August 23, 2024 • 37 mins
in this penultimate episode of season 2, we explore the essential role of DISRUPTION as a catalyst for inner & outer transformation.
from protest movements to your own deepest inner work, let’s open up to disruption as responsibility, as intervention, and as disorientation from cultural conditioning toward a new personal and collective alignment.
~show notes~
- uncommitted movement (@uncommittedmvmt)
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- wonder valley olive oil (welcometowondervalley.com)
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/// sound-editing/design ~ rose blakelock, theme song ~ kat ottosen, podcast art ~ natalee miller///
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
In 2005, I did my very first public disruption of
a politician.
It was a conservative luncheonwith keynote speaker Donald
Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Official POS.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
To talk about how well the war on terror effort
was going in Iraq, which was agreat big, fat lie.
Anyway, I was with a woman whowas a gold star mom, meaning her
child, her son, a member of theUnited States Army and was
killed in action in Iraq, waskilled in action in Iraq.
(00:46):
And so we stuffed banners downour britches and walked in like
we owned the place, sat down atour tables, and the agreement
was that I was going to go firstand then she would get up and
yell at Donald Rumsfeld and askhim why her son had to die.
And I was so nervous I hadnever done this before and I so
(01:09):
badly wanted to feel like abadass.
But I was so scared and I,honestly, was just waiting the
clock out, hoping that DonaldRumsfeld would just kind of
quickly wrap up his speech, andshe was urging me with her eyes.
Oh how cringe, because sheneeded me to do the thing first
(01:30):
and I thought in that momentabout some damn transformational
course that I had taken a fewmonths before.
It was some of the first innerwork I ever did.
And there was a guy standing upin front of the room, in front
of all the people, and the coachasked him something and the guy
(01:50):
was like, well, I tried, I'mtrying, I was trying.
And the coach this stockypowerhouse named Sodi he was
like, oh, you were trying.
Huh here, pick up this box ofKleenex, Try to drop it.
You can't, you can't try todrop it.
(02:12):
You either drop it or you don'tdrop it.
Like trying to drop it justlooks like not dropping it.
And I was sitting there at thattable trying to get up but my
trying to get up just lookedlike not getting up and it would
look like not getting up eventhough I was really trying to
muster the courage.
(02:33):
And I thought of Sodi and thatstupid tissue box and how goofy
that man looked trying to dropit.
Look, trying to drop it.
I was like, oh, that's me, oh,that's, that's not it, that's
not what I want.
I don't want to try to do this.
(02:58):
This woman needs me, Likeweirdly, this woman, who I don't
know and will never see again,needs me to do this thing so she
can do this thing that shereally needs to do.
I am a fucking conduit.
I am a portal for this woman totravel through so that she can
ask Donald Rumsfeld why her sonhad to die.
I can't even really comprehendall of this, but I just kicked
(03:21):
my shoes off, got up on a chairand ripped that banner out of my
pants and started shouting thesecond leader.
She gets up, kicks her shoesoff, gets on the chair, unfurls
her banner and says the thingsthat she needed to say.
The look on her face and herbody language.
The look on her face and herbody language.
(03:44):
And she almost didn't get to dothat because I didn't do it,
Because I was busy trying, andinstead I just did the thing,
and it was so scary, andsecurity guards came and kind of
wrestled us down from thechairs and dragged us out and
(04:07):
just deposited us back out onthe sidewalk with the rest of
our people.
We did it because we had to.
It was messy and awkward andconfusing and scary and
liberating and beautiful andtender and rage-filled.
There's this quote by TomRobbins and even cowgirls get
the blues that I love.
(04:27):
And it goes like this In timesof widespread chaos and
confusion, it has been the dutyof more advanced human beings
artists, scientists, clowns andphilosophers to create order.
In times such as ours, however,when there's too much order,
too much management, too muchprogramming and control, it
(04:48):
becomes the duty of superior menand women to fling their
favorite monkey wrenches intothe machinery.
To relieve the repression ofthe human spirit, they must sow
doubt and disruption.
And the writer James Baldwinonce wrote the role of the
artist is exactly the same asthe role of the lover.
(05:10):
If I love you, I have to makeyou conscious of the things you
don't see.
And lastly, dear Zadie Smith,in her novel White Teeth wrote
you are never stronger than whenyou land on the other side of
despair.
Jacuzzi Crying in my jacuzzi.
(05:32):
Crying in my jacuzzi.
(06:09):
Welcome, welcome, welcome backto Crying in my Jacuzzi, where
we live, laugh, love in theAnthropocene.
In the last episode, where dearlistener Stan asked us such an
important question, brought tous such an important inquiry
about how do we learn to be andlive well with our anger, and
(06:31):
the response we gave was abouthow being in relationship with
it and how learning to be inrelationship with it, the
process of the relationship,could support him and others,
the small population of us withjust some anger and rage inside
(06:52):
of us, that by being inrelationship with those feelings
, with that nuanced and complexand ever unfolding experience of
anger and rage, that thatunfolding relationship could
help us be better communitymembers, maybe even better
(07:14):
movement builders.
Because in these wild times andmaybe this was always true, but
dang it if it don't feel extra,extra, extra true right now our
inner work supports our outerwork.
One is critical for the other.
(07:35):
And because in this episodewe're going to dig in on the
diverse, diversely effectivestrategy of disruption on an
inner work and outer work level.
Because this is being recordedon the eve of the DNC, the
(07:57):
Democratic National Conventionin Chicago.
It's also the full moon inAquarius, the great disruptor,
divine timing, as the kids say,that we might want to look at
only what's happening out in theworld, but here in this space,
broadcasting from the Jacuzziverse, we are holding both.
(08:20):
We are going to hold theimportance of the inner work
with the outer work, becauselet's consider what's at stake.
If we don't care for ourselves,we can miss our roles.
We can miss our roles, we canmiss out on our responsibilities
(08:42):
to our communities, to ourfamilies, to people who need our
solidarity that we may nevermeet.
We can miss the miracles thatare trying to come through us.
(09:21):
We can be so.
Separateness, powerlessness andrepression All primary wounds of
humanity.
And when we're that shut down,shut down to ourselves, shut
down to the truth of who wereally are, and just caught in
(09:41):
these endless.
They're like time loops right,where we're just repeating the
same patterns over and over andover, without the shift of
learning from them, of observingthe patterns and being like, oh
shit, what's that?
Let me look at that.
Oh, look at me doing these oldthings Like what's that about?
(10:03):
Let me figure this out?
Or let me get some help tofigure this out and let me just
be with this.
And oh, what are those feelings?
And oh, where is that in mybody?
And oh, where is that?
From what point in my life ormy lineage?
When we're just in theunconscious swirls?
There's so much that we couldbe missing, so many miracles
(10:26):
that we could be missing out onthe miracles of connection, the
miracles of relationality You'rea miracle the miracles of the
unseen world, because we arejust trapped in the only seen
experience that we have knownand our imaginations get so
small and our lives get so small.
(10:46):
So when we disrupt, disruptivethis is the work that I do with
my clients and students when wedisrupt those old patterns, old
unconscious patterns, it's notjust for the experience of huh,
whew.
(11:06):
I feel better not being stuckin that old painful loop or not
beating myself up in this way orthat way.
I mean, that's a byproduct andit's delicious, just like my
beautiful friend Allison, whomakes Wonder Valley olive oil.
And a byproduct of the oliveoil pressing was this silky
(11:33):
olive mush.
It wasn't even mush, it waslike just silky slime.
And oh my God, lo and behold,you rub that shit on your face
and it is amazing.
So the main thing is the oilpressing.
There's pressure, there'stension, squeezing the juice
(11:58):
when sometimes it doesn't seemlike there's a lot of juice to
squeeze and sometimes there aredelightful byproducts, delicious
experiences that arise from thetension and the pressure of the
squeeze Of the inner work.
Right, we are riding thisanalogy here.
Inner work, right, we areriding this analogy here and you
(12:25):
couldn't have seen or known therelief or the softness or any
of the other things that happensometimes as a result of inner
work.
And there they are.
So you just rub it on yourfucking face and everyone tells
you you look refreshed andyou're like, oh, thank god, I
(12:46):
needed that.
You get the relief, thebyproduct of when you're doing
inner work, of the dis, when youstart to disrupt those patterns
.
When we start to look at yourlife and look at the patterns of
your life now, the places whereyou're feeling stuck and
contracted, and we use them asaccess points to your deepest
beliefs about yourself and theworld and yourself in the world,
(13:08):
and we start to look at thosestuck places and we start to
look at those core beliefs andwe look at those Genesis stories
and moments of your life ofwhen those beliefs came into
formation, how it happened whenit happened, that sweet little
person that you were, and howyou were doing your very, very,
(13:30):
very best to come up with thisidea, this thought that then
became a repeated thought, then,over time, became a belief,
then, over time, rooted like alittle plant inside of you and
grew a tree and you have beenwatering it because it was the
best you could do at the time.
To believe that you were wrongjust by being yourself, or you
(13:51):
didn't belong and you werealways separate, or the universe
was never going to support youor be there for you and you are
all alone, or that you have nopower, or that your anger is bad
and will hurt people, or youwill hurt people if you are
yourself, or that you don'tdeserve a love or care, or
(14:13):
you'll never be met.
Whatever that core, limitingbelief is for you or are there
are many of them that when wedisrupt those patterns as they
exist in your life now and makepeace and love and relationship
with those parts of yourselfthat have been holding it in
(14:36):
place, and then protecting thatlittle, tiny person version of
you who definitely, under nocircumstances ever wanted to
have those feelings anddestabilizing experiences ever
again, whatever gave rise tothat belief, that belief system,
belief, that belief system, thedisruption, along with the
(14:57):
repair and the integrating, notjust resisting.
There is great power there.
There is a miracle, a miracle.
So, yes, you get that delicious, like relief, and that like
silky, slime face mask offeeling a little calmer, feeling
(15:17):
a little better, feeling likeyou understand yourself a little
bit more.
You get all of these delightfulthings, but it's always I'm
coming back around here Hopeyou're still on the train it is
always in practice for serviceof connection.
Yes, we practice with ourselves, but this is about how we be
(15:41):
with each other.
So when we do the inner tending, using the analogy of the mask,
it's like we're also reallylike pressing the essence out of
the olives.
I don't know if this analogy isgoing to work, let's see.
It's like we're squeezing thejuice, the nourishing, the most
(16:05):
nourishing oils, and that to me,is the long haul effects of our
inner work that shifts us, thatallows us to become more
present, more relational, moreavailable for connection, and
(16:25):
that's, that's the oil.
Right then then we can likelube ourselves up, mm-hmm, all
slippery like, and then sliparound out in the world with
each other Like a bunch oflittle salamanders coming to
shore to mate.
(16:46):
That's a weird idea, but howcute are we In the
miraculousness of our own innerwork and tender tending, healing
work, so that then we can betogether.
So disruption, disruption,disruption right, because when
(17:09):
now?
When we're together?
So now, okay.
So we've done some inner work,we've done some of the inner
disruption of those old patterns.
Looking at them.
I'm not walking you through thewhole process, this is what I
teach.
It takes a little bit longerthan this, but the idea here is
important because once we'veknown how to do that with
(17:31):
ourselves, we have practice.
Then we know what change feelslike in our bodies.
And let me tell you that wasthe number one reason that I
moved from full-time activismand organizing to interpersonal
transformational work.
Because I was with people.
(17:51):
We knew how to disrupt all overthe place, outward, outside,
out in the world.
And look, that work matters.
What's happening?
It's literally called disruptthe DNC.
It is happening right nowPeople putting pressure on the
Harris-Waltz campaign, on KamalaHarris, on Tim Waltz, on that
(18:16):
burgeoning potentialadministration and the current
Democratic administration.
It matters to do this now andwhen.
I was super active back in theanti-war aughts right, like in
the second Iraq war, aughtsright, like in the second iraq
war, pushing against the bushadministration and then the
(18:40):
obama administration, which I'lltell you what a whole lot of
steam was created to get obamaelected.
Yes, we can obama.
Oh wait, remember, yes, we canObama 08, remember All the hope,
hope, hope.
And I'll tell you what thatthat fizzled out.
That push for change fizzled.
(19:02):
We're going to keep our eye onthat.
I suggest we do.
But in that time of activism, weknew how to make all the change
outwardly and there was a lotof room for growth in the inward
change and I was having my ownpersonal experience of moving
from burnout into my own deepspiritual work and that was
(19:26):
changing the way that I wasshowing up in the world, because
I hadn't been caring for myself.
I was surrounded by a whole lotof people just like me.
We hadn't been caring forourselves.
We actually believed it was badto do that.
I like to call that now punkdamage and thank you to the
(19:47):
brilliant Lacey Perpich-Hedgkey,in charge of the future in
Minneapolis for introducing meto that term punk damage.
But we believed that it was bad.
This is what punk damage is Todo our own inner tending.
Anything tending to ourselves,even just like taking time off
or having any resources, reallywhatsoever was super selfish,
(20:19):
was super selfish and we neededto sacrifice everything and just
show up in suffering and stressin order to be in legit
solidarity with those sufferingout in the world.
That makes for a lot of burnout,and I'm bringing this up
because in the not caring formyself and a bunch of us just
(20:43):
kind of everyone I knew that wasaround my age inside of
organizing and activism in someway, shape or form, we became
really, really burnt out and so,in a way, we were missing
miracles.
We were missing our roles andresponsibilities because we
couldn't uphold them, because wehadn't upheld ourselves, and we
(21:06):
were focusing on change out inthe world and didn't really know
what it felt like in our ownbodies to dismantle systems of
oppression inside of ourselves,to dismantle oppressive
programming and conditioninginside of ourselves.
We didn't know how to do it.
It wasn't even okay to do it.
(21:26):
So I went on my own quest todisrupt, to learn how to take my
skills of disruption inside ofmyself.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
And that's why he makes the big bucks.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
So I shrunk my outer disruptor self, like the one who
was out in the world as anactivist, disrupting elected
officials, chasing members ofCongress around, trying to
arrest them in public spaces,and I shrunk it down and
(22:02):
leveraged, I guess, that powerto tend and care for myself, and
I'm forever grateful for that.
That was a miracle.
That was me becoming more ofmyself.
This is my hope for all of usto use disruption in this way.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
Oh hi, it's me Janet.
Did you know that if you leavea 5 star rating and a review on
Apple Podcasts, you'll beentered in a monthly drawing for
a free coaching session withDana?
God, you bitch seriously.
I'm so serious.
Just leave five stars and awritten review, then send dana
an email with the title easypeasy lemon squeezy.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
Details are in the show notes below so in the last
episode I also said that we werein our apocalypse era and that
apocalypse is an unveiling theveils being pulled back, dropped
, revelations abound and I thinkin the past 10 months, when the
(23:26):
active occupation of palestine,specifically of Gaza, turned
into an active genocide ofGazans and the Palestinian
people, that there have been alot of veils pulled back for a
whole lot of people.
And you guys, I don't thinkwe're going away from that.
(23:49):
I think we're only going moreinto the veil dropping, removal.
We're in a time now where youngpeople who are maybe voting for
the first time or this is theirfirst presidential election
(24:20):
election this is a generationthat grew up with regular active
shooter drills.
I missed out on that as a 43year old.
That was not my reality.
These kids were and are, butwere forced into a level of
adulthood and death awarenessSee a couple episodes back
(24:40):
called Just a Little Death Boopwith a Side of Death Cult, a
cult, a cult.
I have great reverence forthese kids and if they're not
seeing the difference betweenDemocrats and Republicans, that
is not all on them.
She's right.
You know they have had a lot ofresponsibility continuously
(25:03):
heaped on them and not all thework is theirs to do and not all
the responsibility is theirs totake and hold.
We all bear it is theirs totake and hold, we all bear it.
And in this apocalypse era, inour apocalypse era, here we are
all feeling the effects of theseveils dropping of understanding
(25:29):
aspects of imperialism thatmaybe we weren't paying
attention to before.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
I mean, project 2025 is in our social lexicon.
Regular ass people now know whothe Heritage Foundation is and
what a bunch of psychopathic,racist, misogynist creeps they
are.
Oh, also, alex is on vacation,so it's just me today.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
Crybabies, I feel expensive, though I have friends
and clients, so many friendsand so many clients that have
come to me and been like oh mygod, dana, I didn't see all of
this before.
And because of the nature, theviolent, heartbreaking,
(26:12):
mind-bending, soul-splittingnature of the annihilation of
the Palestinian people, one of afew active genocides happening
on the planet at this timeman-made, man-made that they,
these people in my life, many ofthem have chosen to disrupt, to
(26:40):
take up disruption as aresponsibility.
Remember what I said earlier,that if we don't care for
ourselves, we can miss out onour responsibilities and our
roles to our people, to ourcommunities, to our families.
Because disruption is aresponsibility.
It is incredibly uncomfortableto do it in your own inner world
and then to go out and do it,whether it's just a one-on-one
(27:02):
conversation, uncomfortableconversation with someone you
deeply care about and yourealize you are not on the same
page at all, or in the widercontext of your family, or maybe
your, your workplace or yourcommunity.
Those folks are some of thebravest people that I know.
They don't have a background ofseveral decades of activism and
(27:27):
organizing and being aprofessional disruptor like I do
, which sometimes I'm sograteful for, and sometimes I
have to be careful that I don'tget complacent, but I'm watching
so many of you move out ofcomplacency.
That was just unconscious.
No judgment truly into a placethrough the portal of apocalypse
(27:52):
.
That was just unconscious.
No judgment Truly Into a placeThrough the portal of apocalypse
.
Right this unveiling Into allof these realizations and
revelations and being willing toquestion authorities that had
gone unquestioned to attempt tobreak down systems that feel
(28:18):
monolithic.
My loving reminder to you allwho are resonating with this and
feeling like this has been yourpath over the last year, that
there's nothing wrong with youfor not having seen all the
(28:39):
things that you see now, for nothaving seen them before.
It is not your responsibilityto take the whole thing down
yourself.
It's not your responsibility tosave everyone.
It can be your responsibilityto care for yourself inside of
this work, because this is thelong haul and it can be part of
(28:59):
your role and responsibility tobe a disruptor, and that means
the ways you've internalizedthese big systems that you are
seeing outside of yourself rightnow, the ways that you have
internalized them inside ofyourself.
Both and Both are necessary.
I have learned this.
(29:20):
I say this with the convictionof all of the marrow in my bones
.
In an apocalypse era.
We are going to be disoriented.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
Why be disoriented?
Speaker 1 (29:33):
it is disorienting, but we can harness
disorientation throughdisruption and then allow for a
disorienting from our collectiveover-culture programming.
What we are told is right andis wrong is possible and
(29:58):
impossible.
That when we have the courageto ask the questions, the
important questions of wait,what does that actually feel
like?
What does that actually feellike?
Is that resonant?
Is that aligned with what Ifeel and understand to be true
and right and of value?
(30:18):
And am I coming from a place ofpresence and compassion?
And so we harness that embrace.
We embrace the disorientationbecause that's what is happening
and it doesn't feel great.
It is destabilizing, which isgoing to bring up all our oldest
(30:41):
triggers, because all thoselimiting belief patterns I was
talking about before, thoseGenesis times when we were just
like little people and we weredoing our best, that whole thing
I said before, those all camefrom when we were little people,
feeling destabilized, right.
So this disorientation that ishappening now for so many of us
(31:04):
and then a reorientation.
Mind you, we will not stay indisorientation, only that
experience, forever.
That is not how this works, butit is deeply uncomfortable and
so we're going to try to getcomfortable and we're going to
try to find some security andstability, and it is worth
looking at what is actual truesecurity, because we might have
(31:29):
other people's definitionsoperating for us, because maybe
our previous definitions ofsecurity didn't include thinking
about people that we wouldnever meet and never really know
in faraway lands, and then werealize how all of our yes,
liberations, all of our security, all of our existences are
(31:54):
really tied together, and thenhow do we want to find real
stability?
Right, that's thisreorientation.
So it's a lot.
I'm saying a lot of things and alot of words, words, words,
words, words, words, words.
Disruption, disorientation,reorientation, attention,
(32:16):
imperialism, interpersonal,inner work, shadow shadow,
shadow, unconscious patterns,community responsibility.
But inside of all of that, onthe eve of the DNC, in a moment
in time, on this timeline whereschool's about to be back in
(32:40):
session, we are going to see thestudent encampments rise again
and that solidarity movement,that anti-war, anti-occupation
movement, the presidentialcampaign that is election time,
mishigas, that is still going,and we are going to see
disruptions, disruptions,disruptions out there as a real
(33:00):
strategy and tactic for change.
And maybe you're a part of that, maybe you're watching it from
afar, maybe you feel like you'refull of disagreement around it,
maybe you've identifieddifferent roles and
responsibilities for yourself.
But wherever you are on thespectrum, I wish for you to care
(33:25):
for yourself for yourself, togive yourself some of your own
very precious attention.
I ask that, as we see each otherworking in different ways and
maybe they seem contrary that wecan find some presence in
ourselves and some compassionand some curiosity for each
(33:49):
other and the different ways inwhich we are trying to come
together.
And who benefits from us makingeach other wrong?
Who benefits from us being shutdown and lost and all the
unconscious patterns andinternalizing of oppressive
systems?
(34:10):
Who benefits from that?
Because I bet it's not you.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
I know my crybabies how uncomfortable and
destabilizing and just scary itcan be.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
To just be alive right now oh, I'd kill for a
good comma right now but toconsider doing our own personal
work and to just know that it'sessential, it has a role, and
even to do the outer work ofdisruption or to even see others
doing it, when we don't fullyunderstand the tactic that
(34:58):
they're taking or why they'redoing it.
In this moment that we're allreally trying to figure out
these ways to disrupt thesesystems, and when we imagine
that there's only one way to doit, or there's a right way and a
wrong way, that that binarycould be shrinking our
(35:20):
imaginations of what's possiblefor each of us, what's possible
for us in the collective, couldbe shrinking it down so small.
And whenever we get that smalland that limited and that
separate, we're going to forgetthat we belong to each other
every single time.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
Because we're in this together and we got to help
each other out.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
I love you so much.
Thank you for being here.
Thank you for being here Forcrying in my jacuzzi with me.
You are loved crybabies In allof your disruptive glory.
Crying in my jacuzzi, crying inmy jacuzzi.
(36:12):
If you enjoyed what we did heretoday, go over to wherever it
is that you are listening tothis podcast and give us a
rating as many stars Five asyour heart desires.
(36:32):
Theme music and other musicalbits by the very talented Kat
Otteson.
Sound design and editing by theeffervescent Rose Blakelock.
Thank you, thank you.
Thank you so much for beinghere.
I look forward to playing withyou more in my jacuzzi.
That sounded dirtier than Imeant it, but you know what I
(36:55):
mean, you, you.
In 2005, I did my very first public disruption of
a politician.
It was a conservative luncheonwith keynote speaker Donald
Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Official POS.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
To talk about how well the war on terror effort
was going in Iraq, which was agreat big, fat lie.
Anyway, I was with a woman whowas a gold star mom, meaning her
child, her son, a member of theUnited States Army and was
killed in action in Iraq, waskilled in action in Iraq.
(00:46):
And so we stuffed banners downour britches and walked in like
we owned the place, sat down atour tables, and the agreement
was that I was going to go firstand then she would get up and
yell at Donald Rumsfeld and askhim why her son had to die.
And I was so nervous I hadnever done this before and I so
(01:09):
badly wanted to feel like abadass.
But I was so scared and I,honestly, was just waiting the
clock out, hoping that DonaldRumsfeld would just kind of
quickly wrap up his speech, andshe was urging me with her eyes.
Oh how cringe, because sheneeded me to do the thing first
(01:30):
and I thought in that momentabout some damn transformational
course that I had taken a fewmonths before.
It was some of the first innerwork I ever did.
And there was a guy standing upin front of the room, in front
of all the people, and the coachasked him something and the guy
(01:50):
was like, well, I tried, I'mtrying, I was trying.
And the coach this stockypowerhouse named Sodi he was
like, oh, you were trying.
Huh here, pick up this box ofKleenex, Try to drop it.
You can't, you can't try todrop it.
(02:12):
You either drop it or you don'tdrop it.
Like trying to drop it justlooks like not dropping it.
And I was sitting there at thattable trying to get up but my
trying to get up just lookedlike not getting up and it would
look like not getting up eventhough I was really trying to
muster the courage.
(02:33):
And I thought of Sodi and thatstupid tissue box and how goofy
that man looked trying to dropit.
Look, trying to drop it.
I was like, oh, that's me, oh,that's, that's not it, that's
not what I want.
I don't want to try to do this.
(02:58):
This woman needs me, Likeweirdly, this woman, who I don't
know and will never see again,needs me to do this thing so she
can do this thing that shereally needs to do.
I am a fucking conduit.
I am a portal for this woman totravel through so that she can
ask Donald Rumsfeld why her sonhad to die.
I can't even really comprehendall of this, but I just kicked
(03:21):
my shoes off, got up on a chairand ripped that banner out of my
pants and started shouting thesecond leader.
She gets up, kicks her shoesoff, gets on the chair, unfurls
her banner and says the thingsthat she needed to say.
The look on her face and herbody language.
The look on her face and herbody language.
(03:44):
And she almost didn't get to dothat because I didn't do it,
Because I was busy trying, andinstead I just did the thing,
and it was so scary, andsecurity guards came and kind of
wrestled us down from thechairs and dragged us out and
(04:07):
just deposited us back out onthe sidewalk with the rest of
our people.
We did it because we had to.
It was messy and awkward andconfusing and scary and
liberating and beautiful andtender and rage-filled.
There's this quote by TomRobbins and even cowgirls get
the blues that I love.
(04:27):
And it goes like this In timesof widespread chaos and
confusion, it has been the dutyof more advanced human beings
artists, scientists, clowns andphilosophers to create order.
In times such as ours, however,when there's too much order,
too much management, too muchprogramming and control, it
(04:48):
becomes the duty of superior menand women to fling their
favorite monkey wrenches intothe machinery.
To relieve the repression ofthe human spirit, they must sow
doubt and disruption.
And the writer James Baldwinonce wrote the role of the
artist is exactly the same asthe role of the lover.
(05:10):
If I love you, I have to makeyou conscious of the things you
don't see.
And lastly, dear Zadie Smith,in her novel White Teeth wrote
you are never stronger than whenyou land on the other side of
despair.
Jacuzzi Crying in my jacuzzi.
(05:32):
Crying in my jacuzzi.
(06:09):
Welcome, welcome, welcome backto Crying in my Jacuzzi, where
we live, laugh, love in theAnthropocene.
In the last episode, where dearlistener Stan asked us such an
important question, brought tous such an important inquiry
about how do we learn to be andlive well with our anger, and
(06:31):
the response we gave was abouthow being in relationship with
it and how learning to be inrelationship with it, the
process of the relationship,could support him and others,
the small population of us withjust some anger and rage inside
(06:52):
of us, that by being inrelationship with those feelings
, with that nuanced and complexand ever unfolding experience of
anger and rage, that thatunfolding relationship could
help us be better communitymembers, maybe even better
(07:14):
movement builders.
Because in these wild times andmaybe this was always true, but
dang it if it don't feel extra,extra, extra true right now our
inner work supports our outerwork.
One is critical for the other.
(07:35):
And because in this episodewe're going to dig in on the
diverse, diversely effectivestrategy of disruption on an
inner work and outer work level.
Because this is being recordedon the eve of the DNC, the
(07:57):
Democratic National Conventionin Chicago.
It's also the full moon inAquarius, the great disruptor,
divine timing, as the kids say,that we might want to look at
only what's happening out in theworld, but here in this space,
broadcasting from the Jacuzziverse, we are holding both.
(08:20):
We are going to hold theimportance of the inner work
with the outer work, becauselet's consider what's at stake.
If we don't care for ourselves,we can miss our roles.
We can miss our roles, we canmiss out on our responsibilities
(08:42):
to our communities, to ourfamilies, to people who need our
solidarity that we may nevermeet.
We can miss the miracles thatare trying to come through us.
(09:21):
We can be so.
Separateness, powerlessness andrepression All primary wounds of
humanity.
And when we're that shut down,shut down to ourselves, shut
down to the truth of who wereally are, and just caught in
(09:41):
these endless.
They're like time loops right,where we're just repeating the
same patterns over and over andover, without the shift of
learning from them, of observingthe patterns and being like, oh
shit, what's that?
Let me look at that.
Oh, look at me doing these oldthings Like what's that about?
(10:03):
Let me figure this out?
Or let me get some help tofigure this out and let me just
be with this.
And oh, what are those feelings?
And oh, where is that in mybody?
And oh, where is that?
From what point in my life ormy lineage?
When we're just in theunconscious swirls?
There's so much that we couldbe missing, so many miracles
(10:26):
that we could be missing out onthe miracles of connection, the
miracles of relationality You'rea miracle the miracles of the
unseen world, because we arejust trapped in the only seen
experience that we have knownand our imaginations get so
small and our lives get so small.
(10:46):
So when we disrupt, disruptivethis is the work that I do with
my clients and students when wedisrupt those old patterns, old
unconscious patterns, it's notjust for the experience of huh,
whew.
(11:06):
I feel better not being stuckin that old painful loop or not
beating myself up in this way orthat way.
I mean, that's a byproduct andit's delicious, just like my
beautiful friend Allison, whomakes Wonder Valley olive oil.
And a byproduct of the oliveoil pressing was this silky
(11:33):
olive mush.
It wasn't even mush, it waslike just silky slime.
And oh my God, lo and behold,you rub that shit on your face
and it is amazing.
So the main thing is the oilpressing.
There's pressure, there'stension, squeezing the juice
(11:58):
when sometimes it doesn't seemlike there's a lot of juice to
squeeze and sometimes there aredelightful byproducts, delicious
experiences that arise from thetension and the pressure of the
squeeze Of the inner work.
Right, we are riding thisanalogy here.
Inner work, right, we areriding this analogy here and you
(12:25):
couldn't have seen or known therelief or the softness or any
of the other things that happensometimes as a result of inner
work.
And there they are.
So you just rub it on yourfucking face and everyone tells
you you look refreshed andyou're like, oh, thank god, I
(12:46):
needed that.
You get the relief, thebyproduct of when you're doing
inner work, of the dis, when youstart to disrupt those patterns
.
When we start to look at yourlife and look at the patterns of
your life now, the places whereyou're feeling stuck and
contracted, and we use them asaccess points to your deepest
beliefs about yourself and theworld and yourself in the world,
(13:08):
and we start to look at thosestuck places and we start to
look at those core beliefs andwe look at those Genesis stories
and moments of your life ofwhen those beliefs came into
formation, how it happened whenit happened, that sweet little
person that you were, and howyou were doing your very, very,
(13:30):
very best to come up with thisidea, this thought that then
became a repeated thought, then,over time, became a belief,
then, over time, rooted like alittle plant inside of you and
grew a tree and you have beenwatering it because it was the
best you could do at the time.
To believe that you were wrongjust by being yourself, or you
(13:51):
didn't belong and you werealways separate, or the universe
was never going to support youor be there for you and you are
all alone, or that you have nopower, or that your anger is bad
and will hurt people, or youwill hurt people if you are
yourself, or that you don'tdeserve a love or care, or
(14:13):
you'll never be met.
Whatever that core, limitingbelief is for you or are there
are many of them that when wedisrupt those patterns as they
exist in your life now and makepeace and love and relationship
with those parts of yourselfthat have been holding it in
(14:36):
place, and then protecting thatlittle, tiny person version of
you who definitely, under nocircumstances ever wanted to
have those feelings anddestabilizing experiences ever
again, whatever gave rise tothat belief, that belief system,
belief, that belief system, thedisruption, along with the
(14:57):
repair and the integrating, notjust resisting.
There is great power there.
There is a miracle, a miracle.
So, yes, you get that delicious, like relief, and that like
silky, slime face mask offeeling a little calmer, feeling
(15:17):
a little better, feeling likeyou understand yourself a little
bit more.
You get all of these delightfulthings, but it's always I'm
coming back around here Hopeyou're still on the train it is
always in practice for serviceof connection.
Yes, we practice with ourselves, but this is about how we be
(15:41):
with each other.
So when we do the inner tending, using the analogy of the mask,
it's like we're also reallylike pressing the essence out of
the olives.
I don't know if this analogy isgoing to work, let's see.
It's like we're squeezing thejuice, the nourishing, the most
(16:05):
nourishing oils, and that to me,is the long haul effects of our
inner work that shifts us, thatallows us to become more
present, more relational, moreavailable for connection, and
(16:25):
that's, that's the oil.
Right then then we can likelube ourselves up, mm-hmm, all
slippery like, and then sliparound out in the world with
each other Like a bunch oflittle salamanders coming to
shore to mate.
(16:46):
That's a weird idea, but howcute are we In the
miraculousness of our own innerwork and tender tending, healing
work, so that then we can betogether.
So disruption, disruption,disruption right, because when
(17:09):
now?
When we're together?
So now, okay.
So we've done some inner work,we've done some of the inner
disruption of those old patterns.
Looking at them.
I'm not walking you through thewhole process, this is what I
teach.
It takes a little bit longerthan this, but the idea here is
important because once we'veknown how to do that with
(17:31):
ourselves, we have practice.
Then we know what change feelslike in our bodies.
And let me tell you that wasthe number one reason that I
moved from full-time activismand organizing to interpersonal
transformational work.
Because I was with people.
(17:51):
We knew how to disrupt all overthe place, outward, outside,
out in the world.
And look, that work matters.
What's happening?
It's literally called disruptthe DNC.
It is happening right nowPeople putting pressure on the
Harris-Waltz campaign, on KamalaHarris, on Tim Waltz, on that
(18:16):
burgeoning potentialadministration and the current
Democratic administration.
It matters to do this now andwhen.
I was super active back in theanti-war aughts right, like in
the second Iraq war, aughtsright, like in the second iraq
war, pushing against the bushadministration and then the
(18:40):
obama administration, which I'lltell you what a whole lot of
steam was created to get obamaelected.
Yes, we can obama.
Oh wait, remember, yes, we canObama 08, remember All the hope,
hope, hope.
And I'll tell you what thatthat fizzled out.
That push for change fizzled.
(19:02):
We're going to keep our eye onthat.
I suggest we do.
But in that time of activism, weknew how to make all the change
outwardly and there was a lotof room for growth in the inward
change and I was having my ownpersonal experience of moving
from burnout into my own deepspiritual work and that was
(19:26):
changing the way that I wasshowing up in the world, because
I hadn't been caring for myself.
I was surrounded by a whole lotof people just like me.
We hadn't been caring forourselves.
We actually believed it was badto do that.
I like to call that now punkdamage and thank you to the
(19:47):
brilliant Lacey Perpich-Hedgkey,in charge of the future in
Minneapolis for introducing meto that term punk damage.
But we believed that it was bad.
This is what punk damage is Todo our own inner tending.
Anything tending to ourselves,even just like taking time off
or having any resources, reallywhatsoever was super selfish,
(20:19):
was super selfish and we neededto sacrifice everything and just
show up in suffering and stressin order to be in legit
solidarity with those sufferingout in the world.
That makes for a lot of burnout,and I'm bringing this up
because in the not caring formyself and a bunch of us just
(20:43):
kind of everyone I knew that wasaround my age inside of
organizing and activism in someway, shape or form, we became
really, really burnt out and so,in a way, we were missing
miracles.
We were missing our roles andresponsibilities because we
couldn't uphold them, because wehadn't upheld ourselves, and we
(21:06):
were focusing on change out inthe world and didn't really know
what it felt like in our ownbodies to dismantle systems of
oppression inside of ourselves,to dismantle oppressive
programming and conditioninginside of ourselves.
We didn't know how to do it.
It wasn't even okay to do it.
(21:26):
So I went on my own quest todisrupt, to learn how to take my
skills of disruption inside ofmyself.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
And that's why he makes the big bucks.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
So I shrunk my outer disruptor self, like the one who
was out in the world as anactivist, disrupting elected
officials, chasing members ofCongress around, trying to
arrest them in public spaces,and I shrunk it down and
(22:02):
leveraged, I guess, that powerto tend and care for myself, and
I'm forever grateful for that.
That was a miracle.
That was me becoming more ofmyself.
This is my hope for all of usto use disruption in this way.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
Oh hi, it's me Janet.
Did you know that if you leavea 5 star rating and a review on
Apple Podcasts, you'll beentered in a monthly drawing for
a free coaching session withDana?
God, you bitch seriously.
I'm so serious.
Just leave five stars and awritten review, then send dana
an email with the title easypeasy lemon squeezy.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
Details are in the show notes below so in the last
episode I also said that we werein our apocalypse era and that
apocalypse is an unveiling theveils being pulled back, dropped
, revelations abound and I thinkin the past 10 months, when the
(23:26):
active occupation of palestine,specifically of Gaza, turned
into an active genocide ofGazans and the Palestinian
people, that there have been alot of veils pulled back for a
whole lot of people.
And you guys, I don't thinkwe're going away from that.
(23:49):
I think we're only going moreinto the veil dropping, removal.
We're in a time now where youngpeople who are maybe voting for
the first time or this is theirfirst presidential election
(24:20):
election this is a generationthat grew up with regular active
shooter drills.
I missed out on that as a 43year old.
That was not my reality.
These kids were and are, butwere forced into a level of
adulthood and death awarenessSee a couple episodes back
(24:40):
called Just a Little Death Boopwith a Side of Death Cult, a
cult, a cult.
I have great reverence forthese kids and if they're not
seeing the difference betweenDemocrats and Republicans, that
is not all on them.
She's right.
You know they have had a lot ofresponsibility continuously
(25:03):
heaped on them and not all thework is theirs to do and not all
the responsibility is theirs totake and hold.
We all bear it is theirs totake and hold, we all bear it.
And in this apocalypse era, inour apocalypse era, here we are
all feeling the effects of theseveils dropping of understanding
(25:29):
aspects of imperialism thatmaybe we weren't paying
attention to before.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
I mean, project 2025 is in our social lexicon.
Regular ass people now know whothe Heritage Foundation is and
what a bunch of psychopathic,racist, misogynist creeps they
are.
Oh, also, alex is on vacation,so it's just me today.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
Crybabies, I feel expensive, though I have friends
and clients, so many friendsand so many clients that have
come to me and been like oh mygod, dana, I didn't see all of
this before.
And because of the nature, theviolent, heartbreaking,
(26:12):
mind-bending, soul-splittingnature of the annihilation of
the Palestinian people, one of afew active genocides happening
on the planet at this timeman-made, man-made that they,
these people in my life, many ofthem have chosen to disrupt, to
(26:40):
take up disruption as aresponsibility.
Remember what I said earlier,that if we don't care for
ourselves, we can miss out onour responsibilities and our
roles to our people, to ourcommunities, to our families.
Because disruption is aresponsibility.
It is incredibly uncomfortableto do it in your own inner world
and then to go out and do it,whether it's just a one-on-one
(27:02):
conversation, uncomfortableconversation with someone you
deeply care about and yourealize you are not on the same
page at all, or in the widercontext of your family, or maybe
your, your workplace or yourcommunity.
Those folks are some of thebravest people that I know.
They don't have a background ofseveral decades of activism and
(27:27):
organizing and being aprofessional disruptor like I do
, which sometimes I'm sograteful for, and sometimes I
have to be careful that I don'tget complacent, but I'm watching
so many of you move out ofcomplacency.
That was just unconscious.
No judgment truly into a placethrough the portal of apocalypse
(27:52):
.
That was just unconscious.
No judgment Truly Into a placeThrough the portal of apocalypse
.
Right this unveiling Into allof these realizations and
revelations and being willing toquestion authorities that had
gone unquestioned to attempt tobreak down systems that feel
(28:18):
monolithic.
My loving reminder to you allwho are resonating with this and
feeling like this has been yourpath over the last year, that
there's nothing wrong with youfor not having seen all the
(28:39):
things that you see now, for nothaving seen them before.
It is not your responsibilityto take the whole thing down
yourself.
It's not your responsibility tosave everyone.
It can be your responsibilityto care for yourself inside of
this work, because this is thelong haul and it can be part of
(28:59):
your role and responsibility tobe a disruptor, and that means
the ways you've internalizedthese big systems that you are
seeing outside of yourself rightnow, the ways that you have
internalized them inside ofyourself.
Both and Both are necessary.
I have learned this.
(29:20):
I say this with the convictionof all of the marrow in my bones
.
In an apocalypse era.
We are going to be disoriented.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
Why be disoriented?
Speaker 1 (29:33):
it is disorienting, but we can harness
disorientation throughdisruption and then allow for a
disorienting from our collectiveover-culture programming.
What we are told is right andis wrong is possible and
(29:58):
impossible.
That when we have the courageto ask the questions, the
important questions of wait,what does that actually feel
like?
What does that actually feellike?
Is that resonant?
Is that aligned with what Ifeel and understand to be true
and right and of value?
(30:18):
And am I coming from a place ofpresence and compassion?
And so we harness that embrace.
We embrace the disorientationbecause that's what is happening
and it doesn't feel great.
It is destabilizing, which isgoing to bring up all our oldest
(30:41):
triggers, because all thoselimiting belief patterns I was
talking about before, thoseGenesis times when we were just
like little people and we weredoing our best, that whole thing
I said before, those all camefrom when we were little people,
feeling destabilized, right.
So this disorientation that ishappening now for so many of us
(31:04):
and then a reorientation.
Mind you, we will not stay indisorientation, only that
experience, forever.
That is not how this works, butit is deeply uncomfortable and
so we're going to try to getcomfortable and we're going to
try to find some security andstability, and it is worth
looking at what is actual truesecurity, because we might have
(31:29):
other people's definitionsoperating for us, because maybe
our previous definitions ofsecurity didn't include thinking
about people that we wouldnever meet and never really know
in faraway lands, and then werealize how all of our yes,
liberations, all of our security, all of our existences are
(31:54):
really tied together, and thenhow do we want to find real
stability?
Right, that's thisreorientation.
So it's a lot.
I'm saying a lot of things and alot of words, words, words,
words, words, words, words.
Disruption, disorientation,reorientation, attention,
(32:16):
imperialism, interpersonal,inner work, shadow shadow,
shadow, unconscious patterns,community responsibility.
But inside of all of that, onthe eve of the DNC, in a moment
in time, on this timeline whereschool's about to be back in
(32:40):
session, we are going to see thestudent encampments rise again
and that solidarity movement,that anti-war, anti-occupation
movement, the presidentialcampaign that is election time,
mishigas, that is still going,and we are going to see
disruptions, disruptions,disruptions out there as a real
(33:00):
strategy and tactic for change.
And maybe you're a part of that, maybe you're watching it from
afar, maybe you feel like you'refull of disagreement around it,
maybe you've identifieddifferent roles and
responsibilities for yourself.
But wherever you are on thespectrum, I wish for you to care
(33:25):
for yourself for yourself, togive yourself some of your own
very precious attention.
I ask that, as we see each otherworking in different ways and
maybe they seem contrary that wecan find some presence in
ourselves and some compassionand some curiosity for each
(33:49):
other and the different ways inwhich we are trying to come
together.
And who benefits from us makingeach other wrong?
Who benefits from us being shutdown and lost and all the
unconscious patterns andinternalizing of oppressive
systems?
(34:10):
Who benefits from that?
Because I bet it's not you.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
I know my crybabies how uncomfortable and
destabilizing and just scary itcan be.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
To just be alive right now oh, I'd kill for a
good comma right now but toconsider doing our own personal
work and to just know that it'sessential, it has a role, and
even to do the outer work ofdisruption or to even see others
doing it, when we don't fullyunderstand the tactic that
(34:58):
they're taking or why they'redoing it.
In this moment that we're allreally trying to figure out
these ways to disrupt thesesystems, and when we imagine
that there's only one way to doit, or there's a right way and a
wrong way, that that binarycould be shrinking our
(35:20):
imaginations of what's possiblefor each of us, what's possible
for us in the collective, couldbe shrinking it down so small.
And whenever we get that smalland that limited and that
separate, we're going to forgetthat we belong to each other
every single time.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
Because we're in this together and we got to help
each other out.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
I love you so much.
Thank you for being here.
Thank you for being here Forcrying in my jacuzzi with me.
You are loved crybabies In allof your disruptive glory.
Crying in my jacuzzi, crying inmy jacuzzi.
(36:12):
If you enjoyed what we did heretoday, go over to wherever it
is that you are listening tothis podcast and give us a
rating as many stars Five asyour heart desires.
(36:32):
Theme music and other musicalbits by the very talented Kat
Otteson.
Sound design and editing by theeffervescent Rose Blakelock.
Thank you, thank you.
Thank you so much for beinghere.
I look forward to playing withyou more in my jacuzzi.
That sounded dirtier than Imeant it, but you know what I
(36:55):
mean, you, you.
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