December 29, 2022 • 41 mins
🌟 In Episode 120 of the Joyous Justice Podcast, during this season of short days where light becomes a precious commodity, hosts April Baskin and Tracie Guy Decker delve into the transformative power of light as a metaphor for change.
This isn't just a conversation; it's a journey through the dynamics of personal and systemic transformation. Discover how uncovering and uniting our individual lights can overpower the darkness of systemic oppression and societal challenges.
This episode tackles the profound idea that the energy required to create solutions is fundamentally different from the energy that perpetuates problems.
It's a call to action, encouraging you to break free from internalized limitations and embrace the strength in unity. Learn why seeking help isn't a weakness but a strategic move to reignite your inner power, and how celebrating small victories contributes to significant change.
Tune in to be part of this enlightening discussion – because when we change our approach, we can indeed change the world. 🔥💡 🌍 🕯️ ❤️
#JoyousJustice #IlluminateYourWorld #CollectivePower
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https://joyous-justice.mykajabi.com/roadmap
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https://joyousjustice.com/apply
Discussion and reflection questions:
- What in this episode is new for you? What have you learned and how does it land?
- What is resonating? What is sticking with you and why?
- What feels hard? What is challenging or on the edge for you?
- What feelings and sensations are arising and where in your body do you feel them?
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Submit a question, insight, or topic or guest suggestion at https://joyousjustice.com/connect
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Tracie (00:01):
It's the final week of 2022. And we're thinking about
our theory of change. Spoileralert, the energy of the
solution is different than theenergy of the problem. And you
and we are far more powerfulthan we've been conditioned to
believe.
April Baskin (00:29):
You're listening to the Joyous Justice Podcast,
Unknown (00:32):
a weekly show hosted by April Baskin with Tracie Guy
Decker.
April Baskin (00:35):
in a complex world in which systemic oppression
conditions us to deny others andour own humanity. let's dedicate
ourselves to the pursuit andembodiment of wholeness, love
and thriving in the world. Andin our own lives. It's time to
heal and flourish our way to amore joyous and just future.
(01:01):
I Tracy, April, hi, listener Hi,friend. Hi, kindred spirit.
Thank you for joining us forthis episode, we have a really
wonderful one plant for you tohopefully illuminate the
darkness that is oftenassociated with December. And to
(01:21):
add to the light that multipleholidays, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah,
Christmas, perhaps otherholidays as well, that I'm
remiss in not mentioning, helpedto bring the light. And it is my
hope that our conversation todaywill too and will inspire more
(01:43):
illuminated thinking for you. Solet's dive right in. Tracy, you
are interested in me, perhapsyou just suggested that I share
a bit about this recent metaphorI'm using to articulate joyous
justices theory of change arepart of it. And I want to full
(02:04):
disclosure here, I just want tosay that I didn't generate this
quote unquote, theory of changein the way that one
traditionally does. Where yousit down and have a strategic
meeting, or you sit down withyourself and think, what's our
theory of change, actually, thatarose in a better way, which is
that it just kind of organicallyarose among multiple thought
streams that I've been thinkingabout. And multiple threads all
(02:28):
coalesced into this simple,straightforward metaphor that
matches a number of the themesthis season. And so as I'm
saying this, I realized, likemaybe it's not the complete
theory of change, but it's likethe core of our theory of
change, I believe. But actually,maybe I will build it out on
(02:49):
this call and actually come upwith a draft theory of change,
because I realize it's like,what are about what we're about
to share? Tracy is like thenugget. And I think our fuller
theory of change is around us,weaving in joy and advancing
justice as we do this productwork. Anyway, enough said about
this and talking about thething, let's actually talk about
(03:11):
the thing, which is, there's somuch that's gone into it. And
full disclosure, Tracy and Irecorded a totally different
version of this episodeyesterday where I wanted to like
I was endeavoring in real timeto sort of like if you could
envision this theory of changeconcept, being at the top of the
(03:32):
mountain, and I wanted to takey'all on a journey, moving up
the mountain, but I ended upessentially, like, getting lost
in the desert or the forestinstead. And it was like, and
then there it is. And I waslike, let's, let's just do this
again. Also, I was super tired.
As some of you may or may notknow, Tracy and I had the honor
(03:52):
of being invited to speak at acouple different events.
Probably the week or two beforeyou listen to this, or if you
should hear this later, at somepoint in the past. Whenever
you're listening to this. DoTracy spoke at the Jewish badge
Hanukkah Gala. And perhaps youcan share a little bit about
(04:13):
that. And I spoke on a panelwith the King Center. And both
events and I had the honor ofbeing on a panel with amazing
leaders. And I don't want to getoff track here. But between both
of those things, I was up till10am The next morning, because I
(04:34):
was just
Unknown (04:39):
so humbled and
April Baskin (04:40):
excited by the impact that Tracy and I were
having from work that we've beenposting publicly and also just
doing privately in earnest foryears now and seeing its impact
out in the world. It just Ithought it was just taking a
couple hours to decompress. Itended up being a lot longer than
that. So, all of that to say,out of love for you, beloved
(05:06):
listener, and also out of lovefor our wonderful colleague,
Sarah, who has to edit thisepisode. I was like, Maybe we
should just record this. Andthankfully, Tracy
Unknown (05:17):
in her abundant patience,
April Baskin (05:22):
and kindness was like, okay. We want to do but
yeah, let's, let's give it a goagain. So here it is take to the
remix. Joy assesses theory ofchange around Okay,
Unknown (05:35):
that's my record scratch. Okay, so.
April Baskin (05:41):
So the basic premise is for me that I just I
really believe, and Tracy may ormay not agree with me on this.
And you may or may not agreewith me on this, that the more
that I've come to learn, andyes, it's been a complex and
intense journey. And part of thework with choice justice is that
we want to make it less complex.
And as much as we can lessintense for all of you. I've
come to see that even thoughwe've been conditioned to
(06:04):
believe a number of differentthings like some of the
catastrophes and social justiceissues and oppression and the
enormity of individual andcollective trauma, even though
we've been taught to believethat it has so much power over
us, I just the more I learnedfrom various masters, and that
I've taken time to study thesesubjects, the more it becomes
clear and clear to me that weare just so much more powerful
(06:29):
than that. And, and that we haveimmense power to affect change
as people who care aboutjustice. And so here's the basic
idea, which is that as we talkabout on Hanukkah, and likely in
different holidays acrossdifferent cultures, the year
(06:50):
round, I want to center itaround this principle of a
candle in the darkness. And Ibelieve that our, our collective
power, like even just within asingle person, your collective
power, my collective power interms of our spiritual, divine,
emotional, physical, all thedifferent abilities and insights
(07:11):
we have, that are aligned anddifferent for all of us. That
that is like this, the fact canbe represented by the metaphor
of a candle or light or lantern.
As I said in a recordingyesterday, and all of that
dysfunction of oppression,trauma, all of that stuff is the
(07:34):
equivalent of the darkness,right. And as any of us known,
we've been a room been in a roomwhere there's no light, or if
you've ever been out in thedesert at night, when you're not
near a city, or just in a placewhere there's darkness, darkness
is dark, like it is allconsuming. I remember a teacher
of mine once saying that herteacher, I think it was her
Naomi, let's say that one of herteachers in seminary, talked
(07:54):
about biblical darkness, right?
That it's not like at nightwhere you can have city lights
or something like that, likewe've all been there where it's
just pitch black and completelydark. And it can feel all
consuming, let alone combinedwith our fear,
Unknown (08:09):
right. But as we all know,
April Baskin (08:13):
and as a number of our traditions teach certainly
Judaism or on Hanukkah time,
Unknown (08:17):
that a single light
April Baskin (08:21):
can massively contradict the darkness, and
take us from having no optionsto being able to see just enough
far enough in front of us. Oreven further out, if we extend
it that we shift from being in aplace of complete ignorance and
vulnerability, to having enoughpower to get through to find the
(08:41):
light switch to move to a placewhere we can feel safer, right.
And then when we combine thoselights right now, this isn't a
new concept, per se, but I wantto add some weavin some
additional insight to this. Sobasically, to me, the situation
we're facing in our world, isthat, and I actually don't think
it's all darkness. But I thinkthis is the perception that
(09:01):
people have that oppression. Andall of these different variables
that feel so much bigger than usis like the darkness that feels
bigger than us.
Unknown (09:09):
But we do have access to light.
April Baskin (09:13):
The here's the challenge is that, through
conditioning, throughexperiencing defeat when we were
younger in our lives and notgetting support we needed most
of us nearly all of us have hadthis experience as a young
person, in part because of theoppression of young people let
alone if we have otheridentities as people who are
raised as women or girls, aspeople of color people have any
(09:36):
marginalized identity if youwere heavyset, any number of
different things right. If youif you were fat, when you were
younger, or throughout yourlife, there are different forms
of oppression and discriminationthat start, like we carry
throughout our lives that shiftover time and also that start
when we're young. And thenthere's just depression in
general. All of these variables,one of their core influences
(09:59):
that they have on us and then
Unknown (10:02):
is that they
April Baskin (10:06):
instill fear within us and often at times,
which I don't have time rightnow to fully get into all of the
theories and explanation ofinternalized depression. But
often the impact of theseexperiences is that we
internalize them in one way oranother, that we didn't get the
support we needed. And so ratherthan as young people thinking,
like, Oh, this is a messed upsituation, and these folks
(10:26):
didn't help me, and that'swrong. Usually, there's some
variation of something didn't gowell, and I wasn't enough, or I
didn't do enough, and it's myfault, and I'm unworthy or any
number of different things. Andthis happens just from life. And
then also it happens because ofoppression. And often those
things are combined, where lifecircumstances are impacted by
(10:47):
oppression. And all of this tosay, ultimately, what this leads
to is, in one way or another, alack of belief in our selves,
our worthiness, or our capacityto change things. And so we all
get the metaphor of the candlein the darkness. But I think
what we miss at times is thatnearly all of us, in one way or
(11:10):
another, have been conditionedin a variety of different ways,
for different reasons that I'vetried to sort of briefly
summarize, have been conditionedto think that to feel ashamed of
our light, or to think that weneed to minimize it, or that
it's not good, and that it'sunworthy.
Unknown (11:29):
Because of all these different,
April Baskin (11:33):
difficult experiences we accumulated
without a compassionate witness,and without support, and comfort
and compassion, to help usreframe those stories. And so,
and all of this is in deepservice of maintaining the
status quo and remain andmaintaining oppression. So what
(11:55):
I'm saying here is that Ibelieve in different ways,
there's both things that justhappen in the context of loving
families where it's not meant toharm people. But in terms of
systemic oppression, part of howsystemic oppression operates is
to intentionally conditionedpeople to internalize this and
oppress themselves in differentways. And I actually think that
(12:17):
this dynamic is more powerful ina number of different ways than
structural oppression. And thestructures that keep oppression
in place, I believe thestructures are relatively
benign, their policies aredifferent things that are
dependent upon people to adhereto them, or and or to say, what
(12:38):
are we doing this is horrible,we need to put this under review
or, or, or, or in a situationwhere someone is, in some sort
of official position as agatekeeper, there might be
something that's happening, butit requires people to operate
it. So long as we're still in aphase where AI isn't controlling
(12:59):
everything, which I hope willnever take place. But we can
talk about dystopian
Unknown (13:02):
possibilities later. So
April Baskin (13:06):
the basic idea here of this theory of change is
that
Unknown (13:11):
we have immense potential
April Baskin (13:13):
to eradicate to shift the darkness to make
substantial change. And as weknow, from a single candle, one
little birthday candle, won't doa lot. But it takes you from a
room of total darkness, we couldbe tripping over things and
experiencing all kinds ofchallenges to be being able to
operate. And I believe that eachof us have the equivalent of
essentially a lantern to abonfire, let's say, right, but
(13:37):
we've been all taught to turnthat lantern down. And we've
gotten all kinds of messagesaround how it's not effective.
And part of the work of joyous
Unknown (13:44):
justice, is to
April Baskin (13:47):
help facilitate healing and insight and
awareness, that helps us stillbe mindful be right, because we
don't want to drop the lanternand have it start a fire that
it's not like this power is isnot benign, in some ways, these
flames that we have is potentialthat we have could be used in
harmful and helpful ways. Rightis, but it's to help people
(14:10):
notice that actually, most of itis incredibly good, and can be
used powerfully, to contradictthe darkness and to bring in
more light, and that it doesn'teven need everybody with
lanterns to do it. If we justgot 20 of us together, that
would completely illuminate aroom that would completely that
could completely shift differentdynamics within a town. Right
(14:32):
that are light is superpowerful. So I'm trying to make
it more sophisticated. Tracy, Ithink this is way better than I
did yesterday. But I also feellike I'm making it more
Unknown (14:43):
verbose than it needs to be. I'm
April Baskin (14:45):
trying to convey the profundity of this and all
the different teachers that I'mintegrating when I say this from
multiple sources. So I thinkthat's the basic idea and I
think there are also otherelements of it that I forgot to
name
Unknown (14:59):
as I'm in this sort of performance mode versus talking
about
April Baskin (15:03):
this one on one with a few colleagues and
friends like I have where I feellike I did a much better job.
But it's okay, I'm still doingbetter than I did yesterday, one
step at a time. Tracy, do youwant to add in your voice
perspective, some metaphors,some kitchen table logic here,
what do you want to add into themix?
Unknown (15:21):
More profundity? Yeah, thanks, April. Yeah, that
welcomes a lot.
Tracie (15:35):
There's a couple of metaphors one that actually is,
is yours, but I'm gonna sharebecause you didn't say it about
the dampening of the light. Andthe way that the early defeats
kind of contribute to that,using the metaphor of like an
elephant, a captive elephant. Sowhen, when an elephant calf, can
be restrained by just by astrong rope around one of its
(15:57):
legs in a stake, if thatelephant calf has that rope
there. As it grows, even thoughthe adult elephant could break
that rope or pull up that steakpretty easily, the memory of its
boundary keeps disempowermentkeeps the elephant from from
(16:20):
doing what it has the physicalstrength to do. Because the the
mental and psychological scarsof those early defeats, and
that's a metaphor you have used,that I've heard you use before
April that I think is reallyYes, helps to make clear what
you mean by the power of thoseearly defeats in terms of
(16:43):
dimming our light.
April Baskin (16:44):
And may I say something here really quickly.
And I literally believe in lightof what we're facing in society
that we are like that elephant,that we actually are that
powerful that as much capacitywe have. But we have all these
different little ropes that whenwe were younger, and or our
peoples historically, it's notjust when we were younger, too,
it's also collective trauma. Somultiple generations of people
(17:06):
who actually had bigger thingslike literally chains and or
were burned at stakes, or, youknow, I don't, I don't want to
get too much into triggeringanyone's trauma. But like, there
were actual major barriers thataren't here anymore. But the
legacy the shadow of thosethings loom in our mind and in
our heart and function like thatrope, right. And it's just
(17:27):
through the right interventionsand healing and support. That
often is about, it's less aboutadding there are some insights
and different things to add. Buta lot of the insights and
coaching and tools that we teachin our programs, is to help
clear the dissonance and theconfusion so that people can
access their truth, right.
Anyway, all I basically wantedto say is that
Unknown (17:49):
I think that we are incredibly
April Baskin (17:53):
powerful, and it's mostly just our conditioning
that has set us up to believethat we're not, please continue
Tracy.
Tracie (18:01):
On that, um, the power piece and the the light
metaphor, the vision that Ioften have, especially when
thinking about this as a theoryof change, I think a lot of
folks who are working for change
Unknown (18:19):
start to face
Tracie (18:21):
we we start to feel isolated, and we start to feel
really frustrated that morepeople don't agree with us or
that it feels like no one sortof gets it and don't see the
either What's wrong or what orthat we have the power or
whatever it might be. Andthere's this the overwhelm that
you were talking about about howbig it is, like many people
(18:42):
working for change, part of thebigness part of the overwhelm of
like, what is bigger than us isthe sense that we need to
convince everyone that we needto convert everyone to our way
of thinking or our way ofaddressing whatever harms. And I
think your metaphor, even yousaid it earlier about how we
(19:05):
don't need everyone we eat 20people and that would eliminate
the whole room. I have thisvision of like a stadiums worth
of people, Billy in the dark.
And then these like, kind ofscattered throughout different
folks who are holding up theirlight and the illumination then
that falls around the whole likethe whole perimeter of the
(19:29):
stadium and and folks areattracted to it as well. Because
part of the part of theexperience of being fully in the
dark, it's not that we can'tmove. It's not that we can't do
anything. Just the effort. Theeffort is so much
Unknown (19:50):
bigger, it's
Tracie (19:52):
harder, it's more difficult. It uses different
senses that uses them more andeven. And those of us who are
sighted, even in the dark, we'relike straining
Unknown (20:00):
As if we could like,
Tracie (20:02):
squint our eyes just enough. And so and that would
change, at least that's what Ido. You know, and then I'm like
working so hard to see eventhough there is nothing to be
seen. And so then thatintroduction of light into that
circumstance, all of a sudden,everything is a little easier,
(20:22):
and a little morestraightforward. And those,
those pieces of the fact that wedon't need 100% of the folks in
our surroundings, to have thesame light in order to change
the entire circumstance that Ifind really heartening. And
(20:45):
also, I really feel the changein the amount of effort in order
to proceed when thinking aboutletting that light shine. And
those are those two of the kindof pieces that for me, show up
(21:06):
in this metaphor.
Unknown (21:09):
In terms of a theory of change.
April Baskin (21:13):
love this so much, it feels like an add an
additional layer to the metaphorthat we weren't even planning on
it feels really cool thatliterally my power just went
out. So for those listening inright now, so this might get
edited out. But in the midst ofour conversation, luckily, it
was Tracy talking at the moment,so I didn't get cut off and she
could still keep talking, but mypower went out. And normally I
(21:36):
have a backup generator here.
But I'm the one from my officedied. And so literally, the
lights went off, it's daylightright now. So it's not
completely dark. But um, it'sjust a, you know, I just I love
it. I don't know that I want tounpack it right now. But I think
it's really beautiful. And justadds to a little bit of what
we're talking about.
(21:57):
Occasionally, if for somereason, our light, which
actually we mentioned in thefirst iteration of this was like
it's I can bring that theme inat times of, let's say that the
little if we can imagine it, butit's a lantern where you turn
the knob a little bit and thatmakes the light brighter or more
dim, right or reduces the light,that even if your lantern is
(22:20):
temporarily unavailable for anynumber of different reasons, or
you've had it turned down so lowthat's kind of rusted in that
place. But we also have theoption to leverage the light of
others to help us which again,seems obvious, but it's also not
because nearly all of us havebeen conditioned in one way or
another heavily conditioned bytoxic individualism, such that
(22:43):
when I when I you know tracer,or I were to say what I just
said that you can borrow someoneelse's light, right like ship,
you have them share their lightand help reignite your lamp or
get some months help with thelever, get some additional help
to get your lantern. The knobworking again, so you can
increase it right. Like everyoneis sort of like obviously, and
(23:05):
yet some of the greatestbreakthroughs and coaching and
healing come from the placeswhere we've been hurt where
trauma has occurred where earlydefeats have been registered,
often deeply also toxicindividualism has been deeply
registered. So the obviousoptions don't occur to us. Yeah,
no doubt.
Tracie (23:24):
I mean, we've all I can't I can't count the number
of times that people sort ofexpressed some version of I
should be able to figure thisout, or I should be able to do
this on my own.
April Baskin (23:37):
And it's like, it's literally not like, like,
it's not like it's like, youknow, I don't know your I don't
know your machine or like thisfigment of white supremacist
colonialism. Patriarchy, like,you know, it just doesn't. It's
not if it's just an oppressiveconcept, right, but, or even us
right now. Like when I thinktracing I likely, I think Tracy
(24:00):
and I were both likely thinkingthat the podcast was over right
now. And then it slowly kind ofdawned on us but we could I
could lean on Tracy in thismoment, and we could still do
this episode. Yeah, for those
Tracie (24:13):
watching the video I'm actually holding my phone up to
my microphones
Unknown (24:19):
to capture April's was right and so
April Baskin (24:26):
so I'm trying to remember where it was going
before the power went out.
Unknown (24:29):
Um, so that's the basic idea is just I just,
April Baskin (24:35):
and for some of you, I think this may super
resonate, and for some of youfor whom we set a number of
things that were stretched mytakeaway for you is is that our
light is powerful. And ifthere's any place where you
don't feel that and you thinkthat is not true, that is that
is your opportunity to reach foradditional light and help
(24:59):
outside Have yourself. And itdoesn't even have to be. Here's
the thing that I've learned asI've been on my own healing and
leadership journey, whichfortunately, blessedly because
of the people I've come, I'vesought out and or who reached
out to me for help, to help andsupport me over the years helps
me combine those things, mostpeople have them separated. But
(25:21):
to me, it's critical as we dosocial justice, leadership and
leadership in the world, that weintegrate our healing and our
liberatory vision and leadershipbecause
Unknown (25:33):
we actually need both of them. And that's part
April Baskin (25:36):
of us being able to skillfully leverage our light
in different ways. But um, wherewas I going? I'm trying to both
turn on my computer and get backon the normal way. And also,
where was I going with that?
Tracy? Can you help me? Oh,yeah, that's what I'm talking
about help. Right, is what Iwant to say here is that when we
reach for help, also, I've foundfor me, at times, I really need
(25:57):
someone say, to literally helpme walk somewhere if my legs
hurt. But often when I need helparound a project, or something
I'm working on or even somethingI'm chewing on. And often
actually, it's just a few minuteconversation, just to get a
second perspective, or someoneto add to add a spark to my
flame, right, like my flame is,let's say a proverbial
(26:18):
situational flame is a littlelow around something, and I just
need someone to leverage alittle bit of their mattress
give me a little bit of a spark,that's enough to get my flower
fire going, you know that whenpeople say, Oh, I don't need any
help. And, and I think in someways, there's both, there's both
some unhelpful individualismwith that. But I think also part
of it is perhaps an accuraterepresentation that a lot of it
(26:40):
you can do alone. And so I thinkat times, there's a bit of
either or thinking,
Unknown (26:48):
or either you are completely dependent,
April Baskin (26:51):
or you are independent, as opposed to,
you're an independent personwho's also interconnected. And
at times, needs to occasionallydepend on some help. That might
be a big help, and usually mightbe just smaller help. But that
that's smaller help, cancontradict our feeling of
loneliness, and just give uswhat we need. So that's the
(27:12):
other piece of nuance that Iwanted to add to this Tracy,
right, is that it doesn't meanwhen we reach for help, that we
need someone to fully help uswith something, it might just be
that we need two minutes orthree minutes, or maybe even a
half an hour or an hourconversation with someone to
help think through, say, for me,for instance, was a speech I was
giving. I didn't need someone towrite the speech for me. But I
assumed that to talk to someoneabout my ideas, and I was afraid
(27:35):
of talking about a nationalstage and have them say to me,
oh, yeah, like I helped my momin this situation. And she said
some similar things. And thatwent really well. And just the
affirmation was like, Okay, I'monto something. I'm not about to
hurt people, I'm beingresponsible. And that was a
nice, she was able to shareother ideas with her. And that
was enough that got me going toget started. It's kind of like,
(27:57):
I guess the metaphor of thiswould be,
Unknown (28:00):
you know, starting a car, right? It's not that we
need the other car to replaceour engine, it just, we need to
hook up some one of those callTracy, jumper cables to
jumpstart.
April Baskin (28:13):
At times, we just need it, we just need a
jumpstart. That's what I'mgreat. We just need a spark, or
jumpstart, and then our engineworks fine. But it's just around
certain things a spark might notbe going because of any number
of different things. And I thinkthat
Unknown (28:27):
the way people think of help, is they don't think of it
as a jump. They think of it asthinking that they're hooking
their car up to another person'scar, right? Or they're not able
to drive it at all
April Baskin (28:40):
right, right.
Whereas it's like, no, it's justa tough, sometimes it might be
longer. That's true. And that'salso okay. But much of the time,
it feels like we might needenormous help. And we're
avoiding that. But what we needis just
Unknown (28:51):
to jumpstart just the spark, and then we might need
another spark occasionally tokeep our fire going. Tracy, do
you want to add any thoughts tothat? Well, I pick on
Tracie (29:06):
my brain is going in a couple of different directions.
You know, one, like stickingwith the car metaphor, and
remembering that even machinesneed fuel and sort of figuring
out what what our fuel is. Andthat's, that's one thing that's
(29:28):
kind of rattling around. Andmaybe maybe it is actually
related because one of the oneof the things that I saw in the
talk that I did for Jewish vegthat you mentioned in the
opening, one of the things thatI was encouraging folks to do is
to pay greater attention to thesmall. I mean, I called the
(29:51):
miracles because it was aChanukah. It was like a speech
but just those small momentsthat the everyday moments of of
power that we have Have based onsmall choices that we make, that
I think often get overlooked bythose of us seeking change.
Because we compare that smallmoment, that small choice,
(30:17):
whatever it might be, it couldbe about, you know, how you
spend your money or consciouseating, which is what I was
talking about with Jewish veg.
Or whatever it might be with theenormity of the problems. And so
and we see the difference there,and, and judge ourselves
lacking. But actually, each ofthose moments helps chip away
(30:39):
and should be celebrated. Andthe more we celebrate it, as you
say, what you focus on grows,the more we celebrate it, the
the bigger impacted, it actuallyhas, and the more momentum we
can establish. Exactly. So itbecomes that snowball effect of
growing. So that which I thinkmaybe is actually related to the
(31:02):
fuel metaphor for the car whereyou were that, you know, maybe
needed a jumpstart, and does infact, need fuel to keep going.
You can't. You can't keepdriving, even if you have the
spark if you don't have thefuel, whatever that might be.
Unknown (31:23):
The nourishment, yeah.
Yeah, recharge.
April Baskin (31:28):
And I think the you know, it was in a social
justice leadership training oncewhere they really encouraged us
to avoid using machinery andtechnology as metaphors like
bandwidth and things like that.
But I think I have, I thinkit's, I like an interesting
dynamic around it, because Ilike noticing at times that
(31:48):
often when my phone is dying,and always, but particularly in
moments where it feels reallyresonant. I'm noticing, like, my
phone is dying, and it's amachine. And I am even on I am
tired. And I'm not a machineactually, like I still think
that that dialogue and thereference can be helpful,
particularly at the bottomlevel, like at the baseline,
(32:09):
ideally, we should meet ourneeds, the way tools and
machines have their needs met,and obviously much more. But if
we aren't meeting our needs inthat way, right?
Unknown (32:21):
Then the map
April Baskin (32:23):
can be for me, as someone who is doing so many
things and can get distracted attimes, during a day, my phone's
battery let's where it's harderfor me to see my own self, like,
Oh, I've been on the phone, I'vebeen doing this much. And at
times when it runs low on myenergy spine that I don't think
anything of it when I'm feelingexhausted, I'm like on my
battery, it helps me notice likeright, my bat, my energetic
battery, which I can't just plugin, although there actually are
(32:45):
a range of things that I can dolike plugging in like sleeping,
and eating and hydrating. Thatnot immediately not in two
hours, but in several hours canrestore me like a night's worth
of sleep did last night afterstaying up for 24 hours
straight.
Tracie (33:06):
So my rabbi tells the story, I've heard her tell it
several times, and I don'tremember the source, sorry,
Rabbi. But there's this storylike a Hasidic tale. About, you
know, a fella comes to hisrabbi, because he's super scared
of the dark in his basement, andhe wants advice on what to do.
And so the rabbi says, Well, ifyou're scared, you know if that
(33:29):
if it's if it's bothering you,you know, go stand at the top of
the stairs and yell at it. Ofcourse, it scared away, scare it
away. And of course, thatdoesn't work. So he comes back
to the rabbi, and the rabbi waslike, Okay, well, that didn't
work. We need you need to getstronger, you need a more severe
(33:52):
way of dealing with it. So findthe biggest stick that you can
carry, and take it down to thebasement and beat the heck out
of that darkness. And that willmake it go away. Obviously, that
doesn't work. So he comes back,and the rabbi this time says,
Take this candle, and light thecandle and take the light candle
down into the dark basement. Andobviously, that does in fact,
(34:17):
illuminate the darkness. And,and to me, part of the point of
that story is this idea that theenergy of the solution is
different than the energy of theproblem like the energy of the
problem was the fear and the andthe discomfort. And so like,
that was getting, like the theinitial suggestions, which I
(34:40):
choose to believe the rabbi knewwhen working with making a point
about the problem, the energy,the problem and energy solution,
but sort of in that emotionaldiscomfort, these ways of
dealing with discomfort and thenchanging that, that that
changing the energy of thesolution. So the It actually
(35:00):
does dispel
April Baskin (35:03):
the darkness. The darkness.
Tracie (35:05):
Yeah. And with it. It's also I don't know, there's
something about that story too,that feels sort of empowering
to, like, it wasn't about beingstrong or being loud. You know,
it's about having the rightsolution, which is actually
relatively
April Baskin (35:26):
humble. Yeah. And support, right, that wasn't this
case, it wasn't a person, but itwas that, that candle, yeah, I'm
gonna get something additionaladditional to support me, right,
you know, like a safety blanket,or a cane, or, or glasses or
things that I've been thinkingabout that lately, because I
noticed, while we were in thelive launch mode, at times, were
(35:48):
a couple times where we weredoing things that were a little
bit different than how we wouldnormally do them on a business
day, and I misplaced certainthings that I realized my
notebook, I actually don't writein it that women also write in a
lot, I fill them pretty quickly.
But to a certain extent, inmeetings, I don't actually write
that much down. But it's like asafety blanket. For me, it's
just something that having itthere helps me I've, I've come
to believe that me having mynotebook near me means that I
(36:10):
won't miss important things. Butif something is important that I
have the option to, but I waslike, this is basically a little
bit like a safety blanket likesometimes it does actually keep
me warm. But sometimes it's justan emotional support object. You
know, and I think I was thinkingabout as you're telling that
story, Tracy to write, in thecontext of what we teach them
(36:31):
Shamar is that in addition tothat candle, something else that
he could hypothetically do isthat person could do is also
reached for a friend and talkwith them and think like, what's
it really about my fear of thedark and, and take some time to
process that and start noticinglike, oh, it's actually this
(36:53):
specific story from this time,and I was a kid Ben. And I
didn't have all the things Ihave now. But that's again,
that's for a longerconversation. So with that, I
think we'll cut to the outro Idid yesterday, and sending y'all
much love.
Unknown (37:11):
So all of this to say,
April Baskin (37:14):
as we move into 2023. Yes, a number of us are
facing daunting challenges. AndI would say often, almost always
a significant, a significantportion of the overwhelm we
feel, is illusion, that iscreated and generated by
(37:36):
oppression, and unhealed harmthat's often really old and
intergenerational for us. Thatactually is finite and healable.
But in the abstract, it startsto take over a whole system, it
shows up as panic attacks thatseemingly happened with no
reason it shows up as differentphysical ailments and challenges
in various moments. And thoseare worthy of taking very
(37:59):
seriously and addressing in anynumber of ways. But I've truly
come to learn and believe thatI'm happy and excited to be
teaching this to other folksthat a lot of it comes down to
trauma, and histories of harm,and internalized oppression. And
there are tools and insights wecan use to get clarity. And I
(38:24):
invite you to pursue thosethings, whether it's through
offerings that we offer throughjoyous justice, or to offer
things literally directly towardthis or from other teachers,
leaders and healers, who withwhom you resonate, in addition
or separately, right, but thatthese things are not actually
that much bigger than us,especially in the collective, we
(38:47):
have immense light. And sodepending upon wherever you are
on your journey, I want you toreally hold that that this isn't
just a simple metaphor, but Iactually think it's strategic
insight. And that as youexperience different challenges
in the coming year, I invite youas much as you can to give
(39:07):
yourself as much grace as youcan give yourself and reach
whatever help feels appropriateand know that the energy of the
problem and the energy of thesolution are foundationally
different. And that with a bitof help, we can usually get to a
solution and help much fasterthan we think we can. And
(39:29):
immense impact and joy. Andcollective power is much closer
within reach. But a number of usrealize, like heck, I often even
forget it at times. But we areincredibly powerful and we are
in this together. And I'm soexcited for us to journey into
(39:49):
2023 Not because I know that theconditions or circumstances are
going to be the greatest likelythere will be a number of
challenges. But increasingly themore I learn More I am
absolutely convinced that we areprofoundly divinely and
pragmatically powerful. And wedo have everything we need. We
(40:10):
just need to reorient to how toconnect with them and leverage
them and increasingly reduce theshame and fear we've been
conditioned to hold around them.
All of us to say, I believe yougot this. I believe we got this,
especially if we're workingtogether and I'm so excited to
see all of the justice and joythat we can bring to ourselves
(40:34):
in our world in this comingGregorian year. Much love.
Unknown (40:43):
Thanks for tuning in.
To learn more about joyousjustice LLC, our team and how
you can get involved with ourcommunity. Check out the info in
our show notes, or find us atjoyous justice.com If you
enjoyed this episode, show ussome love. Subscribe wherever
you're listening. Tell yourpeople share what you're
learning and how your leadershipis evolving. Stay humble,
April Baskin (41:07):
but not too humble. And keep going because
the future is ours to co create
It's the final week of 2022. And we're thinking about
our theory of change. Spoileralert, the energy of the
solution is different than theenergy of the problem. And you
and we are far more powerfulthan we've been conditioned to
believe.
April Baskin (00:29):
You're listening to the Joyous Justice Podcast,
Unknown (00:32):
a weekly show hosted by April Baskin with Tracie Guy
Decker.
April Baskin (00:35):
in a complex world in which systemic oppression
conditions us to deny others andour own humanity. let's dedicate
ourselves to the pursuit andembodiment of wholeness, love
and thriving in the world. Andin our own lives. It's time to
heal and flourish our way to amore joyous and just future.
(01:01):
I Tracy, April, hi, listener Hi,friend. Hi, kindred spirit.
Thank you for joining us forthis episode, we have a really
wonderful one plant for you tohopefully illuminate the
darkness that is oftenassociated with December. And to
(01:21):
add to the light that multipleholidays, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah,
Christmas, perhaps otherholidays as well, that I'm
remiss in not mentioning, helpedto bring the light. And it is my
hope that our conversation todaywill too and will inspire more
(01:43):
illuminated thinking for you. Solet's dive right in. Tracy, you
are interested in me, perhapsyou just suggested that I share
a bit about this recent metaphorI'm using to articulate joyous
justices theory of change arepart of it. And I want to full
(02:04):
disclosure here, I just want tosay that I didn't generate this
quote unquote, theory of changein the way that one
traditionally does. Where yousit down and have a strategic
meeting, or you sit down withyourself and think, what's our
theory of change, actually, thatarose in a better way, which is
that it just kind of organicallyarose among multiple thought
streams that I've been thinkingabout. And multiple threads all
(02:28):
coalesced into this simple,straightforward metaphor that
matches a number of the themesthis season. And so as I'm
saying this, I realized, likemaybe it's not the complete
theory of change, but it's likethe core of our theory of
change, I believe. But actually,maybe I will build it out on
(02:49):
this call and actually come upwith a draft theory of change,
because I realize it's like,what are about what we're about
to share? Tracy is like thenugget. And I think our fuller
theory of change is around us,weaving in joy and advancing
justice as we do this productwork. Anyway, enough said about
this and talking about thething, let's actually talk about
(03:11):
the thing, which is, there's somuch that's gone into it. And
full disclosure, Tracy and Irecorded a totally different
version of this episodeyesterday where I wanted to like
I was endeavoring in real timeto sort of like if you could
envision this theory of changeconcept, being at the top of the
(03:32):
mountain, and I wanted to takey'all on a journey, moving up
the mountain, but I ended upessentially, like, getting lost
in the desert or the forestinstead. And it was like, and
then there it is. And I waslike, let's, let's just do this
again. Also, I was super tired.
As some of you may or may notknow, Tracy and I had the honor
(03:52):
of being invited to speak at acouple different events.
Probably the week or two beforeyou listen to this, or if you
should hear this later, at somepoint in the past. Whenever
you're listening to this. DoTracy spoke at the Jewish badge
Hanukkah Gala. And perhaps youcan share a little bit about
(04:13):
that. And I spoke on a panelwith the King Center. And both
events and I had the honor ofbeing on a panel with amazing
leaders. And I don't want to getoff track here. But between both
of those things, I was up till10am The next morning, because I
(04:34):
was just
Unknown (04:39):
so humbled and
April Baskin (04:40):
excited by the impact that Tracy and I were
having from work that we've beenposting publicly and also just
doing privately in earnest foryears now and seeing its impact
out in the world. It just Ithought it was just taking a
couple hours to decompress. Itended up being a lot longer than
that. So, all of that to say,out of love for you, beloved
(05:06):
listener, and also out of lovefor our wonderful colleague,
Sarah, who has to edit thisepisode. I was like, Maybe we
should just record this. Andthankfully, Tracy
Unknown (05:17):
in her abundant patience,
April Baskin (05:22):
and kindness was like, okay. We want to do but
yeah, let's, let's give it a goagain. So here it is take to the
remix. Joy assesses theory ofchange around Okay,
Unknown (05:35):
that's my record scratch. Okay, so.
April Baskin (05:41):
So the basic premise is for me that I just I
really believe, and Tracy may ormay not agree with me on this.
And you may or may not agreewith me on this, that the more
that I've come to learn, andyes, it's been a complex and
intense journey. And part of thework with choice justice is that
we want to make it less complex.
And as much as we can lessintense for all of you. I've
come to see that even thoughwe've been conditioned to
(06:04):
believe a number of differentthings like some of the
catastrophes and social justiceissues and oppression and the
enormity of individual andcollective trauma, even though
we've been taught to believethat it has so much power over
us, I just the more I learnedfrom various masters, and that
I've taken time to study thesesubjects, the more it becomes
clear and clear to me that weare just so much more powerful
(06:29):
than that. And, and that we haveimmense power to affect change
as people who care aboutjustice. And so here's the basic
idea, which is that as we talkabout on Hanukkah, and likely in
different holidays acrossdifferent cultures, the year
(06:50):
round, I want to center itaround this principle of a
candle in the darkness. And Ibelieve that our, our collective
power, like even just within asingle person, your collective
power, my collective power interms of our spiritual, divine,
emotional, physical, all thedifferent abilities and insights
(07:11):
we have, that are aligned anddifferent for all of us. That
that is like this, the fact canbe represented by the metaphor
of a candle or light or lantern.
As I said in a recordingyesterday, and all of that
dysfunction of oppression,trauma, all of that stuff is the
(07:34):
equivalent of the darkness,right. And as any of us known,
we've been a room been in a roomwhere there's no light, or if
you've ever been out in thedesert at night, when you're not
near a city, or just in a placewhere there's darkness, darkness
is dark, like it is allconsuming. I remember a teacher
of mine once saying that herteacher, I think it was her
Naomi, let's say that one of herteachers in seminary, talked
(07:54):
about biblical darkness, right?
That it's not like at nightwhere you can have city lights
or something like that, likewe've all been there where it's
just pitch black and completelydark. And it can feel all
consuming, let alone combinedwith our fear,
Unknown (08:09):
right. But as we all know,
April Baskin (08:13):
and as a number of our traditions teach certainly
Judaism or on Hanukkah time,
Unknown (08:17):
that a single light
April Baskin (08:21):
can massively contradict the darkness, and
take us from having no optionsto being able to see just enough
far enough in front of us. Oreven further out, if we extend
it that we shift from being in aplace of complete ignorance and
vulnerability, to having enoughpower to get through to find the
(08:41):
light switch to move to a placewhere we can feel safer, right.
And then when we combine thoselights right now, this isn't a
new concept, per se, but I wantto add some weavin some
additional insight to this. Sobasically, to me, the situation
we're facing in our world, isthat, and I actually don't think
it's all darkness. But I thinkthis is the perception that
(09:01):
people have that oppression. Andall of these different variables
that feel so much bigger than usis like the darkness that feels
bigger than us.
Unknown (09:09):
But we do have access to light.
April Baskin (09:13):
The here's the challenge is that, through
conditioning, throughexperiencing defeat when we were
younger in our lives and notgetting support we needed most
of us nearly all of us have hadthis experience as a young
person, in part because of theoppression of young people let
alone if we have otheridentities as people who are
raised as women or girls, aspeople of color people have any
(09:36):
marginalized identity if youwere heavyset, any number of
different things right. If youif you were fat, when you were
younger, or throughout yourlife, there are different forms
of oppression and discriminationthat start, like we carry
throughout our lives that shiftover time and also that start
when we're young. And thenthere's just depression in
general. All of these variables,one of their core influences
(09:59):
that they have on us and then
Unknown (10:02):
is that they
April Baskin (10:06):
instill fear within us and often at times,
which I don't have time rightnow to fully get into all of the
theories and explanation ofinternalized depression. But
often the impact of theseexperiences is that we
internalize them in one way oranother, that we didn't get the
support we needed. And so ratherthan as young people thinking,
like, Oh, this is a messed upsituation, and these folks
(10:26):
didn't help me, and that'swrong. Usually, there's some
variation of something didn't gowell, and I wasn't enough, or I
didn't do enough, and it's myfault, and I'm unworthy or any
number of different things. Andthis happens just from life. And
then also it happens because ofoppression. And often those
things are combined, where lifecircumstances are impacted by
(10:47):
oppression. And all of this tosay, ultimately, what this leads
to is, in one way or another, alack of belief in our selves,
our worthiness, or our capacityto change things. And so we all
get the metaphor of the candlein the darkness. But I think
what we miss at times is thatnearly all of us, in one way or
(11:10):
another, have been conditionedin a variety of different ways,
for different reasons that I'vetried to sort of briefly
summarize, have been conditionedto think that to feel ashamed of
our light, or to think that weneed to minimize it, or that
it's not good, and that it'sunworthy.
Unknown (11:29):
Because of all these different,
April Baskin (11:33):
difficult experiences we accumulated
without a compassionate witness,and without support, and comfort
and compassion, to help usreframe those stories. And so,
and all of this is in deepservice of maintaining the
status quo and remain andmaintaining oppression. So what
(11:55):
I'm saying here is that Ibelieve in different ways,
there's both things that justhappen in the context of loving
families where it's not meant toharm people. But in terms of
systemic oppression, part of howsystemic oppression operates is
to intentionally conditionedpeople to internalize this and
oppress themselves in differentways. And I actually think that
(12:17):
this dynamic is more powerful ina number of different ways than
structural oppression. And thestructures that keep oppression
in place, I believe thestructures are relatively
benign, their policies aredifferent things that are
dependent upon people to adhereto them, or and or to say, what
(12:38):
are we doing this is horrible,we need to put this under review
or, or, or, or in a situationwhere someone is, in some sort
of official position as agatekeeper, there might be
something that's happening, butit requires people to operate
it. So long as we're still in aphase where AI isn't controlling
(12:59):
everything, which I hope willnever take place. But we can
talk about dystopian
Unknown (13:02):
possibilities later. So
April Baskin (13:06):
the basic idea here of this theory of change is
that
Unknown (13:11):
we have immense potential
April Baskin (13:13):
to eradicate to shift the darkness to make
substantial change. And as weknow, from a single candle, one
little birthday candle, won't doa lot. But it takes you from a
room of total darkness, we couldbe tripping over things and
experiencing all kinds ofchallenges to be being able to
operate. And I believe that eachof us have the equivalent of
essentially a lantern to abonfire, let's say, right, but
(13:37):
we've been all taught to turnthat lantern down. And we've
gotten all kinds of messagesaround how it's not effective.
And part of the work of joyous
Unknown (13:44):
justice, is to
April Baskin (13:47):
help facilitate healing and insight and
awareness, that helps us stillbe mindful be right, because we
don't want to drop the lanternand have it start a fire that
it's not like this power is isnot benign, in some ways, these
flames that we have is potentialthat we have could be used in
harmful and helpful ways. Rightis, but it's to help people
(14:10):
notice that actually, most of itis incredibly good, and can be
used powerfully, to contradictthe darkness and to bring in
more light, and that it doesn'teven need everybody with
lanterns to do it. If we justgot 20 of us together, that
would completely illuminate aroom that would completely that
could completely shift differentdynamics within a town. Right
(14:32):
that are light is superpowerful. So I'm trying to make
it more sophisticated. Tracy, Ithink this is way better than I
did yesterday. But I also feellike I'm making it more
Unknown (14:43):
verbose than it needs to be. I'm
April Baskin (14:45):
trying to convey the profundity of this and all
the different teachers that I'mintegrating when I say this from
multiple sources. So I thinkthat's the basic idea and I
think there are also otherelements of it that I forgot to
name
Unknown (14:59):
as I'm in this sort of performance mode versus talking
about
April Baskin (15:03):
this one on one with a few colleagues and
friends like I have where I feellike I did a much better job.
But it's okay, I'm still doingbetter than I did yesterday, one
step at a time. Tracy, do youwant to add in your voice
perspective, some metaphors,some kitchen table logic here,
what do you want to add into themix?
Unknown (15:21):
More profundity? Yeah, thanks, April. Yeah, that
welcomes a lot.
Tracie (15:35):
There's a couple of metaphors one that actually is,
is yours, but I'm gonna sharebecause you didn't say it about
the dampening of the light. Andthe way that the early defeats
kind of contribute to that,using the metaphor of like an
elephant, a captive elephant. Sowhen, when an elephant calf, can
be restrained by just by astrong rope around one of its
(15:57):
legs in a stake, if thatelephant calf has that rope
there. As it grows, even thoughthe adult elephant could break
that rope or pull up that steakpretty easily, the memory of its
boundary keeps disempowermentkeeps the elephant from from
(16:20):
doing what it has the physicalstrength to do. Because the the
mental and psychological scarsof those early defeats, and
that's a metaphor you have used,that I've heard you use before
April that I think is reallyYes, helps to make clear what
you mean by the power of thoseearly defeats in terms of
(16:43):
dimming our light.
April Baskin (16:44):
And may I say something here really quickly.
And I literally believe in lightof what we're facing in society
that we are like that elephant,that we actually are that
powerful that as much capacitywe have. But we have all these
different little ropes that whenwe were younger, and or our
peoples historically, it's notjust when we were younger, too,
it's also collective trauma. Somultiple generations of people
(17:06):
who actually had bigger thingslike literally chains and or
were burned at stakes, or, youknow, I don't, I don't want to
get too much into triggeringanyone's trauma. But like, there
were actual major barriers thataren't here anymore. But the
legacy the shadow of thosethings loom in our mind and in
our heart and function like thatrope, right. And it's just
(17:27):
through the right interventionsand healing and support. That
often is about, it's less aboutadding there are some insights
and different things to add. Buta lot of the insights and
coaching and tools that we teachin our programs, is to help
clear the dissonance and theconfusion so that people can
access their truth, right.
Anyway, all I basically wantedto say is that
Unknown (17:49):
I think that we are incredibly
April Baskin (17:53):
powerful, and it's mostly just our conditioning
that has set us up to believethat we're not, please continue
Tracy.
Tracie (18:01):
On that, um, the power piece and the the light
metaphor, the vision that Ioften have, especially when
thinking about this as a theoryof change, I think a lot of
folks who are working for change
Unknown (18:19):
start to face
Tracie (18:21):
we we start to feel isolated, and we start to feel
really frustrated that morepeople don't agree with us or
that it feels like no one sortof gets it and don't see the
either What's wrong or what orthat we have the power or
whatever it might be. Andthere's this the overwhelm that
you were talking about about howbig it is, like many people
(18:42):
working for change, part of thebigness part of the overwhelm of
like, what is bigger than us isthe sense that we need to
convince everyone that we needto convert everyone to our way
of thinking or our way ofaddressing whatever harms. And I
think your metaphor, even yousaid it earlier about how we
(19:05):
don't need everyone we eat 20people and that would eliminate
the whole room. I have thisvision of like a stadiums worth
of people, Billy in the dark.
And then these like, kind ofscattered throughout different
folks who are holding up theirlight and the illumination then
that falls around the whole likethe whole perimeter of the
(19:29):
stadium and and folks areattracted to it as well. Because
part of the part of theexperience of being fully in the
dark, it's not that we can'tmove. It's not that we can't do
anything. Just the effort. Theeffort is so much
Unknown (19:50):
bigger, it's
Tracie (19:52):
harder, it's more difficult. It uses different
senses that uses them more andeven. And those of us who are
sighted, even in the dark, we'relike straining
Unknown (20:00):
As if we could like,
Tracie (20:02):
squint our eyes just enough. And so and that would
change, at least that's what Ido. You know, and then I'm like
working so hard to see eventhough there is nothing to be
seen. And so then thatintroduction of light into that
circumstance, all of a sudden,everything is a little easier,
(20:22):
and a little morestraightforward. And those,
those pieces of the fact that wedon't need 100% of the folks in
our surroundings, to have thesame light in order to change
the entire circumstance that Ifind really heartening. And
(20:45):
also, I really feel the changein the amount of effort in order
to proceed when thinking aboutletting that light shine. And
those are those two of the kindof pieces that for me, show up
(21:06):
in this metaphor.
Unknown (21:09):
In terms of a theory of change.
April Baskin (21:13):
love this so much, it feels like an add an
additional layer to the metaphorthat we weren't even planning on
it feels really cool thatliterally my power just went
out. So for those listening inright now, so this might get
edited out. But in the midst ofour conversation, luckily, it
was Tracy talking at the moment,so I didn't get cut off and she
could still keep talking, but mypower went out. And normally I
(21:36):
have a backup generator here.
But I'm the one from my officedied. And so literally, the
lights went off, it's daylightright now. So it's not
completely dark. But um, it'sjust a, you know, I just I love
it. I don't know that I want tounpack it right now. But I think
it's really beautiful. And justadds to a little bit of what
we're talking about.
(21:57):
Occasionally, if for somereason, our light, which
actually we mentioned in thefirst iteration of this was like
it's I can bring that theme inat times of, let's say that the
little if we can imagine it, butit's a lantern where you turn
the knob a little bit and thatmakes the light brighter or more
dim, right or reduces the light,that even if your lantern is
(22:20):
temporarily unavailable for anynumber of different reasons, or
you've had it turned down so lowthat's kind of rusted in that
place. But we also have theoption to leverage the light of
others to help us which again,seems obvious, but it's also not
because nearly all of us havebeen conditioned in one way or
another heavily conditioned bytoxic individualism, such that
(22:43):
when I when I you know tracer,or I were to say what I just
said that you can borrow someoneelse's light, right like ship,
you have them share their lightand help reignite your lamp or
get some months help with thelever, get some additional help
to get your lantern. The knobworking again, so you can
increase it right. Like everyoneis sort of like obviously, and
(23:05):
yet some of the greatestbreakthroughs and coaching and
healing come from the placeswhere we've been hurt where
trauma has occurred where earlydefeats have been registered,
often deeply also toxicindividualism has been deeply
registered. So the obviousoptions don't occur to us. Yeah,
no doubt.
Tracie (23:24):
I mean, we've all I can't I can't count the number
of times that people sort ofexpressed some version of I
should be able to figure thisout, or I should be able to do
this on my own.
April Baskin (23:37):
And it's like, it's literally not like, like,
it's not like it's like, youknow, I don't know your I don't
know your machine or like thisfigment of white supremacist
colonialism. Patriarchy, like,you know, it just doesn't. It's
not if it's just an oppressiveconcept, right, but, or even us
right now. Like when I thinktracing I likely, I think Tracy
(24:00):
and I were both likely thinkingthat the podcast was over right
now. And then it slowly kind ofdawned on us but we could I
could lean on Tracy in thismoment, and we could still do
this episode. Yeah, for those
Tracie (24:13):
watching the video I'm actually holding my phone up to
my microphones
Unknown (24:19):
to capture April's was right and so
April Baskin (24:26):
so I'm trying to remember where it was going
before the power went out.
Unknown (24:29):
Um, so that's the basic idea is just I just,
April Baskin (24:35):
and for some of you, I think this may super
resonate, and for some of youfor whom we set a number of
things that were stretched mytakeaway for you is is that our
light is powerful. And ifthere's any place where you
don't feel that and you thinkthat is not true, that is that
is your opportunity to reach foradditional light and help
(24:59):
outside Have yourself. And itdoesn't even have to be. Here's
the thing that I've learned asI've been on my own healing and
leadership journey, whichfortunately, blessedly because
of the people I've come, I'vesought out and or who reached
out to me for help, to help andsupport me over the years helps
me combine those things, mostpeople have them separated. But
(25:21):
to me, it's critical as we dosocial justice, leadership and
leadership in the world, that weintegrate our healing and our
liberatory vision and leadershipbecause
Unknown (25:33):
we actually need both of them. And that's part
April Baskin (25:36):
of us being able to skillfully leverage our light
in different ways. But um, wherewas I going? I'm trying to both
turn on my computer and get backon the normal way. And also,
where was I going with that?
Tracy? Can you help me? Oh,yeah, that's what I'm talking
about help. Right, is what Iwant to say here is that when we
reach for help, also, I've foundfor me, at times, I really need
(25:57):
someone say, to literally helpme walk somewhere if my legs
hurt. But often when I need helparound a project, or something
I'm working on or even somethingI'm chewing on. And often
actually, it's just a few minuteconversation, just to get a
second perspective, or someoneto add to add a spark to my
flame, right, like my flame is,let's say a proverbial
(26:18):
situational flame is a littlelow around something, and I just
need someone to leverage alittle bit of their mattress
give me a little bit of a spark,that's enough to get my flower
fire going, you know that whenpeople say, Oh, I don't need any
help. And, and I think in someways, there's both, there's both
some unhelpful individualismwith that. But I think also part
of it is perhaps an accuraterepresentation that a lot of it
(26:40):
you can do alone. And so I thinkat times, there's a bit of
either or thinking,
Unknown (26:48):
or either you are completely dependent,
April Baskin (26:51):
or you are independent, as opposed to,
you're an independent personwho's also interconnected. And
at times, needs to occasionallydepend on some help. That might
be a big help, and usually mightbe just smaller help. But that
that's smaller help, cancontradict our feeling of
loneliness, and just give uswhat we need. So that's the
(27:12):
other piece of nuance that Iwanted to add to this Tracy,
right, is that it doesn't meanwhen we reach for help, that we
need someone to fully help uswith something, it might just be
that we need two minutes orthree minutes, or maybe even a
half an hour or an hourconversation with someone to
help think through, say, for me,for instance, was a speech I was
giving. I didn't need someone towrite the speech for me. But I
assumed that to talk to someoneabout my ideas, and I was afraid
(27:35):
of talking about a nationalstage and have them say to me,
oh, yeah, like I helped my momin this situation. And she said
some similar things. And thatwent really well. And just the
affirmation was like, Okay, I'monto something. I'm not about to
hurt people, I'm beingresponsible. And that was a
nice, she was able to shareother ideas with her. And that
was enough that got me going toget started. It's kind of like,
(27:57):
I guess the metaphor of thiswould be,
Unknown (28:00):
you know, starting a car, right? It's not that we
need the other car to replaceour engine, it just, we need to
hook up some one of those callTracy, jumper cables to
jumpstart.
April Baskin (28:13):
At times, we just need it, we just need a
jumpstart. That's what I'mgreat. We just need a spark, or
jumpstart, and then our engineworks fine. But it's just around
certain things a spark might notbe going because of any number
of different things. And I thinkthat
Unknown (28:27):
the way people think of help, is they don't think of it
as a jump. They think of it asthinking that they're hooking
their car up to another person'scar, right? Or they're not able
to drive it at all
April Baskin (28:40):
right, right.
Whereas it's like, no, it's justa tough, sometimes it might be
longer. That's true. And that'salso okay. But much of the time,
it feels like we might needenormous help. And we're
avoiding that. But what we needis just
Unknown (28:51):
to jumpstart just the spark, and then we might need
another spark occasionally tokeep our fire going. Tracy, do
you want to add any thoughts tothat? Well, I pick on
Tracie (29:06):
my brain is going in a couple of different directions.
You know, one, like stickingwith the car metaphor, and
remembering that even machinesneed fuel and sort of figuring
out what what our fuel is. Andthat's, that's one thing that's
(29:28):
kind of rattling around. Andmaybe maybe it is actually
related because one of the oneof the things that I saw in the
talk that I did for Jewish vegthat you mentioned in the
opening, one of the things thatI was encouraging folks to do is
to pay greater attention to thesmall. I mean, I called the
(29:51):
miracles because it was aChanukah. It was like a speech
but just those small momentsthat the everyday moments of of
power that we have Have based onsmall choices that we make, that
I think often get overlooked bythose of us seeking change.
Because we compare that smallmoment, that small choice,
(30:17):
whatever it might be, it couldbe about, you know, how you
spend your money or consciouseating, which is what I was
talking about with Jewish veg.
Or whatever it might be with theenormity of the problems. And so
and we see the difference there,and, and judge ourselves
lacking. But actually, each ofthose moments helps chip away
(30:39):
and should be celebrated. Andthe more we celebrate it, as you
say, what you focus on grows,the more we celebrate it, the
the bigger impacted, it actuallyhas, and the more momentum we
can establish. Exactly. So itbecomes that snowball effect of
growing. So that which I thinkmaybe is actually related to the
(31:02):
fuel metaphor for the car whereyou were that, you know, maybe
needed a jumpstart, and does infact, need fuel to keep going.
You can't. You can't keepdriving, even if you have the
spark if you don't have thefuel, whatever that might be.
Unknown (31:23):
The nourishment, yeah.
Yeah, recharge.
April Baskin (31:28):
And I think the you know, it was in a social
justice leadership training oncewhere they really encouraged us
to avoid using machinery andtechnology as metaphors like
bandwidth and things like that.
But I think I have, I thinkit's, I like an interesting
dynamic around it, because Ilike noticing at times that
(31:48):
often when my phone is dying,and always, but particularly in
moments where it feels reallyresonant. I'm noticing, like, my
phone is dying, and it's amachine. And I am even on I am
tired. And I'm not a machineactually, like I still think
that that dialogue and thereference can be helpful,
particularly at the bottomlevel, like at the baseline,
(32:09):
ideally, we should meet ourneeds, the way tools and
machines have their needs met,and obviously much more. But if
we aren't meeting our needs inthat way, right?
Unknown (32:21):
Then the map
April Baskin (32:23):
can be for me, as someone who is doing so many
things and can get distracted attimes, during a day, my phone's
battery let's where it's harderfor me to see my own self, like,
Oh, I've been on the phone, I'vebeen doing this much. And at
times when it runs low on myenergy spine that I don't think
anything of it when I'm feelingexhausted, I'm like on my
battery, it helps me notice likeright, my bat, my energetic
battery, which I can't just plugin, although there actually are
(32:45):
a range of things that I can dolike plugging in like sleeping,
and eating and hydrating. Thatnot immediately not in two
hours, but in several hours canrestore me like a night's worth
of sleep did last night afterstaying up for 24 hours
straight.
Tracie (33:06):
So my rabbi tells the story, I've heard her tell it
several times, and I don'tremember the source, sorry,
Rabbi. But there's this storylike a Hasidic tale. About, you
know, a fella comes to hisrabbi, because he's super scared
of the dark in his basement, andhe wants advice on what to do.
And so the rabbi says, Well, ifyou're scared, you know if that
(33:29):
if it's if it's bothering you,you know, go stand at the top of
the stairs and yell at it. Ofcourse, it scared away, scare it
away. And of course, thatdoesn't work. So he comes back
to the rabbi, and the rabbi waslike, Okay, well, that didn't
work. We need you need to getstronger, you need a more severe
(33:52):
way of dealing with it. So findthe biggest stick that you can
carry, and take it down to thebasement and beat the heck out
of that darkness. And that willmake it go away. Obviously, that
doesn't work. So he comes back,and the rabbi this time says,
Take this candle, and light thecandle and take the light candle
down into the dark basement. Andobviously, that does in fact,
(34:17):
illuminate the darkness. And,and to me, part of the point of
that story is this idea that theenergy of the solution is
different than the energy of theproblem like the energy of the
problem was the fear and the andthe discomfort. And so like,
that was getting, like the theinitial suggestions, which I
(34:40):
choose to believe the rabbi knewwhen working with making a point
about the problem, the energy,the problem and energy solution,
but sort of in that emotionaldiscomfort, these ways of
dealing with discomfort and thenchanging that, that that
changing the energy of thesolution. So the It actually
(35:00):
does dispel
April Baskin (35:03):
the darkness. The darkness.
Tracie (35:05):
Yeah. And with it. It's also I don't know, there's
something about that story too,that feels sort of empowering
to, like, it wasn't about beingstrong or being loud. You know,
it's about having the rightsolution, which is actually
relatively
April Baskin (35:26):
humble. Yeah. And support, right, that wasn't this
case, it wasn't a person, but itwas that, that candle, yeah, I'm
gonna get something additionaladditional to support me, right,
you know, like a safety blanket,or a cane, or, or glasses or
things that I've been thinkingabout that lately, because I
noticed, while we were in thelive launch mode, at times, were
(35:48):
a couple times where we weredoing things that were a little
bit different than how we wouldnormally do them on a business
day, and I misplaced certainthings that I realized my
notebook, I actually don't writein it that women also write in a
lot, I fill them pretty quickly.
But to a certain extent, inmeetings, I don't actually write
that much down. But it's like asafety blanket. For me, it's
just something that having itthere helps me I've, I've come
to believe that me having mynotebook near me means that I
(36:10):
won't miss important things. Butif something is important that I
have the option to, but I waslike, this is basically a little
bit like a safety blanket likesometimes it does actually keep
me warm. But sometimes it's justan emotional support object. You
know, and I think I was thinkingabout as you're telling that
story, Tracy to write, in thecontext of what we teach them
(36:31):
Shamar is that in addition tothat candle, something else that
he could hypothetically do isthat person could do is also
reached for a friend and talkwith them and think like, what's
it really about my fear of thedark and, and take some time to
process that and start noticinglike, oh, it's actually this
(36:53):
specific story from this time,and I was a kid Ben. And I
didn't have all the things Ihave now. But that's again,
that's for a longerconversation. So with that, I
think we'll cut to the outro Idid yesterday, and sending y'all
much love.
Unknown (37:11):
So all of this to say,
April Baskin (37:14):
as we move into 2023. Yes, a number of us are
facing daunting challenges. AndI would say often, almost always
a significant, a significantportion of the overwhelm we
feel, is illusion, that iscreated and generated by
(37:36):
oppression, and unhealed harmthat's often really old and
intergenerational for us. Thatactually is finite and healable.
But in the abstract, it startsto take over a whole system, it
shows up as panic attacks thatseemingly happened with no
reason it shows up as differentphysical ailments and challenges
in various moments. And thoseare worthy of taking very
(37:59):
seriously and addressing in anynumber of ways. But I've truly
come to learn and believe thatI'm happy and excited to be
teaching this to other folksthat a lot of it comes down to
trauma, and histories of harm,and internalized oppression. And
there are tools and insights wecan use to get clarity. And I
(38:24):
invite you to pursue thosethings, whether it's through
offerings that we offer throughjoyous justice, or to offer
things literally directly towardthis or from other teachers,
leaders and healers, who withwhom you resonate, in addition
or separately, right, but thatthese things are not actually
that much bigger than us,especially in the collective, we
(38:47):
have immense light. And sodepending upon wherever you are
on your journey, I want you toreally hold that that this isn't
just a simple metaphor, but Iactually think it's strategic
insight. And that as youexperience different challenges
in the coming year, I invite youas much as you can to give
(39:07):
yourself as much grace as youcan give yourself and reach
whatever help feels appropriateand know that the energy of the
problem and the energy of thesolution are foundationally
different. And that with a bitof help, we can usually get to a
solution and help much fasterthan we think we can. And
(39:29):
immense impact and joy. Andcollective power is much closer
within reach. But a number of usrealize, like heck, I often even
forget it at times. But we areincredibly powerful and we are
in this together. And I'm soexcited for us to journey into
(39:49):
2023 Not because I know that theconditions or circumstances are
going to be the greatest likelythere will be a number of
challenges. But increasingly themore I learn More I am
absolutely convinced that we areprofoundly divinely and
pragmatically powerful. And wedo have everything we need. We
(40:10):
just need to reorient to how toconnect with them and leverage
them and increasingly reduce theshame and fear we've been
conditioned to hold around them.
All of us to say, I believe yougot this. I believe we got this,
especially if we're workingtogether and I'm so excited to
see all of the justice and joythat we can bring to ourselves
(40:34):
in our world in this comingGregorian year. Much love.
Unknown (40:43):
Thanks for tuning in.
To learn more about joyousjustice LLC, our team and how
you can get involved with ourcommunity. Check out the info in
our show notes, or find us atjoyous justice.com If you
enjoyed this episode, show ussome love. Subscribe wherever
you're listening. Tell yourpeople share what you're
learning and how your leadershipis evolving. Stay humble,
April Baskin (41:07):
but not too humble. And keep going because
the future is ours to co create
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