Reggie’s lived experience includes being a stroke survivor, a teacher, wisdom steward, strategist, organizer, spiritual advisor, minister of sound, philosopher and devoted seeker of truth, compassion, health, well-being and justice for all. Through Active Peace, he teaches people from all walks of life to cultivate wisdom and grow strong foundations of well-being through dedicated practices involving movement, meditation and sound.
This post is a short edited excerpt of Reggie’s journey from anger to peace through teaching practices that lay the foundation for personal and spiritual transformation. Hear his full interview on The Gifts of Trauma Podcast.
I’m many things: a caring human, a stroke survivor, a descendant of enslaved humans that believed in the power of prayer and the call of liberation. I’m a social justice seeker, a healer, a person that loves to be curious, playful and a trickster. I’m also a big-bodied brown guy living in an America that doesn’t like black people. I grew up in a land that saw me as a threat when all I wanted to do was be a blessing. Over the course of my life, I found peace in the world that sought to demonize me and became a conduit of that peace for all people.
From a very young age, anger was my native tongue. The sage James Baldwin said, “To be black and conscious in America is to be in a constant state of rage.” Through my lived experience, I can cosign that. For a time, it was a beautiful experience, because it catapulted me. “You don’t think I can do this? Let me show you.” But anger, left unchecked, transitions from fuel source to destructor. My anger started to become self-destructive. It showed up as 20 hour work days. I had no regard for the temple through which I worked. It showed up in drinking bourbon for breakfast and chain smoking cigarettes for lunch. I experienced tremendous stress and pressure, because I’m one of few people of colour in a powerful position. Over time, the drive that had taken me to a certain place had turned into my harshest critic, my ally became my demon.
So I got curious and asked, ‘What is this?’ In a prayerful state, I heard my ancestors say, ‘What are you doing? We didn’t send you here for this. You need to change.’ I listened and on April 1, 2013, I took a vow of clean living. I began to detox my system, care for my body and adopt wholesome habits. My ‘reborn day’ begat my yoga practice, my meditation practice and ways of interpreting the world from a bigger perspective than my own pain. I even found peace with racism by seeing how it had benefited me by igniting my drive. Race is still the water I swim in. But I’m so well versed in this water, I see it as not as something to overcome, but a condition I can surpass. Yoga and meditation and sound music practice taught me to see more clearly, release the poison and extract the wisdom.
Many people, especially in the lines of work that have become my vocation, talk about ‘not having time’ for meditation or self care. But you can’t chase peace or well-being. You have to create structures in your life, foundations to reinforce your discipline. I keep sound bowls in my bedroom, so when I wake up I can chime myself into my day. This vibration is in my brain when I leave the house, so if someone cuts me off in traffic, or I’m in a Zoom call that runs long… instead of getting worked up, I’ll go back to where I was that morning. That discipline built my foundation, and as life’s disruptions become more and more pronounced, my practice brings me back to the foundational peace I built.
I took yoga teacher training to deepen my practice. I had no intention of teaching. From 2017 to 2021, when a lot was happening in the US, I worked for moveon.org, an advocacy group. I thought, if I’m going to be in the middle of this, I have to be spiritually and yogically rooted to endure, as the chaos has to be grounded by deep peace. I’d be in tense meetings, and members of Congress would say, ‘We love when you’re here because you’re so grounded and peaceful. When you walk in, our blood pressure drops.” While I kept studying, people kept asking me to teach. I rebuffed it for a while but it kept coming, and when it keeps coming, it’s not coming from people, it’s coming from Spirit. So I started teaching.
When the Corona virus hit, I went from being the peaceful dude in the room to the peaceful dude in the Zoom room. I had to teach people peace quickly, and having fought in intense times to save healthcare, for justice, for impeachment, and other things grounded me. When things got super hectic, everybody called me, the political committees, chiefs of staff for members of Congress… Some of my yoga teacher friends wanted to teach members of Congress, but I said no as they didn’t understand the world I’d been in for 20 years, where I was trusted and known. A world that saw me use yoga and meditation to come back from a stroke, and which, despite their skepticism about my practices, created a level of trust I use to inspire.
So where times are crazy, as they are now, Active Peace, the name of my teaching practice, is what people are looking for. We can’t drink our way through these tough times. We need practices that give us the space to cultivate both joy and sorrow, not just good vibes. We need practices that give us avenues in which to turn towards sorrow and suffering which we need to see as partners in the human experience, as opposed to enemies to avoid at all costs. These practices lay the foundation for personal and spiritual transformation, which is the goal of activism.
My influence is deeper now, as I’m teaching people to cope with grief, which gives them a better quality of life, and a deeper breadth of emotional and spiritual understanding which will hopefully lead to better outcomes. It’s a less prescriptive approach that comes from my loving heart. I offer space where we can grieve together, to normalize the expression of grief in community, where we understand it’s okay to not be okay. Terrible things are happening right now, but beautiful things are happening too. When we deal with what’s upsetting us we can turn our aperture towards the beautiful things that inspire us. That alchemy yields equanimity, which allows us to be of service in chaotic times.
The Gifts of Trauma is a weekly podcast that features personal stories of trauma, transformation, healing, and the gifts revealed on the path to authenticity. Listen to the interview, and if you like it, please subscribe and share.
