Thomas Hübl: Hello, and welcome. My name is Thomas Hübl and I’m the convener of the Collective Trauma Summit, and I’m so delighted to be sitting here with you, Ayo. You’re most welcome here.
Ayo Tometi: Thank you, I’m so glad to be here with you as well.
Thomas: Thank you. So, the Collective Trauma Summit is a space where we listen to many, many different diverse voices all around the world. People are coming and looking, how can we actually heal together collectively? We have massive wounds around the world. I’m creating collective healing spaces, and maybe you can speak a little bit to, how do you see, how do we create collective healing spaces? What works, what do we need to be aware of that we create safe spaces to heal collective wounds? We’ll start there.
Ayo: Not a small question.
Thomas: Right, take the whole time that you need.
Ayo: I just got to say, one of the reasons I was so excited to join you was because to me, this is the most important question of our time, massive scale healing from tremendous amounts of trauma, from institutional, structural, historical, interpersonal, to intimate. There’s so many ways in which we know people are dealing with a host of traumatic experiences across their lifetimes, and even things that we might’ve inherited and that we’re navigating even in the very real world. And so to me, these types of dialogues are just truly, truly, truly paramount and the leading edge for the work, truly the work, and so I’m grateful. I’m so grateful. That was a resounding yes when the invitation came my way, and honestly, what I would say is that first and foremost, we have to create spaces where we can gather and share our own stories. I think there’s some little things that we could do, and then of course there are the big things that we can do, but I feel like those are the types of practices that are small within the realm of possibility at any given time for us to do.
And storytelling, sharing, sitting real deep listening is powerful and can lead to real transformation individually, institutionally, and of course around the world. And to me, that is one of the key ways in which my work has quite honestly unfolded. Oftentimes, I think people think about social justice work, human rights work, racial justice work, the host of work that I’ve done, if it’s immigrant rights, to domestic violence survivors, but so much of what was central to each aspect or each season of my life and the ways I had to show up for each of the organizations that I was leading or each of the times in which I was maybe leading a healing circle or an educational space.
It always came down to people being able to share what was truly going on with them, what was plaguing them, what was in their heart, what their real lived experiences were, and being able to get that off their chest was a beginning of the healing journey. But of course, larger scale healing involves transforming the conditions that led to that harm, so that doesn’t happen again, so we don’t see those cycles of harm, of violence, of injustice continue to play out over time. And so, that I feel like is an additional sphere of the work, but certainly what the theme seems to be for the kinds of work I’ve done across my life has been just this making time to hear people, to listen deeply, to listen honestly, and not to…
There’s this term called gaslighting I’m sure you’ve heard of, but so often if people feel like they’re being gaslit when they’re saying, “Hey, this is going on, this is what’s happening to me, this is what my experience is,” and they’re being told that’s not true, it’s not really happening. This happens on an individual or even intimate level, but also happens at the collective level as well. And so, being in spaces where people are able to share and not have that almost kind of violent retort to their honest testimony giving is really, really important, and just one initial phase of the work.
Thomas: Oh, that’s amazing. I so wholeheartedly agree. I love that you love collective healing because I think that’s where we are going, that’s what we need in order to speed up healing on the planet. You said so many things maybe I want to touch in, one is, of course, we are living in a society where retraumatization happens all the time, especially through racism. So, I will come back to that in a moment. You said also deep listening. Can you speak a little bit to what are the qualities that when people create a listening space, what are the qualities that deep listening shows that we feel and what’s the effect of that? Because I think also that that’s one of the core elements.
Ayo: Well, deep listening to me is so important in part because it does provide this space for real energy to be transferred, real honest communication to be shared, and for not just the basic hearing of the audio, but to really feel deeply what is actually occurring and the opportunity for transformation… Excuse me, the opportunity for transformation occurs and lives in that space of sincere, deep listening. And why I really want to lean into this is because to me, this point around healing, especially as a collective is so paramount and it is in fact what we are designed to do. I’ve been thinking recently a lot about my body. I’m going through a whole healing journey myself, physically even. I fell, I hurt my knee last year. It created a bit of a cascade effect where I realized it was actually an issue that was happening in my foot and my hip that caused my knee to be so susceptible and so vulnerable.
And it got me thinking about our world, humanity, humanity as a body, as a living, vibrant, dynamic organism where all parts indeed do matter and play a function and are quite literally so valuable. However, when we take for granted one part or another part, we see the vulnerabilities lead to real challenges, and that’s quite literally what I was fighting myself. I was limping. I ended up having what they were calling is… Oh gosh, I can’t even remember the term now, but essentially I created a whole host of other issues and had to go back to the foundations of my gait pattern, quite literally how I was walking to repair my entire chain of mobility and movement from the ground up. And when I took a step back and started to think about it, I’m like, “This is in fact actually the work that we have to do.”
There is trauma or a real crisis that has shown itself in the body of humanity, and we are obligated to heal it, but heal it from a stance of let’s address the root challenges, so that we’re not just putting a bandaid or a mere stitch on it and just kind of move and move and move and move and go as if it’s not going to reopen or cause a glitch again and again and again. It’s showing us something, it’s opening us up to an opportunity to heal, to repair, to be stronger, to be better. And quite literally, I’m now having the strongest legs that I’ve ever had, and I’m doing all these things that I’ve literally never done because I thought, “Oh, my knee can’t handle it.” But it was like, “No,” I needed to strengthen these other muscles around it. I needed to understand what was happening with my foot.
I needed to create within me the strength to have a new gait pattern and ultimately I’m happier, healthier, doing things that I had never done even though I’m older. So, it’s just profound, and I feel that is absolutely the same for humanity, for us as human beings in this human condition and living and dwelling and trying to strengthen and build healthy societies that work for all of us. This is the invitation is for real health, real safety, real opportunities for us to grow and to be better together, and honestly, that to me starts with that ability to listen, ability to hear, and be open to what the body is saying, so that we can do better, so we can heal and live our optimal lives.
Thomas: That’s beautiful, that’s so wise. It’s lovely. I love it, and I so much agree. Also, I like how you saw in yourself, you can’t continue without looking deeper and then rebuild something from deeper up. That’s a lovely metaphor, and you also correlated it with the body of humanity that that’s what we have to do in society. That’s what is the work that we need to do, it’s beautiful. It’s just lovely how it came into your life as a teaching kind of for you to do this yourself and then transmit it to others. It’s beautiful.
Ayo: It was also, let me be honest, very humbling.
Thomas: Of course.
Ayo: This is the time to heal this thing once and for all. You’ve been dealing with this for so many years and it’s like, “Finally I am.” And guess what? As I got over the hump, I’m now doing things that I’m like, I thought I wouldn’t be able to do, so it’s actually really quite exciting and makes me very happy, but it was humbling. That’s also part of the challenge I think as a larger society is not to give into maybe the shame around like, “Oh gosh, this thing hurt or this thing is telling me something,” but it’s like, “No, let me listen. What’s my body saying? Or what’s this person saying? Or what is this feedback that I’m getting?” And if I put the ego in its place, what can I really learn? What’s the opportunity here and what’s the chance for me… What is it showing me? What is the choice I really have? And if we are able to manage our egos-
Thomas: That’s true.
Ayo: … I think we have a real opportunity to do something, and like I said, it was humbling and it’s been a humbling journey where I’m at home or at the physical therapist doing these very basic exercises, but I needed to relearn. I needed to do the basic work of relearning how to walk in a way that was going to make me stronger, and I’m not relying on muscles that didn’t need to be relied on or not… It’s just what it is.
Thomas: That’s so beautiful, and I think you also spoke… Because you’re speaking already about through your own journey, you speak so much wisdom about the collective journey because you said it’s humbling. Isn’t it amazing when we all become a bit more humble and then we can feel and listen in a different way than when we know how things are? You’re speaking exactly to the quality of listening and also collectively listening. That’s true for your body, but it’s also true for other people that come into our life. What are they telling us and what are they telling us on a deeper level? It’s really beautiful. So, that’s lovely, and since I do this the whole day, working on trauma, listening, deepening, and together exploring with many people how we get to that place that we can listen to the deeper root and also maybe just not in our life, in our ancestors’ life in the collective, but what we do need is, I think, to make sure that, if we can, to stop the retraumatization.
And you spoke about this a little bit before, and I think also as the co-founder of Black Lives Matter, how can we all work together to stop that it’s happening again? What do you see works? How can we look at this and what motivated you? Because Black Lives Matter also arose from trauma basically, and how we’re trying to deal with it. So, tell us a little bit about the journey and what we can all do to create the circumstances that we can truly heal.
Ayo: I’m going to talk about this in a way that I haven’t, but I feel rather compelled in part because of your energy and the work that I know you’re committed to. And I’ll say this, a lot of people know that Black Lives Matter was started in the wake of really the collective… Gosh, we were watching the trial for George Zimmerman, the man who killed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Florida, and it was clearly a large news story, it was something that we were all watching. It was on our news, it was being broadcast to the world, quite literally being broadcast to the world, and I know that I was watching it. I know several hundreds of thousands of people were watching and people that I know were watching it. And while we were all watching this story, it felt as though this 17-year-old boy who had been in fact stalked and killed while he was on his way to his dad’s house, wasn’t doing anything, just had Skittles and an Arizona ice tea in his hand.
He happened to be wearing a hoodie, but he’s in his dad’s community not doing anything, but he was stalked and killed. And first of all, that story in and of itself sickened me, made me very, very sad, clearly disturbed countless people, and they organized to ensure that George Zimmerman was going to be held to account. But here’s where I want to step back and say something I haven’t shared publicly, which is that as a young child growing up, the daughter of Nigerian immigrants, I was born and raised in Phoenix, Arizona, grew up in Arizona, and as a kid, I pretty much had a rather idyllic childhood. And it wasn’t until I was probably in sixth, seventh, eighth grade learning about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and rather naively thinking, “Oh my gosh, this man did all these great things. I’m learning about history. Wow, it’s all done, it’s over. Glad that thing happened and that’s why I’m living this amazing life.”
Fast-forward a few years, having instances of my own trauma, family, racism, xenophobia, a number of other things, seeing different things with my friends and family, only to realize that no, this great speech or series of actions didn’t mean that I was invincible or that trauma was no longer alive well, or that injustice was done. I learned this very early on and it set me on this trajectory to stop it because I essentially felt I was a young person who was made to believe that things were okay and no, they were not. And when I saw what was happening with the case of George Zimmerman and the way in which they were portraying young, now killed Trayvon Martin, as though he was actually on trial, it was just a very bizarre, sad, disturbing case, it made it abundantly clear that the work was far, far from over.
And mind you, I was already doing organizing, but there was something about the broadcasting of this type of language and narrative about the sanctity and dignity and quality of Black life and what our possibilities were and could be, and I just quite honestly could not abide by it. And I was thinking about my youngest brother who was 14 years old at the time, and I just knew that something had to happen, that more needed to be done. I could not imagine that this would be the end of the story, that this man would be let to go free, and even though we all knew what he had done, it was essentially going to be okay.
And so, that was why it was so important for me to collaborate with the two other co-founders of Black Lives Matter and thousands of people across the country, which turned into millions and so on, but I take us back a beat because for me it was clear that this was intergenerational, that we don’t get to a place in our society where you can kill somebody, innocent somebody, a child, and get away with it if there wasn’t a culture that was with some degree of trauma, of violence. And same thing, fast-forward, sadly, if it’s Mike Brown or Renisha McBride or even George Floyd more recently in 2020, which opened up a whole other host of questions and activism and organizing, which was so important. And I feel like it’s important for me to just state that the work for Black people, I know that we feel it as intergenerational work.
This is work that’s been passed on to us to do because we cannot deny it, we can’t avoid it, and it shows up on our doorstep. And at some point you’re like, “Enough is enough.” Yes, I would rather do something else, but guess what? When I can’t walk around in broad daylight and feel safe or go to my doctor and feel like they’re going to trust that when I say my body is in pain, it is really in pain, or trust that your child can go to school and not be bullied for the color of their skin, or to be ridiculed or made to feel less than because of how they answer a question. There are all these be it microaggressions to very large scale institutional violence that takes place, and it’s clear that we have to address the work both in intimate spaces, but also on an institutional level. And to me, the work of Black Lives Matter really lays that bare for all of us, quite frankly.
Thomas: It does, and it also is amazing how painful it is to listen to you, to all the things that you’re sharing. It’s painful, and at the same time, I think only when we allow ourselves the pain to be really felt, it turns into care. Because if not, there’s this… We are looking often at normalizing trauma, so then we say things that sound like, “Oh, we are going to the grocery store,” but we actually said something so important that has such a meaning, but it sounds like sometimes so normalized, so de-normalizing trauma and being able to embody it again, I think is very important. So, that’s how I feel when I listen to you.
Ayo: Well, it just made me think about something, and thank you so much for saying that because it made me think, I was reflecting on this a little while ago with somebody else, and I said, what was so profound to me and so deeply moving to me in 2020, it was really devastating…What everybody was going through, we’re in the midst of a pandemic, we’re trying to understand what’s happening with our health, and can we go to work? There’s a number of things we’re navigating, and who’s on the front line and will they be safe? My mom’s a nurse, and so I was very, very much so worried about her, and then George Floyd is murdered in broad daylight by a police officer. And what I was struck by and what I was moved by was that people of all hues, of all cultures, of all backgrounds took to the streets.
They courageously, considering their conscience, considering the implications of what was happening in the world, despite the health implications and so on, they knew something was so egregious in what was happening in the world that they needed to be out there and chanting, being part of the collective and bringing about a new kind of world, and even using their words to declare that, Black Lives Matter and so on, other kinds of phrases, but quite literally calling forth a new world with their words, with their chanting, with their togetherness in the street. And why it’s so profound to me is because this was a time in our collective lives where millions of people maybe for the first time were forced to pause, were quite literally forced to take a beat, to be still, to face and confront all sorts of things going on, maybe in their personal lives and in other things, but this was a time that they finally had a moment to “themselves”.
And what they chose to do en masse was to say, “I see my Black neighbors being treated in a way, and maybe I’ve heard of it before, maybe I saw it in the news, maybe I came across it, but I’m fed up. I’m tired. I actually don’t want to live in a world where this is the status quo and in fact I finally have time or whatever, but I’m going to put my values and my beliefs into action and I want to show up and show solidarity and illustrate to the world what I actually believe.” And to me that is profound because we’re so often so busy and preoccupied and doing all kinds of things, and we don’t have a time for stillness, unless you’re in a spiritual practice or some other types of things, but oftentimes we’re not in that posture where we can also listen and to see and to bear witness.
And finally people were kind of forced to bear witness, and what their conscience told them was, “No, no, no, no, enough is enough. I will not abide by this kind of violence and injustice and racism. I don’t want to live in a world where that is the status quo. I want another world,” and they acted on it. And to me that was just so profound and instilled in me such a kind of faith in humanity, despite what certain numbers might say now or this and that. I know when push came to shove where people really stood were on the side overwhelmingly of justice, they were about life and dignity and respect, and I tell you, that was important to witness. The kind of healing that I believe people really desire looks like that, and people are willing to do something about it. So, I don’t know why I had to interrupt you, but you inspired that thought in me as you were speaking just now and I wanted to share it.
Thomas: I love it, and first of all, I deeply see the same way, and it’s amazing when you see that force being unleashed. So, in let’s say when I look at, how does collective trauma work, that is actually our natural state. I believe the collective immune system has to act like that all the time, and the question is, why doesn’t it do it all the time? So, what actually blocks that immune response at certain times? It’s interesting.
Ayo: I think that’s absolutely right. I think there’s so many things that cause us to opt into certain ideologies that maintain the status quo, and of course there are institutions that essentially codify the status quo and codify ideologies. If it’s sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, ableism, you name it, but essentially codify and enshrine that into law and make it normal, and then reinforcing those kinds of negative patterns that then make it so much easier just to numb and to think that things that are the status quo are okay when they really are not, when our bodies are oftentimes signaling something else. And if we were to really tune in and give it a bit of time, we would understand the way forward.
Thomas: And I love it also that you mentioned numbing because I completely agree that basically we have been born into a world that was already traumatized, our ancestral trauma. We came into that environment that we normalized because we grew up in it, and then we take certain things for granted. That’s why I often say that’s not how the world is. Certain things are the world when it’s hurt and when there’s a lot of trauma and a lot of transgression in this world, and then we live in this kind of circumstances, but when we de-normalize it, and one is absence and numbness, so that’s why there’s so little response, but I think we need to be on the street.
If there’s a war somewhere, billions of people should get up and say, “No, we’re not doing that.” Exactly, right, so I love the same what you said. For me, it was also very touching, and we are seeing this also because I live at the moment in Israel, and we are seeing this also how hundreds of thousands of people all the time on the street for something that’s simply not okay, and it has such a power. It’s amazing, so there is something about getting up for democracy, getting up to preserve certain values that I really find very powerful.
Ayo: Absolutely, and to be clear, that is activism and community organizing, which I’ll say… Maybe I’ll just define it really quickly, which is essentially the coordination and collaboration amongst individuals, a collective of people with a clear goal, with a clear strategy in mind on how to reach that goal. So, a little bit different than the one-off activism or running into streets, but really saying, here’s our goal, here’s how we’re going to get it, here’s how we’re going to gather in meetings with a plan of action and build power to achieve that goal, and that to me is also part of the healing work.
I know oftentimes healing isn’t described as activism or organizing, but to be clear, in order to heal, we must be willing to hear, we must be willing to see, we must be willing to address the injustice or the violence or whatever it is that is causing that trauma and wounding, we have to address that. And that is in fact the work of activism and community organizing, and that is almost like the first step, and then of course there’s the deeper work that must go on beyond that. But to me, that is important that we understand and recognize organizing, activism, that courageous work as part of our healing. Nurturing that courageous conscience within us, that re-sensitizing ourselves to our own humanity and the humanity and dignity of others is paramount. Recently, I found out that I am… Have you heard of this term HSP, highly sensitive person?
Thomas: Yeah.
Ayo: So, I recently found out I’m an HSP, which probably to everybody else who knows what that is, they’re like, “Of course you’re an HSP,” but I learned that I’m an HSP and I’m glad it essentially means that I’m sensitive and feel things. And I know for so long I attempted to not by overeating, by ignoring my knee pain, my hip… I have a whole bunch of other pain, but I was doing all these things to quite literally numb, but also emotionally numb. Let me be really honest, as much I’ve been activism and organizing and doing all this stuff for over two decades now, I also wanted to over index on the Netflix or the other things and really to opt out because the trauma is so great and it’s a lot, but part of my own healing journey has been around understanding it’s okay to feel then here’s how your nervous system can expand and here’s how we move things through the body.
And so, I’ve been on my own journey of understanding why there might be resistance to feeling, and that’s been illuminating to me as well, but I’ll go back to my first point, but that is just really understanding the courage and conscience that we have is a beautiful aspect of healing. And if we aren’t courageous enough to look at our own traumas or the things that are the root cause of those traumas, be it historical, if it’s legacy inherited, if it’s what’s happening in our day-to-day life, if it’s in our intimate relationships, if we’re not courageous enough to look at that, then we’re going to find ourselves in the same cycles year in and year out, and unfortunately pass them on to our descendants as well.
Thomas: You said something very powerful, if we don’t look at the trauma, then we are bound to repeat it, and I think that’s a very important sentence. Also, given the next generations, do we really want to pass that on or do we bring the courage to really look at that stuff? Even if it’s not easy and we don’t need to do it alone and it doesn’t need to go from one day to the next, but we need to create the ecosystems that are trauma-informed where we can heal together and know what are the ingredients. So, I see a little bit also our time and when many people might look into this… When I sit with you, I feel completely inspired. I feel so in resonance with you. I feel there’s just, I don’t know, the atmosphere of your spirit and kind of there’s such a joy.
And so, that kind of joy is I think very important. It seems to me that I feel that’s unique to your being and that’s also what inspires your work, and how can we kind of preserve this kind of positive recharging of our own battery in the midst of the pain that we see? Because you come across a lot of pain, I do the same. So for sure, there’s something that you can tell to people that feel a bit disillusioned in this world or feel that the weight is heavy. So, what are a few things that might be good for people to hear or maybe out of your own experience that might be inspiring them.
Ayo: I appreciate you saying that and making that note because that is true for me, and some people may or may not know this, but about two years ago I decided to start going by my middle name, which is Ayo, as opposed to my legal or given name, which was Opal, still true, still my name, but I have decided to go by Ayo, which means joy in the Yoruba language, the language is my dad. And to me, it was just an important reclamation and orienting to what I truly stand for and what I’m really going for.
The work that I’ve been engaged in for so long has and is around justice and showing that people have what they deserve and what they need and that we’re living a life that is harmonious and healthy, and that is very, very, very true to me. However, what I found myself doing and feeling is a little bit of lethargy and sadness and just looking around and seeing that, “Gosh, generation after generation we’re dealing with the same thing or we’re making two steps forward and then four steps back.” It just felt like this back and forth, and I felt myself not feeling quite myself and not feeling true to my essence and needing to really reclaim my essence, which I had always known, even from a spiritual level, was joy. However, I felt that I was getting a little bit distanced from that. And so on a personal level, I had to go through this process where I was essentially declaring joy as my birthright, and I do believe joy is everybody’s birth, and I had to go through that process with my name.
However, like I said, this to me is something that we are all entitled to and what I ultimately am really fighting for… My work isn’t towards just getting the bare minimum and just the person’s roof on their head. Yes, I believe we’re all entitled to that and that’s what we all should have, but I too want people to live in a state of thriving, of real in touch with the abundance that truly is, and I needed to be reminded of that, and I want to invite more people into that type of conversation because I believe we do have way more access to different types of resources that are healing and that open up possibilities for what is truly possible if we orient to our joy, orient to joy as a spiritual practice even. I’ve also been delving into that and in a way, and to me, it’s something that I want to invite more of us into.
I do believe people can and should feel a sense of levity when they’re with other people who are engaging in this type of work. That is one reason that I think people should join the community organization, be in community with people who are doing healing work, who are trying to contribute in a way. There’s something about collective action that is so powerful, but also restores our sense of wellbeing, and it’s something that only we can give to one another. There’s just something so beautiful about that, and I find myself when I’m feeling a little bit of despair, that it’s often because I feel like I’m alone, and the truth is we’re never alone. I’m never alone, we’re never alone. There is always somebody out there who also believes what you believe, who also shares in the struggle or the burden or the call that you also share in.
And honestly, that’s in part how Black Lives Matter came about. One person puts something out, Alicia puts something out, Patrisse puts a hashtag, I see it and say, “We need to build out a website and a platform,” but it’s like you are not alone. And speaking up and finding your tribe of people who are courageous, who are of conscious, finding those people who are willing to step up is part of what keeps me hopeful and what reinvigorates that sense of real joy and pleasure and even playfulness because there are ways in which we’re like, “This is a grand experiment. We’re doing it together,” and there doesn’t have to be a heaviness all the time around it. There are ways in which we can engage with one another that I do believe is lighter, that is more caring, maybe more compassionate.
I know that there is this discourse around being canceled and a number of things like that, but I believe that we are supposed to be dealing with people with a lot more compassion and doing our best to genuinely educate with humility. And yes, the stakes are high, let’s be very, very clear, but there is a way in which the right messenger with the right message, with the right person who’s really genuinely willing to listen, where we truly can be transformed and we can transform in a way that is not snarling and angry, but there is a space for no, we’re evolving together as a collective, and it’s a beautiful, delicious, amazing thing.
Thomas: First of all, I love that you say we are evolving together and I think that’s very important that we do it together and I feel your joy. I felt it from the first moment I saw you’re coming on, and it’s lovely, and throughout the conversation, I feel uplifted. I see your spirits in action, it’s beautiful, and it’s inspiring. It inspired me, and I’m sure many people who are listening here can feel uplifted. So, we need that strength also to deal with the amount of trauma that’s in the world, and so that we don’t drown together in the pain, but that we can actually transform it. I felt that through the conversation. I’m so happy that you’re doing what you’re doing. It was so lovely. Thank you so much for this conversation.
Ayo: Thank you so much. This was really my honor, so grateful. It feels good to be able to share so authentically and from my essence, so thank you so much.
Thomas: Thank you.
