Practical Reconciliation and Allyship for Modern Workplaces with Aunty Munya Andrews and Carla Rogers
Welcome to We are Human Leaders. I’m Alexis Zahner and together with my Co-host Sally Clarke, we’re delighted to speak with Aunty Munya Andrews and Carla Rogers on today's episode. Our conversation today centre’s around reconciliation and Allyship in Modern Workplaces. Australia is home to the oldest living culture in the world and we have much to learn from Australian Aboriginal wisdom and dreamtime.
In today’s conversation we have the privilege to learn from the lived experiences of both Aunty Munya Andrews, an accomplished Indigenous author and barrister with degrees in
anthropology and law and Carla Rogers, Churchill Fellow, highly respected program designer and facilitator and dedicated ally.
These women are a dynamic duo, together they’ve Co-Authored the highly regarded Practical Reconciliation and Co-Director Evolve Communities. Today we explore the seven steps to reconciliation, a learning journey fundamental for all Human Leaders.
At Human Leaders we believe reconciliation is a critical necessity to create workplaces and societies that thrive and include all human beings - we hope you’ll take the alleyship pledge with us.
To find more about Aunty Munya Andrews and Carla Rogers work at Evolve Communities in the links below
Evolve Communities website, and the Seven Steps to Practical Reconciliation.
Find Aunty Munya on LinkedIn. Find Carla Rogers on LinkedIn.
For accessible access, view the podcast with closed captions below and access the full conversation transcript.
Episode Transcript:
Spk0 Alexis Zahner Spk1 Aunty Munya Andrews Spk2 Carla Rogers Spk3 Sally Clarke
[00:00:09] spk_0: Welcome to We are human leaders. I'm Alexis Zahner and together with my co host Sally Clarke, we're delighted to speak with Auntie Munya Andrews and Carla Rogers in today's episode. Our conversation today centers around reconciliation and Ally Ship in modern workplaces. Australia is home to the oldest living culture in the world and we have much to learn from Australian aboriginal wisdom and dream time in today's conversation we have the privilege to learn from the lived experiences of both Auntie Munya Andrews and accomplished indigenous author and barrister with degrees in anthropology and law and Carla Rogers Churchill fellow highly respected program design and facilitator and dedicated ally. These women are a dynamic duo together. They've co authored the highly regarded practical reconciliation book and their co directors of evolved communities today. We explore the seven steps to reconciliation, a learning journey fundamental for all human leaders. Let's go.
Alexis: Welcome to the We are Human leaders podcast, Aunty Munya and Carla. It is an absolute pleasure to have you both with us today and how we love to begin our podcast is getting to understand a little bit more about you so I might pass over to Aunty Munya if I could first, could you tell me a little bit more about your personal journey that's brought you to the incredibly important work that you're doing today.
[00:01:42] spk_1: Nungamanladi first of all to you and all your listeners. So I'm Aunty Munya from the Kimberley region of Western Australia is where I was born and grew up. And you know, I just recall many years ago being at school, sitting out looking at the blue yonder and wondering what lay out in the big wide world. I've always been fascinated by other people's, other cultures, other languages and so forth. So I always say to people my cross cultural awareness journey began then from a very early age and then I went on to do a number of things, but Carla and I met up a few years ago, that was in 2011, I believe it was. And on the same project, Carla invited me to join a project that she was doing, working with indigenous communities in the gulf country of Australia up there in Queensland at Doomadgee and Mornington Island communities and just through talking to one another carla and I discovered we had shared a similar vision for Australia and the world if you like. And that's to create a kind of more inclusive Australia. And so once we got chatting with thought, right, how are we going to do that? And we realized fairly early would need to do that through allies ship. That provided the tool for us to create that. So we went off and put our two heads together. Carla's very extensive experience in community engagement and mine and cultural awareness and calm bind the two together where we've now developed a number of programs for people based on reconciliation and Ally ship. So that's where it first began. And since then we've developed all sorts of products and training, including a number of books that were put out there to further understanding.
[00:03:30] spk_0: Well, thank you so much for sharing Aunty Munya and Carla, I'd love to hear from you. I imagine your journey probably looks a little different. Can you tell us about how you found yourself in this work that you're doing?
[00:03:40] spk_2: So different in every aspect Alexis. So I'm not indigenous and one of my ancestors was on the first fleet. So in 1788 came over from England at that time and their offspring actually came and invaded. But don't say settle invaded the area that I've actually called home now today. And I can remember at a very young age, you know, wandering through the bush in Australia. And at that time I was living in a place where there was a beautiful rich colored hawks, very sandstone and looking across at the beautiful blue water and ocean and hearing the spirits of the ancestors, the old people in the bush. And this was quite young. I was a pretty odd kid but thinking, oh okay, there's aboriginal people in Australia. But where are they? You know, I don't learn about them at my school. I don't see them at my school. They're sort of invisible or you know at that time was even preschool and all I saw was sort of stereotypical images of aboriginal people and you know, favorite program at that time was skippy the bush kangaroo and you know, I pray for glimpses of aboriginal people. And so it really started from a craving for an aboriginal friend. And what's quite interesting is my schooling, you know, I would say that the school I went to was very white or probably there were aboriginal people, but they weren't comfortable to identify. And so it took me a long time. It took me to my early twenties to actually have a craving to have that craving met to actually make an aboriginal friend and start working with aboriginal communities and people. And in fact, my first holiday when I left school, all my friends went off to Earls Court in London and Europe and I actually went to the Kimberley, which coincidentally is where Auntie Mania is from. And then so my career gradually gradually sort of worked more and more in this space. And then which took me to having that big project in 2011 where Auntie Mania and I met. So my whole life has been a journey of learning and reconciliation and finding out more about indigenous wisdom and learning from my mistakes, which I've made plenty of along the way.
[00:05:57] spk_3: Thank you both for sharing your stories. I think there's a lovely sort of interwoven nous there, and also that are coming from each from your own spaces and joining together now to do this beautiful work together. And I think what you mentioned carla is all that, the invisibility is really means that we can't have kindness and inclusion, we really need to have visibility as a potential. I think a starting point for that sense of kindness and inclusion. And I'm curious to just know a little bit more about why those two terms in particular resonated for you both and what that means for you in the context of reconciliation.
[00:06:35] spk_1: Great question for me, you know, I grew up in a time in Australia when where I remember the discrimination and the apartheid nurse, if you like, because in fact that's where apartheid comes from, the laws that govern my people, the Afrikaners just gave it a great name, apartheid meaning a partners separate from. And you know, like I remember I was very proudly proclaimed that I was born in the Derby native hospital, which was the black hospital because there was a hospital for black people and a hospital for white people. So I grew up during that time, I remember my people not being visible in Australian society. We now have many Australians come on board and do an acknowledgement of country of aboriginal people. And I always say to people because people worry whether it's token ist IQ or not, and I say you cannot imagine what that feels like, two people that have been excluded from Australian society and made invisible. And I remember that time. And so whenever I hear an acknowledgement of country, it means so much more to me personally, because it's a way of saying to us the first nations people saying I see you not only do I see you, but I respect you and that is such an incredible thing. So that for me was the impetus of wanting to become visible and then wanting to be treated fairly. So that's why inclusivity is very important to me
[00:08:05] spk_2: and evolved. We have three values, it's quite simple and one of those is kindness and kindness in kindred nous and so we might talk more about what you can learn from indigenous wisdom. But for me, I think that's even from that young age, I always had a sense that the non indigenous person, you know, I felt like I had so much to learn from aboriginal people and there was this strength and resilience and this wisdom and anti money and I when we met we really connected that we both had a similar philosophy that, you know, everyone has this similar human needs and we define those needs that evolve and other people have defined them as well, but things like the need to contribute to belong, you know, and then we also recognize that the celebration of what makes us different as well. But starting from a place of connection and then celebrating difference. But for me, I guess, you know, I've lived a very privileged life and a big part of my being an ally is acknowledging that privilege and understanding it. So from that privileged position at a very young age, I felt quite traumatized by anything that excluded another person. So unkindness I guess, you know, and racism. I grew up around people with racist beliefs and even I uneducated even to this day and age. You know, I still would have racist beliefs because there are things that we're taught from a very young age and might come from things that unconscious bias that we're not even aware of. So I guess for me it was a sense of justice, but also just how much we can learn from being inclusive of everyone. And that's the only way we're going to move together forward in a kind way as a nation is when we see and value the wisdom within everybody. But I particularly think that a culture of people that have, you know, one of the continuous oldest living cultures on this earth that have been around for tens of thousands of years. People walking down the streets of broken hill or mildara in western New South Wales can trace their ancestors back to nearly 50,000 years. And I've worked with those people. I lose mine of 250 years. So how much have we got to learn from that wisdom? So that's what kindness and inclusion really means to me and just really disliking people being treated unkindly and unfairly.
[00:10:41] spk_3: That resonates so strongly for both of us and we know for our listeners that we are Human Leaders because you know that certainly what you're speaking to color is all from my own experience, that real sense of sorrow on some level at the loss at the absence of reverence for the wisdom that there is and sort of really beautiful work that you're both doing together to shed light on that and to even bring that into modern organizations, through your trainings and the products that you offer. And I know you work with seven steps to reconciliation and ally ship that you've developed. And I'd love if you could tell us a bit more about them about these steps and how they can help modern organizations and modern leaders to create change.
[00:11:23] spk_1: Yeah, well, I think frameworks are always useful and so really these are the seven basic building blocks if you like, of reconciliation. The modules that we think people need to learn about to be informed about to educate themselves so that they can contribute to this process.
Carla: This journey of reconciliation, particularly designed for people like myself who are non indigenous, to increase my confidence and understanding of the importance of me being an effective ally to aboriginal Torres strait islander people, but of course in teaching those skills, their cross cultural, that you can apply them to all relationships and for benefits. So the first one is actually reconciliation and as Auntie Munya said, we like to teach frameworks and we have a framework within that which has been so popular, it's blown us away because it's so simple three steps,
[00:12:20] spk_1: They are three culture,
[00:12:21] spk_2: culture. And if you're in a tricky conversation, if you can't get your child, for example to where the raincoat off to school in the pouring rain, you can revert to these three hours. And so it's to reflect, to stop and you know, just pause and identify what the matter relate to. Put yourself in their shoes and reconcile, Sit down and
[00:12:44] spk_1: together
[00:12:45] spk_2: together. So reflect, reconcile. And then when we go to each of the other modules, we give an example of people come up with their own examples of how they can apply that framework to different challenges. The other important aspect in reconciliation we talk about is the one in 30 principle. So 3% of our population in Australia is aboriginal or Torres strait islander. So if you're in a room of 30 people, for example, only one of those people will be aboriginal and Torres strait islander. Statistically. So what Auntie Mania and I and evolve were really strong about is providing people with the tools. The 29 30 people like myself to step up and do all of the important work that needs to be done to take our country forward together. And yeah, so people because we can't keep going back to the anti minions of the world, even to say to teach me, I want to know about this, that's why we've designed these tools. So that people have a way of educating themselves, but without burdening the people that, you know, aboriginal people and I have so much work to do already.
[00:13:55] spk_0: I couldn't agree more. And something that I sort of resonated with what you were saying there also as a white Australian, is that very often those of us who would like to be allies don't always know where to start. And I think that that framework gives us a very neat way of understanding, firstly, it's beautifully simplistic, it's something that is very actionable and as you mentioned, whether it's sort of trying to get our kids to wear shoes or raincoats or have tough conversations that pause and reflection and that opportunity to shift perspective and say, hey, one might this other person be experiencing in this moment, how am I contributing to that? How can I do better and then come together to sort of create something from both angles that is bringing us together as human beings, connecting us together as human beings rather than driving us further apart. And something that I've witnessed so much is that when we feel that sense of shame in the moment when we think we've said something wrong, we've done something wrong. Often people double down on that behavior because they're so uncomfortable with admitting, oh goodness, I've said the wrong thing and again, I just appreciate that this framework is an invitation to sort of take ownership for that and say, well let's just reflect perhaps I did say something that wasn't the right way about it. Always offensive, but it's an opportunity for us to work together to find a solution that works for both of us.
[00:15:19] spk_2: first step and then we go on step two. We look at how amazingly diverse aboriginal Torres strait islander Australia is and to do that, we just start with looking at the map, the indigenous map with the 500 different nations in languages. And just so at a glance, people automatically see, oh my God, there's so much diversity and we remind people that although there are many things we share in common as indigenous people through our indigenous deity, that there are also many differences so that people have that understanding.
[00:15:58] spk_2: And we do the comparison of you do actually superimposed the map of europe over the map of Australia. And you know, have people go through an exercise of imagining traveling through Australia with their passport and then we talk about important cultural protocols as you move from one country to another and acknowledgement of country and welcome to country. And we have people do a short meditation or visualization of going to a special place on country and really coming to a point of gratitude and it's that sense of gratitude that you can express when you are doing an acknowledgment. Look at identity, what it means to b aboriginal and we look at breaking down stereotypes and auntie mania has a beautiful expression when it comes to identity.
[00:16:44] spk_1: I always say to people as aboriginal people, we laugh and joke about it and say, you know, after all, a cup of tea is still a cup of tea, no matter how much milk is added. And I say to people on my milk Scottish, but I'm still aboriginal. And so it's like what joins us as indigenous people and why is it important to emphasis your indigenous identity here in Australia?
[00:17:08] spk_2: We have a quiz about aboriginal Australia. The questions are designed to break down stereotypes. People, your listeners can jump online and do that. We have that online. It's been very popular.
[00:17:21] spk_1: And one of the questions is which state has the most aboriginal people and most people get the answer wrong. It is in fact New South Wales largely because of Sydney being the largest city, but also it causes to question well, who are aboriginal? You might pass an aboriginal person on the street and they'll be fair skinned and maybe blond and blue eyed even, but they're still aboriginal. So
[00:17:46] spk_2: still a cup of tea,
[00:17:47] spk_1: still a cup of tea
[00:17:48] spk_2: when we're looking at history, which is step three, we look at truth telling. Which is an important part of the voice to parliament and the uluru statement of the heart, but we look at it from two perspectives anti
[00:18:03] spk_1: money. We look at it from The two perspectives from white and black. So we start with the slogan of White. Australia has a black history from the New York Post of 1987 and that was considered very controversial at the time. It got upset, you know about how dare you talk about Australia having a black history and the black history does refer to the murders, the massacres, the genocide. But we say to people well you can read this in one of two ways, you can read it in a positive light or a negative light and the negative light does refer to all of those nasty things that happen. But the positive light is just simply acknowledging that before Gadea people came to this country that there were black people living here, each with their own languages and cultures and customs and practices and so forth. And with the harm in acknowledging that but also to have a holistic view of history, you have to look at the white and the black like in yang to have a more deeper appreciation of it and we shouldn't shy away from those topics either. But nor should we stay stuck there in that place too. It's about moving forward as well.
[00:19:17] spk_2: The impact of our shared history of 250 years. We'll look back and how the impacts still very much alive today of stolen generation and Only as of a couple of years ago, there's quite a large percentage of aboriginal people over 50 identified as being part of the stolen generation. And so we often deal with stereotypes. One stereotype is why can't aboriginal people just get over it and move on and get over history and well it's not when something happened, it's the impact or something and the impact is still very much.
[00:19:56] spk_1: But
[00:19:57] spk_2: When we look at the enormous impact of our shared history of 250 years, we look at the length of time going back into dream time and we roll out this yellow ribbon which is 10 m long and on this 10 m long ribbon representing 100,000 years, our shared history is only 2.5 centimeters
[00:20:17] spk_1: and it really puts that into perspective for some people
[00:20:20] spk_2: to look at it another way in a 24 hour day. Our shared history is only six minutes, but the incredible impact we've had in that. And so for people to say, well how can I be an ally and to listen to people's stories and acknowledge people's stories, watch movies, read books. You know, we talk about rabbit proof fence and there's so many ways for us to People's stories. So that's step three. Sorry, we only have
[00:20:49] spk_1: Yeah,
[00:20:50] spk_2: good. Do you want us to talk about other ones? Yeah,
[00:20:56] spk_3: if I may say so beautiful to hear because what I love is there's a real richness that you are bringing with all these different approaches to not only sort of explain in sort of very visual ways which I think connects people with information really immediately, but also allowing people to have this almost emotional journey of understanding and seeing that breaking down the stereotypes one at a time actually become something that they're able to more deeply relate to themselves and then feel that understanding that warmth and then that inclusion and that kindness coming as a natural consequence. So I'm super curious to hear next for
[00:21:29] spk_1: So for each step we have immersive activities that enable that along the way.
[00:21:36] spk_2: So it is exactly what you said when you're going through this. It is a journey of self reflection. So we share with people some concepts and thoughts, but it's all about well, how does this apply to myself? How do I relate to this? So perfect one is step for where we look at unconscious bias and cultural baggage which we all have to do this. We have people speak dating and we asked people a question like if someone doesn't look me in the eye when I'm talking to them, what might I think of them? And we ask people to think back to what you were taught as a child. For example, another question would be if someone doesn't say please or thank you, you know, what might I think of them?
[00:22:18] spk_1: And
[00:22:18] spk_2: people responses, for example to what I was taught as a kid about someone that doesn't look me in the aisle is that it's rude. It's disrespectful, They've got something to hide. And in fact it just came to me recently, a memory of went to a catholic primary school and was getting in trouble possibly for talking too much, but I do remember being out in front of the class and I was so embarrassed, so I was looking down because I was embarrassed and I remember her saying to me, you look me in the eye, you sneaky little girl, what have you got to hide? So that was so ingrained on me then, that sense of shame. So I always made myself look at someone in the eye after that. But we pulled out seven key things here that generally in my culture there directly
[00:23:04] spk_1: the opposite, the
[00:23:05] spk_2: opposite in aboriginal culture. And it varies across a number of cultures, for eye contact.
[00:23:12] spk_1: So for our people, we don't have a lot of direct eye contact at all. In fact, it's considered quite rude to be looking someone in the eye. And our people actually say of Gautier people, they say they've got hard eyes, hard eyes because they peer inside you. And we're taught from a very young age to hang our heads down when we're talking and especially when an elder is speaking. So that's our way of showing that elder our respect and then an elder in the wider society can be someone in a position of authority, like a police officer, a teacher or a nurse. And so, you know, when a little curry kids at school. And what's the first thing the teacher says to them is look me in the eye when I'm speaking to you. And they've just asked that kid to break one of the most basic protocols in our culture, which is not to look you in the eye. And we say to people, it doesn't mean we're hiding from something or being shifty or not listening as another one because I find aboriginal people are the world's greatest listeners. Actually. There's times when I'm giving a talk, say to a bunch of aboriginal women and they're doing everything except looking at me, looking out the window, looking down at the the ground. But jeez they can repeat back to your verbatim what you just said because we're listening at the same time that we're looking about us. So it's about giving people examples of that and the same thing with please and thank you. There are no words for please or thank you in any aboriginal language. There is in Torres strait islander in their language, I forget the words for please, but the word for thank you is S. O. So they'll say big S. O to everything at their meetings and whatnot, but with our mob. Not so but there's a reason for that also. And we explore that when we do one of the other steps, which is kinship, the idea of reciprocity because you are so obligated to everyone in society, everyone's looked after, It makes these words superfluous, please and thank you because they're already done for you. So we're saying just because our kids don't say it doesn't mean that they're not grateful either. You can express your gratitude in other ways. So for instance, embody my people would say something like Gallagher. That's good, that's their way of saying thank you, that's it. But it doesn't necessarily translate in english.
[00:25:36] spk_2: We also explore aboriginal english and another aspect that we explore is the role of silence. And just wanted to mention that briefly before we talk a little bit more about kinship with silence for me it's perceived as usually in conversation if silence is perceived in my culture as a
[00:25:54] spk_3: gap
[00:25:56] spk_2: or you know, avoid something to fill in. And so we ask people, you know, if I was to ask you a question how long before you might start feeling uncomfortable and thinking in a
[00:26:05] spk_1: group when someone gonna
[00:26:06] spk_2: answer. And it's so interesting when we ask that we see how long it takes for people to respond Because some people will say, oh about 10 seconds, but they've responded within one second kind of thing. So I like to use an analogy if you know a glass of water, for example, for me if it was empty, just imagine that silence for me in the way I've been brought up, that's empty. That glass of water that silences avoid. But for aboriginal people, it's that glass of water in silence is full. It's full already immersed yourself in
[00:26:38] spk_1: that that's part of communication. Actually, it's a linguistic tool to gather more information by allowing time for silence and to sit with it. And we actually refer to Auntie Miriam Rose, who's a famous indigenous Australian here who teaches about silence through DDG, which is our indigenous meditation practice where we're taught once again from a very young age to sit with silence. And to that way we communicate with our environment as well, not just human beings through silence and just the importance of that.
[00:27:17] spk_0: It's so remarkable. And listening to you both speak about this concept of silence then can't help but reflect on my childhood where there was never a moment of silence in my household and you know how different I might be as an adult to me because that's also, you know, we want to talk about it in sort of psychology terms. It's a way to regulate ourselves in our emotions. And as you said, auntie mania be with what already is and that is the moment already has everything we need. We don't need to fill the moment. And I think it's such a Western thing that, you know more is more, we're always filling gaps, filling silences and such a beautiful and culturally so different understanding of what it means to be in silence and so grateful that you shared that with us.
[00:28:01] spk_2: Yes. Just for your listeners just google anti Miriam Rose or Miriam Rose, we show a three minute video of her and we could spend a whole day just unpacking each sentence.
[00:28:14] spk_0: I have no doubt. I wanted to ask another question here and we've touched on this word kinship a few times and I think that's where you're headed with the seven steps of reconciliation as well. And you know, this is something that in our work at human leaders, we see such a struggle for modern organizations and that is truly creating belonging and inclusion. And do you think that there are lessons that we can be learning from First nations kinship around this idea of belonging and inclusion. And I'd love for you to share some of those thoughts with us.
[00:28:46] spk_1: Yeah, absolutely. It's all about belonging. Our culture teaches us that we're all interrelated and interconnected in some way. Not only do we have familial terms for each other, but you're related. Like for instance, if you share the same name as someone you're related, we call that gum bali, you my gum bali, there's another man you in the room. She's my gum bali. Just purely on the basis of having the same name which carries a certain energy for example, but not only are we also related to one another, but the animals and plants and trees and stars are all our relatives as well. And so we too teach about a kinship system and there are many different models around Australia. But basically they share the same fundamental concepts of belonging. And so what we do, we call it? A skin in northern Australia is K. I. N. All throughout aboriginal Australia, every person belongs to a skin group of some kind. And the names vary across the country. I always excited people is like so deac sides and horoscopes, you're born into particular groups that are related about whether they air earth or fire. Same with skin. And so what we do is we place these people into the different skin groups and show them how they're related to one another. The system is absolutely amazing. The mathematicians absolutely love it because of the algorithms of kinship and the mathematics contained in the system is just incredible as well. But it is all about relating and belonging to one another. In fact there are no words for orphan in any aboriginal language because there are no orphans. Everybody belongs, there are no outsiders, Everybody fits in and you're obligated to one another in some way. And it can be quite hilarious when we take people through the kinship system and they set off and don't find all their relatives. And you just get these people running around like my cousin brother, my uncle and it's just hilarious. But at the end of the day they end up with a whole list of relatives. And then to drive the point even further, we do another activity with strings colored strings. So you'll have red string for the mother to child. And people are holding these strings and then we'll have green for who you are straight for. And it's got nothing to do with sexuality. It's got to do with the lines that I draw. People see that these lines that again, it's mathematical. It's fantastically who you can marry and so straight they're holding these green strings and you get, the parental strings are red. Then you get, there's also one taboo relationship in our community and that's with your mother in law. You're not allowed to speak to your mother in law and she can't speak to you either. The way we show respect to our mother in law is to give her our back. So again, it's very opposite to the mainstream society, but it doesn't mean you don't respect her, that's being respectful. But I always say to people, my people have been around for thousands of years, we really understand human dynamics. So we avoid problems with mother in law's especially because she's not allowed to interact with them in the first place From that people just really gain a strong sense of family because one of the stereotypes of aboriginal people are, they're all related to one another except this one is true. We are and we show exactly how we are and from that, people just walk away with a greater appreciation for our people, the cleverness of the system because it's designed to avoid interbreeding with one another and the genetic complications that can come from them and so forth. And just that depth of the knowledge and how everything fits in our stars and planets and trees. They fit into the skin systems too. That explains why you might call eagle your brother or the tea tree my sister and so forth. So you have these familiar relationships with everything around you. One aboriginal woman who I used to work with, we were out at lunch one day and we passed these tea trees and she stopped and she said, oh hello my sisters and they were her sisters and the kinship system, How are you going? And she went and she said you're looking really ragged these days and she started to clear them a bit. There you go my sisters. And then we continued walking and it's just that reverence and love for everything around us and that's the magic of the system. And what we then say to people is how can we create this at work? How do we create this feeling of connection and belonging so that we can feel like family. So one of the exercises that people get away to reflect on how they might develop or create that in the workplace.
[00:33:45] spk_3: It's such a beautiful description Antimony and I think for me what it feels like is there is no non belonging because by definition to exist is to belong and remember being a little kid and we used to go camping in the Outback in South Australia and have this profound memory of looking up at the stars and being feeling so small and so profoundly connected. At the same time, I've thought a lot about that memory and there were probably quite a few of them that have sort of just melded into one for me, but that real sense of and innate belonging. So it almost feels like what you're describing is almost just a reminder of what is and that in our modern society, there's a lot of pulling away and distinction rather than just acknowledging that innate always belonging.
[00:34:32] spk_1: Absolutely. And how can you feel that you don't belong? We saw that during Covid where people were feeling disconnected and we would just resort to aboriginal wisdom and say no, we're all connected, we're all related. We have to reach out to each other. So there's no sense of not belonging absolutely right,
[00:34:53] spk_2: because I've struggled with all my life sally that sense and I said to anti manual, I don't feel like I belong here or too this or too that and Antimony looks at me like I'm nuts, she doesn't get it like how can you not belong?
[00:35:06] spk_1: You
[00:35:08] spk_2: said you exist?
[00:35:09] spk_1: Country
[00:35:10] spk_2: is a country that
[00:35:11] spk_1: is
[00:35:13] spk_2: family, you know, you belong to the country. People
[00:35:17] spk_1: ask me all the time, how can I develop a stronger connection to the land. And I say the bones of your people are buried in this earth, You already have that connection. You don't have to go off looking for it, Your people are buried in this country. What more of a stronger connection do you want?
[00:35:35] spk_3: Yeah. Beautiful.
[00:35:37] spk_0: Absolutely. And anti money on that. There's so much that we could sit and unpack there because it's such an incredible kinship system. But it sounds to me as well that through this system through this innate interconnectedness, that there simply is more tolerance and acceptance and less otherness. And I just wonder does that also sort of because again, something that we see very much in organizations and in the Western world in dialogue right now is a lot of issues around belonging with sexual orientation, gender, all of these different sorts of ways that we can label and create otherness amongst ourselves in indigenous culture. Does that transcend that? Does that kinship transcend those differences that we might Notice in one another otherwise.
[00:36:22] spk_1: Absolutely. And in fact, after we take people through the kinship system, the question I posed to participants, I show slide shows different photos of human beings. I say, what would happen? Do you think in our hearts and our minds when we see everyone as family and there might be someone whose skin is different or perhaps they've got some markings on their face or tattoos or they're wearing strange clothing like the hijab and that we don't understand why they do that, or perhaps they share different political opinions and we always put auntie pauline up there as well. Auntie pauline, Hanson and donald trump, you know, but their family and just how people respond is just amazing, they're touched and they come back with, oh, we become more tolerant, we've become more understanding, we become more inclusive. And that's the wonderful gift that particularly indigenous peoples kinship systems, because many other indigenous groups have this strong sense of family, native americans and so forth and others. And that's the gift we bring to the world as saying we are related to one another and not only that, but we have a responsibility to look after each other. So it does make us more tolerant and more accepting of the so called other differences that are around, they're still family.
[00:37:45] spk_3: And I think there's so much benefit to be gained from that almost that leaning into that relationship and understanding it because when we free ourselves to care about each other and to care deeply, it enriches our own lives. It enriches our community. It can feel, I think for some people quite scary to get to. But I love that the layers of learning that you share sort of bring very naturally. I think people towards this sense that that's actually just innately are inherent humanity and and leaning into that and creating those stronger bonds, caring for one another, taking responsibility for ourselves and each other is a beautiful and uplifting gift. I'm curious, I know in your work you've mentioned a yearning circle and this concept really fascinated. I'm wondering if you could explain to us a little bit about this customary practice for indigenous Australians, just what the purpose is and what the benefits might be in this style of coming together of a yearning circle.
[00:38:40] spk_1: Well, it's the way you do business in our communities and businesses is used in a more broader sense, it's not just about economic transactions, but about issues that have to be dealt with in that society. And so when we're called together to work out what we're going to do about certain issues, whether it's suicide or drug prevention or substance abuse or whatever. We hold meetings in circles, we always traditionally have done so particularly our teaching circles. So these circles over time, I have been called yearning circles, of course, that's what they do. You talk the wonderful thing about circles of course is it makes us more egalitarian this round. Just think of King Arthur and his round table, the Knights, you know, that concept is round, so it enables everyone to participate sometimes. Also a message stick of some kind has passed and used around that controls who gets to speak like when, who's got the sticks can speak and so forth. So it ensures that every voice is heard and it stops the louder voices from being too loud and taking over meetings, which invariably happens in the mainstream once again just emphasizing the collectivity and connectivity between us and that everyone is to be valued and every opinion matters. They've come back into vogue in the last 20 years, 10, 15 years maybe. But
[00:40:12] spk_2: even when we started, so we always ran out of training our workshops as yearning circles and Particularly when we first started wearing them 10 years ago, still amazing the resistance that we had to have in no tables and chairs, chairs in a circle. And I've noticed that resistance now that we're starting back again in person has gone even more now. We used to arrive at venues and we send all our guidelines and we'd still anti money and I'd be having to we don't do it anymore, but we still would have to be lift tables and chairs out the way. But I think with covert people doing more online interestingly, we run zoom yearnings circles as well and zoom online sessions quite egalitarian in that way, in the sense that everyone's on the screen, got the same size box on the screen and I've found since going back in person now, it's quite seems more natural for people to sit in that circle.
[00:41:06] spk_0: So what I'm really hearing from that is that the circle really creates, I guess that even playing field for everyone to come together to be on the same page, to feel included and to I guess have an opportunity to be witnessed by everyone else in the circle for whatever they bring to the circle that day
[00:41:25] spk_1: Yeah, it's about creating a sacred space, The circle is really sacred for us and where people can feel safe and protected. One of the biggest things in our training is we say there's no guilt, no shame and no blame is the other one, so we create safety for everyone where you're free to express your opinions, I always say to people, you can ask us anything, don't be afraid, because if you don't ask, you'll never learn, and so we try to create that safety and the yearning circle helps us do
[00:41:58] spk_2: that, but then backing that up with frameworks like the three hours to have conversations that might feel a bit unsafe to start with,
[00:42:06] spk_0: and I think it's that, you know, when sally and I find this in our work at human leaders as well, when people feel like their backs up against the wall, or they're going to feel a sense of shame, or they're going to feel a sense of blame, their leader to two things, they'll double down on the behavior or they'll just clam up, you won't create that beautiful space to actually help someone move through that and a lot of the time, I think when it comes to reconciliation there's so much ignorance there, people don't know what they don't know, and when we have the safety to ask our inverted commas stupid questions, we get to learn from that opportunity and we get to perhaps be in that shame for just a moment, but having that shame witnessed by someone else, helps us learn the lesson in the moment and then be better. And as Brown A Brown famously quotes, we're not here to be right, we're here to get it right, and I think that's the most important thing, not always having to be right, but making sure we're doing what it takes to get it right to learn the lesson. And Carla, I'd love to direct this question to you because I imagine that through your journey there's probably been many moments of shame and relearning and perhaps rethinking some of the things you thought to be true and right about the world. I'd love to know from you what have been some of your most challenging and also you're rewarding lessons as an ally and what would you recommend is the best place to start for someone who is wanting to be a better ally.
[00:43:32] spk_1: Yes,
[00:43:34] spk_2: she's laughing and she's probably thinking of lots of mistakes I've made. One thing I do want to say with that is that I've just found aboriginal people to be so forgiving, so forgiving of mistakes and blunders and I've made lots of anti money is witnessed quite a few and I still absolutely still make them as well. And challenges, I think challenging Yeah, one of those big challenges is not knowing where to start being so frightened in fear. I think it's a big challenge of real fear of offending or saying or doing the wrong thing. I would say that for me probably was the biggest challenge and I think still is for a lot of people also not wanting to seem insincere or you know, an aboriginal english word is gammon just doing it for token ist IQ reasons or something like
[00:44:26] spk_1: that. Not real,
[00:44:27] spk_2: not real, not genuine. So where to start how to overcome this challenge. I feel that the biggest thing is self educating, the biggest thing has been educating myself and maybe even not rushing out there to you know, I said I have this and this sounds a bit gammon to now when I say it, but this yearning for an aboriginal friend but not rushing out there and making lots of blunders, but sort of slowly, slowly, slowly taking little actions, taking actions to be an ally to stand up to racism. You have to be bold and courageous and take bigger actions, but you don't have to start at that place. You can find out. For example, if you don't know, find out who the traditional owners are, find out what this acknowledgement of country thing is all about. When we're teaching acknowledgement of country, I say to people it's not something I I fairly rarely do it in a formal situation, but every day I try to remember when I go for my walk and suddenly he this beautiful bird and I'm like, oh that's right, I haven't acknowledged country, hello old people, that's carla. I'm going through a walk through your country. It's also a practice as anti money would say to ask for safe passage. So if I'm trying to learn to surf this year and I'll go out there and I'll suddenly see a great thing and I think quick acknowledged country, hello people please protect me from the sharks. And I didn't do that the other week and I ended up getting a surfboard in the six stitches
[00:45:59] spk_1: country, just slapped
[00:46:01] spk_2: me in the face.
[00:46:03] spk_0: I'll have to remember that one the next time I'm surfing here in Byron Bay, then that's yeah, I'll start doing that.
[00:46:10] spk_1: That enables people to think about why. And while it's respectful, it's also for your own benefit. I say to people it is about making sure you don't get lost in this country. It's a huge country. So if you call out to the spirits and the people, they'll help you, they'll stay with you, you won't get lost, you won't get bitten by snakes and so forth. So the biggest
[00:46:34] spk_2: challenge is fear and not knowing and then the greatest way to overcome that is to start just educating yourself, watch tv read books and then you'll feel more confident and comfortable to make those first steps in it. A lot of people say to me, I don't even know an aboriginal person, but what they do discover as they become more aware is that they did know aboriginal people but they just had in their mind what an aboriginal person was.
[00:46:59] spk_3: I think that's beautiful, thank you so much carla. I really love that you've described that fear being such a prominent challenge and I think as we discussed as well, the fear of making a mistake or fear of feeling ashamed in fear of some of the other emotions that might come up in that journey. And what I also heard was this I think taking responsibility I think rather than some of the narrative that I think is kind of puts the onus on indigenous Australians to the change we almost to take responsibility for this process that I think is actually very much the responsibility of us as white Australians to start and to find our way in that. So I think that's
[00:47:41] spk_2: absolutely and as the 97% to 3% of our population
[00:47:47] spk_3: Yeah. Point
[00:47:48] spk_0: in that color. And I think when you mentioned, you know, doing it in a gammon way, like really inauthentic way and that's something that, you know, very often frustrates us in the work that we do with organizations, it's why are you this, is it to improve economic outcomes or is it because it's the right thing to do for human beings and I think, you know, we have a lot of work culture for sure right now, which I think can be problematic to that true, authentic connection. You know it's really about coming back to self and coming back to connection and truly valuing every life on this planet and every human being that we come into contact with and the fact that this beautiful country that we live in Australia has such a deep rich history, waiting for us to dive into it and acknowledge it and respect it and connect with it. And I think that when you come to it from that sort of more self aware, personal and very spiritual place, the connection, it can't be anything but authentic when you look at it that way.
[00:48:47] spk_2: So true Alexis and as an ally, it's about acknowledging that fear and then you know taking little courageous acts. So one of my courageous acts is doing, I do a meditation exercise for people to find their why why would they want to acknowledge country. And it's interesting, we just did this in a big massive group the other week and a lot of construction workers and I've spoken to one of them, I thought this guy is going to hate this exercise and it was really interesting, We took everyone through it and his feedback was in the end was I love that activity that we did to connect to you. So it's again about you know, don't make assumptions about people, but sometimes be a little bit courageous to do something, you might feel acknowledge that fear and have a go as well.
[00:49:34] spk_3: I think that's wonderful is a meditation teacher myself. I know there's been instances where I feel nervous about how whether I'm coming across as too hippy, that's something that I've had quite, I feel nervous about. And then having that feedback is of course, wonderful validation that these practices are can be often quite simple but very impactful, particularly people who are experiencing for the first time and finding that intrinsic sense of why and it really empowers I think you know, us to change our behavior and to have more courage, we have many more questions, but I'm going to narrow it down to one for both of you, auntie mania and Carla, thank you so much for your time with us, for leaders in organizations who are listening right now and who really feel like they want to drive change to create more reconciled and more inclusive kind of workplaces, what would be some first steps that they can take or where might they be able to start to create those kind of kinder and more inclusive workplaces
[00:50:32] spk_2: don't want half on about it, But it does start with educating ourselves and when we talk about education, we say to people go with your passion, you know, if you're passionate about art, you know, get into, for example, aboriginal art and find out the stories behind that art or if you like reading, reading that area and also eventually find your local communities and what's happening and connecting to those events to then bring this into the workplace. There's lots of programs and ways. I mean a lot of work places would be familiar with reconciliation, Australia and people do reconciliation, action plans, which have their commitment to reconciliation, but you don't have to go as formal as that. Like when people do our programs, if they liked an activity, like looking at the map of aboriginal stories, we'll take it along to your next meeting and have everyone identify who the traditional owners are. And then you can start bringing these values of inclusion and belonging in the workplace. It's everything that we teach, like it's applicable to all, it's all about creating an inclusive belonging workplace, not just for indigenous peoples for all people with our programs. We've got loads on our website. You can actually do a lot of interactivity is like I mentioned, that diversity quiz you can do and I've adapted the privilege walk to look at the gap that exists within Australia can jump online on our site and do that. We've got this beautiful calendar with indigenous dates on it that you can download. We all have when you talked about asking questions. We have asked Auntie and ask an Ally where people can write in and ask any question they like and we'll do it up to two minute video response and that person remains anonymous and a lot of those, particularly anti money has been going viral across Yeah, on linkedin and whatnot. Yeah, people got lots of pathways with us. One particularly that might be of interest to your listeners is well, we have our books seven steps to practical reconciliation. Ally ship, we've got, Auntie Mania has one on aboriginal spirituality, journey into Dream Time, which touches on many of the concepts we talked about today, published next year, will be a Children's version of Ask Auntie and then also after that languages book that Auntie Mania has written. So lots of resources out there, you know, audible and all those books and things. But in terms of our programs, we have ya running circles and both online and in person and But for individuals, it's called reconciliation pathways. If people really want to go deeper in this ally ship there actually, there's three stages of accreditation for that in the first stage, ally accreditation. We only launched late last year and we've had over 200 people go through that. We go into each of those steps plus a few additional and people have to demonstrate competencies in those steps. So Obsession and obsession is to have 10 million more allies across Australia. So that's part of that. Yeah, I
[00:53:41] spk_0: think that would be a brilliant goal for this country. So thank you Auntie Mona and Carla for doing the incredible work that you do for those listening who do want to connect with their resources more. It's evolved communities. We will share all of the information in our show notes. Carla and Auntie Mania. Thank you again so much for being with us today and we are human leader sally and I have both learned so much from you both and we're really grateful for you taking the time to be part of this conversation with us today.
[00:54:10] spk_1: We're delighted. So thank you for inviting us.
[00:54:13] spk_2: We say
[00:54:14] spk_1: so. Thank
[00:54:16] spk_2: you in Torres strait.
[00:54:23] spk_0: Thanks for being a part of today's conversation with Auntie Munya Andrews and Carla Rogers at Human Leaders. We believe reconciliation is a critical necessity to create workplaces and societies that thrive and feel inclusive for all human beings. We hope you'll take the ally ship pledge with us to find more information on today's conversation, including the links to Aunty Munya and Carla's work. Check out our show notes at www.wearehumanleaders.com/podcast. We'll see you next episode