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
The Tender Art of Vulnerability and Holding Space
Embark on a transformative exploration with us as we reflect on a profound year investigating the intersection of empathy and democracy. Our heartfelt discussions have led us to recognize the unsung heroes who create nurturing environments in every corner of society.
Today, we delve into lessons from our poignant collaboration with the Japanese American National Museum, underscoring democracy's vulnerability through the harrowing history of Japanese internment camps. As we gear up for our event 'Holding Space for the Spaceholders,' we're thrilled to welcome the deeply insightful Angela Oh and the adept facilitator Alex Dorsey. They'll share their wisdom on empathetic space creation, the personal cost of conflict, and the nuances of self-expression.
Feel the pulse of authenticity and its profound influence on forging human bonds as we navigate the art of vulnerability. Through symbolism from nature's playbook, we assess the courageous act of revealing our soft underbellies and the complexities of authenticity in maintaining relationships.
As we anticipate the dynamic exchange in our live podcast series, we invite you to connect with us and our special Democracy Center guests, Jim Herr and Sofia Alvarez, who will share their expertise on the tangible dynamics of holding space. Join us for a heartfelt synthesis of growth, challenge, and understanding, where every voice in the chorus of life is valued, and every moment of silence is powerful.
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Hello Belinda.
Belinda Liu:Hi Omar.
Omar Brownson:I can't believe we're already a month into the new year. I'm feeling your encouragement from last time where you said how do we tend to our intentions? And we set an intention a year ago around this idea of empathy and democracy. I can't believe it's been almost a year that we've been having these conversations.
Belinda Liu:Yeah, and it's been lovely to spend the day with you, omar, on Zoom, with our collaboration partners and really tending to our intentions together, which is definitely an art within itself. It's been a journey with you, me and Arlene together as part of Grad 2, blooming and now joining forces with different partners and different types of spaceholders, and I'm actually really excited for us to unpack this idea of holding space and that feels like kind of a new word, I mean. I remember when facilitation and coaching were kind of the buzzwords, for you know how do you support people and support groups and communities?
Omar Brownson:The Japanese American National Museum is hosting the Democracy Center, because democracy failed, you know, during the Japanese internment camps and for a whole generation of people who were going about their lives as Americans and then, because of where they're from, they were literally put into these internment camps, which is a nice sort of phrasing of really being imprisoned, and so it's a very real thing about, like, what happens when democracy fails. And so, you know, we've been having those conversations, but for this next one, we're titling it Holding Space for the Spaceholders, and to me it was a little bit of a callback from two years ago, when we were holding space for healing, for the healers, right, like, really, who are the people that are really, either like the healthcare workers that were doing so much work for helping other people, but no one was taking care of them? This time it felt like how do we help hold space for those that are holding space for others, like facilitators holding, you know, intentional spaces, or parents, you know holding spaces for parents or for children, or even, you know, I think, at a very personal level, like how do we hold space for ourselves? Right, like it's an intentional sort of practice that we need to have and we have two phenomenal people co-hosting this event with us Angela O and Alex Dorsey. Angela is a prominent civil rights lawyer and then left all of that to become a Zen priest and then in some ways, she left all of that to become a Daoist mediation person. And so her, just her own evolution of like taking these things of like race and politics to you know, spirituality and Zen practice, to then really just like what is that everyday kind of practice of being present and then using that to sort of help mediate sort of conflict. And then Alex Dorsey is probably one of the most gifted facilitators I've ever worked with and also has a fellowship program focused on leadership and, interestingly, all three of us are connected to Common Wheel.
Omar Brownson:Angela and I are on the board of Common Wheel. Angela also runs Go Compassion, which is the group that I went to Mexico recently to deliver supplies to a sanctuary, and then Alex runs her leadership program through Common Wheel. And so I feel like there's these fun mycelial networks that are starting to connect and as master sort of spaceholders, I really loved in our prep today how they talked about it. They're different things. So I how are we holding empathy for democracy, you know, and I thought that was just such a provocative question of like democracy itself right now is in need of some empathy. And you know, and maybe it's hard to have empathy for an idea like democracy Right now when it can feel so divisive right, both locally as well as globally I know Friends on various sides of conflict right now and it's just painful right and there's a self-censorship that can happen, and when we do that we kind of we silence Ourselves. And so, you know, empathy is about giving voice to our hearts in lots of ways.
Belinda Liu:Well, I'm excited to Preview some of the conversations that we had this morning with Jim and Sophia and play that back for our listeners and our viewers, just to hear real-time. You know people that are Holding physical space. You know day in and day out like. What is that experience like, and and how do they define space-holding? And you know as you listen. Just Think about for you how is that shown up for you in your life? Or, if you are someone who holds a lot of space for others, what does it mean to you?
Omar Brownson:And what does it mean to you to do that with empathy?
Sofia Alvarez:I think, to even just the word holding feels. It feels gentle, it doesn't feel so abrasive, it doesn't feel as clinical, and so I Think, consciously making the space for ourselves. It's also empowering because it validates that our time is valuable and our time for ourselves is more self.
Jim Herr:Well, when Sophia was speaking, I had what came to me was that it's very maternal, so very nurturing. When you allow that for someone else, you provide that for someone. Yes, that's that you're nurturing them and and and giving them what they need. I've been very conscious of energy lately. I don't know I Was having this conversation with a friend the other day and just how I'm I don't know if I'm it's a function of getting older or or, or just opening myself to other two more things, especially like these kinds of conversations. But I've noticed how my energy is with with certain people like we seem to be like on on the same channel or the same I don't want to say frequency, but the same channel and it can be very good and it can also be very bad sometimes if their energy is not what I needed to be. I noticed this really really profoundly or sharply at the beginning of the year.
Jim Herr:I had worked pretty much January 2nd through Whatever, the 13th, whatever that Saturday was of MLK weekend. Every day we had people coming through for our implicit bias exhibition in the Smithsonian. I'm called the bias and sinus. I was doing these tours, specific tours with groups of people doing these deep briefs on a very kind of like heavy subject and I had two of them that Saturday and I could not do anything. The rest of the weekend, like Saturday, like Sunday and Monday, were just shot like I could not and I did not want to do anything and I and it was the first time I kind of realized how, how my energy, where it comes from, where it goes, how it gets depleted, how I need to build it back up.
Belinda Liu:Yeah, it's so interesting how the maternal is so powerful and yet there can be the shadow side of over giving. And I feel like that's been one of the things I've had to learn so many times in my life, like as a teacher, as a facilitator for urban teachers, and then now, lance Jeward, it's like how do you press the stop button when you're with other people and you see the suffering or the needs in front of you and how do you just hold a little space for yourself before you just use all of the rest of your gas on a need in front of you? And I could so relate to that in Jim's voice. Yeah, it is such an important question because everyone that is lifting up their families or their communities or their teams or organizations right now it is. There is a heaviness to that energy right Like I mean, that was part of the conversation too is like it's an energy exchange when you are holding space.
Omar Brownson:From the workshop that I was leading last week around adaptive leadership. It's like how do we get off the dance floor and onto the balcony, right? Like how do we get out of that day to day movement and really give ourselves permission to pause, right, to take a step back, to go on the balcony and to take a look and to scan what's actually happening. It's this idea of go slow, to go fast, right, like we know these things, they're in our sort of pop culture language, but we continue to forget, you know, and so it's important that we find those reminders, that sort of help us like okay, it's okay to like let go.
Omar Brownson:And you know, and I think maybe that's also where the art when we pause to look at the art, like there's a joy and an ease to it, right, and so I think maybe that's also part of the practice is where can we find joy and ease and just appreciate that there's lots of different ways to pause, like pausing doesn't have to be this, like serene, you know, on top of a mountain. You know, like a pause can be as simple as a somatic practice of just taking a moment, and like feeling your feet on the ground or touching two fingers together and just seeing if you can feel the ridges against your thumb and your forefinger. And it's just these little somatic practices. Those are important balcony moments too.
Belinda Liu:I love that and it brings me to that point in our conversation with Alex and Angela today just around unpacking our intent. You know how do we want people to feel, what do we want people to receive from this experience? And I feel like that is probably 80% of the work when you're holding space, because once you capture that essence of the intent, then everything kind of matches our lines to that. You know just how to, how to decorate the space, how to arrange the chairs, and then you kind of like surrender then to that moment when it's happening, and I loved that we kind of came up with some words like we love for people to take a pause and open up to receiving and then to reimagine. You know like, oh, maybe holding space for other people can be, you know, like breathing. You know like that level of ease and naturalness in our bodies.
Omar Brownson:Well, I'm kind of curious if we were to pull a gratitude blooming card and we were to ask the question what do we need to receive right now? What the gratitude blooming card deck would tell us Like and I always love thinking about the gratitude blooming card deck as like a translator for Mother Earth. You know, and I was, someone sent me an article this morning about this particular Native American tribe and they're like we need a new language for how we talk about the environment and they're talking about in their particular tribe. The word nature actually translates to a way of life and you know, and I feel like it's just this reminder of like, what way of life do we want to actually live Right? Like, are we giving ourselves spaces where pausing is actually built into the environment?
Omar Brownson:Because maybe you're, you're turning off the lights at night because you know the sun is down, or you know, like what are those even small ways that we can sort of ease into nature in a different way?
Belinda Liu:I love that, so love for you to state our inquiry or intent as we scroll through the digital deck On this day. What do we need?
Omar Brownson:to receive. What do we need to receive? Card number nine, represented by the rose and the theme of vulnerability. It takes courage to be vulnerable. How can you show vulnerability to others? What can bloom from those connections?
Belinda Liu:I love that this card is about relationships inherently. You know, with the word connection and you know vulnerability, I feel like it can be a real gift, and sometimes it can be really hard to be comfortable or safe enough to be that open, and so it almost makes me wonder if that's a clue around. How do we need to hold the space for others to create that sense of vulnerability or that safety to be vulnerable?
Omar Brownson:You know, what's funny is that we've obviously seen this card a number of times, but this is the first time I really zeroed in on the word connections and in sort of similar like it's, the vulnerability to others creates a connection, and that's really part of the practice of empathy is like, how do we create these connections? Not by just sort of, oh, I'm empathetic to their concern of someone else, but like, oh, I feel something, I am showing something of myself in this and and and then the art. You see this one pedal kind of falling off the flower of the rose flowers. And so it's like, what do we need to release in order to be vulnerable? Like what do we need to let go of? Like what shields we might be holding up, what armor you know we might be protecting ourselves?
Omar Brownson:And you know the image that I have right now we just got a new puppy. She's like 17 months old, so she's not like puppy, puppy, but you know she's definitely got lots of energy. And you know, when a dog feels vulnerable, they'll go on their back and open their belly up right when they feel safe, like that's their sort of underbelly, and they'll, literally, when they feel safe, they'll go on their back or or in. Sometimes you know, you see dogs and they do that as sort of an act of submission as well, and so there's like, how do we, how do we feel comfortable going on our backs and showing our underbellies and and not sort of feeling like we're putting our best foot forward or, you know, fake it till we make it, you know, or you know, you hear oftentimes people feeling this like this imposter syndrome and really, you know, vulnerability is how we help kind of release some of those expectations and just really be vulnerable and connect.
Belinda Liu:Yeah, and it makes me think about like moments where I haven't done, been vulnerable, and like what gets in the way. And I think maybe the thing that I would release is like thinking too much about how what I say or how I show up will be interpreted or, you know, judged, and then you kind of produce like an artificial way of showing up. Right, that's not really who you are, or people don't really see what's underneath, especially like when there's new people and you don't know what this energy is of the community and of just like suspending all the stories, right, Because you don't know anything about other people and it's just like well, how do I just not worry about that? And it's funny that the words on the artwork say all shall be well and all capital letters. You know it's like. Can you say what you really mean and believe that it's going to be okay?
Omar Brownson:So there's vulnerability in new relationships, but there's also vulnerability in older ones, right, and would you say you know we've now been collaborating for three years. What is the rose telling you right now about our collaboration?
Belinda Liu:And yeah, Hmm, early on in our collaboration, not knowing each other, well like, there's always this like making sure, not sure if you're being heard in the way that you intend right, and I feel like that wasn't the earlier part of our journeys. I feel like we know each other now to also read each other a little bit more clearly. When you've been through the fire of like conflict with someone which we have, it feels like there's nothing like you're almost like stripped of. You know the fear of what someone's gonna think of you, because you've already, you know, been in a situation where you don't agree and you can manage that difference with the other person. Well, omar, I feel like the question that you asked me is a little bit of a question for you as well. So you know for you what makes it hard to be vulnerable in your life.
Omar Brownson:There's been so much shedding right, like, so I have allowed and maybe even not allowed, but nonetheless lots of petals have fallen away, and so I think part of it has been putting myself in a intentional space of releasing and letting go and really then kind of coming to a place where it's like it's like what connections might bloom that I'm not even aware of. You know, like I would say there was a part of me for a very long time that was very strategic and analytical. And then to relationships you know are viewed from that sort of lens, and I think vulnerability is that you're just in relationship and it's not even that you know what will bloom necessarily.
Belinda Liu:And you're someone that I feel is very confident and courageous about your words. I'm curious, like is there ever a time where you find yourself like not saying something that you feel in the moment and like, and what prevents that?
Omar Brownson:I certainly, despite myself, don't always just say exactly what I'm feeling in the moment, you know, and I think part of it is one sometimes not saying something as an act of compassion, right To like let something kind of go because it is serving no one else but myself. And so, you know, I think I'm trying to become more aware of that my family's sense of humor can be a little harsh, and so, you know, it's how we sometimes express our love is through teasing, and so sometimes, you know, maybe that jab isn't necessary, you know. So I think I'm continuing to learn, you know when is it good to share and when is it good to kind of not share and that's actually the right thing to do. And so, yeah, I would say it's a constant navigation, and I think part of it is learning to have more empathy and compassion you know, because there's some.
Omar Brownson:But then I also think like it's important to own your voice, and so it's a tension, you know, of when to share and when to not, when is it generous and when is it not.
Belinda Liu:Yeah, it makes me think of the dance floor metaphor you brought up, like it is a dance right, like and you have to kind of feel your way through it for yourself and also with the person that you're dancing with, and what is the right moment. And, yeah, this is a really beautiful message from nature. I feel like it's really timely, as we look forward to sharing how those conversations go live in that live podcast series too, after the event. So you'll stay tuned for that. You'll be a part of it, for sure.
Omar Brownson:Wishing you well.
Belinda Liu:Cheers.
Omar Brownson:Cheers.
