Speaker 1: Broadcasting from the Hip Hop Weekly Studios. I'd like to
Speaker 1: welcome you to another episode of Civic Spher. I am
Speaker 1: your host, Ramsay's job. Big shout out to my man
Speaker 1: c Ward, who is out in the Philippines this week
Speaker 1: if I'm not mistaken, as you know, he is a globetrotter.
Speaker 1: But have no fear. We have a special guest in
Speaker 1: the building, couple of special guests actually, and we are
Speaker 1: going to spend some time talking to the one, the
Speaker 1: only ea AFO about how trauma can pass from generation
Speaker 1: to generation. I want to give you a proper introduction
Speaker 1: when we actually get to that point, but it's okay
Speaker 1: to say hi.
Speaker 2: Yes, Hi, thank you so much for having me. I'm
Speaker 2: so excited to see here.
Speaker 1: And you know, funnily enough, I learned about you and
Speaker 1: this amazing lecture or lecture series that you give from
Speaker 1: a dear friend of mine and a dear friend of
Speaker 1: the show, fellow activist. Her name is Leanna Taylor, So
Speaker 1: thank you for being here as well. We'd love to
Speaker 1: kind of get an idea of what it was like
Speaker 1: to be in the audience listening, just so that we
Speaker 1: know kind of how to see the information that is
Speaker 1: in store for us today. That is something that you
Speaker 1: definitely need to stick around for, as well as the
Speaker 1: rest of the show. Our way Black History fact I
Speaker 1: believe lends itself to what we're talking about today. I
Speaker 1: don't want to spoil it, but suffice it to say,
Speaker 1: a barrel lap is something that we're going to peel
Speaker 1: back the layers of. In addition to that, we have
Speaker 1: an incredible Boba today for you to stick around for
Speaker 1: as well, So a lot in store for you today,
Speaker 1: plenty to stick around for. And of course, true to form,
Speaker 1: well I guess really not true to form because normally
Speaker 1: we're talking about like police violence and all that sort
Speaker 1: of stuff, and lately we've been talking about the war
Speaker 1: in Palestine and Gaza, which is a sad situation. But
Speaker 1: true to form, we are going to be doing our
Speaker 1: best to empower you our allies with some information that
Speaker 1: you can take into your communities and hopefully make some
Speaker 1: lasting changes. But first and foremost, like we always do it,
Speaker 1: this time, let's start the show off with some ebony excellence.
Speaker 1: So today's Ebony Excellence is sponsored my major Threads for
Speaker 1: Innovative Fashionable Sports, where checkmajorthreads dot com and I'm going
Speaker 1: to be sharing an amazing story. Lately, We've been inundated
Speaker 1: with lots of stories from young black kids that paint
Speaker 1: a picture that I don't believe fully represents the entirety
Speaker 1: of black youth in the United States. So this one
Speaker 1: I thought was a great example. This comes from moss Point, Mississippi,
Speaker 1: and I'll read a sixteen year old boy is being
Speaker 1: hailed as a hero after helping rescue four people from
Speaker 1: a car that drove off a boat launch into the
Speaker 1: Mississippi River. And the incident happened around two thirty am
Speaker 1: when the car, which had three teenage girls inside, drove
Speaker 1: into the Pascagoula River in Moss Point, floated about twenty
Speaker 1: feet away from shore and started sinking, the Moss Point
Speaker 1: Police Department said in a statement. Quote the driver of
Speaker 1: that vehicle said she was following her GPS and did
Speaker 1: not realize she was going into the water, police said.
Speaker 1: Carry On Evans, age sixteen, said he immediately ran over,
Speaker 1: took off his shoes and shirt, and went in the
Speaker 1: water when he saw the car sinking and heard the
Speaker 1: three occupants shouting for help. Quote, I was like, I
Speaker 1: can't let these folks die. They need to get out
Speaker 1: of the water. Evans is a past Cugoula High school student,
Speaker 1: and he said this to Biloxi, Mississippi ABC affiliate WLOX,
Speaker 1: where this article comes from. He goes on to say,
Speaker 1: so I just started getting them. I wasn't even thinking
Speaker 1: about anything else. One of Evans's friends also jumped in
Speaker 1: to help with the girls out through the top of
Speaker 1: their vehicle. According to WLOX quote, I was trying to
Speaker 1: I was behind them, trying to keep them above water
Speaker 1: and swim with them at the same time, Evans told
Speaker 1: the station. Along with Moss Point police officer Gary Mercer,
Speaker 1: who responded to the scene, Evans helped bring the three
Speaker 1: teens to shore. And this is a really cool story.
Speaker 1: I really want you to check it out again. This
Speaker 1: is Ebny Excellence and you can find this on our
Speaker 1: social media at Civic Cipher on Instagram for this one. Okay, now, yeah, AFO.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much. We're going to have a good time.
Speaker 2: Let's get it going.
Speaker 1: So before we get to all the good stuff, give
Speaker 1: us a little bit of background about the work that
Speaker 1: you do and the changes that you're trying to bring
Speaker 1: about in this country and in our conversations with ourselves
Speaker 1: and with each other.
Speaker 2: I you know, I started being on a lot of
Speaker 2: Native American reservations, working with tribes around trauma and historical trauma.
Speaker 1: Historical trauma.
Speaker 2: Yes. And then the craziest thing happened. What I had
Speaker 2: been talking about this stuff for years, but nobody really
Speaker 2: wanted to hear me, right, nobody cared anywhere that I
Speaker 2: could talk. I'd be there and you know, for free,
Speaker 2: for whatever. And then George Floyd was murdered. And the
Speaker 2: murder of George Floyd during COVID was what really further
Speaker 2: law launched a lot of the work that I'm doing,
Speaker 2: and I think the most important aspect of it is
Speaker 2: understanding that certainly black Indigenous people of color have a
Speaker 2: level of generational trauma that impacts the physiology and the
Speaker 2: neurobiology and therefore drives how we think, how we feel,
Speaker 2: how we emote, how we relate, how we behave, And
Speaker 2: it's important to know these things because it changes how
Speaker 2: we raise our children, it changes how we behave, and
Speaker 2: so this has been really the important part of the message.
Speaker 2: I've also been working with police departments on training their
Speaker 2: officers about what happens when you move into your fight
Speaker 2: or flight response. How do you know when you're in
Speaker 2: your fight or flight response so that your reaction to
Speaker 2: what's happening in front of you changes. How do you communicate, relate,
Speaker 2: and talk to people in a way that creates safety?
Speaker 2: And in creating that safety, you can control their behavior.
Speaker 2: So if you really want to control the situation between
Speaker 2: you and a potential suspect or somebody that you're interacting with,
Speaker 2: create safety and you can have a safer outcome in
Speaker 2: the end. So that type of work.
Speaker 1: Got it. Got it? So when you say generational trauma
Speaker 1: for the initiated, let's break down what that means.
Speaker 2: So we can say generational trauma, intergenerational trauma, historical trauma,
Speaker 2: collective trauma. All of them are interchangeable. They mean the
Speaker 2: same thing. You're referring to the same phenomenon from a
Speaker 2: different perspective. But it's the idea that trauma can be
Speaker 2: passed from one generation to the next on the epigenome
Speaker 2: of the DNA, meaning that the genetic information doesn't change,
Speaker 2: but how that information is expressed can be altered due
Speaker 2: to trauma as well as we have cultural shifts and
Speaker 2: changes based on trauma. From previous generations.
Speaker 1: Okay, now, I know that you have a number of
Speaker 1: certifications and qualifications and so, but let's make sure that
Speaker 1: we list a handful of them. You don't need to
Speaker 1: list them all, but a handful of them, just so
Speaker 1: that the people know that they're talking to an expert
Speaker 1: on the subject.
Speaker 2: Okay, So I'm a historical trauma expert. I am a
Speaker 2: certified trauma specialist. I am certified in doctor Bruce Perry's
Speaker 2: Neurosequential Model of Health, who is another one of our
Speaker 2: trauma experts. I'm certified in doctor Gobor Matte's work that
Speaker 2: he does around trauma and addiction.
Speaker 1: I knew this was going to be a lot good.
Speaker 2: I am a professor at the Arizona Trauma Institute Trauma International.
Speaker 2: I'm the founder of the Rising and Resilience Phoenix Rising
Speaker 2: and Resilience blog on the Paces connection platform.
Speaker 1: On and on and on. Yes, indeed, Okay, trauma.
Speaker 2: Just suffice it to say that trauma is my life,
Speaker 2: like trauma is my passion.
Speaker 3: You know, this is just my thing. It's who I am.
Speaker 3: I live this, you know. It's it's interesting because I've
Speaker 3: been invited to go to New York sometime.
Speaker 1: I couldn't tell you the date, but I'll be having
Speaker 1: a conversation with Charlemagne and we're going to be talking
Speaker 1: about mental health for black men and destigmatizing it and
Speaker 1: so forth. So it's it's interesting in the past few
Speaker 1: years this has become especially with respect to trauma, this
Speaker 1: has become something that more and more people have been
Speaker 1: talking about. So your pedigree in your and your studies
Speaker 1: is kind of it's kind of like the right place
Speaker 1: and the right time with the right person and right
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. So I'm really excited to
Speaker 1: have the conversation. Now I want to shift gears here
Speaker 1: just for a bit. Okay, So, Leanna, you are the
Speaker 1: person that brought really this conversation and this amazing individual
Speaker 1: to our attention. And the reason that this happened is
Speaker 1: because you were able to experience a I believe it
Speaker 1: was a lecture. I'm not, she knows, okay, So for
Speaker 1: for our listeners and just so that we know, give
Speaker 1: us an idea of what it was like to witness
Speaker 1: and learn and kind of understand everything that you know,
Speaker 1: she was talking about. And I want to make sure
Speaker 1: that this is stated. We do this from time to
Speaker 1: time on the show. Leanna is white. She is a
Speaker 1: white woman. Iyah is a black woman, and you guys
Speaker 1: know me so anyway, So go ahead, you know, because
Speaker 1: this is important the shows about ally ship and so
Speaker 1: as a white woman to learn and receive instruction and
Speaker 1: more information from a black woman who's an expert on trauma,
Speaker 1: I'm sure you learned a lot. And I don't want to.
Speaker 1: I don't want to answer the question for you, but
Speaker 1: you know, that's kind of what I was hoping to
Speaker 1: get me, so.
Speaker 4: All right, yeah, yeah, So I run a nonprofit and
Speaker 4: you know, in nonprofit our work, when we're dealing with
Speaker 4: our disempowered communities, it is a lot of individuals who
Speaker 4: have suffered tremendous trauma, sure and generational trauma. So the subject,
Speaker 4: I think is something really near and dear to my
Speaker 4: heart because our clients really are the living, breathing embodiment
Speaker 4: of what you were talking about and how we connected
Speaker 4: was at a conference where it was a lot of
Speaker 4: nonprofit individuals, frontline service workers, people that work with UH
Speaker 4: low income again, disempowered, underserved, you know whatever uh language
Speaker 4: we want to wrap around these, you know, our communities,
Speaker 4: A lot of them are also black and round people themselves,
Speaker 4: and I think having this information to contextualize the experiences
Speaker 4: of our clients is so critically important. I've been to
Speaker 4: a lot of conferences a lot and listen to a
Speaker 4: lot of keynote speakers and was really blown away, not
Speaker 4: just by the quality of the content, but the way
Speaker 4: that it was delivered with such joy and really just positivity.
Speaker 4: It felt really empowering, I think for a lot of
Speaker 4: the people in the room. So I was excited to
Speaker 4: bring the two of you together and you know, hopefully
Speaker 4: get this information out to a broader a broader community.
Speaker 2: It's really important. Thank you so much. Thank you for
Speaker 2: all those kind words. And I love the fact that
Speaker 2: you use the term disempowered. You know, it's just an
Speaker 2: important way I think to describe our communities. So thank
Speaker 2: you for that.
Speaker 1: Okay, so let's let's let's rewind a little bit. Let's
Speaker 1: go back to your origin story, because I remember, prior
Speaker 1: to today's conversation learning that you know, you had dealt
Speaker 1: with depression going all the way back to age seven
Speaker 1: or eight, correct, and you know you had gone through therapy.
Speaker 1: There was there was a moment where you were kind
Speaker 1: of confronting suicidal thoughts. And my understanding, and I want
Speaker 1: your version to serve, but my understanding is that you
Speaker 1: were able to connect this. This is how you were
Speaker 1: able to make a connection with yourself and really the
Speaker 1: generational trauma that you ended up studying and becoming so
Speaker 1: proficient with.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally accurate. I could. I can recall being seven
Speaker 2: and eight years old and being sad and depressed and
Speaker 2: I was that kid at school that it's the seventies,
Speaker 2: so it's going to sound crazy, but my second grade teacher,
Speaker 2: I would spend the night at her house for the
Speaker 2: weekend and I, you know, have all this fun and
Speaker 2: that was part of what helped me during that time.
Speaker 2: But I could never understand why I had so much pain.
Speaker 2: I did I have adverse childhood experiences. You know, it's
Speaker 2: a big thing right now. We know that there's the
Speaker 2: ACES study and I had a very low A score,
Speaker 2: so out of ten, I have, you know, like a
Speaker 2: one A score. So it wasn't about adversity in childhood.
Speaker 2: I come from a very solid, upper middle class family.
Speaker 2: My mother has two PhDs and three master's degrees. We
Speaker 2: have access to education, to income entrepreneurialism going back four
Speaker 2: generations in my family and still one. I struggled so
Speaker 2: much with mental health. But what was even more profound
Speaker 2: was that the males in my family master level people,
Speaker 2: people that were entrepreneurs, that owned property, could never really
Speaker 2: be contributing members to society, never reached their full potential.
Speaker 2: And so when I looked at that, I couldn't understand why,
Speaker 2: you know, what is that really about? And why am
Speaker 2: I suffering so much? And so I went on this
Speaker 2: quest to I just wanted to be able to live
Speaker 2: like I just wanted to be normal. I just wanted
Speaker 2: to wake up every day and not not want to
Speaker 2: go outside and not want to do some of those things.
Speaker 2: By the time I was in high school, I was
Speaker 2: missing like thirty days of school a year, and it
Speaker 2: was around depression and anxiety and those types of things.
Speaker 2: And so I kept searching. So I did talk therapy,
Speaker 2: I did group therapy, I did New Age things, I
Speaker 2: did self help things. I did acupuncture, any of the
Speaker 2: things I had nutritionists that my mother would take me to,
Speaker 2: any of the things that are your quote normal things
Speaker 2: to do when you're struggling with mental health and behavioral
Speaker 2: health outside of medication. I did all of those things,
Speaker 2: and I could not get myself to a place where
Speaker 2: I could be a functioning person on a regular basis,
Speaker 2: with joy and really engaging in life. At some point
Speaker 2: I started to read about and this is many years
Speaker 2: ago in fact, but I started to read about doctor
Speaker 2: Rachel Yehuda out of New York her work in the
Speaker 2: Jewish community, and she had done some studies in a
Speaker 2: Jewish community and found that second and third generation Holocaust
Speaker 2: survivors had an alteration of the genetic expression, and so
Speaker 2: that rang a bell for me. Then she went on
Speaker 2: to say that Jews that live in Israel do far
Speaker 2: better in terms of mental health and addiction and all
Speaker 2: of those things than any of their brethren around the world.
Speaker 2: So Jews in any other communities, right, the ones that
Speaker 2: lived in Israel were far better. And she was making
Speaker 2: the connection that when you connect people back to their
Speaker 2: ancestral land, when you connect them into their communities where
Speaker 2: they can live within their culture, have their you know,
Speaker 2: ceremonies and rituals and not feel oppressed, it impacted mental
Speaker 2: health and behavioral health. And that's where I took off running.
Speaker 2: I lived also in a Jewish community, so a lot
Speaker 2: of my friends growing up were Jewish, and so when
Speaker 2: I looked at them and I thought, wow, you know,
Speaker 2: we have the same socioeconomic background. Our parents have similar jobs,
Speaker 2: similar levels of education. We're having the same educational background.
Speaker 2: We live in and you know, the same community. But
Speaker 2: why do their family members look different than mine? Why
Speaker 2: is their trajectory so different? They have the Jewish Holocaust,
Speaker 2: I have the trans Atlantic slave trade. What is the difference?
Speaker 2: Why is there so much difference there? And so that
Speaker 2: really sparked my interest in It was not formal education
Speaker 2: or formal training in that area, but there were pockets
Speaker 2: of people doing studies. Doctor Marie Yellowhorse Braveheart Jordan, she's
Speaker 2: another expert in this work. She was doing this work
Speaker 2: in the Native American community and then she started to
Speaker 2: have studies and that's really how it all came about.
Speaker 1: Okay, so I would guess that you might be one
Speaker 1: of the people who advocates for black people in the
Speaker 1: United States to take a trip to Africa at some
Speaker 1: point in their life.
Speaker 2: That's what healed me.
Speaker 1: Really.
Speaker 2: I don't think you and I got to have this conversa.
Speaker 2: I know there's a lot of things that we didn't
Speaker 2: get to talk about. Yet that's what healed me. So
Speaker 2: I got to I am really a nomad real quick yeses.
Speaker 1: Please, my teacher in the fullest sense of the word,
Speaker 1: and a dear friend of the show doctor Camilla Westernberg.
Speaker 1: She's a big advocate for that as well. And so
Speaker 1: this won't be the first time that I've heard this,
Speaker 1: but I'm glad I'm hearing it from someone who's so
Speaker 1: qualified to have this conversation.
Speaker 2: Now continue, Well, I was a young adult age I
Speaker 2: was having suicidal ideation. I didn't think I would be
Speaker 2: able to make it. I thought like, if I don't
Speaker 2: figure something else out, I don't know that I can
Speaker 2: continue living. Right, Like, either maybe I'm going to take
Speaker 2: my life or maybe I'm going to be overcome with
Speaker 2: illness and allow myself to die. But I can't move
Speaker 2: in this way. I had this opportunity to travel. My
Speaker 2: mother had traced our ancestry back to being in Republic,
Speaker 2: which was once known as the Homemade in West Africa,
Speaker 2: and we started traveling back and forth, were going to
Speaker 2: we were opening a museum in the French Quarter, and
Speaker 2: I knew immediately that this was life changing for me,
Speaker 2: and I thought, Okay, this is my last chance, there's
Speaker 2: something here for me, Stay open and be ready. While
Speaker 2: we were there, I had the opportunity to start going
Speaker 2: through initiation processes, so initiation into our traditional religion, cleansing ritual,
Speaker 2: and one of the most important things was my naming ritual.
Speaker 2: You know because as African people and many black indigenous
Speaker 2: people of color communities, we when a child is born,
Speaker 2: we asked the ancestors, we ask the deities, you know,
Speaker 2: who is this person, what is their destiny? And we
Speaker 2: get named based on our destiny. So the first big
Speaker 2: thing that happened was my name is Ea, but Ea
Speaker 2: is more of like a title that I earned, and
Speaker 2: that means Holy Mother. The name that I was originally
Speaker 2: giving and ritual was what kennel and that means mother
Speaker 2: or owner of the universe. That was my north star.
Speaker 2: That's who you are. So when you get lost, remember
Speaker 2: who you are. Get on your path. When you're encountering adversity,
Speaker 2: remember that as a mother, we have compassion, we have mercy,
Speaker 2: we have to have strength, we have grace, and that's
Speaker 2: how you have to manage other human beings that are
Speaker 2: hurtful for you. That's how you have to carry yourself
Speaker 2: in the world because this is who you are. So
Speaker 2: that got me at least with something that was guiding me.
Speaker 2: And then I continued to have ritual and ceremony to
Speaker 2: cleanse some of the things that I had gone through,
Speaker 2: to work through some of the neurological issues that I
Speaker 2: was having. Remember, our indigenous communities the same as what's
Speaker 2: in Buddhism, the same that's what's in Native American communities,
Speaker 2: and surely what's in Africa. Our people have been doing
Speaker 2: these rituals and ceremonies for thousands of years. It's not
Speaker 2: just for fun. What we really find out is a
Speaker 2: lot of these ceremonies and rituals they're neurologically regulating, right.
Speaker 2: They impact your neurobiology, they impact your physiology. We know
Speaker 2: that yoga right now, we've done enough research around yoga
Speaker 2: that we know that yoga impacts our neurobiology, our physiology,
Speaker 2: our mental health. So do all of these other traditions.
Speaker 2: Sure so as I was able to connect to who
Speaker 2: I am be on the ancestral land and know how
Speaker 2: do I live as an African? You know, I live
Speaker 2: in the United States of America. I'm born and raised here,
Speaker 2: but my DNA and my imprint is as a tribal
Speaker 2: African woman.
Speaker 1: Is this Where are we bordering on the meaning of
Speaker 1: epigenetics when you say in print DNA Okay, because that
Speaker 1: sounds like kind of a that's a smart people word,
Speaker 1: and we are we are just aspiring smart people on
Speaker 1: this show. We would not profess to be smart. So
Speaker 1: one of the things I want to say, and I
Speaker 1: do want to get into epigenics after we take a break,
Speaker 1: but I do want to say something that as often
Speaker 1: as we can, Q and I both will say it.
Speaker 1: And you know, with respect to your name, we say
Speaker 1: that black women are as close to God as we
Speaker 1: can be on planet Earth. We say it on the
Speaker 1: show all the time. Longtime listeners of the show know that,
Speaker 1: and a part of that is true for us as individuals,
Speaker 1: of course, because our moms, our grandmothers or whatever. But
Speaker 1: obviously the first woman being a black woman, again, the
Speaker 1: lineage is all there. So again I think that that's
Speaker 1: as close as we can be to God on planet Earth.
Speaker 1: So I love your name and I love the story
Speaker 1: of it all. We're going to come back in just
Speaker 1: a second with more on epigenetics.