We are the ones we have been waiting for

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Yemi: Over the past six weeks, I have had conversations, some briefer than others, with some of the most profound practitioners and human beings in the field of trauma. Bessel van der Kolk, author of Body Keeps the Score, I was fortunate enough to have a number of conversations with him in Boston where I presented my research.

[00:01:06] Gabor Marte, whilst I was listening to a session with him and Angela Davis, and I was able to ask him about what solidarity looks like for a world that has multiple crises around the world, and where some of us can say, well, what about me? The world didn't come to me when the My people and I were in need.

[00:01:33] Why should I come to your need now? Not my thought, but may have been my thought in a past life, even in this life. And I wanted to ask because it's in some of those darkest spots that whether it sounds right or wrong, we are thinking it. And if we cannot say it out loud without shame, we will never be able to work through it and heal it.

[00:01:56] And maybe there's a, maybe there's, you know, A session or a podcast where I delve into this more. And then more recently, it has been my podcast and conversation with Linda Tai, who gave so many amazing nuggets and by far is one of my most favorite people. There is something in that, that in the past six weeks, when I've leaned into my work as an expert based off of the research I've done, I'm doing that would soon make me Dr.

[00:02:29] Yemi Penn. Ooft, that does sound good, but then I do know that's the ego loving that, and I am mad at her because I have worked hard. But when I look at me really owning and embodying the research and me search that I've been doing, I feel things have come to me as opposed to me necessarily always trying to go and get it.

[00:02:57] And that's what this podcast is about. is speaking to you, the person who is doing the work to heal your own trauma. And if you're not doing that yet, I want to say, fam, please take the time, figure out Western non Western different modalities on how you can work through your pain. And you might say, what pain is the pain that keeps showing up?

[00:03:24] It's the cycle and the pattern that just won't leave you alone. And you might think that there is power or freedom in constantly blaming something or someone else. And although there is responsibility for others to carry, what we want to focus on is the responsibility you carry, which is to be the baddest ass version of yourself.

[00:03:48] And we can only do that when we continue to clean our trauma. And I share this with you because Yesterday I decided to host a screening of the documentary titled Where Olive Trees Weep, which is a movie done by, I need to get this right, Zaya and Maritzo from Science and Nonduality. In it, they have Gabor Marte and a number of other world renowned leaders and speakers and, and activists.

[00:04:27] And what it shares is the Palestinians fight for liberation. Now this was done in 2022. And if you have kept abreast of what's going on in the world, and especially, um, between Israel and Palestine, you will know that. Way more horrific things have happened since 2022, for instance, Hamas, oofed, killing thousands, taking hostages in Israel.

[00:04:59] And since then, tens, maybe hundreds of thousands killed and displaced. I think even millions definitely displaced in Palestine.

[00:05:12] So what this documentary is already showing is That there was occupation of Palestine pre October 2023.

[00:05:26] And I knew that there were too many things that sounded familiar to the liberation of black people. Similar to when I went to Washington D. C. in 2023, and although I thought I was there to go to the African American Museum, my guides were like, no baby, we need you to go to the Holocaust Museum. We need you to learn something different from your own.

[00:05:53] We need you to hear the narratives of stories that remind you of the pain closely linked to your ancestors, but for you to know that there is a pattern and a cycle that keeps happening. And because of your unique brain and the work that you are here to do, and that you are doing oh so well, Yemi, with heart and courage, is for you to have that deeper understanding.

[00:06:22] And I managed to get a ticket, and you would have heard in previous, um, podcasts that I did have quite a frightening experience whilst being in the Lyft, and you will need to go and listen to that one.

[00:06:34] I can't help but continue to see

[00:06:40] the liberation of Jews back then, and I'm assuming for some still now, as this activates more things. The liberation of Palestinians. really deeply now, happening now, the liberation then of black people who were slaves, the still ongoing liberation of black people now, and many other groups, cultural groups and communities.

[00:07:15] I find solidarity in standing with and for them. And that's what putting this screening on was about. Because I didn't realize how big a deal it was for me to have gathered 50 people, of which about 47 of the 50 people that were invited or that attended the screening of Where Olive Trees Weep, didn't know me, but trusted that a space was being created for them to view this documentary and have conversation and community. I didn't realize that all of them were kind of looking to me or whoever they thought was the organizer to hold the space.

[00:08:08] And hadigidae. It turns out I was the person to hold the space. I didn't realize how big a deal it was. I didn't realize that I was actually beginning to live out and step into the very thing I say at the end of almost every keynote or workshop I do. Which is that we are the ones we have been waiting for.

[00:08:27] You, my dear fam listening, are the one that you have been waiting for. Because I was extremely nervous, voice shaking as I opened up the screening and I invited people to take a few somatic practices to help them as they watched and witnessed people telling stories that might either take them back to their life.

[00:08:50] As per the guide of the screening, I was told to have them look at this through the lens of intergenerational trauma. What role does your lineage play in being colonized or the colonizer? In being the victim or the perpetrator. And what comes up for you? And what is the work that can be done for you to start healing?

[00:09:15] In the beginning of sharing this guidance to the audience, I was nervous. I was nervous of saying the wrong thing. But I know the nervousness and the risk of not saying anything at all means that patterns return time and time and time again. And although some of these patterns may not completely end in my lifetime, my goodness, can at least be a different pattern that I leave for my kids and your kids.

[00:09:55] So firstly, take from this what you need to, but if you need a bit of help summarizing, you are the one you have been waiting for. When you are ready to step up and do the work, you were really brought here to do and born to do, and that might be through your traditional job, your career. How you do it is where the power lies.

[00:10:14] But the minute you open up and are willing to take it on and trust the commitment to do it will come, because I can't even recall organizing this screening like Recall the steps or the understanding I trusted as I had been put in front of Bessel van der Kolk, Gabo Marte, Linda Tai, had conversation with Resmaa Manekin.

[00:10:44] As I had trusted that, the commitment to put that on came back. really easy, so much so I can't even record the steps I took. Because I got asked the question in the screening, how can we, are you all putting screenings for schools? And I was like, Oh, they, they think I'm part of a big we, and I am not theoretically, I think more spiritually, vibrationally.

[00:11:12] And I said, I don't know who we is, baby. But I think it's us in this room, because if we want screenings in schools or anywhere else, in the telling of any stories, we need to be the ones that do it. And so I leave here saying this again. We are the ones we have been waiting for. And even if your voice is shaky, please use it.

[00:11:41] Because it is better for us to hear your shaky voice over not hearing it at all. I believe in us and I love you.