Tara Brach - Mindful Leadership: A Conversation between Tara Brach and Michelle Maldonado (2021-07-14)

Episode Date: July 16, 2021

Mindful Leadership: A Conversation between Tara Brach and Michelle Maldonado (2021-07-14) - The principles of mindful leadership are relevant for all of us—they bring out the best of who we are in our work, with our family, with our friends. Especially in these times of mistrust and dividedness, our world desperately needs each of us to cultivate the qualities of focus, presence, care, respect, clarity, and curiosity that mark a true leader. Michelle Maldonado is a brilliant teacher of mindful leadership, and she embodies the compassion and skillfulness she invites forward in others. 

Greetings. We offer these podcasts freely and your support really makes a difference. To make a donation, please visit tarabrock.com. Namaste and welcome, friends. I'm so glad that you could join us for our Wednesday class and meditation. And this one feels like a special one. I'm really excited to be introducing you to a new friend and colleague. Michelle Maldonado and we'll be in conversation for the next hour. But I want to start with a kind of formal intro just to give you a feeling or a sense of background here. So Michelle is the founder and CEO of Lucencia, and I think I pronounced it right. Lucencia is a human potential and mindfulness, mindful business transformation form. It's dedicated to developing leaders and

organizations with a positive impact in the world. And Michelle is a former corporate and technology attorney turned business development and operations professional with more than 20 years of leadership experience and over 35 years of contemplative practice. And Michelle now dedicates her time to helping leaders and their teams do their inner work to create outer impact. She is a search inside yourself of level two certified teacher and a certified mindfulness teacher, professional level. And Michelle is currently running for election to the Virginia House of Delegates with the Democratic Party with the elections this November. Wow. Welcome, Michelle. And thanks so much for being willing to do this. Well, thank you. And thanks for that wonderful and kind and generous

introduction it has such a treat to be here with you and in this conversation today yeah well i thought i just start personal and i mean 35 years you started as a teen right well i actually started i wish i were that yeah i started i started when i was it was first introduced to me when i was seven and that changed everything and uh you know people have heard me talk before I've heard me tell this sweet, what I think is such a sweet story. And just briefly, it is I grew up in a traditional Roman Catholic family in New England. And my grandmother's sister was Buddhist, a practicing Buddhist. And she didn't have any children and she traveled the world. And she was everybody's favorite aunt. And one summer, my older sister and I got to spend the

summer with her in Casper, Wyoming, where she introduced us to some of the indigenous communities, and traditions. And then shortly after arriving, she asked us if we wanted to come sit quietly with her. And we did. And she was, she didn't really use language. She didn't say it was meditation. She didn't, she didn't use any language other than to say kind of, you know, quiet here so you could be here as she placed her hands on my heart and my sister's heart. And then she'd say, and you can get up when you, when you're ready, even if I'm not done. And the thing that I knew at that young age without words was feelings. And I just knew that I felt different, that the colors were more vibrant, the sounds were crisper, and that things just didn't, they didn't bother me the same way.

And my grant, my aunt now is the sole surviving sibling of that generation. And she is 94 years old. And I asked her in her late 80s, why she didn't give me language. And she's, she's a whippersneper. And she was like, you were six or you were seven. She said, you needed to use your own language in the world with your friends. And, you know, so it was just very sweet and it stayed with me. And I just continued it. I mean, obviously at seven, eight, nine, ten. I wasn't, you know, rigid about it.

But I knew to take a breath. I knew that the breath was my friend. And I knew that I could call on it. And it wasn't until I got really into high school where I started to have a more disciplined practice with it. Wow. So did you have a kind of formal introduction in the mindfulness world and tradition at some point? I did. I did. When I went off to college, because again, I had no idea what I was doing was meditation. And I volunteered at a local gym and my freshman year. And I remember they put a new course, a new class on the schedule called meditation.

I didn't know what that was. And I looked in and I saw these people sitting on the floor, you know, quiet with their eyes. clothes and I thought it was strange because I didn't identify what I did with what they were doing because I didn't I had never done it as a group and I'm dating myself a little here but that was like shortly after the Waco tragedy in Texas and I thought this this was cultish at first I was like what is my friend popped her head over my shoulder she goes oh they're meditating like you do and I said what and that was my introduction like oh what I've been doing all this time is meditation And then I started to learn about different lineages, different styles and all of that. And began to deepen my practice, not with any particular lineage or anything, but it was just, it was just sort of the seeds were planted to really influence my way of being in the nature and quality of my presence in the world.

Lovely. Well, I just love your grandmother's instructions. Just quiet here so you can feel here. And we don't need a whole lot more, do we? Simple. So roll us forward a little in time because you then have dedicated yourself to mindful leadership, but you were an attorney. So was there some like pivotal experience or something as an attorney that made you shift careers and really mainline on this? Well, I didn't know that I would end up.

in this space. I had, it wasn't as if I had this goal or intention, but I always did feel a calling. I always felt like there was more ways to show up in business. And when I was in college, the reason I went into business is because when I was in college, I was in the 80s, the late 80s and early 90s, I was really upset by how companies were abusing their employees and the environment here in the U.S. and particularly in Mexico where they had lots of what it were called factories that were called maculadores and they were particularly abusing women and the environment. And I made a decision back then that I was going to be this corporate activist and I was going to get a law degree and I was going to go into those corporate organizations and I was going

to help them, you know, be better from the inside out. And so I knew I had that kind of feel. But again, I didn't, I didn't think about my practice or my mindfulness as being one of the ways to do that until much, much later, when I started to see people, you know, I started to notice that wherever I went, whether I was practicing law, I was in a business role, that I was the one where people kind of knock on my door and they'd open it, can I talk to you for a minute? And then they'd come in, shut the door, and then they'd be gone like an hour later. And I would have so much work to make up at the end of the day because I was the one. And I was also, once I moved out of the legal space, and then I went into working in an online learning institution for adults.

My team that I was brought in to kind of create something new, we were outperforming our sister brother teams by double digit millions of dollars. And my boss finally asked me one day, what is it that you do that's so different? And I didn't really understand the question because I didn't think about it in terms of what I did. And it dawned on me in that moment. said to him, it's not what, it's how. And I explained to him. And then he quickly said, well, I don't get any of that,

but it works. So go ahead and keep doing it. And so that's when I started to, you know, around 2012, I started realizing that this was important and that I wasn't intending to be quiet about it. I wasn't ashamed about my practice. It just never occurred to me to be open and public about it until then. And I saw one day, I think it was Jeff Weiner had done a post about managing compassionately back in 2012. And I said, well, you know what? He's the CEO of a publicly traded company. I'm at the time as a director. I'm like, I'm just a director.

I don't have anything to lose if he can be that out about it. So it was from then on, I started to integrate, to be public about it, to share about it, to teach about it, to create things about it. and to show why it was important to bring mindfulness into our walk and talk in the four walls of our of our ecosystem. And it just mattered. And that's how it all kind of started. Wow. So I'm curious, if I was a fly on the wall, when he asked you, what are you doing?

And you told him the how, what's the how? You know, which is really like, what are, what makes a mindful leader and what, what, what, what was it you were doing? So I didn't go into as much detail with him as I will hear because I do think that there are qualities and we have lots of beautiful people like yourself and Janice Bartarano and, you know, I mean, there's just so many people who speak on this and do beautiful justice to it. When I think about it, you know, the first thing I explained to him is, you know, how we show up matters and how we respond and treat other people.

matter. And it can't just be focusing on the human doing part because we cannot, even though we think we try to tell ourselves, we can multitask, we can compartmentalize, we bring all of ourselves to whatever we are doing. And that all of ourselves means our traumas, our biases, our life experiences, our joys, you know, our passions. We bring all of it with us. And we, we spend a lot of energy trying to manage containing parts of ourselves in these spaces. But I would always give permission for my team to be whoever they were and to feel that it was, that they were safe if they made a mistake, right? So there's a lot of, you know, conversations around psychological safety. And then really holding people accountable, but not in judgmental ways in conversations. A lot of people say, hey, you know, how do you have difficult conversations? And the first thing I say is I don't label it as difficult conversations. I just label it as a conversation.

Because words matter and it starts to create a mindset as you enter into the dialogue. And so as a mindful leader, you are best supporting yourself and others when you bring those elements into it. And then you're also really aware. And the way I think about awareness, I call it like a mindful awareness and I think about it in context because everything happens in context, whether you're sitting on the pillow or you're at a table at the office or on a Zoom room like we are today. everything is happening in context. And so I describe it like three concentric circles with ourselves being right in the center, the next one being others,

the third being the surrounding, and all of that creating our ecosystem. So that awareness that we have has to travel through all those layers. And when you are finding yourself, you know, sitting at a meeting table and being frustrated that you're hearing something you don't like, you need to be aware of that your jaws are clenched

or your shoulders are tight because we know from the research that the body gives us information. And it's not that it happens separately from the brain, but the awareness is the full sort conscious awareness happens at different times and sequences. And so the more we can kind of minimize the gap between when it shows up in the body and when it shows up in the mind only helps us and helps those around us. So I also share that you need to be, you have to have somatic awareness. And you have to be able to, to be able to, need that without judgment and see just like notice that its presence, allow for yourself to process it and work with that, the self-management pieces. So I often use the emotional

intelligence framework as a vehicle for mindful leadership because I think they're very, very intertwined in that base of it is self-awareness and what cultivates the self-awareness is the mindfulness. I love what you're saying and I'm right there with you. And I know the big challenge to what you're saying is that when we get emotionally reactive, we lose awareness. We're actually not even sometimes able to notice that what's going on. And how do we get ourselves back to that place of more balance, more recognition and so on? And I'm wondering if you just speak to how you guide people when they do find themselves, you know, tripped off with anger, are really anxious about a meeting, you know, okay, they notice it and then what?

Yeah. I love that question because the first thing I always tell people, well, you're still human. Like being mindful doesn't mean your emotions don't happen. And it's this mindfulness just helps you be skillful in the experiencing and the processing and the managing of them and the feeling of them. So there are two things. The first is I'm a big fan of Don Miguel Ruiz's book, the four agreements. And those are agreements we make with ourselves. And the one that I pull out all

the time is always do your best. And people have to remember that your best looks different when like the sun is shining and the birds are singing and you just feel like everything is great in the world. The best in that context is very different from if you're sick or you're caring for an ailing loved one or you're struggling in some way. Your best in that context may look very different. So the first thing we have to understand is like give ourselves grace and permission and self-compassion that when these things come up, that doesn't translate into there's something wrong with us or I'm doing it wrong or I've messed up. We're human. Embrace the humanity and then be kind and compassionate with it. And the other thing is to

really understand when it's appropriate to allow those feelings. to be expressed. Again, your context is going to matter. When you are feeling in the throes and you're really, and all of a sudden you catch yourself and you're like, oh my gosh, I really just lost it there. Or you are feeling very out of sort of balance. One of the things I often do to people say, just go straight. Feel your feet. Feel the sensation of your feet on the floor. Just ground yourself and notice that. Or take a deep breath. Because we know the power of the breath. We know that and maybe it's take three breaths, right? Because we know that the taking and slowing of the breath activates the parasympathetic nervous system. And we know that if we elongate the exhale,

that it also activates the vagus nerve. And those two together, the parasympathetic nerve and the vagus nerve together help really support the body coming back into balance to help your mind come into clarity. So you can be more choiceful and skillful in your response. So I often say, you know, be easy on yourself, but be accountable too. And at the end of all of that, if you need to apologize, then apologize. And it's not an excuse, but it is an explanation. So you don't want to, you know, feel like I said sorry, so that should be it. You know, depending on how you showed up, there might be some hurt feelings that it might take some time. But being accountable for how you showed up and acknowledging that to the other person or people is also part of that process.

beautiful i love it i love it so personal question you know we all have like a trajectory in terms of how we're waking up as mindful humans mindful leaders have there been areas that you really had to pay extra attention to that have been challenging in cultivating these qualities because i'm getting that there's some you have some natural tendencies there's a reason people would come to talk to you you'd be the one, you know. And what have you had to work on? What's been hard for you? Oh, so many things. Let's see. Where to start. So the first thing I will say is I grew up in a family dynamic where I really had to kind of fend for myself. Now, what that did is it made me fiercely independent and very capable of getting things done. As an adult, what it did is it, it,

It created a pattern in me that I never asked for help and that I had a savior complex. So in my 20s and 30s, I exhausted myself because I tried to do everything for myself and I tried to save other people. It was not the right mindset. It's not my responsibility. Nor can I save anyone. Right. And so I had to really learn how to ask for help and disrupt that mental narrative that would tell

me that asking for help meant I was incompetent, that I was not good enough, or, you know, whatever the stories that I had kind of cultivated in my mind over the years, I had to, I had to work really hard on disrupting that. And then I had to also, instead of trying to fix things for people, ask questions more than telling statements. And tell them, because there's this old proverb, I won't get it right, but I think it comes from the Bible about, you know, teaching. give a man a fish, they have food for a day, teach a man to fish, he has food for a lifetime, right? And so I was giving out fish by the boatloads. But what I should have been doing was teaching people how to fish. And so those two were really huge. And they did not take a

couple of months. They took a couple of years for me to unlearn that and to put in healthy practices with healthy boundaries. And you and I were talking earlier and I was saying I'm fond of saying that, you know, we can't give from an empty well. So the first place we have to start is with that critical self-care in establishing healthy boundaries. And because that actually is not just a gift to ourselves, it's a gift to everyone that we impact. So true. And it's one that does take decades to ease into self-care just because we really do care. And it's a care that's for this body, mind, and a care for others, we have to start here. So as you're speaking, and I love what you shared about your own because it's so relatable to. And, you know, I was thinking for myself,

okay, what have my challenge has been? And I've noticed for myself that in organizations and when I'm in a leadership role, and I see it over and over again, is I just get goal directed. And I forget humanness. It's like I get much more interested in getting things done than consensus and enrolling others and communicate, you know, and it takes over and over and over again and it just like it's such a clear carryover of type A but that's one of the ones that I'm imagining you see with a lot of the different leaders you work with like how to wean them from that drivenness to have something. accomplished immediately to be willing to be patient enough to really engage in a mindful way.

Absolutely. And, you know, I struggle with that a little bit because I don't, I don't want people to change who they are. And I don't, you know, a lot of our leaders, particularly the higher level they are, they're answering to incredible demands, boards of directors, analysts, investors. And there's lots of pressures. So they have to perform. They have to produce results. And so where I try to engage in the conversation is not to tell them that the hyper focus on doing, I'm not asking you to let all of that go to be nice. Right? When you start to use the word compassion or something, it just means to be nice. And I'm like, no, there's fierce compassion. There's all different kinds of expressions. And if you really understand,

compassion, you'll know that you're really answering the question of what would serve in this moment, what would serve this greater good. So it's not a, and sometimes that isn't a hug, right? Sometimes it's a really direct word or reaction. And so I infuse it with, as you're getting things done, don't forget to bring people with you. Don't forget to engage in human conversation around it. And don't forget that everybody's going through something you know nothing about. And so we're all struggling with something and we're all celebrating some things. And so if you just even think about those things from time to time, it helps you to remember to keep the humanity in the equation. So then instead of barking something at somebody,

you're asking or telling or directing, but your tone, your posture, your presence is different. And again, not necessarily kind. It can be directive. But there is a way that we speak that invites others in to follow or to lead with us. And there's a way that we speak that keeps up a wall. And I invite people to be mindful of how they're showing up. And that is an awareness of body language, of tone, of words chosen. And whether you're paying attention or not. Because Sometimes when you're doing, doing, doing, you're in a meeting with saying, you're not even really paying attention to them. You're on your keyboard. You're checking your phone. You're like looking who's walking by the office. You're all over the place.

And I invite people to think for a moment of a time when they were in a conversation and somebody was doing that to them. And how did it make them feel? And the things that come up over and over again that I just use this in this bucket is, everybody wants to feel heard, valued, and seen. And when we show up as leaders, we have got to be even more intentional to make sure we are honoring those three things. In the Atlantic, and I think the summer of 2017, there was an article that talked about how leaders, the higher level they go, the less compassionate they become. And it's not because they become worse people or their

capacity to be able to be compassionate is diminished. What it means is, is that with the demands, we lose our focus and we start to singularly sort of have these blinders on so that the higher level you go, sometimes the more effort at reminding yourself, at expressing it, allowing compassion to flow through you isn't as natural because you're so hyper-focused on getting things. I think that's a really important point on the hierarchy, the higher you are, the less compassion. I think partly it has to do with demands.

but I think it's similar to a lot of the research it shows that the more wealth and power, the less empathy, because I think there is something with power that severs us from remembering what's it like for you. And I've noticed in myself that I forget how people feel around me, that they can, because I have a position of power, that they can feel intimidated and even more need, to feel recognized or appreciated. I forget that. And it's just it's because I've been roll-locked in a power position. So over the last decade or two, I've had a very intentionally asked that question. You know, I often quote Ruby Sales, who I love is, you know, she's an amazing elder and leader

and spiritual voice and she just asked that question, you know, where does it hurt, you know? And just to do what you described and switch roles and really sense, okay, there's needs and need to be seen, a need to be respected and need to be heard. It's something if we all could do would be great, but it feels really, really important for those who are higher on a hierarchy, that even a legitimate hierarchy, it feels really important. So I love that you bring that up. And I'm curious for you, do you have role models, people that have really inspired you with their leadership? Oh, most definitely. And at the risk of sounding, I don't know what, but you are one of them.

And, you know, my father and my mother have been incredible. I come from a family. I mean, sure, there are people out in the world, but I will say the most impactful have been the ones in my family. My family has struggled in ways that are incredible. I mean, not necessarily unique, but certainly in relative terms is what I know. And so my, you know, my father's side of the family came here from the Capeford Islands and what it was like to come to this country as an immigrant population, not knowing the language, looking for work, trying to establish roots and raise children in a new country.

And my grandmother being the first black teacher and black principal on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and my grandfather being an instructor for the Tuskegee Airman. There were lots of, there were lots of models of things that I had to look up to. My father being a teacher and my mother, my parents are divorced. So I have, I have a few mothers. I'm blessed to have a few mothers.

But all being in the education world. And not just looking at formal education, but like lifelong learning. What does it mean to just be, you know, have a beginner's mind all the time with? everything. So those have been pivotal for me. And then when I look out into the world, you know, there are our normal every day that we see out, you know, historically. And one of the things I will say that, you know, more recently they've been the people who have been trailblazing and

becoming the first of people, whether the first Asian American Pacific Islander to be in a particular space or first woman or because when you're the first, and it could be the first, male or transgender female or when you are the first there's a whole lot of stuff that comes your way and there's a whole lot of thicket that you have to cut through to create the path for others behind you so i have a particular admiration for those who step into those first roles i'm right there with you yeah you know in a way we're talking of you're mentioning referring to the known we know through the last couple centers we can think of the spiritual kind of leaders that were also social change agents and so on. But I also wonder, and people listening might be thinking,

you know, so what does mindful leadership have to do with me? And it's so relevant to all of us. I mean, I'm so aware that we all have a role to play and that in that role we emanate those quality. So I kind of wanted to just have you speak a little to how the whole realm applies to each of us. Yeah. Well, the first thing that I really believe that we often hear kind of give lip service too, but it is so incredibly true that we are all not just connected, but we're interconnected and interdependent and truly what happens in one place impacts other places. So I just had a conversation recently with someone that says, but, you know, but I don't, what if I don't care about those things over there? It doesn't really impact me. I'm like, but it does.

And let me give you an example. You know, we see things that happen just in our country that may happen in a particular community and we don't pay a lot of attention to it until it spills out into broader communities. But if we paid attention to it when it impacted this insular community, then we, if we looked at the trajectory of that, we could mitigate. we could even prevent additional suffering. And that suffering can take many forms, that suffering can be very felt and individual, and it can also be collective.

And when we talk about trauma, you know, we have individual trauma, we have collective trauma, and we have intergenerational trauma, and our nation has a lot of trauma built up over centuries. So even if you are feeling good in this moment, you know that if we don't handle, things like people being able to have enough food or people being able to have enough

a roof over their head, a safe home and having food and housing security. That limits population in communities from being able to thrive and flourish. And when people can't thrive and flourish, they do a number of things. They can give up. And then it becomes the government, you know, our tax dollars that has to care for them. they could turn to crime because they can't find another way to get what they need to care for themselves or their family. We pay for that as well. Or they could develop health conditions. Then ripples across, even if they have insurance, it ripples across the sphere. So it matters

because what happens to your neighbor is also happening to you in some form or fashion. And if we can get ourselves to be that and to acknowledge that is not thinking, oh, it would be so nice if everybody felt that way. We should not be worried. That's like an example, we're trying to fix everybody else. That is not our responsibility. Our responsibility is to show that and be that ourselves. So when you bring that into work as a mindful leader, people feel that.

And people like, what do you mean we can feel it? I use this example all the time. Think about, you know, maybe when you were a kid, if your parents, you know, whatever family unit that was, whatever the adults were that were caring for you, had an argument. And but you weren't in the room, but you walked in the room and, you know, we have this expression, man, that tension was so thick, you could cut it like a knife with a knife, right? We've all said those things. So we can feel that. And you can, you know, be in the presence of someone and feel a certain way. So we know that these things matter. And when you're a least, that is even more powerful so that you can because how that that exchange that energetic exchange that

influence it activates how people respond to you in many ways now the other piece of that equation is that you know they're showing up with all their stuff and so just because you're showing up mindful and present and aware doesn't mean that people on the other side of that are going to be nice or respectful or whatever. But that's okay. You continue being that because what happens invariably is that you become a mirror that reflects back to the other person or people what you are doing and potentially what they are not doing. Without any kind of judgment, it's just the example that helps begin to open up the doors for people to do their own self explorations and shift. And it's contagious. I love the word contagious because that feels really

true. And there's a lot of research on, you know, if one person is in a very open-hearted space or one person acts in a generous way, it just ripples out. And I want to pause and just say, if you're hearing a lot of sounds, Elsa, Hurricane Elsa has hit. And we have Gus here of up to 40 miles per hour. So that's the rattling you're hearing in the background. I don't hear anything. I would never know if you hadn't said something. That's incredible. Oh, yeah. Well, welcome, Elsa. And, you know, I'm really loving what you're saying because we underestimate our impact on each other. It's like it doesn't matter who you're with. Your heart space, your thoughts, your mood, has an impact on everything.

You know, we just are inter-influencing all the time. And so when we talk about Mindful Leader, it doesn't have to be like a leader of an organization. You could be at a dinner party, or you could be with your family at dinner, or you can be at a PTA meeting where we know right now it's pretty hot, you know, because of all the white lash back

on teaching about critical race theory, and history and so on, there are so many places where if we're able to remember to honor the value and respect everybody, no matter how much their own reactivity and conditioning is playing out, if we're able to do that, that creates a space that actually impacts people. And I often think about Ticknad Han. He had one quote that, especially during our multiple pandemics, I kept coming back to and I shared it. And it's a quote about the boat people. You probably know this one, Michelle, is where he said that the boat people, this is right after the Vietnam War. He said they knew that when their small boats would get caught in storms that their

lives were in danger because so many people got ex-billed and had to be boat people. And he says, but if one person on the boat could in some way remember to be calm, to not panic, it was a really great help for everyone. He said people would listen to them and keep serene and there was a chance for the boat to survive. And then he goes on, he says, our earth is a small boat. And pair of with the rest of the cosmos. It's a very small boat and it's in the danger of sin. thinking. So we need such a person to inspire us with calm, with confidence, with care, with clarity. And then he says, who is that person? If you are your best, then you're that person. You know, only with such a person, calm and lucid and kind will our situation improve.

And then he just says, be that person. And I feel like what you're sharing with us are the qualities of a formal leader but also informally all of us if we want to help evolve consciousness on our planet. These are the qualities that really make a difference. So I'd like to just invite you to share whatever you teach when you're teaching formally on mindful leadership, you know, where you're actually saying, here's a place to train, here's a practice, you know, what do you invite people to practice? Just I love that sharing and, you know, that analogy. It's so beautiful.

You can feel it. You can feel it. And it's so important. One of the things that I first invite people to do is to get in touch with the body. in a very trauma-sensitive way, and I always sort of caveat that if you are going through trauma right now, you're being supported through trauma, if you're aware of unresolved trauma, to perhaps seek advice and support from a therapist before you engage, if you are able to sort of move into some of the breathwork and feeling into the body, to remember that you have choice.

of when to stop if you need to, that self-care is paramount, but not to stop just because it becomes a little uncomfortable, but to stop as an act of self-care if you need to, otherwise to explore and be curious. And the way that I invite people to do that is through creating a body map. And I love the exercise. So it's kind of like an interactive body scan the way I express it and explain it. And I borrow from the work of the research that was done in a Finland study back in 2013,

but also the newer work of Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett that talks about how emotions are made and all of that. But what I essentially do is help people understand and identify where in the body emotions show up for them. And so I will guide them through a meditation of love. And I invite them to think of someone that they have great affection for, that they would move heaven and earth for, that they want them to feel safe and be safe.

And I say imagine them maybe in playing as a movie in your mind's eye. You see them happy and healthy. Or maybe you see in this movie in your mind's eye, you doing something together that you love. And I just kind of walk them through that. And then I have them take a breath and pause and then turn, hit the pause button on that movie and then turn their attention to the physical body and see if they notice any sensations.

and acknowledging also that it's perfectly natural and human if you don't. That maybe for you, you just feel neutral. You don't really feel anything. But just noticing with curiosity and kindness, non-judgment, what locations you might feel something in your body when you are evoking these sort of emotions of love. And then we take another kind of pause and breath. And then I ask them to go to their mind

and notice what are the mental narratives or stories that are playing as they're thinking about this person and feeling this way. Before that, I would have had them drawn like a human silhouette on a piece of paper. And then after that, we kind of close that piece and I have them go back to the paper and mark on the paper at locations where they notice sensations. And then also to notice the type of sensations. Was it tingling? Was it warmth?

Was it neutrality? Was it cool? Was it like a blossoming in the chest? What was it? And then write down labels. that describe the thoughts, you know, like kind, generous, or whatever. And then they're done. That's their first body map. And I explain to people, you can do that with any emotion. And it doesn't matter if you look at something and you see that as love and somebody else looks at it and sees it as,

I don't know, you know, whatever. It's whatever it is for you. And then you could replicate that. So we all feel a range of emotions, but we probably feel a handful pretty consistently. Do the same thing with frustration, you know, with anger, happiness, joy. And then you get your body map. And then all of a sudden, you're sitting in meetings and you're like, oh, it's been a while. Let me check my jaw because I remember from my body map that when I start to get stressed, I clench my jaws. Oh my gosh, my jaw is clenched.

Let me lower my jaw. And then that's when you're starting to minimize that gap between when it shows up in the body and the mind by checking in when you formulate your body maps. Then you know where to check. and that helps give you a lift, a boost, and how to skillfully navigate in any kind of moment. I love this. You know, what I love about it is people are familiar with body scans,

but to then bring it into the visuals where you actually visually map it and then write out descriptions engages different parts of the brain, so it's much more holistic. And I can imagine the power of it. Yeah, so yeah, good. That's great. It's just so helpful no matter.

what you're doing in your life and what your life is like and who's in your life. That's agency. It's self-mastery. Yeah. And we need to get to know ourselves from the bodily level because that's where all the emotions live and we're emotional creatures. So which really brings me to a question I wanted to ask you. It feels like these current times more than ever, we need just the qualities of,

mindful leadership that you're talking about. It just feels like, you know, and I know people always feel like, oh, this is the most amazing time. It's the most difficult time. And it feels like I've never witnessed this degree of conflict, anger, mistrust, disrespect, polarization. So I wonder if you might speak a bit to how you see bringing the principles of mindful leadership into conflictual situations. And also, this is a big mouthful, Michelle, so I'm sorry, but if they go together, one of the main places of conflict is really emanating out of our generation-old racial caste system. And it feels like we're playing out the Civil War, you know, continuously. And we need ways individually and as groups when people contract into their silos of beliefs and so on to find some way to bridge.

So anything you can share with us about how you work with people in this domain. That is so true that these are like Moby Dick, I think, the best of times, the worst of times. It's everything. But I also will add that our species, our country has been in these places of conflict before. And here's where I give, where I find hope, is that we've been in very difficult places like this before, and it always preceded great transformation for society.

So you think about the end of slavery, the women's suffrage movement, the civil rights movement, LGBTQ plus rights. And so we've all, we all crescendo and it's very painful for many of us that that transformation. It's like we evolve, but there's a lot of struggle in that as well. So I let people sort of be okay with that, but also acknowledge that, you know, complacency, inaction, silence, they either enable

continuation of systems that don't service, or they can be used to help transform. In some of my work, I'll give one example. I'm a big fan of asking questions since I no longer try to save people. I ask a lot of questions so that people can come to it on their own. And in one of the places I work with some law enforcement agents who I know that that is a community that there's a lot of emotion around who we think they are, what we think they do, because we've got lots of examples of things gone wrong, horribly wrong, and the system allowing it to continue. And we also have examples of men and women serving on that first responder community that have been incredible. And it is very human. It's very, you know, typical for us to kind of throw it all.

all together and label it as one thing. Life and people and humans are so much more complex than that. But what I often do is when I, in this particular space, and I do this in other spaces, too. So one time I was speaking with a group of folks who were responsible for working in the border communities when the crisis started to happen in the last presidential administration. And that was something that was, I mean, I could barely look at that without becoming extremely emotional. If you look at those things and you're a parent, I mean, anybody would look at it and have some kind of emotional reaction. My lens, my expression of that was as a mother looking at those children and seeing my own child or my niece or my nephew or my friend's kids in that space and thinking

how horrible, what could I possibly do to help alleviate that suffering? And one of the ways I got in was working with folks who are there professionally. And I remember being in the room with a group of folks and asking about what happens when somebody rubs up against your values, one of your values being follow the rules, follow the law. And this person in the room explained, and it was clear in the explanation that this person wasn't feeling a lot of compassion, feeling, you know, and so I just, and it was okay, there was no judgment in the room. And I, and I just allowed there to be a little bit of a pause. And then I asked the question and how.

How do you keep humanity in that equation? And he kind of looked down, closed his eyes, and then looked back up and said, I don't, I can't because I wouldn't be able to do my job. And that broke the room wide open to be able to have a very serious, difficult conversation that at the end of our multi-day, you know, multiple days together, that the group understood and acknowledged and was committed to living the truth that there was never a circumstance where it was okay or acceptable or appropriate to strip the humanity out of what we're doing. And so there's a lot of questions I ask.

That's important. Now when we get to sort of the other things around racial and social justice, you know, we know Rhonda McGee has an amazing book, you know, around this work. and I'm a great fan of the wisdom that she shares and the practical application and the history and context. And when we think about how we're showing up and what's happening in our ecosystems, we have to realize that this has been centuries in the making, the things that we're trying to undo. And so there's a lot of urgency to change things because people have been trying so hard and so long to change things. but I mentioned that it's been centuries in the making because all of us are where we are. And there's this, how do you meet people where they're at while still also stretching them to move just beyond?

And when we do that, what happens a lot of times is people feel like you're pointing at them and saying, you're a bad person. You're a racist. You're a sexist. You're a homophobic. You're whatever. And that's what I was talking about earlier about when you stand in your own and presence in a centered and grounded and compassionate way,

if you begin to be a mirror that reflects back to people, depending on where they are, what they see matters is greatly dependent upon what state of being there in. So what gets reflected back to them may be like, that's wonderful, beautiful, I'd like to emulate that, or you think I'm a racist, you know. So it really depends on where they're at. So I want to share something with you that I read when we get into this space

and it's from Isabel Wilkerson's cast. And this is how I presented in the work. And I start out as, and here we are. We are all homeowners who have inherited a house on a beautiful piece of land, but the soil is unstable and cracks have begun to develop in the foundation. And not one of us of us here when this house was built.

Our immediate ancestors may have had nothing to do with it, but here we are. The current occupants of a property with stress cracks and bowed walls and fissures built into the foundation. We are the heirs to whatever is right or wrong with it. We did not erect the uneven pillars or joy, but they are ours to deal with now. And any further deterioration is, in fact, on our hands. And so if we accept that we just inherited this, and as we inherit something, we become natural players in it. And what does that mean? What does that look like? Is my presence

enabling a hobbled system, continuing the deterioration? Do I even believe that there is deterioration? If there are a hobbled circumstance, but it's worth the reflection and the self-reflection and self-inquiry to ask. And when you answer that question for yourself, there is that first inner dialogue, inner reflection, but then it requires external dialogue, because you can't get it from your own perspective alone. Because the way the brain works is it pulls, it predicts, it's a predicting organism, right? An organ that predicts, not organism, but a predicting organ. And it predicts every few moments the future.

And then we kind of live the future we expect. But it pulls from our narrow life experience. So we begin the inner work, but we must turn it outwards so that we can begin to be in dialogue and bring ourselves to shared and common interest so that we can be that bridge. You know, what you just said about the brain being a prediction. predicting machine. It's so clear in this and almost every approach in our life, including spiritual unfolding, that it happens in relationship. And that to the degree we're in a vacuum,

we're living in our own inner mirrors. We're just, all we're doing is it's that confirmation bias. We're just going to keep sorting for what already we believe in. And often it's negative because we have a negativity bias too. So, yeah. So I love that and I also really love what you're saying about. I mean, we know that if somebody is judging us or angry at us, we're just going to get defensive. Our heart's going to be armored. There is no possibility of bridging. So it feels like the first step is always to in some way, I call it, make a you turn and come back to what we're feeling, honor it, bring compassion to it, be with it, so that when we then begin to engage, we can go past that sense of you're wrong or you're bad.

Because we all inherited this. And some people inherit the conditioning that makes it so they will be part of perpetuating. And that too is not their badness or their fault. And so it's like how do we make peace with that too? And rather than further alienating and locking them into that position of being perpetrators of violence due to their biases and conditioning, how do we begin to be ourselves an actor that can actually help to bring out the best of the other? And it feels like the beginning place is just to remember what we have in common, just to know that,

no matter how different any of us seem, there are some commonalities that we can find. Sometimes you have to be really creative, but we can find them, we can name them, we can establish some sense of link that gives a little more safety, because people have to feel safe enough if they're going to have the conversations that are not difficult but potentially challenging. Trying to use your model here. But yeah, so that feels just like so. crucial that and it's not like a pretend we have in common it's like an authentic seeing their value

seeing that there's something they care about that you care about that's the same even if they have a million different interpretations of how to get from here to there exactly and I think what's a good sort of adjunct to that is that we have to be careful because when we sort of over indexed on sameness, sometimes that that minimizes the difference. And there are many cultural segments, ethnic and cultural traditions that are beautiful and life experience from different countries, that when we say, just we're all the same, this is where we can kind of get in a little bit of challenge, right? We're all the same. And the reality is, yes, we're all human. But my experience as a woman is going to be, as a cisgendered woman is going to be different from a woman who might

be part of the LGGDP community or a man, you know. And so what I often invite people to say is, you know, we know from like Dr. David Eagleman's work, the sort of in-group, out-group, or even Johnny Powell's work from the Othering and Belonging Institute that we bridge and break, right? So bridging is in the Othering and Belonging Institute is the equivalent of David Eagleman's in-group. And breaking is the equivalent of out-group.

But here's the challenge I have with all of that, is that we continue to sort of operate in binary thinking, good, bad, safe, dangerous, up, down, right, wrong, and when it comes to sameness and difference. And the thing that I offer people to consider is that we don't value sameness more than we value difference. And so that if we can look at sameness and difference as being equal on the road to oneness, and that we value both so that we can get to this sort of one humanity, this common humanity, you know, because there are things that I love about, you know, Cape Verdean culture, the food, the dance, the music, the traditions, how we honor our elders, that's, that's difference. But if you say, no, we're all the same, that doesn't matter.

I don't see that. I don't, because we're all the same. The sameness is beautiful, but the difference is beautiful, too. But we have been taught to minimize difference or that the difference is where conflict is. And I'm inviting people to treat them both equally with honor and respect. Well, I love that because I'm right there with you that I've seen in spiritual communities the mantra we're all the same is a total whitewash, so to speak, of the very real different experiences people have. And it's in a way a defense. And it's part of white fragility.

I don't see difference, you know. So completely with. you. And ultimately, if we really are respecting the essence of all beings, we can celebrate difference and just be richer because of it. I mean, you know, biodiversity. We won't have a planet unless there's different. So I'm there with you. And it does feel like the challenge is we get identified around the difference and our identity grasps it more than we grasp sameness. That sameness is more cognitive, but the grasping around difference is more fear-based. Our basic primitive organization of our brain is to scan for difference and to have all of our fight,

flight, freeze responses go around it. So it does seem like an important one to become awake to, you know, to see how reactive we get. Yeah, because once we become aware, then we can choose to disrupt and mitigate. And that paves the way for us to bridge and to broaden our notion of in-group. And that doesn't mean that you ignore danger signs that are like true danger, but it does mean that we start to question our own notions of who those people are or who that thing is. So being engaged in that reflection and inquiry and conversation is really powerful

to serve as a basis for a meaningful shift. One of the things I read, you wrote an article. It was about really shifting some language. And right now the language, a lot of the trainings are diversity and inclusivity. And you suggest shifting it to belonging and unity. And so I thought maybe just to share a little why that seems important to you. Yeah. So I said that several years, almost 10 years ago at this point.

Oh, it's all. No, but I use it because I don't come from the diversity and inclusion world. I'm not a D&I consultant. And my personal approach to things is I don't focus on like the, when I name something, I'm not focusing on the tactics. I'm focusing on what's the outcome. So think about when we protest things in the world, think about in the seven, we had anti, we had war pro, like anti-drug.

We had the war on drugs. We had the protests against wars. We were always focused on the things that we didn't want that were against. Yeah. Right. And so why can't there be? be a peace protest? Why can't there be, you know, so I choose words that I feel reflect the outcome that is desired because I believe you grow energy towards that. You know, where does your attention

go? Wherever it goes, the energy follows. We build it up. And so I was sitting in a conference one day and we were talking about these things and everybody was going on about diversity and inclusion. And I don't even think that people get the inclusion part right. I think they get the diversity part right where well we've got all these people of color now we've got all these whatever and you know and even in the diversity piece a lot of people narrowed it to like women and black and white and diversity is so much more than that but inclusion you know i liken it like it like this this is an example that's not mine people have heard it diversity is having a whole bunch of people at the dance that are different but inclusion is actually being asked to dance right so i believe that when you are

you are included, you feel that you belong. And people said, well, why don't you use belonging in community? I said, because we've got communities all over the place where there's no unity. And so I look at, if you have belonging in unity, you've got healthy communities, you've got healthy and civil discourse. And everybody wants to feel like they belong. And we can't feel like we belong if we don't feel like there's. And that unity is there's trust, there's respect, there's kindness, there's a count of

ability. There's all these things that I think aren't reflected in the DNI language. I brought it up because I really love it. It's like there's a Hebrew saying that when there's no vision, the people perish. And it's like, can we frame things that really bring more and more into our shared psyche what's possible? Because what's possible becomes a gravitational field that draws us versus what we're against. So I, I resonate. with it, which is why I asked you. And that really actually leads into just a couple more things I really wanted to get to. And one is, you know, I was so inspired and delighted to know you're running for a Virginia delegate. And I'm kind of curious, like, can you share what motivated you?

You know, why do you want to do this? Because not everybody wants to jump into the political fray. Well, listen, I had no idea I would end up here. It was not a lifelong ambition to move into politics. And there was just a number of things that were happening around our country, which also was spilling out across borders into other countries, which is another example of why what happens in one place happens in other places. What happens to one of us happens to all of us. And people have heard me have asked me this question multiple times. And there's not just one thing. It was just this. incredible coming together of so many things, but two really key things that were, that pushed me completely into, okay, I've got to do something. The first was looking at what happened in the summer of 2020 with the murders of Amad Aubrey, Brianna Taylor, and George Floyd, the horror of it. Now, that wasn't the first time our country's been here. It was just the first time that we had recordings of it, you know, that made it hard to, you know, that made it hard to, ignore. And then all that came out of that. And then January 6th happened. And throughout all of,

I kept saying, where are the high visible leaders, not our feet on the street activists who have always dedicated their time and efforts to writing wrongs and moving humanity forward? But where were the high level visible representatives, officials saying, I'm going to stand in the divide, because if there were ever a time to bring our country together, it's now. And I've I wasn't seeing it. I kept asking the question. All you saw was more and more people standing on their side of the divide. And all I could think about was how it was tearing our country apart. And I was thinking about all of our children. And we could look at what was happening at the border. And you can say, oh, those children from Central and South America or Central America primarily. I didn't look at it like that. I looked at that and said, those are our children. Those are our children. Whether you have biological children of your own or not, those are our children. And so I was looking at all of those things and thinking the last straw was January 6th, the insurrection, the attack on the capital. And then the subsequent attempt to reframe what it really was into something that it wasn't. And at that point, when I asked the question, where are the, I didn't even finish the sentence before I heard this whisper thought, this whisper voice that said, maybe you are one of those people that you're looking for.

And as soon as I heard it, kind of my eyes got wide. Like, I don't think so. No, I'm not trying to, nope, I don't think that's me. But in, and I say, well, actually, that feels very aligned. And I was very surprised that that's what surfaced for me. And so I began to have a conversation with my family and some very close friends and then made the decision to try and do something better and to show people a different way of being in politics. And the one thing I've said. to people is that I refuse to run on a platform of fear. It's the fear that I feel like is what is

so destructive for us right now. And people run on fear because they're afraid they won't get reelected or they won't get elected at all. And that's just a risk I'm willing to take. Well, when you said the voice in the ear, I thought of Ticknat-Han saying, you are that person, you know. And And I can say for myself that what has unfolded in this country and the real threats to democracy and the depth of the misinformation and, as you say, the undergirding of fear has more than ever put me right back to it has to come from consciousness, from changing consciousness. You know, we have to evolve consciousness. And that means that in the political realm, it's going to be those that model a waking up heart and mind that can have an impact on the business level.

It's going to be the business leaders that model it. It's going to be every day each parent. It's going to be all of us. But for you to step forward with the, what I'm hearing, Michelle, is a real conscious intention to have, have your words and actions be really an expression of consciousness of that, moving towards unity, moving towards a society that people feel belonging, that feels needed to me. So it makes me me happy. And I thought maybe I'd ask one last question. He started early on saying that it's periods of real turmoil that often, you know, we're adaptive evolutionary creatures.

that give rise to something greater. And so my last question really was, can you speak a bit more about where your hopes are, what you think is possible? Because I feel like it's important that we have hope, no matter how dark it is. So many people have heard it. It's just, you know, in the darkness,

we have to remember light. And if we don't have hope, we will not engage and act there'll be no energy and if we do who knows what's possible ultimately but then there's still a chance for good things so i just was wondering if you would speak more about how you view hope yeah thank you for that question that is delicious and rich and um you know somebody once said to me that what is unique about the human in species is that we're the one of the very species that has the ability to hope. And I think it's one of our most powerful gifts of who we are in addition to our capacity

to love. And I believe that we have to embrace hope, but know that if you straddle and weigh down hope with this is too big, this is bigger than I am, I, me, can't as a single person can't make a difference, if that's the way we enter into a relationship with hope, we won't be able to do it because we have very large and very complex problems. And we also have very large and complex opportunities to move through those problems. And so when we think about hope, I say, yeah, think about the big things. What can you do? But also think about the small things because I believe that it's in the small things that when

they build upon one another, they begin to create the escalator, if you will, to the big things that you can do together. And I give you an example. When everything was happening in the summer of 2020, my husband and I looked at each other and we were just, I mean, our family was reeling, but we were most particularly concerned about our young son and him growing up in a world and feeling like he's Afro Latino, he presents, you know, he's dark skin. And so he's got the Latino piece. He's got the black piece and just showing up in the world as a tall six three young black man and worried about his safety. And seeing him, he could go either way. He could be fearful to walk in the world, or he could be angry walking in the world, or he could be self-actualized walking in the

world. And we wanted to cultivate the conditions for that third option. And so we could look at all of that was happening. And he could say, and he could take his cue from my husband and myself, that there's nothing we can do and to be angry or to be afraid. And my husband and I decided in that moment we needed to do something to show him that no matter what is happening, there's always something you can do. And that something you can do may be something very small or it may be something very grand. And what we chose to do in that moment was to write an open letter to humanity and then ultimately create a resource guide.

But it was that cathartic exercise of writing an open letter to humanity that included my son's voice and his feelings, my, my husband and mine making it available. And then that helped instill confidence in him and the sense of empowerment that I don't have to be silent. I don't have to just be somebody who is passive and just lets it all happen. And it was something so small, but it gave him hope. And so I say don't discount the small things. Find the joy and hope in those and bring yourself that food and fuel to be able to dare enough to hope larger. Wow. I hearing two beautiful teachings in that and one, because we need to act and engage to keep on fueling

hope. We need hope to act and then we need to act to keep sustaining hope. And so I'm hearing two things and one is that it doesn't matter. the scale of the action, what matters is our hearts are engaged in it. And that's really beautiful because that's something, we know it in very small ways around our own work, you get into one of those postponing things. And if you can even just do a little piece of something just to get active action and you can start moving on it. So that's one. But the other thing feels equally important, which is co-hoping and co-acting. I don't think we can act alone or

hope alone. You know, the classic Fred Rogers' mom who said, you know, when you're feeling despair, just remember the helpers. It really helps me to think of you, Michelle, doing your work. I mean, it just helps me. It gives me hope. It helps you when I think of all of those people I know who just care passionately and are doing it and all the different levels. Just caring people gives me hope. And when I am engaged in conversations like this or in any situation where we're together in it, that togetherness, it in some way relaxes someone of that fear and it just reminds me of the ultimate truth that we're not alone, that we really are in it, that we do belong to something larger. So I love both of those pieces in your story about your

your family. It's really beautiful. Thank you. Thank you. So any final words, anything you might not have said that you'd like to share before we close? Just that I really want to leave with an invitation for people to lean in and be okay, especially with the stuff that feels like you are particularly resistant to it. That is one of the biggest calls and invitations to lean in even more to broaden understanding. And not that you have to agree, but there is this acceptance that comes with understanding and acceptance of what is

present that allows you to lean in and be that bridge builder. And if that's just within your own family and that ripples out, great, if it's something at work, if it's something at a higher level of something in the community, but do what you can, be what you can, and be who you are and always continue to go back and assess and reassess in that beingness, because it's in that that you create the glue and the fabric that we all are part of. And that, again, is where I think all the magic happens. Well, your presence is contagious in terms of, that heart wish. So thank you. That's beautiful. And thank you so much for being with us.

I hope we get to have you again. Thank you. It's been my pleasure. Blessings. For more talks and meditations, and to learn about my schedule or join my email list, please visit tarabrock.com.