How to Save The World & Yourself with Prentis Hemphill

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Well, the pod squad will be very excited to know after Lowe's so many requests for this, after our our first episode with Prentice Hempel that we are lucky enough that Prentice agreed to come back to spend another hour with us.

Prentice Hempel, which you already know, is a writer, embodiment facilitator, political organizer, and therapist.

They are the founder and director of the Embodiment Institute and the Black Embodiment Initiative.

and the host of the acclaimed podcast, Finding Our Way.

Their work and writing have appeared in the New York Times, Huff Post, You Are Your Best Thing, edited by Tarana Burke and Brene Brown, and Holding Change by Adrienne Marie Brown.

And their new book is called What It Takes to Heal.

And I would not be exaggerating to say that maybe 10 of the people that I respect the most have sent me screenshots saying, you have read this, right?

You have read this.

And I always write back and say, well, now you just shown that you don't listen to my podcast.

I have proof.

That's so good.

Prentice, thank you for coming back.

I'm going to kick us off here because the three of us are trying to figure out

what the third way is.

Okay, so way one, to be completely consumed by the roller coaster of election coverage and all that's going on in our world.

Way two, we totally drop out, completely disengage, and basically watch puppy videos all day long.

I'm more in that camp.

I'm down the puppy video chain.

We need a third way, right?

And my friend last night, they said to me, I want to do everything I can to save this place.

I also want to save myself.

I don't want to lose my personhood and joy this time around.

Can we discuss how to not abandon our world and also not abandon ourselves?

Yeah.

Well, first, first, thank you all for having me on again.

I'm really excited to be with you.

And I love, love, love this question because it's kind of the question at the center of everything that I'm trying to do.

This question sort of reveals how we

think about

work or doing good in the world or how we even are people, or I could say this either or.

And to me, that's partly because we, you know, around work, around political work, around political engagement, a lot of our action comes from a deeply adrenalized place, a deeply reactive place.

I have to scroll, I have to say something, I spend all day arguing with people online in the comment section, or whatever it might be.

We think about our action from this really adrenalized place.

And the only thing we can do when we're kind of moving from that place then is crash or numb out or check out in some way.

So it ends up being this seesaw relationship between how we take action and then how it mimics exertion and rest but it's really an overextension and depletion cycle that we end up being in

and what i want to call us into you know one of my teachers richard strozzi heckler he would say he does say

he's turning 80 next month he says that a relaxed body is the most powerful body that we have

And I say this all the time when I'm working with people or teaching, a relaxed body is the most powerful body that we have.

And I want to just break that down.

But first, before I do that, I want to say there is no manual for living through this kind of moment.

I don't know that we have, yes, our ancestors, all of our ancestors have lived through catastrophes, have lived through devastation, have lived through all types of attempts on their lives and futures.

And the globalness, the interconnectedness of it, of what we are witnessing in genocide, what we're experiencing in climate crisis, the economic strains on people, it's global.

It's global.

We're seeing how tied together it is.

So there are no manuals for how we get through this connected to each other and strategically.

So we're having to figure it out as we do it.

So, first, I want to name that as part of what your friend is experiencing, part of what I'm experiencing, what a lot of people are experiencing.

But this third way question is about how do we do it

in a way that we

maintain our ability

to vision, our ability to connect with each other, our ability to be creative, to be loving, to be clear and in defense of our people too.

This is an important question.

And I think the reactivity cycle that we're in often leaves us incapable, actually, of being relaxed, centered, present, creative, adaptive, generative,

building actual community.

So that's why I talk about center.

That's why I talk about relaxation.

We can go into it more, but I think that that place of being settled in ourselves, I know it feels counterintuitive.

There's so much to fear.

There's so much coming.

There's so much that we are facing, that people are facing.

And if we can't figure out through practice, through our own way of being, how to show up to these crises centered.

Doesn't mean that I'm not afraid.

I'm afraid every day.

I'm afraid every day.

But I have a place in me and I have a practice that I do that gives room for that fear and also can recognize what else there is inside of me, what else there is of me, what else I am made of, what else I long for.

And that's what compels me forward.

That's what...

causes me to move.

That's how I connect with people from that place.

So

centered, deep relaxation that is the third way it's not a set of tasks it's a place where you originate and then from there you can see options that weren't previously available y'all with me yeah

we're trying to be i mean that's good that's good in theory for those of us who aren't you It's better in practice.

I'm sure it's better in practice.

It's just like, how do I practice this?

Yeah.

How's the practice?

How do we get to that place?

I believe that that place is there.

I know what you're saying.

Yeah.

I know it's not a set of tasks, tasks, but what are the set of tasks?

I can give you a set of tasks, but I don't know if I said this last time.

One of my teachers, one of my co-teachers and one of my elders in all of this work will often say, I can show you the map, but it's not the territory.

Yeah.

So I can explain to you.

what you might do and the practices you might do, but none of those practices will work until you surrender to them working,

until you go to that place.

And that is something that no one can map for you.

That is someone that no one can direct you to or guide you to.

That is a surrender and a willingness inside of you that drops into that place.

So I will say, you know, I center every day.

I meditate every day.

I ground every day.

Yesterday, when I was feeling very afraid,

instead of isolating or numbing out, instead of taking that fear and doom scrolling until I felt deeper, deeper in the fear, I asked my wife to hold me.

And I trembled.

Okay, there it is.

I think what you're saying is like hitting me pretty hard right now because I think so much of what you're saying about fear and this presence of fear that shows up.

I think that that might be the root of what we all then reach for some sort of soothing mechanism, whether it's our phone or anger or anxiety, like whatever it is, it's like, I'm afraid.

And like to get comfortable in the relationship that fear does live inside all of us somehow.

And I think that some of these grounding and slowing down techniques that we can take ourselves through, it's like, it allows us to actually be curious about this relationship with fear.

And then we can figure out protocols that suit us to try to quell it or know it better in a way.

Absolutely.

And people are always like, I don't have time to do this.

I don't have have time to center ground.

The more you do it, the less it is about time.

The more I can come close to my fear to sit alongside my fear.

The more I practice, the more that's easy to do.

The less resistant I am, the less I'm like trying to do smoke and mirrors on myself and pretend like the fear isn't there.

The more I practice, the closer I can get to it more quickly.

So that, I mean, 10 years ago, I would have never asked my wife to hold me while I shook.

I would have been like, that's not who I am.

That's not, that's weird and kind of weak.

And now I know myself enough.

I understand my body enough.

I can say, oh, what I'm feeling is fear.

And this tightening that I'm doing in my body, this tensing up is because I want to tremble.

And I don't think I can.

That's why I'm tensing.

So what if I allow myself to tremble?

Then the fear can be positioned in the right place.

It can drop into my belly.

It can become information.

But the more I tense up around it, the less it can be informative for me, the more then it controls what I do.

And I think, you know, this period of time is largely about fear.

This period of time in our species is largely about fear.

We are afraid and for good reason.

And we're also noticing that there are forces who would like to accumulate power who use fear skillfully, who activate our fear skillfully and are able to kind of harness it for their aims.

Our rightful fear is being harnessed.

So this period to me is like, what are we going to do with our fear?

Are we going to be afraid, name our fears and concerns, and work together to actually address them?

Are we going to be,

because we deny our fear, available for manipulation of our fear?

Whoa.

So are you saying, Prentice, that the

Abby's question was from the perspective of someone who is trying,

is afraid and is trying to stop the accumulation of power by the fear-mongering side, which is my view, the fear-mongering side.

Yeah.

Are you saying also that if all people

were to practice this grounding thing,

then the other side might not even exist because they'd be

not susceptible to manipulation of their fear.

Like they're getting spun up and that's why they're following?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, if we stretch it all the way out to that end, I would say yes.

I mean, I think our fear and our succumbing to the fear, our rejecting of the fear, I would say from a more progressive standpoint, it also makes us afraid to vision, to dream big, to move, to energize people.

We are reactive largely, and there's a lot to be reactive too.

There's a lot that's being taken away.

But we're not, in my opinion, articulating visions that really compel people to take courageous action in this moment.

I think some groups and some organizations certainly are.

So I don't want to say it's blanket, but I will say a lot of us are stuck in this reactive place, which again, I'm not saying there's nothing to fear.

There's absolutely things to fear.

But it's how we hold the fear that dictates what we do.

And to your point, Yes, I think if we stretch out and look along the line, if people are less

available for manipulation of their fear, they're going to be less likely to follow the demagogue.

They're going to be less likely to look for the strong man who says, I can keep you safe by disenfranchising or disappearing the scary other.

That is...

part of what we're seeing.

That's kind of how the party politics are playing out.

And people are being manipulated by, again,

real fears that they have, but they're being manipulated and kind of simplified.

And

then strongman, authoritarianism, all these things can rise because we need someone to take care of this fear that we are disowning.

It's like the equivalent of people being like, I don't want to tremble.

So I'll hold the strong man.

I'll let the strong man embrace me.

Like the difference, and I will embrace my wife and tremble with her.

is a beautiful visual.

Right, because it's very uncomfortable to be trembling and scared.

so if you have the instinct of i'm going to be a comfortable i'm going to start trembling it's much easier to align with the one who's screaming and looks not afraid yeah it feels like a survival instinct right it's like almost what prentice you're saying it's like opposite of the way that we have been taught and maybe not like deep down and spiritually speaking but the way that the world has taught us how to handle our fear

huh yeah and you know for me lately i've been kind of reflecting on this thing.

One of my friends said when reading my book, he said, I feel like you gave us permission to be small in the book.

And I was thinking about that because, you know, it wasn't until I allowed the possibility that I was small, that I was vulnerable.

all of these concepts.

It wasn't until I allowed that to be a part of how I understood myself that I actually felt like I could tap into my actual power

in the world.

And I think a lot of us have this posturing kind of power, you know, but really it gets, it ends up being empty.

It's not, it isn't courageous when it counts.

But I think it's because we don't have a proper assessment of how vulnerable we actually are and how much we need other people and what we offer.

To me, the root of actually feeling powerful is not this strong man

posturing,

pretending, but it's in knowing that I am also

small, that I have something to offer, that I am connected to others.

I feel extremely powerful from that place of power that I didn't know was available until I allowed myself to be small and vulnerable.

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So, is the vision?

It feels with you and some other people that I'm always watching and so curious about.

Is the vision, it's like directional.

It's like the first way is so,

it is reactive.

I'm scrolling, I'm watching, I'm hearing the fear come.

It's directionally, I am turned towards that.

And my entire nervous system is in reacting to something that someone is telling me, a vision, a vision

that someone else has that is scaring the shit out of me.

And so I am constantly,

but there are some people that I see who are so

beautiful and calm and strong and effective and seem to have this.

Is it because there's another vision that

you are tapped into that you are moving together towards?

And it's like a big group of people that are all moving towards something.

So you don't even have time or desire to be turned towards the other thing and reacting to that because you're in a caravan of visionaries that are moving a different way that's a beautiful image and i certainly do feel like i'm in a caravan but i'm in a caravan of people that are living and not living it's a caravan that's across generations so that settles something in me and it prioritizes things in me it clarifies what i am and what i'm up to i'm in a caravan.

I have ancestors behind me that have been in these same questions, different pressures, different contexts, different conditions, but the questions remain.

The other thing I'll say is that, you know, about centering and grounding and all these things, the action that I take from a centered place is always going to be more powerful than the action I take from reactivity.

It's going to be more rooted in my power.

And I work with people a lot with this.

They're like, well, I've got to do something.

I'm doing something all the time, doing, doing, doing.

But if you really assess where you are and who you're with and you're making connections and you're moving from that place, you're kind of assessing what is the move that I can make?

What is the move that we can make?

It will have the most impact.

And I'm running that through my center, as opposed to scrambling and doing what somebody else thinks I should do.

whatever it might be.

The action you take will be more aligned.

You will stand more in it.

You will be more behind it.

It will have a different kind of power if it's coming from a centered place.

But that, and absolutely, I think understanding myself is a part of,

I mean, I'm not calm all the time.

I also want to say that I offer that trembling story because I'm not calm all the time, but I really try to feel what is mine to feel.

And that allows me to be here more often.

Feel what is mine to feel.

Damn.

How do you consume media?

when i'm well or not well both please

i try to have boundaries around it you know one thing i noticed i think it was like last may 2023 i got really stuck and i was like doom scrolling and i was in it in the middle of the night doom scrolling i really was

You know, I read newspapers, I read Reddit boards, I read Instagram, I consume all of it, but I'd gotten in this place where I was like, I'm so scared and I'm so clamping down on my fear that I just started to run, run, run, run, run.

And what I noticed was when I was spending time with my daughter, I wasn't present.

In fact, I would look at her

and all the bad things that could happen to me and her in the future, it was invading our time together.

So that I was missing.

I was missing her.

I was missing our connection.

I wasn't there.

And so, you know, I went through that period and I was like, this can't be.

This can't be the way it is.

And so I had to reorganize everything so that I could get information that I needed that would help guide and direct my actions

and do it also

with constraints that allowed me to be in relationship with the people that I really want to be in relationship with and be present and sometimes bring that there, sometimes hold it, have spaciousness, be able to play with my daughter.

It's a dance that I think all of us have to figure out how to do every day.

Are the constraints

time

or particular types of media that you feel are more

level?

Is it both?

Yeah, I would say it's time.

It's like, not after this time, not during this time, not in the room with her.

There are constraints like that.

But yeah, I think there's also this future saying about what what I'm consuming.

I try to consume more thoughtful and depthful things by people that know what they're talking about instead of I'm consuming a bunch of comments by people that are in the same kind of terror that I'm in.

Yes.

Yes.

I'm trying to consume less of that.

Yes, that's such a good distinction.

Seems so sane when you say it like that.

Yeah, I think

one thing that I just want to pick up on what you said, Prentice,

When we are consuming media and then let's just say we go to a dinner table, we are bringing with us

all of that stress,

anxiety, fear, and it will change the way that we interact with our people.

It does.

It does.

It just does.

You know, the kids, Prentice will say to me, they will talk to me.

I'm in this right now, a bit.

Okay.

And they will ask me a question and it takes me a second.

I'm not even listening to them.

And they say, oh, mom's underwater.

And I'm there.

I'm sitting with them.

Yeah.

And they feel the goneness.

And we know energetically that it has consequences.

I'm bringing it to the, I'm so scared it's going to come to them that I am bringing it to them.

Yeah, that's, oh, wow.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

Yeah, it's, and that's sort of what I mean by when we're centered, what we do, the quality of what we do,

it often gets ignored.

Where we're like, oh, I did.

That's why it's like we have a checklist of things to do.

But what is the quality of how you are doing?

I was with my children this much.

What is the quality of the time you spent with them?

And what will that mean for their future?

What will that mean for what you are equipping them with?

That part, you know, that part that we can't quantify as easily, the quality, part of what I'm saying is that matters so much.

It matters so much.

Our presence

matters so

much

in a way that I can't emphasize enough.

Yes, there are things to do.

Yes, there are lists that we have of things to do every day.

But the quality of how I do them changes what they mean and what they do.

That's right.

And that's so important for this time.

And I know there's so much pressure, but it doesn't diminish the fact that our presence and the quality of how we act, the quality with which we engage with each other, it's still important, if not increasing in importance.

Yeah.

And it doesn't sound to me like you're saying,

well, okay, we have to consume our media over here and keep it divorced from and disintegrated from our relationships.

I mean, if we're avoiding the frenetic mind meld

of the consumption and instead just feeling it, Then we could be with our child and be like, I'm so sad

because I'm thinking about Palestinians.

Yes.

I am so sad.

Mommy's going to cry for a few minutes.

Be with me.

Like

that

is more real, probably

than spinning like a top around them.

It's such an important point you're making because,

you know, I always say part of embodiment for me is, it's not that we're saying thinking is bad.

Thinking is wonderful.

I do so many amazing things because I think about this,

but it's running some of my thoughts through my heart, through my gut, letting those be in conversation, letting the thinking live inside of the rest of the body so that I know that my body has limits.

Like I actually can't consume.

endless amounts of things without having to dissociate and without getting stuck,

you know, without having parts parts of it stuck in me.

Like

I witnessed something and then I held on to it for the rest of the day, but did I feel it?

And feeling it, taking time to feel it, actually allows it to change us.

Yeah.

We have to feel the things we're consuming so that they then reorient us.

Again, it's like the fear is then allowed to be information.

The feeling is allowed to be information if we let it move through our body.

And we have to understand the pace at which we move,

pace at which we digest,

so that we can, you know, consume in that way, engage in that way.

And as people who love other people, when we feel it and we are honest about what we're feeling,

it's like I'll never forget this for the rest of my life.

I have an older kid.

They were home.

I was in the midst of feeling very sad about Palestine.

Okay.

And I told myself, don't

fuck up this kid's trip home.

So apprentice, they would come home and I would get up and start painting and turn on music.

Yeah.

I would tell Abby, turn on whatever.

Like, let's be happy.

Like, let's just not.

The kid two days in came and sat down on the couch and was despondent.

And I was like, baby, what's going on?

What's wrong?

And they said, I don't understand how to live

here where everyone just goes on.

Why isn't the world stopping?

Why are people outside playing volleyball?

Why isn't the world stopping when babies are dying?

And I thought, oh my God,

I could have just sat there and been myself and said, I'm so sad.

And he would have felt less alone, but instead I created this shit.

Yeah.

And it's just so powerful because it's such an example of the way that we constrain and try to control.

And it's like actually,

the connection through these big

feelings, these big

fears and injustices and witnessing genocide, that the connection actually makes it possible for us to be real about what's happening.

And so your child is like, I actually need connection.

Something feels disconnected here.

Everybody's just operating in this disconnection.

I'm longing for connection around this.

But part of what we learn about being adults or being whatever it is, whatever the label is, is that we actually have to disconnect from who we are.

I believe it deeply prepares our kids, young people in our lives, if we can look at these things through connection.

You know, don't leave them alone to do it because they're doing it.

They're witnessing it.

So don't leave them alone in that.

That's right.

And don't show them that people should be left alone inside of these devastating events that we're witnessing.

Yeah.

It's powerful.

I think if we think, I can't fix it for you.

Yeah.

Then Then

the extension of that is, so I can't even feel it with you, or I can't admit that I can feel it with you.

But what if the sadness together is the connection?

What if that's it?

Glenn, come on now.

It is.

It is.

What you're talking.

I mean, that's

the fixing part is often not wanting to feel.

We move towards fixing to skip over feeling.

Yeah.

So I can't fix this.

So it has to disappear because that's the only way to address big things.

No, there's this whole realm of feeling and connection.

Again, that quality thing.

And who knows what will emerge from that?

Who knows what is possible once you do that?

But there's this whole world of just being with,

of being connected, of being witnessed.

It doesn't mean we don't take action.

But the actions we take from feeling are going to be more informed than the actions we take from just trying to fix something.

Yeah.

You know what?

This is a risk to say this because it's not, this is a false equivalency, but

that feeling thing, I've been thinking a lot about in this moment, how

angry white women are about the state of things

and how much that is rooted in this idea that

this should be fixed.

This shouldn't be like this.

We should not be on the precipice of this

happening where our rights are going to be taken away, where fill in the blank.

Yeah.

And

it's so deeply upsetting

that it comes out as anger and we're going to mobilize and we're going to fix.

And that's a good thing.

I'm in support of that.

Sure.

But when I've tried to just spend time thinking, feeling feeling it and being like why is this so deeply upsetting to me like what what does it feel like in my body and the feeling has led me to this connection point of like oh my god why do i think i'm an exception to this yeah why do i think things should be set up to be right for me yeah when

every year for the past many hundreds of years, Black people have been killed and then their killers have been exonerated by our court system.

Yeah.

Over and over.

The system

isn't working or is working, depending on your view of it.

But I started to feel how it might feel to live in a system that is intentionally made

to not work for you.

Yeah.

And that allows a kind of solidarity of like, holy shit.

So this is what y'all have been feeling?

Yeah.

And it's a very different spectrum.

And this is what we've been trying to say.

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You said that chaos is where creativity is.

So if we can stomach a bit of chaos, we might be able to build power.

Help us

understand the possibility of a little chaos.

I'm feeling moved by what you just shared.

I just want to say that, but also just kind of moved in this question of like,

why does it always take

this, you know,

of grief and pain there and understanding?

Is the grief and pain the just is it this idea of like, we have tried so hard to tell you all this for so long and why wasn't

the killing of our bodies enough to wake you up?

Yeah.

And I, you know, I have understanding understanding around that.

I get, I, I don't get it, but I, I get it.

But yeah, it's why does it not matter when it's, it's always been

this way?

And I saw someone, we posted a TikTok that they were like, you know, they're talking about how divided the country is.

And I wish I could, I knew who the creator was, but they were like, it's actually not any more divided.

It's just that white people are divided about that.

Some of them are saying the humanity and the rest of us, that's where the division is in a way.

But my people have been disenfranchised and abused for a long time.

Indigenous people have been disenfranchised and abused for a long time.

So, yeah, I think that I think there's been a way that we've been

looking critically and naming the systemic issues for a long time and saying, you know, it doesn't just stop here, which I think would make people like, okay, it'll be comfortable if it just stops with you all.

And we've both been saying,

our lives are important and meaningful.

We are feeling what is happening and it won't stop with us.

Both of those are important reasons to act.

So I think once human beings understand that, and I don't know how we will do that, deep solidarity.

I think that's when we're on a new road and we can understand that before it gets to us.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And when you don't even have to add the, and it won't stop with us yeah the fact that it's just happening to us should be enough yeah because you already feel identified with me

this question around chaos is one that i'm just like swirling in right now because in somatic's work the lineage that i come from there's this point in transformation of a person being body where things get chaotic.

And it may be for a moment in a session where someone is deeply disoriented in terms of they're feeling new things or you know new memories are coming up it's a moment of disorientation it can also be a period or season in someone's life where suddenly the things that they thought they wanted they don't want anymore suddenly they're unsatisfied they long for something else it's a moment of disorganization and it's necessary for transformation Because without the period of disorganization, it's kind of like without shaking the soil up a little bit, you can't get the seed to plant deeply deeply in.

You'll just be adding a habit on top of world view and a framework that is pretty solid.

There's a logic to how all of us behave.

It's taking care of something.

And if you go, oh, to be a good person, I need to do this.

You just slap that on top of what already is a pretty solid logic, it's not going to set in.

So what you need is a period of disorganization actually for something new to settle in, for things to open and loosen.

So somatically, that's an important part of the process of transformation.

In this moment, you know, when I've been watching closely Biden's reelection campaign, and for a long time, I've been one of those people that is like, he needs to step down.

And the reason he's not stepping down is because people are afraid of what will happen.

People are afraid that Democrats will lose.

And so he's not stepping down.

They were afraid of the chaos,

the uncontrollable, the new.

And so they kept advising him to stay in, even when it became, to me, deeply illogical for a number of reasons.

Absolutely.

I think that the right deeply understands that chaos is an important way of grabbing power.

They generate and create chaos because it opens up

lots of things.

You take people's fears, you create some chaos, you create...

chaos in the news cycle and you can grab power you can destabilize norms and resettle in new ways of doing things right uses chaos i think they rely heavily on fear to generate chaos but i think people progressives folks on the left democrats tend to be afraid of chaos

and white knuckle then what has been in a way normalcy we're going to return to normal What normal are we returning to?

It is not there anymore.

I hate to break it to everybody, but I don't believe, personally, this is Prentice Hip Hill speaking.

The normal that we're trying to return to does not exist.

So instead of trying to return to that normal, why not take this moment to be visionary?

Yeah.

To actually speak to the fears and concerns and the kind of latent connection and unity that is here.

Generate a vision that actually speaks to that.

Break up what has been because it's not working.

it looks stale.

Everybody knows that.

So step into something new, breathe some new life into it.

I think chaos holds the possibility.

It doesn't mean that that is what will happen.

Chaos could also be very destructive, but chaos can also be deeply generative if inside of it.

You know, I always say, because of conflict facilitation, all the work that I do, I can be in chaos without being chaotic.

Yes, you can.

Yes, you can.

Because of center, I can be in chaos and I don't have to be chaotic.

But I can see what's inside.

I'm like, oh, chaos.

Oh, this is happening.

This is what's really here.

This is what's been suppressed.

How do we take that and move it into something that has some meaning, that activates people, that speaks to who we can be?

So that's why I get excited about chaos.

And I will say, I saw us have a moment of chaos, and then it quickly were like, ah, pulls that off.

And I understand it.

And I think think

our intolerance of

the messiness actually does us a disservice often in the long run god when you talk like that it takes me it gets me to my like

it's like you can take the girl out of the evangelical church but you can't take her out of the like scriptural shit and i just go to like yes like big bang and then we breathe the new world into existence and we say let there be and let there be and let there be and let there be and that is how new worlds begin There has to be nothingness and then there has to be chaos and there has to be bang.

And then there has to be people saying, let there be this.

That's right.

And then you speak new worlds into existence and then they become somebody spoke this shit into existence.

Okay.

And we keep rebuilding it every day.

We keep saying, well, this must be the way.

Now, somebody, somebody was able to step outside and say, I'm going to create.

I'm going to create from this chaos something that serves some people and does not serve, can't even imagine others.

But a lot of us, I think this is also a question of power and our sense of our own power, our sense of our power together.

We have to create, recreate and create something

that has not been.

Or

honestly, we're really facing in a non-kind of like hyperbolic way, this question of will we create or will we perish?

Yeah.

And I hope we create.

You know, it reminds me of a relationship, like to ground it in, you know, if you're in a partnership and then there's a wild betrayal or

something like profoundly

shaking up that partnership.

The thing that doesn't work is to try to quote unquote go back to normal.

Like, that doesn't work.

So, the idea, it's like when you hear about successful reunifications and stuff, it's it's we

have a new partnership now.

That's right.

We have recreated, we understand that the old way is done.

And we are saying, here's our new life and our new rules and our new creation.

And it's always sick and ick when it's just, let's pretend like that didn't happen and go back to normal.

And that's kind of our, I think in the U.S., that's kind of the emotional

way that we do everything, is that that kind of relationship.

Let's just snap back to the way that things were.

And it's, yeah, it doesn't allow for,

we have to deny.

We have to deny what we know about each other.

We have to deny what we know about ourselves in order to do that.

And it will run its course, you know, will become untenable at some point.

And I hope that we wake up before that.

I just want to ask you, as we, many of us move in, continue inside of groups and organizations and coalitions and movements

you recently said i'm not something like this and i'm just paraphrasing but you said i'm not just focused on how to do hard things but how we stay together in hard things

i don't know that can you

Wait, you know a lot about hard things.

Yeah, but the togetherness, the like, how do we work through we have groups of people who have who might want to be in a caravan but who all have different opinions and different stuff unity is tricky it's like unity can't be sameness how do we have unity without sameness and how do we get through conflict and screw up and not abandon each other and especially in the democratic party right i wasn't gonna say that but like just i mean i'm just being real like it's hard it's hard for all of us to please all of the the real issues that everybody experiences.

Yeah.

Also, could you just give us an answer that also applies to like partnerships and families and parties and the nation?

That would be super great.

Just one size fits all would be helpful for me.

Thank you.

Oh,

I mean, the lucky thing is that there are lots of correlations, but it's not, you know, exactly the same.

We move away from each other when hard things happen because we're afraid that we will be hurt.

There's a threat there.

And we move towards isolation because we're like, I'm safer on my own.

I'm safer away from you on my own.

And

that

I'm not going to say that doesn't make sense in some scenarios.

I'm not going to say that that's not

maybe at times a choice to make.

I'm saying, with those people that we

are trying to be on the same team with, that we're trying to go in the same direction with, we have to practice.

And I mean, practice before it's time

practice how to

experience something hard

find ourselves again find the purpose for connection and turn and reach for each other again

because if we don't do that

we will break down into the smallest components possible

When we talk about being together, you know, I think there are probably things that we disagree with each other about on this call.

I would imagine we don't know each other, but I would imagine that we don't agree on everything.

But there's some set of things that we do agree on.

And if we can be clear about what those things are,

work on those things together, we might through relationship shift each other some.

We might deepen each other's understanding of issues as they pertain to each other.

It's a live practice of building connection with each other.

But, you know, there's this thing to talk about couples that I tried with couples.

I used to do couples therapy.

It's like one person holds a end of a string, another person holds the end of the string.

And you got to kind of keep it taut, but not pulling, you know, like feel your presence in it and have your argument with that string between you.

And you'll notice that some people want to like.

let go.

They're like doing everything they can to let go of the connection, let go of the string.

Or some people like trying to pull the other person over to their side i'm the puller you're the puller i'm the dropper and runner she wrote

uh-huh uh-huh yeah you're like at dropping this

but what will it take what kind of questions curiosity communication boundaries clarity will it take to keep the thread taut

to keep the connection there, to assume connection, but also assume that the connection can hold and withstand

difference.

I think we're going to have to do that.

You know, when I see, I'm looking right now, I'm watching so much of what's happening on social media.

And I guess I want to say this explicitly:

you know, to me,

I'll just say the presidential election is not where I do most of my work.

It's not where I do most of my organizing, it's not where I do most of my political work.

It is not to me the most important site of practice for me.

I do vote.

And I think for a lot of people,

maybe some people, I don't know how many people, that is one of the most important places that they practice.

To those folks, I would say, let it be among many things that you do.

Let it be among many things that you do.

We don't only need your action, your voice there.

We need your action, your voice in many, many places.

So I'll say that.

But I see us kind of

breaking down in some ways.

And I guess what I want to offer to that is that I am not

interested in shaming anyone about

what they think is the most effective move in this moment.

I think there's actually a lot of shared care around

the rights of people in this country and also the lives of people elsewhere, particularly in Palestine.

I think there's shared concern and there's difference on how to get there.

But I think it will serve

our

side, for lack of a better word, if we understand

more about where the other is coming from.

We do a lot of like

fighting with each other.

And I understand why we're trying to push each other.

But the assuming the worst of each other is not, to me, an organizing stance.

It's not organizing someone into your perspective and your viewpoint.

And it's real easy.

Social media just rewards this kind of like

back and forth dehumanization thing.

I think there are real critiques and ways that we can not only get behind someone in this moment, but use this moment to clarify what it is that we care about.

We care about a ceasefire.

A lot of us care about that.

That doesn't mean that we shut up about it.

How do we be strategic about how we bring it to the conversation in this moment?

A lot of us care about stopping Trump.

How do we share what that means to us and be heard and be strategic about how we move towards doing that?

So I think there's a lot more room than social media really allows for us to have these conversations, to find our common points, and mostly, I would say, to be strategic about how we move forward in this next period of time so that there is space for.

the disagreement and there's space for moving forward the things that we deeply care about.

I don't know if I answered your your question.

Yeah, you just always answer more than the question, but I was thinking about that this morning because

we're making the best moves that we can figure out to make with the particular lanes we're in and power we have and

age we are and all the things.

And,

you know, in particular,

I see it play out actually in my own family quite often because I have some real badass kids.

And

it is possible

that that there is a perception of,

well,

there goes my white lady mom doing her white lady thing.

And there is a sentence that someone in my family said,

they said, I am afraid

that

identity politics is going to stand in for real justice.

That

the idea behind that being, you think if we just elect somebody who's a woman, who's a woman of color, that justice is going to happen.

No, that's not it.

And

so I understand that.

Yeah.

I get that deeply.

And I am saying in my

that and I think I'm just going to keep doing everything I can do to get this person elected with the power that I have because I think that you will still be able to activate and organize under this administration in a way that I don't even think is possible with the other one.

And then I think

when I'm doing the thing and then people in social media are yelling at me about doing that because of this issue.

I tend to think, oh, God, I'm doing it wrong.

Or am I right or are they right?

And then I think, what if everybody's doing exactly what they're supposed to be doing?

What if those people are supposed to be yelling at me in social media?

What if we need them?

What if that's exactly right?

And

I am supposed to be doing this.

What if the part of this beautiful chaos is that I actually need you to do that shit?

Like, I need, yeah.

And if I'm in the place you talk about, which is not just fear and reactivity, I can live there.

Yeah.

I can live there.

I can let it be okay.

You can let it happen without defending yourself.

It reminds me of in your book when you talk about Melodoma, Patrice, LeMay,

when they say conflict is the nature of a relationship asking to deepen.

That when we look at this political moment in that, it's when you say, let's get behind Kamala Harris, Glennon, and then in the comments, people say,

what about Palestinians?

There's one way to view that that is saying, I want to be part.

of this relationship.

I want Palestinians

to be in relationship.

So please deepen, please deepen your connection with me.

Please open to me.

Yeah, I think that's right.

I think that's right.

It's saying, who are we in relationship with?

Who is seen in this relationship?

And, you know, binaries get us so caught up.

And sometimes we think we need to do one thing,

sometimes at the expense of the other.

And I mean that on every side of everything.

I will say, Glenn, I think your point around being able to organize under what administration is more organizing possible.

This is something that I deeply care about and think about.

I don't think

that the people that I'm in community with or organization with, I know some amazing, amazing organizers, and I still think there's a lot that we need to build and grow and get clear on as a movement of people.

And

I

want us to have

more

time, more

space

to do what we still need to do.

And that is a factor for me, is thinking about how the repression of our movements will happen, the how of it is a major factor for me.

And at the same time, I'm critical.

I'm critical of

not as my like,

I just am critical.

I'm critical in the sense that

everybody is a human being that has concerns and things that they care about and histories that they have and beliefs that I don't understand.

When I think the challenge around the political sphere is that we often, especially when we talk about folks on the national stage, we start to make deities out of people.

We start to say, this person is so great and they're so amazing and so awesome.

And I support everything that they do.

And I think a lot of people are suspicious of that kind of allegiance to somebody in the political realm, because it often means that the concerns of so many people get disappeared.

And we see it happening in the political sphere now.

It's like making people into deities.

And I think we have to be

more complex, more grounded to say,

wherever you put your support or wherever you don't put your support, I know that all of this is made up of human beings with complex interest,

access to power, decision-making power, et cetera.

It is all complex.

And that my role in the world with them and with anybody else is to be in relationship, is also to organize.

Once I'm understanding what's happening in the world and understand a strategy that we might undertake, I want to organize them and everybody else to understand and to build power together.

And if I make somebody a deity, it makes it hard to remember that they are accountable to the people.

They're accountable to the concerns of the people, and they should be movable to the concerns of the people.

And we have to hold that alongside whatever it is that we support, that this is human beings that we're talking about, that we want to care for and that we want to move.

Prendice, I think that anybody who gets to spend an hour with you is really, really effing lucky.

So thank you for sharing your time with us.

Just thank you.

That was my favorite hour I've ever spent on this podcast.

And I really needed it.

So I'm grateful.

Yep.

Thank you all.

These are really thoughtful questions.

I really feel all of your hearts engaged in these questions.

And

it's a gift to be in conversation with you all.

So thank you.

Thanks for letting me come on again.

Thank you.

We can do hard things.

We'll see if we can do them together.

Do hard things together.

A little

asterisk.

Prentice asterisks.

Yeah.

A little extra credit from Prentice.

Do them together.

Exactly.

All right, pod squad.

We'll see you next time.

Actually, we should probably just quit the pod there.

That was just as good as it's going to get.

Bye.

Bye.

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I give you Tish Milton and Brandy Carlisle.

I walked through fire, I came out

the other side.

I chased desire,

I made sure

I got what's mine.

And I continue

to believe

that I'm the one for me.

And because I'm mine,

I walk the line.

Cause we're adventurers and heartbreaks on map.

A final destination

we lack.

We've stopped asking directions

to places they've never been.

And to be loved, we need to be known.

We'll finally find our way back home.

And through the joy and pain

that our lives

bring,

we can do a heart pain.

I hit rock bottom, it felt like a brand new start.

I'm not the

problem,

sometimes things fall apart.

And I continue to believe

the best

people are free.

And it took some time,

but I'm finally fine.

Cause we're adventurers and heartbreaks on that.

A final destination

we lack.

We've stopped asking directions

to places they've never been.

And to be loved, we need to know.

We'll finally find our way back home.

And through the joy and pain

that our lives bring,

we can do a hard thing.

Adventurers and heartbreaks on that.

We might get lost, but we're okay with that.

We've stopped asking directions

in some places they've never been.

And to be loved, we need to be known.

We'll finally find our way back home.

And through the joy and pain

that our lives

bring,

we can do hard things.

Yeah, we can do hard things.

Yeah, we

can do hard

things.