Eps 142: Collective Impact and Moving Past our Whiteness

Transcription

Casey O'Roarty 0:00
Music. Hey everybody. Welcome to the joyful courage podcast, a place for information and inspiration on the conscious parenting journey. I am Casey l Rorty, positive discipline trainer, parent coach, and honored to be your guide in the work of showing up as your best for yourself and your family. If you feel as though parenting is one long personal growth and development workshop, you have come to the right place. The conversations you will hear on this podcast are all intended to offer you tools for moving forward, for expanding your lens, for shifting your narrative to one of possibility, connection and empowerment. You can be the parent you want to be. We are influencing the world with how we raise our children. When we bring deep, listening, acceptance and courage to our relationships, we are doing our part to evoke it in the world. I am thrilled to partner with you on this path. I hope you enjoy the show. Hey everybody.

Welcome to the joyful courage podcast.

I am coming to you this week, first day of May, May Day, whoa. How the heck did that happen? I'm coming to you happily, vulnerably, and, yeah, with with a lot of big stuff in my mind. So before I get into all of that, however, I want to acknowledge that the podcast, listenership is growing, and so if you are a new listener to the podcast, I just wanted to make a point of saying hello and welcome, and I'm so glad that you're here. I'm so glad that today is the day that you are thinking, or that you have thought, hey, I'm going to check this out. I am very appreciative of my listeners, super grateful for each and every download, because the way that I see it, we are all joyful courage. Joyful courage is really a movement to make an impact on the parents and the children of the world. And it's not about me, it's not even really about this podcast. It's about this greater call that we all feel to start seeing our relationships through the lens of love and learning and growth and development and and all that good stuff. And so every time you let somebody know, hey, I listened to this podcast, and I found it really helpful, or you talk about something that you've heard or something that's been sparked in you because of a show that you heard here, every time you take any action, big or small, that's been inspired by listening to This show, you are a part of the impact of joyful courage, and that is humbling to me. I am, I am honored. I'm really honored to be, you know, I just kind of see myself as I am. I am being called. I am open to I am the vehicle that this bigger conversation is happening through. And I I get to build and use a platform for making the world a better place, and I'm not doing it alone. I feel like I have a higher power, the universe, God, definitely pouring in and out of me. But it's all of you. It's you listening. It's you being inspired into action. It's you talking to your friends and changing the way that you're showing up with your kids, even if it's just one time today that you decide to take a deep breath instead of come unglued because you've stepped on yet another Lego, or you're seeing yet another eye roll, or your child has just ran away and slammed the door, even if just one time today, you decide to breathe and go internal, Go inside and decide to tease apart what it is about this action, this experience that you're having, what it is that is triggering to you, what it is what's valuable there, what's there for you to learn from. Even if you start to do that one time a day, what you will find is slowly you. Will get more used to choosing into that, and you will maybe choose it twice a day, or maybe three times a day, and it'll get easier to pause and to experience your experiences differently. I've been listening to Gabby Bernstein. I don't know if you know who she is. She wrote a lot of books. The one that I am currently marinating my soul in is the universe has your back. And you know, one of the things that she talks about is, you know, life isn't about the work, the inner work, the the spiritual work, isn't about changing our experiences as much as it is about changing the way that we experience our experiences and we, every single one of us always already has the choice to look through the lens of love. Many of us, all of us probably have various degrees of looking through the lens of fear, and that really blocks us from living our our not even our fullest life, but the life that we're meant to live when we look through the lens of fear, and when we start to notice that we're looking through the lens of fear and decide, what would this look like through the lens of love? Right there, that moment is the moment. That moment changes everything. And in the context of parenting, that moment is available all the time. You

all the time, and I will argue with you if you say, no, no, Casey, that's not ever available to me. I'm going to say, yeah, it is. And you know how I know it, because I live it, and I don't live it in an experience where everybody's doing the right thing all the time, my house is just like your house, right? Except for maybe you have little kids and I have big kids, but one day your little kids will be big kids. And there was a time when my big kids were little kids. And there is always that moment where we choose. We get to choose, am I going to move from fear? Am I going to move from love? And the more often that we can move from a place of love, the stronger our relationships are with our children, and the more the environment is primed for our children to grow into their fullest selves. You know what I mean, the more the environment is primed for our children to grow into their fullest selves, because when we respond with our fear, we are pretty much just handing over the baggage that we've been handed over through our experiences and growing up in our the way we were parented. So let's stop doing that, right? Let's stop doing that because we have the power, we have the power to change the world through the way that we parent our children. That, being said, the main topic that I want to talk about today is really uncomfortable for me, and I am taking that as a sign that it's incredibly important for me to talk about, and it's something that has come up a lot lately, and then this morning, in one of the Facebook groups that I am a part of, it came up like boldface right there. And one of the women in the group, it's a group for parent educators, she said, can we start talking about the fact that the industry, I don't think she said industry, but that, you know, the population, the people that are talking about positive parenting, gentle parenting, conscious parenting, are a bunch of white people, and it is summit season. So I'm sure that you've seen invitations into some incredible summits that are happening right now, one of which, two of which I get to be a part of. I'll tell you more about that later. One is for stepmoms, and the other is for empowering kids. I'm really excited about both of them. However, when these summits come flying across your laptop and you take a look at those faces, what do you see? Typically, 99% of the faces you see are white women, right middle class, white women. And so when this gal posted about this, I was. Really excited, because I was like, Yeah, let's have a conversation about this. Yes, more diversity. And you know, if I'm being super honest and transparent and authentic, which is what I do, because otherwise, I just get all up in my head about being a fraud. I need to say that I am a white woman. I was raised with privilege. I live with privilege. I'm raising two white kids who experience all sorts of privilege. I grew up in Southern California in a bubble of wealth, and I currently live in a town that is I don't know what the demographics are, but my world is white, and I'm uncomfortable with that, and I don't really know what to do with it, you know? And I've even had some people on, I mean, oh, what's his name? Jason was on with kids and race. He was on, when was that, a year ago, year and a half ago, talking about race and privilege and how to raise our children so that they are more culturally aware and awake. And even in that conversation, he came up with a whole bunch of ideas, you know, ways that we can, we as white people, can raise our children to be more culturally proficient, and if I'm being totally honest, I have not followed through on any of the suggestions that he's made, and not because I don't want to, not because I don't want to. I watch what's happening in our world, and i My heart breaks for parents who have to talk to their children about being safe in the world. And it is less about just, you know, watch out for creepy people, and more about you have brown skin, so you have extra things to think about. It breaks my heart that there are families that are beyond paycheck to paycheck and survival comes before being able to, you know, figure out how to listen to a podcast. I'm grateful for the opportunities that I've had, while also uncomfortable with the opportunities that I had because a lot of the opportunities that I've had and that my children have have everything to do with other people not having opportunity, you know, and even the fact that I'm like my goat, my default is extrovert, outgoing. I can talk to people like and that's kind of just who I am, even that is a privilege, even that affords me a certain level of privilege. And yeah, so you know, and I think about when I look at my guests on the podcast, when I think about the population that listens to my podcast, and while it is true that there are people all over the world listening to the joyful courage podcast. Mostly it's my fellow Americans and a lot of Canadians shout out to our neighbors, and the vast majority of those people are white, and there's nothing wrong with being white, right? However, I am guessing that many of us have this story where, you know, we create a world. We live in our own little bubbles inside of the world, and you know, we kind of surround ourselves with people that look like us, talk like us, think like us. And we want social change, right? We want things to be better for everyone, and yet, it's so uncomfortable to step into Okay, what am I supposed to do to step out of the safety of our bubbles that we don't do anything? So that's what I'm thinking about right now, and that's what I'm thinking about right now, and I really I'm going to this is so this is what I'm going to do, first of all, just like back in January or February, when I came on and I talked about politics and the shooting and in Parkland and all that stuff, and getting, you know, Choosing into being more of a part of my community. My community. I'm going to extend that work. I know that my town has a Diversity Council, and I'm going to find out when their next meeting is, and I'm going to show up. I'm going to look for cultural and heritage festivals in my area, and I'm going to invite my family into checking them out. I'm going to look for opportunities to give us experiences where we aren't the dominant race.

That's what I'm going to do and and I'm going to have a conversation with my kids about this too. I'm going to be really transparent about my discomfort with them and see what it is that they have to say. The other thing that I'm going to do is I'm going to take an active Well, I already am taking an active role in who I bring on the podcast, but I am declaring right here, right now, to all of you that are listening, that the guests are going to bring more diversity. I'm going to be consciously choosing who comes on and speaks, because I think it's important for all voices to be heard. Because I also know that inside of my population of listeners, that there are people of color, that there are a variety of social economic classes represented. And I want the voices that come on the show to speak to everybody and to speak to everybody's experience. I want all of you to be able to look at the guests that come on joyful courage. I want you to have the opportunity to see yourself right. And as much as I feel like I'm a connector, right, I connect with everybody, and I feel like I can find common ground with everybody that chooses into that with me, I also know that I have huge, incredible blindness when it comes to certain experiences, because I've, I'm white and I'm I've always been white and I've always been, you know, I've always had the experience of of really wearing a privileged backpack. There was a period of time where I lived in Costa Rica, and I was a minority there. However, I chose to be there, and I was like 21 and it was not the same. It's not the same. So I would love to hear from you, and I would love to know what is it that you are curious about, if you are a person of color who listens to this show, and you have you know people that you look up to, that you listen to, that you think would be a good fit for this, please help me. Help me in diversifying the show. Help me in growing the audience. If you are someone who also has the story of wanting more diversity in their life, but not knowing what to do or how to get there, or, like, baby steps. Let me know. Let me know what your questions are, and let's address it. Let's get, like, super transparent about this. Okay? Because I think the more we don't talk about it, you know, the bigger the elephant in the room becomes, and the elephant in the rooms tends to take up a lot of the oxygen. And I just don't want to, I don't I feel like it's living kind of like with this big, you know, this big bruise that we don't really want to talk about. And I want to talk about it. I want to talk about it. So my call out to you again, again. This comes back to impact, right? Because it's not only white people that are talking about conscious parenting, it's people. It's all sorts of people from all over the world that are talking about showing up well for our kids, about being in relationship, about being mindful, about being conscious and aware and awake, and the choices that we're making as we navigate this thing called life. It is not a white person thing, it's an every person thing. And I'm I'm making a declaration right now that joyful courage is going to reflect that. And guess what? The exciting thing is, right? The exciting thing is, is that the impact of joyful courage will only increase. And guess what? If joyful courage takes over the world and the message spreads to all communities, and all communities feel like they can live inside of the message, then holy cow. Can you imagine that world? I can. I can. And I do imagine that world, and I visualize that world, and I want to live in that world. And so, you know, our life is by our design, so I am taking steps to design the world as a place where everybody belongs and everybody's included, and I'm super excited about it, and I hope that you are too. I hope that you are too. So yeah, that's what I wanted to come on and share today on this solo show. I hope that if this is your first time listening to the joyful courage again, welcome. Know that there's 140 other shows to listen to. So if you're digging this message, check out some of the other conversations that have had, some of the other solo shows that have come out, you know, and those of you that have been with me for a long time, I just want you to know that I really value you and I really. Value the time when you're putting in your earbuds, or you're turning on your computer and you are listening to the messages that show up on this show. If you are someone who's listened a lot and has never reached out, yeah, you I'm talking to you, you know who you are, would you do me a favor and just shoot me a message. Shoot me a message that just is, hey, I've been listening a long time. Let me know why you keep listening. Let me know what it is that you love about the show, and let me know how I can make it better for you, because I am here to serve you. I'm here to serve this community. I'm here to serve the world, and it is my huge honor to do so. So happy Mayday. Big Love to every single one of you. I am so excited to see and to feel and to experience what the future holds for us all. Yeah, you the joyful courage community. You're amazing. Big. Thanks and love to my team, including my producer, Chris Mann at pod shaper. Be sure to join in the discussion over at the live in love with joyful courage group page, as well as the joyful courage business page on Facebook and Instagram. Subscribe to the show through Apple podcasts, or really, anywhere you find your favorite podcast, you can view the current joyful courage swag over at the web page, intention, cards, bracelets, e course offers the membership program one on one, coaching. It's all waiting for you to take a look. Simply head to www dot joyful courage.com/yes. That's joyful courage.com/y. E, S, to find more support for your conscious parenting journey. Any comments or feedback about this show or any others can be sent to Casey at joyful, courage, calm. I personally read and respond to all the emails that come my way. Reach out, take a breath, drop into your body, find the balcony seat and trust that everyone is going to be okay?