Gratitude Blooming Podcast
Inspired by nature, art and gratitude, the Gratitude Blooming co-hosts Belinda Liu and Omar Brownson bring fresh and diverse perspectives to well-being. For us, heartfulness is the new mindfulness. Gratitude Blooming was inspired by the artist Arlene Kim Suda and her 100 Days of Blooming Love art project. Hear from culture keepers, creators, healers, leaders and so many others who share their emergent practices to build the beautiful world our hearts know is possible. Please rate, review and subscribe. New conversations each week. We want to hear what you're grateful for. Learn more at www.gratitudeblooming.com
Gratitude Blooming Podcast
How do you find your authentic courage?
Welcome to a journey of courageous self-expression, a voyage across the realms of identity, gratitude, and remembrance. How do you find your authentic courage? In today’s conversation, we explore this question, and so much more.
What's more, we have a new segment – a heartfelt invitation around the beautiful questions that reside in our lives. Join us as we engage with you, our listeners, to unveil the questions you are holding.
Beat by beat, we’ll navigate the dynamic concept of courage, and its myriad manifestations, especially when fear tries to cloud our vision.
Also, as a part of our ongoing collaboration with the Japanese American National Museum, we’re taking on themes of empathy and democracy. Adding to our exploration, in a few weeks, we will be joined by our esteemed guest Lea Endres, co-founder and CEO of Nation Builder, sharing her insights into the practice of democracy.
As we delve into the Gratitude Blooming deck, we’re setting our sights on these evolving themes, culminating our journey with a music practice amplified by the power of infinite possibility. So, grab your headphones and join us as we tune into courage and mindful expression.
Get your own Gratitude Blooming card deck, candle and much much more at our shop at www.gratitudeblooming.com. Your purchase helps us sustain this podcast, or you can also sponsor us here.
If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to leave us a 5-star rating and review. Your feedback is valuable to us and helps us grow.
Share your thoughts and comments by emailing us at hello@gratitudeblooming.com. We love hearing from our listeners!
Hello Belinda.
Speaker 2:Hey, omar, it's so nice to be back with you and Arlene in studio today for our weekly connection, and I'm really excited to try a new format that three of us have been talking about. You know, season three is all about tapping into our poetic imagination and also how do we build coherence together and with the partners that we are co-creating with, and a lot of this is just unfolding. A lot more questions and answers, isn't it?
Speaker 1:Because in some ways more beneficial than answers. That's what I love about the Grad 2 booming cards that just sort of says like hey, we think the wisdom's within you. We're just giving you a moment to pause, and with nature and with art, and if you need the questions, even you know, here are some questions to help you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, some of the edgiest themes of our deck are all about you know, can you be grateful for the questions before finding the answer? And so I'm excited to introduce our new segment to season three, which is about just uncovering the beautiful questions that we hold in our lives. Oftentimes, honoring the question is the way through, is the way that we find our way with our hearts.
Speaker 1:So we're now inviting the community to email us at hello, at gratitude bloomingcom with any question that you're holding right now, and it could be around something very personal, like kind of center around an intention or a relationship or a career or job transition, anything that may sort of be sort of a difficulty.
Speaker 1:And I think part of it is you're not alone. There's probably someone else in our community that is also kind of going through that similar challenge and so giving ourselves an opportunity to reflect and to lift up these questions and then to sort of discuss them by pulling a grad to blooming card and to reflect as a community. I'm very excited about this, particularly as we continue to sort of document our empathy and democracy series, our collaboration with the Japanese American National Museum. We have a new guest for our event in October, leah Endress, who is the co-founder and CEO of Nation Builder, which is like a leadership software platform, and she really is focusing right now on what is the practice of democracy, how do we show up each and every day? And, arlene, I don't know if you want to share the definition that you found for democracy, but it was so helpful to just sort of remember, like, what does even democracy mean just at its root level.
Speaker 4:Yeah, Well, we were having a pre discussion, right, and we looked it up. I mean, I believe the origin of the word is well, demos is the people and crassie or cratia is power or rule. So it really it's a good reminder. I mean, I had to look it up. I had forgotten what the word meant. So it really is about the power in people.
Speaker 1:And I think that's just as the three of us as co-collaborators and co-creators. How do we recognize the sovereignty of each of us as creators and also recognize that we want to co-create something as well? And so I think this is the why we're having this sort of season three podcast is a real time reflection of this very real conversation.
Speaker 2:And don't miss out at the end of our segment where we will have a practice with the music of gratitude blooming and we do have a new song that we just released for the fall equinox that we will share with you. That is very tied to this theme of emergence and poetic imagination. That is possible when we just make the room for what, what our hearts are telling us or what we are dreaming of. And so, yeah, what I'll do is I'll kick off the question that emerged this week on the land, and really it was this beautiful group of intergenerational people that showed up to really practice how do we transition well with nature, as nature is changing from summer to fall?
Speaker 2:In some ways, we were studying what the land was sharing and in the transition leading up to the day of equinox, the weather started to shift. We went from sunny, bright days and then it started getting cooler and windier and chillier and darker, and so even that metaphor of how do you transition well from night to day and day to night was really present. And in the beginning of the retreat, we all kind of held a question for the season of our life, and I was just really struck by how, no matter where you were. Some people were post retirement, other people were trying to uncover their purpose and their 30s. There was one shared thread.
Speaker 2:And I feel like this has a lot of resonance for our listeners and our viewers, and even for the three of us, which is how do I truly be courageous in showing up as my true self and have some conviction there? We were a group of mostly introverts, and so it was even harder to express that, and it is hard because we're constantly being told who we should be, what we should think, how we should live our lives, and so when you have a moment to really be with that question of like, who am I and how do I want to show up in that way, it does take a lot of courage.
Speaker 1:So we're going to pull a gratitude blooming card to reflect that and I can share my screen. And then, who wants to pick the gratitude blooming card around this question of how do I show up with my full sort of authentic self and conviction?
Speaker 2:I'm going to volunteer Arlene the artist.
Speaker 4:And I'm thinking we got to like, keep it fresh. I'm going to start from the right side and maybe come in. Oh wait, well, let's stop here. I don't know what row that is, and that's yeah. I feel like the ends get forgotten. So maybe the last card, the sixth, first from the right, sixth from the left, just to confuse you.
Speaker 1:Alright, so this one sound good. Yes. Alright, here we go With conviction and courage. Card number 26, the Poppy Flower representing the theme of remembrance. Remember someone you are thankful for. How can you honor them? And what does this art look like? Belinda, just to help center people who may not be looking at the card.
Speaker 2:Well, it's interesting. This is one of the cards in the deck that is a single Poppy Flower and it is standing very tall and it is open with the center flower, kind of cupping and looking up a little bit, and then another petal kind of embracing the center. Yeah, it's a very solitary flower, so I feel like it wants to be recognized in its sovereignty almost.
Speaker 1:Yeah, one of the things that strikes me about this card is all the little fine hairs on the stem Right, just that little attention to detail of like the furriness just on the stem.
Speaker 1:And I think, as it relates to this idea of remembrance and courage, is how do we remember to be strong, right, like in the word, courage coming from the heart, like how do we remember our hearts? And I think it's in the small details. What I tell people is like in gratitude. There are actually no small details, there's only specific details, and I feel like being able to draw each of those little filaments or lines is like okay, each one of these matters, it's specific and I think courage comes from that, like there's something specific that is speaking to you, right, and the conviction comes not because you're just strong in your feeling, but because there's something specific that you're sort of being pulled to kind of recognize and that might be your own voice, right, and that might you know. And the specific memory might be like well, when have I been silenced in my life and where did that come from? And like how do I break that cycle?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I have to say, when I saw this card come up, I mean, you know this I'm not saying this in an egotistical way, but like it's sort of a nice to nice prompt to remember who you are, like authentically deep down right, like remember somebody you are thankful for. Is the prompt Like maybe there's a little bit of having to remember ourselves, like who we are, you know that core of who we are. And it's kind of funny, I never really. It's interesting how the flower can change based on the context of the question. So now, in the context of this question of you know, how do we find the courage to show up as ourselves?
Speaker 4:I sort of see the solitary flower. It is a solitary flower and there is a core, and then the leaves are sort of moving outward from the core and that's sort of a little bit of how we live. Right In community is right, we have ourselves and but we are also part of something bigger and so we, and maybe the, the ways we you know, flow outward. It's different than what's in the core. So that's, I had never really saw the drawing in this way, but I wonder if there is some insight there for someone.
Speaker 2:Well, as you both are talking, I'm really drawn to the stem actually, and, arlene, you drew the stem kind of textured, like. I could almost feel the fuzziness of the, of the stem going up to the flower as it opens and in some ways it's kind of like the throat, it looks like a throat of the, of the of the flowers. It's like expressing itself and and or the spine even and, and it's like what does it take for to stand in that power? Right, and I think back to this idea of like democracy. It's like, yeah, collective people power, but also our own individual power. And how do we recognize that? How do we know what that is?
Speaker 2:And I have actually been really inspired by you in this collaboration because you know, you know, as an advert, like, you've really stepped into these edges of like expressing yourself in different ways beyond the visual art. And you know, as we've been talking about our shared purpose and building coherence around this work of graduate blooming, I feel like you're you're uncovering what you truly stand for, and so I'm curious, I would love for you to share a little bit about. You know where you're, what do you stand for in your art and how has that become clear to you, because sometimes we can't stand for our you know who we are unless we know what that is.
Speaker 4:Well, I love you talk about the hairs. It's I kind of feel like it's like hairs standing up on your, you know, on your skin when there is a fear response. You know a little bit. I had never seen that in this flower as well. And, yeah, I do think. I do think this question right.
Speaker 4:How do you show up as your authentic self is a lot about it is about your throat chakra, right that you were saying, belinda, about the stem being like the throat, and I have had, I've done a lot, of, a lot of healing work myself on my throat chakra. I mean, I used to be scared to like speak, you know, in public, and now, you know, here we are in the with the podcast. So I do think that that you need a commitment right to do the self healing work, and it's not easy or it's not quick, but if you do it long enough, I do feel like you do come back to your core and once you are able to find that core, I think that's where the courage just you know it flows more naturally. At least that's my experience.
Speaker 1:And you've been really refining how you think about healing, arlene, so maybe if you would share your sort of latest thoughts on like really there's lots of different types of healing, but you are, I think, are, centering on like a very specific kind of way of healing in the world.
Speaker 4:I see I've lately really felt this connection between healing and creativity. I feel like we're all so creative and there's usually something in our lives that happens that makes us stop expressing ourselves so openly, and to me, that's that's the healing I'm talking about. Like, how do you heal the thing that prevented you from you know being the creative being that you? You are at your core, and so that that's really that's the type of healing that I'm focused on and most interested in is the type that you know helps to unleash, you know, your sort of inborn, innate creativity.
Speaker 1:And this is, I feel like you're now hitting on this like meta theme of like how do we go from like empathy and democracy and these public conversations to these very personal reflections and practices that you are holding space for Belinda, you know, with the community of people on the land, and to me?
Speaker 1:you know it is about this who are we at an innate level? And part of that is that if we are creators, we are creative people individually and there's a sovereignty that comes with that. And in some ways we've forgotten how and we have been forgotten by this idea. And I'm reading right now a book, the Dawn of Everything by David Graber, and it's really been pushing my mind as to how social organizations and cultures have evolved, and I think part of it is just getting back to. We can have freedom to do things, but what does it also mean? To have freedom from Like, freedom from inequality, like freedom from starvation, freedom from some of these things that might hold us back, and then ultimately, I think it's just freedom to be, and that's where I feel like the courage and expression can thrive at its highest form. But we also have to reconcile that sometimes we are not given, nor do we feel like we're capable of acquiring the freedom to express the things that are important to us.
Speaker 2:I'm so curious, omar, for you. How did you summon the courage to be who you are? Because I see you as someone who is pretty fearless. You say the things that are on your mind and you do not feel like you filter. And for me, for a long time, I felt like I had to check the landscape to make sure it was a safe place before I could really share from my heart. And I think that came a lot from being growing up in a culture where we just didn't do that and it was very uncomfortable, and so I had to really practice in a more rigid, more structured way, like, okay, you're going to now speak, you have to go, maybe more like Arlene, what you're talking about. It was really more of a practice. So I'm curious for you how did you cultivate that? Was that always who you were and it was just natural, or was there something you had to overcome?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would say there's probably a couple different strands. One was just checking the box. Other, as a kid right, this sort of Asian looking guy named Omar, who's tall and 6'2", 6'3" and I never fit in in an exact community, and so I think part of it was I watched and I had to listen and really understand where other people were coming from. And, arlene, when you were talking about the hairs on the stem being like the hairs on your arm, and I think you initially said with fear, but I think at a very young age, particularly when it came to public speaking, I would get those butterflies in my stomach and the hair on my arm. And I think the question and this is, I think, the practice that we're all invited to is like do we approach that with anxiety or anticipation, do we approach that with fear or do we approach that with courage? And to recognize each of those things is an opportunity.
Speaker 1:And so at a young age I remember getting those butterflies and I don't know if someone told me or this is like kind of how I became to like reconcile it but I was like, oh, these butterflies are telling me that I care, that whatever it is I'm about to say matters a lot, to me at least, and so I always I just began to look at like, okay, there's those butterflies, there's those hairs on the arm rising, and I'm just going to take that as a reminder, a reminder, you know, speaking of this card, as a reminder that like I care and this is how I'm going to show up and that's all I can do.
Speaker 1:Right, I may not give the best speech and may not sort of land with whoever I'm with, but like all I can do is just try to show up and remember and I think, particularly now as I've gotten older, because I'm these are memories that I'm pulling from, like high school and, you know, starting to do a lot more of those public speaking events, and it was like Okay, now it's like really excited. When I get nervous, I'm like, oh, this is really important and it's even more telling than ever before.
Speaker 2:I love that reframe of just like the courage comes from saying, hey, I care, I care about me, and so I'm going to have that courage like that feels a lot more available.
Speaker 1:Well, it isn't even about caring about me, I just cared about whatever I had to say. I remember in 11th grade running for junior class president and I just found this speech, like a few years ago, and I talked actually about like we're like a flower and we're going to bloom. This is ironic, but you imagine, in 11th grade you know a guy talking about like we're like a flower and we're going to bloom and like it was not this, like strong sort of like you know metaphor, at least at that time, but it was the best way that I could imagine. And so it's kind of ironic now, 30 years later, to be like partners in gratitude, blooming and really sharing this practice of like. How do we show up like flowers and bloom Full circle?
Speaker 4:So funny.
Speaker 2:I love that there's a destiny card to kind of be like yes, this, you were born for this.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, do we want to pick a card for the community as well? I feel like we now have this wonderful new practice of inviting a question from the community of the week, and so, again, email us at hello at grad2bloomingcom with your question, and it could be, you know, personal to one of us. We've put ourselves out there in the world and so if you're like, hey, why did you make that decision? And this is the beauty that we get, we get to ask each other questions all the time, and so we'd love to be able to open that up. And then the second practice of really just inviting a card for the community, before we listen to a new song from the Grad 2 Blooming album, in collaboration with Ariel Lowe and Windows.
Speaker 2:I'm really feeling Arlene's vibe here on the east, on the right hand side, so I think we should go on the edge of the right and let's go towards the top. And how about the last, the card on the farthest right there in that row?
Speaker 1:And is there a question or intention you want to share with the community? Maybe it's the theme for this week's song or this new album Infinite possibility.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what is going to help our listeners kind of draw in that spirit of possibility in their lives for this fall?
Speaker 1:Card number 11, represented by the dog tooth violet and the theme of curiosity. Try being curious about something that feels uncomfortable to you. How can curiosity shed a light of understanding on something you fear? And again, maybe Belinda, if you want to just describe the art as you see it.
Speaker 2:Wow, it's another solitary flower and the dog tooth violet is kind of looking down at its stem and its leaves and the curiosity is kind of within its gaze and so I feel like it's curious about itself or something kind of deep within, because it's like the flower is looking down.
Speaker 1:And any sort of invitation for people as they think about infinite possibility and curiosity. Arlene.
Speaker 4:Well, I feel like they're both in our garden of curiosity, right? I think both of these cards came up and they're there. Let's see if I even I think it's in our card deck. So I feel like they got paired together, and the theme of the garden is to navigate ambiguity with openness, to ignite creativity and innovation, and so I feel like it's a nice way to wrap up the talk that we've been having today. I'm a big fan of curiosity myself. I feel like it's a healthy way to just enter into the world.
Speaker 1:I think we've talked about VUCA on one of our previous podcasts. Vuca is Volatility, uncertainty, complexity and Ambiguity, and it's sort of I think it came out of the military sort of to describe intense situations and, in some ways, at a more macro level, some of the difficulty of what's happening in the world right now. And so I love this idea of like how can we bring curiosity to VUCA, like really in a place that could sort of inspire fear. Curiosity, I feel like, invites sort of anticipation and that, just from your own nervous system sort of is helps you calm down and then, I think, be more open to that infinite possibility. So is there anything else, belinda, that you want to share before we play the new infinite possibility single that we just released on the fall equinox?
Speaker 2:Yes, I would say that as you listen to this new song of infinite possibility, practice being present with the sound through your throat. You know we've talked in a previous podcast episodes about the power of humming and how that, you know, literally calms your nervous system. It actually activates like antibacterial fungal things in your, you know, in your cells, with your nasal passages. I mean there's so much science around this how healing it can be. So I invite you to be with the song, with with the hum or just a sound as well, because it is this one is very dynamic.
Speaker 1:Beautiful and let's tee up our new song infinite possibility, in collaboration with aerial low and window seat. Here's to humming. Infinite possibility throughout your body. Issx. Well, wishing you remembrance, curiosity and infinite possibility. Again, please send us at hello at gratitudebloomingcom. What is your question? Let's pull a card around it.
Speaker 2:Excited for what nature has to show us along the way.
Speaker 1:Beautiful Cheers. Meterom sizing Taken.
