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Hard situations call for hard conversations. This past week has been heavy, important, and rich in dialogue. I believe that it's through conversation that humans transform each other. It's the space in between that carries potential.

"The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there's reaction, both are transformed", says Carl Jung. Transformation starts with showing up, but how to show up can be a paralysing thought, as there is no approved manual or etiquette. There are hashtags and black squares, protest, donations and difficult zoom calls with colleagues. "I'm going to the protest because it doesn't feel right not to", a friend told me today. This is a time to trust our deep human instincts and take action. Of course, we are going to get many things wrong, but showing up is what matters. As the wonderful Daisy wrote in a brilliant Medium article this week: "There’s no better antidote to helplessness and overwhelm than action and service". 

Today I listened to a rather raw and uncomfortable conversation between my dear friends Kritsta Tippett and Lucas Johnson. "This is an opportunity for us to really reimagine the very structure and nature of our communities" says Lucas.

I hope that you are showing up, in any courageous for you way, and that you are reimagining our communities one action at the time. 

Contemplations

  • "No more hashtags. / Do the work". I love this picture captured by Reid Rolls in NYC. It really resonated with me. The work is a lot bigger than hashtags and black squares.
     
  • I loved this powerful interview with therapist and trauma specialist Resmaa Menakem who is working with old wisdom and very new science about our bodies and nervous systems, and all we condense into the word "race".
     
  • You can try this short anchoring practice from Resmaa.
     
  • In his book My Grandmother's Hands: Racialised Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies, Resmaa talks about the process of getting to "clean pain" and choosing integrity over fear. The alternative path is responding from "dirty pain" - responding to fear and conflict from our most wounded parts (which only creates more pain). He says:

    "A key factor in the perpetuation of white-body supremacy is many people’s refusal to experience clean pain around the myth of race. Instead, usually out of fear, they choose the dirty pain of silence and avoidance and, invariably, prolong the pain." 


    Here's his five-step process of moving through clean pain:

Celebrations 

  • Join Abadesi and the Hustle Crew for a workshop on understanding bias this Tuesday. Aba is also hosting an event on Monday which will equip you with the tools to become an agent of change in your workplace and community. I know, I'm thinking it too - Aba for president!
     
  • Very excited for this event about navigating uncertain times with the authors of Dancing at the Edge, Maureen O'Hara and Graham Leicester, and the spectacular Ella Saltmarshe, co-founder of the Point People, the Long Time Project and the Comms Lab. 

Correlations

  • My friend Gemma wrote a powerful note on speaking up in her latest newsletter. It's called Shocking Myself and it's what I needed to read this week. 
     
  • I went to the London protest this weekend and what is still shocking to me is that we have to remind people that black lives "matter". In the conversation with Krista and Lucas mentioned above, Lucas says it poignantly: 

    "I kept [thinking] what new is there to be said? It’s all been said before, and by people more eloquent than I, and people with more capacity than I have, to speak. I think that’s a part of the grief, the idea that it needs to be said that black lives matter. It’s an annoying thing to have to say, because for me, if I’m going to reflect on black life in the relationship to the United States and the history of our country and the building of our country and the functioning of our country, we much more than matter. We are essential. We are critical. We don’t just matter. We don’t just make a difference."

Conversations

Questions communities around me are exploring this week: 
  • What is the difference between intuition and wisdom?
  • How can I keep bringing joy and lightness when the world feels heavy?
  • I need to have a serious conversation about how my employer is going to support black employees - how do I do this effectively?
  • Whitesplaining is a thing! 
That's all for today! Be good. Be strong. We've got this. 

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