OVERVIEW
Cityside Welcomes Rev Champion Fleming and Rev Ruth Littlejohn speaking on Wholeness & Inclusion When we practice self-care as a holy commitment to our own well-being we are taking care not only of ourselves but also the community in which we gather. What does spiritually focused self-care look like for you? What does your body, mind and spirit desire for you to thrive? When we can answer these questions we can bring our whole, perfect and complete selves into service for the greater good. We will ask and reflect on the question – who am I becoming to be part of a thriving inclusive spiritual community?
TRANSCRIPTION
Rev Ruth:
I guess I want to manage your time. Can everybody hear me? Yes. No, I’m voice activated. So when you say stuff, I’ll be talking, just watch
Rev Champion:
<laugh>.
Speaker 1:
And what I wanna say is I wanted to set my, uh, clock so that I don’t go over. Okay. So let me, I don’t
Speaker 2:
Want, you know, and I have to get the hook out.
Speaker 1:
Yeah. So please don’t do that. I <laugh>, I, I have great intentions. I just always show up that way. So two minutes from now, would it be 1102?
Speaker 2:
Yeah. So Reverend Ruth and I met yesterday for the first time in person.
Speaker 1:
That’s very true. That’s
Speaker 2:
Very true. We’ve been working online together for almost five years. Yep.
Speaker 1:
Yay.
Speaker 2:
So thank you for facilitating that.
Speaker 1:
Yeah. So one of the things when, uh, Tammy and I were talking about this, uh, I just wanna, you know, sometimes you wanna check and see who’s in the room. Okay. And so how many know what Hollywood Squares are? Oh, my people. My people. That’s my timer and I haven’t even started yet. <laugh>,
Speaker 2:
<laugh>.
Speaker 1:
I don’t know what that sign means. I don’t know what that means. And the reason I bring that up, because it feels like after the pandemic, we are living in a Hollywood Square timeframe. You know, in most places you have the screens where people are up on the screens. And as champion talked about, we have been Hollywood squares for four years. And this really happened out of my, uh, after I resigned from Hampton Road sentence to spiritual living, I was simply trying to figure out who I was gonna be. And I got the message that I should do circles. And, you know, when you get messages from spiritual, you wonder like circles, what does that mean? Uh, and so I continued to treat and, uh, got clear that these circles were create safe place for people to talk. And I got clear what I wanted to do.
And the treatment was I wanted to find a white person who was willing to do their work and that we could work together. So I shared that with, uh, friend, uh, Reverend Michelle Senegal. And, uh, she says, I know the perfect person. Uh, they are in Oakland, California. I’m in Virginia Beach. But see, the gift of the pandemic is that we get to connect with people anywhere. And so as, uh, when we met yesterday, it was like, uh, Hollywood Squares coming live, you know, so it was, it was quite a unique experience. So I feel blessed that we’ve had not only that, but they’re also a science of mind ministers. Can you imagine how you, how you get any better than that? A science of mind minister who was committed to doing their work. So that’s how we sort of got started. Um,
Speaker 2:
And so Amy, so lovely did our, um, doing bios. We wanted to do our being bios. And so who I know Reverend Ruth to be is she moves into spaces with grace and takes everybody deeper into a spiritual truth. Also raising our human truths and being in that space with so much love and honesty and power and wisdom. And who I know Ruth is becoming, she is a lifelong learner in a tactile and curious way. And she is becoming better and better at technology. <laugh>.
Speaker 1:
True, very true. Uh, so if I take that same, uh, looking at, cuz uh, Reverend Amy has done a great job of talking about, uh, Reverend Champions doing this. And so if I move to her, to their, uh, I’m challenged one of, when we do this work, this is time for me to, when we do this work, sometimes we think this work of being inclusive is easy. And what we wanna be clear, what I’m clear about, that my heart is there and there are sometimes that I don’t always honor, uh, Reverend Champion with her app, with their appropriate, uh, pronouns. And so the way we work with that is that they get to call me on those moments when I forget their pronoun. And we, we put that out there because I think sometimes people think this work of inclusion is easy. It is an ongoing process. So, um, I, I hope that they don’t start a jar where I have to give money
Speaker 2:
<laugh>
Speaker 1:
Every time I,
That could get me in. That could help. Uh, before I, uh, get started again, I wanted to first of all thank all of you, um, particularly Reverend Amy, um, Reverend Linda, Judy, and all the people who have been communicating with us over the last two months to really get to get connected. Cuz one of the things that’s really clear is it the work that they’ve done, how committed they are to having this be an inclusive, thriving, spiritual community. And so we’ve had lots of calls, really grateful for that. And all the people who showed up this morning to set up, uh, we were saying that it would be great if we had a TikTok could see what it takes to do that. Uh, all of the, uh, communication people. And I wanna start off by apologizing to Dominic already,
Speaker 2:
<laugh>.
Speaker 1:
And the reason I do that is because <laugh>, when the slide shows up up here and I’m saying something different, they immediately look back at the techno. He’s, what’s wrong with him? I’m doing the slide, okay, up here. What, what? Okay, so for you, and they said, well, what’s wrong with her? She can’t get the slides right. It has nothing to do with the person doing technology has everything to do with the speaker who has now changed her mind. <laugh>. So I’m just, I just always wanted, cuz I know that’s what happens. And I can promise you it’ll happen today cuz that’s just who I show up to be. <laugh>. So I think we’ve ev I think we’ve gotten everybody.
Um, so when I think about, um, Reverend Champion, who I know them to be, is a person who, uh, continually does her work and stands in their truth. Uh, I know Reverend Champion to be the person who is a good ally. Uh, now who Reverend Champion is becoming is a person who is committed to living her truth, um, through her gender identity. Uh, Reverend Champion is a person who’s becoming, she’s becoming a person who says, um, I’m willing to say what needs to be said to create a safe space for people to evolve. Um, Reverend Champion is becoming the kind of person who’s committed to using the S word spirituality. Don’t go, come back, come back, come back using the S word When they move into corporations, you know, a lot of times you go in corporation, they don’t want you to use the s word, spirit. Spirit, spirit, spirit, spirit. And so they are willing to use that word in her work. So that’s who I know they are becoming all. Uh, is there anything else? Mm-hmm. Alright, now I’ve lost my place. Let me just say, so what happens next? <laugh>.
Speaker 2:
I’m gonna do the centering practice.
Speaker 1:
Okay. What was you lose? It’s always best to ask. We’re having to sit up here and try to
Speaker 2:
Like, I know. So we’re gonna bring the body in today through somatic practices. And the first practice we’re gonna do is called centering. And you can do this seated or standing. I’m gonna do it standing. This is a practice, it’s not meditation, it’s actually an eyes open, aliveness in the body practice. And it comes outta my work, uh, with generative somatics as an organization that I learned this through. I wanna name a couple of teachers, Stacy Haynes and also Apprentice Hempfield. Um, and this’ll give you a taste of some of also what we’re gonna do this afternoon in the workshop. But somatic practices or em, embodiment practices bring us home to the divinity of our body. If you think about how brilliant our bodies are and how we were divinely created and how much is going on right now, we’re being breathed. Our heart is beating, our blood is circulating, and at a cellular level, spirit is at work in us. And so as we do inclusion work, it’s important to remember our wholeness and our divine nature, the truth of our beingness. And so if you’re comfortable, you can stand, you can also stay seated. And when we center, we center in three ways. We center in our length, we center in our width, and we center in our depth. So just arrive at a comfortable position for you where you feel well grounded
And rooted, become of the way, aware of the way you’re rooted to the earth through your body. Bring your awareness to your breath. Again, this is, I’m gonna, you’ll see me, I’ll close my eyes during this, but it is meant to be an eyes open experience. Just become aware of your breath. Allow yourself to breathe in the way that is best for your body. And then begin a scan of your body. You can go from head to foot or foot to head, or I like to wrap circles around myself and check into the threeness of my body, feeling any aches or pains, any sensations, vibrations, tightness, pleasure. Are there any parts of my body that I don’t feel anything that’s numb or not alive? Feeling just noticing that as well without judgment. This is an opportunity to really come home to the body. And, and first we will center our length and just arrive at the length that you are. Perhaps you feel yourself slouching or pitched forward. But imagine a string at the top of your head, just lengthening you, pulling you up, elongating your spine and with your breath, there’s space between your vertebrae. This is how we center in our dignity. Feel into your royalty, your divinity, the, the allness of who you are as you lengthen and center in your length.
And with your next breath, become aware of your width. You may wanna expand through your shoulders, you could reach your arms out if you want. And you come wide. Imagine you exhale out your sides, exhale at your width. You might realize that you’re becoming more aware of the other people in the room. Our width is our connection, our relationship, our permeability, our love, our openness, our being together, our being. One with the one and with the oneness in each other. Our width is our boundaries there, baby. Those we love from a distance. And with the next breath will begin to center our depth, becoming aware of our front and our back. Breathing. Breathe out your back and our back. When we expand and center through our back, we are acknowledging where we’ve been. Everything that became before this moment to bring us to this moment is at our back. That includes the people who may have our back. It includes our ancestors, those who came before us. And with the next breath, we center at our front, the front of us. It’s where we’re headed. It’s our vision. You may become aware as you center at your front, things you wanna do today, things that are important to you. From our front, we become clear of the vision of this center, the vision of this community to be thriving, inclusive, and alive, active, vibrant, transformative center where we belong, where we engage.
So our front is where we’re going, and the future is bright. So we center our length, we center our width, we center our depth, where we’ve been and where we’re going. And now we are alive and centered in the space together. So thank you,
Speaker 1:
Thank you champion for moving us through that process. What I love about the somatic practice, it reminds us this is not just a head game, there’s also a body involvement. So, uh, as we are all fully present and available to move forward, now I’m gonna spend a few minutes talking about, uh, what does it mean? Who do, who do you And I have to be to be, uh, members, leaders, guests, participants in this inclusive, thriving community. Who do we have to be? So that’s the focus of our conversation. This, uh, morning. Who do we have to be? And so when I, uh, think about that, I’m aware that at least four things come to mind when we start to look at that. The first is the comment that we often hear. Um, they say that Albert Einstein came up with it, I’m not sure. But anyway, it says that you and I cannot solve an issue at the level of which it was created.
Uh, so that’s what we are saying. So what that says to me is that we cannot solve what it takes to create a thriving, inclusive community based on what we knew before the pandemic. That we’ve gotta shift our consciousness to another level in order to get a different result. So that’s the first thing. The second is, uh, simple. The message that comes from our founder, uh, Ernest Holmes, which is, uh, when you and I change our thinking, we get to change our lives. And so now that I’ve gotten clear that what I did before the pandemic, that you know, that old normal is not coming back, and now I have a new way of looking at things, one of the ways I lock it in is by getting support at science mind centers. And what, so if I’m coming up with a new thought, one way that we keep the new thought from being a flip flop, have you ever had, I’m gonna diet on Monday and on Tuesday you’re back eating the same food. Am I, I just wanna make sure I’m in the right group, right? <laugh>? Yeah. And so one of the gifts of cityside and other science of mind communities that we teach, tools that allow you actually to have a change. So whether that’s the classes we are taking, uh, working with practitioners, meditation, visioning, affirmations. So that’s, I think that’s the gift. So you have the tools when you make, when you decide you wanna make a change. So that’s the second one. The third one is, um, do I wanna go to that one? Hmm.
The third one I’m gonna use is comes out of the book that we are working on, which is the four Pivots by, uh, Sean Ginwright. And, uh, we had the privilege of listening to John last week talk about chapter one, where you talked about the, uh, from Lynn’s to Mur, how many were here for that. Okay. Exactly. So he talked about the lens being the way we see the world, the mirror being us doing our work, uh, our work to get clear that we wanna heal from this whole idea of, uh, not feeling a sense of belongingness. So that’s the focus of that work. Uh, and one of the things that Sean says is that one of the people that he quotes is, uh, Ben McBride. And what Ben says is that in order for us to do this work, we’ve gotta ask the right question.
And the right question is, who is it you? And I want to be, who is it you? And I want to be? So that means we’ve gotta let go of something, we’ve gotta release something, we’ve gotta set it free. Now, I would say before the pandemic, maybe not everybody in this room, but some of us were asking, what is it that we need to do to have cityside be better? And what they’re saying is in this book is that, that’s an old question. We are letting go of the doing cuz you and I can be the beingness, the doing will follow. And so that’s our focus for this morning is really to start to look at who do you and I need to be? And, uh, Sean, uh, gives us, uh, two ways to do it. He suggests that we, uh, move from a place of transactional rela relationships to transformative relationships.
And you say, what in the world is that? Well, transformational relationships are, you know how we do. This is my job, I’m doing it. That’s it. Don’t ask me to do anything else. And so it’s pretty cut and dry and what he’s saying, in order for us to, uh, really be able to transformed our community, we’ve gotta move to what they call transformative conversations. And if you and I are having a transformative conversation, it means that I’m gonna be willing to be vulnerable. I’m gonna be willing to tell my real true story. And there’s a price for doing that. Uh, so we must be realizing that if I’m gonna be vulnerable, you know, then I’m gonna have to say some things that might be a little risky, a little uncomfortable. And so one of the things that, uh, we like to do is to, um, be honest, we also like to listen.
And also when I’m being vulnerable, I’d like to see, uh, what am I putting at risk? Why am I doing it? What’s in it for me to be vulnerable? What is in it for me to open up and tell you? And what’s in it for me is that I have, uh, three, uh, cousins, black male cousins who are graduating this year. And so what’s in it for me is that if, if we as a community can get in touch with what keeps us from being thriving and inclusive, we can shift the po we can shift what’s going on here. So that’s the goal. Uh, so I’d like to share with you briefly my, uh, vulnerable story about who am I, who have I been and who do I need to become and what gen, uh, what Sean does, he uses a paradigm. Um, the, uh, iceberg, how many familiar with the iceberg?
Yeah, it’s the place where at the top that’s what you see. But under the water, we don’t see what’s going on, we just see what’s going on at top. So if I look at my life and how that shows up, what’s going on in top in one of my jobs, you’ll probably find this very hard to believe. I got an evaluation where my boss said, uh, that he couldn’t give me the highest. Um, because they told him I was not a team player then, you know, I was shocked, right? And so I said, well, I’m curious why is that? He said, cuz people said that you don’t smile, Ruth, so they don’t know what you’re thinking. So I’m like, oh, okay. All right. So I went to the bottom of this pyramid and went to my childhood upbringing. And what I noticed during that period, I don’t know how many of you remember Amos and Andy, anybody in here, remember Amos and Andy, right?
So Amos and Andy’s strategy was, let’s be buffoons. Let’s do whatever we wanna do to get these white people to do what we wanna do. And that’s what they did. And so my mother didn’t like that strategy. So what she said to us, we want don’t smile at white people. We want you to look intelligent. And, and so that’s what I did. So can you see how what I got back there showed up 30 years later? And so am I the only one that has that kind of stuff? I just wanted, I wanna make sure I’m talking to the right people. So our work is really to do, uh, that mirror work to go inward to see what are the things that you and I are still holding onto that have us behaving in waves that don’t move us forward. So that’s the one that I, uh, picked.
And so I invite you to do the same. And so how do we do this kind of work? Uh, I just don’t sit down and write these things. How do I get this open up? Cause that stuff was 30 years ago. I know I don’t look that old, but it was 30 years ago, I’m just saying. And so what I had to do was go to sign to mind classes, uh, to open up. I went to, uh, seven day silent retreats, uh, outward Bound program, landmark, any landmark people in here, landmark education, uh, all those programs because I needed something to open me up. And so that was what I had to do with that. I went to, well, you know, you can see I’m, I like to do strange things. So I did sweat lodges, s you name it, but all of it to open up so that we can get in touch with that. And so that’s the possibility for you and I as we start to do mirror work, to go deep to see what I have to let go of, set free in order to become members, leaders, guests in a, uh, inclusive, thriving community. So that’s the commitment. And so I leave you with the question, what are you willing to do to create and be a part of a inclusive, thriving community? What are you willing to get in touch with?
I think I’m complete.
Speaker 2:
You gotta take the mic
Speaker 3:
Stand.
Speaker 2:
Thank you Reverend Ruth. We are gonna do another somatic practice really quickly. It’s called the butterfly hug. So can you demonstrate this since I have the mic in my hand? What you do is you interlink your thumbs and put your hands on your shoulder blades.
And this was created by a psychologist and, um, her husband, another psychologist. They were in, uh, Acapulco, uh, after a major earthquake in the nineties. And they were embodiment somatic therapists, and they were giving a talk to the survivors of the earthquake. And a young child, maybe a five year old boy, said, who will hug me when I go home? This child had lost his parents. He said, who will hug me when I go home? And Dr. Lucy Artas, who developed this prayed in that moment, what do I tell this boy? And what came was this, which is called the butterfly hug. And so with your fingers interlinked, your, your, your, your thumbs interlinked, your fingers on your shoulder blades, begin tapping alternately back and forth one hand at a time, tapping back and forth in a rhythm that suits you, that feels comfortable, that feels comforting. Make sure you’re breathing nothing special, just full breaths all the way in and all the way out. Tapping, alternating. Thank you. You may notice calmness. You may notice if you’ve been activated in any way that you feel a little bit more peace, a little bit more calm.
So one of the things about my gender identity is people call me whatever they see, which isn’t almost ever how I see myself. And I’ve had to, as I stepped into occupying my whole true self and my gender identity. First I changed my name, then my pronouns came along, then I went for a full transition <laugh>. And so I identify as white and trans. These are my two salient identities. Um, my transness is under attack in this country right now. My whiteness holds a lot of power and a lot of privilege. And in this space of my identities
Is an opportunity for me to exhibit a high level of wholeness and beingness to be my divine true self. No matter what people call me, no matter how many bills there are, how many laws, how many states? I wonder if I’m safe traveling to I know who I am. I know my name right? The song that the beautiful music we had today. I know who I am. I know the truth of my divinity, my wholeness, my oneness with all life. I know all that spirit is, is in and as and through me. And I bring that everywhere I go. And sometimes it’s hard. Sometimes it’s really hard. One day I was at the airport and my flight was canceled and they were rushing me onto a plane. And I had 20 minutes to get from the gate through, through security shoes, off belt, off, you know, the whole deal.
Get undressed to go get on your plane. And I was decided I would white privilege myself and cut in line, which, you know, normally I wouldn’t do if I wasn’t running this late. And there were two security guards, identical outfits, everything. They were very matchy matchy. And I dove under the rope and stanchion to, to go through the line. And one of them said, ma’am, get back here. And a split second later, the other one said, sir, what are you doing? You can’t do that. And I said, thank you, God. My gender is in me. They can’t tell me who I am. They don’t know who I am. And they can’t, they can’t tell me who I am. And this was such a huge gift to realize that I get to choose. I get to be and be who I am. And it doesn’t matter the pronouns, it doesn’t, right? I am cultivating my own, my own wholeness, my own tenderness, my own self-identity. I am taking deep care of myself so that I can bring who I am into the world. And this is what we’re talking about today, this kind of collective care, self-care, as collective care. If I’m taking full care of myself, I can be my whole self in community.
And there’s a way that I bring this into my work, this kind of tenderness, this working with my whiteness, working with the privilege that I have, the harm that I can do, the lineage of my family, telling the truth of all of that, and working with it, with spirit, working with it in a way that I can heal it, and that I can bring other people along with me with a compassion and care and kindness. We are all divine. And yet, as white people, we have been socialized into an embodied supremacy. I mean, if we really tell the truth as white people, we’ve been socialized in a country and predating this country, that white male is the standard of all bodies. And when we do the embodiment practices, we come home to the body that we have and occupy it with the wholeness of the divine in us as who we are. And so, who am I willing to become? Who am I willing to be? I’m willing to unravel my socialization as a human to welcome that divinity, that I am to come forward.
That we are all center points and consciousness, and that which we become aware of, we can bring healing to Ernest Holmes says, now, the healing power of the unseen magic of spirit can be made evident when we tell the truth of our human socialization. We can bring all that spirit is to the healing of what needs to be healed. We can be in inclusive spaces, not perfect, although we are perfect, telling the truth of our capacity to do harm, to not know, to not know that we can do harm, to say things that may be hurtful or harmful. We have to be in that with a tenderness for ourselves. That it is not racism. Un houselessness poverty. These things are not our fault, but they are our responsibility and we are the perfect people to bring this practice, this the spiritual truth, the practices that we have in science of mind to bring these forward with honesty and clarity for a healing. This country needs a healing. And we are the ones to be healing it. We have a mandate and here we are together in this room. All of the power that God is can be brought to this. If we tell the truth about it. We bring our consciousness to it. We stay awake, alive in our bodies, aware of it. This is what we’re here for. This is what I’m here for.
I coach white people all over the country. And I was coaching a guy, I’d worked with him a few times, and it was revealed in his <laugh>, in his action as a leader that his bias was for the white people on his team, that he listened to them more. He took input from them more. He acted on the input from the white people on his team. And I was delivering this news to him, which wasn’t really news to him, he knew. And when we were talking about it, he had so much shame, so much sort of guilt about how he was showing up. And I said, you are gonna have to cultivate such tenderness for yourself. And he sits in this space with the door open and there’s a hallway. And all the times we met, I never knew what was on the other side of the hallway, but when I said, you are going to have to cultivate a depth of tenderness for yourself, his wife shut her head around the corner and was like, who is talking to my husband?
<laugh>? And what are they saying? And he, he, and he takes notes. We takes notes when I talk to him, and he was copiously taking the notes, I will need to cultivate a deep level of tenderness for myself because we deserve it as white people. It is not our fault, but it is our responsibility. And we have to go deep to those mental models uncovering at a deeper and deeper level. I am just beginning and I’ve been in this work at a deep level for years, and there is more and more for me to do, and I do it with spirit in a space of love and tenderness for my humanity, bringing all my divinity to it. And so we ask today, what are you willing to do? What are you willing to uncover? And can you bring all that spirit is to that so that we can be whole perfect, complete beings together in the one, really, not in a bypass e Bs way, but in a real, deep, whole tender way. And that is the question.
Speaker 1:
Thank you, Reverend Champion. Now I notice you saw me doing the butterfly. Did everybody see me doing the butterfly? Now, why do you think I was doing the butterfly? Because I was de I was de deeply breathing it. I can’t tell you the last time I’ve talked about, uh, or heard somebody talk about white people and what they have to do and what the responsibility is. We don’t use those words. And I don’t know when I’ve been in a room where I’ve talked about Ammos and Andy, my mother is gone, but she’s probably turning over. I can’t believe that girl’s on Sunday morning talking about Ammos and Andy. But we are so committed to this work that we are willing to go deep, to be vulnerable, to be uncomfortable in order to have the change. So I, I always appreciate when Champion does the somatics because it allows us to be still be in our chair, not go unconscious.
Uh, because we can do that, we can do it on our lap, but this is the work that we are here to do. So I certainly appreciate the, your willingness to do that. And so we’ve said everything. We, we came here to support you. Jingping an inclusive, uh, thriving community. That’s what we’re here for. Uh, and Champion has talked about what white people, what white people are to do. And I’ve talked about, I’ve, I’m black, but also people of color. What is it that there’s work for both of us? That’s the piece I’m always concerned. Cause I know my friends said, well, if those white people could just get it together, life would be better. And I have to say, well, I hate to, I hate to tell you this, but we as people of color have worked to do too in order for this country to shift. And so that’s been our focus for this morning. So we so appreciate your presence. Uh, I suggest that you continue to deep breathe, uh, and uh, go home and do some journaling, if that will be helpful. So thank you for your attention. We’re complete.