I got to sit down with Kamilah Crawley and Travis Spencer from the Institute of African American Mindfulness (IAAM) for their Morning METTA Community Conversations podcast.

And I have to tell you: something shifted in that space.

We talked about adultism, the oppression most of us have never heard of but all of us have experienced. We talked about how hurt people hurt people, but more importantly, how we don’t start out hurt. We talked about what it means to stay close with young people when they’re acting out, instead of trying to control them.

But here’s what I want you to know about this conversation before you listen:

🌱 It starts with a story about transformation

Thirty-two years ago, I walked into a room at the YWCA in Watsonville, California, angry and hurting and convinced I could create change by making White people feel as bad about racism as I did.

The woman who would become my mentor, Lillian Roybal Rose, saw me acting out my pain as blame and rage and pulled me aside. She said something to me then that rocked my world: “Making White people feel bad about racism won’t change them and won’t stop racism. M’ija, they already feel bad. That’s why the act that way or turn away from the racism they see. If you really want to end racism, and bring about transformational change, you’ve got to love White people. As they are, right now. Even where they’re hurt. Especially where they’re hurt. You create a space where they can heal.”

💔 It names the hurt we’re all carrying

I share about adultism, the systematic mistreatment of young people that teaches us we’re not fully human until we become adults. About how, as children, we tried to feel our feelings and got shut down—both by systems and by well-intentioned, but also injured, adults. About where those feelings went when we couldn’t release them. About how we’re still carrying them as adults.

🔄 It offers a different way forward

Travis and Kamilah asked the questions I think so many of us are holding: How do we recognize when we’re passing on the hurt we never healed? How do we stop that cycle? How do we show up differently for young people when we’ve decided to be committed allies and advocates? What does it mean to do our healing work as adult allies so that we can be, and remain, in integrity in our relationships with young people?

🎯 It gets specific about what changes when we heal

I talk about the “sweet” ages, the favorite years from our childhoods, when we loved being kids. I also talk about the “hard” ages, those years we struggled as young people and do our best to forget.

I connect the dots: it’s not a coincidence that our personal “sweet” ages often match the ages of young people we most enjoy being around. And it’s not a coincidence that we tend to avoid, or struggle to stay close to, young people when they are in those “hard” ages. That doesn’t have to do with young people. It has everything to do with us, and the healing that remains to be done.

🤰🏽 It gets personal about what I learned from my baby sister when she became a first-time mom and I became a first-time tía

I share a story about my baby sister, who, as a new mom, got on the floor with her young son, holding him close as he tantrumed, while our mom and I watched in judgment from a distance. Until my mom told me what she did when I had a tantrum like that as a child.

That moment still breaks my heart.

The episode is live now on the IAAM Life YouTube channel.

I hope you’ll tune in.