who are fighting the good fight and not to one another. Right? And yeah, and that and that. I don't have to, I don't have to do it alone. I couldn't do it alone. And there are people who, like know what they're doing and have been working on this for a while that that has been thank you for naming that for me. Right. And thank you for naming that. Because that's essentially what I'm saying. Right? Because I've had intimacy I've, I have a visceral sense, like when certain things happen around hate whether it's Kanye, or different leaders or different or Neo Nazis or different certain actions showing up as someone who as a child at times, felt varying levels of physical danger from living in the Deep South, being proximate to Klansmen, right, I have a very nuanced, being the daughter of a man who was violently beaten by the police, having had these different experiences and having had elders around me who have also experienced them who helped ingrain within me a sense of how to under how to process and how to sense and understand and gauge danger. It's finally at this point, it's finely honed for me, and I'm excited for us to start to codify and share out some of these resources, that's the whole point to me of coaching and thought leadership in a number of ways is to save people time is the time that it took a number of us to learn through it step by step through generations and different things as to share those top highlights that don't replace years of experience but, but skip years of learning and trial and error that you can start to incorporate. For me, this is very real. And this is why I launched joyous justice is because we live in a world that is beautiful and amazing, and ageing with injustice. And there are still ways to find joy, or you can replace that word with whatever you want. calm, peace, empowerment, knowledge, love, hope, that there are still a number of different ways that we can predominantly often but not always, because we are human, and things are happening, and we need to be able to process them. But more often than one might think, based upon what you might be living, that it is totally possible to start to experience some of this peace and joy and pivot, punctuate and even anchor or guide buoy us in the midst of terrifying circumstances. So so for me over time, and I think that that's a separate conversation. And we've we talked about it a bit in the Whitby conversation where I started to talk a little bit about the emotional thermometer and the oppression or danger, we might also call it a danger and oppression slash danger scale around what are the different and and as a reminder, the basic thing that I always say that's not basic and still is quite, I think important for a lot of people to hear is that anything on the scale, whether it's from one to 10, and this contains most of the human experience, so one from artful but totally inconsequential otherwise, in terms of material impact, micro aggression, to murder or mass murder, like this is a scale we can we can actually take them out at 100 point scale, right? Because it's a fractal, right? But an anything on that scale for a variety of different reasons. There can be one can experience any range of emotions, about about anything on any point of that scale. The importance of noticing the scale, that we're starting to notice what level of intervention externally and or internally or interpersonally, depending upon the nature of what's happening, is appropriate and needed. And it's not. As we start to build this out and develop it. It's a fluid scale, because there are always other variables that we need to consider. But it gives us a ballpark sense of is this something where we want to go live on social media? Or we want to publicly condemn somebody? Or is this a phone call? Or is this a healing session within an affinity space? Like what is the appropriate action that can honor the whatever emotions we're feeling about it legitimately always legitimate emotions, they are what they are, they are a guidance system for us. They are a healing modality for us. So we want to always honor that. Anyway, so I think I've said enough of some of these bigger things. And there's so much more to say. And so I think as we share this, Tracy and as we transcribe it and produce this episode, I think it might be worthwhile, whether it's you or Sarah, for us to and maybe even our listeners, if there's one thing that we've named to you or something in particular, where you're like, Whoa, like Tracy or April, covered something really fast, the things we're talking about are the things that are going to be our bread and butter going forward. So it's a lot. So now I kind of want to switch gears. rather quickly. Now that I've spoken about some of these meta things and some of the meta context. And hopefully, for some of you, my hope is that you'll be in one of two places. And this is what I'm encouraging either like, whoa, actually, like I had an epiphany. And that reframe is really helpful. And it feels totally accessible to me. And I either have skills, or I can search out different resources and tools that we're about to share some right now that can help me sit in my power, as I'm navigating these undesirable circumstances and hold the broader frame that overall our planet, the people on it, the animals on it right now, while there is vulnerability. There's also a lot of resilience and strength and beauty that is here right now. And that fact that information is what helps keep me balanced. As I'm navigating a range of really horrific things is actually there's actually a lot of different choices right now and with the variables as I see them with younger generations coming up with a shift in consciousness that's starting to happen. A lot of options are still on the table. And the thing that helps us access those options in the collective and individually is helping ourselves he'll and helping ourselves come to our center and return to our agency. So we can take that action because I think a big part of the overwhelm is not if it were simply external Tracy, right? I think, actually, a lot of people would have a sense of empowerment around what to do. But what gets complicated and what we talk about in our programs is between the combination of having a range of people who are deeply entrenched in varying degrees of toxic individualism, so they're shouldering a lot of this burden alone. And also people are starting to but are just still at the edge of having a trauma informed analysis, and being able to distinguish past defeats and traumas from present day challenges and, and aren't distinguishing and noticing that often, the places where we feel disempowered, are often historical, for our lives, or the lives of our people, where we as young people, or our ancestors as deeply targeted and oppressed and repressed peoples didn't have power, but we actually have power now. So through different tools and practices, we can start to heal and regain our present moment strengthen awareness that best positions us, not individually, but in collectively in partnership with others to to affect change that is possible for us. But as I often like to quote, as as Tracy Tracy has adopted, as well, as our wonderful profit tests, Lauryn Hill says, asks, like, how are you going to win if you ain't right within. So we want to zero in on how we can start to get right within so that we are best positioned to advance joyous justice, and agency and clarity in our lives and our communities and in the broader world. So now we're going to switch into a different mode. And especially for folks, if you weren't in the camp, where it was like, oh, yeah, what you're saying makes sense. And it's energizing and empowering and all that stuff. And it's just like, yeah, that's like a nice possibility and analysis, but I am not there yet. I am not on board. And I'm this is adding to my cyclone of distress. Okay, so if that is the case, again, we can talk about some short term things. And there's a range of different practices that we want to start to encourage you to weave in these because one of the core dynamics here, around habit formation around a lot of different things around self care around. Honestly, like, co creation, like law of attraction stuff, momentum is a huge variable. And this is like really logical stuff. It's not mysterious, so. So the things that we're going to recommend, get much, much, much better and more potent with time as you start to apply them. But I'm Tracy, what's what's coming up for me to mention first is emotional honoring and release is, is what I named before about just simply care, like, is somatic. Centering and relief, accessing some somatic care, and also starting to come home to ourselves. Because a lot of us in various ways, often over a number of years through conditioning and reinforced and reinforcements in many aspects of life, that we've been conditioned to ignore our body, quite frankly, often just live from the neck up, and definitely not engage our spirit or our emotions in any meaningful way beyond a few emotions, Tracy like you have some good talking points about like, yeah, what's considered permissible emotion versus not?
Tracie:Yeah, there are only three, and really, only one of them is permissible. There are only three that we have names for, there's happy, sad and angry. In like, in the broadest sense, obviously, there are more and Brene Brown does a lot about this, about the fact that they're, you know, dozens at least, at least 40 I think she names but really, like we have only been given as a culture we've only been given those three, to name and really happy is the only one that we're allowed really feel. I mean, men or folks who are socialized, as perceived as being male are sometimes given the opportunity to be angry. But only sometimes and it's just we're just not allowed to fail our feelings. At least that's the messages that we've been given pretty, sometimes explicitly. I mean, think about how many times as a kid, you were told, Don't cry, right like that, that we are sometimes explicitly given the message that we're not allowed to feel our feelings. I think this is really, I really want to underline this one, when April says, like, we need to honor that this has been a really difficult lesson for me, as a woman, and as someone who was high achieving woman, I definitely got the message that my emotions made me weak. And they also I think whiteness
April Baskin:is a variable here too, in the ways that you were specifically conditioned as a white intellectual woman.
Tracie:Yes, I think you're probably right. Yeah, that the race aspect of it. Yeah. So that the emotions were would make me weak and, and would keep me back, they would hold me back from achieving. And so I was very much taught not to feel, or if I did feel, to hide it or repress it in some way, we can do
April Baskin:a whole episode just on this alone really good, because I just want to add in briefly, so I didn't mean to cut you off, please hold on to your thought. But like, even the message that many most slash most people conditioned as girls and women are given the message of your big emotions are irrational, are patently irrational.
Tracie:And that that, and that's, and that's the connection that meant that it would keep me from achieving, right especially as an intellectual like so my right my lane was in Reason and in thought and intellectual and so emotions were outside my lane.
April Baskin:That is how human beings are conditioned in societies, where it is in deep service of the system that is in place, ie oppressive systems to not feel, because if people are feeling their feelings, they are likely to be true to their heart and their soul, and not be complicit in oppression that is happening. Right. But most societies and certainly within American society, there and there are also other reasons too, but I've huge reason is because, to me, our emotional freedom or lack there of it is like the baseline starting point of our repression or our liberation. Yeah, and because of that, I think a number of us on a certain level, whether we're conscious of or do not feel that and so it feel it can be feel very hard to access the emotions if we've been really strongly conditioned not to, because we feel their power. And that is scary. And what we don't realize what I want to remind people of is that as you start to acclimate and access it and your emotions in any number of ways, it becomes a point not a liability, but actually a core way that we can heal and leverage our own energy and power and have more autonomy and agency over our consciousness and our energy.
Tracie:So it's been 15 years now. I lost two family members in a single incident. It was awful. It was awful. It was horrific. And all of that other stuff I just said was true. Right. So I mean, I grieved but I didn't. Not not really just kept that stuff. Tamp tamp down. And about, I want to say three or four months later, I was at actually a Shabbat dinner with some new friends. And we were having a conversation that was it wasn't an argument, but we were, we had a difference of opinion. And when my new friends said, I don't know how you could say that. I just don't see it that way. That was like the proverbial straw and my camel's back was broken. And I started crying. Sobbing like, completely uncontrollably. I locked myself in their bathroom for like, two hours. Like they had to go upstairs like, I wasn't the only person at the Shabbat dinner. Several people there and like everyone had to like use the other bathroom and I just was I just was locked in the bathroom just having a complete meltdown, because I hadn't processed my grief. And so this small moments, which if I had been regulated, would have been a nothing moment. I became this giant thing and and because of my conditioning, like, I never wanted to see these people, I was so deeply embarrassed. I was so deeply embarrassed by this meltdown that I had, that I didn't know, they were feeling guilty like that they had, you know, hurt me that they caused this reaction and and I'm so so grateful now that actually my embarrassment was the need to correct was stronger than the embarrassment. So I was like I needed to see them again and, and prove to them and myself that I could, you know, be a mensch at the table. So I did come back and we're and we're great friends now. But it was it was a really instructive moment. Anyway, I'm telling this story only to say that the consequences are meta in the way that April just named, which I feel in my bones is true. It's it's part of the misogyny that I was then complicit in because I was taught to hold back my emotions. And also, it is very real, very personal consequences in individuals lives, like this moment of complete loss of control. Which, you know, ironically, or maybe satisfyingly is the direct result of my trying to exert too much control. Right.
April Baskin:And so to me, another way of talking about this, that there's just so there's so many, there's so much juiciness here, from for many more conversations, and Shrimati. Thank you for sharing that for courageously sharing that story. Tracy, I think there's so many lessons in it. And the thing that's coming up for me is Yeah, so I'm excited for us to talk about this more and certainly dive more deeply in the programs were rolling out soon, which is so exciting. But the thing that came up as you were talking is like the need to speak our truth. To me what is important about emotions is emotions hold part of our emotions, our emotions are honest in a way that it's at times hard for our brain to access our consciousness to access. But we can start to know our truth, not necessarily factual truth, but the truth of our energy, and our needs come through in our emotions. And and so that's so important. And the more we start to do that, it not only helps us heal and feel centered. But as things are happening in the world, the more we know our own truth, through our own living and can start to better assess danger and also honor however we're feeling on the emotional scale at whatever point along that journey, the more we strengthen our capacity to resiliently and clearly see what's happening in the world around us and assess what's happening, what's the level of danger and what options we have. Because so much energy there's just like multiple episodes in this that we could do so much energy. We don't we're not we haven't been conditioned to be aware of, of how much energy it takes for us to repress that truth of our existence in given moments that are in infinite truth. But the truth of whatever was of us hitting our end of hitting the cement and scraping our knee of having hurtful things happen of losing people of experiencing trauma, the effect of tamping that down is one deeply in service of colonization and oppression. Because when people are numb, they're not when you need to have all people having varying degrees of lack of access to their humanity in order for dehumanization, to take place. Yeah, so much more to come. So our first step I thought maybe we're going to get into a bunch of different tips and stuff. But it was more about just sharing some story and some insight around a core step here is to start to honor your feelings. And one of the best ways to do that is through rest. And through writing. If you know about tapping, we can do a lesson on that later you can look it up but tapping different meridian points on our body is a way if emotion feels hard for you to access that you can start to move energy. So the first step to me have an emotional release at times, especially if it's new, is to access resources and practices our breath different embodied practices that help soothe us and help us feel calm and create a space internally and in our environment. That safe for us to unload some of that emotion
Tracie:and the exercise to I mean you named about the body so or movement of any kind. It doesn't need to be like the gym In the exercise,
April Baskin:no right? No meant. Thank you. Thank you for clarifying that. All right, well, so much love. If you have questions, please feel free to reach out to us and the usual places on our podcast page on our Connect page. If you know us personally through DMs and email if there's any questions or follow up, we would really love to hear it and weave it into our next or future episodes. And Tracie, you're about to say something sorry.
Tracie:No, I was just gonna say See you next week.
April Baskin:Yep, see you next week. Much love. Thanks for tuning in. Our show's theme music was composed by Elliot Hammer. You can find this track and other beats on Instagram@elliotthammer. If this episode resonated with you, please share it and subscribe. To join the conversation, visit us talk racial justice.com where you can send us a question or suggestion, access our show notes and learn more about our team. Take care until next time, and stay humble and keep going.