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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
Fearless Gratitude in Action: Nurturing Our Democracy with Shared Space
Join us for our Empathy & Democracy series, a live podcast and pop-up art series brought to you by the Democracy Center, VC Film Fest and Gratitude Blooming.
Guided by the changing seasons, this fourth and final installment centers on the transformative practice of "Fearless Gratitude" in action as we pause together to feel and share the depths of our emotions as we grapple with the complexities of this election year.
What if acknowledging the unseen fears and biases in our lives could reshape our story and guide how we show up for these times of great human divides?
In this episode, we uncover our shared struggles around vulnerability, courage, humility, and the wild card of life-- themes from Gratitude Blooming's Garden of Fearless Gratitude.
Together, with 35 leaders, facilitators, coaches, and community builders, we experienced how gratitude, as a social emotion, can create spaces where even our most challenging emotions can coexist harmoniously.
Tune in to remember the power of pausing in shared space to inspire collective action. This is the crucial work ahead to nurture our democracy for a thriving future.
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My name is Omar Brownson, and Linda Liu and I are co-hosts of the Gratitude Living podcast, and we had Jim Herr, who will welcome us officially in a second, who is the director of the Democracy Center here at the Japanese.
Speaker 2:American National.
Speaker 1:Museum.
Speaker 2:As Omar said, I was a guest on the podcast a little over a year ago. I've known Omar for like 20 some years and have followed him through all of his various iterations of his life. I think we're on Omar 2.8 or 3.6 or something, but always fascinating and inspiring. And he invited me to be on the podcast and I was catching up on some of the last few episodes and one of them was with Simon Sinek, and Simon was talking about sort of the world today and how gratitude shows up and there were themes of that. I saw in it themes of democracy and social justice and caring for one another and how we often are willing to leave people behind, and in a democracy we really can't do that. And so I went on the podcast and if and well, some of you have done this process before this and if and some of you have done this process before this, this sort of like looking at issues and looking at things through the gratitude blooming cards and that, this process that they've developed.
Speaker 2:And I was a curiosity, I think wasn't.
Speaker 2:It was my card and and just through talking I this kind of light bulb went off in my head.
Speaker 2:It was like we need to do this podcast around empathy and democracy, and we have to have it with people here so that they can share and talk about things, and so that began this first season four part season, four part series in the season that follows the season. So thank you for joining us today. We're thrilled that this coincided with the VC Film Fest, which is the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival, and Visual Communications is here and many different sites throughout Little Tokyo and Los Angeles, but have had a lot of their main events here at the museum and in the Democracy Center, including a whole series on democracy films about democracy. I'm grateful for BC, as it's been a part of my life for almost 25 years now and have and I owe a lot of my career and a lot of my friendships and a lot of the what I show up as in the world to the world, to the organization and to the people that have been such a big part of it, including its current executive director, francis Criado.
Speaker 1:I'm taking this Dao De Ching class right now and I've done some work with this Zen master, Norma Wong, where I'll listen and then reflect back through poetry, and so this was in the last practice and I thought it appropriate to share today. The name of the poem is called Anger and Blame. Never let go of the essential truth. Let go of the flame of righteousness. Correcting an imbalance without peace creates more imbalance. Blame is caught in duality. If this, then that, ignoring the larger causality, the weed of blame is rooted in the soil of righteousness. Heal the land and the weeds have no home.
Speaker 1:I started the practice of gratitude about 10 years ago, and gratitude begins with noticing good and as a practice, the brain has a biological bias to focus on the negative, and we call practice anything that disrupts habit. So if the brain has a habit at looking at the negative, gratitude disrupts that by noticing good. But as I deepened into my practice, I came up with this frame called fearless gratitude. So if gratitude makes visible what we value, fearless gratitude is about learning about all the things that we're making invisible all the things that we're taking for granted, and that's usually where our fear exists.
Speaker 1:We don't always want to center our fear. We want to sort of ignore it.
Speaker 1:We put blinders on sometimes. Sometimes it's just so we can get through the day, sometimes it's because the pain is too much. But it's also important to remember that our hearts have to be open. We talk oftentimes very much like from the head right, and Lynn and I very much have come out of that tradition as Asian Americans and parents that believed in a lot of a certain type of success, and we certainly were on those paths. But the neuroscience, interestingly enough, is that when we want to change something, it actually doesn't change with our thoughts. Our thoughts actually are being driven by our feelings and emotions and our feelings and emotions are actually really being driven by our body, right. So if we're tired or stressed out or hungry like hangry, right, it's a thing.
Speaker 1:I was at Lowe's this morning buying soil and there was a sign that says plants get hangry too, which I thought was awesome. But one of the biggest things that shapes our bodies is actually our environment. There's a reason why there's a healthcare foundation here in LA that says your zip code is a greater determinant of your health outcomes than your own genetic code. So it's our environment that often than your own genetic code right. So it's our environment that often shapes our own physical health, which shapes our emotional health, which shapes our mental health, but then shapes how we get to show up in the world.
Speaker 1:And the cool thing about gratitude as a social emotion is, when I say thank you, jim, he's going to feel something very different and that shapes the environment that we're in. If we begin with giving of thanks and we begin with sort of sharing our environment, recognizing that we're part of something else, then all of a sudden it is a little bit easier for our bodies to settle down, that our somatic kind of body is allowed to sort of relax and breathe, which allows our emotions to be present. And when we can be present to then all of a sudden not just the good things, but then present for those difficult things and not get sort of knocked off by them. Then we can actually have the mental sort of latitude to be like how do I want to show up in this moment?
Speaker 1:right, there's this line in the poem, blame is caught in duality. If this, then that, ignoring the larger causality. If we're stuck in if this, then that we're stuck in the world of just reacting right, and there's a lot to react to, and we started this series kind of recognizing how do we tell a different story and not just go from crisis to crisis, pain to pain, and disrupt those cycles. So we only have three intentions in this space. One is that your inner teacher is your best guide. So therefore, number two, there's no need to fix or save anyone else in this room.
Speaker 1:Linda and I are not gurus. We love the saying that the next guru will be a sangha, and a sangha is a community and the last silence is a participant and the last that silence is a participant. We really like to think of these as a way to talk to the plant world, to nature, and so if there's a question that maybe you've been sort of contemplating, struggling with, or maybe there's an intention that you want to sort of grow, a seed that you want to plant and grow, I sort of invite you to just take a moment to think about what that question might be that you have in your life right now. Feel free to share, and I don't know if Francis, belinda or Jim would like to go. First and just I invite you to share what that question or intention might be and then to pull a card.
Speaker 2:So my intention is, what I would like to see is how do we continue this work in this format or a different format, or continue the conversation? And I got Redwood, which is strength. Imagine yourself grounded like a great strong tree. How does it feel yourself grounded like a great strong tree? How does it feel? Going back to my wanting to solve democracy in that first episode? Um, and, and coming out of that episode like not, I wouldn't say disappointed, but like you know, I, you know I kind of want to get to the end, um, but understanding that even a redwood, you know, started out as something very, very small at one time, and so patience, I think, is something I need with this process, and that it's not going to be a redwood this year or next year or maybe the following year, but it will hopefully continue to grow. And how do we nurture that and having the strength to continue on, even though it may not be growing fast enough or growing at the rate that I want?
Speaker 2:it to grow but having the strength to just keep doing the work so that it can grow.
Speaker 1:Beautiful. Thank you, did anything come up for you, francis.
Speaker 7:Yeah, just to kind of piggyback with what Jim said. He said strength. I actually looked at vulnerability.
Speaker 5:A rose, I actually hate roses it's not that.
Speaker 7:I'm just sort of like I looked at it, somehow again my allergies are gonna come, but a lot of that it was, you know, just really thinking about gratitude and I just want to say I've been grateful for Jim, especially the last three days here and sort of hosting us with the film festival, but also his guidance throughout my tenure at Visual Communications. So a lot of gratitude has been emanating. A lot of that is when that comes up for me because more vulnerable, right, you know one of the things that you think you were mentioning practice is sort of breaking habits and I think a lot of our habits come from our you were mentioning practice is sort of breaking habits and I think a lot of our habits come from our parents, from our previous generation, of all these different things.
Speaker 7:And you know, one of our taglines for this film festival is even generational trauma feels good here and you know, how do we actually, especially here at the museum, how do we face this back and uncover some of these things right? How do we uncover not just lost histories because we're marginalized in this series of democracy but even our lost histories and memories, because we don't want to deal with that trauma? And so when I think about gratitude, I'm actually more, I do try to. I try not to think about, you know, sort of a world of absolutism or kind of binary. But when I think about gratitude, you know, I'm not sure if I grew up with gratitude. I think I grew up being told not to be ungrateful, right, and so that's sort of that negative side that puts it there.
Speaker 7:And then I am looking at kind of gratitude, to be vulnerable about it. I think it's just because you don't want to give it so much in abundance of it, because there might be days and times that it's hard for you to give that right. But you know, I think thinking about that and that's why I sort of looked at the rows of being vulnerable is to just really it's okay that we don't have that full power of gratitude sometimes. And how do we resource ourselves to think about all these different things of being so. You know, I just touch on the rose and I don't want to get emotional here. But, like you said, you feel that softness of it, you feel the veins of it. It reminds me of my grandma when I last touched her head in her casket right.
Speaker 7:And so it's sort of that feeling of something alive but sort of have to be part of the earth again, right, be part of the earth again, right? So, and one of the things in the practice and being vulnerable and a lot of, I think, generational trauma for me has been, you know, it's hard for me to live in the present. They always say carpe diem right. So live in the present or live in the moment.
Speaker 7:I think a lot of that, just that generational trauma of things can be taken away, or so you're always looking back what was good, but also looking back what can be bad again, or looking forward ahead, is not to live into the moment but to surrender to the moment and just let it. Whatever that be will be Right, and I think a lot of that again with Jim sharing his story with we care, right, what does it mean to kind of really for us face the moment and surrender to it and be vulnerable to it, right and and? But also thinking about that you know you do have, we're very optimistic people. I, I'm very faithful because I have a lot of doubts, right, I'm very this because I have that and and um, just really, um, the other thing I was looking at, balance too, is like I'm a libra, so it's supposed to be a balance scale. But the way it balanced out because this is a very, very like wide pendulum, you know, at the end sort of becomes equal, but it's just very chaotic in a way. But I just want to say I think I'm very grateful, especially for this day, because you know there's a lot of things happening in this neighborhood.
Speaker 7:We had a protest, we had Children here in the morning. Part of the radical monarch neighborhood. We had a protest. We had children here in the morning. Part of the Radical Monarchs. We have Delicious Little Tokyo. We have our film festival as part of the neighborhood. I'm just grateful for our community members making space for each other and giving space, so thank you.
Speaker 9:I got courage and and this one felt particularly timely as it is 2024 and it's election year I found myself recently in many conversations with colleagues and people who are in other institutions, such as museums and cultural institutions, planning on, making plans on how we can engage community members in the most effective way to have discussions about civics, voting, our rights, um, the climate in our society, um, so many different and difficult conversations, um, and I think one of the biggest things I appreciate with those groups is that whenever we meet, um, every now and then we'll do like check-ins and sometimes they'll say our hosts will say, hey, how are you feeling today?
Speaker 9:And the room is surprisingly honest. There's not a lot of cheerfulness when it comes to looking forward towards the rest of the year as it, with the complications of another election year that is coming. I'm in a space where I'm of like minds and I have people who are in this corner who are trying to do work to help nurture and guide our democracy into better light. And so not to say that there is no hope, but sometimes it feels hopeless at moments and it's discouraging at moments and it's discouraging, but when I'm in conversation with these groups, it it feels very empowering and it gives me courage to stand up and also put in the work, because it's hard, it's. It's not something that is an easy, easy job, but it's something that needs to be done in order for our future generations, for future saplings and roses alike, to have what it needs to grow.
Speaker 11:Ryan Fukuda. I use pronouns like he, him and I actually work with VC and flew down from Portland to work on the festival. Here. I pulled vulnerability I've been pretty pessimistic lately and what you were talking about.
Speaker 11:It really resonates, and I'm not a very pessimistic person usually, but I think what it actually I think is getting to is this idea of exactly that and vulnerability.
Speaker 11:I think I'm like I haven't been very vulnerable in my life, um and but I want to help people, I want to do good and um, you know, support community, and um, and so I think there's something about that energy of pessimism that's actually getting to the point of like, oh, I actually want to do something. I have emotion about this, I'm angry, I'm yeah, just all the emotions that I think are considered negative, I think, and I've been feeling them lately, and what I really think it boils down to is just, I want to share more, I want to share with myself more, I want to support community and yeah, and so I think it's timely that this card was pulled, and I love this what's on your all shall be well, which is I do worry a lot too, and so it's just nice to see that on the card because it's like okay, yeah, I forget I forget everything's going to be okay, Even though everything out there looks like it's not going to be okay.
Speaker 11:but I know it will be because of all of us.
Speaker 3:Hello, my name is Vega, my pronouns are she, her, and I too drew vulnerability as my card. The rose name is Vega, my pronouns are she, her, and I too drew vulnerability as my card the rose which is beautiful, because we do have roses here today and my reflection was I was thinking a lot about resources and I've been working on this idea for myself and my communities, of this vision of what if we were just well-resourced to do what we're here to do, because we're so conditioned to doing such beautiful work and efforts and organizing on so very little and we've gotten really good at that, and my particular focus is focusing on BIPOC and marginalized healers, creative leaders, because the last session we had was holding space for space holders. Right, like I identify as that, I have a community of that and especially here in Southern California, we're all just scrambling around to do our best and then to show up to hold space and give of our energy, be it healing, be it community building. And so my vision is what if we were just coming from a really well-resourced, well-taken care of place, and what kind of power we could hold then? And so the vulnerability card. What it made me think about is when you have these visions of projects, ideas.
Speaker 3:It takes a lot of vulnerability to put it out there and talk to people about it. Can you know like can I hold this vision that my community is well resourced in every area, and just hold that vision, believe it to be true, believe we deserve it and believe that we can make that. So To hold that and just in the face of everything, right, like I'm a Pisces and an Aquarius, you know blend. And so I think our fears of being dreamers and visionaries is that people will say you are delusional, like that's not possible, right, but we have to hold on to that. No. Delusional Like that's not possible, right, but we have to hold on to that. No.
Speaker 5:I believe there is a reality where our communities can be well-resourced and deserve to be. Hi, I'm Dara, my pronouns are she, her. So I pulled the lilac wild card which is create your own theme word of gratitude. And I'm not. I have to be honest, I was a little resentful when I pulled it because I was like I'm looking for answers here and now. Now I have to figure out something on my own. But I appreciate that because it was like kind of what words or themes of gratitude? And I, I guess and it's not a I don't know how, to's not a very well-worded question, but the thing that I've been thinking about. I do a lot of work around grief and kind of holding space for collective pain and healing, and while I find the work rejuvenating in some ways, I don't necessarily build in regular practice for myself. And so this idea of balance in some way, or just kind of like honoring all parts of me and building that into a practice of some sort, and so I don't know, maybe the word is practice or honor something.
Speaker 12:Hi, I'm janna. I use she, they pronouns um. When I walked into here, this was not the event format I was expecting. So my intention I was really trying to tap into like what is the opposite of I'm so tired, I don't know how I can source this sustainably and I landed on let's just be curious, let's just because, if we keep an open mind and approach it with questions and wonder, I feel like it doesn't. It doesn't kind of ignores the fact that there's something heavy holding you down. And then I pulled the card courage, which is a great reminder that holding you down. And then I pulled the card courage, which is a great reminder that curiosity takes courage. And that is something I want to keep reminding myself because I'm doing a lot of work reparenting the inner child and that kind of positivity was not something I received or modeled. So saying something as obvious as your curiosity is courageous is a good start, I feel like, for me.
Speaker 13:Hello folks, my name is Chansey I go by she they pronouns and when we started doing this, I was handpicking like four different cards and I did not like any of them, which I know is not the point and then I held all of them together in one hand and one fell out, and it is the dandelion card, which says tenacity. Can you appreciate the time and effort required to nurture the things you truly love? And, coincidentally, I had some dandelion root tea last night. When I first saw this card, the first thing I thought about was how there are so many moving parts to being human, many moving parts to being human, and it's so hard to kind of juggle everything or even focus on more than one thing at a time.
Speaker 13:And when I think of dandelions, I think of roots, and a constant reminder I always have to think about is focusing on my roots, like a bonsai tree, if you will. Even though they're really tiny, their root system is really huge and connected. And nurturing the things you truly love is basically focusing on your roots and really understanding who you are, what you want, how your life is supposed to be fulfilling and satisfying, because you could do both. And there's this one dream that I always think about. My grandpa passed last year and he comes to me in dreams as Master Oogway from Kung Fu Panda. He's a very wise being. I was raised Buddhist, so but I had this dream where he was that turtle and he was sitting on a bonsai tree and basically telling me to just focus on my roots and if you do that, then really nothing can tear you down. And you just got to really focus on that chakra and move on with life, even though everything's messy, and you can't focus on one thing at a time.
Speaker 6:Thanks, hello, my name's Brandon. He him, he them, he me Pronouns. So the card I picked was humility, which I find really ironic because I am the most humble person any of you will ever meet. Um, but my thoughts on it are you so? So this is so. We're talking about democracy here and, like I can't think about democracy without thinking about, like you know, is it on its way out and is there anything that any of us can really do? And I think where humility works here is taking the time to know that you don't know all that there is to know and leave yourself, leaving yourself open to learn from from everybody around you and see where, see where, see where things are going within your community.
Speaker 4:Steven, he, him. I pulled the wild card, lilac as well and there's only one word that really comes to mind that's kind of been reverberating for me right now, which is surrender. And surrender to me is it's something that is not. It's not easy to do, but if I'm practicing real and honest surrendering in my life, there's always an element of trust that I'm going to be okay, that I'm going to be taken care of. That's what surrender means to me. So that's the word I've been using.
Speaker 4:I'm back in LA after a three-year detour Not a detour, it was very meaningful and significant the last three years of my life. But I find myself back in LA, going. Never thought I would be here again and I never thought I would say that I'm happy to be back. So my relationship with LA has been sort of a love-hate thing, but I am glad to be back and I'm in surrendering.
Speaker 4:You know I take a and thinking about gratitude and the practice of gratitude, I take a trauma-informed approach just because I know that for those of us who have, you know, sustained fairly heavy traumas in their life, gratitude is something that does not come easily to us and there's a lot of, you know, biological reasons for that. So I also practice inner child reparenting techniques and identifying what it is that I didn't receive in childhood and giving it to my inner child now, and I've found that to make a huge difference in my life and has shifted my availability to be of service to other people. It's made a profound impact. So taking a trauma-informed approach and recognizing that, like gratitude, is something that has been historically extremely difficult for me to practice, um, I'm in a really good position to help others who also struggle with the practice of gratitude and um. It's becoming much, much easier for me and the fact that I'm happy to be here and not expecting to be back in Los Angeles after three years is, you know, proof positive that it's working in my life.
Speaker 10:Welcome back to LA. Hello, I'm John He-Him. I'm married to this lovely human. I came in here thinking about joy and where to find joy. There's a lot of. We're all struggling with our own struggles. The world is struggling like a mofo, and so finding joy that's yeah, that's what I'm here with, and I'm, and we were just in traffic on our way here and, and we were trying to get here, and you know, we have all of our stuff to do, and Leah made me laugh in the car, like a real laugh.
Speaker 10:Micro gratitudes, um. I was like that those are those little moments in all of this that I'm, you know, holding on to. I need to appreciate more. I pulled the card, uh, humility, um, I put it back because, and then I was like tenacity, yeah, that's a better card, uh, but the humility thing I'm Canadian, so I think that I'm humble to a fault, but in thinking about it I was like I don't think it's humility. I'm self-deprecating and sometimes insecure and maybe fearful, and I don't know that that's real humility, and so I'm going to sit with that and think about that. I'm very happy to be here.
Speaker 8:I'm Leah, she her pronouns. I pulled the card humility and actually so beautiful. The sentence underneath says humility is a quiet yet powerful gift. I love this so much and I think because the word quiet really jumped out, in addition, of course, to humility, and I was like, oh, I think I'm really craving quiet and so being in this space together actually feels like it's meeting that need really deeply, like being quiet and reflective together. And then my husband was really loud and I jumped five feet in the air. All to say, I'm just grateful to be here, thank you.
Speaker 14:I'm Elaine, she her pronouns. I also picked humility three in a row. I also didn't want to talk about it, so I chose to do trust. Yeah, I recently had a birthday and then it was a lot for me. I had a lot of self-doubt about where I was in life and basically before I feel like when I was younger, I really trusted all of my decisions. I was very confident, honestly. But lately, these last few years have been like kicking my butt and now I'm not too sure. Like yeah, on my birthday I was like, oh, like do we like where we are? And I felt like, oh, I don't really like it, but I'm just choosing to trust the process, I guess, and like going with my gut. And then for humility, for that one, I felt like that was just a sign to stop thinking about myself so much. That's what I took it as thank you everyone for sharing.
Speaker 1:I picked card number 23, the cosmos, representing the theme of balance, and when I picked this card it was really in the space of sacred listening to you and my name, omar means he who speaks, speaks.
Speaker 1:So sacred listening is a practice, um, and I just there are a lot of words that resonate deeply, but I just wanted to sort of reflect a few that came up for me, even beginning with jim and talking about the redwood, and he's like you know, maybe someday this, the sapling, will become a redwood. Well, saplingpling is Redwood and the Redwood is also the seed, and it just, you know, as I think about it, sometimes we only think of something when it is big, but it, a Redwood, is also a Redwood, even when it's a seed. And so, like this is democracy too, this is the sacred listening too, and and and I feel like three of the words that came up in this conversation to me reflect that Courage we had a guest on our podcast, radhika Vakaria, who's a mantra singer, and she said that you don't need to protect the heart, the heart is protecting you. You can't actually break a heart, you can only break expectations, and expectations are of the mind, and so just this powerful reminder that we can always lead with our hearts. We don't actually don't need to protect our hearts, our hearts are protecting us. And also, well, how does how does that happen?
Speaker 1:And I think the two other words that came up are roots and humility, and part of why redwood trees can grow as tall as they grow is because their roots are actually interconnected in a grove, they're interconnected in a community, and redwood trees actually have fairly shallow roots for being the tallest trees in the world, and it's their roots that enable them to withstand wind and rain and fire and all the sort of tumultuousness that can happen in life, particularly life that for them is over a thousand, two thousand years. Right, but what are roots sort of planted in? Roots are planted in humility. The root word for humility is humus, which is soil, and so I just I think of these practices as like how do we? What soil are we rooting in? Do we? What soil are we rooting in? What spaces are we creating to help us reparent, heal, reconnect, so that we have that sort of courage to face the mysteries?
Speaker 15:I'm just so grateful to all of you for your stories. We never know what's going to happen in these circles, because we are co-creating them to get the stories together, and my wish for all of us is just that we are leaving with the sense of like oh my God, I am not alone in the heaviness, the fear of the unknown, the transition, the change, the chaos. I just hope that we can all feel a little bit less alone in this journey because we are here on this earth together. And then now I can do the big reveal. So we saved the fearless gratitude garden for the last of the series, because it is actually the one that has the most edgy themes.
Speaker 1:So we're just going to close with three breaths and I just invite you to get in a position that's comfortable for you and close your eyes or just gently rest them. And for this first breath, just invite you to breathe in a moment that may have happened in the last hour or this today a micro-gratitude. Just breathe in that micro-gratitude. And for this second breath, I just invite you to name what might be a challenging emotion or feeling and just give yourself permission to notice and name that challenging emotion or feeling.
Speaker 1:And for this last breath what do you want to take with you from this circle for the rest of this week? Thank you so much for joining us.
