Rage Against The Machine

is present, Yes, double all the meanings to that. I'm Initially I was talking about stress, friends, but I am I have I've definitely had some moments, and here is one of them. Years ago, I guess it was like nineteen ninety six. Oh that's how long it was. But I still feel it in my body. Oh yep, I still feel it. Apartheid had ended and they were doing

the whole Truth and Reconciliation Commission, remember that. And I remember sitting there and I was listening to these stories and it was like, you know, I'm I'm very sorry that I put your daughter in a tire and I poured gasoline on it and I set it on fire and I rolled it down the street till it hit your house. I'm sorry, I was wrong. And I got about maybe about thirty five minutes into this and I

felt something. I still feel it. I feel this immense amount of there's no there's no other it's only rage. It's it's just rage because later here I am. I was in South Africa, and there were times when you know, I wasn't necessarily served immediately although I was there first. You know, there were times when, you know, going through the neighborhoods, I'm looking at this community of huts um. That's the that's the only thing I could think to

call it right now, no disrespect police. And I'm hanging out in Um. I think they call them shanties. Shanties, thank you. And I'm hanging out and I'm in a bar barbecue spot, and I have to go to the bathroom and there's, you know, a hole in the ground, and I gotta, you know, go to the bathroom in

this hole. And I just and then you continue on in South Africa and it's like it's so much wealth and I know that this this, this whole country was stolen um and it just enraged me that these people, these these murdering people were forgiven, forgiven, and they were allowed to keep their land, They were allowed to keep all all the benefits of being there. They were not put in prison for murdering children and women and people. People, just people murdering people. And I'm telling you that my

blood pressure went so high. I've never had a problem with blood pressure, despite what some people might think. But I've never had problem with blood pressure. But when I'm telling you that my blood pressure went so high that I could hear a sound because I thought, finally, finally, somebody is going to pay for the atrocities done to brown people. Oh so well, bless your optimism, my love. Just I hoped. I hoped, and I hoped, and it

made me sick. Oh, today we're talking about rage, and we have the privilege and the pleasure Layah or age. If you would be so kind to please introduce this beautiful woman, this this bright spirit that we have the privilege of looking at. You guys don't but but you must look looking fine, look and see if you would please introduce her. M I gotta get myself together. Yeah, y'all, y'all will definitely need to Google at this point of the podcast to get into her to get into her light.

But y'all know that I'm not as gifted with the intros as Joe Joe Growl because I have so many thoughts on your on that I have so many thoughts another a circle back. But so forgive me if I read, because I just want to make sure that we say the proper things about our current about our guests today. Our guest today is Ruth King. So how she explains it is that rage sits at the crossroads of personal transformation. Those of us seeking more self aware will inevitably stumble

upon personal rage on the path. And rage is not to be understood as a useless emotion. It's empty of story or knowledge, but it's clarity and untapped fuel. Embraced with compassion, the energy trapped in rage becomes an intimate and empathic teacher, offering balance, integrity, and inner peace to your healing journey, relationships and service. And so Ruth King is the founder of Mindful of Race Institute, LLC. And

it's a celebrated author, educator, and meditation teacher. She is an elder, a heart activist, African American with Chocta our roots, great grandmother and Native Californian She currently resides on Now, did I read this word right? Unseated Territory of the Hataba Indigenous Nations in Charlotte, North Carolina, with her wife, doctor Barbara Riley. There's so many more things we could tell you about Ruth King, but you know, I had to read that word for word because y'all needed to understand,

like what power she enters this conversation with. So, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to j dot Il Ruth Kang. Baby girls who needed such a Buddhism on this. You're beautiful, All of you are beautiful, and you know, I just it's a lot to be said, right, I mean, I so connect in the seventy five year old body with the generational rage inheritance right of what our people have lived, what we still carry in our bodies. So I so,

you know, and it's not like it's that far away. Uh, It's it's not like it's this thing that happened way that them. So we see if we look, we see the shape, the skeletal shape of white supremacy that impinges on every aspect of our lives. And of course, I mean one of the reasons rage is such an important focus is it's it's so appropriate for us to have the emotion of rage, and it's equally important to befriended. Right. So yeah, right, So it's like, okay, so this did happen,

This shit happened. And the truth of the matter is anything can happen to us at any time. We're vulnerable in that way. Some of us, these black bodies, are more vulnerable than most. So we're vulnerable in this flesh, in this body, we're vulnerable. We're sensing if we're nature right, we feel life where artists, we're creators, we give birth, you know, I mean, we're all of that. So it's no way to not be touched by our history and

not to inherit. What's I'm finished And one of the things I talk about in my work after giving offering a Celebration of Rage retreat for fifteen years across the nation, a place where women could come and be in the raw expression of rage, without consequence, without judgment, without projection, in ceremony, in vibration, in emotional release, not just for catharsis, but to rest then in the space that gets created from the release of what we've been holding. Right, So

the eye. That's one way of being thinking about befriending. How do I just climb back and reclaim this body that I've been shocked out of right in a way that I then can rebirth myself. But we don't get to do it out there. We have to reclaim the domain. So these rage retreats were places where we can be in ceremony. We can be in sacred states to tell our stories, not just to be heard, but to be but to release the toxic inflammation that represents in our bodies.

We need ceremony for that, We need other bodies for that, and we need to not be interrupted when that's happening. We need to break some shit, tear up some rooms. This retreat offered all of that, a place where you can really, you know, kind of release through these bodies a lot of that trauma. It already happened for the year. The retreat I know, I'm like were happened. The retreat happened for years. It was in the Bay areas, in the Bay Area. Bay already vibrates someplace. Yeah, b yeah,

Oh my gosh, I'm surprised. I read a whole boar. It was like a whole barnyard that had all kinds of music equipment hooked up and big basin uh space to dance, and we worked in blindfolds and we we we really you know, we had altars and we moved around like earth bound. More real talk after the break. I hate to even interrupt. Oh my God, Lord, forgive me. Okay, I want you to circle back to ceremony. Oh this word, so I know that, like the special being word right

now is intentionality. But ceremony, Like, let's talk about that, like why the need for ceremony? And I know you did kind of speak to that a little bit in your explanation. If you could expound on that, like what is the importance of creating that specific space and specific activities around release and rage? Oh that's good, that's really good. So so um ceremony is you could say that it's

sacred community. You know, when we could sit in our own room and read a book and get knowledge, but when we're in community, intentional community, where we all know why we're walking through this door. We all know why we're coming. Y'all share that in common. It may be dressed up differently, but we're all coming for that reason. And the reason for this rage work was to investigate, to release what's being held that's killing us, to release

it in a sacred place. And we need other bodies to witness that, to not to that, to affirm that, m to pray with us with that, to um, to get that it's older and bigger than us. To ceremony to me also brings them the elements of working with the earth, planting this shit in the ground, burning up some of the you know, using the fire element to burn up some of the stories we carry that are no longer true if they ever were, and look at it, just some of the internalized ways we believed or drank

the kolid right. So we need places where we get to aarate that we put it out, and then by hearing other people's story, it's like, damn, I didn't even know that happened to me, But that we wake up. We wake up in ceremony again. If we come in with intention, I'm coming in here. I'm interested in healing more than I am and being right. Okay, you have

to want something more than your story. You have to be willing to look at a bigger story and join a bigger ocean, like we're all rivers kind of making our way to the ocean. We're joining the ocean. Is this something that's alike to like shouting in church or you know, we talk about community, and you know different groups of folks they talk about community or uma or the fellowship, this kind of idea that this has to

happen under an umbrella of something bigger than ourselves. Well, you know, I was raised in the Pentecostal church, saying in the choir, there's a lot about what I remember about the church was that growing up was that the person who got happy and spoken times was not the same person that needed to know what that meant. Oftentimes the person that's spoken times, somebody else in the community knew what that meant. So there was this call and response.

You see that also in the yodel of a tradition when you go to the Bimbays and there's the dancing and drumming and the African risha's are making themselves revealed. Right, whoever is invoked in spirit is not necessarily be the one that is bringing a message, but providing a certainly energetic release that is recognized within community. So I guess you could say that when you come into an intentional space. Whether it's a church or a bimbay or a rage retreat,

you come in with intention. You're coming into holy ground, you're coming into being held and whatever gets released, it doesn't I mean, everybody's not releasing in the same way, but everybody comes with the intention of letting go, and a lot of people come with the intention of letting go. They may not let go in that space, but they'll let go at some other time, But it doesn't mean it's not being cooked, right, So I think, yeah, there's

not a program of it. It's like you come in the door and you open up to the sky and you're you have permission and space to release, have that be narrated so that you can then see something bigger than what you can just see it from what it is, and usually it's bigger than what's the story you're holding about it, And so you come with a certain curiosity to kind of open to that. Not with a heart I got to know, but I'm willing to surrender and see what this rage is here to try to teach me,

because there's wisdom in it. It's usually an energy that helped us survive, but it doesn't always help us heal. Right, so we have to survive but not necessarily heal. Woa now that baby, Jill, Jill, go ahead, you know you know how that is applicable. Come on, ma'am. It may help you survive, get through it, but not heal, but not heal. And you be running around surviving and believing

that you have coped, that you have made it. You send messaging around having made it when you are simply in survival mode, you have not healed, and you are teaching other people your raggedy ass survival techniques. And it goes from generation to generation and then something pops up and all of the stuff from the other thing that you've been holding onto explodes. The other thing about it is that it's rage is initiatory, but it's not transformative. So it's a kind of energy that lights us up,

sets us on fire. But it's a comma, not a period you got you know, it's not transformative energy. It's it's it's luminous. It's a lot of truth in it, but it's not the endgame. It's not enough to just be righteous in it. We have to listen deeply and it belongs to us. A lot of times we think it belongs to these folks out here, but it's really trying to whisper in our ear. Hey. You know, it's

a protector in a way. It's a protective energy. It alerts us to something, some boundary that's being violated, or some story that hasn't been cared for a well, or some ancestor that's trying to tell you to clean this shut up so we don't have to keep carrying it to the next generation. Right. I mean, it's a kin to how the body responds to everything. Right, So like the body does some wowshit to let you know something's not working, something hasn't connected exactly. It puts fluid around

a joint, bam, you know, just trying to protect. Yeah, I was watching them the other night. I watched it again just recently for many reasons. But there was a point where there was a brother in there and he was being antagonized by his mind. I suppose that's the best way I could call. He was being in agonized by his mind, a memory of a thing not being present, not being able to protect, and he at some point

this this expression of rage was just super powerful. He was he was saying he was the beast of the field, and it was it was grunting, and it was it was spit flying, and it was tears and all the things. I think maybe, I mean, that's one way to express I think is that a scary for people because it was scary watching. See, That's that's why we need some ceremony.

We need some sacred space for that kind of expression. Now, one of the things I think is so important for us, especially as women, to understand around rage is the way we've been conditioned to disguise it so sour. Our immediate association with rage is that image jil you just describe, you know, a person that's you know, on er what I call the defiance disguise of rage in my book.

But I'm talking about six ways we tempt to roll with rage, to be like that all the time, right, because it is scary to people, So we've learned ways to kind of package that. So it's not helpful always, but it's a cover on top of an emotion that a we're afraid of and be we know it could scared to shit out of other people, so we keep it on the wraps and it takes on other shapes. So there's these six ways that it shows up. One is a dominance. We try to control everything so that

we're never controlled. So that's one form of a cover up. I know y'all probably aren't going anything about that, but it happens to be my primary. If I can just control everything, I'm going to, you know, keep this on the wraps. Another one is the defiance type, which is the seething I'm out, I'm in your face, Um, I'm I'm not having it kind of outward expression, which is what we usually associate with with rage, but it's it's, uh,

you know, it's one way. And then we have distraction, where we're busy all the time consuming everything in our reach, trying to get get this, that and the other, filling ourselves up with all kinds of material things to try to feel what feels insatiable, right, this kind of craze and craving that we think can keep us just under

wraps with rage. And then we have devotiony disguise of rage as a person who's helping everybody at the expense of ourselfs um as a way of keeping everything nice and under wraps and let me just try to take care of you and never quite taking care of themselves. That's another way of kind of bypassing the fuck you kind of way that we really want to bring it, but we can't really feel like we can do it that way. Too much truth, too much truth, roal, slowdown,

slow down, okay boo. Yeah, that part doesn't make a lot of sense to me, because if you know, if you're if you're trying to help somebody, but you're not in a good way, like I guess that would have to be so, and it's not really self aware because I will go somewhere else, I will go somewhere and get quiet on you real quick. I need help. I need to I need to gather myself fuck because I cannot imagine trying to help when I'm not. Okay, there's

two more. There is the depression disguise, which is someone that shuts down to kind of like a teapot's seeping. You kind of keep the top on, keep the lid on. It's a heavy lid, but you walk around with this kind of weight that's suppressing not just rage, but a

lot of other emotions. And then there is the dependence disguise, a person who is never quite able to be of her own voice because her dependent her survival is dependent upon other people to take care of her, so she's compromised on what she says and how she rolls because of this kind of dynamic. I'm saying these quickly, but in the book totally centers around these six disguises, their shadows,

and their wisdom, because they all have wisdom. So many of our baby boomer moms were experience and would all of them. You might identify with one or two, and because they all have shadows, it'll look like you're identifying with all of them, but you're not. It's usually we roll with one or two as our lead, and then we attract our opposites. Like the dominance disguise is going to attract the dependence disguise because they kind of mirrort

what the others need. The distraction is going to at marry half kids and pets that are the depression disguise because the hyperactivity of a well of a distraction disguise moving all the time. Their biggest fear is a depression disguise has kind of collapsed and pulled in. But they end up attracting each other and then being at war with each other until they befriend each other, and then the wisdom's able to shine through. So there's kind of a typology in this that's a lot of fun to understand.

And when we kind of take it to the level of typology, it's not personal these disguises because we're all conditioned around it to as a defense making us. So you have a right to defend ourselves until we know better. You know, we have another way, y'all. Be kind to each other. This is all I'm gonna say. Be kind, be kind, be kind, be kind. Doctor King is trying to help y'all understand that we are all carrying this shit over around. We'll be kind. The name of doctor

Ruth King. I'm a doctor. Yes, No, I'm not a doctor. No, because she is a doctor's she is healing the people today. King. Okay, Yes, and there you are annoying to And if somebody somebody want to fight me, fight me, join you on a night. I bet I haven't see me in the street, see me in a streat at a place right there in the back alley. We could just go right there. I've been there many times. We're gonna take a quick break and then we'll be right back the name of doctor

Ruth King's book. The book is Healing Rage Women, Making Inner Peace Possible. Inner Peace man o, Inner Peace Woman. That thing it just sounds good. It's got a good vibration on an inner piece, like an easy thing. But it does sound good. It does. It feels good. It sounds good, and nobody said it was easy. Yeah, it just sounds like hard. It seems like a lot of self reflection and a lot of opening opening the zipper and letting your whole self come on out and dealing

with things bit by bit. My talk good about the same thing is it's just like when you when you go, um, it's there. It's like a it's this like a prayer. I mean, it's all the things. Huh you said, it's dancing, it's like a prayer circle. Or women also or telling their stories oh yeah, oh yeah. And then we're also interrupting some of the habitual ways, you know, all of the all of the automatic assumptions and automatic things that

come out of our mouth. Like I remember growing up when um my mother used to say, you better shut your mouth, you know, get in that corner and shut your mouth right. And now I find myself telling my grand and great crimp and kids. You better get in that corner and take a breath, you know, you know, you don't have to shut your mouth, but you can't take a deep breath and talk at the same time. So it's kind of the same thing, but it's given more permission to just Hey, come on back home, coming

back here. Right, that's a beautiful evolution that a lot of your peers have not evolved to. So how on the daily just how do you deal with that? Having all this knowledge, knowing about rage? And it's interesting even what Asia said, you know, be kind to each other. I feel like the folks who are conscious of all these things that you're telling us, yes, we will be

kind to each other. But there's a whole population out there people who are not conscious of all the rage and the meanings, and black people and black women in rage and on the daily when you go outside, Yeah, what are some easy I don't even want to say easy. How do you code? Yeah? Yeah, it takes a minute, right, I mean, I don't think this is like a quick six. You have to want it bad. You have to want peace bad, right, Like, so what gets you to that?

You know, like, um, it's hard to talk to people that are in a perpetual states of crises to sit down and take a breath. But you almost need to be in that habit where you discover that stillness and silence is one of the best medicines you can give yourself. And in fact, you're the only one that can give

that to yourself. And and it almost feels like an impossible consideration when life is so fast paced and so challenging because of being like you don't deserve it, because I yes, So you have to want it bad, right, you have to you have to want it. So I when I was twenty seven, I had open heart surgery. It was a micro valve prolapse. I you know, I had a baby when I was fifteen. I was a single mom, and I we kind of grew up together, and I just made tons of mistakes in that journey.

And as you continue to grow, if you're looking at your children and you care, you know, you have a minute to kind of step out of the craziness and see your impact, then that's a beautiful thing. I mean, that gives you often a reason to want to maybe kind of try some things on differently. But the heart surgery, what I realized in the recovery of it, where I couldn't be in that fast paced, dominant disguise and distraction disguise, or feeling myself up with so much activity that I

didn't feel my life because I was in recovery. And I hear a lot of people talking about this today who are going through recovery with COVID where they've been forced to stop. Right. When you're forced to stop, you kind of left with yourself and if you're listening, if you have and oftentimes we're invoked into listening and kind of surrendering into our physicalities more, we start to feel the life we've been living if not running from right. And when we start to do that, we start to

feel the achiness and soreness. Is why most people just prefer to keep running from it of the life we've been living, because it really requires we want to heal that we make some different choices. And the first choice I think we need to make is to pause, is to pause, and to turn our intention inward and drop it down, and to take a few breaths just to

give ourselves a break and to question right. I mean, I think we have a lot of questions that we need to ask ourselves, like, is what I'm doing right now, is how I'm thinking right now contributing to more distress or a release from distress? You know, given my thoughts right now and what I'm heated up about, what am I giving birth to? Because we're always giving birth to

something through our actions, through our attitudes. You know, is there a way in this moment that I can comfort myself, something I can do for myself that's not dependent upon it coming from the outside. Can I hunt myself? Can I swanfend the insides of my hands? Can I feel my feet touching the earth? Can I travel with the exhale of my breath just so I can rest just a little right here and now? Little things like that.

I think we're invited to gentle ourselves and to wholeness and to our own sense of health, but we have to want it right. I don't know about everybody that's listening to Jay Dadela podcast right now. I don't. I don't know you know where you are. I don't I don't know what you're thinking. And this might sound like, oh, that's that whole tep shit. You know, you know, do

you have me tep tep okay um. What I'm gathering about all of what you've said, doctor Kang, is that that is that peace costs costs, you have to pay for it. That doesn't mean, you know, financially, it means that you have to give up something to get something. Is that right? Or am I reaching invest in? Invest in that? You say, say more about white you think you might be giving up something or you have to

give up something? Say more, well, I say that our ugliness is one of our favorite habits, because if it wasn't, why would we be so ugly on a regular basis? You know, I mean as humanity. I'm just speaking out about all of us. And that means that you have to give up the thing that you may enjoy the most. Maybe maybe the the pain or frustration or rage, if you will, shows up in alcoholism. Maybe it shows up in um, you know, from oscurity, if you will. I

don't like that word. I don't like that word, but you know, maybe it shows up in the mates that you choose, what you what you do with your time, you might really enjoy, you know, getting getting lit on a regular basis. What you got to give that up? Gail? Or you have to address it differently. Yeah, I'm glad I asked you more of what you meant, because I do think in that sense you have. The way I would say it is, you have to want something more

than your habit, whatever that habit might be. You have to Yeah, yeah, so I guess you could say you have to give something up, but a lot of people don't respond well to I got to give something up. But if I could take it to the level of you have to want something more, you have to want something more than what you got in order, you know, then maybe you'll consider that in order to have that, something has to shift. So I have aunt who and she and I will talk for hours about kinds of

different things. And a while ago and this kind of stayed with me for a very long time when she told me about, um, you know, I would talk about my interactions with people, maybe my mate, maybe friends, maybe my children, whomever. And she was like, you know, you're kind of responsible for the place where you are an agent, Like you know, if you ever enlighten yourself to a certain level, you have to respond according to what you know. So if you know a thing and you know, maybe

the person you're upset with doesn't know that thing. You can then revert to respond to them the way that you know where they are at. You have to respond according to what you know. So if you know how to handle it in a certain kind of way, your response is a space you have, You're you're responsible to respond in that way. Now, I want to put a pin in that, because my real question is my real question. You're not talking to your aunt right now, right, I know, right.

My real question is that, Okay, so you do that for so many years you feel like, Okay, I can access a certain calm, I can access a certain kind of knowledge when I go out into the world. But there's a I've had times where I've like envied people who can just be mad, who can just can have a grown up ass tantrum. Excuse my language. I'm sorry, I really because I have a potty mouth who already said some things, you know, she says. I know I'd accustoded love. First of all, I love a potty mouth

black woman. I just understand that is the thing in my heart that But my thing is that, you know, sometimes I just want to be able to have that release, like it's like, and then there are times when I know part of my language. I'm old that and I and I'm so used to subduing it out of responsibility, out of a certain emotional responsibility, that I can't even access the rage that I want to to have, have that release. And sometimes that can be a really difficult

thing for me. And and a lot of times it comes out as, oh girl, you got more patience than me. Oh girl, are you so nice? I wish I was like you, And I literally on an inside, am like losing my ship. I've been called a pussy because of that. Maybe I prove her kindness. I choose it. I do the best I can wherever I can, because years ago my mother married a man and the man wasn't a nice man, and he was he was physically abusive, and

I acted out as a little person. So up until about maybe twelve, I caused harm like I didn't fight. I mean and I one day I realized if I didn't catch this, I was going to go to jail. And that made me decide that I was going to do the best I can to do anything I can not to physically harm anybody. Because it was pretty bad. I will say so. I I do believe in going outside and put my feet in the grass and scream aloud,

I do have my mountain. Y'all opposites in this moment, and I go ahead, and my shooting gun m in this moment. As as Asia just said what she said, you say, well, you say what you say, you go ahead. Now, I just I was just I was listening to the bother room and I was listening to how Asia is basically saying that she suppresses and then come out to others as her being soft. And I was listening to Jill say that she must suppress or else she will fucking kill somebody. H So that that's what I heard.

But Ruth, what is your interpret take? Well, you know, yes, and yes, here's a thing. I mean, range is a legitimate emotion, the energy of it, the stories that run in our minds, that it stimulates and circulates around the truth of it, you know. Um, And then we're left with them what do we do next? What do we do next? And I think what we do next becomes a kind of dance. It's a cop of cosmic dance because we are relational in all of our outputting and thoughts.

So it's what we do next. So if you have. You're saying one thing and feeling another. This boiling that can happen inside. It's it's for you to attend to. You know, maybe maybe the response is right jel if you're like choosing to be nice, but it still feels like it's cooking on the inside. Right there's so they're still rage happening. I think nice and kind are two different things. Okay, so being kind and nice, how are you seeing a different I just want to be clear.

Nice is like polite. Um, you don't actually have to feel that way. You could just be like, hello, good morning, how are you today. You don't mean it, you're not really asking you, but you're being nice, And then kind um is a lot more genuine. I gotta deep, dig down in now and fine of fine where sometimes it's deep, sometimes it's right at the surface. But I look for it, like what is the thing that's going to keep me out of jail? Out of jail? Okay? So the prisons girl,

when they take them away, what were doing? How what's the motivation gonna be? I don't know. I'll find another one because I don't like that. I don't I don't particularly like that girl. I don't particularly care for her because the way she responded and I'm saying it like, it's not not me, but okay, the way I responded as a child was not to me, Qui I wasn't gonna live very long, and you know, yeah, yeah it was.

It was. It was all kinds of stuff violent that I it's it's so you're choosing kindness, and the motivation behind it is to keep your ass out of jail. So I'm listening to that piece. Yeah, the motivation around my kindness these days is because I feel better. It does feel good when I make that choice. That's a different aspiration, that's a different energy behind it. It's because I'm not imprisoned with how I'm holding and being with what's happening right now. It's still screwed out, mind you.

I still think you're you know, you're not somebody I want to be sitting on the front rule of my life. But I still have a few things I'm going to get around to saying to you. But right now I'm choosing to stop prisoning myself with how I'm holding this energy. So in those situations, I might just be sitting there breathing for a minute and reminding myself of my intention.

So if the intention is I ain't going to jail, if I say that, I won't go to jail, or there could be that spin on it where you know, there's a certain kind of distant politeness that's happening because that person has the permission to go off. But I know I can't do that, or its probably best that I don't, Right, So I think in those moments, and maybe not at that time, but at a deeper time or a time when you can get yourself still and ask a deeper question, like, you know, how do I

want to be moving in the world period? And what does you know? What does kind? Kind is? I remember being dead right, Okay, I was righteous. I was so righteous about how I felt. Whether I said it or not, people could read me like a book because I was saying so much in my silence. You know, you know how we can be with that look? Right? Yes? Yeah, so I was rolling like that, but I had open heart surgery. Okay, I'm telling you these kind of cooked

ways that we're holding it. If the intention is not clean and bless, it is killing us is more worried about how that kay and the rage that that's not being like transmuted expressed. That's what I'm worried about too. When Asia was talking about keeping that in, I kept thinking to myself too, like there are so many people out here that don't feel like they have the permission to go off. So it's a continued suppression, like you

can do that. I can't. That's not something that I'm allowed to do because or else if I do it, Oh, I'm crazy. I'm this. It's gonna be a whole bunch of other repercussions. But you're allowed to So I'm just gonnam. And we're also using that language about death, having others doing this this harm to you that would that your body will respond to, and we're just talking about it before you came on about saying to people you're not

gonna kill me. But what I'm getting from what you're saying is that it's like, well, yeah, I gotta be having that conversation with myself too. I will not I will not do the harm to myself. So I mean when you just feel like yelling, right, AGA, that means yell when you feel like, don't always suppress that, then that's what that means, right, I ain't gonna lie to you.

I'm gonna be transparent right now. I'm really I'm really going through a period of my life where my filter is leaving me and I see it come out in certain kinds of ways. And I have been really like I've been expressing to my children about it, like talking to them about it so that they don't take it personally, but it comes out. It's like I just tell them

all the time, like okay, listen. I know that maybe you're not used to hearing me talk like that or this, that and the other, but it's like, right now, my ability to hold it it's not the same. And though you may have not known me, you don't. You didn't know me my whole life. You know me your whole life, and then only half of that time have you been

aware enough to know me as a person. So like this right now, you got to understand Mom is a human and I'm going through a change in the way that I relate to the world outside of my self. And it literally just happened earlier today, Like I talk, I just talk, and my older kids are like bloom. I think what could be important when I think back of growing up and the lack of filters that I

felt was in my family system. What could make a difference is balancing that when you come out of periods like that, that you flood that system with love and when you talk about what you learned from you know, one of the things you know, Like I talked to my grandkids now about what I'm learning about myself when I find myself in periods like that, because they're going through really challenging times in their lives. And so I find myself telling stories about when I was in times

like that. This is what I learned, this is what I figured out when I was in that space, This is what I'm discovering about myself. And and I think that, along with the freedom to just say whatever you're saying, helps the kids understand the fullness, not just the explosion. Right, I amn't always like an explosion. Sometimes it's just an honesty. It's just a or the way that I choose my language where and yeah, very frank, Yeah, balance. So I'm

getting balance. But I'm also curious. And I know we talked about this from a very kind of personal woman to woman space, but so much of your work is helping us to understand this, as in relationship to being black, And I really want to talk about that because the way that we read our behaviors and so, like I'll go back to what you talked about earlier about these six different ways, right, we read these behaviors of black people as a whole and all of these kind of

trauma responses or these six different ways. I can even look into us as a community and see those ways, And I'm trying to help in my mind, I'm trying to make a connection here around that, around the kind of empathy that we can look at each other with in our own kind of responses to rage, so that we're not participating in a harmful conversation about how those things are viewed, you know what I'm saying. So anyway,

I would love love to kind of talk about that. Yeah, it's not an immediate solution to the way we roll with our projections on each other because we're conditioned to We're already dealing with internalized depression around issues often around esteem or you know how much space we feel like we can occupy different levels of people feeling they have permission to come out without apology and other people, you know, I mean, so this is complex to say to the least.

But I think when we understand, we get a system in our own heads around how we're seeing and perceiving things. We're able to talk to other people about that. Right, So I like having systems of meaning in my heart and mind so that I can make sense and kind of I don't want to say analyze, but I can kind of interpret what's happening in a loving way. A bit part of what you're saying has to do with is there a way for me to be with those I love, those in my community, people in our tribe

and remove the judgment from it? Can I exchange judgment for compassion? Yes? Can I see myself and everybody I look at? Can I stand a little bit of myself there? Because you know we can? Yes, And that begins to develop and right in a certain kind of empathy and intimacy with the craziness we might see, or this struggle that we might see over here, or this addiction we

might see there. I mean, we've all been addicted to something. Right, if we could train the heart mind to be in relationship to our perceptions in that way, right to where we put in the forefront, as you're saying, Jill kindness. I'm choosing kindness, you know, I'm choosing to to to see through the lens of kindness. Even the ugliness. I can still filter it through this kind of light, this this this way of holding people even I mean, I'd

see a lot of craziness in my own family. Don't even get me started on it's just a lot, uh, you know. But I want to what I try to do. I have a sister who passed away a few years ago of pancreatic cancer. It came and it hit her quick, and she left quick. But she really was difficult and hadn't talked spoken to me in many years. And I did a lot of trying to connect with her. I knew she was ill. I wanted to be there. I wanted to kind of be with her. She wouldn't have it.

She wouldn't answer the phone, and she died. You know, she wasn't trying to see me. You know, she died without I felt a bit unfinished with her personally, but I didn't feel unfinished in my own heart because I understood she just could not get over the rage of how she dealt not just with me, but with a lot of people. But what happened. And this is a promise I have for us always is that when I went to the gathering for her in our family, it

was her kids that centered around me. Right, it was them that I had a chance to hold in my arms and comfort and tell them how precious they were because they hadn't heard that from their mom. Right, it was them that I had a chance to love up without a lot of words, but just to be there for them, and through my own example, right through my own example, was able to show them an alternative, somebody

that could roll a bit more with their heart. So I think we need these examples, you know, these kind of pillars, and they're there in our communities. We need to put them on the big lights and tell their stories more often when we're putting our kids to bed or sitting around the kitchen table, you know, tell those stories, tell those stories of strength and tenderness to to you know, we need that language back, We need our stories back. We need to remember what we who we are and

how we all. We need to bring in the poets and the you know, the the artists, more conversation after the break. This is a dumb question. I'm assuming our hearts have all been broken by our people, right in some form of fashion, like just a little crack. We always come back. It's never total broke, but like in that frame of mind, like in a more general because

that's where I am in my head right now. I have some heartbroken things generally about the interactions of black men and women and some of the history behind it. How do you how about that aspect of things when you're dealing with your phone, your votes, and it's on that level because you are so aware, so I know at any given time you could be angry and if you want to, yeah, don't, don't put me up there

on a pass. So because I'm feel like my market breaks just like yours, I just think maybe because of my practices or maybe my age, or because I'm devoted to not suffering, that I made a kind of regroup and getting myself back up again. What I what I like? I just had a really challenging time. I just had a great granddaughter, the second one, and you know it's she's coming into a situation that's really challenging. And they

live in California. I'm in North Carolina. I went out this weekend and planted a Japanese maple tree dedicated to her, and that's where I'm going to be putting my prayers and the earth around this tree. It could be a potted plant in your room, you know, But it's kind of a way that I'm just offering it up because I can't fix it. Right, there's things we just can't fix, but we we can't turn away either, Right. I'm not my heart's not closed, and if it's hoping, I'm gonna

feel all of life. So that's the deal where you make you go, Okay, I'm here. It is can you sit? And this is a This is why meditation just comes down so sweetly. Say it again, Ruth, say it again me. The meditation just allows me over time, intraveniously, little drops at a time, allows me to just sit with this craziness without going crazy more and more. Okay, you're talking parables. You're talking parables, and it is like that's my favorite

kind of talk. Baby baby, baby talk to me. Who is so I mean doing really so effortlessly, and it's about it. It's about practice. And honestly, like you know, you know in my Alan Irison voices like this about practice. It is another thing I just want to drop in this because this is far from hopeless, right, Okay, I know it feels like you gotta be the one to practicing. But if there's enough of us practicing, that's potent. You know, we're we're connected. You know, everybody don't need to send

to practice. Some of us can't do that. But if there's enough of its practicing, that's rich, that's composted, suffering into into soil, that's so sweet for our vegetable garden, you know. Yeah, So if you're sending it them and ten of us a singer, you want us are sending and sending those prayers and offering up that light. Yes, it's happening. And this is so beautifully anti capitalistic. It's so anti all of this shit. No, seriously, because it's

like everything is so individualized. And you have said so many times in this conversation and and circle back to community and circled back into the importance of a gathering of a gathering of minds, a gathering of practices. Right, see how you have pulled this thing into you continue to say this thing and it's like it is on some level a thing that we have a hard time

wrapping our minds around. I read this, and I'm not gonna get super deep into this, but I read this, this study a couple of days ago about just like the lot of aristocracy and how like that kind of pulling yourself up by your own boot straps, and if you work real hard, you're gonna get what you what

you work for. And now black people, you know, buying into this da YadA, And what I walked away from it was that this sense of like the collective power that we have in our minds and what we will accept and not accept is directly going to be associated with our physical health and with the future, the future that our children feel comfortable enough with demanding for themselves.

And so if we are not in our minds understanding this, if we're not taking a step back from this kind of individual way of thinking and this individual input outcome thing, that this is not African. It is not good for us. It is detrimental to us as a community politically, socially, but more importantly physiologically, like it is going to be

to our detriment for many, many more generations. And you saying this to me is so in line with what I needed to hear and validating something that I it really just read that I am understanding fully that it was meant for us to have this conversation. And I'm so grateful and I want to shout out Amber, our producer, because she needs to be acknowledged in her bringing of you into our space. Indeed, she needs to be acknowledged

this agree. She is the youngest of us and yet um, you know, we have this thing with age, but she's the youngest of us and exceptionally wise, she educates us every time we have a conversation, and believe it or not, this is the conversation we needed to day for a lot of reason. It's so good. Well, I just want you to know that it's it's happening. We you know this. It feels like it's you know, our herolin is. You know, sometimes it can feel like we're starting all over again everything,

but it's it's just not true. It's real, but it's not true. You know. We are definitely have much to celebrate in terms of our resilience and our artistry and just the way our hearts just continue to shine. And it's important to remember that what's I'm finished, just reborn and at some point we we we really do want to be that kind of generational legacy, and seed planting is a big part of what we need to remember that we're doing all the time, whether we're conscious of

it or not. Whatever we put out there gets seated in it a bloom. So becoming more and more sensitive to that is an important piece. And that's why the rage retreat is returning. When room no, I can't read you know this whole body, I have something. So what you're saying is that when we get to come to the training around how we can then bring that to where we are you and carry on your legacy. I love that. I do have a free webinar that I'm offering around let's talk about race um how to work

with our emotional distress. So that's a free offering that that's going on right now, a training half an hour training for anybody that would like to begin to work with how the nervous system and the brain and the body is doing this dance and how to detangle so that I would hope that serves. I'm so happy, and then she is with I hope that serves. Yeah, I love that. Yeah, guy, And this is where I start crying. Oh, okay, good,

And this is where it begins. This is why I start crying because I'm even gonna lie to you like you're giving my mother this entire time. So anybody who lie you like you know my mom, like your face and smile. It's like fully giving Susan And it is like wowing me to hell out. But oh baby, you set a lot of people at your feet today. Oh I want them right here in my heart. Yeah, thank you? How do you eat an elephant? One by it? Time?

Taking a moment to just massage my heart space after that release of an episode, y'all, I am fangirling so hard. I have been following Ruth King for over a decade and having her on the show is literally just a dream realized. I hope that you are all feeling a little freer and giving yourself more grace and more space to process whatever we go through. We're just not alone, you know. Ruth is leaving us with so many juicy

goodies to continue our healing work. First off is a free webinar Let's talk about race and what to do with emotional distress. She also has a self city course called Healing Rage Guidance that educates the heart and transforms the mind. I'll drop a link to both of these as well of all of Ruth's publications in the show notes, Happy, Messy, Beautiful, healing,

Love you Hi. If you have comments on something you said in this episode, call eight six six Hey Joe, if you want to add to this conversation, that's eight six six four three nine five four five five. Don't forget to tell us your name and the episode you're referring to. You might just hear your message on a future episode. Thank you for listening to Jill Scott Presents Jay dot Ill. The podcast Jay dot Ill is a

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