Speaker 1: Welcome to Jay dot il a production of I Heart Radio. Jill,
Speaker 1: you have to open up the show, Ma'm I'm not
Speaker 1: opening up the show. I got to open a show.
Speaker 1: You got to the show. Excited. Listen, everybody, We're really excited.
Speaker 1: We're excited. That's all I mean. We've already been clapping
Speaker 1: and cheering. It is. It has been such a journey,
Speaker 1: like we've been wanting to talk to this woman for
Speaker 1: a year or more, a year or more like this, lady,
Speaker 1: how you've blessed our lives. Look this welcome to Ja
Speaker 1: dot Ilder Podcast. This is Joe Scott and I'm here
Speaker 1: with my sister friends, Ada Graydon Danzler. Hello, Hello, Hello,
Speaker 1: and the lovely liar st Clair. Ready for arrest, Ready
Speaker 1: for arrest. It's so much more. And and Tricia, am
Speaker 1: I saying your first name? Yes, Mercy Baby, Trisha thirsty baby.
Speaker 1: If you don't know who this is, uh what minister Asian?
Speaker 1: You know this? No? This is this is the NAP Bishop.
Speaker 1: But what we'd like to welcome into our into into
Speaker 1: the sanctuary. Amen. That what we'd like to do is
Speaker 1: welcome the NAP Bishop Trisha Hersey to the show. Amen,
Speaker 1: Because what she does is she teaches the black people
Speaker 1: that they are not only entitled to rest money, but
Speaker 1: that the people owe us rest, they us rest. I
Speaker 1: have come to know her from her fabulous Instagram page
Speaker 1: and that ministry, and uh, it has touched my heart
Speaker 1: and I honestly she was not lying. We we've been
Speaker 1: talking about you from seeing you. It feels like a
Speaker 1: dream right now because it's really happening. And then she
Speaker 1: showed up a girl. Then she showed up on here
Speaker 1: with a whole neon sad honey, the aganl aw, the
Speaker 1: same is here is here like it's just it's just
Speaker 1: keeping the nineties going, keeping the good line. Get on
Speaker 1: all of them static. I love that. I'm from the
Speaker 1: South side of Chicago. So let's just I'm currently in
Speaker 1: the South side of Chicago, right. No, you are, yes, um,
Speaker 1: eating good um. Yes, I am engod. I'm on my
Speaker 1: way to the Inglewood Music Festival. Yes, so we will
Speaker 1: be doing that that whole nine. But yes, from Chicago.
Speaker 1: Give it to us, give it to us, give us
Speaker 1: the receipts, not Bishop. I've been an activist for twenty
Speaker 1: five years. I was raised as an activist. My dad
Speaker 1: was a pastor, of the Church of God in Christ
Speaker 1: for black then a Costalkjic, and so I grew up
Speaker 1: in that denomination. But my dad was also deeper into
Speaker 1: the Black Panther movement, you know, Pan Africanism, super black everything,
Speaker 1: and also a union organizer and activists, and so I
Speaker 1: grew up, you know, always understanding that none of us
Speaker 1: will be free until we're all free and understanding like
Speaker 1: the real core of what it means to be a
Speaker 1: black body in this country. It's a blessing and it's
Speaker 1: a miracle our name. It is one of the deepest
Speaker 1: miracles ever to be alive and on this earth. When
Speaker 1: they've tried to do so many things to eradicate us
Speaker 1: from the earth, we're still here. And the word word
Speaker 1: miracle really but dis gracious. I feel like I've seen
Speaker 1: you have to address and I love the way you
Speaker 1: address people because you're very clear that they're not there
Speaker 1: to extract labor from. But yet the work that you
Speaker 1: have done, the study that you put into what you've done,
Speaker 1: is important to be clear and to clarify with folks
Speaker 1: that this is what I'm talking about. You can co
Speaker 1: opt it and say this or that the other, but
Speaker 1: I'm here to clarify, not to work, but to clarify
Speaker 1: for you what it is that what I've what I've
Speaker 1: been studying. And so I feel like maybe we've all
Speaker 1: had a hard time wrapping our minds around this idea
Speaker 1: of self care and what that looks like, and that
Speaker 1: when you say the word lay down, rest, nap, that
Speaker 1: people still have a hard time with that very simple instruction,
Speaker 1: you know. So I just you know, I would love
Speaker 1: for you to just talk about, like, you know, why,
Speaker 1: why do you think that it's that we're so it's
Speaker 1: so difficult for us to follow this simple, simple room
Speaker 1: well in a capitalist system like the one we live in,
Speaker 1: in a system that's a white suprematis system, the one
Speaker 1: we live in in, this is radical. This is paradigm shifting.
Speaker 1: This is the mind shift, and my name, what is
Speaker 1: happening to us um as full on brainwashing. And so really,
Speaker 1: when I started the NEAT Ministry's I G page, I
Speaker 1: have already been doing the work for three years and
Speaker 1: the community here in Atlanta already been rolling out of yoga,
Speaker 1: maths and working. After I finished getting my massive divinity
Speaker 1: degree at the university, I was in seminary, so I
Speaker 1: was already working in the community and doing this work
Speaker 1: UM then ministry and social media page kind of came
Speaker 1: after a friend of mine was kind of like, you
Speaker 1: think we should just grand all the pages and say
Speaker 1: make sure you get then Ministry on every platform, And
Speaker 1: it was literally like you think so, Like I really
Speaker 1: it was that much of a decision where I was like, well, okay,
Speaker 1: I guess I'll do that, because I really was not
Speaker 1: thinking that I would be using this work in a
Speaker 1: way in which is being seen now. Like I really
Speaker 1: was doing the that ministry and experimenting with REST to
Speaker 1: save my own life. I was saving my life when
Speaker 1: I started this work. I didn't think about no business plan,
Speaker 1: It's gonna be on I g I was literally an exhausted,
Speaker 1: curious black woman who was dying from exhaustion, who was
Speaker 1: dying from disconnection, who was slowly mentally and physically watching herself.
Speaker 1: UM really perish in a culture that wants us to perish.
Speaker 1: And so when I begin to fill all these things,
Speaker 1: I begin to experiment deeply with REST. I didn't know
Speaker 1: if it would work. I didn't know what would happen.
Speaker 1: I said, let the chips fall where they may, Like
Speaker 1: I got to the point of like, God, gonna have
Speaker 1: to fill in the gaps because I'm not gonna rush,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna be urgent. I'm not gonna stay up
Speaker 1: late to finish this paper. If I fell out a class,
Speaker 1: amen to that, because gott to bring another thing into
Speaker 1: my life. Like I really got to the point where
Speaker 1: I was like, I cannot do this. And then pairing
Speaker 1: that with my work studying cultural trauma, studying gym crow terrorists,
Speaker 1: what it did to our bodies, what it still has
Speaker 1: done to our bodies, and looking at the history of
Speaker 1: plantation labor and what my ancestors are ancestors went through,
Speaker 1: then it became um almost like a reparations and a
Speaker 1: political protest that I won't donate my body to assist
Speaker 1: them that still owes reparations to my ancestors, that I
Speaker 1: will use this moment to recapture the dream space that
Speaker 1: was stolen from them, to be able to lay down
Speaker 1: and rest for them in this dimension, to honor them,
Speaker 1: to um connect with them, and so the recapturing of
Speaker 1: their dream space. The portal of maps became a really
Speaker 1: beautiful place for me as I was sleeping on the couch,
Speaker 1: sleeping in the library at school, sleeping, you know, wherever
Speaker 1: I could find a place to sleep. I would wake
Speaker 1: up with these ideas and I would be with my grandmother,
Speaker 1: who's an answers in her dreams, and she be resting
Speaker 1: with me, and it was just like it became a
Speaker 1: beautiful portal of imagination. And so me doing it was
Speaker 1: just to save my life into experiment. And then as
Speaker 1: I saw it changing my life, I said, well, as
Speaker 1: an activist, how could this be a collect stea how
Speaker 1: the collective coming? And so we started doing the events
Speaker 1: like before you saw anything online. It was me with
Speaker 1: yoga mats, blankets that I borrowed from my mother, from
Speaker 1: my aunts that I washed, the pillows that I could
Speaker 1: find in their closets, and just donating things because I
Speaker 1: didn't have a dime. I had like negative twenty five
Speaker 1: dollars in my account when I started this work. I
Speaker 1: just wanted. I just knew that if people could lay
Speaker 1: down and feel this practice and understand what it feels
Speaker 1: to the rest, collectively, the things could change. And so
Speaker 1: people started coming laying down on yoga mats, waking up crying,
Speaker 1: making these connections between what was happening, and so hundreds
Speaker 1: of um nap events later, you know, being online four
Speaker 1: or five years. We're at the point now where there's
Speaker 1: some veils being removed. When this is not a full
Speaker 1: on movement, it is still very undergrounded, outlier because all
Speaker 1: of this culture wants us to be grinding nothing in
Speaker 1: this culture, it wants us to rest. And so when
Speaker 1: we believe understand that this culture is not gonna ever
Speaker 1: give you rest, that you're gonna have to snatch it.
Speaker 1: Be a fugitive, be on maroon, you know, be like
Speaker 1: you know our ancestors. That's where I think we're at
Speaker 1: right now. We're at the point where people are a
Speaker 1: little bit of a veil is being removed and people
Speaker 1: are kind of seeing behind it and being like, well,
Speaker 1: what the why am I working like this? You know?
Speaker 1: Why am I feeling like this? Why am I thinking
Speaker 1: that I'm not good enough if I take a nap?
Speaker 1: You know? Where has this toxic, violent idea of our
Speaker 1: that we about ourselves has been stolen from us, that
Speaker 1: we really believe that our bodies don't deserve arrest. It's
Speaker 1: so it's one of the most violent, toxic things when
Speaker 1: you really think about what the culture has taught us,
Speaker 1: has taught you to think. My body doesn't belong to me,
Speaker 1: it belongs to the system. If I wrapt, if I nap,
Speaker 1: I'm I should feel guilt. I'm not doing enough. I'm
Speaker 1: not enough. Our self esteem has been ripped apart by
Speaker 1: this culture. If I believe resting is the foundation, it's
Speaker 1: the north star for us to begin to be more human,
Speaker 1: so to say, to repair, to disrupt, to disturb the
Speaker 1: idea that we're human machines, and we're not human machines.
Speaker 1: We're divine, perfect human beings who not only deserve rest,
Speaker 1: but um resting is really the what will keep us free.
Speaker 1: It's what will help us thrive. I'm past surviving. I
Speaker 1: don't want to survive no more. Right, I don't want
Speaker 1: to survive no more. I'm so grateful for my sessions
Speaker 1: who survive who But I'm We're on the next level
Speaker 1: and the level of always being towards our liberation is thriving.
Speaker 1: I just refused. It's that's why it's called resistance. Rest
Speaker 1: is resistance. The idea of a resistance. It's so deep,
Speaker 1: it's a multi layer, it's so trickster energy, it's subversive,
Speaker 1: it's being flexible, and so I'm excited that people are
Speaker 1: beginning to see themselves free, you know, dream themselves free,
Speaker 1: to remove a little veil and say, you know what,
Speaker 1: this isn't normal for me to be feeling like this,
Speaker 1: for me to be working like this, like I don't
Speaker 1: feel well, and so what could we use to be
Speaker 1: able to bring us back to wellness and to bring
Speaker 1: us back Truly, it's work is about showing people that
Speaker 1: they're human. It's it's a human It's about humanness. To
Speaker 1: be more human. One of my favorite poets, On and
Speaker 1: starches as the poem that she opens up, what does
Speaker 1: it mean to be more human? To be more the
Speaker 1: human nous, to be more human? The human like this
Speaker 1: idea of being a human like, I'm very curious about that.
Speaker 1: More real talk after the break, we watch our cats.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't have any cats from people who
Speaker 1: have cats and dogs. I love cats. People know I
Speaker 1: love them. That's my point. And I've always said this
Speaker 1: that in my next life, I am chosen chosen, I've
Speaker 1: chosen to cat. I'm going to be a cat the
Speaker 1: next time around, just laying around randomly, lay in the
Speaker 1: sun and scratching, not getting up if you call their name,
Speaker 1: my cat, I'll call his name, and he's laid out,
Speaker 1: he will not move. I'm like, I know you hear me.
Speaker 1: It's like, yeah, I hear you, but I'm resting right now.
Speaker 1: So they walk with They walk with the slow switches.
Speaker 1: They don't rush, They very They have full autonomy over themselves.
Speaker 1: They have there and that's what we need to be
Speaker 1: fully autonomous over our own bodies than our own beings. Like,
Speaker 1: we don't belong to these systems. We don't belong to them.
Speaker 1: We belong to the creator. We belong to our communities.
Speaker 1: We don't belong to a system that wants to see us.
Speaker 1: There's nothing but a tool of production. These systems see
Speaker 1: us as only a tool to create their more more wealth.
Speaker 1: Isn't Doesn't that piss you off to think that a
Speaker 1: system looks by human like that? And so this work
Speaker 1: is also about my rage. I have a lot of
Speaker 1: rage and tender rage around the idea of what the
Speaker 1: systems of their handestors to me, to black women, how
Speaker 1: we feel like we have to be the mules of
Speaker 1: the world. I'm in a deep rage about it, and
Speaker 1: I'm also there's a tenderness in me that says there's
Speaker 1: a softness that's available to us right now and we
Speaker 1: don't have to live this way. And so it's a
Speaker 1: full on political movement. It's a full on social justice disruption.
Speaker 1: This is a disruption that simply all this work is,
Speaker 1: we need it. And you know that. You know that.
Speaker 1: I love how present you are in this revolution. It
Speaker 1: tickles me. It gives my heart so much joy because
Speaker 1: we've been tired and tired. I know I have. I
Speaker 1: talked about that in my book, like when my book
Speaker 1: comes out and told three level, I'll talk about this
Speaker 1: whole story being about this fragmented history around my family
Speaker 1: and my ancestors and the legacy of exhaustion that I
Speaker 1: want my family come through. I was gonna ask you
Speaker 1: that being said, what have your your aunts, your mom,
Speaker 1: your grandmam, like, how have they responded to this work?
Speaker 1: This is I'm sure I don't say foreign because after
Speaker 1: our parents, NATS is not for him, but resting for
Speaker 1: that generation, I think, yeah, for the particular generation. The
Speaker 1: idea of not doing something, your ladies and get out
Speaker 1: and do something. Why are you sleeping in? So let
Speaker 1: you know, when I think about elder black women between
Speaker 1: the ages of like UM sixty plus. You know they
Speaker 1: really are don't understand what it means. Just sit there.
Speaker 1: Even the one can relax. Yeah, the retire one of
Speaker 1: the work that it wasn't work thirty years at a
Speaker 1: company and have come with work now they don't have
Speaker 1: to do that no more. They just they It's still
Speaker 1: in us. And so it's really a somatic, bodily thing
Speaker 1: that we have to really look at. This is held
Speaker 1: in our bodies, the somatics of exhaustion, the legacy of
Speaker 1: exhaustion that's in our bodies, that has been passed down.
Speaker 1: It resides in us. And I believe that our ancestors
Speaker 1: are just waiting for us to take a nap, to
Speaker 1: lay down the rest, so they can download some information
Speaker 1: to us that will help us in this dimension, that
Speaker 1: will give us free in this dimension, that will give
Speaker 1: us something in the inventive ideas. We need to push
Speaker 1: this UM world towards a deeper future, but we won't
Speaker 1: lay our asses down. They're like what they please just
Speaker 1: stop for a second. I have something to share with them,
Speaker 1: because resting and dreaming is a portal space. It's a
Speaker 1: portal Most of us don't even dream I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't dream, we don't imagine, we don't daydream. We
Speaker 1: don't see the opportunity of resting being something generative that
Speaker 1: can give us something that we need. Like all of
Speaker 1: the ideas with this work come from me resting and
Speaker 1: napping and waking up. And I took a thirty days sabbath. Um,
Speaker 1: I do it every November, and I did it last November,
Speaker 1: off all phones, all emails. I don't understand I've heard
Speaker 1: about this that you do. I need you to break
Speaker 1: this down. I don't understand how life continues on without that.
Speaker 1: It cons on beautifully, it goes really well. But you
Speaker 1: have to prepare for. I prepare for for over six
Speaker 1: months to a year. You have to prepare for. You
Speaker 1: have to craft away, Like resting is a meticulous love practice.
Speaker 1: It's a practice, a meticulous love practice, siculous love practor
Speaker 1: its gonna be something you have to craft and right
Speaker 1: and no, it's very meticulous love practice, isn't it tender? Rage?
Speaker 1: Do you feel that we're all in love? I love
Speaker 1: all of y'all. Oh my god, I wish we could
Speaker 1: be in the same room. We go like hugs and
Speaker 1: to rest took an now to get there. I love
Speaker 1: people cried every event we've had, the tears and emotions.
Speaker 1: It's spiritual work, really, Jill, Like people think that this
Speaker 1: work is just oh, go lay down and wellness book
Speaker 1: to rest, it's spiritual work. It's a spiritual practice to
Speaker 1: lay your body down, to connect with your body, to
Speaker 1: hear a word from your ancestors. I think about my
Speaker 1: grandmother or you asked about my grandmother, who's really the
Speaker 1: music this work? Who really she's an ancestor now, but
Speaker 1: I talked about her every single time I can. She's
Speaker 1: in the book. She really taught me what it means
Speaker 1: to reimagine rest. You know, a Jim Crow to terror survivor.
Speaker 1: She's a refugee from Jim pro terror. And I think
Speaker 1: we need to say refugee because when we love those words,
Speaker 1: we talk about the Great migration, all of our ancestors
Speaker 1: leaving south and going north and west, and they all went,
Speaker 1: they leaved. Mine all came from Mississippi and also bad Rouge, Louisiana.
Speaker 1: My grandma father was in Mississippi, and she left um
Speaker 1: like millions of other black people, because she told me
Speaker 1: she didn't want to see another lynching. That she had
Speaker 1: seen a lynching and that was it for her. She
Speaker 1: didn't need to see another one. And so she I
Speaker 1: like to say, she floated on the spaceship that she
Speaker 1: made out of uncertainty and hope. Oh, that herself from
Speaker 1: the Mississippi and came right on up north to Chicago.
Speaker 1: And that's where we landed. And when my family is
Speaker 1: from How grateful I am for her to have a
Speaker 1: couple of dollars in her pocket and to say, I'm
Speaker 1: a refugee. I'm gone. I know, I don't know what
Speaker 1: it's gonna be, but this ship ain't it. It ain't
Speaker 1: it for me to be around my children and seeing
Speaker 1: them being hung from the tree. Like I'm going to
Speaker 1: make a way out of no way. I'm gonna imagine
Speaker 1: and dream myself to a new dimension. So she came
Speaker 1: to Chicago raising eight children. My grandmother has eight children.
Speaker 1: I'm one of her dozens of grandchildren. And between working
Speaker 1: two jobs, working cleaning at a psychiatric hospital and then
Speaker 1: also cleaning for a family, she would come home and
Speaker 1: she would sit on her plastic covered couch and she
Speaker 1: would close her eyes for thirty minutes to an hour
Speaker 1: every day. It did not matter if we were running
Speaker 1: in and out her house, if the door was open
Speaker 1: and we were screaming, she said, on that couch and
Speaker 1: for thirty minutes or are We always thought she would sleep,
Speaker 1: and I'm like she's sleeping after thought, she was so accentric.
Speaker 1: Who sits up like that with their eyes closed, like
Speaker 1: what's happening? I will always say, Grandma sleep, Yeah, I'll
Speaker 1: be quiet. And she wouldn't even open her eyes. She say,
Speaker 1: every shutout, ain't sleep. I'm resting my eyes. I'm listening
Speaker 1: to God. I'm listen. I ask you. I'm left her
Speaker 1: name for thirty minutes. So I would just wanted to
Speaker 1: be why she's fighting poverty, why she's raising children, why
Speaker 1: she's suffering from PTSD. We don't talking about our ancestors
Speaker 1: suffering from PTS to see and lynch, I mean, come
Speaker 1: like how I just think about what they saw, what
Speaker 1: their bodies endure, what they had to visualize, and holding
Speaker 1: their bodies and how that holding what it does and
Speaker 1: how it is now and then not being able to rest.
Speaker 1: What clever our ancestors figured out if they were more
Speaker 1: arrested because they have for stake quicker because they thought
Speaker 1: of that different plans that would have got them to
Speaker 1: their freedom. I think about here Tubman and when my
Speaker 1: bro mother did this every single day. But that's what
Speaker 1: you do to a prisoner of war, That's what you
Speaker 1: do to a captive. You don't let them rest. No,
Speaker 1: deprivation is definitely a tool. So this is my question
Speaker 1: I was gonna ask you on your journey of doing
Speaker 1: this work, like the relationship, How has the relationship changed
Speaker 1: of your understanding of the relationship between rest, sleep, and meditation. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's a good question. Yeah, I clarify in the book.
Speaker 1: You know, people talk about when they hear the word
Speaker 1: dot nap ministry, they think this is about naps, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, this is a way about more than naps.
Speaker 1: This is about truly at also living that looks at
Speaker 1: slowing down, that looks at leisure, that looks at um
Speaker 1: the idea of just being. And so I believe that
Speaker 1: resting is anything that connects your body and mind, that
Speaker 1: can slow you down enough where your body and mind
Speaker 1: can have a moment to connect. And so I love meditation.
Speaker 1: I think that mindfulness and meditate. I think when my
Speaker 1: grandmother was doing was meditating, but she would say she
Speaker 1: was called resting her eyes. She was just resting her eyes.
Speaker 1: She wasn't asleep, but I believe that was a meditative
Speaker 1: state for you to slow down and listen. Believe stilence
Speaker 1: is rest, just the idea of having silence. I believe
Speaker 1: um drinking tea, slowly listening to a full music album, dancing, prayer,
Speaker 1: creating an altar, walking, sky gazing, day dreaming, like, all
Speaker 1: of these things are forms of rest that we can
Speaker 1: embody and we can reimagine ourselves in this life. And
Speaker 1: so we're gonna have to reimagine and be flexible and
Speaker 1: be very inventive of It's not gonna just look like
Speaker 1: a full sleep cycle. I'm in my room, the door
Speaker 1: is closed, I'm under a blanket, there's the pillow. No
Speaker 1: one's bothering me. I have an eyemask on, and I'm sleeping. Yes,
Speaker 1: we need all of that, but to really start to
Speaker 1: deepen into this work, to see it as a real
Speaker 1: political and a resistance movement, we're going to have to
Speaker 1: be pervasive and very in tune with trying to find rest,
Speaker 1: snatched rests and create rest moments in these imaginative moments
Speaker 1: for ourselves. Whenever there's always time to rest. There's always
Speaker 1: time to connect, to slow down ten minutes, take a
Speaker 1: longer shower, to take more time putting that lotion on
Speaker 1: in the morning, don't turn That's just like you need
Speaker 1: to share this definition with every doctor out here. There
Speaker 1: goes to say that tells everybody go rest. What does
Speaker 1: that mean? Yeah? I write a whole list of the
Speaker 1: different ways that we can look at rest and in
Speaker 1: fine ways. Because my grandmother she didn't have time and
Speaker 1: lay down. She was in between another job that she
Speaker 1: was going to so she could sit for those thirty
Speaker 1: minutes and get that silence and listen to God. Like
Speaker 1: when I when she says she's listening to God, what
Speaker 1: when I think about that? That's the deepest spiritual form
Speaker 1: of rests to listen, to have silence, to get off
Speaker 1: these phones, to stop scrolling, to stop hearing the noise
Speaker 1: of everything in your head. These thirty days sabbath that
Speaker 1: I take, I'll get so much information. I don't feel
Speaker 1: like anyone could try to steal my work quotes or
Speaker 1: take this word because they're not resting like I'm doing.
Speaker 1: So if you're not resting like I'm doing, you'll never
Speaker 1: get to the information you won't get the downloads, you
Speaker 1: won't get to like unique things that are coming when
Speaker 1: I'm in such a rested state. Seventeen handwritten pages. During
Speaker 1: my sabbath, I wrote the just ideas and our ideas
Speaker 1: and poem, I mean seven. When you're not online scrolling
Speaker 1: for hours, think about the moment that your brain could
Speaker 1: have to like imagine a wander. It sounds like freedom.
Speaker 1: When you when Asian first sold as You was on break,
Speaker 1: I was like, what kind of freedom? Beautiful? Beautiful? The
Speaker 1: grind is so overwhelming. It's overwhelming, like in in this
Speaker 1: part of the business, like for instance, like you do
Speaker 1: a show and and there's all these people and you're
Speaker 1: connecting with everybody, you know, making the effort to connect
Speaker 1: and open yourself up to the person, the person outside
Speaker 1: of the theater, uh in the parking lot. You're you're
Speaker 1: opening yourself up for this energy to give, but you
Speaker 1: also received. And I've noticed in the last like, um,
Speaker 1: you know, like five or six years, I've noticed that
Speaker 1: once I'm off the stage, I almost pass out. It's
Speaker 1: a lot. It's a lot. So I go to sleep,
Speaker 1: you know, and if they can wait. You know, this
Speaker 1: is before COVID you know, with the meet and greets
Speaker 1: and like if they I gotta go to sleep, got
Speaker 1: to lay it down, Yes you have, and I sleep
Speaker 1: hard and then I can meet people and then I
Speaker 1: can say hi, thank you for coming in. If you
Speaker 1: can't wait for that, I don't know what to tell you,
Speaker 1: because I love that boundary though that you're like, this
Speaker 1: is what it is, and this is it takes It
Speaker 1: takes time to figure out what these boundaries are because
Speaker 1: other than that, you know, you're trying to fit into
Speaker 1: what is done, the normal, you know, and then you
Speaker 1: end up burning yourself out. Is this thing not about
Speaker 1: longevity and I'm just talking about life. If you want
Speaker 1: to live as much life as you possibly can, healthy
Speaker 1: quality of life, if you wanted to be feeling like
Speaker 1: a thriving life, not a life of soft life, not
Speaker 1: a life where you're burnt out, burnt up, you know,
Speaker 1: not connected. I think the deepest part of our exhaustion
Speaker 1: is our disconnection with each other and ourselves. So this
Speaker 1: this deep disembodied with our bodies and who we are.
Speaker 1: And we've know that our bodies are tired, we know
Speaker 1: that we need rest. I'm gonna push through. Why are
Speaker 1: you ignoring what your body is telling you. Your body
Speaker 1: is telling you I need to lay down, I need
Speaker 1: to arrest, and you're like, I'm just push through this,
Speaker 1: pushing through that cultural and it's a cultural thing that
Speaker 1: we've been tall and honestly we say that, we say
Speaker 1: that word so much to our children too. And I
Speaker 1: think there's a bit of a resentment, particularly from our generation,
Speaker 1: with younger generations who we feel a pushing through and
Speaker 1: we feel don't want to work or aren't working hard enough,
Speaker 1: aren't are somehow inherently, somehow getting messaging that it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to sacrifice myself to this. And I
Speaker 1: think that some of that some of us are having,
Speaker 1: like we had a lot of time, like having a
Speaker 1: lot of time processing like where they be coming from
Speaker 1: on that. There is a balance to that when we're
Speaker 1: when we're saying things like oh, I'll just I'll just
Speaker 1: say my opinion, you know, when we're talking about people
Speaker 1: not wanting to work. For those who do, I would
Speaker 1: just ask you do the stop you can, courteous, respectful, helpful,
Speaker 1: you know, um, And but when you're done with that portion,
Speaker 1: please go lay down, just go outside and look at
Speaker 1: this guy, lay down. That's the thing about it. People
Speaker 1: literally are fighting this this idea of not They feel
Speaker 1: like they're not enough. And I think this goes back
Speaker 1: to that worth. If you feel like you're not enough,
Speaker 1: this system teaches you you're not enough, you need to
Speaker 1: do more. Once you're to do this done, then you're okay.
Speaker 1: Once you've accomplished enough, then you're okay. Like that's the
Speaker 1: lie that it sits and resides in us, that it
Speaker 1: causes us to be able to hold onto something that's
Speaker 1: killing us. Like this is not trying to be an alarm,
Speaker 1: but sleep deprivation is killing black people. It is causing
Speaker 1: so many health issues. The top three high blood pressure, diabetes,
Speaker 1: and heart disease have been tracked and traced back to
Speaker 1: sleep deprivation. Not sleeping a full six hours of full
Speaker 1: rest of sleep a day, being exhausted. Sleep deprivation is
Speaker 1: a public health issue. It's a CDC has named it
Speaker 1: as a public health issue. Entire culture physically is dying
Speaker 1: from not sleeping. Um and so it's a spiritual lens too.
Speaker 1: It's a physical lens. It's emotional, it's political. It's like
Speaker 1: all the legs are coming together to make this work
Speaker 1: be so powerful and so paradigm shifting and culture shifting
Speaker 1: that it is going to take a lot of time.
Speaker 1: And I understand it. I'm glad grateful that it's not
Speaker 1: going to be quick. I'm so grateful for it being
Speaker 1: small and when I was having time to deprogram and
Speaker 1: decolonized to figure this work out, to expand and experiment.
Speaker 1: This work is about experimentation. It's not wrapped up in
Speaker 1: a boat to say these are the three things you
Speaker 1: do to be free from grind culture. Honey. No, you're
Speaker 1: gonna be unraveling and healing and meticulously loving on yourself
Speaker 1: through rest for the rest of your days. And we'll
Speaker 1: hope that our people, when we are ancestors, that the
Speaker 1: one us who are left behind our families will be
Speaker 1: uplifting rest for us wearing that dimension. And so this
Speaker 1: is a pull on life long practice of seeing ourselves
Speaker 1: as worthy if you are enough. I repeat that so
Speaker 1: much in a book. If you don't get nothing from
Speaker 1: this book, understand that right now, as you're reading this book,
Speaker 1: as you're listening to me, understand that you're you are divine,
Speaker 1: that you're worth was granted to you by your birth.
Speaker 1: So you don't have to do all these other connected
Speaker 1: things that you feeling like I got give your worth.
Speaker 1: You're worth. It's not hemmed up in capitalism's ideas of
Speaker 1: what we're gonna take a quick break and then it
Speaker 1: will be right back. What is the name of your
Speaker 1: book again? Yes, rest is Resistance a manifesto come out
Speaker 1: October eleventh. Please tell me you doing an audio book.
Speaker 1: October eleventh is my um, it's my anniversary anniversary. It's
Speaker 1: it's the day I lost my virginity. I was. I
Speaker 1: didn't know which wonder because because this is Jill, so
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, she went bust out. She because who
Speaker 1: remembers that day? You remember that, dame, but Jill, nobody
Speaker 1: remembers that date. I remember the year, the year, maybe
Speaker 1: maybe the season. I probably confined the day though, because
Speaker 1: I've been journaling since I was in high school. So
Speaker 1: you one of those. I have them all on the shelf,
Speaker 1: like like a book to jealous Happening when I was
Speaker 1: what was happening when you were eighteen? Like it's a
Speaker 1: full archive of like yo, I just told jail to Asia,
Speaker 1: I was like, that's Jennifer Lewis said, that's how she
Speaker 1: writes all her books because she journal all her life,
Speaker 1: so she just goes for books and start right. I
Speaker 1: love that, you know, I always I've always wanted to
Speaker 1: be a journal person, but I just I've never quite
Speaker 1: been able to do it. Well. Did you have diaries
Speaker 1: a little like all the way I did? I definitely did,
Speaker 1: But you don't keep up with it. You keep up
Speaker 1: with you. Yeah, I think I have like maybe one
Speaker 1: from like middle school that I probably still have. I
Speaker 1: wanted to circle back to something you said because and
Speaker 1: I've just been sitting with it in my mind, because
Speaker 1: you keep saying so many good things. I just like,
Speaker 1: I'm mostly just listening because I'm such a like girl.
Speaker 1: Jim after Jim after Jim. But any who, um, when
Speaker 1: you were talking about ancestors and and you talked about
Speaker 1: also to like the this um the kind of legacy
Speaker 1: of exhaustion. I remember I went to to grief therapy
Speaker 1: after my mom passed, and this lady and the lady
Speaker 1: who was doing it with me was telling me about
Speaker 1: how like, what did you think was the legacy that
Speaker 1: my mother left me? And one of the things that
Speaker 1: she was that that people talked about her a lot
Speaker 1: of times just like how how much, how easy it
Speaker 1: was for her to love people, and that she had
Speaker 1: like this real legacy of love that she left with people.
Speaker 1: And I remember my son telling me, like, I just
Speaker 1: want to be I wish I want to be more
Speaker 1: like Grandma. And I told him, I said, well, you
Speaker 1: know what, son, there was a cost to her being
Speaker 1: so present for so many people, and there was a
Speaker 1: call she paid for that. And I said, now, when
Speaker 1: I look at my mom, I feel she definitely gave
Speaker 1: me a beautiful blueprint as to how to treat others
Speaker 1: and the type of person you want to be when
Speaker 1: people remember you. But I realized that she sacrificed her
Speaker 1: body for that in a lot of ways. And I
Speaker 1: feel like the legacy legacy that she left me was
Speaker 1: that yes, be be good, be espressial love to people
Speaker 1: who you feel shold having, but also like preserve the self,
Speaker 1: take care of yourself, you know, And and that was
Speaker 1: one thing she just failed to do for herself. And
Speaker 1: it's like, and to me, I feel like that's really
Speaker 1: the more powerful legacy that she left me and the
Speaker 1: thing that I've been sitting with for the last few years.
Speaker 1: So even in discovering your page. I felt that that
Speaker 1: was even her guided me into that space to say, listen,
Speaker 1: you need to I see now I'm about to cry.
Speaker 1: You need to rest, honey. You just have been on
Speaker 1: and I don't think I would have believed her has
Speaker 1: she told me that in the flesh, I think I
Speaker 1: had to have so much pain to where I could
Speaker 1: not fit another thing in the cup. I had to
Speaker 1: be that full in order to deny other things my
Speaker 1: body and my presence and my labor. So when you
Speaker 1: said that, it just really resonated with me because I
Speaker 1: was just like, I have approached my life in such
Speaker 1: a different way in the past four years, or for
Speaker 1: for in some change, you know, in the past four years.
Speaker 1: It has been different. Even with my children. I told
Speaker 1: my husband said, during the pandemic, my bedroom felt like
Speaker 1: an office, and it was a constant energy of people
Speaker 1: coming into the office to talk about what it is
Speaker 1: they needed to talk about, right, like constant, constant, constant
Speaker 1: to I felt like, goodness, gracious, I felt like I
Speaker 1: had to be like a big red like my office.
Speaker 1: I was just from nine to five like this motherfucker, right,
Speaker 1: So you know, eventually I had to kind of like
Speaker 1: start to create these boundaries even with people who I
Speaker 1: felt were entitled to my labor. So I think sometimes
Speaker 1: maybe even this thing might go even further from like
Speaker 1: necessarily capitalism, but also within our inter personal relationships as
Speaker 1: to how we, you know, expel so much. And if
Speaker 1: you talk about guilt, that's a major guilt to turn
Speaker 1: away a child from your foot, from your door. I know.
Speaker 1: I think that this is the black woman to talk
Speaker 1: about what has been placed on when I think about
Speaker 1: the labor and the sacrifice that Black women have done
Speaker 1: their bodies to who they are. They sacrifice everything to
Speaker 1: be on good other, to be a good pardner, to
Speaker 1: do for everyone, and then we're over here dying. I
Speaker 1: think that legacy the strong black woman, Mammy, the Mammy trope,
Speaker 1: the muddle of the world, like those tropes were put
Speaker 1: on us during plantation time, during slavery, when our ancestors
Speaker 1: were a part of the system that was looking at
Speaker 1: us as full on machines that's not even human beings
Speaker 1: at all, but the for the black woman, like how
Speaker 1: we've internalized that. It's such a deep way we've been
Speaker 1: taught that we watched our grandmothers do it, our great
Speaker 1: grandmothers every do it to the point of where their
Speaker 1: sacrificing their entire being until they're gone, not hearing for
Speaker 1: their selves. There's no self preservation, there's no you're gonna give,
Speaker 1: give given to you can't give no more. You have
Speaker 1: a heart attack and you still in the back at
Speaker 1: home resting cookie, Then why are you in the hospital?
Speaker 1: Like I know all black women who have done that,
Speaker 1: it's like you really there is such a brainwashing. I
Speaker 1: think we have to keep going back to the idea
Speaker 1: of this deep socialization that happens to us from birth.
Speaker 1: I think everyone has that, but for Black people there's
Speaker 1: a different legacy. There's a different been to the exhaustion,
Speaker 1: to the way we're always trying to catch up. We're
Speaker 1: always trying to catch up page priarchy. Also, we cannot
Speaker 1: forget about patriarchy because that part because the black woman
Speaker 1: is seen as the mule of the world to save
Speaker 1: everyone else she can. I'm not trying to save nobody else.
Speaker 1: I want help and I need help. So the strong
Speaker 1: troke is one that is to me, the most divisive,
Speaker 1: the most toxic, and I want all black women to
Speaker 1: begin to do the healing work. This is a part
Speaker 1: of a deeper healing agenda like resting and sleepy and
Speaker 1: slowing down and connecting with your bodies is just one
Speaker 1: of the deep parts of our full healing agenda. We're
Speaker 1: gonna have to be healing from our individual trauma. Things
Speaker 1: that happened to us we were children that made us
Speaker 1: people pleasers, Things that happened to us we were younger
Speaker 1: that made us feel like we aren't worthy. Collective trium,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to be looking at what has happened
Speaker 1: to us collectively. And this is going to take a
Speaker 1: lot of work. It's not going to just be a
Speaker 1: one time thing. It's gonna be therapy, prayer, you know,
Speaker 1: some classes, rituals, working with people, really deeply looking at
Speaker 1: yourself to see the work. It always going at yourself
Speaker 1: worth looking at yourself when you can't look at yourself
Speaker 1: or feel yourself or connect with yourself, if you're always
Speaker 1: going My girlfriend told me I was selfish once, um,
Speaker 1: and I told her I was self full, self full yes,
Speaker 1: then yeah self yeah, because it's not selfish. I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: you know I did. I did grow up as an
Speaker 1: only child. But I like my a long time. I
Speaker 1: like my piece of quiet it's become part of my
Speaker 1: my life. I need that. How will we be well without?
Speaker 1: How as human beings will we be well without? It's
Speaker 1: it's almost to see how deep the brainwatching is for
Speaker 1: people to actually think that we're going to be able
Speaker 1: to get to some type of freedom by doing the
Speaker 1: same things talked to us by these toxic systems. So
Speaker 1: you think you're gonna get to freedom by doing the
Speaker 1: same exact things that we're talked to you by the oppressor,
Speaker 1: by a toxic system has taught you these things, you
Speaker 1: won't be able to get there. And Audrey Lord has
Speaker 1: a beautiful quote that I love you will never dismantle
Speaker 1: the master's house using the masters tools. Yeah, I want
Speaker 1: to keep being exhausted, to keep acting like you're the
Speaker 1: slave master, keeping grind, keep and thinking it from that
Speaker 1: you're gonna be able to equal liberation and thriving in
Speaker 1: freedom like it. Just it doesn't make sense that we
Speaker 1: believe that we can keep grinding ourselves to obliving and
Speaker 1: think that that's gonna offer us beautiful results, that's gonna
Speaker 1: offer us results that look like liberation. It's gonna offer
Speaker 1: us more of the same. And so that's where the
Speaker 1: shift comes from that mind shift of knowing that we
Speaker 1: have to like, really, look, this is something that we're
Speaker 1: going to have to do a practice every day. That's
Speaker 1: the center of our life. It's not just this adecute
Speaker 1: little thing you do. It's literally has to be the foundation.
Speaker 1: Resting has to be the foundation for our north star,
Speaker 1: for our entire lives, for our um activities is trying
Speaker 1: to be community activists. I work with a lot of
Speaker 1: organizations and activists who you know who are out here
Speaker 1: trying to do all these beautiful things to giving us
Speaker 1: our freedom, but they're working eighty hours a week and
Speaker 1: I'm like, m hmm, how is that You're trying to
Speaker 1: help us get our freedom but you haven't slept in
Speaker 1: three days and you're like having to your help, Like,
Speaker 1: how are you going to help us get your freedom
Speaker 1: when you're going to be dragging your body across to
Speaker 1: the online with you. We need you alive to do
Speaker 1: the work like we need to U. Angela Davis one
Speaker 1: time was talking about that. She was saying how she
Speaker 1: was like, you know this new she said, we never
Speaker 1: thought about, you know, self care or taking care of ourselves,
Speaker 1: or she was we never talked thought about those things.
Speaker 1: That sounds published, she said, And we lost a lot
Speaker 1: of people, a lot of people you know, a mother.
Speaker 1: But if you look at and many of us from
Speaker 1: this generation, some of us had activist parents. I did not,
Speaker 1: but I have seen a lot of I've talked to
Speaker 1: a lot of second generation UM children who had activist
Speaker 1: parents from that era, and they will tell you that
Speaker 1: their parents have a myriad of health issues. Their mental
Speaker 1: health is physical health issues, mental health issues that they
Speaker 1: you know, that just the way it ravaged the bodies
Speaker 1: of their parents. Yeah, that's why when you talk to
Speaker 1: Al Sharpton today he tells you his health regiment, you'd
Speaker 1: be like, what not like Sharpton about take care of self?
Speaker 1: Like core and now he saw because he was almost
Speaker 1: out of here with health and he turned that around.
Speaker 1: It may sound like an idealist, UM, just a beautiful thing.
Speaker 1: Thank you. I'm gonna match learn an idealist as well.
Speaker 1: Like I want people to say that sounds impossible what
Speaker 1: you're talking about. Thank you. I'm glad to be part
Speaker 1: of the impossible crew because that's where our healing is
Speaker 1: going to come from. People Dave dreaming and imagining things
Speaker 1: that don't exist, you know, I feel like we're imagining stuff.
Speaker 1: You know, it's the stuff. We want a lot of stuff.
Speaker 1: And I don't know if people realize until you actually
Speaker 1: have a lot of stuff that a lot of stuff
Speaker 1: requires a lot of energy and effort to maintain. It
Speaker 1: takes a lot. So what is Is it a big
Speaker 1: old house with with ten bathrooms or is it a
Speaker 1: town house or or you know, a cabin in the
Speaker 1: woods that will give you your piece? Like piece is
Speaker 1: really individual. And I see a lot I understand. You
Speaker 1: know this, this this try, this effort to to get
Speaker 1: this bag. You know, get the ay I be invisible,
Speaker 1: I get it. I get it because there were definitely
Speaker 1: times where there was no food in the pantry and
Speaker 1: you know, two pair of shoes a year. I recalled
Speaker 1: these things very much. So you know, I have a
Speaker 1: thing where I don't like to see the pantry empty.
Speaker 1: It scares me, you know. And I have a lot
Speaker 1: of shoes because I you know, I'm like, I guess
Speaker 1: that's a you know, a trauma in my mind for poverty,
Speaker 1: the poverty of where we live through. We have to
Speaker 1: hear from that as well. Definitely, I see that a
Speaker 1: lot that we're all trying to get all of this stuff.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, I mean that they're telling us that that
Speaker 1: this this is the way that people will know that
Speaker 1: you got it, that that that we got this thing
Speaker 1: that we're trying to get, Like your's the allens, here's
Speaker 1: here's the receipts. The new word they had, generational wealth.
Speaker 1: It's like, oh, now you're solving You're solving all the
Speaker 1: problems of black people by learning how to make a
Speaker 1: lot of money. It's it's a lie. It's is a
Speaker 1: repackaging of the same lie. And I'm just tired of
Speaker 1: hearing it all the time. And it's like to me,
Speaker 1: to me on my group chat, my girlfriend group chat,
Speaker 1: Operational soft Life, and you said soft life. We are
Speaker 1: on Operation soft Life. This is all we're talking about
Speaker 1: in the group chat. It's like, what are we doing
Speaker 1: to create this softness in our lives? You know what
Speaker 1: I mean? And it's like, no one wants the herd anymore,
Speaker 1: the hardest whack. I don't want to exchange, you know,
Speaker 1: more stories with each other of how we've endored some
Speaker 1: massive hardship, Like I don't want to talk about that anymore.
Speaker 1: I don't want that to be the way that we bond.
Speaker 1: I want us to bond over the softness of our
Speaker 1: lives and what have we done to encourage that? And
Speaker 1: it is hard work and it does take community. And
Speaker 1: I don't know what I would do if I didn't
Speaker 1: have other people to bounce this kind of thing off of.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't I feel like I would have giving into
Speaker 1: the whole You're lazy, Yeah, that's why you're not, you know,
Speaker 1: ambitious enough, or the cree of other people to be like, no,
Speaker 1: you're not crazy, Like this is whack. And I don't
Speaker 1: want to work that way. And I think I'm so
Speaker 1: happy because I felt like an outlier when I first
Speaker 1: started this work. I felt very lonely. When I first
Speaker 1: started this work back in twos and I was talking
Speaker 1: about this rest and that idea, people were laughing at me.
Speaker 1: They were like, girl, Like black people, white people, everybody
Speaker 1: was like girl, that sounds crazy. And I love to grind.
Speaker 1: I love to be busy. I love it. I could
Speaker 1: never lay down. I don't like the rest. Like literally,
Speaker 1: people were fighting me and thinking that the work was
Speaker 1: really They thought it was an ironic satire Joe that
Speaker 1: I was playing on because I am a performance artist.
Speaker 1: Installation new theaters. So they thought it was just like
Speaker 1: one of my events that I was doing. I was
Speaker 1: like trying to be funny, and I'm like, no, I'm
Speaker 1: dead ass. Like we're gonna be resting to reclaim our
Speaker 1: bodies and reclaim um, our ancestors, rest and we're going
Speaker 1: to be resisting the system that says that we are
Speaker 1: machine and that we belong to it's simply to be
Speaker 1: working on its clock, and so we're going to resist
Speaker 1: that by simply laying down. The practice is to stop,
Speaker 1: is to lay down, it's to slow down, it's to
Speaker 1: say no more. And they thought it was a joke.
Speaker 1: And so I'm grateful that now there is a community
Speaker 1: of people that they know if they are feeling away,
Speaker 1: they can come and come to our events, come look
Speaker 1: on the page and read the book that's coming out,
Speaker 1: and really be like swaddled and cuddled in this idea
Speaker 1: of care, of deep, deep community, care of deep interconnectedness.
Speaker 1: I want this work to feel like a metaphorical soft pillow,
Speaker 1: you know, like a blanket that you can put over
Speaker 1: you when you feel a little softness in a world
Speaker 1: that hates you unless you're working. You know, all my
Speaker 1: underscented bosom. She looked like she smelled good too. Is
Speaker 1: there is there a Is there a naptuur coming with
Speaker 1: this book? Really? Yes? And I'm gonna be leaving out
Speaker 1: on October fifth, and I'm gonna be going to d C, Chicago,
Speaker 1: Atlanta of course where I live, l A, San Francisco,
Speaker 1: and then back to d C. Yeah. Then I'll be
Speaker 1: in New Orleans in December. Yeah, you need to stop
Speaker 1: in Philly too. I'm sorry. I was thinking about l
Speaker 1: A n B and sounds like on my list when
Speaker 1: I first started booking out the tour, but then um,
Speaker 1: some other things dropped in. But I always wanted to
Speaker 1: go being philious girl. We'll be back after the break.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm gonna be me obviously, But like this
Speaker 1: seems to me that has the best career every I mean,
Speaker 1: because she's like hiding out, she popped up. She does
Speaker 1: twelve shows and I don't know who her people are.
Speaker 1: You don't know what she eats for breakfast, you don't know,
Speaker 1: you don't know any you don't know what her house
Speaker 1: is shot. I talk about her all the time when
Speaker 1: I talk about the people who have decided to do
Speaker 1: an access off of social media not be a part
Speaker 1: of it, because social media will be the one thing
Speaker 1: that keeps us from being arrested without looking at our
Speaker 1: addiction to social media. This rest movement is not going nowhere.
Speaker 1: And so I take down social media and talk about it.
Speaker 1: It's harm all the time, even though people don't want
Speaker 1: to hear it. I talk about how it is a
Speaker 1: full owner obsessions, addiction, and it is driving us deeper
Speaker 1: into more parts of Exhaustion's have in depression, mental health issues,
Speaker 1: all types of sickness, body issues, head self esteem. It
Speaker 1: has to be even like even now and meaning all
Speaker 1: the chiropractice. He's saying that if you're doing this all
Speaker 1: day and it's causing like an issue with how you
Speaker 1: sit back, and it's happening in our bodies, a mass
Speaker 1: accident off of these sites will have to take place.
Speaker 1: And I and I hold that up as a dream
Speaker 1: space and a place that I want to see happen
Speaker 1: and I want to be helping to us to do
Speaker 1: what people are like, I'm done. I'm like, please come
Speaker 1: into the rest temple and lay down. Give me that
Speaker 1: damn phone, like I am on a rampage against it.
Speaker 1: People don't people don't like it, but I still I'm
Speaker 1: gonna keep talking about it. You know, I'm you're in Atlanta,
Speaker 1: so I'm sure you know j Ju. Yes, that's what
Speaker 1: I see for you. I love James. Oh yeah, it's
Speaker 1: so interests you say that because I just opened up
Speaker 1: a building, a Rest Temple here in Atlanta. Rest Temple.
Speaker 1: It's a beautiful historic church that nineteen o three. You
Speaker 1: guys got to come visit, which I am. I'm be
Speaker 1: in Atlanta next week, which please, I will give you
Speaker 1: a tour. Just text me and I'll show you around.
Speaker 1: It opens on October nine, which is the book launch
Speaker 1: of my book, so it'll be a bit done. I
Speaker 1: want to do it for this episode Celebrate and then
Speaker 1: the book comes out on the lap and then so um.
Speaker 1: But me and my call collaborating artistic sister. We were
Speaker 1: building is so big. That has three floors and you
Speaker 1: can go underground like where the kitchen is and like
Speaker 1: the last basement space. And we kept looking at each
Speaker 1: other and she was like, this needs to be her mom.
Speaker 1: This needs to be a bad house or a spa
Speaker 1: or something with woomuse get some that modality of a
Speaker 1: bad house, of vibe of salt water and that's what
Speaker 1: is that's one of those it's her mom like bad house,
Speaker 1: but it's like, but I really think that that would
Speaker 1: be the next dimension of the work, is to really
Speaker 1: start to do more work with the body, the somatics
Speaker 1: of body. People do that and then they come up.
Speaker 1: But I have so many ideas for the rest of
Speaker 1: temple was going to be um and all of them
Speaker 1: an Asian influence will be so dope to have it
Speaker 1: be us in going to say that because we both
Speaker 1: looked at each other and have that on our prayer
Speaker 1: lists of like we're gonna make this into a bad
Speaker 1: house down here, this whole basiment area. Yes, yes, I
Speaker 1: have a question though, I have a question of you
Speaker 1: said you you you revealing that is that is a
Speaker 1: process and as you're doing it's not going to be fast.
Speaker 1: And I know that there's eventually you're gonna get calls
Speaker 1: from corporations, calls from so and so. You have an
Speaker 1: event in three times as many people as you think
Speaker 1: are gonna show up or whatever the case may be. Like,
Speaker 1: what are some of the things that you're doing to
Speaker 1: actively like shield yourself because you have to gate keep Yeah,
Speaker 1: that that that onset of capitalism to ruining your ship,
Speaker 1: very clear boundaries. I say no, the ninety percent of
Speaker 1: things asked to me literally like my I was writing
Speaker 1: my book when I was like, I was, I was
Speaker 1: in the writing cage. I was like, I am so
Speaker 1: I was really up every day writing with like a
Speaker 1: bonnet on and in the closet like writing like a right.
Speaker 1: We were never mad. You never mad. We understan jealous jealous.
Speaker 1: I was jealous. We always understood and was like we
Speaker 1: got you were walking back. I say, no, who we
Speaker 1: gotta do to do get that kind of freedom. I
Speaker 1: always wanted to call to you, guys. I'm like, I
Speaker 1: love all of you, So I'm like, are you kidding?
Speaker 1: But the way that book, the writing of that book
Speaker 1: was really a fool on body. It's my first book
Speaker 1: I've ever written. To get through writing something like that,
Speaker 1: it's so hard because it's memoir, it's poetry. It's a
Speaker 1: full manifesto that really uplifts the idea of rest being
Speaker 1: the new the new clearion call for the generation like
Speaker 1: this is the guys book and the field guy for
Speaker 1: this this new rest movement. It's a manifesto. I think
Speaker 1: people will come back to it will be something can
Speaker 1: tuck in their bag and when they're in the field
Speaker 1: trying to like resist grind, culture can be a companion
Speaker 1: for them, a metaphorical blanket. I want people to lay
Speaker 1: down and read it, fall asleep with it on their chest,
Speaker 1: like I wanted to be a lullaby for them, and
Speaker 1: so writing that book was a live I wanted to
Speaker 1: ask one more question, what do you say to somebody
Speaker 1: who is broke, like financially. I got so many good
Speaker 1: things to say them because I started this The story
Speaker 1: of how I started this work, I literally had no money.
Speaker 1: I was going to job interviews every week trying to
Speaker 1: get a job after I finished seminary, and nobody would
Speaker 1: hire me. Jill I was literally doing chaplaincy session because
Speaker 1: I was trying us to chapelain and pastoral care sessions
Speaker 1: with the people. Like the interviews would turn into me
Speaker 1: doing chaplaincy with the people. People were in their crying.
Speaker 1: One woman was like interviewing me and started crying and
Speaker 1: tell me about she's having all these issues with her daughter.
Speaker 1: And I sit up there and had like prayer with her,
Speaker 1: a full chaplaincy session. I was like, I was definitely
Speaker 1: don't get this job, and she called about the gable
Speaker 1: to somebody else like that. It's happened four times. My
Speaker 1: husband was like, if you keep your job, is not that.
Speaker 1: I was like, Bay, I don't have no money. I
Speaker 1: literally don't even have twenty five dollars. He was like,
Speaker 1: I know, but if you the job is not out there.
Speaker 1: The job is this napping and resting thing. And I
Speaker 1: was just like, oh my god, how could you say that?
Speaker 1: Like I couldn't believe. I was so caught up in
Speaker 1: like not having not having money, filling the poverty on
Speaker 1: my shoulders. He said, the work is do in that ministry,
Speaker 1: and if you do that, things will come. When I
Speaker 1: first started this, I was getting paid twenty dollars to
Speaker 1: come and do it. I didn't have a dime. And
Speaker 1: so what I tell people is when you talk about
Speaker 1: being broke, there is not There is not a binary
Speaker 1: with this. Work isn't either be broke or work like
Speaker 1: an animal. You know, there has to be some type
Speaker 1: of mental ground, some type of balance, some type of
Speaker 1: integration of this so that you can do both, Like
Speaker 1: you don't have to grind yourself into oblivion in order
Speaker 1: to not be broke you also, um can still do
Speaker 1: this while you're also working. And so I'm not telling
Speaker 1: people to never work, to lay down, to quit their job.
Speaker 1: I'm saying that you have to see resting as an
Speaker 1: integrated part of your life. You have to see boundaries,
Speaker 1: you have to see healing. So I tell people still rest.
Speaker 1: My grandmother rest for thirty minutes. Why she was broke,
Speaker 1: working two jobs, raising eight kids without a dime. I
Speaker 1: was resting and teaching people to rest when I didn't
Speaker 1: have any money. So I know the understanding of needing
Speaker 1: to eat and live in a capitalist system is real.
Speaker 1: I'm not um and realistic to think that I'm come
Speaker 1: from a legacy of poor black factory working. Nobody in
Speaker 1: my family graduated from college. They're all high school graduates.
Speaker 1: I'm like the first in my family to graduate from college,
Speaker 1: the first to go to graduate school. So I understand
Speaker 1: what it means to not have Like if I stopped
Speaker 1: working today, I would be homeless, you know. And so
Speaker 1: it's like I understand the vibe and the what the
Speaker 1: reality is of living in a system like this. I'm
Speaker 1: saying this is about more than just stopping and laying down.
Speaker 1: It's about being having awareness of who you are. It's
Speaker 1: a self worth, it's a um self esteem, it's a divinity.
Speaker 1: It's a spiritual practice. It's a idea of mind shifting,
Speaker 1: of shifting your mind to understand that you do not
Speaker 1: only deserve rest, but it's actually your human right, it
Speaker 1: is your divine right. It's past some type of I
Speaker 1: need to earn rest. It is literally looking at yourself
Speaker 1: that's divine human you are, and from that knowledge, from
Speaker 1: that information, integrated into your life to be able to
Speaker 1: resist any system that wants to degrade you, any system
Speaker 1: that wants to say you aren't enough. That's the resistance there.
Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you
Speaker 1: so much. I know from personal experience and when I
Speaker 1: when I decided to rest my body, music comes, full
Speaker 1: lyrics come, poetry comes, ideas come. A new way of thinking.
Speaker 1: A thing, or cooking a thing, or or trying a
Speaker 1: thing pops up. Sleep. Rest is regenerative and we all
Speaker 1: need that and we deserve it. I need you, dear
Speaker 1: sweet listeners. We need you to purchase this book. We
Speaker 1: need you to consider the possibilities of your existence in
Speaker 1: a more peaceful, productive, happy, rested existence. We need you
Speaker 1: to We need that for you. I need that for me,
Speaker 1: Agent needs that, Lah needs that. We all need that.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for being here with us. We've
Speaker 1: been waiting for you since yes man, We've been waiting
Speaker 1: a dread so beautiful. How do you eat an elephant?
Speaker 1: One by its Hey, listeners, it's Amber, the producer of
Speaker 1: Jada Ill Here. My prayer is that each and every
Speaker 1: one of you takes this episode to heart. We deserve
Speaker 1: so much rest. Keep finding your pockets of peace throughout
Speaker 1: the day. One really easy way to start is with
Speaker 1: the breath. If you don't already know the four seven
Speaker 1: eight breathing technique, get into it. It's super simple. All
Speaker 1: you do is inhale through your nose for four seconds,
Speaker 1: hold your breath for seven, and exhale through your mouth
Speaker 1: for eight. And this simple exercise is scientifically proven to
Speaker 1: decrease fatigue, reduced anxiety, reduced symptoms of asthma, reduced hypertension,
Speaker 1: reduced aggressive behavior, nails, and improve migraine symptoms. I'll drop
Speaker 1: a link in the show notes to an article explaining
Speaker 1: more about the four semnate breathing technique. I'll also drop
Speaker 1: a link to Tricia's incredible new book, Rest Is Resistance.
Speaker 1: It's now required reading for the j L Fam. And
Speaker 1: if you don't already, follow Trisha on Instagram at the
Speaker 1: NAT Ministry. Hi. If you have comments on something you
Speaker 1: said in this episode called eight six six, Hey Jill,
Speaker 1: if you want to add to this conversation, that's eight
Speaker 1: six six four three nine five four five five. Don't
Speaker 1: forget to tell us your name and the episode you're
Speaker 1: referring to. You might just hear your message on a
Speaker 1: future episode. Thank you for listening to Jill Scott Presents
Speaker 1: Jay dot The podcast j dot Ill is a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the I heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows