Tara Brach - Radical Friendship: Conversation between Tara Brach and Kate Johnson

Episode Date: September 17, 2021

Radical Friendship: Conversation between Tara and Kate Johnson - The often unseen cause of our difficulties in relationships is the societal structures that are marked by violence and domination. This conversation looks at what blocks authentic and loving connectedness, and ways to intentionally cultivate authentic, openhearted awake relationships.

Greetings. We offer these podcasts freely, and your support really makes a difference. To make a donation, please visit tarabrock.com. Namaste, friends, and welcome. We've had our guest, who I'm having a conversation with here tonight, Kate Johnson here before on this podcast, and I'm like so excited to have Kate Pagna. Kate is a teacher, and I'm just doing my kind of more formal introduction, an author, a facilitator, key domain is integrating meditation and social justice work, and has had many years working with individuals and organizations. And Kate's a dear friend. You know, Kate and I have close colleagues and friends. We've talked together at meditation retreat and are very involved together leading this teacher training for mindfulness teachers,

with a particular emphasis within that on creating like a super robust, leading edge program and training on diversity, equity, inclusivity, and accessibility. So that's like been a big, exciting area we've been working together on. Most immediately I want you to know about Kate's new book. It's radical friendship. Oh my gosh. It's fresh. It's brilliant.

It's transformational. Please read it. And we're going to be discussing. it so you'll hear a lot more now over the next little bit of time. So dear one, welcome Kate. Thank you, Tara. It's really nice to be with you today. I'm glad. I'm so glad we're doing this. So I'm going to start in with like this is the most traditional question you've probably already gotten on every podcast you've ever done recently. And this is, okay, the book's called Radical Friendship. And

there's a lot of radicals out there now on Mia Coppa. You know, I know I've contributed. And it's a really strong word. So I want to hear what drew you, what started you off really wanting to focus on friendship and how come radical friendship? Was there any like personal experience or event or something that made just the language of friendship important to you? Yeah, I feel like it was kind of a slow dawning of this is the topic that I really love to focus on for this work. And it did come out of an interest in diversity and inclusion and accessibility and really looking for ways to support the Sanga that I was in to do social justice work better and with less harm. And what we were finding is that we were attempting to show up for

various social justice campaigns. This is in New York City and that sometimes in those engagements and sometimes just within our community that there was a lot of harm happening across differences and that we didn't really have a framework rooted in the Dharma for how we wanted to be together, how we wanted to be with each other. And so I think, you're reflecting back on some of my earlier experiences going to a meditation center and also my early experience is going to be a part of social justice actions and direct actions and stuff. It was both to learn, you know, learn meditation or to show up for a cause, but it was also because I wanted to be with other people who were kind of like me and cared about the same things. And so there,

and it was something that I'd never really talked about or even, I think, acknowledged to myself out loud, like part of the reason why I'm here isn't just to learn, you know, but the Buddha but it's to be around people that I think might be kindred spirits. And then I think when, you know, I experienced a misunderstanding or I, you know, offended someone or it's one of those relational kind of friction moments happened within within Sanga, within people, a group of people who feel like kindred spirits, it can hurt even more. Because there was this wish that, oh, if I just find people who have the same values and are setting the same thing. Maybe we won't have those relational, like, not, you know, it'll be a little

more smooth than, say, the general public. It doesn't seem to be true. So part of what was exciting was finding that within the Buddhist teaching, there were actually so many beautiful teachings about relationship that we could lean into to really build the kind of community that I think we all dreamed of. Yeah. And then I think on a personal note, I mentioned this in the book. I think friendship is something I've always really longed for. It's something that I haven't almost found easy.

I still don't find easy. I think it's an intimate relationship in which I find that for me and for many people I talk to, it brings up stuff around many of the topics you teach about. so beautifully belonging and vulnerability and worthiness. And so I really wanted to kind of zoom and focus on this relationship. And I think when it made the transition from being to describing it as radical friendship, the idea there was that and the Buddha called it spiritual friendship, Kalyanamita. And I think the invitation there is that we can look at friendship as a spiritual practice

and one that helps us to develop and enrich our inner lives and also that we can support each other on a common path to liberation. And to do so in these times struck me as a really radical proposition. And the potential of that kind of friendship or that kind of bond to be forged among people in a community to me felt like this possibility of strengthening communities, strengthening movement spaces in a way that we could really stay together and not only tolerate each other but love each other long enough to affect real change. I love the way you put it, that radical friendship is a spiritual practice and a superpower. And by the way, I'm right with you on the emphasis on friendship.

I mean, many people listening might know that the polyword meta, you know, one of the descriptions of it is friendliness. And I've always felt like if we threw away all the spiritual paths in the world and all we paid attention to was cultivating that quality of friendliness, everything else would come out of that. It just opens up and wakes up our heart. And right before we started, you and I were talking about what it was like putting out a new book and all the natural insecurities that come with it. And I was wondering if you would share how radical friendship and that friendliness towards yourself is holding a space for that. Like what's coming up around that for you? Yeah, sure. Yeah. Well, this is my first book. And people keep encouraging me to

say first book and not last book because it was really it was not easy to write, you know, for the the technical parts of writing and just, you know, learning how to, yeah, structure a large text like this and to have it be buried enough and cohesive enough and just the right mix of elements that would make it like readable and accessible and beneficial. And then And then there's also the part of putting something out in the world that other people are going to see that once it's out, I can't change it, that it's probably going to have things in it that I intend and things in it that I didn't intend, but are there anyway. And yeah, so I was mentioning before we talked, I have been on several podcasts. And there was one day where I, there was one of the first ones that I recorded was coming out.

And at the same time, I had several friends text me or email me and just say that they were appreciating the book and they were giving specific feedback. So I knew they actually read the book and weren't just saying that. And then, you know, had this wave of mental cloud role and say like, oh, they're not, they don't really mean it. You know, they're just saying that. And I could see it, but it didn't make it less painful. And well, I'm not sure that that's true. it, I could, seeing it, it both makes it more and less painful in a way, like, to become aware of those, the presence of thoughts like that that I think are indicative of, you know, not feeling worthy of praise and self-doubt around, you know, what I had to say and whether it was good enough to share and that the thoughts themselves are painful and it's also painful to know that, if you love someone, you don't want them to think badly of themselves.

And I feel that way about myself. So there's this sense of, wow, I wrote this whole book about friendliness. And here I am kind of not able to trust my friends when they tell me something I did was really matter to them. And yeah, I've been working with another round of met to practice again. I thought, okay, well, this is a good time to do some intensive friendliness practice towards myself. And in terms of a radical friendship practice, I think one of the ways that that experience has been made less personal for me is to see how those thoughts about what I created not having enough value or not being good enough to be seen by other people, that they're on some level personal, but they're also societal, right? that there's really a way in which the publishing industry, you know, the Buddhist world, society at large has not always felt that people like me deserve a voice and a platform and

to be seen and heard. And so allowing myself to be seen and heard brings up, you know, the messages that I think I've received my whole life, despite the best intentions of my, you know, family and friends, teachers who tried to protect me from those, those, um, yeah, that conditioning. So there is something about seeing that too. I think that that helps to know, like it's not just a personal failing that I don't have, you know, quote unquote high self-esteem

or it's not just that my family somehow failed me, but that also there's a structural layer to that that I'm experiencing as personal in this moment. Wow. So there's two really powerful things here. I just heard you say, and I want to break them apart and pursue both of them. Okay. So the first one was that when you saw the self-doubt and you really could feel just the pain of it,

it's like it hurts to be hurting ourselves with those kind of thoughts, then the first part of radical friendship is really knowing how to hold yourself in some way, you know, and being kind to yourself. And you, in the book, you just, you have really beautiful teachings on how to bring that self-care in. And then the second piece that you name, which feels really important, and this is the one I think we miss, is that those thoughts aren't really our own thoughts. We're thinking society's thoughts, as Kate Johnson once said, that I'm quoting you, I think. I'm not thinking my thoughts.

I'm thinking society's thoughts, which is that, that. That sense of not being worthy of being attended to is built into our society as the message that those of color, black, people of color, indigenous, it's just thrown in there over and over again that these are not the voices, the intelligence, the messages, this isn't the source of the wisdom and what's guiding our society. So you're stepping forward with something and meeting a kind of a societal attitude. And you do a fantastic job in this book about helping us not take personally things that are really conditioned by the larger society.

So I kind of want to ask you to speak more about how you see our societal structure. shaping and impacting our relationships with ourselves, like the trance of unworthiness and with each other. Yeah, I mean, I think that the internalization of these kind of external messages, both subtle and overt about, you know, where you belong and the value of our life and the, yeah, role we should have in society and the role we should not have in society. You know, often shows up in this kind of, you know, internalized way. We talk about internalized oppression or in the Buddhist world. We talk a lot about the inner critic.

There's an amazing artist and performer Tourmaline who said encourages people to work with their inner police, which I think is really powerful for BIPAC folks and for other people who are overly policed in the society. You know, the ways in which there's this voice that says, like, oh, don't do that. that you know, you're going to get hurt. Someone's going to hurt you if you step out of line. And so there's, yeah, the knowing of it when it arises and the naming of it and the willingness to not necessarily even do battle with it, but to bring up enough quality of love and connection with ourselves

or with another person or even with the earth itself, but a quality of friendship that can actually help that inner critic or that inner police settle, be less in charge. And when it comes to our relationship with one another, I mean, I think it happens in different ways. I talk a little bit in the book about the character of white supremacy culture, so many of which seem to be expressed relationally in terms of, you know, a sense of individualism and the tendency to isolate and, you know, kind of

lying for control and power and defensiveness, you know, that there's a way in which the societal structures that empower and give privilege to, you know, white people, but also, you know, to other folks with societal privilege, also impact the way that we relate, even among white folks, from what I hear, you know, and certainly even in communities of color. You know, it has been such an amazing movement, I think, over the last several decades to have designated affinity groups for those of us who experience oppression, within society in a certain way to come together and to be in a safer space together. So we have, you know, BIPA groups that meet and we have LGBTQIA groups. Women's groups had been operating before that, you know, we started having women's retreats, you know, even earlier. And I think the hope sometimes is that by getting rid of, not getting

But by, you know, having a space that's separate from folks who are, you know, representing or embodying the dominant culture that we can have, you know, more safety and less of the societal structures of oppression that kind of wear us down on a day-to-day basis. I think what we often find in those groups is that there's some of that. And there's also been some internalization of that, those power struggles that then start to manifest even within a group, even when dominant culture folks aren't. present, you know. And so what's nice about it is that it seems to be easier and more simple to work with in an affinity space. If there's not an us and them, if it's all us, then there's a certain kind of healing that can occur there. So I think, you know, in writing the book, part of my question was like, am I writing this book specifically for people who want to connect across a difference, you know, like for white people and people of color who want

to, you know, partner together on something or, you know, queer folks and straight folks or like men and women. I think that's part of it, but I also think part of it is like how are we all unconsciously replicating some of these dynamics in our, in our relationships with ourselves, and our partnerships and our families and communities, even though we don't really want to. I think that's so important because it's pervasive. In other words, the impact of, I think it's a hierarchical society where, and this is not, this is through history, many or most societies and many animal, other animals too, you know, not just humans, create hierarchies where there's superior and inferior.

And some hierarchies are absolutely practical and useful, but a lot of them, especially in human hierarchies, end up being oppressive and separating people. And so it doesn't, we don't even have to look at people of over-difference. Most of us can be with anybody else, and there's this immediate comparing that goes on. Oh, you're so much prettier, you know, or you're heavier, or you're lighter or you're more intelligent or you're more successful or you have more this or more that and we put ourselves up and down in like a flash yeah in a flash so part of it is getting just the toxicity of that because i made a whole practice for myself around it that because this this understanding that if there's anything but truly feeling our fundamental equality then love is hindered

and then to sense how much more so it happens when there's the real over differences where we have real imprinting to automatically say, oh, you're a black person, you're less if you're a white person saying that. So I'm with you on the need for affinity groups completely because we have to have some degree of safety to begin to acknowledge and recognize, and recognize how that all plays out so that we can begin to not be caught by it. And then we can widen the circles and widen the circles. And so I'm with you. I wanted to share with you and those listening something I heard from Nikki Giovanni poet, wonderful person, black woman, says in it, this is an interview that she recorded 40 years

ago with James Baldwin that she's saying this 40 years ago. It's very cool. And she says about how in her generation, she says, one of the nice things was that they could say, hey, I don't like white people. And then that was the beginning, of course, of being able to like them. And I found that so powerful because it's very hard to admit what conditioning does to us. And yet, when I started thinking about it, it's like, of course there's going to be disliked. How could there not be when there's generations of traumatic violence to the black body from the white body,

how could there not be a feeling of distrust and fear and anger, you know, given those, that brutality? And how could it not be that white people wouldn't pick up that? And then on that pick up the anger, the fear, the mistrust, and then themselves feel endangered and angry. back. Plus, of course, white people don't want to feel bad about themselves. So since they don't want to feel built and shame, they then deny and further separate. Of course, there's all this programmed reactivity. And what if we could not make ourselves personally bad for that? And I feel like this is where I want to turn to you, Kate, because we take it personally and there's a way that you write that says, wait a minute, this is all, the society's institutions are creating these feelings and reactions that

are playing out. It's not our fault. And yet it's not, it's like as Nikki says, until we can admit, oh, here's how it's happening, we don't have a chance of going beyond it and really feeling our togetherness. So what helps us not take it so personally what the society's doing? Yeah. What helps us not take it so personally? I didn't write about this in the book. I started to and then this was something that ended up on the editing block. But I think that there's something that is helpful in the Buddhist understanding of the self that is really powerful for this particular kind of practice and learning. That to be able to really contemplate and intimately be in touch with the way that the self has built up over time and almost.

like less of a thing and more like a process. And then in the process of becoming a self, that there are, you know, we absorb elements from the environment and they become incorporated in this thing that we think of as me. But they actually didn't, they didn't start out as me and they kind of got, you know, kind of consumed or integrated in this way. And of course, you know, not all of those aspects of self or societal messaging, you know, there's like likes and dislikes and there's, you know, family traits and there's, you know, it's made up of so much. But to see, I think, the

societal conditioning that lends us towards comparison, lends us towards fear, lends us towards separation and the suffering that follows as something that we've picked up. So more I have this rather than I am this. Yeah, that seems to be helpful to me. That really resonates because as you said that, I was thinking, because I spent a number of years in Affinity Group with white people looking at my own bias and reactivities. And the more I heard everybody saying, yeah, and I feel that too and other people too. I realized that, okay, so this is this is the kind of mess.

from society. It's the imprint. It's not who we are at essence, just the way you're saying, it got added on to that sense of our own being and solidified there. And so then I wasn't taking us personally the fact that I would feel I would judge others as less than me on a flash. I didn't take it's like, oh, I'm a judgmental, bigoted person. It's more, oh, that kind of judgment and bias is just absolutely the air I've been breathing. Well, and that happens too. I mean, that's another way where the sense of like personalness gets, gets agitated is to be in a group with other people who are all saying,

oh gosh, me too. You know, I have that also. So it's it's not so much this, again, this personal feeling, but it's this shared experience. And, you know, one of the things that came up for me, you know, as you're saying that quote from Nikki J. Yvani, which I think is so, you know, hilarious and also powerful is like when we go into these affinity spaces, it often seems that like white people don't even like white people

very much. Like there's this feeling of the, you know, the more that I've done this, this kind of work and training with different organizations, the more I hear people say, you know, I don't want to be lumped in. Lumping in with other white people seems to be this real pain point. Yeah, I'm just curious about that. Can you? Yeah, I think it's part of that I don't want to feel bad about myself. And I think white people are waking up to the reality of the horror. I think we're waking up to the reality of generations of violating people and considering them less than and other. And so we want to be more woke and we don't want to be identified with those that are less woke. and we're just trying really hard not to feel bad about ourselves.

And I know speaking personally, in addition to being in a affinity group with white people, I was also in a mixed group for three years where we were really looking at who are we together. And for the beginning, I was embarrassed to be one of the white people. And I didn't want to be identified as the white people. I realized how self-conscious I was all the time. I wasn't liking myself or the other white people because of kind of just what we're talking about. I was taking personally all the history and also the fact that it's still in my body mind,

you know, the biases and so on. And then here's what really grabs me, Kate, that it took me a long time to catch was that the more I was identified as part of a bad group and not wanting to be, the less I was actually feeling any connection or real compassion or empathy or friendliness. And it wasn't until I started not taking it as personally and just saying, okay, this is the conditioning of a society that I actually could start feeling grief for the real suffering of my friends. And also, a real sense of friendliness. And that was a, that was a revelation that I could not get to the place of grieving and loving until I woke up out of the shame and stopped taking it so

personally. Wow. That's huge, actually. And I'm really, I'm grateful for you sharing that because I have, I've been witnessing something in one of the spaces where, I'm like responsible for managing affinity groups and you know in the in a process of learning about diversity and equity within the mindfulness teachings and one of the things that I it's been a struggle let's just say it's been a struggle and and part of it is that you know folks who are white don't want to be lumped in with other white folks and but part and one of the things that I've notice in that and people seem to be saying that which which feels really real and valid is that, you know, hey, hold up. Like, I have pain too. And yes, I have white skin, but, you know, I come from

poor people. I come from immigrants. I come from refugees. I come from, you know, from people who have been outcast from society, you know, or I, there's alcoholism in my family. You know, I have disabilities. I'm queer. You know, so there's, there's this feeling like, I guess I've been wondering if it is possible for people to truly empathize with another Rupes suffering in an experience where they may be benefiting from the same system that harms their friends or the people they care about. Is it possible to feel empathy without first having their own pain acknowledged? because that's that was is what people seem to be calling for in that space.

It's like, hey, you know, yes, I'll see this other person's pain, but you got to see mine first or two. And I think that's valid. And I get that. And I also really appreciate you saying, what I'm hearing you say is that it's possible to do it to find that place also through letting go of some of the shame of being being, in that dominant group or coming from people who may have harmed in ways that you wouldn't have chosen.

Is that, am I getting you right? You're getting me right and you're adding in a layer that I think is really important. I feel like, you know, there's a understanding that the heart of Buddhism is compassion, the heart of compassion is compassion for ourselves. And so if we're in, if you and I are together and I want to have compassion for the suffering that you have experienced being born in a black body. And I'm with you right now, and right now I'm still feeling a clench because my mother was an alcoholic, because I came from a Jewish family, because I knew different types of caste systems. If I'm still feeling that in my

body, I have to first acknowledge and be with and feel tenderness towards my own suffering. always have to start there or else I won't be embodied and tender enough to really include yours authentically. So first I have to feel mine. I have to feel yes, this body mind has suffered too. And I have to feel the collective holding that, you know, others caring. And I have to not feel shame for the fact that your, that my actions are involved with your suffering. I have to know it's not personal. It's not what I wish. It's just the karma of how these societies have unfolded. So those are the two kind of prerequisites because my shame will block my care. Yeah. That feels very powerful to me because it also feels like everything doesn't have to happen all in the same

moment, which I think is really a challenge when facilitating a group and starting to unpack some of these this material is like everybody wants everything to happen at exactly the same time you know you see my pain i see your pain we acknowledge all you know we all tell our story and that you know not only isn't practical just in terms of how time works but it also um it does seem like there needs to be space for each each one to be seen on its own um and we have to start somewhere um and and so i love the idea that there might be this you know in another time in space is working with compassion towards my own history and my own wounds and ability to hold them in such a way that when I show up with you and you're saying, can you see the way I'm hurting

that I can potentially do that without needing to kind of co-op that space or rip open my scars so you can see them too. Is that, yeah. So you're pointing and you're pointing to something else that feels really important in relationships, whether it's just two of us or a group, which is we can't meet everybody's needs all at once at the same time. So there's sometimes we're going to have to live with feeling uncomfortable. And you have a great chapter, endure what is hard to endure. And you really, you invite us forward in a very powerful way, Kate, in this book about making an effort. And it's a wise effort that stretches and enlarges us.

And I feel like endure what is hard to endure, if we really want to build the bridges and reconnect and know the kind of depth of the truth of on the way, we have to be able to be really uncomfortable. We have to be willing. So I was wondering if maybe you could speak a little more to that because you have some fantastic examples in the book and it's such a powerful teaching. Yes, I know about being uncomfortable. Oh, man.

I mean, I think you're right. I think the Buddha was right, you know, about this quality of endurance and the ability to stay with an experience over time. I think that's part of why it is so helpful to do. And so such an awakening experience to do this kind of. of practice within a relationship like friendship because there is a kind of commitment over time. And because we do have this sense that we're going to be able to come back and address the things that we didn't get at last time, you know, and that we don't have to do everything all at

once, but that we're in, we're committed to kind of this process of unfolding together. I think it's really special when it happens among two people. I think it's really special when it happens within a community. And I love, you know, what you're talking about with these containers of separate. several years long where you really decide to stick with each other, you know, in the messiness and in the mistakes and in the, you know, I mean, you're talking about your own process is being a part of that group and how that evolved. And I'm imagining it was happening for each of you individually and then the group

as a whole and to say there's enough good here and there's enough possibility here that we can stay together even even through the hard parts. And there's not that's not always the case. Yeah. And that's something that I mean in the process of writing the book, I think I became, for every statement that I made about friendship, I could think about some examples where that wouldn't be appropriate. And I really want to qualify here that I think the friendship that the Buddha taught and the friendship that I hope to talk about in the book isn't the same as just, you know, being nice and, you know, keeping things cool and being, you know, smiling a lot. And, you know, that there's this, there's this other area of wise effort and I would say

joyful effort that's involved. But, yeah, I think part of radical friendship is both knowing when there's enough goodness to stay in a relationship through the hard time, And there's also, you know, being able to be honest when we say, actually, there's not enough here for me to engage with this other person or this group or this community and not abandon myself in the process. Both are true and both are a part of the practice. And that's what makes it less like a set of rules and do's and don'ts and more like a more like a practice. It's a living practice. And I really love what I'm hearing, which is at the root of it, for me to have a radical friendship with myself, I have to have a commitment. I have to really have kind of a trust that this is the path that's going to be most

liberating and a commitment to hang in. I have to be willing to stand behind myself. And I mean, I remember in my own life the kind of several times where it became very clear that if I wanted to keep waking up, I had to really dedicate myself to loving myself and to healing. It was really a feeling of commitment. I am committed to not staying in the trance of unworthiness. And that was like an act of radical friendship to myself, that level of commitment and then the effort comes out of that. It's like that's the efforts, the energy towards what really matters. And it's the same thing with each other. For you and I to have a radical

friendship, it means that we have to have that sense of really trusting the mutuality that we're both willing to hang in. And then we have the capacity to hang in. And I think then it widens to a group that you're with. How can you have radical friendship in a group? Well, you have to have the group really committed to enduring what's hard to endure. We have to be willing to be uncomfortable. Right. I think that's right. Yeah. And Yeah. I suddenly, this teaching that Sharon Salzberg gave one time came to mind of, she talked about it was like the practicality of Meta and the kind of, we were living in New York City at the time. And she said, Meta's like the feeling that you would feel with a group of people. Like say she said, she advocated. for practicing metta on the subway. And she said, but it's not just that you're on the subway with these people until you get

to 59th Street. She's like, you do metta as if you're on the subway with these people forever. That's true. Forever. Yeah. It gives it a different flavor. Yeah. And there are different levels of how engaged we are with people.

You know, if you're married to somebody, your radical friendship, it's a very, deep, deep commitment to hang in and be with what's difficult with each other. You're much more going to be spending the time on that. So I was kind of wondering if maybe you could share an example from your life where you and somebody who's different from you, a person of difference, how you cultivated a radical friendship with them, with real authentic relating, like what helped to grow it. Well, one thing I really believe is that whenever we're relating with another person, we're related across a difference of some kind, you know, whether it's, you know,

any of the many characteristics that make up who our social selves are. So I think in some ways I could talk about any single, any relationship. However, when I think about, you know, I do focus on racial justice a lot in the book just to have a lens. And so there's one friend that has been, I've been friends with for well over a decade at this point. We worked together in yoga space in New York. And I remember one time where I was talking to him and I was expressing something I didn't like and I used this language that I wouldn't use today. But I said, you know, oh, this is so lame and that's so lame.

and he happened to have a partner who has a disability. And I could tell something was happening with his face, but I wasn't yet at a place where I was willing to just ask, which, by the way, I think is also a really important practice in friendship, is that often we actually know when something's not quite right and to be able to slow down and not ask rather than kind of continue to barrel forth and brush over, the facial expression or the kind of moment of tension in the body.

But that's what I did. And then at some point he said, you know, what do you mean by that? And I kind of caught myself. I thought, oh, that wasn't right. You know, and I said, oh, I mean, it just doesn't work well. It's kind of wonky. And it's like, you know, a little bit off and kind of sucks. And he's like, yeah, you know, that word.

I know my partner, it would really hurt her if she heard that word because it's something that people have said to people who have physical disabilities for a long time to make them feel less than. And immediately I was just so ashamed, you know, like, oh my God, like, how could I do this? Like, yeah, identification with the one who knows and is, you know, woke, as you say. And oh, my gosh, I did this. And I felt like he was really gracious about it. He just said, you know, we kind of brainstormed together, like, what are some of the other words we could say that got it that feeling, but that didn't kind of create harm. And I feel like the way that he approached me in that moment was so tender and so gentle.

And even though I was the person who was, you know, had said something harmful, that he didn't lose. side of my humanity in that moment. And part of that is that we actually had, we had a relationship. So we had all this other context for me to draw on. And, and yeah, I brought a new level of awareness to the way that I speak and, you know, the potential to, you know, use my speech in a way that hurts, that helps and doesn't hurt. But also, like, I think that it was a real teaching around how to like being lovingly called in and I know that um there's more of a discourse now kind of in the culture at large around calling in and calling out and of course now even you know cancel culture seems to be co-opted by people who really shouldn't be using that word and you know like that

there's like um how we how we handle each other in those moments of of screwing up um especially when we're working together across the difference of some kind, it feels like a real example of radical friendship to me. And it also meant that in the future, because this is a white man, you know, when we had stuff that came up around race and power that I felt like I could, I could share with him too, you know, that this is how this impacted me. And so we, I think in that process developed a kind of spiritual consent with one another, where we have a commitment to helping each other see what the other doesn't see.

And that feels like a powerful partnership. And it's not that we live happily ever after. Like, we still have issues with another. And there's, you know, we go through periods of time where we just need space from one another because the relationship feels like it's a lot of work or something, you know. But we find their way back to each other. I think that's actually a part of our friendship, too, that's important is that we allow space. So you're naming elements of radical friendship that I think really help us ground this conversation.

The given is that we will rub each other wrong. The given is that we hurt each other, actually. And that's, and what I'm hearing you say is that's not a problem. That does not have to be a problem that we hurt each other. What makes it kind of grounds for transformation is how we then deal with it. Can we be honest and speak to each other, not from aggression, but as he did, just there was a tenderness and a realness. Can you take it in and learn and grow? You know, it's like, can we go ahead and hurt each other and rub each other wrong and find ways to respond that actually end up deepening trust?

I mean, I find that in my marriage, that it's not that we lack, you know, our edges hitting each other. It's more that each time they do and we can navigate with honesty and kindness, we end up having more space of trust. You know, and I also love that that your relationship has room for moving in and out. It's like the wings of the bird that go up and down. It's like we're not always open-hearted. That's okay. We're not always wanting to be close. That's okay.

There's enough trust to let people go in and out in an authentic friendship, in-and-out, in-and-out meaning of the level of contact. Right, right. I like that you bring up the way that, you know, radical friendship plays out in something like a marriage, you know, And I've been thinking more and more about, you know, if there's some kind of like formal commitment I want to start making with my friends, you know, or some kind of ceremony to say, hey, we're, you know, many of my radical friendships have evolved to be that way over time. But that's one thing that kind of sparked my mind. The other thing that came up for me as I was listening to you, it's, you know, I'm in a romantic partnership too, you know, experiencing many of the same kind of dynamics of, yeah, like how intentionally hurting each other, find, you know, I'm in a romantic partnership, too, you know, experiencing many of the same kind of dynamics of, yeah, like, how intentionally hurting each other, find a way to repair. One of the things that I was reading recently is from the Gottman Institute. I talk about how for every moment of hurt, there has to be, you know, several moments of love and tenderness and care to actually make that possible. Like, like, I think they said,

a five to one ratio, essentially. For every moment of separation, there's got to be five of connection to actually make that, to keep the relationship strong and healthy. And that's, you know, if there's any, of course, when you write a book, what I hear is that everyone feels this way. There's things that they would have written now that they didn't include. And I think I did, I like the book that I wrote. I think if I wrote another one again, I would, I would include that also, you know, that, like, how, how important it is for us to also, you know, celebrate our friends and, you know,

guess them up and tell them they look beautiful and, you know, like, remind them what we appreciate about them and allow our love to show up on our faces for them. And, you know, just these gestures of appreciation and care, I think also build a foundation for being able to weather these hard parts that inevitably come. That's a takeaway. Thank you. Five to one. I'm going to remember. I'm going to walking five to one to Jonathan. So, you know, part of this, what it makes me think about is you have, again, your teachings invite us to stretch. And I kind of think it's a cool idea like, hey, you want to be radical friends, you know,

and then actually having the consciousness that, oh, we're committed to stretching more, we're committed to investigating more, we're committed to nurturing more, at least five to one scale, you know. I think that's a great idea. And one of the things you talk about is giving what's hard to give and your kind of realizations around time. And I think I just want to hear you say some more about it because I feel like our society is so diseased around time and around rushing and around speed and around, you know, we have, we all have so much fear of failure and like I have to get more done. I have to check this off the list. I'm going to miss the plane that we don't do the five to one.

So can you speak a little more about time? Yeah. Oh my goodness. Well, I put it in the chapter on giving what is hard to give because I think what comes up immediately is, you know, money and material resources is like, oh, what do I, you know, how might I stress myself to express generosity even, you know, being willing to give what's like a little bit difficult, right? not just kind of what's comfortable in service of supporting someone else who really needs it or supporting liberation in some way. And then right after that, my thought was, oh, my gosh, you know, I mean, it's associated with money, actually, and I think that's part of it, you know, in a capitalist society, they're linked. But time, you know, and in everything we've talked

about so far, time is kind of a secret ingredient, I think. Yeah, we're not going to be able to pause and offer a kind word or call each other in lovingly or listen wholeheartedly or speak really honestly and directly or, you know, express any appreciation. Like all of these things require time. And in the book I talk about learning that as a parent, you know, I'm a parent of a baby, a seven-month bold. And then I also have a bonus kid for my partner's previous relationship who's 12 now. And yeah, that relationship with my stepdaughter is where I really got it because I had been living this like very fast life, you know, in an urban setting. And really as a single adult living on my own, was in charge of my time. all the time, you know, and I decided when it ate and how long something took and I didn't

really have to coordinate with other people very much and to meet someone who really went at her own pace and her pace was like the pace of wonder, you know, it wasn't like she was being obstructionist. It was like she's so excited about the world around her and her own body and our relationship and, you know, that things just take longer. And, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, And yeah, I'm so grateful to her, for teaching me to slow down and teaching me that, um, I don't know it's to slow down, but also that me not always being in charge of my time is, is a good thing, actually, that allowing someone else to lead and to go at their pace, um, and to, you know, hang in with them, you know, for as long as it takes, you know,

of them to move through a particular, you know, getting ready for school or conversation, you know, that that, you know, in the case of my stepdaughter often, it just makes like a life a lot more fun, you know, but in case of other relationships, it just, I get to, I just learn so much and get to discover so much more than I would if I was just in charmed all the time. Yeah, and I do think it's really heartbreaking what our culture and economic systems have done to our sense of time and never having enough and not having enough to give. And I think that friendship is a place where we can really resist that slide into a more mechanized way of inhabiting ourselves in the world, you know, and to really be. acknowledging that, you know, human beings need time to be together, need time to do nothing, need time to rest, need time to linger, pause, or dawdle, or, and what I love about friendship is that,

you know, even more than like a romantic relationship or a parenting or other kinds of relationship that have these explicit commitments, you know, friendship as we have it now really exists in this totally, at least the radical friendship that I think that we're talking about this totally non-transactional space where what we get is the relationship. That is the win. And that's beautifully said, non-transactional space that we're actually in it for just the sake of loving connectedness. And that takes time.

It's like paying attention. Yeah. If I can really listen to you, if I can really pay attention to put down my agenda, what fills that space is a sense of connectedness. And you know, you're speaking about radical friendship and I was thinking about the suffering of our earth and how, you know, part of the hierarchy of our societies that's so toxic is that humans feel disconnected from the earth. Like, Earth is separate and we're above other species so we get to dominate them.

We could consider the earth as our disposal for, you know, getting resources and using it as a sewer. It's like a real, it's the opposite of friendship, you know. And that the first time I ever realized I truly wasn't alone that I could never be alone was in nature. and, you know, just this sense of this living body is part of this living earth. And I started a practice out of that that I've shared recently about a number of times because I keep doing it and it's just such a live one, which is just reflecting on we are friends, you know, and seeing a tree and saying, we are friends or the geese that I watch a lot and the plants of the birds and then I'm beginning to grow up and extend it to people, you know.

And when I do, Kate, in the moments that like, and I'm just sensing it right now with you, that we are friends, it immediately bursts forth into living manifested reality. And so it feels like how are we going to savor Earth if we don't feel a sense of loving friendliness with this earth, with this creation. And I mean, I know for me it's part of why I, you know, I eat plant-based

is just, it's a suffering of other living beings. It's the harm of the animal industry of the earth, but this real sense of we are friends when I bring it to the animals that get tortured. And so I'm just really sensing how what you're teaching about

with radical friendship when we make it conscious wakes up our relatedness to all facets of this living world. And if we do it consciously, it'll actually change the way we live on this earth. Yeah. I certainly hope so. I really do. And I love that you brought this to what does it mean to have a radical friendship with the earth itself. And how do we how do we protect and fortify that relationship in a way that allows us to actually live. You know, one of the things that you mentioned in the book, Janawa Rose, who is part of the Sogorayate Land Trust.

She said that they treat the earth like a relative, you know, and to have a sense that this is a living being, breathing being, that has given us everything. and what would it be like to give back rather than continue to take and take and take and take? It feels it feels like this establishing of a relationship of radical friendship

is a first step and an essential step and I know that there are more steps to that journey I wish that the people who have the most power to shift some of the policies that damage the Earth or that fail to protect it could have that kind of experience, you know, whether it's to be in nature and to realize like, oh, this is my friend or even to care enough about their own descendants to want them to have a space that they can, an Earth that's inhabitable where they can actually survive and breathe the air. and drink the water and have enough food and to avoid diseases, you know, like we're seeing now. Yeah, I think it's an essential first step, and I feel like, well, I already said this, but there's more there in terms of what's needed to bring about the radical and very, we talked about time, you know, like, and this is a case in which we actually don't have a lot of time.

Yeah. And I think that the element of friendship and relationship that we're not going to be able to do it without that. And I think that's something that the environmental movement missed, you know, back in the 80s when I first started learning about, you know, I think I told you this story before, but, you know, I grew up in Chicago. And so when I first learned about the environment, it was like the save of the rainforest was a big like environmental thing and I and I told my mom one day I was like mom I really hope one day I

can go to the environment and she was like what do you mean and I showed her my little like saved the rainforest book with like a two can on the front and it was like here this is where I'd like to go you know but I think that you know the the environmentalism and the environmental movement and a social justice movement were really working on separate projects for a long time and there was I think this tension between people who were like, save the earth and people were like, no, save people, you know. And of course, now I think that movements are, you know, increasingly understanding the complete, you know, interrelationship between the two and that, you know, yeah, the people who are most, you know, being impacted now by the, by climate crisis are people who are, um, marginalized

by society and is empowered by society as well. So I think how is it that we, you know, get people get together enough to really feel that we are on the same team here so that we can we can make a meaningful change in the way we relate to our planet is a is a big question. I think it's the right question. I feel like I hope that friendship can be a part of a part of the answer there. I think it is. Me too. Me too. I'm going to kind of ask a final wind up. But first of all, as many of you just heard, Kate's got a gorgeous new babe maple. And I guess what I'm wondering is you've just been momming for the last bunch of months. And, you know, is there anything else?

You mentioned one thing. Is there anything else that, you know, if you were writing again, that you would have wished you included that you're learning from being a new mom or anything else that's emerged that you kind of want to add in? I think I'm still really understanding. understanding and unpacking the experience of being a black mom in a black maternal health crisis in a pandemic on a rapidly heating planet, you know, in the middle of, uh, uprising around, you know, police brutality and anti-black violence. That was, that was a lot. Um, and I feel like, you know, for practical reasons because of the pandemic, but also just for, um, personal reasons. Like I feel like my my inclination there was to kind of withdraw a bit. And I know that's, you know, not uncommon and healthy during pregnancy. And, you know, certainly with the conditions

that we had to kind of like bring it in. Also, I was trying to finish this book. One of the things that I'm really curious about now, you know, as we see the rise of the Delta variant and look at, you know, other potential variants coming forward. And, you know, when I, when I was writing this book, we were still under the impression that once we got a vaccine, this would all be over. And now we're learning that that's not. And so there was something else I'd want to include or explore, I guess, two things from that experience. One is around, like, how we plan to care for each other in times of crisis and disaster, because it does seem that even if we take radical action now, we are still going to be seeing the impacts of climate crisis for quite some time.

And our societal injustices don't seem to be just going poof, you know, even though the awareness is so much greater now. So I think that's part of it. Like how might we explore these teachings as they relate to navigating, navigating. getting crises like the one that we're experiencing now. I think I my hope is that people would take these teachings and and creatively apply them to whatever situation they're working with. But I think there's even maybe something more to be articulated there. And the second thing has to do with parenting and mothering in particular. And I feel like when we look at some of the social and political crises we're experiencing now, particularly around climate, I think there's

something that I would imagine parents might have in common, regardless of their party affiliation, in terms of, you know, how do we make this country and this world a place that is safe and generative for children to grow up? And I would love to explore that more. Like, what does it mean to be, you know, to teach our children about friendship, to partner with each other in solidarity as parents. And also to kind of demand from our social systems that they allow for a little bit more support for parents. You know, like I realize in this time of mothering like, wow, there's, you know, no financial

support for child care. I don't have paid maternity leave. Like, you know, there's these, you know, high societal expectations. And just really would love for there to be, yeah, to. to help support more dialogue both around the, I guess what I'm saying is spaces where we both acknowledge the impossible task, you know, that is a head of parents and mothers in this space and work for the sustainability of parents through relationship and then also intend that those stronger relationships help us to transform these systems that make our work impossible.

Totally resonates. It really does. And it makes sense that you'd be immersed and really sensing from the inside out the challenges and also how the teachings you've already outlined so powerfully in the book really are the groundwork but now we need to apply them to these times. Yeah. Yeah. Kate, thank you. Thank you so much. To all who are listening, thank you for being part of this.

And I hope you feel inspired to not just read the book but to explore, well, what does it mean in your life? with people you know, people you don't know, to explore developing this very rich, juicy, spiritually awakening kind of way of relating. So yeah, I hope you'll read it. And again, Kate, it's just a pleasure to be able to do this together. So thank you, dear. Thank you so much, Tara. For more talks and meditations, and to learn about my schedule or join my email list, please visit tarabrock.com.