CIIS Public Programs Podcast

transcript

[Theme Music]  
 
This is the CIIS Public Programs Podcast, featuring talks and conversations recorded live by the Public Programs department of California Institute of Integral Studies, a non-profit university located in San Francisco on unceded Ramaytush Ohlone Land. Through our programming, we strive to amplify the voices of those who have historically been under-represented. 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.  
 
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Maryam: Hi Langston. 

Langston: Hi Maryam, it's so good to be with you here. 

Maryam: It’s so good to be here with you as well, and I'm so excited for this conversation today and to introduce more people to your work and to your writings. You and I had a really beautiful conversation recently after I had the opportunity to sit with your book for some time and there were so many themes that I felt very deeply connected to in both in your book as well as is in the conversation that we had that I found it difficult to sort of determine what were the key things that we should focus on and talk about. But I think we did a pretty good job at picking some core things to touch into that I think are very relevant in in this moment at this time. And one thing I really loved about your book, so many things, but one thing I really loved about your book is that it offered really specific tools and practices for how to do the work. It wasn't just kind of talking about what the work needs to be, but it was really in-depth step-by-step experiential of… this is how you could you know deepen in this kind of work. What I also loved about your book was that there were so many beautiful personal stories that you shared, and I'm going to ask you to read one of them in a moment, and I do want to talk to you a lot about authentic emotions because I feel like that's something that is really deep within your medicine, but I'd love to have you first share with us your story that deepens in your relationship with compassion, curiosity, and presence as it relates to your gargoyle story.  

Langston: Yes, the gargoyle story! [both laugh] 

Maryam: Yeah! Let's start with that one. Yeah, if you want to recap or read directly from the book it's up to you. But I really love that story and I think that that's something that’s just the way that you use spoke about it I found it so endearing, and I feel like that immediately told me a lot about who you are, so I'd love you to share that with us.  

Langston: Thank you. Yeah, so I should say firstly that part, one of the core practices in deep liberation is a practice of deep self-inquiry where we move inwards and engage with the felt sense in our body - that sort of knowing beyond words that communicates to us through the symbol. And of course, that symbol can be big emotions that arise, it can be imagery, it can be you know memories that come, or physical sensations. And so, when I first started engaging this kind work, I went in and I was really curious to experience something, you know my inner landscape and try really hard. I actually think it had even been like a couple of weeks that I'd been trying this practice and not really getting much… not sure what I was doing.  

You know, I'm someone who spent a lot of my like deeply disassociated from my body and really struggled because of my own, you know traumas that I'd experienced to actually stay in my inner experience and allow it to communicate to me and come into my field of awareness and then be expressed. And so, I was with my heart just sitting in my heart space and suddenly out of my heart came this beautiful lotus flower and this little mermaid came, like literally a little mermaid came floating up into my awareness and I was like what the heck is that? I can't say that out loud. That's so weird. Like now that seems very tame to me. [laughs] But at the time that was a big deal. I was like, I can't talk about the mermaids coming out of my heart and so but then I remember that part one of the core tenets of the work is realizing that we need to be, or we can choose to be with everything in our inner awareness with compassionate curiosity not trying to label it, or understand it, or fix it just being with it exactly as it is and that's often when our inner experience begins to shift and change. It stays stuck when we're like in a battle with it.  

And so, I realized if there's anything that I'm feeling other than compassionate curiosity it means I’ve become identified with another part of me that has a lot of feelings about this mermaid inside of me. So, I tried to feel okay, so what in me am I identified with? What has all these feelings of judgment towards this mermaid? And it was this little gargoyle sitting out here, I remember it so distinctly was right to the right of my head and it was just like all curled up with its arms crossed and it was like “this makes no sense, this BS, this stupid, this process doesn't work, you're stupid”, you know?  

And so, I just sat with it. I just pulled up a chair next to that angry grumpy little gargoyle on the right side of my head and I let it know I was there, and I was listening to it. And as soon as I stopped being identified with it and trying to change him, just trying to do the process right and just sat with it with compassion it shifted into this gloved finger pointing back to the mermaid in my heart and then that led me into a deepening of the rest of that process.  

Maryam: I just love that for so many reasons. I deeply feel connected to this idea of sort of symbols that sort of have meaning and represent things to you and they kind of come to life in your inner landscape. And I know that we talked a lot about the body's wisdom and you spoke, and the way that you named it as sort of like this felt sense of knowing that is beyond words and that's why I love the idea of things having symbols because sometimes the words can really kind of put us in our head, and where I know a lot of this work is about really being in the body and having that sort of symbol that really does drop us into more of that kind of collective unconscious and those archetypes and sort of how those things show up for us in a way that is it’s ancient right? It's ancient. It moves through different cultures. It moves through, you know different mythologies and we have that wisdom in our body, right.  

So, I’d love you to share a little bit more about just how important it is to sort of connect into that felt sense, and also what can be some of the you know, the fears, or the blocks, or the resistance even to wanting to feel all your feels, right?  

Langston: Yeah, well, I think for many of us it can feel unfair to have to feel, for example, past traumas that we've experienced in the past and we worry that if we like… maybe we've spent decades avoiding a deep grief because we had to make a choice when we experience something to relate to sort of ignore that grief, or push it down, or swallow it to survive in that moment and keep going. And it's not that there’s anything wrong with that choice because it allowed us to get to this moment. We're here, you know, we're still here, but it might keep us in our present moment of our day-to-day life from being able to move in the world in the way that we want to. And often when we sort of swallow and bury emotions, they don't just die or go away, they get bigger over time and they often express in certain ways as physical symptoms as well.  

And so, I think it's so important to move out of our mind and into our body. Not as a way of escaping the mind or bypassing the mind. I think the mind is also really valuable tool, but we're taught in sort of you know settler colonialist culture is that the mind is key like, you know, the mind is above all else defining of our identity and who we are, and what is true. And in actuality, my experience is that the mind is a very small aspect of the vastness of truth happening all around us and each moment in the invisible world. It doesn't just include, you know, the archetypal realms and our helping spirits, but also our emotions. And our mind isn't very good at emotions, you know, [both laugh] our mind when it tries to, it thinks it's good at emotions. It’s like, “oh, yeah I know all about that, I can explain that away, I could deal with that.” But then we end up, you know perseverating, it's circling around and around with the same thought and not actually moving forward with something.  

Whereas, when we’re able to move into the wisdom of our body, through the lens of our heart, through this ability of our heart’s compassionate curiosity to be with what our body is sharing, and then the mind can stop trying to analyze, and make sense of, and fix, and take a break and just… instead of doing all that, track what the heart is guiding us towards and what the body is guiding us towards. And I think that's a much deeper function of the mind that's really important to access because it allows us to re-engage a relationship with life, you know, we're staying up in our heads you become more and more isolated feeling. We get caught in this story of separation that we're just these sort of like individual beings, you know on this dead planet that's lifeless and has no intelligence in it and we're just wandering alone endlessly without meaning. Whereas when we move into our body you feel how false that story is. The second you move in, because if you're really in your body you feel how connected we all are to each other and how h vast that inner space in our own body is as well.  

Maryam: Mhm… I love it. Yeah, I love that so much. One of the things that I love that we talked about in sort of like deepening in this relationship with like emotional alchemy and sort of you know, transmuting what we're feeling, and feeling what we're feeling, and allowing the body's wisdom to help us be with the sensations and learn how to, you know, stay in that window of tolerance and just kind of like deepen in our ability to get to that point where there's that, you know natural kind of like dissipation of the charge.  

But one thing that we did talk about, and I think this is like a really important part of the conversation is, how do we sort of find that healthy balance between feeling the… what I always call feeling the emotions versus feeding the emotions, right? What that means is like, giving the emotion space but not necessarily like ruminating and wallowing and allowing that sort of flooding to happen where we're mentally rehearsing, you know, what created the sort of trigger emotion in the first place. I'd love to hear you share your understanding of that.  

Langston: Yeah. I think I really appreciate how you articulated all of that. What comes to mind for me first is this pattern that many of us have of either… and we all sort of embody these different patterns at different times in our life… but either indulging in our emotions, like just really like you said that wallowing feeling of it becomes not even about the emotion itself but the emotions about the emotions the emotions about the emotion about the emotion until we’re not even like in what actually happened. Or a denial of emotion, that shoving down, that swallowing the repression that we were talking about earlier.  

And neither of those is actually being with our emotions. Both of those are a way, even though the indulgence might look like we're being with our emotions, it's another way of avoiding actually being in relationship with our emotions. And what I find is until we come into relationship with our emotions, they stay stuck. And emotions are meant to be, in my experience when they're really authentic, these wild elemental things that rise up into our awareness, in our expression and are expressed and released or move us into action and then fall back down and then a new emotion arises.  

And you can really see this in little kids a lot especially. You know, where they’re just like, “oh I'm crying, and I'm really happy, and I want to go to bed, and I'm really angry.” It's just this willingness to be moved in the heart into action by your emotions that's really beautiful. And I think we lose that as adults because we, you know partly because in contemporary culture we’re not initiated into adulthood as we might be in an Indigenous culture. And so, what happens is, without that initiation at supporting us in dropping that family of origin baggage, all those little moments where we had an authentic emotional response rise up and we avoided it in some way either through indulgence or denial get trapped inside of us. So, when many of our emotions come into our awareness, they're not actually responding to the present moment. Like you're talking about, they're much more arising out of past experiences and stories from moments when we had to sort of make a decision out of fear to survive that wasn't quite in alignment with our authenticity or true nature. 

Maryam: I love that. Yeah, we definitely, we talked about that kind of that relationship between attachment and authenticity and that sort of like, you know, those survival strategies that we created of people pleasing and becoming who are caregivers needed us to be and it's from the point of view of the mind of a child, right? We don't really understand that we're you know, there's some part of us that we are quieting, or saying isn't allowed to be here, or isn't appropriate, or isn't lovable and it's again, it's something that we all kind of like have that experience of having to become, you know, some version of ourselves that is appropriate just to survive.  

And so, I think that this piece around emotions and what you're saying authentic emotions, and I love that like really clear distinction. I think this is like part of the initiation into like authenticity, is like getting in touch with like our genuine emotions and like you said understanding when we have a trigger response that is reminding us of the same sort of like dynamic that we were in a childhood, in a trauma, that the current situation is sort of reflecting back to us. And so, I'd love to hear you talk about tracking triggers. I know that's a big part of your work, and it's such an important part of this work, that I'd love to have you share a little bit about that.  

Langston: Yeah, well to bring in a sort of wider context of a shamanic perspective in a shamanic cosmology, life and our soul are constantly conspiring to help bring into our awareness the aspects of our self that are locked in these moments of trauma we've been talking about. Or just aspects of self that are stuck in the unconscious that haven't been brought into our awareness yet.  

And so, there's a way that I think of triggers as, and this comes directly out of my lineage of my shamanic teachings, of thinking of triggers as in a sense these gifts that life as a teacher is sending us to help bring into our awareness these aspects of our power that are trapped in these moments of fear from our past. And you know, they're not pleasant gifts usually. [laughs] But, they're these moments where we amp up or shut down out of proportion into response to something, or we find we feel much younger than our current age, or we find ourselves thinking about something long after the fact that it happened, or we just realized when we look back at our day you know, I didn't show up in the way I wanted to show up today. You know, all those are good signs that we've been triggered, and some of us might be under-reactors, you know chronically that was definitely me a lot of my life. Other of us can be you know over-reactors, like suddenly when we're triggered we start, you know, screaming or intense emotions rise up and or we get paralyzed in some way, you know. All those can be different responses, but they're both coming out of this same phenomena of the trigger that means we’re no longer responding in current time. We’ve sort of found ourselves back in this past moment and started projecting it on our current moment so we're not seeing the current moment clearly and so we can't act effectively in that moment.  

And so, if we have tools that allow us to track our triggers to the root where they began in our body, we can reclaim those aspects of our power from those moments. We can show up for those parts of ourselves that are stuck in those painful memories from our past and support them in making a new choice that is in alignment with a sense of our authenticity so then they can come back into the living process that we are. Because with authenticity, there's no I don't think of it as something like you arrive at. There's no like, you know laurels to rest on with authenticity really. It's about this ability to show up to the living process that you are as part of this larger living process of all of life, or of unity, of family, you know as we constantly shape shift and change until we're dead.  

You know, and so life is always going to be giving us those triggers, even once most of the biographical trauma at least has been cleared. But when that hasn't been cleared in large part because that function of initiation hasn’t been carried out by our culture, our culture has sort of failed us in that way, then what happens is a lot of the ways life is trying to bring our soul into our experience is through these painful triggers, unfortunately.  

Maryam: Yeah, I love that there's a wisdom and I think people you know, there's different levels of you know resistance to like being willing to sort of hear that but you know, it all kind of comes back to what you talked about which is like cultivating this intimacy with ourselves. I often refer to triggers as time travel machines, right? Because if you can always sort of trace it back to the origin point and when you understand that it is about deepening and wholeness, deepening and authenticity, and sort of cultivating this intimacy with ourselves you understand the wisdom behind it and it's not just that there's you know people sent here to annoy you and trigger you right, regardless of what their… even if that is their intention, right?  

Like we have the opportunity in that moment like you said, to track that trigger back to sort of understand what does the work need to be? One thing I would love to hear you speak about next that we did talk about as well was how do we do this work in a way that's not victim-blaming? Because I feel like some of the responses that I often hear is when you talk about things like, you know, there's a lesson behind the things that happen to you, maybe if we even talk about things like, you know, your soul’s curriculum and just sort of just starting to get into some of these, you know, the cosmology of that there is I could divine plan and sort of all that is being orchestrated and that the world is not just out to get us and we're not just helpless victims. Sometimes that can be misinterpreted as that it's the fault of you know, the person that experienced the trauma or blaming them. And so, I would just yeah, I would just love for you to share your thoughts about that.  

Langston: Yeah, and so I think those concepts of things like, you know soul’s curriculum and things happening for a reason are spiritual truths that get abused a lot and do turn into a kind of victim-blaming because I you know, personally my experience not everything happens for a reason. There's a lot of senseless, horrible stuff that happens in the world all the time every day. And what I think is the useful part of those tools is when they're helping us to reclaim our power from moments where we were disempowered.  

So, it's not about victim-blaming. It's not about saying, you know, because I had a trauma, I manifested this event in my life and I made this horrible thing happen to me. No, it's about recognizing that if I am having a response that's not truly about the present moment and it's out of proportion to what's happening, then that means that there is an aspect of that external dynamic that's mirrored in my inner life and I can use my tools then to reclaim and bring balance and healing and harmony to that aspect of that internal dynamic that's in me. And then that allows me to show up more fully and truly to whatever just happened in that moment once I've done that work or even in the moment if I'm actively able to do the work in the moment, which can happen as well.  

So, for example, in instances of racism. You know, if someone says something shitty and racist to you, that doesn't mean that you know, they were just a magical spiritual being sent to illuminate your power so you could be a better human being on this planet and it's really just for your own good or just enjoy the racism, you know? [laughs] 

Maryam: They’re a light worker, right? They’re just a light worker.  

Langston: Light worker in disguise, yes [laughs] yeah. Yeah, no that's not at all what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that in that moment you have an opportunity if you notice like if you just have the natural discomfort anyone would feel when experiencing something harmful to them, that's great. Respond in the moment effectively. But so often in those moments like for me myself, I find that I am triggered in that moment that I'm not necessarily showing up and responding immediately in the way I wanted to show up in that moment. And so then we can use these tools to not continue to let that person in that event take up space in our heart and our mind, but actually allow us to process what just happened, root out the original experiences that were similar in our life that the ways that we internalize that racism is racism in ourselves, and clear those harmful stories that have been operating in us for a long time, and then know that in the future we encounter similar events are going to feel more empowered to respond to the present moment effectively. 

Maryam: Hundred percent absolutely. And I feel that so strong in thinking about how certain words, you know have the ability to affect me in such a strong way, and I think about how that's… so many of my ancestors, you know had that same experience and I'm like, “ ugh, how do I make it so that my children don't have to experience certain words in a way that has so much like harm and charge, and how can I shift that on a epigenetic level?” Right, like I love that, you know knowing that we do have the ability to be in our power in that way and that it's not a judgment if we're not there yet. It's just acknowledging that that is a possibility. That it doesn't have to always feel that way. Right one of your one of the quotes that's from your book that I love is you said, “the wound carries the knowledge of what healing feels like otherwise it wouldn't know that it was wounded.” I just think that's so beautifully articulated, and would you like to just share a little bit more about what that means?  

Langston: Sure. Thank you. Yeah. So, for me what that means is that if a part of us that is in pain didn't know what it felt like to not be in pain, then we wouldn't realize it was in pain. So, it's like a little paradoxical but just to really ground it in a concrete example, you know, there was a part of me that was deeply terrified, and whenever I was in a situation where I didn't know the rules. And there was some like sort of past life and ancestral components some of which I you know talked about in the book about that that were part of that as well.  

But it was this pain around feeling like I always needed to know what was acceptable so that I could be acceptable and these experiences that I had in the past of not being deemed acceptable. But when I was able to really be with that part of me that carried those experiences of being judged as unacceptable, you know, as a, you know, a Black queer kid, you know growing up in a predominantly white neighborhood after moving from New York City when I was younger…I… once I was really able to be with some of those memories and be with the parts of me still stuck in those experiences, I experienced this deep feeling of what it means to feel a sense of belonging that transcends the human. What it means to belong deeply just because I have a body on this planet and my right to be here and take up space and not just right but the necessity of me bringing my beauty, and my power, and my love into the world to repay the Earth for this body I've been given. And I would never have felt that depth of belonging if I had not been able to be with this part of me that felt the opposite of what that was and was yearning for that sense of belonging.  

Maryam: So beautiful. So eloquent. Love it so much with everything you share. Okay. So, I'm going to segue way into this next part of the conversation that I think is super-duper important and it is talking about boundaries. I feel like this is one of our favorite shared topics to talk about and you and myself and so many people that I know. I feel like this conversation around boundaries is like the theme of this lifetime and you really do like a really complete job of you know, what is the recipe for healthy boundaries? I'd love you to just share it first a little bit about you know, whatever feels relevant to share of kind of your story of how you came to know that you didn't have boundaries? That you needed them? That boundaries was a thing? And then going into like what is the recipe for healthy boundaries? 

Langston: Yeah. So, for me, I found out I had really terrible boundaries mostly because of chronic health issues that I was having. I had just graduated from college. It was at the height of the recession, so I was really struggling to find a job. At the time I was working on a lot of film sets, but they were sort of like 72-hour days where I couldn't really tend to my health and well-being. And so, things are just getting worse and worse and worse. I had intense emotional issues, I had intense mental health issues intense, you know, chronic physical health issues.  

And so, I knew I needed help and after a series of kind of… to make a very long story short. I had this initiatory experience or this dream where this helping spirit came to me and sort of flew over and started landing on my chest and it was covered in all these sort of ticks and parasites. And so, I asked in the dream my teacher was sleeping next to me. Like I can see her in the dream, and I asked her, you know, “is this my power animal, is this my helping spirit?” She said “yes”, and I said, “can I tell it to go away?” Cause it was gross. It was covered in these gross bugs and stuff that were biting me. She said, “yes but ask its name first.” So, it gave me its name and then it flew away.  

And then I woke up and I ended up journeying with my spiritual community at that time to this spirit because I was like, you know, what's going on? My spirit is sick. It's full of parasites. Like I need to help it. And so I go in and this spirit just starts laughing at me, cackling at me because it was like a little trickstery spirit. It liked to have fun at my expense, and it said, you know, “you idiot. You're the one that needs help. You're the one covered in these parasites”, you know and later on like reading anthropological texts and stuff, which I hadn't really done at that point I saw that's actually a really common way that helping spirits show up to people to show them diseases that they're afflicted with by showing them on themselves.  

And so that led me to pursue the help of a shamanic practitioner and that practitioner saw this structure of energy coming out of me. That was like these web-like vines around my body, and he said, you know, “this is just your stuff. It's not like an intrusive spirit. It's not ancestral. It’s just your shit. You know, do you want me to take it out?” I was like sure. Okay. Yeah, he rips it out of my root chakra and what happens is the symptoms completely abate for two weeks. I get dramatically better and then get so much worse after that. It's like, okay I'm on the right track somehow but something's not quite right here yet.  

And so, I went to another healing practitioner, and this is one of my primary teachers today, Christina Pratt who is one of the she's the founder of the shamanic tradition I practice and of this process this deep liberation process as well. And what she was able to see I think in part because of these tools that are so much about how do we human well? Not just how do we engage the spirit realms well, but like the foundational stuff of how do we just be a being with a body on this planet well, and she was able to see the vines as well without me telling her which is like a big thing for me at that time just to realize that wow, this is real. And she saw each layer of them which phase in my life they developed and she's able to say, you know this developed because you didn't have boundaries and it was your strategy for avoiding having them.  

And in a way it was like built up of this web of white lies that I was telling to manage the emotions of those around me in a codependent way to avoid disappointing anyone and that was how I had learned to survive. And then at each different phase of my life that energetic structure that was just like, you know, the logical conclusion of my energetic habits throughout my day became more and more empowered and stronger because and more alive and it's almost starting to have a mind of its own, so it's become manifesting in all these illnesses and issues in my life.  

And so, what I had to do was have that structure removed from me and sort of learn from scratch. What does it feel like to have good boundaries? And for me, I had this real gift to be that was like a good aspect of my gifts to be a shape-shifter in a sense to adapt and shift myself to and I had also this very empathic, intuitive sense to accommodate other people. Other people saw themselves and so becoming the version of me that would most bolster up the way they saw themselves. And that was a way again, of really harmfully bypassing boundaries because there was never that natural moment that happens with healthy boundaries when like my boundaries bump up against your boundaries and there's friction and a little conflict than we figure out who we want to be together in space.  

And so, I had to learn to do that. I had to learn bit by bit. How do I create boundaries that are flexible so they can move through me throughout my day? Not just like big walls or like having nothing. How do I create boundaries that are intelligent so they can sense into my surroundings and respond intelligently to them? How do I create boundaries that are permeable, so they can draw in the energy I need and release energy that doesn't serve me? And then, how do I sort of energetically nourish and feed and strengthen those boundaries when I need to sort of upgrade them in my life in different ways? Like one because the boundaries you have maybe in high school isn’t necessarily the boundary you need when you're you know, working a full-time job and have kids necessarily.  

So, a lot of what I would say is for me, there's sort of three components to having healthy boundaries, three main components, like categories of techniques. And one of them is just like what I think is out there really in a really good way right now, which is just a basic psychological understanding of what does it look like to have good boundaries. Like strong yesses, strong noes, you know being able to ask for what you need in the moment when you need it, being able to negotiate needs and boundaries. You know, that's just basic ways of navigating throughout our day that are actions that are important, but then there's also the energetic component of our boundaries. This sort of like egg-shaped structure that defines our space, that we know when someone's in that space they’re in our space. And that energetic component needs sort of energetic hygiene practices to maintain it in my experience. And so, for me, that looks like a chi gong practice. Different people have different ways of doing that but ways of stepping out of just like a little tiny computer screens and our day-to-day life and into the formless energies of that allow us to like, be in that state where we feel that our atoms are made up of the same stuff every other atom of other living beings and being that flow of nourishment. So, we can simultaneously have this protection while also cultivating this connection and not feel like boundaries means not being connected or being isolated. And then the third component is just the intention. You know, understanding energetically that all those qualities I was sharing of healthy boundaries so we can begin to develop that as an energetic habit intentionally as you move throughout our day and have an awareness of that structure as well.  

Maryam: I love that so much and I just really appreciate you know, the clarity around again sort of like the mind’s idea of like having a healthy boundary and then understanding that we have, you know, an orc field, an energy field, being able to sort of sense the outer layers of our aura, and also starting to become aware of you know, what like you said like the energetic hygiene piece that needs nourishment, it needs repair sometimes just like just like brushing your teeth, you know, washing our hands, like cleansing and clearing our aura and attuning into like our energy and noticing when we’re enmeshing with other people and becoming aware of that those feelings and sensations of like oh I’m wondering why I'm not I can't find my clarity right? Or why I'm sort of feeling a little nauseous in my stomach? And like all those different more subtle realm things that have to do with like the way that our subtle body lets us know that we're not owning our space, right?  

Like I think that oftentimes the sort of like overall boundary conversation doesn't go into the realm of energetic boundaries. So, I really love that you had that just very clear outline of like, you know here are all the you know, the parts… it’s very similar to the way that I see it. And one thing I would love to have you, you know share with us, I think this is just such an important thing for people. I think sometimes when people hear about like, okay, like boundaries, I get it, I'm gonna do it and everyone's going to be okay with it. I think it's very important to understand that that is not often the case. That when you start having those clear boundaries, when you start having that like definite no, that other people for a variety of reasons maybe because they are used to you deferring to creating safety or used to you, you know worrying about how everyone else's feelings are because you're overly empathing, you know, everything when you start to say like “I don't think I'm going to do that anymore” people have a lot of feelings about that. And I would love you to sort of just talk about that part of the journey of like when you start to say like, okay, I'm going to do this boundaries thing and how the world responds to that. 

Langston: Yes. So, I love that you brought that up. So sometimes I have clients that I'm working with and they'll be really scared to start engaging their boundaries. Like they've done the deep inner work to understand what their healthy boundaries feel like and they have them but they're still feeling scared of starting to embody them more fully in their life because they're afraid they're going to be alone. You know, they’re just going to be being alone, and what my experience is is yes, you know, some people do leave our life when we change our boundaries radically because our relationship with them predicated on them having a certain level of access to our energy that changes.  

With that said, what I find is the people in our life with healthy boundaries themselves usually are really relieved when we shift our boundaries just like, uh, like I wasn't gonna say anything but thank god now that I think of and you’re like I’m not even saying anything you just feel this deeper level of intimacy and ease that's possible once you're both showing up with stronger boundaries. Because if we think of this sort of very new age idea that like to really be one with the universe mean dissolving all boundaries. If you're totally one with the universe, the universe would crush you, you know! And like if you think of like a cell in your body, you don't want one of your heart cells to suddenly be like, I just want to be one with Langston I'm free and then like kill you by like collapsing its boundary. So, we need boundaries to be in relationship. That there's this way that relationship equals distance plus connection. And so, we need that distance that allows for that deep intimate heart connection to occur in a safe way. 

Maryam: Hundred percent. Absolutely. I always say that you know even skin is a boundary. You know, if we didn't have skin like we wouldn't even hold all the contents of you know, our organs and our blood and all of that together. It's just that simple and one thing I always think is important to point out is that you know for me, I think some people getting you said it, you said you know sort of the difference between like a wall and a boundary. I think some people when they think about boundaries, they’re thinking about how to weaponize, you know, their, you know, their energy or their “no” to sort of get a reaction out of someone or to let someone know they're not happy with them and like well, “I'm going to set a boundary.”  

And for me, I always feel that you know, boundaries are neutral, you know, they're about integrity. They're not about judgment. It's not just like that thing is bad. And you know that thing is, you know, low vibes and I need a boundary with all the low vibes. It's not that. It's very simple things, even like, you know, “oh, you know, when you come to my house, make sure to take your shoes off” like that's just a boundary, right? So, it can be very, very neutral and not a judgment and I always say it's I'm letting you know how to love me. I'm letting you know my love language. Right, like when I'm telling you my boundaries it's like you don't have to guess how to show up for me because I'm going to be really clear about you know what I need and I always am one of those people that appreciates people's boundaries very much and their ability to articulate the boundaries. 

Langston: Yeah. Yeah, and I appreciate that emphasis on the neutrality. I think we've because we live in such a codependent culture in a way, we so often are trying to get needs met without giving voice to them directly. And so, I think we can perceive noes as value judgments when they're actually just a no. [laughs] You know, there’s this quote “no is a complete sentence”, you know, it's like we need to I think it's really helpful. The more that we're talking about boundaries like saying like this is my boundary or like I'm being I need to be more firm with my boundaries. I feel the less we’re actually just taking the actions that are having healthy boundaries. Because you don't need to talk about them a lot when you have them. It’s not that you don't need to give voice to them. But you don't have to say that they’re a boundary you just say this is what I want in this moment or this is what I'm needing, or this is what I'm not needing.  

And also, I think a mature relationship with boundaries understands that it's not just about everyone catering to your boundaries, but understanding we're all in this human thing together, and so it's important to ask myself in this moment, am I honoring my limits and boundaries and am I honoring this other person's limits and boundaries and be willing to be in that dance together. Understanding just like I was saying part of that dance is going to be moving into discomfort and even conflict and that conflict is not necessarily violent or necessarily harmful that conflict can allow us to understand the kind of boundaries we desire in relationship with each other and whatever we decide again doesn't have to have a value judgment attached to it it’s just how we want to be together in this moment and that can change. 

Maryam: Right. Right, and I think how it lands sometimes for people that don't have clear boundaries when you set a boundary, it not only makes them aware of what's happening in that moment. Also, in a way it makes them aware that they don't give themselves permission to say no and that can be really triggering as well. So, I definitely feel like you know boundaries could have been the whole conversation today. So, but I definitely knew that we had to you know touch on that because I think that this is just a moment in time where the conversation around boundaries is up, I do see a lot of misinformation and like you said oftentimes it's because we're not taking it into that energetic boundary realm. We're missing the whole other part of the conversation. So, I definitely love that. 

This part of the conversation I'm really excited to have with you as well because I feel like this was one of the number one things that we both wanted to kind of touch on, and it is talking about radical accountability. And I know that you talk a lot about that in your book and I wanted to just invite us to go really deep into this conversation around accountability and what it means for us right now because of some of the things that I see online happening is starting to move into this place of a lot of accountability abuse. A lot of shaming, a lot of cancel culture, a lot of sort of wokeness, a lot of bad faith criticisms that are really intended to undermine and demoralize again similar to the boundary thing, but it's like “oh, but I'm just holding you accountable. I'm just trying to hold you accountable.”  

And I think one, I want you to talk about sort of radical accountability, and then I'd love to have you go a little bit deeper into the nuance of talking about sort of like the discernment that we have to have regarding the intentions of the people who are trying to hold us accountable. Right? Like do we are we really obligated to listen to every sort of bad faith critic who wants to hold us accountable and where does that like that relationship with kind of boundaries and radical accountability sort of come in so I'm very, very excited to hear you share about this.  

Langston: Yeah. So, one thing I’ll say, it just comes to mind as you're speaking is the difficulty with defining community and who we are in community with, in this internet age where the boundaries are so porous. Not even just internet age like hyper social media age where we have people we connect with on Instagram and on Facebook and on Twitter and in our own personal communities and email, you know, it's like there's so many different boundaries that we're having to tend to all the time and it's very easy to lose ourselves in that terrain because it can shift so rapidly from things completely outside of us like just how an arbitrary decision one of those companies makes about a shift in their own policies that affect our boundaries. And so, I think for me it's been very helpful to have a clear understanding of who my community is first and foremost.  

So, I have a lot of communities that I'm part of, but my sort of the heart community I'm part of in a sense is the Last Mask community, my shamanic community, and in that community how I define the word community is a group of people with shared skills that are working together towards a shared vision. And so, this is a learning community, so none of us are perfect, you know as if anyone is, but we're all working together to figure out how to do this. It's not like we have all the answers, but I find that already helps clear so much static when I just know this is my community, and this is who I am first and foremost accountable to. There are other people I intersect with that I consider community that I'm also accountable with in different ways, but I don't use that that word community lightly. So, I try to only use it if there's people that have agreed to shared beliefs and commit not beliefs but practices and commitments with me and values that we’re working towards together. So that helps a lot.  

Maryam: I absolutely agree with you. I feel one, knowing who you are accountable to I think is a really big piece of how to do that discernment. I also similar to you, I also feel the same way about people that have the shared tools so that we do have certain ways that we work through conflict that are you know, we have that repertoire of the you know, when this sort of happens like we both know how to do the work and we're both committed to doing the work. And then also I have often found that you know, there are definitely those people that are you know, my mentors, my teachers that I defer, you know to their wisdom in terms of holding me accountable because they know my journey, they know my past, they've been you know watching over me and they understand the direction I'm trying to go in. I think one of my concerns about sort of internet accountability is that often times I find that people are trying to hold you accountable to values that are not your values, right?  

And so, when I think about accountability, I think about I'm holding you accountable to who you agreed to be. You know, I'm holding you accountable to when you step outside of who you have told me you know, that is who you're here to be. I'm you know, I went to hold a mirror up to you to show you that you you've stepped outside of that and so I'm invested in your growth. I kind of have a concern with holding people accountable, but we're not really invested in their path and we don't necessarily even know who they are. Right? 

Langston: Absolutely. Yeah, I think that's so important to when we're you know something I think about a lot if I'm going to enter into a conversation with someone around accountability or transformation is like am I willing to ask of myself what I'm asking of them? And that's not a fun question to ask ourselves always because I really feel like I shouldn't have to do what I'm asking of them. They're the ones that have the problem but like in my experience no real transformation happens in a relationship unless you are asking of someone transformation that you are also willing to undergo as part of that relationship.  

If you're going and assuming I have all the answers and you need to change, I don't have to do anything then nothing's going to change because we're in a system, you know, we’re in a living system, a closed system together. And so, you know, I think a lot of course about our beautiful ancestor Octavia Butler and you know, “all that you touch you change, all that you change changes you,” there's this way that we need to really reckon with that concept that change happens through us changing, being willing to change as well and it just the nature of trying to take anything changes us.  

And so, I think one aspect of accountability and community is that we need to not wait until we feel the need to hold someone accountable to be engaging accountability practices. And so, one thing that we do in my community is we have weekly calls where we engage in the deep liberation process in this book where we're just supporting each other and moving inwards and withdrawing our projections and stepping out of collusion and just engaging with the ways life is teaching us proactively before they turn into disasters. And I think when we're not doing that regular practice that we’re committed to before something goes wrong, there's all this waste being generated in community. This happens in any living system, you know waste happens, shit happens, you know? And so, there's… if we're not proactively clearing that waste together then it explodes in these moments when something goes wrong, and it quickly becomes very hard to actually have any real process of change or accountability. 

Maryam: I need to implement that practice with my community. I love that just very clear. It feels very clear feels very intentional. And yeah, I really deeply resonate with that idea. I think we have time for two more questions, maybe one or two more questions. I would love you… you had so many tools and practices and processes in the book, which is one thing again as a practitioner you know, I was like, okay. These are really like concrete things that you can go through experientially step-by-step just sort of do the work and then the through the whole book overall it was very comprehensive of like a roadmap of you know, here's how you do it. And I was very familiar with many of the tools that you share that I also have in my toolkit, but one that really stuck out to me that was new to me, but I just love sort of this synthesis of all the parts of it, which is the truth cord. And I know that that's a practice that I believe comes through your teacher Christina Pratt. So, I would just love for you to share with the audience about what you feel called to share about what is the truth chord?  

Langston: Yeah, so the truth cord is our relationship, an embodiment of our relationship with truth that allows us to cultivate a relationship with truth that's a little bit bigger than just our personal sense of truth. Now to understand this we need to understand there's sort of three main centers of knowing and you know one cosmology way of looking at the body. So, there's sort of like the inspiration of our mind that leads us on the path of like a vision. There's the intuition in our heart sort of like our heart’s pulling us towards something, there’s an intuitive pull. And then there's the instinct of our belly in our gut that kind of primal yes or no response to something.  

And so, the heart and the mind alone are very easily hijacked. We can think we're following this vision of cultivating social justice in the world and if you look back at that person's wake or our own wake you see this trail of injustice that you're generating, so it's like somehow that vision became hijacked in the process. And with your heart you could know that you're following the pull of your heart and you're finding yourself more and more off-centered and like your life turning upside down and less and less things making sense and like often that's I'm not talking about the good way that could happen, but in the way that you're just like wind up like five years later, like what just happened the last five years I need to pick my life back together and it's because our heart has become hijacked. It’s not that we weren't following our heart. It's our heart was hijacked.  

And so, we’re following that hijacked heart, but the instinct that yes or no, is harder to hijack. And often, it’s there for most of us unless some of us have experienced extreme types of trauma around that area of the body. It can be difficult or can take time to rebuild our relationship with that primal sense of yes or no in the body. But if we can connect all three of those centers of knowing together and then connect those to the energy of the above this sort of like what you might call in a Daoist cosmology like true yang energy of you know, blessing and protection of divinity and just the that wisdom of the above and the cosmos and our connection to all living things in the universe and then anchoring down to that center of the Earth, that original dream of the Earth that holds that wisdom of manifestation. Then that truth core becomes a powerful thing that not only unites your three centers of knowing but also plugs them into these much bigger cosmic centers of knowing and then allows you to discern truth regardless of source, regardless if you like the source, or if you like the truth or if you’re uncomfortable with it and begin to really feel the truth is a felt sense in your body you can orient to throughout your day.  

And I think in this time when we're so overwhelmed by so much information coming at us all the time, and so much deliberate misinformation, and deliberate hijacking of our desires and our instincts, it's essential that we're cultivating something like the truth cord to help us navigate. 

Maryam: [sighs] So important. And I mean when I tell you that I read that process I was like, oh, this is the one for me honey. Cause I definitely often talked about how we have to get to that point where truth isn't just about liking people, right? Like it can't just be like, oh, well, I like that person, so what they're saying is the truth, right? I've definitely liked people that weren't good for me, right like so that's the thing and it is important for us to recognize that sometimes we don't have to resonate with the messenger, and we can you know get to that sort of place of spiritual maturity of saying, you know, and that person is definitely speaking truth. Right?  

And it only benefits us when we are willing to see the world in a way that goes much deeper than just like and dislike right, and it allows us to tap more into that felt sense that you talked about because I think like I think we do, and I love that it's such a clear sort of like cohesive process. I think ultimately if we're attuned and we're centered and grounded and connected into you know, the cosmos like truth has a resonance to it. Like it… it’s… you feel it and you know it but like you said when there's aspects of us that are hijacked or when there's too much foreign energy in our space, it's so easy to lose our clarity. It's so easy to feel like we're moving from a place that is you know, our truth and it's really not it's ancestral. So, I love that like really like connecting on all cylinders and then engaging with you know truth. I think that just it just feels very tapped in for me. So, I love that process.  

I think one more question I'm going to squeeze in… actually it’s a quote. I'm gonna close out with my other favorite quote in the book, which is, “not using your power is also an abuse of power.” I just loved this so much for so many reasons. You talked a lot about abuses of power. And think that you know this particular quote from the book really speaks to this moment of a lot of people coming online, especially a lot of people that are sensitives, feelers, intuitives, and we have we have seen what can happen with the very known version of the abuse of power, but highlighting that you know, not using your power’s also an abuse of power. Like there’s just a clarity and that really spoke to me. And it just like, it's just like that sword that cuts through the last layer of the illusion and showing that it's like it's really both sides of the same coin and to figure out where you sort of fall in that is really the work right now so that you can step into your power, but I'd love to have you just offer what you feel called to offer around that quote. 

Langston: Yeah, I think one thing I might say is just how I define power and there's you know, it depends on the day how I'm defining power. There's all different ways to talk about power, but in relationship to this quote, I think of power not as power over, not as domination. This like sort of colonial idea of power, but power as that ability to connect with the innermost essence of our being and bring it out into expression in the world in service to a vision. Often in service to a vision that's bigger than ourselves bigger than our small individual self. Maybe a community vision or maybe a larger shared vision, and that to me is power. And when so when I felt you know most liberated around my power is not when I'm just like alone and in solitude or free to do whatever I want, you know, it's when I'm in community that truly supports me in my authenticity and wants to see all the uniqueness that I came here to be come into expression in service of what we're working towards together and as we’re working towards that vision together, they're reflecting back to me those aspects of myself that maybe I haven't even seen before because to me they're just so natural and they're reflecting how essential and vital those parts are and then they're also collecting the ways I'm not stepping into that that uniqueness and beauty of me.  

And so, to not use your power is to abandon the unique love that you came here to be. It's to rob people of that love, and so when we think about, you know, I don't want to take up too much space or I know even when we think of like I have a lot of white privilege and power so I should make sure other voices speak. Yes, I think that's so important to be making sure that you're lifting up voices that have less rank, privilege, and power than you do, and you need to find other ways to express your power outside of these systems of domination and hierarchy as well. You don't just get to like step back to the sidelines and be silent. That as human beings we’re all indispensable. You know from a shamanic perspective, we all came here with a unique energy to embody on this Earth, that if it is not embodied the entire fabric of the universe gets depreciated  

Maryam: I love that so much. And in my tradition, the way we talk about that is that you know, it's a whole cosmic orchestra, and the only way that the orchestra is complete is everyone is singing their unique song and what that song is is like your unique frequency or energy signature and however you choose to express that so I love that. I love that from a shamanic perspective and I just I find a lot of yeah, I just find so much truth in you know, you're the way that you've sort of distilled this work and the way that you talk about it. And yeah, I just, I really appreciate your work so much. I'm grateful that I was introduced to you and your work and that I had the opportunity to have this second beautiful conversation with you and with the other people who joined us this evening. I'm excited for people to experience your book and your beautiful stories. And also, just the beautiful medicine that it offers, and I am just grateful for you stepping into your truth and for sharing that with us and I'm just very grateful for this opportunity to be with you this evening. Yeah. 

Langston: Thank you so much Maryam. 

Maryam: Yeah. What are your closing thoughts? 

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Thank you for listening to the CIIS Public Programs Podcast. Our talks and conversations are presented live in San Francisco, California. We recognize that our university’s building in San Francisco occupies traditional, unceded Ramaytush Ohlone lands. If you are interested in learning more about native lands, languages, and territories, the website native-land.ca is a helpful resource for you to learn about and acknowledge the Indigenous land where you live. 
 
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