S5E2 Finding Your Voice Through Conflict

This was such a good convo y'all! In episode 2, I speak with Khadi about her journey into doing mediation work. We also dive into how we, as conflict care facilitators, are constantly learning and applying it in our day-to-day lives. 

**Content warning: this episode includes topics about interpersonal violence, child a*use and harm.**

GUEST BIO

Khadijat A. Oluwatoyin is an attorney specializing in conflict resolution and community-building. Having navigated challenging relationship dynamics in adolescence and intentional, transparent conflict resolution methods as an adult, Khadijat has a distinctive blend of professional expertise combined with a deep understanding of impactful communication strategies. With her interdisciplinary approach, she empowers those she works with to resolve conflict without abandoning themselves, while maintaining integrity and grace.

CONTACT GUEST
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Khadijat-Oluwatoyin
Instagram: https://instagram.com/forkhadijat
CashApp: https://cash.app/$khadilooksnice

988 Film

PRODUCED BY: Goddess

MUSIC: 22,000 by Spirit Paris McIntyre


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Transcript

UNKNOWN: 0:00

Ah.

SPEAKER_02: 0:42

Hello fellow weird and wild ones. It has been a minute. So much has evolved and changed about your lovely host and me, Goddess, and Sunseed community since season four of the podcast. And I am stoked to share some of the dopest folks I've met, and some of the been in community with, and have learned from along the way in season five of the SSC podcast. So grab your drink, get your snacky snacks, and gather your homies for the end times. End of what? I'm really not sure, but I really hope it's fascism. But I digress, different conversation. Let's get on with the show. You are inspiring. You are inspiring. You are inspiring at least 22,000 times a day. So inspiring. You're so inspiring.

SPEAKER_00: 1:59

I'm Marquesa Tucker-Harris, Executive Director with the African American Roundtable in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Arts Vision is a joyful political home for Black people to thrive in liberated and interconnected communities. Our mission at the African American Roundtable is to organize, nurture, and transform Black leaders to build power in service of Black liberation. We get to do such amazing work here in the city of Milwaukee alongside residents. We'd love for you to learn more about our work. Visit us at aartmke.org.

SPEAKER_02: 2:31

Katie, thank you so much for coming on the Sunsuit Community Podcast. I'm really excited to have you on today. I'm going to start off by introducing you to the folks that are listening, and then we'll get into it. So Khadija A. Oluwatoyin is an attorney specializing in conflict resolution and community building. Having navigated challenging relationship dynamics in adolescence and intentional, transparent conflict resolution methods as an adult, Khadija has a distinctive blend of professional expertise combined with a deep understanding of impactful communication strategies. With her interdisciplinary approach, she empowers those she works with to resolve conflict without abandoning themselves while maintaining integrity and grace. I love that part about not abandoning ourselves. So again, thank you for joining us. So who are you bringing into the space with you today? And to answer this question, can you also share your pronouns?

SPEAKER_01: 3:43

So thank you guys for having me here. My pronouns are she, her, hers. And I am bringing, you know, we just celebrated, for those who do celebrate Mother's Day, Mother's Day weekend, and I'm celebrating, I'm bringing into the space my maternal ancestors. So my grandmas, great-grandmas, great-great-grandmas on both sides, my mom's side and my dad's side, my maternal ancestors, whoever they may be, who have shown me and graced me with light and love and just a lot of good intention and support. So I'm bringing them into the space.

SPEAKER_02: 4:25

A shade of that. Yes to the ancestors. Yeah, I think who I'm bringing into the space with me. So before we even started, I was telling you about Sydney Morgan. And so I'm definitely bringing her into the space with me. I just got done with her restorative justice training and it just opened me up to so many more tools around thinking about how we do this conflict care work. I'm also bringing in my ancestors, always, always, always, and the lessons I've learned about how to engage in conflict and how not to engage in conflict, for sure. Yeah, so thank you for sharing that.

SPEAKER_01: 5:08

Can you mind if I expand a little bit? Yes! Why? Yes, please! So in my overall self- self-recovery, just recovering the self from a lot of misbeliefs and hurtful theologies that I was raised in to practice. I have learned that a lot of maternal figures, including my mom, you know, at a point our relationship was strained, really underwent a lot of violence, even if they don't recognize it to be violence. Violence that have been stemmed under, like, white supremacy, misogyny, sexism, et cetera, et cetera, that really didn't, in my opinion, allow them to be who they are, to communicate in the way that they wanted to, to show the light that we all possess. So with that being said, in my overall self-recovery, me creating a new relationship with my mom and learning from other people who came before her, my parents don't really like to talk a lot about our ancestors because of the taboo that comes with the Yoruba traditional religion. They like to stick with, you know, talking about Islam and that part. But it's like, no, I mean, I want to learn and I want to learn and be in communications with that part of who I am also. And I think that goes to why I'm bringing them in. I think a lot of times in our community, in our heritage, in our lineage, we have been shut down, taught what to believe, what to talk about, what not to talk about, what to do. And even though I don't have their full story, I'm bringing them into this space to be able to say whatever the H-E. I don't know if you curse in this podcast. Yes,

SPEAKER_02: 7:02

we do.

SPEAKER_01: 7:05

Yes, I will curse.

UNKNOWN: 7:08

Sorry, curse.

SPEAKER_01: 7:08

to bring and say whatever the hell they want because they

SPEAKER_03: 7:11

have

SPEAKER_01: 7:12

to do that. So that's why I'm bringing them into the space to, you know, to be able to communicate what I have learned since being in not only my law school and these credentials and the programs that I've been in terms of communication, but also the spiritual side of communication, of not being afraid to be who you are and say what you need to say. So that's

SPEAKER_02: 7:42

why. Okay. The spiritual side of communication could be its own podcast episode because there is something to that. And I think what you were talking about around the ways in which we kind of like view, like we're taught to view conflict or like, like the ways in which we, what is like not acceptable or like normal, I think that that also goes into that too of like the spiritual communication. Because we are taught, especially as Black folks who are perceived to be femme or are femme, there's a certain way in which we were taught to like put up with things under the guise of like strength and resilience. And I think that that feeds into how we hold conflict and also like what is the energy with which we're like, we're moving in it. So could you just like speak to that for a second?

UNKNOWN: 8:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 8:49

off topic off of what we have planned but could you just like say more to that because I think I think it needs to be in the space

SPEAKER_01: 9:02

okay so hopefully I am touching well ask the question one more time just so I can really make sure I'm answering to it

SPEAKER_02: 9:08

yes okay so let me let me consolidate my thoughts for a second I think what I'm asking you is could you say more of more about how we gauge what is or isn't acceptable or normal in relationships and how that feeds into spiritual communication that you're talking about, spiritual communication you're talking about.

SPEAKER_01: 9:36

Okay. I do want to just give the, not the disclaimer, but the little pre-note that spiritual communication looks different for a number of people. For me, how it looks like, I, again, have grown up in a Nigerian Islamic household where You know, when I say things about my household, I just think about my parents. I just see them right there looking at me like, shut up. But you know what? No, this is about communication. And communication involves honesty and transparency and truth telling. I

SPEAKER_03: 10:09

grew

SPEAKER_01: 10:11

up not only in a household, but even in a mosque, in a community. Even when I went to school, I went to a private Catholic school. Folks said, why did you go there if you're Muslim? My parents thought that they had the best education in the town that I grew up in. So I grew up, again, with Muslims, Nigerians, and Pakistan Muslims, and with Catholic Irish people. And throughout my experience of growing up, it just seemed like children were objects. It seemed like women were objects. We were told constantly not to talk back, not to say what we're feeling. If we feel like we were wronged, we couldn't say that we were wronged. felt like you were lying even as an adult i couldn't say that you were lying even though you were lying um so i have had the experience of me being a kid and you know if you ask I was great when it came to, like, grades, but I always had a disciplinary, I guess, track since, like, even middle school because they always said I was defiant, and I was. And I was. I used to look back and think, like, you know, I used to feel so ashamed before I started getting in tune with my ancestors of, like, why, you know, I just couldn't really listen to adults. But because I didn't need to listen to them. What they were saying was bullshit. They weren't embodying. the adult that I wanted to grow up to be. And now as an adult in self-recovery, recovering myself, my true being, I can look back and say, you guys were absolutely bullshitters. You guys were absolutely not following your own advice. You led on control and power, not love and community. Most of you did nothing for my betterment. You did it for your own personal purpose. feelings right so for me I there was a point where I would blame a lot of my my trauma and I think for and I think it was it's okay like I think there's stages to accepting things that have happened to you and processing it so there was a time where I would be like a Blaming a lot of my trauma and my addiction for those. I mean, I don't know I'm like for those of you who don't know but so when I see him in self-recovery I entered the self-recovery space through falling into addiction of alcohol in about 2018 and I couldn't understand how I got myself into this space so and i had to one stop drinking and and do that part right but then i also the self-recovery part comes when me understanding how did i get myself here what practices and beliefs did i follow did i live under that made me think that my life was not worth living if i was not escaping it right because i was in a hell that i didn't realize was in the hell but i was in a hell going back a little bit i would blame certain people and usually you blame like the paternal figures in your life because the truth is the maternal figures are the ones who are there to um who are present so

SPEAKER_02: 13:30

fam let me let me stop

SPEAKER_01: 13:32

so through self through my self recovery i was like okay you know this took like maybe three four years i'm done blaming folks in my trauma now I'm in the understanding part of saying like, well, and even a lot of times I would tell my mom, like, well, you did this to me when I was a child. You know what she would say? They did it to me too. And again, that is the cycle of, of disregard for, of hiding who we are. We're not able to be. And we store all our thoughts, all our words, all our communications, all our feelings in the body, and we take it out on the less, on the vulnerable, on the more vulnerable people of our community, which tends to be children and femmes, women, femmes, like is that women, trans, that

SPEAKER_03: 14:20

area

SPEAKER_01: 14:20

of us. So as I started to, again, you know, forgive my mom, understood where she grew up. You know, she's as old, she's even older than her country, as her country has been, what is it, established or, independent, like

SPEAKER_03: 14:37

independent.

SPEAKER_01: 14:39

So I gave her grace. And then I had to think, like, as I was getting in tune to my ancestors, I had to think, what did they go through? Oh my gosh. You know, and being of the Yoruba, tribe i know that the women in our in in nigeria for most lit most lineage they were the breadwinners they went to the market and worked they negotiated they used their words to negotiate they used their words to solve problems in the community but when they went home did they have that same opportunity to to speak to say what was their mind to be the problem solvers that they are, innately are. So for me, spiritual communication is be saying whatever the hell I want, reasonably, right? Making sure it's true, is it kind? And not everything has to be kind, but for the most part, yes, is it kind and is it necessary? I do try to follow those lines. But spiritual communication is also me taking into account Everything that I'm going through, I wasn't the first one to go through that. However, I'm the first one to speak about it. And I'm speaking about these things, everything, my addiction, communication, the problems I experienced as a child. I'm speaking on it, yes, for the future, but also for my ancestors, because I know they were afforded the opportunity to speak on certain things. And that's why That's why I'm they're giving me, you know, I lastly would say, you know, Katie did it listen. She's on the fight. That was my answer I mean, I'm not putting the blame on them. I'm not I'm not putting the blame on them, but I know a Lot of my spunk because I put one out of five So why was I the only one who was like we all grew up in a mosque? We all grew up I am me because I am the the I ancestors specifically the maternal ancestors behind this is what you get when you don't when you don't control someone from my my lineage a woman from my lineage

SPEAKER_02: 16:55

yeah oh yes all the words um when you were when you were talking about like the adults you were seeing weren't a representation of the adult that you wanted to be when you grew up hit so hard because I noticed that too as a child and I couldn't put my finger on like what it was, but something just felt off. Like I was like, you just don't, you don't seem happy. You don't, there's a part of yourself that's missing, it feels like. And it feels like you're going through the motions for the sake of something that isn't serving you. And I didn't have words for it. And then as I grew up, I learned about self abandonment. And I was like, that is what it is. You have been forced and agreed to in so many ways to abandon parts of yourself. And now you're demanding and teaching me and other children, To abandon ourselves. To abandon ourselves! And along with that abandoning and asking us to be more docile, more agreeable, it's also asking us to not have self-accountability.

SPEAKER_01: 18:05

That part.

SPEAKER_02: 18:14

Yeah, so that hit. Thank you. Okay, let's backtrack a little bit. we were like he like dove in the deep okay could you tell us a little bit um about the kind of conflict care work you do um and like how you came into this work

SPEAKER_01: 18:41

okay so the kind of work that i do now like yes i have I do like contracts and communications. So if there's like a breakdown of communication between two people or businesses, I do. Yes, I do partake in that type of communication. And to me, it is communication work because my so I do have a mediation firm community. And it's basically teaching folks in our community. community, how to interact with one another, and how to handle conflict. I graduated law school in 2018. And as soon as I look, you would have thought that everything was like roses and gravy. I got my first, you know, beautiful apartment right on the waterfront in New York, my dream car. I had a job. I didn't know if I passed the bar, but, you know, my grades were good. I ended up passing the bar. So you would have thought that like life would have been just so amazing. But it wasn't. And I was miserable. Didn't understand why. But that's towards the self-recovery phase. journey that I was telling you about before. But thinking on like the communication work I did. So while I was working in firms and the, I guess, nonprofit organizations, it just felt very daunting. It felt like you were, it felt daunting and humiliating for two reasons. It felt like we were solving folks who look like us, Black folks, their problems, and then sending them out into the world until they occurred a similar problem and then come back to us. And generally, while they were working with us, they didn't really understand court lingo, how to like maneuver the court system. It just felt very empowering, disempowering, excuse me. And the last time that I worked in like professional legal setting, I was working in downtown Brooklyn in the, courthouses down there. And again, seeing Black folks, people of color, come before the judge, and now they don't have attorneys, so they're trying to mediate or handle this problem on their own in front of the judge. The judge would be like, that's not admissible. Do you think they know that that's not admissible? Did they go to law school? Can you give them more context to why that's not admissible? And I would just be there. And I'll be honest, I don't know why I was feeling embarrassed. I mean, it was embarrassing. And not on the party's part, but I felt so, I felt a bit of like, I don't know if it was guilt, shame. I know it was embarrassment. The whole thing made me feel so uncomfortable. And I'm just expecting it in the back, waiting for my case to be heard. I can only imagine what they are feeling standing up before this judge and constantly being told, that's wrong, that's wrong, that's wrong. So after, you know, After my last, I guess, contract or like firm or what do you call it? Like nine to five, nine to five legal job. That's when I'm like, what is the word I'm looking for? That's when I decided to go into recovery, you know, deal with my issues with alcohol. And then when I came out of it, I said, what am I going to do? So, you know, I do have a non-profit, so the Black Girls Club. So maybe like four or five years into my recovery, I felt like, I thought I didn't want to know practice into the legal sector anymore but then i was like oh no i do i am a problem solver i like solutions i like helping people but i don't want to go back to that setting i don't want to go back to the setting of where we are in court with you know and new york is one of the most diverse places you could be in but when you're in the court system it's still the same white man I just, and there are black judges, don't get me wrong, but the majority of what I was in front of and what I saw was just, it just didn't sit right. And I didn't want to do, I didn't even want to work in a firm anymore. I just didn't want to be in that setting anymore. So I was thinking about like, what is it that I can do? And mediation came in mind. However, I did do some mediation as an attorney for certain firms, but it wasn't the type of mediation that I, again, it was more of, you say what you think the other party say what they think and then i create this solution i felt like especially in this time of age we should be helping the parties the participants create the solutions from themselves we should be navigating and helping them see what happened what could have What what could have been done better and where do we go from here and not every situation is Equal for example right now again. I'm doing like contracts between these two business that are helping them mediate They don't want to go to court which is fine. I'm helping them, but oh, you know for me It's the cases of family members of friends of neighbors souls are the the the cases that I get that really are or this is why I'm doing this. This is why I created Community Act. How can we act in community even when there's a conflict, even when there's a disagreement? How can we recognize, how can we be accountable? How can we recognize what went wrong and is this relationship worth saving and worth going right for? Some are not. Some are just like, you know what? You guys have been best friends for a while because you guys are in proximity with each other. It doesn't look like you guys share the same values at all. That's what I want Community Act to embody. And that's why I created Community Act. So for me, Community Act is this community-based mediation practice where folks learn to solve problems conflict or navigate conflict create solutions where they don't have to feel like they're abandoning themselves because the traditional legal system and traditional mediation practices are saying you're wrong and i'm right that's not real life that's not real life at all you know a lot of times we see situations where someone maybe a party has overreacted right about something and then when you get into it you talk you'll hear about 10 000 things that happened before this person overreacted and that i think is very common in the black and people of color community because we're afraid to communicate i think that black folks especially and i'm saying this as a person who's working who works with a lot of black women um through my nonprofit of a blacklist club constantly hearing I didn't want to say anything because I didn't want to get in trouble. Or I didn't want to say anything because I didn't want to look like an angry black woman. Or I didn't want to say something because of this and that. And it all, you know, we can all, for the most part, and I don't want to say all of us, but you know, some of us, most of us can look back to when we were kids and we were constantly told to be quiet, stop talking. You know, when you go into a store, don't touch anything. You don't want to be You don't want to be seen or heard. And our parents or the adults around us might have been telling us this because of our protection. They don't want white people to even notice us, leave us the hell alone. But we also have to see and understand how that has contributed to our lack of willingness to speak. be in community. And when I mean be in community, it was all conflict because in any community, there's going to be some type of conflict. So that's what encouraged me to create Community Act because I think to live a full life, we have to be free of feeling like if we say what we're, if we say what we're feeling, or if we say, you know, a problem that we have, then we're going to be abandon or we're going to be um ostracized or there's going to be this big big blow up and and i'm here to tell people it doesn't have to be like that it couldn't you can't control anyone but yourself but i feel like if you understand what is it that you want to say why is it you want to say it and if you understand certain methods, for example, if I'm hot about something and I want to have a conversation with you and solve this problem we have, maybe today might not be the good day to do it. And I think sometimes, like a lot of clients that I've had in the past, they feel like, well, if they say they don't want to have this conversation today, it might look like they're scary. But so what? You're keeping you in mind. Forget the other party. You know you're hot. You You have the self-awareness to understand you're hot. You're not in a space right now where you can hear anyone. By you providing you the space that you probably was never afforded in the past, you did something wrong, probably the adults in your life wanted to talk about it right then and there, you're the adult now. You get to control what you speak, how you speak, and how you maneuver certain predicaments. for you to you and your brain you're saying it looks like you're scary to me i'm saying oh this person cares about our relationship they don't want to say anything out of anger and they want to wait until they're cooled down um so that's hopefully i i've explained why i created community act i created community act to shift the way not only we handle conflict but also the way we communicate with each other

SPEAKER_02: 28:26

Absolutely. No, you explained that really well. And I think that we need to have more conversations, especially within the Black community, about this expectation that folks have around Black femmes and thems showing up for other people. They expect us to stand up for everyone else, but they do not they get quite upset when we stand up for ourselves when we set boundaries that like relate to ourselves then there's a problem then we're seen as like the um like angry black woman or we have an attitude or we're not being um cooperative and i i like currently in this moment i'm quite pissed about it and vocal about it um But I think that speaks to, again, like how we show up in conflict. Absolutely. Yeah, so thank you for sharing, like, more about your work. And I actually have, like, my next question is based on, like, when people ask what I do and I tell them I do conflict care work, either people's, like, eyes glaze over and they seem, like, hesitant to ask more questions or they're really curious and they, like, you know, like... hint to me or like tell me on the side that they're experiencing conflict at work or in other places and they they don't know how to handle it so I'm I'm curious like how do you share this work on the day-to-day with like people who might not understand like what it is

SPEAKER_01: 30:19

so I'll be very honest with you now I don't think I'm doing a great job as in like marketing I you know these level 70 things so I yeah I will say I'm not doing the best job when it comes to spreading the message. to folks who are outside of my community or who hear about me from mouth to mouth. I think, because again, a lot of our community doesn't know that this work exists and it can be provided. The things that I could be doing, for example, like we've had like legacy, we have legacy fucks coming up and it's to commemorate, I believe, the work of the folks on Black Wall Street who were violently killed and violently erased from the Tulsa massacre. We just had Mayfest. And we have all these festivals right now, especially in this, I'm in Tulsa, Oklahoma, so we have so many festivals. And truthfully, what I should be doing is getting a booth, sitting my butt down and explaining to people what is Community Act, what we do. I think that for me, what i i know i should be doing um and what i hope to be doing more in in the future but because i am a lawyer people do come to me and they like tell me their problems and i they they never expect the angle that i come out of what they like you know what can i do should i take it to court i'm like no you can have a conversation and that's where like When it comes to conflict work, I always start with the communication because a lot of the conflict that I hear, it's just if someone would have said something, even if it was in a text, even if you were too scared to say it in person, even if it was in an email, if someone would have said something I don't think he would have been here. But a lot of, because a lot of the communication, a lot of, excuse me, the conflict that I hear, and I think it kind of has to us being black folks and being scared to even initiate the conflict. So if we go from zero to a hundred real quick, and I'm like, girl, there was 10, there was 20, there was 30 before this conflict got to a hundred. So I, you know i do when folks do come to me for work like this hey i need this help i'm like well did you try sending your landlord a letter basically stating everything that's going on no but then you want to go to court she doesn't even have any notice of anything that you're saying and even if she does she can literally say that you're lying so why don't we document by creating a letter for your for your landlord let's stop there let's just stop there with a communication child let's stop there um so that's usually how i navigate people towards my work but like i said there's more i should be doing to be informing the community about the benefits of conflict work like what your community works that you're doing and also community mediation and how beneficial can be not for only this current problem but to help you prevent future problems. Like now you know how to navigate in the angle to go towards this issue.

SPEAKER_02: 33:37

Yeah, honestly, I think that's like the fact that you don't market a lot, but folks are still finding you through the other work you do or like that they know that you're a lawyer, I think speaks to the fact that- Sometimes we don't need to market this work per se, but just having day-to-day conversations that invites it in is where it's at. Because honestly, the folks that have come to me to do conflict care work, it's been through word of mouth. It hasn't been because they looked me up on the Googles.

SPEAKER_01: 34:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 34:12

Or anything like that. So I think that there's something... to be said for that and also i just want to uplift something because yes it's important to be having um to like build up our skills for handling conflict but you also mentioned something around like having documentation oh i have like y'all document your shit like Have documents because at the end of the day, especially if you are BIPOC, if you are queer, trans, intersex, like folks out here whiling. So have your documentation because if it does get to that point where you need to like protect yourself legally, even though the legal system doesn't see it for us, like at least you have documentation. Please document everything.

SPEAKER_01: 35:06

Yeah.

UNKNOWN: 35:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 35:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 35:08

I think like out of my, my practice recent, like my, let's say last two, three, two years of being in this practice, I will say that I think I have a very optimistic, more, you know, sunflower view of people. And I, and let's blame that on my, my Leo stellium in my first house. I do think it kind of clouds like how I see, like in my, my, my head, like, we can all really learn how to live in community. Oh, absolutely. Nothing is beyond resolution or resolve in my head. I have to ground myself in understanding that that's not the reality. And even in my life, that's just not the reality for a lot of people right now in this moment. So this is where... know the the lawyer in me comes in yes just have documentations even though we want to we want to really believe that the person the party on the other side does want this to resolve wants to be just want to be fair want to live in community i understand that's not how everyone unfortunately operates not with the same intention that you do so yeah have your documents so when you have to pull out the receipts and be like wait what I said this this day, or, and what I mean by I said this this day, yes, document everything, but also if you are having like a If you are having a in-person communication about a certain conflict or topic, I always tell people, again, this is another tip, to memorialize it in some type of writing. And this is how it would look like. Let's say if me and Goddess had a conversation. We were roommates. We had a conversation about taking out the trash. Hey, Goddess, I want to thank you so much. And this is how you kill it with Kaya. I'm thinking about people who would be like, hey, they don't understand me. I know what I'm doing, boo-boo, okay? I know what I'm doing. Some people, like, sometimes they don't understand, like, how I can be so, like, like, just, like, loose with certain things. And I'm not. I'm truly not. I'm just giving the person the benefit of the doubt. I don't know what I'm doing. So this is a text that I would send. Like, and I don't know what I said. I hate using the people, the person I'm talking to. You can use me. I volunteer. Okay. All right. So goddess and I are, goddess and I are, roommates and we had a conflict about a problem with who's taking out the trash. Thank you so much for speaking with me. I really appreciate your willingness to come up with a solution. Um, I just want, so as we discussed earlier, I will be taking out the trash this day. You'll be taking the trash this day. I'm just so happy we were able to move the resolution. Now let's say something happens on the line where you have to move out and then I sue you for like early cancellation and we go to court and we say like, we couldn't just live together in peace. It was just like garbage everywhere, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. i could show that we came up with a solution we came up with a resolution we tried to work it out i didn't just like or you didn't just i forgot who was who but you didn't none of us just got up and left the apartment and abandoned the lease however because it was ongoing problems this problem has not resolved itself even after we tried to talk about it even after we came up with a plan now i'm leaving so now you you you are kind of saved and that's like i said court scratch that even if you came to mediation if you came before me what work did you guys do before here like what what what work i see it ask the party what what problems or what restraints did you have with this solution like why wasn't it wasn't you able to follow up through on it and Generally conversations are usually like when you get back down to the nitty-gritty nitty-gritty about certain conversations you'll find out that someone is really depressed and it's really Interacting impacting their daily functions and that can lead to us breaking the lease But with less animosity and more compassion like okay. Yes, this is not gonna work I forgot who was who in this situation, but one of us is clearly going through something where the trash is we're unable to resolve all this trash situation there's trash everywhere I cannot live like this but now I'm not angry with you I understand so if I see you in the street I'm gonna say hey girl

SPEAKER_02: 39:32

yeah exactly and I think that like the sunflower tint or like I like that is important to have like I have hope that we can all come to a place of resolving conflict without the legal system and honestly like documenting things isn't just about like in case it does get to the core or in case it does get to mediation. It also helps us track what we were saying. Like you, like, like I need something, like I'm ADHD. So I like, I need something to come back to, to make sure that like, when I'm feeling a certain kind of way, when I'm feeling hurt or disrespected, that I can come back to this and be like, well, what did we agree on? And have those things been happening? So that I can also come with a lot of love and compassion when I do need to bring things up with folks. So I like, yes, the example was on point. I appreciated that example. Okay, I'm going to try to fit this in.

UNKNOWN: 40:35

Okay.

SPEAKER_01: 40:36

So do

SPEAKER_03: 40:45

you

SPEAKER_02: 40:51

find that you have to distinguish harm from conflict when you do mediation? And like, do those ever intersect? I love the look on your face right now.

SPEAKER_01: 41:10

I say that to say that doesn't mean I have the correct answer to that, but I have had couples or ex-couples come before me where there's clearly violence in the situation. And I don't think that I have enough experience handling said type of conflict. It's harm. It's violence. It's physical. I don't want to say some harms are less or more important or serious than the other, but I haven't had a case, I would say, that has come before me where know like yeah there was manipulation and lying which is also harm um but one of the solutions was to talk about the ways that this action manifests in manipulation and in harm how the person who's being targeted or on the end of receiving this harm can spot it and can and can take appropriate actions to just not be in this you know facility anymore you say you still want to be in a relationship or community with this person now but i also you know it's important that we talk about how these things even though they're not physical it's still harm like you're like as a mediator I give my insight, but I don't say, I'm saying that because you're talking on this podcast, but I don't want to, I don't say like, oh girl, he's manipulating you. He's a liar. He's this and that. But I'm saying like, you know, you know, in terms of, going through the facts and what has happened and giving my insight and asking questions, I try to like lead them to understand that this is actually violence and this is, you know, you're saying that it's okay because no one has hit you, but actually this is not that, like this is still violent, like this is still harmful and this is still going to impact the other people, the other members in your community. in your home and for me in situations like that it's important that i let you see it for yourself i i won't i i'm not going i'm not a therapist and also i know that people don't necessarily like to be told they need to be shown like i'm trying

SPEAKER_03: 43:32

to

SPEAKER_01: 43:33

show you how this is impacting you in ways that you probably are not seeing it now But it's going to come out sooner or later. And I know it is impacting the other members in the house. So stuff like that, I think that, well, cases like that, I think I am able to navigate. I struggle when the harm is physical. And when it comes to community mediation, I do not try. And again, this is how it's different from like 9 to 5 mediation. I'm not going to remove the humanity out of this situation. I know folks don't want us to talk about the humanity. They don't want us to talk about emotions and feelings. No, because we are people and we operate with emotions, with feelings, with feelings. with that. So I'm not going to remove it. I understand why white supremacy tells us, because it's easier for you to continue harming us if I take out the emotions. Like when people say things to the effect, and I know I'm going a little off, but when people say things like, you know, you don't have to act with emotions. Fuck you. Yes. Like, what do you mean? You literally just harm me and you're telling me, what do they say? I haven't heard it in a while because I've totally removed myself. If anyone has ever harmed me and then they say, well, you didn't have to react like that. Totally.

SPEAKER_02: 44:53

Phone checking.

SPEAKER_01: 44:55

Yeah. Or like, you know, you're too sensitive. Yes, I'm sensitive. I'm a cancer. Hell yeah. You know? And you telling me not to act with emotions, it's to protect you, not to allow me to release myself of the harm that has been done to me. So anyways, going back to the original question, I do struggle when it comes to physical harm and violence. And I've had cases where I... have said that i'm not equipped to handle this i'm just not um i think i would need more and i'm like and again the work that we're doing is like where do you go for training i don't know um where do you go for someone to tell you this and i have however even i said i'm not able to mediate this between you two, I do want to speak with you. And then I would take the person who I feel like is being harmed, and I would talk with them and give them the actions or trying to persuade them to take certain certain steps certain actions so that's a good point because yeah when it comes to physical harm i'm pretty sure it was like a girlfriend child but a lot of them yeah we can we can talk about that that's fine growing up as a kid let me say something when i tell you how this practice has come from experience experience as a child i was always like not i don't say always like i said my my behavioral folder was sick okay like it was Because I didn't know how to communicate. I didn't know. I was mimicking what I saw with the adults around me. When they felt wronged or they felt like I did something wrong, they hit me. So I felt like it was appropriate to, you know. But it's been, you know, it's been like maybe 10, 12 years. Well, I'm going to say 10 years since I've gotten into a fight. And when I say that in talks and conversations, people laugh. And I'm like, for me, you don't know how big of a deal that is. Because I'm so used to... You said what? And now she's like, oh, and I know I'm switching gears. I'm switching gears. Let me just end it with

SPEAKER_03: 47:04

this. No, no, no, no. Keep going.

SPEAKER_01: 47:06

But I remember the epiphany that I had. The epiphany I had was, you know, I was complaining about the violence in my community in New York and just saying like, I hate living here, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I was reading something and I think it was from Bell Hooks I was reading. And it made me think about like how oh wow, when I hit people, I'm also contributing to the violence. Yeah, I'm not using

SPEAKER_03: 47:28

guns.

SPEAKER_01: 47:29

Yeah, I'm not like trying to kill anyone. I'm just trying to make a point. and how that also contributes to the violence and the safety that people feel in this community. So that was an eye opener, how even though I don't see myself as like a murderer or a burglar or a robber, I'm still contributing, even if it's on a micro level, to the level of safety that people feel in this community. And that's when I was like, okay, you know, no more fighting, walk away. walk away, handle it another day, send in, if you can't, if you're still, if I'm still hot in that moment, send a text instead of, you know, speaking face to face, have someone proofread it. There's all these techniques that we can use to resolve conflict. So not all harm. I think like if it comes to friends, I have a lot of insight and I haven't, I do. Like I'm talking from experience as a person who used to fight, who no longer fights. I get it. I get not liking to be disrespected. I get not liking to be bullied. I get people, you know, seeing you one way, but not knowing you got hands. Like, yeah, I laugh a lot, but I also know how to move my hands fast. Like, what do you, like, what do you know? I get, I get being on the side of, and people think that, you know, victims of bullying look a certain type of way. And it's like, no, it's like, I get it. And I can give insight of, to people on a different, on a different end of the spectrum

SPEAKER_03: 48:56

who

SPEAKER_01: 48:56

have, use physical violence to either defend themselves or make a point or let people know that they're not to be picked with i get it get

SPEAKER_03: 49:05

it

SPEAKER_01: 49:06

so that type of harm i i can navigate i can give insight on i can provide tips on like what to do but i think when it comes to domestic harm i'm a little like I can't, I can't meet this, but can we talk? And can I have a session with you? And I can tell you like what I feel you should do.

SPEAKER_02: 49:31

Absolutely. Yeah. Intimate partner violence is something that I've been leaning more and more into over the last couple of years. And it still feel like, There's just still so much that we just don't know. It's like in the moment, we got to figure out like in the moment. But I want to go back to what you were saying around like, how does my way of defending myself or like course correcting in a way, like how does that also like reverberate out into like community safety overall and like the sense of community safety. And I think that that is so important for us to ask of like how it, like you might be valid, like that person may need to have been laid out, but like how is it contributing to community safety overall is a question that I will be asking myself more often. And I think for me, conflict and harm play off of each other. I think that when we're in conflict, because of how we're handling it, we can cause more harm. And I think for me, harm has to do with plays on power. If you are trying to wield power over another person or situation, there's probably some harm happening there. But I don't think they're completely, conflict and harm are completely separate from each other. And at least in my experience, It's not black and white. And there's going to be both in a situation. There's going to be both in a situation. And sometimes, like we talked about before, you can see something as conflict when another person will see that as harm. And that could be about the way in which we're thinking about what's normal and what we deserve.

SPEAKER_01: 51:41

Can you give an example for that? Because that was deep. And I'm like, I kind of want to hear it.

SPEAKER_02: 51:46

I'm thinking of... I'm trying to, like, make sure that this is not, like, super specific to any... Okay. I think that maybe this applies. So you were talking about, like... getting physically punished as like a child. And I think that that's something that we in the Black community grapple with a lot. And if you were spanked as a child, it might have been talked about in more of like a conflict way in that like this is a way for me like to express to you a boundary or to like teach you like what is acceptable and that could kind of be in like the realm of like conflict you know like I'm having trouble with my kid like we're not getting along I have to like spank them you know and they keep running away or something like that that kind of gets like put into the conflict bucket But like when you look at the history of where spanking came from and its roots to slavery and power over people, I'm going to put that in the harm bucket. That is harm. And this is actually something that comes up for me in some of the work I do around conflict care is like folks are seeing it as like, this is a way of resolving a situation or bringing order to a situation by hitting someone. And I'm like, is it though? Are you bringing order? Or are you trying to gain power through physical pain? So I think that's one of the ways. I feel like there were other examples I could give, but that was the first one that kind of came to mind.

SPEAKER_01: 53:55

And no, that's spot on. And I totally, totally agree. I guess what I'm thinking now, my mind was going two places. But yes, I absolutely agree. And I remember reading something again, what came with the whole hitting, right? And physical harm. Oh, spanking, right? Yeah, it did derive from enslavement. Like, where do you think people in Nigeria were not just hitting each other that's not how they resolved conflict pre-slavery they had guidelines they had councils they had uh meetings to talk about how someone was going to be like punished people weren't just taking belts and like be and beating each other with it or beating, like, kid children with it when they did something wrong. And I remember, like, I had to give my dad specifically grace. This was at the point where I was, like, understanding. I think I was reading something by Raelle Huggs. Raelle Huggs, I'm telling you, she just changed my life. Raelle Huggs. She just changed the way I saw things. I remember in a book I was reading, I don't know if it was all about... not all about love or the woman feminism i can't remember which book it was but she said how she gave an example or just like a narrative about how our parents, you know, they would go out in the white world, work for a boss who didn't respect them, you know, people on top of them, someone who's looking down to them. And you could feel the weight of the power that their superiors, even their white co-workers had over them. Like they looked down on them. And that's when people say, you know, what's the thing we have to do with this? I'm like, are you out of your mind? Do you think like our people would just inherently like finally They're not. They learn white people's ways. And I shouldn't say maybe white people. Maybe I should take that back and say white supremacist ways. They learn white supremacy ways, okay? So our parents went out in the world, didn't feel like they felt the... a degree of power structure or the lack of between them and their coworkers and boss. And when they came home to feel that power, who are they going to feel it? Who are they going to be able to feel that power from? The kids in the house, the woman in the house, it gave them a sense of feeling of them feeling like they were powerful that they meant something even though it was very interrupted it was very wrong like it was misguided if you want to feel power focus it on yourself that's what i have a top a top point of my recovery is what i am feeling uncontrollable when i'm feeling like i don't matter or i don't um have any like will in this world like like nothing i'm doing is is making a difference yeah it can be easy i used to do this all the time tell myself amira go clean your room do that do that why am i even why am i focusing on them i'm focusing them to put this lack that i'm feeling on something to extract it out of something and it's usually to give orders once i read that between from bell hugs i literally apply that to like my my parents, specifically my father. And then I had to realize how I do that in my relationships. How when there's something, I'm feeling a lack of something inside, how I try to rid that lack by telling other people what to do, by bossing other people around. Why don't I focus on myself? There's a lot of things I can be doing, focusing, turning inward that thing to myself. So when you talked about like harm and conflict, I totally agree. totally totally agree and a lot of conflict i do feel like can be resolved without harm i feel like we just have to know we have to one understand our attention what is the intention of of of what was my intention in resolving this harm or navigating towards it is this if it's for you to feel better i would say just take a step back But if it's to actually understand each other and navigate this conflict, then yes, I do feel like it can be done. without at least physical harm and hopefully like mental emotional, less mental emotional harm, you can navigate it in ways where you're making, you're not letting the other side or the other party feel like they don't matter or that you are superior to them in one way or another. And the last thing I do want to say about that particularly is I realized that for me, the whole less fighting thing became easier once I realized that the people I was around and the people who I was actually fighting You know, we weren't meant to be in community anyways. But I think, like, growing up, you feel like you have to constantly be in community with certain people. And I always tell people, if you are constantly fighting with someone, because that's who the fights were with. They weren't, like, with, like, randoms. I hardly ever had fights with a random person. Don't get me wrong. If you're in a park and a racist is talking smack, I'm not going to tell you to smack them on this podcast. But, girl, you know what I mean? Do what you got

SPEAKER_03: 59:22

to do in that moment. Let me

SPEAKER_01: 59:25

play. Think

SPEAKER_03: 59:26

about what might

SPEAKER_01: 59:27

happen, but act yourself. Yeah. Let's be very real. I ain't talking about them. You do, you do, you do. I'm talking about your neighbors, your cousins, people who you are in community with.

SPEAKER_03: 59:40

If

SPEAKER_01: 59:42

y'all are having multiple fights all the time, maybe y'all either go, come to me, let's work this out. But even if mediation, that we leap to the conclusion that y'all are just not compatible, you do not need to be in community with each other, then that's what it is. And it's okay. A lot of our relationships, especially growing up, have been built on proximity. And that itself causes a lot of conflict. Because when we're growing into two different people, however, we keep on feeling like we gotta always come back. Because it's like, we're cousins, we're cousins. That doesn't work. Sometimes if you want peace, you have to understand that you are my cousin and I do love you, but this is not going to work because we're operating on two different value systems. And there's always a physical fight at the end of every time we get together. Therefore, I have to be an adult and just pull myself away. And once I started to realize that, oh, I don't have to actually be near this person, was really no need to fight

SPEAKER_02: 1:00:49

yeah absolutely absolutely i think that leads into like right relationship and like right relationship is about gauging what is comfortable and healthy like what's a comfortable and healthy relationship dynamic to another person and like there's some folks that like maybe my right relationship isn't Like with them isn't them coming over to a gathering I'm having, but it is like we're in the same like organizing circle, but we're doing different projects within that circle. Maybe my right relationship with another person is them being a deep and intimate friend. Like it's okay to have different kinds of relationship dynamics with folks and setting that like based off of how that person, like how you feel around that person and how you feel you're being treated by that person, that is okay. You do not have to be friends with everyone. The relief I felt when I was listening to a speech, and I cannot remember the name of the philosopher. It'll come to me. And he was like, you don't have to like everyone. That in itself is not okay. That is a lie. Why are you lying? And I was like, You mean I don't have to pretend to like such and such? I was like, oh, that makes me, and I can show more love for them now that I can admit. No, you ain't my cup of tea. But I know you're other people's cup of tea. So you can go over here. I'll go on over here. And we'll just, yeah. I think that that's okay. I truly do. Because you definitely have a point there. Okay. There was so much more I wanted to say about what you said, but let me just

SPEAKER_01: 1:02:41

go to the next question. Can I say one thing? Are you on a timeline?

SPEAKER_02: 1:02:47

No, no, no, no, no. You go, you go.

SPEAKER_01: 1:02:51

Yeah, and I feel like when you're changing your ways, when you're like, because this is the thing, I don't think everyone, like if it wasn't for my addiction, I don't know how else I would have been acquaintance or like introduced to Bell Hooks works. And I say that today because, you know, I went to school, I read the institutions that i'm a part of they're not going to introduce me to bell hooks it was that when i was such an adult place and trying to understand like what you know i i created this group where we talked about our addiction and then someone in the group brought up bell hugs and that's when we started reading her first book um um so uh black women and self recovery sisters of the year black women and self recovery so that's the first bell hooks book i ever read And I remember reading things, and I just felt so much grace to myself. And I wanted to extend that to people in my family. I'm like, maybe they don't know that this is what we're operating under. Maybe they don't understand that when we mistreat each other, we're doing it to... to balance out this power dynamic or to create a power dynamic not even balance it out it's really to create it and how like this is just a non-ending cycle how everyone is always fighting each other sometimes this one person is like um the villain sometimes this person plays the role as a hero when it comes to this child and it's just like all these you know dynamics that we're playing to each other it's really structured and it's actually batshit crazy and in my head I'm thinking maybe they don't know about this. Like, but now that like, you know, I want them to know, to know that this is what it is, you know? I remember, you know, telling people, my family about this and me operating a different way. Me, you know, hey tell your cousin to do this i'm like no i'm not going to tell them to do this because you know i don't have any business telling them and they need to fix if they want to do it if they ask me for my advice i will but because again i've already been on such a the opposite or such a far right right side of the spectrum of like this power dynamic that i didn't know i was playing into now i kind of just need to chill out i don't want to tell anyone anything like i want to just heal myself and figure out and navigate this new way of living so i remember like like telling again family members about this thing none of them were interested not none of them were interested and it it hit me oh that some of them they want this power dynamic it's again it's the only way that they feel that they can feel powerful or have them important and once i realized that they weren't interested in anything I was trying to show them. Hey, read this book. Oh, hey, look at what this person. Doesn't this make sense to all the stuff that we've been going through? Once I realized, oh, they don't want to change this, I was like, oh, bye. Bye. Because there is more to me than fighting all the time. There is more to me than having arguments all the time which i felt like was always happening in our like the larger family context someone was always fighting someone and it made no sense and here i am thinking this is going to change everything but oh y'all like to fight each other you y'all want to be in conflict not me um so i say that to say that there are might and probably will likely be times where you recognize a fault, you recognize an issue, you take accountability, and you, again, think that maybe if you explain to people that this is what we've been doing and this is how we can stop this, sometimes your findings are not going to matter to the person you're explaining them to. And that is going to create a space where it says, oh, I do love you, but you're not for me. Again, I want to put some, after your share, I want to put some context to what I was saying. I'm operating on different values now. And if you cannot operate on those values, or you're operating on the old values that made us constantly fighting and on with each other, I have no choice but to leave. I would be crazy. And now I would be in a situation where I'm defenseless, because now I know I don't want to fight. Now I know I don't want to really put my hands on anyone. but you don't have that same that same reservation so now i'm exposed to your harm to your mental harm your emotional harm and your physical harm now i got to go so again that's what i was saying like when you remove yourself from certain people who you know who you really feel like a lot of your arguments and conflict and fights it really dissipates because once they're They're gone. And now you're operating with people who share your values. You're realizing, oh, there's not a lot to fight on. There's nothing to fight or argue about. Oh, I can't. You know, I've had people come to me and be like, Katie, I have been their most safest relationship. I had like one person tell me.

SPEAKER_03: 1:07:57

I

SPEAKER_01: 1:07:57

had one person tell me that maybe a year ago. And it made me feel so good. good because it made me feel it made me realize that she feels safe she knows that she tells me because that's what basically she wanted to tell me something she didn't know how i was going to react she didn't know if i was not going to be her friend anymore and it wasn't even something like extremely dynamic where i'd be like i don't want to be your friend i'm just like oh okay i'm gonna take note of that i apologize and i'm not gonna do that next time i'm not gonna do that next time i'm gonna take note of it and she just broke down and started crying and i was like why are you crying and she was just like because i thought we were gonna have an argument like blah blah blah and i was just like no no no i i didn't know i was doing that but i i acknowledge what you're saying and i am going to be more conscious of me doing the thing that you're telling me i'm doing Even if I didn't at that point think I was doing it, I have to admit, I wasn't really taking note of it. I wasn't really paying attention if I was doing it. Now I am going to pay attention. I'm going to, you know, see, like be more conscious of my actions. So that was a long ramble, but I just did want to, I did want to put that out there. I did. Okay. I put that out there.

SPEAKER_02: 1:09:06

Ooh.

UNKNOWN: 1:09:07

Okay.

SPEAKER_02: 1:09:07

I think that what you said speaks to this next question. So if you have more to expound on, dope. If you don't, it's okay. But what is something you are learning about your own life when it comes to conflict as you do this work?

SPEAKER_01: 1:09:29

I'll say this. Because I have that, I think I, it's because I have that, like, I have, like, Jupiter, Venus, rising, Mercury, Mars, all in Leo, my first house. I can be so willing to be like, oh, it's okay. Oh, I'm doing that. I apologize. And I'm just being more confident. Like, I'm always willing to, like, what's the word? Just to, like, I don't want to say wave the right flag, but I think I'm, I have, for the most part, always just been, like, willing to, like,

SPEAKER_02: 1:10:01

meet people where they're

SPEAKER_01: 1:10:02

at kind of people where they are apologize even if i don't feel like i'm doing anything wrong it's just like okay i can just apologize and just not do it again like it's not a big deal but i think that as i am working with other people and working with them mediate their conflict i'm realizing that i can have standards and just standards, honestly, and how I want to, and who I want to interact, even when they're not causing me, like you said, you know, you don't have to like everyone. And I'm realizing that like, you know, oh, I can actually, let me come up with an example. I'm just realizing that I could have standards. It's so basic to be like, I could just say no, or I could be like, oh, I don't like this person. Or I can be like, you know, this person, not my cup of tea. And it be that. It's not actual conflict. It's just me acknowledging that this is not for me. This opportunity is not for me. Or I simply, and I always have to reason myself, I simply just don't want to do this. I don't want to do this. No. So I'm realizing now how sometimes disingenuous I am to myself because in my head initially it feels like yes it feels like great it feels like you're an amazing person let's be best friends and then after time like the after time like after time has sunk in and I'm thinking like why does my body feel so conflicted it's because I just I didn't I didn't I didn't take a moment to sit down and really think, yes, everything on the face is always gonna be sunflowers for me. I have to sit down and really think out the nuance of the seed. I have to pick out the seeds in the sunflower before I'm able to truly create my opinion or decision in something. So that's something that I'm learning in terms of like how I handle conflict. I don't always have to concede something. I don't always have to be the person to extend the olive branch, especially if I'm feeling my body. I don't want to, or my body is saying no. Like, you know what I mean? Listen to the body. I'm not saying this person is evil. I'm not saying this person is, is like, but it's like, this person is probably just not for me and that's fine. Listen to the body.

SPEAKER_02: 1:12:33

This reminds me of something that I just kind of figured out recently is like, when I don't like someone, but I'm still trying to be in community, like in relationship with them, like direct relationship with them, I will nitpick all the things and all the interactions that I did not like with that person. And like, it kind of creates this like monster in my head of this person. And it's like, yeah, Like you can just be like, I don't like this person. Like I don't feel good when I'm around them and that doesn't make them a monster. It just means I don't like them. And so I can give myself permission not to come up with reasons, more reasons not to like them and create an enemy out of someone that doesn't need to be an enemy. That can just be someone that I don't like. Cause now I'm making it bigger, you know? Like I'm making like a mountain out of Moho when I'm just like, I don't actually like you.

SPEAKER_01: 1:13:31

yes yes yes if you say the thing can i say can i share one story actually no go up yes because i'm i'm big like i i i don't know what i i'm gonna blame it on my stellium so i'm big in like the mental i'm thinking all my communities right for the most part i am and then i have super black girls club which has just expanded my community to like you know even have some black girls club sisters in france and south africa so great you know like great but i think it's also it's okay to be on it i remember like i met i remember a couple years ago i met this person who they had been following me my sbgc so this is when i was like on the red table talk this was when i was doing like a lot of tv shows about this club about my own journey and yeah like i get it right i remember hanging out with this person and i feel like every time we hung out like she just had something to like say to me like Katie you did this you did that and oh this is actually connected to that person I was telling you over in the beginning about

SPEAKER_03: 1:14:37

okay

SPEAKER_01: 1:14:38

10 minutes ago 11 12 minutes ago and it huh

SPEAKER_02: 1:14:42

full circle

SPEAKER_01: 1:14:43

yeah it intertwines and remember the first time she said I just apologized she's like crying like she you know she did she felt like she she's never had a relationship where she could just tell someone I'm like no like it's fine and I feel like me saying that because the truth is it is fine if I do something just tell me and I apologize and I'm out make sure to like be conscious that i'm not doing it right to me that's just a normal response if someone that you're trying to get to know or you like that's a normal response but baby girl if we're hanging out all if we're every time we hang out you have a problem with something i'm doing At this point, we don't need to be friends. It's okay for you just to in your head say, you do not like me. I think you think you have to like me because you see me with other people, but you truly don't. You don't have to like me. You clearly, I hang out with a lot of people. They don't tell me, they don't come to me after I hang out and tell me I'm doing something wrong. And the fact that you're doing this and you won't make the decision for yourself, I think I have to tell you, I don't think you like me, which is okay. not you something about me it doesn't vibe with you yeah it's fine we just don't have to be friends we don't have to be enemies but we don't have to be friends I just love how you said that because I feel like more especially us as black women especially I think also when we see other black women and even though there's a lot of like trauma black women to black women that I hear a lot in our clubs and I respect I get it I totally get it But I still don't feel like that should stop one from being honest with their feelings and what they're feeling, what their body is telling them. It's okay. You don't have to like everyone. And me personally, I'm please let me know you don't like me because I'm a yapper. I be talking so much. I be just telling, like, I, you know, I'm just a, I just be like, but if I know that, okay, like, oh, wait, we're not on the same page and I just be, you know, just acquaintances. Hey, bye. So I think it's so honest. Not only are you doing yourself a favor by being honest with yourself, but you're also doing the other person, you know, by letting them know where you stand so they won't feel like manipulated or tricked into, you know, Feeling that they can be transparent and veritable with someone who doesn't feel the same way.

SPEAKER_02: 1:17:03

Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think there's also... Okay, so another thing I'm figuring out is, like, I would get resentful or upset when someone... I didn't particularly like was in their muchness and not realizing that like they were not my cup of tea, but everyone else would like them. And I'm just like, is it me? Like I, your muchness is muching in a way that like, I want to run to the opposite end. I'm like, I'm like, why? Like, it was like, I was being triggered, like big T triggered. And I was like, bro, what is this? And I think what I learned is that I was resentful because they were simply being themselves and I wasn't giving myself full permission to be myself. So I'm learning how to give myself full permission to be myself, which I've been doing for years, but I'm adding on the addition of like not trying to cater or like gauge who I am based off of making other people comfortable in this very particular kind of way. And so for example, the conflict care work we do, it has opened my eyes up to a lot of things that just are no longer my vibe. No, I will not tolerate that in a relationship. And so there are certain people that I have lifelong friends. I'm always going to love them. We always going to be friends. But we've had to re-decide how intimate we can be because I'm just like, there are certain things that I'm learning about that you don't want to learn about or are struggling with, and that's fine. But it does affect the quality of a relationship because now I'm putting all these tools into our relationship and you are not. And now I'm mothering you in a way or overtaking up too much of the responsibility in this, which is not how those tools are meant to be used. So I will not be doing that. And I'm also more careful with who I... Like you were saying, I might be really excited about meeting another person and be like, yes, surface level, we get along. And then get a little bit into the more inside relationship. I was like, oh, we are operating completely differently. So I'm learning how to be unapologetic about that and like leaving sooner rather than later while also like, having self-accountability on like how I'm viewing this person. Because if I'm making a monster out of someone that's just like not my cup of tea and having resentment for them, like there's something within myself that is not being met that like maybe I should just bring into the space a bit more. And that's not to say like it's my fault. It's like the situation, but like I just, no mas. No, I'm not doing it no

SPEAKER_01: 1:20:16

more. Yeah. This is an episode on conflict resolution, but folks have to understand, especially as Black people, especially as Black femmes, women, girls, especially as us, we have to understand that sometimes there is no conflict. You just don't like this person, but you're operating You're operating in community, daily community. You have too many interactions with this person that you do not need to have that now there is conflict building. Meanwhile, you could have just listened to your body, yourself, and stayed, I don't want to say far away, but living your interactions with this person. I

SPEAKER_02: 1:20:52

completely agree.

SPEAKER_01: 1:20:53

So this has to be talked about. We have to know how to listen to our body to understand what you just talked us through. We all need to be having these conversations with ourselves and probably daily because we're not gonna unlearn people pleasing. And a lot of the tendencies we were raised on, we're not gonna unlearn them in like a year or two. So it's okay to have these conversations to assess. And hopefully at the end of like the assessment, you get to the conclusion where you're not a bad person for not liking someone. You're also not a bad person for not understanding why other people like this person or not. You're just navigating and trying to understand what is going on, what is going on with you, and what is going on with the space that's around you. And that is okay. It's okay to assess. As long as you're keeping it within yourself, and when I mean within yourself, you're not bumping the person or creating some harmful environment, then that's fine. I, you know, we're not always gonna have something. And that's the thing I had to learn in my, why I am working on and learned in my practice that it is actually, you know, it's okay for me to not like this person and actually not even really have a reason. It's fine. Like I don't like this person. I don't really have a reason. There's just something about this person. That's OK. I can still be in community with them. And that's only different for many people. Maybe we're part of the same writer's group. Maybe we co-work at the same place. But I don't need to interact with them. And I don't need to be fake about it. I don't need to be asking them about their aspirations, blah, blah, blah, blah. At the same time, let me say this. The last thing I want to say, that just reminded me of something. At the same time, there has been times where, one, the forefront, I have concluded, oh, I don't like this person. And for whatever reason, maybe I didn't have a reason, but as I did get to speak with them, I'm like, oh, okay, I was wrong. Like I was, I was wrong. I was wrong. And it's okay to also, you know for it to go things to go that way because it does if you're open enough if you're open enough it can go that way as well yes we're like oh i didn't like this person but now actually i do like that we have more in common than i thought like you know

SPEAKER_02: 1:23:13

yeah to change your it's okay to change your mind right it's okay to like trust your instinct trust your gut and it's also okay if that changes because we change as like people i i think there's also something here and like this is the last point so we but i i think that there's something there around we thought we had to like everyone or care for everyone in our immediate and external communities from a place of survival as Black people. We had to stick together in different kinds of ways. We're not really coming out of that in terms of the state of the world, but I think that there's more room now to address the... our relationships are more complex than that. I think that there's something there for sure. But, hi!

SPEAKER_03: 1:24:05

This was such a good conversation.

SPEAKER_02: 1:24:08

Okay, can you tell us about some of the things that you have coming up? I know you have some, like, yeah, great things that you're offering and currently offering, so I want to, like, uplift that as we close out.

SPEAKER_01: 1:24:23

Yes. First of all, I do want to say thank you. This is This is like the first podcast that I have been on in regards to community art, which is different because I I do a lot of like podcasts and and presentations and shows based on my sobriety recovery and sober black girls club. But this year I have decreased my number of appearances and work with the club to really get my practice mediation practice going. And so it's kind of like. I know I kept bringing my recovery in it because it's hard. This is what I've been talking about for the past four, five, six, seven years. And now it's like, oh, conflict. It's a part of it, though. So I'm glad you brought it in. Yes. Yeah. So thank you for that. And I hope that folks really received something from my appearance on this podcast. If the last thing I do want to just let out, if you receive anything, let it be this. just to be open. I think it's okay. I don't say it's okay, but I understand why people are guarded when it comes to relationships and when it comes to resolving conflict. I understand why people do sometimes, you know, see conflict as black and white and or be all, either you're my enemy or you're not. You know, what the Cardi B's say, if we have beef, we have beef forever. Trust me, girl, I get that. I would say that up until like maybe two, three years ago, we got beef forever. Like, That

SPEAKER_02: 1:25:54

takes me to that drumline quote of like, got beef, you gotta grill it up and eat it. And I'm just like,

SPEAKER_03: 1:26:00

let me stop, let me

SPEAKER_02: 1:26:05

die. Anyway, sorry,

SPEAKER_01: 1:26:06

continue. No, you're fine. I get it. But if you can work, and there's not a specific time limit, time span, it's not how much percentage you should work, but if you can just work at being more open, in your relationships, in your conflicts. If you could work out taking actionable steps like AKA reaching out to me for mediation, I believe that our relationships and our lives will improve. They will be easier. And I don't know how many folks who are listening are Astro people. I'm an Astro girlie, okay? I'm an Astro. I can tell you my mood, my rising, everything, houses, transit, we got it. We are getting into an age where Pluto is in Aquarius, and I feel like the pandemic was already a gateway to folks feeling isolated, to folks then feeling secluded and confined in Pluto. in a space, right? And depending on where Pluto is, but anyway, that doesn't even really matter because Pluto is like a generational or it's a, it's a community planet. It's not necessarily an individualistic planet. And now we're going into where Pluto, like what, when does it seem to ask your podcast? Well, let me just, it's important. We're doing

SPEAKER_02: 1:27:28

like podcast one, two, and three all in one. Y'all welcome.

SPEAKER_01: 1:27:33

but now Pluto is in Aquarius uh which is about which Aquarius is the sign of technology of a systems of um yeah systems of way of doing things and I say that to say depending on where your chart where Pluto in Aquarius is in your chart it'll make more sense if you knew that but generally I am saying that we're coming into an age where the way we are commuting and the way we are accepting how we need each other is going through a death and a rebirth is gonna come out. Again, I feel like the pandemic and quarantine has made people feel that it's okay to be secluded. It's okay to be alone because they did it for two years. And even now people dip in and out of being in touch with their emotions and accepting that, okay, I kind of do feel lonely. Oh, okay, I kind of have been by myself for the past few years. Oh, okay, we're getting into a time, we are in a time, excuse me, where that is slowly going to dissipate and folks are going to have no choice but to accept that we do need each other we do need community the old systems in place are no like social media doom scrolling that is slowly going to be making it as we're already seeing what's twitter now looking like instagram is a mess they're all crashes bugs 24 7 and I think now is the perfect time to work on our communication skills, to work on how we solve conflict, to hone in on the values that not only do we want to see in our everyday life, but we want to embody. We want to embody. Right now is the perfect time to do that. So that had nothing to do with your question, but I do want folks, so if you leave with anything, just leave with that, be open, be willing, be willing. And I am pretty sure that the universe will put opportunities and put people and situations and experiences in your way where you will be able to experience the brillianess of community, the safetiness of community, but you have to be open. You know, if you've had bad experiences in the past, be open and the experiences that will show you like, oh, okay, we do need each other. You know, we'll come and find you. In terms of my... In terms of... In terms of my... Mediation Process Community Act. Okay, so this is... Okay, so I do have a... I'm like, why did I not prepare? So, I'm not too sure what I'm going to do. God, I'm so... Okay, I'm not too sure what discount I'm going to give the folks who are listening to on the podcast, even though I know God has told me to have it ready for this podcast. Please excuse me. It's been a very... It'll be a surprise! right now i believe right now because i do do a lot of sliding scales for people who who do need my services right now my my fees are not in my opinion too astronomical um i believe at the moment they're 250 an hour and that price is divided in between the two participants generally i do tell participants to book at least two hours just so we can get through the phases of the i have four phases of my mediation practice one does for the first phase does consist of us sitting down and understanding like depending on the relationship i don't do this for everyone but depending on the relationship what are our values? Like, what do we value in whatever some relationship is in front of me? And just having that chart up there to guide us through this mediation. So I do say at least to book a two-hour minimum. And I think... Maybe I will give like a$50 off,$50 off or something to the effect. I'll speak with God as much to see like what's more impactful. But either way, I do offer sliding scale anyway. So that's why I'm just like, I don't even know. You don't even have to. Like, hey,

SPEAKER_02: 1:31:59

Katie, what?

SPEAKER_01: 1:32:01

yeah like it's

SPEAKER_02: 1:32:03

on the website

SPEAKER_01: 1:32:04

and

SPEAKER_02: 1:32:04

like

SPEAKER_01: 1:32:04

sliding scale is available yes a sliding scale is available so just reach out if there's even if you're not ready for mediation right now but you're considering it and you want to talk about like the actual the the situation or the predicament you're in right now we can literally have a one-on-one chat about it and we can move from there um but yeah i'm just so proud of anyone and everyone who's listening to this podcast i'm part of you goddess i'm part of myself because we're doing the work it's so easy to just shut down. And, and, you know, like I did, I did for two years, just stay in my apartment and drink and just shut down and not think that there was any possibilities or anything better that can come out of life. But I realized that once you stay engaged and engaged, it doesn't have to be constant engagement. But once I stayed engaged with what I wanted to feel and what I wanted out of life, which was meaningful connection. And that's really what I was looking for. But I wasn't able to find the meaningful connection because I was doing things that were dis... What's the word I'm looking for? Dissingenuous? Yeah, disingenuous.

SPEAKER_03: 1:33:12

Where did we get that dictionary? I don't

SPEAKER_01: 1:33:19

know. The other day I read something on Twitter that says, you know someone reads a lot when they have all these big words but cannot pronounce them, and that's me. I be reading words. Okay, that

SPEAKER_02: 1:33:29

makes me feel bad, because I'm like, I read quite a bit, but these words are not wording in my mouth.

SPEAKER_01: 1:33:36

They're not, because you actually have to use them in person, but that just shows that you're trying to use these words. Yeah, so that's me all the time. But yeah, so I, again... I'm going to end it there because I got to keep going on and on and on. But I'm just so proud of all of us. We're doing the work. You're listening to this podcast. This episode is doing the work, making intentions in the morning, night, doing the work. And I'm just proud of all of us. Thanks for having me on your goddess.

SPEAKER_02: 1:34:06

Thank you too. And I think you spoke to like what you're carrying with you into this. And I'm carrying that as well. Like, I feel like this, this conversation is a reminder of like that we're human and like, we're going to come with a lot of different emotions, different feelings, different backgrounds until this work. No matter like where we're at on that journey, like me and you, we facilitate this work and we are still figuring out our own selves in it. We are not perfect. And so I'm just, I'm carrying that with me, a lot of grace and gratitude for my own human journey. And I'm so grateful for you to be on this. Thank you so much for coming on this podcast and sharing your work. I would love to also put your short film in the chat because you didn't mention that, but I'll go mention it because folks need to watch that. I liked it. I really liked it. So thank you so much, Katie. I'm sending you off with all the blessings and cannot wait for us to speak again.

UNKNOWN: 1:35:05

What are you finding? Amen.

SPEAKER_02: 1:35:06

Thank you so much for watching this episode. I love you so much. I'm kissing. I'm kissing consensually. If you want that, I will ask you before kissing you. Thank you for listening to this episode of the podcast. I encourage you to meander on down to the description link below to share this episode, tip the guests, and follow all the magical folks that made this podcast possible. Deep gratitude to all of you. Even patting my myself a little bit on the back right now labor of love labor of love later gator and may you walk with the ancestors peace out 22,000 times a day 22,000 times a day 22,000 times a day 22,000 times a day 22,000 times a day