The One You Feed - Justin Michael Williams on Meditation and Activism

Starting point is 00:00:00 I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together, our mission on the Really Know Really podcast is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why the bathroom door doesn't go all the way to the floor, what's in the museum of failure, and does your dog truly love you? We have the answer. Go to reallyknowreally.com

Starting point is 00:00:17 and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. The Really Know Really podcast. Follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If we don't change on the inner level, then we can never change how the world occurs for us on the outside. We just keep recreating the same thing over and over. Welcome to The One You Feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have.

Starting point is 00:00:57 Quotes like, garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think, ring true. And yet, for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is author, top 20 recording artist, and transformational speaker, Justin Michael Williams, who is using music and meditation

Starting point is 00:01:52 to wake up the world. With over a decade of teaching experience, Justin has become a pioneering voice of color for the new healing movement. Between his podcast, keynotes, and motivational online platforms, Justin's teachings have now spread to more than 40 countries around the globe. His new book is Stay Woke, a meditation guide for the rest of us. Hi, Justin. Welcome to the show. Thank you so much. Super excited to be here, Eric. I'm excited to have you on. Your book is called Stay Woke, a meditation guide for the rest of us. your book is called Stay Woke, a meditation guide for the rest of us. And I think it's really perfect timing for us to talk about a lot of things really around inner work and outer work.

Starting point is 00:02:32 And so we'll get into all that in a moment, but let's start like we always do with a parable. There is a grandfather who's talking with his grandson. He says, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love. And the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops and he thinks about it for a second and he looks up at his grandfather and says, well, grandfather, which one wins? And the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do. It means so much. It means so

Starting point is 00:03:14 much because, you know, it's interesting. My work really intersects the context in which this fable even takes place in our minds and ultimately in our lives. And I think when we're talking about things like inner work or spiritual work or any of these kind of psychological work or these other things that we're doing, that's really holding the battlefield for this war that's happening inside. And so I'm always really curious and intrigued to think about things like, well, okay, why do we even choose to feed the bad wolf in the first place? Or how come sometimes the bad wolf steals the good wolf's food? And like, how can you be sure that you're actually even feeding the good wolf in the first place? And what do you do if you actually end up realizing that you spent so much of your life feeding the bad wolf when you thought you were feeding the good wolf? You know what I mean? And this applies for us. I think what's so fascinating, what we're all learning in this time, Eric, is like, this applies on an individual level and on a collective level. the world play out in so many ways right now. Because ultimately, there's this unending war

Starting point is 00:04:28 existing in our minds, and it creates all this anxiety and stress. And there's these shadows and social justice issues and personal traumas and collective traumas that have to come up. And what I tell people who are like inner work and this stuff, who cares? It doesn't matter. I just need to be out there taking action and doing things is first of all, if we don't change on the inner level, then we can never change how the world occurs for us on the outside. We just keep recreating the same thing over and over. And secondly, the reason our individual work matters so much on the collective level is because a nation is just a collection of individuals, right? It's just like all we are. And so like, how else can we change? And so

Starting point is 00:05:11 anyways, when I think of this fable, and you know, I think of the metaphorical versions of like, you know, what if you've been feeding the wolf the whole time, the wrong wolf in this, it really intersects big questions that I think a lot of us ask, like, you know, how do we step into our purpose? How do we overcome self-sabotage? How do we deal with the inevitable anxiety and stress that comes from this war that's going to happen? And, you know, what do we do when we fall off track? What do we do when we realize that we've been feeding the wrong wolf and we recognize that we need to course correct? How do we do that? And I think that's a big thing that's even, you know, the world's having a reckoning with right now.

Starting point is 00:05:48 I totally agree. You say very early in your book, I'm just going to read something you wrote. You say, and if you grew up like me, overcoming systematic oppression, homophobia, sexism, depression, poverty, toxic masculinity, community disempowerment, racism and trauma, you need a different type of meditation, one that doesn't pretend the struggle doesn't exist. So first, say a little bit more about your background and what brought you to meditation. So I think like probably many people listening to this, you know, I grew up with the classic case of what I call overachievers syndrome. And, you know, this, this happens for many reasons for

Starting point is 00:06:31 different people. But for me, you know, I grew up in a home in the Bay area, Northern California, in a town called Pittsburgh, California, in a house with gunshot holes, literally on the outside of my house and domestic violence and trauma and addiction and abuse. And, and just so many different things that a lot of young people, especially young minority, um, people of color are facing today. And my adaptation to that, to being in the closet and having all this trauma, my adaptation was, I'm just going to be really smart and get out of here. Like, I'm just going to be really smart and get, and get out of here. I just going to be really smart and get out of here. I'm going to be really successful and get out of here. And, and my schoolwork was one of the things that I was the only things that I was validated for. I got bullied and teased a lot at school for being too feminine or being different. And then

Starting point is 00:07:14 all this stuff happening at home. So I just zeroed in on if I can accomplish, if I can achieve, then I'm going to make it quote unquote, I'm putting air quotes here with make it, you know, and I did everything. I checked every box there was to check. I graduated the top of my class, got a full ride scholarship to go to UCLA. I'm out of the closet, go from living in the hood to living in Westwood, which is like a bougie neighborhood in Los Angeles for anybody who's ever been. And I have extra money for the first time because I got all these scholarships because I was the top of my class. And what happened was after about a year at school, I sat down and I had this moment and I said, hold on. I did everything. I checked every box and I'm still miserable.

Starting point is 00:07:58 Why am I still miserable? And I think we all have these moments in our lives where we've tried to change our relationships, our jobs, our this or that we try to change everything from the external hoping that it's going to change something within but that's not how it works I mean we have to learn that lesson over and over you know this is why I laugh with with some of the people that I work with and say this is how you can get out of a relationship with somebody and then get into a new relationship and three months later realize you're in out of a relationship with somebody and then get into a new relationship. And three months later, realize you're in the same relationship, but with a different person. It's because the change hasn't happened internally. And so for me, I went to a mentor

Starting point is 00:08:34 and I was in a really dark place. I had an eating disorder. I just had so much anxiety feeling like I don't know what to do with my life. And one of my mentors gave me this lesson and said, you should try meditation. And I literally at that moment, Eric, my response. So mind you, this is over a decade ago, Oprah hadn't done any meditation challenge. Like I didn't know any person of color that I knew meditating. And I literally go, meta what? What is that? Like, I'm not doing that shit, you know? And fast forward, you know, I ended up meeting this incredible teacher named Lauren Roche, who's been, you know, a teacher in the West for a good 40 years. He took me under his wing and I trained very closely and apprenticed with him and

Starting point is 00:09:16 fast forward. And here I am with a book. If you would have told me that, you know, 15 years ago that I'd have a meditation book, I would have said, you're lying, give me my money back. But here we are. Right. And so one of the things that I want to spend a couple minutes on, and you alluded to it in the response to the parable, is this idea of inner versus outer work. And you just even alluded to it in your answer right there, because what you said was, hey, I was really focused on if I just change things on the outside, if I just get out of this bad neighborhood, away from this problematic family, if I get away from bullying, if I have more money, I'll be happier, right? So there's internal versus external work on the individual level, right? And then there's the more broad societal level, which says,

Starting point is 00:10:07 okay, how much time do I need to spend meditating versus being out on the streets or, you know, advocating for political campaigns or community organizing? And I think that finding the right balance of those things on both those levels, I find to be really challenging, but really important work. Like it's not enough just on a personal level for me to be like, well, I'll just change my reaction to everything. Cause there's some things in my life I should go about changing. Like, oh, okay. I was in a job I didn't like so much, so I could change that, but without the internal work and then the same thing at a societal level, right? It's not enough for me to just become happier. At least seems to

Starting point is 00:10:50 me, right? There's a role to play in a greater transformation. So when you think about balancing those things in your life, how do you think about it? I'm so glad you asked this question, because I recently posted a video on my Instagram talking about this because the work that's happening on the external is absolutely important and essential. The making noise, the protesting, the dismantling the systems, the changing it all. And what I know for sure is that if we haven't done the internal work to match it, we could elect 10 new presidents. We could change the police department. We can do all the things that we want to do in the world, but we'll just end up rebuilding the same system that looks slightly different if we haven't done

Starting point is 00:11:36 the internal work. And so what I encourage everyone to do is yes, do the external work. If you're in an unhappy place, if you're in an unhappy place, if you're in an unhappy relationship, if you're in an unhappy life, and if our world is having things that are in dis-ease, then we have to, of course, address those things externally. And I think one of the things we're learning in the world right now with gender and beyond is this idea that things aren't as binary as we've made them, right? And this idea of I can only do the external or I can only do the internal. What's happening right now is you need to be doing both and recognizing that they're affecting one another. The way your world is occurring and the way your environment is, is affecting the ability

Starting point is 00:12:23 for you to do internal work. So for example, if you're growing up with trauma, like I said, and oppression, and you're in an abusive, toxic relationship or in a really bad job, that's going to affect your internal landscape. We know that. And then at the same time, if you're doing the internal work and the emotional healing or the social justice work or the dismantling white supremacy or the different things that are happening within, then that's going to change how the world occurs outside of you. So it's this feedback loop. And so when you asked me specifically the question, Eric, around what's the balance, I think the way that I find balance with it is to drop the word balance and recognize that you have to be doing both at the same time. And it's the same work. I've let go of thinking that when

Starting point is 00:13:06 I'm meditating, that has no impact on, it's a part of my social justice work is my meditation. It's a part of my creativity. It's a part of my productivity is me taking that time to do the internal work that I need to do. And whether that's meditating or whatever, you know, like I tell people this all the time. I actually, I almost said this in the book, but my publisher made me take this out. Like I actually don't care about meditation. I know that's shocking for somebody who has a book about meditation, who's been teaching it for almost a decade. The only reason I teach meditation at all is because of everything that I've done and everything that I've tried. And

Starting point is 00:13:45 I've tried it. If you can name a healing modality, I've tried it. Meditation has been the thing hands down that is grounded it into my life and helped me day after day after day to go back to your parable, to make sure that I'm feeding the right wolf. It's been that check-in marker for me. And that's why I teach it to other people because it has made the biggest impact on my life as well. Yeah. I love that idea that when we're doing either inner work or outer work, if we're doing it in the right, I don't know if the word I would use is spirit or perspective. Context maybe.

Starting point is 00:14:28 or perspective. Context, maybe. Context, that it's both. It's both, right? And, right, I think that I know a lot of people who, and I've interviewed a good number of them, who will say, yeah, outer work is important. And by that, I mean societal outer work. But what their life seems to reflect is just a constant sort of inner focus on meditation. And the idea is that, well, I've got to get the inner vessel right before I can take it into the outer world. And I don't agree with that, but I love that idea that it's both. And balance is a tricky word. Early on in the show, I asked a lot of, you know, is it this or is it that questions? And after a while, I realized, well, the answer to all those questions was always both. You said something in the book that really stood out to me and it, it is similar to what we're

Starting point is 00:15:15 talking about here. You said your thoughts don't create your reality. I repeat your thoughts do not create your reality. The true reality is some of your trauma was never your fault to begin with, and overcoming it is not just a matter of thinking your way through it. Your thoughts don't create your reality when you live in the South Bronx and suffer from the highest levels of asthma in the United States, affecting your health and well-being for the rest of your life. And you go on in that way with a few other examples of that. You say your thoughts influence your reality, but they don't create it. Reality is co-created among all of us in both thoughts and actions.

Starting point is 00:15:56 Yeah. I just feel it in my heart as you're saying that line because it anchors into so well what you just said. I respectfully disagree strongly with the fact that the internal work is all that matters. Because I think what happens and when I first read the good wolf and the bad wolf, I was really meditating on it and thinking, what do I really feel about this? And one of the first things that I felt was that what a lot of people try to do, especially when they're trying to do personal growth work, listening to podcasts, reading books, keeping your mind right, is to just focus on the good wolf. And if we're only focusing on the good wolf, this can give us a tendency to spiritually bypass the things that are happening in the background of our lives that need our attention, our love and support.

Starting point is 00:16:49 And so what happens in the personal growth community so often, and this is shifting and changing, but like, yes, it's amazing and good that we're sending love and light and compassion. It's amazing that we're sitting and getting grounded and getting clear. But what all of these practices are about, what I think everybody can agree upon across traditions, is that these practices are about building awareness. And if we're really being aware, awareness is calling us to get our asses off of our meditation cushions and take action for ourselves, for our families, our community, for the planet, for the world, and for people who can't take action for themselves. And this isn't a martyrdom,

Starting point is 00:17:30 like I'm going to save the world thing. It's like, we have to take this personal growth, inner work that we're doing and live it into our lives. Otherwise it's just a concept. It doesn't matter. It's really just wasteful. I don't teach meditation or even care about meditation for the reason of, quote unquote, relaxing. Sure, that'll be automatic sometimes. The real reason that we meditate is to become more alive, to become more alive, to become more connected to our passions, our emotions, our feelings, the things we care about, and the causes we believe in. And so when we approach the practice that way, and not at this thing to like disconnect,

Starting point is 00:18:10 but a way to reconnect, then we can't help but get up and act. And that's why I say your thoughts don't create, they don't, they influence, but what creates the world is our actions. And so we have to address both of those things right i love that and in your recent instagram post you talked about this idea you said hey you know if we only change the outside world then we're missing the fact that we have to decolonize our own minds right i couldn't agree with you more that I think that it's both these things. I see people who all they focus on is changing the external circumstances of people's lives or their own life. And we're sort of recirculating here, but I think this point is so important. Or they only focus on changing the internal. I've had people on this show and I've had a little bit

Starting point is 00:19:04 of disagreements with them, although on the show, I don't really, it's not, I don't, I don't make a point of getting on here and arguing with people, but there's this sense that if you just thought right about everything, everything would be okay. And to your point, use the example about, um, you know, if you live in the South Bronx and have asthma, or, you know, you use another example of a little girl who's molested by her stepfather before the age of six, right? This stuff, it's real. It has an impact. You can't just think your way out of that, right? And we should create a world where there's less of that. And yet, to say, if our thoughts and our internal states don't have a role, then there's no healing from the bad things that happen to us. So it's really both those things. It's finding, back to that idea of finding, how do I do both those things? Because my thoughts do matter. I love the way you said it, that they co-create. They co-create our reality, right? What's happening to me is a combination of what's actually happening and how

Starting point is 00:20:05 I choose to view it. Those two things come together to create what reality is. How many ideas have you had that you've sat and thought about for months or years and not done anything about it? And how did that impact your actual life in the world? Nothing. If you have a book idea that you've been thinking about for three years and you haven't written the book, the world doesn't have the book. It's in your head, right. You know what I mean? But the taking the action and bringing it into the world is now how the world gets influenced, which creates a loop and then changes your reality and changes the thoughts. And so it's very simple when we think about it. And yeah, I just feel that it's a balance of both. And action right now is

Starting point is 00:20:46 really what we're needing more of from people who have been doing this conscious, spiritual, personal growth work. That's a great way to say it. This is a question that feels uncomfortably direct to ask, but I'm just going to ask it anyway, which is that as somebody who has, as you've said, you're gay. So you've got that, you know, you're oppressed in that way. You're black. So you're oppressed in that way, right? You grew up poor. It's another issue, right? Is it possible for you to have all those things sort of quote unquote going against you and for you to still live a happy and wonderful life? Oh, thank you. No one has ever asked me that question as directly as you just did. And

Starting point is 00:21:33 the answer that I'm going to give you is absolutely. And it takes a lot more work. Absolutely. And it takes a lot more work. And this is where the inequity happens. And this is where the challenges happen. I'm going to give you an example of just, you know, talking about happiness. And this is something I think that a lot of your listeners will get something out of. So when my book came out, I was invited to go speak at Google in the Bay Area. It was my first huge talk right after the book came out and I was getting ready to go on my tour. And I went up North to Guerneville to wine country. And I rented a home all for myself. That was like often the secluded area with a jacuzzi and all this stuff

Starting point is 00:22:19 that I was going to stay in for three days to just treat myself alone before I start the tour. And I drive up and this is regardless of anybody's political beliefs. I'm just saying what my experience is. So I drive up, it's 9 PM. I'd been driving all day. I have a hoodie on, some sweats because I've been driving for like six hours and I pull out and the house across the street, which is the only house anywhere in sight, has this huge Confederate flag hanging off of it and a huge sticker that says, make America great again. And I immediately went from happiness and excitement to complete fight or flight. And who am I now, this black man in a hoodie at night alone, walking up to this gorgeous

Starting point is 00:23:07 home with these people that have this Confederate flag across the street. I'm going into the jacuzzi at night by myself. What if they call the police? What if this, what like just completely lost in the, in the thought of all of it. And I had to call one of my mentors and like calm myself down. I didn't end up going outside that night. I changed my clothes before I got out of the car to make sure I was wearing something brighter. So I didn't look like a quote unquote burglar. And the next morning, even though I didn't want to read, I got and sat out on the porch and read a book so that I can

Starting point is 00:23:39 make sure that these people across the street saw that I was a nice black person. And so I want everybody to know for people out there who have black friends and family members and other people of color who are doing things, this is regular. What I'm sharing with you is not an unusual experience. And the reason I'm telling you this story is when it comes to the concept of privilege in particular, a lot of people have a tough time with this because they're like, well, I'm not privileged. I'm white, but I'm not privileged. I grew up poor. Or I'm not privileged because I'm also gay.

Starting point is 00:24:11 First of all, privilege is not about what you've gone through. It's about what you haven't had to go through. That is the way that we think about privilege. This is not the oppression Olympics, and it doesn't deny any of your trauma. But what it says is there are things that you haven't had to go through that other people have to face. And as it relates to people who I'll just say right now, because this is very present in the world, are African-American, it doesn't matter how much I accomplish, what school

Starting point is 00:24:42 I go to, how much money I make, what car I'm driving, or how many degrees I have. When I am driving in an area in a hoodie, and if I get pulled over by the police, they see me as a threat, as a part of the collective. And so all of these different ways that people of all kinds, gay, black, poor, Jewish, whatever, these are all things that we have to succeed in spite of that sometimes other people don't have to face. And the last thing, just to tie this in, Eric, is the idea that your thoughts create your reality. One of the things that I say in the book, and I say often when I speak at companies, is that's a very privileged thing to say, that you can just think something and then create it. That's not the way that people who've grown up marginalized experience the world. Because if I'm a woman whose husband gets shot by the police in the car, whose thoughts created

Starting point is 00:25:40 that? So anyways, I can go on and on, as you can tell about this. I'm really passionate about this, but I think we can live happy lives. And what we have to do is we have to, again, decolonize the oppression that is within us because we end up oppressing our own selves. And we have to do the external work to decolonize the structures that are holding people back from living in the greatness and the dignity that is their birthright. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really No Really podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor.

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Starting point is 00:27:28 It's called Really No Really, and you can find it on the iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You do an exercise in the book that I've seen done in some other places, too. I've heard it referred to as a privilege walk or different things. But it's basically an exercise where you ask a series of questions like, well, if you are black, take one step back. Yeah. Right. If you're gay, take another step back. Right. If you grew up poor, take another step. And there are certain things that cause you to take step forwards. And what I love about the exercise is that it breaks this down from privilege only being white privilege versus

Starting point is 00:28:06 black privilege, right? It shows that privilege happens on lots of different levels, you know? And for me, as a straight white male, right, I kind of have the demographic lottery, you know, I won the demographic lottery, right, in that way. I just did, right? My privilege story or the story that tells me that privilege is real is the fact that I'm making this podcast and not in jail because when I was a young man, I was arrested for a number of felonies and should have gone to jail by all rights. Had I been a black man, I would have gone to jail for a good number of years. Being a white suburban man, I didn't. I was given options. I was given options. And they're the right options to give to somebody who's a first time offender like I am. They're the right thing to do. But they were

Starting point is 00:28:55 extended to me because of those things. Right. But then you look at other things and you go, well, if you have mental health issues, take a step backwards. Right. I mean, so these things of privilege, they don't line up exactly, but it's a real way of looking at in life and going, boy, I personally had been incredibly fortunate. The reason I asked you that question so directly is that because I think it's important that whatever the type of oppression they've had, right? And again, that oppression might hit six out of six. You get six out of six, right? You might get one out of six, right? It might be that you were,

Starting point is 00:29:31 you know, sexually assaulted as a child. And that if we're waiting for the outside world to all get right, we, like you said, oppress ourselves. And it's also not as simple as to just say, well, it's just your thoughts, just figure it out. Right. I love the way you said that. Yes, we can, but it's harder. It's more work. And I think that's a really succinct answer. Thank you. And, and, you know, I want to be very clear about the privileged conversation because I think it's an important one that we're all getting into is no one is denying the fact that we've all gone through hard shit in our lives. You know what I mean? And I think the thing that's hard sometimes for people to understand, particularly because the conversation

Starting point is 00:30:17 in the world right now is so heavy around Black Lives Matter and white privilege is like, we're specifically looking at solving the issue of racial inequality. And so to look at solving that issue, we have to look at a specific kind of privilege, which is white privilege. It's not saying that other privileges don't exist, but the interesting thing about white privilege that I tell people to consider is all the other privileges, gay, poor, trauma, like they can all happen within the context of being black. And so you could have all those other things. You could be Jewish, gay, poor, and still black. And so even if you overcame all the other ones, you still have to face the racism. You know? And so I think that's the reason

Starting point is 00:31:05 why this is such a big one, because it's a, it's a big context in which the world that we're living in right now is occurring. Yeah. And the other thing I love about your answer is that, you know, one of the things that I see used as a criticism of the fact that racism exists and is still a problem is people will say, but look, there are black people who have overcome. Look at Oprah. Look at like if if you work hard enough. Right. I love the way you put it. You just go. Yeah. If you work hard enough. Yeah. Maybe even then you can't. Right. But I think that we have this tendency to pull out the people who have overcome oppression and don't appear to be and go, well, look,

Starting point is 00:31:50 if you want it bad enough, you just work hard like everybody else does. And I think it misses the point. And I love the way that that exercise the way you describe in the book, people actually it's done in person, and they're standing on a line, right? And you take a step backwards and you take a step backwards and you take a step backwards. So for me, if I'm starting at the starting line and you're starting 15 yards behind me, you might pass me, but you had a lot further to run to do it. You know, a lot of people say this to me all the time. And I, and I know people are well-meaning and this is, this is the thing. I have so much compassion and so much love for all the people of all colors, especially people who are white, who are waking up to this movement and willing to get into the messiness of the conversation and question things.

Starting point is 00:32:34 It's like, let's do this. We've never had the opportunity in the world to have these kinds of conversations together. And this is one that I hear all the time. Like you said, the criticism of, well, you made it. Oprah made it. This person made it. Then that must mean everybody else can, like you said. And the thing is, is I didn't make it because racism doesn't exist. I made it in spite of it.

Starting point is 00:32:56 And the fact that you could even point to us and count all five, like shows the problem. And number three is from the outside looking in, it appears as though we've made it and have had no many issues. I experienced racism all the time in small and big ways. So did Oprah, Barack Obama, the highest office in our country, still asking for his birth certificate. It's not like because we've accomplished and made money that we've overcome racism. The money's not the marker. Yeah. Yeah. That's the hard thing for people to understand is it's not just about the money. Well, and the story that you told there is so powerful in that regard, because you had the money to go to this place, to this house,

Starting point is 00:33:38 you know, and yet still, right, still there it was, right. And, and, you know, I would have pulled up to that house across the street and had a negative reaction to what I was seeing across the street. Of course. But I wouldn't have been afraid. Yeah. I wouldn't have been worried. I just had been irritated. I just had been like, oh, okay. You know, I like something else you said on your social media the other day.

Starting point is 00:34:06 social media the other day, because as a white person who is trying to wake up, albeit slowly, probably, I often say I've got a 22-year-old son now who's helped educate me a lot. He's been very into social justice issues. But you said something that I thought was really important. And you said it's important as more and more people enter into this conversation that we call people forward versus calling people out. I think this is important. So say a little bit more about that. Yeah. So God, with cancel culture, you know, like a big thing right now and everything happening, what I keep seeing, I have so many people of all different colors, ethnicities, genders, and backgrounds in my community. And I think that we have two approaches that we can take to this moment in history.

Starting point is 00:34:49 One approach is the approach that I see a lot of people taking is, well, you should have known this sooner. Why didn't you know this already? You should be doing this. And that's one approach. The other approach for me is if what we actually want, if what the desire for us is to really create a world where racism is not an issue, but not just that where equality is the standard, then we are going to have to, yes, do our individual work in our own communities, but we're going to have to create a safe space or even a brave space, like one of my community members called it, where we have permission to have these conversations together, knowing they're going to be messy and also knowing that we're going to have to grow in it. And in that,

Starting point is 00:35:38 what I feel with calling people forward versus calling people out is when you're calling someone out, it can be defensive and dragging and aggressive and cutting. When you're calling people forward, you're speaking to that place in them that knows that they can do better, that knows that there's more possible. And it's a completely different place to come from. And it comes without sounding too woo-woo here. It comes from a place of love, of what do we want? We want equality. And that doesn't mean that we take people being purposefully hurtful or people saying terribly ignorant things, but look, we couldn't have had this conversation sooner. This is the first generation where we can

Starting point is 00:36:19 have these conversations together, where there's books that we can rely on to educate ourselves on these things. The first 10 years where this stuff is even exists. So let's get into it, but let's give each other permission to be a little bit messy and also permission to learn and grow when you don't have it all quite right just yet. I agree completely. I see cancel culture, right? I see both sides of this. What I see is I see people of color saying like, I don't have time, energy, or whatever to educate you folks, right? It's not my job. I've done enough work. I got my own things to carry like they're being legitimate and real anger there, right? And then I see well-intentioned white people,

Starting point is 00:37:03 and I've been in this camp before, where I go, geez, I sort of stuck my head up a little bit to say something. I didn't say it right, and I felt like I got my head cut off. So I'm just going to duck back down under here. And I understand that being white fragility, right? Like, I need to go, you know what, if I believe in something and something's important, so what if somebody says something to me or calls me out? Like I got to have the courage of my conviction to stand up. Right. But I always think that it's always helpful when people, if you, if you want to call us two sides of an issue, and I don't think it really is,

Starting point is 00:37:37 but just for the purposes of this, we'll use that for people to say, let's, let's just all take, if we can a step towards each other. Somebody said something online I just saw not too long before this conversation that I thought was really useful, and it said, if you really want somebody to make a change for the long term, shame never works. And I thought, that's brilliant, because if what we really want is change, not just venting our anger or our emotions, but what we really want is change, we're not going to shame people into long-term change. What struck me so much was your idea of calling people forward, right? Like, yeah, I can point out what you said, if what you said is ignorant, if it's hurtful, if it's not knowledgeable,

Starting point is 00:38:24 but I can do it in a way that says like, hey, come closer. Yeah. What's the intention of the call? What's the intention of the call? Is it, you know, and the intention is, I love the way you said that, Eric, come closer. And you can feel that. And that doesn't mean that sometimes our reactions when things are happening that are wrong can't be loud or even strong or sharp, but you can feel the difference when even anger is expressed from a place of love and growth versus a place of just wanting to cut things down. So, you know, I think this is an essential conversation and, you know, just to tie a bow on this, what I believe and what I think is important right now is Black people are right in saying that they aren't responsible for making sure white people learn because there are books, there are tools, there are things. Black people have to hear and listen to white people work through it.

Starting point is 00:39:29 It's like we're cutting a wound open over and over and over and over and then have to like get back to our lives of like trying to have a podcast interview. Do you know what I mean? Like trying to go on Zoom and work. And so there's that. And I think that what needs to happen is there is a space for white people and black people. I'm just being very binary here to do the internal work that needs to be done. There is a certain amount of work that needs to be done in our individual collective groups. Because for example, when we look at the history of racism in our country, oftentimes what black people,

Starting point is 00:39:59 when they realize the real history, what they need to process is anger and rage. And oftentimes what I find white people have to process first is guilt and shame, you know, around a lot of it. And that's being very generic or generalized. So like there is a space for us to do our own individual work with what's coming up. And there has to be a space created for us to step closer to one another. And that I think both of those things have to happen, not just one or the other. Yep. I think that's a great way of putting it. So I want to zoom kind of back down now to the individual level. And I want to talk a little bit about your approach to meditation, because I think it's important. And you say that the reason

Starting point is 00:40:43 most meditation apps and techniques don't stick is often because they force you to concentrate on things you don't really care about. How do we meditate on things that we do care about? I know that I'm asking you to put a book into the next eight minutes, right? Which is not fair. But tell me a little bit about your approach to meditation and how it's different than what most people would think of meditation as being. Yeah, so there's a lot of styles. And one of the things that is, you know, fact is that most styles of meditation that are being practiced in the West derive from styles of meditation that came from monks.

Starting point is 00:41:26 derive from styles of meditation that came from monks. Now to become a monk, way back when meditation started, you had to leave your family, leave everything behind, no passions, oftentimes no food, no water, sit in a cave or underneath the tree and devote your life to spiritual practice, cutting off your emotions, cutting off your needs, no sex, you know, ever, like all these things are gone. And so the ancient monks had to create a practice to help them disconnect from their worldly desires. And one of those practices, one of the most powerful of those practices was meditation. Now the issue is we're not monks, right? We are, we like, hopefully some of us are having sex every once in a while, but you know, we're first world people with iPhones and passions, and we're not actually wanting to disconnect.

Starting point is 00:42:09 We're wanting to connect more purposefully and more meaningfully. And so the, when you're doing the wrong kind of meditation, a way that you know, is it often feels like you have to sit down and try to get your mind to stop thinking. And you just can never stop thinking. And then you're beating yourself up because you can't stop thinking. And it feels like this war literally or chore of accomplishing this goal that can barely ever happen. And if it does, it's for like three seconds, you know, of a whole practice. But when we shift to doing other styles, and there's several, the style of meditation that I teach is called freedom meditation.

Starting point is 00:42:42 What I invite people to do, this is the process that I take people through in the most micro version I can give to you is I guide them through an experience of first identifying and becoming aware of where they are in their own life right now, for real, like the things that are happening, the self-sabotage and all the joyful things as well. And then to go into the future and imagine a future version of yourself that's living the life that you actually want to be living on an individual level and on a collective level. And then I ask a question, here's you now, here's the you that you want to become on the other side. What's in the gap? What is the energy that is differentiating the you that you

Starting point is 00:43:27 are now from the you that you want to become? And when I ask that question, people will say things like confidence or power or alignment or commitment, or even one kid one day said to me, Beyonce. And then this focus, the energy that you define as the gap, is what we use in the meditation practice as what's also known as a mantra. And mantras can be different things. They can be candle flames or your breath or a word or a word in Sanskrit. And what happens is so often people are given these mantras that they don't understand and don't care about. And so it's like, here's the real thing that I'll say here. The real point of meditation is to realize that the guru is within you and what we've learned to do. And this is decolonizing even the wellness space in the meditation world is what we've

Starting point is 00:44:22 learned to do is to rely on some guru or some app or some person on the outside to tell us what we need so that we can be well. And what I'm suggesting and what many of the practices for householders like us, people in the world suggest is you have the answer within you. So instead of going to a guru and them telling you, you need peace or Bhavana Namaha, maybe when you get clear on your practice, you realize you don't need peace. It's not bad to have peace, but you need power. And that's a very different meditation practice to do when you're focusing on the energy that you need to step into the world and the life that you deserve to live. I'm Jason Alexander.

Starting point is 00:45:30 And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really No Really podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer. Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a space walk gives us the answer. We talk with

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Starting point is 00:46:03 Wayne Knight about Jurassic Park. Wayne Knight, welcome to Really No Really, sir. Bless you all. Hello, Newman. And you never know when Howie Mandel might just stop by to talk about judging. Really? That's the opening? Really No Really. Yeah, really. No really. Go to reallynoreally.com and register

Starting point is 00:46:20 to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason Bobblehead. It's called Really No Really and you can find it on the iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You're using the word mantra in the sense of it usually being a phrase that we repeat over and over. And like you said, we're usually in a lot of traditions, transcendental meditation being one, but many others, your mantra is given to you by a guru. It's usually in a language you don't understand. It's supposed to be this really special thing. And you can't tell anyone your

Starting point is 00:46:56 mantra. And you actually suggest that people come up with their own mantra. But before I let you reply, I've never had a chance to tell this story. And it's a good mantra story. So I've read about Zen Buddhism in high school, and this is a long time ago, right? So in Columbus, Ohio, in 1987, there were not a lot of meditation options. I somehow found one guy who was teaching transcendental meditation. And so I was on my way to meditation and you had to pick up three white handkerchiefs and you had to bring some fruit and some flowers. Well, I went to a department store at the time and I shoplifted my handkerchiefs, got arrested, which I had never, I'd been a shoplifter all my time, never, never gotten caught. So then I went to Transcendental Meditation and I got my special mantra, the one that you can't share with anybody. And within two hours afterwards, I'd gathered a group

Starting point is 00:47:55 of my friends together and I had taught them all the mantra and tried to teach them how to meditate. So I don't know if all my subsequent years of meditation struggles were a result of this shoplifting and then just throwing my mantra out to the whole world. But I like your idea. You say that come up with your own mantra, one that's got some juice for you. I love this story, Eric, by the way, this is hilarious. And I'm just like, you were the expert here with that when you were younger. And so the thing is, is I want to be very clear that I am not like bad talking any app or any style because there's different styles for everyone. There really are so many different styles for everyone. Because I have the gift of being a teacher who people just are like really honest with. People who've even been meditating for years, they come to me and they say, okay, I've been meditating this whole time.

Starting point is 00:48:52 And really, I'm just beating myself up in my head the whole time. You know, trying to stop thinking. First of all, even the idea that you can get your mind to stop thinking, if we really think critically about that, is the silliest thing in the world. It'd be like saying, oh, in order to meditate, you guys, let's get our heart to stop beating. Right. Three, go like not going to happen. And also not something that I think people even really want to happen. They've just been told that they should want that. What we want is not to get our minds to stop. We want to get our thoughts to work for us instead of against us. That's what we want. Yes. You know? And so what I invite people to do in the book and in all of my work is I never prescribe people any method that I say, this is exactly what you should do. Follow all of my steps.

Starting point is 00:49:35 My whole book and all of my practices and teachings are inviting people to create their own recipe, a recipe that works for them with their messy modern lives so that they can learn practices that can help them dive into their internal landscape and overcome. Awesome. Well, I think that is a great place for us to wrap up this conversation. You and I are going to continue for a little bit in the post-show conversation. We'll probably talk a little bit more about your meditation style. We'll talk about four ways we might be sabotaging ourselves without even knowing it. And we'll talk about capitalist oppression at its finest, perhaps. That's a lot to cover in a post-show conversation. But listeners, if you're interested, you can go to oneufeed.net

Starting point is 00:50:19 slash join. You can get access to this conversation with Justin, lots of other post-show conversations, an extra mini-episode with me each week, and the joy of supporting something you care about, oneufeed.net. Justin, thank you so much for coming on the show. This has been a really good conversation, and I wish we had more time because I would like to continue it, and we will. But thank you so much. Thanks, Eric.

Starting point is 00:50:44 It's such an honor. If what you just heard was helpful to you, please consider making a monthly donation to support the One You Feed podcast. When you join our membership community with this monthly pledge, you get lots of exclusive members-only benefits. It's our way of saying thank you for your support. Now, we are so grateful for the members of our community. We wouldn't be able to do what we do without their support, and we don't take a single dollar for granted. To learn more, make a donation at any level, and become a member of the One You Feed community, go to oneyoufeed.net slash join.

Starting point is 00:51:34 The One You Feed podcast would like to sincerely thank our sponsors for supporting the show. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together, our mission on the Really No Really podcast is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why the bathroom door doesn't go all the way to the floor, what's in the museum of failure, and does your dog truly love you? We have the answer. Go to reallynoreally.com

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The One You Feed - Justin Michael Williams on Meditation and Activism

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