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Send us a textIn 2015, Fairfax criminal lawyer Jonathan Katz finished court early enough to rush over to the Mindful Leadership conference in Arlington, eager to meet such great teachers as Roshi Joan Halifax, Jim Dethmer and Rhonda Magee. Sold out, said a front desk person. A woman overheard my asking what I could do about that, and she sold me her extra ticket. This conference was so good that it would have been worth flying coast-to-coast for such an experience. Learning applications of mindfulness to my life and work are very important. Among the best teachers for that at this conference was author of Awake at Work (and more) Michael Carroll -- currently with Global Coaching Alliance, and a student of such advanced teachers as Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche -- who immediately captured me with leading a grounding sit followed soon after with the story of a tollbooth angel who would greet people even at the most trafficked, sweaty and stressful times of day, hand them an M&M candy, and wish them a nice day. Michael bridges any gap between mindfulness and Buddhist teachings and applying them to the real world, including the rough and tumble of the workplace, and, in this episode, the courthouse. I should have known long ago already about highly accomplished samurai and Five Rings author Miyamoto Musashi, but did not, other than hearing about Five Rings. In this podcast interview with Jon Katz, Michael masterfully relates the lessons of Musashi's masterful defeat of Sasaki Kojiro to its applications to our own lives. Michael is a life tourguide who helps reveal plenty, including lessons and truisms that are right in front of our eyes, but that we have yet to see more clearly. Check out -- and read -- his books and more here. This podcast with Fairfax, Virginia criminal / DUI lawyer Jon Katz is playable on all devices at podcast.BeatTheProsecution.com. For more information, visit https://KatzJustice.com or contact us at info@KatzJustice.com, 703-383-1100 (calling), or 571-406-7268 (text). If you like what you hear on our Beat the Prosecution podcast, please take a moment to post a review at our Apple podcasts page (with stars only, or else also with a comment) at https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/beat-the-prosecution/id1721413675
In this nuanced and elevated episode of Beyond Trauma, David Treleaven shares the core of his findings on best practices for trauma sensitivity in mindfulness and how his recommendations have evolved since his book, Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness, came out five years ago. David gives suggestions for what mindfulness and meditation teachers and practitioners can do if they become stuck in their practice to proceed safely while honoring the tradition of mindfulness. In the self-paced The Complete Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness Training, David has compiled recommendations from the best in the field including Tara Brach, Rich Hanson, Rhonda Magee, and others who are a part of his guest faculty. This two-part, twelve-module course sets the foundation for safety and distills advanced tools for practicing and teaching mindfulness. It has been fundamental for me in my work. David is now offering $400 off this training when you use code: Lara at check out. David's current focus which you will hear about in this episode is the combination of Mindfulness and Internal Family Systems for trauma healing. His Internal Family Systems for Trauma Sensitive Practitioners course starts TOMORROW, January 7th, and runs every Tuesday for four weeks. Recordings and hand-outs are available after each session. David Treleaven, PhD, is a writer, educator, and leading expert on the intersection of mindfulness and trauma. Author of Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness: Practices for Safe and Transformative Healing, David trains mindfulness, yoga, and mental health professionals to integrate trauma-sensitive principles into their work. With over a decade of experience, he has collaborated with organizations like the Center for Mindful Self-Compassion and universities including Brown and UCLA, helping practitioners create safer and more effective spaces for healing. You can learn more about his work at www.davidtreleaven.com. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Your support is deeply appreciated! Find me, Lara, on my Website / Instagram You can support this podcast with any level of donation here. Order The Essential Guide to Trauma Sensitive Yoga: How to Create Safer Spaces for All Opening and Closing music: Other People's Photographs courtesy of Daniel Zaitchik. Follow Daniel on Spotify.
Send us a textFairfax criminal defense and DUI defense lawyer Jonathan Katz was floored when he met law professor, mindfulness teacher, and teacher on overcoming racial injustice Rhonda Magee, at the 2015 Mindful Leadership conference in Arlington, Virginia. Nine years later, Jon Katz catches back up with Rhonda, talking about her essential book The Inner Work of Racial Justice, her work with addressing how we handle racial injustice, about being proactive rather than reactive to others' verbal and nonverbal trespasses, and her online events and meditations. Rhonda is a leader in these practices. This podcast with Fairfax, Virginia criminal / DUI lawyer Jon Katz is playable on all devices at podcast.BeatTheProsecution.com. For more information, visit https://BeatTheProsecution.com or contact us at info@BeatTheProsecution.com, 703-383-1100 (calling), or 571-406-7268 (text). Hear our prior podcasts, at https://podcast.BeatTheProsecution.com/If you like what you hear on our Beat the Prosecution podcast, please take a moment to post a review at our Apple podcasts page (with stars only, or else also with a comment) at https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/beat-the-prosecution/id1721413675
A talk given at Berkeley Zen Center on Saturday, September 28th 2024 by Rhonda Magee.
Why is inner work fundamental to racial justice and changemaking? What role do our thoughts, feelings and intentions play in shaping the way we live and lead change? How can we learn to embody mindfulness and exercise compassion, from the very core of our being, in our everyday words and actions? And how can we inspire and reorganize our communities that allow unity and harmony to bloom?Find out from Rhonda Magee, as she illuminates the very heart of social justice work through the lens of mindfulness, exclusively in conversation with Dr. Hitendra Wadhwa on Intersections Podcast.Rhonda Magee is a Professor of Law at the University of San Francisco, an internationally-recognized mindfulness teacher, an acclaimed author and keynote speaker. Having studied mindfulness, its underlying origins in Buddhism, and its potential benefits and applications for over 20 years, Rhonda's work has been focused on integrating mindfulness into higher education, law, activism and social change work, personal and collective healing, and leadership. She is the author of The Inner Work of Racial Justice, and has written extensively on how mindfulness supports engagement in the world in the face of multiple interlocking challenges, including climate distress, migration, war and political polarization. Along the way, she's become a sought-after keynote speaker, inspiring others to explore the integration of socially-engaged mindfulness in research and its applications inside schools, workplaces, communities and beyond.In this episode, Rhonda reveals:- Why inner work is fundamental to racial justice and changemaking- The role our thoughts, feelings and intentions play in shaping the way we live and lead change- Six ways to embody and express mindfulness in our everyday words and actions
As part of a 4-part series on the Power of Compassion on The Courageous Life, yesterday we released a beautiful conversation with Roshi Joan Halifax and Rhonda Magee. Together they explored a variety of themes related to meeting the most pressing challenges of our time with backbone and heart. To complement the conversations in this series I have be sharing some potent practices for opening the heart, and accessing more courage and compassion. Today's practice is a re-release of the first Practicing Courage episode we ever produced and relates to one of the themes that Joan and Rhonda explored. How we can respond vs. react in moments where we feel triggered?An idea that is beautifully highlighted by holocaust survivor, Viktor Frankl, who famously said:"Between stimulus and response there's a space. In that space is our ability to choose. In that choice lies our growth and our freedom." Today's episode will explore how we might find this space more often in our lives, our work, and our relationships. Throughout episode you'll be exposed to:Highlights from the science of courageAn inspiring clip from a conversation with Dr. Amy EdmondsonAnd a simple 3-part practice for finding more of this space, and more courage in the midst of our busy day-to-day lives.Thank you for your practice today!I look forward to continuing together next Thursday!-Joshua8 Week Compassion Cultivation Training with Joshua begins July 12th!If you are interested in a deeper more experiential dive into these insights and practices I would encourage you to join me on July 12th, as I will be teaching an 8 week course on compassion originally created at Stanford University. Learn more by heading to practicingcourage.com/cctWant these practices delivered via text?If you are located in the U.S. text the word COURAGE to 805-430-6801 to join Joshua's text community and you'll get a text once/week with a link directly to the practice.Looking for more practice opportunities? Check out:The Practice Pass - An annual membership that gives you on-demand access to robust practice experiences including the 28-Day Practicing Courage Challenge, The 5-Day Transforming Stress Challenge and the brand NEW Creativity Challenge.Past Practicing Courage episodes in the podcast feedThe FREE Practice LibrarySupport the Show.
This is the finale in our 4-part series on the power of compassion, which has featured leading researchers and practitioners in illuminating conversations about how to live with a more kind, and open hearted stance toward the world.Today's conversation could not be a more fitting end as Roshi Joan Halifax and Rhonda V. Magee, two extraordinary pioneers working at the intersection of mindfulness, social change, law, and end-of-life care will engage in a deep and inspiring discussion about accessing compassion in the face of our most pressing challenges.Together they'll explore:How we might engage with ourselves, our communities, perceived adversaries, and the broader world with an open heart.Training qualities of compassion, kindness, and love when fighting for causes we care aboutTheir experiences, including challenges they've faced, in cultivating compassion The GRACE model for training compassionOvercoming fearPractices for responding (vs. reacting) in the heat of the moment or when one is triggeredWorking more effectively with failure and disappointmentAs you'll hear this conversation will infuse the metaphor of an open hearted warrior as Joan and Rhonda discuss the possibility of meeting life's challenges with a blend of backbone and heart.Enjoying the show? Please rate it wherever you listen to your podcasts!More Power of Compassion Series episodes:Part 3: The Future of Work - Love, Safety, and Belonging | Leah Weiss & Jerry ColonnaPart 2: Moving From Fear to Love | James Doty & Jacinta JiménezPart 1: The Key to Resilience and Possibility | Barbara Fredrickson & Sharon SalzbergAbout Rhonda Magee:Rhonda V. Magee is a Professor of Law at the University of San Francisco and a leading mindfulness teacher with a focus on applying mindfulness to the hardest challenges of our times. She is an internationally-recognized teacher, guide and mentor, focused on integrating mindfulness into higher education, law and social change work. For more than 20+ years, Professor Magee has studied mindfulness, its underlying origins in Buddhism, and its potential benefits and applications in the world. A prolific author, she draws on law and legal history to weave storytelling, poetry, analysis and practices into inspiration for changing how we think, act and live better together in the face of the multiple interlocking challenges of our times. For more please visit rhondavmagee.comAbout Roshi Joan HalifaxRoshi Joan Halifax, Ph.D. is Founder and Head Teacher of Upaya Zen Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico, a social activist, author, and in her early years was an anthropologist at Columbia University and University of Miami School of Medicine . She is a pioneer in the field of end-of-life care and has lectured on the subject of death and dying at many academic institutions and medical centers around the world. She has also received numerous awards and honors from institutions for her work as a social and environmental activist and in the end-of-life care field. She has served as a Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the Library of Congress where she developed a heuristic map of compassion and created the GRACE model for training compassion. She is Director of the Project on Being with Dying, and Founder of the Upaya Prison Project that develops programs on meditation for prisoners. For more please visit: www.joanhalifax.orgSupport the Show.
Roshi Joan begins by reflecting on the inception of socially engaged Buddhist training during the pandemic, highlighting the growing need for community and service amidst global crises. Roshi then introduces […]
Caste is one of the oldest systems of exclusion in the world. It negatively impacts 1.9 billion people worldwide, crippling their quality of life. Brahmins, who created this system in Hindu scripture, are at the top of the caste system and have benefited from centuries of privilege, access, and power because of it. Dalits, who sit at the bottom of this hierarchy, are branded “untouchable” and sentenced to a violent system of caste apartheid with separate neighborhoods, places of worship, and schools. Dalit American activist and author Thenmozhi Tenmori Soundararajan has been working to end caste oppression around the world for decades. In her work, she endeavors to help Dalit individuals and families heal through international solidarity with other oppressed people, working together to dismantle caste apartheid. In this episode, author, meditation teacher, and law professor Rhonda Magee has a powerful conversation with Thenmozhi about the ongoing trauma of the caste system and Dalit people's fight against oppression. This episode was recorded during a live online event on February 16th, 2023. You can also watch it on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube channel. A transcript is available at ciispod.com. To find out more about CIIS and public programs like this one, visit our website ciis.edu and connect with us on social media @ciispubprograms. We hope that each episode of our podcast provides opportunities for growth, and that our listeners will use them as a starting point for further introspection. Many of the topics discussed on our podcast have the potential to bring up feelings and emotional responses. If you or someone you know is in need of mental health care and support, here are some resources to find immediate help and future healing: -Visit 988lifeline.org or text, call, or chat with The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline by dialing 988 from anywhere in the U.S. to be connected immediately with a trained counselor. Please note that 988 staff are required to take all action necessary to secure the safety of a caller and initiate emergency response with or without the caller's consent if they are unwilling or unable to take action on their own behalf. -Visit thrivelifeline.org or text “THRIVE” to begin a conversation with a THRIVE Lifeline crisis responder 24/7/365, from anywhere: +1.313.662.8209. This confidential text line is available for individuals 18+ and is staffed by people in STEMM with marginalized identities. -Visit translifeline.org or call (877) 565-8860 in the U.S. or (877) 330-6366 in Canada to learn more and contact Trans Lifeline, who provides trans peer support divested from police. -Visit ciis.edu/counseling-and-acupuncture-clinics to learn more and schedule counseling sessions at one of our centers. -Find information about additional global helplines at https://www.befrienders.org.
How do we integrate our meditation practice and our collective work for social and racial justice? Mindfulness teacher and law professor Rhonda Magee explores this question in a personal and […]
This is the finale in our 4-part series on the power of compassion, which has featured leading researchers and practitioners in illuminating conversations about how to live with a more kind, and open hearted stance toward the world. Today's episode features Roshi Joan Halifax and Rhonda Magee - two pioneers working at the intersection of mindfulness, social change, law, and end-of-life care. Together they will engage in a deep and profound discussion about accessing compassion in the face of some of our most pressing challenges. Some of the topics they'll explore include:How we might engage with ourselves, our communities, our perceived adversaries, and the broader world with an open heart.Training qualities of compassion, kindness, and love when fighting for causes one cares aboutTheir experiences, including challenges they've faced, in cultivating compassion The GRACE model for training compassionOvercoming fearPractices for responding (vs. reacting) in the heat of the moment or when one is triggeredWorking more effectively with failure and disappointmentAs you'll hear this conversation will infuse the metaphor of an open hearted warrior as Joan and Rhonda discuss the possibility of meeting life's challenges with a blend of both backbone and heart. Enjoying the show? Please rate it on iTunes!More Power of Compassion Series episodes:#3: The Future of Work - Love, Safety, and Belonging | Leah Weiss & Jerry Colonna#2: Moving From Fear to Love | James Doty & Jacinta Jiménez#1: The Key to Resilience, Growth, and Possibility | Barbara Fredrickson & Sharon SalzbergAbout Rhonda Magee:Rhonda V. Magee is a Professor of Law at the University of San Francisco and a leading mindfulness teacher with a focus on applying mindfulness to the hardest challenges of our times. She is an internationally-recognized teacher, guide and mentor, focused on integrating mindfulness into higher education, law and social change work. For more than 20+ years, Professor Magee has studied mindfulness, its underlying origins in Buddhism, and its potential benefits and applications in the world. A prolific author, she draws on law and legal history to weave storytelling, poetry, analysis and practices into inspiration for changing how we think, act and live better together in the face of the multiple interlocking challenges of our times. For more please visit rhondavmagee.comAbout Roshi Joan HalifaxRoshi Joan Halifax, Ph.D. is Founder and Head Teacher of Upaya Zen Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico, a social activist, author, and in her early years was an anthropologist at Columbia University and University of Miami School of Medicine . She is a pioneer in the field of end-of-life care and has lectured on the subject of death and dying at many academic institutions and medical centers around the world. She has also received numerous awards and honors from institutions for her work as a social and environmental activist and in the end-of-life care field. She has served as a Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the Library of Congress where she developed a heuristic map of compassion and created the GRACE model for training compassion. She is Director of the Project on Being with Dying, and Founder of the Upaya Prison Project that develops programs on meditation for prisoners. For more please visit: www.joanhalifax.org.Support the show
Nana Agyemang and Rhonda Magee form this panel of Enneagram Threes. Nana and Rhonda exhibit one of the key traits of the Three structure--energy. Threes' energy propels them to be industrious, efficient and goal-oriented. While sometimes stereotyped as Wall Street powerbrokers, Threes can also channel their drive toward achievement and productivity in serving others, as evidenced in Nana and Rhonda's dedication to public service and the nonprofit sector. This panel highlights a main task of Type Three--harnessing their energy to create space for developing a sense of presence and discovering the value of being over doing. Rhonda leads Garden Hill Consulting (www.gardenhillconsulting.com). Learn more about Nana's work on LinkedIn @Nana A.
Rhonda McGee is the author of the book “The Inner Work of Racial Justice." She is a visionary law professor and mindfulness teacher who has dedicated her life and her work to integrating contemplative practices with issues of social justice. In this episode, we dive deep into the idea that inner transformation can serve as a useful and effective catalyst for societal change. We discuss how mindfulness practices can support individuals in recognizing and transforming their own internalized biases - although of course, it's no guarantee. To this point, Rhonda touches upon some of the obstacles individuals may face when engaging in the kind of inner work designed to confront privilege. As Rhonda explores this interplay between compassion and fear, she highlights the dual nature of realizing our shared humanity - the complex emotions , the joys and fears that arise when acknowledging our interconnectedness - as well as the internal conflicts individuals face when confronted with the need for societal change and personal discomfort. Throughout this conversation, Rhonda emphasizes the importance of creating spaces, spaces like Esalen, where we can honestly explore and embrace our emotions. She urges us to examine this collective longing for a new way forward, one that transcends historical patterns of oppression, one that invites all individuals to a grounded and inclusive existence. We also get into the history of the human potential movement, and talk about how the focus from individual human potential is shifting to a collective vision, and we talk about how institutions can leverage mindfulness and compassion to create more inclusive and equitable organizations. https://www.rhondavmagee.com/
“Your life is hidden with Christ in God” (Col. 3). Acts 10:34-43 Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24 Colossians 3:1-4 Matthew 28:1-10 When are you most fully alive? My friend Rhonda Magee felt fully alive when she was sixteen years old. The world was opening up, college was around the corner. Life had not been easy but she had reason to hope. Rhonda and a boy named Jake were head over heels in love. Then just before she left town for a summer university course, he told her over the phone, “My father kicked me out of the house.” She asked him why. He said, “You know why… I told you how he is. It's because of us. He said no son of his is going to be dating a black girl…” [1] Rhonda felt gripped by pain. She was an A student and about to be chosen as the town's Teenager of the Year. Yet her race – a category created by others and that she felt did not capture much of who she really was – made her unacceptable to Jake's parents. They had never met her. And yet they were willing to hurt their own son, and therefore themselves, all to teach him, Rhonda and anyone else a lesson. They believed in white supremacy so strongly that they were ready to throw their own son out like garbage. We all have beliefs like this. They diminish us and damage the people around us. The social theorist bell hooks asserts that racism in America is a crisis of “lovelessness.” Certainly the current anti-LGBTQ+ legislation illustrates the terrible lovelessness that has this country in its grip. The poverty in this city does too. But these are just a few of many stories we carry that poison our life, that prevent us from ever being fully alive. The stories we tell about ourselves as individuals also can harm us. Even as a child the psychologist Brené Brown knew that, “People will do almost anything to not feel pain, including causing pain and abusing power.” She realized that, “very few people can handle being held accountable without rationalizing, blaming or shutting down.” As a result, “Without understanding how our feelings, thoughts, and behaviors work together, it's almost impossible to find our way back to ourselves and each other. When we don't understand how our emotions shape our thoughts and decisions, we become disembodied from our own experiences and disconnected from each other.” [2] We feel alive when we come home to ourselves and to God, when we can become connected in a new way to our past and to each other. This encounter, the forgiveness we experience in Jesus, lies at the heart of the resurrection. Easter is the chance for a new story to take hold in our life. It is the beginning of a new era when everyone will belong and have the chance to thrive. God's love dares to include those who do not fit, the ones who the powerful cannot abide. [3] Through God we can be free of the hold that fear and death have on us. No one really knows what happened at dawn that morning before Mary Magdalene and the other Mary felt the earth shaking. They saw the guards frozen like dead men by fear, watched an angel who looked like lightning come down from heaven and roll back the stone at the tomb. There is no way to make Easter fully understandable. This does not mean it is illogical. Matt Fitzgerald remembers the Easter when his daughter was in kindergarten and the church sent each child home with a plastic purple Easter egg. Inside was not chocolate but a little slip of paper. His daughter was learning to read and so she sounded out the three word message. “He is… raisins?” “He is raisins is illogical. He is risen is merely incomprehensible.” When we speak about God we have to “distinguish between things that do not make sense and things we cannot make sense of.” [4] God cannot be contained, confined, described or defined. But we can meet God in the person of Jesus on Easter morning. The Gospels of Mark and Luke mention anointing, but in the Gospel of Matthew the women come simply “to see” the tomb. The Greek word theōrēsai means to observe, analyze, discern with the connotation that one is involved and committed. It is related to our words theory, theoretical and theater, that onstage action which helps us to better understand human life. After meeting the angel, the two women leave the tomb quickly with fear and great joy. Jesus greets them with a word (xairete) that means both hello and rejoice (like the word aloha means hello and love). He says, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me” (Mt. 28). He offers this message of comfort and forgiveness to friends who abandoned him. In the second century Irenaeus said that the Glory of God is the human being fully alive. Feeling fully alive often involves an experience of joy. What is joy? Greek has the word makarios for happiness or blessedness. It is the word repeated frequently in the beatitudes as in, “blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God” (Mt. 5). The ancient Greeks regarded this kind of happiness as the freedom that rich people might have from normal cares and worries. These are the people who have good fortune, health and money. [5] On the other hand the Greek word for joy is xara. It is related to our word Grace. It means to be fulfilled. The perfect version of xara can only found in God. The Greeks thought that this experience does not surprise us haphazardly. Rather this joy naturally comes with wisdom and virtue. To use more modern language it is the pleasure that comes with spiritual connection. We do not lose ourselves in joy – we become more deeply ourselves in it. [6] Joy is surprisingly difficult for us. Part of the reason for this is that joy as an emotion requires us to be vulnerable. Last winter I came across a new expression for a feeling I recognize. It is “foreboding joy.” [7] It refers to that sense of hesitation we feel when it comes to joy. We don't want to be too joyful because we are irrationally afraid that this will somehow cause something bad to happen. Psychologists who study this say that 95 percent of parents interviewed have experienced this with their children. We hold back because we think it will make us hurt less later. One man in his sixties said, “I used to think that the best way to go through life was to expect the worst. That way, if it happened you were prepared, and if it didn't happen you would be pleasantly surprised. Then I was in a car accident and my wife was killed. Needless to say, expecting the worst didn't prepare me at all. And worse, I still grieve for all of those wonderful moments we shared and that I didn't fully enjoy. My commitment to her is to fully enjoy every moment... I just wish she was here, now that I know how to do that.” [8] Experiencing joy means being vulnerable in love. So how do we cultivate a propensity for joy in our ordinary lives beyond a willingness to really feel joy and to let others see our weakness? The simple answer is to practice gratitude. Gratitude is not an attitude, it is not a feeling. It is something we do over and over, sometimes successfully and sometimes not. For me gratitude lies at the heart of my prayer life and what we do here. Last week I was giving a tour of the archives when I found a sermon Alan Jones preached at Grace Cathedral in 1990. It moved me so deeply that I wanted just to read the entire manuscript to you. Alan refers to a French priest named Jean Sulivan who describes Western cultures as spiritually impoverished and undeveloped, as unawake and unaware of the miracle right in front of our noses. [9] That miracle is the miracle of being. It is the miracle that we are. If you want a miracle look at yourself. Our life is the love story of God trying to reach us, to help us. Have you ever wanted to meet a famous person? I always wished that I could spend a day with the nineteenth century poet Walt Whitman. He wrote a poem called “Miracles.” “… As to me I know of nothing else but miracles, / Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan, / Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky, / Or wade with naked feet along the beach just in the edge / of the water, / Or talk by day with any one I love, or sleep in the bed at night with any one I love, / Or sit at table at dinner with the rest, / Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car, / Or watch honey-bees around the hive of a summer forenoon… Or the wonderfulness of the sundown, or of stars / shining so quiet and bright, / Or the exquisite delicate thin curve of the new moon in spring; / These with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles, / The whole referring, yet each distinct and in its place…” [10] When are you most fully alive? In the face of overwhelming lovelessness, and the pain that causes more pain, there is a new story. Jesus calls us to come home to ourselves and to God. So in gratitude let us see the world with a new intent. Let us leave behind our foreboding joy and know nothing else but miracles. The Lord is risen. [1] Rhonda V. Magee, The Inner Work of Racial Justice: Healing Ourselves and Transforming Our Communities Through Mindfulness (NY: Penguin Random House, 2019) 11-13. [2] Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart (NY: Random House, 2021) xx. [3] Alan Jones, “Easter Day: Take Time for Paradise,” Grace Cathedral Sermons, 15 April 1990. [4] Matt Fitzgerald, “Thunderous Yes: Preaching to the Easter Crowds, “The Christian Century, 10 April 2014. https://www.christiancentury.org/article/2014-03/thunderous-yes?utm_source=Christian+Century+Newsletter&utm_campaign=dcce86669b-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_SCP_2023-04-03&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_b00cd618da-dcce86669b-86237307 [5] Ibid., 204ff. [6] Ibid., 205. [7] Ibid., 215. [8] Ibid., 50. [9] This paragraph and the next come from: Alan Jones, “Easter Day: Take Time for Paradise,” Grace Cathedral Sermons, 15 April 1990 [10] “Why, who makes much of a miracle? / As to me I know of nothing else but miracles, / Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan, / Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky, / Or wade with naked feet along the beach just in the edge / of the water, / Or talk by day with any one I love, or sleep in the bed at night with any one I love, / Or sit at table at dinner with the rest, / Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car, / Or watch honey-bees around the hive of a summer forenoon / Or animals feeding in the fields, / Or birds, or the wonderfulness of insects in the air, / Or the wonderfulness of the sundown, or of stars / shining so quiet and bright, / Or the exquisite delicate thin curve of the new moon in spring; / These with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles, / The whole referring, yet each distinct and in its place. // To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle, / Every cubic inch of space is a miracle, / Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread / with the same, // To me the sea is a continual miracle, / The fishes that swim – the rocks – the motion of the / waves – the ships with men in them, / What stranger miracles are there?” Walt Whitman, “Miracles,” Leaves of Grass. https://poets.org/poem/miracles
01/14/2023, Rhonda Magee, dharma talk at City Center. In this talk, Hoshi Rhonda Myozen Magee reflects on the concept of Beloved Community through the lens of those who have breathed life and meaning into the concept over the past century. In the spirit of contemplative reflection and deep listening to our inner voice, she invites us all to discern what Beloved Community means to each of us, and commit to bringing it more fully alive in our own ways in the world today.
Today we welcome Ali Smith, Andrés González, and Atman Smith. Brothers Ali and Atman met Andrés at the University of Maryland College Park. During their last semester, the trio spent a lot of time reading books on spirituality, philosophy, history, politics, and other related topics. At the same time, they began their yoga practice and developed it under the guidance of Ali and Atman's godfather. Months of hard work and planning ensued before they finally co-founded the Holistic Life Foundation. Together, they tell their story of how yoga and mindfulness have transformed countless communities in Let Your Light Shine.In this episode, I talk to Ali Smith, Andrés González, and Atman Smith about mindfulness in education. For 20 years, they have been teaching yoga and wellness to underserved kids, resulting in a decrease in suspensions and fights and an increase in attendance and grades. But it's not just about the numbers. For Ali, Andrés, and Atman, what matters even more is changing the school's culture to become a loving and empathetic space for all by teaching stillness and introspection.Website: letyourlightshinebook.comTwitter: @HLFINC Topics2:31 Introducing Ali Smith4:24 Introducing Atman Smith7:31 Introducing Andrés González12:45 Hope through mindfulness17:05 Creating an oasis in schools 20:39 The impact of the Mindful Moment Program26:16 Reciprocal teaching model28:00 Involution: tapping into our universal centers33:37 Sharon Salzberg's and Rhonda Magee's work36:52 Bringing fun and humor to learning 38:11 Making yoga and mindfulness accessible45:46 Love and empathy need to be consistent and reliable
“The museums give us these just incredible opportunities to have some kind of an encounter with different ways of seeing the world, shining a light on some aspect of our history or aspect of our humanity that opens up a new doorway for me to see things differently.” While mindfulness is often thought of as a solitary practice, law professor and meditation teacher Rhonda Magee believes in its power to support collective healing. It can bridge the divide between subjects like law or physics, which are often thought of as cold and dispassionate, and our personal experiences, stories, and feelings by allowing us to become more in touch with and aware of the human element of academic disciplines. Approaching museum spaces and artworks with a similar mindset, Magee sees opportunities for mindfulness to increase empathy, understanding, and healing. In this episode, hosted by Getty Museum educator Lilit Sadoyan, Magee shares her own path to mindfulness and how mindfulness can be a critical tool in the classroom, the museum, and everyday encounters and experiences. Magee is professor of law at the University of San Francisco and author of the book The Inner Work of Racial Justice: Healing Ourselves and Transforming Our Communities Through Mindfulness. For images, transcripts, and more, visit https://blogs.getty.edu/iris/mindfulness-in-the-museum-healing-through-mindfulness/ or http://www.getty.edu/podcasts To learn more about Rhonda Magee, visit https://www.rhondavmagee.com/
A talk given at Berkeley Zen Center on Saturday, October 8th 2022 by Rhonda Magee.
We are joined by the lovely Rhonda V. Magee on the Podcast. Co-host Jonathan reached out to author, Mindfulness teacher and Tenured Law Professor, Rhonda to set up this wonderful chat. Rhonda is the author of 'The Inner Work of Racial Justice: Healing Ourselves and Transforming Our Communities Through Mindfulness' and is a Fellow, Mind and Life Institute. Member of the Board of Advisors, Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute. Listen to what people are saying: Leave a voice comment here We are very excited to share Rhonda's story and the significant contribution she is making in helping to educate her students and people around the world in Mindfulness. Rhonda articulates this beautifully in her videos, TED Talks, and her book. Rhonda's website: www.rhondavmagee.com Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rhondavmagee/ Also Visit www.Mindfulnews.uk for all of our Podcasts, Powerful video clips and our growing library of free Guided Meditations including this weeks latest release called ‘A 5 min meditation for when we do not have the time' I'm your host Gui Hung, on our continuing mission to help as many people as possible organically. If you enjoy the conversation and benefit from it, share it with someone and pay it forward. Leave a comment here: Instagram: @Mindfulnews.uk Facebook: @Gui Hung LinkedIn: @Gui Hung Jonathan Baker In Tune Mindfulness Meditation & Music Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100064049082634 Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCf69AwIcz2mREnoOIncjCqw Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/in_tune_mindfulness/ This podcast is sponsored by BePresent, Mindfulness Coaching for Management. Check out www.bepresent.uk for more information on corporate courses and speaking events.
Professor Rhonda V. MageeEmail: rvmagee@usfca.eduWebsite: www.rhondavmagee.comShort Bio:Rhonda Magee is a lawyer, legal scholar, law professor, author, practitioner of mindfulness, and one of the founding members of the Integrative Law Movement. She teaches mindfulness to her law students and others. In her book, The Inner Work of Racial Justice, Healing Ourselves and Transforming Our Communities Through Mindfulness, she addresses how mindfulness and compassion can help bring people together across cultures, and provides mindfulness practices throughout the book.Show Notes: In this episode, we discuss:Rhonda's journey from insurance law to teaching mindfulness to lawyers and law studentsThe importance of inclusivity and how being able to or not able to “feel at home” affects performance, promotions, prosperity….and moreMindfulness – what it is, how to practice, and why its healing and helpfulMindfulness and racial justice: Rhonda explains how research gives us confidence - for those who practice mindfulness there is a greater ability to perform better even in the presence of stereotype threatsHer book, The Inner Work of Racial Justice, Healing Ourselves and Transforming Our Communities Through Mindfulness, and the need to amplify this healing and transformation;She reads her poem: If the Path Could SpeakWhat integrative law means to her Clips:If the Path Could Speak (2:54)Mindfulness & Racial Justice (4:27)What integrative law means to her (4:08)Mindfulness is racial justice? (1:43)Doing the work together and being together (1:04)Quotes“There is every reason to be confident that we can better communicate across these painful differences in our experiences … healing ourselves first and then transforming our communities through mindfulness. That is all possible and, you know, it is something that keeps me excited about bringing mindfulness into law, into social justice work, into our lives more fully at this time.” Rhonda V. MageeOn Integrative Law“It's about holistic. It's about the opportunity for us to participate in healthy or therapeutic ways of interacting within a conflict scenario. It's about helping us see our own humanity and with humility to learn from each other about how to navigate this time. It's opening the door on the original medicine that each one of us brings into the law.What is that we might to do to deepen that sense that this is about a holistic process through which we might heal ourselves, heal the separateness between and amongst our communities, each other, and between human beings and our planet.To me, it about the notion of integrative – is fundamentally about healing separations --- and that I think is the deep call of this, not just this subfield or orientation to practicing law but of this moment. I feel like there is a reason – just all of us in a pause with coronavirus on the one hand, climate distress on the other, inequality happening at radical levels. We are at a time where we, I feel, are called – called to really look at how are systems including the powerful system of law – - how these systems that we inherited and that we participate in are perpetuating separations that are not to the ultimate good of us as human beings or the planet.So, how can we bring our integrative repair, restorative dimension right into our particular role in the system. That's the question that animates integrative law.” Rhonda V. MageeOn Racial Justice“Justice is about love in action. Racial justice is love in action for the alleviation of the harms of racism, the harms they do all of us, but certainly particularly those who are its targets and intended victims. We're really bringing love and action to repair the separations – but to heal the separations and repair the harm of racism”Rhonda V. MageeTo me, that's the joy that comes in this work. It's not that we find the ultimate resolution of these big questions that have plagued humanity for all time. It's that we recognize that in doing the work together, there is some sense of the resolution if, you know, the ending of suffering in being together in ways that make the most of the moments that we have…you how that is justice.”Rhonda V. Magee
Rhonda Magee, M.A., J.D., known as the mother of the movement to integrate mindfulness and racial justice, discusses three components that are necessary to a socially engaged Buddhism. First, there is the personal, or the way we care for ourselves. Second, there is the interpersonal, or the way we care for each other. And third, there […]
Rhonda Magee, M.A., J.D., who is called by some the mother of the movement to integrate mindfulness and racial justice efforts, invites us to explore the practice of loving-kindness in a time of war. Rhonda discusses the practice of Metta in relation to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but also asks us to consider the other […]
In this episode, I talk to law professor and mindfulness leader Rhonda Magee about her book The Inner Work of Racial Justice. We discuss her innovative approach to healing racial divides using mindfulness. Rhonda argues that when we bring awareness and compassion to ourselves, relationships, and the environment, we invite healing and connection. We also touch on the topics of education, spirituality, liberation, democracy, and community.BioRhonda V. Magee (M.A. Sociology, J.D.) is a Professor of Law at the University of San Francisco and an internationally-recognized thought and practice leader focused on integrating mindfulness into higher education, law and social change work. Rhonda's teaching and writing support compassionate conflict engagement and management; holistic problem-solving to alleviate the suffering of the vulnerable and injured; presence-based leadership in a diverse world, and humanizing approaches to education. Her book, The Inner Work of Racial Justice, advocates for a mindfulness and compassion-based approach to confront racial injustice and work towards healing.Website: www.rhondavmagee.comTwitter: @rvmagee Topics01:45 Rhonda's childhood and upbringing06:48 Personal vs systemic racism 09:43 Education during desegregation 16:55 Rhonda's interest in mindfulness25:12 Bridge racial divides with mindfulness32:51 Liberating practices grounded in being42:59 Listen for understanding and connection46:28 The ecology for justice51:47 Find a collective consensus
In a society where unconscious bias, microaggressions, institutionalized racism, and systemic injustices are deeply ingrained, healing is an ongoing process. Author, meditation teacher, and law professor Rhonda Magee teaches that in order to have the difficult conversations required for working toward racial justice, inner work is essential. In this episode, CIIS Assistant Director of Diversity and Inclusion Damali Robertson has a conversation with Rhonda about her life and work, as well as her latest book, The Inner Work of Racial Justice, in which Rhonda shares ways mindfulness can heal ourselves, and transform our communities. This episode was recorded during a live online event on September 22nd, 2021. A transcript is available at ciispod.com. Many of the topics discussed on our podcast have the potential to bring up feelings and emotional responses. We hope that each episode provides opportunities for growth, and that our listeners will use them as a starting point for further introspection and growth. If you or someone you know is in need of mental health care and support, here are some resources to find immediate help and future healing: suicidepreventionlifeline.org sfsuicide.org ciis.edu/counseling-and-acupuncture-clinics
Taking a moment to pause can enable us to move in the direction of suffering, to work, and to alleviate it, with wisdom and compassion. This gentle practice from law professor and author Rhonda Magee can provide support to you in remaining grounded as you open up to information that might cause you pain. Show notes Find our top 10 guided meditations of 2021 here: The Top 10 Guided Meditations of 2021 Find more from Rhonda Magee here: Rhonda Magee, Author at Mindful Home - Rhonda V. Magee Grab a copy of Rhonda Magee's book, The Inner Work of Racial Justice, Healing Ourselves and Transforming Our Communities through mindfulness here: Book - Rhonda V. Magee And find more from Mindful at mindful.org and on our conversation podcast, Real Mindful. Let us know what you thought of this episode of 12 Minute Meditation by leaving a review or by emailing yourwords@mindful.org.
Taking a moment to pause can enable us to move in the direction of suffering, to work, and to alleviate it, with wisdom and compassion. This gentle practice from law professor and author Rhonda Magee can provide support to you in remaining grounded as you open up to information that might cause you pain. Show notes Find our top 10 guided meditations of 2021 here: The Top 10 Guided Meditations of 2021 Find more from Rhonda Magee here: Rhonda Magee, Author at Mindful Home - Rhonda V. Magee Grab a copy of Rhonda Magee's book, The Inner Work of Racial Justice, Healing Ourselves and Transforming Our Communities through mindfulness here: Book - Rhonda V. Magee And find more from Mindful at mindful.org and on our conversation podcast, Real Mindful. Let us know what you thought of this episode of 12 Minute Meditation by leaving a review or by emailing yourwords@mindful.org.
Renowned professor of law and mindfulness teacher, Rhonda Magee, speaks to our task today to heal all separations. ‘The separation from our body to this planet, the separation from each other, elitism, borders, fascism, etc.' We need to heal ourselves so that we can hold ourselves accountable. ‘The courts are not going to save us.' By bringing intentionality […]
Rhonda V. Magee is a professor of law at the University of San Francisco. She is also a highly practiced facilitator of trauma-sensitive, restorative Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) interventions for lawyers and law students. Rhonda Magee sat down with Mindful's managing editor, Stephanie Domet to talk about why her work in social justice is important to her, how she navigates the difficult feelings that arise, what it looks like when she loses her cool—and why she's not interested in burning it all down and starting again, because even in intergenerationally dark times, she says, there's still the ability to love. And love can carry us through.
Please enjoy this episode with law professor Rhonda Magee from the Universityof San Francisco Law School. She has 25+ years experience teaching and working in the areas of mindfulness and race. Her book, “The Inner Work of racial Justice” is an instruction manual and work book on how to have hard conversations around race and racism in the US. Her fundamental proposition and encouragement is first to be gentle with yourself and do self care. Learn mindfulness and enter into this process with grace and forgiveness. The second, stay engaged. She believes if we all commit to stay in conversation with each other we will find that we are more alike then different. She sees healing in learning about each other and in the power of story telling. The episode is rich and deep and covers a lot of ground. Enjoy!!!
Rhonda V. Magee (M.A. Sociology, J.D.) is a Professor of Law at the University of San Francisco and an internationally-recognized thought and practice leader focused on integrating mindfulness into higher education, law, and social change work. she is A prolific author, she draws on law and legal history to weave storytelling, poetry, analysis, and practices into inspiration for changing how we think, act and live better together in a rapidly changing world. She teaches mindfulness-based interventions, awareness, and compassion practices from a range of traditions. Rhonda's teaching and writing support compassionate conflict engagement and management; holistic problem-solving to alleviate the suffering of the vulnerable and injured; presence-based leadership in a diverse world, and humanizing approaches to education. Rhonda has served as a guest teacher in a variety of mindfulness teacher training programs, including those sponsored by the Mindfulness Awareness Research Center, the Engaged Mindfulness Institute, and the Center for Mindfulness (2017), She serves as retreat co-leader and solo teacher at centers including Spirit Rock Meditation Center, the Garrison Institute, the Shambhala Mountain Center, the Omega Institute, and New York Insight Meditation Center. Please enjoy! Please visit https://nishantgarg.me/podcasts for more info. Follow Nishant: Friday Newsletter: https://garnishant-91f4a.gr8.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nishant-garg-b7a20339/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/Nishant82638150 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NishantMindfulnessMatters/
“We have so much capacity to meet the challenges of our time with strength and wisdom,” says Rhonda Magee, law professor and author of The Inner Work of Racial Justice. Despite growing up as a black woman in America during the civil rights era, Rhonda was always awed by her grandmother's ability to remain optimistic in the face of adversity. Inspired by her grandmother's spirit, Rhonda began to implement similar practices into her own life, including mindfulness. As a law professor and author, Rhonda uses the practice of mindfulness to challenge the system and provide solutions on how to tackle social issues. According to Rhonda, in a society where bias, racism, and systemic injustices are deeply ingrained, healing is a continuous process. Because conflict causes mass division, most people's instincts are to find safety among people who are similar and place the blame on others. In her book, Rhonda highlights inner work as an essential component to problem solving. Through the practice of mindfulness, Rhonda explains that we are able to increase our emotional intelligence and recognize our own biases because we are given space to be attentive to our thoughts and feelings. After we have dismantled our own barriers, we can heal generational traumas and connect with people of all backgrounds. Tune into this week's episode of Beyond the Basics Health Academy to understand why Rhonda Magee believes mindfulness is the roadmap to a more peaceful world. Learn how to implement daily doses of mindfulness in order to calm your fears and allow you to exercise the highest level of compassion towards yourself and others. Quotes • “We don't want to take all our biases about what we know into the world because learning opportunities are great opportunities to integrate what we know with what others know.” (13:46-13:59) • “When we talk about race and racism, the traditional way of learning just bombards us with data, history, statistics, new words and concepts. It's important to have this information and it's important to think about the scholarly ways in which these ideas have been articulated. All those analyses are important to encounter and grapple with, but we're social and emotional and relational human beings in learning spaces.” (14:43-15:27) • “All of this effort to understand race and racism and to understand any of our challenges is strengthened by being grounded.” (20:55-21:05) • “Mindfulness is inviting this ability of growing up into the kinds of human beings who can face our fears, look beneath the rage and create some space and deeper capacity to navigate waters that are choppy.” (35:13-35:44) • "We can resolve our conflicts without violence, but we have to agree to bring some kind of mindfulness to the processes by which we participate in the systems.” (36:36-36:49) • “We have so much capacity to meet the challenges of our time with strength and wisdom.” (43:03-43:10) BE KIND TO OTHERS, TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF, AND MAKE GOOD CHOICES. Stay connected to Dr. Meaghan and her work: • Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBvlMzs8K94 • Instagram: @oneagorahealth // @drmeaghankirschling • Facebook: One Agora Integrative Health Clinic • Twitter: @btbhacademy • LinkedIn: Meaghan Kirschling • Clinic Website: https://www.oneagorahealth.com/ Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm
In thinking about where to start when it comes to tackling racism and dismantling systems of oppression, it's easy to feel like any right next steps can feel simultaneously like way too much and not nearly enough. Luckily I had the opportunity to chat with the incredible Rhonda Magee about her book, The Inner Work of Racial Justice: Healing Ourselves and Transforming Our Communities Through Mindfulness, and why mindfulness is the best place to start. While this may seem like the least radical approach, Rhonda is here today to explain why that's exactly the point. Get ready to quell your judgments and learn how to work toward racial justice by starting with yourself. Begin to lead with compassion and connect with others by means of doing your best, because you are enough! You do not want to miss this revelatory conversation! Resources mentioned: Read The Inner Work of Racial Justice by Rhonda Magee Learn more about Rhonda Follow Rhonda on Twitter Follow Rhonda on Instagram Get Tiffany's free Radical Delight Kickstart Follow Tiffany on Instagram For detailed show notes head to www.tiffanyhan.com/blog/episode388
In thinking about where to start when it comes to tackling racism and dismantling systems of oppression, it's easy to feel like any right next steps can feel simultaneously like way too much and not nearly enough. Luckily I had the opportunity to chat with the incredible Rhonda Magee about her book, The Inner Work of Racial Justice: Healing Ourselves and Transforming Our Communities Through Mindfulness, and why mindfulness is the best place to start. While this may seem like the least radical approach, Rhonda is here today to explain why that's exactly the point. Get ready to quell your judgments and learn how to work toward racial justice by starting with yourself. Begin to lead with compassion and connect with others by means of doing your best, because you are enough! You do not want to miss this revelatory conversation! Resources mentioned: Read The Inner Work of Racial Justice by Rhonda Magee Learn more about Rhonda Follow Rhonda on Twitter Follow Rhonda on Instagram Get Tiffany's free Radical Delight Kickstart Follow Tiffany on Instagram For detailed show notes head to www.tiffanyhan.com/blog/episode388
In this episode, Wendy speaks with law professor, author, and meditation teacher, Rhonda Magee. Rhonda's work has focused on bringing contemplative approaches into the practice of law, and the fight for social justice. This conversation covers many topics, including: her path to contemplative practice from roots in the American South; mindfulness in the fight for racial justice; embracing equanimity when you really want a certain outcome; contemplative approaches in law; awakening to our interconnectedness; challenging the idea of one winner/one loser (the adversarial model in law); balancing individual rights with a connected whole; restorative justice and collaborative divorce; how racism harms us all (including white folks); bias, fear and safety in the body; how dominator culture cuts us off from our bodies; racial capitalism; ColorInsight vs. color blindness; and the joy that comes from embracing our shared humanity. Full show notes and resources
As our world seems more divided and confused than ever about how to deal with racial issues, our guest is law professor and mindfulness teacher RHONDA MAGEE, with her new book THE INNER WORK OF RACIAL JUSTICE: Healing Ourselves and Transforming Our Communities Through Mindfulness.
As our world seems more divided and confused than ever about how to deal with racial issues, our guest is law professor and mindfulness teacher RHONDA MAGEE, with her new book THE INNER WORK OF RACIAL JUSTICE: Healing Ourselves and Transforming Our Communities Through Mindfulness.
This is Play It Forward. Real people. Real stories. The struggle to Play It Forward. Episode 301 with the author of The Inner Work Of Racial Justice Rhonda MaGee. In these fraught and divisive times, our instincts often compel us to fight or flight. However, law professor and mindfulness teacher RHONDA MAGEE offers a different way to address racism in THE INNER WORK OF RACIAL JUSTICE: Healing Ourselves and Transforming Our Communities Through Mindfulness (TarcherPerigee; Trade Paperback; Publication Date: September 14, 2021). THE INNER WORK OF RACIAL JUSTICE demonstrates how the real work of racial justice starts with ourselves. Through the practice of mindfulness – becoming more aware of our thoughts, feelings, and physical sensations and assessing them in a nonjudgmental way – we can develop emotional resilience and the ability to combat unconscious biases. Self-awareness creates space for more thoughtful, less reactive interactions with people who have different perspectives and opinions. Through mindfulness and self-compassion, victims of injustice also develop the tools needed to work toward healing from the ongoing effects of systemic oppression. THE INNER WORK OF RACIAL JUSTICE helps readers to: •Develop ColorInsight, an approach developed by Magee that combines mindfulness and compassion practices to engage with diverse groups of people. •Work with strong emotions in real time. •Develop the will and skills to connect despite racism.
Did the Women's movement, the #LGBTQIA movement, and Immigrants benefit from the work of Foundational Black Americans? Can Mindfulness practices help Activists to fully address systemic American problems? Can a Praying Grandmother leave a legacy of tenacity? Did the Civil Rights Movement make racism harder to see and name? Author Rhonda Magee believes that for victims of racial injustice, walking through everyday life can feel like walking through a minefield. Her book is the blueprint to incorporate and practice mindfulness to address racial injustice through ColorInsight (an innovative approach to engage with diverse groups of people) and how to develop the will and skills to connect despite racism. RHONDA V. MAGEE is a professor of law at the University of San Francisco. Also trained in sociology and mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR), she is a highly practiced facilitator of trauma-sensitive, restorative MBSR interventions for lawyers and law students, and for minimizing the effects of social-identity-based bias. Magee has been a visiting scholar at the Center for the Study of Law and Society and a visiting professor of law at the University of California, Berkeley. https://www.rhondavmagee.com & https://twitter.com/rvmagee Focused on #Empowerment, specifically #BlackEmpowerment, the Get On Code (The Fly Guy Show), is built on the #EmpowermentAgenda, and led by the Conscious Ω Bruh' @SekoVarner aka #MrEmpowerment. #GetOnCodeShow #GetOnCodePodcast #TheFlyGuysShow Interested in sponsoring the podcast? Email TheFlyGuysShow@gmail.com . Private Money for Real Estate Investments: PositiveVibesFinancial@gmail.com Purify yourself, house, and environment to remain safe: https://www.vollara.com/PositiveVibes Invest with Acorns: https://www.acorns.com/invite?code=zd3daa Invest in stocks via STASH: https://get.stashinvest.com/sekosq72j Fix your credit: https://positivevibes.myecon.net/my-credit-system/ Healthy Health & Beauty products: http://commonscents4u.org/ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/get-on-code/message
This is Play It Forward. Real people. Real stories. The struggle to Play It Forward. Episode 301 with the author of The Inner Work Of Racial Justice Rhonda MaGee. In these fraught and divisive times, our instincts often compel us to fight or flight. However, law professor and mindfulness teacher RHONDA MAGEE offers a different way to address racism in THE INNER WORK OF RACIAL JUSTICE: Healing Ourselves and Transforming Our Communities Through Mindfulness (TarcherPerigee; Trade Paperback; Publication Date: September 14, 2021). THE INNER WORK OF RACIAL JUSTICE demonstrates how the real work of racial justice starts with ourselves. Through the practice of mindfulness – becoming more aware of our thoughts, feelings, and physical sensations and assessing them in a nonjudgmental way – we can develop emotional resilience and the ability to combat unconscious biases. Self-awareness creates space for more thoughtful, less reactive interactions with people who have different perspectives and opinions. Through mindfulness and self-compassion, victims of injustice also develop the tools needed to work toward healing from the ongoing effects of systemic oppression. THE INNER WORK OF RACIAL JUSTICE helps readers to: •Develop ColorInsight, an approach developed by Magee that combines mindfulness and compassion practices to engage with diverse groups of people. •Work with strong emotions in real time. •Develop the will and skills to connect despite racism.
This is Play It Forward. Real people. Real stories. The struggle to Play It Forward. Episode 301 with the author of The Inner Work Of Racial Justice Rhonda MaGee. In these fraught and divisive times, our instincts often compel us to fight or flight. However, law professor and mindfulness teacher RHONDA MAGEE offers a different way to address racism in THE INNER WORK OF RACIAL JUSTICE: Healing Ourselves and Transforming Our Communities Through Mindfulness (TarcherPerigee; Trade Paperback; Publication Date: September 14, 2021). THE INNER WORK OF RACIAL JUSTICE demonstrates how the real work of racial justice starts with ourselves. Through the practice of mindfulness – becoming more aware of our thoughts, feelings, and physical sensations and assessing them in a nonjudgmental way – we can develop emotional resilience and the ability to combat unconscious biases. Self-awareness creates space for more thoughtful, less reactive interactions with people who have different perspectives and opinions. Through mindfulness and self-compassion, victims of injustice also develop the tools needed to work toward healing from the ongoing effects of systemic oppression. THE INNER WORK OF RACIAL JUSTICE helps readers to: •Develop ColorInsight, an approach developed by Magee that combines mindfulness and compassion practices to engage with diverse groups of people. •Work with strong emotions in real time. •Develop the will and skills to connect despite racism.
This is Play It Forward. Real people. Real stories. The struggle to Play It Forward. Episode 301 with the author of The Inner Work Of Racial Justice Rhonda MaGee. In these fraught and divisive times, our instincts often compel us to fight or flight. However, law professor and mindfulness teacher RHONDA MAGEE offers a different way to address racism in THE INNER WORK OF RACIAL JUSTICE: Healing Ourselves and Transforming Our Communities Through Mindfulness (TarcherPerigee; Trade Paperback; Publication Date: September 14, 2021). THE INNER WORK OF RACIAL JUSTICE demonstrates how the real work of racial justice starts with ourselves. Through the practice of mindfulness – becoming more aware of our thoughts, feelings, and physical sensations and assessing them in a nonjudgmental way – we can develop emotional resilience and the ability to combat unconscious biases. Self-awareness creates space for more thoughtful, less reactive interactions with people who have different perspectives and opinions. Through mindfulness and self-compassion, victims of injustice also develop the tools needed to work toward healing from the ongoing effects of systemic oppression. THE INNER WORK OF RACIAL JUSTICE helps readers to: •Develop ColorInsight, an approach developed by Magee that combines mindfulness and compassion practices to engage with diverse groups of people. •Work with strong emotions in real time. •Develop the will and skills to connect despite racism.
Transcript: CHRIS NEWBOLD: Hello, well-being friends and welcome to the Path to Well-Being in Law podcast, an initiative of the Institute for Well-Being in Law. I'm your co-host, Chris Newbold, Executive Vice President of ALPS Malpractice Insurance. Most of you are listeners. For those of you who are new to the podcast, our goal is pretty simple. It's to introduce you to thought leaders doing meaningful work in the well-being space within the legal profession and in the process to build and nurture a national network of well-being advocates intent on creating a culture shift within the profession. I want to introduce my co-host, Bree Buchanan. Bree, how have you been doing? BREE BUCHANAN: Wonderful, Chris. Great to be here. How are you? CHRIS: Bree, I think I heard that you had just come off some vacation doing some bicycling in my neck of the woods. Tell us a little bit more about where you went and why. BREE: Yeah. So I got to go with a group of friends out over to your neck of the woods in Montana, the Trail of the Hiawatha and the Trail of the Coeur d'Alenes and got to get some cycling in, which was just really wonderful. CHRIS: Awesome, awesome. Glad to hear you get off the grid and that's such an important part. My vacation is next week where I'll be with my family on a lake, just relaxing, and we all know that, that's an important part of recharging and being our best selves. BREE: Absolutely. CHRIS: Yeah, so we are again, super excited for today's podcast. We are wrapping up a three-part series looking at the interconnection of well-being in law schools. We have had Linda Sugin from Fordham Law School, we have had Jennifer Leonard from Penn Law, and today we are so excited to welcome Janet Stearns from the Miami School of Law. Bree, I know that you have a personal relationship with Janet, a friendship. I would love it if you could introduce Janet to our listeners. BREE: Absolutely. I'm delighted that we've got Janet here today. I'll give you the official introduction to Janet, but from a personal standpoint, Janet and I have been sort of on the front lines of working in this area, gosh, Janet, I don't know, six, seven years starting back with the ABA's Commission on Lawyer's Assistance Programs. Janet has been a true leader in that space. So let me give you the full introduction, and then we'll go ahead and hear more from Janet. BREE: Janet Stearns is the Dean of Students and a lecturer in law at the University of Miami Law School. Has been there since October 1999. In 2007, she was appointed Dean of Students. Since 2011, she's regularly taught professional responsibility. Last year, she received NALSAP's CORE Four Annual Award recognizing the competencies, values and ethics of the very best law student affairs professionals, and I absolutely agree with that. She is the immediate past chair for the AALS Student Services Section, and as I know her, a member of ABA CoLAP, and not only an advocate for wellness programming in the law schools, but has also been the Chair of the Law School Committee and has led all of those efforts for, I'd say at least five years. Since she became the Dean of Students, she has been passionate about wellness initiatives there at Miami, including the Fall Wellness Week, Spring Mental Health Day, and a weekly Dean of Students constitutional walk around the campus. Finally, I'm proud to say that she won the CoLAP Meritorious Service Award in November 2020. So Janet, so glad to have you here. How are you doing today? JANET STEARNS: Well, Bree, that's such a generous introduction. So I'm blushing a little now, but I am delighted to be here with you and Chris and looking forward to chatting. BREE: Great. So Janet, because I know you, and I know how dedicated you are to this, I think that you've probably got a really good answer to this question that we ask all of our guests because we know that people that are committed to the well-being movement often have a real passion for the work. So what experiences in your life are the drivers behind your passion for being such a leader in the well-being movement in law? JANET: Well, Bree, I think I've often, for a long time been really interested in my own personal well-being. As I think back on my own experience in law school, a classmate of mine, we decided to decaffeinate together in law school. Not many people do that, but we did. We went off coffee cold turkey and really just recognized it made us less jittery and that we could actually feel better and be more present for what was happening around us. I tell students that's just one example of how we can actually use the law school experience to think about our own well-being. JANET: But I think that certainly my work here at the University of Miami has brought me into a space where I have had to work and counsel way too many students who have been struggling. Struggling with drugs and alcohol and suicide. JANET: I have spoken many times about a student of ours, Katie Corlett, who died just shortly after her graduation, really, I think about the week before the bar results came out. In a time, many of us can remember and relate to of incredible and stress, and she died of a drug overdose, and it had a huge impact on me because I had worked so hard with her to get her through law school. I had gotten to know her parents so well, and the time that we spent shortly after the overdose visiting her in the hospital and just thinking of the huge opportunity that was lost for her and for us. That has stayed with me. I often do say, as I talk to other law schools about our programming and our more institutional initiatives, we do not want to have any more Katies. BREE: Right. JANET: We want to do everything possible so that we can see our students graduate and be happy and not have any more Katies. BREE: Yeah, absolutely. Wow. That's powerful. CHRIS: Yeah. I mean, as the Dean of Students, you certainly get a window into some of those challenges. Janet, tell us a little bit about ... We're all creatures of our own experience and we all recall our own law school days ... Give us a little flavor of Miami Law. The location and the size, the focus, anything that you find particularly unique about the culture that you've worked to build at Miami Law. JANET: Okay, Chris. Well, Miami Law, we are actually in Coral Gables. We are not in Miami. But Coral Gables is a suburb of Miami, and the University of Miami Law School has typically been on the larger side of law schools. This year we're probably going to be welcoming just under 400 students, 1L new students to our law school, but we have about 1,300 students. So we have JD students, and we also have a very large population of LLM students in many different programs, but our international LLM is bringing students from all over the world with a particularly large focus on Latin America. So it is a school where we have a lot of international diversity. Miami is just a very, at its nature, multilingual community, but there is a lot of Spanish that is spoken and Portuguese and other languages. JANET: We have a lot of first-generation students, Chris, and working families, first-generation students from our community. As we know, Miami has been all over the news for various reasons. But it is certainly a very dynamic community with a lot of temptations, cultural temptations, drug, alcohol, late-night partying. Miami Beach goes around the clock. It's against that backdrop that we are trying to encourage people to really both focus on their studies and focus on their well-being. BREE: Yeah. So over the time ... You've been at Miami Law a little bit over 20 years ... What are some of the mental health and well-being issues you've seen your students face? I mean, certainly Katie that you talked about is the worst case scenario, but just from my experience, I imagine you've seen a lot of other things that don't lead up to such a tragic end. JANET: Right. Well, Bree, I do think that Miami is a community where there is a lot of opportunity to focus on well-being, the good and the bad, as I said. There are, I think a lot of stresses and temptations, but I think there also are a lot of an incredible amount of natural beauty here. Beaches and opportunities to get into the outdoors and enjoy the tropical climate, the Everglades when people take advantage of that. We really work hard to model that for our students. JANET: I think that we have gone through certainly over time, our students face a lot of challenges. I do think that being in such an active and vibrant place and such a, from my perspective, a city that never sleeps, we have to work really, really, really hard from the beginning of orientation to try to model limits. Limits on your time, learning how to say no, learning the value of sleeping, learning the value of focus. The fact is that you're not going to be at every single event or movie or social or networking opportunity. There's just too much. So I think learning how to set limits from the very beginning is actually one of the things I talk about in our orientation message. JANET: I do think another well-being issue and one we were just discussing some, it is an expensive city. There is a lot of opportunities to go out and spend a lot of money. There's a lot of variation in housing that's expensive. So we have to work very early to try to help people to understand their financial budget and how to plan for their law school years in a way that will make sense and leave them where they still can feel in control as they graduate and move into the legal profession. So financial literacy is another important aspect of well-being and one that we try to also talk to our students about from the very beginning. BREE: Yeah. I'm glad you brought that up because that's not something that we really talked about. There's the six dimensions of well-being, but that financial piece of it, that financial dimension, can be such a heavy burden for the students. Sure. JANET: Right. Right. Then of course, I mean, Miami Law and the whole world has had the opportunity, I would say through this pandemic, to even talk more about well-being. Right, Bree. I know that when I was sent home in March 2020, the first thing that I brought home from my office with me was I have a framed copy of The Serenity Prayer next to my desk. BREE: Right. Wonderful. JANET: In March, there were many, many calls with deans and faculty and students, "What about this? And what about this?" I just said, "We're going to say our Serenity Prayer. We are going to try to figure out what we can control here and what we cannot and how to distinguish those things." I think actually as we model that, because our students and people around us see our own process of trying to figure those things out and yet trying to stay calm and make decisions through the pandemic, I think we've really taught some valuable lessons. BREE: I think The Serenity Prayer should be standard issue with your law school diploma. JANET: Absolutely. BREE: That would be helpful. JANET: It always does the trick for me. CHRIS: Janet, I'm curious, as you think about kind of the state of well-being in your law school, has it become more challenging? Has it improved? I mean, you have the context of kind of stability and seeing it over a longer period of time, but just curious on your reflections on at least within your school what kind of trends that you're seeing as it relates to well-being. JANET: That's such a great question, Chris. I think what's interesting if we go back, I don't know ... I think when I started to work with Bree with the CoLAP but I would say we've been involved in planning ... I probably have done a Fall Wellness Week since I first became Dean of Students in 2007. I had been working with the ABA CoLAP and the ABA Law Student Division on the Mental Health Day Initiative now for, I don't know, five, six, seven years. JANET: There was a point I think when we would announce Mental Health Day and everybody would be like, "What is that? Why?" I would say in the last few years, what I'm noticing is I have a lot of people around the country, deans of students at other schools, they're like, "When are you going to announce the Mental Health Day plans? When is it coming? What's the theme this year because we're putting it on our calendars." I think people are very, very eager to talk about this right now, Chris, at some level. Of course, then we just have to reflect on the events of the last week of the Olympics. I mean, it just feels like we are truly having a national conversation, thanks to the courage of Michael Phelps and Simone Biles and others. BREE: Absolutely. JANET: We are having a national conversation, and people are eager to have this conversation with us. So there is a level of attention and focus that can only be a good thing right now for the work that we're doing. CHRIS: Yeah, for sure. Talk to us about some of the well-being initiatives at Miami Law that you're most proud of. I mean, you talked about Fall Wellness Week. Talk to our listeners about some of the things that you have initiated and instituted there that you think are actually driving results. JANET: So I do think that the Fall Wellness Week has become a great catalyst, and we try to have a very intentional conversation ... I was actually talking with some CoLAP colleagues yesterday about this, about when. When is the most effective time to raise these issues? My view has been orientation is not always the best time. I think your students are a little bit deer in headlights and it's a little bit too early, but we have been doing ... Recently we moved the National Mental Health Day to October. Now we try to program around October 10th. So for many of us, that's about six weeks into the school year, give or take. I think people are really receptive. They're starting to feel the stress. They're starting to feel some of the anxiety and self-doubt as they're trying to work their way through, and it's a really good time to come in and try to do some positive programming. JANET: We try to both do some national programming, but many schools are also using that to do school-based programming, often in partnership with the LAP in the state, everything from healthy smoothie happy hours, constitutional walks, yoga, physical fitness, and sometimes some actual conversations with thought leaders around the value of sleep as something that actually promotes your learning or the worries of study steroids. So we have used the Fall Wellness Week, I think, to maximum effect for a lot of programming. CHRIS: Do you keep that programming broader in terms of different areas of focus or do you actually look at kind of a 1L track, a 2L track, a 3L track? I'm just kind of curious on the structure of how you do that. JANET: Well, that's a great question. I would say right now the Fall Wellness Week has been broader for everybody. CHRIS: Okay. JANET: I think that we are actually starting to have some more conversations. We have been doing some 3L specific sort of pathway to the bar exam kinds of programming. I actually think there's a lot more that we can be doing in that regard. I think the ABA Law Student Division is also interested as we think about bar success and wellness. I think that there is some 3L targeted work that we have been doing, but I think that we could be doing more around that Chris, from my own perspective. JANET: But I think that point is well taken. I do think that we find by and large that if we were to hold a program either around suicide or around study steroids, or pick your topic, depression, and we just said, "Show up for a program," law students by and large are not going to show up for that program. They don't want to walk into a room and be identified and tagged as the person who's thinking about suicide. But if you can market your program, and I think we've thought hard about this, whether it has to do more broadly with mindfulness, well-being, success in law school, happiness in the profession, I think if you can market that program, you can deliver the same content, but you can get people in the room and then get the buy-in and really get much broader participation. So I feel very strongly about that. JANET: I just also wanted to highlight that I think over this last year, we have also tried to be a lot more intentional ... I'm not sure we weren't doing it before ... But about the crossover between the struggles over racial injustice that we are all experiencing, and certainly that some of our students in various affinity groups are experiencing with well-being. Last year's Mental Health Day highlighted my colleague, Rhonda Magee, who spoke about her fabulous book, The Inner Work of Racial Justice. We then had several follow-up programs that students found really, really impactful, where we were really focusing on the impact of well-being on targeted communities of color. JANET: We've had a lot of, I think, requests for some more programming targeted with our first-generation students around well-being. I think there is a huge outcry for doing more programming of this sort as we move forward. BREE: What advice do you have for others who may be working at a law school and are listening to this? Maybe they're faculty or administration and who want to enact some of their own initiatives. Do you have some advice for them? How to get it started and how to make sure it's successful? JANET: Well, Bree, I think, as you know, because you and I have talked about this a lot, I do feel that right now the vast majority of law schools in the country are doing positive things around well-being. Many want to do more. Some of us are doing it differently. Some have more resources than others to do this kind of programming. But I think there's a huge interest, and in fact, I think a demand to have well-being programming in law schools right now and to really connect this for our law students. This is one of the things I say to students all the time, "You're coming to us not only to learn about contracts and torts, you're coming to learn how to become a future professional. Some of the skills that we can teach and model for you about your personal well-being and learning to set limits and finding balance between yourself and your work, these are some of the most important skills and probably the most important skills we can teach you in law school." BREE: I think of sort of the fancy word for that, professional identity formation. Is that? JANET: We are all talking about professional identity formation. Exactly. Exactly. And this is a critical element of this. I think that the well-being community and the professional identity community have found a great partnership and shared interest. These are things that we are working together to message, and we're messaging them in all parts of the law school. We're messaging them in clinics and in externship programs. We are messaging this in all kinds of core courses, including professional responsibility. This is all a part of our shared mission right now. CHRIS: Janet, it's great to hear that. I mean, again, with your perspective. When I think of law schools and well-being, I think of you because I think that you've been kind of at the epicenter of kind of looking at what's been going on in the law school environment. It's encouraging to hear that your sense is that the vast majority of law schools have kind of leaned in on this particular subject. I'm just curious about maybe the why. Why we find ourselves in a significantly better position today than say we did 10 years ago? JANET: Well, I think first of all, I do believe as I both talk to people at Miami Law but people around the country, in fact, Chris many of us are experiencing issues or challenges around mental health and substances with our own families, with our friends. We have faculty ... In fact, I was on the phone the other day with a faculty member and she said, "My child is in the process of being hospitalized." So I think we are actually at a point where ... I have another faculty colleague ... Fabulous, very, very smart person who lost his wife to suicide. I'm coming to the world at this point. I think this it's not a Democratic issue, it's not a Republican issue. This is an issue that affects all of our families and things that we hold near and dear to us. I think people are being a little more open about that. JANET: I think as all of the work and certainly, Bree, all of the anti-stigma work that you and others have been doing for so long, I think this is seeping in, and I think people are coming forward and saying, "This affected my family. This affected my child. This affected my brother." I think faculty are also a little more willing, and I'm not saying everybody, but to be a little more vulnerable themselves with their students. I think some of this happened during the pandemic. I think there was something very equalizing about all of us being on Zoom. BREE: That's a great point. JANET: Struggling with Zoom, and I saw some faculty members, and then I heard about it from students who said, "I'm really struggling here. I haven't been able to see my parents. I'm divorced and I haven't been able to visit my child. And this really sucks right now. So I appreciate that this is really a confusing time for all of you as students and the faculty. Where it's like, "Oh my gosh, that torts professor's a real person." JANET: I view this as some of the, I like to call it the gifts of the pandemic, but I think that there were people who became a lot more real with each other. And that includes faculty members becoming a little more real with students as well. CHRIS: That's such a great observation. I've always been prone to say that we are obviously human beings before we are a law student, a lawyer, a professor, a judge. It feels like we're kind of getting more back to some of those kinds of basic levels of empathy and kind of all on the same trajectory of just kind of trying to live our best life. JANET: Right. Absolutely. CHRIS: Let's take a quick break here. We'll hear from one of our sponsors, and we'll be right back. — Advertisement: Meet Vera, your firm's virtual ethics risk assessment guide. Developed by ALPS, Vera's purpose is to help you uncover risk management blind spots, from client intake to calendaring to cybersecurity and more. Vera: “I require only your honest input to my short series of questions. I will offer you summary recommendations to provide course corrections if needed and to keep your firm on the right path.” Generous and discreet, Vera is a free and anonymous risk management guide from ALPS to help firms like yours be their best. Visit Vera at alpsinsurance.com/vera. — BREE: Welcome back everybody, and we're here with Dean Janet Stearns from the University of Miami School of Law. Janet, so one of the things that I really want to dig into with you because you sit at such a unique position of this nationally, and that is some of the policy initiatives that are occurring across the country to really try to change this circumstances for law students. I want to hear, and this is particularly in your spot as Chair of CoLAP's Law School Committee, could you tell us about some of the initiatives that you all are working on? In particular, I'm thinking about the whole character and fitness process, which has had such a detrimental impact on students' willingness to ask for help. And then also to dig into some of the changes you guys are seeking for the ABA standards. JANET: Well, thank you, Bree. I have to say, I think it has been a tremendous honor for me to be able to be involved with the American Bar Association CoLAP because you really feel the capacity to make change, to be in a room with people who are not only passionate about these issues, but who actually have some policy vision and the power to then act upon that vision. JANET: So we have been working through the CoLAP on several national projects that we think can really shift the conversation on health and well-being for students. As you mentioned, the first has to do with character and fitness. Why is this so important? Because in surveys that have been done and the preeminent survey by Jerry Organ, David Jaffe and Kate bender, looking at law student well-being, we learned the very scary high numbers of students who are experiencing depression, suicidality, substance use/abuse. We also learned that a very small percentage of those students were willing to come forward and ask for help from deans of students like myself. And the primary number one reason they told us they would not come ask for help is because they were afraid that they would have to disclose it on their bar application. JANET: So this became a huge cultural issue for us. How can we shift that culture so that people understand that when they need help, they actually indeed must ask for help, that we are here to help them, and that the bar character fitness doesn't become a barrier to that. So we have been working on trying to both evaluate what states are doing around the country and advocating for change, and specifically trying to either eliminate questions in the character and fitness process asking about mental health history or history of substance use disorders or narrowing those questions in time and scope so that people understand that their first duty is to take care of themselves and get help, and it will not stand in their way of ultimately being able to become a lawyer. JANET: We have had, I think we both, there has been, I think some policy conversations, we've been able to do some writing in this field, but as we know, in 2020, one of the great gifts of the pandemic was that early on the State of New York removed their questions relating to substance use mental health. Anything outside of conduct is no longer asked by New York. BREE: That was huge. JANET: That was huge. It was huge. So many people came together including great advocates in Massachusetts, which had been doing this for a long time that made possible the change in New York. Shortly after New York, I think in March, literally as we were moving into the pandemic, Michigan removed its questions. Again, thanks to a lot of great advocacy by Tish Vincent and others involved with the LAP in Michigan, the law schools in Michigan, and a month later, Indiana followed Michigan's suit just after the pandemic had started. JANET: The Chief Justice in Indiana, who I just think is one of ... My Ruth Bader Ginsburg I tell her ... Justice Rush, who really was so eloquent in recognizing the importance of this issue. The Supreme Court took very quick action under her leadership to remove the problematic character and fitness questions in Indiana. Then by the summer, New Hampshire also followed suit. So those were four states all in 2020. I feel like there's a great momentum there, Bree, and I continue to remain hopeful that we can continue to make progress in other states, particularly where we have some matching of an active law school community, an active bar well-being community, a judiciary, and we know that there are other State Supreme Court justices that are very, very enlightened on these issues, that we can work together to have more states implement reform in the character and fitness process. JANET: I feel strongly also where we can, if we can get either frequently asked questions or preambles, things that we can use as educational materials with students as they enter law school, as we talk about bar admission, so that they are very clearly told that this should not in any way keep you from accessing mental health or other counseling resources when you need it. BREE: Right. I mean, that's one of the things also is to include very explicit language in the introduction to the questions of the application process or somewhere, we want you to get help. That can be helpful too. I know that the Institute for Well-Being in Law is going to be joining in the policy efforts there too around trying to bring about state by state change on those character and fitness questions. So we're going to have a good group of advocates working on this around the country. BREE: I know another thing that CoLAP has been doing, and you've been a leader on really, and I can't imagine how many, maybe hundreds of hours that you've spent writing and working on this, Janet, but that is around the ABA standards for law schools. Can you talk a little bit about that? What you've been working on and the progress that's been made? JANET: Well, thank you, Bree, and this truly has been a labor of love. So the CoLAP Law School Committee, hand-in-hand with the ABA Law Student Division, has been seeking changes in the ABA accreditation rules to recognize the integral role of well-being in law schools, student services, and law school curriculum. As you know, all accredited schools are subject to the ABA accreditation standard. These standards are voted through the Council on Legal Education, through the ABA, and then ultimately approved by the House of Delegates. JANET: And so we have asked for several years for some language on well-being. We didn't get very far the first two years, but this year, I think again, another gift of the pandemic has been the incredible focus and importance of well-being. The Council in fact, did put out some draft language. It was not all that we wanted, but it did include a recognition that every law school needed to provide some well-being resources to its students, either directly or in collaboration with university resources, LAP resources, looking as well at financial well-being, emergency funds, and other essential resources that every law school must do. So the ABA Council recommended this language. We then had a large comment period. We are currently in the middle of a second comment period on proposed language. We hope to hear more in this month of August as to whether or not the package of proposals will be pushing forward by February to the House of Delegates. JANET: I will note that the package right now also has some other very significant changes on professional identity education in law schools, and it also has a large package of proposals that have to do with diversity and inclusion and core curricula requirements in law schools around diversity inclusion initiatives. There is a very rich package of proposed revisions to the standards. We are going to remain hopeful that these can get to the House of Delegates this year. But I think the fact that we finally have well-being in a draft proposal as an essential part of every accredited law school, that is institutional change, and I'm very proud of how far we've come with this so far. BREE: Absolutely. And Janet, if our listeners, if somebody wanted to dig in further and learn more about that, can they go to the ABA website or how could they learn more or track what's going on in that area? JANET: All of the proposed changes and indeed all of the comments that have been received are all on the website for the ABA Section on Legal Education, as well as the notices of ... There will be a meeting as we're recording this, we are in the week of the ABA Annual Meeting ... But my understanding is August 19th and 20th, the Section on Legal Education will meet again, we understand, to discuss next steps on these standards. Of course, if that is a problem, anybody is free to email me at the University of Miami. We have a large community of friends across the country who are in a very close conversation about continuing to advocate for these changes to the standards. Please join us. CHRIS: Let's talk a little bit about the future as we kind of look ahead. Obviously we've made a lot of progress through the efforts of you and other folks who are keeping a close eye on this. You talked about the fact that there's more awareness, more eagerness, more focus, but we also know that culture shifts in our profession, they don't happen overnight. I'm just kind of curious on your perspective of what's on the horizon. What things do you see in the future being done by law schools to continue to move the needle on improving the well-being of law students? Because we obviously know that you're preparing the next generation in some respects. There are general generational aspects to the improvement of the profession. So I'd love for you to break out the crystal ball, so to speak, and kind of talk about what you see kind of coming down the road as we continue to maintain an emphasis on this issue in the law school environment. JANET: Well, thank you, Chris. I'm not very good with a crystal ball, but let me try here. So I do believe, and I think at the CoLAP level, first of all, I believe that we need to work hard to make sure that not just student services folks, but faculty and administration do need to be trained on mental health first aid, which is a course, i an eight-hour course, to make sure that they have basic skills to be prepared to have conversations with people. This course, this mental health first aid course is not only for law schools, this is being done in law firms, it's being done with police, it's being done all over the country right now so that people are more equipped when they come in contact with a client or a patient or a student or a colleague or a child that they have some more basic skills to be able to triage the situation and feel prepared to understand what somebody is going through. So I do think we need to continue to push that course out, number one. JANET: I think number two, that we need to have some more institutional structure for keeping these conversations going, as you've said, Chris. I would say at the University of Miami, I have formed some great partnerships with other people at our university. I would include the people, my friends at the medical school. I think that our medical education and legal education in our student populations, there're strengths and there're weaknesses. There's a lot of overlap. So I've tried to partner closely with the medical school, our counseling center, other people at the university so we have some institutional structure for continuing a conversation. I think that's incredibly important because me, one person, I get busy and distracted by other things. But when you know that people are coming together at regular intervals to have a conversation that is empowering. That creates accountability, JANET: I think we also get a lot of accountability by working with the LAPs in our state. We just, this summer, just last month, the Florida LAP got all of the law schools in Florida together for a program. I know that these regional meetings are taking place right now in other states. That also creates a catalyst for change. Also when you're working with the State Supreme Court on the character and fitness topic. I think there is a strength in numbers when we can bring people together, whether it's under the auspices of a well-being committee or whether it's just again, a time of coming together to support one another, share, and then try to again, begin to imagine ways that we can work together to create change. BREE: Absolutely. I've always felt that in regards to these policy initiatives and the work around the well-being movement, get passionate people together sitting around a table, you have a bunch of lawyers, they're brilliant, they're creative, they're solution-focused. We can figure this out. And so Janet, thank you for being there at the head of the table in these discussions, in this work around law school. BREE: I want to thank our listeners for joining us. This is the third and the final of our miniseries on initiatives and innovations in law school space. Please join us for our research miniseries, where we'll have three episodes digging in and talking with some of the lead researchers and thought leaders in the lawyer and well-being space movement. So want to thank everybody for joining us again today. We will be back with you in the next couple of weeks with more episodes. In the meantime, be well. Take care. Thank you all.
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Derik Mills and Professor Rhonda Magee discuss systems of white supremacy and white privilege, and how being “colorblind” denies how race plays an active role in our everyday existence. They explore Professor Magee's “color-insight” approach and the work of other groundbreaking thought leaders in social justice both past and present, including those of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., James Baldwin, and Professor Eddie Glaude. This episode weaves together activism, how to be an anti-racist, and mindfulness practices.LINKSRhonda Magee is the author of The Inner Work of Racial Justice: Healing Ourselves and Transforming Our Communities Through Mindfulness.A TEDx talk by Professor Magee.Derik and Rhonda spoke about feminist Peggy McIntosh. Here are some reference links. https://www.wcwonline.org/Active-Researchers/peggy-mcintosh-phdhttps://nationalseedproject.org/about-us/white-privilegeDerik mentioned an episode of the podcast Code Switch titled The Fire Still Burning. My Grandmother's Hands by Resmaa MenakemListen to all episodes of The Glo Podcast at http://glo.com/podcast
This guided meditation is focused on deepening your awareness, freeing yourself, and settling in the present moment. This practice will lead you to experience a greater capacity to clear your mind, and increase your ability to focus. Show notes: Meditation by Rhonda Magee. Rhonda V. Magee is a professor of law at the University of San Francisco. She is a highly practiced facilitator of restorative MBSR interventions for lawyers and law students.
Navigate reactivity and distressing moments with the STOP practice. The four steps create space for you to interrupt thought patterns and call on the resources within. This practice can be used whenever and wherever you need it. Show notes: Meditation by Rhonda Magee. Rhonda V. Magee is a professor of law at the University of San Francisco. Also trained in sociology and MBSR. She is a facilitator of trauma-sensitive, restorative MBSR interventions for lawyers and law students.
Rhonda V. Magee, J.D. is a Professor of Law at the University of San Francisco, and an internationally recognized thought and practice leader focused on integrating mindfulness into Higher Education, Law and Social Justice. She also is a leading expert on how mindfulness can be an effective way to reduce implicit bias. You can find out much more about Rhonda's remarkable background in her bio below. In this episode we had a deep, authentic, and wide-ranging conversation related to mindfulness, race, and social justice. Some key highlights included: Rhonda's perspective on building organizational cultures that are diverse and inclusiveImplicit bias - What it is, how it works, the research behind it, and how mindfulness can be an effective means for reducing itHow, and why, Rhonda teaches mindfulness and compassion to law studentsPractices for engaging in meaningful and difficult conversations about race, politics, and other often challenging issuesRhonda's story, and why she is passionate about mindfulness as a means for addressing race and social justice issuesThemes from her upcoming book, The Inner Work of Racial Justice: Healing Ourselves and Our Communities Through Mindfulness, which arrives September of 2019And more!If you enjoyed this episode please take a moment to rate the show on iTunes. Show notes for this episode can be found at www.joshuasteinfeldt.com/podcastThanks for listening!Rhonda's background:Rhonda V. Magee, J.D. is Professor of Law at the University of San Francisco, and is an internationally recognized thought leader focused on integrating Mindfulness into Higher Education, Law and Social Justice. A student of a wide variety of Buddhist and other wisdom teachers, including Norman Fischer and Jon Kabat-Zinn, she trained as a mindfulness teacher through the Oasis Teacher Training Institute of the University of Massachusetts Center for Mindfulness. Professor Magee is a Fellow of the Mind and Life Institute, she recently completed a 2-year term on its Steering Council. She is a member of the Board of Advisors of the University of Massachusetts Center for Mindfulness and the Board of Directors for the Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute.A Professor of Law for twenty years, Rhonda's teaching and writing support compassionate conflict engagement and management; holistic problem-solving to alleviate the suffering of the vulnerable and injured; presence-based leadership in a diverse world, and humanizing approaches to education. She sees mindfulness and the allied disciplines as keys to personal, interpersonal and collective transformation in the face of the challenges and opportunities that social change represents.Rhonda is the author of numerous articles and book chapters on mindfulness in legal education, and on teaching about race using mindfulness. Her debut book titled, The Inner Work of Racial Justice: Healing Ourselves and Transforming Our Communities Through Mindfulnesscomes out September 2019. Support the show
An excerpt of a longer conversation with Rhonda Magee on mindfulness and dismantling the subtle habits and patterns that separate us. In this excerpt, Magee explores how mindfulness can be both a tool for personal growth and societal transformation—not either or, both "both, and," as she puts it.
In this episode, I am excited to have Rhonda Magee on to talk about utilizing mindfulness to help combat biases. Rhonda Magee is Professor of Law at the University of San Francisco. She teaches Mindfulness-Based Interventions, and is a student of awareness and compassion practices from a range of traditions. She is a facilitator of mindful and compassionate communication, and a Fellow of the Mind and Life Institute. Rhonda's teachings and writings support compassionate problem-solving and presence-based leadership in a diverse world, and humanizing approaches to education. She sees awareness practices as keys to personal, interpersonal and collective transformation in the face of challenge and opportunity. The author of numerous articles on mindfulness in legal education, Rhonda is a thought and practice leader in the emerging fields of contemplative legal and higher education. Topics Covered Rhonda kicks the episode off by diving into her past as a mindful lawyer and why having a mindfulness practice is a must working in such a high-conflict field as law, especially in terms of constant and consistent self-growth. How utilizing mindfulness practices help develop and condition our faculties around social justice, social bias, and working with identity-based biases. She talks on practical ways that we can combat the apathy we see and can respond with, such as the STOP practice. Tips and tools for maintaining a consistent mindfulness practice and mindfulness in Legal Education and Professional Development Concrete examples of using mindfulness to work on our own implicit biases. As socially embodied beings, we are both signaling and sending signals that people are reading and perceiving differently. It is our responsibility to be mindful of this, and reflect on how we can better engage our own identities. Questions? Comments? Email Jeena! hello@jeenacho.com. You can also connect with Jeena on Twitter: @Jeena_Cho For more information, visit: jeenacho.com Order The Anxious Lawyer book — Available in hardcover, Kindle and Audible Find Your Ease: Retreat for Lawyers I'm creating a retreat that will provide a perfect gift of relaxation and rejuvenation with an intimate group of lawyers. Interested? Please complete this form: https://jeena3.typeform.com/to/VXfIXq MINDFUL PAUSE: Bite-Sized Practices for Cultivating More Joy and Focus 31-day program. Spend just 6 minutes every day to practice mindfulness and meditation. Decrease stress/anxiety, increase focus and concentration. Interested? http://jeenacho.com/mindful-pause/ Transcript Rhonda Magee: [00:00:03] Just simply engaging in mindfulness on a regular basis can broaden our capacity to be with these changes with more grace, with more intentionality, with more skillfulness over time. Intro: [00:00:18] Welcome to The Resilient Lawyer podcast. In this podcast, we have meaningful, in-depth conversations with lawyers, entrepreneurs, and change agents. We offer tools and strategies for creating a more joyful and satisfying life. And now your host, Jeena Cho. Jeena Cho: [00:00:41] Hello my friends, thanks for joining me for another episode of The Resilient Lawyer podcast. In this episode, I am so happy to have Rhonda McGee. She is a professor of law at the University of San Francisco. She teaches mindfulness-based interventions. As a student of awareness and compassion practices from a range of traditions, Rhonda's teaching and writing support compassion problem solving and presence-based leadership in a diverse world, and humanizing approaches to education. She sees awareness practices as keys to personal, interpersonal and collective transformation in the face of challenge and opportunity. [00:01:21] Before we get into the interview, if you haven't listened to the last bonus episode go back and check it out. I shared a very short six-minute guided meditation practice to help you let go of stress and anxiety as a preview for my new course Mindful Pause. You can check it out over at my website JeenaCho.com, or check it out in the show notes. And with that, here's Rhonda. Rhonda, welcome to The Resilient Lawyer podcast. Rhonda Magee: [00:01:49] Thank you so much, Jeena. It's beautiful to talk with you and to hear a little bit more about the other work that you're engaged in again. Jeena Cho: [00:01:58] Yeah. Rhonda, it'd be great to start with just a 30-second introduction to who you are and what you do. Rhonda Magee: [00:02:05] Sure. So primarily my main job is I'm a law professor, so I teach law at the University of San Francisco. I have been for 20 years, and I love the opportunity that that work gives me to engage with new entrants into our profession, and to be constantly a part of the process by which we have real conversations about what it means to be a lawyer, about particular aspects of law, and its impact in the world today. So that's my main job, but in addition to that I teach mindfulness. [00:02:48] My mindfulness teaching grew out of my mindfulness practice, which for me started many, many years ago. I guess kind of more or less formally in the way that I practice it now, I could date the start to around 1993. Which is a year that I graduated law school, came out to San Francisco, and just realized I needed a little bit more than the cognitive and skills-focused set of tools to really get myself grounded in the way that I felt I wanted to be, to begin practicing law. So I started practicing mindfulness then, and the work that I've done to integrate that into my work teaching law and then teaching other populations the tools of mindfulness has grown from there. Jeena Cho: [00:03:44] Why is it important for lawyers to be mindful or to practice mindfulness? Rhonda Magee: [00:03:52] Well I know this is what your audience reflects on all the time. So just to take it from my own personal perspective, I went to law school at the University of Virginia and practiced law here in San Francisco at a firm that like many firms, had a number of attorneys working on a range of different types of practice areas, in a range of areas. It was a civil litigation practice. I actually did a fair amount of insurance coverage while I was there, but dabbled in other things and I practiced for about four and a half years. And based on that experience, which of course is somewhat dated now, but based on that experience as well as my interactions with people in the practice today, not the least of which is my relationship with my partner (who is a law partner at a law firm today, and we've been together for many years), so I'm aware based on my own experience and my own engagement with lawyers in the practice right now, in a variety of settings. That brings me an awareness of the ways that, first of all law practice is as we all know holistically challenging. It is a beautiful profession for many reasons, not the least of which is that it calls upon us to really be as effective as we can in the midst of engaging with people who, in many cases, are at their most distressed and vulnerable, in some ways weakened by circumstances in their own lives or the intersection of their own lives with the legal system in some way. [00:05:49] So because we are so often called in or called upon to really bring our knowledge, skills, and values from our law practice, our legal education, and our experience in the world as lawyers, to bear on these high-conflict, high-intensity situations. And in such scenarios, having a range of different skills at our capacity is essential to number one: effective lawyering, right? Really accessing well that which we can do to support people. So thinking well about the application of law and policy to a particular problem, but also recognizing that there are values and ethical considerations that might be brought to bear, and sensing into the ways that our own human biases or orientations or limitations might also be getting in the way. Having the ability to do all of those things at once is really highly sophisticated work, and really does call upon us. I think as we all know who've done any practice, to really have commitments that involve self-development at progressively more profound levels over the course of our careers. And I myself have not found any more effective set of practices to support that kind of 360 ongoing commitment to personal development than the practices of mindfulness. And in that I know I echo people like Michael Zimmerman, former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the state of Utah, who is a colleague of mine in this work. Who has often said as well from his perspective as a lawyer, an appellate court lawyer, a judge, a deep practitioner of mindfulness, the kind of skills and the way of being with reality if you will, that is supported by mindfulness practice are really THE skills; the greatest support we have seen for the development of these kinds of skills for lawyering. Jeena Cho: [00:08:37] Yeah, I find it really difficult to try to explain to someone that doesn't have a mindfulness practice, to explain what all the benefits are. They think a lot of us sort of find our way into mindfulness and meditation because we're really stressed or there is some discontent. But then what it ends up opening up is this whole new way of engaging with the world, and it's not really easy to explain what that is. Like when you start a yoga practice and you notice all of these ripple benefits that you weren't anticipating. Rhonda Magee: [00:09:21] Yeah I agree, and so I do think we can talk about some of the benefits that we have experienced and that research has shown. And of course, at the end of the day I think that when people (as you suggested) take that yoga class or engage in any kind of suggested practice, via exercising or taking time for themselves, engaging in mindfulness and the allied disciplines of mindfulness, we learn from that experience in ways that maybe supplements what we've learned through external reports and testimonials. But for me, just starting with the simple practice of developing more comfort with being with the body and whatever state it's in in any given moment. For many of us, it's hard to be actually present to what we are feeling and what we're experiencing. [00:10:29] And so for that reason, number one mindfulness can seem more difficult and counterproductive, especially if we've spent a lot of our lives as many of us have, kind of running away from or finding ways to distract ourselves from those things, and even positive ways to distract ourselves by working hard, by focusing on trying to do good. But at the end of the day, if we each pause and take a look, for many of us we can see that we've spent some time in our lives going away from what it feels like to be here now, to being present to what we're feeling, what we are sensing. We don't quite maybe have words for sensations in the body that we might not want to give time to, and we're all differently oriented and conditioned around the capacity to be with what is arising. So for me for example, I grew up in a home where I really didn't feel a lot of support for just allowing feelings to exist. Even sickness, I grew up in a home where everybody was working and there was a felt sense that we didn't have a lot of time to even get well when you needed to. So even I realized at a certain point I'd internalized from just that, a way of being critical with myself, even when I wasn't feeling well. Pushing, pushing myself so hard. Hard, harsh language, internal language for myself, just at the moment when I might need most to just allow myself the time that the body needs to heal. [00:12:19] So I find that that's not an uncommon kind of way of having a relationship with ourself, that those of us who are productive in the world and making things happen; we can have these ways of relating with our own self and our own experience which make it hard for us to adjust. First of all, to give ourselves time and to kind of turn away from our habits of pushing away what we're feeling and move and pushing through it, when mindfulness invites you to engage with those realities and those feelings and sensations differently; to actually allow them in, create some space around them. And so, given the ways many of us are conditioned not to be present, to not give myself time when I needed it, to see that maybe as a little bit of a weakness, this work is kind of counterintuitive or certainly countercultural. If we look at the particular cultures we've been raised in or we've helped create to be successful for ourselves, so it doesn't surprise me that many people in law find it difficult to actually practice the kind of opening invitations of mindfulness, like creating space to just sit in silence for a few minutes each day. Jeena Cho: [00:13:48] Right, and also we as a legal culture really looked down upon that. I remember being a very young attorney and being told things like, leave your emotions at the door; there is actually no room for your feelings in this room. And it wasn't until much later, once I started really getting into my law practice, it's like no actually the majority of what brings clients into the office is because they're experiencing emotional pain. And we're so driven by emotions, you know that's what propels the action. So if we can really understand our client's emotions we're better able to help and serve them, but we can't do that if we're not emotionally intuned with ourselves. Rhonda Magee: [00:14:38] Exactly, exactly. And I agree with you entirely and have seen that in my own practice life and also in the work that I've done in academia. So I've been socialized into two different quite formidable professions, law on the one hand and academia on the other. And that is, I know you have experienced as well. You know, in academia there's a similar set of norms. So I just find that all over our society, wherever we are, when you get into relatively high-status environments and professions, it's not uncommon for there to be a corresponding set of norms that minimize the importance of being present to emotion, allowing space for emotion. [00:15:29] Your story reminded me of a story I received as a young law professor, which was very similar in that one of the mid-level professors who had just successfully obtained tenure was giving me some advice and counsel about how to conduct myself in the classroom. And one of the things he said to me was, "I have a practice of not smiling at the students for the first six weeks of class" And he had a whole story for how this was a way of instilling a certain sense of faux intimidation; an environment that he thought was somehow conducive to the kind of order he wanted to be in the class. Then after the six weeks or so you can loosen up and allow a smile. But a smile is an indication as a sort of a signal of a certain kind of emotional experience that most of us experience on a regular basis, if we're just allowing life to hit us. Humor happens, joy happens, connection happens, and smiles normally will happen. But to have that be a norm that's being passed on from law professor to law professor in some setting.. And thank goodness I think it's less so today than it used to be, but certainly 20 years ago when I started it was certainly not considered at all odd for this junior mid-level professor to tell me that this was one of the tactics he had adopted to successfully get him where he was. So yeah, just to sit with that. That is a deep indication of the kind of culture that you're talking about. Jeena Cho: [00:17:29] Yeah and speaking of culture, I know you've written and done a lot of work around social justice and our implicit bias, and how mindfulness can help us to be more aware and to start to shift, and really use mindfulness as a tool for uncovering our own bias. Tell us about that. Rhonda Magee: [00:17:57] Well yeah, thank you for asking because I do think all of us can see (if we're paying attention at all) how we're struggling as individuals, as institutions, organizations, workplaces, the larger community and society, to just deal more effectively with the challenges of living in diverse and changing times. So living with the changes of our demographics, different populations coming together with different cultures, and a time of other rising anxieties right. Everything from climate change to what seems like endless war. So we as humans are just being challenged on many levels, and our history tells us that one of the ways we are tempted to respond to such challenges has to do with a kind of a reversion to the dynamics of tribalism. We know from neurobiology that our bodies are formed to respond to perceived threats in one of a few deeply ingrained ways; to flee right, the flight response. And we do that as much as we can, we do those things in explicit and implicit, obvious and subtle ways. We flee situations where we're feeling some sense of threat, so fleeing can look like just sitting in the space but not contributing anymore. Or everything from that to literally leaving and never coming back. So flight is one way we respond to these kinds of threats. Fighting, right? Just figuring out an “us versus them” kind of, who's on my team, who isn't on my team. [00:20:03] Polarizing is another common response. So the flight or fight syndrome much written about by social biologists and other neurobiologists, neuroscientists, really to help us understand what's happening to us cognitively and holistically when we perceive threats in our environments. And others have helped us understand that there are other options available to us, like tending and befriending. But to choose to tend and befriend, to not flee, to know that there are other options often involves a more sophisticated engagement with our capabilities. So moving from what many people call the early human aspects of the developed brain, the reptilian kind of brain and cortex and into the neocortex; the later evolved part of our brain that assists us in making these more sophisticated decisions, responses to these stimuli in our world. Including the kinds of threats, we perceive when we're looking at say, demographic change in the midst of all kinds of conflicts that are being presented to us and coming at us at what seems like warp speed in our culture today. And mindfulness can help really, by assisting us in regulating the emotional reactivity that can come with a sense of concern or anxiety. It may or may not be consciously perceived as a sense of threat, but the body might be sensing some anxiety. As we know, research has shown for example that when analysts, demographers report on the changing demographics in our time, the "browning" if you will of America, the fact that we are becoming more comprised of minority or minority populations here in America. The percentage of Americans who are for example identified as and identify themselves as white over time has been lessening, and is predicted to lessen in the next generation or so in a way that will be apparent to us and may call on us to meet each other around difference in different ways, and I think it's already doing so. Research has shown that just to hear about those changes can create a sense of anxiety for people. And so right then and there then, if the body is physiologically reacting, even if we don't think cognitively that we feel that to be a bad thing or that we are necessarily biased against these changes or any one individual who might be seen as a reflection of such changes in our environment, our bodies often are signaling something different. So mindfulness is just one of the ways that we can develop greater emotional intelligence, a greater capacity to notice different ways that our bodies might be signaling anxiety or discomfort. And again, through mindfulness and the allied disciplines of mindfulness, the reflections on our values, reflections on the insights that arise from mindfulness, that we are actually profoundly interconnected. So to the degree that we see ourselves as these isolated beings, us against the world. One of the things that mindfulness can do is help us to sense our way into our inherent interconnectedness. The breath alone by itself, for example, reminds us we don't create the air that we breathe. [00:24:29] We depend on each other profoundly for that air to be of a quality that we can all survive and thrive in. And those kinds of subtle insights are part of the way the modality, the methodology for how simply engaging in mindfulness on a regular basis can broaden our capacity to be with these changes with more grace, with more intentionality, with more skillfulness overtime. Jeena Cho: [00:25:07] Yeah, and you and I were chatting before the show started about how mindfulness helps us to.. Especially now, the amount of information and data and news, we're so inundated yet there is a sense of a lack of intimacy with one another, that sense connection. It's like we talk at each other in sound bites. On a very practical level, thoughts about how to stay connected and engaged and aware of what's happening out in the world, but also not so sucked into it where it becomes harmful or toxic? Rhonda Magee: [00:25:58] Mmm, yeah. There are many practical tools we can use that I've discovered through mindfulness. One is I'm sure your listeners are probably quite familiar with, this practice called the S.T.O.P. practice, with the acronym "S-T-O-P." But it is really aimed at encapsulating how it is that through our mindfulness practice, deepen our commitment to be more proactive about how we move through the world, and to giving ourselves the support we need as we need it. This particular practice is an example of just what I mean by that, so it's a S.T.O.P. practice, it is again the acronym "S-T-O-P." [00:26:54] And with the "S", it is a suggestion that when we are feeling the first signs that we notice that we are feeling any kind of overwhelm, we literally take the invitation to stop. The "S" in "S-T-O-P" really just means stop. By that we mean pause, and this dovetails well with your current new project around the pause, but really just to pause in the middle of what it is that we're doing. Even if ever so briefly, right? This can all take place within seconds, if not less. But we just take a moment, if we are scrolling through our email, noticing some level of reactivity and about to respond or react. Send that email off in the state of the reactivity, send that tweet off in the state of the reactivity. We have so many technological ways that can make manifest the way in which in real time we struggle. But mindfulness is about giving us a bit of an assist. But it does require orienting ourselves to say, we will take the time to give ourselves the assist. So it is saying, bring mindfulness to the first signs that we are about to be in a state of some kind of overwhelm, and in that moment to stop; to pause, to then move to the "T". And I'm doing it instinctively right now. Take a deep breath, take a cautious breath. Within which we can, just by doing that we invite the sort of neurobiological support that comes with the conscious engagement with a simple, intentional breath. [00:28:56] We know that if we allow ourselves to engage in deep breathing, we naturally engage in deep breathing as a means of calming ourselves. And again, neurobiologists can tell us that we are formed, our parasympathetic and our sympathetic nervous systems, that part of us is profoundly conformed to assist us in calming ourselves when we are distressed. So a deep breath in the face of whatever it is that is causing us anxiety, is a natural and nature-approved way of assisting us and calming down. So take that conscious, intentional breath, that's the "T". And then "O". "O" is simply to observe what's happening as you breathe. You open up to sensing into the state of the body and the mind, this sort of embodied being that we are in that moment. So you observe the quality of the breath that you just sort of interrupted a bit while taking a deeper breath. Where we're breathing very high in the chest, shallow breathing we know is associated with a stress response. So just noticing, observing, what's the quality of my being in this moment? Perhaps starting with the breath, which is where we are already kind of landed as we engage in the "T", so "T-O", we are observing what's the quality of that breath? What's the quality of the rest of my being at this moment? Am I feeling the ground beneath me? [00:30:40] So really, you observe from the breath the whole body, perhaps dropping down to the feet. Feeling the support of the ground that is beneath you that we might not have been in touch within the moments prior to engaging in just this brief "S-T-O-P" practice. But the ground is there, we are supported. So allowing an observation of, alright where my feet right now, how is my own being in this moment? Kind of allowing myself in my embodiment to support myself in this moment. So we can sometimes notice if we are hunched over, if we are leaning forward or racing forward in a way that really doesn't provide necessarily the most grounded way of handling a distressing situation. So to allow an observation of what's the state of the body; what's my posture right now? What's happening my mind, what thoughts are coming to me? So thoughts, what emotions, what other related sensations? So that "O" is a point of allowing a space for observing what it is right, that is characteristic of this moment of distress for us. And from there, really inviting a shift, knowing as we do if we practice mindfulness a little bit, if we study mindfulness a little bit, at what I call the allied disciplines of studying about mindfulness: reading about it, engaging in practice with others, looking at your ethical commitments for doing mindfulness or practicing mindfully. Once we pause enough to observe what's going on, and then if we have been engaging in mindfulness in this more wholesome way, ideally then some of the benefits of that can arise as we pause, as we observe what's going on, and are there to support us in consciously shifting into a more skillful way of moving forward. [00:32:47] So then with the "P", it's "S-T-O-P", we reflect on how it is that we might want to respond rather than react. So if we're just racing in a way that maybe we can walk with purpose and support ourselves with each step, if we are about to send off that email maybe we can think a little bit about the sender or senders.. If we're about to send off that tweet, just pause to think about the different audiences that might receive that, and just how they might receive it. We may decide to send it anyway, but we've done it then though from a place of deeper ground, of having reflected on it from a variety of sides in a way that can prepare us for whatever might be to come. So the "P" then is about a bit of processing and then proceeding with intentionality, based on having allowed ourselves the support of mindfulness as we go. Jeena Cho: [00:33:48] Yeah, that's such a simple and beautiful practice that we can all incorporate into our entire life. So I know you've been meditating for a long time, how do you keep your meditation practice going? This is something that I hear a lot of (I guess it also applies to nonlawyers too) us struggle with, is just you keeping a consistent formal practice of meditation going. So tips and tools on maintaining the practice? Rhonda Magee: [00:34:25] Well it's a great question, it's never not timely. For me, it really is about making daily if not moment to moment commitments about staying mindful; writing in and supporting myself to be mindful. So that is about, again asking myself really specifically, what do I want to do to support myself in being mindful and being able to draw on mindfulness as a support throughout my day. How do I make that happen? I make that happen by making time to commit to mindfulness before I need it, in a certain sense. The idea that we can just listen to people talk about mindfulness or read about mindfulness, but not actually practice mindfulness and then have it as a resource for us that is part of our being, is a little bit of a false way of really understanding what mindfulness is about. We really do need to practice. And even though I've been at it for years, I know I need daily practice. [00:35:49] So it starts with again a commitment. One of my teachers says, a way that he counsels students who are struggling with the commitment to practice is to ask at the end of each day. Because we can look at our day and say, wow I could have used a little bit more mindfulness today, I'm feeling depleted. Where was the practice when I needed it today? That recognition that we needed can then be a support for saying, alright what will I do tomorrow to give myself time to deepen my mindfulness practice. Can I commit to getting up tomorrow? Again, each of us may have different ways of doing the practice. For me, starting the day with mindfulness is important. Sometimes that means a long sit. [00:36:43] And I don't mean hours, but for me long given the way my work and day often moves, a long sit is 20, 25, 30 minutes. And some nights I begin with a commitment that tomorrow I'm going to do a long sit. One of my teachers says, "It's not enough to just ask am I going to do it? It's to really say, am I really going to do it? What time am I going to get up to do it?" Ideally, we may have already identified a space, a place where we engage in our practice. And so this is about, again I talk a lot in the work that I do about this thing, that executive functioning of the brain; the decision maker. The part of the brain that can actually help us with our good intentions. The neocortex, we enlist that when we ask ourselves am I really going to do it, what's my plan for doing it? We know that when we take those kinds of extra steps, we're just that much more likely to follow through the next day. [00:37:47] So that's one way to sort of allow the sense that we're maybe not quite making time for it to prompt us, to deepen our commitments. And that may look differently for each of us, it might look different for each of us. But it might look like saying, I've said I want to do a regular daily practice that begins with a morning sit. I will do it tomorrow. I will do it for.. If 20 or 30 minutes is too much for you on the day that you have given the state that you're in; you're totally exhausted, you're not sure you can do 20 minutes or 30 or more. But you might be able to really easily say, yes I can do ten minutes. I can do ten minutes, and tomorrow I will do ten minutes. So those kinds of agreements to be mindful, and to kind of plan and mindfulness. It's the discipline of saying, I have a commitment, I'm going to fulfill it. And knowing that there's some Momentive benefit; there's a momentum that can be established if you do that one day and you see some benefit, and then you do it again the next day. And I caution this in these conversations about staying with the practice, that some days it won't feel like yes I see a benefit. And those are the days when we have to say, but we're going to stick with it because we made a promise to ourselves; I made a promise to myself. I can stick with it, I can do this regularly. For some of us just starting out, we might say I can do this regularly for a week; I can do it regularly for 28 days, 30 days. And even if I'm feeling like I'm not sure, I can keep at it. [00:39:36] But at the same time, recognizing that there are ways that we must be our own best friend and counsel as we do this. And it is true that mindfulness is not necessarily for every person, or for all aspects of our distress that we're feeling. And there are times when actually we know that by just sitting, we know that we're spiraling into a little bit more distress than we can handle at that moment. And so, of course everything I say, and I'm sure Jeena it's true for you as well. We're always reminding everyone who listens, everyone who would engage in the practice to be your own best supporter and guide and counsel. If you need to take a break, if you need to get some other kind of support or a counselor or other, that is what you need at that moment. Do it and then come back perhaps to mindfulness when you're ready. Jeena Cho: [00:40:43] Yeah, yeah. And I think that's a really important point to highlight, that there may be situations and circumstances where mindfulness may not be like the cure-all. I think sometimes it's sold in that way, but definitely get the help you need for sure. Rhonda Magee: [00:41:10] And at the same time, there are degrees of struggle. So if your struggle is I'm just feeling bored with this, that's one where you might say well just notice it and investigate it a little bit. But don't give up on the promise that you made that you're going to stick with it long enough to see what might be the benefits, if you can get through the period of almost predictable resistance to it. It is, you're doing something that's completely different from what you normally do. Know that there's going to be a period or periods that may recur of just reaction to the mindfulness, I don't want to be mindful, I don't want to sit. But just to let that be; maybe allow a little bit of levity, a little bit of, "Here I am in my reactivity against mindfulness, but I'm going to sit. I'm going to do it." Just letting yourself go through what we all go through as we develop our relationship with our practice. Jeena Cho: [00:42:14] It's so funny that you mention boredom, because that was literally the thing that I sat with for the first two years of my practice. And I remember my teacher being like, well what does boredom actually feel like? And I was like, I don't know, it's really unpleasant. I don't know what it feels like. And he was like, well why don't you go and explore it. Like actually just sit and explore what boredom feels like. And I was like, ugh fine damn it. I was a resistant student, like most lawyers are. But it was fascinating, because there are lots of interesting things about boredom. And what I found even more interesting was that sensation of boredom would reoccur everywhere in my life, but I never noticed it. So it was really interesting to go, here I am standing in the grocery line and there is boredom, and how do I be with boredom? I reach for my phone. We all walk around with this pacifier now, and it really shifted my relationship with how I relate to digital technology. It's like, what do I do entertain myself? And do I always need to entertain myself when I'm bored, or can I just be with boredom. All of these interesting things that you'll learn, especially when you're resisting against something in your practice. Rhonda Magee: [00:43:32] That's true, right? It's an ongoing revelation, right? That's what I do when I'm bored, and I do it all the time it seems like, it's coming up everywhere. Jeena Cho: [00:43:46] So Rhonda, before we wrap things up I do want to have a more concrete discussion about how do we use mindfulness to work when our implicit bias? And for the folks that are listening to you, they may not know that you're black. And for the folks that are listening, they may not know that I'm Asian. Sometimes being a woman of color, we have very different experiences going through the world. So I'm wondering if you can give some of the tools on mindfulness, as a way that we can work on ourselves. For the listeners out there that are either people of color or women or in some group of minority in some way. Or if they're the white guy and they're wanting to take part in this conversation but aren't sure how to. And I think that can also be a really uncomfortable place to be as well. And I realize that's a huge question, so I'll let you take it any direction that feels good to you. Rhonda Magee: [00:45:01] Well it is a great, huge, meaty question. And of course, like all great, huge, meaty questions, I will really only be able to invite some reflection that is really just pointing toward what I hope will be ongoing ruminations, thoughts, reflections, ways of continuing the conversation that we do collectively and individually from here. So I would say that mindfulness for me is a way of deepening my experience with reality. And what reality is is always changing, and my reality (as you alluded to in your question Jeena) may be different from yours in a given moment because of the way that our reality, the sense that we have of what is real is based on perceptions that we have as we move through the world. So we are constantly encountering stimuli from the environment, we're meeting people, we're seeing people. People are engaging us, we're reading about incidents in the headlines, comments are being made in a meeting that suddenly trigger some sense that perhaps you've experienced or witnessed a micro aggression. One of these sudden, stunning statements that may leave me or some other person feeling disrespected, or rendered an outsider in some space. [00:46:44] So these are the kinds of things that are the stimuli that we're experiencing as we move through the world. And each of us experiences these things differently, and partly as a function of the ways that we are differently embodied in different time and space. So, depending on the context that we're in; if it's a context in which we all look very much the same, we've all been raised to think very similarly, that's going to be a different kind of space than if we are in a space where it's that but then now someone's entered who physically looks different. Maybe of a different race, maybe a different gender, the intersection of those two is very profound. Maybe have a different class background. In other words, as socially embodied beings we are both signaling and sending signals that people are reading about who we are and what we know, what we think. People are perceiving and making assumptions and all of that. We do it, and it's been done to us all the time. And that comes with being a human being in a social environment. And so bringing mindfulness to the way we engage with our own identities and the way that our perceptions about others in the world may be shaped by the particularities of our own embodied experience, which are very different perhaps than the lived experience of others in that space. Just bringing mindfulness to the fact that our experience is just our experience; it's just one part of a big, complicated, beautiful story about who we are in this moment together. That we might tell and retell with ever increasing complexity and capacity to hold complexity, if we are given the time and opportunity. [00:48:55] Generally we're not given much time and opportunity. So a lot of what can happen at the intersection of identity and some kind of suffering happens in the space of what we do when we don't have a lot of time, but we're operating on a little bit of automatic pilot. We meet someone; we prise them before we even consciously do it. Cognitive scientists tell us that we make perceptions about one another that key into race and intersect race with gender, and perceptions we have of class based on the way perhaps someone is dressed or the way they speak. What kinds of accents people have or don't have. We evaluate these things at a subconscious level before thought even arises around it. So part of what we're learning, if we look at the cognitive sciences, helps us understand how mindfulness practice can assist us in these areas. We are often operating from the place of that automatic reactivity; that automatic way. I see this person, I put this person in this category, and I respond to this person in that way based on that. Mindfulness can help disrupt that automatic processing. I've written, and others have written, about research studies that give us reason to be hopeful; actual, real reason to be hopeful that mindfulness can assist us in just that part of the problem. The problem of automatic application of the preconceptions we have about each other, based on notions of identity, stories about whose identities matter and what types of spaces and places; we all carry these. We can't not have them, having grown up in a world where narratives about who matters and what groups matter where and why are constantly being consumed and presented to us. So, of course, we have imbibed these biases. We imbibe the culture's preferences for different types of bodies and people and cultures and different spaces. So that's always a part of what we ourselves bring to a space. [00:51:09] I know for myself, growing up in the south in a part of the country which had whites and blacks and African-Americans and Caucasians. And those are terms that we created to label people, and yet we know what they mean when we use them. Because we've all been trained to use them. So mindfulness is about deepening our capacity to understand all the different ways we all are brought into a world in which identities are constantly being constructed and reconstructed, and we are acting on each other and with ourselves in ways that reflect these notions. And the problem comes when (well there are many problems that can come from that) what the social psychologists called schema, these ways we have of categorizing the world and moving through the world based on those categories. They're really effective in enhancing efficiency and moving through quickly. The example I often use is we have a cognitive schema for a chair, such that when we see something that looks like it's got a flat bottom or a seated area and four legs, we know that if we're tired we can sit on it and not have to worry about whether or not it'll support us in that activity. We don't want to have to every time we encounter a chair be like, wait what is that? Let me do a test on that. So we get that, we can work with a schema for a chair and move through the world in a way that is supported by that. The problem is when we use similarly reductionist schema for people. I mean, to have a schema for an Asian-American woman and then to say every time I meet.. And often we have these and we've not consciously interrogated them. We've just received them because of stereotypes and film and media, stories we've heard from people who went overseas and came back with stories. [00:53:08] I mean there are all kinds of different ways that we imbibe these stereotypes. We may or may not have made them conscious, interrogated them. And so when we meet a person who we think embodies those characteristics, those stereotypes are operating already; before we have a chance to really be mindful about whether or not they should, or if we would want them to if we have choice. And so mindfulness can get us regularly engaged. Regularly is the key. This is something that for me, I see this as a profound aspect of what it means to be mindful. Because so much of our everyday suffering is mediated through the particular embodiments that we live in. So really, not to see mindfulness and identity and social justice as a side topic, but really to see oh we're just talking about bringing mindfulness to everyday life and lived experience. And not failing to name that we all have lived experience that's characterized by race, characterized by gender, people's notions, our notions of class. These are all already in the mix. So bringing mindfulness more intentionally to bear on those aspects of our own experience, how we began. If you grew up in the south like I did, you may not have met very many Asian, identified Asian, diasporic people before. You might not have heard a lot of language from different Asian countries before, in your everyday life. And you move to a place like California as I did, and suddenly hearing different languages is new. And we all know that again, the human body being what it is, we often don't react so well to every new environment, every new experience. [00:55:01] We often are sort of challenged when we meet the new. So mindfulness can help us notice, I am (in a way that I didn't predict) reacting to having these languages around me; I'm not comfortable. I need to pause and notice what's happening. I am meeting something new; I am having a kind of reaction to it that would suggest I might need to work on this. This might be an area of work for me. So that's really just one of the micro ways that mindfulness can help. I talk about the allied disciplines right, which have to do with committing to being mindful in community. I don't think we would be talking about mindfulness together today if many people before us hadn't realized the importance of practicing with others. So really, you develop by being engaged in practice with others. So it's great to have these podcasts and support for individual practice, but it really is also important to try to find ways of practicing in community when we can. Because it's there that we really do learn on a day-to-day level. How it is that here I am judging this person, because they had this way of responding to this comment that I have now evaluated. And now I've maybe made some other assumptions about this person that are impacting my interaction with this person, all of these sorts of ways that we are human and in community. [00:56:35] I think if we have a commitment to mindfulness that includes practicing with others, we are always being supported then in deepening our ability to make room to include the so-called other; to learn from others, and to constantly work on ourselves as part of our practice of mindfulness Jeena Cho: [00:56:58] Right. Yeah, and I often think as a society we made it very convenient not to have to interact with others, whatever that other might like. Even just being a lawyer, it means a good bulk of the people that I interact with are lawyers, or they're at least educated (most of them are highly educated). And they all sort of in this social economic group. So even though I may have friends and people in my life that are different culturally and on other spectrums, but we still have this commonality of being in the legal profession. I think it takes intention to interact with people that are very different from you and come from different life experiences. And also (kind of looping back to what you were saying earlier) there can be this feeling like, well I've never had that happen to me, therefore it couldn't have happened to you. I remember telling someone I like that I walk into a courtroom and the judge looked at me and he just said, "Oh you're the Asian language interpreter." Which by the way, the wording of that is so bizarre. But I and shared that with someone, and he was like, "No, I don't believe it. That didn't happen to you.” [00:58:25] And I was like, what do you mean it didn't happen to me? But because he could never imagine that ever happening to him. Because he's different than me. And I think it can be this feeling of, well that's not part of my life experience, therefore, it couldn't have happened to you. Or, it couldn't have happened with the frequency in which it's happening to you. Rhonda Magee: [00:58:47] Right. Or it couldn't have done the harm. Because if somebody says something like that to me, again not knowing the frequency, the cumulative effect, the way it links up with other incidents in our lives, that history. Another person can hear that and say, oh well is that really a big deal? You could easily brush that off. So yeah, mindfulness helps us, and can help us. I do think we need to (as you said) be intentional about this. I don't think this is necessarily an offshoot of mindfulness, because of the ways we're getting trained not to turn toward this aspect in so many other realms of our lives. So we almost have to actually invite an intentional embrace of looking at how it is that we hold the sense of what the real world looks like and is. And how it is necessarily constrained by our own position, experience, limited by that. It's one of the reasons why for me, I kind of see being with others and practicing with others and working with others around these issues as just this great gift that we can have and experience. [01:00:02] Because we need each other; I need to hear your experiences for me to have a better understanding of the full range of experiences that are causing suffering in the world. And I invite and then hope that there will be others who will be open to hearing mine. So developing the desire, not just the capacity (like I can tolerate it) but knowing that you want that, to really work with being a more mindful human being in the world, is something that I think can come with our practice. But it often needs to be invited intentionally in. Jeena Cho: [01:00:45] I think that's the perfect note to end on. Rhonda, thank you so much for sharing your time and your wisdom. Thank you for all the good that you do in the world. Rhonda Magee: [01:00:57] Thank you, and I reflect that 100% back to you Jeena. It's good to be in conversation with you, and I thank you so much for what you're doing and for this chance to be a part of your work today. Closing: [01:01:14] Thanks for joining us on The Resilient Lawyer podcast. If you've enjoyed the show, please tell a friend. It's really the best way to grow the show. To leave us a review on iTunes, search for The Resilient Lawyer and give us your honest feedback. It goes a long way to help with our visibility when you do that, so we really appreciate it. As always, we'd love to hear from you. E-mail us at smile@theanxiouslawyer.com. Thanks and look forward to seeing you next week.