June Johnson, entrepreneur, model, and advocate, joins host Leslie for a wide-ranging conversation where she candidly shares her personal journey, including her rebellious phases, grappling with double consciousness as a Black woman, and her transition into entrepreneurship in the cannabis space after facing racial discrimination at a former workplace.
June Johnson, entrepreneur, model, and advocate, joins host Leslie for a wide-ranging conversation where she candidly shares her personal journey, including her rebellious phases, grappling with double consciousness as a Black woman, and her transition into entrepreneurship in the cannabis space after facing racial discrimination at a former workplace.
June grew up surrounded by strong Black role models, dedicated to community empowerment. Her great-grandfather helped register Black voters, and her cousin was Atlanta's first Black mayor at age 35. This environment nurtured her critical thinking and activism. Her mother also exposed her to various spiritual practices, shaping June's open-minded approach to faith and philosophies.
She shares her mantra of "resist, rest, repeat," emphasizing the significance of taking action, practicing self-care, and continuously engaging in the fight for justice. She explores how the idea that true activism involves not only being aware of issues but also mobilizing towards tangible solutions.
June and Leslie also discuss the importance of creating a positive vision for the future, sharing how focusing on a constructive and hopeful picture of the world can inspire action and collective change. By visualizing a world free from oppressive systems like white supremacy and patriarchy, we can work towards a more inclusive and equitable society.
Navigating the cannabis industry as a Black woman has brought new challenges. June recounts launching her own businesses after facing racism, harassment, and unethical conduct at a previous cannabis company. She's now focused on educating others about cannabis for wellness through her Weed Doula consultancy and throwing cannabis-themed events via Collective High.
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Show Credits:
Leslie: Welcome to The Nature of Nurture with Dr. Leslie Carr, a podcast for your mental health. I'm your host, Leslie. If you're watching this podcast right now, you can find the audio version in any podcast app and if you're listening, you can also watch this episode on YouTube at The Nature of Nurture. You can find that link in the show notes.
Today we're having a conversation with my friend, June Johnson. June is a model, a cannabis educator, and an entrepreneur. She's the founder of both Collective High and The Weed Doula, where she's at the forefront of cannabis education and culture. And she's an active investor in the fashion and technology space outside of her work in those arenas.
June is an outspoken political activist and she's dedicated to the radical socioeconomic advancement of black women. I wanted to have her on the podcast for a few reasons. June has a beautiful way of talking about political activism in a manner that's mental health forward. And I think she has a lot of wisdom to share during this challenging period of time on the planet.
She's also a spiritual person, which gives her a really unique lens on how to face challenging situations, both personally and politically. One of the things that I often talk about in my speaking career is how to quote unquote, stay sane in an insane world. And I can't think of a better person to jam on that subject with than June.
I filmed this episode from my home office. So in a hot sec, you'll see me teleport over there. But it is my great honor to introduce you to June Johnson. Hey there, June.
June: Hi, Leslie. How are you?
Leslie: I'm good. Thank you. How are you doing today?
June: Good. All things considered.
Leslie: Yeah, I, um, we will get into a lot of that, but I'm just really grateful that we're doing this today.
And it's really nice to be with you right now.
June: Thank you for holding space to this.
Leslie: So there is so much I'm excited to talk to you about today, but I would love to start at the beginning because I know that you were raised in a political family. And I wonder if you can just tell our listeners a little bit about your life growing up.
And your introduction to politics at an early age.
June: Yeah, absolutely. So my cousin was the former mayor of Atlanta, and he was a young mayor. He was 35 when he became the first black mayor of Atlanta. And my great grandfather is John Wesley Dobbs, and he really radicalized the trajectory of, um, just the black community in Atlanta with Sweet Auburn and getting blacks registered to vote.
Um, if you fly into Atlanta, Hartsfield, Jackson airport, that's where the Jackson part of that airport and so just really proud of the legacy, um, of people and stuff that I come from. You know, the women in the family who aren't to be overlooked have done some really incredible things as far as progressing, um, community aspects for the black community in the south.
So really proud of where I come from and just what's been influenced and honoring my upbringing, as hard as it might have seemed, that it's given me such a critical eye. Like my cousin, when I was 12, um, we were sitting around like Thanksgiving dinner table or something like that. And I offered something to the adults conversation that was very excited, you know, and it was received well.
And you know, my cousin looked at me and I'll never forget this. And it was just like, that was so beautiful. I'm so glad you contributed. And you know, it was great. What you said. This time I'm going to let it slide, but next time you come into the conversation, you'll need to name sources and have three sources prepared when you bring something to the conversation. So that like, that's the family that I come from.
And whereas it seemed hard at the time, like it's prepared me so much for who I am now. And I'm really proud of that.
Leslie: I love that so much that sort of early training and I'm thinking about something that you have said to me before that quote unquote, your existence is political. And I wonder if you can remember, was there a time in your life that you kind of came to realize that or having grown up in a political family?
Is it one of those things where it was just always in the water? Like what are your early memories of figuring that out for yourself?
June: Yeah, well, my grandmother and my mom and my dad really instilled a sense of being proud to be black. Um, my mom and my grandmother, you know, taught me from an early age that I would be treated differently based around my race and around, uh, being a woman.
Um, and so it was, you could say it was always in the water. I mean, the first time I remember really feeling the weight of that, I was seven and someone, a friend of mine on, uh, during recess called me the N word. And I knew it was bad, but didn't know why it was bad. I just knew that this was something that was not okay.
Um, and it was my first interaction with how school would deal with it, how hierarchical it was, and, um, that definitely left a taste in my mouth. So you could say it's always been there. I think that's, you know, every black kid in the world. I can speak through my specific lens of being a U. S. citizen, but every black kid knows from a very early age, just what the complexities, but also just the abrasiveness of racism and sexism and racism if you're at the double intersection of that.
Leslie: Yes, absolutely. God abrasiveness is such a good word for it. I, um, you know, there's so much that we're gonna get into and unpack today around the work that you do in the world in this regard. But I think before we even get there, I want to bring in this spirituality piece because I think that, um, there's a way in which you talk about this stuff that strikes me as so important and refreshing in the sense that we don't always hear these things braided together and the way that you are inclined to braid them together.
But can you can you tell me and our listeners a little bit about how and where the spirituality piece kind of fits into this?
June: Yeah, I really have to give credit to my mom. Um, she raised me with such an open heart and she's an artist herself and a teacher. I come from a family of educators and people who
love learning, but applying learning, not just learning to learn. But she stood out because she was an artist and coming from a family of doctors and lawyers and psychiatrists and things like that to follow your path. And being an artist is already a kind of a hard walk, but she taught me to really be open about how I approach viewing the world.
Um, and she herself, she is an energy worker. So she does Reiki. She took me to learn how. to do Reiki when I was 12. And I remember thinking, Oh my God, this is so weird. My friends are doing like normal Saturday things. I'm learning Reiki. How am I even going to tell people about this? I'm not. So that's so funny.
She exposed me to so much of it when I was young and really, like I said, kept an open heart and let me know that if I had any question about any religion or any philosophy, she would, um, teach me or take me to someone who could teach me and just really to be open. So. You know, I joke that I was raised taken, but I really was, I wasn't raised religious by either one of my parents.
Um, my grandparents, my mom's parents were atheists, which is fairly uncommon in the black community. Um, and they come from a science background so I think that had a lot to do with it too. But it's just been an interesting journey. I did get rebellious around high school and college. And my rebellion was around religion actually, um, came like hardcore Catholic.
Really started going down like a right, not right wing, but just kind of like, um, I was in the South and I was coming to a lot of terms with like, if you can't beat them, join them kind of mentality. Cause I'm in predominantly white spaces. I'm usually one of one person who's black. And so just kind of trying to blend in, I started getting really religious and even like flirted with supporting NRA and stuff like that.
And I think that was my form of really resisting and breaking away and starting my own path. I wanted to work for the CIA. My mom was horrified.
Leslie: Um,
June: it was just like this, like, I'm gonna go to the opposite extreme of what I was raised in. And, you know, really just trying to find myself in all of that. And so it's been a windy road, you know, but leaving college, getting out of the South helps shed a lot of the packed in, um, double consciousness I had to live with.
And just, you know, just all kinds of mind games to be able to survive as. a black person in predominantly white spaces.
Leslie: Yeah, absolutely. Um, can you say a little bit about what you mean by that double consciousness?
June: Yeah, double consciousness is the experience of having to have kind of two personas or two identities. The you, the black female aspect of. And then, when moving in white spaces, really occupy a different identity primarily to make whites less afraid. To make whites feel comfortable with our presence in spaces so that we don't get harmed, hopefully. But
Leslie: yeah,
June: even when you do all the right things, obviously we've seen harm and the harm still happens, so there's no way to avoid it.
But double consciousness is really the reality of moving through with like two personas and having to navigate that in various spaces.
Leslie: Yeah, kind of code switching and that kind of thing. Absolutely. Yeah. I've never heard that specific phrase before a double consciousness, but I certainly know what you mean.
Yeah. Oh, okay. All right. Thank you for that. Um, yeah, well, so, you know, one thing I just want to tell you that you and I have in common, that's really funny is that I was also raised um, without really any clear sense of religion in my household, um, you know, there was a little bit of like, I remember once or twice going to like church for Christmas or Easter or whatever.
Yeah, exactly. You know, cause my, my dad had been raised that way and that kind of thing, but for the most part, it was really just more a matter of spirituality. Both my mother and my stepmother were really spiritual people and my dad, not as much. She was a little bit more of like a typical boomer, but clearly had a certain sort of taste in women where they were a little bit more on the sort of witchy spiritual side.
And so I started meditating when I was like 16 years old. And so you and I have that in common of like having started. Really young.
June: Absolutely. And just being exposed to so much, like my mom, like I said, she did, she took me to learn Reiki, but she also did, um, are still does actually readings for people, so intuitive readings and things like that.
So I was always exposed, but again, living in the South, I remember it went from people telling me that my mom worked for the devil, and that, like, we were going to go to hell for her doing readings on that. And then in high school, it switched because Dre from OutKast rapped about her. He was getting readings from her and he rapped about her, um, in the song Rosa Parks.
And then like overnight, people were like, that's so cool. That's so amazing. And I'm like, you told me I was going to hell, um, on Monday, but Friday, we're cool. I love that. Um, so it was just. A lot of the lessons I learned around spirituality were through reflection and perspective of other people of what is okay and what is not, and when it's okay and when it's not, until I really took ownership of it and started to kind of weed out what didn't make sense to me and really sit with what resonated and go from there.
Leslie: Yeah, I want, the question I want to ask you next is kind of like a big, hairy, beautiful, like, not small question. But can you tell me a little bit about how you reconcile your spiritual beliefs and feelings, experiences with the experience of being a black woman who has experienced oppression and all the ways that you have all of the things that you witness in the world that we live in, how do you make sense of a spiritual understanding of being alive and kind of reconcile that with these really ugly things that we live with on our planet right now?
June: I think the biggest way I've done that is coming to the understanding that the purpose of being here isn't for my ease or comfort necessarily, but for my growth. And that can answer to sometimes why the horrible stuff happens, not giving it a reason, excusing it, but just saying like, that is the experience of human life.
Um, if we go back a couple of hundred years, my ancestors were enslaved, you know. I can't believe that they felt like their life wasn't just as chaotic and hectic and abrasive is, you know, some of the things I'm feeling and resonating with right now. You go back even further, like you just keep going back and you start to realize like times are always crazy.
You know, like I can't believe that during feudalism when they would just raid and burn villages, that felt like a peaceful time, you know? And so when you look at it and you start to kind of pull back and look at it cyclically, you start to realize like, ok, if I'm aware that times can always present a level of just absolute insanity, depravity, things like that, as well as joy and richness, then I start to realize like that is in and of itself the human experience.
And so when I kind of pull back from that, it doesn't make it so personal. It's not happening to me. It is just happening. And so how do I show up and meet this moment? And that's really where spirituality has come to help me, especially as a black woman in terms of like, keeping me sane during these times, having something to really put my faith in, put my stock in, um, and come back to returning to self and knowing that the knowledge resides within.
Leslie: I think that that is so extraordinarily well put. And it's interesting how, you know, there are some big concepts packed into this that I think sometimes can be hard for some people to sort of stomach or grapple with. I am similarly inclined to think about pretty much everything in life through the lens of learning.
And something that has come to feel very true for me over time is that whether we think about things psychologically or spiritually. In my opinion, you can pretty much use either frame and what I'm about to say is still true. We appear to sort of be in this life to learn and grow, you know, through whatever it is that we go through.
If I think about mental health in general for a moment, you know, there is, there is suffering and then there is also the growth and the learning that comes as a result of the suffering. And for people who are more spiritually minded, and I think this stuff can be tough to grapple with because a big word like spiritual or spirituality, these mean different things to different people.
But for anyone who's inclined to kind of zoom out, see a bigger perspective, you know, there are certain ideas that I hear over and over again that I'm inclined to agree with. Which is just to say that like, we come to this life for that learning. This is sort of Earth is, to your point, it's not necessarily always going to be easy or fun, but there will always be learning.
And always. I think that when we can think about things that way, it opens up the space for huge paradigm shifts in terms of how we understand just the suffering and the challenges that are happening on this planet, how we make sense of it, how we make sense of our role in it.
June: Absolutely. I mean, learning, it just hit me while you were saying this, learning is the act of receiving.
If you think about it, it's the act of being open to new information, to take it in, to process it, yeah, critically, and then do something with it, hopefully, right? Apply it in some way. And so by even just saying like, I'm willing to receive, I'm willing to open myself up, I'm willing to shift my perspective.
That's a form of permission giving, which we were talking about earlier. If you think about it, you know, like I'm giving myself permission to be cracked open here, to maybe be uncomfortable and sit with something new or something that feels like it's contrast in my life, you know, and just see what and how and where that takes me.
And so I think the second you can kind of, like you said, pull back and see this is not happening to me. It's happening. So how do I, how do I engage with it? How do I learn from this? What kind of response and reaction do I want to take with this? I think that automatically starts shifting how you even start to see things and in the world.
Leslie: Yeah, it's so tough to because I think that some of the toughest dynamics that we live, in live with on this planet, have to do with like victim perpetrator dynamics and like the binaries that exist around that stuff. And I wonder if you want to speak to that a little bit. I know I'm queuing you up with something pretty broad, but what comes to your mind when you think about that?
June: Ooh, I mean, like, haven't we all done it right? Like lived in our pity party, like, rented a venue for it, bought balloons for it, and really just like wallowed in it. You know, I, I definitely know. Um, it's funny. It was not funny. It was actually very serious at the time, but now I can reflect on it with some levity.
But, um, I didn't even realize that I was playing such a victim in my own life. You know, everything was happening to me. My friends are going here and doing this and vacationing. And at the time it really hit a critical peak was, um, when my mom was diagnosed with stage four Non-Hodgkin lymphoma. I just moved to San Francisco.
Um, we didn't know she was sick, she broke her femur and that's how we found out. Um, and she was in the hospital a week and we didn't get a diagnosis until like a month and a half later, but obviously doctors had an idea that it was cancer from the moment she entered the hospital. Um, well, you don't just break a femur by doing yoga, which is what she was doing.
Um, and so I remember one day it was like rainy, it was San Francisco, so it's like almost always rainy. And I was looking out the window and I was throwing the biggest pity party. Like, I think I had like two friends in Bali at the time. And I was like, see, you know, other people just getting to live a life.
I am like crushed by this. I don't know what to do. I'm really terrified. And that's really where most of my fear and victim binary comes in. It's like from fear. And it just hit me. I call it God voice because it was just so clear. And so suddenly the moment I heard it, it was just, didn't you ask for a colorful light, a read and a sermon and one moment.
Okay. And it just hit me. It's like, you asked for a colorful life. Like you asked to matter. You asked to be important. You asked to do big things while you're here. How did you think that was going to happen? What lessons did you think you were going to have to move through in order to be relevant, to be able to speak to things, to be able to share, to be able to educate? Like, no one wants to listen to someone who's like, I've had everything really easy,
it's gone really amazing, but I'm here to give you advice, you know,
Leslie: Touche.
June: I was like, Oh, okay. And so then I had to get clear with myself and ask myself, do I still want that? Because I'm not going to be a victim about it. If I'm choosing it, then I'm not a victim about it.
Leslie: And
June: I could drop it. I could just say, you know what I thought I did,
I don't thank you so much. I'm, I'm good right where I'm at, or I can still continue on. And so realizing that really shifted my understanding of showing up as a victim versus showing up with purpose, with intention, and with choice.
Leslie: Wow, you're so beautiful. I, um, kind of makes me think about all of the work that has come since then, all of the beautiful work that you do, um, leading and just being a really active voice in the political landscape.
And so, I wonder if you want to help to kind of draw a bridge between the then and the now? Um, and to ask you maybe a slightly more specific question, I wonder how you use or are aware of your sense of your own spirituality these days when you think about being a, being a leader and an influencer in a political sense?
June: Yeah,
Leslie: um,
June: I had to work through a lot of my shyness and nervousness. And so for that, that really had me going and tapping into faith and just understanding, well, why am I showing up nervous? Why? Why? I know I have the skills. I know I have the history. Why am I nervous about this? And obviously some of that is the remnants of Capitalistic society, of imposter syndrome, of being a black woman, not ever feeling like I have enough of the measurements to be equal, um, in ways that's been conditioned to me.
But part of it was really just kind of understanding if I'm to do what I need to do, then it can't be about me. So the shyness needs to burn off in a way that honors that it's not about me. Like I'm here to show up. Like I honestly believe that the purpose of us showing up in this time and space, right?
Is that we use the gifts, the passions that we have to be in service of making this world better. And that really is the connection. You use the talents and the things that you have, things that make your heart and soul feel like on fire in the most beautiful way. And you do that in a way that adds to the goodness of this planet.
Um, and in doing that, it kind of takes me out of the shyness because like I said, it's not about me. It's about showing up and doing what I need to do. And so it takes it off of like an ego emphasis and puts it onto a collective emphasis. And so that's really how, since that moment, spirituality has helped me just kind of show up.
Um, and also, and I think we talked about this before, I really tune in with my ancestors. I pray, I meditate. I have what I call MVP mornings, which is I spend 10 minutes meditating, 10 minutes visualizing, and 10 minutes praying. Oh, that's such a great phrase. MVP mornings. I love that. Yeah. Um, it's helped me tremendously.
Uh, meditation has been the savings grace time and time again, when I've come back to it in my life. And so just really setting out intentionally each day connects me to my ancestors. And one of the things that I've really centered recently is trying to do the mundane spiritually and the spiritually mundane.
Um, so like when I shower at night, just really ritualizing it and like washing off energy from the day. You know, like cutting cords, doing all these things that like really keep me in the present while I'm doing these really everyday things that I'm not taking life for granted, but really connecting to the spirituality of that. And then like having daily conversations with God
if I'm lost, if I'm struggling, if I'm afraid just really giving it over to God, giving it over to my ancestors, really asking for help and then sitting. And that's that rest part we were talking about before, like sitting and waiting for the answer, you know, meditation is the intention, the question, prayer is like waiting for the answer.
So just really incorporating more of that throughout my day, not just at like these specific times or like only when I'm in trouble.
Leslie: Yeah, I love that. And something I just want to make clear for the listener, because we were, there was something we were talking about before we started recording, which is just this idea of the value and the importance of rest and the importance of giving yourself permission to rest, especially when you do have such a high calling.
And yeah, I'm sure there are times where it's exhausting because everybody right now is periodically feeling exhausted. I, I wonder if you could say a little bit about how you, especially in a moment like this one, where the planet just seems to be in such an incredibly fraught place, and this country even to get a little bit more specific is an incredibly fraught place.
How do you stay strong to kind of keep fighting the good fight even when it feels like an uphill battle?
June: Yeah, that's beautiful. Um, I come back to the mantra that I created, which has helped me, which is resist, rest, repeat. It's just simple. It keeps it focused. But it's true. You have to do everything you can.
Like I, we've talked about this before too, like I constantly think of, and this is again, my spiritual focus of how I'm showing up now is going to be a reflection on who I am as an ancestor. So how do I want to connect to this moment and how do I want to pave the way so that the next line of generations have it,
not necessarily easier, better, because we'd already talked about that, it's not the point of being here. But so that they, um, are uplifted in a way that allows them to meet that moment in the way that they need to, you know, and not have to do generational work to get to where they need to be in their life.
So really centering on that is necessary and important to me, at least.
Leslie: I love that way of thinking about it, that it's almost like it's not necessarily that for future generations that things are going to be quote unquote easier exactly, but you could remove at least one level of the burden, which is to say that if they're not still undoing ancestral trauma and trying to sort of undo the legacy of their own intergenerational trauma, then they are like freed up to fight the fight in the way that our generation hasn't been quite as much.
June: I heard it framed that the black sheep of the family is often the one who's breaking generational curses. And yeah, one, I sat in a dinner a very long time ago with, um, Deepak Chopra and Tansy Randolph because they had just done a book together called Super Genes, which is a metaphysical look at medicine. It's a brilliant book.
I can't highlight it enough. Wow. Okay. Um, and one of the things that he talks about in his book is, um, genetic trauma, which I find very, very interesting and something that I don't hear enough people talking about. Which is that the trauma resides in your genes and you're bearing it to the next generation.
And they've, I'm against animal testing, but they tested this out on mice to show this. And so the question was poised during this dinner, well, if that's happening in mice up to six generations later of one traumatic incident, then what do we think slavery has done with the black community? Yeah. And it absolutely resides in my genes.
That's part of the work that I'm doing to break generational bondage and things like that. And so it reminds me of what Toni Morrison said in terms of racism, the design of racism is to be distracting. It's to make you sit and take time away from what your purpose and what your intention to do here is.
You have to justify your value for being here and why you're even worthy of trying to apply your purpose. And so I think of that with generational and genetic trauma in terms of like, that's holding us back. And think about how that's replicating in so many ways, because we're still going through it. So what can I do in the here and now to try to do as much as I can?
So that's not work that the next generations have to even deal with, but they can just build like stepping stones on top of that and move forward.
Leslie: I think you're saying something so important and it's amazing. It's a really, really big, important concept, which is this idea of Any one person working on themselves for the benefit of the collective and the greater good, because so often when we look out at the world, we see these, you know, big problems that have huge, you know, structures to them, basically, where If we were to imagine that our job is to dismantle that structure, the job could feel impossible.
If we imagine that our job is to heal ourselves and work on ourselves, if every single person were to make that their responsibility, it would completely change the game.
June: Absolutely. You have people trying to get in other people's lanes and trying to help and heal other people. I believe we're all regenerative.
So we don't need help from someone else healing ourselves. It's just understanding how to do it for ourselves. And so in that way, I think it's really important to focus on self, to focus on your healing. One of my favorite proverbs or quotes, I don't remember who says it, but all of man's issues or problems stem from his inability to sit alone in a room and be content.
And I think of that especially with what you're just saying in terms of like, we focus on the structures because, in an effort to support capitalism through means of white supremacy, the very act of distraction is the intent. And so it's this insidious kind of like repetitive cycle of, we tend to try to focus on the structure because If we were to focus on ourselves, if we were to heal ourselves, think about how many businesses would go out of business overnight.
You couldn't use the same capitalistic levers of, Oh, buy this car if you live in this neighborhood, then you'll be happy. Because you would know that it's not outside of you. Happiness is an inside job. And so the very nature, like I said, the very insidious nature is to keep us distracted and going after structures and other things outside of ourselves, instead of just doing the very.
inner work that we can do anywhere, anytime, regardless of what access we have.
Leslie: Yeah, it's incredible. If I'm, if I'm kind of getting you right, or to say back to you, kind of just part of what I'm hearing is this idea that the system itself benefits from us not doing the work, not waking up, not realizing that, you know,
June: Absolutely.
I mean, if you look at it. So during slavery, you know, I've had people say, you know, there've been slaves throughout time and this, that and the other, but chattel slavery was an entirely different entity for various reasons. Um, one of them being we were not allowed to keep ourselves. It was intentional to drive away our spirituality, to drive away our languages, to drive away our cultures, to rip us from everything that we were.
When you are connected to that which you find spiritual, you grow stronger, you know? And so I think it's also been this intentional, um, replication of keeping people away from their root systems. Because when you're in your root systems, you start naturally healing. You start getting regenerative answers and it's mostly free.
It's not very expensive. If we don't focus on that, we don't do the work and we keep applying ourselves in these outwardly situations. We never get around to changing the systems. And so I do think it's intentional. I do think it's, you know, it's, the machine is so systemic at this point, it just reworks itself, even if, you know, something starts getting out of whack and there's some form of resistance that pushes it.
It still manages to just energetically steamroll people because we're not supposed to be focused on that. Like you said, we're supposed to just be focused on ourselves and healing ourselves, it would eradicate so much of the issues and the problems that we're seeing, I believe.
Leslie: Um, I'm thinking about a couple of different things that intersect right now.
And one of them is so often when I am talking about. Mental health and how people can take care of themselves, while the world is in this really turbulent complicated place, a thing that I find myself often coming back to is the idea that people need to be just really mindful, as mindful as they can be, about their media consumption habits like both with regular media like television social media. What's happening on your phone all of that stuff?
Not because I am suggesting that people not pay attention, but because I think that it's important to be really aware of the news that you're consuming, the impact that it's having on you, and also just even the, um, the profit motives of the way that news is produced. Because, you know, in the United States, there are strong incentives for, you know, if it bleeds, it leads. It's, you know, it's where we live in a very complicated, uh, media ecosystem.
And I think that sometimes, and actually, I'll say one more thing before I kind of pose a question back to you, but one of the things that I worry about the most, um, at the collective level of our mental health in the United States right now is the people that are hyper plugged in. There is virtually no distance between them and their consciousness and the media they're consuming.
You know, there's a lot of doom scrolling and then a lot of energy around the idea that they need to be paying attention. And this is, I know this is a belief system that is really active in our collective mindset that they need to be paying attention for the sake of paying attention, because the mere act of knowing what's happening or feeling compassionate about about it, I think, feels in and of itself
like it's an act of service, right? That's just kind of like, don't look away, you know, and then as a result what actually happens to an individual person's mental health is super destructive because they're just kind of trapped in this bubble of hypermedia awareness.
June: Yeah.
Leslie: And I, I just wonder what you think about that, given everything else that you're saying right now and what we're talking about.
June: Well, I think language matters, right? Like, I would say that that's not actually awareness. Awareness is just becoming aware. So once you are aware, then what do you do? Yeah. That's the missing gap that I see right now is like, people say, Oh, I need to witness this so that I'm aware, but you're already aware.
So then what do you do past that? And that's really where I see people get stuck. Yeah. I think, obviously being aware is important, witnessing is important, but mobilizing is necessary. Like turn that into action. What are you doing besides just kind of still making it about yourself? Like if you're just consuming and consuming and consuming, and you've got it, it's still an act around
your relationship to it. Because what is your witnessing doing for the person in Palestine or Congo or Sudan or, you know, name a place, Tigray, et cetera. Where atrocities are happening here in our own backyard, you know, like, we don't even have to go global, you know, doesn't have clean water, right? So, um, I think what I see a lot of times is people in the white community
aren't familiar with sitting with the discomfort and what that means. Um, there's an actual shunning of wanting to be anything but uncomfortable. And when you're a person of color, you don't get that privilege. You don't get the luxury of shunning it or shutting it down, or just like, I'm not comfortable by this,
so like, that's enough for today. You're in it, in the trenches. Um, and so what I really do ask like the white community to do is like, work on healing your ability to sit with discomfort. Because when you start to do that, that's going to start to lead you to be able to galvanize into action like, Oh my gosh, I'm witnessing this thing.
This is not okay. This is what I'm going to do about it. And I can still continue witnessing while I'm doing something about it. Not just repeating, echoing. You know, I've largely jumped off of my own personal Instagram, just because my account is shadow banned ever since 2020. And I started really speaking about, um, anti-racism, but I just noticed, like, it's the same thing.
And I got off for two years, then I got back on and it's like, Oh, I'm just posting stories. What is that doing? Like, yes, I'm making an audience aware, but they're not even engaging with it. So what am I doing at this point? And that's really why I just kind of, again, you know, I'll post some stuff, but I really turned it into action, which is creating
this mobilized resistance movement, called We The People. Um, where we're organizing around voting resistance, consumer resistance, labor resistance, um, and tax resistance as forms of actually galvanizing into action and taking our collective rage and sadness and everything and doing something about it.
And so we're a small but growing group and it just, you know, it even makes me feel better to see myself doing something to sharing information to, you know, just doing something in a different vein than just repeating a story on Instagram and thinking that that in and of itself is activism. It's not.
Leslie: Oh my goodness, so much I want to say in response to what you just said. I first of all, I love the We The People thing that you're talking about. I will make sure that that is linked in the show notes. But I think that you are spot on in terms of. people collapsing into despair and then not actually doing anything.
Yeah. And it's interesting to connect this back to what we were saying before around victim mentalities that I think unfortunately, there are a lot of people in the United States that are sort of stuck doing a lot of doom scrolling. Yeah. And then feeling victimized themselves. By what they're witnessing absorbing, you know, how horrific it is to live on this planet.
And absolutely it is in many, many ways. And yet they're not doing anything about it. And I think that if they could wrestle with their own victim mindset, they might be able to step into a more empowered place in their own lives to actually start doing something. wherever that is, you know, think global act local, like how, you know, what do you need to do right where you are to make a difference?
June: You want to be proactive or reactive? Because after
Leslie: a
June: certain point, you know, if you're just living reactively, you're not, there's no agency in that, you know. Whereas being proactive, even if it's a small but mighty step, like all the small steps count. So even if it's calling your senators, faxing them, you know, like protesting. Moving beyond that, giving up coin and donating it to relief.
You know, like empowering other voices who are in the fray of it. You know, like there's things that can always be done and then you have to resist, rest, repeat. That's why I keep coming Yes. to it. You have to literally go touch grass. You have to, maybe you go cry outside in the park. That's okay. I did it the other day.
You know, but you, you have to understand the beauty of life so you understand why to fight for it. And if you only get sucked into the horrors of life, you'll find more and more of that. It's like confirmation bias, which is in my opinion, the same thing as manifesting. If you start coming to the understanding of, Oh, the world is bad, bad things happen.
You'll just be more confronted with that.
Leslie: You have
June: to find that balance of realizing that yes, there are bad things that happen in the world. Right, left, and always have been, and sadly might always be. But how do I show up to meet this moment so that I can inject whatever goodness I can during my life here so that I'm actually doing something to combat that?
Leslie: Yeah. You know? To zero in on a word that you just used, this notion of manifesting, do you have any thoughts about like what it, what it will or would take to collectively manifest a better future?
June: Um, yes. We have to first unpack White supremacy and why that is because otherwise, we're going to take the same standards that we apply to everything else in that kind of frame and that perspective and apply it to manifesting.
Uh, I was watching something the other day, this woman was saying, you're manifesting, manifest stations aren't working because you haven't cleared out old ones. You just keep adding new ones and keep adding new ones. And that got me into this thinking of like, we don't, we tend to hoard. You know, we tend to hoard, even when we apply that to spiritual practices and things like that, we're taking the same mindset and replicating in other areas.
And so I think to have a collective form of manifestation, we have to unpack and unlearn a lot of the stuff that we have been taught to feel about making wishes or putting our stock in something, uh, collectively and stuff like that. And so there's still, I think, a level of healing and self work that has to be done before we can collectively start
focusing energy in one direction. Because it's going to be split in so many different directions, unless we have a true collective understanding of what we want. And, so often, we're so busy running from that we don't stop to think of, what am I building? Yes. So it's like what I said earlier, unless we really unpack a lot of the harms from racism and sexism and White supremacy, um, and colonial mindset, we're going to replicate that in whatever we build, whatever we manifest, whatever we do.
So we, it still always comes back to, and I always say this, the root of it, the heart of it has to be worked on before we get to the other symptoms and the root of it and the heart of it for me is absolutely White supremacy.
Leslie: Mm hmm. I definitely hear you. And I think what you're saying is so smart and spot on.
And there's one thing that I'll add to this, and I would love to hear what you think. So I do, as you know, some work in the climate change space. And one of the things that I do is sit on the board of a nonprofit organization called One Green Thing that was founded by a woman named Heather White, who I have previously had on this podcast.
She was the last episode of season one. And Heather is so smart, and I have so much respect for her and something that fuels her and her work and the way that she approaches it specifically in climate is that she is aware of the fact that there is so much sort of doomsday stuff that happens around climate where we're constantly being bombarded with news of like, you know, it's so bad and another glacier melted and you know, it's like, it's all so much doomsday stuff.
With very little emphasis. I mean, there is some emphasis on what we could do to stop it. But what there is virtually none of is anything resembling a positive picture for what we could be moving toward if we actually were to get it right. I think that's so beautiful
June: and so important.
Leslie: Mm hmm. Like it's like, what would the planet look like?
What is if we were to create, you know, a vision board of the manifestation for what we would like to see for planet Earth? Yeah, you know, it would be like, okay, well, if you could, um, stop factories from dumping chemicals into rivers, we could have clean bodies of water again that people could swim in.
Right? Exactly. You know, and we don't we kind of there's a real disconnect there. That I think is present throughout some of the other things that we've been talking about today. And so, yeah, I don't know if you have any thoughts you want to add to that.
June: Yeah. I mean, I think that's where again, spirituality comes in is like, what are you anchored to?
Right. You know, because when I'm in my, my most, I don't know, engaged spiritual routines and practices, I have such a clear visualization for how I want to manifest things and how things come to me and things like that. Um, and so I do agree, with both you and her, in terms of you have to have an avatar, this like visual Nirvana, if you will, of what you'd like to achieve.
So you can get somewhere close to it if possible, you know?
Leslie: And so
June: if you don't have that aspect relational to what you're doing, as far as activism, you're going to burn out. Like you're absolutely going to burn out because you're not even going in a specific direction. You're just kind of, you start becoming angry with everything.
But I do think it also kind of reminds me of the quote of Mother Teresa. Um, which is, she said something along the lines of, I'll never go to an anti-war like protest, but I will go to a pro-peace rally. And the emphasis is really, I think what we're talking about here is like, what are you emphasizing?
What are you holding as your anchor? What are you focusing on? Because you know, attention goes where our energy flows, where attention goes. And so if we're only focusing on the doom of it all, without at least an equal balance talking about what could be, then it's going to be lopsided and we're going to feel overwhelmed.
And I think, you know, like we said before, that's the intention of it. So it's like, I don't say neglect where we are, the realities of it. I think it's important to actually spice it up a bit and let people know this is actually where we're at. But this is where we could be if we did X, Y, and Z, you know, and this is where we could be if everyone were to just do these couple of steps and really inform people.
I think a lot of times it's just like misinformation and people don't know. Like, I heard I'm supposed to do this, but I'm not doing that. So now I'm just kind of giving up because I'm lost. And so much, I think, of the fall off comes from feeling confused rather than not caring.
Leslie: Definitely. I think that that is spot on.
And I'm part of what's happening in my own mind right now is thinking about the intersection between what we're talking about right now, and basically neuroscience, which is just to say that the brain does not respond very well to negative commands or suggestions. So, you know, if I say to you, don't think about an elephant, what does your brain, what does your brain do?
But if I tell you to think about something else, or if I, you know, if I ask you to think about something else, uh, the ocean, you know, then that's where your mind goes. And I do, there is a hope that I have that any leaders on the side of the game that we would like to see when could help people a little bit more to lead from this place of creating a positive picture that people can move towards so that they so that we all have something to aim for.
Yeah, you know, and I this is good. This almost could be a topic of a, you know, part two level conversation. But boy, am I with you on needing to dismantle white supremacy. You know, I am, I'm inclined to call it white male supremacy, not because I'm denying my own privilege, but because there is, you know, there's another factor here called the sort of male dominance of the planet that we live on and, and the end result of, I do think a lot of what we're living with is the end result of men being in charge in a lot of ways.
And I just would love. To, to have a positive picture that I could even make in my own mind of what the world will be like when that system has been dismantled. And I'm using that word very deliberately, will, not would, but will.
June: I think that's the beauty of history. You know, I, I love history. Um, because if you don't understand the past and how can you understand like what to build away from or towards or. And historically the nice thing, the thing that I like to remember and remind myself of, is that patriarchy hasn't always existed.
We had systems before. Right. It's just in our lifetime that we understand it as such. And so what do systems of past look like? You know, like when you look at Afro Indigenous systems in terms of sharing power, um, when you look at systems that have been matriarchal, um, I think a lot of, trying to say so much at once.
I think a lot of the shift, um, when we talk about matriarchal societies, is we still put it through a patriarchal lens and we're still putting it through the lens of, oh, well, if women ruled then they'll be like this. When we can look historically and see when women have ruled, it's tended to be like a very, um, flat hierarchy, if you will, which means like, it's more sharing and distributive rather than one person leads.
And then there's people under that person. So, what would it look to take some of those values back and, you know, re-usher them in. Um, I don't agree with the future is female. I think that's still not inclusive. I say the future is intersectional. Yes. And so when we look at it through that prism, okay, what aspects can we take of these past systems to maybe build something different and new? And what have we learned so that we can eradicate what we don't need and try to build something new?
And the aim is always to try, because you know, there's the yin and yang of it all. And this is where I feel like a lot of people get frustrated. They want to build something that's perfect and utopian. And we, you know, we solve for all the bad things, you know, and this is our vision, but there's a yin and yang of it.
Whatever you're creating is going to have some aspect of a negative contrast part because growth still has to happen. So it's like, what we want to see while also acknowledging the fact that there's going to be aspects of it that are inherent, that are going to be contrast. And so to allow for that, to look for that, but not to think that we're ever going to completely rid ourselves of that, because that is part of the experience of why we're here is to grow and to have to deal with situations, people, et cetera, that
Leslie: make us dig deep.
I couldn't agree more and I think that that is all beautifully put. Going back to something that you were saying earlier, you mentioned your account having been shadow banned because of some stuff that happened in 2020. I know from previous conversations that we've had that you are aware of a backlash to the Black Lives Matter movement and some shifts in the DEI space.
Can we perhaps like dive into that a little bit more actively? What are you witnessing? I'm just, I'm only brought up your Instagram account because I'm thinking about 2020 and the things that have happened since then, but what's on your radar?
June: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's the same pattern. You know, we had Obama, then we had Trump.
It's that same kind of pushback of you can look at the reconstruction era and then Jim Crow, civil rights, and then, you know, stagnation and black belt. And so it's the same pattern we tend to see, um, historically. But what I noticed in 2020 is, you know, kind of what we're talking about before in terms of like, what does your activism actually look like in action, not just in response.
And, you know, I think people put up a black box and thought, Ooh, solved racism. We did it, y'all. And that's obviously just not the case. And so one of the things I was afraid about back then is like, suddenly everyone's coming into like this Kumbaya moment of like, okay, we're going to solve for this. We're not the same anymore.
We're listening. We're learning. We're growing. And the walk back has been quiet. You know, I think like only 1 percent or less than 1 percent of that which was pledged in 2020 has actually been appropriated in funding.
Leslie: Um,
June: and at the time I myself was going through a personal hell in 2020 with the job I was at.
Um, and I actually just ended a lawsuit with them, which has been a three year, three year ordeal. Um, Oh
Leslie: my goodness. I didn't know.
June: Yeah. I, you know, haven't really talked about, our been at liberty to say much, but you know, with this closing chapter. It feels cathartic. There's still work I have to do in this space, but it's why I started my own businesses in cannabis.
I was working in cannabis at the time, and I just noticed there was a misalignment of the values that my company was portraying versus what they were actually doing behind the scenes. And I was taking the brunt of that, especially in 2020 when I felt like it was just, you know, modern day black face of like, we have a black woman at this level and this bowl.
And so we're good. Um, and it started taking a very hard hit on my mental health. Um, I had just come out of my mom finishing up chemo in 2019. Then 2020 happened. And also in, 2019 I lost my grandparents and severed relationships with a lot of my family on both sides. So 2019 was no picnic. And then we went into 2020 and it just was, it was, it was too much.
Um, and so I sought therapy and finally was able to receive therapy in 2021, which was lifesaving. Um, but in 2021, I quit my job because I found out my mom's cancer was back. Um, and I'll never forget it because it was during the Harry, Oprah, Megan interview.
Leslie: Oh, wow.
June: And we found out it was back. And I just knew that the amount of racism and harassment and everything I was dealing with at work, I couldn't sustain taking care of my mom and being in that environment.
And so without a backup, without a safety net, I sent them my letter of resignation Monday morning. The interview was on Sunday, Sunday evening, and then I signed out, you know, Monday morning. And the next two weeks that followed were like literal hell of just like a lot of pettiness, like just, you know, things like that.
And what it really ushered me to do was stand on my own. There's another quote that I love, which is like the bird has confidence in its own wings, not the branch. And I had gone back into working for someone else because I felt I needed that two week paycheck. I couldn't do it on my own. I was very, you know, scared.
And so what it ushered in is me saying, you don't have job security even when you have job security. So how do you want to show up right now? Do you want to show up for yourself in a way that you know is meaningful? Or do you want to be governed and dictated by people who don't see you as equal, you know?
And so when I think of this pushback to DEI, it's like, you have to unpack before you change things. You know, and so what I saw was people, not, people just hiring for the sake of hiring, you know, to look like, look, we're doing a thing. But they weren't creating a culture change so that those things that were recommended by that person could be put into place at the company because change wasn't the goal.
It was just to look good. The facade was. And so in starting my own business, my own line of work, I realized I can answer to communities that I think are being overlooked in the current space.
Leslie: I can
June: offer a level of education that I don't see happening. And I can help people integrate cannabis in their lives that helps them feel better, feel less anxious, help with health, all these different various things that I feel really passionate about.
And then the educator aspect comes through with that too. So really just putting myself on my own terms and my businesses so it can't be governed or dictated by someone, like I said, who doesn't see me as equal or doesn't have like just faith in my work or value me. And where I see us heading in 2024 is still reminiscent of that because we're not ever unpacking. Like America, I say is like the king of rebranding, not actually changing, but just rebranding stuff.
Yeah. We want our elections to look different, our society to look different. We can't just put on a facade of, Hey, we've changed. We actually have to do the work and change. That's going to be essential. And I, I don't see that level of energy around doing the work, but more so just saying we've healed.
We've moved on. We're not a racist country.
Leslie: Yeah. We give it a lot of lip service. Right. And that's very different than actually unpacking or dismantling the structures that have created the life that we're currently living in.
June: One of the things I'm working on, I've told you about this as a spiritual podcast, just really perspective and faith and.
The first episode that I'm doing is this weekend, and it's really talking about how do we win against evil? What does that look like? And one of the prompts for it is are we even able to recognize the evil that we have within ourselves? Because if we can't recognize it within ourselves, we're gonna be pointing the finger, but we're not gonna be doing the work.
And like you said before, it's really about working on ourselves. So when we work on ourselves, what does that look like collectively?
Leslie: Excellent. Um, I love that so much. Just to just just switch gears ever so slightly to talk a little bit more about what you're doing in the cannabis space and let people know, um, kind of how how they can work with you, how they can follow up with you, all of that kind of stuff.
I know that one of the things that you're passionate about is. Cannabis as a tool for mental health in terms of helping people, giving people relief and that kind of thing. Will you, will you tell me and our listeners a little bit about your thoughts and feelings and perspectives on that?
June: Yeah, absolutely.
Um, well, I came from a cannabis positive household, age appropriate. So I didn't have this like negative connotation with weed. Um, just that, you know, obviously don't get caught with it. And it wasn't until I moved to San Francisco, um, the job I moved there for ghosted and I ended up getting work. My mom was diagnosed with cancer during this time, same week actually.
And then I ended up getting hired by a cannabis delivery company. And the onboarding of education I received around cannabis wellness was just mind blowing. And so that's really what birthed The Weed Doula, which is how I work with people on one on one sessions to integrate cannabis in their lives. Um, I tend to work with a lot of perimenopausal, um, women, a lot of cancer survivors, and a lot of people who are looking to replace alcohol.
And so that solves for like working with people one on one having keynotes and really providing a level of education around what cannabis consumption does and doesn't do.
Leslie: Um,
June: And then Collective High is what I founded to throw these really incredible events that center on cannabis education, but just feel like parties, just happen to feel like parties.
Um, and just allowing people to understand the history of cannabis really unlocks a lot of the fear around consumption. And so I like working with people in that way, in that regard to, you know, especially during these times with anxiety running so high, really just working on that aspect of like undoing and unlearning what they probably learned about cannabis so that they can find the right cannabis to their needs and then really work with that in a medicinal and a recreational way.
Which I think are one in the same.
Leslie: That's excellent. I could talk to you all day, but in the interest of time, I'm actually just going to ask you one last question and then I will let people follow up with you. There's going to be a ton of link in the show notes and all that kind of stuff. But, My very last question for you, because I have to ask it, is I'm just thinking about what you're saying about cannabis and the positive uses of cannabis, and I'm so aware that we live in a world that is very, very different than the one that I grew up in, where it's legal in so many states right now, and there have been a lot of shifting cultural mores, and yet, There are people who remain incarcerated for previous marijuana charges.
And I wonder if you can just educate our listeners a little bit about that. Um, and, and perhaps even tell us where we can take action. How, what, is there anything that anybody can do to help these poor souls that are stuck in this old paradigm? It's so awful.
June: So they, the people who are still sitting in prison are predominantly black and brown. Um, they're the people who carved out the industry right and left, um, and are still sitting in prison while predominantly white people are now running businesses in this space, profiting.
Um, which is heartbreaking to see, but yeah, the same playbook. Um, the, there are so many different companies and organizations, but one of the ones that I really love is 40 Tons. Um, they work directly with incarcerated people, and the thing to look for when you're working with an organization in this space is making sure that they're actually getting people out of prison,
not just adding to the commissary and not just Those are important things, I don't mean to dismiss them, but the real work is to get people out of the prison. If people are profiting on it, there's no reason why people should be in prison for it. People are legally profiting off of it. Um. And so really just doing that work in that way to get people out of prison, records expunged.
I think a lot of people thought that when Biden, you know, signed off on an executive order releasing people from prison. He did that at a federal level. And while that is a great start, that only releases about 4, 000 people. Um, most people are locked up on a state level for cannabis offenses. And that's really where the work comes.
That's really where, you know, you look at it as an industry in terms of people getting arrested, them staying in prison. Prisons making a lot of money off of a private profit concept and people getting really rich out of people being kept in prison. And so that's really what we're going to start to dismantle.
Right. Not making prison a profitable industry. Because it is slavery by another name. Yes. Which is an amazing, amazing, um, PBS, uh, movie that everyone should watch, Slavery By Another Name.
Leslie: Slavery By Another Name, I will check that out because I have not seen it and I will add it to the show notes. It's um, it's what you're saying is distressingly true.
Um, so just thank you so much for that. And 40 Tons. I'll add to the show notes too. And we'll go check that out. Um, just before we wrap up today, is there anything else you want to add or anything else you want anyone to know before we say goodbye?
June: Um, I really just value these conversations. I've, I think they're so rich and I think the more people talk, I'm a communications person.
So the more people talk, even if the conversations don't sound eloquent, even if they're a little rough around the edges, I just think that we're in the times where we have to talk with each other and we really have to build systems of villages again. And that looks like, you know, Holding space for hard conversations and hard truths, but really still coming back to the table to talk over and over again.
And I think that's how we do the greatest. Shift in our society as being willing to be open, learning, receiving and coming to the table and having these conversations, regardless whether. You know, they turn out a certain way or not, but just being willing to connect on that level.
Leslie: Yeah. I am so with you and I'm just so grateful that we've been able to have this conversation with each other today.
Thank you for being here.
June: Thank you so much for doing this. This is amazing.
Leslie: Thank you. You've been watching or listening to The Nature of Nurture with me, Dr. Leslie Carr, and I want to thank you for joining us. You can find June on Instagram at TheWeedDoula, that's The. Weed. Doula, and you can find her link tree in the show notes.
If you want to find me, I'm at Dr. Leslie Carr on Instagram. Many thanks to June for having this conversation with me, and to all the people who worked behind the scenes to make this happen. Full credits can be found in the show notes. If you found this conversation valuable, please let me know by leaving a review or rating, or by sharing the episode with at least one person who you think might enjoy it too.
You can also like or subscribe on YouTube, or in any podcast app that you can get your hands on. Thank you again for tuning in. I'll see you next
time.