132_Dr. Terrlyn Curry Avery
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Monica: Welcome to The Revelation Project Podcast. I'm Monica Rogers, and this podcast is intended to disrupt the trance of unworthiness and to guide women, to remember and reveal the truth of who we are. We say that life is a revelation project, and what gets revealed gets healed. Hello everyone. And welcome to another episode.

The Revelation Project Podcast. So today I'm with a very special guest who is rejoining us, and I couldn't be more thrilled to introduce you again to the Reverend Dr. Terrlyn L Curry Avery. Terrlyn is the creator of past allergy. The cutting edge field that focuses on the synergy between pastoring and psychology.

She holds a PhD from Hofstra university and a masters of divinity from Yale university. She calls herself a past ologist and is a transformational leader, coach, speaker, author, and retreat leader. The doctor, Reverend TLC also has a unique approach to healing, transformation and manifestation. She places the emphasis on the journey toward sacred intelligence, the ability to tap into one's internal source.

In order to move toward intelligent choices, those choices are intended to honor the sacred and help the individual manifest their greatness while simultaneously embracing the humanity of those around them. Rev Dr. TLC works with highly influential and committed leaders who need spiritual life or career coaching.

As they transform the world by creating a legacy of service, prosperity and greatness. She also provides coaching support for leaders to help them understand how their sphere of influence. Can help to change the status quo and to dismantle structures that have intentionally and unintentionally created racial disparities.

Her coaching provides an opportunity for leaders to. Create the right context for conversations on race and leadership development with their employees, discover how racism and unconscious bias influences their hiring practices affect their clients and have a direct impact on the company's financial goals and understand how racism impacts.

Employees their work performance and their feelings of safety in the work environment. Rev Dr. TLC has a long history of working with institutions, organizations, and communities to bridge the racial divide and to promote racial equity. She is the host of Dismantle Racism with rev, Dr. TLC. Which airs on talk radio dot NYC

She is the author of Dismantling Racism, Healing Separation from the Inside Out and Sacred Intelligence. The essence of sacred, selfish and shared relationships. She is the pastor of the Martin Luther king Jr. Community Presbyterian church in Springfield, mass. Join me in welcoming Dr. Terrell. Hey Terrlyn . 

Terrlyn: Hi Monica. So good to be here. 

Monica: Yes. And congratulations on your book and the launch of it. What an accomplishment? 

Terrlyn: Uh, it was birthing. It was like giving birth, honestly, and I am really excited about it. So thank you. Thank you very much. I know we'll get into the book, but I. I'm just excited for the process and I'm excited for the outcome and excited for the impact it will have on the world.

Monica: I'm excited too. And it sure had an impact on me. And of course, I've had just the great privilege of working with you in a few different ways. And, you know, I want to go back to the fact that, so I feel like I was really a witness to. Your own kind of transition because the first conversation that we have.

On this podcast was actually before the pandemic. 

Terrlyn: Yes. Yes. 

Monica: And it was about religious trauma and it was, we were focusing of course, on your work in that area. And then George Floyd was murdered and it was like, there was this. Total. It was like, I don't know if I felt it in the field, but this like resistance and exhaustion that came up in you.

And then there was like this fire that came up and out. And I remember that you shared about going to a protest or a March and a bunch of people just kind of centered you in that moment. And you kind of stepped into what you now know to be. Your work right now. 

Terrlyn: So, so here's, what's interesting. I've done this work for years. I did it for years. I traveled the country training educators on how to have conversations about race and, you know, from the spiritual place, actually, while I was in divinity school, I traveled the country training teachers. How to have courageous conversations about race, how to change your curriculum.

But I thought first and foremost, that it was a passion. And I also thought, you know, this, it was the best job while I was in school because I got to travel. I got to attend classes when I had to all of those things. Right. And I wondered why. I had this calling to become a pastor or to go to divinity school and never wanted to pass through a church, never, ever, ever.

I feel that's important to say. But then I started getting all of these people who were coming to me about their wounds of religion. I would get that in my private practice and I would be horrifying. At the things that I was hearing. So, you know, Monica, our first conversation was around the wounds of religion because I felt like, okay, this is what God is calling me to do.

This is why I became a pastor. So I could work on wounds of religion. I've learned Monica. That is not an either or it's a both. And so that when George Floyd was killed as a leader, As a leader in a church, but as an entrepreneur who defines myself as a leader, I knew that I had to use my voice. And so I went back to what I already knew.

We were already in a pandemic having to figure out how to shift anyway, but I was expanding myself. And so one of the things that I like to think about. Is the ways in which I've expanded as an individual and in my calling. And so I went back to teaching classes, except this time, the classes I teach are based on my curriculum and my understanding and not from.

I was using from someone else because I was working for someone else when I was doing that work. And I had done my own previously, but had joined with his team. And so now my work, it comes from a place of love teaching about dismantling racism, but, you know, from the work that we've done together, It doesn't mean that you're going to feel comfortable all the way through you will feel challenged.

And so here I am today doing this, this work. 

Monica: Yeah. And like you said, with your own curriculum, you know it really, and I'm curious, how did that curriculum reveal itself to you? Because you had said you were teaching. Someone else's work. And then it became, I don't know if part of the work we did together was.

How that curriculum came to be. 

Terrlyn: So here's what happened. So I hadn't been doing my own work before joining with him, and then what I've learned over time, and then also bringing in my spiritual stuff, because the curriculum I did with him, you know, going into the school system, you couldn't use any of that.

But one of the things I do in my work is I always sent her people before we even began doing the work. And I. About the sacred in my work, finding your grounding piece. I don't proselytize. Yes, I'm a pastor, but I don't proselytize, but I know how important this work is. Spiritual work. 

Monica: Oh, it's so spiritual.

Terrlyn: If you're going to go out here and do anything that is so forceful as dismantling racism, you have to have a grounding piece. And, you know, from the work that we do together, I go through like the breathing exercises. And how do you take care of yourself and how do you connect with that divine part of you that will guide you through this process?

Because when you're going through the emotions, Of your stuff while you're dismantling racism, it needs to have a grounding place. And I just want to say something else. When you were reading my bio because sometimes, and this is really important for your listeners. Sometimes it's important for us to hear our bio because we're so used to the bio.

I mean, you and I were appearing on podcasts. We emailed the bio without we know what we do, but my dad taught me something. Before he died years ago, I was at his brother's funeral and my uncle. And when I got up to speak, my dad said they should've called you doctor. And I'm thinking why, you know, we're from this small town.

And it was my sister who was inviting me to say a few words. He said, not for you, but for the people who are listening so that they know if you do. And they came and you came from this town, 

Monica: They can do it. Um, 

Terrlyn: And so when you were reading, my father's present, came to me for two reasons, because I want your listeners to understand if I can dismantle racism, you can dismantle racism.

We each have a part to do. And that's what I talk about in my book, the importance of doing what we can. Using what we have starting where we are doing what we can as aren't the assets. But the other thing about reading my bio that was for me is this because it's a reminder of how far I've come, but also what I'm called to do.

So I want to invite your listeners, particularly those listeners who say that they're leaders go back and read your bio. And see where you're being called to just keep stepping up your leadership game, because that bio reminds me that that's what I must do. I love that. So on those days when I don't want to do this work, yeah. I'm called back to that. 

Monica: It's so great. Right? It's like a calling forth when you hear it, you know, it's really. Because it's true. You know, there are days when we just either don't want to or forget. And then, you know, it's like when somebody holds that or reflects that too. Oh, yeah. Oh yeah. You know that that's my work.

That's who I am. That's who I came here to be. I love that. So, Terrlyn, I wanted to start by asking, when did you first encounter racism? 

Terrlyn: You know, I love that question because. Teach is one of the things that I asked. And I often say that I don't know a point of where I did it, except when I think about memory, I have this memory of me as a little girl, a little thing about three years old, and I'm holding a doll and she's like, and I still have that memory of that picture in my head, because that was commonplace.

There were no. Dolls to look like me. And so I grew up in Mississippi, so I grew up really in a system, just like we all do of knowing. Yes, I can play with white kids, but I'm not going to their house for dinner. I rode the bus with them. Once my school, I went to a predominantly black school until I was second grade, and then we had to go to an integrated school.

And so you just knew growing up in Mississippi, you absolutely knew. There was white and there was black. And I don't recall any particular racist incident happening, but you knew that life was different, you know, for whites and for. Blacks. Here's the thing that is also very interesting. And I feel like it's really important to say this.

The one thing that I've always known though about racism is that the difference between south and north is that in the south, you know, where you stand with white people. You may have some friendly relationships and interaction and then something will hit you. People will say something that's a microaggression and some of those microaggressions are conscious and some are unconscious.

And you say, ah, it's really not that different. 

Monica: A little, little more disguised. Has maybe a prettier disguise here. 

Terrlyn: Exactly. And you don't want to go. I remember. Even with. So by the time I was like my eighth grade, I went to a predominantly black school and I knew that the private academy was predominantly white.

If there were any people of color there and it just wasn't even a thought out there. And now as an adult, I know that those, I know the root of those. Academies being put into place. Right. You know, the schools had to integrate and they didn't want to send their schools. So they did a private school for the workers.

I mean, we knew it. Then we knew that that was a school that white kids went to, but. Again, you also have the county schools and all of that that were white integrated. So I went to those schools, but so it was a way of life Monica. And I think that was important for your listeners to know, is that systemic racism is a way of life right now.

Yes. And a lot of people didn't wake up to it until 2020, 

Right. I am wondering, what do you think made it possible for people to have that big awakening in 

2020? I think that it was the sacrificial and I use that purposely the sacrificial death of George Foy. And I know people hate that. Right. Cause that whole religious thing about, but the truth of the matter is this death actually had a lot of.

Religious symbolism. And if you kind of think about for those people who are Christian, here's this man being killed in front of millions of people, actually, because people began watching it and he's calling to his parental figure in the midst of it. I think that his death. Was so heinous that the country couldn't help, but to wake up, I think that also being in the midst of a pandemic where people were anxious to get out and they had all of this energy going in them anyway, was one thing that says, Hey, we've got to get out and we've got to protest.

We've got to do something about this. It's not like there hadn't been another sacrificial deaths before, because there were plenty of. And brown folks who've been killed, but it was so heinous. And I think that from my experience, the people that I've worked with since then have said, I just didn't realize it was this bad.

And the sad thing about it is is that we, as people of color were not shocked, we were heartbroken. Right. But not shocked. And my experience that the white people I worked with were devastated because it was like, this was so new for them and just blown out of the water. And I'm like, did you not hear about the other murders that were going on?

But I think it's easy to have our blinders on, right. What we, what we want to see in the world. And that. Another indication of how racism is so permeated, right? 

Monica: Yeah. I, in fact, I you're pointing to something that I also think is really important for our listeners, which is there's this way that we, well, let me just point to the media for a moment.

Okay. Because the media. Has played a big part in kind of this overarching story of separation that pits, you know, and polarizes. And it, I think that as you're pointing out George Floyd's murder, really was a catalyst for a massive awakening. And it became also a foundation from then, which to build upon, as other things started to reveal themselves, which gave us access to building on that foundation.

To add now, what does implicit bias mean? What do all of these things mean? And it's just like, there has now been kind of this, this arc of learning for so many white people, as it relates to privilege implicit bias. What I was also pointing to is kind of like how that then showed up with the war in Ukraine and where many people would be like, what are you talking about?

There's no implicit racism in what's happening in Ukraine. Well, wait a minute, right? 

Terrlyn: That everywhere. Absolutely everywhere. Yeah. 

Monica: It's everywhere. And, and so it hides in plain sight all the time. And so it is so important for us to bring language and revelation to the. Distinctions and where they show up and where they're hiding so that they can't continue to hide in those places anymore.

And the interesting thing about the war in Ukraine is it's. It's not, it's like wonderful that so many people are enjoining in solidarity to kind of focus on the war in Ukraine. But what it points out is kind of the, the racist and biased attitude towards the value or lack thereof of non-European life.

Terrlyn: Right. 

Monica: And all of the ways that there's all kinds of conflicts all over the globe and the, just the. Tragic. Genocides abuse, et cetera, of black and brown and indigenous peoples. And we don't focus in solidarity on those issues. 

Terrlyn: Right? And even if you just even taking a step back that people are focusing on, that can skipped now from the issues of racism that we have here, the issues of poverty that we have here, the li the issues of a lack of healthcare.

People, uh, who are impoverished or color or all that we can now focus our attention over there, but not care about what's happening to black and brown bodies here in the U S but even if we look at Ukraine and I haven't kept up with every detail of it, Even initially who was allowed to leave the country, the light of your skin was, I mean, it's so it's implicit in every single thing that we do, but I want to just say this for a moment because you know, one of the things I often invite my students to do is to just take a look at the tapestry.

The environment, the whiteness that's prevalent all around you. And so really I want people to know when we talk about racism hiding in plain sight, I'm just giving an example for us talking about this on, on my show recently. And in one of my classes, there's something called environmental microaggressions.

And so what are those that is when I walk into a place and all I see. White faces in the background. So for instance, I think about when I was at Yale I'd walk into our common room and that common room had all of these images up there of significant. From the past, I would notice all white men and occasionally they would change it out for one person of color who would pop up there.

And occasionally one woman, those are microaggressions because that's letting you know the people who are in power are white men. If you look sometimes, and I often tell the people that I work with, my coach. I often say to them, when they're doing their marketing, you don't have anyone on there who looks like me.

That's a microaggression unintentionally, but it is one, right? Because it's say I either have to. Just get over whatever my thoughts and concerns are. If I want to work with you to say, Hey, someone introduced me to that person so I can trust them. I can trust to work with them. Otherwise I'm looking at, you know, what you're doing going, do you get me?

Do you even care about the issues that are relevant to me? Right. And for so long, People of color have had to just ignore the fact that we aren't represented in those spaces. And so I really want listeners to think about it. These environmental microaggressions that are also contributors of implicit biases, so that when we do see a person of color in an authority position or leadership position, we assume that they are the secretary and not the person in charge because our implicit biases say, oh, no, no, no, no, they can't be in that position.

Or when we see people of color at certain university or on certain committees, people will say, oh, you're there because of affirmative action. So what you're basically saying is that we're not smart enough to be in those positions, but implicit biases. Have shaped folks to think and to believe the way that they do.

Monica: And I want to say for my listeners that one of the things that I love about your work, Terrlyn is not only in the leadership class I joined with you. Right. It was. Kind of really guiding each of us through these series of steps that started to reveal what were the structures and then what are the beliefs?

What are, and you, what you start to do is by really working from the inside out, you do start to recognize that you've internalized these systems instructions. And as the system and start to become more recognizable within us, we can also easily recognize them out there or vice versa. It becomes this mirror and it's fascinating.

I mean, it's really a fascinating process, and this is also what you do in your book, which I love so much because it really breaks it down. In a way that just makes it so available for people to understand, because I think so much of this can become kind of heady and we get stuck up in our intellect, which is where we tend to kind of try to do the work.

And what we really have to do is kind of also be. You know, kind of dare to stay inside of the mess of our stuff as it comes up in our bodies as we're doing this work. And that's when it starts to make sense up in the intellect. 

Terrlyn: Yeah. And so here's, what's interesting because, um, research there's been research done on differences actually in the way.

White people show up in this world and the way people of color show up in this little, right? So white characteristics, black characteristics name, they've actually done research around this. And one of the things that happens is, is that white people tend to be more intellectual about things. Not because other people aren't smart.

We as people of color come from this place of when there's an issue, we look at the communal aspect and not the individual is we look at what's happening with the spirit, the body, the emotions, and all of that. And so what you're saying actually shows up around this conversation on race is that white people stay in this intellectual place about it, but for people of color, we're in the emotional.

He said it because we're saying this is what is happening to me. This isn't an intellectual conversation. When I have to wonder about going to a grocery store, if someone is going to kill me, because I'm a person who is black. That's not intellectual, that's a real thing. And so when a white person wants to enter the conversation around just the factual stuff, it leads to frustration and it doesn't break down the barrier to have a conversation.

So I invite white people to really, as you're saying, move out of this intellectual place. And really, as I say, in my book, figure out why you want to do this. Because this work isn't intellectual at all, and this work is something that will take dedication and commitment to do, because what I had noticed Monica is that I had a lot of people who were rushing to do this work in 2020 and a little bit in 2021.

We also saw a lot of companies throwing monies at schools and systems and all of this, but what is the real work that you doing? 

Monica: Not just the trend. 

Terrlyn: Exactly. Exactly. As a matter of fact, I say in my book, racism, it's not a trend 

Monica: Racism is not a trend. I want to also say this about when we stay up in our intellect that. Is the emotional distance that keeps us from having to do anything about it because when we feel what it feels like, and we allow these horrific realizations to come over us and inform us through our emotional bias. It is a whole different experience. 

Terrlyn: Oh. And I'm just, I know from the work that, that we did together in those classes, and just thinking about the people who participated, they emotions that folks went through.

Right. And you all were fortunate enough in the particular class that you took, that there were also people of color in that class because often my classes are predominantly white. And when you mix that with people of color, And you are able to have the real conversations and experienced the motions. It brings you to this place of like, oh, wow.

Monica: It was so powerful. 

Terrlyn: Yeah. I mean, it was powerful for me as well. Monica. I want to just say this, cause I know you have some, some other questions too. What people need to understand about this work of dismantling racism is that it is infused in everything that we do. And it's not like we have. Totally just focus only on having a course on dismantling is helpful for you to do that.

Cause you have to do your own work, but it's also important that when you're doing your other work to say, oh, wow. This is where racism is showing up. So as the intersectionality, I mean, I know you and I have had some conversations recently and some of your other work that you've been doing, you're like, oh my goodness, this is where racism is showing up.

So I just want to say to the listeners, it shows up everywhere. And this is the work that we do by looking at the intersectionality. 

Monica: Yes, absolutely. And I actually just before. Our call today. I just kind of started jotting down because I was thinking about kind of how you do start in the book with kind of this inquiry.

And the inquiry is before you can change your mindset or any system, you must first become aware of what you even think of the idea of disrupting a well-established system of privilege that elevate. Some while ignoring others. Right. And really looking at. What is my automatic response. When I think about what's involved in dismantling racism, or when I arrive at a roadblock or confront long-held beliefs or behaviors, because what I want to say here is that it's one thing when I became activated and aware, at an entirely.

Different level. I didn't know at that time that I had internalized racism, I didn't understand that what I was going to encounter as I kind of discovered my own personal activism was that all this other stuff that I never even knew was in this space would be revealed. And so, like, I just started to.

Not only begin to look at my whiteness, but interrogate my understanding of quote unquote history and recognize what was privilege. And then where was it showing up in my life and keeping me from clearly seeing it. Right. And then like, just things like looking at my library shelves, how many black authors did I have on my shelf?

What about community activism? What is in my local area for that matter? What land am I on? You know what, right. So it starts, everything just starts to kind of like really become, you know, I love this. I love that. I just re I just re authored what Pandora's box was like internally. Pandora the myth of Pandora, because I was going to say it really opened Pandora's box.

And then I remembered that what Pandora really is, is like the behold. The holder of all the gifts, but her story got co-opted, you know, in her mythology got co-opted into that being a bad thing. When, what it really was, was all of these disguised gifts that liberated me and my, and got me seeing these connections that I never would have seen before and had.

Start to be able to show up in a different way and to understand and emotionally connect at a level that I had always emotionally distanced myself because I was doing that work in my head, not in my heart. 

Terrlyn: You know, what I love about what you're saying is because most people feel. What you have just described.

They fear going inside, looking at their own stuff. And I know that from my work with white people, they don't want to ever, ever anybody to think that they're racist. And the fact that you said I went inside and I looked at my own internalized racism, and guess what? Look at how much you've grown from doing that.

And so people need to look at you as an example and say, Hey, I can't do this work. I can do it and I will be okay. Yes. You're going to be uncomfortable. I'm sure you had uncomfortable moments while we were doing the class, but look at you such amazing work. You've grown exponentially, even in your other work, because now you're able to see the ways in which you can look at a broader audience.

You can look at the, you can understand, even the people that you interview in a different way, you can look at the work that you do on feminism and see how it's different for people of color versus white women. I mean, it's just expanded view so much. And so I just want. Encourage your listeners to know that when you do this work on dismantling racism, you're actually helping yourself.

Yes. Because there's a cost to stay in your same thing. 

Monica: Oh my gosh. There's such a cost to that. And it is something that, you know, I talk about all the time in all capacities. And actually as somebody pointed out the other day, actually I think it is. It was Dr. Dorothy, who I had on the show the other day that we were talking about stagnancy, you know, actually being.

The cause of disease, you know, like literally our body, when you, when we even think about our body as like, let's say 80, 90% water, it's like that pool of stagnancy within us. It's like that sameness, that, that, where we don't grow, it's like it creates. Dis-ease within us and it's like that water putrefying.

And what we want to do is we want to start getting in there and it's so interesting because it brings up all of the things. That we, we heard growing up through patriarchy, such as, you know, don't stir up the mud or don't rock the boat and it's like, oh, that was all bad advice. 

Terrlyn: Exactly. Exactly. Well, bad advice for some exactly.

Monica: And by design for others. Right. 

Terrlyn: That's exactly right. 

Monica: Yeah. So, I mean, it really does. It's been. Some of the most uncomfortable, as well as fruitful and most life-giving work that I have ever done. And I invite all of you to it's like, you got to start somewhere, you got to start somewhere, but understanding, and even the title of your book dismantling.

Right. And from the inside out. So just sitting. With that book a chapter at a time. And really just with compassion and gentleness saying yes to the mass of what is. Guaranteed all of our work, guaranteed. It's all of our work. 

Terrlyn: Yes. If you really commit to it. And I so appreciate you saying, sitting with each chapter, because you know what some people do they read right through a book and I ask questions at the end of each chapter.

So if people would just take the time to absorb what they're reading and also I began the book. Really by addressing our emotions, our anger at this, 

Monica: Which was my next question. So I'm so glad that you brought that up. Absolutely. Because I have really another kind of emotion, you know, and as a white woman sitting here, right.

I also have there's all of these ways that I have been trained in society. That some of those ways are common, right? With my black sisters and some are not not. And one of the ways that I have been conditioned through my whole life, and I think a lot of women I don't want to speak for or general. But I will say that anger was never allowed, like that was unbecoming for a woman to be angry.

And of course, I know for you, it's got a whole different slant, which is the anger of black women, right? So it's like, so you have these two again, the polarization, and then the amplification of that polarization, that white women don't get mad and black women are furious. 

What do you do with that? 

Terrlyn: Here's, what's interesting about that because here again are these implicit biases, so that if I speak in a self-assured from way I'm now the angry black woman, if I rest my opinion about something, I'm the angry black woman.

And sometimes I'm not even angry about what I'm talking about, but that's the language that people use. And so, you know, there, people will say, well, why are you attacking. Why am I attacking you? Right. You know, I don't get the privilege of being the crying woman at work. Right. So, so we know about the white women's tears, black women's anger.

Cause you know, I've done work around that as well with a colleague of mine. But you know, we can't afford to be in a meeting and cry, like I've seen white women do because the rules are different for us. That's right. And then we get punished when we show up. The ways in which the world has already expected us to show up in.

And so there is a place for us to be able to deal with these emotions and to be able to talk about it. And if you understand it as an individual, so if we're having an interracial dialogue and you understand this concept of the angry black woman and white women's tears, It will actually help you to recognize in the moment when something racist is occurring.

Monica: Yes. 

Terrlyn: So if you're at a meeting and somebody says something about a person of color being hostile or angry, you could say to yourself, are they really, or are they just speaking out for themselves? If you notice the way people, if a white woman cries began to surround her, even if it's the person of color who's been wounded in that circumstance. That's racism, but you don't know that don't have the conversation about it. 

Monica: It's the dialogue that is so important because it, it reveals these hidden places. And once it's, you know, I always, I know you are a big, you know, Maybe just say like advocate of this same kind of philosophy, which is like revealing it as part of healing it yes.

And that we cannot. Continue this way. I mean, it's, it's showing up everywhere for healing. It is showing up everywhere. So I want to go back here to anger for a minute because I see anger as fuel for our work in our activism. And I wanted to know if you could talk a little bit more about it. I've really found that it showed up for me almost as something that I felt.

Like, I didn't have power. Like, why am I? So like once I started to recognize it and I also started to face other and experience other people's anger, it's like, instead of allowing it to overpower me or to scare me or overwhelm me, I started to really understand how you coach us to really use it as fuel.

Terrlyn: Yes. And that is the thing. And that's why I started the book out, talking about anchor because a lot of people were angry. After George Floyd was murdered and that anger, some of it wasn't about him being murdered, but for the white people that I worked with, they were angry that they didn't know that racism existed as it did.

They were angry that they had. Hoodwinked, as we said all throughout life, not knowing the true history of let's say Thanksgiving or something like that, you know? And I was like, why weren't we taught this stuff in school? And I was like, why didn't you, why didn't you ask is the thing, but that's because there's other system that we have.

And so I talk about anger being used in a way that it's focused anger in order for it to be effective. You can't just be out here spewing. All over the place. First and foremost, I always tell people don't go on social media and get into these big debates anyway, because you have to know what your facts are before you start.

And when you're engaging in a conversation with someone, you have to know where they're entering the conversation from. So if you are angry, take that place. And understanding your anger, venting that anger and a safe space where you can do that. And then when you're ready to come out and public, be ready to focus that anger and make it effective.

So use it as a fuel to say, Hey, wait a minute. We're not going to take this anymore. Another person will not be killed by the police because we've just had a blind eye to it. Or we're going to look at education. We're going to look at houses and we're going to look at all of these things. And then you say, well, what is the strategy?

What strategy will I use to tackle this issue? And so I began with saying, put your anger in its right place. And then from there, you can go through the steps that you need to go through to be able to maintain. This journey of dismantling racism, because the other thing that's really important Monica is that people start this process and they understand how overwhelming and tiring it can be and they want to quit.

And so in my book, it's really about the sacred intelligence journey of getting through things going inward. To connect with your divine source, your sacred source, whatever you call it to say, what is my motive? What is my reason for doing this work? And then doing the work that you need to do on yourself?

You know, and I call that the selfish mindset. What is the work that you need to do? To heal yourself and to believe, and to have faith that you are capable of contributing to changing the status quo. And then the last part I talk about what is the shared movement that we're all in this together, who are your resources to help with?

Monica: You also talked to Terrlyn about choices a lot. There's a very. Intentional way that you encourage people to look at where they're at choice. And you talk about three choices that are essential when it comes to what you call sacred intelligence. And. And so first I want to kind of unpack what sacred intelligence is again to you, because I don't want to make assumptions or think that our listeners know what we're talking about or that they've heard our first episode.

And I wondered too, if you could just kind of go into that, go into those three choices. Cause I, I really. I think those are important. 

Terrlyn: So first I just want to say that our sacred intelligence is our ability to go within, to listen to that voice. Within that, I call our, our sacred source, our divine wisdom to listen to that voice so that you will be directed on what choices you need.

And those choices will manifest your greatness while at the same time manifest the greatness of others, your sacred intelligence will guide you, and it will help you to be careful about what you do to yourself, what you do to other people and what you allow other people to do to you. So it's always something that's for your greater good and for the greater good of others.

So what does that mean? It means that your sacred intelligence is your inward. Guidance for your outward expression. That's the simplest way of putting it. So whenever we have anything to do Monica, even if it's no matter what it's related to just sit for a moment and ask your guides. What shall I do? What direction should I take?

Is this right for me? And this is really important on what I call the sacred intelligence journey of faith, because not everybody is meant to go out here and March in the streets. Not everybody is meant to start a radio show on dismantle racism or write a book on dismantling racism. What are you gifted to do?

What are you qualified? So to speak, to do based on the gifts that you've already been given. So I think it's really, really important. And so when I talk about this idea of sacred intelligence, I talk about having a sacred motive for doing this for. And with that sacred motive, I talk about the choices. So first of all, why are you doing this work?

I really, really want people to understand, uh, why they're engaging in this work in the first place. And I think that too many people did it because it was a trend. And for me, I think it's important for you to think about whether you're doing this work because. You really believe in something greater than yourself.

And so then when I talk about the choices that that you make with this is really about the choice of. Choosing to grow and your understanding of your sacred source. So for me, that's God, but for other people, it may not be God and stuff. I talk about choosing to grow and your understanding of that. I also talk about choosing to grow in your understanding of who you are in relationship.

To that sacred source. So how does that sacred source move you every day? So if your connection is with nature, and if you're grounded in nature, how does nature help to center you? How does nature help to guide you? And what you're doing every day. And then the third thing that I talk about, which I think is really critical in this conversation is choosing to grow beyond your pain and discomfort and Monica, I think you have done that so well, I know a lot of people are like, particularly I had one person to say to me, listen, I have a history of trauma.

So when you say, choose to grow beyond my pain, it's not that. That easy to do that. I, I recognize that. And I understand that, but I'll say two things, one as a psychologist. I know that if you don't grow beyond your opinion, You will be stuck where you are for years to come 

Monica: And back to that stagnancy.

Terrlyn: Exactly. And so what I really mean about that is that choose that even though you are experiencing the hurt and the anger of this moment, that you're not going to stay stuck, people of color have had to do that for years. I once had someone to tell me the man that I was married to actually said to me, once he said, I don't want to talk about race or.

Because if I did, I would just be angry all the time. And so I have to move beyond that anger. So that's what I want to invite your listeners to do is that I can't tell you that doing this work, you won't be traumatized in some way, because when you awaken to what truly happens in this country, it is traumatizing.

Monica: It is traumatizing. 

Terrlyn: We've had three. Well, we've actually had more, but only have talked about in the news three major mass shootings in the last, uh, two weeks, people are traumatized about that. It's no longer business as usual, right? So we have to choose to grow beyond that pain. 

Monica: Well, and a lot of people are shocked that just this year alone they've actually been.

Over 200 shootings. Exactly. So there's a way that our culture and we know this, but it's, it's worth repeating to go back to kind of this selfish work that you have us do because our culture would have us stay busy and exhausted and distracted. And which is trauma in itself, by the way. So when we actually focus on ourselves and as you said, go within and understand that source and get related to that source and that sacred intelligence.

What we then are able to do is to build our capacity in so many ways for engaging with the world. In a much healthier way, but yes, part of the journey is actually having a relationship to what is so and what is true. And as we discover what is true, we will have grief. Because not knowing is part of our white privilege.

Terrlyn: Yes, of course. And here's the thing, some of those mass shootings have been in black and brown neighborhoods, so they're not highlighted as much. And then people think, oh, for the ones who hear about it, that's happening over there. It's not happening here. But what we need to understand about racism is that it costs all that.

And even if we look at this whole idea of the second amendment and the militia part of that right to bear arms is rooted in racism, rooted in the fact of, uh, people fighting. To keep their enslaved people. And like, if you come here to try to, you know, tell me I should do something differently, I have the right to bear arms and to, to shoot you basically.

Right. So we have to really take a look at this country that is built on. Patriarchy and racism. That's right. We don't want to take a look at it. So is it infused in everything we do? And that's why it's so traumatizing now for white people when they hear about it, because it's like whoosh hearing about it all at once and for people of color for us.

It's always been traumatizing, right. We've always had to deal with racism and there's something called racial battle fatigue, where we've just exhausted from dealing with it over and over and over. But that's a whole nother show to get due to that. But, yes. 

Monica: Well, I know that we're, we're coming up on time and I, I wanted to just also.

Ask you, you know, if there was a question that you had hoped I would have asked, you know, that I didn't, what question would that be or put another way? Is there anything that you feel like we didn't surface in this conversation that is also something that you want to bring to our listener? 

Terrlyn: One of the things that's resonating in my mind actually is going back to that first question where I came to do the wounds of religion.

And now I'm doing this work on dismantling racism. Christianity was built on racism. Yes. And when you think about Christianity, the Bible was used to enslave us. So to, so my work really. Isn't all that different, because at some point there will be a book around, you know, the wounds of religion and racism.

I want people to just start taking a look at your environment, start taking a look at your experiences and think about where racism shows up. I want folks to also understand that talking about race is okay. It's not a negative thing to talk. About race. People have interracial interactions all the time.

We're having an interracial interaction right now and it's been a good one. It's been a powerful one. And so do not allow your fear to keep you from stepping out and engaging in the conversation and, and ending racial separation. So I think that. That's the only thing I would like to say is that it's permeated and everything that we do.

And so don't allow fear to stop. You just decide that you're going to be committed and dedicated to ending racial separation and get the help that you need to do it. There are people out here who will support you through your journey. 

Monica: Yeah, there sure is. And, and you're one of the big ones, so thank you so much.

And if it's okay. I wanted to offer our listeners as we, as we kind of end a meditation that I loved from your book. Is it okay for me to read it? Sure, sure. Limitless, expansive, creative and effervescent one. This world can seem so vast and the problems and tasks before me can be overwhelming. But when I remember that you are me and I am you.

I embrace my capacity to create and be the change I want to see in the world. When I engage in personal transformation, the way unfolds for me to shift my family community and the world. I don't have to take on everything all at once. I simply need to take one step at a time, touching one life at a time or changing one structure at a time.

And each move will impact how the world turns. So let me not lose hope, but rather expand my awareness, expand my thinking, activate my creativity and celebrate the unlimited possibilities that reside within me. May I greet each day with joy, exuberance and eagerness? May I see the countless ways to use my.

To manifest greatness within myself, my home and beyond may I then be motivated and encouraged to soar above complacency, procrastination, fear, overwhelm, or whatever, binds me to share these gifts with the world in gratitude. I say, thank you. And so it is amen. 

Terrlyn: Amen. 

Monica: Thank you so so much 

Terrlyn: Thank you, Monica. I always enjoy our conversations together. 

Monica: Me too. And for our listeners, I'll be sure to put Reverend Dr. Terrlyn CRI Avery. Links in the show notes. And until next time more to be revealed, we hope you enjoyed this episode. For more information, please visit us@jointherevelation.com and be sure to download our free gift, subscribe to our mailing list or leave us a review on iTunes.

We thank you for your generous listening and as always more to be revealed.