#007: Do Less; Do Differently; Heal the World - Part 1

What do a 

• A root canal
• Crying uncontrollably
• Feeling resentful 

Have to do with healing the world?
Find out in this short episode.

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Do Less; Do it Differently; and Heal our World.

Exhausted, overwhelmed, grieving for our planet?

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Aminata Sol: . So on the last episode, I left you on a bit of a cliff hanger when I described to you how the root canal and being angry in meetings with people who I loved, and finally getting that message from myself or as crying uncontrollably in a coaching session saying, Amanda needs to stop everything. Um, so after getting those message,

Yes, I did do less. I did do differently, and I am helping to heal the planet through those choices. So let me get into it. So the first thing about doing less, okay, so when you are the founder of something, when you are the creator of the curriculum that your organization or your company uses, When it was, you know, it came through you, through your lived experience or through a dream, you know how it feels to feel like you are integral to [00:01:00] something happening.

You know how it feels that everyone is looking to you, uh, in the room because you are the big mama. You are the source of the wisdom. Through which something came through. And in my situation as the founder of Racial Justice From the Heart, I had created this curriculum called Transform Your Conversations about racism over time, had refined it.

Working with my thought partner and friend, Dr. Erica Fitz. Um, we had just been able to really distill some lessons that could be shared with other people, um, and practiced. Over the course of two days, very small groups, very intimate spaces for, um, people of color, people of European descent to do their work.

And that is available. I'll put it in the show notes, how you can get that, um, digital course. But at the time [00:02:00] that I got this message, That Amanda needs to stop everything. I was about to lead a live training, two day training that, uh, it was to be the one time of the year that we were gonna do it. So there was a lot of excitement for it, a lot of commitment to it from our team who, many of whom had experienced this training live and felt like it was the thing that really transformed their lives.

So there was so much excitement and after I got this message, I really felt like, oh no, I don't wanna lead this training, but this training should happen. Everyone's expecting me to, what do I do? I struggled with it secretly. I had a lot of guilt, but finally I came. To, uh, the other people who were gonna co-facilitate [00:03:00] and let them know that my deep inner wisdom was that this was not for me to lead, and instead I wanted them to lead it without me.

So I have a lot of Virgo. In my, uh, you know, my horoscope situation over here. So, you know, helping is in my genes. Sacrificing isn't a little bit baked in, um, working hard. So to, to ask people to lead it. While, what was I going to do? I was somehow going to be connecting with the land and the trees. Very vague to me.

Um, it just seemed a little self-indulgent when they were gonna be doing the real work. And of course they were concerned that they weren't ready, that they didn't know enough that, you know, the participants would be disappointed [00:04:00] because I wouldn't be there. There was a lot of, you know, fear intention, but, Ultimately they agreed to go forward as leaders, and I agreed to go forward and let them be the leaders of this course.

In fact, I sort of thought I would just be in the room listening. Um, you know, on Zoom it was all online, but what I found was, um, Wanted to put things in. I wasn't really letting go and letting them grow. So, um, I did, I just turned off my Zoom camera and did some prayers and you know, I, I'll tell you more about what I did with the trees and the plants, but what's important here is [00:05:00] that I.

Two people lead something that I had created based on my lived experience as a black woman, and I let an Asian American woman and a white woman lead it, and they did a spectacular job having to lead it with the support of their other facilitators who were also people of color and people of European descent.

They created an experience. Um, help the 25 or 30 people who were taking the live training, um, internalize how they could transform their conversations about racism. So, and what I had to face was the question of, if I'm not leading this, if this can be led without me, then what is it that I'm supposed to be?

I'll get more to [00:06:00] that with the trees soon. Um, but it was a beautiful lesson in cultivating others as leadership and watching them. Work it through. Anytime you do transformative work with other people, you will be stretched and transformed yourself. There's no way out of it. If you provide a container for that, you yourself are going to need to grow and expand.

So I, I let them grow and expand and own it. And I support it along the way. I would never have taken that step if I hadn't gotten all those messages, um, through my body and my spirit.

The second, um, way that I [00:07:00] did less and did differently that contributed to the world was I, I was so tired.

I needed spiritual nourishment and I started to listen to my son. He was having this renewal, he was having these, uh, he was really doing some deep work on examining himself and his assumptions and his loyalties and his is hidden beliefs and his subconscious. I just was listening to him and. You know, we had a very honest conversation about racism in our home, and I was just amazed at his clarity and leadership.

So when he had some space open up in his, in his, um, schedule, I asked him to lead. Uh, [00:08:00] Weekly meditation in our community. And um, and I started off just wanting to give him a platform and support his leadership and also thought he would be of service. But I had no idea that I was the one who needed that service, that I was the one who needed to go on the guided meditation journeys that he started to lead us on.

And, um, you. in that spring, and as I followed him, um, I, it just nourished me. And you know, when I said do less, so this was another thing to be done in our company, racial justice from the heart, him offering this meditation, but it was less in the sense. In the beginning I thought I had to host the call. I thought I had to keep the room open.

I thought I [00:09:00] had, you know, of course just be this essential person, . And eventually I realized I don't have to be that person and it's annoying me to be that person. So his sister became that person. And, uh, to do the behind the scenes stuff and, um, And I just started to sit on the couch, lie on the couch, turn on the, you know, turn on the camera when it was, you turn on the meditation, when it was time for him to be leading, which he did live every week for about three months.

And just let myself be guided by someone who was, you know, 30. Two years younger than me and wow, it fed me. [00:10:00] And the other thing about it is that, um, these sessions happened at night and I am a daytime. Baby. You know, I was born very early in the morning. I am a spark plug early in the morning, and by the time we hit four or five o'clock, it is time for Dr.

Mande Kemp, I mean not to sole plant walker fire woman, to let somebody else lead and only absorb. So I obeyed my body and my energetic rhythm and just. Received and I am going to, um, connect in the show notes. We will give you a way to experience, uh, one of Gabriel my son's meditations [00:11:00] in particular one I remember the one that he led the day that the, the officer who had killed.

A young black person in, uh, Minneapolis, I believe the day that that officer was, uh, you know, found guilty and, um, which was a relief, but didn't make anybody happy because of course the life had been taken. Um, so I was like, I needed to be ministered to my heart needed mending and. The meditation that he guided us through as a young black man was so healing.

He took us to a whole elevated energetic space so we could be, we could hold it and so much more. So I will definitely put a link in the show [00:12:00] notes so that you can experience that. So that was the second thing I did differently was I listened to my energetic patterns. I stopped doing things at night. I invited another leader to come forward who in fact provided healing to me and the whole community.

And of course it elevated his leadership and capacity to give in other spaces. Um, um, you know, he became known among his age group for being able to do that authentically. . So, and then finally the third story I'll tell, which of course is the big one. That conversation where I told myself to stop everything was also the conversation where I told myself that the trees want to talk to me and that the trees wanted to adopt me because I grew up in foster care and grew up with such.

Uh, wanting to belong and feeling [00:13:00] not rooted. Um, having the tree say they wanted to adopt me, that affected me. But when I went outside to look at the grove of trees on the land that I, that I steward that at the time I thought I owned, um, I didn't feel safe. I. Exposed and like, I don't know what's going on out here.

And there's, you know, there are holly leaves on the ground. If I walk barefoot, I would get pricked and there was, you know, rocks and it was dirty. Of course it's soil, but I saw it as dirty and I also felt very awkward. And like on the neighbors looking at me, you know, I don't know what to do. I just had a lot of like, uh, anxiety.

And so it came to me that, well, why don't. , you know, build a, a, a year or something like that out there so I can like, [00:14:00] be with the trees, but be covered so I can be closer to them, but also be, you know, protected from the stuff that was so unfamiliar to me. So ultimately, uh, my son helped me. Given me a couple options and saying, okay, mommy, here's a couple things.

Choose one. I chose one. And then he and my frequency mate, my married partner Michael, put it up for me. And then there I was, and what was a canvas tent sitting in it going, what do I do now? And I just remember going in the pillow. Uh, you know, little carpet, a journal and sitting and looking outside [00:15:00] what's called the front door.

And as I sat there and just watched, I saw things, I saw the clouds move. I saw Robin's land on the ground. I saw. Squirrels run and pause. I, it was as if I was watching a nature movie and I wasn't disturbing the wildlife. I was just watching. And the more I watched, just the more I heard, the more penetrated my consciousness and I started.

Right to the trees. Little things like Hello trees, kind of like that. Hello Trees, how are you today? Like, you know, doing it but feeling so doubtful at the same [00:16:00] time and awkward and, um, slowly I started to write their responses back to. . So let me just say, I have journaled a lot over the course of my life.

I'm a writer. That is what I do much of the time, and it's what comes naturally to me. Um, but so me talking to God or me talking to a journal is, is easy for me. But me writing back what God or what in this. Trees have to say back to me. That was new. And, um, because I had said in the recording that the trees wanted to talk to me, you know, in my, my business coaching session, that meant, well, maybe I should be listening.

What do they wanna say to me? [00:17:00] So as I got less and less awkward, I became more and open to listening to asking. What I heard was such love, such cherishing, you know, sweet one, dear one. Um, just so much pride in me that I felt was undeserved, frankly. , I felt like, well, do you really know? Not know all of my faults and all the mean things, I think, and I don't know how I fell in the world and you know how selfish I am, and, but what they had to say to me was unconditional loving and unconditional Accept.[00:18:00]

and I didn't know how much that was missing from my own energy field in terms of what I brought to myself, what I allowed to experience inside of myself, especially because a great elder in my life, my dear great Aunt Bessie, had passed away and she was that voice of just adoration and cherishing of me.

So what I wanna do now is play for you a, a couple of a recording of, of a couple of those journal entries where the tree spoke to me that ultimately Michael put to music with me. And um, so I'm gonna play that for you right now and. Then we'll come back [00:19:00] to wrap up.

Okay, so I told you a lot of love, but also some guidance about, um, What my real or the real intention of racial justice from the heart, my creation was about multidimensionality and, um, the, so what I'm wanting to say here is that the, when I listened to the trees, I started to see the work that I was doing was happen.

on an unseen, an energetic level, as well as [00:20:00] on the scene and you know, analytical teaching, training level. And ultimately I moved further and further into what my Deep Self said, which was, To get close to the ground and to open to deep earthy vibrations. I started to do that work,

and you'll learn more about that as our podcast season continues. Until the next time. Thank you. Beautiful. Thank you, gorgeous for listening. And may you too open to doing [00:21:00] less, doing differently to bring more healing to the world.

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