Are You Available For Connection? (with Prentis Hemphill)

We were so lucky this week to be joined by Prentis Hemphill: a therapist, teacher, political organizer, and bestselling author of What It Takes to Heal. 

So often we hear women say that things feel deeply wrong right now and they want to do something about it. But how do we engage without losing ourselves? It can feel like pain is the only way to make change, like we can only heal the world if we’re willing to be exhausted and broken ourselves along the way.

Prentis offers a different perspective. What if we can actually heal our systems while healing ourselves? What if it’s not about checking off items on a to-do list? They suggest that if we can be more present, listen with curiosity to ourselves and our neighbors, it doesn’t just make us feel more centered. It’s actually more effective organizing.

You can try out a centering practice with their video here or by checking out their work at prentishemphill.com. And if you’re interested in attending our upcoming virtual event When the World’s on Fire: Caring for Ourselves and Our Kids, you can learn more and RSVP here.

For a transcript of this episode, please email comms@redwine.blue.

You can learn more about us at www.redwine.blue or follow us on social media!

Instagram: @RedWineBlueUSA

Facebook: @RedWineBlueUSA

YouTube: @RedWineBlueUSA

Transcript

HTNLYS E12: Are You Available For Connection? (with Prentis Hemphill)

Katie Paris: Hi everyone. Welcome to How To Not Lose Your Shit. I'm Katie Paris and I'm the founder of Red Wine and Blue.

LaFonda Cousin: And I'm LaFonda Cousin, a part-time yoga instructor, self-care advocate, and the chief people officer here at Red Wine and Blue. 

Katie: Today, LaFonda and I were joined by Prentis Hemphill, an amazing writer and organizer who talks about how we can't separate healing ourselves from healing the world. It's such an incredible conversation. I'm so excited to share this one. LaFonda, when did you first encounter Prentis Hemphill's work? What drew you to it? 

LaFonda: They are amazing and I feel like they are my therapist now, so there's that. I need everyone to know that. I think I ran into Prentis just randomly, just some random posts on Instagram. And then like a couple months ago after the Charlie Kirk incident, I was just scrolling and I needed something that just kind of felt like not chaotic and crazy, and a post from Prentis popped up and it was just like, it was, it was okay to not be engaged in chaos and it was okay to feel however you were feeling and all of those things. And it just like, it really resonated in that moment. And I think I was hooked from there. 

Katie: I remember that post Prentis said in the midst of when, it just felt like the internet from every corner was yelling at you in the loudest possible way, telling you how to feel, Prentis said, it's okay to be quiet. And I think I'd forgotten that was an option. You know, like sometimes I think we just forget. 

And, and that's what was so profound to me too about our conversation with Prentis was, you know, we always get so wound up in terms of What are we doing? What are we doing? Where are we doing it? We don't spend as much time on the how. And by that, again, I don't mean in the to-do list type way, but truly like how do we show up for each other? And Prentis, I think, is the deepest thinker and writer I've ever encountered on that topic. How do we show up? 

It makes me wanna show up better, not just for the community, but just like for myself, right? Like you can't show up better for everyone else if you are not grounded in thinking about how you show up in yourself, in your own body, in your own mind first. And I think that what is such the, the like mind shift for me that I get from them and from this conversation speaking with Prentis was like… I think sometimes when I think about how do I show up, like I have to bring such focus and giving everything I have and like emptying myself out somehow. And that, like, that's gonna get to the best outcome, right? If we all just like exhaust ourselves into it. 

And this totally different approach that Prentis is posing actually is that full presence is actually the way to both, like show up for yourself and others, and that by doing this practice of like centering and grounding ourselves so that we can feel resilient in doing the work. That that's not actually a selfish move. That's how you make the work more effective, because other people feel that presence.

And so whatever objective it is that you're trying to get to, you are in a head space, in a body space, where you can actually more effectively achieve that outcome. I just love that shift. 

LaFonda: Mm-hmm. 

Katie: You know, it's like, it's the opposite of zero sum. 

LaFonda: Yeah. Is it helping you think about anything differently right now?

Katie: It is making me think about as we're going into 2026, making a lot of big plans, right… putting just as much emphasis on how we show up for ourselves and each other as the what in terms of what we're trying to accomplish. 

And when I think about my own experience in this work, it is true that when we step back and we say, “You know what? We're gonna prioritize. Yes, we need to hit this number. We need to collect this many signatures. We need to talk to this many people to achieve the goal.” When we do it in a way that prioritizes relationships and community first, above all, we always get the better outcomes. And so I feel like what Prentis is posing is actually an invitation to an even higher approach to prioritizing our relationship with ourselves in the midst of all this too.

And look, I feel like I can articulate maybe what that is, but. I'm gonna still have to work on the how for that myself. 

LaFonda: They do such a better job of articulating what that means than I ever could. Yeah. 

Katie: This was a treasure of a conversation. Whether you are thinking about how do I hold everything in this moment, how I'm experiencing it in my mind, my body, my heart, Prentis helps us make sense of that. Prentis helps us make sense of… all of you who are living in places where there are other people who don't share your points of view and how is this relevant for those conversations. There is so much value. I am just so thrilled to get to share this conversation with everyone.

We're so lucky to get to do this LaFonda. So here is Prentis teaching us all the ways to not lose our shit. Or actually, I don't know, I feel like Prentis would actually say it's okay to lose your shit. Just do it authentically be real. 

LaFonda: I think so too. So now we're gonna take a quick break and when we come back we will have our conversation with Prentis Hemphill.

BREAK

Katie: We have a real treat today. Our guest is someone that I have followed for a very long time. Their posts and voice show up in my feed always at the exact moment that I need to hear them. And for anyone who's listening today who has not yet heard of, been connected to, isn't following, I just feel so privileged to get to introduce you to Prentis Hemphill. 

Prentis is a therapist, a teacher, a political organizer, bestselling author of one of the best books I've read in the last few years, What It Takes to Heal. Prentis, thank you so much for joining us. 

Prentis Hemphill: Oh my gosh, it's such a joy to be here. Thank you so much. 

Katie: Okay, so you are the founder of the Embodiment Institute.

Prentis: That's right. 

Katie: And this is a word that I think not enough people are familiar with, this whole concept of embodiment, and it's been really helpful to me to learn about. And what would be incredible, I think, for our listeners who haven't heard the term before, would be for you just to talk a little bit about what embodiment means and how it can help us.

Prentis: Yeah, I love that. I love starting there. You know, a lot of folks I work with, when I, we talk about what our bodies are, a lot of people relate to their bodies as like the vehicle for their brains, or the part of them that acts out the things that they think. Or it becomes, our bodies are something that we have to make acceptable or beautiful or attractive to other people.

And I think all of this, in a way, misses the richness that our bodies are, our bodies are where all life happens. Even your brain is actually located. In your body. Turns out there's not this separation that we hold to be true. So our bodies are like the whole package. It's where we experience love, where we experience grief, where we take risks from where we act from, where everything beautiful and painful has happened to us and left a kind of residue or imprint or mark on us.

Our bodies are these really complex systems that keep us alive, that adapt to our conditions. So we live in a particular time where a lot of us don't relate to or listen to the messages or the sensations of our bodies. And a lot of my work, what we call embodiment, is kind of becoming more familiar with the language of the body, becoming more fluent in the language of the body, and becoming aware of what we have learned what we express through our bodies, what we feel in our bodies, so that we can live in more alignment with more congruence between what it is we care about and what it is we do. 

So that said a lot, but basically it's like, hey, you have a body and your body's learned a bunch of things. It would be helpful, I think, to know what those things are and to choose what it is that you do through your body.

Katie: Let's talk about how this connects to politics or community organizing, political engagement. You have said something I think about a lot, which is essentially that we can only transform the world if we're willing to transform ourselves. Say more about how that all works because it feels deeply connected.

Prentis: Oh my gosh, yes.

Katie: To this notion of embodiment. 

Prentis: Well, if you think about systems, we, a lot of us have become, in recent years at least, more comfortable talking about systems, the kind of systems we live in and under, what those systems do, kind of what the logic is at the core of those systems. But those systems aren't just existing somewhere else in the world. It is us through how we act and what we do that actually create and recreate those systems over and over again. 

So I'll use an example. If we think about, you know, norms about race. For example, my mom grew up in a time where the world was bifurcated. It was segregation and the world said that these people can't associate with these people. Now, that's not only a rule that's kind of legislated. It becomes a relationship set. It becomes the way certain people speak to each other, look at each other, behave near each other, the ways that they perceive each other's humanity and the things that they're willing to do or not do for each other. It becomes embodied. That logic of that time becomes embodied in people and it gets shared through relationship and it gets shared through how people actually treat one another and how they treat themselves. 

So that's one example. But we can think of a million other examples of the ways in which both systems and norms become deeply embedded, not just as ideas or as systems and some other structure outside of us, but actually become how we relate to our own lives, our own bodies, and each other. It shapes how we experience life. 

Katie: This feels so relevant to, I think, just the whole, everything we're trying to explore on this podcast. And really at Red Wine and Blue, so often people say that “something's deeply wrong, I wanna do something about it. As I figure out what to do about it, how do I not lose myself?” It feels like we need to protect our mental health in the midst of like engaging in the world right now. 

And I feel like what's so compelling to me about this alternative you're proposing is that we actually can engage in a way that creates more healing rather than like, I think there's this idea that I can only engage in healing if I'm willing to get broken on the way myself, because that's gonna be painful. It's gonna exhaust me, it's gonna wear me out.

I think what I hear you saying that, actually if, if we do that, we're gonna be contributing to more brokenness and participating in these systems that we're trying to fix, dismantle. You know, if we're becoming more broken in the process, how can we fix the brokenness? If we do engage in this in a way that brings less reactivity, more awareness of our bodies than others, that maybe we can actually heal our systems as we heal ourselves. But is that, is that on the right track? And if so, how do we do it? 

Prentis: Absolutely. I mean, part of it, when you, you mentioned reactivity, that's a huge component of it because reactivity to me is the way in which we are engaging at this moment and solving or addressing the big crises of our time. We are scared, we are overwhelmed. Um, our options seem to be diminishing and it seems like our, our reactive selves, and I mean that on a, in a somatic way or kind of from the background that I come from, those kind of almost like quick reactions that we have embedded in us – the fight, flight, freeze, and all of that.

We move from those reactive fear-based ways of addressing these crises and in the end, in a way, they end up to some degree replicating that. Now we wanna show up for each other, we want to support each other, we wanna take action. But what I'm saying with embodiment is the quality of the presence, the quality of your own relationship to yourself, and your awareness of what's going on with you, actually changes what it is that you offer. It gives you access to a different kind of creativity to be centered and grounded. It makes a quality of your connection with other people feel different. It makes the ideas that you come up with and implement move differently than they would have otherwise.

What I'm talking about is quality. I'm talking about how not just what a lot of us approach our lives. The things we do as a task list, which is often, you know what? What can I check off? I did the good thing. Now I'm a good person. And I'm saying, if you can be more present with what you feel, how you show up, be more honest and congruent, be more listening, more receptive, and choose from there what action you take, what you choose will be different and how it feels will be different. That matters when we are, I think in a moment of so many compounding crises, we have to approach them differently than I think how we've been approaching them up until this point. 

LaFonda: So we have our, Prentis, we have our on the ground TroubleNation groups, and they come together around common issues or common themes or affinities, all kinds of things. What I wanna know, given the work that you do around embodiment and knowing yourself and your feelings and, and taking that into being present in the community and with those around you, if you were starting your own TroubleNation group, what would your vision for that group be like? What would it be around and how would you continue building political arms or political work with that group?

Prentis: You know, a lot of my work over the past decade or so has been particularly working with movement organizations Black movement organizations, and there's one, there's a school called Black Organizing for Leadership and Dignity, which I've been a teacher with for a long time. And one of the programs we do is to go to base building organizations in cities that are working on campaigns. And we bring in, you know, some education around transformative organizing, some around political education. And then the piece that I lead is around embodiment. 

And so one of the contrasts we have is that if they're working on a campaign, we'll go, you know, we bring participants in from all over the country to support their campaign. And we might do canvassing or door knocking or whatever it is. And the first day we do it and we're trying to meet our numbers. The second day I teach them a simple practice of centering, how to ground in their bodies and how to stay present with themselves. And then we go do the door knocking or the canvassing. 

And the difference in the, again, the quality of conversations, the people that actually want to show up to the meeting. What translates from an interaction into  people actually showing up changes dramatically when the organizers have that skill in their tool belt. To be able to listen with presence, to be able to, you know, actually receive to, to be able to connect with somebody else. It changes the whole experience. 

And so I remember working on a campaign in Ohio. They were really about the numbers, like how many numbers they got. And the, the second day when we did the centering practice, not only did we meet and exceed the numbers of the first day, but the kinds of conversations that people were reporting having had shifted dramatically. Because people can tell if you care. People can tell if you are trustworthy. People can tell if you believe what it is that you're saying. If you have a vision behind you, people can feel that. It's not just an idea. People can feel it in how you show up. And so if you bring that forward, it's more compelling to people.

So that's one thing I would do is that if I'm building a project. I'm bringing in these tools that I think help people become more aware of what it is that they are communicating, their own internal congruence and their ability to connect. I say to organizers all the time, “are you available for connection or not?” You might be knocking on somebody's door, but you might actually not in an embodied way be available for connection and that's gonna change what happens. So whatever it is that I would choose to do, I would, I would bring that as an essential component of it, I think. 

Katie: Does that mean that like every time one of these local groups gets together or even, you know, our organizers lead an event or, you know, any kind of activity, so much of Red Wine and Blue centers on relational organizing and that takes a lot to dig deep. Right? And like be able to say the thing and have the conversations with the people that you know. 

I mean, I just think about bringing that type of approach, like as a regular practice to anything, why wouldn't you? I can see in the world of transactional politics, people that you're saying like, “we don't have time for that. Nope. Go. You just have to go, go, go.” But I mean, you're bringing the numbers here, you know, like, this works! What does that look like?

Prentis: If we look back at any of our cultures over time, we all had rituals to ready us to do something that if it were, the seasons were changing, if we're going to war or whatever it is, you have some kind of ritual that syncs you up. There's all kinds of language in the somatics or embodiment world about ways that we can bring our nervous systems essentially into coordination with each other. And that does something, it does something to actually feel part of a group. Not just say, “here we are, a group,” but that I can feel it. I can feel that we're breathing in the same rhythm. I can feel that our hearts are beating in the same rhythm. That's a power that is not quantifiable in the same way. 

And so it, to me, it's a continuation of that technology in a way that we've known for a long time, which is like before we do something in order to coordinate well, we get ourselves aligned. And to this question I always get about time, “we don't have time to do that. We don't have time.” Time in some ways is a poor substitute for presence. What you can do with the same amount of time with a quality of presence is profound. So if you cultivate that kind of presence, attention connectability, what you're then able to do with time is astronomically different. 

And the simple way, you know, I, I have online probably in a bunch of places, a, a simple centering practice, but really it's that life shapes you every day and it shapes you over time and big experiences of trauma or whatever it might be, shape you. And basically you can think about it as like, we hold kind of habitual contractions or patterns or habits. Like I always used to tell a story of I always wanted to be close to people, but I would find that I would move my chest in a little bit or I'd tighten my jaw and I wasn't actually receptive to that kind of connection.

So part of the practice is like finding those places where you vacated and bringing yourself back into them. So I have people connect to their center. I have people just fill up and I mean from the inside out, along the dimension of length, which is, and, and, and my lineage is about dignity and the expression of dignity and the invitation of dignity, rather than hiding or proving. It's like, what's my natural dignity? Widening out, softening out. Connectability. Can I feel my own boundaries, my own bounds? And can I connect to others and depth when I guide people through that? It's like feeling what comes before you. Who comes before you, that you're not alone, that you're a part of a lineage, that there are people that want you to be here and feeling them at your back at all times gives you access to a kind of power that is a game changer. 

And then feeling this moment, a lot of us on our devices, we're always kind of leaning into, rushing into the moment. We're never, you know, it's like there's never enough time, whatever it might be, pulling us forward. And I have people just meet the moment from your center without rushing forward, without bringing that sense of, “I'm late” or “It's not enough.” Just bringing that kind of centered presence, meeting the moment from there. It changes the game. 

And then lastly, center around what you care about, what you're here for. I often ask the question, “what is worth organizing your life around?” And let that fill you up. Let it be clear to people. So it's not a secret when you meet me, I want you to be able to feel what I care about, because you might be feeling first, you know, you might have a commitment of, “dang, I'm scared to talk to people.” Or, “I'm overwhelmed by this,” or whatever it might be. You might not know that you're actually filled up with that story, or you might be filled up with somebody else's story about who you should be. Practice filling yourself up with a story of what your purpose is, what you're called here to do, and let that emanate out of you.

Katie: That's really beautiful. 

Prentis, can you talk about… so many of the women in our community live in areas where they have a lot of neighbors, people in their networks, who do not agree when it comes to what is going on in this country and the whole world right now. 

What advice do you have for those women who are struggling between the… How do I protect myself, kind of, from what feels like people who are, I don't know, undermining my whole existence, or people who I care about and their whole existence. And yet at the same time, I recognize that I want to be able to heal divides within my community. How it feels so hard right now.

Prentis: Oh, absolutely. I mean, I live in rural North Carolina and I know all my neighbors and I have similar tensions of like, what is the nature of our relationship? Would you betray me? Have you betrayed me, in any number of ways?

But I'll say this, it's always a dance. Every relationship is really a dance. And when we're building these relationships for the sake of building power, there's, there's a different kind of incentive to reach for each other. But I would say, one, you're gonna have to have your base, you're gonna have to have the place – it sounds like you all are building that – where you can be with people that buoy you, that support you, where you feel seen, you feel all of that. You need those places. That's our grounding and that's our anchor and our tether. 

The other thing I'll say is that I always talk to the god in people. It doesn't matter who I'm talking to. I'm, I will talk to the place in you that knows what's bigger than all of this. I talk to that part and maybe there's a lot of defense. Maybe there's a lot of confusion. Maybe there's a lot of pain, whatever it might be in front of that. But I trust with every person that I speak to that there is a place where that exists. I may not be able to touch it today. They may not make it available to me today, but I know that it's there. They make, make different choices that lead them away from that and that lead them away from seeing that in me. But I already know that it's there in me. 

You know, when I talk to organizers a lot these days, I say, you have to come in contact with a self in you that is not contingent. It's not contingent on whether you like me, whether you can hear me, even if you cause me pain. There's a self in me that is not contingent on you. And so that allows me to choose how I interact with people because I'm not seeking from them. I'm not making myself available for, you know, do you think I'm real worthy or whatever. I, I, I already feel safety or comfort in that. 

And so I'm speaking from that place to you. And I know that you, you might make a whole number of choices and for some people they might, you know, sometimes I talk to people at the grocery store or the coffee shop and just speaking to them that way, something else can come through. Something else is actually longing for connection. It's not a guarantee, but for me it's the only way.

Katie: It feels like it all comes from this place of grounding. And centering. 

Prentis: Yeah. 

Katie: That that's where the possibility emanates from. 

Prentis: That's right. 

LaFonda: Are there moments, Prentis, where you feel like you… I think there are people who feel like they can't get there with people. I think about people who just spent Thanksgiving with a family member who might have some differing opinions and they feel like they just, they can't get to that place with someone and they really want to. And it's really difficult. What is the first step that you would suggest for someone to be able to see the god in someone? Cause that sounds incredible to me. 

And right now, even as you were speaking, like I started to fill my own chest up, I started to sit a little higher. I started to feel like, yes, that that feels right. Because you want to feel like everyone has that tiny spark or everyone has that little bit of good. And then if you could just talk to that good in someone, we would all be in a much better place. And I think I've personally been in places where I'm like, I just, I wanna appeal to your greater good, and sometimes it doesn't work and you get frustrated. So how do you, how do you get past that frustration to be like, okay, I gotta get to the greater good. 

Prentis: Well, I'm probably gonna say an answer that maybe people don't wanna hear exactly. I guess the first thing I would say is you really gotta feel it in yourself. And you gotta have a relationship… you know, a lot of my zen practice, we talk about having an immovable mind. And part of that is like having that non-contingent self. You can't be, your reception can't be spotty. If it's going in and out and you're not sure all the time and your insecurities and you're, you're unclear about your own needs, the stronger that connection is. The more things can happen without swaying you. 

And so that's why I say, you know, it's not just you do that practice when you're feeling hot or heated. You do that practice as a way of returning all the time. It's like make the neural pathways, make the roads clear so you can find that place.  That's one thing I'll say. 

The other thing is that unfortunately we cannot control other people, and I wish sometimes that we could, and we can want somebody to reveal that to us. We can want somebody to meet us there. But even that wanting, if the wanting gets too far out ahead of us, then we're, we are probably internally losing our connection to that place. Because that place is an invitation. It's not a demand. And I, because it can't be, that place is an invitation that has to be felt. Like if you are talking to somebody and they're like, “oh wow. I feel like something is, there's something in you that I feel compelled towards.” It has to be their choice to move towards it. So all you can be is an invitation.

Katie: In your book, it reminds me of, I think that you said something like “presence is a sort of invitation to honesty.” That just sounds to me like what you're talking about here. You know that all, if I can show up authentically for myself, I can do so for you. But that's it. But that's, that's the whole thing. That presence is how we get to that invitation and open the possibility for that real connection and then just recognizing. But that is all I can do, but boy. That's a lot.

Prentis: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you might have to deal with some disappointment and some grief and all of that, but it doesn't make it not worth it.

LaFonda: Yeah. 

Prentis: Like you can't make other people meet you there if you're not there already. So you have to be grounded in it yourself. I can't make you meet me here in goodness and kindness and love if I'm not already there. Because even then, your goodness and kindness ends up being some hooks to try to get people.

I can't tell you to show up in goodness and kindness and love authentically. If I'm here and I'm just sort of performing it and people sniff that out. They go, “mm-hmm okay, this is goodness and kindness, but actually my threat perception is up because I feel like you're trying to get me into something.”

It's really, the space that we're talking about, it feels like in one way, if you look at it, it feels like walking a tightrope, cause it's kind of like a narrow place, but when you get there, it is the most expansive place. But in order to get there, we have to practice finding it over and over again so that we can find it in different conditions all the time.

Katie: Well here is to finding the place that feels way less like a tightrope.And feels expansive. 

Prenis: That's right. 

Katie: That feels like just the space for possibility and for hope. That's where it's, and that's where I wanna live. Prentis, thank you so much for spending a little bit of time with us. Please know how much you do buoy us in our day-to-day as women doing this work. 

Prentis: Oh, I'm so glad. 

Katie: We're, we are really grateful and we'll continue to look to you for wisdom. 

Prentis: Oh my gosh. Thank you all so much.

LaFonda: Thank you for being here.

Prentis: Thank you