Today Patty is talking about how to receive Black History. A disclaimer: Patty is sharing this from her perspective, a white woman, sharing from her experience. Patty considers herself an ally, and someone who is imperfectly moving forward the best way she can.
How do we have these difficult conversations?
If you have been part of Patty’s audience then you know she shares from the heart. Especially when it’s hard. What’s on her heart this episode; how to move out of resistance and into receiving.
Receiving our history (speaking specifically as a US resident) feels more important than ever. How can we do this in a way that serves us all?
Resources that Patty has found helpful:
My Grandmother’s Hands is a call to action for all of us to recognize that racism is not about the head, but about the body, and introduces an alternative view of what we can do to grow beyond our entrenched racialized divide.
Pause, Rest Be: Stillness Practices for Courage in Times of Change
Yoga teacher and activist Octavia Raheem offers us the motivation and guidance we need to restore ourselves in the midst of all sorts of change.
If you are committed to creating a world where race, gender or class are not a determinant of a person’s worth or value, then you have come to the right space.
If you are open to learning, growing and embracing your own personal racial healing, without shame and self-condemnation, then you can nest right here. You have found a place where you can be you.
Marian Anderson: The Whole World In Her Hands
Discover an international singer who captivated royalty in Europe and defied the conscience of 1939 America.
Resistance requires energy. The more we put towards pushing away what we don’t like, the longer it will take to receive all the blessings available to us.
We all benefit when we choose love.
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0:00:04.3 S1: Welcome to the space for magic podcast, where people who are led by their hearts come to learn the secrets to receiving all the gifts the Universe has for us. I’m your host, Patty Lennon. I’m an ex-type, a corporate banker, turned intuitive coach using a blend of common sense brain science and just a dash of magic, I’m here to help you create abundance in every area of your life and business. Welcome. Hey there. Welcome to this episode of the space for magic podcast. I’m your host, Patty Lennon, and today.
0:00:42.8 S2: I wanna talk about Black History Month, specifically how to receive black history, and I’m going to start by just giving what I hope is an understood disclaimer that I’m coming at this as a white person, and I don’t know that what I have to share… Would move past a white perspective, but my intention is to share from love, and this podcast was actually motivated by a friend who lovingly told me that I need to speak up more about my own journey with being anti-racist, becoming anti-racist, healing my own bullshit, essentially around race, which has been a journey, and it continues to be a journey. And I have explicitly said that I am an ally, and yet, I’ve been fairly quiet on the podcast about issues around race, and certainly as we are in Black History Month, about Black history in this country and the relationship of race and racism inside my own family, my family of origin, and the reason is because I have always effort-ed to bring information here, to bring insight here, when I am fully in a healed state, and what that means is that when you communicate from trauma, from dysfunction, from toxicity and from any of these places, you run the risk of passing it on, of handing off the trauma, the dysfunction, the toxic energy.
0:02:42.3 S2: And so, using Brene Brown rule of, I share when I know that I don’t need the audience to be okay with me, that’s what she considers her healed place, and that’s always been a good rule of thumb for me, and the reality is that this work is not quick work, it’s not work that happens overnight, and yet a friend of mine said to me, I need you to speak up and show me how to have these difficult conversations because I don’t know what they look like and I don’t know how to have them. So when I see you have them, it makes it easier for me, it helps me orient myself on where I need to be, and so for that reason, and for some other people who have asked me to kinda speak up more on this journey… I’m doing this podcast from this place, but I’m very uncomfortable, and here’s why it’s very hard for me to do this without centering myself in this story, and I’ve also really struggled with staying away from anything that is performative, which is essentially done to make you think highly of me, and that is definitely on the table, that I might do something so that you think better of me, and that can’t be a part of this conversation it can be a part of this journey.
0:04:30.0 S2: So as I went inward and I thought, what I… As a white person who’s still learning how to be anti-racist and quite imperfect at it, What can I bring to the conversation of black history and what came to me… What was given to me, in fact, by my spirit guides, was to talk about it in terms of what we talk about here, making space for magic and moving out of resistance and into receiving that in order for us to be in receptivity, we must receive everything. And the reality is that black history, at least in the country that I live in, in the United States, is something that all of us have been in resistance about, and I certainly have a… Probably up until these last couple of years, I saw a Black History Month as this effort to turn a lens on history that was forgotten, that was overlooked, but in doing that, it… Made it, feel like, Okay, we can check this box. Right, and that’s just not gonna work anymore. And so how can we use this month… How can I use this month to, in a healthy way, in a way that actually serves all of us, and that is to move out of resistance, and when we look at what is Black History, when I look out what is Black History, it’s not…
0:06:03.9 S2: The racism… That’s not… That’s not what this is about. This is about acknowledging the contributions that have been made by black people that have been ignored… Right. And specifically for 2022, we are in the theme of Black History Month is health and wellness, which is so relative with all the struggles through the pandemic, and so how can we receive that… How can I receive that? And that’s the question I’ve been asking. And really, in receiving the rule applies across all things, which is just stop resisting it, and that’s really been the journey I personally have experienced over the last two years, and why it’s been something I’ve been somewhat quiet… About here, publicly, it is not something I’ve been quiet about in one-to-one conversations, that’s where I’ve been doing my work, that’s where I’ve been having those conversations. Because to me, that’s the only place really that I have found moves the dial is when you take someone who is in resistance and you really need them from a place of love, and that’s where I personally spent my efforts with people, white people in my immediate community. And my immediate family that need different perspectives or where I feel like I can be of assistance in providing a different perspective, but as we allow that resistance to drop away…
0:07:39.2 S2: What comes in is a lot of pain. We all experience that pain of having pushed away something that was so essential to our history, which is the contributions of so many people, and certainly in Black History Month, we’re looking at those contributions of black people, but there’s been many populations who have been ignored, whose contributions have been ignored regularly. Right, and so as we start to let that in, it’s going to hurt, it is going to hurt, and how do we process that pain… So I wanted to share a couple of resources that have been really helpful for me and perhaps will be helpful for you if… Especially if you’re a white person, a person who is looking to be on this journey of moving out of resistance of what we’ve all been pushing away for so long, and so the first is, hopefully you’ve heard of this book already by now, but it’s an incredible, incredible contribution, which is my grandmother’s hands, and the author, Resmaa Menakem, he brings to the table a somatic approach to this healing of understanding that it doesn’t matter where you are in the race spectrum, all of us have been traumatized by this…
0:09:19.0 S2: We’ve all been traumatized by white supremacy, and we just need to heal it in different ways, and certainly when we look at health and wellness, right. And match it up with Black History, it’s about how do we become healthy as humanity, and so that is an incredible resource, and I will tell you, it takes a commitment, because as you move through the book there, you are going to move through exercises that really are going to ask you to allow the trauma that your body holds to come up, and it’s a big ask, and it’s important that you get the right support doing that, if you feel like you can’t do that on your own, that you get the support of a trauma based therapist. So that’s the first resource that I wanted to share specifically, and two resources that I’ve recently found, which I feel are just so incredible and I’m so excited because both of these humans are going to be on the podcast at some point in the future, and the first is Octavia Raheem, just released a new book, pause rest be, and now this is an incredible resource for every single person on the planet right now, because I think…
0:10:43.6 S2: Well, I can’t say on the planet, but certainly in Western society, in this place where we over-work and overwork and over work, and I feel like this is also one of the reasons why we are having such a slow go of it, processing this trauma with race and allowing ourselves to acknowledge all of the peoples who have been ignored, all of the history that has been rejected, is because when we start to let in the pain, when we are already overworked, when we already exhaust it, when we are already fatigued, to be told that we have privilege, or to be told, I have privilege when I feel bone weary, soul weary. Our first instinct is to reject that. Right. And so how do we shift that? And that is to restore ourselves, to make our souls and our bodies whole enough to be able to process the trauma, and that’s the gift of this book, it is a restorative yoga practice, but what it does is it specifically brings in Restorative Yoga for ethnic and race based stress and trauma, and I think that is so important right now, so important and so needed because we can’t become anti-racist, I can’t become, fully anti-racist until I process the trauma of the racism that I benefited from, that we all benefited from.
0:12:15.9 S2: And in order to do that, I have to heal at a core level, and I’m using the word I, simply because I don’t want to assume where you are on your journey out, even when I assume who you are, I just wanna show you what I’m doing in the hopes that this helps because this is what I’ve been told is needed right now is for me to speak up, and that is the only reason that I’m doing it, ’cause again, I just wanna remind you, I feel I am just not clear on… When I’m centering myself in these stories, it’s still not obvious to me, and I am doing it imperfectly, and another resource that I found that I wanna share with you is with someone that I’ve actually been friends with on Facebook for years, we met in a manifestation course, probably 10 years ago, and I’ve always admired her, and I’ve always been impressed with the information she shared, and she just released a brand new podcast, Iyabo Onepide, WHO released the podcast liminal space. And the reason this is just so amazing to me right now is because it opened my mind and understanding to why this has been such a struggle for me to put my words into what’s going on for me internally and…
0:13:42.8 S2: So liminal space is the in-between place, and that’s where I am on my personal journey, but that’s where we are as a humanity in relationship to healing our challenges and our hurts and our trauma with race. And when I started to read Octavia Raheem’s book, she used the exact same term, this liminal space, and I had never thought of it with respect to the conversation around race and culture, and as I applied it, it freed me up personally, and that’s why I’m extending this to you… First of all, we’ll put all these resources in the show notes and definitely, I encourage you to check them out and join Iyabo’s community, but Iyabo specifically said that she wanted to create a space where shaman guilt wasn’t a part of it, and that is at the heart of where my challenge has been is there has been so much shame and so much guilt that has come up for me personally in my personal relationship to race and racism, that I wasn’t prepared to share it yet. And that’s important, it’s important to honor… Our in between places, it’s important to honor the things that we struggle with, right, and to do them at a pace that makes sense for us, because rushing forward and waving flags that we are not yet prepared to wave…
0:15:22.1 S2: It does nothing other than satisfy, the ego, and it was really important to me that I not do that. And yet at the same time, there was another black leader that has always, for years, has meant a lot to me, and I may get to that story, but if I don’t… Her name is Marian Anderson, she was a very famous opera singer, and she lived near where I live when she was here on the planet… In Danbury, she lived in Danbury, Connecticut. And the reason she lived in Danbury, Connecticut, the reason I became familiar with her is because the Danbury Historical Society is based on the property she once owned, and her husband was an architect and he built this gorgeous studio for her on the property that was designed to be acoustically optimal for her practice, and it’s a beautiful property, and I early on in my journey in running this business, when I did live event, I always tried to find a space that had history based in the women’s movement, and so that’s how I found Marian Anderson’s home to host an event in, and as I just learned more and more about her and doing the work that I do, I asked her for permission to stay there and could I be in her space and had this communication with her, and as I felt her spirit I was just so incredibly moved by her strength and her…
0:17:05.1 S2: What all the bullshit she put up with, she was this phenomenal force on the planet, and she had to face over and over again frustrations and roadblocks and limitations because of other people’s ignorance, and she just kept going and going and going, and she has held to this special place in my heart. And so recently, I noticed on social media leading up to Black History month, she is being featured on… I guess PBS did a special, and so Marian Anderson story was featured within the special, and so she was particularly top of-mind and I was… There were pieces of her story that I didn’t realize that she was the first black leader to perform at the Lincoln Memorial, she is the reason why so much that has been done in that space happened because of her, because of the courage she showed. And so more and more of her story was coming to me just recently, and I was looking at what she had done around black leadership and that piece of her career, and there was a quote that hit me and hit me so hard, she said, the minute a person whose word means a great deal to others, dare to take the open-hearted and courageous way many others follow and people have told me what I say means something to them, and that still is kind of hard for me to wrap my head around, but when I heard those words from her, I did feel like I owed it to at least speak up, because if you’re sitting there on the chance that you are the one that’s sitting there and is not sure how to move forward, if something I’m doing or say, point you in a direction of healing or understanding, then I’m glad I did it.
0:19:09.5 S2: And there was something else he said, which I think is what sparked my conversation with my spirit guides about time is in to resistance, and she said As long as you keep a person down, some part of you has to be down there to hold him down, so it means you cannot soar as you otherwise might, and it’s possible that you’re sitting there and thinking, I don’t have it in me to dive deeper into anti-racist work, or I don’t have it in me to allow the pain of someone that doesn’t look like me to… Affect me, and to connect the dots between where their pain is my pain, or where you’ve benefited maybe from someone else’s pain, and again… Gosh, I’m just gonna make the disclaimer, I’m saying this as a white person, and this message primarily is just to make my… Where I’m standing known, but as we resist it, as we hold… Because holding back, history of greatness of anyone requires energy, it… That resistance is energy that is energy that could be put somewhere else, and as long as we push it away, we need energy to do that, and then that energy is keeping all of us from soaring all of us as humanity from evolving and ascending and this ascension is happening, right? So the ascension is happening on the planet, and the more energy we put towards pushing away what we don’t like, the longer is going to take for us to join that ascension comfortably, and that is all of our destiny.
0:21:00.9 S2: I hope that you have here been able to hear these words for me with the intention I brought to it, which is to be honest about where I am in my journey and also to bring in some resources that specifically to me, relate to this year’s theme of health and wellness in black history month, because it’s all of our responsibilities to invite in the history of black people that have been resisted in the past, and we all benefit from it when we do that, and we do it with love. From the intention of healing. Send you so much love on your journey for wherever you are, and I highly recommend the resources that I mentioned in this podcast, again, we’ll put it in the show notes, and I am excited to have our guests coming up in future months, and if you have a guest that you think would be great for the podcast, I would love to… Who they are, please let me know, patty@pattylennon.com. It is really important to me that the guest that we have on the show are, people, you knew that I either I know personally, or that one I know knows, because that’s how we get the best content here.
0:22:20.8 S2: So I appreciate that from you, and I send you my love and I wish you a magical magical week…
0:22:29.9 S1: Hey, thanks for listening. If you know someone who needs to hear this message, please share this episode with them, and if you’re feeling really generous, I’d love for you to leave us a review at your favorite podcast app, it helps us reach many more people, and it fills my heart with so much joy when I hear what you have to say about what I’ve shared. I’m cheering for your success, have an amazing day, and don’t forget. Always create space from magic.
0:23:09.1 S2: This podcast is part of the SoundAdvice FM network. Sound advice, FM, women’s voices, amplified.
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