 Greetings, everyone. Welcome, welcome. I'm just sitting here in my home, getting ready to host the, I guess, second to last conversation for NBT at home. I've got some really spectacular folks with me here who can reveal yourselves to the world. And then we're going to get this party started yet. Yes. Look at these, look at these reveals. It's so theatrical. I love it. I love it. That was awesome. That's a brand new thing. We've never done that before. Thank you for, thanks for trying that out. Fantastic. I am Chelsea D. I'm a co curator and moderator with the National Black Theater, and we are here for NBT at Home Founders Month Edition, where we're talking to cohorts of these incredible black makers and innovators and just all the wonderful delicious things. We have a collection of conversations we've been having to celebrate Dr. Barbara Antier and the founding of the National Black Theater. So today with me, I've got some amazing, amazing, amazing people who, ah, there's just that we're going to, we're going to get, we're going to get into all these things, but there's just so much reverence and admiration and just delight that y'all's work has brought me personally. So I'm very glad to be here and thank you for, thank you for, thank you for showing up and being on this Zoom call. So, I did want to talk about creating, yes, hello, what did you say? I said thanks for having us. This is like a powerhouse collection of folks. And these are people who have been creating new futures, creating new paths, creating radically free spaces. And so y'all are very much a part of the legacy of the National Black Theater, very much a part of what we envisioned for how we're going to move forward. So something that we're, okay, sorry, I'm just getting various messages from folks. But something that I wanted to let folks know about is the National Black Theater Vision Forward Fund, looking to fortify, ground and imagine yet another 50 years of the National Black Theater. I'll talk more about that at the end of our chat, but check out our website page to learn more about what we're trying to do. We're trying to start an archive so that we can preserve Dr. Tear's technology of soul that she was creating when she was creating the National Black Theater so that we can support the artists that we commissioned. And so that we can have greater capacity to do all the work that we really, really, really need to be doing. So that's going to be something we're going to talk about a little bit later. But for now, I want to introduce you all, if you don't know, to the fantastic folks we have with us. This is a symposium of healers, makers, truth speakers, music makers, earth shakers. Okay, I was told to keep these introductions short. So I'm going to try to do that, but I want to give honor to what y'all've done and folks need to know like who's in the space. So please, if you don't know these these folks, Google them a little bit more deeply but I'm going to give you a quick top line. I mean, there's how do we even top line version of these things. But everyone here is too, too dope. First, I'm going to start us off with Adrian Marie Brown, author of Emergent Strategy, Shaping Change, Changing Worlds, and the co editor of Octavia's Brood, Science Fiction from Social Justice Movements. She is a writer, social justice facilitator, pleasure activist, healer and doula living in Detroit. She was also the subject of one of those three portrait series that we had from Makiba Keed's Rainy. This is Adrian Marie Brown. Welcome. Welcome. Welcome. Welcome. Thank you so much for having me. That's a portrait thing. I didn't know what happened while I was away. And when I saw it, I lost my whole poop. Anyway, I'm not as a fricking curse, but it was, you know, it was very important for me. So thanks for having me. I'm so grateful. I think Barbanteer is amazing. I'm grateful to be part of this legacy of what the National Bell Theater is building. So thank you. Okay, I'm going to move on to Toshi Reagan. Toshi Reagan, singer, composer, musician, curator and producer with a profound ear for Sonic Americana, from funk to folk, from blues to rock. And when I tell you, when I tell you Toshi's music was was it is so authentic to the American sound and it's such a gumbo sonically of all the things that we are and have created it throughout time. I mean, it's like, also Toshi, your mom's voice was the soundtrack of my childhood. So it's very much like full circle mom's energy, you know, it's all here this evening. So Toshi Reagan, welcome. So glad to have you. I'm really happy to be here. Thank you so much. Can't wait to get into it. Yeah. Yeah. All right, and Kendra Frazier, the founding executive director of the Hope Center, a free mental health facility located in Central Harlem of New York City. Reverend Frazier is the founder and CEO of KYND that stands for Knowing Yourself in Need of Devotion. KYND offers trauma informed care through a variety of services from clinical therapy for individuals, families and couples to trauma informed training for ecclesial communities and corporate entities known for her work in removing barriers to mental health access for communities of color. I am honored to welcome you Kendra here for this. Thank you. Thank you so grateful to be here and kind thanks. Kind, there you go. Yes, kind. Spelled KYND. The first four letters for my name. Oh. There you go. Okay. Thank you for everything. You're in the work that you've done with KYND and what I mean trauma informed is definitely a phrase I'm hearing a lot more of people are starting to think about what does it mean to be trauma informed. So, really happy to have you here to speak to what that is and what that means. We're going to move into our check-in portion. We got some check-in questions here. I want to know your accessibility. How are you feeling today? Is there anything you need? Is there anything you need folks to know about where you are right now? And this can be your accessibility physically, emotionally, mentally, wherever you are in the space just let us know so we can be of greater support to you. What I want to hear about is any updates on any projects or anything you want folks to know that you're doing? We'd love to know. And then the third thing is thinking about pleasure activism. What is bringing you pleasure right now? And to explain a little bit more about pleasure activism is the person who wrote the book on this. Can you tell us about pleasure activism? What are some things folks need to understand about this amazing concept and framework? Sure. The sort of nutshell of it is that pleasure is not frivolous. It is a measure of our freedom. That's one of the core pieces of it. And pleasure activism is the work that we do to heal ourselves from the ways that oppression has taught us that we don't deserve pleasure, that we don't deserve joy, that we have to work constantly and labor constantly and produce constantly in order to ever access our two weeks of vacation, our retirement when we're 65 and then we finally can sit somewhere and fish or relax or whatever. It's like most of us are making it that far. We're not making it that far with any joy. And I tie it to that James Baldwin quote, your crown has already been bought and paid for. It's like our ancestors labored in a way that we can't really repay that. One of the things that they earned for us is the right to have rest and joy and pleasure. And it's also a survival technology. Being able to laugh and have music and be alive. It's really rooted in the work of Audrey Lord and the uses of the erotic as power that idea that once you experience that full erotic awakening and that it's flowing through you. It becomes impossible to settle for suffering and self negation. And I feel like it's so important in this moment, our movements are pleasure activism outbursts right like you go, you look in any direction at people in the street and it's like, there's an irresistible force. So we want to become that irresistible force. And it also asks us to look at sex and drugs and the things that give us pleasure, and make sure we're also aligning those with our values right that it's like, there's nothing to be ashamed of about seeking pleasure. How has it been legislated into these arenas where we feel shame and guilt and hiding. Everybody smoke and weed. Everybody's fucking or doing sex. Yes, yes. Okay, well everybody's doing it. So, yeah, all these things are happening but everyone's acting like it's still supposed to be a secret. And in the places where we don't discuss it. We can be transgressing against ourselves transgressing against our values transgressing against our what we deserve. So it's all of those things and then that show. Oh, yes. That's it. And I was like, if I have the person who is who who introduced the world to pleasure activism and this new framework of thinking about it, I have to have you explain what it is. So, so, so fantastic. Okay, and then the fourth checking we're still in the check in and the fourth question checking question is in y'all's opinion, you know one by one. What does the world need a revival of right now, and to give us a little bit of a working definition a little context about what is a revival what has it traditionally been. What is it culturally been how has it worked for black people and communities of color. And I would love Kendra for you to talk to us a little bit about what is a revival and what has it meant revival I can talk about revival through storytelling a bit so I grew up in the church of God, Segal Avenue first church of God where my great grandmother was part of the church over 115 years ago. So I'm a church kid grew grew up I'm a child of the 80s. And I remember being a revival of revival being literally an opportunity for you to restore your soul for you to restore your life it would be a week out of the habit, where we would bring on a guest preacher that guest preacher would typically preach for that whole week and then we would be introduced to new choirs. Sometimes it will be our home choir and then other times will be visiting the choirs, and you know I grew up in the area where a good processional would take place. So I always will look forward to those processionals and the choir in their roles walking down the aisle, and always hearing a new word to heal my soul and my mind in that time. So I believe that the revival that we're in right now is a revival a call to walk more deeply into our own light. And in order to walk more deeply into our own light of spirit beings as God beings, we have to deal with our shadows. This is the season where we're being revived out of the dead walking that we've been doing in the world. I know that Adrian mentioned early before we came on camera this new relationship with time that she has. Every time has become something that I can relish in because I'm no longer attached to the institutions that have me bound and ways that kept me from seeing my own brilliance and ways that kept me from seeing that the energy that I poured into institutions. I needed to pour into my own work. So that is what revival looks like in this time. Yeah. Let's start with you Kendra for a check in. And you'll just answer all those questions and don't worry I'm here so just ask and I'll tell I'll remind you what what question you're on. Let's start us off your accessibility. How are you doing coming into space today and any project updates or anything you want people to know about perhaps the kind or any any other efforts that you're doing. Absolutely. I am in this moment and feeling revived no pun intended, as well as restored these past couple months have been hard for me. I know that I hold as a spiritual leader as well as a clinical therapist a clinical social worker. I had a great acupuncture session yesterday, and he he placed some needles in some places that help reset my system so I'm feeling reset right now. In terms of the project that I want to lift up I am working with an amazing filmmaker Katina Parker on a project that we are calling the love Supreme black queer and Christian in the south. And I have been working on this film project for almost five years and we are in the midst of fundraising to finish up our production. This documentary series follows eight families black families who have LGBTQ folks in their family systems, who found ways to love beyond the limits of their prejudice to love beyond the theological poor theological suppositions they've heard from their pool pit, juxtaposed the love that they have for their LGBTQ family members and some of them are still wrestling with their families in it. And so I'm so grateful for the other folks that have decided to be collaborators on the film to find out more about a love Supreme you can go to www.love supreme.com. Yeah. And do you want me to answer the rest of the questions to yes I and I was a little bit late because I was going to What I am taking the time to love on myself, as well as experience love in ways that I haven't before a love that's very honest, a love that's filled with integrity, a love that calls me back to myself every time I endeavor in it and it's really ultimately healing work and healing work is process and it's a journey. So I've been doing my work and committed to doing my work and my work sometimes looks like meditation. My work sometimes look like looks like Netflixing and chilling. My work sometimes looks like business meetings for my consulting company, and then it also looks like making love sometimes. So my work looks like many things so that's where I am. And yeah, I think I've already answered number four. Yeah, you yes, number four. Awesome. And I love that the work can look different, you know, at any point at any, at any point in this process so change is always, always happen. Okay, Adrian, let's, let's, let's move to you give us your accessibility and any projects updates. I'm so lit up by the sexy reverend. I'm just over here like, okay. This is just great. This is the new gospel so my accessibility needs are really good right now. I'm a little chilly because I'm at my parents house and so it's like air conditioning and the news are two constant presences here. But I love being here I love being with them. I feel every day more and more the preciousness of getting to be with my family and that they are meeting a lot of my accessibility need because they're in one of the lower intensity. COVID places in the country and they're like opening their home to me and my partner to be here with them. So it's been incredible you know I'm getting like mama care every day and I had a beautiful cheek on class last night, and I'm just like really being like how do I keep finding my way into my body as my body shifts and changes so I'm doing good. Projects that I want to uplift in this moment. I'm always working on a lot of pot so one thing I want to uplift is, I do two podcasts, one is called how to survive the end of the world and my sister autumn is my co host on it. And while I was away I just was away for six months on sabbatical. She focused the whole thing on an apocalypse survival series that is like a how to book like it really feels like you know Octavia would be like yeah that's good. I want to keep I just point people to it, it just AV the AV club just uplifted it as one of their top podcast of 2020. And it really is like, and I say that like I'm like maybe I should go away more often but I'm like that was the best word the best of the podcast has ever been. The other podcast on part of is with Toshi Regan, the one and only the original, and it's called Octavia's parables and we are reading Octavia together chapter by chapter with analysis summaries and questions to hold for yourself in community. So, I'm also finishing a book on emergent strategy facilitation. So like tomorrow I'm going to click send on the next iteration of it going into the editors and I love writing books so I think in books these days and so there's always like some book brewing in me. When I think of pleasure what's bringing me pleasure right now. I'm also on operation make a lot of love during the apocalypse. So I've been making sure that I have that I'm responsible for my own daily pleasure, giving pleasure receiving pleasure, and then resting into deep presence. I've been really trying to be like how you know I'm around my parents how do I be present with my parents, how do I find the pleasure of connection here, and for years, I don't know about job for years. There's a way I can orient towards my parents like I know everything and let me tell you all things and you don't you know you can't control me whatever all this rebellion that it can come back if you only see your parents a couple times a year you know it can come back in quickly. And I've just been letting that fall away and being like, I get the pleasure of this relationship as adults and how do I lean into that. And then the pleasure of creating, you know I wake up every day and I'm like this day is mine. I've crafted my life box things out I set boundaries and now this is my time, and what I want to create. And I really feel like my whole life is a ritual my whole life is a pleasure right now and it's, I mean, I literally I was mentioned as before but it has shifted my relationship to time, because I keep telling people like we don't know how long we have. This is always true but the pandemic has made it more present that we don't know how long we have and we can't make plans the way we used to because we don't know what the conditions are going to be. So right now is suddenly truly really clearly. Oh this is what I have. And inside of that I wrote my friends and I was like I feel like I'm on mushrooms all the time because I'm so attentive and everything feels magical but I'm just walking around this is how life is. It's great. And then the revival. So, I really liked this question because my first thought was like we're in the revival like the world is like the revival is like going. But then I was like well now if I really was going to tune into that like from my, my organizer movement heart. And then things jumped up for me one was a commitment to self transformation. That we're in a moment where it's very easy right now to point to be pointing at everyone and being like this needs to change and you need to change and you need to change, and you need to transform. And inside of that it can be very easy to relinquish the part that is actually necessary the thing that we can only change which is ourselves. And I keep every day being like how do I have a revival of curiosity about my own self transformation. Where are those systems of oppression still alive in me where are they woven into my cells. What is that detox look like how do I decolonize. And I want to see our movements be rigorous about self transformation in the same way we're rigorous about calling people out and canceling this and everything I'm like no let's be rigorous about each of us can be a harm do or how do we each step into a new way of being. And that means we need a revival of patients also that just because we're calling things out in this moment doesn't mean it's going to change right away. So how do we revive that sacred patients in us that's like this is the way this is the path. And it's going to mean folks putting their foot in their mouth and you being there to be like let me pull that foot out of your mouth and like in a loving way how do we stay connected stay beyond all these constructs stay human with each other. And that's just some of the revivals I'm intrigued by and interested in right now. I'm here, I'm here for that. And that's self that self transformation piece that that that's a word. That's a word. I always quote her but she my mentor is Grace Lee box live to be 100 years and 100 days old and she said we have to transform ourselves to transform the world. And I just, I think about that all the time is that I'm like okay white supremacy, where do I need to excise you in the okay capitalism, where do I need to wish my materialism okay patriarchy, where am I still accepting less than I deserve on the dollar. Okay, how do I transform myself so yeah. Wow. So rich. I'm so excited. So she to round us off. Let's do your accessibility and project updates. Accessibility. Let's see you know that word is just has so much heaviness for me because I usually has to do with, you know, am I able to walk. And then that's how I think about like, am I able to move and so I would say like, I feel really good because I'm, I'm walking very well right now. And I'm really happy about that. I know that's, it's a bit of a wide wider question but much of my like everything is tied to how well I'm walking. And, and so, you know, when I'm walking well, I'm not as worried. I'm not as concerned about myself. I'm not as careful. I'm just moving a little bit freer in the world. And so it's ironic to be very much homebound. I'm not one of the people that's like going out and trying to do everything. I've been like really, you know, operating very close to my home so. Yeah, so I feel, I feel really good. I feel really good. I'm a little bit tired today, but I feel really good. It's an okay tire. So uplift. Absolutely Octavia's parables with Adrian. That is, that is such an incredible gift. And I'm really grateful for it, as we both have been so much. A lot of our work is, is on Octavia's incredible texts that she gave to us. And, and we both have read the parable books like probably 100 times or more. And so it's, but it's been really good to be a conversation in this particular way, chapter by chapter and then and have it go out into the world is really, really incredible. And also tonight I am simultaneously doing the magic of pre recorded performances. There is a great organization called rock in the boat and rock in the boat. It teaches kids in the Bronx, how to make boats, and, and then like, you know, sale them in on the water. And it's, it's an incredible organization, my godparents Pete and Toshi Seger really love this organization. And right now they're having it might be a little bit later but they're having a show to raise money is go rock and rock in the boat in the Bronx. And you can find them, I have, I have something about them on my Instagram, but it's just a, it's a, it's a great thing and they've been around for a long time, and they keep, they stay with their kids so tonight is the alumni award. So like once you go through their program, they're like walking with you through your life and doing things really, really amazing. And then I just had a great call with the Allied media conference, and I'm doing the closing ceremony from the conference and I just found out today that through the generosity of Allied media conference, everybody's going to be able to access the closing ceremony, the opening ceremony and some of the planaries so like I'm just like wait what what are y'all doing so this is such great news this is so amazing. This is such a gift so. Yeah. Yeah, I think this is this is amazing to uplift those two things. And then pleasure, I am really enjoying my body right now. I'm just so, you know, I have, I have like things but like I stayed working out with my trainer virtually. I'm stronger than I've been in a while and physically. I'm really happy with Toshi I'm really grateful for her she's really hanging in there and and I would say that I'm really happy for the music journey that I've had during this time I actually went a month and didn't write or sing or report anything. I've done that in my whole life, and I didn't get worried about it I was just like okay my guitar was looking at me like hey you want to pick me up and I'd be like no not today. And then all of a sudden just boom, everything just just came forward. So, I've gotten a lot of pleasure from the revolution and the uprising. You know, I've got and and this it just seems like I'm surrounded by people who are very much right now in tune with their spirit and their soul and and I am really benefiting from that wisdom from my friends, and then I'm just remembering and remembering and remembering and Adrian I think I'm writing a book I've written enough stuff where I'm like it's a book like stop lying. It's a book Toshi it's a book. I'm claiming all of my writing and I'm like it's a book. So who knows what's going to happen but that that is pretty exciting to the revival question. I feel like everything that was already said and I think I would say to, you know, I would love to revive talking to your neighbors and I know that that feels like really weird in a time when you're, you know, like we're supposed to not be touching or not supposed to be close but I guess I guess the deeper thing is being mindful of like assumption that information is is being passed and that assumption that that everybody is is on the same page and the assumption that we all have the same things and the like when you get together right you actually get to hear and experience things at the same time. And so then you can actually feel like oh are we all feeling this and hearing this and seeing this and do people have something to say about it and, but right now I feel like, you know, a good portion of, you know, tribe communication is on social media and it's in blips it's in blips and it's it's in. There's a thing about receiving so much information through, you know, electric, you know, beams of five sentences that say something and they're the heavy yes things in the world like literally every day. I am being asked to uplift black people been murdered. And it's like, you know, and and I'm trying to remember if there's ever a time where that happened where it was so many simultaneously and there was no system of communication around it. Like, and before it's like it was slower and you would get the information but you would be together and you got to process some of what was happening to you, even as you activate and I think about my mom telling me there was a song. The second group used to sing called in the Mississippi, and it basically was like this, the song about how they went to look for civil rights activists who were murdered. And they thought they were in the Mississippi River and then when they went to look for them, they found they kept finding all of these bodies. And that's what's happening to us right now that like we're, we're looking, we are looking for our people in the same way they did and as we're looking for our people we're like finding them. And then when we find them, we're like we found them and then we're learning like in behind this. And I'm like, well, maybe they can talk to each other and revive our circles and the best we can around this what we're actually in. And I, and I have I keep this thing keeps coming to me, I don't want to let it slide by. I don't want to let it slide by like I want to sit in it a little bit and I want to get testimony and I want to get soul salvation and I want to get, you know, dealing with these spirits. And, and I want to get care around it and I think it's possible and I don't think all of our communication has to be in the gloriousness of rallies, or the, the reception of information. But now, can we talk as neighbors and see where we are and see what else is coming up for us and what else do we have on our minds about what to do about what's happening so Ah, so I mean just like, giving me goosebumps and that you're articulating so much of what I have been experiencing is this like constant download. And when do we have a coming together I love this, reviving our circles. That's really, that's really sticking with me. I have a note note pad that so occasionally you might see me go. Oh, it started and start writing things down so try to go if I lean to the side like this. That means I'm writing down the brilliance that's coming out. Okay, so let's get into that was just the check in y'all. That was just the check. Now let's get into what we're talking about when I say the revival and the revival in the legacy of the National Black Theater was a fiat it was like an experimental theatrical event that she wrote about in the 1960s. I think specifically let me actually pull up this article. She wrote an article for the New York Times called theater. 1972 actually so she wrote this article in 1972. And this was a theatrical event that, you know, in terms of manifesting and happening didn't didn't quite get to get to happening. So one thing when in BT was like, Charles, one of these conversations you think could be about one of the things I was interested in is, what are the purposes of theater, according to Dr. tears original imagination about it and what is the revival. You know, and what was it what was it what was it going to be. You know, are we now tasked with with hat with facilitating that so you know that's what this conversation is really going to be focusing in on today. And I wanted to start with talking about Dr. tears idea about what the purpose of theater was and is in her concept, the whole purpose of theater is in and around creating the National Black Theater was yes, creating black artistic forms as as I've learned a way of working blackly. That was something that she was invested in figuring out. But the reason why she wanted to come up with the cultural with a black cultural art form and a black cultural art standard. Her whole reason for that was was healing. She was searching for healing around her training in a predominantly European art and predominantly European approach to art and art making and finding healing within herself to figure out well how do how do how am I going to express this what does this mean to me. So her, her core mission was always around healing. And we can't have a conversation about building she would say, without moving from a place of healing a seated love affair with life. And so that's something that I really wanted to talk about today this love affair with life how how how do we come to this place. So one thing we talk about at mbt is radical joy, radical joy boosting the spiritual immune system and feeling the full breath of your humanity from the pleasure to the pain and, and someone someone actually earlier in the series an original company member, one of the original liberators said that the way that they conceived of soul and the technology of soul is that between pain and pleasure is where soul lives is where we feel this this most aliveness. And so, thinking about that I want to pose the question to the group and maybe we could start with Adrian. What does radical healing and radical joy mean to you. I, you know, I love that Angela Davis quote around radical means to to all the way to the root to grab something, a root or take something at the root. And so for me, when I think about radical joy radical healing radical self love radical living and aliveness for me what it means is that it's something that goes all the way down into the root of myself, and the root of my family, the root of my community and that may mean uprooting things that don't fit into my ecosystem, uprooting things that are tangling my joy, right. I'm so grateful that I stifled my life force. And in this moment, I think so much of what is happening. If I look at the explosive you know I was thinking about Juneteenth, how Juneteenth felt this year. So different for me from how it has often felt. It's often felt like oh this overlooked thing that I'm trying to carve out space for with my folks. This year was kind of like me and my folks doing this. Everybody's here now. Okay, you know, like, it's so joyful. I mean like everybody wants to be part of it and that year is this double culture but it's because we've been uprooting, pulling away things that are like killing that tree of black life and trying to kill that tree of black life trying to poisonous at the root. And the more that we pull out, the more joy becomes available the more that we show up to the march and it feels like a parade it feels like a dance it feels like you know, a voting session it feels like it feels like a celebration of our of our internal fortitude and our internal integrity that oh, you know, Maya Angelou spoke about that in violent place and I come back to that often that there's a place inside of us that was not destroyed, even under all of this pressure, even under all of this toxicity, something that joy was untouched at the root, and it's still there and for me when I think of healing work the way that I lay hands on another, or the way that I lay hands on a room and I'm holding it, or on books, you know, the way that I do my work is to imagine that this thing that I have been told is broken is a hole, and that I have been the distortion is in my perception not in the thing, and, or it might be in the perception of this person of themselves, and that what I can do is, is come in and say, let's go to the root, where did you, where did you begin to realize this was broken in you, and what would it look like to remember your wholeness, remember our wholeness, remember that we are already belong you know it makes me emotional but when I think of it right now it's like for black people who are brought here, this question of belonging has been so and it's, it's such a broken feeling to, to know you belong to something and not feel your roots, you know not be able to root constantly be displaced constantly be told that if you asked to belong you're asking for too much that you're being hateful. You know, we get told we're being hateful because we say we belong our lives matter. So, to go to the root for us as a people is to say we are already whole and intact. In fact, we're so whole and intact that our joy and our culture are irresistible our brilliance is irresistible our innovations are irresistible, we are philosophers, and our prophecies are irresistible. You're going to have to contend with all of that. It's a joyful feeling when you realize that you have prophecy and you have to be contended with and you have divinity in you and all of that is, I mean it's incredible. And that's, that's what we're playing with, even if sometimes it just looks like, you know, like I'll just go on Yadda blaze Instagram every Friday and fire water and just get my laugh on and I'm like that did things for my whole soul that I know connect all the way to the root, but it's that the root is available to me. The root. I'm all about it. Kendra, could you speak to a little bit about how you define radical joy and radical healing and, and through the work that you're doing with trauma informed care and then removing barriers to access. You know, where, where do you think in systemically and culturally where do you think. What do you think needs healing, most specifically and most intentionally right now. That's a great question. And I can spend hours answering this. In short, what I'll say is that for me radical joy and healing our synonymous radical joint healing looks like leaning and taking a deep dive into authenticity, honesty and transparency that are undergirded and unconditional love for yourself and for whoever you deem as the other one of the roles that I recently was assigned to for about four years was the associate pastor of congregational care and wellness of first Corinthians Baptist church right here in Harlem. And in addition to that I served as the founding executive director of Hope Center Harlem, which offers up to free up to 10 free sessions for residents of Harlem, individual couples and family counseling and I don't know anywhere that you can go in this city or in the country, where you can get access to 10 free sessions. Part of my role at the church was creating a care system that not only supported the parishioners of the church but also the community of Harlem, and spirit gave me this idea of creating this training model called becoming a trauma informed church training. This training model is a three track model the first track and each, each track is seven modules. The first track is a general trauma informed track, where I'm teaching lay leaders about adverse childhood experiences and how when people in our community or in general experience adverse childhood experiences from zero to 17. It exacerbates teenage pregnancy mental health vulnerabilities cardiovascular diseases, poverty incarceration all these things, and it shows up in black communities because the zip code to health paradigm is real. And the zip code to health paradigm says that where your zip code is determines your access to health, and typically communities of color do not have access to mental health resources. What can I do as a spiritual leader and as a licensed clinician to give access more. So when this training curriculum we also do it's interactive. And so I'm giving them case scenarios to show me if they can assess the signs and symptoms of depression of anxiety of trauma. One of the major presentations that we saw at the Hope Center were anxiety, depression post traumatic stress disorder. Why because of the systemic racism that we exist within. Why because of the toxicity that we experienced in our family systems that go unhealed and checked, particularly incest. I had a lot of incest cases that I set with and campaign with people on also sexual trauma survivors ramp it and not only communities of color but in all communities, and the level of secrecy that our families that keep us unhealed is a cycle that still kills and destroys. So we're doing all of that work in this becoming a trauma informed church training. The second track is a motivational interviewing lab or a skill building lab where I'm teaching lay leaders how to engage in motivational interviewing which is a therapeutic model that's evidence based to support people and learning how to practice deep listening ultimately and learning how to shift people from sustained talk where we're getting those cycles where we're just complaining about what we're doing even though we say we want to change but we haven't made the change so moving people from sustained talk to change talk and then the last aspect of the model is teaching lay leaders how to lead psycho education groups on anxiety and depression because if if you live in a community where you don't have access, you most likely don't have access to education where you're going to be able to go and get a master's degree and then go get further educationally. So how do I give the community access to empower itself to do the healing work on its own. And so for me trauma, particularly as it relates to black folks, we normalize it so much that we don't see it, and we miss it. So a part of as Adrian said, doing this work is looking at our own shadowy parts within us, those parts not only out in the world that we judge, but those parts that we have internalized that are out in the world. And, and so many people like to point the fingers, but we don't want to do the work. And so part of joy and healing radical joy and healing is constantly doing this work of what of what it means to be born again, because it's because being born is outside of accepting Jesus as your, your Lord and personal savior. That's not my theology. Being born again looks like doing this deep rooted healing work that Jesus taught about and lived out for ourselves so we can be able to share it with others. That's the invitation. Yeah. Yeah, that's it. That's it. Toshi, I have a question about is healing central to your work and your way of working. I've read a lot about Dr. Tier and the technology of soul and thinking about sonic vibrations as a part of raising consciousness and that is something that they would deeply practice. I mean, do you feel that when you are performing when you are composing when you are facilitating sound making in in rehearsal rooms and things of that nature. Do you see healing as central to that or is it like this kind of a byproduct of what you're doing. I mean, we're here because we could make sound in our bodies. That's why we're here in this particular country. You know, black people. How do you do it. I mean, how do you do it, like how do you get home and get captured. All kinds is no, no, no, there's no like rejection of any age or any kind of human you just need to be black and in that particular place in Africa like how how do we do it. How, how did you go and stand in hell. How did you stand you stood with strangers. How, how did you do it and how did you, you know, walk to a boat. And I always think about that because in my mind I was like, you know, it's kind of what I'm saying like talk to your neighbors is because how we get information can sometimes like, you know, appropriately protect us from knowing everything. Sometimes we just don't need to, but sometimes it can make things seem like they were 12345 and then in our modern mind whenever we hear about it. We're like on Monday, you got captured on Tuesday, you were in that whole place on Wednesday, you was on the boat and in our next Friday you was like someplace on an auction block. And if it was like that. It's 1000% unacceptable and diabolical and horrific. But the fact that that's not what it was that it was a very, very slow journey. And, you know, our friend Alexis becomes has this, you know, series of marine mammal meditations. And I've done some music with them but I, I think about this all the time like you're getting on a boat but you're not a person you're an item. And so the boat's not going to leave until it's full of its items. And so you can be on that boat for a very long time. And you know our people were figuring out how to get off of a boat. And, you know, to keep people from figuring out how to get off of a boat like they literally fed things so sharks would come around, and people couldn't jump off and like they could go into the water and go back to where they needed to go and escape. You know, so we are, we are here because we could sonically release and talk to ourselves. While we were in the worst condition that we couldn't even imagine. The inspiration of your body is the possibility of making a home where no one thinks you should have one. And you might not even understand that that's what you're doing. If you were alive when that boat landed somewhere, and you were alive when people took whatever your spiritual practice was for granted and baptized you as a Christian. As they treated you horrifically and devalued your presence. You vibrated something deep inside of you that nobody could touch. And you didn't keep it to yourself. Eventually you passed it on. And it is reason why we have a legacy of information about who we are. You know how much we belong on this planet. It's why we have the science that I call the science of using the Bible for everything you need to do, because that's the acceptable acceptable text. So we're going to talk about running away. We don't give messages through Bible text. And if it's not good for you, we're going to say we couldn't hear nobody pray. You got to stay where you are. You know, we're going to be talking. Yes, you can turn that turn turn that mute off and jump in here. So it's my work is congregational and almost everything I do. I want to circle of people singing with me. And I'm And even though I'm in a time right now where I kind of can't have that circle and if I do I just we make it up to see where you are. I can feel it because it's been my practice forever. And I can feel it in the same way I think my ancestors felt it. You know that you are sometimes seeing not one single reflection of anything you value. You are experiencing one set of eyes that can look at you like they see you. Nobody is touching you for a good reason. And when you talk about labor and identifying labor. You are being over work to a place that your capacity is not existent. This doesn't exist. Is this like you just, you know, all that matters and all of that is inside of all of us and the way that we can create sound and vibration, because I'm not just talking about singing and singing is amazing. But the way we can create sound and vibration is is our testimony constant to ourselves. It's our constant saying you are here. You are here and if I can't say anything else you are here and I love you or you are here and you belong or you're I'm just going to say you are here. And every second I can say you are here is a possibility to adding on to that you are here. And a lot of people ask me all the time how come people in the rallies don't sing. You know, because what this country knows about a freedom movement, which they kind of don't want to talk about the nonviolent freedom movement but the southern freedom movement is they remember the songs. And they're like how come, you know, they don't sing, you know, and I was like because y'all didn't sing. Y'all learn to sing from the black people in the south who had a practice of singing everything. They're singing church singing singing the field sing and children's games, sing your prayers and everything you you if you were not in that practice you learn from those people. And it was young people. They took the songs the sacred songs and took the sacred sounds and the sacred harmony harmonic structure and brought them to the movement and connected that to the powerful push for freedom. And young people now still vibrate sonically, they just don't do it the same way. You know, I'm going to critique the singing, because you're like, I don't hear them singing this little light of mine. I don't hear them singing like this. Yeah, but the chance though. But the chance though. And but but the light, you know, pulling a trap song and revitalizing it and something that's necessary though. You know, so we are, we are constantly a state of vibration, because we are constantly in a state of home, even when we don't have one constantly, we don't let that go. And sometimes we don't even know it we are miserable we are hurt, we are alone we are violated. And if we are moaning in the process we have a possibility. That's the collection play, the passage of poetry. I'm just like, girl, give me some water. Oh, yes. That is just like, ah, yes, absolutely, absolutely. See why we gotta be okay, we got preachers right now. A bunch of queer black people. Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay. Okay, so the next thing. Okay, what are we, what time are we okay, we got we have had until seven p.m. Okay, now, now I'm like, who. All right, so we need a love affair. This is something this is this is a piece of an article that I read where Dr. tears talking about a survey that her and her company of actors completed in Harlem in the 1960s because they wanted to get a sense of what black people at that time thought about their futures, thought about their relationship to each other in that moment, and thought about black culture in America more broadly. And the results of that survey led her to describe it as such. So I'm going to read some quotes that she she said, and then we'll talk we'll unpack what that what that was about. So we pull this up here. The results were, how come if everybody is so black and proud Harlem, the largest black community in the United States is dying. We are saying that people in the black community do not talk to each other. It is a community without love and a community needs love to live. I say that because if we had love for ourselves and those like us we would not commit negative acts, nor tolerate negative conditions as we do black people need to release this spiritual power. Christianity has so turned us off from religion that we don't believe in anything, not even ourselves, and we need to believe in ourselves to do this we need to learn to love ourselves for only by loving ourselves can we gain the will, or to eliminate our oppression. We are taking the size five dresses off our size 15 bodies. And so I wanted to start with you Kendra. Just your thoughts on Dr tears assessment of the spiritual state of blackness. In the 1960s. Do you agree or disagree with what she was observing. And do you see any vestiges of this lovelessness that she was describing through this survey. I think that Dr tears assessment is prophetic. I think that not only is that how black people were showing up in the world and experiencing the world at that time but also now, because we have forgotten that we are God. And Dr tears 126 reminds us that we are we are we are children of the most high we are God's I mean Jesus even eludes to it when he's in john talking to the Pharisees and Sadducees and they're asking him. Why are you calling yourself the son of God they call him a blast femur, but Jesus was clear that he was a divine soul. That's why he knew that we could do these and greater things. I do these and greater things if you don't believe that you are divine. It is just not possible. So this moment of revival is calling us back to our divine cells and the spiritual technology that our ancestors use that colonialism and white supremacy has made us afraid of bringing your ancestral alters back bring bring the alters for the orisha back like it is it is time now for us to be afraid no more. It's hard of when you forget who you are, when you forget that you, you are the God that's been created by the big God, you start making institutions and men and women outside of yourself, God, and that is where we are. We need to remember who we are. Adrian Toshi if you want to weigh in on this please. I don't think you're praying I'm just like yeah. I mean, I feel like it's interesting because I come at it from a different orientation right so like I was raised in the church. But in most of my adult life I have found nature to be the cathedral for me, and that that's the place where I am. That's the place where I have felt belonging and I have felt accepted, but it's the same act that's needed there which is turning and bringing myself back into a process I think of as reindigenization right just like how do I bring myself back into relationship, my divine relationship as being something of a divine world and abundant world. I really want to relinquish the mythology of scarcity that contains my very being, and what are the practices I do for that and I've really been like this, this pandemic has created such an interesting like a squeeze a container inside of which I've had to really become creative about like well what is it I need to thrive. What is it I need to nourish myself and live, and then how do I be in relationship with other people nourishing ourselves and living. And that I turn and I find myself recently I've been going on walks around this neighborhood, you know, everybody anyway who's been like I pandemic walking is like I know every leaf I know every tree I know every turn I know every little loop you know this is the only walk I can go on. And there's this one tree that has been calling to me and calling to me every time I walk by my you are so pretty gosh you're gorgeous big fat. Just fatter and fatter the further down you go like that's the kind of shape I like in myself and others so I was like tree you guys going on you know he ain't talking. Then my therapist was like, Adrian you really need to find some cedar to work with cedar would be a plant medicine that could really help you right now that could help you ground yourself. And then I'm going on the walk again the next day after she said this and I stopped by that tree and I was like let me just see what this tree is gone with this tree is. And I had this app and I looked in the course is an eastern red cedar and it's just like, of course you knew that this was the medicine you needed. I knew that that was the medicine I needed. And so I keep thinking like how do we awaken right that divine part of ourselves that knows the medicine we need. And how do we remind our all of our people, no matter where we are how concrete the world is around us we can look up and see the little tree that's growing in the concrete like life keeps moving towards life, as we have always done, as we know how to do, how do we remember that that, even in this moment, especially in this moment, we have leadership that is not trustworthy. And we have to be then in a very ritual practice of moving towards life and just being like, no, we will not die. We will not let you, we will not let you send us to death. You know, I think it's the everyday you know like I love I keep my ancestor altar, I keep my altar set up, but I also really believe in the ritual of every movement like how do I make every single thing I'm doing. This is my prayer. This is my prayerful eating. This is my prayerful walking. This is my prayerful connecting if I'm in a meeting with other people. It's like, this is our miraculous time right now. We did not create the miracle of our lives. This was gifted to us should not waste the miracle of our lives. The more present and the more miraculous we hold it, the more life we end up with it's my friend Prentice calls it how do we expand black time. And I think of it that way is like time play time bending right that we can do so much with time when we start to drop into it and remember, oh, it's not linear. We are co creating and shaping what it can be. How do we, how do we do that towards justice towards right relationship with each other and with the earth and till she talks about this all the time but to me. It's easy to watch our attention just go boom boom boom boom there's always a crisis there's always something that could pull us all the way out of ourselves and those who want to continue to enslave us. They benefit so much from our short attention spans and from our inability to focus capitalism benefits so much from being able to constantly bring our attention to whatever it wants us to purchase. Capitalism benefits from us not thinking well of ourselves and not remembering we are divided already have everything we need. If you think you're not shit, you go buy it, you know, if you think you're not pretty you go try to buy it you think you're healthy and your body is not right, you try to go buy something. And I'm like, it's just an interesting moment right now to be black and be like I could be conscious of shaping a future in which I don't have to go outside of myself in my community to meet my need be a mutual aid we can be a community support. We don't need the police. We know that now. Right. There's ways that we're going backward to things that are people's new, but modernizing Oh, and now we have a different technology to support mediation to support community accountability support actually giving ourselves mental health support instead of calling the police when our folks are struggling. There's just so much possible right now. If we drop in and expand the time and remember oh I'm inside this moment as a divine being who will co create the future. I'm not here by accident. My ancestors delivered me to this moment as I will deliver the next people to the you know whatever I co create now. That's everything that my babies are going to get to live. It's on us. It's on us. There's no time to waste. I keep being in that balance to you know I hear Ella Baker one year like we believe in freedom cannot rest. We're here with Trisha Hershey and the nap ministry over here and we need to take a nap. And then like in the middle it's like what we need to be is be fully present. We have earned the right to rest in this moment. And we will never maybe earn the right to rest politically. Right. I'm like politically we have to keep on marching keep on truck and keep on moving and take advantage of the opportunity. I want to lift up something in this moment to that I in my facilitation I support the movement for black lives and I have been blown away like so on it literally every time they call to be like can you help with this I'm like thank you so much for letting me serve you because I'm blown away by what is being and how hard they have worked the relationship the core of the math turning, but the Breathe Act is something that their policy table has now unveiling unfolding, and it's saying at the Civil Rights Act. The age in movement and uprising, and then it led to the Civil Rights Act and we had to move it into legislation and policy, so that we didn't lose the opportunity of the moment. And now we're in a similar moment where all this uprising has to lead to something at the federal level that we can hold our politicians hold our leaders accountable to. So the Breathe Act, they just did a massive launch it was outstanding Gina Clayton Johnson is is at the helm of it as a new mother, black beauty gorgeous brilliant leader, and Jessica burden all these other folks are in there just helping us understand like how do we take what's in the streets, and put it into policy that we can then hold anyone accountable to so I just I'm like, there's ways that we're like oh let's reach back, what did our ancestors do well. What did future generations do well, how did they practice their divinity, how do we practice ours, how do we make sure the next generation has a faster claim to it. I want every baby now I need to be like you're God, you know that. That's what you need to know. I'm not going to tell you to speak unless you're not speaking unless you're spoken to I'm going to tell you to sing how this loud as you can because you divine we need you. So anyway I'm going all over the place but it's I feel very alive. How do you, how do y'all suggest we keep, we keep this connection to joy how do you, how do you suggest we start a practice of, of doing this so that we can sustain it and really start on that journey and I don't know who wants to start us off this will kind of be the last question I pose I'm going to check on the Facebook live chat but but yeah just this question of joy, how do we connect to it. I was going to kind of kind of just on the question that you, they, y'all just answered everything so well and I can connect it to this question, it is, you know, sometimes the web actually gets you. And, and then these are systems of webs that are really, they're well financed. They're, they're long term projected, like, thought out, like process webbing and, and you know, you can just go like this around you and just pick any things that you participate in every day, you know, the zoom. You know, any of the social media food, all of the things we talked about. Everything that's horrible has been really, really invested in, and it's being held so deeply like it's, it's like you can really let go of hatred of black people like it doesn't, it's not even necessary. You know, anymore it doesn't, it doesn't work. It's not. Nobody is getting happy off of it. Nobody is. Everybody looks crazy with their guns and crazy with their, I'm not going to let you have your black. You know, all lives matter, blue lives matter, everybody matters. And you know, everybody's like, like, look at people, they have distortions of their beautiful selves. I don't care what race they are. You know, and people who are like, in their right minds are, who are walking like this. And they have levels of adrenaline. Right. You know, when I, when I don't feel, when I feel like I'm being heard, when I march, I march one way. I feel like I have to let you know what time it is. I march a different way. There is an arsenal of possibilities. The same way Reverend Kendra has gears and preaching, hallelujah, and already tell, cannot wait to come to service. You know, it's like, oh, but that the web, the web gets you. And not only does it get you, but it can set you in a state of being where your own people don't want to have anything to do with you. And don't want to come and see you don't want when they see you approach. They can tell you been God, and you formed into something that they can't recognize. And they actually walk the other way to protect themselves. Octavia deals with this so much in her work, but in parable, like parable is the escalation where you literally a block, a neighborhood of cul-de-sac chooses to wall themselves in and never like have freedom outside of themselves. And unless they're like really willing to risk a severe danger because this winding systemic like intentional force against life is in effect and successful. You know, and so the medicine and the antidotes, you know, that have been spoken about. We have to do that thing with time, and we have to do that thing with, what's the word, when you interrupt, and you interrupt something that's already in process, and you divert its will. And that is like such a massive undertaking or overtaking or taking taking, because it is like you, you have to be a practitioner that is willing to move through dangerous places, because people are in state of danger. And there is no system right like in the huge pot that we all pay into to create all of this joint, you know, everything, our socialist system of governing avoids participation in that. It takes all the resources and it uses them actually to do the opposite thing. And it makes it weird that you would want like preschools and that you would want books and that you would want housing and that you would want a living wage all of the things that are sustainable, and that give us opportunities to heal like the old wounds of the old webbing and the contemporary webbing and it's new wounds. So as we are like, really struggling for eons around incarceration, struggling for eons around rape of women and children and humans of all kinds. Now struggling for acceptance of trans people and non binary, why is that a struggle. Like why in our communities we even have to spend five minutes saying like, this is who I am. And I need you to call me by my name. But it's like that, that work that we are, we are doing now, and we have been doing is also revealing, you know, what Dr tear said, like all she said is like, look, this is also who we are. And, you know, if that's the late 60s, and you move up to now, you can see like, well, we have like more practitioners, we are more wider who we are. Actually, lots of us have the lights going on. And, you know, and we still have to deal with this webbing, and we still have to deal with the physical memory, and we still have to deal with the constant abuse. And we're still like, in a state of praise and exhaustion simultaneously. So it's like, you know, I was, I'm like, I want people to know like, I see that you got got. You know, and I see like, mostly all got got I don't even know how to get close to. And I can see like the ways that I got got. You know, and I have a practice around like releasing and I get to sing and I get to be a person but it's, it is like also really important to really hold the fact that simultaneously to our revolution is that like we have to take these people ourselves, our wounds, our Godness, our everything, it's coming with us. And if we are not like in a practice of a really, you know, restorative justice on the bodies and soul spirits and minds of our own people. When we get to our different levels, we're all going to be like right there. So you know, you know what I'm saying. Yeah. And so joy isn't such a powerful ingredient. And it's such an important manifestation of existence because if we can also like really call it the sacred, you know, emotion, sacred system. Just like the one that vibrates and offers you home joy can happen to you when you're freaking miserable. Joy can happen to you like before you you understood something was happening it flipped by you and you smile. You know, joy can revitalize a small part of you and give you an opportunity and empathetic joy. A bunch of people catching the spirit at the same time a bunch of people in a place and knowing at the same time can last forever. And I just because I just got to say something about the theater because you said this was our last, our last question. But I grew up at DC Black Repertory Company and DC Black Repertory Company probably was like, you know, a relative of National Black Theater. It was started by Robert Hooks. My mom, Bernice Johnson Regan was the music director and we got moved from Atlanta, arrived in DC and and I think 1971 72 so very much in that same energetic sphere. And they took an old movie theater and they turned it into a theater theater and they had a dance company and a theater company. And my mom took us everywhere she went. And so I got to watch. In fact, this is my theater training. That's that I have never studied theater anything I have never studied anything I watched young black people create work together. I'm telling you, like, make theater all the time, like, you make it all the time, make your plays, make your musicals, make your do your dance shows, like, I don't care had a little bit of money, a lot of money, no money, like, do it everywhere in the house on the playground in the church. In any space, theater, I think is is one of the reasons why I just ran to get parable and do it in theater is because people come to it, and you have the opportunity to create and reflect a truth, even though, you know, you made it up. And all of the ingredients that we've talked about tonight can occupy theater space. And every, every single thing. And the theater space like it's so important that that building got created. And that those rooms are what they what they are, and what they're going to be. It is so important that it's same thing with DC Black Repertory Company. They didn't have to do the work of finding a space they built the space and then they put everything in it, and sweet honey in Iraq came out of DC Black Repertory Company. And sweet honey rock is 45 years old. And it's like when you talk about the possibility of so many actors so many great writers so many amazing people came out of that. So theater is like, even if you don't have the building and even if you are just doing it it's a, it's a possibility of a phenomenal creation that can live beyond yourself. If you like how we're talking about how what Dr. Tier wrote and what Dr. Tier said and then her Dr. Tier surveys Dr. Tier building Dr. Tier lives beyond herself and makes her ever ever living so Loot all of that together. And to see I can just take notes, as you're speaking. Shout out to your mom and sweet honey in Iraq I was introduced to them when I was like 13 by uncle of mine so they keep me centered in my joy. And thank you for all that you do Adrian thank you this has been such a rich conversation. One of the things that comes to mind is at the Hope Center one of the initiatives that I started a couple of years ago was this retreat called breaking bread interfaith retreat, where I would take innovators of the Hope Center because we call them patients or clients because we want to destigmatize black folks getting access to mental health so we're innovators everybody is an innovator so I took a group of innovators. Once a year to this retreat space where we partnered with Buddhist monks and nuns to give them access to another modality of healing and throughout that weekend retreat what we do is simply teach folks not only how to meditate but to breathe. One way that you stay centered in your joy is by recognizing that deep breaths are medicinal deep breaths are medicine 70% of our toxins are released through our breath, and we only use a third of our respiratory systems. So that means that we are not breathing when we are able to take deep breaths we oxygenate our brain cells, and we give our mind time to stop and think, because we are up under the thumb of capitalism and various oppressions racism homophobia etc. It can be difficult to slow down and breathe. We must prioritize the breath and our breathing it will be the only free therapist that we can have for an extended period of time. So that's my offering. That's how we stay connected to joy. Oh, all right. I would say the last little bit is do not take it do not take it so you know the body teaches us this, you fake your orgasms, you don't get orgasms right. So if you're living in life if you fake the joy if you fake the funk, nobody can reach you with joy, nobody understands you don't have it, people can feel in authenticity in you. And in this moment, I keep noticing that if I want to have joy in my day, I have to acknowledge my terror, I have to acknowledge that I am terrified of some of the changes that are happening. I have to acknowledge the grief that I'm already in for people we've lost anticipatory grief for the people are going to lose. I have to acknowledge that the climate crisis and black police brutality as black people and indigenous folks being rated and like I have to acknowledge and feel all of that that I am an impact. And I have to find the channels that let that move through me. And if I just fake that and come and be like hey guys it's great. People can feel that I'm basically, you know, try to put a nice glossy perfume over a pile of dirt or trash you know, and if I let it clear through me and go all the way down to the ground. If I say I need help sometimes so you know if I'm like I need my therapist and she gone help her I need my lover to hold me and I need my parents to listen to me and I need, you know, then I let release all of that real feeling the whole wide range right joy is part of a wide range when you're feeling joy, it necessitates that you're able to feel that whole range, right. We're never asking someone let go of your grief put down your sadness come to joy. It's in addition to that sadness notice. That sadness carves out space for joy. The joy will also carve out space for your future grief. I always say you're falling in love is signing on for future grief, but it's worth it, it's worth it because then you're going to get the whole full experience of life over and over again always fall in love, always love your work, always take the risk of moving into work that deeply moves you, and don't fake it. Fake it right now we don't need any fake news, we don't need fake emotions we don't need fake friendships, we don't need fake leadership, we need authenticity real joy, we deserve real joy, black joy. That's my offer. I say. Hey, I say. Okay. We've got, we've got, let's see. One minute left, one minute left. With that one minute I'm going to pose this question and we'll see. Okay, so from Chisa, this is from the Facebook live chat. Chisa would like to know to those trying to exercise pleasure activism, how do you engage with or disengage from people who insist on pinning you in the space of suffering. More specifically, how do you maintain your joy while appreciating the sentiments of folks who are either late to the struggle or only recognize the struggle. My friend, Prentice Hemphills taught us that boundaries are the distance at which I can love you and myself simultaneously. So if someone cannot see your joy, there's just a boundary, that's just a boundary. It's like, you, and it can be internal. I won't let that person as deeply into my heart until they are able to access their full range of emotions more clearly. If anyone's trying to take your joy, we just don't have time for it right now. They, that's their work. That's not your work. It's if you can articulate it, if you can say, Hey, you know, right now I need to protect my joy. And so I'm going to disengage. I get a phone call sometimes like that. I'm famous for that. I'm on this meeting but it is not bringing me joy. I'm going to go I love y'all. Look, I'm about it. Yes, please, please, please. Adrian hit the bell on the head. I want to offer this as a clinician. We have a personal boundary system, every human being, your personal boundary system as Adrian said is made up of your internal boundary and your external boundary. Internal boundaries when you have a healthy internal boundary, it allows us to have disagreement. I don't feel some type of way because you disagree with me because I haven't internalized that what you believe is my belief. And so for that person to ask that question external boundaries are for like physical, your physical boundaries but for the person that you have to realize that it is not your work to try to get them to change or to try to control them. Your work is to vibrate in the center of joy at all times. And what that requires of you is to do your work. You got to do your work because it's always going to be people around you who will attempt to take you outside of your joy. But when you're doing your healing work, you are less susceptible to the judgments of people and the projections of people around you. Beautiful. Thank you, y'all. And it's 701. Like, yeah, this is. Thank you. Thank you. This is like. Yeah. Very good. Very, very good. Thank you. Please. Thank you. Thanks for joining us in BT at home founders month edition part three. Join us next week for the last combo. See y'all then. Bye y'all.