Reciprocity: Beyond a 'debt of gratitude'

There is more to reciprocity than giving back. Our guest, Christine Liboon, a PhD student in Education, is here to take us on a deep exploration of her findings. She shares her fascinating research around the Filipino concept of 'utang na loob', which she and her colleagues are redefining as a gift rather than a debt. We also explore the symbolism of currency as not merely monetary exchange but a representation of a promise or a commitment.

The second part of our journey with Christine leads us into an important conversation about self-care, joy and reciprocal relationships. Drawing from her personal experiences, she underlines the essence of rekindling joy in activities we love, the significance of introspection, and the need to rebalance life.

She makes us rethink kindness and gentleness, not just as virtues, but as tangible bridges connecting self-care and community. As a parting gift, we invite you  to embrace and feel the power of gentleness through music. So, get ready to be inspired and challenged in equal measure in this enriching episode.

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Chapters

• 0:11 Exploring Reciprocity and Community in Education
• 15:32 Exploring Self-Care and Reciprocity
• 25:40 Invitation to Embrace Gentleness Through Music

Transcript

Belinda Liu: 0:11

I just love how this podcast and this space that we're holding with Grad 2 Blumming is such a place for synchronicity to arise and, christine, we have quoted you several times throughout our podcast for the stories that you've shared with us. And how did Grad 2 Blumming show up in your life and how is it alive in you right now for our listeners, who are so curious to find out how all the threads are connected?

Christine Liboon: 0:41

A couple days ago I moved from the deck and the community card, the bleeding heart. You mentioned the synchronicities where I had been thinking like, okay, where is my path going. I'm currently a PhD student in education and I'm just about to finish writing my dissertation proposal, and so there's a lot of like sort of anxiety around how that process is going and being known of what will happen next. And I've been thinking about, like the community that has supported me through this process. And just by happens dance, an old friend of mine called yesterday and this is like my, my old roommate from college. We talked on the phone for like an hour and we hadn't like spoken for like years. So I just I feel like whenever these cards come up or happen, there's only something that I don't know the universe or life or whatever just it aligns and just sends messages, and so I feel like, yeah, on the surface, that's the sort of where of gratitude blooming has has been with me these past few years.

Omar Brownson: 1:55

And you were getting your PhD, or were you getting your master's degree originally when you first reached out to us?

Christine Liboon: 2:03

Yeah, I was in the very beginning stages of my PhD. I want to say, maybe your two, yeah.

Omar Brownson: 2:11

Wow, and and what is your dissertation topic, if I can ask?

Christine Liboon: 2:16

Yeah, well, it's changed.

Christine Liboon: 2:18

So when I think, the first time I wrote the both of you, I was in this transition of, you know, trying to figure out topics, and before graduate school, I was working in the resettlement sector as a program coordinator and like a teacher, I was working with newcomers and, you know, refugees primarily, and my work had like, in the beginning stages of grad school, focus talk in immigration education, and then I, after the pandemic and going through the sort of twists and turns of grad school, in that specific time period, I just stumbled upon other things and I found myself really wanting to understand and I feel the podcast is touched on this like how are we going to move forward, you know, together as people?

Christine Liboon: 3:14

And my, specifically my dissertation is what I hope to propose is this idea of what does reciprocity look like and how? It primarily about program evaluators. You know how that emerges in their practice. So, yeah, the concept of reciprocity. So what does that look like when you know you're working together with the community or different people within a program, as you're trying to understand and about?

Belinda Liu: 3:48

the program and how do you define reciprocity yourself? This is such an interesting thread. You know I would not think of reciprocity and program evaluation and education as connected things, so it's very unique the way that you're building a frame around it. So, yeah, curious, what is your sense of it as you're uncovering it through this process?

Christine Liboon: 4:12

It was definitely something that emerged in the pandemic when, in our graduate program, you know we have to connect, everybody has to connect online, right, and so many of us found that, you know, a lot of our working spaces were in person and trying to find community was like very difficult. My graduate student colleagues, the three of us identify as like Filipino American, and we were finding that in that process of going through graduate school that we just had so many more common threads in our experiences. And there's this concept in Filipino culture called well, there's two different concepts. There's one called a kapua, that talks about the community and that there's like the shared sense of self. And there's this other, like shared sense of inner self, so like you're still looking at yourself as an individual but still connected to like the collective.

Christine Liboon: 5:20

And then there's this other concept called utangna loob, which previously means like debt of gratitude, and you know, with that framing it's like is it a debt or is it what? And so my colleagues and I, we were really curious to see what that looked like in our practice. As you know, we identified as Filipino American and whether those you know concepts, if they, if they drive like what we do in education, as researchers and evaluators or, in my case, like a, you know, program evaluation scholar. And so, you know, we came to redefine debt of gratitude more like oh my goodness, what should we call it? More like a gift rather than it being a debt, because that's also connected to you know, these ideas of of you know like settler colonialism and being in debt to somebody, rather than it being like a shared sense of you know, a shared sense of self. But even that it's not like, even even there's like this other deeper meaning where you know that connects also to the community. And so I am, I am still unpacking all of that.

Omar Brownson: 6:45

I love your focus on reciprocity and that link between community and gratitude. You know I'm obsessed with kind of new forms of currency and how do we Share, like what is that collective economy and culture? And I had the opportunity recently to talk with this guy, will rudder, former Peace Corps member, physicist, who's working in Kenya, and he created a local script or currency that now 64,000 Kenyans Are using and you know, one of the things that he talked about is that the beginning of any Economy is a promise or a commitment. And so what do we? How do we represent that promise or commitment? And so one form of representation is like Money or currency. But he also says, you know, it can be a voucher. You know an airline mile point is a form of, you know, currency, starbucks loyalty rewards, right, like we have these different ways that we can represent Our promise or commitment and in exchange and I feel like that's what you're really kind of unpacking is what is that promise and commitment that we have to each other?

Omar Brownson: 8:13

And really reciprocity is when there's an exchange, right, there's a flow, there's a movement. You know, we have another one of my friends and he's been on our podcast, tos James. You know he talks about currency, like there's clouds which hold capital, then there's rain that sort of drops down, and then there's rivers that move capital, and then there's Communities that live around the lakes, and so you know, capital works when there's flow, but when we put dams and things in there, it stops the reciprocity, it stops the community, it stops the relationship, and so, yeah, I'm excited to sort of see where you go with this one of the things that we are starting to find, at least with the Filipino Americans, is that when we define Utangna loob, it's not just a transactional right, it's more than that, it's an exchange, but it's like deeper, it's like tied to the spirit and the heart and and that idea of community.

Christine Liboon: 9:19

and so I think that's where I've been trying to like unpack that piece, because it's like we do live in a capitalistic society, yet we're finding that Certain things aren't sustainable anymore.

Belinda Liu: 9:32

I Love that. It goes back to the community card that you talked about from the beginning. It's threading itself through, like, how do you give and receive in ways that are that feel Life-giving? That's that's kind of how I like to look at. Reciprocity is like how, what is that feeling when there's no depletion on either any of the sides? And that's a lot of what Omar Arlene and I are thinking about is, you know, as a team, how do we work together? And then, as an organization that's holding space for, for a larger Dialogue and community and conversation, what, how is that flow? What is the energy of that? How do we make that coherent?

Belinda Liu: 10:14

And so I'm curious, you know, as we kind of go into the practice of gratitude blooming in this moment, is there a question or an intention that is most alive in you for this season of your life? And it can be something really connected to what you talked about with your research, or or something more personal in terms of where you're at, even in this transitional place of you know, at some point you will complete your dissertation and you will, you know, take the next step to Decide what is the, you know, the how is this work going to live in the world, in you, so in this moment, in your heart. What is the question or the intention that you would like to receive Insight around?

Christine Liboon: 11:09

My heart is telling me that it has to do something more with the heart. Um, I think being so embedded right now in in this process Is that can oftentimes be.

Omar Brownson: 11:25

Grouping is, I suppose, how can we continue to open our hearts when things get Really difficult what I hear you saying is really, how do we keep the humanity front and center in everything that we're doing?

Omar Brownson: 11:41

And you know, just as you were talking, I've recently come across it's called the TIM and model of like social kind of structured right, and the T is tribes, I sort of institutional you think about nation states or you know hierarchical Churches or something like that and is now kind of more market-based or platforms like PayPal or Facebook, or you know how we're engaging through these algorithms really, and the sort of emerging model is around networks, and networks are much more interrelated and in some ways there's a lot of elements of the tribal.

Omar Brownson: 12:27

It was just sort of much more relational kind of elements which worked at a certain scale of geography but was hard to grow. But now, with technology, maybe there are ways to reconnect at a global scale, but in a still more intimate way, and so it's been interesting to sort of look at the evolution of societies, right from tribal to institutional, to market, to now networked, and then how does reciprocity evolve in those ways? And what is the new reciprocity that is possible if we're reorganized in a way that centers humanity, that centers humanity in a way that also recognizes ecology and something, that all of these things are interconnected and we can't separate one from the other.

Belinda Liu: 13:23

So with that, I'm going to share my screen and we're going to just express that intention that you held. Just how do I stay heart open, especially when things are maybe challenging in your life or in all your relations? You could tell me when to stop, or just give me some numbers. See what randomness synchronicity has to tell us.

Christine Liboon: 13:56

Well, I'm coming up with fourth row and the fourth card, maybe.

Omar Brownson: 14:05

Hmm, number 10, alien trequetrum self care. What can you do today and every day to nurture love for yourself? So, as you start, first just really focus on the art and just describe what you see, without even interpreting it relative to your intention.

Christine Liboon: 14:29

I'll never get this card. This is probably, I think, the first time I saw this card in all of the when, I think, randomly, and in the whole time I've been working with a deck and, that said, I've never had a chance to really look at the art on it, and it's just so interesting. It's like I have no idea what an alien trequetrum kind of flower is and it just looks so bare. Right now, a little bare and in need of love. There's four flowers just kind of hanging down and, yeah, just maybe need to take a step back 10. When I think of number 10, I don't know, I always think of a new set and so starting over and moving into a new number sequence, I suppose. And so, yeah, I guess it also resonates with me, because I think I do need a little help on my end.

Omar Brownson: 15:32

Yes. Now, as you look at the theme of self-care and your intention of how do you bring more heart into what you're doing, what comes up for you?

Christine Liboon: 15:44

Yeah, I recently was talking to some colleagues in. We have these writing groups that we spend time in holding ourselves accountable online and they've kind of continued from the pandemic until now. To you know, these are like a group of friends where we like hold each other accountable to getting through our program and I was just sharing with them earlier today how I've been trying to, with time, you know, if I'm able to have the free time to focus on the things that I used to love doing. So I started to pick up tennis again, which I used to do back in high school, and so I'm excited because I'll be meeting with some folks today to later today to place some tennis. So I think that's one of the things is also just kind of things I really love and have bring joy.

Belinda Liu: 16:43

I super appreciate the connection to reciprocity here, as I look at this for myself too, because it's like how much you can give really depends on how much you nurture yourself. I feel, you know, working on land there's a constant potential to over extend very physical work, but also just seeing everything like a project that needs to happen, and I used to be a classroom teacher as well, so I remember the job in education was always. You always would lose yourself in the mission and realize, like after a really hard week that's like, oh my gosh, I have zero left in the tank, like none. And even like going to yoga was like energy, you know, driving to through traffic to get to this class on time, you know, and, and so it's just an interesting concept is like how much we can authentically give in a way that doesn't like hurt us really depends on this self care question.

Omar Brownson: 17:52

And I love your reminder of joy. I think we totally underestimate the importance of things, don't? Even if they're important, you don't have to be serious about everything. Right, like joy, really, you know, is part of being human. Right Like, and and this is, you know also, the sort of biology is like the brain already has the bias for the negative, holding on to pain and difficulty, and so part of humanity is like. How do we disrupt ourselves and allow joy to really be part of the medicine, like part of the reciprocity?

Christine Liboon: 18:33

I think one of the things that part of self care to is taking the time to even reflect, not to see something for yourself, but also reflect on the things that, like a theme that's been coming up for me recently is like you know what can?

Christine Liboon: 18:48

and I think that came from one of your podcast history recently, but perhaps with Susie like what are the things that you could let go of and can you make peace with some of the choices that you've made because of, you know, making a choice of getting into that situation or whatever before? How can you, you know, let go of the things that no longer serve you and you know? One of the other themes in the last podcast, I remember, is like how can that also I don't know reharmonize the life that you're living in? I think of that as self care being part of that process.

Omar Brownson: 19:27

I just looked up the etymology of reciprocal and it re is back and then pro is forward, and so it's just reciprocal is back, forward.

Omar Brownson: 19:40

And I think about, you know, time, right, like how do we acknowledge everything that has happened before us and also everything that has yet to happen? And then I feel like humanity is like how do we bridge the past and the future, right, like how do we hold that sort of space for now? And part of that is self care, right, and part of self care is community, and that you realize that, you know, this is again why we love gratitude is that it, gratitude is this bridge between self care and caring for others, right, like we can do a better job of caring for others when we take care of ourselves, you know, and when we are in community with other people, we are better taken care of. And you know, and I think that it breaks that, like us versus them, that separation, right. So the word reciprocal is like hey, it's back and forward, it's not one or the other. You got to be able to hold one in the left hand and the other in the right hand and recognize they're all part of the same body.

Belinda Liu: 20:48

So with that, Christine, I'm going to invite you to, I'm going to go to the bottom and I'm going to move my cursor up and I invite you to pick a card for our community. Everyone that's watching and listening. What is the card that they most need right now for their own well being?

Christine Liboon: 21:07

Maybe being stopped Okay.

Belinda Liu: 21:11

And then is there a particular card in this row.

Christine Liboon: 21:15

I was looking at the one just right above with the right of the cursor, like here yeah, that one.

Belinda Liu: 21:23

Hmm.

Omar Brownson: 21:25

Card number 31, Cardinia, representing gentleness. Being kind to yourself and others can be a way to show gratitude. What would it look like to live with more gentleness?

Christine Liboon: 21:40

I don't think the world is gentle enough. You know, I don't. I feel like, like being kind is something that folks take for granted, and I don't know, I don't know. I feel like this is my opinion that if we are able to just have a little bit more kindness in the world, I just wonder what, you know, that would do for our community and humanity.

Belinda Liu: 22:07

It always puts me my heart at ease seeing this card, because it does feel very gentle. The way that the petals spiral, you know, from the inside out. So that to me is like also a reminder of like take care of yourself, be kind to yourself first, and then it'll ripple out. And the way that Arlene writes this word in cursive just feels really gentle. Like you know, the way that she writes, every single one has a subtly different energy, and so I'm just appreciating the way it's making me feel. Just looking at it. It's like like the petals are looking at us straight on almost, and we can see it from kind of a slightly bird's eye view. It feels like so soothing.

Omar Brownson: 22:59

I was in a meeting yesterday with a group that attended our empathy and democracy event and they wanted to learn a little bit more about our work and our podcast, because they are they focus on equity and justice in Long Beach, and we pulled this card and you know, and I think for me I was really reflecting on, what we see depends on where we stand. So the perspective of this picture is like the birds eye view and you know, if you're a worm, you know you're seeing something very different. Right, you're seeing the stock and the leaves, which are really hidden. From this angle, and gentleness is just the reminder that you know, we all hold different points of view and so and none of us can have a complete picture, and so, really, how do we create room to listen to each other better and see the world in a more holistic way? And so, yeah, and I think, just with this conversation around reciprocity and communities, you know the gentleness required to realize that everything's in exchange and, like, how do we make room for each other?

Belinda Liu: 24:33

That's so beautiful, omar, and should we share the song for gentleness for people that are less visual and more auditory? I love that we now have our second album and we're halfway through having a song for each card.

Omar Brownson: 24:52

Yeah, we have two albums now Garden of Healing and the Garden of Joy and we were debating whether or not we wanted to play community from the second album, which is the Garden of Joy, or gentleness, which is on the first album, and we're going to be having our third album dropping this fall, in September, and so, yeah, we're only two albums away. So I think we're going to go with gentleness and this is going to be a new segment on the podcast where we're going to invite the cards to pick a song for us to listen to and, you know, maybe Belinda will share a few grounding words before or after we play the song. Which one do you want to do?

Belinda Liu: 25:40

Let me set it up before we listen. Just invite you to bring your presence to the essence and the feeling of gentleness and just planting your feet on the ground if you can, just letting yourself be rooted in this present moment and taking a couple breaths to just arrive and be available to the song and medicine of gentleness. Through this music, music. May you receive gentleness for yourself and with others this week.

Omar Brownson: 28:32

Backwards and forwards, up and down all around. Thank you, christine, so much for joining us. Thank you for our listeners. We appreciate you. You can listen to all of our music on our website, gradtobloomingcom, or wherever you listen to music. Cheers Music.