Hard to Love
We're all a little hard to love. We get defensive, we go quiet, we protect the soft parts by pushing people away, and then we wonder why the distance grows. Hard to Love is a podcast about what it takes to stay anyway.
Each episode is an honest conversation about the messy, tender work of being in relationship, with our people, our communities, and ourselves. We talk about love and conflict and repair not as problems to solve but as a practice to return to, again and again. Because being human with other humans was never meant to be done perfectly. It was meant to be done together.
Brought to you by The Heal Your Way Forward Collective, where we believe that healing is relational, that conflict is a teacher, and that the way forward is one we build in collective community.
Hard to Love
Hard To Love w/ Camille Sapara Barton
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Meet Camille: The Artist, The Human, The Grief-Tender
Some conversations you plan, and some you just fall into. This one was the second kind.
In this episode, we sit down with Camille Sapara Barton, author of Tending Grief, and instead of going straight for the big ideas, we let ourselves get to know the human first. The artist. The person behind the work. We talk about how grief found its way into Camille's life and practice, what it means to make art out of loss, and how tending to what hurts can become a form of creativity rather than just endurance.
We touch on grief, yes, but gently, the way you would with someone you're just getting to know. What emerges is less a lecture and more an invitation: to see grief not as a problem to solve but as something to be with, to make room for, to let shape us. Camille reminds us that grief and aliveness aren't opposites, and that the most tender parts of us are often where the realest connection lives.
This is a conversation about being human out loud. About the courage it takes to feel things all the way through. And about why, even when it's hard, we keep choosing love and each other anyway.
Come sit with us.
Consider supporting Camilles work https://camillesaparabarton.com/
If this episode benefitted you consider giving a donation to our collective: https://give.socialgoodfund.org/seedingliberation
Hey everyone, welcome to the Heart to Love podcast by the Hill Your Way Four Collective. I'm Aisha T. Hill and sitting here with two great people today. Dan Gergen.
SPEAKER_03Hey.
SPEAKER_02Hey Camille Sapara Barton, an amazing writer, consultant, embodiment, practitioner, facilitator, movement artist. There are many words, but Camille is also here with us today. We're super excited to have them with us. Hey Camille. Hey, glad to be here. So happy you took time out of your evening to be with us today. I want to start off with something a little different today, Jen and Camille. If you could describe your mood as food, I know. You're like, what? What would your mood be today? Right? And so my mood today feels like a butternut squash soup. And the way in which I remember it being prepared was with a little bit of sugar and a little bit of spice. So my mood is kind of in like a soupy squash, sweet, spicy, kind of up and down, I would say.
SPEAKER_01A bowl of porridge. I'm kind of kind of neutral party and on the more grounded side, but not not particularly jazzed up, not particularly um sweet today.
SPEAKER_03But yeah, there's sustenance and there's comfort in a kind of neutral way.
SPEAKER_00I'm thinking of like, what is something like you put in your mouth, like that chip you took at the wrong angle and it grabs into the top of your roof of your mouth. Like, I feel achy from a very active weekend. So I think that's just something crunchy, is what I'm feeling. But I am enjoying being pulled by butternut soup and porridge into a more grounded place.
SPEAKER_02Sometimes you need the soup and the porridge to help with the chip. That was very random, but anyway. Uh Camille, you are the authorwriter of the amazing book Tending Grief. Um, a book that we are currently reading in the Hilliard Way for Collective, and it is shifting and changing our collector's relationship with grief. And so I first want to say thank you for writing something that is just so needed, especially here in the West at this moment in time, um, as we grow as as humans. And my first question is Um, for you and for your work, um how did you come to grief as your work and as your practice? Tell us a little bit about that.
SPEAKER_01Um yeah, it wasn't um it wasn't a deliberate choice. I feel like I just found myself in a very deep kind of grief spiral or grief portal, as sometimes I call it, um in 2017 after having an abortion, and I felt really aligned with the choice, like rationally and in my heart, I knew it was right. So I was quite shocked and surprised by the levels of grief that I felt and how visceral and embodied that was. Um, I really remember just feeling so heavy, so tired. Uh, colors seemed less bright, there was just a kind of saturation to everything that made it feel oh, I can't just brush this away. There's something going on here that needs attention. But when I tried to speak to people about it, whether it was friends or other people in my community, or look for resources. I think I remember um even typing into Google at one point, like abortion healing rituals, and the only thing that came up was like pro-life stuff. Um I was like, oh, that wasn't what I was going for. And I just could really, I became very aware of how little space or support there is for any kind of grief in our societies in the West. And I felt a lot of anger around that. And I felt quite a lot of um covert and subtle like messages from people and institutions. You just need to kind of pretend this isn't happening or you need to deal with it on your own in the corner quietly. And I felt like, no, I don't want to do that. I want to accompany myself through this, want to lean into it, want to find ways to metabolize this and allow it to change me. Um, instead of just, you know, doing what I see everyone else doing. Of just, you know, most people are doing their best, no judgment, but like just kind of succumbing to the societal pressure to like minimize it, bypass it, shove it away, hide it. It's like, no, I don't want to do that. So that sent me on a bit of a journey to uh figure out some tools and practices and rituals that could allow me to really be with what was emerging. Um and yeah, there was almost a kind of grief domino effect that happened where that was the initial grief, and then there was this ricochet where all these other forms of grief um emerged and it became yeah, kind of a multi-year process um of being with that and developing strategies, and then in the midst of actually starting to research and kind of archive some of what I was doing and find ways to share that. Um, the first kind of offering of this was a collaboration with the Global Environments Network, this environmental nonprofit, uh, who were also noticing that a lot of the folks doing environmental justice work and earth care, earth liberation work, um, were feeling a lot of grief, understandably, but didn't really have any strategies or places to put that. So we worked together to sort of create a toolkit of embodied grief rituals that they could use to support their organizing as well as anyone else doing social justice work. And then yeah, that work was kind of tried out with groups of people, um, tested, and then some years later it kind of developed into tending grief, uh, the book that came out two years ago. So it's been a yeah, an interesting journey. And I definitely feel like grief tending is part of my work. I I don't know if I'm ready to fully like surrender my whole life to it because there's a lot of other stuff that moves me and that I feel called to, but it definitely seems to be, yeah, an important thread. And um I'm curious to see where it's gonna where it's gonna evolve in my life.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00I I would love to ask a follow-up question to just that last piece that you gave us. Like so much of what happens in our space is that we become known by the one thing. Like Maisha is a full human being. She's not just the collective. And so it's trying to remember the full humanity when you're doing any kind of like social justice liberation work. It's like it becomes your whole identity. So, Camille, if you were going to want to share more of your humanity with us, so we don't know you as just tending grief, like what would you say? What would you share with us? I'd love to for us to meet you and our audience to meet you.
SPEAKER_01Thank you. Appreciate this question. Um, and this framing. Because yeah, I was quite shook by how internally and externally there was this kind of okay, now we're gonna blend you as one being with this book. And I was like, oh, I didn't expect that to happen. I was not, that was not on my bingo card. Um, so yeah, outside of that or in connection to that, I feel like a very tentacular being. Um, not just in terms of being neurodivergent, but also just being interested in a lot of different um things in life that all kind of connect well in my brain, in my soul, but I understand may not always uh make sense in that way to other people. I'd say a big thread um or the fascia that kind of connects all of it is an ongoing interest in embodiment and social change and kind of liminal states or thresholds. So um, yeah, I've been a long-term nerd and student of somatics, um, predominantly the resilience toolkit, more recently politicized somatics, but also mindfulness and a student of yoga and also West African uh indigenous dance forms. Um and I've also been doing a lot of kind of socially engaged art making and facilitation and mentoring over the years. I'm a big science fiction nerd. I love plants and communing with plants, whether that's making teas and blends for myself or loved ones when my body feels like it needs something or when there is a need that's apparent. Um, but also with plants that support uh accessing different forms of wisdom, what some people might call entheogens or psychedelics. Um, that's also been a big part of my life doing a lot of advocacy work, trying to end the war on drugs and I guess do harm reduction within the psychedelic assisted therapy space as it's developing to ensure that it can uh work better and provide a level of culturally competent care for black folks, for folks harmed by the war on drugs, who are in trans communities too, and indigenous peoples who are the medicine keepers of um these traditions, but still not, in my opinion, being given that kind of reciprocity enough in the space. Um what else? I love cooking, I love reading, and I have siblings and I love being with them when I can. Uh, and a big, beautiful, queer network and queer chosen family, including more and more children, which is really beautiful and also confronting to feel the responsibility of not perpetuating certain things, you know, and allowing them to have as much agency and autonomy as possible and uh yeah, softness in this time of unraveling. Um, and yeah, I love to dance. I think dance has been my first kind of medium, and I hope to bring that back more as well as clowning, which has also been a really like healing and supportive part of my life. So there is yeah, the full spectrum from the grief to the clowning and the dance. It's kind of like it's all there.
SPEAKER_00I love how much I felt myself like, oh yeah, that, oh yeah, that like I feel a better connection and I love that. Thank you.
SPEAKER_02Thank you. Yeah, I see myself in so much of what was shared, especially this like you're the swim thing, you're like literal on multiple multiple parts of a whole soul, and just hearing how like somatics and indigenity and movement your love for reading and cooking. It reminds me over the weekend I was I guess I became a cooking influencer, whatever, but I'm like experimenting with like sardines and like making tomato flights and like oh what else do I want to cook? Waking up like a salad. What is this? So it it it uh for me it's a reminder of like you're a whole person, you are not just this one thing in social justice work or liberation, and that reminds me so much of like just even the grief of like even in social justice, you're one only one way to be one way to present, right? And even a person who is within like multiple spectrums of it, right? Because you have some mindfulness, you have you know, movement and just things that you love to do. Are you in a space for yourself where you're also just finally saying out loud? Like I'm not just talking about grief all the time, like I'm a whole human being. Like, have you found that courage to to bring that out of you per se? That was a selfish question. I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_01No, I love the question. Um I'm in practice with this. Yeah, I'm in practice. I don't feel like I'm I've arrived at that place of of um yeah, holding it all with with more complexity, but I feel like I'm taking steps in that direction after a couple of years of feeling a bit lost in the magnitude of the times we're in and my sense of responsibility around what my role maybe should. There was a lot of should happening internally, and a lot of should that was maybe being projected, or I don't know how much it was internal versus external, but it just um yeah. Yeah, I wasn't um considering that that the global events and you know multiple genocides may erupt into a new a new configuration shortly around the time of um or just before this book coming into the world. And yeah, I felt a lot of responsibility about how to support people with what was happening and maybe got into a headspace at times of being overly responsible, which has been a pattern for me uh in the past in family dynamics, but also definitely within social change work. And um yeah, I'm still in a process of kind of right-sizing responsibility and trying to um also understand that even if my intuition is pulling me towards slightly different research, it doesn't mean that grief tending is not a part of my life. I feel like there will be waves and iterations. And I'm still very committed to supporting this work becoming socialized and embodied and practiced. Um, but I had to be real with myself that I am not in a place right now to maybe set up and steward an organization for the next five to ten years trying to do things in this vein. At least that's that's not what's aligned right now. Um, but I think I was putting quite a lot of pressure on myself, and um, there's a way that capitalism also I think just can put a lot of pressure and steering in a certain direction. I'm aware of it now, but I wasn't then that you know it's really fantastic to write a book and then set up a business around the subject of that book. And that's what a lot of people do. I was naive. I didn't realize that was that was the trajectory. But in a way, with the book being out in the world and finding people and reaching people, it also meant that a lot of the freelance work being offered to me was like, can you do a grief ritual here? Can you do a grief ritual there? It was just so much grief work. And so then that also became this kind of entanglement or survival imperative of like, oh, if I want to pay my bills, I maybe just need to move into doing actually way more grief tending than might be possible or available for my system and my body. So it was definitely uh yeah, uh challenging and um complex kind of web to navigate. But I I thankfully feel like I'm reconnecting to my agency more and just yeah, trusting the process and trusting the the tools and the resources, like they are there if people want them, and I'm sure I'll be called um and made aware from ancestors and spirit about how I can support this in the future. But right now, yeah, that's not my orientation is shifting.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I uh have a lot of curiosity around the wisdom of knowing how to reclaim agency. That part that recognizes the work that I want to do is really important. But it also is a lot of energy extraction. And I I'm here for it, but I also need to tend to myself so I can keep this sustainable. And you you mentioned that you have found some awareness of that and how to do that. Is there, again, selfish question? Is there something you can share to help people find that awareness and agency?
SPEAKER_01Thank you for this question. Um, there are a lot of different somatic lineages out there, and I have not scratched the surface. I've had access to some lineages that have been helpful, but really the one that has helped me cultivate more daily choice agency and a sense of discernment around my limits and how my stress states or my embodied signals showk show that to me has really been the resilience toolkit. Um, a lineage created by and stewarded by NKM and Defoe, who's um based in Tongbaland or LA. And yeah, I got certified in this approach in 2020, I think, um, after losing my apartment to a house fire, and my nervous system was just like completely just yeah. I was I was in high distress, high alert, and I think was also kind of burnt out from a lot of the racial justice work I'd been doing over the last years. So it was just a big kind of sign, okay, something needs to stop. We need a reset. And thankfully I'd been introduced to NCEM and this lineage and had some support from one of my best friends who did a crowdfunder so I could take a little bit of time off work and support some, do some recovery. And so I actually spent a lot of that crowdfunder money on doing the certification, partially just as a way to recover for myself and support myself to have different tools I could weave into daily life, also knowing that it would inform a lot of the work I care about and I'd been involved in any way. Um, but what I really love about this approach is that it is really rooted in sort of learning to identify what different stress states feel like. So, what does it feel like when I'm resting? What does it feel like when I'm super activated? What does it feel like when I'm uh in my kind of social nervous system? And for me, with with rest, which has been a it's an ongoing journey. I'm in a very different place with it now than I was a few years ago, but probably ways to go. It became very clear to me in the process of the certification that I really didn't know how to rest. I needed to kind of learn how to track those signals. And so some of the signals for me now involve my belly gurgling and really deeply softening and feeling a lot more weight in my legs and my feet. And yin yoga has been or restorative yoga have been practices that have really helped me kind of access and notice what it's like to get into that state of a really deep kind of physiological rest. Um yeah, for activation for me, it can look like racing thoughts, dry mouth, um, feeling like I'm losing sensation in my lower body and just it just all the energy kind of being up here. Um yeah, not not much sensation in my legs or or pelvis. If I'm in my social nervous system, then generally I can really feel my feet and they're rooting through my feet. My breath is kind of yeah, kind of easeful, not not laboured, not forced, but just there's a depth there. And I can feel really flexible in my thinking, like I have choices, you know, like I can discern, you know, options. It's not like, oh, it's only this or it's only that. Um, so there's just a few examples, but it's it's been really helpful at sort of identifying what these signals are. And then the whole approach is really encouraging folks to notice okay, is the stress state supportive for the situation I'm in right now? And sometimes our stress state will. Be completely supportive where we are. You know, if a car is coming at me, it's great for me to feel activated and my muscles to mobilize to get me out of danger. But maybe if I'm in an organizing meeting or if I'm trying to do something creative where I want to have a range of choices available to me, being super stressed in that space is probably not going to be supportive. And so the idea is if we feel safe enough and we notice the stress state isn't supportive, we can choose from a menu of body-based or mindfulness tools that we can try out to see if that lowers or shifts our stress state. And yeah, these are really short tools, often two to three minutes. A few of them are five minutes. And they have a really accumulative effect. So I try and practice daily. And I think over time it's just helped me have more sensory awareness and almost like learning the language of my body and sensations. Um, so I could really feel for those two years after the book came out, like I'm not in alignment. Something is feeling off because that's what my body was signaling to me. And it was a kind of stagnation, like mentally and physically, uh, which thankfully, yeah, has shifted a lot now that I'm allowing myself to follow my intuition and actually say, yeah, I don't have to go on this path of should, but can can move towards what what feels like an aligned yes and what what what my body is kind of open and spacious for instead of this kind of constriction and um yeah.
SPEAKER_00No, it entirely does. I think you're actively changing my life in this moment. Like it's so just the way you're delivering this, it's all just coming in this boom boom boom boom. So I'm feeling it. Thank you so much. I hope it's the same for our audience.
SPEAKER_02I love I love the the small moments, the small practices, three to five minutes a day. And really like this the I the term I have is body sensing, right? Sensing in space, in time, in my environment, what's stressful, what's not. And just really collaps calibrating is the word, right? Not like just reflections at five o'clock. You know, go and meditate, right? Which is it seems like there's a a practice of really being as so tuned into yourself as possible, right? Somatically aware of your body in space and what it's spir it's experiencing at your in an almost like a active practice field, right? Of of being in your body and being in practice with yourself to make space for yourself so you can have capacity. You know, one of the things that I think through is we must learn our capacity before we can just give, give, give. And I think that's hearing you share that has just been so much of a journey of like, oh yeah, sure, I'll do this, I'll do that, I'll do this, I'll do that. And then you're burnt out, depleted, and um and your body starts to break down, right? I get really really curious around with your work and how you're evolving. Um you find yourself more aware of your body limits, and not just your body capacity, even your mental capacity, right? Like and and what do you do when those two feel out of alignment?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, this is a really big one and has been a huge teacher actually with the grief journey. I think when I was younger and very much identified as an activist, I kind of felt like a superhero. I didn't have any sense of limit in a way that was maybe a little bit delusional. Um and with the grief being so visceral, it just limited how much energy I had to do various things. Um, I've also had an ongoing kind of uh chronic health experience I've been managing in in various uh shades of intensity at different points in my life. Um, and so that that already had like given me a taste of energy management, but this was a whole new thing with with the grief. It was like, okay, I just cannot have these social engagements, or I cannot take on more than this amount of work. Um and yeah, I think there's ebbs and flows for me, to be honest. I think um after the book came out, I did have a bit of an experiment of trying to see how many grief spaces can I hold in a month without my body breaking down, without mentally breaking down. And so there was a few months where I tried like four in a month, some that were maybe five or three. And I found for me that actually ideally one or two is enough. Um, and some months that actually might be too much, like when my grandmother died um two years ago, that also had to then completely reset capacity around how much I could do, how much I could work, because there was so much emotional um energy going out to support family and the death admin that was needed. Um so yeah, I think I think I'm always having to kind of reassess with context, but thankfully, when the signals start, I can notice them more. Like if I'm having consistent days of feeling really overwhelmed, really overstretched, racing thoughts, not being able to really sleep without my mind spiraling or this and that thing, that's a signal to me. Oh, yeah, something needs to shift here. This is too much. There isn't the capacity to be with this. Um, and so what I tend to do when that happens is then lean on certain practices which I know can support me to have like a deep recovery moment, whether that's like yin yoga or going to the sauna or um yeah, doing certain practices like tremoring, but really trying to like front load up on those, almost find some equilibrium and then get clear on what I can take off my plate, what's not essential, and then how do I re-jig for the next, I don't know, two weeks and then see is that pattern better? Is that allowing me to actually rest when I'm trying to rest? Um, do I feel more in my choice and my capacity? But I I definitely don't feel like I'm perfect with it at all. It's something I'm still learning, but thankfully I'm kind of better at tracking the signs and the danger zones before I get to a really serious burnout, which was more historically something I would uh prop up against every few years. Yep. I hear that feeling.
SPEAKER_02I try it every month. Uh just hearing that, I uh as you were talking, I was thinking about what came up was like you as soon as you said every two weeks my body went into being someone in a um a body that was assigned female at birth. Um cycle sinking, and this new way that I've been trying to live my life where I know for two weeks out the month, my energy will have have more vitality. Then there's that one week that feels like you know, one of the things I'm finding more um individuals are actually comparing your phases of your menstrual cycle as a season. So then I know that my fall season, I'm just gonna slow down a little bit, don't try to push it. And then my winter season, which is actually my cycle, I'm gonna be like, nope, I'm good, can't do anything, right? And I've really been trying to just be in that practice. So like the more I hear you speak about like you know, understanding and not being perfect, right? Because we all go there, but how do you or have you considered for yourself or others, even how cyclical nature is and how our bodies are connected to that process as well when it comes to like fanatic healing?
SPEAKER_01Mm-mm. Yes, I really, really resonate with what you're saying, and something I've I mean, I hope someone's doing it or it will be done, but something I've often felt sad about for assigned female but gender non-conforming or transkin is because of the number that patriarchy has done on us, there can be this like this rejection of and dissociation from the womb, from cycles, from anything that uh is like leaning into that. And that space can be really full of like biological determinism and a lot of goddess, this and that. And no shade to people who resonate with that. That's great. But I've often longed for a space where gender non-conforming folks who have wombs can still find an access point to embrace some of the wisdom and the power of the cycles. Um, because it's really, really helped me having gone from having very, very painful, debilitating um periods and almost like feeling I don't know, just very intense mental health experiences, which some people might say PMDD or whatever the terms are for it. But you know, just learning about cycles and being able to work with certain plants, like drinking raspberry leaf tea in the week before my bleed, doing pasta oil packs, like so many things, which just meant I have a completely different relationship with that in my life, and also trying to do things schedule-wise, not facilitating in the bleed week, you know, not trying to be out in the world in certain ways. And it's really ultimately just shifted so much for me. But I know that the information and the way it's packaged does not meet a lot of people where they where they are. Um, but to me, this is not it's not gendered. It's I don't know, it's something else. It's something else. And um, when I think about seasons as well, at least for those of us who have kind of noticeable seasonal shifts in certain parts of the world, um, it relates a lot to me around grief as well, just kind of output and productivity. Um, I've really learned to love winter in recent years. Not because I particularly like the cold, but more just that kind of internal drawing in and that reflection of seeing, okay, the leave, the trees are bare. Life's still there, but it's like it's on the low, you know, it's everything is drawing in. Um, gives me a lot of permission to lean into those states where that's where I find myself. Um, and yeah, also just something about autumn, like at the moment, seeing the trees uh shed spaghetti shed their leaves, and the leaves change in colour and almost this ability to like savor the sweetness of things because they're finite. I also see that as connected to grief and cycles of yeah, trying to be satisfied with the moment and knowing that it's always in flux and transition. Um, so there was yeah, there is a lot of anchoring that I feel through looking at the cycles of nature and my own internal rhythms and cycles, and just trying to be yeah, in relationship to that. Um, something last thing I'll say on this as well, something I've really enjoyed doing is actually giving and offering some of my menstrual blood every month to the earth or to my plants as some way to also be a bit in connection and not just be taking, because it feels like so much about living in the West is just like take, take, take. But doing small actions or gestures of like, okay, you've nourished me, and now there's something from me that can actually nourish, nourish you or nourish the web of life. Um, so practices like this make me feel, yeah, very connected, and I'm trying to weave more of these small, small offerings and moments into my into my days.
SPEAKER_02Thank you. I feel so connected to you. As soon as I heard raspberry leaf tea, I was like, yes. No, but definitely just like the grief of being in an extractive system, but finding ways to connect with the wisdom of our body. And I love even you naming offering um your men's seeds to the earth. Um, there's a super viral thing going on in social media. It just caught my attention. This woman had moon water and she put some of her bleed in the water, and then a plant started to grow, and it was just like, I know. It just for those of us with I like the language of wombs. Those of us with womb growing into language in my mid-40s. It's amazing.
SPEAKER_03I love it.
SPEAKER_02Um it's just such a powerful reminder that we are nature. That's what's been sitting with me lately is how much of nature that we really are, and how much we have been robbed of that connection because of being hyperproductive or having those, you know, like just capitalism, all of it. And um just sitting with that as you you shared so beautifully, and I felt super connected to you, especially around rhythms and cycles and and flow and and how our bodies are still just kind of how do we bring those back to vessels of of nature, I guess, is where I am versus vessels of productivity.
SPEAKER_03That's beautiful. Thank you. Anything from Eugen?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I'm thinking there's a couple things that have could just jumped out of like talking about the different mental states that show for for all bodies in different cycles. Like we all bodies are in some kind of cycle. And then also the way that we resist grief. Speaking for myself, certainly this has been a journey of discovery of allowing more grief, of just that knee jerk. I don't have time to grieve, I've got things to do, just all, and I hear so much in both of you the wisdom of we must make time for it. It is what will create sustainability. And so just from the context of our podcast of like hard to love, like we are hard to love when we are grieving, but we are also worthy of love. And I there I'll get too wordy and like go on a tangent trying to explain my question, but is there just something you can say to either build the fortitude and resilience and desire to hold space for somebody in their grief, or to allow yourself to be hard to love in your grief? So eat from either direction, however you want to answer that.
SPEAKER_01Something that comes up a lot that I've noticed in workshops and spaces is that people often are longing for permission to feel the difficult things because so many of us, especially when we care or when we feel attuned to the pain of the world, go into this hierarchy thing of like, oh well, they're suffering way more than me, so my suffering doesn't matter. Um, or you know, just trying to justify why we can't feel what we feel. Um, and so I guess an invitation would be for people to try and hold that empathy is not limited. Um there is enough space for us to all get to be in our feelings and find ways to relate to each other without being in a kind of domination culture of like, well, you're allowed to, you're not, yours is more important, yours doesn't matter. What would it look like if we could give permission to understand that grief and loss and forms of harm come in different shapes and different scales? That's real, but that we can allow ourselves and give ourselves a permission to be with that. And we can give other people the permission to be with that. Um, instead of trying to police who is allowed to do this, that, and the other. What if we just make a bit more space and permission? And then, you know, there's lots of strategizing around how we do that, you know, that we can get into. But I think at the base, that's a really key part of it because um if we don't give ourselves that permission, we can probably rationalize over and over and over again why we don't deserve to feel our feelings or why we don't deserve to heal, why we don't deserve love and to be met, you know, to be met and accompanied. Because a lot of the time, another thing I notice is that uh grief can be really uncomfortable for folks socialized in the West because we can feel a sense of needing to fix it, like make it better, find a solution. And actually, the hardest thing for the most profound thing is really to just accept sometimes we cannot fix it. A lot of the time, it's nothing to be fixed. It's just about can you be with someone? Can you make someone feel, oh, I'm with you? And it's hard. Like, oh yeah, that sounds really hard. Can I just sit with you in that for some moments? Instead of trying to find the silver lining, trying to minimize, be like, oh, but we could do this fun thing, or we could, you know, what about just the that practice of just being with? It's so powerful and so often what a lot of people long for, but we're not taught to do that.
SPEAKER_02I think one of the things just hearing you saying being with it is um, I've been, you know, I know you also have the love of the ancestor, Melodoma, sommei, and some bonsu sommei. I feel like they're calling so many of us right now with just the state of the world. And one of the things we've we've be we've begun doing because of the quote, so I even you know the what their work, but there is this quote that I read that was essentially a community with a grief ritual, is essentially a corporation. Like I just shortened it a little bit, right? And I was sitting there and I was like, We call ourselves a collective, how dare I? And so we have been doing these practices, right? Grief grief practices, right? Where we do Jen does a grief enjoy one. I do, which Jen meaning to invite Camille to one of those if possible. Um, throwing that out there. Um, and then I just have been holding ceremony, vibration, and movement and breathing, and just to see people have a space to come and be, right? There's no agenda. It's so beautiful to watch the opening of just their humanity, right? Just by having that space to grieve. And, you know, we're a collective that like we I'm a black of course in black women with a majority of white folks, we have bodies of culture, but like harm happens, right? And everyone's like, I'm gonna cause harm, I'm gonna be anti-black. Yeah, okay, all those things. The goal is harm reduction. But in in sitting with that grief question, I'm curious, as I think about like repair and transformative healing, repair, is there a relationship to having like these grief practices and then space for repair? Does that allow repair to emerge more naturally than some sort of manufactured practice of repair? I hope that made sense.
SPEAKER_01Mm-hmm. That makes sense to me. Yeah. Um I really believe that a lot of conflict transformation work can be massively supported when grief, um, grief awareness and somatic awareness is brought in. Because, especially in our movement spaces, not exclusively, but um a lot of the time when there is conflict, there may be elements in present time that are valid and that are real, but a lot of the times we're being reminded of things that happened in the past that hurt us. And that energy is coming into the conflict and it can be difficult to pull apart what's what. So I think it can be very powerful for people to take time, whether that's journaling, if that's what works for you, whether that's moving, doing somatic practice, um, to try and get clear on like what's the what's the ecosystem of this? Is there something here that reminds me of this really painful thing that happened in my childhood or with my family? Um, how much of that am I bringing into this moment right now? Am I able to see the humanity and feel the divinity of this other being I'm in a challenging moment with, or have I collapsed then into this one thing or this one behavior? And really giving space to feel that and allow some of that to move before trying to then meet and resolve. Because there's actually always stuff we may need to resolve and move first, even be in a place where we can be in integrity to actually try and find a way to love that person into a different space. But I think some. times because we're so we've been so trained into punishment culture and castoral culture, even the ways we do accountability that are trying to do something else can still have so much weight of punishment and like wanting to make someone feel you know guilty. Whereas like a transformative justice approach is much more like well, you know, the really, really difficult thing about it is if you want someone to transform, there has to be a sense of you loving them enough to trust they can do that. And so like if we can't even get to that place, then what's the point of even doing a conflict transformation process? And I'm not saying I always find it easy. Especially with stuff around sexual violence, I really am like, ooh, you know, I might not even necessarily be there in all the situations. I'm very much in process with it. But I think there is this piece of like if we're serious about wanting transformation, we have to attend to the messiness in ourselves that maybe don't actually want that or just want someone to be wrong and bad and punished and thrown away. Otherwise we're going to bring all that stuff with us even if we think yeah I'm doing the process and you know going about the motions but underneath the surface there can be a lot that we're we're carrying in.
SPEAKER_02I hear that and it's it's very fascinating just hearing that reflected and so much of what I witness working with artist is no matter how much it's like hey you're fine it's all good relax the the how patriarchy has robbed them of the ability to be vulnerable and the ability just to learn to be okay, right? With like you're gonna cause harm and the flagellation and it turns into sensory and then more labor. So just hearing you share that I hope the audience especially if you're in the collective really takes something away from what was shared here and I and I wanna what really inspired me in my work is bellhooks yay um when she says that for me forgiveness and compassion are always linked.
SPEAKER_03How do we hold people accountable for wrongdoing and yet at the same time at the same time remain in touch with their humanity enough to believe in their capacity to be changed and transformed.
SPEAKER_02This is big grief because I I see it, I study neuroscience and I'm like hey everyone whoa we're letting patriarchy and capitalism take us all the way down the wrong way. Hey everyone has that capacity and if we if we bring in like the neuroscience of behavior change like this is all we're trying to do as someone who's been in recovery for almost three years is like like grieving the ability to be changed and transformed or the inability to see the capacity for that because we get so caught up in this binary black and white and white people are this and that's a big grief that I I sit with.
SPEAKER_01I think that's why I feel it in my heart space like it just feels it's like I feel like an alien often because I'm like isn't there something deeper here right and so just my heart and my grief and my chest just feels that like wow forgiveness and compassion it's all interlinked and what are we being called to grieve and celebrate the grief and the joy of the work that we do no question it's just kind of riffing a little bit I really appreciate sharing this and yeah I resonate with you and feeling like feeling alien like sometimes with just wanting wanting the yeah to us us to just move into a different space together you know not repeat the dynamics of the trauma of racialization and racism and colonialism in trying to move away from it but it feels like there's so much of that that happens and it's really really hard and a lot of belonging stuff I think comes up too for me. Like am I gonna disbelong if I try and invest in this way or this strategy are the people gonna suspect me or my motivations it's really hard and I think for white folks too I witness sometimes a real like mental commitment reading books rationally just trying to get at it like how do I rationally get at it but I think without that leaning into the grief of like oh you've been violently separated you've been trained to not have empathy you've been trained to not be able to feel with other beings like to be able to to really reckon with the embodiment of that and actually allow themselves a permission to grieve that to grieve the assimilation of their ancestors the long time before colonization of their peoples and assimilation into whiteness being a beneficiary and a victim like I don't know how much though there's going to be a movement of really feeling okay enough worthy enough to be transformed in the ways many of us are inviting because it's not about getting a gold star or being the good white person. It's like how do we reclaim our humanity our dignity as beings being able to be really fully in our aliveness and in our connection and not just like subject to the severing that's been so deep and so instrumentalized for hundreds of years now.
SPEAKER_00I'm feeling really wonderful right now. I think there's just something so validating about this conversation to realize the resonance of the way that we move and try to move and the words that Myisha brings us and the way that you were saying it too like I just feel so much cohesion is such a not it's not a grand enough word, but I'm I still love the reminders that you're both giving and I hope I really hope it's landing for people. Because I think the the pendulum swing of where people find presence for each other with empathy when they hear you're gonna cause harm it's okay but then give themselves that grace but then the pendulum swing of when the the righteous rage of the harm shows up and the big feels come and it's like wait a minute I thought you said it was okay it's like yes it will be the storm will pass. But so it's just there's so much resistance with whiteness. It's it's something has to as you say make intellectual sense so that I can orient myself to it. And Mike you should have talked so much about this flow just you keep waiting for it to make sense and it never will just flow with it you know so I just oh what a what a gift this conversation with you both thank you Jen and thank you Camille approaching that magic hour Camille I would love to ask you are there any tangible ways that we can support you or that those who are listening can support you or your work thank you for this question I'm also trying to be in practice for sharing more so I appreciate the invitation to share on it.
SPEAKER_01Folks can support me and my work by either buying a copy of Tending Grief um could be a physical copy or if you prefer audiobooks there is an audiobook version that I narrate in case you like the sound of my voice I can guide you through practices and uh yeah speak speak the words to you. And also by the end of the year uh linked through my website which is CamilleSaparabarton.com I'll have a bunch of self-paced online courses available for anyone that might want to kind of deepen in with me on certain topics. I have a self-paced grief and somatics course that will be available and uh Semetics for social change for those who are like how do I connect the dots between this individualized feeling sensing into something that supports kind of collective shifts.
SPEAKER_02There may well be a few others there but those are a few ways to yeah tangibly support me or like connect more with my work thank you well we will be sure to put that in the show notes so that um everyone can um support you and we would love to support you as well we'll talk to you about that offline we thank you so much for your time to be here with us today on the Hard to Globe podcast and until we all see you again friends listening keep uh listening to your work peace