00:00I am light, I am light.
00:05I am India Arie and it's my pleasure to be here in the Essence Wellness House, from my house.
00:10And so what we're going to do together today is called a songversation.
00:15So songversation always begins and ends with a prayer about the truth of who we are,
00:21at our essence and at our core.
00:23And this is featuring my new friends, beautiful chorus.
00:30This is our prayer.
00:35I am light, I am light.
00:48I am light, I am light.
00:54I am light.
00:56I am light.
00:58I am light.
00:59I am light.
01:01I am light.
01:03I am not the things my family did.
01:07I am not the voices in my head.
01:11I am not the pieces of the brokenness inside.
01:17I am untied.
01:19I am light.
01:20I am light.
01:24I am light, yeah.
01:29I am light, I am light.
01:34Light as in the opposite of heavy.
01:37I am light, I am light.
01:42Light as in the best word in the English language to describe the soul.
01:45I am light, I am light.
01:50I'm not the mistakes that I have made, or any of the things that cause me pain.
02:00I am not the pieces of the dreams I left behind.
02:06I am light.
02:10I am light, I am light.
02:22Quantum physics teaches us that we're really actually mostly space.
02:28We are light.
02:30We are light.
02:32I am not the color of my eyes.
02:36I am not the skin on the outside.
02:40I am not my age.
02:42I am not my race.
02:44I am not my life inside is all I.
02:51I am light.
02:53I am light, I am light.
02:57Light as in the heat and fire given off by the combustion of the crucible of life's hard times.
03:07I am divinity defined.
03:11I am a god on the inside.
03:15I am a star, a piece of it all.
03:19I am light.
03:27And so this songversation is called Songversation Worthy.
03:36And so through the course of this songversation, if you're somewhere stationary, I want you to sit still and breathe.
03:42You're going to breathe in through your nose and out through your nose, keeping the mouth shut.
03:50We're going to put an image of me sitting that way on the screen as we do this songversation.
03:56So feet flat on the ground, arms relaxed, palms up, shoulders down, jaw relaxed, tongue off the roof of your mouth, face relaxed.
04:08Relax the energy all behind your eyes, all behind your sinuses, relax your ears, relax your scalp.
04:14And I want to invite you to close your eyes, open them periodically if you want to see what it looks like to sit in this posture.
04:23This songversation is called Songversation Worthy.
04:28And why?
04:30Why songversation worthy?
04:32Because we live in a world that tells us in a myriad of ways every day that we're not worthy.
04:41We're not worthy because we don't look right.
04:44We're not worthy because we've been through some sort of abuse.
04:46We're not worthy because some part of our family denied us or because we're adopted.
04:51We're not worthy because we don't look right.
04:55Any number of things.
04:56Because we're not the right weight.
04:57Because we're not the right color.
04:58Because we're not the right shade of color.
05:00Because we don't have enough money.
05:02Because of any reason.
05:05This society will tell us we're not worthy for any reason.
05:09And so what we have to do is to tell ourselves that we're worthy.
05:14And so my favorite definition of the word worthy is deserving of regard and respect.
05:20So let's think about that for a minute.
05:22Who's not deserving of regard and respect?
05:24Even in a world that doesn't always give it to us, it doesn't mean we're not all deserving.
05:29And so today, with Songversation Worthy, what we're going to do is remember, review, remind, realize, reaffirm, rejoice our worthiness.
05:40With Songversation Worthy, we're going to remember the best of who we are.
05:45Because we can look at the news every day and they tell us the rest of who we are.
05:50But we have to remember the best of who we are.
05:53And that's the point of Songversation Worthy.
06:00I opened this Songversation Worthy with the song, I Am Light.
06:03I hope you listen closely to the words.
06:06Because this song is about what it means to be human.
06:13Let me explain what I mean by that.
06:16Sometimes people ask me about my music and the song, I Am Light, in particular.
06:23And they say, isn't it unrealistic to say I Am Light?
06:28The song, I Am Light, is not saying you don't have any issues.
06:33It's saying that there's a difference in identifying with your pain and identifying as your pain.
06:42If we can learn to identify with our pain and not as it, we can learn how to deal with it.
06:49And that matters so much because in this life, we all have imperfections.
06:55We all have pain.
06:56We all have things that are done to us.
06:58We all have things that we've done to other people.
07:00All of us.
07:01And this is not wrong.
07:02This is life.
07:03So if we can see it as just life happening, as my mother always says, if we can see our pain, our abuses, our shames, our guilts as just life happening, then we can use it as information, as lessons to continue our process of growing, of evolving.
07:20While the world defines me as a singer songwriter or a neo soul singer songwriter or whatever they define me as, I define myself as a healer for whom music and words are my main medium.
07:33And why do I say healer?
07:35Because what a healer does is it holds space for a person to heal themselves.
07:41Because in this life, that's all we can do.
07:43No one can heal us.
07:44We heal ourselves.
07:46And so what I do in performance is hold space for the audience to have realizations about themselves, to have those moments where they can remember, review, remind, realize, reaffirm, and rejoice the best of who they are.
08:03And with healing, it's not a place that you get to and all of a sudden, ta-da, you're there.
08:09Healing is a little bit at a time.
08:11And the word healing is defined as return to wholeness.
08:15And we do that a little bit at a time.
08:19Sometimes we take a step back and a step forward and a step back and three steps forward.
08:23But we have to work at it.
08:25And if we're not working at it, we don't get anywhere.
08:27And if we're waiting for someone to hand it to us, we don't get anywhere.
08:31And so what we do is we find ways in life.
08:35We find things, songs, books, words, teachers, people, nature, things in life that help us remember ourselves, that help us to continue that incremental process of becoming more whole.
08:51And so that's what Songversation Worthy is about.
08:55You taking this moment to become a little bit more whole.
09:01And so that's why I ask that as we sit into this moment of affirmation and meditation that you breathe as we're talking.
09:11And that you sit in your body, if you can, with your eyes closed as we're talking so that you can take these words in to be true.
09:20Because what they tell us about ourselves on the news every day, what the magazines say and the beauty ideals, what they say, those aren't true.
09:31Those are someone's concepts.
09:34And so one of my favorite pieces of wisdom I've come across this year, 2020, is something that I heard a man named Sufi Sam say.
09:44He said, we don't solve problems because the solutions interfere with our concepts.
09:51I want to say that again.
09:53He said, we don't solve problems because the solutions interfere with our concepts.
09:59I expanded that for myself in my own journey of healing to say, we don't solve problems because our solutions interfere with our concepts of ourselves.
10:09And so that's why I do songversation worthy so that I can continue to expand my concept of myself.
10:17And anyone who wants to go on that journey with me, I want to bring you with me.
10:21And that's why I do this so that we can continue to expand our concepts of ourselves.
10:25And we don't rely on a world outside of us to inform our concepts of ourselves.
10:31So worthiness is not a place that you get to.
10:35It's a place that you continue to return to.
10:37Balance is dynamic.
10:39You adjust those muscles and keep yourself up.
10:41And so I hope that you return to this talk anytime.
10:44I hope that you return to this music anytime.
10:47And I hope that you continue to find places in your life that take you to that place that help you to continue to remember, review, remind, realize, reaffirm, and rejoice your worthiness.
11:00And so songversation always begins and ends with a prayer.
11:05And as we come to the end of this very short songversation, I want you to keep that internal posture of stillness and take these words in to be true.
11:14You are worthy and you're significant and you matter because you exist.
11:19This is our prayer.
11:20I know exactly what you're thinking.
11:34You are worthy.
11:36Love ya.
11:48Now listen up to this truth, you are me and I am you, every one of us is worthy.
11:57Baby girl, worthy woman, every one of us is worthy.
12:05Baby girl, worthy woman, every one of us is worthy.
12:11I know your life, I feel your pain, I know your joys and your shames.
12:21Sometimes it feels like life walks over you, like you're a penny on the ground.
12:30But either on the ground or in your purse, the smallest piece still holds its worth.
12:34Every one of us is worthy.
12:38Baby girl, worthy woman, every one of us is worthy.
12:46Baby girl, worthy woman, every one of us is worthy.
12:54Worthy of love, worthy of life.
12:58Worthy of saying no when something don't feel right.
13:01Right, this is my song for you, for all the ups and downs that life will put you through.
13:11So listen up to this truth, you are me and I am you, every one of us is worthy.
13:20Baby girl, worthy woman, every one of us is worthy.
13:26Baby girl, worthy woman, every one of us is worthy.
13:37Every one of us is worthy.
13:41Every one of us is worthy.
13:45Every one of us is worthy.
13:49Every one of us is worthy.
13:52and so I want to invite you to gently start to move your body and open your eyes
14:02remember that when someone treats you as less than worthy it's because they're having a mistaken
14:07conversation about themselves and about humanity and so we must take it upon ourselves to remember
14:14review remind realize reaffirm rejoice in our worthiness and why do we do this because the
14:21more we love ourselves the more we can love other people the better we love ourselves the better we
14:26can love other people and isn't that what life is all about and so I want to leave you with this
14:33you are worthy and you're significant and you matter because you exist not how you exist because
14:41you exist how do I know this because we all are you're worthy because you exist all my love
14:50until next time I'm India Ari peace
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