Justin Michael Williams on Meditation and Activism

have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf m

Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is author, top twenty recording artist, and transformational speaker Justin Michael Williams, who is using music and meditation to wake up the world. With over a decade of teaching experience, Justin has become a pioneering voice of color for the new healing movement between his podcast Keynotes and motivational online platforms. Justin's teachings have now spread to more than forty countries around the globe.

His new book is Stay Woke, A Meditation Guide for the Rest of Us. Hi, Justin, Welcome to the show. Thank you so much, super excited to be here. Eric. I'm excited to have you on. Your book is called Stay Woke, A Meditation Guide for the Rest of Us, and I think it's really perfect timing for us to talk about a lot of things really around owned inner work and outer work. And so we'll get into all that in a moment, but let's start, like we always do,

with a parable. There is a grandfather who's talking with his grandson. He says, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops and he thinks about it for a second, and he looks up at his grandfather and says, well, grandfather, which one wins. And the grandfather says, the one you feed.

So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do. It means so much. It means so much because you know, it's it's interesting. My work really intersects the context in which this fable even takes place in our minds and ultimately in our lives.

And I think when we're talking about things like inner work or spiritual worker, any any of these kind of psychological work, are these other things that we're doing that's really holding the battle field for this war that's happening inside? And so I'm always really curious and intrigued to think about things like, well, okay, why do we even choose

to feed the bad wolf in the first place? Or how comes sometimes the bad wolf steals the good wolf's food, and like, how can you be sure that you're you're actually even feeding the good wolf in the first place? And what do you do if you actually end up realizing that you spent so much of your life feeding the bad wolf when you thought you were feeding the good wolf? You know what I mean? And and this

applies for us. I think, what's so fascinating what we're all learning in this time Eric is like, this applies on an individual level and on a collective level, and we're seeing this in the world play out in so many ways right now, because ultimately there's this unending war existing in our minds and it creates all this anxiety and stress, and there's the shadows and social justice issues and personal traumas and collective traumas that have to come up.

And what I tell people who are like inner work and this stuff, who cares, it doesn't matter, I just need to be out there taking action and doing things. Is first of all, if we don't change on the inner level, then we can never change how the world occurs for us on the outside. We just keep recreating the same thing over and over. And secondly, the reason our individual work matters so much on the collective level is because a nation is just a collection of individuals, right,

It's just like all we are. It's so like, how else can we change? And so anyways, when I think of this fable, and you know, I think of the metaphorical versions of like, you know what, if you've been feeding the wolf the whole time, the wrong wolf, and this it really intersects big questions that I think a lot of us ask like, you know, how do we step into our purpose? How do we overcome self sabotage?

How do we deal with the inevitable ends idea and stress that comes from this war that's going to happen? And you know, what do we do when we fall off track? What do we do when we realize that we've been feeding the wrong wolf and we recognize that we need to course correct? How do we do that? And I think that's a big thing, that's even you know, the world's having a reckoning with right now. I totally agree you say very early in your book, I'm just

gonna read something you wrote. You say, and if you grew up like me overcoming systematic oppression, homophobia, sexism, depression, poverty, toxic masculinity, community disempowerment, racism, and trauma, you need a different type of meditation, one that doesn't pretend the struggle doesn't exist. So first, say a little bit more about

your background and what brought you to meditation. So I think, like probably many people listening to this, you know, I grew up with the classic case of what I call

overachievers syndrome. And you know this, this how is for many reasons for different people, but for me, you know, I grew up in a home in the Bay Area, in northern California, UM, in a town called Pittsburgh, California, in a house with gunshot holes literally on the outside of my house, and domestic violence and trauma and addiction and abuse and and just so many different things that a lot of young people, especially young minority UM people

of color, are facing today. And my adaptation to that, to being in the closet and having all this trauma, my adaptation was, I'm just gonna be really smart and get out of here. Like I'm just gonna be really smart and get and get out of you. I'm gonna be really successful and get out of here. And and my school work was one of the things that I was the only things that I was validated for. I got bullied and teased a lot at school for being too feminine or being different, and then all the stuff

happening at home. So I just zeroed in on if I can accomplish, if I can achieve that, I'm gonna make it quote unquote, I'm putting air quotes here with make it, you know. And I did everything. I checked every box there was to check I graduated at the top of my class, got a full ride scholarship to go to u c l A. I'm out of the closet, go from living in the hood to living in Westwood, which is like a boogie neighborhood in Los Angeles for

anybody's ever been. And I have extra money for the first time because I got all these scholarships because I was the top of my class. And what happened was, after about a year at school, I sat down and I had this moment and I said, hold on, I did everything, I checked every box, and I'm still miserable.

Why am I still miserable? And I think we all have these moments in our lives where we've tried to change our relationships, our jobs, our house are this are that we try to change everything from the external, hoping that it's going to change something within. But that's not how it works. I mean, we have to learn that

lesson over and over. You know. This is why I laugh with with some of the people that I work with and say, this is how you can get out of a relationship with somebody and then get into a new relationship and three months later realized you're in the same relationship, but with a different person because the change hasn't happened internally. And so for me, I went to a mentor and I was in a really dark place. Um,

I had an eating disorder. I would just had so much anxiety, feeling like I don't know what to do with my life. And one of my mentors gave me this lesson and said you should try meditation. And I literally, at that moment eric my response, so mind you, this is over a decade ago. Oprah hadn't done any meditation challenge, Like, I didn't know any person of color that I knew meditating And I literally go, meta, what what is that? Like this response, I'm not doing that shit, you know.

And fast forward, you know, I end up meeting this incredible teacher named Moauren Roach, who's been you know, a teacher in the West for a good forty years. He took me under his wing and I trained very closely in apprentice with him. And fast forward and here I am with a book. And if you would have told me that you know, fifteen years ago, that I'd have a meditation book, I would have said, you're lying, give

me my money back. But here we are, right and so one of the things that I want to spend a couple of minutes on it, and you alluded to it in the response to the parable, is this idea of inner versus outer work, And you just even alluded to it in your answer right there, because what you said was, Hey, I was really focused on if I just changed things on the outside, if I just get out of this bad neighborhood, away from this problematic family, if I get away from bullying, if I have more money,

I'll be happier. Right. So there's internal versus external work on the individual level, right, And then there's the more broad societal level, which says, Okay, how much time do I need to spend meditating versus being out on the streets or you know, advocating for political campaigns or community organizing, And and I think that finding the right balance of those things on both those levels I find to be

um really challenging but really important work. Like it's not enough just on a personal level for me to be like, well, I'll just change my reaction to everything, because there's some things in my life I should go about changing. Like, Okay, I was in a job I didn't like so much, so I could change that, but without the internal work and then the same thing at a societal level. Right, it's not enough for me to just become happier, at least seems to me. Right, there's a role to play

in a in a greater transformation. So when you think about balancing those things in your life, how do you think about it. I'm so glad you asked this question because I recently posted a video on my Instagram talking about this. Because the work that's happening on the external is absolutely important and essential, the making noise, the protesting,

the dismantling, the systems that changing at all. And what I know for sure is that if we haven't done the internal work to match it, we could elect ten new presidents, we could change the police department, we can do all the things that we want to do in the world, but we'll just end up rebuilding the same system that looks slightly different if we haven't done the internal work. And so what I encourage everyone to do is, yes,

do the external work. If you're in an unhappy place, if you're in an unhappy relationship, if you're in an unhappy life, and if our world is having things that are in disase. Then we have to of course address those things externally. And I think one of the things we're learning in the world right now with gender and beyond is this idea that things aren't as binary as we've made them right, and this idea of I can only do the external, I can only do the internal.

What's happening right now is you need to be doing both and recognizing that they're affecting one another. The way your world is occurring and the way your environment is is affecting the ability for you to do internal work. So for example, if you're growing up with trauma, like I said, and oppression, and you're in an abusive, toxic relationship or in a really bad job, that's going to

affect your internal landscape. We know that. And then at the same time, if you're doing the internal work and the emotional healing, or the social justice work, or the dismantling white supremacy or the different things that are happening within, then that's going to change how the world occurs outside

of you. So it's this feedback loop. And so when you ask me specifically the question Eric around what's the balance, I think the way that I find balance with it is to drop the word balance and recognize that you have to be doing both at the same time. And it's the same work. I've let go of thinking that when I'm meditating, that has no impact on It's a part of my social justice work is my meditation. It's

a part of my creativity. It's a part of my productivity is me taking that time to do the internal work that I need to do, and whether that's meditating or whatever. You know, Like I tell people this all the time. I actually I almost said this in the book. My publisher made me take this out, like I actually don't care about meditation. I know that shocking for somebody who has a book about meditation, who's been teaching it

for almost a decade. The only reason I teach meditation at all is because of everything that I've done and everything that I've tried, and I've tried if you can name a healing modality, I've tried it. Meditation has been the thing, hands down that is grounded it into my life and helped me day after day after day to go back to your parable to make sure that I'm

feeding the right wolf. It's been that check in marker for me and That's why I teach it to other people, because it has made the biggest impact on my life as well. Yeah, I love that idea that when we're doing either inner work or outer work, if we're doing it in the right. I don't know if the word I would use as spirit or uh, perspective text maybe context, that it's both, it's both right and and and right.

I think that there. I know a lot of people who and I've interviewed a good number of them, who will say, yeah, outer work is important, and by that I mean societal outer work. But what what their life seems to reflect is just a constant sort of inner focus on meditation. And the idea is that, well, I've got to get the inner vessel right before i can take it into the outer world. And I don't agree with that, but I love that idea that it's both and and balance is balance is a is a tricky word.

Early on in the show, I asked a lot of you know, is it this or is it that? Questions, and and after a while I realized, well, the answer to all those questions was always both. You said something in the book that really stood out to me, and it it is similar to what we're talking about here. You said your thoughts don't create your reality. I repeat,

your thoughts do not create your reality. The true reality is some of your trauma was never your fault to begin with and overcoming and is not just a matter of thinking your way through it. Your thoughts don't create your reality. When you live in the South Bronx and suffer from the highest levels of asthma in the United States, affecting your health and well being for the rest of your life, and you go on in that way with a few other examples of that, you say, your thoughts

influence your reality, but they don't create it. Reality is co created among all of us, in both thoughts and actions. Yeah, I just feel it in my heart as you're saying that line, because it anchors into so well what you just said. I respectfully disagree strongly with the fact that the internal work is all that matters, because I think what happens and when I you know, when I first read the you know, the Good Wolf and the Bad Wolf, I was really meditating on it and thinking what do

I really feel about this? And one of the first things that I felt was that what a lot of people try to do especially when they're trying to do personal growth, listening to podcasts, reading books, doing you know, keeping your mind right is to just focus on the good wolf. And if we're only focusing on the good wolf, this can give us a tendency to spiritually bypass the things that are happening in the background of our lives

that need our attention, our love and support. And so what happens in the personal growth community so often and this is shifting and changing. But like, yes, it's amazing and good that we're sending love and light and compassion. It's amazing that we're sitting and getting grounded and getting clear. But what all of these practices are about, what what I think everybody can agree upon across traditions, is that

these practices are about building awareness. And if we're really being aware, awareness is calling us to get our asses off of our meditation cushions and take action for ourselves, for our families, our community, for the planet, for the world, and for people who can't take action for themselves. And this isn't a martyrdom like I'm going to save the world thing. It's like we have to take this personal growth in our work that we're doing and live it

into our lives. Otherwise it's just a concept. It doesn't matter. It's really just wasteful. You know, I don't teach meditation or even care about meditation for the reason of quote unquote relaxing. Sure, that'll be automatic. Sometimes the real reason that we meditate is to become more alive, to become more alive, to become more connected to our passions. Our emotions are feelings, the things we care about, and the

causes we believe in. And so when we approach the practice that way and not at this thing to like disconnect, but a way to reconnect, then we can't help but get up and act. And and that's why I say, your thoughts don't create, they don't they influence, But what creates the world is our actions. And so we have to address both of those things. Right. I love that. And in your recent Instagram post you talked about this idea.

You said, Hey, you know, if we only change the outside world, then we're missing the fact that we have to decolonize our own minds. Right. I couldn't agree with you more that I think that it's it's both these things.

I see people who all they focus on is changing the external circumstances of people's lives or their own life, and we're sort of recirculating here, but this, I think this point is so important, or they only focus on changing the internal you know, I've I've had people on this show and I've I've had a little bit of disagreements with them, although on the show I don't really it's not I don't. I don't make a point of

getting on here and arguing with people. But there's this sense that if you just thought right about everything, everything would be okay. And to your point, use the example about um, you know, if you live in the South Bronx and have asthma, or you know, you use another example of a little girl who's molested by your stepfather before the age of six. Right, this stuff, it's real. It has an impact. You can't just think your way out of that, right, it's and we should create a

world where there's less of that. And yet to say, if we if our thoughts and our internal states don't have a role, then there's no healing from the bad things that happened to us. So it's really both those things. It's finding back to that idea of finding how do I do both those things, because my thoughts do matter. I love the way you said it that they co create. They co create our reality. Right what's happening to me is a combination of what's actually happening and how I

choose to view it. Those two things come together to create what reality is. How many ideas have you had that you've sat and thought about for months or years and not done anything about it, and how did that impact your actual life in the world. Nothing. If you have a book idea that you've been thinking about for three years and you haven't written the book, the world doesn't have the book. It's in your head, you know

what I mean. And so, but the taking the action and bringing it into the world world is now how the world gets influenced, which creates a loop and then changes your reality and changes the thoughts and so you know, just it's very simple when we think about it, and um, yeah, I just feel that it's a balance of both and action right now is really what we're needing more of from people who have been doing this conscious spiritual personal

growth work. That's a great way to say it. This is a question that feels uncomfortably direct to ask, but I'm just going to ask it anyway, which is that as somebody who has as you've said, you're gay, so you've got that. You know, you're oppressed in that way. You're black, so you're oppressed in that way. Right, you grew up poor. It's another issue, right, is it possible for you to have all those things sort of quote unquote going against you and for you to still live

a happy and wonderful life. Thank you. No one has ever asked me that question is directly as you just did. And the answer that I'm going to give you is absolutely. And it takes a lot more work. Absolutely, And it takes a lot more work. And this is where the inequity happens, and this is where the challenges happened. I'm going to give you an example of just, you know, talking about happiness. And this is something I think that a lot of your listeners will get something out of.

So when my book came out, I was invited to go speak at Google in the Bay Area. It was my first huge talk. Right after the book came out and I was getting ready to go on my tour, and I went up north to Gernville to wine Country, and I rented a home all for myself that was like often this secluded area with the jacuzzi and all this stuff that I was going to stay in for three days to just treat myself alone before I start the tour. And I drive up. And this is regardless

of anybody's political beliefs. I'm just saying what my experiences. So I drive up. It's nine pm. I've been driving all day. I have a hoodie on, some sweats because I've been driving for like six hours. And I pull out and the house across the street, which is the only house anywhere in sight, has this huge Confederate flag hanging off of it and a huge sticker that says make America Great Again. And I immediately went from happiness

and excitement to complete fight or flight. And who am I now, this black man in a hoodie at night alone walking up to this gorgeous home with these people that have this Confederate flag across the street. I'm going into the jacuzi at night by myself. What if they called the police? What if this would like just completely lost in the in the thought of all of it. And I had to call one of my mentors and like, calm myself down. I didn't end up going outside that night.

I changed my clothes before I got out of the car to make sure I was wearing something brighter so I didn't look like a quote unquote burglar. And the next morning, even though I didn't want to read, I got and sat out on the porch and read a book so that I can make sure that these people across the street saw that I was a nice black person.

And so I want everybody to know for people out there who have black friends and family members and other people of color who are doing things, this is regular. What I'm sharing with you is not an unusual experience. And the reason I'm telling you this story is when it comes to the concept of privilege in particular, a lot of people have a tough time with this because they're like, well, I'm not privileged. I'm white, but I'm not privileged I grew up poor, or I'm not privileged

because I'm also gay. Like, first of all, privilege is not about what you've gone through. It's about what you haven't had to go through. That is the way that we think about privilege. This is not the oppression Olympics, and it doesn't deny any of your trauma. But what it says is there things that you haven't had to go through that other people have to face. And as it relates to people who I'll just say right now, because this is very present in the world, are African American.

It doesn't matter how much I accomplish, what school I go to, how much money I make, what carm driving, or how many degrees I have. When I am driving in an area in a hoodie, and if I get pulled over by the police, they see me as a threat, as a part of the collective. And so all of these different ways that people of all kinds, gay, black, or Jewish, whatever, these are all things that we have to succeed in spite of that sometimes other people don't

have to face. And the last thing, just to tie this in Eric is the idea that your thoughts create your reality. One of the things that I say in the book, and I say often when I speak at companies, is that's a very privileged thing to say that you can just think something and then create it. That's not the way that people who have grown up marginalized experience

the world. Because if I'm a woman whose husband gets shot by the police in the car whose thoughts created that, you know, So anyways, I can go on and on as you can tell about this. I'm really passionate about this,

but I think we can live happy lives. And what we have to do is we have to again decolonize the oppression that is within us, because we end up oppressing our own selves, and we have to do the external work to de colonize the structures that are holding people back from living in the greatness and the dignity that is their birthright. H You do exercise in the book that I've seen done in some other places too.

I've heard it referred to as a privilege walk or different things, but it's basically an exercise where you ask a series of questions like, well, if you are black, take one step back right, if you're gay, take another step back right, if you grew up poor, take another step and there are certain things that cause you to take step forwards. And what I love about the exercise is that it breaks this down from privilege only being

white privilege versus black privilege. Right. It shows that privilege happens on lots of different levels, you know, and and for me, as a straight white male, right, I kind of have the demographic lottery. You know, I want the demographic lottery. Right in that way, I just did write my privilege story, or the story that tells me that privilege is real is the fact that I'm making this

podcast and not in jail. Because when I was a young man, I was arrested for a number of felonies and should have gone to jail by by all rights, had I been a black man, I would have gone to jail for a good number of years. Being a white suburban man, I didn't. I was given options. I was given options, and they're the right options to give to somebody who's the first time offender like I am. They're the right thing to do, but they were extended

to me because of those things. Right. But then you look at other things and you go, well, if you have mental health issues, take a step backwards, right. I mean, so these things have privileged They don't line up exactly, but it's a real way of looking at in life

and going, boy, I personally have been incredibly fortunate. The reason I asked you that question so directly is that because I think it's important that whatever the type of oppression they've had, right and again, that oppression might hit six out of six, You get six out of six, right, You might get one out of six. Right. It might be that you were, you know, sexually assaulted as a child, and that if we're waiting for the outside world all

get right, we, like you said, oppress ourselves. And it's also not as simple as to just say, well, it's just your thoughts, just figure it out, right. I love the way you said that, yes we can, but it's harder, it's more work. And I think that's a really succinct answer, Thank you. And you know, I want to be very clear about the privileged conversation because I think it's an important one that we're all getting into. Is um, no one is denying the fact that we've all gone through

hardship in our lives, you know what I mean. And I think the thing that's hard sometimes for people to understand, particularly because the conversation in the world right now is so heavy around Black lives matter and white privilege, is like, we're specifically looking at solving the issue of racial inequality, and so to look at solving that issue, we have to look at a specific kind of privilege, which is white privilege. Yes, not saying that other privileges don't exist.

But the interesting thing about white privilege that I tell people to consider is all the other privileges, gay, poor, trauma, like, they can all happen within the context of being black. And so you could have all those other things. You could be Jewish, gay, poor, and and still black. And so even if you overcame all the other ones, you still have to face the racism, you know. And so I think that's the reason why this is such a big one, because it's a it's a big context in

which the world that we're living in right now is occurring. Yeah, And the other thing I love about your answer is that, you know, one of the things that I see used as a criticism of the fact that racism exists and is still a problem is people will say, but look, there are black people who have overcome Look at Oprah, right, Look at like, if if work hard enough, I love the way you put it, you just go, yeah, if you work hard enough, maybe even then you can't write.

But I think that we have this tendency to pull out the people who have overcome oppression and don't appear to be and go, well, look, if you want it bad enough, you just work hard like everybody else does. And I think it misses the point. And I love the way that that exercise, the way you describe in the book people Actually it's done in person, and they're standing on a line, right, and you take a step backwards, and you take a step backwards, and you take a

step backwards. So for me, if I'm starting at the starting line and you're starting fifteen yards behind me, you might pass me, but you had a lot further to run to do it. You know a lot of people say this to me all the time I and I know people are well meaning, and this is this is the thing. I have so much compassion and so much love for all the people of all colors, especially people who are white, who are waking up to this movement and willing to get into the messiness of the conversation

and question things. It's like, let's do this. We've never had the opportunity in the world to have these kind of conversations together. And this is one that I hear all the time. Like you said, the criticism of well you made it, Oprah made it, this person made it, then that must mean everybody else can, like you said, And the thing is is I didn't make it because racism doesn't exist. I made it in spite of it. And the fact that you could even point to us

and count all five like it shows the problem. And number three is from the outside looking in, it appears as though we've made it and have had no many issues. I experienced racism all the time, in small and big ways. So did Oprah Oh Barack Obama highest office in our country, still asking for his birth certificate. It's not like because we've accomplished and made money that we've overcome racism. The

money is not the marker. You know. It's the hard thing for people to understand, is it's not just about the money. Well, and the story that you told there is so powerful in that regard because you had the money, yeah, to go to this place, to this house, you know, and yet still right still there. It was right and and you know, I would have pulled up to that house across the street and had a negative reaction to what I was seeing across the street. But I wouldn't

have been afraid. I wouldn't have been worried. I just have been irritated. I just have been like, Okay, you know, I like something else you said on your social media the other day. Because as a white person who is trying to wake up, albeit slowly probably, I often say I've got a twenty two year old son now who's helped educate me a lot. You know, he's been very

into social justice issues. But you said something that I thought was really important, and you said it's important as more and more people enter into this conversation that we call people forward versus calling people out. I think this is important, So say a little bit more about that. Yeah, so God with cancel culture, you know, like a big thing right now and everything happening what I keep seeing.

I have so many people of all different colors, ethnicities, genders, and backgrounds in my community, and I think that we have two approaches that we can take to this moment in history. One approach is the approach that I see a lot of people taking, is well, you should have known this sooner. Why didn't you know this already? You

should be doing this, And that's one approach. The other approach for me is if what we actually want, if what the desire for us is to really create a world where racism is not an issue, but not just that,

where equality is the standard. Then we're going to have to yes, do our individual work in our own communities, but we're going to have to create a safe space, or even a brave space, like one of my community members called it, where we have permission to have these conversations together, knowing they're going to be messy, and also knowing that we're going to have to grow in it

and in that. What I feel with calling people forward versus calling people out is when you're calling someone out, it can be defensive and dragging and aggressive and cutting. When you're calling people forward, you're speaking to that place in them that knows that they can do better, that knows that there's more possible. And it's a completely different place to come from. And it comes without sounding to woo woo here like it comes from a place of

love of what do we want? We want a quality and that doesn't mean that we take like people being purposefully hurtful or people saying, you know, terribly ignorant things. But look, we couldn't have had this conversation sooner. This is the first generation where we can have these conversations together, where there's books that we can rely on to educate ourselves on these things. The first ten years where this

stuff is even exists. So let's get into it. But let's give each other permission to be a little bit messy and also permission to learn and grow when you don't have it all quite right. Just yet. I agree completely. I see cancel culture, right, I see both sides of this. What I see is I see people of color saying like, I don't have time, energy or whatever to educate you folks, right, it's not my job. I've done enough work. I got my own things to carry, like they're being legitimate and

real anger there, right. And then I see well intentioned white people and and I've been in this camp before where I go cheez, I sort of stuck my head up a little bit to say something. I didn't say it right, and I felt like I got my head cut off. So I'm just gonna duck back down under here. And I understand that being white fragility, right, Like I

need to go. You know what if I believe in something and something that's important, So what if somebody says something to me or calls me like, I gotta have the courage of my conviction to stand up, right, But I always think that it's always helpful when people if you if you want to all is two sides of an issue, and I don't think it really is. But just for the purposes of this, we'll use that for people to say, let's let's just all take if we

can a step towards each other. Right, And and somebody said something online I just saw not too long before this conversation I thought was really useful, and it said, if you really want somebody to make a change for the long term, shame never works ever. And I thought that's brilliant, because if what we really want is change, not just venting our anger or our emotions, but what we really want is change, we're not going to shame

people into long term change. What struck me so much was your idea of calling people forward, right, Like, Yeah, I can point out what you said if what you said is ignorant, if it's hurtful, if it's not knowledgeable, but I can do it in this in a way that says like, hey, come closer. What like what's the intention? Come close? What's the intention of the call? Is it?

You know? And the intention is I love the way you said that, Eric, come closer, and you can feel that like and that doesn't mean that sometimes our reactions when things are happening that are wrong can't be loud or even strong or sharp. But you can feel the difference when even anger is expressed from a place of love and growth versus a place of just wanting to cut things down. So, you know, I think this is an essential conversation, and you know, just to tie a

bow on on this. What I believe and what I think is important right now is black people are right in saying that they aren't responsible for making sure white people learn because there are books, there are tools, there are things, And a context that I like to give people is when black people have to hear and listen to white people work through it, it's like we're cutting a wound open over and over and over and over and then have to like get back to our lives

of like trying to have a podcast interview, do you know what I mean? Like like trying to on zoom and work. And so there's that, and I think that what needs to happen is there is a space for white people and black people. I'm just being very binary here to do the internal work that needs to be done.

There is a certain amount of work that needs to be done in our individual collective groups, because, for example, when we look at the history of racism in our country, oftentimes what black people, when they realize the real history, what they need to process is anger and rage. And oftentimes what I find white people have to process first is guilt and shame, you know, around a lot of it.

And that that's being very generic or generalized. So like, there is a space for us to do our own individual work with what's coming up, and there has to be a space created for us to step closer to one another, and that I think both of those things have to happen, not just one or the other. I

think that's a great way of putting it. So I want to zoom kind of back down now to the individual level, and I want to talk a little bit about your approach to meditation, because um, I think it's important. And you say that the reason most meditation apps and techniques don't stick is often because they force you to concentrate on things you don't really care about. How do

we meditate on things that we do care about. I know that I'm asking you to put a book into the next eight minutes, right, which not fair, but but tell me a little bit about your approach to meditation and how it's different than what most people would think of meditation as being. Yeah, so there's a lot of styles and one of the things that is, you know fact, is that most styles of meditation that are being practiced in the West um derived from styles of meditation that

came from monks. Now, to become a monk, way back when meditation started, you had to leave your family, leave everything behind, no passions, oftentime, no food, no water, sit the cave or underneath the tree, and devote your life to spiritual practice. Cutting off your emotions, cutting off your needs,

no sex, you know. Ever, like, all these things are gone, and so the ancient monks had to create a practice to help them disconnect from their worldly desires, and one of those practices, one of the most powerful of those practices, was meditation. Now, the issue is, we're not monks, right, we are. We like, hopefully some of us are having sex every once in a while, but you know, we're first world people with iPhones and passions, and we're not

actually wanting to disconnect. We're wanting to connect more purposefully and more meaningfully. And so the when you're doing the wrong kind of meditation. A way that you know is it often feels like you have to sit down and try to get your mind to stop thinking, and you just can never stop thinking. And then you're beating yourself up because you can't stop thinking. And it feels like this war literally or chore of accomplishing this goal that can barely ever happen, and if it does, it's for

like three seconds. You know, of old practice. But when we shift to doing other styles, and there's several the style of meditation that I teach is called freedom meditation. What I invite people to do. This is the process that I take people through in the most micro version I can give to you, is I guide them through an experience of first identifying and becoming aware of where they are in their own life right now for real, like the things that are happening, the self sabotage and

all the joyful things as well. And then to go into the future and imagine a future version of yourself that's living the life that you actually want to be living on an individual level and on a collective level. And then I ask a question, here's you, Now, here's the you that you want to become on the other side, what's in the gap? What is the energy that is differentiating the you that you are now from the you

that you want to become? And when I ask that question, people will say things like confidence or power, or alignment or commitment or even one kid one day said to me, Beyonce, you know. And then this focus, the energy that you define as the gap is what we use in the meditation practice as what's also known as a mantra, and mantras can be different things. They can be candle flames, or your breath, or a word or a word in Sanskrit.

And what happens is so often people are given these mantras that they don't understand and don't care about, and so it's like, here's the real thing that I'll say here. The real point of meditation is to realize that the Guru is within you. And what we've learned to do, and this is decolonizing even the wellness space in the meditation world, is what we've learned to do is to rely on some guru or some app or some person on the outside to tell us what we need so

that we can be well. And what I'm suggesting and what many of the pra des for householders like us people in the world, suggests you have the answer within you. So instead of going to a guru and them telling you you need peace or babana namaha, maybe when you get clear on your practice, you realize you don't need peace. It's not bad to have peace, but you need power.

And that's a very different meditation practice to do. When you're focusing on the energy that you need to step into the world and the life that you deserve to live. You're using the word mantra um in the sense of it usually being a phrase that we repeat and over, and like you said, we're usually in a lot of traditions, transcendental meditation being one, and but many others. Your mantra is given to you by a a guru. It's usually in a language you don't understand. It's supposed to be

this really special thing. And you know you can't tell anyone your mantra, and you actually suggest that people come up with their own mantra. But before I let you reply, I've never had a chance to tell this story, and it's a good mantra story. So I've read about zen Buddhism in high school. And this is a long time ago, right, So in in Columbus, Ohio and nine seven, there were not a lot of meditation options. So I somehow found one guy who was teaching transcendental meditation, and so I

was on my way to meditation. And you had to pick up three white handkerchiefs, and you had to bring some fruit and some flowers. Well, I went to a department store at the time, and I shoplifted my handkerchiefs, got arrested, which I had never had been a shoplifter all my time, never never gotten caught. So then I went to transcendental meditation, and I got my special mantra,

the one that you can't share with anybody. And within two hours afterwards, I had gathered a group of my friends together and I had taught them all the mantra and and tried to teach them, tried to teach them how to meditate. So I don't know if all my subsequent years of meditation struggles were a result of this shoplifting and then and just throwing my my mantra out to the whole world. Um, but I like your idea, you say that, come up with your own mantra. One

that's got some juice for you. I love this story. Eric, by the way, this it's hilarious and I'm just like you were the expert here with that when you were younger. And so the thing is is, I want to be very clear that I am not like bad talking, any app or any style, because there's different styles for everyone. There really are so many different styles for everyone. But what I know, because I have the gift of being a teacher who people just are like really honest with

people who have even been meditating for years. They come to me and they say, Okay, I've been meditating this whole time, and really I'm just beating myself up in my head the whole time, you know, trying to stop thinking. First of all, even the idea that you can get your mind to stop thinking, if we really think critically about that is the silliest thing in the world. Would be like saying, oh, in order to meditate, you guys, let's get our heart to stop beating three go like

not going to happen. And also not something that I think people even really want to happen. They've just been told that they should want that. What we want is not to get our minds to stop. We want to get our thoughts to work for us instead of against us. That's what we want, you know. And so what I invite people to do in the book and in all of my work is I never prescribe people any method that I say, this is exactly what you should do.

Follow all of my steps. My whole book and all of my practices and teachings are invite people to create their own recipe, a recipe that works for them with their messy modern lives, so that they can learn practices that can help them dive into their internal landscape and overcome awesome. Well, I think that is a great place for us to wrap up this conversation. You and I are going to continue for a little bit. In the post show conversation. We'll probably talk a little bit more

about your meditation style. We'll talk about four ways we might be sabotaging ourselves without even knowing it, and we'll talk about capitalist depression at its finest. Perhaps it's a lot to cover in a post your conversation, but listeners, if you're interested, you can go to one you feed dot net slash joint. You can get access to this conversation with justin, lots of other post show conversations and extra mini episode with me each week, and the joy

of supporting something you care about. When you feed dot net slash joint justin, thank you so much for coming on the show. This has been a really good conversation and I wish we had more time as I would like to continue it and we will, but thank you so much. Thanks. Eric is such an honor. If what you just heard was helpful to you, please consider making a monthly donation to support the One You Feed podcast. When you join our membership community. With this monthly pledge,

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