225. How to Find 5 Seconds of Peace with Morgan Harper Nichols

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Welcome to We Can Do Hard Things.

Today we have, oh, such a treat, someone I've been following for a long time

to,

as she sometimes says, help me cope with existing, which I love.

Morgan Harper Nichols.

She is an artist, poet, musician, and best-selling author of Peace is a Practice and All Along You Were Blooming.

Morgan has also performed as a vocalist on several Grammy-nominated projects and written for various artists.

She is passionate about art making as a way to connect with others.

And her latest book, You Are Only Just Beginning, it's on My Bedside, is available now.

Morgan currently resides in Atlanta with her family.

Welcome, Morgan.

Well, thank you.

Thank you for the warm welcome.

I'm so glad to be here.

So honored.

Thank you so much.

I'm so glad that you decided to come.

I have, I don't know, I wouldn't even just say just red.

I don't think read is the right word.

I have been experiencing your work for a very long time.

I appreciate very much that it doesn't feel like just reading to me.

It feels like

you got it.

That's exactly what I'm going for.

Like that's, that's my whole thing.

I just, it's like, I get words.

They're a big thing.

We have them.

We use them all day long, but I'm just like, there's all these spaces beyond words where it's just like trying to figure out how to even communicate what we're experiencing.

I'm just like, I don't know, maybe it's a color this time.

Maybe it's, it's a rugged mountainscape that explains it better.

So, for you to say that experience, I'm like, that's exactly it.

Like, that's, that's what I'm, I'm going for because yeah, that's, it's, I feel like I, I actually struggle with words a lot.

So it's through the art that I'm able to say, like, oh, maybe there's still room for me to feel and share what I'm feeling, even when I don't have the perfect sentences, if you will.

Yeah.

Because the words that we're all using are not the thing.

The words are just arrows.

We're trying to point to something else.

Yes.

And so what I do think about what you're doing is it feels like you're just doing the something else often.

You're not even bothering with all the arrows that we're all using.

We get to go straight to the something else.

Yes, you get it.

That's exactly what it is because

it comes from this like kind of a really shadowy place for just growing up.

I struggled a lot with speech, literally.

And I stuttered a lot.

And I would have to practice speaking before I could just have a conversation with someone.

And I don't know if it's like a generational thing growing up up in the 90s.

I don't know, but I feel like there were so many 90s movies where like all the cool kids in the movies had like the fastest, quick comebacks.

And I was the opposite of that.

Oh, I was, oh, I'm just now thinking of comebacks like 20 years later.

And I remember practicing comebacks.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, that's awful.

It's like, it was like Dawson's Creek and that shit.

It was like constant

dialogue back and forth.

It was the currency, the teenage currency.

That's the word currency.

Of, and just the searing nature of your comebacks.

Man, I had no money growing up.

If we're going by that standard, I never came back to anything.

I had no comebacks.

Zero.

Same.

And these kids are fast.

And I was surrounded.

And my sister was a quick comeback kid.

She still has a two years younger.

I don't even try.

Like, she'll just diss me.

And I'm like, I, okay, you win, I guess.

Like, I, I've got nothing.

So she's still like that.

And I just wasn't that.

And I just struggled so much to just even like

find friendships just because I couldn't do the banter, the back and forth.

I missed so much of it.

And I thought poetry was going to be a safe space for me because I gravitated for that like my preteen teen years.

And then one day at summer camp, which a story that starts with that is probably like

oh, I can't wait.

I want it.

I want this.

50-50 chance of being a happy story.

But

just for whatever reason, I decided to bring my poetry composition notebook to the YMCA.

That's a sexy currency.

Yes.

Sexy currency.

I'm like, that's how I'm going to spend my summer.

I'm just going to bring my poetry when I can't keep up with everyone else.

And yeah, it just went so south.

It was like snack time.

This one kid got a hold of it and they started sending it around and reading all my poetry out loud and actually rating it.

Like the ring leader, he was just like, oh, this one's kind of good, but you should have.

And I just sat there just like totally, just like helpless.

What do I do?

Like, do I go run and tell the counselor, like, hey, they're reading through my poetry.

They're going to be, why'd you bring poetry here in the first place?

So I kind of got into this really interesting spot with words so early.

And then I really do feel like it was the arts where it was like through like photography or music or whatever it was.

I was like, I can hide here more.

Like this is not a place where people can pick it up in the journal and run it around the summer camp.

So yeah, when I see what I do today, I really feel like it is this.

part of this healing journey of like, I'm still learning how to take up space with this thing.

Like I'm still learning how to, you know, put the words on there, let people pick it up and take it with them.

Like, it's going to be okay.

That's kind of what the path has been like.

And, and I have to say, I'm pretty proud of myself for at least figuring that out because now it's something I can work on.

Cause I still hold back and I'm still like, I don't know.

Like, people can take this and do anything they want with it, which is terrifying.

I say to the bullies at the YMCA, How do you like Morgan now?

Everybody is walking around with Morgan's journal and it's saving their damn lives.

You want to know something?

Even funnier, the guy who did it doesn't remember me.

At least like

they never remember.

Sure he doesn't.

It's the most pivotal moment of your entire life and it didn't even register in your memory.

I know.

I was like, you don't, you don't.

I was like, that changed like the course of my life.

So yeah.

This is funny.

But yes, I am proud of myself because I literally live like 15 minutes away from that YMCA right now.

And I'm just like, I think I made it through.

Is the painting and the photography?

I've never heard it described that way.

Is that somehow

more armored or less vulnerable because it's not susceptible to a direct interpretation like word is?

Yes, yes.

I have.

been spending a lot of time thinking about this because

I've just noticed with language in particular, especially just a little bit of family history, just being black, being a descendant of enslaved people in America, I've done the math and I've realized, you know what?

My family actually doesn't go back that far when it comes to speaking English.

There were other languages, other ways of communicating, not that many generations back.

So it's sometimes like, oh, that was hundreds of years ago.

It's like, actually, it wasn't that many generations ago.

And I realized, I'm like, yeah, maybe there's something within me that's just craving these other ways of sharing.

And in one hand, I access through it through this very armored approach of just like, this makes me feel safe.

But now I'm like, no, I'm going to own that.

I'm just like, no, I'm going to communicate this through a few words spread out on a page the way that I hear it and see it and feel it.

And sometimes it might fall into a sentence, but a lot of times it's not.

And yeah, so it started from this very like armored space, but then like the more I dug into it, I'm like, actually, no, I'm, I'm going to own that more.

And I'm not going to keep pressuring myself to communicate how everyone else thinks that I should.

So yeah, it's like this really mixed,

intertangled thing now, but I feel like the shift has been like, but I'm learning to be proud of it.

And I'm learning to be like, yeah, this is just me.

And this is.

the way that I communicate.

And hopefully like that gives other people permission to see like, yeah, I can do this my own way, too.

Yeah, I find it frustrating that I have to use words to tell you why your work is important.

Maybe I could draw you something to tell you, you know, because it's so frustrating that even words that we have to use, that they're not.

When I was Morgan, um, beginning to work on a TV show, the scriptwriter was trying to teach me about how

the dialogue was the least important

thing.

And what she was explaining to me is the movements that they make, their eyes, every way they embody

things is way truer.

You can say whatever words you want.

That's the least important.

And I thought, words are the least true thing we have.

That is bad news for a writer.

That is real.

And that's a lot to take in because so much in our world is measured by words.

And that's that's something that I, I don't, I didn't, I wasn't consciously thinking about that all these years, but I think I was maybe wrestling with it.

Toni Morrison has that famous thing where she talks about like the definer and like the words belonging to the definer.

It's like, it's like, wow, when you think about just a sheer amount of definitions.

Maybe we're just getting started.

Like maybe there's just so many other ways of communicating.

I had a moment.

I was pretty proud of myself.

I thought of it.

I thought of it some time ago.

And I was like, I'm going to hold this for the perfect moment, which I'm terrible at that.

I cannot hold water.

I'm just like, I got to say it right away.

But I held on to this for so long.

I didn't tell anybody.

And it was my mom's birthday about a month ago now.

And,

and you know how like, there's like, uh.

what do you call it?

I don't even know what they're called.

Not cheers.

What do you call it when you're having toast?

Toast.

That's

soaking your arms back and forth.

Yeah.

I'm like, this is so not my thing.

I can't even, I don't even know what it's called.

I don't think I've ever done a toast, but it was just this moment where like everybody had eaten and we were all just kind of sitting.

And I was like, I feel like we should do something like toasty kind of, but not that.

And I remembered, I was like, oh, that thing I thought of, this is the moment.

So I asked everybody, I said, instead of toasting my mom, my mom's name is Mona.

I said, what if we all went around and did what.

we think a dance would be if it was called the Mona.

And everybody went around and did their version of the MOMA.

And we just like laughed.

And it was the funniest thing.

And there were so few words involved.

And kind of the fancy word of it is embodied, like more embodied experiences.

And it was a few minutes and it was funny, but it brought me just so much hope.

I'm just like, wow, yeah, maybe there's all these other ways that.

we can connect with each other.

And sometimes the words will be there to help us get to a place, but then we just go beyond that.

It offers so many more people into experience because words and language are just one

way.

You know, don't they say it's like 10% of all communication with what we're understanding about each other is done through what people say.

And actually, there's a huge danger in valuing speech so much because people can say whatever the hell they want to say, do

lie

all the time.

I'm constantly going, I'm fine.

I'm fine.

Is everything okay with you, babe?

I'm fine.

Guess what?

I am decidedly not fine.

And no one believes you're fine.

No, right?

Like, no one.

Because your body is saying something else.

So

it's a, I think the way you're expressing yourself beyond and under and above and in between words

is just helping people who have a hard time connecting with words.

For example,

I just said to my therapist recently, I just feel like

no one's saying anything that's true enough.

And I'm not either.

And it's not that people are lying.

It's that there's just something that's truer than words.

So thank you for that.

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Something you said earlier, can we go back to it about the difference between the writing and the making of the art and how one was armored, but became the most true thing about you, really, and reclaiming it?

I feel like we are living in a moment right now where there's this kind of ultimate valor associated with vulnerability, that it's like that is the gold standard.

You are only humaning as well as you are being vulnerable.

And it's almost like there's like vulnerability police calling us out for any kind of armoring up.

And I feel like you've thought beyond that with the way that you're thinking, because you just said that, yes, it was initially an armoring up to go to the photography and the art.

But then you found that

because of your history, because of who you are, that was actually more truly you than just laying it as bare as possible.

Can you tell us more about that?

Yes, yes.

I have thought very deeply about this, and I think it does come

from the past few years of

really feeling like there are certain ways that people expect you to be vulnerable.

And

when

people hear these things,

black autistic women, there are a possibility of bullet point things that they think I should be vulnerable about in a certain way.

And, oh, well, let's talk about race first and then talk about.

And I'm like, it's not like that.

And I run into situations where

with words where I'm like, I'm going to try to do it their way.

I'm going to try to put this in a nice Instagram caption for you and lay it all out and end with a happy note that leads to a well-rounded comment section and whatever.

Like, I try while maximizing engagement.

Exactly.

And I try to do that.

I'll make them make it shareable.

And every time I do it, I'm just like, no, like it just doesn't come out that way.

I don't have like a Google sheet on my computer of like, okay, here's all the black stuff.

Here's all the autistic stuff.

Here's all the, you know, I'm like, no, it's this constant, like

chaotic, really human experience that every, every now now and then I'm brushing up against words, and every now and then it might turn into a cohesive paragraph that can fit into a comment section.

But a lot of times it's something way more wide and expansive and mysterious than that.

And honestly, it's been these past few years that I've really had to put my foot down in the sense of like, no,

I'm not going to give more than I can give in this space in this way.

One specific moment that I had was after I shared my autism diagnosis.

I do get DMs, emails occasionally.

It's not as many as I expected actually, but I do get comments or people saying like, oh, your diagnosis isn't real.

Here's how I know and all that kind of thing.

And I just had to

After letting somebody have it one time, like

in one comment, maybe more than once, but a few times, I realized I was like, you know what?

I have such little energy already.

I want to preserve it for the people who are not questioning me and for the people who are like seeing themselves and hearing themselves in my story.

Those other people are going to be there, but I'm just not going to answer you.

And I've had moments like that where I've literally responded and said, I'm not answering you.

And I've just had to really put my foot down on that because I do think that when it comes to vulnerability, there's also being in a vulnerable state on the internet.

And I'm like, I have to be very mindful about that.

I have to be very mindful about like this person is saying something that angers me and it's addressing a real

thing that people wonder about or have questions about.

But it doesn't mean it's my responsibility every time it comes at me that I have to then open myself up to all of that.

So I've just become very aware of it.

And there has been some unlearning in that because I think I thought I was being mean at first.

I think I thought I was not serving my community if I'm not addressing every single question and concern.

And it's like, that's not my job.

I can't just sign myself up for endless, endless labor of just like constant, constant explaining myself.

And it's hard because it does make me mad.

But it's like I have to be mindful of my energy too.

Of course, it sounds to me like that is one way that you have learned to

create or protect peace because it is an interesting thing being a

feeling, noticey person who's making art on the internet, because your job is to expose yourself while also creating enough boundaries to stay

soft enough to make your art.

Because you talk so much about peace.

And

I would love to talk to you a little bit about what that means to you.

Because

when you talk about it, I believe you.

But usually when people talk about it, I don't believe them, like the 10 top ways to find peace.

Can you talk to us about what peace means to you?

Yes, yes.

And it's something that I do have to think about all the time before I share anything, before I do anything, even outside of the internet.

And for me, it's very much so peace is a practice of breathing deep.

And I mean that in the most literal sense.

And I think for me, just growing up with a lot of stuff going on health-wise and not knowing what it was, I was having to literally find a

to inhale and exhale to just move through life, to just move through conversations, to just move through the checkout line at the grocery store without sensory overload.

So, just the day-to-day moving from minute to minute at times, depending on where I am, what I'm doing, how stressful life is, it requires so much

of

cycling back into just taking an inhale and an exhale.

And then what that next thing is after that exhale, that is usually the space where I'm like, this is a rhythm that I'm seeking.

I'm seeking that of like,

okay.

And sometimes it's just that.

It's, okay,

all of this is going on.

Okay, got this going on over here, got this going on globally, nationwide, community, in the house, in my body, like all these layers.

Like, okay, all of this

okay

what's next in the next three seconds

what's the next 30 seconds the next 60 seconds

and

i

have been living my life that way out of necessity for a long time and It wasn't until my late 20s and 30s that I started to find out like, oh, hold on, there's other stuff going on that's making this so apparent to you

that this is where the poetry has been coming from.

This is where the art has been coming from.

It's been coming from the fact that you've had to live this out of necessity.

So that's, that's the space that I try to write from when I'm writing about peace.

If I put the word peace or exhale or breathe deep into anything that I make, I try to imagine at least a few spaces where someone else might be having that similar experience.

There's like a few visuals that I kind of go back to

what before I even start sharing about peace, because I mean it in this very simple way.

So I think about it in the simple way of, I'll think of someone sitting in a receptionist area of a doctor's appointment and they're just scrolling through their phone.

There's probably 0.5 seconds that they might land on something of mine.

And what

makes sense to say in that space?

Because I don't know what's going to happen for that person when they go on the other side of that door and they follow the nurse to their waiting room.

I don't know what's going to happen when they have to sit on that awkward little table with that little paper that rolls up.

And like all of that, just, but I know that stuff like makes me more stressed.

Like all those little things make me anxious and whatever I came there for.

I'm not even thinking about that yet.

I'm just trying to sit on the little table right and,

you know, and navigate all of that it's just odd so much so i'm thinking about it in the most basic sense i'm like in that moment just the permission like you are allowed to take a deep breath here and i don't know what's next so that is where a lot of my work falls and there have been times where i have been like oh i think it's too simple but then i just remember all of those little moments that are happening all around the world at any given moment where that stress that anxiety is just compounding and compounding and compounding.

And I'm like, if I can just help remind myself and anybody else

for these next five seconds, if there's just an ounce of release, you're allowed to take that space.

And that's something we can continue to practice expanding.

It works.

Yeah.

It works.

How many times a day do you think

that you remind yourself of that as in terms of practice?

Is it just a,

is that a constant thread throughout every day of your life that you're doing that?

It is, but I usually catch myself in it after I've already started doing it.

So about an hour before this, I was just like, I need an ice cube.

It was just random.

It was just so specific, not a cup of ice.

I was like, I just need one ice cube.

And I just like darted out of the office and ran to the kitchen and got an ice cube and then i came back in here where i record and i just laid on the floor for like two minutes and it was like halfway through i was like oh when i woke up today i didn't do any kind of stretching i had so much going on and i and i was like oh my body told me before my mind even caught up with it.

So a lot, a lot of it is that.

And the difference now is I'm just catching up to it.

So I used to be in music full time and I would be on these shows.

Sometimes I was a performing artist.

Sometimes I was like doing background vocals, lots and lots of random different things.

But I would have these moments where like this darting to the ice cube where I would just say, I need fresh air.

I need fresh air.

I remember one time specifically we were in Lubbock, Texas, which is like West Texas, high winds, like they could probably blow you away.

And they were like, don't go outside.

There's some kind of wind advisor or whatever.

And I was like, I have to, I have to, because the sensory overload of the venue that we were in, there was no escape.

And I was feeling it in every part of my body.

And I just remember running out of the loading dock.

And it was like, it's 18-wheeler.

My body physically just couldn't stay in that space.

I had to get out.

And I was like, I will deal with the wind advisory thing because it's at least a break from the sound.

So this is happening for me every day.

And I'm just now becoming more aware of it of like, oh, my body's telling me stuff even before I've caught up like to what's actually going on.

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So, Morgan, is there a part of this where

you have learned because the deep breath, the

okay.

In the okay,

do we notice signals from our body?

Because usually when we don't breathe, when we don't, when we're just next, next, next, next,

we are overriding, overriding, overriding signals from our body.

And then is our peace and self-acceptance tied together?

Because what I'm hearing you say

is, I needed a piece of ice, so I got one.

I needed to lay down on the floor, so I laid down on the floor i needed to stop the musical

i was going to say ceremony we're having a great words day the musical ceremony yeah concert and leave so i did see these things that you're saying seem simple but in fact they are revolutionary because

none of us need a thing and do it

and so is part of peace, the self-acceptance of I will listen to what I need and do it, even if it's inconvenient for for my moment, for other people, for capitalism, for

all of the things.

And do you do that all day?

Do you hear messages from your body and do what is needed?

Yes, yes.

And going back to the word peace, one thing that I found just in

researching was it was fascinating how oftentimes like peace might be associated with something in nature as a definition.

And one of the most accessible ones that I had that helped me kind of wake up to like, oh, wait a minute, maybe peace isn't like this, you know, bullet point thing that I got to work through every day was, and, you know, people may be familiar with it, but it's a song called It Is Well With My Soul, where it says, peace is a river.

And I took that as a little kid as like a very literal thing.

It was like, oh, peace is a river.

Okay, cool.

And I just left it at that.

And then I was like, wow, as I grew up, I complicated it more.

And for me, it's going back to that of like, well, what does a river do?

Well, a river is this

flow of water that can sometimes be very, a very wide stream.

Sometimes it's more narrow.

Sometimes it curves in ways that are unexpected through the landscape.

And I'm like, maybe the human experience is like that.

I know I'm not.

an actual river, but I'm like, maybe I don't have to become like a breath expert to know that it's in the landscape, like it's in the actual world that I can look out and see.

So, that kind of going back to the whole beyond words thing, one thing I recommend, look for something in nature that makes you feel more serene and consider how you might connect to that.

So, when I think about these moments and like you said, about acceptance and all of that, it's like I feel accepted by a river.

I don't know why.

I don't have words for it, but it could be like the most mundane, non-picturesque little flow of water.

But when I see it, I see it, I feel it.

I want to be near that.

And I'm after that.

And I just want to keep looking for that.

And that's how I saw like the practices I did today, even.

I might not go run and get an ice cube tomorrow.

I might not lie on the floor for 10 minutes, an hour before a conversation tomorrow.

I probably won't even remember it that way tomorrow.

It'll be be something else.

But it's like when you think about every little droplet in a river, it's kind of like that.

Like every drop of water, yes, there's this flow, but there's all of these different ways through that flow.

It's fascinating to me because so many of us are not in active pursuit of peace through these questions that we need to ask ourselves.

What do I want?

What do I need?

That feels like self-care and secondary and something that we're going to like allot into a specific period of our day.

What you're saying is revolutionary to me because it's like, oh, we have access to that every second.

Inside of us.

Yes.

Because we're like, just give me an app.

The nature thing, I just, so our son made us, our son invited us to hike the other day.

Made us.

And we were up in this mountain, like so high.

And it was like nobody had ever hiked there before.

I'm sure.

I felt like I was in the wilderness that no one had seen.

It was a well-worn path.

Okay, whatever.

And Morgan, I kept noticing these flowers that were so freaking beautiful and bright.

And I kept thinking,

these flowers are just blooming and being this bright,

not for anyone to see them.

Nobody ever sees them.

They're just

being

and blooming for themselves.

Yeah.

They're not pursuing vibrancy.

And they're not doing it for anybody else.

They're not like, I am the reddest red that ever read because somebody's going to come and see me and pick me.

They don't give a shit.

They're just like.

Oh, that's so true.

Like there's no little miniature flower billboards scattered amongst them of like, here's how to have the best bloom of the season.

Like

it's just like, no, they don't have that.

They don't have like little magazine stands.

You know, have you tended to your roots today?

And like the little blue flower that honestly is not as cute as the tall red one that I'm looking at is not like, doesn't look up at the red flower and is like, oh, shit.

That's flowers blooming so much.

I'm not even going to vote.

We'll see ROI of my bloom this season.

We're not even going to vote.

We're not where the red flower is at.

Yeah.

Right?

The red flowers like the Kardashians.

Yeah.

They're just all

me.

And this is what I have for this season.

And this is what I'm going to do.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because the next person that walks by prefers the blue flower.

Yeah, maybe.

I don't know.

That blue flower was a little bit.

I mean, who knows?

Like, everybody has their own taste on that.

No, that is a real thing.

Because where I live, we just moved back to Georgia.

We had been on the West Coast for some time and moved back to Georgia.

And I feel like, I don't know, I just feel like Georgia has sticks everywhere.

Just sticks, like just all over the place.

So I just started noticing like little sticks and feeling like little sticks have little personalities and stuff.

So I'll just like go outside.

I'll just like collect some sticks.

And when I tell people, I have a four-year-old, like, oh, you do this with your son.

I'm like, no, he actually doesn't care about sticks at all.

It's just me.

Like, I like to go and collect things.

So I'll just bring them inside.

I'll just look at them.

I'm like, I might be the only human who ever cared about these sticks.

And yeah, they've had a whole life and they didn't actually need me.

Like,

I just happen to be someone who's experiencing them and seeing them, but they didn't need me to live.

I mean, they do need me to take care of the earth.

The sticks are like, hey, be kind out there.

You want an environment.

Please be kind.

But it's like, they didn't need me to write the quote to help them move through their day kind of thing.

And I think the word that comes up for me there a lot is just presence, like just being present to the most seemingly mundane things.

And that has actually just been teaching me a lot because it's like there is a pressure even in nature.

Like you mentioned, like climbing a mountain where it's like, okay, well, what's the view?

Clearly people have been making a big deal about this trail or, you know, whatever it is.

Like, what's the view?

Where's the waterfall?

And all those things are amazing.

And at the same time, there's.

all these little other things that we're encountering along the way that we can be present to that someone someone else might not be present to.

That's actually why I do draw a lot of little things in my artwork as well.

I have some pieces where I've taken photos of sticks and then I will trace over that stick inside of the piece.

And nobody knows that but me.

Well, I've shared it here now, but I don't, I'm not like.

everyone just so you know like there's a stick in there that i just put like a random stick on the sidewalk like nobody has to know that his name is george yeah his name is george so

it's like nobody has to know that intimately for it to matter i know it's there like when i look at this piece later it is a reminder that i was present to this life in the most seemingly insignificant small way and that's something that i can grow and i can expand and it's certainly something i want to pass on as a parent now, too.

I think.

I think it's just like, there's so much

happening.

Like one thing I

hear a lot of people asking me all the time, like, well, I don't know what to do with my life.

And I'm just like, I don't like that question.

I'm more of a, what can I do within my life?

Just expand it a little bit more.

Like, what can we do within?

And we can collect sticks within this life.

We can love.

We can be angry about stuff.

We can lie on the floor.

There's so many things that we can do within life.

I'm trying to just expand that a little bit more.

Within, noticing, within what's here, what's already here.

What I hear you saying is what keeps us from peace is the pursuit of peace.

Like just noticing what's right here.

I go for walks all the time.

That's my thing.

And I, I have a, our middle daughter is purple.

And like, I don't know how else to describe that.

It's a shirt.

She is purple.

And so I collected a bunch of purple rocks for her

and brought them to her to her bedroom.

So Morgan, your child is how old?

Four.

Okay, four.

So

your child would be excited about a bunch of purple rocks.

My child is 17.

So she was in her room and was like,

thanks.

Like,

awesome.

And so then I left kind of like, oh, like she didn't understand.

What What I'm telling you is when I think about when I'm long gone, I feel like that's something that I am going to want her to remember.

That time that my mom brought me all those purple rocks, because there's something that's so human.

It's like a resistance of what the world tells us matters.

It's like proof of nonsense in the best way.

proof of all that does not make us

productive or worthy.

Just so, oh, my mom noticed those purple rocks for me.

Like you having the sticks is so tender and beautiful to me.

I love that about you.

Thanks for sharing that.

Cause I had

a somewhat similar moment, even though my son is four, where I went and collected some sticks and leaves and I laid them out.

on like this big piece of paper and I sat him there and he just like looked at it and like just totally totally unimpressed.

Like he's just like, oh, sticks and leaves.

Like and just went on.

It's like, I'm like, this was supposed to be a beautiful moment.

Like, look at these leaves.

Like, you weren't expecting them.

They were on the table.

And like barely batted an eye and just kept on going.

And it just makes me think, yeah, maybe the moment that was supposed to be, it was supposed to be a bookmark that

back to later.

It's like, maybe it's, it's just a bookmark, a placeholder of a memory that that can be unpacked later on.

And I feel like that takes so much like

patience with us.

Because I'm like, this is supposed to be a moment.

But it's like we're always trying to make our kids happy by the extraordinary.

We'll make it awesome and we'll take, we'll do Disneyland and we'll do blah, blah, blah, blah.

And then we create this addiction to

thinking that what is is not good enough.

But I think sometimes like the best thing we can do is to teach our children to see the beauty in the ordinary because they don't have to

hustle for that if they have that skill.

Yeah.

And one thing I think a lot about that too is that when it comes to seeing the beauty in the ordinary is that I think we would live in a better world if more people paid attention to what had been deemed ordinary.

And I think about a lot of the suffering that we see happening in the world is like well

it takes somebody paying attention to the details It takes someone saying like, wait, but don't forget about these people over here.

Don't forget about the actual conversations we have to have.

Don't forget about the

things that to you, it might be a small thing.

But to this person, it's a really big thing the way you said that.

It's a really big thing the way that impacted them.

And maybe there is no small thing.

Like maybe there is, it's just, it's just small to us.

I I will say that there's been, there's been a theme of me allowing myself to be a little bit more angry, I guess, if you, if you could say, because I did grow up feeling like, don't be mean to people.

Like that was like, don't be mean, don't be mean, don't be mean.

But I've just realized this is like an argument for a way to live.

It's like, no, I am going to be very unapologetic about, no, we have to spend a lot more time.

paying attention to the details.

It doesn't matter if you are sending a rocket somewhere to space or, you know, if you're trying to organize

meals that people can have free access to.

It's like we need people who are in the details, who are noticing the small things, and it makes a difference.

And yeah, it's like a multi-layered thing that I just try to spend a lot of time with because there are times where I do feel like, oh, but am I doing enough?

You know, if I'm like outside collecting sticks, like I'm just like, what does this even mean?

And I'm like, I'm, I'm practicing going deeper.

And this is something I can take into other things.

That's right.

I have a question about that because you just said, I wonder if I'm doing enough because I'm collecting these sticks.

And like, is that enough?

But I'm sitting here as a person heavily socialized and invested in household culture.

And I recognize that completely.

And I feel like sometimes I think about peace.

and the lack of it in my life.

And I'm just like, well, put it in the column of things I'm fucking up.

I don't have enough peace.

Like I don't have enough exercise.

Like I don't have enough quality time with my family, you know, like all of the things that I'm screwing up.

And I'm hearing you picking up sticks and Glennon picking up purple stones.

And I'm like, oh, I'm not doing enough because I would never in a million years.

go out and be like, unless I was doing like an actual program and I had a journal that was like, your activity today is pick up sticks.

Then I would do it.

Yeah.

The tyranny of being like, you should be having more peace and you should be having more presence.

And like, what is the inroad?

If like you're on one side of the spectrum thinking, I'm not doing enough because I'm picking up sticks.

And I'm over here thinking I'm not doing enough because I'm missing all of life because I've never looked at a purple rock and thought to pick it up.

Where is the entree in for someone like me that doesn't feel like this tyrannical, you're not vulnerable enough, you're not peaceful enough to get there a little bit?

Yeah, I love that you said entree because that is an example in my mind.

I'll go with food.

So for instance, I'm not a good like host person.

Like hosting a meal of something, I can maybe order a pizza and make sure it gets here on time.

That's about as far as I can go.

However,

I remember moments from childhood.

where someone who was really good at preparing a meal and they just thought about like the smallest thing.

If someone in the group had an allergy and they went out of their way to create a whole separate thing for that person,

I think that's the same as picking up rocks.

I think the person who sends emails

and they backspace a few words because they're like, oh, I think that might come across the way.

And I want to be sensitive to this person.

And they think about that and they change that up.

I think that's the same thing as going outside and looking at the sky.

I think the people who are listening, they can hear tone and voice.

And I'm conscious of this because I'm being Autistic, I cannot hear tone and voice very well.

And there are people who can tell by the slightest shift in tone that something has changed in that person.

And they're going to be the one who's able to ask in a way that I can't about,

how are you really doing?

and help that person find peace.

So I think there's a lot, like, like, as many as there are stars in the sky, there's so many different ways that, like, we are accessing that and we can nurture that.

Because I'm like, I think some people may, they may never,

like you said, they may never think to, like, I, I don't even really think about the six things.

Sometimes I just open the door and I just go outside and I start doing it.

But I'm also the same person who, if you ask me to prepare a meal for a group of people, there is no peace in that for me like

no like i am angry i'm like why did i who's who who signed me up for this does somebody guilt me into this it is exact opposite no no no um but i know a lot of people who that is how they can help one find room to breathe in their life there's people who have sensibilities around little like spices like they can smell different aroma and spices and like they connect them to different memories and it it helps them calm down.

I've heard people say, Oh, yeah, if I smell this certain scent, it makes me think about this.

I don't have that.

For me, it's a lot of touch and going outside and touching and holding things like that.

So I hope that those examples could at least be like just little dots that people can maybe grasp at.

And because I'm like, I think there's a lot of different ways of doing it.

And I think some ways get more popular because they just seem kind of absurd or just sort of random.

But there's just so much that humans do that is so

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I see you in those pictures you send me on the sidelines of the basketball court.

She's a coach.

She coaches eight-year-olds, girls in basketball.

Okay.

And she sends me these pictures of her intently looking in these girls' eyes.

First of all, my sister doesn't know shit about basketball.

Is it even basketball?

What are you playing?

I coach basketball.

Basketball, I don't know anything about anything.

I just scream, believe in yourself.

Yes.

But like the intensity and beauty that you are concentrating with these girls.

And I can see these pictures of you with their your eyes and they're looking at you.

And that is collecting purple rocks and sticks.

I think maybe you need to, you don't need to do shit.

You could just notice all the things you're already doing that are picking up purple rocks.

Yes, because that's the little thing.

Those little girls are already there.

Yes.

It's already there.

Morgan, that just like expanded my heart when you were saying that.

You said like, you're so sick of the find your purpose bullshit, which thank you for the love of God.

And, but you say, focus on what energizes you and excites you.

Sticks excite you.

Little girls being a disaster on the basketball court, but getting one hoop the entire season thrills me like nothing has to date.

And so it's just paying attention to that connectedness, right?

You connected to the earth, me connected to these little kids.

That's all the same bag is what I hear.

It's the same.

It's the same.

It is absolutely the same.

Sister, Morgan, sister thought you were going to make her pick up sticks.

No.

It's, and it's so funny.

I used to think that way.

Like, I used to think like, okay, we all got to get out in nature.

But it's like, you know, it's a huge part of nature.

People.

Like

if you, people, like humans, like we need other humans to be present to humans.

Like not everybody can go outside and pick up sticks off the ground.

That's not going to be everyone.

Of course, I love people, but I'm not as in that real time.

Like I'd be a horrible coach of any kind.

I'd be like, I can write them some poems and deliver them after the game.

Halftime speech.

But there's actually billions of different ways and we're already doing it.

And I do think it's just, it's noticing and looking, because even a lot of the things that I'm.

that I'm so passionate about now, such as the arts and emphasizing art as communication and not prioritizing words.

I didn't even realize that till I looked back on my life and realized I had already been doing it.

And it was like, yes, it was incredibly awkward at summer camp when all that was happening.

And I felt like I was fighting for my life.

But at the same time, it's like, no, you were living that out then too.

It was like you were saying, no, I'm going to show up to this camp.

exactly like I need to today.

And that's just going to be what it is.

And of course, I didn't have that confidence at that time, but I was practicing it.

It was there.

So I look back on that.

Now I'm like, oh, that's what I'm doing today.

I'm doing a different version of that.

I'm literally putting stuff out there on the internet that people can take it and take it anywhere.

They can do whatever they want with it.

And now I'm aware.

I'm noticing, oh, this is something that I've been doing all along.

This is how I've been practicing courage all along.

This is how I've been, I've already been doing it.

And I'm just going to keep nurturing that.

I actually had a question about that because it does seem that you are uniquely

courageous and brilliant and very special in the way of you seem to be, I feel like accommodating has this kind of negative connotation, like it's a.

it's for a deficit of some sort.

And I don't mean that.

I mean it in the strongest, most powerful way of you were accommodating how you were made in your life, even when you were biddy coming up.

I feel like most of us spend our whole lives just trying to kill that thing that's calling for our own accommodation

inside of us.

But I'm wondering how your later in life diagnosis of autism, did that change your even self-perception?

of these accommodations that you had built into your life to be who you are.

And if so, what was the shift there

as a result of that?

That is such a good question.

And honestly, credit to my therapists, because the specialist that I saw who helped me through the whole diagnosis process, like very clearly said, Morgan, you have grown up and moved through life thinking your needs don't matter and thinking that you're not someone who can be accommodated for.

And now it's time to open up and accommodate all that from childhood all the way till now.

There's space for you.

No apologizing for it.

And having someone tell me that very, very directly, it really was a wake-up call.

Cause I don't think anyone had told me that before.

I don't think I had ever really heard to my face like that.

No, your needs matter in a big way, not like.

like i think obviously like secondary i had done that a lot of like okay yeah my needs matter but i mean hold on though there's real stuff going on.

It's like, no, this is front and center.

We have to address this.

I'll just give some very specifics.

It started, it started with the top layers of like when I was just telling everything that I was doing.

And they're like, you're going to have to take off like half of the things that you're doing in the day because you're just doing too much.

And I was like, but this is my job.

This is my job.

This is my job.

And she's like, well, what can we do to make your job less stressful?

Like, do you need to move?

I did move to a more affordable state.

Like, I did a lot of things like that.

And then it was working into the layers, as you were saying, of like, oh and there's versions of little morgan that needed that too of like what did little morgan need off of her plate what did little morgan need when she was sitting at the picnic table we talked like likes and follows like you know that has a back connotation but it's like yeah maybe some likes and follows would have helped that summer you know if i could have shared those poems online but there was no social media yet it's like maybe that would have helped like you know what these kids at camp don't get it but there's some some kid in you know south africa who liked my liked my poem my poem who gets it so yeah it's like what did what did morgan need then so yeah i'm still working on it for sure i have not figured it out but i i'm at least aware of like and i love that you said the word accommodation i think that's a i think that's a good word and to bring to bring forth in something like this because it's something i want to remember i like the emphasis on accommodating as opposed to assimilating.

Like,

because we tend to measure success.

I'm successful the more I can assimilate, the more I can do things the way the world wants me to do.

I went to the party.

I did all the work for eight hours.

I did the thing.

Success, is it?

Or can I measure success based on how much I didn't do the things that don't serve me?

Like that I didn't.

Well, this week I didn't, I said no to the party.

I did way less work.

So success.

Like I accommodated my own needs as opposed to success being out as much as I changed into what society needed me to be.

Yes.

And for everyone and in every circumstance, I mean, it's life, it's relationships.

I have just started to believe our marriage therapist for the first time, like maybe she's on to something, even though she said it 400 times, that I don't have to, when I don't like something, put it in my head for 24 hours and decide.

If that's reasonable, if your average person would find that not okay,

if I'm just being a raging bitch, that I just get to say,

I don't like this.

Yes.

And that maybe it is crazy.

And guess what?

It doesn't matter because this is who I am.

There's only two people in this relationship and one of them doesn't like this.

You can at least accommodate two people.

But that is a monumental idea.

Like I would sift it through, is this reasonable?

Is this crazy?

Before I would ever even say it out of my mouth.

That's accommodating yourself, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And there's so much more room for that.

This conversation, just me even thinking, I'm like, yeah, I'm probably just

getting started with even realizing like, oh, there's probably a lot more in my life that I have felt like I've had to do or I've had to keep up.

And maybe there are more questions that.

I can ask myself and say, no, how do I do this in a way that I

that is actually fruitful and helpful to me and and can help me not even just grow but to just rest more and to just have more time where i'm like okay i did what i did now i'm just gonna go walk away now and and not think about anything for the rest of the day in this area so that's something i've been trying to bring with my work too because it has become harder when when i now share things and art and poetry and i doing all these collaborations and things it's like oh what's next what's next what's next If you're just like, I don't know all the time, like sometimes people are like, what does that mean?

I'm like, I don't know.

I honestly don't know.

I'm still trying to figure out how I got to this point.

So it's, it's very interesting because I am feeling that.

But at the same time, there is like this sort of journey that I'm going on right now of like, well, how do I invite other people into that?

How do I invite other people into,

yes, yes, we can look at our lives as a story, but maybe it's this non-linear story.

So the hero's journey, I've been very interested in that.

And I love the hero's journey.

I love the hero's journey.

However, what I've started to look at, and I'm like, you know what?

So many representations of the hero's journey is this perfect circle.

And I'm like, this is great for a two and a half hour movie.

This is great for a television show series.

But when it comes to life, it's a lot more,

a lot more like moving through an actual landscape.

It's not this perfect circle.

So I was writing about different parts of a story when I was writing my book.

You were only just beginning.

Originally, I planned on doing like, oh, I need to have like perfect circles in the book.

So everyone knows like where they are in the journey of the book.

And I'm like, actually, life isn't like that.

In this space, it's going to be, yes, it's a story.

And it's all over the place.

Yes.

And also, story implies words.

Journey implies.

one foot in front of the other.

The hero's journey implies that everything is geared towards the top of that mountain.

The hero's journey doesn't emphasize the sticks along the way.

All of that stuff is not the way that we're experiencing life.

It's the climax.

It's like everything is like, just keep your head down till you get to this top thing.

I get so disappointed when I live that way.

Like if I get to the top of the mountain and everyone's oohing and awing about the view and I'm like,

yeah.

But

the way that you're doing it is is so different than maybe it's not just a one foot in front of the other journey.

Maybe it's not a story made up of words.

Maybe it's the small sticks.

And, you know, I think I have two teenagers and

sometimes words aren't cutting it.

Like we can't,

if I just depend on words right now in this phase,

we will miss each other forever.

And so sometimes I just have to be Morgan.

Like I'm standing there and I'm like, okay, what I mean is just like sitting here with you on the couch.

The truth is just, I guess, me just putting my hand on your leg for a second, not too long because that's too intimate at this moment, but like

the truth is just me not leaving the room and being quiet.

And so this conversation is freeing to me because I feel like in this culture, we think if we don't communicate it to each other with words and nail it, that we are not being real enough with each other.

And if you've ever raised a teenager, you know that can't be it.

There are truths that can just be expressed to each other standing next to each other or

being in different rooms and loving each other huge from our hearts.

The truth doesn't always have to be communicated with words.

That is so profound.

The way you said that, I never thought about how even like in teenage years,

it's like a threshold because childhood is a lot more embodied, a lot more present in a lot of ways.

Like you're very present to like big emotions, but oh, it just makes me have so much compassion for teenagers because it's like, you're now at this threshold of like, no, it's time to like cut all that out and get it into words.

And what are you going to do with your life?

Where are you going to go?

And how are you going to?

And it's like, wow, but you're coming from a whole lifetime so far.

of like, no, emotions are actually really, really big.

And I feel them.

and then now it's like growing up you're getting that message of like no tone it down like put it into a paragraph i'm like oh that's really that's a lot that's a lot it's making me think about my teenage years in different ways thanks for saying that that's that's really profound

morgan harper nichols thank you for being you because you being you

Do we please just keep accommodating constantly because it helps all of us and it like helps us all.

You being yourself is allowing us to be ourselves more.

And thanks for somehow magically on pages and the interwebs, creating a place that is beyond pages and interwebs.

Not sure how you're doing it, but I appreciate it very much.

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