Joy & Liberation with Jamila Reddy
SHOWNOTES:
I am coming into contact with people who hold light, wisdom and hope. Powerful humans who embody the possibility of something new.
Jamila Reddy is one such human. She is a Brooklyn-based, North-Carolina raised, Black queer, Buddhist writer, healer, thinker, doer, and dreamer. I am quite intentional about having conversations across generations. And I am learning so much from this millennial person who is obsessed with teaching others how to get out of their own way so they can see a path forward towards the life of their dreams.
In this wide ranging conversation we talk about being black and young when Michael Brown was murdered by police. We talk about the transformative medicine of grief. About what it takes to let go of your limiting beliefs. Getting out of your own way. Burning Man. And radical self expression.
I have no doubt that you will be moved by this podcast. Take the time and listen closely.
HIGHLIGHTS:
3:30 (What is a belief that you used to hold strongly, but no longer believe?)The belief or delusion that other people are responsible for my experience. I am responsible for my experience in fact, and everything I experience in my internal world is a result of a cause that I made. So I no longer people that other people have control over my internal world
8:14-9:30 Around the time Mike brown was killed and black lives matter, the words were echoing in the news. It was such a turning point for me because I had to explain I matter. That feeling of “I matter” became personal. So when i was thinking about myself being important, it revolutionized the way that i understood myself and thus the way i treated myself, not just externally like eliminating toxicity from my social spaces but then also starting the process of purifying my inner world to reflect this deep seated belief that i matter.
13:15-14:00 I understood, I could see and feel very clearly that if I allowed myself to shut down the I was essentially giving my oppressors a win. That's what they wanted. They wanted me to not be engaged. Because clearly, if I’m engaged, this is the work that we do. That is also activism to me. To do the inner spiritualism work myself so I’m never allowing myself to be closed off for receiving or giving an offering.
16:10 I know that in my identity as a black queer person I see so much that so many folks can’t see. So the project I’m so excited about is working with this community. Because the perspective is so expansive and is so vast and the understanding of gender as fluid and the understanding of identity and self as fluid is something that I think a lot of QTPOC hold as a universal truth based on our experience. And so it feel so urgent and important to me that these people with this expansive and transformative perspective be equipped with the inner resources and start to cultivate the inner abundance needed to not only start sharing their gifts but to also gain some of that abundance back. To have some of that be fed into their lives because so many of us are still struggling.
17:14-17:55 These offerings I’m creating are specifically for QTPOC standing in their power, understanding their inherent worth, inherent worthiness and making commitments to the self to stay powerful so they can serve others and reap the rewards. You know that you are powerful the universe protects those who are acting from a sense of purpose and power. And So my excitement is about that protection being extended to people who are most vulnerable.
30:08-31-30 Radical self expression in and of itself is a gift. I started to think about self expression as an offering. For so much of my life I felt like I was too much. Too artsy, too weird, whatever the stories are that me expressing the fullness of myself was somehow a burden. Or an inconvenience. My experience at Burning Man was reframing. When you are radically self expressed.When you allow what is true on the inside to be fully seen and expressed on the outside it is an offering. It is a generous act. And so that, you know in my mind the “small me” self was “the generous thing is to pull back”, to create more space for others, to not take up too much space with my own expression but to be the facilitator and shrink so there is more space externally. And my experience at Burning Man helped me see that no. The generosity in fact is the giving of my self. The allowing of myself to be seen.
31:35 I used to think that there was “political art”. That it had to be rooted specifically and explicitly in social justice and I wanted to know, okay how does this change the world? I wasn’t interested in art if it wasn't political. And I thought, if you have a stage and an audience it is your responsibility to send a message.
32:08 Art, and authentic conversation, and moments of connection, that is also (political art). Things that open the heart are political in a whole. It transcends politics and it got me thinking about my offerings. I don't have to be in the streets protesting to show my activism.
34:00-34:27 When I am giving from a place of sincerely wanting for the happiness and delight and wellness of someone else I am planting seeds for my own happiness, health, and wellness.
38:12 We held an action to invite the burning man staff and board and founders. To invite them into a collaborative conversation of how to embody and integrate this principle of radical inclusion. And knowing as a camp of POC, we’ve all had such transformative experiences at Burning Man. where we’ve been able to play, and dance, and be with each other to shed old stories. We wanted to be able to extend that gift to other people of color. Because again, as I mentioned, there are people whose identities make them more vulnerable in the world. So we understand that if folks that are historically marginalized have access to transformative spaces then everyone benefits.
49:33-51:00 Okay, knowing that every single human being experiences this depth of sadness and of pain. We each have to find what our medicine is. What’s mine? And joy was the answer. It just had to be proportionate. There was no other way. It had to be equal or exceeding the level of grief I was experiencing. And again, I know I can’t control my grief. It’s like the wave. Or the ocean. It comes and goes as it chooses. But I understand that the joy was my defense. It was my protection. And feeling the joy gave me permission and the knowing that I could be in grief as dark as it got because I knew that the joy is also there. I know that it’s there. I know it’s coming. And I know that it’s been and so just like grief is in waves, joy is also in waves. So I gave myself permission to be with this grief in the same way I gave myself to be with joy. It became non negotiable.
53:40-54:10 My sister’s name, Chemin, is a french word for path or road. and her middle name is joy, so her name is Path to Joy. And I thought, what is this experience teaching me? And it quite literally has become, my experience with my sister as now an ancestor, has become a path to Joy. It led me straight to it.
RESOURCES:
Jamila’s Website: https://jamilareddy.me/
Jamila’s Instagram: @jamilareddy
Burning Man Principles: https://burningman.org/culture/philosophical-center/10-principles/
The Wild Edge of Sorrow by Francis Weller: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23992445-the-wild-edge-of-sorrow