Emily Race-Newmark: [00:00:00] Welcome to This is How We Care, a podcast where we look at what it means to embody care, not as an individual practice, but a collective one, and to see what kind of world emerges from this place.

Thank you for being here. I am your host, Emily Race.

Today's conversation is about relationships, specifically the relationships that we hold with one another as humans, and the power dynamics that can show up within them, consciously or unconsciously.

We're looking at this because it's become apparent through all of our conversations on this podcast that a world rooted in collective care is deeply relational, and yet, we could all use some new skills and framework in the relationship department. Not because of some inherent lack or fault of our own, but because of the waters that we've been swimming in for so long that have prioritized, as our guest James-Olivia Chu Hillman puts it, "Relational fuckery".

Of course, we won't stop there. Throughout [00:01:00] this episode, we'll look at new possible visions for how we might relate to one another and how we could start putting those into practice today.

James-Olivia Chu Hillman: For me, when I talk about relational fuckery, I'm talking about all the things that we try when we're in relationship, typically in our closer relationships, people with whom we actually interact on a daily basis, or if not daily, like the people with whom we are in relationships where we want to go somewhere together or separately. 

It sounds a little pathologizing and I say it tongue in cheek. I'm not trying to diagnose people with, "Oh, you engage in fuckery?"

We all engage in fuckery.

 The fuckery part is all of the things that I try when I want to win my relationship with you rather than actually connect with you.

If I'm looking to you for approval, for agreement, for compliance, if I want love from you or [00:02:00] understanding or, for you to do something or not do something.

If I'm looking to you for these things rather than relating to you saying, "Hey, this is what I've got going on. This is what I want. What do you have going on? What do you want? Where can we find possibility in the similarities and the differences of what we both want? Where can we practice consent? Where can we practice care for one another and distance where we need to?"

And instead I do things like scheme or manipulate or browbeat or attack or all of the things that I try to do to dominate you, manipulate you, coerce you, extract from you, get you to do things to comply with my will without actually engaging your personhood. Those are the things that I'm calling relational fuckery. 

Instead of just saying, "I'm a person. I want things. You're a person. You want things. How can we both get what we want together or separately?" 

Emily Race-Newmark: I think that's awesome.

[00:03:00] I'm like, "Yes, this is what we should all be practicing."

And yet it's really hard because I, personally, have experienced times when I have given it my all. I've gotten the coaching. And I'm like, "It's actually not being reciprocated. They do not want to do this. They are committed to the dominance or whatever."

 is there a nuance to that piece where it has to be consensual, or how would you work with a one-sided situation?

James-Olivia Chu Hillman: I love this question because of the insistence that somebody else demonstrate relational competence is fuckery on my part. 

Emily Race-Newmark: Oh, no. [Laughter]

James-Olivia Chu Hillman: I come to you and I'm like, "I really want us to have a fantastic dialogue about something."

And you're like, "Wow, I don't really want anything to do with this conversation." or if you lie, if you're like, "Yeah, I totally want to have that conversation." and you're like, "I'm totally not capable of having that conversation."

We run into that, I think more often than we would care to admit, where we will go to somebody with our concern, our need, our desire for connection, with whatever we've got and [00:04:00] somebody will say, " Oh yeah, sure. That sounds great." 

And then they're either unwilling or incapable of meeting us there, but for whatever reason, fawning like people pleasing, the trauma response of like, "I have to give this person what they want. I have to say 'yes'," not only do many of us do it, but we receive that from other people too.

The fuckery on my part would be insisting that you show up in ways that you're not capable of showing up, insisting that you have more capacity than you actually have, insisting that you be different so that I can be okay. A competent move on my part would recognize if you have a no, or if you have a refusal to engage with me in a way that's generative.

For me to recognize like, "Oh, you have a no, either because you're unwilling or because you're unable, it doesn't really matter, the consequences are the same. But you're unwilling or unable [00:05:00] to tell the truth or to care about me or to understand me or whatever it is."

It would be fuckery for me to insist that you be different. And the competent move on my part would be to acknowledge like, "Oh, that's where you are right now. This is your capacity. This is your skill level. This is your desire. You're not a resource for meeting my needs."

And this is where the power and responsibility comes in. I don't get to control you, but I do have the power to recognize where my resources live and don't live. And go, "Okay, I can make a different decision about which tree I'm going to bark up." 

Emily Race-Newmark: You just heard from James-Olivia, who teaches skills for relating competently to difference. Amoung. many things, they are a facilitator and lover of extraordinary, uncomfortable, life changing conversations; an enthusiastic and loving interrogator of reality; and a fellow "work in progress" who has coined herself an inquisitive human and avid maker of mistakes.

As you'll hear in a moment, James-Olivia is simply an incredible human being who [00:06:00] shows up unapologetically in their humanity, which made it super difficult to trim this episode down because each part felt so relatable and juicy and connecting.

I hope you enjoy the conversation.

We had originally sat down to record this back in March of 2024. 

James-Olivia Chu Hillman: Right now, what I'm up to is I'm the person who just rolled out of bed after writing in bed. Sometimes it's rotting in bed and sometimes it's writing in bed and sometimes I don't know the difference. 

It's noon where I am. Where are you, by the way? 

Emily Race-Newmark: I am in Colorado so it's 11:00. 

James-Olivia Chu Hillman: 11:00. Okay. That's normally when I would start having conversations with people. And I'm like, "Oh, I have a whole extra hour and the love letter came out of that, of me just being.

It's a huge privilege that I have of being able to be in my bed for several hours in the morning.

I purchased a popsicle mold in the last week. And it's a really, really adorable kind of blushy pink color. This is so [00:07:00] unimportant, and beauty to me is important. And some of these things are just like, "Really, like you bought a plastic popsicle mold. What the fuck?" 

There's enough going on in the world and this is what you're up to.

And I rolled into our conversation, a podcast conversation with somebody that I've never met before, who I think you might be one of the most thorough. There's so much information and care that goes into your invitation and how you set someone up to be a guest on your podcast. And I'm like, "I didn't do my homework and I came in with a yogurt pop."

So I don't know if that's a story that lets you know who I am, but that is what I'm up to in this moment. And I don't think it's off brand. [Laughter] 

Emily Race-Newmark: I love it. I love. Nope. Perfect story. 

 I've seen you coin yourself as an inquisitive human and that was something where I was like, "okay this is a human I want to speak to because I call myself a curious explorer of world."

It's like a flashy little thing that I wrote one day and I was like, "yeah, I like that."

That's who I am. [00:08:00] So I'm curious, when you call yourself an inquisitive human, what does that mean to you? And how does that show up as a filter in your life? 

James-Olivia Chu Hillman: I'm so glad you asked this because I get reflected back a lot, like, "oh, curiosity, curiosity, curiosity," and I'm like, "Oh, I sometimes have that."

Sometimes I'm curious. And very often I'm not. Very often, it's not that I'm curious. I think the inquisitive part is a little bit, shall I say nefarious? I'm not trying to be nefarious. But the inquisitive part is more like, inquisition than curiosity sometimes where I'm questioning the roots of everything. Not necessarily like, "Oh, what do you like? What color is that? What's your favorite food? Where are we going for dinner? Where did this come from?"

It's in the context of all that is, who are we? What are we deciding? How are we choosing to engage with each other in the world? In what ways do our relationships reflect what we really care about, what we value [00:09:00] and what our commitments are? I'm not asking questions that are as fun as I think the word curiosity would imply.

While I would like to be a fun person, I don't think that that's what inquisitive human is most of the time. I think it's a more brutal form of curiosity or inquisition. 

Emily Race-Newmark: Yeah, so interesting, thanks for making a distinction. I feel like we'll be doing a lot of distinctions in this conversation. [Laughter] Yeah. Which is awesome. 

, if you can just touch on how that actually manifests in some of the work that you do. What does that actually look like in practice with other people?" 

James-Olivia Chu Hillman: I'm going to answer a different question first.

And that's what does it look like for me personally, because it shows up for me in my own work with myself before I can take it to working with other people. For me, it looks like asking myself sometimes unanswerable questions, every day. 

It also means, for me, taking the judgments that I have, and I have so many of them. I have lots and lots of judgments, and I find them very, very useful when I apply inquiry [00:10:00] to them. 

A lot of what I post is, " here's a question I'm grappling with. Here's a question I'm asking myself in the wake of all that is happening in the world."

 A lot of my questions will start with, "where do I?" And then fill in the blank because they come from judgments. 

Most of my questions that start out, "where do I do this?" Is me first going, "I fucking hate that that person is doing this."

And then I'm like, "okay, where do I do that?" 

 There is a thing that a teacher in one of my knowledge lineages would say, and that's "the thing that I hate in another is my next area of growth. The thing that I can't tolerate is my area of growth." And so that's where some of my inquiry comes from and what it looks like.

That is often what it looks like in groups as well. It's like, "okay, there's a thing that you have going on that is obviously stirring your soul. An intolerance or a judgment is inciting some riot in your spirit.

And my job in those situations in groups is to ask like, " what's in there for you? [00:11:00] What's going on there?"

 That is an area where you actually have responsibility and power, not just what is being imposed upon you that vexes your spirit, but for me, a lot of inquiry is where does my power live? Where does my responsibility live? 

Because there's so much that is imposed upon us.

There's so much that happens to us. That's real. Like things are happening to us all the time. And we can look at that with a microscope in our own lives too at scale. What kinds of things are happening in the world that are both natural and man made horrors? Things are happening, and we never do not have some form of power and responsibility.

Emily Race-Newmark: Yeah, this is a topic I am personally, very passionate about. Because when I found that paradigm shift for myself, I was like, "Oh, okay. Now I have a access point to change making, even if it's just my tiny little change making on the level of me and my husband or [00:12:00] me and my sister or whatever that looks like." 

James-Olivia Chu Hillman: Mhm.

Emily Race-Newmark: And when I talk to folks about this responsibility concept, there is a lot of resistance. I have been met with like, "well, no, it doesn't work that way," or even the victim blaming aspect of the conversation. I'm hearing in what you're saying, the nuance that there are pieces that are almost out of our control. 

James-Olivia Chu Hillman: Many. Most things are out of our control. 

Emily Race-Newmark: Right. It's a yes, and. 

James-Olivia Chu Hillman: Yeah. I think that that's where people conflate control with power.

Emily Race-Newmark: Mhm.

James-Olivia Chu Hillman: Just because I have power doesn't mean I have control. 

Emily Race-Newmark: Whoa. [Laughter] 

Wait, can we just pause? Yes, that is another thing that I like to unpack, personally.

We have made control and power synonymous. So then the power you're speaking of is defined as what? 

James-Olivia Chu Hillman: Ability. That's it. 

It's wildly oversimplified here, but power is the ability to do something. That doesn't mean you have the ability to do anything. It doesn't mean you have the ability to do everything. It means you have the ability to do a thing, something. So [00:13:00] I do not have control over the processes of my physiological body.

Like I don't have control over, necessarily, the rhythm of my heart, or the chemical processes of what's happening in my blood. There's a lot going on in my body, almost everything that I have zero control over. like, I can breathe myself, but my body will continue to breathe me, even if I pass out. My body is breathing me.

I can blink my eyes. I can control that, but my eyes will also blink themselves, [Laughter] without me. Like I am not controlling that all the time. I have the ability to relate to my body and communicate with it. And it will very often, because I am a temporarily and mostly able bodied person, my body will listen to a lot of the things that I want it to do and do them.

That's a right now state. That's not a forever state. 

Emily Race-Newmark: Mhmm. 

James-Olivia Chu Hillman: I'm probably almost two thirds through my lifespan. Like I'm almost 50. Average lifespan is [00:14:00] in the United States is what, like 73 to 78 years ish. I'm like two thirds done. I will not always have control over the movements of my body the way that I do now.

And that doesn't mean that I don't have the ability to make decisions about how I relate to my body.

Emily Race-Newmark: Okay, cool. 

To follow the inquisitive root question, what parts of this relational fuckery are tied to supremacy culture? If we can draw a connection there. 

James-Olivia Chu Hillman: Oh my gosh. Okay. We're going to start down a path talking about supremacy culture that normally takes about, in my experience so far 10 years and going to talk about. So... [Laughter] 

This is a much longer conversation and I will hold a supremacy culture workshop in which we can really have a deeper conversation about this for anybody who wants to share that with me at some point.

But my understanding about the roots of supremacy culture are that at the core, like at the deepest, deepest core of supremacy culture [00:15:00] is contempt. The idea that someone is more worthy and someone is less worthy, that someone is more important and someone is less important. That anyone can matter more than another person, and anyone can matter less than another person.

And that can show up institutionally. It can show up systemically—as in racism, sexism, patriarchy, capitalism, white supremacy. When I say supremacy culture, I'm not just talking about white supremacy, and I am talking about white supremacy. 

I'm talking about all the ways that we try and either pedestalize or dominate anybody else , and that can show up systemically and institutionally, but it also shows up in our one-on-one conversations and relationships.

It shows up at home, at the dinner table, in school, it shows up everywhere that we relate to any other person as though one of us is more important than the other.

Emily Race-Newmark: You've also spoken about relational joy. Is that like the opposite or the antidote of? What is your [00:16:00] vision for how we would relate to one another otherwise? 

James-Olivia Chu Hillman: When I think about relational joy, I think about two or more humans... well, I say humans because that's the form I have taken. Because I am human, I tend to think a lot about humans and humanity, but I'm working on being less human centric in all of this.

When I think about relational joy, I think about showing up to an encounter with another in mutual appreciation, in mutual desire for connection. And recognizing that your existence, like your very existence is a miracle one. Even if I don't like you, even if I disagree with you, even if something about your presence vexes me, that your very existence is a miracle. And so is mine. And that what you need to thrive in this world is just as important as what I need to thrive in this world. And that they are not at odds. And that we can connect. That connection [00:17:00] is our most natural state. And the joy in that isn't necessarily any more than just the recognition that like, "Oh,, wow, our connection is our natural state."

And I experienced joy in that. That might not be true for everyone. That is how I choose to move through the world. 

Emily Race-Newmark: What is your lens on cancel culture? What's important about it perhaps? And what's maybe not so great about it? 

James-Olivia Chu Hillman: I am all for people speaking up when they know in their hearts that something is not okay for them. Like, "I see that and it's not okay, and I'm willing to say something about it."

I love that. One of the things that we can't necessarily take ourselves out of is that we're talking about cancel culture or call out culture in a culture that is deeply rooted in hyper individualism. And deeply rooted in a fear of consequences and a fear of accountability and a fear of punishment. And one of the [00:18:00] flavors of relational fuckery that I talk about a lot is punishment is a way that we attempt to offload responsibility and ensure compliance by hurting somebody else.

Like, "Oh, you did wrong. I'm going to hurt you so that you know how to stop," rather than show you a different way or model something else.

Where the hyper individuality comes in for me is, how we create change collectively requires many of us to be involved and engaged in many different ways. And so maybe there is somebody who's calling it out. Maybe there is somebody who's disrupting and saying, "Hey, that's not okay. Hey, I need to yell about this."

To narrow in a little bit. When somebody causes harm to someone else. So say, somebody in my community really fucks up and causes harm, like grievous harm to someone else. Yes, someone in the community, maybe multiple people, [00:19:00] maybe everybody in the community is saying, "Listen, you, you have done harm. This is not okay."

And at the same time, who is tending to the harmed? So if we are all collectively going after perpetrator of harm, who then is tending to the harmed? 

Do we believe that collectively or individually that anyone is irredeemable? I don't want to believe that about myself, and I know what kind of harm I've done. Actually, I might not even know all the kinds of harm that I've done in the world, and I don't hold myself as irredeemable. And I would hope that in community, at least one person would have the grace and capacity to say, "You know what, I don't believe you're irredeemable. Where do you want to go next? Do you want to be a part of this community? Do you want to be a part of this society? What are you willing to do to be a safe, generative, contributing member of this community or society?" 

And I [00:20:00] would hope that somebody else, many people, were tending to the harmed. I would hope that there was somebody else who had more systemic analysis going, "Okay, if one person was able and willing to do this, Why? How? What are we going to do collectively, systemically, to make that a much less likely go to option for somebody who has a need that's being unmet?"

 I think the way that we look at it is very often, it's us against them. It's the collective against the perpetrator when the perpetrator is not outside of the collective, the perpetrator is part of the collective. And so are we all. And so what are each bringing to the table to make harm the least viable option for getting our needs met.

Emily Race-Newmark: Thank you for breaking down those pieces. You were emphasizing the need to care for those who've been harmed, which I totally agree with, and I think where my brain has often gone to, even though it's really difficult depending on who the perpetrator is or what they [00:21:00] represent for me. I try to lean into, how do I care for the perpetrator?

And that might sound like a fucked up statement to say, but I'm saying it through the lens of, what do they need so that they don't do that anymore? Or so that they understand where they were coming from, or they feel a sense of belonging and not more isolation, which I think just creates more harm.

Do you have anything else to say based off of that stream? 

James-Olivia Chu Hillman: I don't have that it's fucked up. I have that somebody has to do that job. It may seem fucked up from somebody else who doesn't want to do that job and keep that job as far away from me as fucking possible.

I don't think that any approach is a fucked up place to be. I think we all have our work to do and all of our work is not the same.

 I don't know where this quote came from, maybe somebody will look it up and leave it in comments somewhere, that " No one's first experience of violence is as the perpetrator."

Emily Race-Newmark: Yeah. That's not how you learn it. Thank you for diving into that question with me. I have also felt [00:22:00] like, "No, it's not like we're trying to create a world here where you can't call out when something is harmful," or you can't, in that boundary sense, you can't speak out to say, "This isn't okay for the collective."

Even to speak on behalf of the earth, I often think about like, "Who's the voice of the earth right now?"

And setting those boundaries or calling those things out. And how do we call out in a way, it's also the call in. I've heard some folks talk about that can create new solutions versus more of the same.

James-Olivia Chu Hillman: Yeah. 

Emily Race-Newmark: Hey, it's Emily taking a quick break from this conversation to remind you to please sign up for the This is How We Care newsletter if you haven't already. 

Each week we're playing with journal prompts and practices from each of our guests with the intention of bringing deeper reflection and playful experimentation of these ideas into your own life. You can sign up by heading over to our website, thisishowwecare.Com and entering your email at the pop up screen or in the show notes of this 

episode.

This whole project is a co creative one, and we want to hear [00:23:00] from you. So please reach out and share what you're discovering, what you're wrestling with, and what you want to dive deeper into.

Our newsletter is also a great way to stay connected as we continue to release more offerings within This Is How We Care.

Now let's get back to James-Olivia as she shares her take on the biggest challenge of our time right now and how we might address it.

James-Olivia Chu Hillman: I don't know what the single biggest challenge is. Are you familiar with the story of the elephant? Everybody has their hand on a part of the elephant and is able to see the part of the elephant that they can see, and they can feel the part of the elephant they could feel. I don't know if this story is kind to the elephant. Maybe the elephant doesn't really like this, but we'll go with it for now. And everyone is asked to describe what an elephant is.

And every single person has a different answer because everybody can only see and feel the part of the elephant that they have access to. So I feel like you're asking me to describe an [00:24:00] elephant and I'm like, "Oh, an elephant is smooth. It's very long and it lifts up and it has a curve and it's a very hard, like bone." And everybody else is like, "That is not my elephant. I do not share this elephant with you."

So when you ask me like, what is the problem of our time? I'm like, " I know the tusk of the elephant, don't know the whole elephant."

From where I am with my hand on the tusk of the elephant, are individual and collective lack of capacity and skill to be with difference, and to prize it.

Open any comment section in any social media platform and you will see a lack of skill and a lack of capacity for being with difference.

Receive any accusation that you are not a good person, that you haven't been a good mom, that you haven't been a good friend, that you haven't been a good employee, that you haven't been a good boss, that you haven't been good at your social justice work, any accusation that your difference is not okay. 

[00:25:00] Whatever that feels like, inside the whoosh of defensiveness that, "Oh my gosh, I've been found out. Oh my gosh, they're better. They know more. They're superior to me in some way."

The opposite side of that same coin, "That person doesn't know enough. That person doesn't get it. I'm superior to them in some way and that entitles me to dehumanize." 

Any place where we're looking and going, "In my disagreement, in my difference, one of us matters more, one of us matters less. One of us is right. And one of us is wrong. And that entitles someone to dehumanize somebody else." 

Emily Race-Newmark: Yeah. My natural next thought is, where does our inability to be with difference, where does that piece of us collectively come from? 

James-Olivia Chu Hillman: I don't know where it comes from, I know how it shows up. 

My belief is that because it's a paradigm,by the very nature of what a paradigm is, it's the water that we swim in. It is the cultural norm [00:26:00] to rank differences as, these are the differences that are acceptable. These are the ways of being. This is the skin color. This is the gender. This is the religion. This is the academic achievement, like whatever it is that is acceptable. It is not just the dominant norm, but this is what we aspire to.

This is wanted, and everything else is unwanted and unworthy. 

When I say I don't know where it started, it's because it's in everything. Because it's in the way that we treat children. Because it's in the way that we treat elders. Because it's in the way that we treat the land. Because it's in the way that we transact with each other and extract from each other. Because it's in every relationship from our living room to the boardroom to international policies and politics. Because it's everywhere, I couldn't even begin to tell you where it started. 

Emily Race-Newmark: This is where I get exhausted.

Like, "I just need to take a nap," [Laughter] 

James-Olivia Chu Hillman: And that's exactly [00:27:00] it. I think part of that speaks to our capacity. This can be extraordinarily overwhelming. And the more overwhelmed I am by the idea of this, the less capacity I have now to be with you when you come over and say, "Oh yeah, you know, I don't think that's a problem."

And I'm like, "Oh my God, I am overwhelmed with the problem of this."

And now we have a difference that I don't have the capacity to be with and prize. It doesn't mean I have to agree with you. I'm not looking for agreement. What I'm looking to do is cultivate the capacity to stay with myself and hold my own humanity and hold your humanity, even in the face of that difference.

Emily Race-Newmark: Yes. Okay. So you're touching on it, but if we were to hear from you, like your vision for how we would be with difference what would that look like, what are examples? 

James-Olivia Chu Hillman: That is one of them. 

I'm actually taking a break from teaching [00:28:00] relating skills for the first half of this year so that I can dive into my own learning and work around building physiological somatic capacity to be with difference, not just have the mechanical skills to navigate them, but to actually be with them in my own body.

I'm finding that at almost 50 years old, I'm like, "Oh, this is a skill that I have not learned yet in my lifetime, to a degree that I feel comfortable going into any room with a massive amount of difference and not necessarily relying on the mechanical skills that I have for relating."

I don't have the answer. I do work with a framework of, in order to relate competently and be with difference in a generative way, in a way where I'm cultivating peace in the face of it and I'm relating competently, the three things that I'm looking to are: my desire to do it. Do I want to, does my spirit actually even want to cultivate [00:29:00] peace? 

Do I have the skill? Have I learned things that I can get better at and practice that are going to cultivate peaceful relationship with you? Can I do the things? 

And then capacity, am I resourced? Do I have space in my body? Do I need rest? Do I need some hydration? Do I need community support? Do I need support from my ancestors? Do I need to be with the land? What is it that I need to support my own capacity? And that, again, is not an individual thing. 

We very often are talking about capacity as though it's this personal thing and I have borrowed and given so much capacity in community that none of us would ever have individually.

Emily Race-Newmark: Wow. I'm like really resonating with the capacity piece, especially being a mother to a toddler and ungrounded, we didn't have a home for the past seven months traveling around and staying with family members and being pregnant. I'm like, "I have very little capacity," to compare to what I may have normally in certain situations. [00:30:00] And the new piece that I'm adding from what you're saying here is like, "Okay, what are my resources for potentially increasing or tending to my needs here in the capacity piece?" 

 What does it look like for us to increase our capacity, to hold relationship with one another in ways that are peaceful? What does right relationship even look like in your vision of the world?

James-Olivia Chu Hillman: Oh, I'm glad you asked this. I use the term right relationship a lot, and it's not the binary of right and wrong. I think a less alliterative and catchy way to say it would be aligned relationship.

 Aligned with my own will, my spirit, am I aligned with myself? Am I in integrity aligned with my commitments, aligned with what I actually care about? For me, includes other people. I can't necessarily make my relationship align with you and what you care about, but I do actually care about it. 

So when people are like, " what is right relationship?" I'm like, I don't have the answer. I have questions for you. 

And the questions are, is the relationship [00:31:00] that I have with you aligned? The relationship you have with me is none of my business. If the relationship you have with me is not aligned with my values or my commitments, that's not my business.

It's my business to then say, "Okay, given the relationship you've chosen to have with me, how do I navigate my relationship with you in an aligned and discerned way? So is it aligned?

Is it sustainable?"

And I can't answer that for both of us. If I'm extracting from you and I'm like, "Yeah, this is great. It's sustainable for me. I'm getting everything I need."

And it depletes you and destroys you and erases you. It's not actually sustainable. That's a question that can only be answered in the ecosystem of the relationship. 

And then the third question I ask is, is it just? And by just, I mean, am I regarding everyone involved in this relationship?

If I have disregarded, dismissed, erased, destroyed, exploited, extracted from somebody else in the relationship, [00:32:00] it's not just. I'm practicing disregard, not regard. Okay. 

Emily Race-Newmark: Yeah, and it's so interesting again, you don't have the answers for the other person. So then I'm imagining that looks like we have to come together to ask ourselves these questions and be with the answers and maybe be in the space of difference for when you're triggered by the answer. So that we can explore okay, so then what might it look like to align the relationship. 

Another burning question for me is, if we could imagine a new version of leadership, just like we kind of redefined power earlier on, what would be your vision for leadership in the world? 

James-Olivia Chu Hillman: I don't have a single vision for leadership. I believe that leadership can look like many, many different things. I follow the leadership of artists. I follow the leadership of thinkers and philosophers. I follow the leadership of disruptors. I follow the leadership of caregivers.

There are so many ways to lead. And leading to me, is inherently relational. If nobody's following, you're not leading, [00:33:00] you're just doing what you do. And there's nothing wrong with that. Yes, do what you do, but leadership is a relationship. Leadership is a relationship of somebody who has a vision and says, "I'm going over there. Would you like to come with me?" 

And a followership that says, "I also would like to go over there. It is in my self interest. It is in perhaps my enlightened self interest or my self interest includes the interest of my ecosystem because caring for the ecosystem and the collective is in my own personal self interest. It is my self interested decision to go with you over there. You're going over there. I want to go there, too."

and it's not limited for me to the kinds of destinations that I find pleasing. There are people leading to really nefarious places. And they're not, not leading. They are leading. And so it's not my vision of leadership that it go to a specific place or look a certain [00:34:00] way, but that it be relational and aligned. And do I oppose some people's really fantastic leadership because of where they're going?

Yes. I'm like, "You are leading in a really like spectacular way, and I hate where you're going."

My job isn't to try and oppose necessarily all the time. Sometimes it is, sometimes the job is to oppose. For me or for somebody else. Not everybody's doing the same work or the same job. But my job might be, "I oppose where you're going and I want everybody who's following you to know that this is not a good place."

That's not leading, that's the job of opposition. But the work of leading, is for me to say, " listen everybody I see you all going over there, I'm going over here, does anybody want to come with me? It's a different place than over there."

Emily Race-Newmark: I really want to just acknowledge you for how you frequently throughout this conversation have distinguished what is yours and what is someone else's, and I'm assuming that's something you have practiced over time. 

James-Olivia Chu Hillman: I'm getting better at [00:35:00] it, [Laughter] but I'm working on it.

Emily Race-Newmark: What is the trigger in your head to be like, "This is a moment for me to say, 'I can't answer that'." 

James-Olivia Chu Hillman: There are two ways that I'll answer that. One of them is the distinction between 'what' and 'how'. 

When I talk about leading, it's like, here's 'what'. Here's where we're going. Here's 'what'. 

How we get there is management, not leadership. 

If I'm up in your business of how you get where we're going together, I'm now in the business of managing you, not leading you. Leading is holding the vision. Managing is getting into the 'how', and both are worthy jobs. I'm not trying to diminish management.

It's just that's not my world. So getting out of somebody else's 'how' and holding with them their 'what', it's like, "I'll hold your what with you. I'll remind you what you said you care about. how you get there is not my business. I don't know what you have capacity for. I don't know what your spirit is telling you. [00:36:00] I don't know what lights you up right now."

And so, if somebody's like, "I'm gonna get to my 'what' of making a safer world by knitting sweaters for penguins," I'm like, "I have no business telling you that's right or wrong." 

Emily Race-Newmark: Oh my gosh, back to the sustainability as a tenant of right relationship, that is something I've learned the hard way. It is just not sustainable for me to try to manage someone else's 'how'. 

James-Olivia Chu Hillman: It's exhausting. 

Emily Race-Newmark: It's so exhausting. And also for them, they're like, "I don't need you to do it." [Laughter] 

James-Olivia Chu Hillman: Nobody wants you to, that's the thing. [Laughter] 

Emily Race-Newmark: Okay, so let's shift gears now to closing out of this conversation, but I have so many lingering questions, [Laughter] but such is life. I'll never stop having questions. 

James-Olivia Chu Hillman: We can do this again, if you want, we can have more than one conversation recorded or unrecorded. 

Emily Race-Newmark: Amazing. I'm like, definitely sign me up for your workshops. I want to be a part of this. 

So I like to close out by giving folks something to do in their lives, to bring into reality this conversation if it speaks to them.

If someone could [00:37:00] pause right now and take an immediate action, what would that be that would align with some of the things you're speaking to? 

James-Olivia Chu Hillman: Oh, wow. I would say pause and take no immediate action. Just for a moment. And I'm not saying don't take action, please do not take away from this conversation that I said, take no action. But to pause before the action, and this is part of the somatic capacity building, listen to what your own body is trying to tell you. If you need rest, get some rest.

If you are on fire with rage, listen to that. If you are like, "I need to care for somebody," like "I need to care with somebody," there is something in every single one of us that our body is saying, "Hey, you know what, this is what I need right now. This is what I need in order to be okay. This is what I need in order to be resourced." 

And it might just be, " That's all I needed. All I needed was this pause."

[00:38:00] Sometimes my body's like, "Girl, you need a bath and to hydrate cause that next post is going to take a lot out of you," [Laughter] 

Sometimes what I need is to have my dearest people over and feed them food. "Okay. Come over."

I want the physical act of nourishing another human body and breaking bread with them and sharing community, letting another human being know we've got each other. 

 The one thing that I would tell people right now is pause to listen to your own spirit. 

Emily Race-Newmark: It's just to me, brings me back to this idea that we are also in relationship with ourselves, these pieces of ourselves, right? And yeah, and if we can really practice that communication, it will allow us to have so much better communication with the rest of the world. 

James-Olivia Chu Hillman: Yeah. Do I have time to add a little question to that?

Emily Race-Newmark: Yeah, go for it. 

James-Olivia Chu Hillman: Okay. In that pause, particularly when things are heinous, [00:39:00] particularly when things are vexing or upsetting or triggering in that pause. A question that I like to ask myself is, who do I want to be right now? Even if I'm not getting what I want. Even if things are scary, even if this is just awful, who do I want to be? And what do I need in order to be that person? ]

Emily Race-Newmark: okay. So I'm left with so much and I'm so grateful. I also feel like I need a nap after this, just to integrate the conversation. I'm grateful that my daughter has nap time after this and I can join her. 

James-Olivia Chu Hillman: Amazing. 

Emily Race-Newmark: Okay. James-Olivia, thank you so much for everything you shared and in the work that you're leading, just by being who you are and really grateful that we were connected and that you said yes to doing this, so I appreciate your time. 

James-Olivia Chu Hillman: Thank you for inviting me. I had a really glorious time. You let me talk a lot about myself. Thank you, that's awfully fun. And I would love to have a conversation where I get to hear about you. [Laughter] 

Emily Race-Newmark: Aw, thank you. Yes. Well, to be continued. 

James-Olivia Chu Hillman: Fantastic. Thank you. 

Emily Race-Newmark: Thank you for being with us and listening. If you enjoy this conversation with James-Olivia and you [00:40:00] want to dive deeper, there are a couple ways to stay connected. You can follow her on Instagram @inquisitive_human, where she freely shares most, if not all of what she teaches in her paid offerings.

You can DM her there. If you want to join her mailing list, you can also visit her website, inquisitivehuman.Com. To learn more about her work and upcoming offerings.

All of this is linked over in the show notes of our website at thisishowwecare.Com where you can also sign up for our newsletter to receive weekly prompts and practices from our guests with the intention of bringing deeper reflection and playful experimentation of these ideas into your life. 

Lastly, if you think the messages from this episode will speak to someone you care about, please, please, please share it with them.

This is just one of the many ways that you can help us co create a world of embodied collective care. 

This episode was produced by me, Emily Race, co produced by Kimberly Anne, with editing by Andrew Salamone, and music by Eric Weisberg.--