Intro: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Holden Village Podcast. Holden is a community of education, programming, and worship located in the remote wilderness of the Cascade Mountains. These snapshots provide a glimpse into the learnings taking place in our community. Let's tune in to this week's highlight.
Maya Mineoi: My name is Maya Mineoi. I use they them pronouns, and I am from Minnesota. I found out about Holden Village because of many people. I've heard stories about the bowling alley. I've heard stories about the beautiful nature and the animals, and I've heard the music. And so I'm really grateful to be here for my first time.
Stacy Kitahata knew me from, I would say about, gosh, 2016, so seven years ago from now, and helped me through my service year with the Lutheran Volunteer Corps. And at that point in time, it was my dream to be able to do music and dance and helping people to be more embodied, to not just do that on an individual level, but also to do it in [00:01:00] groups.
So from that point on, when I met Stacy, I was leading some talk groups, for example, around power and privilege or just helping people to learn more about themselves. And I found that bringing in movement and bringing in embodiment really changed the depth that people were able to go into. And so that was my dream at that time.
And I did some integrate some of that and I found that it was helpful. And then from that time until now, I've really just been studying. So I got my masters, I attended a Sematics Institute, and with Covid, I hadn't been able to lead any groups. So this space feels really important to me cuz this is sort of the culmination of a dream and so it's been fun to kind of play with folks who are here and improv and experiment and see what works because up until now from my [00:02:00] masters, so for the past two years that I've been working post-degree, it's been all individual. So the first thing that came up for me, because my mom is a Lutheran pastor. My mom's parents are German, Swiss, and English Canadian.
And so being a mixed person having a white mom who's a pastor. I've had my journey of figuring out how to be in a church like the ELCA that's majority white, being back at Holden and back in the space, not just on Zoom Church, but in person and really paying attention to how that shows up in my own body. Maybe a little bit of discomfort or tension and processing that for myself.
And this memory that I had of working with a client came up for me and she said when she was little, she used to go to church and she realized that when they were talking about caring [00:03:00] for oppressed people or helping the poor, she had this realization, oh, they're talking about me. So this Colombian American kid in this majority large white church, and they're preaching about how we need to help the poor. And that dynamic, even as like a seven year old felt uncomfortable to her. And so I'm, I'm mindful of that being in this space that sometimes we preach from one perspective, it doesn't always make space for everyone who's in the room.
And so what's fun for me about bringing my work into that, I can help people explore that in their bodies versus just talking about it. Because a lot of times when we're just talking, the defensiveness comes up, the need for performance comes up, the fragility comes up. But when we're able to just notice, how does it land for you to hear that maybe the people who you're wanting to help don't wanna be helped in the way that you want to help them, [00:04:00] or maybe the people who are dealing with oppression are also organizing and have ideas about how to, to transform our systems. So Eric Law has this circle model that he uses that sort of talks about at different times in our life and from different perspectives. We enter that circle from different places. So some people need a message at, at the moment that they're in of incarnation.
Some people need the message in the place and time that they're in the context that they're in. Of the resurrection. Some people need the crucifixion, right? So depending on what story would help you enter into the community balancing these, these power dynamics in the stories. And so I say all this to say that I really am grateful that I have teachers that have taught me the language of embodiment to be able to explore some of this stuff without staying up in our heads and being resistant to the dualities and the multiplicities that we hold in.[00:05:00]
My work is really fun because it's, it is about being embodied, it is about being connected. It is about being whole. And so it's fun for me to sort of be multimodal, like I've gotten to help people draw, you know, the skeletal system by, by touching and sensing into their own bodies instead of just looking at one body type and thinking that you need to move your body like this one body type would or you need to have medicine that would work for this particular body. I have helped people just slow down and move instead of thinking about external performance, thinking about internal inquiry. So we're just gonna do a body scan moving, starting from your toes and then your ankles and knees and moving up the body all the way to the crown of the head. And then I've done some, some content like, [00:06:00] here's what's happening in your nervous system when you're feeling frustrated. Here's what's happening not only in your body, but also in your mind.
So when your heart rate is going up your mind literally reduces its ability to see complexity and what does that change when we notice that that's happening versus thinking that that is the only way that we can be in community is I need to respond to this fire that's in my chest. And sometimes you do need to respond, but it's been fun to work with folks around how we might move our eyes around this space to notice what you see.
How you might remind yourself of where you are, of who you're with, of what time it is, what day it is to kind of help recenter ourselves, and then to see in this time, in this place with these people, what's the most integrated or the action that I can take with the most integrity in this space?
Also, I'm gonna be talking about [00:07:00] internal family systems work, how we are made up of many parts, and what does that change when you can enter into a space, instead of saying, oh, well you said you were wanting to do this yesterday, but today you don't wanna do it. Or you're getting angry, and I don't understand where this is coming from. Being able to use the language, not just of the body, right, of saying, oh, my heart rate is raising, but then also of the parts to say there's a part of me that this doesn't sit well with. How is that maybe a little bit more, both honest, but also others are able to then receive that a little better versus like, I'm, I'm pissed off my whole being, right?
It's like there's a part of me that I'm, I'm wanting to attend to that this is hard for and can we attend to that part together? So I would say for me, the takeaway of all this multimodal work that I've been doing with folks that I would really want is that we are all made up of so many experiences and so many communities that we come from, so many influences that we come from.[00:08:00]
And instead of engaging each other from the activated, urgent place of what's the right thing to do? How do I save face or how do I look like I'm being a good person and instead to drop into our bodies, and to acknowledge that when you're interacting with someone, you're also interacting with the communities they come from. You're also interacting with the experiences that they've had and the invitation to really drop in and honor that from a place of listening and a place of integrity versus a place of needing to quote unquote, do it right.
