Get Right Within
Thrive from inside with the power of mindfulness, reclaiming your joy and finding sparkly crumbs along your path.
Dive deep into mindfulness, racial awareness and reclaiming your joy with Jenee Johnson as your guide, thought leader, and powerful voice talking honestly about transforming the Black experience in America.
For fifteen years, Jenee served as the Director of the San Francisco Black Infant Health Program, addressing the stark disparities in infant and maternal mortality among Black women using mindfulness and trauma-informed practices.
Now Jenee is developing The Right Within Experience, an experiential mindfulness program committed to the reclamation of humanity, joy and wellbeing for people of African ancestry.
In this episode, Jenee and Anne talk about the power of practicing sankofa, an African word which translates as “retreive” meaning to go back and get or reclaim the complete, exalted right to express one’s full humanity and thrive — even in a culture dominated by whiteness — and how mindfulness, prayer and spacious contemplation can help along the path.
Jenee’s wisdom includes the courage to pause, take a moment to reflect and consider how to respond to what is happening around you and to you. She encourages each listener to know what burdens you are carrying, which are yours to truly carry and what are those of others to acknowledge and accept.
Jenee and Anne also discuss Jenee’s spiritual practices and beliefs, including getting quiet regularly, opening yourself and finding God’s hand in your life and how to search for “sparkly crumbs” in your path.
PRACTICE: RECLAIM YOUR JOY Heart-focused meditation
This episode closes with Jenee leading a heart-focused breathing practice that quiets depleting emotions, calms mind and body and helps bring about a sense of deep coherence.
About Jenee Johnson
Jenee is a professional co-active coach and certified by the globally recognized Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute to teach mindfulness and emotional intelligence based on the latest neuroscience.
She is a trauma trainer, Emotional Emancipation Circles Facilitator (through the Association of Black Psychologists), a certified HeartMath trainer, as well as a keynote speaker, coach, and consultant with Sankofa Holistic Counseling Services in Oakland, California.
You can find out more and connect with Jenee Johnson through her website.
Here is the cover story with Mindful featuring Jenee.
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
Getting Right Within
The conscience of America for hundreds of years pushing and demanding equity, equality, civil rights. The work is not done, but we cannot continue to push and continue to be at these levels of high fatigue and exhaustion. We must stop, take a breath, take two steps back and assess what truly is our role.
We cannot “black excellence” our way to liberation. We have to stop and rest.
There is permission to pause, to take a breath which activates the calming response in the body.
White bodies have lived in the program of white supremacy that says they are the standard of humanity and everybody else is not. That is a delusion and an untruth.
People of African ancestry have the opportunity to emancipate from the lie of white supremacy.
It's time to stop carrying the burden that is not ours to carry and to move fully into our joy.
Understand the deep wound of whiteness that you carry and where it came from. Set about healing and mending that.
The impact of trauma
The trauma that is not transformed is transmitted.
The trauma question is always, “What is wrong with you?” But really it should be, “What has happened to you?”
When you have trauma that is a chronic, constant, underlying dysregulation it dismantles wellbeing.
The ultimate healing balm of trauma is in connection, it's in relationships. Nothing that we need to do is solved alone.
Higher Power
God's power is in you and with you in every situation.
No matter how much you do, how great you are, you still are going to need some help. You will not be enough.
You have God, you don't have to do this by yourself.
God isn't going to come bang down your door and say, “I'm here!” You have to invite God to come in. God's always present, but part of the invitation is to come into your consciousness, into your awareness.
We're part of a greater work, greatly connected to something called Creator who is not only among us, but who is within us.
Cultivating calm
The greater good science center at UC Berkeley says that there are six habits of happiness worth cultivating that include: 1) forgiveness, 2) moving the body, 3) kindness, 4) social connection, 5) gratitude and 6) mindfulness. When we practice these things, we become happier, more positively aligned.
Oftentimes we put the focus on the thing that we're trying to move from which keeps that alive and gives it more energy. Instead, put the focus on where you are going. Basic neuroplasticity means what we think, do, and pay attention to with consistency shapes our neural pathways.
EPISODE BREAKDOWN
[00:01:14] Why Black people’s experience of trauma, mindfulness and joy is Jenee’s focus.
[00:01:40] An exploration of how white bodies have lived in the program of white supremacy.
[00:03:40] Mindful practices help us form new neural pathways.
[00:04:10] The importance of being a protective factor from the microaggressions and assaults that come because of racism.
[00:05:40] Young people need to know about the experience of Black people outside of the conversation of enslavement.
[00:10:30] Moving into mindfulness from a Christ - centered faith.
[00:14:40] How to process trauma. Trauma that is not transformed is transmitted. It turns into rage. The trauma question is always, “What is wrong with you?” but it should be, “What has happened, what is happening to you?”
[00:17:50] The importance of rest. After hundreds of years pushing and demanding equity, equality, civil rights, Black people have arrived at a particular place. The work is not done, but they cannot continue to push and continue to be at these levels of high fatigue and exhaustion.
[00:20:50] The pressures of being Black: You need to work twice as hard to get half as far and all these things that are in the collective around how you have to show up, you need to be a credit to your race.
[00:21:40] Give yourself permission to pause. Take a breath, which activates the calming response in the body.
[00:24:50] How joy is different from happiness.
[00:26:30] The Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley says that there are six habits of happiness worth cultivating that include forgiveness, moving the body, kindness, social connection, gratitude and mindfulness. When we practice these things, when we give ourselves to utilizing these things in our lives, we become happier, more positively aligned.
[00:29:10] An explanation of how God can fit into your life.
[00:35:44] A discussion on how to look for God's hand.
[00:41:10] How we keep bad experiences alive. We put the focus on the thing that we're trying to move from, which keeps that alive.
[00:44:00] Quietness is also a wonderful heart practice.
[00:45:42] PRACTICE STARTS: Jenee leads a heart-focused meditation.