WEBVTT - Rhonda Magee || The Inner Work of Racial Justice 0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:05.720 It's important to notice when we're too focus on that 0:00:05.800 --> 0:00:11.200 sense of our bounded ego based separate identity, and you know, 0:00:11.320 --> 0:00:14.840 to be in engaged in a kind of set of 0:00:14.920 --> 0:00:24.720 practices that can deliver us when we're getting stuck. Hello 0:00:24.800 --> 0:00:27.920 and welcome to the Psychology Podcast. In this episode, I 0:00:27.960 --> 0:00:31.400 talked to law professor and mindfulness leader Ronda McGhee about 0:00:31.400 --> 0:00:34.680 her book, The Inner Work of Racial Justice. In this episode, 0:00:34.720 --> 0:00:38.760 we discuss our innovative approach to healing racial divides using mindfulness. 0:00:39.040 --> 0:00:43.440 Randa argues that when we bring awareness and compassion to ourselves, relationships, 0:00:43.479 --> 0:00:46.800 and the environment, we invite healing and connection. We also 0:00:46.840 --> 0:00:51.840 touch on the topics of education, spirituality, liberation, democracy, and community, 0:00:52.120 --> 0:00:55.600 so that further Ado I bring you Ronda McGee. Wow, 0:00:55.640 --> 0:00:57.640 I'm really excited to talk to you today, and I 0:00:57.640 --> 0:01:00.080 thought we could just dive in because I you know, 0:01:01.440 --> 0:01:05.360 let's just have an informal chat, you know, yes, let's do. 0:01:05.760 --> 0:01:08.520 Thank you and thank you for the invitation to have 0:01:08.600 --> 0:01:12.839 this chat. I'm a fan of your work and really 0:01:12.959 --> 0:01:16.720 just appreciating what you're offering right now in the world 0:01:16.720 --> 0:01:21.200 that needs who you know, so many different sources of 0:01:21.360 --> 0:01:24.240 support and I see you as definitely offering that, and 0:01:24.280 --> 0:01:26.720 I appreciate that very much, you know, thank you so 0:01:26.800 --> 0:01:28.200 much for saying that. And I feel the same way 0:01:28.200 --> 0:01:31.160 about you. At your name just kept coming up among 0:01:31.280 --> 0:01:34.200 so many people that I follow and that I love, 0:01:34.280 --> 0:01:38.399 like Sharon Foldberg and my friend Corey Mascara and who 0:01:38.440 --> 0:01:41.400 are meditators, and your work just kept cropping up, and 0:01:42.000 --> 0:01:45.840 I love it. I absolutely love it. So yeah, I 0:01:45.840 --> 0:01:48.360 thought a really good place to start would be a 0:01:48.360 --> 0:01:52.280 little bit about your your early childhood experiences. This is 0:01:52.320 --> 0:01:56.720 the Psychology Podcast, after all. Would you feel comfortable talking 0:01:56.720 --> 0:02:01.559 about that a little bit? Yes, Yes, I was born 0:02:02.280 --> 0:02:07.200 in North Carolina to you know, to parents who you know, 0:02:07.360 --> 0:02:14.000 have their own heritage and legacy in the soil and 0:02:14.160 --> 0:02:17.800 social and cultural context of the Southern United States. I 0:02:17.840 --> 0:02:20.160 was actually born in North Carolina. My parents, my mother 0:02:20.240 --> 0:02:23.760 is from North Carolina. My father was from the Gulf 0:02:24.000 --> 0:02:29.200 coast of Mississippi, you know, which has some you know, 0:02:29.280 --> 0:02:32.120 Biloxi in this part of Mississippi is known as a 0:02:32.120 --> 0:02:36.160 place that has at least some appeal for those who 0:02:36.840 --> 0:02:41.200 delight in gambling, I guess, and just coastal living. But 0:02:41.400 --> 0:02:43.840 to be a black man growing up in that part 0:02:43.880 --> 0:02:47.119 of the country was not so much filled with that. 0:02:47.200 --> 0:02:50.720 In fact, when he was growing up in the you know, 0:02:50.800 --> 0:02:53.560 the forties and fifties, it would have been illegal for 0:02:53.639 --> 0:02:57.079 him to enter into the water actually in many parts 0:02:57.080 --> 0:03:01.200 of the coastline. And so my father actually kind of 0:03:01.440 --> 0:03:05.919 left Mississippi and joined the Marines during a time of war. 0:03:06.080 --> 0:03:12.880 He served in the Vietnam War. And my mother really, yeah, 0:03:13.040 --> 0:03:16.480 was he My dad was in the Marines. He was 0:03:16.520 --> 0:03:18.600 in the Air Force, in the Air Force. Yeah, but 0:03:18.919 --> 0:03:22.920 you know, I mean service, Yeah, during the time of war. So, 0:03:23.520 --> 0:03:25.600 you know, and my mother had, you know, worked for 0:03:25.600 --> 0:03:30.320 a shirt factory and done done other kinds of you know, 0:03:30.520 --> 0:03:37.720 low skilled working class you know employment, and none of them, 0:03:37.800 --> 0:03:40.920 neither of them had gone to college. And so I 0:03:40.960 --> 0:03:43.640 say all that to say, you know, I'm like so 0:03:43.800 --> 0:03:47.680 many people in the United States. On the one hand, 0:03:47.840 --> 0:03:51.920 you know, somebody who's benefited from all of the ways 0:03:51.960 --> 0:03:57.360 that prior generation or two more have struggled to open 0:03:57.440 --> 0:04:02.680 up opportunity more broadly for people whose whose backgrounds don't 0:04:02.680 --> 0:04:04.840 afford them a lot of opportunity. We were, you know, 0:04:04.880 --> 0:04:08.960 relatively poor growing up. You know, all of the ways 0:04:09.000 --> 0:04:12.920 that the history of enslavement and segregation, impact of family 0:04:12.960 --> 0:04:17.880 were present. So impoverishment, you know, alcoholism was something that 0:04:18.080 --> 0:04:21.280 my family experienced and I witnessed, and then also some 0:04:21.320 --> 0:04:24.120 of the follow on effects that can happen from that, 0:04:24.680 --> 0:04:28.920 including physical abuse, domestic violence in my home. And then 0:04:29.000 --> 0:04:33.080 subsequently my mother and father divorced, married a stepfather who 0:04:33.240 --> 0:04:36.960 also another military veteran, this time in fact the Air Force. 0:04:37.680 --> 0:04:43.760 And nevertheless, we saw we saw similar patterns of alcohol 0:04:43.800 --> 0:04:49.360 abuse and abuse in the household that impacted me as 0:04:49.400 --> 0:04:54.040 well directly as well. So you know, I, you know, 0:04:54.080 --> 0:04:56.640 I at the same time, I had the good fortune 0:04:56.680 --> 0:05:02.200 of being somehow well suited for or you know, the 0:05:02.240 --> 0:05:07.000 way we study in public schools. And and and I say 0:05:07.040 --> 0:05:09.880 that intentionally. I mean it's not to say that there 0:05:09.880 --> 0:05:12.120 aren't other ways we could be doing education that could 0:05:12.160 --> 0:05:14.039 bring more of us along. But I certainly had the 0:05:14.120 --> 0:05:17.960 kind of capacity for patients for you know, long term 0:05:18.400 --> 0:05:22.240 commit you know, sort of persistence and all of the 0:05:22.360 --> 0:05:26.440 sorts of things that can coupled, when coupled with some 0:05:26.560 --> 0:05:29.039 kind of ability, which I think we all have to learn, 0:05:30.560 --> 0:05:33.679 can make one excel. So school was a place where 0:05:33.680 --> 0:05:38.280 I actually did find validation and found a relatively safe 0:05:38.360 --> 0:05:42.839 place for me to to grow and develop. And certainly 0:05:42.920 --> 0:05:45.880 without the teachers and the community that I found there, 0:05:46.040 --> 0:05:50.400 and the you know, the affirmation of my abilities and 0:05:50.440 --> 0:05:54.000 my value that I found consistently through my own personal 0:05:54.000 --> 0:05:56.960 public school experience, I wouldn't be here with all of that. 0:05:57.760 --> 0:06:00.720 So yeah, that's a little bit of my path. Thank 0:06:00.760 --> 0:06:02.720 you so much for sharing that. I hope it wasn't 0:06:02.760 --> 0:06:06.919 too painful to talk about. Well. I have thought about it, 0:06:07.000 --> 0:06:09.360 and you know, done some work on this, right, So 0:06:09.480 --> 0:06:12.880 it's actually not terribly painful, but I and it is 0:06:12.920 --> 0:06:14.760 something that I think is important for us to look at, 0:06:14.800 --> 0:06:18.520 for all of us, because those difficult things, as you know, 0:06:18.760 --> 0:06:22.440 are part of who and how we are wherever we are. Absolutely, 0:06:22.920 --> 0:06:26.560 I was wondering, you know, just personally in school, did 0:06:27.000 --> 0:06:30.720 did you have many experiences of racism that impeded your 0:06:30.760 --> 0:06:35.599 ability to learn and grow? Well, you know, it's a 0:06:35.640 --> 0:06:40.560 good question because I think it implicit in that is 0:06:40.560 --> 0:06:42.719 this question of what do we think of when we 0:06:42.920 --> 0:06:46.000 think of the term racism? I think sometimes answer the 0:06:46.080 --> 0:06:49.600 question too right, right, what we tend to think of 0:06:49.640 --> 0:06:54.000 it as like these explicit So we think of racism 0:06:54.040 --> 0:06:57.320 as like a personal characteristic. We've been sort of trained. 0:06:57.960 --> 0:07:01.280 Many of us are working with this broadening of our 0:07:01.360 --> 0:07:06.000 understanding of what racism might be to include more subtle, systemic, 0:07:07.320 --> 0:07:12.440 maybe unconscious or less than explicit manifestations of it. But 0:07:12.480 --> 0:07:15.440 I think for many of us at a certain age, 0:07:15.680 --> 0:07:19.239 we really imbibe this message, and most I think most 0:07:19.440 --> 0:07:22.360 of us in the US still today are working with 0:07:22.560 --> 0:07:25.400 a kind of a core definition of racism that is about, 0:07:26.000 --> 0:07:29.640 you know, kind of a personal commitment to an ideology 0:07:29.720 --> 0:07:35.120 and practices that reflect it, that are committed to an 0:07:35.160 --> 0:07:39.560 idea of categorized humanity, right, putting place in human beings 0:07:39.560 --> 0:07:42.800 in these categories of race, being placed in a category 0:07:42.840 --> 0:07:47.600 of ourselves, and then rank ordering groups and therefore individuals 0:07:47.640 --> 0:07:52.280 who fall within those groups based on notions of implicit 0:07:52.440 --> 0:07:57.760 values culture, sometimes religious, sometimes languages. There are lots of 0:07:57.800 --> 0:08:01.800 different inputs of the ideas we have imvibed about race 0:08:01.880 --> 0:08:05.960 and racism, and so there are many dimensions of that. 0:08:06.080 --> 0:08:09.800 Of course, there certainly can be this Again, the traditional, 0:08:09.840 --> 0:08:12.280 I think, kind of core paradigm that we still work 0:08:12.360 --> 0:08:15.120 with is like an individual who was committed to these 0:08:15.160 --> 0:08:20.200 ideas and pervade, you know, put promulgating them and maybe 0:08:20.240 --> 0:08:24.440 performing a certain kind of like outsized with the hood 0:08:24.640 --> 0:08:29.320 and the you know, the swastikas. Maybe an explicit commitment 0:08:29.400 --> 0:08:32.280 to these values and ideas is kind of, I think, 0:08:32.320 --> 0:08:33.880 still the core hope you think of when you think 0:08:33.920 --> 0:08:38.720 of racism and what it looks like. But of course 0:08:38.880 --> 0:08:43.320 more subtle forms and systemic collective forms are the ones 0:08:43.400 --> 0:08:48.000 that are you know, the water in which we swim, 0:08:48.559 --> 0:08:51.120 the air that we breathe. And so when I think 0:08:51.120 --> 0:08:54.199 about your question of like did racism impact me, I 0:08:54.200 --> 0:08:58.400 would say that there are just a lot of ways. 0:08:59.280 --> 0:09:01.679 Oh my god. Well, first of all, you know, I 0:09:01.679 --> 0:09:06.240 grew up exactly like I grew up in desegregating Virginia, 0:09:06.320 --> 0:09:09.880 I mean North Carolina and Virginia. And I say desegregating 0:09:10.840 --> 0:09:15.120 just to underscore that it was an active aspect of 0:09:15.200 --> 0:09:19.240 my experience, that we were in process. And I wouldn't 0:09:19.240 --> 0:09:22.480 say that that process was ever fulfilled. In fact, I 0:09:22.520 --> 0:09:24.600 you know, we could talk about some of the ways 0:09:24.640 --> 0:09:28.240 that the efforts were dismantled, even in the latter part 0:09:28.280 --> 0:09:31.240 of my experience of public school in the South, but certainly, 0:09:31.400 --> 0:09:34.480 you know, I was a child who was bussed across 0:09:34.520 --> 0:09:40.559 town to help accomplish these goals of a more integrated 0:09:40.559 --> 0:09:45.040 public school scenario, and you know, what are the impacts 0:09:45.040 --> 0:09:50.559 of being a part of that social experience? Positive and negative. 0:09:51.160 --> 0:09:53.360 But what I'll say is one of the things that 0:09:53.440 --> 0:09:56.600 I saw, certainly most of us who grew up in 0:09:56.640 --> 0:10:02.439 desegregating circumstances saw, you know, public schools that were very 0:10:03.120 --> 0:10:10.720 sensitively constructed to maintain appeal to white body families. So 0:10:11.679 --> 0:10:16.319 teaching staffs that were disproportionately white not integrated in the 0:10:16.360 --> 0:10:20.199 same way as maybe the classrooms. Evenmore so, most of 0:10:20.240 --> 0:10:23.080 my teachers were white, and most of of course the 0:10:23.200 --> 0:10:26.600 things that we learned in ways that were not always obvious, 0:10:27.559 --> 0:10:33.120 were shaped around a kind of white Southern sensibility. That 0:10:33.200 --> 0:10:39.040 means that certain books were not taught available. These were 0:10:39.080 --> 0:10:41.040 things that I had to find on my own. So 0:10:41.360 --> 0:10:43.560 for me, racism then showed up in those much more 0:10:43.640 --> 0:10:46.880 subtle ways of yeah, of like what was available, what 0:10:46.920 --> 0:10:48.520 I was able to learn, what I was able to study, 0:10:48.640 --> 0:10:51.080 what I wasn't and by whom you know with them, 0:10:51.120 --> 0:10:54.520 what kinds of teachers and what kinds of experience experiences 0:10:54.559 --> 0:10:58.360 did they bring. But with all of that said, you know, 0:10:58.559 --> 0:11:02.040 I can think of and I want to say this explicitly. Nevertheless, 0:11:02.559 --> 0:11:05.280 you know, the teachers, the white body teachers who were there, 0:11:05.880 --> 0:11:09.080 most of whom in my experience, were at least making 0:11:09.120 --> 0:11:11.920 an effort, you know, to to do what they came 0:11:11.960 --> 0:11:14.480 to do, which is to help identify and you know, 0:11:14.679 --> 0:11:19.240 move through or support students with some potential in the 0:11:19.280 --> 0:11:22.800 conventional sense. And so I can certainly think of and 0:11:22.960 --> 0:11:26.960 have in my like pantheon of teachers that I really appreciate. 0:11:27.480 --> 0:11:31.880 You know, a lot of white teachers who were I 0:11:31.920 --> 0:11:34.720 can think of, you know, a couple in particular, who 0:11:34.720 --> 0:11:39.280 were very, very instrumental in terms of their manifestation of 0:11:40.320 --> 0:11:44.880 let's say, some sort of a racial equity commitment such 0:11:44.920 --> 0:11:48.319 that they whatever they may have been raised with, because again, 0:11:48.520 --> 0:11:51.200 these were people who were disproportionately raised in the South, 0:11:51.240 --> 0:11:56.240 and with racist ideology and teachings having formed them, many 0:11:56.320 --> 0:12:02.040 of them, you know, nevertheless, were some of my you know, mentors, 0:12:02.080 --> 0:12:05.800 and you know, help help identify opportunities for me and 0:12:05.840 --> 0:12:08.680 so on and so forth. So I think it's it's not. 0:12:09.240 --> 0:12:12.240 And then when going to university it was, I would 0:12:12.280 --> 0:12:15.800 say I saw more explicit examples of racism impacting me. 0:12:15.920 --> 0:12:18.880 For examples just in my first year at the University 0:12:18.880 --> 0:12:23.120 of Virginia, lovely school, but having examples of things like 0:12:23.640 --> 0:12:29.520 you know, instructors not having a negative reaction to me 0:12:30.080 --> 0:12:32.760 wanting to write about For example, I had a paper 0:12:32.760 --> 0:12:36.680 topic that I proposed comparing an analysis of segregation in 0:12:36.720 --> 0:12:40.920 the southern United States with apartheid in South Africa. Today, 0:12:41.240 --> 0:12:42.960 I don't think people would think of that as like 0:12:43.200 --> 0:12:50.040 a shocking proposed experiment or you know, intellectual inquiry. But 0:12:50.320 --> 0:12:53.200 the particular teacher that I had, of teaching assistant that 0:12:53.240 --> 0:12:56.720 I had was just a gast How could they even 0:12:56.760 --> 0:13:02.559 be considered even remotely similar? Again, a white bodied male 0:13:02.720 --> 0:13:06.360 teacher who was just coming from a perspective where something 0:13:06.400 --> 0:13:09.199 that was normalized in the US, as you know, part 0:13:09.280 --> 0:13:12.120 of our culture could not possibly be you know, this 0:13:12.160 --> 0:13:14.440 was in the eighties when we were in that anti 0:13:14.520 --> 0:13:17.320 apartheid struggle. It was quite you know or you know, 0:13:17.559 --> 0:13:21.120 seeing the seeing apartheid as a certain kind of evil 0:13:21.120 --> 0:13:23.760 that we needed to all many of us, you know, 0:13:24.400 --> 0:13:27.160 who were at all progressive, were thinking, we must that's 0:13:27.200 --> 0:13:30.600 an evil. But we're on the other hand, Southern segregation, well, 0:13:30.640 --> 0:13:34.720 there's so many justifications. So that's an example, you know, 0:13:34.800 --> 0:13:38.520 being sort of having my own education and my intellectual 0:13:38.559 --> 0:13:42.880 interests sort of filter through that lens of a kind 0:13:42.960 --> 0:13:48.440 of orientation toward whiteness that I think is a legacy 0:13:48.520 --> 0:13:51.720 of our you know, our racism and our white supremacy. 0:13:52.040 --> 0:13:55.040 So those are you know, the more subtle ways. It 0:13:55.120 --> 0:13:58.520 wasn't until I came to California actually and heard the 0:13:58.640 --> 0:14:01.880 inward hurl that me the first time. Oh well, no, 0:14:02.520 --> 0:14:06.400 that's once maybe once before that when I was in Richmond, Virginia, 0:14:06.440 --> 0:14:10.360 but San Francisco, Richmond, Virginia. So it's when it comes 0:14:10.440 --> 0:14:14.480 to those experiences whereby personal racism in the form of 0:14:14.800 --> 0:14:17.440 you know, the the epithets and the you know, the 0:14:17.520 --> 0:14:22.400 kinds of physical threat. This can happen in Richmond, Virginia 0:14:22.560 --> 0:14:26.080 or Hampton, Virginia as well as Half Moon based California 0:14:26.560 --> 0:14:30.840 or San Francisco. This is American culture. Yeah, thank you 0:14:30.880 --> 0:14:34.080 for all those differentiations and for telling that story. I 0:14:34.120 --> 0:14:38.320 actually do see value in differentiating between personal racism and 0:14:38.440 --> 0:14:43.200 systemic racism and acknowledging that both exist in lots of 0:14:43.240 --> 0:14:46.640 complex ways. So I really appreciate you telling that story. 0:14:49.960 --> 0:14:52.720 Hey everyone, I'm excited to announce that the eight week 0:14:52.840 --> 0:14:56.960 online Transcend Course is back. 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Save your 0:15:31.160 --> 0:15:35.160 spot today by going to Transcend course dot com. That's 0:15:35.280 --> 0:15:38.960 transcendcourse dot com. We have so much fun in this 0:15:39.040 --> 0:15:40.880 course and I look forward to welcoming you to be 0:15:40.920 --> 0:15:44.040 a part of the Transcender community. Okay, now back to 0:15:44.080 --> 0:15:53.600 the show. When you were young, did you were there 0:15:53.640 --> 0:15:56.720 any mindfulness gurus that you liked. I'm curious, like, when 0:15:56.760 --> 0:16:07.040 you're kind of inroad into mindfulness for us? Yeah, yeah, yeah, 0:16:07.080 --> 0:16:14.320 I write coffee like, hey we should pause? Yeah, no, absolutely, 0:16:14.360 --> 0:16:17.600 I didn't. I know, there are some, you know, people 0:16:17.600 --> 0:16:21.440 who grew up with parents who were meditated. Not No, 0:16:21.600 --> 0:16:24.680 I grew up in a kind of a Southern Christian context, 0:16:25.840 --> 0:16:29.920 and uh so I will say that, you know, a 0:16:30.000 --> 0:16:33.600 kind of a center in prayer, kind of meditation was 0:16:33.920 --> 0:16:37.040 very much a part of, you know, kind of the 0:16:37.080 --> 0:16:41.680 context within which I grew up. I definitely had a 0:16:41.720 --> 0:16:46.040 grandmother who was have been called to the ministry herself. 0:16:46.720 --> 0:16:50.800 And so what I, as a very little girl witnessed 0:16:51.080 --> 0:16:53.240 when I would spend time with my grandmother, which I 0:16:53.280 --> 0:16:56.560 did fairly frequently. My parents were splitting up, so we 0:16:56.600 --> 0:16:58.040 were spending a lot of time there. I'd see my 0:16:58.080 --> 0:17:01.560 grandmother get up, you know, before dawn, well before she 0:17:01.840 --> 0:17:04.680 had to according to the things she needed to do 0:17:05.119 --> 0:17:08.960 for others or to make a living, and just spend 0:17:09.040 --> 0:17:12.679 time in what I later learned. Right first, it was 0:17:12.720 --> 0:17:15.400 a little girl seeing the light coming up from out 0:17:15.400 --> 0:17:18.320 from underneath her closed bedroom door and knowing having been 0:17:18.320 --> 0:17:21.600 taught that like this is Grandma's time right for her 0:17:21.640 --> 0:17:27.600 own cultivation devotion, devotional practices, and later learning these this 0:17:27.800 --> 0:17:32.159 was a time of prayer and centering. She would then 0:17:32.280 --> 0:17:35.639 follow that up with often she would come out and 0:17:35.640 --> 0:17:41.320 we would see her then reading scriptures, more prayer and 0:17:41.440 --> 0:17:44.520 praise and worship, and then you know, from there getting 0:17:44.560 --> 0:17:48.000 everybody up and going, you know, getting us fed and 0:17:48.000 --> 0:17:50.959 getting us off to preschool or wherever we needed to go. 0:17:51.680 --> 0:17:56.640 And so I definitely saw that kind of devoted self 0:17:57.480 --> 0:18:02.360 cultivation practice. But of course it wasn't called my influence, right, 0:18:02.960 --> 0:18:06.160 and so it wasn't until you know, I had gone 0:18:06.200 --> 0:18:10.320 to university and come out to California and was in 0:18:10.359 --> 0:18:12.760 between law school and starting my first job as a 0:18:12.840 --> 0:18:16.320 lawyer when I just realized I had been studying for 0:18:16.359 --> 0:18:19.240 so long. By then, I had also gone into Army 0:18:19.320 --> 0:18:24.040 ROTC and Spay for school mostly and also because it's 0:18:24.040 --> 0:18:26.439 a great way to learn certain things, but not because 0:18:26.480 --> 0:18:30.440 I'm pro military. Let's just say, I'm kind of a pacifist. 0:18:30.480 --> 0:18:32.879 Let's just say at this point, but I did, do 0:18:34.080 --> 0:18:37.440 you know, Army ROTC. I'd studied, you know, undergraduate, I 0:18:37.440 --> 0:18:41.280 had done graduate school and sociology and law school, and 0:18:41.320 --> 0:18:44.440 I'd just been very you know, focused on all these 0:18:45.080 --> 0:18:48.760 you know, ways of developing and conventional ways, like so 0:18:48.840 --> 0:18:51.399 many students and those of us who are trying to 0:18:51.440 --> 0:18:54.480 make it in the us, and here I was, for 0:18:54.800 --> 0:18:57.280 the first time in a long while, maybe the first 0:18:57.320 --> 0:19:00.920 time in my adult life, with I mean, finished one 0:19:01.320 --> 0:19:05.159 major project, finished taking the bar. My job wasn't going 0:19:05.240 --> 0:19:09.280 to start for another few couple of months, and I 0:19:09.359 --> 0:19:11.000 just didn't know what to do with myself. I had 0:19:11.119 --> 0:19:15.320 just been so you know, so trained, my mind had 0:19:15.320 --> 0:19:19.200 been so trained to be constantly doing that I really 0:19:19.240 --> 0:19:24.920 could barely relax. And it just seemed to me something 0:19:25.040 --> 0:19:29.480 inside spoke of a need to like reconnect to some 0:19:29.680 --> 0:19:36.359 kind of nurturing, restorative way of being, because I mean, 0:19:36.520 --> 0:19:38.159 I just sort of had a sense that this was 0:19:38.240 --> 0:19:41.439 not a good way to start my new career to 0:19:41.480 --> 0:19:46.080 be this kind of overwhelmed and overwrought. So I started, 0:19:46.760 --> 0:19:51.320 like many other people, just reading things. My partner is interesting. 0:19:51.320 --> 0:19:55.040 My partner is a His background is in engineering and 0:19:55.080 --> 0:19:59.080 he's a patent lawyer. But his cultural heritage is that 0:19:59.119 --> 0:20:03.760 he has his parents immigrated from India, so he's not 0:20:03.960 --> 0:20:06.600 personally a meditator. But he had a book on his 0:20:06.720 --> 0:20:11.080 shelf that was called the Blagavad Gita for Daily Living, 0:20:12.280 --> 0:20:14.520 and so he you know, and there's a whole another 0:20:14.560 --> 0:20:16.800 story about that about how as a child of immigrants 0:20:17.440 --> 0:20:21.280 from a culture which does meditate coming to the US 0:20:21.400 --> 0:20:25.840 and kind of acculturating and assimilating called forth this sort 0:20:25.880 --> 0:20:28.879 of you know, putting to one side of all of that. 0:20:29.040 --> 0:20:32.000 So he definitely wasn't even reading this book, but there 0:20:32.000 --> 0:20:35.080 it was on the shelf, and I read it and 0:20:35.440 --> 0:20:40.720 found in it descriptions of one pointed meditation kind of 0:20:40.800 --> 0:20:46.119 way of calming and centering the mind, specifically offered as 0:20:46.160 --> 0:20:51.840 a translation of practice for daily living in the Western context. 0:20:52.160 --> 0:20:55.720 So it was being offered by an Indian American immigrant 0:20:56.119 --> 0:20:59.280 whose name was Eknath Estoran, right, So he had written 0:20:59.320 --> 0:21:04.440 this books specifically to support this translation and this kind 0:21:04.480 --> 0:21:09.760 of you know, sharing of these practices to those of 0:21:09.840 --> 0:21:13.200 us in this culture. So and I just name that 0:21:13.240 --> 0:21:15.840 because you know, sometimes when we think about how we 0:21:15.920 --> 0:21:18.720 come to these practices, we can be concerned about appropriation. 0:21:18.880 --> 0:21:22.280 We can be concerned about you know how we often 0:21:22.359 --> 0:21:28.320 don't name the often Asian heritage cultures very diverse in 0:21:28.480 --> 0:21:35.040 amongst themselves. But these you know, cultures that we are 0:21:35.160 --> 0:21:39.399 privileged to have received these teachings from and to recogn 0:21:39.440 --> 0:21:43.760 we'd often you know, often don't recognize the gift nature 0:21:44.280 --> 0:21:47.320 of how we you know how they came to be here, 0:21:47.359 --> 0:21:51.920 and that there was this beautiful conscious inter play and 0:21:52.040 --> 0:21:55.919 interaction of cultures that I think is again part of 0:21:55.960 --> 0:22:00.879 the genius of the American experience experiment, however difficult it 0:22:00.920 --> 0:22:03.359 is for us to hold it. Yeah, So for me, 0:22:03.440 --> 0:22:07.840 it was reading first and really experimenting at home and 0:22:07.920 --> 0:22:10.159 just feeling like, oh, right away, like there was at 0:22:10.240 --> 0:22:14.120 least something here, not something easy for me to actually practice, 0:22:14.160 --> 0:22:17.640 but something that with practice I might from through which 0:22:17.920 --> 0:22:23.239 you know, with practice, I might experience some greater ability 0:22:23.440 --> 0:22:27.440 to calm myself and to support myself on this journey. 0:22:28.000 --> 0:22:30.960 And so that's where that's actually how it started, you know, 0:22:31.000 --> 0:22:36.040 in my twenties, reading books, trying to sort of steady myself, 0:22:36.320 --> 0:22:39.159 save myself in a certain way. And it's interesting, you know, 0:22:39.200 --> 0:22:41.720 because even though I was raised in a Christian household, 0:22:42.359 --> 0:22:45.680 there was some way in which, probably because of the 0:22:45.720 --> 0:22:48.440 way I've been doing certain kinds of mind training and 0:22:48.880 --> 0:22:53.560 higher education for Salon, I needed a way of entering 0:22:53.600 --> 0:22:58.240 into these practices that specifically spoke to how to cultivate, 0:22:58.760 --> 0:23:02.840 you know, and work with the qualities of the mind. 0:23:03.000 --> 0:23:06.879 And you know that really spoke about, you know, a 0:23:07.000 --> 0:23:11.800 kind of almost psychology of well being. That's what we 0:23:11.840 --> 0:23:15.840 can call it now. It wasn't called that, but in 0:23:15.880 --> 0:23:19.520 other words, something that straight Christianity in the way that 0:23:19.560 --> 0:23:24.320 I had been taught it did not so much explicitly offer. 0:23:24.760 --> 0:23:26.679 So this is how I ended up, I think, just 0:23:26.720 --> 0:23:29.160 feeling a little bit more drawn to these teachings as 0:23:29.160 --> 0:23:33.320 a support. Cool. I'm proud of your uniqueness in the 0:23:33.440 --> 0:23:38.760 space because you've brought together two things that are so 0:23:38.800 --> 0:23:41.200 important in the world today, but I don't see them 0:23:41.280 --> 0:23:45.280 going together as that frequently. So I want to brag 0:23:45.320 --> 0:23:50.120 about you, is my point, because you made this connection, 0:23:50.320 --> 0:23:53.160 and I'm wondering sort of so when did that career 0:23:53.200 --> 0:23:55.680 start where you brought you may have this, you had 0:23:55.720 --> 0:23:59.119 your personal awareness that wow, a lot of these mindful 0:23:59.200 --> 0:24:02.280 techniques that you that you're reading about really can help 0:24:02.359 --> 0:24:06.560 heal racial divides, can really help with the inner work 0:24:06.920 --> 0:24:09.639 that we all can do. When did you start to 0:24:09.720 --> 0:24:12.160 form these connections? Because there is something really unique about 0:24:12.160 --> 0:24:15.040 that that that I associate with Ronda McGee, Like there 0:24:15.119 --> 0:24:17.800 is like like I think Ronda McGee when I think 0:24:17.800 --> 0:24:20.800 about that, and that is kind of special. So I 0:24:20.800 --> 0:24:22.840 was worrying if you're kind of comment on that, Yeah, 0:24:23.280 --> 0:24:27.919 thank you. You know, yeah, it is challenged sometimes to 0:24:27.960 --> 0:24:30.680 take that in. But I but I work with with 0:24:31.000 --> 0:24:33.960 sort of you know, really just with some people with 0:24:34.119 --> 0:24:38.440 humility being in some sort of right relationship with with 0:24:38.480 --> 0:24:41.040 this journey. And so I thank you for the question, 0:24:41.880 --> 0:24:44.520 and also for the acknowledgment. I really do appreciate it. 0:24:44.920 --> 0:24:48.280 I mean it, Yeah, no things, So I would just 0:24:48.320 --> 0:24:53.520 say that, you know, it's hard to pinpoint any one moment, 0:24:54.119 --> 0:24:57.359 partly because you know, these are the sources of things 0:24:57.359 --> 0:25:05.640 that just immerge in a way from one's own life experiences. 0:25:06.400 --> 0:25:11.560 And in eight I think passions, orientations, if you will, 0:25:12.080 --> 0:25:17.840 I think I was drawn always to more deeply trying 0:25:17.880 --> 0:25:22.520 to understand these divisions that we seem to have somehow 0:25:24.280 --> 0:25:28.520 inherited and invested in on so many different levels. And 0:25:28.600 --> 0:25:32.840 we're constantly seeming to try to reinvest in, rearticulate, you know, 0:25:33.160 --> 0:25:37.120 every generation, every generation, right, I know, I always think 0:25:37.119 --> 0:25:38.680 about that. I always think about, like, can we ever 0:25:38.720 --> 0:25:41.840 reach a generation where we just learned from our past 0:25:41.960 --> 0:25:44.919 like completely, like we're all you know, we're like you know, 0:25:44.960 --> 0:25:48.719 what we're done with all that? It seems like we 0:25:48.800 --> 0:25:51.399 have to work really really hard. Doesn't this gutt to 0:25:51.480 --> 0:25:54.040 do that? I mean, because I do think I have 0:25:54.119 --> 0:25:56.919 that saying. I have had this conversation with friends just 0:25:56.960 --> 0:25:59.840 this weekend, like, wow, it looks like we just keep 0:26:01.480 --> 0:26:03.480 things aspects of it was where I come in as 0:26:03.720 --> 0:26:06.600 a psychologists. There a certain aspects of human nature that 0:26:06.800 --> 0:26:10.520 make it likely that certain things will be created each generation. 0:26:10.680 --> 0:26:12.680