Dr. Shawn Ginwright talking about his new book, The Four Pivots

Chris:
Peace. Y'all welcome to another episode of the Carma Chronicles podcast, where we speak to the nation's leading healing centered practitioners. I'm your host, Chris Nyuon. And today we have the pleasure as always to speak to Dr. Ginwright Jim Wright, a pioneer of healing work and advocate for social change and someone lately who's been around the country speaking and learning from practitioners everywhere. Our conversation next..

Chris:
Hey Ginwright, it's a pleasure to have you back on the podcast. How are you doing today?

Dr. Ginwright: 
What's up Chris? Glad to be here, man. Glad to be here again.

Chris: 
Again as always. It's always a pleasure. So much to get into both on the lighter side, as we're talking about summertime travels and how we all heal and how you and your family heal. But we always got to start here with our own healing work and with where society is at. So as we record our podcast over the last couple months, the country is going through a lot right now. A lot of trauma, women's rights have been stripped away. Men of color and black men are still being murdered in the streets through the institutional policing. COVID 19 and its variance are still very present. And then when COVID started Dr. Ginwright, I remember you always saying as a society, we're sitting directly between trauma on one hand and transformation on the other. I'm curious over the last couple years, how have you seen both the trauma still show up and how have you seen transformation happen over the last couple years?

Dr. Ginwright: 
Yeah, good question. I mean unfortunately we are still witnessing a society that is reproducing its own trauma. What happened in Buffalo, New York, the shooting at the store. What happened in Uvalde Texas, the school shooting. The most recent issue around the young 24 year old brother was shot 60 times. We're still a society that is reproducing its own trauma and we will continue to see, unfortunately these events happen until we name it as trauma. Our institutions have not yet come to grips with how they are reproducing trauma. And as a result, we're going to continue to see that. Schools, our policies in terms of gun control.

So that's what I've seen trauma, unfortunately. And I think in terms of transformation, what we're beginning to see is at least people questioning the old rules of the world. Just for the fact that people are just like, just one, this is one small example. It's not actually a small examples, a big example, just one example is the people's work week. It's not like it was three years ago, just the work week. People are claiming their time in much more intentional ways. People are, if you have the privilege to work from home, people are utilizing that. So the nature of work and how we work has changed, is transformed. It completely is transformed. 

I think that more and more institutions like school districts and schools, juvenile probation departments around the country or recognizing community based organizations around the country are saying, Hey man, what we need now is we need a process to heal and restore the wellbeing of our community and of our young people and families. And so I think there's much more clear and explicit conversations about healing and what that means for organizations. And to me, that the promise of transformation in our societies when we can begin to create spaces and create bridges and create policies that are healing, restorative, that facilitate wellbeing, as opposed to those policies that continue to punish and create trauma. And so I'm hopeful. And we're going to stay on this track, we're going to continue to try to move our work out of trauma and into transformation.

Chris: 
Right. And I so appreciate that answer. And one of the things that resonate with me in just what you're speaking on right now is the word create. Because that comes up a lot when you talk about attempting to really reintegrate healing work and how we think about our healing from our trauma, creating space, creating conversations, creating opportunities, all to create time to heal. So in a very, very surface level question or deep question, for our practitioners out there who understand the iceberg, how do we do that? How do we create space in 2022?

Dr. Ginwright: 
Well I believe that one of the unique gifts that human beings have that make us different from a tree or a fish is our capacity to imagine that which doesn't exist. And the ability to not just see it, but to actually bring it into fruition. We can create, I think that is our unique capacity as human beings is to create, is to use our capacity, to see something that doesn't exist and to bring it into fruition. And so I think it's our human nature to create. And when we are in creation, we are aligning ourselves with our purpose. We are aligning ourselves with why we're here on this planet. 

Our role as human beings is not just to destroy and remove things and resist things. Our human nature is to create. And so I use that term intentionally to remind us that as human beings, that's what distinguishes this species from any other species and that sometimes in our work, and sometimes even in our play, we don't lean into creation enough. And when we do that, that's when I think magic happens, that's when I think healing happens. I think purpose happens in our creation. I think that's what we're here to do. And I don't think we spend enough time in that space of creation and I'm not talking about just for a artists that might be listening, our teacher artists. Folks that spend all their days with creation. I'm talking about, the teachers I'm talking about the youth, the social workers, I'm talking about the probation officers, I'm talking about folks that don't necessarily see their job in the creative space. 

Chris: 
Absolutely. As a social worker myself I was trained as you have been trained over the years that you spoke about as a sociologist to solve problems constantly. What's the next problem. What's the next problem? What's the next problem? You're talking about our purpose, really leading towards our ability to create. I can't help, but think there's a level of spirituality involved in healing work, and we can define spirituality in many, many ways. There's no one way to define it. And that's really related to however that shows up for the individual and the community. 

But I'm curious just at flourish agenda and your work over the years as a professor, as an advocate for social change. How do practitioners and how do folks in our work kind of balance that heart piece, that spirituality piece and that cerebral priest. Because I think folks, a lot of times think it's all up here, it's cerebral, it's creating problems and solving problems. It's creating systems, but you in a roundabout way really emphasize the heart. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Dr. Ginwright: 
Yeah. I could, I can give you a short answer and a long answer, but I think historically like out of the enlightenment period, we privileged the mind over the body. We privileged intellect over intuition and that move when we did that, that our ability to think logic rational thought, it took precedent over spirit. It took precedent over. And this is European, right? So it didn't take precedent in other cultures in the world. But here in the United States, we adopted that notion that there's a precedent over our ability to have rational thought over intuition or what we feel and so forth. 

Let me make sure I remind myself of your question, which is how do practitioners balance or engage in head and heart. And so acknowledging that we generally focus on privileging what we can think about and as a professor, that's, my job is to think and produce ideas. We sometimes put how we feel intuition, spirit on the back burner. And so what I'm suggesting is lifting and building from our ancestors who has always known that spirit matters. So you cannot go to a black church, a gospel church and listen to gospel music in community with black folk and not be spiritually moved. There's something that occurs when you are in community with people who are healing. And so for me, that is just as significant as me reading a book by WEB Dubois.

That is just as significant as me reading a book by Bell Hooks. The intellect of what I feel in the spirit is just as nourishing and important and in many ways more important than my capacity to think about it. Here's a question that I'd like folks to think about, like when was the last time you've experienced a sense of awe? Not like, ooh, but awe. Like you literally saw something that took your breath away. When was the last time that happened? And so if you can't think about that, then maybe that is a space for you to lean into around creation. Put yourself in an environment where awe is possible. 

Maybe it's a hike. We live in a beautiful area here in the Bay area, maybe you take a hike with some friends or even by yourself. Maybe it's a bike ride. Maybe it's taking a walk in the park. And just watching nature. But to try to experience awe I think is something that for me, at least feeds me. It's certainly being in a community with other folks of faith, but it's also putting myself in places where I could experience that sense of awe, that just like, wow. 

Chris: 
Yeah. Thank you for that. I'm trying to think back. When was the last time I was like, awe? Just off of the top of my head, it was probably a couple months back when I was in Cambodia, on Tonle Sap river that connects to the Mekong river. There's a community that actually lives on the river and they built homes literally on the river, not even on the bank of the river, but literally in the middle of the river. And we were on a boat ourselves riding past, and she must have been seven, maybe eight years old on this long canoe. And she's just canoeing to us just to say hello. I think that's probably the last time I was like, wow, this is really amazing.

Dr. Ginwright: 
Wow! That was a beautiful story, man. I could see you on the river. And you said there was a little girl that came up to you?

Chris: 
She must have been no more than eight years old or so. And she was rowing this long canoe, one of the longest I've ever seen in my life. And it might not even be a canoe. Folks who are boat enthusiast might be like, that's not a canoe, but she was rowing with her younger siblings who were four and five on that just to come have conversations with us. It was pretty amazing. 

Dr. Ginwright: 
Wow. I love boats and I sail, so I just went sailing in Polynesia. And man, I just saw not a saw, this is not the right word. It was the most extraordinary sunset I've ever experienced. It wasn't just visually, I mean, it was like rapture, man. It was just, I've never been enveloped by color. And just watching the sun dance and finally find it's way below the horizon and everyone that saw it just was just in awe, like to see that amount of just golden sun color. Just literally, just wrap over everyone and just watch it quietly. It was amazing. It was amazing. It was awe inspiring. 

Chris: 
That's dope, man. That's probably where that term comes from. Awe inspiring in so many ways. Thank you for sharing that too. And I think, what comes up for me too, is just that healing shows up in so many different ways for so many people. And I was having a conversation with one of our community members the other day and shout out to them if they're listening. We were having a very courageous, vulnerageous conversation and they were like, you know what Chris, I can't do what y'all do. I don't know what y'all know. And I was like, well, you know what, man, I don't know what you know. Because I think what they were referencing is the traditional education side of being able to be "experts" in the work, the master's degrees, the PhDs. 

But what that really got me thinking too Ginwright, is, I think in hope and healing, one of your earlier books, you used this analogy of the barber in a barber shop being such an integral part of community. I'm curious, can you break that down a little bit more? And also just talk about how practitioners or community folks, or however we want to describe it, they show up in so many different ways in so many different pockets.

Dr. Ginwright: 
Yeah I mean, everyone has. I think everyone has a role in healing. Right. And the way again. I just go back to this sort of Western way that we think about things and we have done things is that, healing has to occur in a doctor's office, someone who's specially trained or laying on a couch or whatever as a therapist. I'm not discounting the importance of trained professionals. And we know that the bandwidth for mental health for right now far outweighs the availability for people to give it. And we also know that there are important people in our community, in our neighborhoods that can play a role in people's healing and wellbeing. And so what I'm just suggesting is that we open up, we break open this, or break the myth that healing has to happen in an office on four walls.

And if we break open that myth, then we look at like, who are our community members that can actually facilitate healing amongst our community. And so I use the example of a barber or a beautician, they're not trained as therapist or medical physicians. But they can play an important role. I mean every time I know I get my haircut, I have pretty intimate conversations with my barber about what he's dealing with, about what I'm dealing with. We're there for about 45 minutes. And in that 45 minutes you can learn and share a lot. And so why not use those 45 minutes with a barber or a beautician, having some questions at their disposal about how you're feeling, about if you had to rank your emotions from 1 to 10 what is something that you want to heal from? 

What would it look like then if we begin to train community members to just have basic healing conversations that were designed for people to have the greater opportunities for, to restore their own wellbeing? I think we, we haven't spent enough time thinking about that. And there are examples. There was an example, some years ago there was an experiment that tried to get more black men to get their prostate checked. And what the campaign did was put billboards or spending money on billboards. Giving doctors, pamphlets, Hey, black men get your prostate checked. They didn't have an increase in prostates. And so the person that got the grant or the funding to get increased prorate was telling his barber, Hey, man, I'm having this problem with trying to get black men prostate check. He said, you know what, why don't you leave some flyers here? And I will have conversations with everybody that comes into my barbershop about getting their prorate checked.

Two weeks later, that one barbershop doubled the number of black men getting their prorate checked. And so the researcher said, you know what? what if we train barbers all across Philadelphia to have these conversations? And so it became part of a campaign to use community members to encourage and increase black men getting their prostate check. They even actually began to send nurses into barbershops. And created opportunities for blood tests and things like that. But it was really focused. The Genesis of the story is like, Hey, we have valuable members of our community that could be used and deployed to saturate our neighborhoods and communities with opportunities for healing and wellbeing.

Chris: 
Wow. That's an amazing study. I'm going to go check that out. I actually haven't heard that one, but not surprised too with how powerful community is. Ginwright, is it just as easy or as simple as saying, you just have to ask? And what I mean by that is sometimes when we are talking to our healing center practitioners, or just other folks in our cohorts and whatnot, that are going through the certification, the question of, well, how comes up. And when we're thinking about folks like beauticians, hair braiders, barbers, whoever, is it really sometimes just that simple of just asking, Hey, who are the folks out there doing this work?

Dr. Ginwright: 
You mean for how to engage in healing work for practitioners? Yeah. I mean, I think it's a couple things. One, I think if you're a practitioner and you're interested in facilitating healing work, then the first question is what am I healing from and what is my own process? So the first thing is we don't assume and presume that just because you want to do healing work, that you're training, part of our training, our philosophy is you have to do the work yourself right there. So are you reading, are you taking five minutes a day to sit with yourself, to ask yourself questions about your own emotions, whatever it is, right. What practice do you engage in to facilitate your own wellbeing? Second then if you have some practices, then how can you share those practices with other folks?

If you've experienced anxiety, if you've experienced depression, if you've experienced even suicidality, if you've experienced loneliness, isolation, what is it that got you out of that? Then, can you share that with other folks. Our work, we have a process of course, called Carma culture, agency, relationships, being and aspirations. But I can assure you that if you found a practice that you engage in that got you from depression, anxiety, loneliness, isolation, to some other place, I can guarantee you whatever practice probably falls in one of those five categories, culture, agency, relationships, being and aspirations. And so what, what that practice was as a practitioner you should be able to identify that and then share it with other people and have conversations with other people about that. 

I mean, I can go on and on and on about examples of how I've seen people and groups of people have healing circles that you wouldn't even think are healing circles, but they're conversations about how, how one person moved from one place in their life to the next.

Chris:
Yeah. Wow. That's real. I appreciate that. And I think you had a lot of conversations with folks over your career, but especially over the last three, four months with your new book that came out earlier this year, the four pivots, reimagining justice, reimagining ourselves. You've been in the south talking to community. You've been in the Midwest in Chicago and obviously here in the bay area. And you've had conversation with folks on the east coast. What are you hearing from folks on the ground now that you're kind of physically out there in space now. Now that communities have opened up a little bit more safely with COVID, what are you hearing from folks on the ground?

Dr. Ginwright: 
I'm hearing people say finally, someone saying it and giving me permission to do this healing work that I've known that needs to happen. Finally, I have a relatively simple roadmap to thinking about what changes I need to make in my own life and my own work to have a greater impact. People are hurting and yeah there are not a lot of pathways that one acknowledge how people are hurting and certainly not a lot of tools to allow for people to heal their own sort of wounds. And so just last week I was in Orlando, Florida and this was a group of teachers and there's a group of teachers, I met the folks from Prince Williams county, right? 

Chris: Shout out PWC.

Dr. Ginwright: Yeah. They were amazing. They were amazing. And they're taking this work so seriously because they see the impact it's having on their own lives, but also in the schools that they're working in. And so what I'm hearing, I had a conversation with, there's so many conversations. Let me just give you one quick one. There's a CEO of a pretty large foundation. And they were talking to me about the fact that there's a culture of fear in their foundation, that there's this sense that everything has to be completed within 24 hours. There's this sort of frenzy mentality. There's this feeling that people don't know which direction the organization is going. And there was a sense of insecurity among the CEO that I was talking to. 

And the person said that the book gave them some direction like, oh, this is why people are feeling like this, is because they were in analysis work. They were using lens. They had no mirror. They were focusing on problems and trying to solve problems in communities without thinking about possibilities. They were so focused on their transactional relationship between funder and grantee. They were certainly in frenzy mode, believing that the privilege of their job made them work in an ongoing sense of frenzy. And so that resonated with them and I'm finding more and more that those, what I'm asking people to pivot from, or at least balance, it resonates with people. People know what it feels like to hustle and frenzy. 

People know what it feels like to not have enough time in the day and to feel like everything has to happen at once. And so what I'm hearing is people kind of come up to me and say, thank you for giving them a language, giving them permission, giving them a path to do something differently. This is the first book that I've written that is not an academic book. This came from my mistakes. It came from shit I did that. Things I wish I would've done differently. There are kind of lessons embedded in my own personal story and my own personal experiences over the years.

Chris: 
And Dr. Ginwright I love how you model that. I guess as we close up here, my curiosity also stems from now, some years into your career. Do you feel a greater sense of urgency or comfort in being vulnerable? And have you always felt that because as you say, the four pivots are really born out of the mistakes that you made. I don't hear that from necessarily a lot of professor, scholars, folks who are "experts", or just have put in a lot of equity in this work. Have you seen or felt your actions of vulnerability shift over time? Because I think vulnerability is one of the key components of healing centered engagement in our Carma work. So I'm curious.

Dr. Ginwright: 
Yeah. I mean, I think I was blessed to learn and understand vulnerability through our camps, through camp Akeely. And what I mean by that is, what we set, we set an intention at the five or six days to create a container, to create a sanctuary where all healing is possible. And in order for people to feel safe, the lead adult has to embody that and I think I was blessed to be able to share what I felt even in my uncertainty around what the outcome was with those young people every single year. And so what that looked like is it looked like me always being vulnerable. I remember one time, bro. I think I wrote about this. 

We were having a session about sexual violence and all of the women, the young women were sharing just these stories. And it was emotionally overwhelming. And the young men were sharing their own stories of sexual violence. And it was just overwhelming. And I remember we were up on the campus of UC Santa Cruz, and the crying went to wailing. Like they were like wailing. Like they were crying emoting from their souls and their gut and they were loud. And I was just like, what do I do? What do I do? What do I do? And I brought everybody together and I said, you know what? I don't know what to do and I started crying. And there was somewhere in that collective purging of harm, something beautiful came from that. And what came from that is, oh, the "leader is human too." This is some real shit.

This is kind of what people got from that like, oh, this is real. This is not fake. And I think I've leaned into, oh, I've tried to. Sometimes I'm better than other times. Lean into that space of vulnerability as a way for better or for worse to make sure that, I just believe that if I'm called to do something. Like I used to always say to Nedra and everybody else that did camp Akeely, our job is not to make camp Akeely great. Our job is to be obedient in habit. What God wants to happen. We'll make that happen. We just have to be obedient. Just make sure we have space for that sanctuary and the rest will take care of itself. And that's how my life has been. And so what I try to do is make space, create the space and then be obedient and the rest takes care of itself. That was a long ass answer to your great question. But hopefully there was an answer in there somewhere.

Chris: 
Oh, absolutely. A beautiful, deep, deep answer too, that I know will resonate with a lot of folks. And it resonate with me too, as I always think about my work coming through the heart and it goes back to creation, just being able to have these spaces, just being able to imagine and create these spaces in the first place. So Ginwright, thank you so much for joining us on the Carma Chronicles. 

Dr. Ginwright: 
Hey man. Always appreciate it. This is the work that we do. This is the work that we love and this is the work that we need. So it's always good to be able to spread these ideas.

Chris: 
No doubt, always help to chop it up with you. And for our practitioners out there thank you for listening. As always, you can find our work at FlourishAgenda.com. Obviously you're listened to our podcast, but feel free to share as well. And for our practitioners too, feel free to hit us up on Facebook, on our Facebook page, the healing center pioneers Facebook page, where Dr. Jen Wright, Dr. Porsche and others hold a monthly Facebook live and you can find us on social media as well. So until next time community. Thank you so much for listening. Ginwright thank you so much for joining peace and love everybody.

Dr. Ginwright: 
Take care. Thanks Chris.