“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.
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