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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
Holding Space for the Space Holders
Have you ever experienced a moment so quietly powerful that it demanded your full presence? This episode, with facilitators Angela Oh and Alex Dorsey, captures just that, as we recount an unforgettable evening at the Japanese American National Museum and the Democracy Center—a night where rose petals and silence laid the foundation for an exploration into empathy and democracy. We unravel how holding space for others, whether in leadership, parenthood, or personal growth, magnifies compassion and ensures every voice in our democratic tapestry is valued and heard.
Navigating the nuanced dance of giving and receiving support, we delve into the emotional weight of our 'active giving hand' and its capacity to invoke deep gratitude. Our guests and us share anecdotes that resonate with hope, forgiveness, and the relentless pursuit of self-compassion. By peeling back the layers of our own emotional landscapes, we reveal how embracing vulnerability can lead to a more profound understanding of our intertwined lives and the healing we all seek.
As the conversation unfolds, we immerse ourselves in the embodiment of empathy and the transformative act of holding space. Contemplating the gentle balance between bearing the heaviness of being a space holder and the lightness of being held, we explore how creating opportunities for understanding can leave a lasting impact on our communities. Wrapping up with an ode to the practice of gratitude, we reflect on its power to help us appreciate life's goodness amid adversity. Join us as we honor the subtle yet substantial ways compassion and gratitude shape our journeys.
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Hello Belinda.
Speaker 2:Hey Omar.
Speaker 1:I can't believe. We're three quarters of the way through our collaboration with the Japanese American National Museum and the Democracy Center around empathy and democracy. And I have to say, this third collaboration, this amazing dinner with Angela oh and Alex Dorsey, was just over the top and in no small part because of the 20 feet of rose petals that you laid out to welcome people into the space.
Speaker 3:It was probably the most fun I've had in a while holding space and, yeah, at the last minute we went to the Flower Mart Omar at like what 2 pm, right before the event started, and they were just giving it away almost $5 a bag and I definitely bought them all out of the pedals.
Speaker 1:Well, and it was just beautiful to enter into the space and normally we had people turn right into the amazing auditorium, but this time we asked people to go left and there was a beautiful sign that says silence welcomes you. And then there was 20 feet of rose petals. And then you walk down into this space and there was this long table. There's a series of tables that 40 people could sit around and we invited folks to serve themselves with some onigiri rice balls, some green tea and some mochi, and it was this three-part series around the tea, a little bit of a small meal and then a sweet dessert, and this three-part series really allowed us to center in a different kind of way.
Speaker 3:And I love the topic of just holding space for space holders and even just this idea of unpacking. What does that really mean with Angela and Alex, who are two amazing seasoned space holders in their own worlds, and it was interesting how powerful it is to unpack, even what that means and how so many people don't see themselves as that, but then when we talk about it, they realize oh wow, I'm actually doing this in my life, for my family, for my co-workers, for my community.
Speaker 1:And you know, over the course of these three series we've probably had, I don't know about 150 people plus or minus join, and then probably over, I think, 3,000 people have downloaded the podcast to listen into it. So really it's been this generative space. And at the end, jim Herr, who's the head of the Democracy Center at JANM, was like but did we really fix democracy? And it was your partner, peter, who afterwards at dinner said that democracy works when everyone has a voice and everyone is heard. And in this dinner that we had together this holding space for the space holders, he said everyone spoke and everyone was heard. And so it was really beautiful to really just listen and be present to how people were showing up, from my young daughters to, like you said, we had leaders of organizations Karen Mack, who's the head of LA Commons, who's been on our show, Paula Daniels, who's the head of she was the founder of the LA Food Policy Council and just a pioneer, and so we have these amazing change makers right Like.
Speaker 1:That's why we wanted to hold space for the space makers, because there are these people who are creating room in the world for issues to be heard in different ways. And the way we defined it too, was that you didn't have to just be a leader. You know sometimes, just if you're a parent holding space for a child, or you know, in Jim, her circumstance he's a child holding space for an elderly parent, right and he's in that part of his life to whether or not you're just holding space for yourself, right. Like, what are all these different ways that we can hold space? Why is that even important, all these different?
Speaker 3:ways that we can hold space. Why is that even important? Yeah, I mean, I think it's good to be aware of our energy, you know, as we navigate all these relationships in our lives, and to notice also, just like how does it feel to show up for people, including ourselves, and I think, the more that we're aware that we are doing this all the time, even unconsciously. Maybe we can add a little bit of empathy and a bit of compassion into that. Right Like that was, you know, the Garden of Healing was very present for people, as we were, you know, picking cards from the note card collection.
Speaker 3:It was really interesting how much self-care came up, you know, and just like remembering that, yeah, it takes a lot of energy to hold space for everything in our lives, and so we got to come back to ourselves. So, yeah, as you listen to this replay of this live event, we'd love to invite you to just, you know, notice in what ways do you hold space for others or yourself right now? And, you know, hopefully some of these examples that we share from the live event can be inspiring for you in your own work.
Speaker 1:Wishing you well, cheers, cheers. In our go, go, go, me, me, me kind of world, we thought it would be nice to just pause. This is our third empathy and democracy event. Each one has been very different. We've had taiko drummers, we've had deaf speakers. In each one, what we're really trying to do is create space to shift our perspectives, and you might even wonder like what does empathy and democracy have to do with this?
Speaker 1:And for us, I think democracy in some ways moves at the speed of empathy, and empathy in some ways moves at the speed of our stillness. Can we pause to create a little bit of room for compassion? And when we pause to create a little room for compassion, how does that help us relate to ourselves and to each other? And so, when we thought about this third event and this idea of holding space for the space holders, it was really this sort of invitation to become more aware of what are all the spaces that you're holding. Maybe you're a parent holding space for a child, maybe you're a child holding space for a parent, maybe you're a facilitator or a coach, a teacher, a supervisor, or maybe you're just holding space for yourself.
Speaker 1:I want to thank Belinda, who is my co-host for the Gratitude Blooming podcast, and she invited me almost three years ago to begin collaborating with her, and we've now probably held over a hundred different gratitude circles, from in person to online Hundreds, if not thousands, of people. At this point, we've just released, I think, our 110th episode of the Gratitude Blooming podcast. There's a reason why the Japanese American National Museum is holding space for democracy Because there was a moment in our history where we lacked some deep empathy, some deep understanding of human dignity, and so this sort of reminder is not just a theoretical one, it's a lived one, and so we appreciate Jim for inviting us to create these moments for us to reflect at a very human level.
Speaker 7:So we're actually sitting right now in the historic building, and the historic building is the centerpiece of it is a Buddhist temple, which was the first Buddhist temple in Los Angeles and it was built in 1925. And it became a hub for the Japanese American community, not only in Little Tokyo but throughout Los Angeles. But sadly, because it was that center of the community, it is where, in 1942, japanese Americans living in Los Angeles were ordered to report some 37,000 of them to come here with just whatever they could carry. They were put on buses, taken to Santa Anita Racetrack I didn't know it had been here that long, but Santa Anita Racetrack has been here for a long time. They were housed in horse stalls until they could be processed and put on trains to one of 75 American concentration camps around the country.
Speaker 7:So this is very sort of a place that has a lot of sadness, a lot of heavy history, has a lot of sadness, a lot of heavy history. It is a place that we often think of democracy as having failed its people. It's also a place of resiliency, the resiliency of the Japanese American people, a place that has come to be a place for celebration, for joy, for community, and not just for Japanese Americans, but for anyone that wants to come here, and the democracy center opens that even more, and so this is the types of conversations that we want to have. It is a difficult time for our democracy, right now.
Speaker 7:And in searching for many answers, there's a lot of people looking into different things, but I think for our institution as an arts and culture institution, we want to center the arts in what we do and have conversations that other people aren't having, and this is one of them, and I think it is an important conversation to have. How do we begin to demonstrate empathy when it is very difficult at times to do that? And I think that has been for me sort of this reoccurring theme from the very first, even before the first podcast that we did, but certainly since the first podcast. And it's not that we have or I have the answers, but hopefully this is a way we can find some answers.
Speaker 3:And so I wanted to start our journey together just with this feeling of what does it mean to hold space? Feeling of what does it mean to hold space. You know, we know what coaching is like, or you know facilitation. You know those are very specific words that we use a lot in our modern day life. But space holding is kind of a new idea, and even with all of us as we were, you know, getting ready for this circle today, we were like what does that word actually mean? And so I'm actually going to share what it feels like to me, and I invite you to join me in that feeling.
Speaker 3:So, to start, I want you to feel which hand, left or right, is your active giving hand. So we're going to do that together. So take out that hand that is doing a lot of things for you. I want you to really feel the energy that that hand is holding. So just imagine and feel what are all the things in your life, all the people in your life that you are holding, who is depending on you in your life, and just imagine that being in the palm of your hand right now, and you can even think that to yourself. What are those things that you hold literally every single day of your life, who are the people that you hold, and just notice how that hand feels as you're connecting in and just giving yourself some gratitude. Wow, you are doing so much to hold this space for so many, and now I invite you to take your other hand and hold the hand that is giving so much, and just notice how that feels now to have something else supporting you as you're holding all of the things that and the people and the community that depend on you in your day-to-day life, and just noticing how does that feel now to have an extra support there for you.
Speaker 3:Just even this small act of how we can hold space for ourselves can create such a big ripple effect for everything else in our lives. And so just inviting you all to just be with this metaphor of holding space, just feeling yourself, releasing a little bit on that dominant hand to let the other hand hold and support you and this is really the intention for this time is how can we release some of that heaviness that is hard about being a space holder for others, that is hard about being a space holder for others? We're going to actually just introduce ourselves in the form of what are we most wanting to receive right now as people that give so much in our lives, if you'd like, or also pull from the Garden of Healing, which is our theme for today, is you know what healing can that you need to receive right now for your own care and well-being? Just taking a moment to find that word, either from the note cards or from your own imagination.
Speaker 9:Hello everyone. My name is Bethany and I am I was most. The card that most spoke to me was number 15, the Azalea Hope. Take a moment to remember a time when you were filled with hope. What do you need to feel that feel like that now I feel like I start a lot most conversations with how jaded I am and I don't want to be that I. I want you know to have hope. So that's the one that spoke to me the most hi everyone, my name is sim.
Speaker 8:Uh, the card I got was patience. Um, some of the most important lessons in life require time and space to grow. What is your relationship with time? How can time be your teacher? I feel like, as I'm getting older, like patience is something that keeps coming up for me because, I don't know, I feel like there's a lot of pressure to grow up right now in the society very quickly, uh, and sometimes I feel like I just need more time to figure things out.
Speaker 10:Hi everyone, my name is Shekinah. I chose number four wholeness. Wholeness requires integrating different, sometimes contradictory, sides of ourselves. What does wholeness feel like to you? I am in a point of my life where a lot of things are changing the area that I'm in, the people that I'm surrounded by and even the ways that I just think and view the world. And a lot of times I'm simultaneously grieving a past version of myself while also looking to this new version of myself. That's exciting too.
Speaker 11:Hello, I'm Cindy and I didn't even need to shuffle the cards because right away, the first card is forgiveness for myself. The circular thinking that I'm not good enough is constant, so I'd like to leave this space with a little bit of forgiveness for myself.
Speaker 12:My name is Kaylee and the card that stood out to me was beautiful sadness, which feels sometimes contradictory, but the line that really caught my attention was trust that new, or that beautiful new possibilities will be born. Yeah, I feel like I'm just longing for new possibilities, beautiful new things in my life.
Speaker 13:Hi, I'm Alex and I'm going to take Belinda up on her challenge for us to be you as our imagination. I created my own card and my card is I picked hot lava, and I picked hot lava because I've been feeling like an unmeltable icicle which is frozen in place, and I picked hot lava because I'm hoping to enter into a season of thawfulness. I want to thaw, but I'm almost there, but not yet. I'm happy to be here.
Speaker 14:Hi, I'm Angela. I just picked healing. It is a very personal journey for me, so I tend to be an over-functioner and pour way more energy into stuff, even if it's broken, thinking that it's an ego thing too like I can fix it. So, um, this is listening to my body and my mind and not suppressing or moving past my feelings too fast and, um, making sure that I'm processing and taking care of my emotions and not pretending that they aren't there. We're trying to make things go right all on my own and part of the healing is sometimes just letting things be and having patience and accepting where things are at, trusting the outcome and, if there is any sort of functioning, doing that in the spirit of making sure I'm taking care of myself and those things that matter most and just preserving and not burning myself out.
Speaker 5:I'm Paula and I randomly opened the stack to self-care but I went no, I'm good at that. So I put it aside and looked at something that really resonated for the moment and I have beautiful sadness. So today's the fifth anniversary of my mother's passing and normally I think of her birthday, but it's five years and it's also Lunar New Year, and in leading up to today, I've been listening to another great podcast by Anderson Cooper called All there Is about grief, and so much of it is about the reality of living with loss if that's the word more of a transition, and as we sit here in the beginning of the Lunar New Year, it's a transition time. There's an end and a beginning, and that's where I am today.
Speaker 15:Hello, my name is Peter. I chose gentleness, and I think this is, on the one hand, I think it's appropriate for the theme of empathy and democracy, because in the prompt it's being kind to others, and I think that's really central to empathy and certainly has a connection to democracy is understanding others, withholding judgment from others, being gentle with others and their views, and for me personally, the prompt is being kind to yourself. This is something I struggle with. I'm very, I consider myself very empathetic and accepting of others, and sometimes I hold myself to a very different standard, and maybe others here as well do the same thing, and so the message for me is I need to be gentle with myself, or more gentle. Thanks.
Speaker 7:I knew I would regret doing this. Regret blooming. Why you do this to me?
Speaker 10:I don't think.
Speaker 7:I'm pulling cards, I'm going to do an Alex and I'm going to draw my own card. So I was going through the cards and the first thing I thought of was that all of these things are what I want for the people that I'm holding. Like every one of these cards is what I want for them. Uh, but if you go back and you listen, I think, to the, the podcast about the podcast, the first podcast I talk about, you know, we talk about like well, what were you expecting? Or I forget what exactly the prompt was, but I remember feeling like I was a little disappointed because we hadn't solved the world's problems in that first hour and a half, like I don't know what I thought was going to happen, but I really thought, you know, it was all going to come together and we were going to have the world's problem solved.
Speaker 7:And, and so for me, you know, kind of going through this, the last card is patience, and I think it's easy. It would have been easy for me to pick that, because I think that's when there's a problem, I want to rush in and solve the problem. I want to take care of it, I want to take care of the people that I'm holding. And today, not more than an hour and a half ago, I was in a situation where I wanted to run into that burning building and I wanted to save the people in it and I wanted to fix everything that was happening, but that wasn't working and I had to stop for a moment and and show gentleness for that person and for myself, and and in that moment, the energy of all of that just completely shifted and I know what the lesson is for that situation. But this is where the work begins for us. Here is how do we make that bigger?
Speaker 16:We have many aspects of our identities and they're complex, but part of what we're experiencing in democracy right now is a space where our humanity becomes condensed to these one-dimensional labels, labels that can be quickly judged, where projections are put on someone that may or may not be true, and what's missing is the space between, a space to as we've heard tonight pause, to notice, to reflect, to listen to ourselves. Maybe it's a narrative that doesn't serve us any longer. Maybe it's an awareness of something we're needing that we haven't given to ourselves. Maybe it's an energy that we bring to the world in an effort to get things done that we can lay down and rest. Maybe it's time to just acknowledge I have time to be where I am in this season of my life and regardless of what society says here is where I need to be.
Speaker 16:This space is a space that really allows us to bring a quality of attention, and I love the quote by Anne Truitt. She says the opposite of inattention is love. Part of the power of language is defining it for ourselves, and so the first question is how would you define holding space For yourself? Why, if you're a space holder, why have you integrated space holding? Or why might you integrate a conscious practice of space holding, and with whom would you hold that space? What do you need to sustain yourself and hold space with empathy amidst the challenges facing our democracy? And if more individuals practiced holding space, what?
Speaker 9:do you?
Speaker 16:imagine would be possible. So these questions are merely an invitation for you to notice which one speaks to you.
Speaker 18:If more individuals practice holding space, what do you imagine would be possible? And I said a collective society. That's harmonious because in this nation we're so separated, but if we come together and like we actually have similar happenings in our lives, so once we share that we can be a collective like this here. This is council.
Speaker 13:I'm new to this concept of holding space with Angela and Alex and for me I'm still learning this I guess I'm working on. I'm leaning in curiosity and wonder, with this very investigative spirit of what really, Alex, is it to hold space? And I think for me it's to protect the sanctuary and it's something I'm working on. I'm not there yet, but it's such a sacred space, the whole space is very sacred, so one must really be anchored in an intention to preserve and protect the sanctity of the space and protect the sanctuary at all costs.
Speaker 16:Thank you.
Speaker 16:It's often said you cannot give what you do not have, and for many of us, whether it's our work, preoccupation, responsibilities with our families, whatever absorbs our time, especially now that algorithms are being very strategic in how to capture our time If we are to honor each other's humanity.
Speaker 16:I'm hearing these insights that each of you are speaking to yourself as possible a next step to do that. It's not that it's we fix the world overnight, as Jim spoke to earlier, or that this circle of nourishment solves problems that we all see and face, but that, if we can be present in this moment, to what's the next thing for me to bring? Kindness, to bring healing, maybe more patience, some wholeness, a little self-care Each of those values that, reflected back in the Garden of Healing cards, moves us to creating space for another and understanding they have needs that they may need just a moment to pause and consider for themselves. Once you have a concept like this that you're thinking about, it really becomes more centered in our awareness when we can embody it, and so I'm going to turn this over to Angela to walk us through some embodied reflections.
Speaker 17:Close your eyes for a minute and recall a time when you received empathy. Recall a time when you received empathy. What did that feel like? People can just say. What did empathy feel like? Love, nurturing, warmth, non-judgment, sorry, come again. Cared for Felt seen, felt seen.
Speaker 13:Generosity.
Speaker 17:Generosity, surprising, surprising, welcoming, welcoming, welcoming. You see, all of these things that you just named and anybody have anything different than what we've heard.
Speaker 20:Dignity.
Speaker 17:Dignity. These are the gifts of empathy. Now, where in your body would you locate the feeling that you named Just? Put your hand on that part of your body, your hand on that part of your body. Some have on their hearts, some have on their belly some have in the center of their chest.
Speaker 3:One of the things that Jim Omar and I were talking about in preparation for this time was what does it feel like to be space holders?
Speaker 3:And, interestingly enough, a lot of the things that we shared with each other was it's hard, it feels heavy, it's exhausting, it takes a lot of energy, a lot of energy. There's work to be done, and so how can we take a breath, even in that heaviness, to really feel the lightness of being held? And we really thought about that through the experience of the space and really the silence that is part of this participant in this space as well. So we're just going to take a moment to really digest this time, like really feeling into. How does it feel for you now, as someone that is taking care of others and yourself, as someone that is taking care of others and yourself? What do you notice yourself? What is one thing we want to remember as we go back and we live our lives? It could be the same word that you started with, or it could be another word that's emerging from what you've experienced today.
Speaker 20:I am taking with me the realization of how much of a gift it can be to enable people to exhale, by inviting them in, by calling for people to be in spaces where they wouldn't be otherwise. And that it's both a physical thing as well as sort of an emotional exhale.
Speaker 5:So I was thinking of holding space as patiently listening and allowing, of mentoring. You know, creating room for someone else is how I've been thinking of it, but I'm seeing it in a new way, like you know, reflecting on the dimensionality of relationships and perspectives and recollection and how you might look at something that happened in a different way many years later and and I'll just briefly explain it, Angela and I had a conversation earlier today about my mother, who was a political figure and took a vote on a very controversial position for civil rights but lost her re-election because of that and the issue lost but decades later became something that changed in society. So Angela said she was holding space and I had never thought of it quite that way. You know people think of her as trying and not succeeding, but Angela said she held space and so I see it now is that it's like a way of creating opportunity?
Speaker 19:I was thinking about what Alex said earlier, you know, when she asked everybody about whether they define themselves as a space holder, and I don't think you usually define yourself as that Usually. You are chosen as that and you know I, my family actually calls me the expediter.
Speaker 19:So so you know, I have that burden and and you know, I think what I'm taking is that, like I need somebody to hold space for me and and but you know the the kernel in that is that you have to really be a space holder, like in the truth. You know, with that empathy and in order to motivate that, inspire that in others to step up. And so you know, that's my lesson is to be a model Space holder.
Speaker 14:The expediter. The expediter. I just think of the word community and I just look around and one might say it's a tape, you know, a table full of strangers. But at the same time I feel like we all really know each other in some way and the importance of community and nurturing it and building it. I might see you out someday and just know we're each other's people and that we care and we're doing our version of contributing to making this world a better place in some way, shape or form, and it's a beautiful thing. So my community just grew tonight and I'm really happy to be here and meet you all.
Speaker 13:Do you guys know that song by REM, losing my Religion? Well, yeah, I've been kind of losing my compassion and I'm looking over Jim's left shoulder and I'm forced to confront with. What compassion is, you know? So, I mean, I think I live on San Pedro and Forth where I'm confronted every day with with the chaos and the strife and the unpredictability of the homeless community. But thank you for today because it reminded me that even if you're hanging on by a tattered and torn piece of thread, you're still connected to your compassion.
Speaker 20:Thank you, so I've been really excited about this coming up, because I got this brilliant opportunity to teach in a social justice program and I have been using the concept of space holding as the cornerstone in my classroom. And it's not easy, and I think the thing that resonated with me the most was something that Jim said right at the beginning, where he said I was going to rush into that burning building and save them, but then I stopped. And that's how I feel every day. I have to let them enter the space and learn and fall and crash and burn and open their minds in a way, and I just have to let them catch a little bit, and so it's nice to know that I am not alone.
Speaker 22:It was super challenging to see the word empathy and democracy together. It was very challenging for me, and I think what I'm recognizing in both my own pondering of these questions and hearing everyone's wisdom being elicited here is that perhaps there is a magic in holding space where what I'm actually doing is finding the gratitude and the healing in the challenge and really allowing the sacredness of challenge.
Speaker 23:I think probably most of us find it easier to be empathetic with people who we're close to, or that we feel like we have a lot in common with. Being able to be empathetic to people who are very different than us, who have very different views, is more challenging, but perhaps the only way for empathy to be returned is to show it, and so that's what I'll take with me.
Speaker 6:Similar to what other folks have said. It's really difficult to practice allowing folks to have food, nourishing food from beautiful cultures, to have and feel worthiness of having flowers adorn your feet and your table, and to feel worthy to be around folks you feel close to and folks who you don't know, and spending time, and I think it reminds me that we do treat each other so disposably, and that's the opposite of empathy and the opposite of holding spaces. We want to make things go so fast that we lose or miss or intentionally put others aside and create the other so that we can justify it. And so I'm really just sitting with the sense of what is the next step to empathy. Feel like for myself personally, but also in our actions. When we are challenged, when we are at capacity, how do we summon and imbibe this energy, even in that most challenging place that you may feel dehumanized, how do we still, through faith and through practice, emanate empathy in actions?
Speaker 4:thanks everyone. Um, the thing I've been reflecting on is, in my day-to-day, we always talk about filling space. Fill that space, what's in that space? Um, so now, holding space. The thing I'm reflecting on is the question between what does it look like to hold space instead of fill it, and I definitely don't have an answer.
Speaker 18:Hey y'all. So my continued practice coming from this will be to do it scared, because me speaking right now scary and that's me showing up for myself, though, like I know, I need to share my voice amongst my community and it's just a reminder for me to know that if I don't serve myself, I can't serve others. So to continue to do it scared and I'm gonna come out better at the end. So thank y'all for hearing me.
Speaker 2:I think probably the exercise that had the most impact on me, um, because we were talking about holding space and making others feel seen and making others feel like they're in the room. When you actually ask us to remember a space of empathy and when someone held it for you, the memory of it five, a year or two later, it's sort of the warmth that you get from it when you don't think that you've gotten it, and the idea of sort of creating that for somebody else, even if it's just a small moment, because the memories that I had were very small, they weren't huge moments, it was just like little things and I was like, oh, I see you. So I think that's what I'm going to carry is the idea of holding space and trying to make people feel seen so that, even if it carries a year or two later, two years later, whatever, that feeling of warmth hopefully will go to other people and that's what I'm going to take for the day.
Speaker 21:Hopefully we'll go to other people and that's what I'm going to take for today. Kindness, compassion, empathy is so contagious and this world definitely needs more people like us who shares kindness, compassion, empathy, because oftentimes, when we're pushing our children to go to college go to school it's so they can earn money, but then when we're talking about just money, is that really what's going to make them happy? So, for me, what I take from today's gathering is to share and be a role model of being kind, compassionate and showing empathy showing empathy. So I wrote a little poem.
Speaker 9:We are here, we are breathing, we have gifts to give each other and to this world. So my identity is one of organizer and leader, but not leader in like a grandiose sense.
Speaker 13:Just we have this thing and you're in charge of making sure it happens, kind of thing.
Speaker 9:So when I look at the idea of holding space, it's more like a means to an end. You know, when you have a lot of people in a room and if you don't hold space for everyone, you're going to have conflict and opposition and you're not all going to row in the same direction. So this is very calculating, it sounds like, but this is kind of who I am and I don't think about it. And holding space for myself is winning meeting these goals. Space for myself is winning getting meeting these goals. And I hadn't really thought of it so succinctly until just this moment.
Speaker 9:So thank you for that everyone.
Speaker 16:Now I'm taking away an embodied reminder. When Belinda asked us to extend our hand the hand that holds and then to put our other hand underneath to provide support, as someone who holds space all day long for others, consciously I realized I need to identify support, not when I need them. Before, before, and so now I have. I just have that embodied awareness taking that away and all of your beautiful faces. When I look at these cards now the Garden of Healing I'll think of you.
Speaker 1:Just as we close, I want to bring into the room our third partner, arlene Kim Suda. Partner Arlene Kim Suda, who is an artist in the Bay Area who did the illustrations, and they were born seven years ago in a practice she called 100 Days of Blooming Love, and what she wanted to do was move kind of beyond the inspiration of art and really into the discipline of noticing. And so, by illustrating one plant each day for 100 days, the plants began to speak to her, and so the words that you see here are the words from the plant that you see. And so when you first came into this space, you saw the three reflection booths, and there was a line in a poem that I wrote imagine flowers and voting booths. And just I was like, well, I can create that right. And so we did. We created these reflection booths with these found objects and with these plants, and we created that sacred space right, like we took.
Speaker 1:In many ways, the voting booth is the altar of our democracy. Right, it is where we practice sort of our democracy. And this, as we're closing, I'm looking at this word holding space. But space holding is a practice, and practice is anything that disrupts our habits. And so this idea of disrupting our habits, of filling things up right, what is the habit of creating space? Right, the habit of creating freedom, and Belinda and I are obviously gratitude geeks. We've been deep into the practice of gratitude. We have launched multiple companies, apps, technologies, held numerous spaces, and I think the one thing that I'll just say is that gratitude serves you most is when you
Speaker 1:don't need it when you practice gratitude. You don't need it when you practice gratitude and you don't need it. It shows up for you when you do, and it's that small practice, every day, of pausing to notice something good. And what I would say now is that my definition of gratitude is that gratitude is really the practice of noticing with the heart. The heart holds space for what the mind cannot, and so just appreciate you being here, showing the courage to share your hearts with us tonight. Showing the courage to share your hearts with us tonight.
