Hey, everyone. I'm really excited to bring Rhonda Magee into the Mindfulness.com family. Rhonda's a law professor at the University of San Francisco, a long-time mindfulness teacher and a fellow of the Mind and Life Institute. Rhonda's also the author of the groundbreaking book, The Inner Work of Racial Justice. She's a former chair of the board of directors for Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute.

And is a member of the board of advisors for the Brown Center for Mindfulness. What I've always really appreciated about Rhonda's work is this deep dedication to the exploration of mindfulness, the, the essence of mindfulness. But more specifically, how do we make sure it counts where it matters most, how do we bring it into our lives where things can get really complex and messy, but we could argue it's most needed. So Rhonda it's, it's a real joy to be here with you, and I'd love for you to give people just a sneak peek inside your journey and the content you've created for us. Maybe just a one to two minute personal story about how you've come to this work and specifically how self-compassion has been impactful in your life.

Oh, thank you so much. And again, it's a great, great to be with you. So for me, mindfulness has really been a, a beautiful support for navigating a journey from, you know, growing up in the Southern part of North Carolina or Southern part of the United States, in the state of North Carolina, frankly in you know, in a home and in a community that was really sort of deeply constructed by some of the legacies of the, some of the hardest aspects of our history of oppression in the United States. And so dealing with poverty, dealing with a lot of the ways that intergenerational trauma impacts us was something I kind of had to work with as a child. And also coming up for me, I'm just going to say born in 1967, right? The last year Martin Luther King Jr's life on the earth, coming in to a world of transformative change, right? Coming into the world in the civil rights era.

But then having been raised in that period of time that we now see as having been kind of a backlash to all the new opportunities. And so my own story is a story of, you know, that in a certain sense, one example of a story of that arc. And so I am grateful to be a teacher and I am living now in San Francisco, but moving from there to here has not been easy. And so I've leaned on my own personal commitment to mindfulness and compassion practices all along the way. And it's from those experiences, having become a mindfulness teacher, first a mindfulness practitioner for my own wellbeing, and then I'm fortunate to offer these to others.

It's really been deeply infused with an understanding of the need for healing and of myself, but also of our interpersonal ways of being with each other, all in service, ideally of helping in this effort to change the world for the positive and for the good. Hmm. Thanks, Rhonda. I think that, you know, even hearing your story it always reminds me when I hear you talk about self-compassion and when I hear your teachings, they, they just have a different weight to them. That there's something that just thorough.

I don't know if that's the word it's just, it's like, I feel the embodiment of this in you and, and the journey that you've been on to really make these meaningful in your own life, for them to actually touch something in a poignant transformative way. And, and when I think of what I'm excited about for folks to get to experience with your teachings, I mean, you've said this even before, when we were talking before this call, that you're really interested in, in us taking this to a level of depth where I do think mindfulness can often be very surfacy or as a way of like, okay, I'm experiencing stress. Now, let me like mindfulness my way out of it. Rather than actually to descend into it more intimately and understand it more deeply. So I'm curious, as you anticipate these teachings coming onto the platform and just your work in general, what, what feels like the particular importance of it for, for others right now as they engage in your work? Thank you again for this question.

Yeah, it is, we're all going through so much right now. And in a certain sense, always being embodied and living, we're all facing so many different challenges and opportunities at the same time. And especially as one born in a, you know, a black body, cis-gender female. There are so many different ways that, as you alluded to just now, you know, my own life path is just kind of constantly embedded me in this experience of engaged, socially engaged awareness and has called forth and made necessary for me the part of the work that's about yeah, first recognizing the way in which we might be carrying wounds. The way I've carried some of the wounds from some of the experiences that I've navigated.

And how after recognizing that through mindfulness and through compassion, I can do the best I can. Right? No, and I can't do it all, but I can do the best I can to be there for my own healing, to be there for my own, and again, taking what might be a difficult situation in some way, transforming it so that it can be of, you know, some doorway, some opportunity for me to access my highest and best at that moment, for whatever opportunities might be present for me from there. And so there is a way that I think that, especially given all the changes that we're faced with at this time, and the new ways I think we're understanding the radical interconnectedness of all of us at this time, wherever we are around the globe. This has been quite a moment for humanity. And so I'm hoping that as we, you know, we're moving through the various pandemics.

Coronavirus just being one. Climate crisis being another. We're dealing with economic inequality and global migration trends. There's so many things that are stressful and can lead us to feel a little bit of destabilization that can trigger all kinds of predictable reactions, fear anger. So for me, these practices are really, really, really available to us, if we're willing, to support us in the particular challenges of being alive together right now.

And so I'm really excited to be working with you, Cory and the team Mindfulness.com. With this hope, frankly, this, this, this intention, but also a hope that what we do helps meet people wherever they are. So if we need that just in time support for dealing with stress, may it be so. And ideally as we work together and continue the journey together, we are more and more realizing that these practices are not only for ourselves. They're for ourselves, absolutely 100%, and we recognize we're always embedded in the world.

So they are inevitably available to us to support us in working with others and changing the world for the better as we go. Beautifully said. Thanks, Rhonda. And I think that's also a good segue into, if we look at some of the specifics of how people are going to get access to these teachings. You have a seven day course coming out.

You have these micro-practices and Q and A's around specific topics that tend to be most relevant for people. I wonder if you could just speak to those different formats that you've created and, and how you think the difference in them could be relevant for folks. Right? So a seven day course, a micro-practice, Q & A, is there anything in particular you're excited about with those different formats? Yeah, I think, you know, first of all, the seven-day course really is an opportunity for us to do a little bit of a journey together. Yeah. And, and that is always inspiring, personally for me, to know that something that I'm offering is okay.

intended to be kind of relational in a, in a way. I mean, you know, we are obviously recording this and then people will be able to access at will. And we won't literally be in this moment of like synchronous interaction. But, but they're nevertheless, you know, as I worked on offering that seven day course, I really was holding the image and aspiration of being in, being, you know, being on a journey together with folks. So I hope some aspects, some, some of the quality of that, of that intention is showing up in that course and, and the underlying the journey together is this hope that, you know, we all need support and we all, I think, need, for me, I've benefited from seeing my mindfulness practice as being about my own development, you know, deepening my practices, for my work in the world.

And so that idea of an arc of a development that you can experience through the course, but also support for coming back to it and staying with it. I mean, seven days is just a opening and but, ideally it'll keep folks, you know, whetting their appetite, whetting our appetite for like staying on the journey and staying in these arcs of development over time. And then the, the micro practices, on the other hand, are meant to you know, I think of them as being nice opportunities for folks to just sort of touch in and access and experience a practice that they can use right then on that day or in a just in time kind of way, as and when needed. And goodness knows, we can open up our social media feed or, you know, have an interaction with someone today and feel the need for the kind of support that those micro-practices are aimed at offering. When we find ourselves in reactivity, based on sudden, you know, and you know, the incidents and vicissitudes of our everyday life.

Hmm. Yeah. Wonderful. Cool. All I can say is cool.

It feels very especially. And I, I really, yeah, I just feel touched that, that you're here and that people are going to get to experience these teachings and the different layers of them. So thank you, Rhonda. And thanks everyone for listening and joining us. Please go ahead, dive into Rhonda's course, her content.

You could find it all below. Give it a shot and, and please let this also be an invitation to explore the depth of what this practice is pointing to. As Rhonda says, yes, these can be used as stress reduction techniques. And, and if that's where the journey is, you know, great, let that be the access point. But there is rich territory and very important territory that as we engage in the complexity of our own humanness, it allows us to meet others in their complexity as well.

And, and you're doing that work in a significant way, Rhonda, and it's not easy. It, it, and so thank you and I'm excited for everyone to get to experience this. Thank you. Thanks everyone. All right, everyone take care.