You know, and I don't want to be in this constant state of trauma and upsets. Let me say, first of all, I heard you say I don't want to, but I want to offer you that instead of affirming because you're afaming, you're you're important, You've got power, instead of affirming what you don't want, just make another choice. So I'm choosing too. I'm no longer choosing to be reactive. I'm choosing this because choice is your power. What's up, everybody?
I'm Gammy and this is positively gam Every week I have raw, in depth conversation with inspirational people pushing for change on everything from aging, relationships, politics, wellness, to the current issues facing the black community. In this episode, we're going to be discussing how to cope as a society saturated with trauma. Joining us today is yan La van zand Iyanla is more the most celebrated writers and speakers, and she's among the most influential and acclaimed spiritual life coaches.
Yanna embodies a no nonsense approach in her message. Currently, Illana is the host and executive producer of the award winning breakout hit Illanla Fix My Life. The number one reality show on own. Thank you so much, Illanna for joining us. I feel so blessed today and I actually am feeling the need to talk to you today. Congrats on your new podcast, Everything's Podcast Now. So good for you, I know, thank you so much, Thank you so much. I'm enjoying it. But how has it been for you
fixing other people's lives? You know, I don't. Everybody says that I don't. I don't really fix their lives. I give them the information that they need to fix their own line. You know, people come with their story and with their beliefs and with their everything, and you know, I go into interrupt the patterns that they have and provide them with a different perspective on not only what the problem is, but what they need to do or
not to get to where they want to be. So it's been quite a journey's eight years, it has been.
And I'm a huge fan. I'm I watched you know all the time, and I must say that you really find some really creative ways to get people to really look at themselves and to look honestly at what's going on because and and that's how it work, well, that's how it work because most times we're in such denial we don't want to see ourselves, you know, and particularly for people of color, we don't want to move into anything with the consciousness that there's something wrong with me,
you know. So when we when you start telling people that there's another way, what they hear is you did it wrong. And for people who have been oppressed or denied or help back for so long, that's a hard thing. But it is also a common human challenge that just reflection, self reflection. It's hard, you know, But I think my team. I have an incredible team of producers that support me and coming up with what we call our long pad and our exercenses, and then I just go in and
do the work. That's the easy part. Oh, that's the easy part. No, that's the hard part. Actually. I was thinking earlier and I had this conversation with Will and with Jada constantly about compassion, and I was like, why am I charged this year and all within all with everything that's going on with trying to live my life from a more compassionate space, and it's just been so very challenging for me. It's just been really difficult and
adoring this everything, with everything that's going on. If this year has been so traumatic for so many reasons. We have the pandemic, we have the Black Lives Matter protests, we have all the police brutality that actually has been going on for years and years now, we have the writers and the storming of the capital, Like, how do let's start with how do you personally deal with the state of affairs in this country and not lose your mind because I'm I get so full of anger and frustration.
God is so for me. God is sovereign, God is in charge, God knows, God is moving, God is shifting, God is changing. And so I don't have a story about anything that's going on because I know that everything is exactly as it needs to be in order for what is required to unfold. So I no, I haven't had no trauma. I haven't had no upset. You know, every now and then the thing that makes me crazier than anything else that they repeat the same thing over
and over, give me some new information. So you know, I just don't watch it, but I think that everything and you know, I look at this, We're looking out and I'm looking in and I'm saying, okay, I do that. How do I lie, change my story, bullying myself, deny, How do I do that? And once I get it clear in me, when I see it out there, I know what it is. It doesn't bother me. We are looking at ourselves. But because as we said earlier, it's so hard for people to reflect and self reflect, we're
making it about what's going on out there? What are you doing in here? Turn the spotlight in instead of making it a spotlight that goes out Everything that we're seeing is what we as a human race do. This is the truth being revealed. Oh I'm so excited. I'm excited personally. I know that's a little strange. Whether it's very no not, I understand. I understand what you're saying. It's just you know, in the moment, it's just it's just typically difficult for me to go into that space.
If in the minute you think it's happening out there, it's happened. You'll get upset about the minute you think, oh, look what they're doing, Look what they're saying, as opposed to how do I do that? Have I done that? Okay? And then when I get it in here, when I see it out there, I said, oh, I know what that is. I know what that is. Okay, I know what you're doing. I don't need the news or anybody to tell me the truth because I know the truth in me. So when I see it out there, I
just say, thank God, I'm better now. I'm better now, you know. So, Yeah, compassion is the thing. I have compassion for us right now because we've prolonged and denied and we assisted for so long to the universe has now just dumped it all in our lap at one time. But that's because we didn't take the clues along the way. We know that racism exists. We know that white superiority is the foundation upon which this this country was built.
We know that people have, in order to maintain their position, will deny other We know it, and then we've accommodated, we've tolerated it. We've gone along with it, and the universe, you know, God is saying enough until we surrender, and surrender is coming. We're not. Yes, that is a good word. I'm familiar with that word as a recovering addict. I'm familiar with that word surrender. So it's surrendering to to what has happened, so that change can occur. Is that
a good way of looking at it? And you know what else? Get me? All change is preceded by chaos. Think about when you want to clean your closet out. In order to do your closet, you gotta take everything out, and the bed, the floor, the shoot, you find the two things that you bought that you never bore. Everything is all over. So it's chaos and you have to sort through the chaos in order to recreate order. And that's what's going on. Like that is such a good
way to put it. Let me ask you, though, what are some techniques that we can use in order to confront you know these? For me, it's still I still call it trauma, so that we're not keeping it all bottled up inside or have this emotional outbreaks. And I'm going to use my husband and I as an example. We have a ethnics are very different way of looking at the pandemic and how we are managing it in right now and it is it continues to be an
area of contention for us. So for me, I've surrendered to and respect how he feels about the pandemic and how he wants to move about. And I asked him to do the same for me, and this morning, the conversation just went left, like my, my, I don't even really want to talk about it, you know what I mean? Yeah,
about the pandemic. I don't feel the need to converse about it, like how many people are dying, Like the numbers are really high here in California right now, and I don't feel the need to discuss that because I know that compared to even him, we as a family out here are so in tune to it because we have to get tested constantly because we're all working, and so we're constantly being tested. Like I'm on a first name basis with the E. M. T That comes to do our testing. I see him like two and three
times a week. We're friends, you know. But yeah, So I don't know, how do you have conversation with people and not just get all out of whack when you're talking about any of this. I find myself to be on social media constantly. I'm on Facebook when things like when the riots are I got something to say about everything, and I'm on Facebook and then after I'm done, I'm like, girl, then do you feel better now that you because I'm I'm going on their thinking that I'm releasing my frustration,
but I don't feel that way. After it's all said and done, I really actually feel even more amped up. So then I'm like, maybe I just need to not be on social media, maybe I don't need to be watching the news, But then I feel uninformed. It is traumatic because it's such a abrupt and radical change to our habitual problem solving techniques. None of our problems solving techniques,
Corona don't respect none of them. Okay, So it is quite traumatic because one of the number one addictions of human beings, all human beings, is controlled, and we have totally lost control. So to be informed is one thing, but to want to know what to do then stirs up something else in us as human beings, which is survival. So I gotta know what to do to survive because
I can't control this thing. So we go here to get some info, and there to get some info, and there, and we're listening and this one and then somebody says something, and no, that's crazy, and you know, so as opposed to trying to make it again, trying to make it outkay out there, you gotta get okay in here. When this thing first hit, I said that ain't got nothing to do with me. I'm not having it. I'm not
entertaining it, I'm not engaging it. But I got to do Okay, I did not know toilet paper, and if the toilet paper was pure, I was in a lot of trouble because I had don't doilet paper, you know, up so but I have to do so. Number one, I was just real clear that okay, this has to be a lesson and universal lesson that we're all learning. What is my lesson? For me, the lesson was for the past I don't know, fifteen sixteen years. I probably
haven't spent two consecutive weeks in my home. So when they said stay home, I had to get adjusted to not being busy. Really just gets still, and that for me was traumatic. You know, that was about that. So here I am. I'm home. I'm not out in the world not doing my work. Who did you? You know? So for many of us that was the issue. So you have the not being in control. What do I
need to do to survive? And now my whole modus opera run die has been shifted, So that was challenging and many of us had to be home with people that we love but don't like. So that was a whole another thing. So I think your question, when I'm hearing you ask, is how do you communicate compassionately with someone standing in a different way than you are? So compassion really is about seeing the position or suffering of another and taking action to alleviate the sun. Like you said,
you don't want to talk about it. Maybe somebody else does, but that's because their lack of control and their fear and their coping mechanism. Maybe talking about so how do you have compassion? And I think I heard you say it was your husband, so you can't tell him talk to me about that? What's that about you? Okay, we're only gonna talk about this from six am to seven am, from noon to twelve thirty, from four pm to four
five o'clock, and that's it. Other than that, I'm gonna ask you not to talk about it to me, and if you do, I'm gonna leave the room. Can we agree to that as opposed to he shouldn't be or they shouldn't be, or why do they compassion see the position or the suffering of another person and then take action to alleviate the suffering without sacrificing yourself. You can talk about it for half an hour. You don't even
have he's talking, you don't even have to respond. Your job is to listen, and then what is your internal dialogue while he's talking. You know, like a lot of times, you know, people talk to me about everything in the supermarket, in the wal market, and in my brain, I'm in my mind, I'm saying, I don't have nothing to do it. It's not I am not on this committee. I am not on the heel of your mother committee. This is what I'm saying in my brain. But I'm looking at
her because she needed to talk. And when she was finished, I said, you should go online and get on my mailing list because my newsletter might be helpful to you.
But got it. So that's what compassion is about, putting seeing where the other person is, seeing sense and feeling where the other person is and whether they're in a form of suffering or a form of fear or anger or whatever, and then doing what is required, what you can do without sacrificing your steps self to put an end to there, whatever it is they're going, because we
we are traumatized. Yeah, and I guess I I really have to open my mind and be mindful while we're having the conversation, because he senses from me that my attitude is, oh, here we go again, and that is not compassionate, that's not compare and it's not helpful. I remember the day when George Floyd was murdered and everybody was in such uproar, and I said, thank you God for that angel named George Floyd who came to remind us yet again that we have to deal with this
racism and we have to deal with these abuse. So now they're finding court offices, firemen, retired police, retired military, all involved in this assault on the White House. So if they would go against a building because they didn't like what was going on in the building, what do you think they're going to do the people that they don't like, you know? And so I I my heart goes out to the Floyd family and the Martin family
and the all of the families. But I've just seen all of these people as angels who've come and made a masterful, mighty sacrifice to wake us up. And we still ain't woke up because you know, we marched and screamed and protested, which we needed to do for what three four months? You don't even hear George Floyd's name.
So what are we gonna do? Everybody is talking about the fact that those protesters or rioters or insurrectionists or whatever they're being called today, we're able to roll up in the capital, thousands of them in the street, and people will say out loud when you know, couldn't have been black people, And we'll say it. But what we're gonna do? What's our ask? What's our approach? What are we gonna do? What are we gonna do? We're just sitting here, one thing up our nose and the other
one twiddling in our hair. But what we're gonna do? And until we get clear about what we're asking and what we're willing to do to get it, it's gonna keep happening. Thank you? Can you please say that again, Inyana, because I I feel so so strongly about it, and I'm just not I still am not clear on exactly that what is our ask? And how are we going to hold this administration accountable or whoever we think needs to be held accountable? How are we going to do that? At?
What is our act? That's the first thing, because until we're clear about the ask, we don't know who to approach. We don't have to approach. And you know, I've said this for years, everybody, please forgive me. Don't send me no emails and and send me dirty letters. I've said this for you. I've said it too, and all my friends and all my community leaders for years we've been affirming no justice, no peace. And I'm like, wait a minute, hold up, that's not what we want to say. We
don't want to say no justice, no peace. We want to say justice now, peace now. But we the very thing we've been saying is exactly what we have, no what we're getting, and no justice for And I'm like, oh, we can't. But you know, we get into these slogans and we get into the thing, and that's what we want to do. No, no, no, no no. So we've got to get clear about the ask. If we're asking for justice, what does that look like? And the other thing is, you know, I know you I'm a child
of the fifties and the sixties. I'm a panther and you know, snick and the at all of this, and we had leaders, and so everybody's looking for a leader. But the piece that I find was then that I can't quite put my finger on now. Back then, there was a communal commitment to whatever it was, whether it was the free breakfast program or whatever, voting rights or early lem of education, there was a communal commitment. But now we are so busy, you know, with everything else,
and we get all into personalities. So I don't like this when you can't trust that, when you can't do this, you can't do that, and this cancel culture where we don't tolerate mistakes and we don't tear people down. So there's no focal point. I don't even want to say leadership, but there's no focal point. And then the people that we have elected, you know, they don't seem to be coming out to ask us. So anyway, that's my little soapbox. But what do we ask? No? But it's important, Yeah,
it's important, Like how do we get that? How do we get back into that space? Is there? I don't want to say committee, but who are the leaders that we gathered together together to get us focused? Here's from me, Gammy again. You know, I come up out of that community spirit. So we've become such individuals and seeking such individual fame and glory and advancement and notice and recognition, until the things that would support and matter to us
all can't seem to come together. And we're so eager to be against something that we have lost the to know how to be for something. Against this, Oh I'm against that, I'm against you, I'm against him, I'm against her. But what are we for? And where are those communications coming?
Black radio it's gone. I remember Bob Law from years ago, night Talk and if you wanted to get some information about what was going on in our community, you went to Bob Law and night Talk and you get the whole Where where do we go now as a community to get information? And then because the small stations are gone, is these big conglomerations lest your Facebook? But there's no
communal meeting place, there's no communal mind. Yes, there are small organizations, you know right now everything is or isn't Black lives matter. If you're not in Black Lives Matter, how do you find out what's going on? And then if you're in Black Lives Matter or you against this and now against that, it's it's crazy, but that's how things are changing. So my thinking and this is just
my thinking. This don't have nothing to do with no behind My thinking is let me continue to work with individuals y and get individuals clear in their thinking and then there being and they'll be guided and directed into what to do and how to do it. So that's my contribution. Because if you told me today we're to go, I give to the Congressional Black Caucus, the United Egoral College,
Run Black Lives, Stay June's Children Hospital. But nobody has ever called me to collectively have a discussion about anything. Never they get my money. They don't call me and ask me nothing. And I if I needed you can't call nobody. You go on the website contact us and they give you an email form. We don't talk. We don't talk, So where am I supposed to go? Where do we go? But things are changing and they're gonna be different, and we have to We're we're approaching the
new time doing the old ways. And that's why so many of us are just lunch right yeah, And I guess you know, so that we can show up and be present and available for whatever our calling is. We have to learn how to stay calm and be mindful. And I know that you have a new app called mind matters meditation, tell them, tell us a little bit about that. What can we expect to hear on that app Well, you know, it really came out of the hysteria and the wahalla that everybody was experiencing during the
day home Order. And I would say your home read meditate. I thought, I don't said, but it's your mind. Your mind is what you're gonna need to get through this. So, because I've been taped doing this for thirty something years, I just combed back through my files, my records, my everything, and just put pulled up what I thought was some of the twenty most powerful guided meditations that I've ever done. I have one on there that just says, do you
know how beautiful you are? You know people were freaking out, couldn't get their nails done, their head done, you know, but you are beautiful. I have another one called you know, just peace, just how to be in peace. So, because my gift is my voice, people recognize my voice guide people into a deeper place within themselves because gave me We're not gonna do nothing out there. We gotta get it right in here. And if we're not right in here, whatever we do out there, is gonna continue to be
chaotic and uh reactive and aggressive. Now we gotta go up. We gotta be the thing that we're trying to create. So twenty of my most powerful meditations where just listen. You know. I think the longest one is thirteen minutes. So if you don't have thirteen minutes to get in touch with your mind, then you've got a problem, got it that I feel it would be a perfect way for us to close because meditation is something that I
have committed myself to this year. You know, I've talked about it or you know over and over again that meditation is a struggle for me because my mind is always raising. But I definitely in this space and what I've been going through, you know, last year and into this year is that reactivity, you know, and all of that negativity and I you know, and I don't want to live like that, you know, And I don't want to be in this constant state of trauma and upset.
So would you kindly close us out and lead us through a quick meditation? I would love if you could do that. Let me just find you. Let me say, first of all, I heard you say I don't want to but I want to offer you that instead of affirming, because you're afaming, you're you're important, You've got power. Instead of affirming what you don't want, just make another choice. So I'm choosing too. I'm no longer choosing to be reactive.
I'm choosing this because choice is your power. The other thing about meditation or just stealing getting still that most people don't realize is the key to it is your breathing. That's what you in So let's just do that. If you just allow your eyelids to close for just the moment and just connect with become mindful and aware of your inhale and your exam. Nothing to do. Just be aware of your inhale and your exams and whatever the rhythm is, whatever the rate is, we can read you
like that. So you want to inhale for three and exhale two right, and inhale one two three and exhale one two three, not just like your shoulders rebelling the face, find the rhythm of your breath again and just listen. Listen inside within, what's going on? What are you here? What do you feel? Listen to your feet, just listen to your legs, and you can't do it wrong. So just let your mind go to your knees, Listen to
your thins. Listen, what are you aware um in your feet, your legs, your knees, your thighs, what are you aware of and whatever it is. Just stay with the rhythm of your breath. You're in and you're out. Listen to your belly, in your chest, in your breast, just listen, just be aware, nothing to do. Stay with your inhale and jags. Listen to your shoulders, in your neck now, just listen to your face. Just listen, breathing in and now, and just imagine you just had a conversation within yourself.
Now take along deep inhale and let it out. Whenever you're ready, you can open your eyelids. Thank you so much. It has been a blessing to talk with you, and I hope that you will come back and join us again when the time. It was such a blessing to be in conversation with the Yama Vansan today, and these are my takeaways. Number One, when we are in a state of upset, we tend to look at what's going
on outside of us. Instead, try turning the spotlight inward for understanding Number two, during these times when so many of us are feeling traumatized, try to have compassion for others as well as for ourselves. Number three, consider the importance and the impact meditation can have on your life. Meditation put simply is stillness and the rhythm of your breath. And number four, be careful what you are firm in
your life, remembering that choice is your power. If you're listening on Apple Podcasts, to be sure to rate and review, follow me on my Instagram at gammy nars to share with me your thoughts on the episode. I'm here, I'm talking,
and I'm listening. As always, stay great for us. Positively gam is produced by Westbrook Audio Executive producers Adrian Banfield, Norris, Jada Pinkett, Smith's Amanda Brown and Balan Jethro Co executive producer Sam Hotel, associate producer Erica Ron and Crystal Devon's editor and mixer Calvin Bailiff. Positively, GAMS is in partnership with Art nineteen, the PSU, the Patos of the intert Scene